[Discussion] The Impact of Decks That Win Large Tournaments

[klaus]

-Edited-
Reading the chitchat discussing the newest TS winner.dec (Dreadstill) I once more got the impression that decks that win big events have an enormous impact on the international legacy scene - way more than any other Top4er*

I even find myself browsing through recent winner lists on deckcheck.net thinking: "Wow this deck is TEH SHIT!", while the rest of the top8 doesn't make a comparable impression on me. Watching the Tournament Announcements and Reports Forum I realize I'm not the only "victim" who all too easily falls prey to the #1.dec aura.

Lately I tend to take a step back and figure: "Hold on. There are numerous factors that made that deck win/not lose that event". Here are some of them:
- The skill of the pilot: he may have won that thing with a different deck..
- The skill of his opponents: Might have sucked in average
- The luck factor...
- The meta game: was it a favorable meta?
- The matchups: good VS. bad
- the overall amount of the winning archetype at the event: 20%?!

Yet, even with that in mind I can't help being the semi-shortsighted subjective individual I am and "gaze at" the recently successful decks. :eek:
---
Illissius would agree it's a tough question to really explain Dreadstill's recent success.
Anyway do you guys assume the #1.dec impact can be analyzed in a way as to be able to draw conclusions from it?

Let us know what do you think?

Peace,
Klaus

*GeddonStax making Top4 is a much bigger surprise to me and proves the archetypes power once more (or does it?).

[Mirrislegend]

I have no idea what you're talking about. What is/are Champion.dec? Can you link to some?

[Jaynel]

I have no idea what you're talking about. What is/are Champion.dec? Can you link to some?

I think he's using the term "champion.dec" to describe the deck that won a large event. It's not a specific archetype or anything.

[Mijorre]

I think he's using the term "champion.dec" to describe the deck that won a large event. It's not a specific archetype or anything.

Either that, or it is a deck straight out of CoK that threatens to sweep us all away with its mighty furies of doom.

I do think, reading through the post, he means things like our DTB. Why do they wind up there? They win. What will newer players to the format do? They will go for those decks as a starting point.
An example of a Champion Deck would be Ichorid combo or any successful variant of ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh.

[Forbiddian]

I think it's the top 4 decks at Worlds (like the Gold Bordered deck thingy).

But he's more generally referring to fact that winning decks (of big tournaments especially) get a lot of attention, even if they won the tournament through luck (or maybe the deck was a metagame choice or the pilot was extremely good).

Then, because it has a shiny new thread and hundreds of posts, a lot of people might even start playing the winning decklist or archetype (again, even though it's not necessarily the "best" deck). If enough people continue to play the deck, then the deck will continue to show up as a "deck to beat." Since with so many people playing it, a few are bound to luck into the T8. This continues the cycle, etc.


Part of the strength of some decks is the rogue nature, or the fact that your opponents will not know which strategies to employ against your deck.

If a deck becomes a "deck to beat," the extra attention might slightly optimize the list, but it loses the surprise factor that probably let the deck T4 in the first place. Of course, most decks that T4 are actually good anyway, so I think this happens very rarely. I don't really see it as much of an issue.

As for why people only look at the winning decks? Obviously people don't look at the bottom 120 decks in a 128 Swiss -- I don't want to browse through 480 Piledrivers. I don't really see that it's a problem, though (only looking at the winning decks). Especially with MWS, you can look at more than a list of T8s and pick one, you can play around with the deck to see if it suits you, for free. You can look at the cool lists and then if it doesn't work for you, don't play it.

[klaus]

I think he's using the term "champion.dec" to describe the deck that won a large event. It's not a specific archetype or anything.
Exactly.
Also: edited.

at Forbiddian: thanks for putting my train of thought in a straightforward way :)

[Elf_Ascetic]

Everybody wants to win. Because most people can't keep winning (or failing) with the same deck over and over again, they'll be looking for a new, promising deck. I guarantee that a deck like Team America, just like Dreadstill, - brand new and promising will get incredibly popular.

