You’re only as good as the best player you play against; that’s a statement I live by when it comes to card games.  That’s why I love to play against the best players in a game because even if you lose, you learn something. In addition, you’ll bring your game to a new level by surrounding yourself with great minds.  Teams consist of not only great players but great theorists and innovators.  Playing alone weakens your ability to grow as a player, and if you want to be one of the best, it’s good to play with others who want the same thing.  Let’s go over the importance of having a MetaZoo team.

Teams win more

Every competitive Collect-a-Con tournament was won by someone that was on a team. For example, Easton Evans of team Caster Society won Caster Cup 2022, and I was part of that team for most of the year.  If you ask Easton, he will tell you that his success was helped by having a great group of players he practiced with. In addition, we increased the number of people on the team for deck testing leading up to the Caster Cup.  More heads played a pivotal part in the entire team doing well at the Cup.  Our Cup team took home almost half of the $250,000 prize pool.  

Data is the key

The more heads you have, the more you can run matchups against each other and figure out what wins. A team spreadsheet is essential when figuring out what is good or wrong. When figuring out a format, you must farm as much data as possible. A spreadsheet showing what decks do well against other decks is pivotal.  You can also discover what card ratios are needed in certain matchups. You can do this without a team, but it takes more time, and a metagame can evolve over a few weeks. Once you collect that data, you can continue to the genuine fun part, testing the deck brews.  

It boils down to Brewers and Tuners.

There are two types of players, Brewers, and Tuners. A Brewer brings new ideas to the table. Every new deck that pops up in a format has at least one brewer behind it. Brewers are some of the most creative players in the game. Decks from the past, such as Loveland Lockdown and Gassy Combo, have all had a Brewer behind them. Brewers are the ones that come up with the best decks, but then Tuners maintain them.

A Tuner takes a brew and tweaks the numbers on some cards for the metagame.  A deck tuner doesn’t just tune new decks but can do so with current decks.  An example would be Lightning decks that are currently running Radioactive Hornets because of the resurgence of Water.  Tuners have taken a present archetype and tuned it for the current metagame.  It is important to note that a team should have more tuners than brewers because the tuners will generally be more of the high-finishing players.  Not to say brewers aren’t good; they like to play the off-the-wall stuff more often than a metagame deck.  It’s just that Tuners have the job of knowing the metagame and what works in it. 

In conclusion

Teams are pivotal to success in this game because you can only do so much alone. Having multiple brains working in unison is the most optimal thing to do when it comes to solving a format.  MetaZoo has a good start to a team dynamic and will only get bigger and better.  With the Tower circuit having amazing prizepools, you’ll see many more teams pop up in MetaZoo.

Thank you all for reading, and keep flippin those pages!