Performance of Stax at Waterbury

[dicemanx]

Your first assumption: it is not about whether a person correctly deduces so much as whether they have a greater degree of accuracy in their predictions.

Pre-Waterbury I might have said

40% of Deck A
25% of Deck B
15 % of Deck C
8% Deck D
etc etc

The question isn't whether I'm correct but the degree of accuracy.  So being "correct" does not matter.  What matters is the degree of accuracy.  I may have been 50% off base, whereas GI is probalby only 15% off base.  At some point that divide becomes a disincntive to participate. 

The term "correct" doesn't have to mean 100% accuracy to your 0% accuracy rate.  If I decided to put more effort into outlining the assumptions then I would have been more careful in not leaving my words too open for interpretation, because I thought the intent behind the statement was pretty clear. The whole point IS about degree of accuracy - the assumption that your argument is based on is that the apparent disparity between your degree of accuracy and a local's accuracy is meaningful. It's entirely obvious that there IS an advantage to the person that is able to make the better prediction; however, the assumption is that this disparity is *significant*.

The numbers you present can be misleading, even if they had any hope of being accurate. Being 35% more on the mark could amount to next to nothing, because as I also tried to argue the match-ups are almost irrelevant if we are dealing with top level archetypes. I mean honestly, if you know that the field has some fraction of Stax, some CS, some Oath, some Fish etc etc you're supposed to come up with an ideal meta deck? I'll stand by my previous statements that the best strategy is to play what you know and learn to play it well. I would recant my statement if the meta consisted of say 95% Stax decks that you could crush with MD hate, but we're dealing with a pretty even spread as far as archetype representation.

As for your second assumption, by now you can see that it is irrellevant to my argument.  There will ALWAYS be variation from a prediction.  No prediction will be perfect. 

How can you say this. I wasn't talking about perfect  predicions. I was talking about making projections from the micro-level to the macro-level. In order for the so called locals to have an edge over you, the outsider, they have to be able to predict with a fair bit of accuracy what will happen at the macro-level. This prediction doesn't come from clairvoyance. It come from the assumption that what you see at the smaller local scene is a fair representation of what will happen at a big event. For this to happen people have to be static in their ways and keep playing the same archetypes - if they are very unpredictable in their deck choices then what's happening at the micro-level, or whats happening in any one event has little to no impact on the next event.

[dicemanx]

Deck construction takes both of those into account.  BECAUSE of the narrow win percentages, metagaming those decks becomes critically important.  The inclusion of the last few cards in Gifts, Slaver, Stax can make the difference between a win and a loss.

As you can see, you both missed my argument by shortening the phrase “deck choice and deck construction� into “deck choice� and also failed to see, as a consequence, that I have already considered the point you are raising – which is the narrow win percentages found in the top tier archetypes.

Well, you can't on the one hand argue that I missed a "critical point" you were making (deck CONSTRUCTION) when your only example was a frivilous one (9LStompy) based on deck CHOICE.

If you care to give an alternate example to support your conclusion based on deck CONSTRUCTION, then I will be happy to address that too. But I will tell you now - if you give me a hypothetical example where the field is 80% Stax and you're adding 4 Rebuilds/Rack and Ruins to your deck to show me how deck CONSTRUCTION is important, then you win.

Let me give you a more realistic example of a meta, and perhaps you can illustrate to me exactly how deck CONSTRUCTION is supposed to factor in and change the %ages so significantly.

Lets take the Waterbury meta, after the fact.

Looking at that breakdown, how would you prepare for it to the degree where your deck construction is significant? Because from my vantage point, I would barely make any alterations to a deck I'm running now. I am aware of my decks strengths and weaknesses, and I know that even if say my "nemesis deck A" numbers at 20% rather than 30%, I will still focus on this weakness because I know that my other match-ups are already good and don't need additional help. It's almost gotten to the point where you can expect anything and everything as far as top archetypes go, so having the percentages shift from 10 to 20 or 40 to 30 isn't going to significantly alter my strategy. Even if I do add that additional piece of Stax hate because I correctly (or luckily) predicted more Stax showing up than "normal", my whole argument is that there are far more important factors that will affect the outcome as far as the entire event is concerned before I place importance on that one meta decision. Consistent performances in T1 don't come from metagaming (at least not YET), they come from solid technical play and playing your deck perfectly.

[PucktheCat]

Steve, I agree that those last few card slots take on magnified importance in T1 because of the narrow win percentage margins, but by the same token the play skill issues take on equally more importance.

The “Plays of the game� are not the relevant question.

Of course they are.  Games are won and lost on plays.  In fact, as far as I know that is the only way they are won or lost.

More seriously, here is my point.  You hear all the time about people playing through tournaments never seeing a particular one-of they wanted to test out.  I did absolutely nothing with my Echoing Truth last weekend except remove it from the game with Force.  I simply didn't draw it.  I think another guy there said he never saw his one-of Gifts Ungiven in his Slaver build.  And both of these were builds that play boatloads of search and draw.  A deck like Stax might get through a tournament never seeing a given 4-of.  The point is that a given card choice will only affect a fraction of the games you play simply by virtue of the fact that this is a random game.  Because so many of the card choices are set in Vintage the amount deck building can affect the game is severely limited by the simple law of probability.

Playskill, on the other hand, affects every game, and as the effects get more powerful and the parity between the decks becomes greater it only becomes more important.  In a close game you can hope that your tech comes up to win you the game, but you can be certain that the outcome will turn at least in part on a decision you make in game.

