Penny Dreadful: Season 28 Analysis and Decklists

Summary:

Season 28

Week 5

5 weeks left for rotation

22 Events held so far

113 different players have participated so far

82 different decks played

We start this season with surprises during validation week. At first, with a problem in the bot that does the checking, several errors started when trying certain functions.

After solving these “small issues”, another problem was established: the validation rounds were not made available as always happened on the official website, which generated apprehension of what would be legal and frustration after the disclosure. Some cards were already dozens of times the expected value to be legal (0.02 tix), as in the case of Wheel of Sun and Moon.

The rotation ended and was released on 02/17/2023, as we could see in the graphic, people's sudden search for key cards (and which legal for the first time) made their prices skyrocket everywhere, even generating shortages.

Another star card that filled our eyes as soon as we learned about the rotation was the loved by some and hated by others, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis making its debut in the format with great style, as its entire combo was legal: Altar of Dementia debuting this season and Bridge from Below is available since the past season.

However, as we'll see in the Metagame numbers below, the deck still hasn't gotten the speed and consistency to become a concern, leaving just another example of the impact of not having the list available during the rotation:

We can stay here showing other examples, but let's continue with our article, hoping that it was a one-off problem in this rotation and if not, that the organizers understand that this can impact and demotivate those looking for a budget format (since Pauper is no longer that cheap).

With an average of 18 players per event, this seems to be a normal season, without many differences from the previous ones.

The Aggro decks mostly act as speed regulators, being closely followed by people who enjoy combo and finally the Midrange/Control decks.

Among the highlights of each archetype, we can mention White Weenie taking the place of Mono Red, with a strategy of quickly filling the board with small creatures and hitting hard as a unit, much like WW Humans / Soldiers from the current Pioneer or Standard, without certain stars that are not yet legal, however, with options like Champion of the Parish and good sideboard staples, which Mono Red lacks this season.

On the combo spectrum, we have High Tide, which carries the name of its main card. It is powered up by Gitaxian Probe, the new Founding the Third Path from Dominaria United in addition to the triad Opt, Ponder and Impulse that give the consistency to go off as soon as turn 3.

And last but not least, we have the Orzhov decks. In essence, they are similar, but BW Midrange differs a little from BW Control by the number of lands: while the first usually runs 21 to 23 lands, the second goes for 24 to 25 lands. But both seek to stabilize the game, making favorable trades to achieve victory.

With a good manabase that is usually always legal, Caves of Koilos, Isolated Chapel and Shambling Vent, plus the already known cards Vindicate, Tidehollow Sculler, Kambal, Consul of Allocation and Kunoros, Hound of Athreos, the deck follows the same cake recipe as the other seasons.

When looking at the results of the top 5 decks above, among them, already mentioned in the previous topic, except for Trickbind Dreadnought which tends to be a Tempo/Combo deck (if that exists), looking to make a small combo of playing Phyrexian Dreadnought and counter its own ability or make it phase out to have a 12/12 creature with trample on the next turn, which ends the game pretty fast.

If the “combo” doesn't work, the deck assumes a tempo stance with Delver of Secrets and Tolarian Terror.

With this list of 5 decks, we can basically see the tier one of the format, where we have 77% of the first places (17 of 22).

Only 5 other decks were ranked first and left out of this list. Of all the top8's, they make up 49% (86 out of 176).

In terms of the number of participants per deck, we can see that the first four greatest champions are also the four most played, but we can see that the win rates of the top three are above 60%. Azorius Control, Affinity and Red Deck Wins, which are usually in vogue, appear in a timid amount so far.

Speaking of win rate, these above are the decks with the highest rates, and we can see that all 10 are at or above 60%, counting the three mentioned in the previous chart.

Here we have an interesting fact: Orzhov Control which is among the top 5 decks with the most top8 has a 66% win rate, participating only 10 times and costing only 1 tix on average. Great numbers!

And since the format must be Budget, for our last chart, the top 10 cheapest decks also considering the win rate and games played (considering only decks with win% above 55% that had 5 or more games played).

In addition to High Tide, Orzhov Control and Trickbind Dreadnought already mentioned, we have a Mono Blue Control with 81% success, 3 different types of Izzet strategies with numbers equal to or above 60% and RDW with almost 59% of victories, is there not enough people to play with them?

As is already known (by many), the PD500 that marks the end of this season and, with 500 tix in prize money, is scheduled to take place on April 22nd.

Remembering that whoever wins a tournament in the season earns a Bye on the first round of this great event that is free and rewards even the top16 a large amount!

You can check out more information here.

Prizes:

1st -----------130 tix

2nd-----------90 tix

3rd–4th-----60 tix

5th–8th-----30 tix

9th–16th---10 tix

Prizes in credits on the Cardhoarder account.

Before finishing our article, I can't help but post the menu of interesting decklists played so far, maybe you can find a deck that you might like!

That's all, folks! I hope I gave a good overview of how we are in the format.

Write in the comments if you have any questions or if you have a suggestion. Until next time!