Decks to Beat Update

[CorpT]

I actually did that and more (1st place weighing more than 5th-8th, for example) a couple of years ago, but I had to type in every archetype manually and it was a massive pain in the ass. None of us mods have the time to do something similar again. I might shoot an email to TC to suggest a similar tweak to their software, but that's it.

Yeah, that sounds like an issue that is really hard for you to solve, and hopefully really easy for them to solve being closer to the data. Personally, I think that number of participants (more specifically the number of rounds caused by number of participants) is a more useful weighting than place in the top 8, but that's me.

[Nihil Credo]

Personally, I think that number of participants (more specifically the number of rounds caused by number of participants) is a more useful weighting than place in the top 8, but that's me.

Heh, we think along the same lines:

In light of both Grand Prix: Chicago and the third Bazaar of Moxen tournament, it has been decided to switch to a slightly more sophisticated system for determining deck scores, so that placements in larger tournaments receive an appropriately heavier weighting:

Points per placement = {Number of Swiss rounds} + {Number of Top 8 rounds won}

[Gui]

Btw, is it going to be DTB all over now, no more DTB @ 7% and DTW at 4%, and ATW at x% ?

(just to know... I'm cool with whichever... since the amount of data seems to be bigger, DTB could be even less x%s, or setting a number of DTBs instead of setting %s)

[DragoFireheart]

Not Surprised at all to see CounterTop and Goblins get knocked off the list, but Bant and TES? I guess TES because it hasn't made any showings, but Bant aggro / NO bant? Why did that thread get knocked off?

[Koby]

Because according to TC's metagame #'s, NO/Pro has less penetration of the metagame than Painter Stone. Aggro Bant has even less.

Combined, they were prevalent, but separated, they are less than 10% on average.

[Sintheros]

The DTB section needs more than 5 decks, methinks.

[DragoFireheart]

The DTB section needs more than 5 decks, methinks.

Why isn't Landstill of all variants up there? Are we keeping BUG and UW/x variants separate?

[Sims]

Why isn't Landstill of all variants up there? Are we keeping BUG and UW/x variants separate?

Check the thread. Nihil posted an update in the philosophy of the DTB forum thread that shows the graph and the metrics used to explain why which decks made it and a bunch didn't.

[Sintheros]

Painter isn't nearly as popular as all the NO-strategies, all the Bant strategies, or possibly even the Landstill strategies, yet it's there.

[DragoFireheart]

Check the thread. Nihil posted an update in the philosophy of the DTB forum thread that shows the graph and the metrics used to explain why which decks made it and a bunch didn't.

Thanks!

Edit: Kinda silly how merfolk is double what every other deck's representation is. I'm a little surprised that Zoo didn't do better. I also thought Landstill decks had a larger presence, though maybe hardcore control is not popular.

[Koby]

Painter isn't nearly as popular as all the NO-strategies, all the Bant strategies, or possibly even the Landstill strategies, yet it's there.

Maybe not in the USA, but perhaps Worldwide.

[AlexAI]

Looking at the graph, Pro Bant/Sneak Attack missed DTB by 1 Top 8, while Rock/Affinity/Ubg Landstill missed by 2. I would guess there will be more than 5 more often than not.

Given the month to month update status though, should we keep the decks that fell from DTB one month in the forum as a DTW, and then removed if it stays out of DTB range for two? It would give the forum a little more beef as a "If you have no idea what you'll be dealing with, this is the stuff to test against" thing.

[Richard Cheese]

I actually like the new DTB, although I agree that the threshold might be lowered a bit to allow a few more decks into the top tier, especially helpful for newcomers to the scene.

The real problem though is the Established Decks area. There's a ton of stuff in there that could be moved to a new "Past Archetypes" area. Whether it's based on forum activity or tournament showings/results, that forum needs to be thinned badly.

[evanmartyr]

New Horizons is not really a deck anymore, neither is Counterbalance anything. However Bug/Team America are both real decks, Zoo is arguable, but I still don't think it is good enough to be in deck to beats. Also I think the Hive Mind is now an established deck.

"For "competitive" decks: Decks which are optimized, thoroughly tested, played in a variety of metagames, and have proven themselves in a competitive tournament environment. A deck is not required to be Tier 1 to be included in this forum. Includes Decks to Beat, Decks to Watch, and Archetypes to Watch."

I find it hard to believe that Zoo does not fall under this description. It is widespread, has a long history of being played, and has consistently placed near-ish the top of the standings. Decks to Beat aren't just "hot" decks, they're decks you need to have at least a vague plan against in order to expect to do well at a tournament. I'd also argue that decks to beat should perhaps be included in the forum because they exhibit a specific strategy that is markedly effective, but perhaps suppressed due to metagame concerns. I might argue that Vial Goblins deserved to stay in the DTB forum, even if locked, because it exhibits an almost perfect execution of aggro-control WITHOUT resorting to counterspells, and there are valuable lessons inherent in such lists.

Goblins is also pretty dead, so lets archive the locked thread and then move the live one to Established decks. TES and ANT are both established decks as well.

This may be anecdotal, but a Goblins deck went undefeated day 1 at GP Providence. I doubt any of its opponents would argue it is dead. I'm only looking directly at the results of the Orlando and Louisville opens, but I think it may be very difficult to accurately say what will be "decks to beat" in the post-NPH metagame without a few more tournaments. There's some pretty absurd variance in the numbers between these two tournaments (the humorous standout being Affinity, which went from almost 10% of the field with a 40% win percentage at Orlando to less than 2% of the field with a 15% win percentage in Louisville), and there were only a few decks who kept a similar winning percentage betweent the two (Merfolk: 57%->54%, Team America: 66%->54%, Painted Stone: 53%->63%, only counting those who had an actual winning percentage, I'm sure a lot of the sub-50% decks were roughly similar). So those are the only decks that I'd be comfortable saying are currently "decks to beat", but even then that's a tiny sample size: the next large tournament's results might suggest a complete blowout for one of them.

Also, based on the description of not needing to be tier 1 to be included, none of these win percentages are really relevant. If you showed up at either tournament, you could expect to play Merfolk, Team America, Affinity, Dredge, and after that *possibly* Landstill. Other than that, it's a complete crap shoot.

[DragoFireheart]

The Legacy scene is in a metagame shift anyways. We can start to debate which decks should stay after 2-3 more months.

[Sintheros]

I'm just saying the DTB section needs more than 5 decks. There are more than 5 well performing, popular decks at the moment, and they don't all deserve to be stuffed in the ED section.

[dahcmai]

Heh, can't make everyone happy.

[Gui]

These decks you are all claiming would probably be in there if the philosophy was the one awarding points according to swiss rounds played. However, I wonder who had this brilliant idea, cuz that person does nothing besides updating DTBs . xD

Besides, I like that DTB doesn't reflect only BOM + GP, there's more to legacy than it is shown.


I agree that Threshold should be different, tho. I think the threshold should actually be variable so that something around 10 decks were always set as DTB.

[thefringthing]

I understand that the process is more complex than this, but if I had to list five deck archetypes I thought were popular and successful at GP Providence, they'd be: Merfolk, Team America, Landstill, Junk, and Zoo.

[Malchar]

Painter isn't nearly as popular as all the NO-strategies, all the Bant strategies, or possibly even the Landstill strategies, yet it's there.

Popularity doesn't matter. Only tournament success does.