[Smmenen]

The whole point IS about degree of accuracy - the assumption that your argument is based on is that the apparent disparity between your degree of accuracy and a local's accuracy is meaningful. It's entirely obvious that there IS an advantage to the person that is able to make the better prediction; however, the assumption is that this disparity is *significant*.

I’m glad we are on the same page now.
My original purpose for replying to your post was that you somehow misconstrued my argument as being an attack on the unpredictability of the Waterbury instead of one of relative competitive advantage.  And further you somehow perceived that point as an attack on weak players.  I have no idea how that came about. 
Regardless, of course I assume that this disparity is significant.  It is always meaningful, but the degree of significance is now such that it is a disincentive to actually come and play.  Just ask Brian Demars and read what GI and others have said.  I think it is abundantly clear from what regular Waterbury contestants have said: Whatever Works and GI that the metagame results weren’t that surprising to them.  When I look at that tournament, I know that I was missing something.  Beore the Waterbury I was talking to Andy Probasco and he was telling me that the local scene had become very strange indeed.  I had seen some shifts in some of the meager tournaments results which were being reported.  But it all made sense when the Waterbury finally played out.  It made sense what he was talking about.  I did not have that information available to integrate into my metagame analysis.

If you care to give an alternate example to support your conclusion based on deck CONSTRUCTION, then I will be happy to address that too. But I will tell you now - if you give me a hypothetical example where the field is 80% Stax and you're adding 4 Rebuilds/Rack and Ruins to your deck to show me how deck CONSTRUCTION is important, then you win.

You are improperly framing the debate.  Let’s get out of this frame of debate for a moment.  What’s really going on here is that there is a contention between us.  The proper way of framing it is simple:
What matters more
1) Technical Skill (as you claim) or:
2) Deck Choice and Deck Construction (as I claim)?
I claim that the latter is because it is the threshold inquiry.  You have to be able to choose a weapon and figure out how to tweak it for the field.  You, and many others, apparently begin with a deck already in mind and then perhaps decide how to tweak it.  That’s not how I operate. 

The numbers you present can be misleading, even if they had any hope of being accurate. Being 35% more on the mark could amount to next to nothing, because as I also tried to argue the match-ups are almost irrelevant if we are dealing with top level archetypes. I mean honestly, if you know that the field has some fraction of Stax, some CS, some Oath, some Fish etc etc you're supposed to come up with an ideal meta deck?

Actually yes.  Your comment reflects a common problem in Vintage – a lack of imagination about design and metagaming and the stock assumption that we should work with what we have instead of innovating fresh approaches.  My team came up with a new deck that beats Stax, Slaver, and Gifts.  I would have played it if I had gone.   The one teammate who piloted the deck played three Workshop Aggro decks and lost to two of them, knocking him out of contention. 
Another problem here is that, once again, you’re talking about deck choice and not the broader concept deck choice and deck construction.  Both matter.  Moreoever, the percentages make a huge difference in not only deck choice but also deck construction. 

I'll stand by my previous statements that the best strategy is to play what you know and learn to play it well. I would recant my statement if the meta consisted of say 95% Stax decks that you could crush with MD hate, but we're dealing with a pretty even spread as far as archetype representation

There you go.  That’s where you come down on this debate – Skill matters more than deck choice.   But to me, where I know most of the decks in the format with about the same level of technical proficiency, there are options available to me that isn’t a consideration.  For example, GI said he woudn’t play Stax because he wasn’t competent with it.  I wouldn’t have that fear.  I agree with your statement that you should play what you know, but for me the threshold inquiry is always deck choice and then deck construction.

As you can see, you both missed my argument by shortening the phrase “deck choice and deck construction� into “deck choice� and also failed to see, as a consequence, that I have already considered the point you are raising – which is the narrow win percentages found in the top tier archetypes.

Well, you can't on the one hand argue that I missed a "critical point" you were making (deck CONSTRUCTION) when your only example was a frivilous one (9LStompy) based on deck CHOICE.

I certainly can because above that example, in bold, is this sentence:

But I would argue and have argued that the most important skill in Vintage is deck construction and deck choice.  Period.

Admittedly, but example was frivolous, but you have not at all attempted in anyway to refute my point beyond disputing the validity of an example: that the most important skill in Vintage is deck construction and deck choice.  I already dealt with your comparison to Poker and implied comparison to Chess.  The weapons are different.  In both of those games, the technical skill is the only different factor when luck is removed (as we agree it is in the long run).  But in magic, technical skill is not the only X factor.  Deck Choice and deck construction is.  As I’ve already stated – this is inherent in magic.  Moreover, it is amplified in Vintage.
 

Let me give you a more realistic example of a meta, and perhaps you can illustrate to me exactly how deck CONSTRUCTION is supposed to factor in and change the %ages so significantly.

Certainly.  In an environment with little Oath and lots of Workshops and Slaver/Gifts, Gorialla Shaman is an awesome metagame choice.  In an environment with lots of Oath and Fish, it becomes less good (both because Shaman requires a Volc to play which is Wastelandable and because it may trigger an Oath).  SBing is also huge in this regard.  The entire construction of a sb is dependent upon metagame predictions.  Therefore local knowledge is part of how this advantage plays out. 

Lets take the Waterbury meta, after the fact.

