The Metagame Clock Revisited:

By Will Rieffer and Mike Mason
02/08/2001

Dear readers: Inspiration has struck, and this is going to take some work. In the annals of Magic theory, there are valuable themes and lessons that are ingrained in advanced players but remain hidden to newer ones. This article will revisit some of these old themes, and will present them in terms of the current Standard format.

Hopefully, you've taken some time to re-examine the Dojo while it's still available to us. The site is extremely deserving of all the attention that we can shower on it before it is finally buried. Download the texts, archive those articles - because we should glean as much information from its collected wisdom as possible. We will provide links for you to revisit these old ideas, and while it isn't absolutely necessary, it should prove valuable to read (or re-read) these pieces. Now, as this is an advanced concept of some magnitude I have also recruited some other writers in the Star City sewing circle to assist me with this endeavor. Friend and Binary 21 teammate Mike Mason has created the graphics and contributed to the writing of this article, and both of our comments will be mingled together like some strange Featured Writer combo deck. ("Let's see, here.... Combine Will's creativity and intuition with Mason's analysis, goofiness, and logic. That has to be broken.") Special thanks in particular should also go to Aaron Forsythe, whose knowledge of decklists and strategies from bygone eras was invaluable in our assessments, and fellow Binary 21 member Scott Forster, whose well-placed comments often phrased things in exactly the way we needed to say them.

The article that we have based our article on is Leon Workman's Metagame Clock article. Though you may have read it already, if you need to see it again, this innovative manner of analyzing the metagame resides here: http://www.thedojo.com/b001/bo.000321lwo.shtml.

THE METAGAME CLOCK: INTRODUCTION

To begin, we felt that we should examine an environment that most people are familiar with. While Workman's initial clock, formulated about a year ago, plotted the positions of a number of popular decks, some of the information was irrelevant because many of the decks listed did not coexist in last year's Standard environment. We've added and subtracted some archetypes in order to recreate the Metagame Clock for the Urza's-Masques Standard environment, and updated the graphic.

As players, we tend to throw metagaming terms around without thinking about it. However, a brief synopsis of the five major categories of decks would probably benefit everyone for the purpose of the article. Yes, WE know what they are - but reintroducing the concepts as we've analyzed them will be of assistance in understanding the analysis of the clock positions. Quickly, then, let's summarize:

Beatdown: Beatdown relies on overwhelming the opponent with damage before they have a chance to react. Though typically associated with creatures, burn decks also fit into this category. Beatdown decks tend to peak early and fade late, and rely upon dropping consistent early threats to generate victories. These decks have the greatest propensity to flame out after the first few turns; if the deck hasn't won by then, it typically does not have the strength to withstand the long haul. The later the clock position, the higher this"flame out" potential. Beatdown loses to Combo, which is faster than it, and Midgame, which possesses the stall tactics and global resets necessary to cause Beatdown to overcommit or suffer large disadvantages.

Midgame: These decks mostly inch toward their win condition. They are characterized by"reset buttons": early-game stall and control mechanisms, and a rather steady mana curve. Midgame decks allow permanents to reach the board, but are focused on creating advantages - small advantages in the early game, and then massive advantage in the late game when they are trading single cards for multiple threats. Decks with a high mana curve are positioned earlier than those with a low mana curve, as cheaper Midgame decks can more easily cope if both of the decks are throwing reset buttons and stalls at one another. 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.

Combo: These decks are those that generate near-instantaneous lethal damage based on a combination of cards (usually enchantments). The entire deck is usually built to facilitate that combo as the sole win condition, and to protect it from disruption. Some combos rely on"broken" advantage, generating multiple turns' worth of effects in a single turn. The more the combo deck is focused on this generation moreso than protecting it, the closer the deck lies to :20. The position also refers to speed; for example, while Bargain is a combo, it takes more time to work, and moves towards Midgame rather than Control because it has fewer ways of denying permanents. 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: Control decks focus on maintaining 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* allow permanents to reach the board. This objective can be attained via heavy counterspell, discard, or bounce. The fewer threats a deck has, the closer it is to the clock position of :30. As a Control deck garners threats or works toward combo generation, it moves in the appropriate direction. Control loses to Aggro-Control, as its ability to deny threats is thwarted by the Aggro player's own denial abilities and speed, and also to Beatdown, who can generate such plentiful threats that Control is unable to prevent them all from reaching the board.

