I personally think it is player error. I have seen one person piloting dredge that I thought was good. When a lot of people go to tournaments with their buddies, I bet Dredge is just loaned out to someone who has rarely played it before. It is also cheap as hell to build, thus a good entry into the format since you aren't dropping 1k on a manabase. A while ago I was watching a guy play LED Dredge and he mulled into the following: Breakthrough, Cabal Therapy, GGT, Stinky, Colisseum, City. This is a turn 3-5 win easily and he proceeded to lose to Thor playing Goyf Sligh or something. This is how he played it out: draw go, draw discard GGT go ..... then lost on turn 4-5 to dudes + burn. He had the match won with turn 1 Therapy self for GGT, dredge 6, if you hit nothing relevant, Breakthrough for 0 (or 1) go. Turn 3 activate CC and go nuts. OR he could have activated the CC on turn 2 and then Breakthrough on turn 3 ...
Also, Dredge is hard to SB properly and so many people are afraid to go down to 4-5 cards its ridiculous. Find an answer for the hate and go nuts. Therapy misplays is probably the most likely occurrence and I don't think a lot of people know how to properly bait a Crypt. All it takes is some playtesting and goldfishing with the deck and you begin to understand, I think a lot of people just aren't willing to take the time to understand a complex deck like Dredge. These are the people who need to play CB control garbage, anyone who has been playing 1 year can OWN with this deck.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
I think it's the difference between actual tournament conditions and testing conditions. And I wouldn't reduce that to something as simple as player error.
Is everyone just not reading the parts of the articles where I win all of the tournaments or something?Originally Posted by Smmenen
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
Sadly, not everyone is you.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
You're going to split the finals in Columbus with me, right?
You sir would be an optimist, but never underestimate the human conditions of ignorance and laziness.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
I want to thank kicks_422 for starting this thread. I haven't laughed this hard in weeks.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
How can you appeal to tournament results, while simultaneously maintaining that Zoo and Goblins are "miserable?" Those decks are showing up in elimination rounds with much greater consistency than your pet combo decks.
I know that you think your local 30-mans are infinitely more competitive than any of the 100+-person $5ks, but you have to realize how ridiculous your position sounds.
Isn't it true that Zoo and Goblins see much more play than combo? Everyone can play with creatures - it's the most straight-forward wincondition in the game. One can argue that both Zoo and Goblins are the easiest decks not to fuck up with. Winning via diverse combo paths isn't that hard - but people generally rather play something moron-proof.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably delicious.
Team ADHD-To resist is to piss in the wind. Anyone who does will end up smelling.
I didn't respond to Smmenen on this point, but I'd think you'd be able to understand what he's saying. I don't think Max is saying at all "Zoo and Goblins are literally incapable of winning tournaments". He's saying more like "Decks that can't interact with the opponent in any meaningful way and don't do anything broken are bad choices for tournaments." There are lots of matchups where you just simply have no chance. It's like, in Vintage, you COULD play RG Beats or something, but shouldn't you have Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoth's Will in your deck?
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Measuring the strength of a deck is really very difficult. We simply don't have enough objective data to do it well. There are ton of confounding variables which are difficult to control (do these really need to be listed again?). I'm not saying tournament data isn't useful, but I think there are serious limitations to it, and we have to draw our deductions wisely. I think we can make some broad claims and produce ballpark predictions about what a metagame will look like (that isn't the same thing as defining which decks are actually the best).
From experience (obviously, not objective data), I think Dredge, with a good pilot (which I'm not claiming to be), is substantially better than many of you realize.
I said this in a previous thread, but it deserves mention again. Reasons I believe Dredge hasn't and will not be performing as well as it could, why other decks may put up better results compared to Dredge than they otherwise might, and why dredge could decline in strength:
- Many Legacy players can pilot Dredge game 1, but few can pilot it effectively after sideboarding. Games 2 and 3 separate the good pilots from the poor ones.
- The deck is extremely atypical (unique even), and so many don't have the experience (or skill) to see the correct lines of play (which are sometimes counterintuitive) when the going gets tough.
- Combo decks cannablize each others' playerbases.
- Anti-blue/CB decks cannibalize each others' playerbases. (dredge fits the bill)
- Combo decks which are faster than Dredge will prey upon it.
- Decks with a lower skill requirement will have better average results given the overall Legacy playerbase.
- Decks which play cards are more readily available or useful to other archetypes in magic or Legacy will see more play (and put up more results) than Dredge.
- While Dredge really can viably play through GY hate, it is still a serious obstacle. I expect GY-hate to increase in the format, and that means more barriers.
- Dredge is unlikely to receive new tools/cards, while other archetypes (which are considered to play magic in a more orthodox manner by developers) are more likely to benefit from futures sets.
- GY-Hate and silver-bullet board control is constantly being developed in new sets, and the diversity of this hate is a serious threat to a deck which has extremely limited sideboarding options (note, that the deck doesn't use the draw step as effectively or filter cards as most decks might).
peace,
4eak
I answered this point in the other thread:
The reason it's ok to play Zoo is because even though there are virtually unwinnable matchups, you nonetheless maximize your chances of winning a tournament by playing Zoo because you don't expect to face those matchups because, at first, they aren't that much of the field, and second, becuase they tend to lose and cluster at the bottom. See my quote. It's about playing the odds, not about the fact that there are unwinnable matchups.My example was illustrative, but it's not about luck, it's about math. It's about odds. It's about metagame positioning with a recognting of metagame dyanmics.
