[Discussion] The Legacy Grand Prix (Lille)

[UR]

So, apparently the only two good decks in Legacy are gobilns and threshold. 

Nah, just the decks with good players/experienced players behind them. I feel there hasn't been done enough testing in Legacy to explore all the options (I know... that sentence sucked). I'm sure there are other good decks out there. But Goblin and Threshold have had the most testing and exploring. There are a lot of players who will only play one deck in this format... the I've-played-it-in-any-other-format-so-I'll-keep-playing-it-in-Legacy-because-it-isn't-good-enough-for-Vintage kind of deck. Threshold is one of those decks and Goblin is too (to some extend).

[/rant]

Personally, I think the format just needs a little time to develop and for a dedicated core of actually good players/designers (i.e. people who are not me) to inject some meaningful diversity into the format.

QFT. And what I was trying to say with my little rant 

[Jacob Orlove]

I.E., Any deck that beats Goblins and Threshold and NOTHING ELSE will top8 in this tourney.  That's still not being balanced.  I don't know how things like this pan out.

That's ridiculous--there were OVER NINE HUNDRED PEOPLE at the event. Everyone there is going to face a whole bunch of different decks, even if there had been 300 each of threshold and goblins (and there certainly weren't that many of either).

[rvs]

Cal is pretty insane, but I should've played a slightly different sideboard. After totally fucking up Round8 againt Pikula with MAJOR brainfarts in games 2 and 3, I managed to crush my 3rd Threshold opponent by Echoing him both games, and then just winning it out.
I went only 3-3 on day 2, but I was  very unlucky in several matches, and lost to bad sideboard tech, but I will write a short run-down of the matches tomorrow. All in all, I had a fun day, even though I missed the money.

[nataz]

you played Cal, as in cal out of the current extended? Thats so sweet.

[Buttons]

That's ridiculous--there were OVER NINE HUNDRED PEOPLE at the event. Everyone there is going to face a whole bunch of different decks, even if there had been 300 each of threshold and goblins (and there certainly weren't that many of either).

I thought there were only 128, and like 80 of them were either Threshold or Goblins?

[BigMac]

I went 6-3 with picula.dec. In retrospective i perhaps should have played belcher but my deck did fine. I lost to 2 decks as i never had a chance (life of the loam decks) and i lost to goblins due to mana flood and mana screw after winning game 1. My tie breakers were terrible and i missed game two by 1 point as i missed it by a mile on the tie breaker.

I had a fun time and it was my best GP finish ever. As i am only a vintage player i think i did well although i made some mistakes throughout the day.

About the metagame not being diverse, i beg to differ. All day i never saw a deck that was the same twice. I will admit that i was playing in the somewhat lower brackets but when i look at the decks i saw out there on day two it was pretty diverse. And if other decks would have been played in the numbers thresh and gobbos were played chances are the top 8 would have been a whole lot different because those decks are surely vulnerable to decks that can win throughout the day over other decks as well. And as a single deck it is harder to make a good finish then 10, or even a 100 people are playing the same deck. And in the end i think the top 128 was a good reflection of the meta of that day, there was being played a lot of thres and gobbos. Odds are there will be lots of them in the top as well as in the bottom, but nobody is going to say it is a bad deck because it is in the bottom. They will say it was a bad player. Perhaps the players doing so well are good players and it perhaps doesn't say as much about a deck as we all want to believe.

As said i had fun and i met an whole group of people i wanted to see anyways. As for Matt (Toad), he was indeed judging.

[Jacob Orlove]

That's ridiculous--there were OVER NINE HUNDRED PEOPLE at the event. Everyone there is going to face a whole bunch of different decks, even if there had been 300 each of threshold and goblins (and there certainly weren't that many of either).

I thought there were only 128, and like 80 of them were either Threshold or Goblins?

There were 128 decks that made day 2 (of which 36 were Threshold and 31 were Goblins). 937 people showed up in total.

[Buttons]

Gotcha.  Sorry about that.

[Smmenen]

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=26127.0

[Buttons]

July through October?  Where's November/December?

Also, it's not analgous for a few reasons:

1)  July through October are many different tournaments with the best 8 decks of each.  These could be 50 player tournaments or 500 player tournaments.  Lille is one huge tournament.

2)  That's four months (July, August, September, October) of time to gauge results.  We could have alot of Stax recently with alot of Gifts back in July.  Lille isn't even four days.

[Smmenen]

Actually, Stax has been evenly spread out.

[Godder]

1 SmennenEatsHat.dec

News just in: Steve's hat crunchy, but a little dry. Next time, suggest ketchup. More at 11...