Looking at that breakdown, how would you prepare for it to the degree where your deck construction is significant? Because from my vantage point, I would barely make any alterations to a deck I'm running now. I am aware of my decks strengths and weaknesses, and I know that even if say my "nemesis deck A" numbers at 20% rather than 30%, I will still focus on this weakness because I know that my other match-ups are already good and don't need additional help. It's almost gotten to the point where you can expect anything and everything as far as top archetypes go, so having the percentages shift from 10 to 20 or 40 to 30 isn't going to significantly alter my strategy. Even if I do add that additional piece of Stax hate because I correctly (or luckily) predicted more Stax showing up than "normal", my whole argument is that there are far more important factors that will affect the outcome as far as the entire event is concerned before I place importance on that one meta decision.

Your whole argument is that skill matters more than deck choice and deck construction.  If that is the case, then what can do in any given example is show how skill mattered more than deck construction or deck choice.  But that doesn’t refute the contention that those matter more than skill.  All it does is show that in this example you wouldn’t have changed anything.  The cluster of decisions involved in deck construction and deck choice matter more then skill.
This isn’t a new argument.  I’ve been arguing for years that deck choice matters more. 

Consistent performances in T1 don't come from metagaming (at least not YET), they come from solid technical play and playing your deck perfectly.

How can you so confidently separate the two?  How do you know which was metagaming and which was just technical play?  How do you know that Demars two Shamans or whatever slight maindeck tweak [insert name] made wasn’t as important as their technical skill?  When I use the term metagaming, I’m referring broadly to deck choice and deck construction – so let’s name it as that. 

. I was talking about making projections from the micro-level to the macro-level. In order for the so called locals to have an edge over you, the outsider, they have to be able to predict with a fair bit of accuracy what will happen at the macro-level. This prediction doesn't come from clairvoyance. It come from the assumption that what you see at the smaller local scene is a fair representation of what will happen at a big event. For this to happen people have to be static in their ways and keep playing the same archetypes - if they are very unpredictable in their deck choices then what's happening at the micro-level, or whats happening in any one event has little to no impact on the next event

It can come from other sources too – such as simple knowledge of people’s tastes and preferences in the area, talking to people about what they have seen and what they are going to play, etc.  People generally have tastes and preferences and these preferences and tastes shift, but they shift very little over the short term.

I think the most important point here is that to most outside observers, as witnessed in the Waterbury thread, the results of the Waterbury were very strange indeed.  And yet, the people who are regulars did not find it that surprising.  There will always be a competitive disadvantage to outsiders when it comes to metagame knowledge – but we have finally reached a point where it has become a disincentive to participate.

I wanted to articulate that point because you seemed to suggest that I wanted metagame coherence so that I could pwn weaker players.  It had nothing to do with that.  Your original post missed my point. 

[Whatever Works]

Maybe we are just overthinking everything a little bit? It was just 1 tournement after all... And waterbury has always had a tendency to post remarkably weird top 16 lists.

I think the Stax question could be as easy to answer as: Stax is a great deck. However, it is extremely difficult for Stax to succeed in a VERY prepared field that consists of Hate, "The Mountain Wins Again.dec", RG Beatz, and top player mirror matches among Stax players... While not 1 Stax player had the good fortune of pairing up vs. GAT... Sigh...

Kyle L

[bebe]

Nothing that anyone has said convinces nme that either skill or deck choice produces a Waterbury result. Lets consider that Tog is not a strong archtype when 25 stax decks are present in the environment. Therefore it would appear a bad deck choice. So was the skill determining factor? I would say luck more than skill played a part in Tog's emergence. If you are 'lucky' enough not to face the predominant deck that has a very good chance of defeating your deck then you can win.
I played a strange deck choice at the last tournament in Toronto undser the assumption that wild zombies, oath and fish would be evrywhere. I was lucky enough to get three of those match ups which are near byes for my deck. In this case it was the deck choice and not the skill level that won out. However, I lost my first match up against TPS because I misread what my opponent was playing, had a bad mulligan and was still learning the deck ( I had all of five games of practice ). So skill definately played a role here. In fact i remember talking to Peter and saying that my7 skill level for a seasoned vintage player was often lacking ( I can play very unfocused at times ).
I think all results refrlect a variety of contributing components that makes that deck succeed or lose. It is too pat to assume that only one fact is the predominant determinant. I think deck choice, deck construction, skill and luck all contribute and each can be the prominent reason on any given day. I have to agree with Whatever Works. We are overthinking these results. Every noob out there will now gravitate towards Tog until its proved again that it is not a good meta choice. I wwill continue playing combo until it proves not to be a fruitful choice regardless of what others play. I will keep my massacres in the board and add pithing needles and hope to get my best match ups.

[forests failed you]

I actually played against Stax at Waterbury three times and was X-O against it playing CS.  I had never been to a Waterbury before, and my understanding of the region was that there was a lot of CS and a lot of Gifts.  Accordingly I adjusted my main deck as such to combat threse particular archetypes, as well as have a strong game against Oath.  I played Duplicant to beat up on Colossus and Akroma, MD Crucible to gain mana advantage over Pentabus which is deat in both of these match ups.  I also played Titan and Strip Mine in my maindeck, as these cards are huge in control mirrors, as they allow you to out mana an opponent.  Aptly , my sideboard was also well equipped to fight control mirrors.  Unfortunately I ended up playing and losing against decks that played:  Werebears, Katakis, Null Rods, and Cursed Totems.  Not even close to what I would have evaluated the metagame to look like.

