Grand Prix Hype

[SpikeyMikey]

I've always been irritated with how religiously some people follow tournament results. I saw the following post (in reference to CB/SDT) in the GP T8 adept thread:


Yes, but the two decks playing them went 1/2. That says something about the strength of the card vs. the field.



Not to pick on Nightmare (sorry buddy), but this seems as greatly overrating the importance of placement. The difference between the guy in first place and the guy in 78th place could be as small as the difference between topping a land and topping something other than mana in one game in one match. That guy in 78th place could've easily had a better deck, but just didn't draw when he needed it.

Sometimes, that's part of a deck's success. As many people have noted, Chalice aggro decks, like Dragon Stompy are well known for crapping out on draws sometimes, but even consistent decks can sometimes draw poorly in two consecutive games.

How many people that ended up 6-3 or 6-2-1 on day one could've had a legitimate shot at T8 if they'd made day 2?

How many of those T8 matches could've went the other way?

How many slightly subpar decks made day 2 on the strength of their bye schedule?



Now I'm not saying that doing well at a high-profile tournament is bullshit, obviously, these decks are all competitive. I just think that too much importance is placed on final rankings. As if the guy in first place had a deck that was just leagues better than the guy in second place. Or the guy in 8th place. You don't really start seeing large jumps in power level until you get well into the lower half of the tournament, at a tourney with that many people, I'd say everyone in the top 400 was probably playing a pretty competitive deck.

Am I the only one out here that feels that too much weight is placed on placement in single events?

[freakish777]

Am I the only one out here that feels that too much weight is placed on placement in single events?

No, that's why you look at the make up of the Day 2 decks. We can't know what all 1200+ decks were on Day 1, but we can assume that with that many decks, a fairly even make up of decks were represented. Therefore if Deck X only had one person playing it Day 2, and Deck Y had 12 people playing it Day 2 (one of which T8'd), if our first assumption is correct (that roughly the same number of people played Deck X as played Deck Y on Day 1), then we have to also assume that Deck Y is "just better" against the field.

Now if our first assumption is incorrect, we still have to assume that less than 12 times the people chose Deck Y as chose Deck X, and that Deck Y is still "a little better (at least)" than Deck X against the field.

An example would be Pro Tour Tinker. About 1/3rd of the field showed up playing Food Chain Goblins, the deck was busted (and fueled by Goblin Recruiter + Goblin Ringleader), but at the end of the Day the deck simply was half a turn slower than Tinker decks, and decks featuring 4 Tinkers made up 7 of the Top 8 slots, with a Psychatog Deck taking the other slot. A full 3 of those Tinker decks were "Tinker into Goblin Charbelcher (or just hardcast it), Vampiric/Mystical Tutor for Mana Severance and play it, kill you." Tinker decks were not as popular as FCG, but they were "just better."

People like looking at placement, but in reality the way to go is to look at what the decks were that made Day 2. A player with Deck Z that went 6-2 on Day 1 and then drew poorly in the final match and missed Day 2 is very unlikely to be the only person playing Deck Z. So if it was just luck, and he/she only had a 20% chance of drawing poorly in that round, and 4 other players piloted that decks to a 6-2 or better record, then likely the other 4 should have drawn better and had a fighting chance at least to make Day 2.

Lastly, if you feel a deck is highly underrated, then take it to tournaments and start winning with it already.


At the end of a tournament, a combination of "Best Player" + "Best Deck" is more likely to win the tournament than anyone else. And I'm pretty sure Wizards wants to keep it that way.

[Peter_Rotten]

Just to further fuel the discussion:

It seems that at the GP, ONLY 1 deck played Hippie. And that deck made top 8. Whoa-boy. What does that end up telling us about Hippie? What about the deck with Mesmeric Fiend?

[citanul]

What distorts the results at a GP the most are the Bey's. A player with a good rating or has gotten his through another way will be up 3-0. This means that while he/she builds his/her deck they do not have to fear facing random junk and are able to tune their deck against the best decks.

While that tuning is the best, it is not reality in other tournaments where you will face several tier2, maybe tier3 decks. Those decks might play a higher curve and get around your Counterbalance easy, they might play something unexpected and win with it. You won't have that at 3-0 at a GP or a very small chance anyway.

This does not mean we have to ignore the results though.

