[Results] Grand Prix: Lille, Preliminary Statistics

[Bardo]

So I crunched some of the top-32 data to analyze the performance of the various archetypes and the performance of specific deck types within each archetype:

(format: deck name / # of occurences / placement - bold denotes top 8 appearence)

Aggro-Control: 14 total
UGR Threshold: 5 (3, 9, 16, 20, 27)
UGW Threshold: 5 (2, 15, 18, 21, 22)
UGRW Threshold: 1 (1)
Rec-Sur: 1 (4)
UWB Mages!: 1 (11)
The Rock (BG): 1 (24)

Aggro: 9 total
Goblins (mono-R): 2 (13, 23)
Goblins/w: 2 (6, 30)
Burninator: 2 (14, 31)
Affinity: 2 (10, 28)
San Diego Zoo: 1 (26)

Combo: 8 total
Loam/Confinement: 3 (12, 17, 32)
Aluren: 2 (19, 29)
High Tide: 1 (25)
Salvagers: 1 (7)

Control: 1 total
Landstill: 1 (8)
RW Slide: 1 (5)

No big surprises here. Aggro-control is the most effective archetype in Legacy. In fact, aggro-control accounts for nearly 50% of the Top-32 decks. Within the archetype, the various blends of Threshold are the premier aggro-control decks.  As you can imagine, this tickles me deeply. We still can't conclusively determine if UWG >< URG (5 vs. 5), but 4c Threshold taking 1st place suggests that combining the two is the way to go.

Goblins is still the dominant aggro deck. (Like I said, no surprises). With mono-R performing appreciably as well as R/w. Burninator also did notably well and anyone interested in pursuing that deck should review that Top 128 decks for their ideas.

Combo is stronger than many people realize, placing 8 people in the Top 32. Big winners are the new Loam/Confinement deck which is powerful and resilient, as well as Aluren. But Salvagers and Slide were the best peforming combination decks. And High Tide placed only one person in Top 32. Combo will continue to perform well, but faced with a sea of Threshold, only great players will be able to take 1st where maindeck Meddling Magi and loads of counterspell and various other forms of disruption (Pithing Needle, for instance) are the norm.

Landstill is around, placing one person in the Top 8, but that was it. It's still a "Deck to Beat" in the sense that people will play it and you should probably plan for it, but it's certainly not the premier Legacy deck that it used to be (or was assumed to be, to be more precise).

As in Vintage, hybridization is the way to go.

These are just some preliminary findings. And the data available for Lille, compared with GP: Philadelphia, is overwhelming. But someone should wade through it and produce an article for the format. I nominate Anusien and/or Smennen.

Appendix

Grand Prix: Lille; Final Standings (Top 32)      

Rank | Name | Country of Origin | Deck

1 Summersberger, Helmut [AUT] - UGRW Threshold
2 Krutil, Daniel [CZE] - UGW Threshold
3 Labarre, Nicolas [FRA] - UGR Threshold
4 Verdiani, Luca * [ITA] - Rec/Sur
5 Brenner, Martin Joh * [DEU] - RW Slide
6 Le Briand, Loïc * [FRA] - Goblins/w
7 Bracht, Maximilian [DEU] - Salvagers
8 Francois, Nicolas * [FRA] - Landstill
9 Rikeit, Alexander * [DEU] - UGR Threshold
10 Siron, Geoffrey [BEL] - Affinity
11 Doco, Geoffrey [FRA] - UWB Aggro-Conrol (Magi!)
12 Nassif, Gabriel [FRA] - Loam/Confinement
13 Gregoir, Christophe [BEL] - Goblins
14 Krings, Stefan * [DEU] - Burninator
15 Mack, Alex [DEU] - UGW Threshold
16 Hoeh, Hans Joachim [DEU] - UGR Threshold
17 Bertrand, Denis * [FRA] - Loam/Confinement
18 Zidek, Arnost [CZE] - UGW Threshold
19 Ranque, Wilfried [FRA] - Aluren
20 Bertaud, Julien [FRA] - UGR Threshold
21 Cools, Pierre [BEL] - UGW Threshold
22 Oomens, Wessel [NLD] - UGW Threshold
23 Marcik, Michal [CZE] - Goblins
24 Da Costa, Tony * [FRA] - GB Rock
25 Lahanas, Nikolaos [GRC] - High Tide
26 Lindgren, Tommi [CHE] - San Diego Zoo
27 Verrier, Diarmuid [IRL] - UGR Threshold
28 Karsten, Frank [NLD] - Affinity
29 Canali, Pierre [FRA] - Aluren
30 Wörner, Jürgen * [DEU] - Goblins
31 Thebault, Raphael * [FRA] - Burninator
32 Ruel, Antoine [FRA] - Loam/Confinement

[Anusien]

The data available for GP: Philidelphia is sort of underwhelming.  I've tried to tap some sources to find out if we're getting any more information, but I don't think we are.  I'm on break for a long time, and I have some friends who are interested.  I think what I'm going to do is take the top 128 decklists and sort them by player and placing.  Then I'm gonna have a decent amount of data to play with.