I talked for a while with Jacob after the event and he told me that becaues Slaver and Gifts had had such a dominance over the regional metagame for some time; he believed that perhaps the metagame over compensated itself to fight against those particular archetypes.  Essentially, producing a large number of hate decks, metagamed Fish decks, and random aggro decks. 

For instance, I lost the last round of the swiss to a black/blue/white deck that played turn one MMage Strip Mine, followed by three Wastelands and a Stifle.  Pretty lucky.  I stomped him game two.  And game three he played turn one Mox, Duress, Ritual, Negator.  Turn two Negator.  I actually just had no answer to random aggro like that in my deck or sideboard because I wasn't expecting to have to play against that type of aggro.  Kudos that guy for playing negator, but the point of the story is that comming into Waterbury I think that a lot of people had a totally different perspective on what the metagame was going to look like.  I know that quite a few people I talked to were very confused about why there were so many hate Fish decks floating around; especially since the prescident for Waterbury has always been so Drain based. 

As for the low performance of Stax:  I don't usually think of the NE as a place where Stax tends to permiate the metagame, and fair enough, there wasn't a ton of Stax.  I was playing against Stax at the high tables in rounds Four and Five so of the few that were doing well I may have knocked a few out of contention playing CS. 

[Vegeta2711]

1) Technical Skill (as you claim) or:
2) Deck Choice and Deck Construction (as I claim)?
I claim that the latter is because it is the threshold inquiry.  You have to be able to choose a weapon and figure out how to tweak it for the field.  You, and many others, apparently begin with a deck already in mind and then perhaps decide how to tweak it.  That’s not how I operate.

At the highest level it's going to be both. Either skill individually is important, but ultimately futile to have if you don't have the other. Both in fact are cheapened a bit in Vintage.

There's a reason people kept getting killed playing hate vs. Affinity (the best deck) and why the best players won the Affinity mirrors in the long term.

I mean honestly, if you know that the field has some fraction of Stax, some CS, some Oath, some Fish etc etc you're supposed to come up with an ideal meta deck?

Actually, no, you aren't. You only create a metagame deck if you understand what exactly the current format and region will be playing and want to have a massive advantage over supposedly 'everyone else', but only if you accept the inherent risk of going 0-2 or 1-2 very early on due to pairings. The downside, as with all metagame decks, is by playing against a deck with a different set of goals than the decks you're trying to smash, you lack the ability to deal. So it's an active choice, you CAN play an ideal meta deck if you work at it, but it may end up just not being worth anything due to a meta shift or bad pairings. Which makes it a dicey (:lol:) affair at best.

[forests failed you]

I agree completly; if you have skill and a bad deck, or poor skill and a savage deck you are most likely going to finish X-3 every time or worse.  Unless you are lucky.

The most important things is just to be lucky.

As my father always told me:  Its better to be lucky than good, I suppose/

However, when luck fails; being really, really, good is always a nice thing to have to fall back on.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'm going to try to do this chronologically:

GI, that's not a counter to my point at all.  Just becuase no-name players did well with Drain decks doesn't negate the fact that the "pro" players by and large play Drains in the NE and not Shops.

I agree that the more prominent players in NE tend to play drains, where I think it opposes your argument is that non-name players don't do well with stax elsewhere.  The everyman from various regions have piloted tog, slaver, and gifts to top finishes; drains just seem to adapt well to the common touch.

Man, and I thought economists had trouble with pluralism, ok...

What started as a fairly consolidated topic has diverged into a few sub-points:
1) playskill vs deck construction (i.e. marginalism)
2) variability of matchup win %
3) metagame prediction

Yes, I know that all of these are somewhat related.  Everything is related...

Let's assume that everyone or at least a significant portion of a major event plays a functionally competitive deck.  This includes marginal decks like Hulk, Belcher, Aggro Workshop, etc, along with the favorites like Stax, Gifts, Fish, and Oath.

*as an aside, those who shrugged off the Hulk Top 2 didn't realize how well it was metagamed, along with the fact that it's always had a strong core*

Next lets assume that the metagame 'coherence' shapes up nicely in that the top 4 or so expected decks all get strong represenatation, and then everyone else tries niche decks, decks they're familiar with, and hate decks (whoa, sounds like Waterbury).

*side argument - I really don't buy the fact that Waterbury is that unpredictable for anyone who does their homework.  Either I'm that bright, or people just don't pay attention to stats (insert Dicemanx opinion that T1 players don't)

This should allow us to attack the three main (sub) topics without much semantics.

1) I'm going to plead the 5th here.  I'm as not familiar with other formats, and I don't know what 'higher' magic would look like.  Since in T1 I've seen both factors play a large roll in the outcome of matchups (I've seen strong players do well over and over again: Carl, Ray, Rich, Travis,...), but I've also seen these same players upset by an early Tinker, a surprise Possessed Portal (OMFG!), and a rare metagame choice.  I think there is a relatively equal split between playskill and deck construction (and luck) in T1.

2) A LONG time ago one of the LONG extinct paragons wrote an article about playtesting, actually, it was more about the lack of playtesting.  It is my opinion from talking to lots of people that many don't have any clue what actual matchups look like.  Although I partly agree with Dicemanx that matchups in T1 are closer to 50-50 than elsewhere, I also think that people don't pay enough attention to the margins.  I feel that when I make good deck construction decisions I can increase my chances of T8 by 20% at least.  Even to a poker player that isn't insignificant.

