Here is a DOOZY of a question - and probably one of the best yet. Sink your teeth into this one:
Originally Posted by Brehn
What's true of almost any top deck in almost any format; choice #1.
The problem with taking people's match-ups results seriously is that most of the time, they're completely off-base. Usually the testing partner doesn't know what they're doing, or the poster is skewing the results (probably while justifying said skewing to himself).
This is especially true as regards a deck like Threshold, where competent, tight playing can signifigantly shift match-up numbers. Testing against someone who doesn't know what they're doing will always make you over-rate your game against them.
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
What makes Threshold such a nice choice for almost every Metagame is that it is so easily tailored to the specific needs and calls of that environment.
Loads of Landstill and other control decks around? Rock White Splashed NQG with Needles in the Main and Gaddok Teeg and Armageddon in the Sideboard (alternatively: Black Splashed Threshold with Thoughtseizes, more permanent Card Draw and Sideboard Extirpates/Winter Orbs)
You expect a lot of mirror matches? Take Moon Thresh or Tempo Thresh.
Lots of agro in your Metagame? Take a 4c build with loads of removal, or a red splashed build with Repeal and Fire/Ice.
Now, when it comes to testing, most people don’t take the specific tweaks that can be done to NQG to deal with almost any Metagame into account: they just test against a list they got of the net and see that they have a good matchup against it.
For instance, Affinity won’t test against a Version of NQG that has 3 Trygon Predators and additional Krosan Grips or Ancient Grudges in the sideboard – or MUC doesn’t test against the White-splashed ‘Geddon + Needle builds.
This is due to several factors. First of all, people do always want to make their deck look best so that people will actually pick it up and test it. This is somewhat not optimal, but entirely natural: would you pick up a deck that has so-so matchups against the entire field? Would you invest time into testing the deck if you knew already that it wouldn’t be such a killer if compared to any of the established decks (read: it would be a waste of time)?
I can talk out of personal experience here: during one of our testing sessions for Not Quite Survival, we played the games, jotted down the results and all of a sudden we realized that the deck was not that great as we initially thought: the Landstill matchup was pretty bad, the Combo matchup was greatly draw dependant, the mirror came down to who had a Counterbalance down first (especially since we tested against a build with Needles in the main) etc. Now we had a choice: do some more testing or admit that the deck sucked and so admit that we just invested a lot of time into tweaking and perfecting a deck for which there was no real reason to play as it was not better than other options. We decided to continue tweaking and perfecting and at the end we found a solution to most of the problems, but this is very time consuming so that most people will just say ‘to hell’ to the testing results and make statements based on theoretic assumptions rather than on real testing. This is why I always like some real numbers behind a matchup analysis and not only a paragraph stating the obvious.
For sure, if you use this method, there is always room for error* as the pilots might not be that competent, but I think that this only adds to the truth of your matchup percentages: if only an excellent player can make a deck good, the deck is probably not that good in the first place – or at least won’t be that good a choice for most players. I’m thinking of Aluren here.
One other thing that always has to be taken into account is that NQG isn’t that easy a deck to pilot which makes many people play it sub-optimally. This is especially true in bad matchups such as against board control where you have to play especially tight in order to win: you just don’t have infinite resources and so have to know what is important in the matchup, what your role is etc. Not everyone has this understanding of the deck which might some matchup percentages make look more positive than they would have been against a guy that knew his Threshold.
Conclusion n°1: Threshold is a very varied deck with many different versions that can easily be tailored to the needs of a Metagame which most people don’t take into account in their testing. Also, Threshold is a skill intensive deck, especially in bad matchups. Statement number one is therefore true: Matchup results are often skewed.
Decks that should have a worse matchup against NQG in my opinion (out of the first two categories):
- Armageddon Stax which just dies to the hate and is inconsistent to a degree where NQG can just play the tempo role. Also, unlike Dragon Stompy, it can’t back up the things that hurt NQG with a clock so that often one has a little time to recover if need be.
- MUC which dies to general board control hate and which is pretty easily shut down with Pithing Needle
- UB Reanimator which can be fought with Counterbalance and other permission elements pretty easily
- Death and Taxes which is just too slow and too limited in its control elements
On the other hand, one has to say though that Threshold is a little overrated. For sure it can be tailored to beat about everything if the pilot has the skill to back it up, but as the Legacy Metagame is so diverse, Threshold can’t prepare for everything – and some matchups will just stay borderline bad, as hard as you try. For instance, Threshold will never be able to beat Ichorid on a consistent basis if it is already dedicating a large amount of sideboard slots to beating the mirror, and control decks.
