Comments on: Lightning Bolt’s Strength in Different Metagames

By: Option: Dezzo

Option: Dezzo — Wed, 06 May 2015 01:11:17 +0000

Great article.

Bolt is also the only “1 for 3” spell in print that players can get to use in a realistic format (Modern, compared to Legacy / Vintage).

Many players initiation into their first few games of Magic was a lightning bolt to the face which either leave them slightly scarred or converted them forever to adopt red strategies. xD

By: Sheridan Lardner

Sheridan Lardner — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:44:52 +0000

In reply to Josh. No worries. I think we will add a note on the sidebar to make it clear that Top Decks is updated daily, just to make sure other users aren't having the same issue.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:23:49 +0000

In reply to Sheridan Lardner.

You know what happens when you assume…

I hadn’t really looked at it after your monthly article assuming it was just stagnant data. My bad!

By: Sheridan Lardner

Sheridan Lardner — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 01:32:56 +0000

In reply to Josh.

Thanks for the feedback. Our Top Decks page is more or less as “live” as it gets. It’s updated daily, tracks the last 30-45 days of events, and even breaks off the decks into tiers and separate metagame percentages. Now, if this is a question about why we are using a spreadsheet and not a more robust database software, that’s different. We definitely want to get there eventually, but can’t really do so right now with our current resources. At least, not in the high quality way we would want to.

One option is to update the metagame table on the left navbar on a weekly, biweekly, or even daily basis. Is this more of the kind of thing you are suggesting?

Also, I should note that both the sidebar and the Top Decks page have definitely captured the Grixis Delver rise.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 23:49:09 +0000

This is probably not the most relevant place to post this but I’d like you guys to have a more active metagame tracker like mtggoldfish. I totally understand mtggoldfish is mostly based on Dailies but I feel the monthly updates are more a reflection of where we were at that moment in time than where we are. Perhaps you maintain the monthly updates but then have a “trending meta” that takes the active month into consideration but perhaps at a lower “weight”. Also wouldn’t mind a visualized report of the T1-T2 decks that has a split bar sort of view showing the decks prevalence online vs paper.

Really this is just a recommendation as the meta is a living entity. Just looking at last months data isn’t going to prepare me to walk into a room full of Grixis Delver for example. However seeing where a meta was and that Grixis is trending in the face of that would really help me adjust my meta calls throughout the month.

By: Sheridan Lardner

Sheridan Lardner — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:04:04 +0000

In reply to Galerion. Whoops, just a data entry error. Too many 0s and 1s! It was correct in the second table, and I've fixed it in the first table. This doesn't affect the numbers themselves because they were summed in a separate spreadsheet. It was just the 1 that is wrong. Thanks!

By: Galerion

Galerion — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 20:51:30 +0000

Maybe I missed something but how can Abzan have a 1 in the one-drop score? Did you get the mixed up with Abzan Liege?

By: Roland F. Rivera Santiago

Roland F. Rivera Santiago — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 19:55:52 +0000

Interesting article, as always. I know a couple of people who were decrying Bolt as “dead”, and they very quickly had to eat their words. The poster above me makes a good point in that people should be running more sweepers than they do with as many linear aggro decks as there are in the Tier 1-2 slots, but I don’t believe that it should come at the expense of Bolt. If I’m running any red at all, that’s a 4-of (MB or SB) until someone proves otherwise.

By: Sheridan Lardner

Sheridan Lardner — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:01:12 +0000

In reply to Daniel. 3 seems very reasonable. You can also adjust the metagame prevalence column depending on whether you are playing mostly paper or mostly MTGO. The number look pretty different if we zoom in on one or the other instead of taking a pooled average. In fact, this is an interesting followup article idea I might do!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 16:41:55 +0000

Good article. I’ve gone down to 3 bolts long ago and everyone has been calling me crazy. Replaced it with a pyroclasm and haven’t looked back. The games where bolt is good, pyroclasm is usually the nuts and can usually give me a 2 for 1 or better. Bolt just doesn’t kill enough these days to warrant the 4 of slot in my opinion.