After the inconvenient timing of the last couple months, I am glad that we had a full 56 players register for this month's Power 9 Challenge. Congratulations to Rich for winning his second P9 in a row!

Top 8:

1. "The", The Atog Lord - Foundry Ravager Shops
2. Jazza - Ravager Shops
3. Thiim - Outcome Storm
4. CrepeMyrte - Pitch Dredge
5. oRS - UW Control with SFM, Spell Queller
6. UnrestrictBrainstorm - Animation Module Ravager Shops
7. diophan - Foundry Ravager Shops
8. lllllll - Pitch Dredge

Top 16 Decklists:
http://magic.wizards.com/es/node/1122611

As we can see, Shops did very well at this event. Combo (which was entirely Paradoxical Storm) also did well. I was personally quite surprised by the metagame percentages. Perhaps many people did not have the time or tickets to test ballista, but that card is the real deal and for only 21% of the metagame to be on shops is surprising. Furthermore, given the hype for shops, I was expecting more people to be on the natural counter, Oath of Druids.

Link to googledoc:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PVvfZQ4V3zT0XChmuf94mIozRJTzsQlv_mATy79voBg/edit?usp=sharing

I can't wait to see Thiim's list.

Great work as usual.

This is a valuable service. Thank you for the time and effort.

Notable that there were no Gush decks in the top 8 whatsoever and the lowest % of Gush decks in the metagame since this event was initiated!

On an editorial note, it annoys me that the performance of Gush last month was used as an argument to the DCI by multiple people that something in the Mentor deck, perhaps Gush, needed restriction.

Now Ballista certainly shook things up, but I would have played the exact same deck. And the result underscores the need to let the metagame evolve.

New printings have shaken up this format continuously for the last 12 months. PO, Walking Ballista, TKS, Vehicles, even Leovald all have rocked Vintage. It's been quite a ride!

I felt for sure the numbers were higher than that. I was one of the shops players, and I played against:

R1: White Eldrazi
R2: Shops
R3: White Eldrazi
R4: Shops
R5: Shops
R6: Shops

Such a fast turnaround on this! I'm impressed!

Oh the hypocrisy.

I think 'Oath is the counter to Shops' is a lot weaker when the main Oath deck online is kind of slow (Saheeli Oath) and also almost every Shops deck is running 4x Grafdigger's Cage in their sideboard

@ajfirecracker

It's laughable that this concept is seen as insightful (directed at the format as a whole). If Oath was as good as people make it out to be it would perform better and historical control pilots would adopt it at greater frequency.

Brian Kelly'esque Oath with maindeck grudges is definitely a counter to shops. Ask any shops pilot in the mid-Atlantic who frequently has to play against him. To be frank, there is a lack of premier, consistent Oath players online. Rich and Montolio have both done well with the deck when they pick it up.

@diophan Maindeck grudges? Is that viable in the wider meta? I don't dispute that you can build an anti-Shops deck, the question is if you can make a deck that's good against the field in general (>51% matchup win rate) and great against Shops in particular (>60% matchup win rate)

@socialite I know that is passive aggressive toward me; but sometimes there just ISNT A blue deck worth playing, and sometimes a new card is printed that is so absurd that there's no reason not to play it.

I welcome any and all criticism. I am human though, and am able to change mind/opinion/stance on a matter.

@Soly said in MTGO January 2017 Power 9 Challenge:

I felt for sure the numbers were higher than that. I was one of the shops players, and I played against:

R1: White Eldrazi
R2: Shops
R3: White Eldrazi
R4: Shops
R5: Shops
R6: Shops

Was this the winners bracket?

@ajfirecracker You are asking too much. If a deck had >60% winrate against shops and a favorable winrate against the rest of the field it would need to be restricted.

@diophan said in MTGO January 2017 Power 9 Challenge:

@ajfirecracker You are asking too much. If a deck had >60% winrate against shops and a favorable winrate against the rest of the field it would need to be restricted.

LOL

You know, the field includes Shops? I'm fine with a deck that's 10% vs Eldrazi and 90% vs Shops if it meets my criteria above

I won round 1 against Wappla,, lost round 2 to Jazza (Maindeck Precursor Golem - because 4x Swords isn't a thing), won round 3, lost round 4 due to turn 1 crucible + Turn 2 wasteland against my 2 land keep and I didn't draw a land in 6 turns, won round 5, and then lost round 6 due to drawing literally 7 mana off hte top of my deck, and then not drawing a 3rd land in game 2 (and only lost due to topdeck Car when I was at 3, and I had lethal on board)

I think 4/6 were Thorn decks for me (in the X-1 bracket after a first round loss)

I am pretty sure every Brian Kelly Oath deck runs ancient grudge main. See Salvagers Oath and Gush Oath. You seem to be ignoring paper results when you ask "Is that viable in the wider meta?" because the answer is obviously yes if you look at the results of Brian and others.

I don't even think you play Auriok Salvagers in the current Stony Silence/Null Rod metagame so this isn't a limitations of MTGO issue either.

@Soly said in MTGO January 2017 Power 9 Challenge:

I won round 1 against Wappla,, lost round 2 to Jazza (Maindeck Precursor Golem - because 4x Swords isn't a thing), won round 3, lost round 4 due to turn 1 crucible + Turn 2 wasteland against my 2 land keep and I didn't draw a land in 6 turns, won round 5, and then lost round 6 due to drawing literally 7 mana off hte top of my deck, and then not drawing a 3rd land in game 2 (and only lost due to topdeck Car when I was at 3, and I had lethal on board)

This post is hilarious because it's the epitome of MTG players' perception of the matches. When they win, the games play out the way they should, and when they lose, it's only due to bad luck. Nothing personal against you, Soly, I just found the post rather amusing as you see this all the time.

@Soly

Honestly didn't have you in mind at all, to be fully transparent. Also have no issue calling people out directly. There just isn't one person to blame for this misleading and banal narrative.