Also, the general strategy of Threshold is pretty vulnerable too: it has only so many answers and so many threats. The entire cantrip base assures that you have a better access to those answers/threats but their amount will always stay limited. This fatal flaw makes decks like Affinity and random agro have quite a chance against Threshold: they can just overwhelm them with threats they can’t all possibly handle. The same is true for control decks like Landstill that can handle the hate that is brought in after boarding or have more outs to said hate (e.g.: more spot removal for Gaddok Teeg, a split between Engineered Explosives/Pernicious Deed/other removal to dodge Pithing Needle): they just have to handle so many threats and then they’re fine. Extirpate helps a great deal with this too. Don’t get me wrong, the strategy behind Threshold is quite strong but it is very vulnerable once one attacks the weakness of its strategy systematically.
Conclusion n°2: Threshold can’t prepare for everything so that some people will always be able to prey on it. Also, Threshold only has a limited amount of answers and threats which makes it vulnerable. Statement number four is therefore true too – but as the decks that could really kill Threshold aren’t played enough and as NQG has a too broad player base, it won’t drop out of favor soon as it is still one of the most flexible decks in the environment.
*: On another note, the error is always held pretty small if you just test with people that are about as skilled as you (and that do have quite a good understanding of the decks and their roles) and just switch the roles after a set number of games – you average out the skill involved by this.
This is probably the most accurate (and simplest) explanation. I normally take matchup percentages given for a new deck with a grain of salt. 'I won a bunch of test games against my buddy' =/= 'this deck has traditionally beaten Thresh in a variety of tournament settings'. Also, it's very likely that the designer of any given new deck has a much better feel for it than any of their testing partners do with Thresh (even if those partners are good players), given that they designed it, so it's only natural that the games come out lopsided in testing, but might not pan out the same in actual tournament results.Historical Top8-Thread disagrees. Possible explanations of this contradiction could be:
1. People overestimate their pet decks, don't test the Threshold matchup properly and put up wrong numbers.
I'd agree with the second half, but not necessarily the first. Threshold is every bit as good as people think it is, and has quite understandably garnered a lot of hate from the format. People can't build or play decks without at least having a plan for the Thresh matchup now, much like they did (and, to a degree, still do) for Goblins when it was the best deck in the format. However, Thresh is good enough (and played by enough skilled players) that it's possible to fight through a lot of that hate and still land in the top 8.2. Actually Threshold is overrated, but since it is played by lots of skilled players who always win their bad matchups against scrubs and always reach Top 8, it's still a DtB.
I'm not entirely sure what percentage of any metagame Thresh usually represents, but it's probably high enough that a bunch of Thresh players can lose, and Thresh will still make the top 8 because it is so ubiquitous.3. Actually Threshold is overrated, but there are enough (combo-heavy?) metagames where it shines.
Also, with so many variations (enough to garner 3 different threads!) there are a lot of decks which, while distinct, are still considered Thresh (UWg, Canadian 'Thrash', UGr, Moon Thresh, UGb, etc.). Even though there are so many decks touting a great Threshold matchup, they don't appear in large enough numbers. At the end of the day, Threshold is still more likely to run into the mirror and possibly some combo than it is to run into four or five decks in a row that 'absolutely slaughter it'.
I'm not sure it will be soon, but I'm sure that eventually Thresh will be toppled. It's the natural evolution of the metagame. If Thresh is winning everything everywhere, then the metagame will eventually shift to deal with it. Or maybe Wizards will do something about Tarmogoyf. Who knows, it's a crazy world out there.4. Threshold will soon fall off the throne of "the best deck in the format" because of the stated reasons. It'll just take some time.
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Of every deck listed, the only two that claim to have a fantastic matchup against almost every build of Threshold and actually do are White Stax and Ichorid. And these aren't entirely unwinnable.
Everything else has been overhyped somewhere along the line. A lot of the decks that claim to slaughter Threshold are only moderately favored, a lot of the moderately favoreds are close to even or unfavored, and most of the even claims are unfavored.
The only other deck up there that seems completely honest is Goblins, which might be the only deck up there that has a better Threshold matchup than it claims, though this depends highly on the build of Threshold (Pyroclasms make things way worse) and the build of Goblins (Warren Weirding can make it better.)
What you need to know about Threshold's success is this: No other deck in Legacy has less mulligans and better consistency than Threshold. While some decks have stronger game plans, no other deck executes its game plan better than Threshold. It will beat itself less than any other deck in Legacy. It will win countless games by pressing miniscule edges generated by sculpting hands to fit the situation with cantrips while other decks are mulliganing to six or keeping subpar hands. Threshold doesn't always have to beat you, but you will have to beat it. And any deck that on paper may look like it has a conglomorate of cards that eat Threshold alive generally doesn't have as great of a Threshold matchup as it appears.
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