DTB Hate

[(nameless one)]

Hello Sourcers,

I would like to ask you fellow sourcers for hate cards that could help beat the current DTB (and some former DTB):

Before today's update, these were part of the DTB list:

-AggroLoam
-ANT
-Bant Survival/Survival Variants
-Dredge
-Goblins

with today's updated list, these were the remaining/added decks:

-CounterTop
-Merfolk
-Reanimator
-Zoo

With the possible hate available to legacy pool, I tried sorting them out based on what kind of hate I can use:

Aggrohate (Goblins, Dredge, Merfolk, Zoo): Moat, Spot Removal, Mass Removal, Prison Effects (Propaganda/Ghostly Prison/Elephant Grass)

Stormhate (ANT): Permission (Force of Will/Daze), Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Stackers (Rule of Law/ Ethersworn Canonist)

Gravehate (AggroLoam, Bant Survival [Loyal Iona combo], Dredge, ANT [Igg-lists], Reanimator): Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Wheel of Sun and Moon, Faerie Macabre

Enginehate: (Survival, CounterTop): Pithing Needle

Are there anymore?

If your local meta would look like the list of decks above, how would your maindeck choices look like? What will be your sideboard options?

Thanks in advance.

PS. I am surprised that Tempo Thresh is not on DTB. I guess its an end of an era.

[jrsthethird]

If your local meta would look like the list of decks above, how would your maindeck choices look like? What will be your sideboard options?

Thanks in advance.

PS. I am surprised that Tempo Thresh is not on DTB. I guess its an end of an era.

Choices depend on the type of deck you're running, obv. Depends on the strengths and weaknesses of your deck. For example, blue decks can generally skimp on combo hate more than non-blue decks because of Force of Will/Daze (on the play). Black decks have an edge on the play with discard (Thoughtseize, Duress, Inquisition, Therapy), but are still weaker. Also, running Dark Ritual + Sadistic Sacrament can completely wreck some combo decks on the play. This is why Zoo is so bad against combo.

I'm surprised that New Horizons wasn't noted there; that could be a reflection of the NE metagame but after winning SCG Seattle, no so much anymore. NH has pretty much taken the place of Threshold as the tempo deck of choice since it has a much better late game than Canadian Threshold while still keeping most of the same disruption and tempo package. Basically Burn + Mongoose becomes Knight + Terravore + STP, Spell Snare becomes Horizon Canopy (to support higher average CMC while not being dead late game draws), 2 flex spots are EE.

[Justin]

The way the DTB were determined for June 2010 was very lazy. Instead of observing a large number of tournaments, only seven were selected at random. An observation of only 56 total top eight decks is not large enough here to draw any conclusions about what the decks to beat really are. It helps even less when you are tooking at the tier-two decks. How many people really believe that ANT (arguably the best deck in the format) should not be considered a tier-one deck?

[mujadaddy]

How many people really believe that ANT (arguably the best deck in the format) should not be considered a tier-one deck?

Results talk. Show some. Not to me, to site admins.

[Bardo]

The way the DTB were determined for June 2010 was very lazy. Instead of observing a large number of tournaments, only seven were selected at random. An observation of only 56 total top eight decks is not large enough here to draw any conclusions about what the decks to beat really are. It helps even less when you are tooking at the tier-two decks. How many people really believe that ANT (arguably the best deck in the format) should not be considered a tier-one deck?

I'll be the first to admit it was pretty lazy. Mainly, I was embarrased to see Aggro Loam still in DTB but not willing to set aside the several hours of time it takes to do serious number-crunching. At this point, a lazy though defensible update is better -- in the opinion of the staff -- than no update at all.

In any event, we're currently discussing ways of getting resources to update the DTB with broad data, and do so regularly. I don't expect the way we went about updating the DTB this time will be the norm.

[Lord_Cyrus]

I agree with other posters that it's fairly embarrassing not to see ANT in DTB, when a quick look at the recent SCG Opens shows that the deck puts up similar results to Reanimator overall, while not making quite so many Top 8 finishes. This could mainly be due to pro's choosing Reanimator as the newer, more hyped combo archetype. Thank you Bardo for at least explaining what is going on with the new update. It was pretty disturbing just to see it happen without understanding why.

While the current update isn't ideal at all, something clearly had to be done as the DTB forum was getting so badly out of date that it was hurting the website, IMO.

Something to add to your list against ANT:

Hatebears as a category more closely describes the following cards: Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Cannonist.

