[Premium Article] Another Vintage Year in Review

[Komatteru]

Stephen Menendian discusses all the new innovations, developments, and overall progress (or maybe lack thereof) of the format during the first half of the year in this article.  You may remember the piece written last year for MTG.com.  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion next week!

2005 was another bumper crop for Vintage. 2004 was arguably the strongest year since the format's inception. 2005 was a suitable postscript to the banner 2004. If there is one thing that can be said about 2005, an over arching theme, it is that it was the year of Stax. Only, we didn't know it when the year began.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11070.html

[Buttons]

Kickass.

[Whatever Works]

I find it hard to call it a "year of stax"... Sure Stax was successful and won 2 SCG and gencon, and a variation I have trouble qualifying as stax won a waterbury, but it did awful in Europe (It won its share of events, but wasnt exactly the deck to play). Stax was also essentially a dead in New England for most of the year.

However, I believe your claim is well supported. Good article!

Kyle

[Smmenen]

Stax did very well in Europe, won at least 3 scg, a waterbury, the world championship, and mostly after Trinipshere was restricted, which happened this year.

[Vertigo]

"but it did awful in Europe" is simply not true. Stax won the german vintage championsship placing 3 people in top 8!

[Whatever Works]

"but it did awful in Europe" is simply not true. Stax won the german vintage championsship placing 3 people in top 8!

I did state that it won its share of events, but the deck was still not heavily played. This could be because of no proxies, or other reasons. T1T was probably the deck of the year in Europe... I am not attacking stax... The deck had a great year dont get me wrong, but when I look back at 2005 Stax doesnt stand out as much as gifts.dec does...

Gifts has been around for only 1 year, and its impact has affected metagames nationwide more then stax. It hasnt won as many SCG's, but when you look at all the tournements as a whole it definetly has won multiple sets of power.

kyle

[Smmenen]

Kyle, no disrespected intended, but your view of European metagame is pretty inaccurate.  Remember, I do the data stats articles now.  T1T is nonexistent outside of Italy.  And italy hardly qualifies as exemplifying "Europe."

Stax is about as frequently in top 8s in europe as it is in the US.  Remember also, Drain decks won both previous Gencon Champs.  This was the first time a Workshop deck did.  Stax also has far more top 8s than Gifts or any other deck in 2005. 

[Buttons]

Whatever Works,

Stax has almost twice as many top8's as Gifts, and around the same ratio of tournament wins.  The first number isn't surprising, but the the second number certainly is.  Right now, based on statistics of top8's alone, the three top decks are Stax, Gifts, and Control Slaver, and Stax beats both of the others fairly consistently.  5c is 55-45 on both, IMO.  I might be a little off.  Uba is 60-40 and 40-60, respectively.

The ONLY dominant deck in Vintage this year with winning tournaments has been stax. 
Out of major tournaments, stax has won close to 50% of them. 
Moreover, it has more broken first turn plays than either of those, and in fact, everything in the format.
And, on top of all that, it has the premier super-wins that Steve mentioned, including the world championship.

I don't know what medium you're using to judge dominance in decks, but it seems skewed to me.

...and mostly after Trinipshere was restricted, which happened this year.

Stax is doing better now than Trinistax ever did.  However, so is everything else, especially combo.

Great work, Steve.  I give you mad props.

[Whatever Works]

Kyle, no disrespected intended, but your view of European metagame is pretty inaccurate.  Remember, I do the data stats articles now.  T1T is nonexistent outside of Italy.  And italy hardly qualifies as exemplifying "Europe."

Stax is about as frequently in top 8s in europe as it is in the US.  Remember also, Drain decks won both previous Gencon Champs.  This was the first time a Workshop deck did.  Stax also has far more top 8s than Gifts or any other deck in 2005. 

My view of Europe might be slightly scewed because the longest best reports come from max who does an amazing job, and writes sooooo much... And I have the results from the large French tourney in my head as well. However, your probably if not definetly right.

Your results from the US I feel are slightly limited because you rarely take statistics from tournements in range of 35-50 people which is ALOT of results that I feel were missed, and might have slanted stats differently... Stax NEVER EVER really won AT ALL EVER in tournements this size in New England... Im not talking about small local tournements either, but respectable tournements people travel well over an hour to attend like the beenie exchange.

Overall, I agree that stax had a breakout year in generall. Though it would have been much more apparent (to me at least) if there was less variety in the stax versions that won... If you look at the stax lists that won... Changs very very basic list... Vromans Uba Stax... and that "thing" like contraption that Travis Laplante piloted at waterbury. That being said 1 decklist or even 1 focused version of stax never really came across my mind innitially as being dominant. However, your stats are very impressive and convincing and I cant argue with them.

Kyle

[Smmenen]

The variation in stax is actually about on par with the variations we see in other major archetypes - control slaver, gifts, oath, etc.  They share common components but have non trivial variations.