That's why so much attention is paid to a new upcomming decktype. And of course, everyone remembers (or is repeadly remembered on) the deck that won a huge tournament.

The other side of this story is that a deck gets undeservedly hyped because of this. Of course, to make T8 at a 40 ppl event, all you need: 1 noob, 1 good round, 2 screwing opponents and 2 ID's. Any deck could do that. I'm not saying this happens all times, but it does occur sometimes. But hey, that's part of the game, and we all know it. To conclude, there's nothing wrong, as long a new and winning deck gets tested and discussed. Don't you, ever, just copy a deck and play it "'cause it won". Chance is big you'll fail.

[Rood]

The most insane draw engine in the format: Standstill combined with Counterbalance/Top alone is a huge reason for the decks success. It's a reason I don't see why more people play VoroshStill AKA UGB Gravedigger. It's just so controlling it's hard to hate on.

[Ebinsugewa]

It's a reason I don't see why more people play VoroshStill AKA UGB Gravedigger. It's just so controlling it's hard to hate on.

Cause you play in an area where that deck's two worst matchups are incredibly prominent.

[Shugyosha]

Its simply psychology as with celebrities for example. People always compare themselves with others to see where they are standing (socially). Winning tournaments comes with a higher or lower social standing within the very limited group of magic players. People either think "this guy knows what and how to play" or they are jealous. It's a bit more complex in reality with many shades of grey but I think this is it in the nutshell. It explains why people tend to look at lists and say "wow, what a deck" or "this guy's list is shitty as hell, its Landstill with Dreadnoughts... WTF he must have had some serious luck!"

[Illissius]

I dunno. It's not that Dreadstill won an event. It's that Dreadstill won an event populated by many of its biggest detractors after putting up results consistently for months beforehand. Seriously, you could hardly find a significant T8 without 1-2 Dreadstill in it. So this was sort of the nail in the coffin for the "Dreadstill isn't actually a good deck, its results can be explained away by bad metagames, luck, and such and such, la la la la la" theory of the world. In my mind, anyways.

In a more general sense, I don't know if 1st place decks have a disproportionate impact on the metagame and conversation relative to the rest of the T8ers. Aggro Loam with Aether Vial won two 60+ player events and placed in the finals of a third (IIRC), yet it hasn't caught on. Speaking for myself, I haven't noticed myself giving winning decks more attention than they deserve. (I usually scan through the new T8 lists at deckcheck.net and just sort of absorb the data.)

[Forbiddian]

Who knows what percentage of the field is playing Dreadstill, though.

If as little as 10% of the metagame is playing a given deck, it's not very impressive to see a deck from that archetype make the top 8 every time or almost every time.

Even if a mere 5% of the meta is playing a given (competitive) deck, we'd expect it to make the top 8 maybe 2/3rds of the time, given that a large chunk of the field is bound to be not competitive (either budget, casual, theme, etc.).


Decks that consistently make Top 8 appearances (like Goblins) but almost always scrub out are not good decks. They probably only made it to the Top 8 because a lot of players happened to be playing that deck so one of them lucked in. Although one goblin deck went 5-1 to make the T8 (or even 6-0), it's a safe bet that a lot of goblin decks went 0-2 drop or 2-2 drop.

A better measurement that's still accessible (the best measurement would be a list of every single archetype and the performance of every single user of that archetype) is records-after top 8. That way we can know precisely the records of all decks scored with that given archetype.

1 = 3-0
2 = 2-1
3-4 = 1-1
5-8 = 0-1

Also, it will give a good estimate of how the deck is doing relative to other skilled players and decks.



Unfortunately, good data is not available, because the metagame has changed since Shards of Alara, and records-after-top-8 requires a LOT of data to be useful.