Also missing is Thorn of Amythyst, which should probably be classed with Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere as Artifact Locks, which is how they are usually classed in Vintage.

Other reliable hate cards against Counterbalance are Qasali Pridemage (if he's in play) and Krosan Grip.

[clavio]

The way the DTB were determined for June 2010 was very lazy. Instead of observing a large number of tournaments, only seven were selected at random. An observation of only 56 total top eight decks is not large enough here to draw any conclusions about what the decks to beat really are. It helps even less when you are tooking at the tier-two decks. How many people really believe that ANT (arguably the best deck in the format) should not be considered a tier-one deck?

The DTB aren't "tier one" decks, they are the decks that are putting up the most results. ANT may be a very strong deck but few people are capable of piloting it correctly. You are much more likely to face a competent Merfolk player than a competent ANT.

[Justin]

I'll be the first to admit it was pretty lazy. Mainly, I was embarrased to see Aggro Loam still in DTB but not willing to set aside the several hours of time it takes to do serious number-crunching. At this point, a lazy though defensible update is better -- in the opinion of the staff -- than no update at all.

In any event, we're currently discussing ways of getting resources to update the DTB with broad data, and do so regularly. I don't expect the way we went about updating the DTB this time will be the norm.

Thanks for responding on this. I actually do appreicate all the hard work that you've done in the past for this site, even if I'm pretty unsatisfied with the recent DTB update. I would personally like to get a better feeling of what the top 10-20 decks are in Legacy over the past six months. The current update doesn't give them, because a bunch of decks have only one or two top eights. Tempo Thesh, for example, is a solid deck in Legacy that one can still win a tourney with (even if it's not quite a DTB anymore), but one would not know it by looking at the DTB update. A more comprehensive DTB philosophy update would also be helpful for newer players.

At one point, it seems that the updates included most or all of the large tournaments that reported results to this site. However, Legacy has exploded in popularity and now the sheer amount of tourneys makes the number crunching more difficult. A random sample is not a bad idea to deal with this problem, but I believe that it should look at more than seven tourneys. One idea might be to consider only tourneys that have at least 40 players (or 50 or some other threshold that makes the number crunching more managable). That way, you don't have to filter though so many reports.

[Nekrataal]

I'll be the first to admit it was pretty lazy. Mainly, I was embarrased to see Aggro Loam still in DTB but not willing to set aside the several hours of time it takes to do serious number-crunching. At this point, a lazy though defensible update is better -- in the opinion of the staff -- than no update at all.

In any event, we're currently discussing ways of getting resources to update the DTB with broad data, and do so regularly. I don't expect the way we went about updating the DTB this time will be the norm.

I won't moan about the update although it seems rather slack. Better to have it that way than live with a DTB that is long outdated. However at least the picked tourneys should have been mentioned. From the decks remaining DTB I assume a heavy local focus. Could you please mention the tourney locations?

BTW: I am not sure If you are in contact with Nihil about a much better approach for the DTB section.

[Lord_Cyrus]

I think my real concern about this update is the confusion it might cause for a less experienced player. If you play a lot of Legacy - then of course you can just put ANT and New Horizons in your testing gauntlet because you know you will be facing those decks at any major tournament. But somebody new to the format will have no idea about this, and see ANT next to Berserk Stompy or something. While those are both real Legacy decks, it's not very useful to see them lumped into the same forum for discussion, and definitely confusing for someone who has no idea what the playable winning decks are.

Also, the DTB Forum description implies that a deck doesn't need to be Tier 1 to be included; just tested, optimized, and producing results. Yet your methodology for the new update (10% of placings or higher) is clearly only going to identify Tier 1 decks as acceptable for Forum inclusion.

[Bardo]

Based on feedback from many site users, I've lowered the threshold for this DTB update from 10% to 5% of top 8 placements in my tournament sample. That moves both ANT and New Horizons (both holding steady at 7% each into the DTB).

This isn't to say that we're always willing to be swayed by popular opinion, but it's important that the staff is not so rigid and inflexible that we're above valid criticism. On a personal note, I think both ANT and New Horizons should be included in a testing gauntlet this summer (for the GP and other events).

PM me with any questions or concerns.

[Lord_Cyrus]

Bardo, I want to thank you and the other Admin staff for listening to the users. That takes courage to do. The DTB forum makes a lot more sense now, and I don't think many will find fault with it anymore.

[Svenanole]

I was listing off the top 6 decks right now in my head and sure enough, all of them are in the DTB.

Great Job!

[lordofthepit]

Ultimate hate card.