Analysis Link: Q1 TDT EDH League Analysis
Introduction and Explanation
Hello all, we have our quarter in review articles hitting the presses now! This will be a two part article series, and will be happening each quarter moving foward. This first article is speaking about the diversity of the meta, so the color pairings, commander age, who plays what the most. The second article will be more win / loss focused, and discuss performance and standings for both players and decks. I will try to share my books with the findings on the google drive, but I needed to export to Excel to run the analysis since Google Sheets is a bit too new age for me. Also, please enjoy very ugly snipping tool photos from my 2007 Excel. Without further ado, lets jump into it!
Rarity Disparity
The overall meta has a large split between rarity levels as seen above. It is dominated by Mythic rares, who have over 2/3 of the total commander pool. Part of this makes sense with quite a few precon commanders making an appearance from the group. But I was expecting a biut of a cleaner split than essentially a 67/33 split between Rare and Mythic.
Overall we saw 31 unique commanders make their debut in the first quarter. Rich leads the charge with 10 unique commanders, and Jeff was the most frugal with only 6. Rich also notably is the most heavily weighted towards Mythic rare commanders, but is also the only one to submit an Uncommon commander list. This is a bit of a frivilous stat to report on, but no one has a corporate gun to my head, so I am going to report on what seems fun to me.
My recommendation is to explore some more of the Uncommon / Rare commanders, maybe there is some value there if you want to play a “Robin Hood” role in the league.
“Imma need about tree fiddy”
This is where the interesting aspect of this review really kicks off though. The average CMC (don’t bring your “mana value” around here no mo) for Q1 was 4.24. One heavy skew in this data that needs to be noted is Zacama, Primal Calamity who drops in at a whopping 9 CMC. SEAN NOTE: There’s also Ur-Dragon who is a 9 CMC for Sean, skewing his even further up. What started as a meme deck by Keegan has quickly become a true contender in league. But that fat cost also will skew the data, which is why Keegan sits at the highest CMC. The true highest is most likely Sean, as he tends to run snowball commanders. Rich and Jeff are much more lean, but in different capacities in my opinion. Rich has slotted himself as the resident combo player in the format, so a lowdown CMC helps him get online and win. His addition of Trelesarra, Moon Dancer at 2 CMC aids his league leading 3.8 average. I still think Jeff is trying to find his true home for an archetype, but his CMC indicates to me that he is leaning towards more aggro archetypes. Which, as commish, I am quite happy to see.
I would recommend to players to look at this and consider two points. The first is, where do you want to sit in the meta? Do you want to get online quickly and try to close before others, or do you want to control and snowball? There is no right answer, but an introspective look will help determine where you want to be. The other recommendation is to look at your opponents and prep. If you are on the high end of the spectrum, how to you protect your early game? If you are on the low end, how do you constrict or pressure the late game?
I want this meta to be determined not early nor late, but in the mid game. And this CMC indicates that through my eyes.
Rainbow Bros
This is a heat map of the % of colors by player, with the %s being shown for each column individually. This view is incredibly interesting due to some disparity between colors and players.
Black for example has an enormourmous difference between the top and the bottom. Jeff did not like to touch black through the first quarter, with only one deck having it in it. But oddly enough, it was a mono colored deck in Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I guess when you love a girl you toss everything aside. Sean on the other hand dominated the black color, with 40% of all black decks were from his submission. He has posted 6/8 decks including black in the color identity.
My theory on deck archetype is somewhat backed up by the data. Jeff for example facvors red and white, two traditionally aggro decks. Keegan is our resident enchanter, so he never leaves home without white. This is not a joke either, he is 7/7 on this front. But the secondary color for enchantress is green, which he packed in 5/7 decks. Rich and Sean are much more spread out though across the color pie. Sean’s data is a bit skewed due to his love for the whole pie, but Rich truly likes to taste the rainbow incrementally.
White and green are the dominant colors in the meta, which make logical sense for us not being cEDH. But paired to the scolding I gave about game lengths to the lads, white being the leading color identity is probably strongly associated to game length due to it being the boardwipe capital of MtG. I believe that the rise in voltron decks across the meta correlates to the Q1 color dominance of white, and explains green trailing behind it. What needs to be noted is the lack of blue from the meta. Interaction on the stack is missing from the meta currently, so that is something to consider when building decks.
With running this league I would prefer to see green as the top end of color pairings. I would like to note that this not me encouraging / discouraging anyone from running any colors. But green as a leading front means that games often close in our desired ranges and are won on the board. Green as a primary or support color are healthy for game length. But this is a generalization, not a gurantee. White can close games quick as well, but often come with the devil of a ton of wipes and protection when it is the primary. My current worry is the absence of blue. Blue is hated by casuals due to counter magic, but in a league setting it is necessary to keep the combo decks in check. Yes, it can aid combo decks, but it also the natural predator of them. Blue also helps put the breaks on the creature decks from just overunning everyone. A Tale’s End on a commander or Craterhoof etb can put the brakes on real quick.
Identity Crisis
This is one of the wildest spreads from this analysis and also very indicative of players and their play style. Let us look at the wildest statistic, Keegan is at 100% 3 color decks through quarter 1. Pair this with all of his decks having white in them, and we come to one question. Is Keegan actually a 2 color player who feels that they need white, or is he truly a three color player who favors white as his basis? I legit do not know, but is a really funny concept you debate with him in person.
Overall, three or less colors is geavily favored with 87.1% of the decks falling into this range. This makes logical sense due to it being the easiest to build mana bases for. I am a bit shocked to see three color decks at over half of all submissions, but with the increase in effient mana bases, it makes sense. Rich and Sean were the only people to venture north in their color identies. Sean is the true outlier, with 37.50% of his decks being 5 color, unlike Rich who only likes to dabble in the forbidden arts. Jeff clearly likes to keep his machines lean, but also is carrying the league in mono colored decks.
This breakout is awesome to see and different than what I expect. Sadly I do not have previous league breakouts, but I think that the meta moved from two color to three color decks. It is a bit sad to see a decrease in two color decks, as I think they are the sweet spot of mana base and building potential. But, we have seen an insane ammount of support for good lands since the previous league and seeing 3 color decks dominate makes sense. Three colors is the top end of a proper mana base in my eyes, when you go past that it becomes extremely difficult to balance and not get cooked by a Ruination.
The Boomers vs. The Zoomers
Last but not least is the split of commander ages. The Q1 boomer award goes to Keegan who is averaging 2016 as his year of release for his commanders. Wildly enough though, he does not have the oldest commander in the format. The Ryan-ported Kami of the Crescent Roll is the oldest with a 2005 release, but Zur, the Enchanter is close in 2nd with a 2006 release. Those are the two boomers, but Jeff ends up being our zoomer for this league with a 2020.8 average, narrowly beating out Sean.
Closing Remarks
This is a really fun spread of a meta from my point of view. There is some balancing necessary for color submissions in my eyes, but it is still the first quarter of play. People are still finding their lanes and exploring decks, which is no different than the first league was.
This data is more whimsical than the next load, but still loads of insights to be found. Where do you fall as a player? Is that where you want to fall in the league meta? These are internal questions to ask yourself. Your position on the leaderboard could be tied to some of these metrics, but these are qualitative stats primarily. Their ties to performance are limited, but non-zero. Look at whos winning, look at the stats and try to find why they are winning. And see how it differs from you and what you could do to emulate and fit into your preferred play style.