Aggro-Control: This is a relatively recent classification of decks, only arising in the last couple of years. These decks consist of quick, cheap creatures that can present early threats, and disruptive control elements to prevent the opponent from stopping them. Aggro is positioned at :40; as control elements lessen, the deck moves in the direction of Beatdown above :40, and as the control elements increase, the deck moves below :40. Aggro-Control loses to Beatdown - for while Beatdown has less disruption, it has threats that overrun Aggro's, and are often MORE of a threat. In addition, Aggro's disruption is typically focused on a wide range of versatile control to ensure its objectives are met. This versatility does not allow them to prevent an all-out creature-oriented strategy. Aggro-Control also loses to Midgame, who is able to withstand the early aggression and apply its resets with enough regularity that Aggro cannot answer all of them.

EXAMINING THE POSITIONS

Let's look at some of these matchups as we go around the clock. Let's start with the easy-to-understand agenda of the Stompy deck. Stompy is positioned at 54 minutes, or :54. The theory states that Stompy's worst matchup would be 15 minutes progressed counter-clockwise from it, which would be at :09. Near this point, we find the Midgame monster Wildfire, a deck which should generally crush Stompy. If we now focus on Wildfire and progress fifteen minutes from it, we'd be around :22, which is the home of Replenish. The speed and effectiveness of Replenish decks should be able to easily withstand whatever early threats the Midgame deck can generate.

Wildfire is also going to be at a disadvantage to any deck progressed up to thirty minutes clockwise from it. Therefore, a deck like Bargain will have a favorable matchup with it. This idea continues even further as the even more progressed Draw-Go decks should also post favorable results with regards to the matchup. Draw-Go decks like Magpie, on the other hand, are going to have trouble against any aggro-control deck or beatdown strategy like that of Stompy. This continues on around the circle.

When you get to a matchup of two decks that are across from each other, interesting things develop. It is these matches that can swing either way. In the likes of Stompy vs. Replenish, Magpie vs. Suicide Black, or Bargain vs. Rebels, the matchup can go either way. If we take a look at Bargain vs. Rebels, we know that the Bargain combination takes a lot of mana to get started and that a good opening of enchantment or creature removal by the white player can thwart this. Even though this is true, should the Bargain player get the mana and start the combo, getting it in motion, the Rebels player has almost no way to stop that inertia. It's best hope is to somehow interrupt the cycle during the casting of sorceries by killing the Bargain, perhaps by bring in a Monk Realist in response to an Exhume. Suicide Black can potentially threaten the Magpie player with two Zombies and a Negator on their third turn, and without two islands it is likely (although not definite) that the Magpie player won't be able to recover. If this doesn't happen as the game progresses things swing in the favor of Magpie's more powerful late game.

Opposing decks are, in many ways, both equal AND opposite. Combo says to you"You can't stop me, I'm too fast." Isn't that what Beatdown says with its fast creatures and swarming attacks? Midgame says"I can control you and the board." Aggro-Control believes this as well, and pursues the same objectives. And Control opposes the point at which Midgame and Beatdown intersect; both of them say,"You will not do or have anything."

Decks that lie very close to each other on the wheel, with only a few minutes difference, are closely matched. Their strategies negate each other and frequently the game comes down to the skill of the player, or in some cases, the luck of the draw. The deck that has a later clock time, however, is seen to have the advantage in the majority of the matchups.

THE CURRENT STANDARD ENVIRONMENT

The current Standard season differs in many ways from the power of the Urza's-Masques environment. Below are the clock assignments of the decks in Masques-Invasion Standard. This season is proving to be quite different than what many are used to, and assigning clock values to the current standard decks proved interesting, to say the least - but after much discussion between ourselves and other Star City writers, we think that the decks are accurately positioned. Of course we do. We're the ones writing this.

As you can see, we've clocked a large number of decks (and been clocked BY a large number of decks), including those that are not necessarily Decks to Beat. Bear with us on this one, for each deck included is important in analysis. Decks like Machine Head that"look good on paper" wind up having different results than intended. Why is that? Why is the God deck successful? Is Fires the only viable beatdown deck, or will Planeshift introduce faster Fires or Zombie decks that will outrace it?

In deciding upon the actual positioning of the decks, we examined the motley collection of decks from Workman's article and then started anew with the clock for C.E. Standard. It is important to remember that the positions are only relevant in the environment for which they are clocked; it is important not to get caught up in trying to create a Master Clock Of Every Deck Ever Made. Although that could perhaps be done we are not going to attempt that here and will stick with a familiar and relative format.

Determining the position of Aggro-Control decks on the clock was relatively easy, so that's the best place for us to start.