3) Every metagame is different.  Every tournament creates a different environment.  In spite of all this, you can win small advantages by knowing what to expect.  If I know 60% of the people attending Waterbury that's entirely different than when I go down to a Richmond SCG and know a handful of people.  Regardless of whether I actually can predict Waterbury or not, anyone who has information for a metagame has an advantage.  I think Dicemanx (perhaps unintentionally) simplifies my thought process when approaching this event.  It isn't just look at the most recent T8's from Beanie, Myriad, and NJ and figure it out.  While lots of stats get thrown around, there's a big difference between using your last two slots for 2x pithing needle, or using them for loa/echoing truth (for example), because you have a metagame hunch.

Generally, I tend to side with Smennen here, in spite of my respect for the ability of good players to win out.  Perhaps this is because of my lack of knowledge about REALLY good players in other formats.

However, in light of this, I still can't figure out why stax did poorly.  No one ever responded directly to my question of whether stax was known to be passe or a poor choice for the meta at waterbury.

[Harlequin]

Perhapse people who feel like they mis-evaluated the metagame are too narrowly makeing deck choices.  For a small local tourny (say anything around 4 rounds) metagame choices make a HUGE impact on who is going to win and loose.  At waterbury or any tourny pushing 8 rounds, you should just say to yourself... "Self, rounds 1, 2 and 3 are a total crap shoot, I could face anything from control slaver to oasha-stompy"  Then you say "Self, In rounds 4, 5, 6 I need to figure out who is going to win, i can narrow the field to basically mana drain, shop, and some combo getting lucky first 3 round pairings" then you say "Self, if i do well in rounds 1to6 who will i see in top 16?"  thats where the real problem lies.  I think people are too focused on the last question and not the first two.  This waterbury showed us that basically trying to predict top 16 is like tring to pick connecticut powerball numbers ... all in all some ppl guess right, and alot guess wrong.
I would also like to say that those who guess right dont automatically win and those who guess wrong automatically loose.  In fact my waterbury sideboard was a bit "fish hate" heavy.  beause I expected more ppl would want to try out dark confidant in a big game enviorment. 
Im not really talking to Smemnen or GI or diceman when i say this, so don't blow your stack and post back OMG Harlequin you think we dont know that?!?! OMFG! But i just want to get it down on the forum to bring it back to a bit more reality and a bit less theory. -- When sideing for a big tourny you need versitiliy over Kryptonite.  Like a great example: Spawning Pit.  A card that saw alot of play as a sideboard card against oath.  If you had spawning pits in your sideboard you were saying "Self, I expect to fight many games against oath."  you took a gamble on running a card that would 100.5% dead agianst any other matchup, granted in you might have faced 4 oath decks durring the day, but all in all, it was a major gamble because even IF you correctly evaluated the meta, you might not get paired with oath based on large the large number of players.   If your going to put an oath sidebord card in your deck you should probably choose something that will be good against other decks as well.  Im not going to insult you with every card that could choose, but you get the idea. 

[Vegeta2711]

However, in light of this, I still can't figure out why stax did poorly.  No one ever responded directly to my question of whether stax was known to be passe or a poor choice for the meta at waterbury.

This seems easy to answer. It's because Stax loses to dudes and the mirror is almost completely dependent on resolving Crucible of Worlds (at least until board, even then it's still important). If your opening play is Taiga -> Kird Ape or Plains -> Savannah Lions and you have a 2nd land in hand, Stax is in deep to begin with. I mean take a look at the metagame breakdown you posted.

Fish 20
FCG 10 (includes non-foodchain lists)
Other 60

Assuming around half of the 'other' included decks can play creatures on turn 1/2, that equals 60 decks that have good to great games against Stax from the get-go. This is before you take into account additional hate these decks have in the form of Kataki, Serenity, Artifact Mutation, Rack and Ruin, Magus of the Unseen and so forth. Then take into account that a few unlucky Stax players got to play the fun that is the mirror and you have a lot of them getting knocked out of contention.

This is also completely assuming that OMG STAX BEATS OATH AND GIFTS!!11!1 on a consistent basis (Which I'm sure people will want to argue to death). CS is still quite capable of beating Uba Stax and 5c Stax. Some combo variants pack multiple Rebuild and basics so those are going to do fine.

I mean even if you dismiss all that and assume you have an automatic good match against every Drain deck and Oath, that still leaves roughly 1/3rd of the field as average to terrible matches and there's enough Stax that playing the mirror in the later rounds is a real possibility.

[Evenpence]

I disagree with your assessment of Stax.  Ubastax at least.  You might be talking about the traditional, 5c version that people like Chang pilot, but from what I've been told, there was more Ubastax at Waterbury than traditional.

Ubastax dominates Fish, (except for Fish that's completely devoted to killing Stax, but I doubt there was any of that at Waterbury) and loses to Oath.

It doesn't straight up destroy Gifts, either.  If they resolve Tinker early and you don't have a Welder or Duplicant, or if they resolve Rebuild later, you're done for.

I don't know why you assume that two lands and a kird ape beats Stax anyway.  Three permanents is a horrible defense against a ramped smokestack.  Every card in Ubastax is a permanent.  Plus, we have a draw engine.  The reason we do well against permanent-based decks is because A) we have more of them, B) we have (arguably) the best draw engine in the format when it's out.

[Vegeta2711]

Um, because if you don't have Smokestack or if they have an answer, you lose the game.
Uba Stax's main way to stop threats are literally
-Trying to ramp Smokestack up high
-Using Barb Ring recusion
-Finding and casting one of the 1-2 Duplicants in the deck

These are all mind-numbingly slow except for the turn 1 Smokestack plan.

