A while ago (edit: beginning of 2014) someone approached me with a couple of questions about starting a cube. As a board gamer wanting to take up Magic, he did some research and decided upon building a Peasant Cube. He gave me a link to an article on BoardGameGeek explaining the dynamics of a simple metagame to new Magic players. The article was based in part on the so-called metagame clock, a visual way to lay out how the different base archetypes (aggro, control, combo) relate to each other: Magic’s version of rock-paper-scissors.
One of the questions I got was: ‘Would you recommend your cube in regards to the rock- paper
scissors dynamic I described’.
Would I? And if so: why?
Metagame clock?
I remember that the Metagame Clock was first written about on The Dojo, ages ago. Sadly, I couldn’t find the original article, but this article by Mike Mason describes the clock pretty well:
‘There are five general types of Magic decks. They are Beatdown, Midgame, Combo, Control, and Aggro-Control. […]
Beatdown overwhelms. They peak early and fade late, and rely upon dropping consistent early threats, often with high evasion. They lack the strength to survive the long haul. In general, Beatdown loses to Combo, which ignores it and/or is faster than it, and Midgame, which possesses the stalls and resets necessary to cause Beatdown to over commit or suffer large disadvantages.
Midgame waits. Characterized by "reset buttons", early-game stall and control mechanisms, and a steady/progressive mana curve, Midgame decks are focused on creating advantages - small advantages early, and massive advantage late. Decks with a high mana curve are clocked earlier than those with a low mana curve, because a cheaper Midgame deck can more easily cope and recover in a Midgame-Midgame matchup. Midgame loses to Combo, because it doesn't generate threats until the combo has long since killed them, and to Control, against whom much of Midgame's tactics and resets are rendered useless. I sometimes theorize that you can also call low the "low advantage" area (one-for-one trades) and high the "high advantage" area, which is multiple-for-one trades.
Combo explodes. These decks generate a near-instantaneous win condition based on a combination of cards (usually enchantments.) The entire deck is usually built to generate that win condition and protect it from disruption. Clock position is twofold. One, the more the combo deck is focused on generation moreso than protection, the closer the deck lies to :20. Combo usually has a light counter base (if any), and thus loses to Control, who has the ability to ensure the combo never sees the light of day, and to Aggro-Control, which is able to present both aggressive threats and combo disruption.
Control maintains. Control likes to preserve an empty board, then typically win in a short amount of time with highly evasive or large threats. A lot of people confuse Midgame decks with Control; the difference is that true Control does not desire or allow permanents to reach the board. This objective can be attained via heavy counterspell, discard, or bounce. The fewer win conditions a control deck has, the closer it is to the clock position of :30. Control loses to Aggro-Control, as its ability to deny threats is thwarted by the Aggro player's own denial abilities and threat production. It also loses to Beatdown, whose ability to generate plentiful threats means Control is unable to prevent them all from reaching the board.
Aggro-Control answers. These decks consist of generally quick, efficient threats and disruptive control elements that work to prevent the opponent from stopping them. AC is positioned at :40; as control elements lessen, the deck moves in the direction of Beatdown, and as the control elements increase, the deck moves below :40. Aggro-Control loses to Beatdown, because AC has difficulty fulfilling both of its roles at once. Beatdown's threats match AC, who finds themselves having to pick an offensive or defensive posture to react, neither or which it can sustain versus a strong creature-heavy strategy. AC also loses to Midgame, who can withstand early aggression and reset the board efficiently. People often confuse Midgame with Aggro-Control. The difference is that Aggro-Control generates threats that require answers. Midgame's early game doesn't consist of threats; it consists of answers.
That's our clock.
If you take a ruler and draw a straight line through the center of the circle from any point along the edge, the particular decktype that you're drawing the line for will lose to all of the decks in the 50% proceeding clockwise from it, while it will defeat all of the decks in the 50% preceding counterclockwise from it. In simple English, you Win Counter-Clockwise, and you Lose Clockwise.
If you find a deck you need to beat, you clock :15 ahead of its position. That's where you'll find its worst opponent’
There you have it: the basic Magic metagame. Most players know, consciously or not, about this dynamic. It’s not a ground breaking new theory, especially for constructed tournament players. When playing constructed, metagaming can be very important and the difference between winning or losing.
Clocking Peasant
One reason I built my Peasant Cube was to be a snapshot of Magic’s history. This would mean that, if built correctly, I should have the basic archetypes covered. But, Peasant is a different beast than ‘normal’ (rare) cube, let alone constructed formats. We lack certain types of cards (mainly straight sweepers) and having to maintain a healthy and draft format means that some archetypes are excluded for fear of having too many ‘narrow‘ cards (that go in only one deck) so that on average the amount of cards in a pack that are relevant for a single drafter are higher.
Does Peasant Cube have a Metagame Clock as well, and if so: is Peasant Cube’s Metagame Clock the same as the basic one? Let’s examine how the basic archetypes hold up in my Peasant Cube when they’re on the clock.
