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Should I join the Meta and try to outplay them, or should I go Anti-Meta?

What do you think gives you the best chance of winning?

Should I try to join the meta and beat them, or build a well-rounded (Anti-Meta) deck to stop them?

With some of the top decks looking eerily similar, it seems that many of the "top Players" have decided to beat each other at their own game. It often seems as if it is a race to build the best "insert typical decks here." This past year, a rouge deck won Nationals, I think that is awesome. The last time I played in a competitive tournament Tim Mierz's Gen/Romans deck came out of nowhere and did the same, both had a ton of anti-meta cards in it, think it will begin a new trend, or will most "top players" just try to beat each other at the same game, and every five years a rouge deck will win? lol

Thoughts?

Your answer is like the Redemption version of Inception lol

Quote from: jbeers285 on October 22, 2013, 10:43:05 AM

Thus your anti meta deck may become an early version of a future meta.

That's pretty much an oxymoron. First of all, if anti-meta becomes meta...then its countering itself?

Second, anti-meta can never become meta. If the meta reinvents itself, so does anti-meta.

He didn't say the anti-meta would the meta, he said the current anti-meta decks could be the basis for what the future meta would be.  At that point the titles on the decks would change, but the decks remain the same.  That's what he's pointing out.

I have always correlated anti-meta to mass defensive stun that shuts down the majority of the offensive meta. Adding in a Naz doesn't make a deck anti-meta, it means you added in a single tech against the meta. The Decree and Gifts are also there, yes, but I sincerely hope we're not now defining anti-meta decks as decks that splash these commonly seen arts/site in as tech.

I have always correlated anti-meta to mass defensive stun that shuts down the majority of the offensive meta. Adding in a Naz doesn't make a deck anti-meta, it means you added in a single tech against the meta. The Decree and Gifts are also there, yes, but I sincerely hope we're not now defining anti-meta decks as decks that splash these commonly seen arts/site in as tech.

Those are anti-meta techs, but certainly don't make the deck anti-meta, I agree.

Why I call it anti-meta is it not only beat the meta defense of the time (in a similar fashion, FBTNB), but the defense was there that could block FBTNB. Pretension was a great stall card against The Deck, and Balaam's was a good block against the Moses band that was so common. Cannot be Prevented soul made Night Raid and Just a Hireling useful, and Tenants Kill the Son was often a solid block against two card bands, if played on Proud Pharisee or The Entrapping Pharisee (another tricky card). This defense became massively popular this year because of it's speed and ability to block CBP (though CBP was already a pretty meta card). He had all the defensive (stall) power he needed to win games against The Deck, whereas they couldn't do anything in return.

Anti-meta generally correlates to defense, yes, but because Redemption is a two-sided game, I don't think it's fair to limit it to one alignment. Anti-meta in definition shuts down the meta, and that can be both offensively and defensively.