The line between Beatdown into Aggro is perhaps the most blurred of all of the categories, but examining the deck characteristics allows them to fall into place quite well. In this area of the clock, we find fairly straightforward Aggro decks like Sean McKeown's early Armageddon-packing Rebel Bears. White Weenie decks - even Rebels with their searching mechanic - tend to present mana-efficient threats from early on, and then to back up their creature assault with both 'Geddon (to ensure that superiority is maintained), and enchantment, artifact, and creature removal. White has the most control of any mono-colored creature strategy due to this efficiency. The Beatdown area starts at :45, and because of the versatility of various Rebels for control, Bear Rebels slides in at :44, just a hair more toward Aggro-Control.

Blue Skies is likewise an Aggro strategy that's easily defined. It clearly has more of a controlling element than Rebel Bears. Its quick, evasive beatdown potential and its ability to deny permanents or neutralize those in play edge it closer to Control than the other decks. It's rather significantly different than the Rebels decks, and thus requires a larger gap between it and its competition. It clocks in at :38.

So far, we have just two decks, and following the clock demonstrates the Counterclockwise Rule (if a deck lays counterclockwise within 30 minutes of you, you beat them) to be true. Rebels was 10-0 against Skies at PT-Chicago.

While U/B Control and Discard strategies are underrepresented currently, they may increase with some powerful Planeshift additions like Warped Devotion. The decks currently can be divided into two groups. The first is regular U/B Control, which relies on Evil Eyes or Wumpuses, and thus can be more aggressive while maintaining its high control factor. The second, the well-known Nether-Go deck, usually focuses on two threats: Nether Spirit and a late Air Elemental. As it was based on the almost pure control mechanism of Draw-Go, it is no surprise that it is the closest to the Control axis. U/B Control weighs in at :34, while Nether-Go lies at :32 on the clock.

While Aggro-Control is the most defined area of the clock, it seems some of the other decks are rather hard to pigeonhole - including the beatdown monster that is Fires. While Fires attempts to pound you over the head with creatures, it does not do so from the outset. This is partially the result of a slower environment, as for the most part Fires lacks the traditional one- and two-drop creatures that are the hallmark of more traditional beatdown strategies. To compensate, Fires uses mana acceleration and presents a series of very efficiently costed threats in the four- and five-mana range. Is this traditional beatdown? No. Is it effective, however? Yes. One reason it works is because there haven't been enough good one- to three-casting cost creatures to make the type of beatdown deck that would jump it on the clock. Blastogeddon, which had a positive record over Fires at PT: Chicago, is progressed from Fires in the beatdown quadrant.

Blastogeddon is even more direct than Fires; it has the acceleration to match, plus quick threats like Blastoderm and Saproling Burst. Brian Kibler's well-known PT-Chicago deck had only two control cards - Armageddon and Wax/Wane. These are both used very aggressively in order to eliminate the opponent's ability to respond. And, perhaps most of all, not giving your opponent time to respond is the calling card of beatdown decks.

In fact, if you examine the wheel, as stated earlier you'll see the similar dichotomies of polarized decks are evident. Combo opposing Beatdown on the clock states that they are natural enemies, but that they also share complementary traits. Both have highly focused or narrow win conditions, both seek to generate lethal damage very quickly, and the speed of both denies their opponents a chance to respond.

Blastogeddon was positioned at :53. Blastogeddon's close enough to Fires that it's a crapshoot - but in general, it should possess the advantage because it runs cheaper creatures, can Wane away Fires' Saproling Bursts, and jump to a quick advantage and 'Geddon to preserve its advantages. However, faster and cheaper beatdown or removal strategies by Fires or other decks can beat it and make Armageddon more of a hindrance than a threat.

With the introduction of Planeshift, there is the threat of another beatdown deck emerging. While it is, of course, too early to judge, the potential for a"true" beatdown deck may exist in a deck chock full of Zombies. Lava Zombie, Terminate, and Lord of the Undead may give red/black the capability to outrace other beatdown decks - and finally beat Fires. Fires, of course, gains some very strong creatures of its own, and before long we may all be tired of a second-turn 3/4 creature. Horned Kavu, welcome to the environment. I hope you didn't bring your cousin the Shivan Wurm. He's annoying.

Like Fires, Rebels are also difficult to assign a value to. Rebels are highly customizable, and the changes in strategies reflect their appearance in multiple positions on the clock. The most common and winning versions right now are based on the two finalists at PT: Chicago - Budde's winning Waxy Rebels and Corneliessen's Counter-Rebel builds.

