The early results are starting to trickle in and right now it looks like Fires of Outland has made a huge impact on the metagame. There are so many seemingly viable decks popping up not only in foreign Nationals, but also from the first weekend of FoO Regionals right here in the U.S.
A format this balanced does a few things to our potential deck choices. First, there doesn't really appear to be a deck to beat like this game has had since its inception. If there is one, it's probably solo Gorebelly, but there have been events where no Gorebelly decks made top 8, so while it's probably the top dog for now, the gap isn't as wide between first and second as it has been in the past.
One of the importnant thing from a deck choice perspective is having a deck as balanced as the metagame itself. In this new diverse metagame, a deck needs to be versatile enough to play against ally-based rush, ferocity based aggro, Alliance control, Horde control, solo control,and even solo rush (Telrander). Specific matchups will be de-valued and I don't think there's a deck where having a bad matchup against it means you simply can't play like we had with Phadalus before.
In addition to being versatile enough to handle a multitude of different decks, being comfortable with the deck you are playing will be more important. Knowing what your deck wants to do in any given situation will be critical to success. During the first round of Regionals, there were only about 5 truly viable decks, Grennan, Dizzy, Elendril, Sen'Zir, and Gorebelly. Of those 5, Grennan, Dizzy, and Elendril were easily the most popular. It was possible (and probably also beneficial) to simply test the main decks vs. each other over and over until you understood all the matchups inside and out. Since there were so few decks, this wasn't difficult. But with the amount of potentially viable decks out there today, knowing matchups will only be important for a select few matchups while knowing how to react with the deck you're playing to certain situations will be far more important. Knowing how your deck plays and what all of its capabilities are in any given situation will lead to more wins now than ever before. I think FoO will see an even bigger emphasis on play skill and the best players will win even more matches based on their superior play skill now.
Having said all that, we don't have a Regional within six hours this weekend so we'll have a serious playtesting session as we try to narrow down our deck choices for the tournament in Oklahoma City next weekend. I will be looking for a versatile deck that an handle a diverse field. Some of my initial ideas regarding both deck construction and deck choice are now in need of some slight revisions based on the apparent balance of the metagame.