You play the odds. If you know with a great deal of certainty that ANT is going to do poorly, based upon the fact that it generally does, than it's not luck that you won't face it. If the 'auto,loss decks" like Belcher, ANT, etc make up less than 20% of the total field, your chances of facing them in round one is less than 20%. And with each tournament victory, your chances of facing them diminishes.
That's why Zoo decks win, and have won. And, that's why they are a perfectly reasonable choice, despite what the author of this article claims.
The fact that there are unwinnable matchups is determinative to the issue of whether the deck is a good deck choice. Every deck has bad matchups. It's a matter of maximizing expected good matchups and miniizing EXPECTED bad matchups.
Not necessarily.
This forum should be far more conversant with the SCG Open results, since they are publically available.
In a number of the tournaments, Dredge and ANT are the most popular archetypes, but the worst performers. There may be 5 zoo and 15 ant in some of those SCG opens.
You're just burning a strawman.
Obfuscate Freely isn't saying by any means that a single tournament win by Zoo or Goblins eradicates Frogboy's argument. That wasn't stated or even implied. He's saying that Zoo and Goblins, two decks that have performed, have been lambasted by Frogboy in an article while Frogboy's pet deck, which hasn't performed at all except in Frogboy's hands, is exalted as the greatest deck ever. It appears that Frogboy just didn't do research for his article.
Frogboy's explanation was basically this: Everyone except Frogboy is terrible at this game. Everyone else picks the wrong deck, builds Ichorid wrong even when he picks the right deck, then plays it wrong even when he picks the right deck and takes the right build.
If RG Beats were consistently placing Top 8 and sometimes winning tournaments while decks running Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoth's Will were not doing either as often as RG Beats, then I'd choose RG Beats all day.
Yes, because in Vintage just about 100% of the decks that win tournaments run them. You could say with more or less equal validity given aggregate tournament results, "In Legacy, you COULD play AN, but shouldn't you have Tarmogoyf and Lightning Bolt in your deck?"It's like, in Vintage, you COULD play RG Beats or something, but shouldn't you have Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoth's Will in your deck?
I tend to agree that the numbers are misleading. Aggro decks probably only make so many top 8s because they make up such a massive percentage of the field. That said, tournament data suggests Zoo and Goblins aren't losing nearly as much against ANT and Dredge as they "should be". Is that because of bad combo players? Sure some of it is, but that's who's playing it. If a deck existed that has a 99% matchup against the entire field but was too difficult to pilot well, then it's just as much as liability as sitting across from resolved Ad Nauseam tapped out with a grip full of elves. On top of having to fight through hate and counterspells, combo has the added liability of taxing its pilot exponentially more than Zoo does mentally.
Sure ANT is probably a "better deck" but, like Dredge, it usually doesn't win tournaments and neither together posts the results Zoo does. You could try to cop out and say, "the Zoo player just didn't play against any combo" but then I would say, "what about the combo player who didn't play against any CBtops?" Even still, Zoo has a better chance against ANT than ANT does against CBtop and the former is objectively more common. Should you be doing something unfair in Legacy if you want to win a tournament? Maybe. But most people who do win aren't.
Great success!
I would agree with this (although there are more than Frogboy who are not terrible). Most people are terrible at this game. Frogboy is non-terrible, and doubly non-terrible with Dredge. Dredge is a harder deck to be non-terrible with than Zoo.
Most people aren't playing the deck with Ancestral Recall.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
<dude> Why doesn't anyone win tournaments with Dredge?
<max> I, um, do
<ObFreely> HYPOCRISY!
I was just answering the question. Your point isn't totally without merit, but I'm not really appealing to those results when I tell people the deck is awesome except as a matter of form.
@Smmenen's point on positioning: Zoo is only positioned well against Merfolk, Goblins, and midrange piles of AIDS; there are decks that are equally dominant against those decks that don't totally fold to combo decks.
Fixed. I'm less miserable than most people but I'm still pretty bad. I mean honestly, how are people seriously claiming that the 5ks showcase the highest skill level of Magic when people are game lossing themselves out of tournaments and playing 3 Aether Vial with a straight face? Do you want me to go through the archives and pull out all of the earth-shattering punts from the coverage?Everyone is terrible at this game.
This is just incorrect and illustrates most of my points.Even still, Zoo has a better chance against ANT than ANT does against CBtop
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
What does this mean?
WOW, LIES! I have lost 1 tournament matchup to Zoo ever, and both games I mulled to 5 then died on turn 4 to a good draw and saw Null Rod on turn 2 in the second.
But I appreciate you proving the point that its about skill. DDFT/DDANT matchups VS CB garbage are almost always 50/50 (oftentimes in favor of combo) assuming the storm combo player knows how to play the matchup. Zoo is a joke, unless you draw a hideously slow hand you just setup the IGG loop or mull to 5-6 trying find a good hand for turn 1-2 AdN or DD or IGG loop and just win since there isn't a single thing they can do. This is how dredge works as well except there are a lot of plays that a lot of people don't see. I guess a lot of people just succumb to the hate but ... I have won a lot of games with Leyline on the table. Dredge takes a lot of outside the box thinking.
Now I would say Goblins is a LOT harder to play than Zoo but both are very simple. Its tough to fuck up: cast dude, attack, burn, win. Goblins has a lot more variables that Zoo because its creatures are worse and it requires greater combat math and considerations on the opponents spot removal. Zoo just drops big dudes and attacks. Dredge will do this on occassion, and dork beatdown with Stinky, Imp, and Moebas is AWESOME. But it usually is not as simple as that, you have to WIN the game by playing your deck correctly AND do this while your opponent is trying to jack you up. Its not like you have retarted 4/5s for 1G to stall out or attack for the win should you make some kind of mistake or dredge like shit.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
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