Metagame stats below for SQs, Challenges, and the combined metagame. I've separated them out to assess if they are actually different (spoilers: they are, but in surprising ways), and then pooled them at the end.
MODERN MTGO SQ METAGAME
Here's our SQ metagame, now updated to include 6 events and 192 decks. This is the top ~75% of the metagame, which we would historically consider as all Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks:
1. Bant Snow Control: 12% (23)
2. Burn: 8.9% (17)
3. Dredge: 8.9% (17)
4. Gruul Ponza: 7.8% (15)
5. Eldrazi Tron: 5.7% (11)
6. Temur Urza: 5.7% (11)
7. Amulet Titan: 5.2% (10)
8. Mono G Tron: 4.7% (9)
9. Humans: 4.2% (8)
10. Jund: 3.6% (7)
11. Infect: 3.6% (7)
12. Golgari Titan Ramp: 3.1% (6)
13. Mono R Prowess: 2.6% (5)
This is the same picture we've seen for weeks. It's either strategically balanced, if you don't mind AA driving fair decks and green driving everything but aggro, or an unhealthy mess, if you are tired of AA and green. This gets us into subjective territory that is a little beyond the scope of this metagame description. And here's our archetype breakdown across all 192 decks (not just the top ~75%):
Aggro Decks: 30.7% (59)
AA Decks: 27.6% (53)
Ramp Decks: 20.3% (39)
Midrange Decks: 16.7% (32)
Combo Decks: 3.1% (6)
Control Decks: 1.6% (3)
Again, we have strategic balance with a ton of interactive decks, as long as you don't mind the interactive decks being overwhelmingly green with many playing AA.
MODERN MTGO CHALLENGE METAGAME
We can increase N by adding Challenges. I've avoided adding Challenges to the mix because I think SQs are a more competitive selection of top-performing decks, but I realized this was an unchallenged (bahaha, that pun is so
bad good it might end up in a later article) assumption. We need to test this assumption. In that spirit, here are the Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks in the Challenge-only metagame (5 events, 160 decks):
1. Bant Snow Control: 11.3% (18)
2. Gruul Ponza: 8.8% (14)
3. Mono R Prowess: 7.5% (12)
4. Dredge: 5.6% (9)
5. Humans: 5.6% (9)
6. Jund: 5.6% (9)
7. Eldrazi Tron: 4.4% (7)
8. Temur Urza: 4.4% (7)
9. Burn: 3.8% (6)
10. Infect: 3.8% (6)
11. 5C Niv: 3.8% (6)
12. Death and Taxes: 3.8% (6)
13. Bant Snowblade: 3.8% (6)
14. Amulet Titan: 2.5% (4)
15. Mono G Tron: 2.5% (4)
For the most part, this list is virtually identical to the SQ metagame with a few place shifts. For instance, Prowess and Ponza are up, Dredge and Humans are down. Jund is up, Temur Urza is down. New entrants into the Tier 2 group include 5C Niv, Death and Taxes, and Bant Snowblade (the latter is admittedly just a Bant Snow Control variant). Meanwhile, the only deck the SQ metagame loses is Golgari Titan Ramp. Overall, it's a pretty similar list, which suggests the top decks in Challenges are basically the same as those in SQs.
But what about the lower performing decks? I've heard many players, myself included, claim that SQs are impenetrable for lower tier decks because they are so stacked with top-tier decks. We can test this by looking at the bottom ~25% of decks in both pools, i.e. the Tier 3 or lower players. This was the most surprising part of the analysis. For Challenges, Tier 3 comprised 23.1% of the format representing 27 unique decks with 37 total showings. For SQs, Tier 3 comprised 24% of the format (similar to Challenges) representing 34 unique decks (more than Challenges) with 46 total showings (also more than Challenges). If we adjust for the relative sample Ns (192 for SQs, 160 for Challenges), we find these are virtually identical with SQs still having slightly more Tier 3 or lower decks. This suggests to me we actually can combine these two metagames to get a pooled picture of MTGO Modern.
Finally, here's the archetype breakdown:
Aggro Decks: 29.7% (44)
AA Decks: 29.1% (43)
Midrange Decks: 17.6% (26)
Ramp Decks: 11.5% (17)
Combo Decks: 7.4% (11)
Control Decks: 4.7% (7)
The biggest difference between the SQ and Challenge archetypes is ramp vs. midrange. In the SQ pool, ramp is on top. In Challenges, it's midrange. Ramp also takes a pretty big hit between the two, dropping about 8-9% points between samples. This is actually a notable difference that might suggest we shouldn't combine SQ and Challenge metagames; SQs appear much more rampy. That said, Challenges are more comboy (7.4% vs. 3.1%). This makes me a little more hesitant to combine the two, but I think it's fine as long as we're also showing both the SQs and Challenges as separate metagames for transparency.
POOLED MTGO SQ/CHALLENGE METAGAME
Given the small differences in top-tier decks and archetypes (acknowledging the ramp/combo difference), and noting that SQs actually have more Tier 3 decks than Challenge, I feel comfortable merging the two. Here's our merged, N=352 MTGO metagame:
1.
Bant Snow Control: 11.6% (41)
2.
Gruul Ponza: 8.2% (29)
4.
Dredge: 7.4% (26)
9.
Burn: 6.5% (23)
7.
Eldrazi Tron: 5.1% (18)
8.
Temur Urza: 5.1% (18)
5.
Humans: 4.8% (17)
3.
Mono R Prowess: 4.8% (17)
6.
Jund: 4.5% (16)
14.
Amulet Titan: 4% (14)
15.
Mono G Tron: 3.7% (13)
10.
Infect: 3.7% (13)
11.
5C Niv: 2.6% (9)
12.
Death and Taxes: 2.3% (8)
13.
Bant Snowblade: 2% (7)
And our final archetype breakdown:
Aggro Decks: 30.3% (
103)
AA Decks: 28.2% (
96)
Midrange Decks: 17.1% (
58)
Ramp Decks: 16.5% (
56)
Combo Decks: 5% (
17)
Control Decks: 2.9% (
10)
My biggest takeaways from this are:
1. Bant Snow is definitely the current secret, not-so-secret best deck.
2. All strategies are generally represented and viable (minus combo, but it still has random spikes).
3. Fairer and interactive decks must play green. The only exception is lower-tier D&T
4. Ponza is a surprise top-tier deck. Whether you think Modern is healthy will hinge on whether you believe Ponza's rise is a healthy example of natural Modern growth or an unhealthy example of a warped metagame.
This post might develop into a longer article as we get a little more data. As always, feel free to provide feedback, criticism, and ideas.