The Performance of Dredge

[walkerdog]

What does this mean?

He is saying that everyone is somehow so stupid that they're playing decks without the Legacy equivalent of Ancestral, which is apparently combo? Even if Zoo puts up the best results (this year) with Mer right behind it.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

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.

Oh man, you're right. No wonder DDFT and DDANT are winning everything from local 32-mans to SCG 5ks left and right. You'd probably have to travel back months, if not years to find CBtop decks in the top 8 of anything.

Why have combo players so totally deluded themselves into thinking they're unbeatable and winning big tournaments, or even would be if they played better? This phenomenon seems 1. limited only to them and 2. is exactly contradictory to pretty much every result since, what? hulk-flash was legal? It's a completely OT question, but it's the direction united combo players are trying to take this thread in. I would suggest we stayed more on topic and addressed the question of whether or not people should really be trying to do something unfair in Legacy, to which I would disagree with the OP and say no because most tourney winning decks don't. Of course, that would net me a nonsensical response like "this is just incorrect and proves what I've been saying" without actually having a reason why.

Let's just loop back around to the back-and-forth of:
A: Combo's the best. It beats everything.
B: Then why does it win so rarely, especially in big tournaments?
A: It would if anyone knew how to play it.
B: OK, so then people don't know how to play it. It still doesn't win.
A: Combo's the best. It beats everything.
etc.

[Wargoos]

You know that this wouldn't end well when everyone would had a shotgun?

Also it's astonishing to see how people are underestimating dredge.
Funny how people think that a deck that loses occasionally just to particular hate which is so narrow
that it has to be played in the sideboard especially to be able to fight dredge to not get steamrolled.

And no, dredge is not a weak deck the point is just that there is universal,existing hate that can find place in any decks sideboard and give them a fighting chance unlike for decks like stormcombo where there are certain matchups where it doesn't matter how many hate you have against, you won't win.

Also we sure are lucky that this topic isn't about the performance of UW Tempo because all your funny tables and tournament reports would be crushed and neglected by the calculation power of the government.

[AngryTroll]

People were willing to accept that Storm was a very, very good deck, although only Bryant Cook seemed to be able to win with it. However, in his hands, it was a monster of a deck that didn't lose to anything.

People were willing to accept that It's The Fear was a good deck, but only in a very good players hands, like David Gearhart. Gearhart could tear up tournaments with the deck, though, so people admitted that it was pretty good in his hands.


Ichorid is a very, very good deck. It's also very easy to play poorly (especially in games two and three). Max plays it well. Dredge, in the hands of a good player, will tear through hate and easily pick up the match against an opponent that hasn't decided to devote a large number of sideboard cards to beating Dredge. Most players aren't willing to board enough cards to beat a good Dredge player. Lots of people are boarding enough hate to beat bad Dredge players.

[Parcher]

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.

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?

I dont understand what point you are trying to get across in all of this. You write two articles, the first proclaiming that Dredge is the best deck in the format. What is the purpose behind that? If it really was, wouldn't you try to keep it secret until the Grand Prix, and just win with it? If the deck is optimized, you can't be fishing for ideas. And if you are the best player with it, you can't be looking for additional help with that either. And I don't see the few rounds played in the second artice showcasing any kind of dominence; especially when the majority of them were against the best common match-up.

Then there's the fact that despite all claims to the contrary, the deck is not putting up results. I'm sorry to say, that the center of Legacy in North America is the Mid Atlantic region. And that is where most of these SCG events are being held. Not only are these huge in number of participants, but the Saturday 5Ks bring in the elite players in the area, who also stay forthe Legacy events. Not to mention, these draw the best Legacy players in the area.

Despite all of this, and depite a large showing of the deck, espcially at the earlier 5Ks, it has yet to do well. Are we to believe that winning two rounds, and getting scooped in during Round Three for a double draw into Top 8 in a 25-man tournament in the Pacific Northwest is equivelant to winning seven rounds just to make Top 8 at the largest, and most competative Legacy tournaments outside the GP? That the skill of these card shop locals is greater than the 200+ that come from the entire East Cost, simply because some mistakes are caught on camera after a 12 hour day?

[Anusien]

How many of these best Legacy players in the area and the elite players in the area do you know ran Dredge?

[frogboy]

If it really was, wouldn't you try to keep it secret until the Grand Prix, and just win with it?

I'm not morally bankrupt, so no.