To make records-after-top-8 useful, you have to keep in mind the changes from Shards of Alara and secondly how often a deck T8s. I said that decks that almost always place 5-8th are not good (like Goblins, no wins in the last 30 or so T8s). However, decks that rarely make the T8 might be inconsistent as well. To paint a real picture, you need to keep all these facts in mind (as well as how much the deck fits your style of play, the metagame that you're in, etc.).

EDIT: Actually, Goblins won on the 8th, but still.

According to: http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=Goblins&format=Legacy

In the last 30 top 8 appearances, Goblins won twice, came in second five times, placed third or fourth 7 times, and placed 5th to 8th 16 times for a record of 23-33.

By contrast, in its last 30 Top 8 appearances, Dreadstill went an amazing 36-25. Of course, both assume away draws because it's hard to tell if tournaments played consolation finals for 4th place (thus 4th is 1-2 instead of 1-1 and third is really 2-1) or if third is like 1-1-1 or something weird.

[Illissius]

While being disproportionately popular can indeed lead to more T8 placements, this is just as true of any other deck as it is of Dreadstill. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Dreadstill is more popular than all the other decks which are also consistently T8ing. Lacking this evidence, Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation for Dreadstill's performance is that the deck is good.

EDIT -- If you want to collect data about records once in T8, it's not so difficult. Just go to deckcheck.net's Legacy page (http://www.deckcheck.net/format.php?format=Legacy), which has a list of all the top archetypes on the right hand side. Clicking on one, you get a list of every top finish the deck has ever recorded, with the finish in the rightmost column. Simply add those up, 3 points for 1st, 2 for second, 1 for 3-4, 0 for 5-8, with some arbitrary number or date as a cutoff, and then divide by total T8s if you like. Then you can compare that result between different decks. (I'm about to head to sleep, so I'm not going to do this right now.)

I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to discard all the data implying that the deck had to have gone something like X-1-1 to have made T8 in the first place, though. But it's an interesting approach.

[TrialByFire]

*GeddonStax making Top4 is a much bigger surprise to me and proves the archetypes power once more (or does it?).

Except that it didn't make top 4

[Forbiddian]

While being disproportionately popular can indeed lead to more T8 placements, this is just as true of any other deck as it is of Dreadstill. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Dreadstill is more popular than all the other decks which are also consistently T8ing. Lacking this evidence, Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation for Dreadstill's performance is that the deck is good.


Dreadstill is actually quite popular, relatively speaking. It easily represents at least 10% of the metagame from the data that I've been looking at.

Its great performance, though, is almost certainly not attributable to its popularity, as it sports a shocking 60% win ratio in elimination matches, making it a contender for the best deck in the format (tied with Aggro Loam in terms of Elimination Round Win Ratio and losing only to a few choice decks with small sample sizes like AdNT which has a win ratio of 75%).


As for deckcheck.net, I'm way ahead of you and that's exactly what I did :-P.

If you were confused when I said that the data were unreliable, I meant that the metagame changed since Shards and there have only been maybe 5 tournaments since the release of Shards (not enough for an accurate gameplay representation). It will also take a few more months for people to adjust to the sheer boredom that is playing against TES.

[frogboy]

"Dreadstill isn't actually a good deck, its results can be explained away by bad metagames, luck, and such and such, la la la la la" theory of the world.

Like, just because a deck plays powerful cards and sometimes wins some games or tournaments or whatever doesn't make it that great. For example, there's no particularly good reason to play Vial in Loam, but since every other spell in the deck is awesome you probably win a lot of games anyway. Alternatively, because you're a Counterbalance deck, you win a lot of games because, you know, your opponent can't play spells, and a lot of your deck is sort of incidental.

[Rood]

. So this was sort of the nail in the coffin for the "Dreadstill isn't actually a good deck, its results can be explained away by bad metagames, luck, and such and such, la la la la la" theory of the world. In my mind, anyways.


I seriously think it's time to just accept the deck is good and move on. It's not a fluke the deck wins...it has really strong MUs across the board including most of the decks in the DTB forum. It beats combo, can hold its own against control, and can race aggro. I don't really see any reason anymore to call this deck bad, it's very solid.