[SpikeyMikey]

No, and I'm not suggesting that we ignore results. I've just seen people say "well X is obviously the best because it won Y" and I think that's a fallacious argument. X might be very good, but then again, I remember when Battle of Wits won a States. It was some out of the way state like NM or something, but a 250 card deck still won at a serious high level tournament. I think good placement in a tournament is an indicator of a deck's power level, but it's not proof. By contrast, failure to place is an indicator of a deck's lack of power, but not proof.

I think that byes, more than allowing someone to skip early jank, allow people to skip luck. You're far more likely to get shitty hands and poor draws 2 games in a row in a 9 match series than you are in a 6 match series. I'd hazard a guess at roughly 33% more likely. ;)

In any case, Freakish, I'm not concerned about any one deck or deck type. I played 4c Landstill because I had 95% of the decklist already and didn't have to spend much on it, and I've more or less retired from the game. I was just speaking in generalities. Magic is more volatile than poker is sometimes with the way finishes and hot streaks go, which makes looking at only the T8 wrong in my book.

Peter's post made me smile. I remember throwing up a little in my mouth when I saw the Mesmeric Fiends in that list. I can see why he would run them over Sculler in a list with Ritual, and I can see the targeted aspect being more powerful than Ravenous Rats or Corrupt Court Official, but really, in a format with this much removal, Mesmeric Fiend? I'm not buying it... :P

[Afro]

Peter's post made me smile. I remember throwing up a little in my mouth when I saw the Mesmeric Fiends in that list. I can see why he would run them over Sculler in a list with Ritual, and I can see the targeted aspect being more powerful than Ravenous Rats or Corrupt Court Official, but really, in a format with this much removal, Mesmeric Fiend? I'm not buying it... :P

If your opponent is wasting their removal spells on your Fiends, you have already won.

[juventus]

No, and I'm not suggesting that we ignore results. I've just seen people say "well X is obviously the best because it won Y" and I think that's a fallacious argument. X might be very good, but then again, I remember when Battle of Wits won a States. It was some out of the way state like NM or something, but a 250 card deck still won at a serious high level tournament. I think good placement in a tournament is an indicator of a deck's power level, but it's not proof. By contrast, failure to place is an indicator of a deck's lack of power, but not proof.

I think that byes, more than allowing someone to skip early jank, allow people to skip luck. You're far more likely to get shitty hands and poor draws 2 games in a row in a 9 match series than you are in a 6 match series. I'd hazard a guess at roughly 33% more likely. ;)

In any case, Freakish, I'm not concerned about any one deck or deck type. I played 4c Landstill because I had 95% of the decklist already and didn't have to spend much on it, and I've more or less retired from the game. I was just speaking in generalities. Magic is more volatile than poker is sometimes with the way finishes and hot streaks go, which makes looking at only the T8 wrong in my book.

Peter's post made me smile. I remember throwing up a little in my mouth when I saw the Mesmeric Fiends in that list. I can see why he would run them over Sculler in a list with Ritual, and I can see the targeted aspect being more powerful than Ravenous Rats or Corrupt Court Official, but really, in a format with this much removal, Mesmeric Fiend? I'm not buying it... :P

I think it's a very sound argument to say that X is right, or at least damn close to right, if it gets to the top 8 of a 1200+ person tournament. Your point about BoW winning states has nothing to do with this, since winning states in the easiest state is nothing even remotely similar to doing well in a 1200 person grand prix. There is obviously no way to "prove" that a deck is good or bad, so why do you even mention that results don't prove anything?

Mentioning the fact that you are more likely to get shitty hands two games in a row when you don't have byes is both obvious and irrelevant. For any given matchup you have some chance of winning the match, and that probability takes into account the time where you "get shitty hands and poor draws 2 games in a row." When you get byes your probability of winning the first three rounds changes to 1. No luck is being skipped; that doesn't even make sense.

Mesmeric Fiend is great against ANT btw.

[SpikeyMikey]

Juv: It's eminently relevant. Making day 2 depends on having a very solid record day 1, especially at a tournament that large. Luck is a pretty big factor in that. For ease of understanding, let's extrapolate a little bit. Let's say that in order to make day two, you had to go 50-2-0. Whether you have the absolute best deck or not, hitting that bar is going to require luck, and a lot of it. 45-2-0 requires less luck, but you still have to be pretty damn lucky. Even a good deck is going to crap out more than twice on average over 47 matches. You can pare that number back again and again and each time you bring the win %age down, you decrease the importance of luck, but it's ALWAYS a factor. The difference between the guy in 3-4th place and the guy in 32-64th is probably no more than a single play error that cost an otherwise winnable game. One amazing topdeck on their opponent's part. One mul to 5.