For the most part these are both Midgame ideas. Budde used Wax/Wane and Parallax Wave as stalling and protective devices for his searchers, while Corneliessen used a diverse smattering of blue control spells to afford his search engine some protection. Rebel decks like these win by generating card advantage, but it takes some time to set up and achieve the kind of advantage that matters. They stall early and win with that advantage in the midgame. Rebels' major strategies vs. Fires reflect this. The first is to protect the search engine until you reach six or more mana, where Lin Sivvi and her ability to recur Defiant Vanguard will often overwhelm Fires by soaking up even the biggest of its ground pounding forces with just two or three cards. This is not the only way to play Rebels, though. We've already mentioned Rebel Bears backed by Armageddon, and Mason plays an Aggro version of Counter Rebels with more cheap flyers backed up with alternate casting cost counters.

Counter-Rebels is a highly underdeveloped archetype in some ways. In many ways, a typical C-R deck plays as Midgame, and the majority of the builds out there reflect it. Budde's version of Rebels, which could be termed"High Chain Rebels," extends further than Bears due to its inclusion of Ramosian Sky Marshal and Jhovall Queen. As such, there are already three major Rebel archetypes, all plotted differently on the clock. HC Rebels and Counter-Rebels are both Midgame decks, but their difference in strategy is notable. HC, despite its need for mana, is in many ways a cheap Midgame deck due to its ability to present cheap critters without searching. That puts it at :07 on our Metagame Clock. Counter-Rebels tend to develop slower due to their control base - and thus they clock much later, at around :13. It has an advantage over other Midgame decks that develop at the same rate due to its ability to counter key spells and establish its advantage by recruiting at the end of the opponent's turns.

Mason built his personal variant based on the strategy of using alternate-casting cost counters. This allows it to search out Rebels AND stop opposing threats, thereby remaining aggressive by using a short rebel chain designed to search out the cheap flyers and defenders that white has to offer. He believes that this sort of C-R strategy is the more natural evolution of the deck. Since it involves more direct control (alternate-cast counterspells) in addition to focusing on Rebel versatility and evasive beatdown, it could arguably be placed in the Aggro-Control arena.

Such is the versatility of Rebels - and that is one reason that Rebel decks have a wide variety of builds and success versus other archetypes. Due to the large number of Rebels available, one could even build a White Skies sort of deck based solely on Gliders, Marshals, and Scouts. If you ask why one Rebel deck loses to Fires and another Rebel deck beats it handily, you need look no further than its position on the clock.

The Midgame category should dominate Beatdown decks. If you examine the clock, you see Machine Head as a slow Midgame deck positioned at :02. For those who remember all the hubbub about the deck when it was created, it was supposed to do just that. However, why doesn't it work?

Machine Head is positioned correctly, but it does not contain effective stall mechanisms against Beatdown. While it can utilize early burn and discard, large early creatures are nearly impossible for it to get rid of once on the table. Because of the poor selection of red and black cards in Standard, attempts to develop a red/black Midgame deck have failed. Without early stalling mechanisms, and without consistent/effective global removal for creatures with higher than two toughness, it lacks the elements that make Midgame decks WORK. Its slowness and inability to control the board wind up making it great in idea, but bad in practice. With Blastoderm being the most-used fatty in the environment, red/black needs an answer to a 5/5 untargetable that often does not make itself evident. Void is too random a control element to be relied upon consistently. In addition, it was most commonly used with a declaration of"three" or"four", both of which hurt the primary creature base of Machine Head.

TRANSFORMATION

We also referenced the classic Mike Flores article that asked"Who is the Beatdown?" (http://www.thedojo.com/column/col.990413mfl.shtml). He pointed out that to win any matchup, one needed to know in any matchup who was the beatdown player and who was the control player. In our case, it gets only slightly more complicated.

Will described what he saw at the JSS tournament in his prelude article, and a certain situation that arose. His young charge had the tools to transform his Fires deck into one that would beat Weenie Skies - yet he took them out instead. The reason that Weenie Skies was threatening him was that it was faster than him on the beatdown clock. It was generating threats and disruption faster than Fires, and as a result of poor sideboarding the Fires deck was not able to establish itself as either a higher Beatdown or Midgame, which would enable Fires to win.

When a matchup such as this occurs, it is advantageous for a deck to have the capability to engage in transformational sideboarding. While synergy is always a primary concern, there are often numerous ways to construct a sideboard so that your deck's clock position changes.

