All B/R update speculation.

[FTW]

The Legacy Data Collection project did a great job of comprehensively covering Eternal Weekend Japan, beyond what was available from MtgTop8 or MtgGoldfish standings.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...om_the_legacy/

Froginator was still strong with:

• 56% win rate (excluding mirror); 55% with mirror
• 130 players (21% of meta)
• 2 in top 8: 4th & 5th place
• 4 decks in top 16 (25%); 10 in top 32 (31%); 18 in top 64 (28%)

UB Frog Tempo was good on average, but not able to convert:

• 54% win rate
• 35 players (6% of meta)
• 0 copies made it into Top 32; 3 in top 64 (5%)

Their data also showed other decks with high win rates. Ignoring the low sample size cases (flukes/variance), other archetypes that stood out:

• Eldrazi: 54% win rate @ 52 players
• Mystic Forge: 58% win rate @ 12 players
• Bant: 56% win rate @ 16 players
• Death & Taxes: 54% win rate @ 19 players
• Red Stompy: 52% win rate (& tournament win) @ 35 players
• Nadu Breakfast: 53% win rate @ 11 players

With any deck with 20%+ representation and >50% win rate, you expect some copies in the top 16 just by brute force. Froginator's conversion to top tables was average: 25% of top 16 & 25% of top 8 & 25% of top 4, for a deck that's 21% of the meta. That's good but not much better than you'd expect from random chance. Many Froginators got stuck at 17-64, posting good win rates but not progressing in the top brackets. UB Tempo could not make it into Top 32, even as one of the most played decks at 6% of the meta. Overall, UB Frog (Froginator & Tempo) still look less dominant than Scaminator before the Grief ban, where the top tables of large events were mainly Scaminator.

Many non-Frog archetypes posted good win rates in significant numbers: Eldrazi, Mystic Forge, Red Stompy, Bant, D&T, Breakfast. Red Painter underperformed (50% win rate @ 33 players). Other decks were able to post good results with luck: Beseech Storm, Elves, Esper Vial, Jeskai Vial, 4c Control, and Death's Shadow all posted win rates above 58% (but at 1-3 players, so luck is a bigger factor).

If a large number of players keep jamming Frog, some will keep posting good results, but there are clearly other competitive Tier 1 decks also able to do well in large events. The most played MH3 card was Consign to Memory (921 copies), not even Psychic Frog (827 copies).

Mystic Forge & Eldrazi posted strong win rates even against those Consigns. Eldrazi's conversion was much better than Froginator: 8% of the meta but 25% of top 16 & 25% of top 8!

Edit: I think they mislabelled "Bant Control". I can't find any decklists in the top 64. It's probably Bant Nadu (combo-control), the UWx shell with Nadu combo. That's a very different deck than Bant Uro control or Beans.

Their clustering into archetypes is also misleading. It looks like only graveyard decks won (Reanimator). But Glaring Fleshraker decks (Eldrazi, Mystic Forge) & Nadu decks (Bant, Breakfast) both did well too. That trend is concealed by grouping them with worse-performing decks with very different mechanics.

[Gunseng]

The results from eternal weekend NA are in and there's only one deck with Psychic Frog in the Top 8. In addition, there are only two more decks with Frog in the top 16. I wonder what this means for the B/R annoucement in December.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

The current target appears to be vexing bauble

[FTW]

Comprehensive data from the Legacy Data Collection project:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...data_from_the/

Mystic Forge had an almost 63% non-mirror win rate! The tuned version did even better, with 2 players from the same team making top 8 in a 1155 player event. (Urza's Tower is better than City of Traitors)

Top Performers
Mystic Forge - 62% win rate (39 players)
Nadu Elves - 56% win rate (11 players)
Bant Nadu - 55% win rate (49 players)
Froginator - 53% win rate (170 players)
Red Painter - 53% win rate (65 players)
Breakfast - 52% win rate (48 players)
Doomsday - 52% win rate (39 players)

Combo, combo, and more combo!

Same as EW Asia: Highest win rates to Mystic Forge, Nadu and Froginator.


Viable
Eldrazi - 51% win rate (70 players)
Yorion D&T - 51% win rate (28 players)
Cloudpost - 51% win rate (18 players)
UB Frog Tempo - 50% win rate (100 players)
Cradle Control - 50% win rate (24 players)
Red Stompy - 49% win rate (91 players)
Stiflenought - 49% win rate (24 players)
SneakShow - 48% win rate (30 players)

Fair creatures mostly.