[Arsenal]

People were willing to accept that Storm was a very, very good deck, although only Bryant Cook seemed to be able to win with it. However, in his hands, it was a monster of a deck that didn't lose to anything.

People were willing to accept that It's The Fear was a good deck, but only in a very good players hands, like David Gearhart. Gearhart could tear up tournaments with the deck, though, so people admitted that it was pretty good in his hands.


Ichorid is a very, very good deck. It's also very easy to play poorly (especially in games two and three). Max plays it well. Dredge, in the hands of a good player, will tear through hate and easily pick up the match against an opponent that hasn't decided to devote a large number of sideboard cards to beating Dredge. Most players aren't willing to board enough cards to beat a good Dredge player. Lots of people are boarding enough hate to beat bad Dredge players.

But if only a select few are able to successfully navigate a deck, doesn't that reflect more on the individual than the deck itself?

[Genericcactus]

I'm not morally bankrupt, so no.

How the fuck do you define "morally bankrupt"? I tend to think that you have to do something that anyone ever would consider immoral to be morally bankrupt, rather than, say, not write a bad article about how Dredge is the best deck in the format despite no evidence that supports such a claim.

[Parcher]

How many of these best Legacy players in the area and the elite players in the area do you know ran Dredge?

That's completely irrelevant. If I say "Only scrubs ran it", then you can say that they only played against scrubs, or "they must have played against the few good players", and the results don't matter. If I say "Nine of the best players around ran it", then you can say "Yeah, but their lists were awful", or "I guess that they don't know how to play Dredge" etc. A reason besides the obvious can always be found when given results have incomplete information.

There is no single metric to prove either way, with the amount of varience not only in any tournament, but especially in a Legacy one. But I think most reasonable people would tend to lend more weight to 8+, 150+ man tournament results, than to two 25 man ones. That is, of course, only counting the SCG tournaments, and not the innumerable 150+ player tournaments in Europe.

[frogboy]

How the fuck do you define "morally bankrupt"? I tend to think that you have to do something that anyone ever would consider immoral to be morally bankrupt, rather than, say, not write a bad article about how Dredge is the best deck in the format despite no evidence that supports such a claim.

It seems pretty immoral to write articles I don't think are true.

[1maarten1]

I agree with Pulp on the fact that the poor performance is a matter a players, not the deck. The main point in playing the deck well is knowing how to play around all the hate.

I think that when the deck started to gather good results, more and more players picked it up without gaining much experiance with the deck. I think the deck is still a real powerhouse, and it will remain that way, only if you know how to play around all the hate.

[Genericcactus]

It seems pretty immoral to write articles I don't think are true.

I doubt Parcher was questioning whether the subject matter you wrote about is something you thought was true. Instead, he is questioning your motivations for writing such an article in the first place.

[Zilla]

It seems pretty immoral to write articles I don't think are true.

I think he was suggesting you just don't write about that particular topic until after the GP, not that you should actively mislead people with your writing. There's nothing morally questionable about letting ignorant players stay ignorant of a strong deck choice and using that ignorance to your advantage in winning a tournament.

[Anusien]

That's completely irrelevant. If I say "Only scrubs ran it", then you can say that they only played against scrubs, or "they must have played against the few good players", and the results don't matter. If I say "Nine of the best players around ran it", then you can say "Yeah, but their lists were awful", or "I guess that they don't know how to play Dredge" etc. A reason besides the obvious can always be found when given results have incomplete information.

There is no single metric to prove either way, with the amount of varience not only in any tournament, but especially in a Legacy one. But I think most reasonable people would tend to lend more weight to 8+, 150+ man tournament results, than to two 25 man ones. That is, of course, only counting the SCG tournaments, and not the innumerable 150+ player tournaments in Europe.

I appreciate the effort, but please only respond to the arguments I make, not the ones it's more convenient for you to make. There isn't a lot of data of good players playing Dredge at all. Obviously I rate the data from good players playing the deck higher than that of scrubs.

[Smmenen]

Ok, let's look empirically:

There have been 9 SCG Legacy Opens.