[FoolofaTook]

The thing that people don't understand about Dreadstill is how strong it's card advantage engine is. It's a counter-based control deck that also creates real card advantage via Standstill and CounterTop. I think that's the biggest disconnect for the people who don't see it as a particularly strong tier 1 deck. They see it as a deck that invites two-for-ones by using StifleNought as it's main threat, without understanding that it earns those potential two-for-ones many times over during the course of a typical game through it's card advantage mechanisms.

[J.V.]

Who knows what percentage of the field is playing Dreadstill, though.

Dreadstill is actually quite popular, relatively speaking. It easily represents at least 10% of the metagame from the data that I've been looking at.
Although I agree with you that the deck has does see a good amount of play and is popular, at the source tournament there were only 5 people playing dreadstill and one came in 3rd and the other won. That's only 3.94% of the field.

The thing that people don't understand about Dreadstill is how strong it's card advantage engine is. It's a counter-based control deck that also creates real card advantage via Standstill and CounterTop. I think that's the biggest disconnect for the people who don't see it as a particularly strong tier 1 deck. They see it as a deck that invites two-for-ones by using StifleNought as it's main threat, without understanding that it earns those potential two-for-ones many times over during the course of a typical game through it's card advantage mechanisms.
This also brings up an excellent point Yes Stifle-Dreadnought is card disadvantage, but Standstill is card advantage so lets say you've played a dreadnought and stifled it, -1 CA, but you've also had a Standstill cracked +2 CA and for the sake of saying it you have a counterbalance on the board that has countered 2 spells, +2 CA there you have it, that's you synergy between the Standstill/Dreadnought it allows you to play a Huge must deal with beater and no go down on cards [(-1CA)+2CA=+1CA)]

[Deep6er]

Technically a Counterbalance that counters two spells is only +1 because you have to account for the Counterbalance itself.

EDIT: It's important to note that it looks like you're jumping through quite a few hoops to justify Dreadnought. In order to make up for the card disadvantage in losing him, you have to assume that you resolved a Standstill which your opponent then cracked. That seems like a lot of hassle. Why not play something that doesn't require your opponent to crack a Standstill just to make up for the card disadvantage associated with losing Dreadnought? Tarmogoyf is going to just be a one-for-one, and he's pretty enormous.

Also, what the fuck is the deal with not playing removal? That seems awful to me.

[Jaiminho]

EDIT: It's important to note that it looks like you're jumping through quite a few hoops to justify Dreadnought. In order to make up for the card disadvantage in losing him, you have to assume that you resolved a Standstill which your opponent then cracked. That seems like a lot of hassle. Why not play something that doesn't require your opponent to crack a Standstill just to make up for the card disadvantage associated with losing Dreadnought? Tarmogoyf is going to just be a one-for-one, and he's pretty enormous.

Standstill is 2 CA (1 card, draw 3). Removing Dreadnought with a single spell is 1 CA (2 cards removed by 1). Standstill provides more CA than removing Dreadnought does to your opponent.

[Rood]

Also it's safe to note that Dreadstill does run Tarmogoyf as well Dave, it just runs both monsters as a win-con.

EE is the only removal maindeck, postboard we gain access to E-truth, O-ring, K-grip. There's no room for it sadly in the main really :(.

[Forbiddian]

Not to mention that your "1:1" Goyf is irrelevant when he's staring down a Dreadnought.


The game boils down to your opponent's ability to dig a Swords or Disenchant effect (and you can usually just counter it). If you can resolve a Dreadnought and win a counter war against one spell, you win the game.

With Goyf out, your opponent has additional outs: Other goyfs, ghastly demise, vendetta, and complete immunity to damage-based removal. Dreadstill is basically a response to people skimping on durable removal in favor of going completely for stuff that kills Goyf. Dreadstill takes advantage of that.

