Odd question from a non beginner

Knighted · Joined: 22 Jul 2009 Posts: 46

What do you all mean by "meta". I've been playing for years, and this term gets passed around online often, and I'm just not sure what people are talking about.

clayparson · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 54

Metagame, from my understanding, is the term for the current environment in a given format at a specific time in a specific region or amongst a specific group of players. The metagame is comprised of the strategies and archetypes that one must be able to deal with to compete in tournament play in the format.

That's just my simplified take on a made-up term.

Hank333 · Joined: 23 Oct 2006 Posts: 304 Location: San Antoni

For example:

The metagame of these three places are all different:

Standard Magic-League
FNM @ Your Local Store
Standard MTGO

Then though the decks are all going to be the same format, the decks that the people around you are going to be using will be different.

Russell_Nash · Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 657 Location: Burn Ward

meta, is like a place holder the copies the word that follows:

Metadata is data about data

The Metagame is the game about the game (strictly speaking)

More to the point; Its the game of magic that exists outside of a singular 1 on 1 match. It is the data of a compilation of multiple 1 on 1 matches that you look and and use as information that goes beyond the game infront of you.

Its also VERY often used to refer to the competitive field at large. What deck archetypes are "in" and "out" by measure of popularity and success.