RiP
Beans - 47% win rate (29 players)
Lands - 45% win rate (24 players)
UWr Control - 44% win rate (34 players)
Grixis Delver - 42% win rate (14 players)

It was a bad day to be a control deck with few creatures (or on Delver of Secrets... it's not 2019).

Also a bad day to be regular storm:
ANT + Beseech + TES - 47% win rate (22 players)

Fair decks were prepared for storm but under-prepared for most other combo. Even AllSpells got a 54% win rate (9 players).

Mystic Forge combo is strong with its backup wincons and Vexing Bauble. But Nadu was strong too. More importantly, the format is turning into Modern where each player races to do their own degenerate combo and there are too many different strategies for fair control to police them all.

Edit: I report abbreviated results for a few reasons:

1) Decks with low presence are subject to a lot of luck & variance. In both events I focused on decks with more than 10 players. Less likely those are flukes.

2) Win rates are rounded. Reporting more decimal places is noise when the variance is so big.

3) I don't report the CIs because again, seems like overinterpreting noise. The underlying assumptions don't hold. Everyone takes a different path through the tournament. Chance of winning a match depends a lot on opponent's deck, opponent's skill, and your pairings (are you in X-0 bracket, vs did you start 0-1? Paired up or down?). The CIs don't capture that. But we can get an intuitive sense of how reliable the data is based on # of players/matches, so I report that. With enough cases it's not a fluke.

Some savvy players noticed that Mystic Forge had the highest win rate from EW Asia (with enough players to not be a fluke), tuned it, and ran away with this tournament.

[PirateKing]

Data is great but it seems bans are vibe based with the pretense of fact based decision making.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Frog and Bauble are banned

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/an...cember-16-2024

[Gunseng]

I wished they had used the chance to also unban something as there's so much underpowered stuff on the banlist.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I wished they had used the chance to also unban something as there's so much underpowered stuff on the banlist.

Agreed but I’ll take what I can get

Still, would love to see Mind Twist or Earthcraft again. Or Survival. Although the last one is probably sadly a mistake, at least unless/until they ban Cradle (which to be clear I’m not pushing for)

[KobeBryan]

I wished they had used the chance to also unban something as there's so much underpowered stuff on the banlist.

unbanning a card requires them to do testing and play the game.

Banning a card, they just need to look at the data and count how many decks play the card.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

unbanning a card requires them to do testing and play the game.

Banning a card, they just need to look at the data and count how many decks play the card.

I mean I doubt they playtested Mox Opal in Modern that much. But they’ve also decided they’re willing to let that format’s banned list be a living experiment in a way they haven’t (unfortunately) with Legacy

In fairness I do think there’s a valid argument for not quickly obsoleting decks that cost as much as a decent used car

[Gunseng]

unbanning a card requires them to do testing and play the game.

Banning a card, they just need to look at the data and count how many decks play the card.

Sure, ideally, they would actually test before unbanning something. However, I'd feel comfortable with unbanning cards like Mind Twist or Earthcraft without any playtesting given that their powerlevel is super low by current standards.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It’s been rough readjusting expectations. Like I’m still surprised how little play Mind’s Desire is seeing. But Yawgmoth’s Bargain is probably straight up unplayable.

[rufus]

It’s been rough readjusting expectations. Like I’m still surprised how little play Mind’s Desire is seeing. But Yawgmoth’s Bargain is probably straight up unplayable.

I expected Necrodominance to cause problems, but, since it hasn't, Necropotence might also be on the "OK to unban" list.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I expected Necrodominance to cause problems, but, since it hasn't, Necropotence might also be on the "OK to unban" list.

Well one issue is that almost every Necro deck would be a lot scarier if they could go up to 8 copies but still

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I admit that I haven't paid attention in a few months.

Why was Bauble banned?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I admit that I haven't paid attention in a few months.

Why was Bauble banned?

Combo decks need to lose to force

[FTW]

It’s been rough readjusting expectations. Like I’m still surprised how little play Mind’s Desire is seeing. But Yawgmoth’s Bargain is probably straight up unplayable.

Bargain must be better than Mind's Desire at least.

