All B/R update speculation.

[Zombie]

The DTB section is smaller because the required percentage was increased.

But it was increased the last update already, no?

[HSCK]

They're also using way more results than they should, so much data is coming from small tournaments on TC. Elves, Blade Control, RUG, and ANT are all on the same level as Jund.

As a matter of health, if we are seeing larger spreads of decks in top 8s but smaller amounts of deck passing the threshold for being in DtB isn't that a good thing? That means there are more decks performing well instead of just a few that eat up large shares like RUG and Jund.

[Megadeus]

FWIW the Top 8 of the Charlotte open just had a nice 32/32 sweep of Brainstorm in T8.

[KobeBryan]

No Way...you mean TNN isn't warping the meta?

[HSCK]

The 7-1+ category looked a bit more diverse, 4 TA, 2 Deathblade, Elves, Miracles, MUD, Depths, Painter, Nic Fit, and Infect. March's trend so far has he top 10 decks at about 55% of the top 8 meta, that seems more healthy?

[ESG]

TNN was in the winning deck in Seattle. TNN was also in the winning deck in Los Angeles. TNN was also in the winning deck at the Invitational. Now we're on to the finals in Charlotte, where we'll see if TNN can take down the only deck in the format with one-mana Wraths. I hope those of you keeping track of the tally are recording this.

[HSCK]

TNN was a one-of in the Seattle winning list, that was a Team America Delver deck. UWR Delver is in the finals of Charlotte too. It's pretty misleading to classify both as TNN decks.

Only 2 of the 7-1+ Legacy decks (13 total) at the Invitational were TNN decks as well. Right now I have 7 Deathblade decks, 3 Blade Control decks, and 2 TNN BUG Control decks having top 8s in March out of 133 decks in top 8s with 6+ rounds. TA alone is 17 decks while Miracles is a 19. 57% of all top performing decks belong to the top 10 decks in the meta, if this trend continues it'll be the lowest in the last 18 months or so in terms of consolidation. I'll keep that in mind a bit more when it comes to looking at the meta and health.

[ESG]

Well, that one-of won the tournament. It was the key play. You can go back and watch the coverage if you didn't see it happen. TNN's existence swings games. It's not at all misleading to declare them TNN decks. TNN is a free win against a lot of decks. If TNN is in a list, it needs to be categorized as a TNN deck; otherwise, why keep track of anything? Many of us object to TNN being a card due to how it take the fun out of the game, whether you're playing it or playing against it, due to it reducing decisions and voiding the rest of the game once it resolves. The small contingent of TNN supporters claimed it wasn't overbearing, but it's not a coincidence that we're seeing many of these victorious decks running TNN. It's an edge against the format. Some of us realized this long ago, and we shouted about it. And despite a few minor twists, everything has come out like we said. TNN's power level is too high, and there are not enough acceptable answers that people can play that are also good against other things, leading to ever more focus on blue being the only real strategy for a big event. I hope you have data on blue vs. non-blue success, because I can already tell you that non-blue is really middling.

[JPoJohnson]

I remember mid last year when there was the exact same posts, but about Sneak N' Show. I haven't heard a Sneak Attack or Show N' Tell complaint in quite a while at this point once popularity shifted as it does. I think 3-4 months isn't really a long enough time period since if that's all it took Show N' Tell would have been banned last fall.

[ESG]

True-Name clinches Game 3, so TNN beats one-mana Wraths to claim another trophy. Streak is now up to four.

[KobeBryan]

True-Name clinches Game 3, so TNN beats one-mana Wraths to claim another trophy. Streak is now up to four.

TNN did not win that match, it was a very tight game with the resolution of batterskull and a sword of feast and famine.

[Dice_Box]

Meh. If Miracles did not fuck game one, that would have all been far more interesting.

All that did was:

A) Show that TNN is as much a bitch when its on the table as we all knew it was (game 2)
B) Prove Top is a great card
C) Give Brainstorm haters more of a reason to bitch

Nothing changed here, move on.

[ESG]

TNN did not win that match, it was a very tight game with the resolution of batterskull and a sword of feast and famine.

Most Magic games at that level of play are tight games. TNN was crucial in winning that match. Rewatch the coverage. Game 1 Phillip Braverman had Top + Counterbalance and Jace on board, which would be overwhelming advantage in a pre-TNN world. Instead, Michael Majors assembles TNN + Jitte and Braverman's board goes to hell. He loses his V. Clique and Snapcaster, then Jace, and is facing down lethal after repeated attempts to find Terminus when he punts and gets a game loss for accidentally drawing a card. So he went from overwhelming advantage to the familiar scramble of Terminus or bust.

In Game 3, Braverman has the advantage all the way, with Majors bricking turn after turn on flipping Delver of Secrets. They get into a racing situation with Braverman's solo angel token trying to seal the game up, and Majors gets TNN online. Braverman's last draw was a Stoneforge Mystic. Again, watch the coverage. If TNN was any other creature, that Stoneforge would have mattered, so in fact the game went to Majors precisely because it was TNN.

[Barook]

Before starting my weekly rant: I'm suprised that MUD placed twice this weekend - interesting.

After two weeks of somewhat healthy-looking Top 8s, we're right back in blue hell, deeper than ever before. Great...

81,25% of the Top 16 and 100% of the Top 8 were blue this time.

Looking at the data of the Top 16 and the Invitational top performers, aside from the two MUD decks and two RUG decks, literally every other deck was a TNN deck, combo deck to ignore TNN or decks specialized in dealing with TNN (Miracles and shitloads of BUG variants). And TNN still took the cake - twice. It boogles my mind that there are still so many people left who oppose a ban.

