People pop up time to time and use this term 'metagame.' What is that supposed to mean? I've played card games for years and not heard this term. Is this actually something, or is it something some kids made up when they played yugioh?

The metagame is bacically what is commonly seen at a tournament. It is the common cards and decks that are run in contructed tounaments. Yu Gi Oh definatly made the metagame popular with their staples.

Metagame isn't as important in YGO as in other games since everyone pretty much uses the same kinds of decks in that game.

Usually metagame is what works best with the current cards available and is used most often by many.

Think of it as your environment. In my metagame, there are mostly control decks (Water/Darkness, Water/Nature, and plenty more) with a few stall decks. I run a rush deck, and being there are a lot of blockers in the metagame, I will throw in anti-blocker cards to combat the decks in my environment. I wouldn't normally use Scarlet Skyterror or Paladin in my deck, but in my environment making a change like that might help the deck. It's all about adapting your deck to change and what is used around you.

Metagame is the reaction other player make to beat the best player's deck.

If the winning deck is all about speed rush - the metagame becomes blockers. If the winning deck draws lots of cards, the metagame tries to make them discard. If the winning deck is blockers - the metagame either becomes unblockable, taps blockers so they can't block, bouncrs them off the field of play, uses direct damage to kill them, or plays creatures bigger than the blockers.

And since we have no sideboards - cards like Stained Glass are metagame cards against Nature and Fire - but will be used as mana against the other civilizations.

Metagame means the the tournament scene in your area. Aka local tounrnament scene. It means the decks most played in your area. Metagaming means making your deck competitive in your area. Therefore, metagames differ from place to place. What is the top deck in your area differs from mine.

Card - Briad Claw
Deck - Fire

#### little kids and there Shobu decks, thats all I see and it gets really annoying!

it's the general tournament scene in your area. What types of decks and cards are used by many players, basically.

Fire is a very valid deck. I run one (you probably know, I'm like famous for it or something). I don't run one because Shobu runs one. I've actually only seen the show once. And if it's because there's that theme deck out, well people run mono black decks here because of the Kajudo or whoever deck.

META
Function: prefix
Meaning: [metaphysics] : more comprehensive : transcending <metapsychology> -- used with the name of a discipline to designate a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one <metamathematics>

See, I've always thought of metagame as the all-encompassing, upper-level tournament game. The deck types used by the majority of trully world-class players, etc. The prefix meta implies a larger scope than just your local game store, IMHO. Think of metagame as in YGO. There is one predominant deck type in the "metagame" - isn't there?

I'm not sure that a metagame for DM has shown up yet.

When you are playing the 'Metagame' you are pretty much trying to sum up how your deck build would fair vs the dominant builds out there & figure out a plan on how to break and win vs them. Since there is no sideboard available to you this will be hard to do since you have to incorporate the best overall build to counteract every possible competitive deck you might face.

Right now what seems to be the more popular nodes of construction is based around Control elements with varying civ pairings. With rush decks following strong right behind.

Maybe micro and macro would be more appropriate prefixes. :)

If metagame refers to your local tourny scene, then "local metagame" is redundant and poor grammer. Also, if that's the case, what is the larger, national and world tournament scene called? The meta-metagame?

I would just dub it "situational metagaming". Based on your situation, you will be tuning your deck differently, and thus be playing your deck differently based on that.

Sound good? ^^

I'll have to admit that there MIGHT be differences between local tournies and regional, national, etc. I just don't know if there would be a difference in deck composition. After all, if you go to a big tourny, you don't know what decks you'll face there. Your deck has to be competitive against ALL deck types - not simply fine tuned for a few local guys.

To me, that's the challenge of great deck-building vs. putting together something that only beats certain decks. That's what I would call the metagame.