Beatdown can overwhelm. Beatdown decks are possible in different colors, with a bevy of good aggressive threats that, indeed, lose some of their value later in the game. It’s a bit less of a glass cannon against Control because of the lack of sweepers to overextend into, but Peasant has other stuff for Control to stifle Aggro with.
Midrange can wait. The Midrange decks usually show theirselves in the form of sturdy creatures backed up by good removal. For me, Midrange decks are not necessarily the ‘waiting’ decks, but the pivot between aggro and control. It plays the more controllish role against aggro and goes aggro against control.
Combo doesn't explode. The nature of Cube (and singleton draft formats period) makes it so that focused combo decks are different than in formats where you can construct your own decks. The Peasant restriction makes it even harder, because there are very few actual good 2 card combos available to us in this rarity. On top of that, cube size plays a part in this as well. My cube is ~550 cards big, so we don't see all the cards in a given draft. I don't want to create too many feel-bad situations for my players where they draft a combo card without getting the necessary other parts. Obviously, the smaller the cube, the smaller the problem. Also, the modern combo decks like storm need a critical mass off a certain type of card that’s useless in most other archetypes and therefor falls into the ‘too narrow’ category.
The way I (and most Peasant Cubers) incorporated 'combo' is to enable highly synergistic decks through cards that are good on their own but better when you build around them. This type of combo deck operates on a different axis than the combo deck described in the Metagame Clock, because it's not necessarily faster than aggro decks. Generally though, it's still likely to do better against random aggressive decks with less disruption and worse against decks with a lot of disruption.
2016 edit: I've actually successfully incorporated some combo-style decks, of which Reanimate can actually be quite explosive. The other 'combo' decks, though, are mostly control decks with a combo finish.
Control can maintain. It’s very possible to draft a ‘classic’ control deck in my cube, but again, it’s a bit different than in other formats. Having an empty board is somewhat difficult when you don’t have access to boardsweepers. The amount of resilient finishers is also lower. This means that it’s more likely that control decks start to take the form of slower Midrange decks, with more and smaller win-conditions.
Aggro-Control can answer. I found the ‘answer’ part a bit narrow, as Aggro-Control does not answer everything, instead it poses a threat and only answers the stuff that threatens its threat (if that makes sense). But, Aggro-Control is present and very draftable in Peasant.
The Metagame Clock is very alive in my Peasant Cube. Some archetypes take different forms than they would in constructed formats, and I guess that the singleton draft nature of Peasant Cube makes more decks hybrids than not.
Why does this matter?
One of the most common things said about Cube is that your Cube is whatever you want it to be. Good cards, pet cards, bad cards, rares, commons, custom cards, only blue cards: everything is fair game. It’s your cube after all.
I wholeheartedly agree with this adage, but I do think that paying attention to a certain balance in basic archetypes is very important. It’s not the most exciting thing to include vanilla 2/2’s for 1 in your cube when you could use that slot to put in something more interesting, but those 2/2’s for 1 make a whole batch of other cards playable.
If we look at the Metagame Clock, we see that every archetype has its natural enemy that keeps it in check. By taking away Beatdown, you take away the natural foil to Control decks and with that the viability of Midrange decks. Same holds true when taking away one of the other pillars. Generalizing, every deck will end up with the same strategy. Anyone who has ever played in a metagame where you know you’ll be playing mirror matches all day knows that it gets really old really fast, where edges often are gained by having better draws. Same goes for having a metagame with a clear ‘best deck’ (this is often the same as the mirror-match one, by the way): why would you play something else then the deck without bad matchups?
Besides adding depth to available strategies, incorporating the theory of the Metagame Clock in your cube rewards players that draft ‘decks’ instead of collections of ‘good cards’. Obviously, your players need to be aware of the dynamic between the different archetypes, but when they are the drafting process becomes a lot more interesting. Suddenly cards get taken much higher or lower than they otherwise would depending on the needs of the deck. For example: without viable aggro decks, a control deck has no real incentive to draft a card like Wall of Omens over anything, because there is no need for early defense.
I want to say that this does not mean that I think everyone should start adhering strictly to this (or any other) Metagame Clock. I’m sure there are other ways of balancing a cube. However, I believe a good Cube owner has at least thought about this and made a choice in one way or another.
Edit: As an added disclaimer I want to say that I don't believe that the Metagame Clock is binding in all match ups. No archetype will have a 100% win or lose chance against another archetype. It's all about natural advantages, but control decks can beat fast aggro decks for example. Hedge Knight pointed out that the win/lose percentages are lower and higher, respectively, than they are in constructed Magic, and I agree.
Other interesting reads on the topic:
Aggro, Combo and Control - by Jeff Cunningham on dailymtg.com
The Midrange Archetype - by Ken Nagle on dailymtg.com
Roots: On the Clock With Magic's Nine Deck Archetypes - by George Colby on mtgfanatic.com
The Metagame Clock Revisited - by Will Rieffer and Mike Mason on starcitygames.com
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