TNN is neither fun nor healthy for the format.

I remember mid last year when there was the exact same posts, but about Sneak N' Show. I haven't heard a Sneak Attack or Show N' Tell complaint in quite a while at this point once popularity shifted as it does. I think 3-4 months isn't really a long enough time period since if that's all it took Show N' Tell would have been banned last fall.

Sneak & Show devotes its entire strategy to become brainless monkey while with TNN, your core strategy doesn't change aside from getting a similiar 3 mana "I-Win"-button. D&T would absolutely slaugher S&S decks if they became a thing again. Too bad D&T doesn't run Brainstorm, hence it's rather less stellar performance in longer tournaments since random will screw you over while having to fight off TNN and splash hate, too. D&T thrives on MODO where a 3-1 or 4-0 is much more likely than having a Top 8-worthy streak.

[btm10]

The complaints about blue decks are getting pretty old. There wasn't a single complaint last week about the absurd SCG Top 8, ostensibly because it was a wacky anomoly and everyone knew and recognized it. This top 8 is probably slightly biased toward blue decks due to Invitational players who stuck around, and the known preference of top players for blue decks.

If D&T were actually dead, I'd be the first to dance on its grave; unfortunately, it isn't. The MUD finishes are interesting, though.

[HSCK]

This is the 5th month of data I've compiled and not once has a TNN-centric deck been in the top 2. Calling a deck with 4 Delver/4 DRS/1 TNN a TNN deck is ridiculous. Calling a deck with 4 Delver/4 SFM/2 TNN a TNN deck is also pretty wrong.

No deck is taking up more than 16% of the top 8 performances and every single month more and more decks are placing at the cost of the top 10 decks. That means more decks are doing well in the last 5 months than before TNN. TNN decks suppressed numbers for certain decks like RUG and Jund, but Jund's also on the uptick and has parity with Deathblade for March so far. Furthermore, TNN decks didn't eat up those percentages, but other decks filled up those percentage points. Isn't that what diversity is supposed to be? More decks making the elimination rounds? I'm no longer sure what goalpost people are using for the TNN is destroying the meta argument.

[Arsenal]

I strongly disagree with your assessment. If you examine the pre/post-TNN data I compared a few pages back, you can clearly see that the decks that (a.) care about TNN, but (b.) don't run it themselves saw a steep decline in Top 8 penetration while the TNN decks & decks designed not to care about TNN took up those percentage shares left vacant.

[btm10]

Arsenal - I'm still not sure that "not caring about card X" is indicative of card X being a problem. My impression of this classification is that you don't care if the not caring arises from not interacting with card X and winning before card X matters (the Sneak and Show/ANT route) or having answers to card X (the BUG/Miracles/possibly Jund route). Decks of the former type are part of a healthy metagame (I think even the most ardent combo-haters acknowledge that it's an archetype that should be allowed to exist), while decks with answers to a potentially problematic card are exactly what is meant by the metagame adapting. So I fail to see how "not caring" is somehow detrimental. Maverick and D&T are the two decks that keep coming up as the main 'victims' of a post-TNN meta, but they weren't driven out by TNN, they were driven out by the fact that they rely on a critical mass of hatebears and are therefore susceptible to sweepers, especially cheap -1/-1 effects. If you want a blue example, the same susceptibility is probably what stops a lot of people from playing Grixis Delver.

EDIT: I neglected to mention RUG Delver among the TNN victims. Although since its spot was taken by two similar decks, I'm not sure if anyone can be too upset about a loss of diversity.

[HSCK]

I strongly disagree with your assessment. If you examine the pre/post-TNN data I compared a few pages back, you can clearly see that the decks that (a.) care about TNN, but (b.) don't run it themselves saw a steep decline in Top 8 penetration while the TNN decks & decks designed not to care about TNN took up those percentage shares left vacant.

So how do you explain the larger uptick in rogue strategies doing well? DnT is doing pretty well for March and has been a contender since TNN's been in the meta. RUG and Jund lost shares, but is that really a bad thing? They were a huge percentage of the meta, but now everything's between 4-10%, in terms of health why is that bad? Do you really want those two decks to be at 30+% of the top 8 meta?

[Arsenal]

So how do you explain the larger uptick in rogue strategies doing well? DnT is doing pretty well for March and has been a contender since TNN's been in the meta. RUG and Jund lost shares, but is that really a bad thing? They were a huge percentage of the meta, but now everything's between 4-10%, in terms of health why is that bad? Do you really want those two decks to be at 30+% of the top 8 meta?

Maverick lost shares too. Shardless BUG lost shares too. RUG Delver, Jund, Maverick, and Shardless BUG all saw a significant decline in Top 8 penetration and those shares were effectively replaced with TNN decks (Deathblade most notably) and combo decks. That's 4 interactive decks being replaced by largely uninteractive decks; Team America being the most notable exception.

RE: RUG Delver and Jund's dominance... I honestly don't know. I'm actually conflicted on that as statistically, I don't think RUG's dominance was healthy for soooo long with no contender ever able to knock it off it's throne. On the other anecdotal hand, it was a completely fair deck that you could interact with on every level, same thing goes for Jund. That's a good question that I honestly don't have a good answer to.

Also, I've been guilty of this in the past, but I've really tried hard not to use a single month or single Top 8 or single whatever to illustrate a point. I think it'll make more sense to revisit the TNN issue in August as that will be 10 months of Legacy with TNN in the format. We can then compare and contrast the 10 months pre-TNN to the 10 months post-TNN and see what TNN did.