I don't know why you assume that two lands and a kird ape beats Stax anyway.

Probably because I've tested it. The R/G match is much like playing FCG against Uba Stax, the differences being you lose Goblin Lackey and your men aren't really vunerable to Barbarian Ring. You play some cheap goons and perms and win the game before they stop you in the typical game. Things then get ridiculous post-board when you get AM and possibly R&R or Heretic.

As for Fish, I've played Fish and the old versions lost to Uba Stax, but the ones made in the last 2-3 months don't. My own version, Kird's version and OFM (the canadian version) all have 50/50 or better against it depending on what hate they use. I haven't throughly tested the Vial version, but I'd assume it'd be along the same lines.

But if you look at the numbers, it's not even that relevant to my point. Ok, let's assume for a moment that Uba Stax does smash Fish and loses to Oath. Then instead of Stax losing to roughly 60 decks, Stax loses to roughly 57.

[Evenpence]

Um, because if you don't have Smokestack or if they have an answer, you lose the game.
Uba Stax's main way to stop threats are literally
-Trying to ramp Smokestack up high

It's really not all that hard to do.  Finding Smokestack is probably the hardest part of all that, and it's not that hard when you have Welder+Bazaar.

-Using Barb Ring recusion

This wouldn't work against Kird Ape, but this isn't all that hard to do with Bazaar either.  If you have Welder+Uba Lock then they lose all the guys that don't put down the early beats as well.

-Finding and casting one of the 1-2 Duplicants in the deck

Not only do you have 4 Duplicant post-board as well as lightning bolt effects and Maze of Iths, but finding 2 Duplicants is really not all that hard to do.

Moreover, you don't need to cast the Duplicant with Welder.

Moreover, with Workshops/Academy/Artifact Mana, Duplicant isn't all that hard to cast.

These are all mind-numbingly slow except for the turn 1 Smokestack plan.

Theoretically, I could go first turn Welder, second turn Duplicant very easily.  Mountain, artifact mana, welder.  2nd Turn)  Bazaar into Duplicant.  I've seen 10-11 cards.  Duplicant and Welder are probably in there.  But if not, I can find him soon.

First turn Smokestack is not an extreme rarity either.  B-ring recusion sure is slow, though.  Can't argue there, but that's the worst one out of all of them.

!  Why did you leave out proactive disruption, such as 1st turn Trinisphere, or 1st turn Sphere of Resistance into 2nd turn Sphere of resistance into land destruction with crucible until we get a guy out to block their guy attacking at us (and that's only if they went first)?

Proactive disruption works against aggro as well, although not as often.  Being able to go 1st turn Trinisphere, 2nd turn crucible kill lands is never bad against aggro, especially on the play.

Moreover, you seem to forget about Chalice.  First turn Chalice at 1 into 2nd turn Chalice at 2 really isn't all that bad at stopping aggro, I've heard.

As for the testing, I've tested the same thing, and I would rather go up against Fish than any other high tier deck in the format.  As for R/G, well, we lose to that sure, but it's not because of 2 taiga/kird ape.  It's because of MD artifact hate.

[Ishi]

Coming from a chess background, I found Smmenen's statement about "technical skill", fairly odd.  No chess player I know thinks in using the term "technical skill".  They think about many skills like opening knowledge, tactical ability, stategical feel, endgame play, and so on.  No one says, "today I'm going to study chess skill," they say "I'm going to work on my endgame play," or whatever.

Likewise, it doesn't seem like there is single Magic ability called "playskill".  You should break it down into things like tactical ability, planning, bluffing, reading oponents, metagame knowledge, etc.  Also, creating a new deck, tuning an existing deck and choosing the right deck for a metagame are very different skills.  It doesn't seem to me that it's possible to train more than 1 or 2 of these things at the same time.

This doesn't really answer the question of is it better to spend time improving your playing skills or creating/innovating decks, but maybe it's a better framework to see things with.  Seems to me that if you know that one part of your magic game is weak you should concentrate on that.  Likewise, if you think you have a solid foundation on all parts of your game, and you are a good deckbuilder than you should work on new innovations.

BTW, many (most?) professional chess players spend time physically working out.  Tennis and running are 2 popular sports among top grandmasters.  It takes a lot of physical stamina concentrating at a board for 4-6 hours.  Magic seems to require even more endurance -- Type 1 especially.  Maybe the best thing to do before the next tourny is take a few jogs...

[Akuma]

@Vegeta2711 and Evenpence

I love playing Stax / Uba Stax, but Vegeta2711's assesment is spot on. First let's get on thing out of the way, a huge part of the Stax game plan is going first, period. Stax does lose to 'dudes'. A typical Uba Stax build gets raped by a decent build of goblins. Welder is garbage against these decks packing dudes because he's usually DOA. So, that 6cc cost Duplicant is not so hot. You draw the ever-so-useful-against-aggro Null Rod and Uba Mask combo, while they beat your face and roast your welders. 5c Stax has random broken outs, but Uba Stax does not. For the record, I prefer playing Uba Stax to 5c Stax. It's style suits me better. It feels more deliberate and consistent. A player really needs to know what he's doing to navigate Stax to a succesful finish (props to those who have!)

People need to take a look at their sideboards and maindeck to accommodate the expected metagame. It looks like most people just copy Vroman's list, even the sideboard, not knowing why.

General: Why did Stax not put up great numbers at Waterbury?