Take for example a pair of typical Fires decks. One deck has Simoon in the sideboard; the other does not. The player with Simoon is, assuming the decks are fairly equal, at an advantage. Why? Because after sideboarding, he introduces a card into his deck that is a Midgame card; it is a global sweeper against Fires' early mana development. By repositioning his deck with Midgame components, he should be able to take the Midgame role in the matchup: That of winner.

Turning the clock to a more advantageous position is sometimes easy to recognize. When Brian Kibler's PT: Chicago sideboard of Armadillo Cloak, Tsabo's Decree, Rith, Simoon, Flashfires, and Kavu Chameleon are examined, there is an obvious change into a deck that is much more able to resist opposing Fires decks.

As Zvi Mowshowitz pointed out after the PT: Chicago, there is another card that frightens Fires decks: Blinding Angel. U/W Control decks - most of whom pack Angels - have an advantage over any Fires' attempt to leap to the Midgame, because U/W will almost always be progressed clockwise from them.

It's also noteworthy to mention that many of the Fires decks feared facing Jay Elarar's Blue Skies variant. Though typically it's a good matchup, Elarar's sideboard was very Midgame-oriented.

There's an important distinction here. Elarar's deck was going to remain Aggro-Control in nature. However, by utilizing Wash Out, Withdraw, and Submerge, he was able to use cards that encompassed other strategies. He had a multitude of cards that were Midgame cards, while still maintaining his Aggro nature.

The best decks syncretize multiple strategies. Wash Out may well be a
Midgame control card, but Skies uses it in an Aggro fashion, mostly to
make itself live one or two turns longer, effecting its own victory. In a more typical usage, Wash Out is used by Control or Midgame decks in order to bring the board back to its optimal Control state: Empty (or empty, save for a flying beatstick on their side).

The best decks make these concessions. Skies lives in the :35-:40 range, and Wash Out's"optimal deck" exists at the :06-:12 range. "Optimal deck," as coined by Scott Forster,"Is the deck that the card seems to be built for - perhaps even what a deck would look like if it had about fifteen of the card in it."

These top decks grab a card from the opposite side of the clock to patch the holes in their strategies. If your main strategy is not working, an appropriate card from another archetype can swing the entire game by turning the clock around on your opponent.

Another excellent example is the Negator sideboard play for combo decks like Trix in Extended, or Bargain during Urza's-Masques Standard. As they are at such a disadvantage against Control and Aggro-Control strategies, these Combo decks try and reposition themselves as Beatdown so that they can win a matchup that was previously difficult.

Not only does this sort of transformation help to create a win condition out of a poor matchup, but it also presents severe sideboarding problems for opposing decks as well. What player knows when the Combo deck he is facing has removed their enchantments for beatdown? A player may attempt to sideboard in more enchantment removal and thus position himself as Control vs. Combo. However, his surprise when the Combo becomes Beatdown and smacks him for five a turn is painfully familiar to many of us.

ANALYZING THE MATCHUPS

Let's go back to the Fires-Skies matchup, and examine it in-depth.
It's obvious that Fires decks packing Boa have an advantage versus Skies. This is because single card plays during the course of a match can swing decks around the clock. A Fires deck facing Skies and putting down a Boa has really entered the beatdown race; even though Fires already holds an advantage with its consistency of threats, moving more towards a higher Beatdown clock time - away from Aggro-Control - and gives it a much greater chance of victory than if it were only a few minutes away. This single-card strategy doesn't change the Beatdown/Aggro matchup, but it increases Fires' chances of victory. Zvi Mowshowitz didn't have this ability with his Chevy Fires deck; as a more Midgame-oriented Fires variant, his deck can be outdone in beatdown speed.

Fires can also bring in a Midgame card such as Simoon, discussed earlier. Two cards, two strategies; both of which give Fires much more of an opportunity for victory.

Just as decks can utilize single-card strategies to affect their clock position, decks can swing to different positions over the course of a game. Not every deck does this; the best decks, however, have that sort of flexibility and multiple-category strategy. Skies typically opens as a Beatdown deck; it's the deck's ability to utilize free counters that makes it a hyperefficient Aggro deck.

In fact, Skies opens as Beatdown that is faster than Fires. Its Hatchlings and Airships come quickly, and keep hitting. As such, Skies often gains the early advantage, even when it stops producing threats and begins to morph into control-oriented plays. With this ability to"jump the clock" on Fires, a counter-strategy needs to develop. In order to keep up the Fires needs, as a beatdown idea, to match that attack damage output.