Sure, making T8 says something about your deck, but it doesn't say that your deck is leagues better than anything else that made day 2. It doesn't necessarily say that it's leagues better than something that failed to make day 2. All it takes is one terrible matchup and a mediocre one or your deck crapping out to take you from a perfect record contender to the guy that's out in town seeing the sights on day 2.

That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the T8 is always bullshit or that people who perform well are just lucky, I'm saying that a single tournament is an arbitrary yardstick to measure performance by because bullshit DOES happen and some performers ARE just lucky. Saying "deck x T8'd at Chicago so therefore it's a good deck" is like saying "I kept 2 7 off and flopped a tournament winning boat, so it must be good".

[juventus]

If you understood probability you would know that if there was a tournament where you had to go 50-2 to make day 2, then not a single deck would make day 2. Additionally, you would understand that the effect luck has on you gets smaller and smaller as you increase the number of games played. If your placing in the tournament was dependent on one game luck would play a huge role compared to if your placing in a tournament was based on 52 matches. You seem to think that more luck is involved in a 52 match tournament for some reason.

I mean sure, I agree that a deck that is 1-6 points behind the top 8 is probably just as good as a deck in the top 8, and a small bit of luck can be the difference between a top 8 and a top 32. The fact still remains though, that it is very statistically likely that a deck that made the top 8 is both a top tier deck (versus the chicago meta) and had a great pilot. Similarly, it is very statistically unlikely that a deck that made the top 8 was consistently "lucky" throughout the tournament and made top 8 through consistent topdecking or something.

Over that many rounds of play the topdecks and the mana screws, the good mathcups, the bad matchups, etc. etc. even out, and the decks that have the highest probability of winning matches make it to the higher places.

[sunshine]

If you understood probability you would know that if there was a tournament where you had to go 50-2 to make day 2, then not a single deck would make day 2.

This is false. You would need a ridiculous number of people, but it is mathematically possible if we restrict the number of people that we want to be present for day 2 but don't limit attendance.


Additionally, you would understand that the effect luck has on you gets smaller and smaller as you increase the number of games played.

It does seem like sound logic that effects of luck (if we believe in such a thing) play a smaller role in your eventual outcome if you play more rounds. However, if we accept that in every game you play you have the same chance of "being unlucky" and that you must go x-2 to make day 2 (and that "being unlucky" translates directly into game losses) then clearly playing more matches increases the statistical likelihood that you will have 2 losses at the end of the day. This might mean that in large events like GPs the decks that make day 2 are those that are designed to be more consistent, i.e. designed to be unlucky less often - which is certainly a factor one should consider when deciding what makes a deck good, imo.

[juventus]

This is false. You would need a ridiculous number of people, but it is mathematically possible if we restrict the number of people that we want to be present for day 2 but don't limit attendance.


Obviously anything is mathematically possible. It's mathematically possible for someone to go 1000000-0. The point is, in order to go 50-2 you would need to have a deck with roughly a 96% win percentage against the field, which luckily does not exist.



It does seem like sound logic that effects of luck (if we believe in such a thing) play a smaller role in your eventual outcome if you play more rounds. However, if we accept that in every game you play you have the same chance of "being unlucky" and that you must go x-2 to make day 2 (and that "being unlucky" translates directly into game losses) then clearly playing more matches increases the statistical likelihood that you will have 2 losses at the end of the day. This might mean that in large events like GPs the decks that make day 2 are those that are designed to be more consistent, i.e. designed to be unlucky less often - which is certainly a factor one should consider when deciding what makes a deck good, imo.

Really? playing more matches makes it more likely to lose 2 matches?

Call it what you want, call it decks that are more consistent, call it decks that are unlucky less often, I'm just going to call them decks that win more and therefore are better.

[Nihil Credo]

The point is, in order to go 50-2 you would need to have a deck with roughly a 96% win percentage against the field, which luckily does not exist.

That's not how it works - nor, I think, the point sunshine was making. If you bring more than 2^50 people to a tournament and set a 150-point cutoff (so that nobody draws), you are guaranteed to get at least one 50-0 player, even if everyone brings the same deck.

I agree with you on the other point: more matches played = more significant final standings.

[juventus]

Well generally there are a sufficient number of rounds relative to the number of players such that it's not guaranteed that someone goes undefeated.