EDIT: Whoops, obviously Smother is an out against both, late night posting ftl. Now that I'm paying more attention, Sword of Fire and Ice, Jitte, and Sword of Light and Shadow are outs against Goyf. Graveyard disruption is sometimes an out (although only relevant game 2 against Loam). I'm not saying that Goyf is unreliable, just that people are now prepared for seeing a 3/4 to 5/6 on the other side of the table and can often race that clock, meaning that YOU need to find the answer to their SoLSd Sea Drake instead of them finding an answer for your 12/12.

Actually, even Swords to Plowshares isn't exactly a 2:1. You get 12 life out of it, which can sometimes be relevant.



About me not knowing about the distribution of Dreadstill and then knowing suddenly (it's about 5-8%), I just looked at two recent tournaments. Of the reported decks, 5% were Dreadstill and then 8% were DS.

[frogboy]

additional outs...smother

I mean, one of the reasons we had Smother in the Demigod deck was that it would've been pretty embarrassing to kill a random Trinket Mage with Edict instead of their 12/12.


let's get up on cards so that we can give some away!

...

I really like how people are justifying Counterbalance as part of the reason they can play Dreadnought. In what games are you getting there with the lock and then losing because you didn't have your 12/12 as opposed to some sort of relevant spell and, say, a Tarmogoyf?

[Mantis]

The reason Dreadnought is good, is that he creates such a small timeframe for your opponent to find a solution. But that comes with a risk, if your opponent has the counter for Stifle or has the removal for Dreadnought then he gains cardadvantage. Unlike Tarmogoyf where the opponent has like 5 or 6 turns of chumping and digging for an answer, Dreadnought gives you 2 turns to dig AND cast a removal spell AND hope you don't counter it. So it's basically a risk/reward situation which some are willing to make and some are not.

Anyway, on topic.
I actually never look at what won the event. For a big event +50 player, I value a T8 appereance just as much as a win, because all it takes is a bad matchup, a few mulligans or a bad decision and you finish 8th instead of 1st. Whereas, the swiss is much more forgiving in that you can lose a match and still make T8.

[Rood]

You also have to look at alot of people can't pilot this deck correctly. When I have Dreadnought/Stifle in hand with no way to protect him I normally will never just throw him out there for my oponent to take the card advantage. I normally always have CB/Top or FoW to back him sometimes Daze. But Mantis basically hit in on the nail it's reward outweights the risk.

[frogboy]

I normally always have CB/Top

isn't your win condition pretty irrelevant at that point?

[Rood]

isn't your win condition pretty irrelevant at that point?

CB is easy to answer especially postboard...most of the time I'll lure out a K-grip on Dreadnought just so I can keep them under the lock.

[Artowis]

CB is easy to answer especially postboard...most of the time I'll lure out a K-grip on Dreadnought just so I can keep them under the lock.

So you're saying because opponents are retarded, dreadnought is good?

And by 'easy to answer' I'm guessing you meant to say - It forces boards to become mutated because CB is so ridiculously good at protecting itself from normal enchantment removal and broad sweepers like EE.

[Nihil Credo]

So you're saying because opponents are retarded, dreadnought is good?

Grip Counterbalance -> Die to Dreadnought
Grip Dreadnought -> Stay under Counterbalance lock


They don't look very retarded to me.

[TheLion]

Then, because it has a shiny new thread and hundreds of posts, a lot of people might even start playing the winning decklist or archetype (again, even though it's not necessarily the "best" deck). If enough people continue to play the deck, then the deck will continue to show up as a "deck to beat." Since with so many people playing it, a few are bound to luck into the T8. This continues the cycle, etc.


I think that is exactly the point. People don't even seem to consider less played decks, though they might be as good as a DTB. Then they take a DTB to the next tournament and less played decks never get their chance to shine.

Then, if a newcomer asks: "I am new to Legacy and want to play a control deck at the next Legacy event. What do you suggest?".
Everyone would probably answer: Play Landstill.
Other control decks either don't come to mind, or are seen as too bad, though they aren't probably.

