Tier one decks are a group of decks which ate better positioned in a given meta than any other decks. Obviously there is no precise definition as to where we distinguish between tier1 and tier2! But in this context, the idea is that there are decks listed in the DTBF which have made for reasons other than the quality of the deck.
I think this is the only time you've actually answered this - you've taken stabs at my explanation, but have yet to offer one yourself. If I somehow missed it before, I owe you an apology.
I wanna split hairs a little. If a deck runs well but drops off when people learned to prepare for it, there are two possibilities:
- People didn't understand what the deck did or how to play against it. In this case, the results are not owed to the decks inherent strength, but rather to poor play from the opposition. This is not a tier one deck!
- The deck was actually very well positioned, but people have modified their card and/or deck selection to answer it. In this case I'd argue thst the deck was in fact (briefly) tier-one, but that there was a shift in the meta.
I'm not under any such nonsensical notions (you must think I'm pretty thick, and I can only imagine your frustration). Obviously win-rates vary from match to match, and player to player.
However in mathematical theory land, every deck has an associated win-rate
expected value. I say "in theory land" because we will never have the data to calculate this. We would need to accurately assess the win-rate of each MU, accounting for the probabilities each possible player-skill differential. We would need to know (with accuracy) the odds of each possible pairing; accounting for the different spread of decks at various stages of the event vs the chance of the deck in question making it to that level; as well as different stats for every possible variation of every possible archetype.
Of course in practise we will never know these numbers - even if we had all the information in the world and a super computer (like Dr Theo) to grind those numbers, there are probably not enough events in the world to give relaibe results. Nonetheless these stats do exist in theory. Once we accept this, tournaments are indeed "a numbers game". You like stats - you must have some respect for this?
As for player skill, I am (for the most part) unwilling to make any assumptions at all! In fact, I think you are the one who wants to assume that a lot of bad players chose Miracles!
If we see Miracles has twice as many tops as the next runner up, but we note that there were twice as many people playing it, I simply observe that Miracles is placing at the same rate as the other deck. You seem to want to assume that Miracles has more crappy pilots than the other deck, and that if we neutralised the skill levels Miracles would place at a much higher rate. To me this is speculative, baseless, and an Ad Hoc. Why do all the bad pilots play Miracles and not
against Miracles?
Me I make no such assumptions! I figure every established deck has its share of noobs and pros. The more data we have, the more it should average out. Are Miracles players less proficient with their decks than other players? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe the best players are disproportionate attracted to Blue based hard control while newbs would rather turn dudes sideways? Either way, this sort of speculation has little or no place in our analysis.
It's a mathematical function of the two. I define a decks raw power as it's theoretical expected win-rate as detailed above. If deckA sees more top8s (and DTB pps) than deckB, decks either has more raw power, more players, or both (unless we have valid reason to believe one deck has better pilots than the other).
So if one deck has enough raw power for a win-rate EV of 48%, but it has significantly more players than a deck with an EV of 55%, the first deck will earn significantly more DTBF pps despite being objectively worse. If those win-rate EVs are elusive and impossible to calculate with accuracy, well never know that the first deck is actually better - especially if we just look at the DTBF pps, and dismiss the higher player base because "people are playing the second deck because its better".
Not at all. I think a deck is a problem if it sees very high numbers and the format lacks diversity of play styles (play-style being defined by the manner inwhich decks interact with each other).
That's cool, but entirely subjective. What gets me is when people argue that Miracles is objectively oppressive!
There's a huge personal preference factor. Maybe there is somebody who loves Miracles mirrors, and would think Legacy is fine with just a few slight variations of a single archetype.