2^50 (according to my calculator) is equal to 1,125,899,906,842,624 so I guess if you had that many people, sure, someone would go 50-2. What would you expect to see from the decks that go 50-2 or better? I would argue that those are the best decks with the highest winning percentages, while SpikeyMikey is arguing that those would be the decks that were the most lucky.

[matelml]

A deck that has a 50% winpercentage can go 50-2. It just needs some luck. Not only "can", but will if you let it play enough rounds.

There are two things here: the chance someone was just lucky and his deck isn't actually any good, but still made T8 at the GP is not very big, but certainly there. Also his deck is most likely not the very best list possible, for both all decks in general and his specific type of deck. This is because it's practicaly impossible to get a very best list, including Sb. However, this isn't a problem, a very good list is fine. Still with logics and experiance, it's possible you can improve the deck.

The other is that the more rounds you play, the less luck is a factor, because the luck factor is easily diminished by a few play mistakes.

So eventhough you need more luck to go x-2 when x gets higher, luck plays less of a role when comparing decks and players to eachother. Could someone explain this better?

[Occam]

A deck that has a 50% winpercentage can go 50-2. It just needs some luck. Not only "can", but will if you let it play enough rounds.

There are two things here: the chance someone was just lucky and his deck isn't actually any good, but still made T8 at the GP is not very big, but certainly there. Also his deck is most likely not the very best list possible, for both all decks in general and his specific type of deck. This is because it's practicaly impossible to get a very best list, including Sb. However, this isn't a problem, a very good list is fine. Still with logics and experiance, it's possible you can improve the deck.

The other is that the more rounds you play, the less luck is a factor, because the luck factor is easily diminished by a few play mistakes.

So eventhough you need more luck to go x-2 when x gets higher, luck plays less of a role when comparing decks and players to eachother. Could someone explain this better?

Very simply put in a nutshell, you DO need more luck to go X-2 when X is increasing. However, the overall effect that luck has on your performance with an increasing number of games decreases. IE if you play 100000 matches against the same deck and win 50%, it is much more likely that the winning percentage is robust, as compared to playing 2 matches instead, with the same winning percentage. That doesn't apply when you are setting a threshold number of matches your deck must win, in which case luck certainly plays a role, unless your deck's winning percentage as a whole against the gauntlet which you face tends towards the same threshold percentage.

[mujadaddy]

The difference between the guy in first place and the guy in 78th place could be as small as the difference between topping a land and topping something other than mana in one game in one match. That guy in 78th place could've easily had a better deck, but just didn't draw when he needed it.No. Just...no.

#78 might have a COOLER deck, but he self evidently didn't have a BETTER one.


even consistent decks can sometimes draw poorly in two consecutive games. True, but more consistent decks will draw more goodness more often.


How many slightly subpar decks made day 2 on the strength of their bye schedule?Byes are bullshit, imo.

Am I the only one out here that feels that too much weight is placed on placement in single events?The difference between #15 & #8 is rather arbitrary, unless they faced each other. In a perfect world, there would be more matches, but hey, linear time.

[Nihil Credo]

So eventhough you need more luck to go x-2 when x gets higher, luck plays less of a role when comparing decks and players to eachother. Could someone explain this better?

The best way I know of (easily attainable via a simple google search, too):

http://xs138.xs.to/xs138/09144/b875.jpg

[SpikeyMikey]

Well generally there are a sufficient number of rounds relative to the number of players such that it's not guaranteed that someone goes undefeated.

2^50 (according to my calculator) is equal to 1,125,899,906,842,624 so I guess if you had that many people, sure, someone would go 50-2. What would you expect to see from the decks that go 50-2 or better? I would argue that those are the best decks with the highest winning percentages, while SpikeyMikey is arguing that those would be the decks that were the most lucky.


You're looking at it as if it has to be lucky or good. X or Y. The reality is more like Luck*Skill*Deck; the people who have the highest total (yes I understand it's not humanly possible to quantify those factors proportionally to their importance, but that's the basic gist of it) are the ones at the top of the tournament. If we've got decks that are similar in power level, but you're luckier, better or both, you're going to do better in the tournament.

You don't need a deck with a 96% win percentage against the field to go 50-2. Do you mean to intimate that no deck with 50% matchups against the field has ever done better or worse than X-X-0? Yes, the longer the tournament goes on, the more closely the results will mirror a deck's %age against the field, but even so, it's a bell curve. You're going to always have those decks at the far end one way or another.