^H^H^H^H^H^H
I have an idea for a new program to work on stats (at least it won't be a boring winter).  It should be able to parse standings to generate a standing list, match players to decklists, and possibly even parse pairings to see if ranked players played each other.  At the end it'll be able to generate an HTML summary that will tell you the top X players and what they played, and then you could click a link to see their decklist, who they played, and if you have information on them, what they played.  If I write it correctly, it'll dramatically simplify a lot of this data crunching.

[Toad]

Olivier was playing Goblins. Confinement was piloted by Antoine

[Smmenen]

In predicting the results of the Legacy format a few months ago, I told Matt that I thought what would come to dominate was going to be combo-control.   At the time, the two decks were Goblins and Landstill followed by High Tide.  I thought that a control deck would emerge with a combo finish - and that would be the best deck. 

What I forgot was that Aggro-Control is actually the natural dominant strategy in magic.  We should never forget this.  I think there are more than one reason for this, but there are two interrelated reasons that are particularly salient: 1) it does not require planning.  Playing a dude and protecting it and beating requires no decision making aside from playing cards, which is something people are inclined to do anyway.  2) because it is intuitive, it is hard to screw up.  playing men and protecting them is easy to do. 

GroAtog utterly dominated Vintage for a spell.  Gush is banned in Legacy, but the aggro control concept is inherently strong in a format with FOW, no Oath and no Mishra's Workshop.  Oath is traditionally one of the strongest answers to Aggro Control.  Without Oath, Aggro Control doesn't have to distort itself to beating Oath.  Also, Mishra's WOrkshop is powerful against aggro control in Vintage.  Workshop does not exist in legacy. 

[Machinus]

Workshop does not exist in legacy. 

There are people working on Stax. I have greatly improved my white build.

[Buttons]

Unbanned Trinisphere is nice - there's just almost no way to abuse it.

We need Legacy to have fast mana.  Seriously.  Unban freaking Grim Monolith.

[Anusien]

Unbanned Trinisphere is nice - there's just almost no way to abuse it.

We need Legacy to have fast mana.  Seriously.  Unban freaking Grim Monolith.

Because Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, AncientTomb, City of Traitors, and Crystal Vein ain't enough for you?

[Machinus]

Mox Diamond...AncientTomb...City of Traitors

These do just fine.

That top32 data is diverse and healthy.

[jpmeyer]

What I forgot was that Aggro-Control is actually the natural dominant strategy in magic.  We should never forget this.  I think there are more than one reason for this, but there are two interrelated reasons that are particularly salient: 1) it does not require planning.  Playing a dude and protecting it and beating requires no decision making aside from playing cards, which is something people are inclined to do anyway.  2) because it is intuitive, it is hard to screw up.  playing men and protecting them is easy to do. 

And furthermore, aggro control gives people big opportunities to screw up.  Not playing around the right number of counters, not figuring out the correct number of turns that you have left, etc.

[Godder]

What I forgot was that Aggro-Control is actually the natural dominant strategy in magic.  We should never forget this.  I think there are more than one reason for this, but there are two interrelated reasons that are particularly salient: 1) it does not require planning.  Playing a dude and protecting it and beating requires no decision making aside from playing cards, which is something people are inclined to do anyway.  2) because it is intuitive, it is hard to screw up.  playing men and protecting them is easy to do.

And furthermore, aggro control gives people big opportunities to screw up.  Not playing around the right number of counters, not figuring out the correct number of turns that you have left, etc.

Definitely. What makes the current aggro-control deck du jour (Threshold) so powerful is that its creatures are cheap, yet huge (3+ power is a major threat), not enough hate is being run for it, and it can be tweaked to handle Aggro as well (traditionally bad times). Pyroclasm wipes out weenie hordes without killing Thresholded creatures, and StoP is pretty solid if you're playing White instead. They also play lots of counters (there are versions with 12), so it's hard to get important stuff to resolve, and cantrips out the ass, so they always seem to have lots of counters (or other annoyances like StoP) on hand.

This discussion is also touching on something I've been working on about hybrids being the future (and present, and arguably the past as well) of deck design.

[TheWellknownBrownie]

Combo: 8 total
RW Slide: 1 (5)

That is a savage misassignment of archetypes. And although I haven't seen the list, I'm not imagining a deck revolving around Solitary Confinement as being a combo deck, either.

Not being Blue-based doesn't mean that it's control. White based control has trumped Blue based for a while now in Legacy, anyway.

[Bardo]

That is a savage misassignment of archetypes. And although I haven't seen the list, I'm not imagining a deck revolving around Solitary Confinement as being a combo deck, either.

Yeah, my assignments were done hastily. Slide definitely isn't a combo deck in the way that Belcher is. It's a control deck with a pseudo-combo finish; but it's more control than anything.

[Anusien]

Combo: 8 total
RW Slide: 1 (5)

That is a savage misassignment of archetypes. And although I haven't seen the list, I'm not imagining a deck revolving around Solitary Confinement as being a combo deck, either.

Not being Blue-based doesn't mean that it's control. White based control has trumped Blue based for a while now in Legacy, anyway.

RW Slide is a pure control deck.  The GWr lists with Life from the Loam, especially with Solitary Confinement, are very combo-esque, and I would call them combo-control lists.

[Matt]

So, when is the next major Legacy tournament?

[SpencerForHire]

I'm going to contact someone tonight to see if he'll hold a big tourney this summer in Michigan..  Who knows what shall happen.