- The ever important skill of winning the coin flip is even more important for Stax than Drains.
- Stax is easier to hate than Drains. The most powerful strategies are usually spell-based (ie. Gifts) because there is really only one sure-fire way to stop these decks, and guess what, you need blue to do so...
- Stax mirror matches are a coin flip, provided that the players are at least competent.
- I don't know where this notion that Fish is a bye for Stax is coming from.
- Did I mention that going first is even more important for Stax.

There is also a general dislike for the Stax archetype as a whole, especially in the scrub population. So a newer player goes to a tournament, gets stomped by Stax and hates it more than if he got stomped by Oath, Slaver, or Gifts. Next time this player goes to a tournament he remembers his horrible experience and makes sure to bring the love, ie. Artifact Mutation, Goblin Vandal, Viashino Heretic, Rack and Ruin, blah, blah, blah.

My two cents 

[Juggernaut GO]

playing 2nd is one of the reasons I added library of alexandria to my stax decks.  So I go 2nd and may end up on the short end of the permanent race due to a chalice at 0 or a trinisphere, but I will break out of it easier by drawing 5-6 extra cards.  Of course this can not apply to uba stax, because after turn 3 you are playing with no hand.  This is one of the reasons I could never play uba because you are always looking for the answer, and never have it in your hand ready to slap. 

[Cross]

I think what happened was there there was a huge representation of aggro, which stax typically has issues dealing with, especailly post sideboard when fish has energy fluxes, and fcg has artifact mutations.

I also played against stax twice during the day, but playing confidant I had mainboard rebuilds, and confidants which hose stax. Needless to say I 2-0d both stax players I played.

[Evenpence]

People need to take a look at their sideboards and maindeck to accommodate the expected metagame. It looks like most people just copy Vroman's list, even the sideboard, not knowing why.

True.  People constantly play whatever the current version of Ubastax is.  When Grubastax was all the rage, people didn't even stick with the monored version.  They went on because Vroman said it was the best.  Turn out that Vroman didn't feel it was all that great, so he went back to monored (now with spheres! for only 5.99!), and most have followed suit.  The sideboards for Ubastax are almost identical because no one knows how to play the deck.  Pyroblasts have stayed in far too long, and we're finally coming to that conclusion.  It's hilarious, the deck with the most versatile SB has the least differences in one list to another.

I'm going to be running probably 3-4 Jester's Cap soon, but no one will switch because Vroman didn't say so.

The simple fact is that Jester's Cap owns Oath, and my meta is filled with Oath.  When people see the decklist over a tourney report, they'll simply say, "Wow.  That's unbelievable.  How can you have Jester's Cap in your SB?  Null Rod takes that out immediately."  What people don't realize is although there's dissynergy between Null Rod and Cap, it's the same with Crypt, and people love Crypt because Vroman says so.

Props to Yeshupuren (sorry about the name dude, I don't know how to pronounce it), for sticking with monored and with the addition of spheres.  We might all be converting to adding in a Sundering Titan, too, who knows?

The problem is that there are not enough notable figures right now playing Ubastax for people to give heed to them.  Right now, it's all on the shoulders of it's creator, and while that's completely understandable, it needs to change, because while I'm absolutely positive Vroman is honored to be held in such high esteem (and the guy deserves it, absolutely), people need to innovate.

- I don't know where this notion that Fish is a bye for Stax is coming from.

Vroman himself.

Anyway, I, personally, have never had a problem with scrubby aggro.  Goblins win first game, but I would say Ubastax has the advantage games 2 and 3 because Goblins generally doesn't have sideboard cards for Stax.  They assume it's a gamewin, and meta for other things.  I side out dead cards into mazes/duplicants and win with a few life points game 2 and 3 nearly every time.

I am undefeated against Goblins in real life, as well as Fish, and other scrubby aggro.  The goblins battles have always gone to game 3, however, and have always been close in games 2 and 3, so I'm not saying it's a walkover for Ubastax.

EDIT:  Chalices have been key in ALL my games against aggro.  I've always seem to have gotten them, but this is the same way in testing.  I don't test against much aggro because I feel it's the easiest of all the matchups to play, so I need the least testing.  Either you win or you don't, and there's not alot of errors that can happen.  Chalices for 1/2 are huge.

I'll pull up the quote from Vroman in a second.  Just gimmie a second to edit the post.

Quote is from Vroman on the first page of the Ubastax Primer Thread

...fortunately fish is an easy match up overall, and being able to afford even one lock can strangle them long enough to either kill flux indirectly through smoky...

There have been more quotes from Vroman about Fish recently, but I don't want to pull all those up.

[Harlequin]

This is a response to the arguement against "technical skill" verbage.
Frist off there is "technical skill" in chess ... but you master that in your first week of play.  first you learn how each of the 6 piece can move (ei bishops move diagonally, and pawns can only go forward ... etc).  Then you need to master the complex art of "when can I castle?" After that you've master the technical aspect of the game.  Now comes the lifetime of mastering how to actually play the game.
In magic it is almost impossible to master the "technical skill" involved.  step one would be get your lvl 5 judge's licence.  Then you need to go back through all the ruleing on certain cards and get a really good understanding of ever mechanic (this includes such awsome mechanics as banding, horsemanship, and phaseing).  You can make technical play mistakes that cost you the game... in chess I doubt anyone says "man I woulda won that if i only knew the queen cold move diagonally..."
Obviously only the best techncal players will be able to optimize thier deck.  The hardest part of technical play mistakes is its almost impossible to realize that you've made them.  You basically need someone to tell you ... ya know you could have put combat damge on the stack, had triskellion target your opponent twice and himself once then welded him back in play untapped for the block - Or that you can weld out artifacts that have an energy flux trigger on them durring your upkep for artifacts that will not trigger this upkeep...etc etc etc...  Stax, as compaired to many other decks, is one of the most technically challanging decks to play, dragon too. 