To Muja: As far as it being self-evident that the guy in 78th had a worse deck in 1st, I'm just not seeing it. There are any number of reasons why the best deck in the tournament wouldn't take first place. That was my entire point. It's not a matter of which deck is more consistently lucky either, because it's well known that Dragon Stompy has a penchant for crapping out. Any Chalice aggro does. And yet...

[juventus]

You don't need a deck with a 96% win percentage against the field to go 50-2. Do you mean to intimate that no deck with 50% matchups against the field has ever done better or worse than X-X-0? Yes, the longer the tournament goes on, the more closely the results will mirror a deck's %age against the field, but even so, it's a bell curve. You're going to always have those decks at the far end one way or another.


You're right, you don't need a deck with a 96% win percentage to go 50-2, but if your deck has a 50% win percentage against the field, the chances of you going 50-2 are 52*51*(.5)^53 or essentially zero (it's probably more relevant to look at the probability of doing 50-2 or better, but either way it is negligibly small). If you rig it so that someone has to go 50-2 because you have an amount of participants magnitudes greater than the number of humans living on earth, then sure, some people with 50% win percentages will go 50-2.

So under these conditions, I agree, looking at the people that go 50-2 is no help because they were simply luckier than everyone else. But is your argument that magic is largely based on luck and all decks have roughly 50% win percentages? I believe that decks have varying win percentages and the better decks rise to the top of the standings, as opposed to the decks that are luckiest rising to the top of the standings. I of course admit luck plays some role, but the more rounds you play in the tournament, the less of a factor luck will play (unless you believe magic is all luck).

[SpikeyMikey]

You're right, you don't need a deck with a 96% win percentage to go 50-2, but if your deck has a 50% win percentage against the field, the chances of you going 50-2 are 52*51*(.5)^53 or essentially zero (it's probably more relevant to look at the probability of doing 50-2 or better, but either way it is negligibly small). If you rig it so that someone has to go 50-2 because you have an amount of participants magnitudes greater than the number of humans living on earth, then sure, some people with 50% win percentages will go 50-2.

You see my point then. If you have the ungodly large amount of participants, someone HAS to go 50-0 (1.125*10^15 or more participants). That theoretical person probably has a good deck, but he or she also has to have a retarded amount of luck and would have to be a great pilot. Now if the tournament had enough participants that someone had to go 40-0 ( a mere 1.1 trillion people), I think we can all agree that you wouldn't need as much luck to avoid mana screw, bad pairings, et al. for 40 rounds as you would for 50, but you'd still need a metric ton of luck.

I'm not saying that the top decks are just luckier decks, but I'm saying that it's not purely a construction thing either. Or a playskill thing for that matter. Obviously some decks have better matchups all around than other decks, and some decks have better matchups against the most popular decks, but that you can't take the final standings as an absolute measure of a deck's worth because you can't get an accurate picture of how good a deck is from a single listing in a single tournament.

Also, the more rounds you play, the more your luck will tend to average out, but there are going to be people on "lucky streaks" and those players, as long as they're playing with competitive decks and are good pilots, are going to outperform people of the same or slightly better skill levels with decks of the same or slightly better power level. It would only be improbable if that *didn't* occur, especially at an event the size of GP Chicago. With a sample that large, I'd put fat stacks of money on the idea that someone was far outperforming their deck and playskill level because of fortuitous pairings and topdecks.

Again, I'm not saying that luck is the primary factor in everyone's results, but no matter how good you are and how good your deck is, at an event that large, where such a small percentage even makes day two, you have to be lucky. Just a hair over 10% of the people who came made day 2, and you can't tell me that everyone that made day 2 had a deck that went 89.5% against the field as a whole. Most of them had good decks, most of them were good pilots, but all of them were luckier than average. There are a fair number of decks, I'm sure, that had they been just a little luckier on day 1, would've made day 2. Some decks that made day 2 are weaker than some decks that didn't. Some decks in the T8 are, objectively, weaker than some decks that did not make T8. I'm not saying all or most, just a large enough portion that you can't ignore them. Saying that CB/Top is strong against the field because CB/Top ended 1 and 2 respectively is a poor argument. CB/Top may be strong against the field, but that's not the proof that we should be looking for. That's what started the whole thread.

[juventus]

How many people that ended up 6-3 or 6-2-1 on day one could've had a legitimate shot at T8 if they'd made day 2?


I think no one, because the top 8 consisted of people that went 12-2-1 or better and a person that went worse than 7-2 on day one would have worse breakers.