1) SCG 5K Legacy Open - Boston (187 players)
Sunday, June 21st
4 Dredge - 0 in Top 8
10 ANT - 1 in top 8 (7th place)

2) Charlotte, 109 players
September, 2009
7 Dredge (0 in Top 8)
4 ANT (0 in Top 8)

3) Philly, 147 players
October, 2009
7 Dredge (1 in Top 8, 3rd place)
9 ANT (0 in Top 8)

4) St. Louis, 128 players
December 2009
Dredge was MOST POPULAR DECK at 12% of the field
15 Dredge (0 in Top 8)
5 ANT (0 in Top 8)



5) Los Angeles
Jan, 2010
6 Dredge (1 in Top 8, 6th Place)
12 ANT (MOST POPULAR DECK IN THE FIELD) (0 in top 8)

6) Dallas/Fort Worth (117 players)
Jan, 2010
11 Dredge (0 in Top 8)
7 ANT (0 in Top 8)

7) Richmond (236 players)
Feb, 2010
11 Dredge (0 in Top 8)
9 ANT (0 in Top 8)

8) Indianapolis (286 players)
March, 2010
13 Dredge (0 in Top 8)
16 ANT (0 in Top 8)

9) Orlando, FL (122 players)
March, 2010
7 Dredge (0 in Top 8)
6 ANT (0 in Top 8)


Conclusions:

There you have it. Dredge and ANT have been, at various tournaments, the MOST popular deck in the field, and always a substantial portion fo the field. Yet their performance? Miserable.

There have been 81 Dredge pilots at the SCG Opens series. EIGHTY-ONE.

And of those how many have made top 8? 2. Just TWO.

Now, I get the point that most people probably can't play Dredge well. But are you seriously telling me that out of 81 players, there weren't any competent players? Or, even more difficult to believe, that the distribution of skill for Dredge pilots is somehow substantially different than the distribution of skill for any other major archetype.

Incidentally, there were plenty of good Dredge pilots. Tommy Kolowith played Dredge and didn't even make top 16 in one of the events.

ANT has actually done worse. There were 69 ANT pilots, and only 1 Top 8. And no Top 8s in the last 8 SCG Opens.

The data becomes much worse for both decks if we just look at 2010.

In 2010 alone, there were 48 Dredge pilots in the SCGs, and NOT A SINGLE Top 8.

I would advise players NOT to play either ANT or Dredge.


Sources:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m...s_Updates.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/v...Legacy_5K.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m...t_Article.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/v...Legacy_5K.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m...me_Report.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...of_Legacy.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...cle/18565.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...cle/18664.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l..._Richmond.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...ianapolis.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...n_Orlando.html

[Parcher]

I appreciate the effort, but please only respond to the arguments I make, not the ones it's more convenient for you to make. There isn't a lot of data of good players playing Dredge at all. Obviously I rate the data from good players playing the deck higher than that of scrubs.

You're not making an argument. You're making a value judgement. you are stating that for Gods know what possible reason, that you are the measuring stick by which Ichorid players' skill is judged. That you believe that you are the terminator line between which results should be used, and which might be questionable. That since you feel that what you have seen at the SCGs is a lack of skill with the deck, and therefore in your judgement, those results should be discounted.

You've also made the concurrent argument tacitly, that all frogboy says regarding Ichorid is canon. And that His is the skill regarding the deck. Regardless of whom he might be playing against, and which decks they are piloting.

Now I can't speak to frogboy's playing of any deck, only to the sample size given being small in the extreme. I can, however comment on other's opinions on play skill. And how completely invalid they are in regards to Magic in general, and also regarding this deck. Even if they could not possibly have seen every Ichorid player at the few events that they did attend.

[frogboy]

Run it back, look at Zoo and Goblins.

edit: @Smmenen, obviously.

[Smmenen]

Run it back, look at Zoo and Goblins.

edit: @Smmenen, obviously.

Run what back? The argument here is that Dredge is a good deck. The facts don't support that at all. That has nothing to do with Zoo or Goblins. 81 Dredge decks, 2 Top 8s. Weaksauce. Saying that those dredge pilots all sucked just doesn't fly.

Again, I'll reiterate my original point. I believe Dredge is a poor performer because of the difference between testing and tournament conditions. This means a number of things. For example, in testing conditions, the Dredge pilot has total knowledge of his opponent's sb answers, etc. In testing conditions, variance is minimized over long game sets. And so on.

[Grollub]

Painful facts of Dredge:
Fact 1: Dredge got a favorable game 1 against most decks.
Fact 2: Dredge got an unfavorable game 2 and 3 against most decks.

Doesn't take a masters in applied mathematics to see what this characteristic means for a deck's performance as the amount of rounds in a tournament increases. The problem for Dredge in a large scale tournament is not (nor limited to): playskill, match-ups, time of day, the color of your underwear (if any) or mental "freshnes", but rather the inescapable math monster.