I remember a time (~2005, when Legacy was new), when people laughed at you, if you said: "I play Landstill". RW Rifter and Angry Tradewind Survival were the Control decks of this time. Today people laugh at you, if you say: "I play ATS". Though I think there is no real reason, not to play decks like this. People are just in the believe those kind of decks are bad, because they are less popular and less hyped.

[Mantis]

I think that is exactly the point. People don't even seem to consider less played decks, though they might be as good as a DTB. Then they take a DTB to the next tournament and less played decks never get their chance to shine.

Then, if a newcomer asks: "I am new to Legacy and want to play a control deck at the next Legacy event. What do you suggest?".
Everyone would probably answer: Play Landstill.
Other control decks either don't come to mind, or are seen as too bad, though they aren't probably.

I remember a time (~2005, when Legacy was new), when people laughed at you, if you said: "I play Landstill". RW Rifter and Angry Tradewind Survival were the Control decks of this time. Today people laugh at you, if you say: "I play ATS". Though I think there is no real reason, not to play decks like this. People are just in the believe those kind of decks are bad, because they are less popular and less hyped.
ATS and Rifter are bad actually, these decks have evolved. We now have The Mighty Quinn to replace Rifter and Survival decks don't like anything like they did back in the day. You make the false assumption that people don't play these decks anymore is because other decks are hyped, but in fact people don't play these decks anymore because the agree with the general consensus that there are better decks. Most of the people that play Magic competitvely are not idiots, in fact most of them have an intellectual quotient that extends far above average. One of the charecaristics these people have is that they can make decisions for themselfs. That means they look at the decks available and chose the best one of them based on their personal preference, tournament result data and their personal testing. Now while people may like to play ATS and Rifter, tournament results and personal testing indicate that there are better alternatives.

Also take into account that a lot of things have changed in the metagame. Rifter and ATS are designed for a certain metagame which is no more. That means these decks might have become obselete or have evolved into other decks (sorry I don't really now the history of any of these 2 decks). Rifter and ATS are close to unplayable in their old forms and if you disagree feel free to prove me otherwise.

[Atwa]

I think the impact a winning deck has totally depends on the deck itself.

If Goblins, Threshold or Landstill would win a big tourney, it's win won't attract a lot of new players who will play it.

However, after the winning of Terrageddon in the Dutch Legacy Championship, a lot of players started to play it (if even for testing).

Established decks winning tournaments don't have a influx. New deck, Meta decks or real underplayed decks will attract at least some players who will start to test or even play it.

[TheLion]

I agree with you Mantis (and Atwa).
Maybe Rifter and ATS was a bad choice. Rifter was a meta deck against Goblins. I'm not sure if ATS was a meta deck, too.
But while most people know what decks are good, the impact of current Top8 is not neglectable. At least in my opinion.
What about Cephalid Breakfast e.g.? I rememeber when this deck was THE hype! Everybody talked about it. It was said, it was the new best combo deck. And this isn't long ago, maybe 1/2 - 1 year. It often Top8ed. And I can't believe that the few sets, that appeared since then, have changed its quality.
And now? Nobody talks about it, and I couldn't see much good results anymore.
I'm no expert, and I don't even know this deck's strength and weaknesses (maybe this deck was a bad example, too), but I think much attention to a deck come from winning (or Top8ing) a big tournament.

And yeah, Terrageddon is very good example.

[Forbiddian]

A large chunk of Magic players play Magic for fun.

They want to win, but they don't want to win with TES or Landstill, so they play more fun variants or more fun archetypes.

Infinite Combo Artifact or whatever looks like so much fun. It's like Wavethrasher + Grim Monolith + Power Artifact + Tizzium + Time Vault or something (if you don't know what the cards do, note that there are a bunch of different combos in there). With Transmute Artifact to get out the combo pieces. I dunno if it's a good deck, but if I had Time Vaults lying around, I'd certainly pick up that deck. And there's no way I would have heard about it if I hadn't seen it in a T8 on Deckcheck (somewhere in France or Germany or something).