Also, after the 9 rounds on day 1, I disagree that the decks that made day 2 were the decks that were luckier on average. After 9 rounds of magic, so many random events have taken place (each time you draw a card, each time your opponent draws a card, each time you are paired, each time you roll a die) that the decks that make day 2 will be the decks that had better win percentages against the field.

Remember that the probability of getting mana screwed or drawing poorly varies for each deck. Certain decks are less likely to "get unlucky."


Although I do agree that decks that are within 3 points from each other in the swiss are essentially just as good as each other and the difference could just be one bad draw or one misplay etc. So I agree that the order the top 8 decks finished isn't very relevant.

[SpikeyMikey]

Sure, some decks are prone to bad luck, generally those that need to see equal parts of several different categories of cards to be competitive. Decks like the aforementioned Chalice aggro decks need to see acceleration, disruption and beats in roughly equal parts, and if they're missing one of those pieces, they tend to fall apart. Without acceleration, Blood Moon isn't that scary. Without Moon/3Sphere/Chalice, Rakdos Pit Dragon isn't that scary. Without a fat beater, disruption and acceleration won't have a way to win. Deck's like that tend to generate their own bad "luck".

What I meant when I said how many 7-2 or 6-2-1 decks could've had a shot on day 2 if they'd have made it, I mean how many of those decks, had they won an extra match and gone 8-1 or 7-1-1 had a legitimate shot at pushing into T8 on day 2. Yes, a poor top deck that costs you a game only costs 3 points, but the ripples from that have larger ramifications. Again, back to the crazy theoreticals to magnify the point, but imagine if you had a deck that went 100% against everything in the field except Stax. Stax beat you like a red-headed step child. Day one, you play 3 Stax decks, lose to all 3. You don't make day 2. But then again, neither does Stax. So if you had had 1 different pairing, one Thresh in place of one of those Stax decks, you take first.

Again, it's an impossible situation, but I'm using it to illustrate the point that the repercussions of a loss can reach far beyond 3 points. Maybe, if you didn't lose to that first Stax deck, you'd have been a bracket above the rest and never seen them. You'd have had a 9-0 day 1 record, but instead you ended up 6-3 and went home.

I agree with you 100% that the decks that make day 2 are generally going to be decks with better win percentages against the field. Like you said, a long tournament will tend to increase the importance of deck construction and playskill. However, like I said earlier, that's not enough at a GP like Chicago. 1230 players showed up, 128 make day 2. 10.4% of the attendees got to day 2. That cannot be on strength of deck alone, because no deck goes 89.6% against the field as a whole. No competitive Legacy deck goes 89.6% against any other competitive Legacy deck. Even the matchups that are just absolute blowouts like ANT vs. Goblins are more around the 70-30 or 75-25 mark.

All of which doesn't necessarily say anything about the T8 results; they could be the result of the best decks winning. In all probability, however, this is not the case. It's a combination of good decks with good pilots getting overall good luck. You have to have it to overcome the percentages.

Look at it this way. Say your deck goes 65% against the field as a whole. Over 9 rounds, you can expect to win 5.85 of them. Since partial rounds are kind of a funny concept, let's say we round up. Generally speaking, if luck and playskill are removed from the equation, you'll average to 6-3, which doesn't make the cut. But 65% against the field is a pretty damn good win percentage. I mean, that's a good deck. It's just not a deck that makes day 2 half the time.

But I don't think any of those decks in the T8 can claim that they're better than 65% against the field as a whole. To get there, they have to have some combination of luck and playskill to go along with the deck. Having more of one means you need less of the other, but either way, you generally have to have a better than average helping of both. I would need phenomenal luck to make T8 at an event that large, because I'm just not that good.

[That kid you all hate]

If the deck has that good percentages, then shouldn't there be more than just one person with the deck? Wouldn't you give your team the same autowin deck?:really:

[mujadaddy]

Look at it this way. Say your deck goes 65% against the field as a whole. Over 9 rounds, you can expect to win 5.85 of them. Since partial rounds are kind of a funny concept, let's say we round up. Generally speaking, if luck and playskill are removed from the equation, you'll average to 6-3, which doesn't make the cut. But 65% against the field is a pretty damn good win percentage. I mean, that's a good deck. It's just not a deck that makes day 2 half the time.But the question is then, "Is 65% good enough?" In the above scenario, it's not -- one needs to have ONE DAY with 70%+ against "the field." Those are the breaks, and they're tough. Like I said, ideally everyone would be paired with almost everyone else, but there's no time.