River Boa can be said to have an optimal deck position of about :56 or :57. It's cheap, hard to kill, and has built-in blue hate. Early plays like a River Boa or a turn-2 Idol, where Fires joins the race early, brings Fires to the same clock position and thus neutralizes the Skies advantage.

It's somewhat complex to wrap your mind around at first - but it is, in essence, a game of leapfrog that can be counteracted with proper deckbuilds and sideboarding. This is where knowing the clock and the decks enters the picture fully - while you can realize that you should beat a deck progressed counterclockwise from you, you must recognize that deck's ability to reposition itself, even if only for a few turns, to an advantageous position over your deck. It involves synergy in an important way, for the cards must be able to be played for a consistent effect when you need them. A lot of people would not have thought that Wash Out would be more devastating than Void - yet its cheaper cost and consistency of effect allow it to flow smoothly into a deck, either main or sideboard. Wash Out, at an optimal deck position of :06-:12, is a big reset button. In addition, it's rarely a symmetrical reset on the order of 'Geddon or Obliterate.

The enchantment Fires of Yavimaya itself becomes a point of contention in relation to starting the early beats - or, at least, keeping up. The enchantment isn't actually a threat, and therefore it doesn't need to be countered by the Skies player. When the enchantment is played, the Fires player has just given up something to the fundamental turn - namely, that Skies gets a chance to draw another card to combat beatdown threats, a counter, or Wash Out, and perhaps also put another of its own threats on the board. Fires should attack the Skies deck and keep trying to put permanent threats on the board. Idol is favorable to the enchantment. If Idol isn't countered, it is going to keep after the Skies player for three a turn. Your enchantment isn't.

This is the reason Will split the difference between Chevy Fires and the Boa Fires decks. Focusing on positioning the deck later, he cut two lands and added Silt Crawlers. This increased the three casting cost beatdown drops and lowered the mana curve somewhat - even if it was done at the cost of land count. After this comes a point where another couple of cards enter in. In this repositioning move, 3-Drop Fires leapfrogged a lot of decks. There were more early beats to progress against other Fires decks, although at a slight risk to the midgame. Finally, while 3-Drop had less land, with both decks attacking early mana production the more consistent 3-drop threats would apply enough early pressure that the win condition was hopefully achieved before the opponent.

This also assisted in counteracting the early clock of Blue Skies. 3-Drop needed to have more solid midgame elements in order to stay on a par with Skies' early Beatdown clock. If Wash Out resolves, usually naming green, the Midgame card strategy halts the Fires Beatdown. In response to this, Fires has two ways to go. First, it can focus on being a high-clock Beatdown deck and outrace Skies before the blue monstrosity has an opportunity to bring its Midgame strategy into play. What if this isn't possible, as with Chevy Fires? Alternately, Fires can attempt to progress itself toward being a faster Midgame deck than Skies.

Sounds great, but how would it achieve this? First of all, it has to consider that it won't have the time or the opening to cast high casting cost Midgame spells. The best option here is one that we mentioned earlier, that seeks to do the same sort of thing in the mirror match: Simoon. By eliminating some higher casting cost spells, the Fires player can hope that early on Simoon acts as its own reset button against the group of one toughness fliers abundant in Skies decks. Usually, it's a spell Skies will want to stop. Other sources of cheap burn are also wanted, and the flexibility of Assault/Battery shines here. A one-point Hurricane may seem a waste, but it's just as effective as a Simoon and often trumps the advantage gained by Skies' Wash Out.

Simoon is also a Midgame card, but faster than Wash Out. Simoon, due to its cheapness and asymmetrical effect, has an optimal deck position of :13. With the increase in the speed of threats and removal, Fires trumps. Booya.

These cards can also be effective for the Fires player in the Rebel matchup. Many Rebels versions start off as Midgame decks. Earthquake, and at times Hurricane, are reset buttons that can beat them. Do they have a pair of Thermal Gliders out? Hurricane can reset the sky allowing you to swing over with your Two-Headed Dragon and end a stalemate.

We've so far taken two decks in particular and jumped them all over the place. You're probably shaking your head and wondering - with so many position changes, how is clock theory relevant?

Understanding where a deck can be at any given point in time, and recognizing its tendencies, is a key component of strategy. If you take Mason's theory and apply it, you see that knowing Skies' Components and the Resources available for them to reposition themselves and gain the advantage over your win condition allows you to develop your Methodology. We do this when we play; we recognize that at certain points, certain cards may be cast, and we react accordingly. If someone is not prepared for a Wash Out, for example, it can be devastating to their strategy.