A big problem with Desire is the 1st one (at storm 5 or less) can hit no payoff and whiff. You need not only 6 mana but also enough storm.

4UU is also harder to ramp to than 4BB (except for High Tide, where Desire does see play).

Bargain is easier to ramp into and doesn't need Storm count. Drawing 10-19 is enough to win. It's a mini-Peer (4BBB: Draw 24), less certainty, but better against Daze and Flusterstorm. It costs more than Ad Nauseam but doesn't have CMC restrictions (can play multiple Bargains, Echo/Peer), and you can keep drawing more after casting spells.

Bargain might see play if it wasn't for Beseech -> Will/Song as a better Dark Ritual payoff at 4 mana.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Bargain must be better than Mind's Desire at least.

A big problem with Desire is the 1st one (at storm 5 or less) can hit no payoff and whiff. You need not only 6 mana but also enough storm.

4UU is also harder to ramp to than 4BB (except for High Tide, where Desire does see play).

Bargain is easier to ramp into and doesn't need Storm count. Drawing 10-19 is enough to win. It's a mini-Peer (4BBB: Draw 24), less certainty, but better against Daze and Flusterstorm. It costs more than Ad Nauseam but doesn't have CMC restrictions (can play multiple Bargains, Echo/Peer), and you can keep drawing more after casting spells.

Bargain might see play if it wasn't for Beseech -> Will/Song as a better Dark Ritual payoff at 4 mana.

There’s literally no deck that would actually want to play Bargain though. For just two more mana you get Griselbrand which is actually easier to cheat into play and is a giant lifegain beater on top of that.

Also the niche that Desire fills is beating counters, in theory. What does Bargain even offer at this point?

[FTW]

There’s literally no deck that would actually want to play Bargain though. For just two more mana you get Griselbrand which is actually easier to cheat into play and is a giant lifegain beater on top of that.

Peer into the Abyss sees much play. Bargain is cheaper and draws almost as many cards.

6 mana is much better than 7 or 8 vs Daze & friends. It's only 1 more than Ad Nauseam to have better draws.

What does it offer over Mind's Desire? It whiffs much less, especially in low-resource situations (disruption, mulligan). Desire will resolve but often do nothing. 4BB is also better than 4UU.

I spent a lot of time testing different versions of Mind's Desire storm after the unban. Unless you're High Tide or Covetous Jewel, blue mana becomes a bottleneck. For Ritual-based storm the solutions are:
1) Wish/Tutor + LED for UUU (but now you're weak to counters, losing the main benefit)
2) Get 2-3 blue duals in play (slow and weak to mana denial)
3) Mox Opal + Chrome Mox (this direction was most competitive, but it does constrict design choices and has many bad reveals)

Bargain's main competition is Beseech the Mirror. Because Beseech can grab Song of Creation when you don't have enough resources to win with Gaea's Will, there's really no reason to play Bargain. But before Beseech?

[AnwarA101]

Bargain would be an interesting unban. It seems to fit neatly from a mana cost and power standpoint along with the other black draw/tutor effects. If you look at it this way:

Beseech the Mirror = 4 mana, tutor for another 4 mana card and play for free if you Bargain
Ad Nauseam = 5 mana, draw X cards where X is equal to the mana cost of the cards you reveal
Yawgmoth's Bargain = 6 mana, draw X cards where X is 1 less than your life total (this is the only that is banned)
Peer into the Abyss = 7 mana, draw approximately 20+ cards depending on the turn when it is cast
Griselbrand = 8 mana, draw in 7 card increments up to your life total, but also the ability to gain life over subsequent turns

The only banned card is the 6 mana card which is Yawgmoth's Bargain which is basically draw X cards where X is 1 less than your life total. That X varies depends which turn you play this card. It can be at most 19, but that assumes you never play a fetchland, never took damage, never cast a thoughtseize, etc. The power level of the cards should rise as does the mana cost. If you look at Peer and Griselbrand they are more powerful than Bargain and Bargain seems more powerful than Ad Nauseam or Beseech the Mirror, but it isn't clear that it actually nets you more card advantage than those cards. Ad Nauseam can draw you more cards since when you draw lands and 0 mana artifacts you don't take any life lose. When you draw a land with Bargain, it still costs you 1 life. Finally, it should be noted that Bargain is the only one of these cards that costs you your draw step, which means that if you can't win with the cards you draw off it, you lose.