Humour aside, my thoughts, for what they're worth:

UG-based Threshold is King - the results show that it's very popular (very high numbers), and justifiably so, as it shows a reasonable conversion ratio of entries:day 2:top 8. On the other hand, while it performed well, the conversion ratio wasn't representative of an overly dominant deck (e.g. Gro-Atog), so I don't think bannings are justified - players just have to better adapt to the current environment. The fact that the deck is so easily customised to an environment means we'll never be rid of it, as changing the splash can change the match-ups dramatically, but that just keeps the blue-based control decks honest.

While Threshold is King, Goblins is the Prince. Again, the numbers are high, but the conversion ratios i.e. entries:day 2:top 8 aren't overly dominant, either, so I don't see any justification for bannings. Goblins is much less customisable than Threshold, which makes it easier to hate out, but splashing gives some options, and there's more raw power to the deck, which can allow it to run right through hate at times.

From that, two related points can be made. First, availability of cards isn't a major issue yet - Threshold requires a lot of Dual Lands and FoW, and yet it still put up big numbers. Second, the format is clearly about Men, ways of dealing with Men, and ways of disrupting attempts to deal with Men.

Combo is good, but it's not a problem yet. There were combo decks hovering around the top tables, but either not enough people played it, or it's a little prone to bombing out (possibly both).

I don't know how many Survival decks entered, but probably not that many. However, the one Survival deck that made day 2 went all the way to the top 8, so obviously there's still something to the deck. If there were more players playing it, and the right builds were used, it could well be a force again.

Speaking of Men, Lightning Rift is a monster - it's cheap enough to slip under counters, it deals with Men very effectively (and their controllers later on), and once it's down, the engine (cycling) is uncounterable as well. It's no real surprise, then, that Rift decks did well, since they have global removal for Goblins and uncounterable recurring removal for Threshold decks.

[JACO]

Here is my post from Steve's thread about Vintage vs. Legacy:

Just because Goblins and Threshold/X placed major numbers in day 2 of 1 EVENT doesn't mean it is dominating. Everybody is looking at the past 2 tournament results way too narrowly, and I hope the DCI doesn't follow this approach.

If the Pro Tour and GP Circuit each had multiple Legacy stops (rather than Extended, for example), you would see things change from tournament to tournament, just as they do for other formats. Remember when Trix was really good, and by far the best deck in Extended circa 2001 (as in, way more dominating than Threshold or Goblins in Legacy)? Alan Comer invented Gro, and then others like Mike Long took over from there, and once their success with it was established, it wiped out Trix like 1 tournament later, without any intervention from the DCI or anything. That is what happens when the metagames is allowed to shift.

Before everybody decrees the dominance of 1 or 2 decks, or archetypes, give the Legacy tournaments a chance to get rolling and the metagame to start shifting, like it does in other formats. It WILL happen if you let it.

Don't look at these results in such a vacuum. Give the format a chance to develop counter strategies to the biggest archetypes, and everything will be fine.

[SpencerForHire]

I think that in 6 months Goblins and Thresh will still be playable but they won't be in the Top Tier on there own.  Right now we have a Top Tier deck in Aggro (Goblins) and a Top Tier deck in Aggro-Contrl (Threshold).  I think we can still expect to see something revolutionary in Combo, Control, Prison, and other hybrids there-of.
When this happens then the decks will start to evolve into stronger versions of themselves.  Until then we will see no major changes in the top Aggro and top Aggro-Control slots.

[Dozer]

Michael Heiduk aka Blitzbold on TMD made Day 2 and finished in 48th place with U/G/W Threshold.

Myself? I had a LOT of fun at the GP, even though my performance with Mono-Blue Control was severely hampered by my lack of testing and playskill. 2-4 drop was not a solid finish, but I won't complain. My tournament went like this:

Rd 1 loss - close match against B/W Pikula
Rd 2 loss - massive misplay against ScepterChant with Test of Endurance
Rd 3 win - B/G/W Life from the Loam with Mystic Enforcers, but not Threshold as such
Rd 4 loss - misplay against Belcher (Chalice 1 instead of 0)
Rd 5 win - Affinity w/o Ravager
Rd 6 loss - U/G/R Threshold

I'll post a list and a detailed report later. In other news, the Hasbro Europe representative at the GP has agreed to sponsor me for the next GP in Hasselt for a trial run as coverage reporter. Expect yours truly to deliver with style. If you have any suggestions, or anything you'd like to see in the GP coverage, I made a thread in Basic Community where you can post that, or just send me a PM.

Dozer

[Bardo]

Discussion on 3c Trix split and moved to the Unproven Forum to give the deck the attention it deserves. - Bardo