Off topic... but not really.
This was actually a quote from a game that occured next to me in mass one time
Dragon player: "Ok I win"
Opp: "How do you win?"
Dragon: "If I have a dragon in the yard, bazarr in play, and I play animate,  I win"
Opp: "Ok, then explain to me how you win"
Dragon: "Its combo ... I combo out and deck you with laquatas"
Opp: "Explain to me the steps"
Dragon: "I dont know how it works but. But, I know what cards I need to have in play to win!"
Opp: "JUDGE"

[dicemanx]

You are improperly framing the debate.  Let’s get out of this frame of debate for a moment.  What’s really going on here is that there is a contention between us.  The proper way of framing it is simple:
What matters more
1) Technical Skill (as you claim) or:
2) Deck Choice and Deck Construction (as I claim)?
I claim that the latter is because it is the threshold inquiry.  You have to be able to choose a weapon and figure out how to tweak it for the field.  You, and many others, apparently begin with a deck already in mind and then perhaps decide how to tweak it.  That’s not how I operate. 

Well, its interesting that you try to "properly frame the debate" and end up missing the boat. My contention is that players' general lack of strong technical skills is masking the importance of deck choice/construction. "Which matters more" is something that I couldn't care less about, because to me it would be a pointless exercise to debate such an issue. In fact, the right answer would be: they are both important. I also wouldn't argue against GI's assertion that we have to "pay attention to the margins"; in fact, it would be foolish to ignore metagaming and deck construction completely. What I *am* addressing is the surprise that certain archetypes failed to do well, or certain known players ended up doing poorly (not only in this thread, but this happens periodically in other threads as well). I don't find such things surprising at all, because the fact that a deck like Stax ended up failing to do well can be either well within the expected deviation (ie there's no statistical significance in the deviation from Stax's "expected" performance) or it can be attributed to factors beyond the actual deck and its match-ups. The question of Stax's apparent "failure" would be far more interesting if we could filter out certain variables - that is, if we could "trust" the pilots and their opponents in their ability to generate meaningful data. It would also be necessary to be able to determine the deck's "expected" performance - after all, how is this determined in the first place? Can you trust other people's playskill during testing/tournaments, can you trust their choice of builds, and can you trust the competency of the players or the builds that they test against/play against in tournaments? Can you trust your own testing/observations?

GI stated that according to his testing, Stax the most powerful archetype in the format. I cannot challenge him on this because I, like many others, cannot possibly have accumulated enough empirical evidence to determine this. But I wonder what this means exactly, and how this translates into the expected performance of the archetype when it comes to tournaments. Also, how do we factor in things like susceptibility to hate? This could mean that the "less powerful" archetypes like Gifts or CS might actually be stronger due to resiliency to hate decks. So perhaps we might have to define Stax as "conditionally" powerful, and its strength is much more a function of the other archetypes and the hate cards they are using in comparison to more flexible decks like Gifts or CS.

In other words, we can speculate all we want in this thread and express our incredulousness that Stax got shut out of the t16 save for 1 deck, but what I would like to see and analyze are all of the games/matches that the Stax players played, and look at exactly what led to their demise - hate cards, poor technical skill/gross blunders, getting outbrokened/outdrawn, or not matching the right answers to threats because Stax lives too much off its topdeck etc.

Actually yes.  Your comment reflects a common problem in Vintage – a lack of imagination about design and metagaming and the stock assumption that we should work with what we have instead of innovating fresh approaches.  My team came up with a new deck that beats Stax, Slaver, and Gifts.  I would have played it if I had gone.   The one teammate who piloted the deck played three Workshop Aggro decks and lost to two of them, knocking him out of contention. 
Another problem here is that, once again, you’re talking about deck choice and not the broader concept deck choice and deck construction.  Both matter.  Moreoever, the percentages make a huge difference in not only deck choice but also deck construction. 

You make two very contentious statements here, probably because you once again failed to appreciate what I was arguing. I didn't suggest that people should "play what they know", thereby contributing to the supposed problem of "lack of imagination about design and metagaming", because I think that this is some sort of ideal way of playing T1 to maximize chances of winning. Before you can become an imaginative player and think outside of the box, you need to master thinking inside the box first. To actually understand metagaming and understand the deck construction process you must become more technically proficient AND understand the dominant archetypes in the format. How many times do we hear of players simply refusing to netdeck completely and insisting on tinkering with "accepted builds" just for the sake of being different, or because they subscribe to certain theories (which could potentially be flawed). If you are equating "imagination" with trying to be different for the sake of being different then I would not contest that at all. But lets not kid ourselves and think that the "problem" here is one of people lacking imagination - the real issue that players lack the skills necessary in making their out-of-the-box thinking work or produce results (winning). If you notice, we haven't missed a beat as far as new ideas being generated is concerned - one glance over the forums tells you that people are trying hard to make new ideas work. But given T1's evolution over the past couple of years and the discovery of more and more optimal builds of certain archetypes, it becomes increasingly more difficult for new ideas to spawn as it is - the fact that the general skill level isn't very high certainly doesn't help matters.