Repositioning strategies are fascinating to study. We mentioned the ability of Trix to swing all the way across the circle. Will placed an Indentured Djinn in his Ankh-Tide deck and found that it was able to generate a Beatdown AND Combo threat.

Another example is Bob Maher's Ankh Skies deck. This deck surprised many people at PT: Chicago and has gathered a small following. This deck successfully implemented multiple strategies; it had the Aggro-Control of Skies, the Combo of Ankh-Tide, and the Midgame strategy of Wash Out, which to that point hadn't been discussed very much.

A BALANCED ENVIRONMENT?

It was a common perception that the Urza's Saga-Mercadian Masques era was one of very powerful cards. When Masques slowed down the environment, people complained; the Morphlings and Masticores of old were gone, gone, gone. Because of the speed and brutality of some of the US-MM decks, when Urza's rotated out people spoke of a"balanced" environment. Indeed, many people today espouse the virtues of C.E. Standard as balanced. However, the clock suggests that instead the opposite may be true.

The US-MM environment was balanced in that there was a wide variety. There are decks all over the map in that environment. Though Aggro-Control was perhaps underrepresented, the archetype itself has only really been fixed in our minds for a short period of time. There were a wide range of powerful decks that seemed to eat half of the metagame for breakfast and roll over for the other half. There were numerous archetypes that spawned numerous followings. It was imbalanced only in the sheer power of certain cards.

Conversely, Invasion is perceived as balanced, but examining the decks suggests that may be an erroneous assessment. Remove for a moment Machine Head and Cowardice, which is rarely played though well known. The remaining pattern on the clock is that of a bowtie. There's a distinct lack of pure beatdown and pure combo variants. Midgame is underrepresented if you examine it in comparison to US-MM Standard. Why is this? It may be that the lack of pure beatdown that has caused a lack of Midgame decks designed to beat them. Without dominant Midgame decks, Combo decks aren't being invented at the same radical rate as usual. With the card pool available to use, the environment in essence shapes itself.

However, don't be fooled -there are gaps there. Large gaps. Is that balanced? No. Perception is, however, that the environment IS balanced because even without strong combo, pure beatdown, and plentiful Midgame archetypes, there are multiple viable strategies. But, for now, they're in certain ranges. Who's going to step up and fill in the empty positions? One point which bears mentioning is that players do not like to lose to the"Solitaire" nature of combo decks. This likely biases their opinions, because with no combo decks players"feel" like the environment is more balanced, because even while they are rolling over to another beating from Fires they are at least able to cast their own spells and make combat decisions. That keeps players much more interested than watching Bargain's Soul Feast/Yawgmoth's Will engine.

For Standard Constructed, there seems to be no true combo deck as of this time. The closest Standard comes it with Ankh-Tide's neo-control combo, which more often than not can't win in a single turn. Cowardice might also qualify, and while far from a true combo in any sense of the word, it is a highly synergistic control deck. Positioning these two decks is relatively easy. Cowardice, being much closer to a control deck, positions at :27. Ankh-Tide (not the Maher version), which generally relies on its combo as the sole win condition, easily slides into the very vacant Combo area of the clock at :22.

Without even a somewhat respected combo deck, we see that the Midgame idea should be king of this format. This may be where any new and surprising new decks would likely generate. It is perhaps why Will subconsciously liked the idea of the white control deck"Pork", featuring the feared Blinding Angel. Mason's"God" deck was developed as a synergetic Midgame deck with the strategy of shutting down Fires, Blastogeddon, Rebels, and Skies - and has been eminently successful. A red/black Midgame deck that is viable likely exists - perhaps containing such elements as Nether Spirit, Smoldering Tar, and Jokulhaups, all solid elements of a Midgame deck. As there is no real Combo deck in the environment to threaten these Midgame concepts, their only worry was hanging in there with the cross-clock rivals in Aggro-Control. Perhaps this also explains why Nether-Go fell out of favor prior to PT: Chicago. Without a feared Combo representative, a deck like Nether-Go suffers, as its best matchup quadrant is not present in the environment.

GOD, PORK AND HATE

And no, the word"kosher" will not appear in this section. Except for that last sentence.

We already saw that simply because Midgame cries out for more options doesn't mean that just any Midgame deck will be viable. There were some major problems with the mono with control deck, Pork. As a mono-white deck, Pork is going to have problems with Skies, with Wash Out being a significant problem. Pork would clock at an estimated :12; while this is great against Beatdown, Skies slips into the half of the clock that beats Pork handily.

