The nature of the Advanced metagame - Viper2
Many people keep ranting about stall/burn decks being the metagame since they suddenly lose the big cards to stop them.  Well, as my brother pointed out, anything relying on control cards is bound to lose to a beatdown sooner or later, so its not really about whether you run Stall/Burn or not.  I give you the real metagame breakdown:  Swarm decks, and decks to deal with Swarm decks.

Swarm decks
These get creatures out rather quickly, and because of the fact that torrential and tribe are the only real threats, they work wonders.  There's two big Swarm decks that I've seen:  Warrior and Gravekeepers.

**Warrior
You know the drill: 2 Maraudings with another Warrior to get 3 creatures in one turn.  Torrential can still whoop this method, but since its restricted, that's rather unlikely to happen every game.  Reinforcement of the Army and Freed (if you use him) snag even more.  This has major potential simply because the 4 star monster with the highest combination of playability and atk (Goblin Attack Force) and the most powerful threat to stall (Mataza) come coupled with field advantage (DDWL), hand control (Don Zaloog), and lockdown (Marauding and, more recently, Command Knight) all in easy to play creatures.

A subtype that I've been experimenting with (but haven't seen played) is Amazoness.  Marauding still exists, but you generally use Giant Rat, 3 Paladin, and 2 of every other Amazon besides Blowpiper.  Amazoness Spellcaster is THE biggest threat against straight beatdown and one reason to include Blowpiper in the sidedeck (oh look, you're at 0 atk and Blowpiper has your atk).  Amazoness Archers can kill an entire field if used properly (especially in conjunction with Command Knight), and Tiger easily gets to 2300 atk and provides a lockdown-ish situation.  Reinforcement gets you out of sticky situations as well.

**Gravekeeper's
Again, you know the drill: Necrovalley out, flip Spy to get something and tribute for Chief to get something back to have 3 creatures and your side of the field unaffected by Necrovalley.  Assailant and Spear Soldier, with Necrovalley active, are 2 of the most powerful 4 stars in the game (especially when used together).  Coupled with a searcher that can get the aforementioned out with 2500 defense to boot, a tribute that lets you get back a monster, a trap that's simply a better version of CotH for this deck, and Terraforming/Magic Reflector to keep Necrovalley from leaving for too long, this deck really has potential to win big.

Things that deal with Swarm
Stopping the attack, stopping the actual swarm effects, and simply owning the field are ways of dealing with the above decks.  Stall/Burn, New school Chaos, Hand Control, and just various Control decks do this nicely.

**Stall/Burn
Gravity Bind, Messenger of Peace, and Level Limit - Area B coupled with Stealth Bird, Solar Flare Dragon, Lava Golem, Des Koala, Wave Motion Cannon, and Spirit Reaper really get on people's nerves.  The downfall is, of course, Mataza, but many Burn decks run Nightmare Wheel and/or Mask of the Accursed anyway, which can somewhat handle it.  It really thrives because there isn't any mass m/t removal other than Heavy Storm, plus MST's restricted to one.  However, Dust Tornado is just as effective, plus people are using Nobleman of Extermination, which can really mess you up.  For the most part though, they'll sit with a Lava Golem while you sit with 2 Solar Flares racking up the damage.

**Chaos
Replace CED with Chaos Sorcerer and you still have a very effective deck.  Some key cards are gone, but every deck has to deal with that anyway.

**Hand Control
Spirit Reaper, Don Zaloog, White Magical Hat, Time Seal, occasionally Drop Off, and pre-negators ruin your opponents hand, which they need to keep a Swarm going.  Equips are usually run to ensure your creatures aren't smacked too soon, though Mataza can even be thrown in as extra control with those equips (and to provide a way through Stall decks).  I'm not sure if Dark Mimic would be used to further widen the gap in hand size, since its not tourney legal yet, but I'm sure some people will use it.

**Control of various sorts
Zombie, CCC, and many other variants exist to deal with both the Swarm element and any stall elements that occur.

Lastly, I'd like to point out Exodia does have potential in this format.  It doesn't really fit into a category other than 'win by any means' like OTK and Traditional decks with Yata like to do, but Emissary, the new magic that gets 2 normals back, and painful are plenty enough.  Also, for anyone interested, the Manticore/Card of Safe Return works 3x better than Gearfried, and only uses half the card slots (unless you consider Nimble a necessity for the combo, even though it should be in your deck anyway).

Paul Reinhardt
Paulwayner2@aol.com