T8 or T4 is often a way for new decks just to get publicity. I dunno if the OP is asking about that or the general stabilizing metagame that's seen when solid decks continue to top 8.

[TrialByFire]

I think the impact a winning deck has totally depends on the deck itself.

If Goblins, Threshold or Landstill would win a big tourney, it's win won't attract a lot of new players who will play it.

However, after the winning of Terrageddon in the Dutch Legacy Championship, a lot of players started to play it (if even for testing).

Established decks winning tournaments don't have a influx. New deck, Meta decks or real underplayed decks will attract at least some players who will start to test or even play it.

Agreed. See: Dragon Stompy when it first was released or now Team America since it Top 4'ed

[Mantis]

Okay, I do agree with you to some extent. It is true hypes occur and when a certain deck is hyped, most people don't really know what the new deck is about. At that point they can easily be manipulated because a deck they did not know all of a sudden T8-ed at a big event. Thus they need to develop their opinion on this deck and that takes time. Then the reason why the deck did so good gets discovered, the deck may just be very good and can be a new contender or the results were a fluke or got the results because a lot of good players played the deck. If the latter is true, the hype dies down. However, if the former is true, voila a new contender is born.

[Citrus-God]

I am still yet to see UG Madness make a Top 8 after Roland Chang won Legacy worlds with it. Seriously, that deck did blow, and the only reason why he won with it because he keeps good hands while all his opponents probably did something scrubby and keep shitty hands.

[Artowis]

Grip Counterbalance -> Die to Dreadnought
Grip Dreadnought -> Stay under Counterbalance lock


They don't look very retarded to me.

I'm glad we've established that the opponent managed to do nothing of relevance for the first 3 turns of the game to allow him to set-up not only CB-Top lock, but also Dreadnought-Stifle. Good to know.

Breaking the Counterbalance lock is difficult. Answering a creature, even if it a 12/12 (which is somewhat offset by the fact that it's an artifact as well) is typically far easier. Odds are if you've been forced to cast Krosan Grip something other than CB, or if feeling adventurous - the Top itself, you will likely lose the game anyway.

[Jak]

A lot of people seem to like to discount than to understand. The deck has done well at not only one of the largest and competative Legacy tournaments in a long time, but has put up numerous results for months prior to the tournament. People are still discounting the results...

I thought it was funny at first, until it placed 1st and 3rd and people are still actually saying that it is a bad deck. Saying Shatter beats it was funny, and I said it too, because it was but actually saying the deck is bad is even more LOLable.

I see this is a blue control deck with a ton of control elements that will defend from the opponent winning and switch into an offensive role that protects the two turn win. People complain about Landstill not being able to win due to time and weak win conditions. Dreadstill plays the biggest and baddest creature around to not only win, but win before the opponent can get back in the game after being Dazed, FoWed, Cbed, Stifled, and Wastelanded.

[thefreakaccident]

Having been one of the first people to discover dreadnought... I would like to make a few points:

1. decks containing him are inconsistent
-meaning that you will rarely run out the second turn dreadnought w/ protection... although you will rarely lose when you get those hands...

2. They cannot be over-reliant on the nought... you cannot have too many cards specifically for him, or you risk getting into trouble.

3. He is usually 2-3 times bigger than tarmogoyf... and w/ trample, they cannot simply chump him like other fatties.


Dreadstill has taken all these points/problems/strengths and made a very solid deck with them.

It is always funny to trash a person's deck out of fun, but there is such a thing as taking it too far.



NOW, on topic with what the thread should be about:

Do I think that winning decks have more influence on the meta than others?
- It depends, if it was a deck that people would expect to win, then no... but if it was unexpected, then perhaps, as it can lead to others looking deeper into it.



That is all.