Skies will do the same thing to Pork as it would to Fires, jumping more efficiently to its own superior Midgame position. Another major problem is that Flashfires is a very pure form of hate - and due to the prevalence of Rebels and U/W Control, common in sideboards of decks with access to red.

Color-specific hate cards seem to arrive in two positions. One is that they assist in very horrible matchups against the decks that reside at the"worst enemy" position, fifteen minutes from your own. Fires' usage of Flashfires is of great assistance against the Midgame Rebels decks. As a side consequence, of course, it would hurt Pork as well. Following this strategy, Skies should have an effective sideboard card against the creatures lurking in the Beatdown range. Sure enough, Submerge is effective - and even free against green - and works against everything except the blasted 'derm.

Pork should begin with a pre-sideboard advantage vs. Fires. As a Midgame deck it needs to beat the Beatdown decks of the environment. From there, it would seem logical that the deck would need to be able to move towards Beatdown to combat Aggro-Control decks. In the case of Pork version 3.0, we saw the cutting of lands and the addition of a two casting cost creature. This was a mistake, for that small change still did not position the deck effectively.

The successful white control deck has to win the initial game against Fires and hope for the best that the damage from Flashfires can somehow be minimized in the subsequent games. Mason's God deck is more efficient at this than Pork, due to its relatively low mana threshold. Once God hits four land, two of them being plains, it can sandbag land and suffer no ill effects from a missed land drop. Rather than sitting on its heels like Pork, God takes things directly to Fires with a combination of creatures and disruption that creates threats, not merely answers them.

Pork needs to jump the Aggro-Control decks specifically. A transformational sideboard to reposition the deck would be a solution, and indeed initially that is where Longbow Archers resided when Will realized their effectiveness against Skies. After review, Pork could stand as many as eight cheap beatdown creaturse, including even Steadfast Guard or Fresh Volunteers. While this would take up a lot of sideboard slots, it may be warranted considering the popularity of Aggro-Control.

God, on the other hand, due to its already healthy measure of creatures, is able to consistently beat Skies, though it is a tough matchup. To combat this, God brings in four Citadels of Pain and four Urza's Rages. What this does is reposition God as a Beatdown-oriented deck. Skies variants without Troublesome Spirit find that Citadel isn't really an enchantment, but a three- or four-power beatdown creature each turn. Urza's Rage provides consistent damage and removal of all but the largest blue flyers.

This also helps to reposition God against Control decks, which are the bane of its existence. While it may be possible to win by bringing over a Lynx for a few turns, a Control deck that has four Air Elementals and a handful of protection is able to counter the removal effects that God possesses. Thus, a Citadel becomes a must-counter, and Rage is a finisher, as God swings more fully into a focus on dealing damage rather than absorbing it.

ANOMALIES

We would be remiss to close the article and pretend that it was a perfect system. The realm of theory is one that's not entered into easily, and as Mason always says, the only rule to which there is no exception is that there is an exception to every rule.

Examining the PT: Chicago results demonstrates a couple of them. While Skies' abuse of Blastogeddon (3-0) is attributable to the blue deck's Beatdown speed early, Midgame control, and constant threat of countering, there are other matchups that seem to make no sense at all.

For example, Nether-Go went 5-1 against Blue Skies at PT: Chicago. On the surface, that's quite odd. Apparently, the midgame strategies, often sideboarded in, of Wash Out (again), Massacre, and Tsabo's Decree are powerful enough to trump the early Skies Beatdown position.

Maher Tide's only two losses came against U/W Control. Again, because he featured so many Skies-esque creatures, he hurt himself against U/W Control. With a pure focus on the combo, he would have had a much higher chance of success.

CONCLUSION

Is the system perfect? Not entirely. But we like the idea of using Workman's Metagame Clock Theory of matchup strategy. It seems very helpful, especially in developing any metagaming or rogue strategy for a somewhat established environment. It enables you to measure what sort of deck might be most successful, helps you decide on synergistic card choices, and helps in making sideboard building decisions on ideas like"transformation" to"hate."

When you create a deck, examine how it will perform against different decks on the clock. Imagine how the strategies will evolve over the course of a game. After sideboarding, where will they be, and where should you be? Learn to position, and learn that the power of a sideboard can go far beyond picking a handful of color hosers.

Knowing how to play any matchup at any point, including mirror or near-mirror situations, is critical for success. We hope that this idea will help you as much as it has us in analyzing the decks that are out there, and building decks to beat them.

Will Rieffer with Mike Mason
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* - With much appreciation to all the members of"the List" that went unmentioned.