[Evilkin]

My views from a different perspective on a smaller scale:

I tend to agree that the 35-50 player attended tournaments are overlooked.  But I can understand how it would be rather difficult to include these if they aren't all reported or have deck lists.  The Canadian metagame is mostly consisted of tournaments of this size.  Infact, the level of competition on average for one of these tournaments held in Ontario is completely sickening.  Every tournament of a size of 30+ people I can expect to see on average of at least 8-12 players that have top 8 or multiple top 8 performances in rather large US venues.  Mostly because it's these hardcore Vintage players that dictate the metagame and show up to every tournament.  It's not like a 35 person tournament with 1 or 2 dominant players.

Stax has actually in the last year placed really poor results in Ontario.  It's been tried and played by very good players as well but just can't survive the metagame.  Maybe it's because a high % of great players here choose to play control decks or hate decks for the most part.  Myself along with 2 other friends have every card to make and play 5c Stax or Uba Stax but choose not to.  I'd say at least 6 or 7 people in our area could play the decks unproxied but choose not to.  I believe Stax decks when surviving early rounds gets stronger and may be better suited for larger venues where more players feel the need to play with the top tier decks.  Or decks that have X win % versus certain popular archetypes.  The sad thing is this is the root of laziness and net-decking.  Stax doesn't perform nearly as well when faced with randomness or the Rogue factor.  What a lot of people don't pick up on is that there is a lot of random Rogue out there that can beat multiple Stax variants.  No one just has the Ballz or desire to play that stuff in major tournaments.  Everyone must play with the potential to go broken.  I myself have come to prefer playing with consistency based around Hate strategies. 

The amazing thing is decks like R/G beatz or Sligh can be tuned to win, but will always be neglected due to the lack of potential to go broken.  I wonder what would happen if 10 really good players decided to take R/G Beatz to a Starcity Games and fine tune it to have game versus the top 2 or 3 decks.   

What has made me proud of my team in the last year is pure faith in our deck which ended the year winning 7 pieces of Power, Bazaar, Library, and don't think ever failed to top 8 at least one person when played at a tournament.  Had 2-3 tournaments place 3-4 in the top 8 and even top 4.  Including 3 top 8 showings in two SCG P9.  This deck is played only by a total of 5 people  in the world and looks like rubbish.  I myself only played the deck in maybe 5 tournaments all year.  Plus our team only consists of moderately good players.  By no means are we an example of the best Canada has to offer.  So what is to explain the success of the deck?  It wasn't played by the best players,  and it wasn't running the best cards.  It doesn't include any random top deck I win cards, but yet it can be picked up by a beginner and taken to a top 8 at a Star City Rochester... that is pretty damn cool. 

So yes, a Vintage year in review clearly shows that Stax dominated the metagame.  I blame the Manadrain, SCG, self promotion (in general), secrecy and laziness.

After experiencing this year of Vintage there is only 1 thing I'd like to see go...  Tinker/Darksteel.  It has become too much of a crutch for a lot of decks and is number 1 on the Cheese scale.  I don't believe it's overpowering, I just believe it's frustrating.  Is there a way to errata either card as to not be able to work in conjunction?

I'd just like to say you do an awesome job Smmenen and hopefully always remain truly dedicated to Vintage.

[Whatever Works]

Please no restriction/banning discussion. Please discuss things that happened during the year (i.e., a restriction that DID happen) and their impact on the format.  Sorry, Kyle, but someone is bound to pick up on this and turn the thread into a big restriction debate. (Text saved in mod forum).  Such a thing might make for a decent discussion in a new thread in the open forum (as long as you limit the discussion to the growing omnipresence of DSK). -JD

[Juggernaut GO]

Well that was a worthless flame.  Warned.
 -Klep

[Harkius]

A well written post, but restriction ponderings deleted.  Please read my comment in Whatever Works' post above. -JD

[Juggernaut GO]

I think the severe lack of innovation is all about so many people wanting to play a broken deck like gifts.  Not enough people are coming up with answers to the deck and are instead just netdecking it and running it at every tournament they go to.  Its because the deck is so retardedly easy to pilot.  Mana drain a spell, then play draw spells, then cast tinker and win the game.  I can compare the amount of gifts being played now to the amount of control slaver at last january's waterbury tournament.  Everyone and their cousin played control slaver and it was such a joke.  As long as the majority of players do nothing to drive a deck from being competitive, but just continue to play it, then the metagame will stay the same and the world will end. 

I think its unfortunate that kirdape3 didn't get into top 8 at the last rochester because a deck like that with the publicity of making a SCG top 8 would do alot for people that like to copy lists. They would stop running gifts or stax and maybe try something different that wrecks everything in the current meta.

[dicemanx]

So yes, a Vintage year in review clearly shows that Stax dominated the metagame.  I blame the Manadrain, SCG, self promotion (in general), secrecy and laziness.

To carry this point further, we have to be careful in distinguishing dominance that arises from deck strength and dominance that arises from popularity (particularly among the stronger players). It's gotten to the point that any given top tier archetype  is only marginally stronger/weaker than any other archetype - this is quite a change from 1-2 years ago. For instance, Oath was once the bane of Fish decks, but the numbers are closer to 50/50 for that match-up. Likewise, despite the proclamation that UbaStax has a marked advantage over Gifts, this really isn't quite true. What bridges the gap even more between archetypes is the fact that a few metagame slots can be sufficient to swing match-ups, which makes it increasingly more difficult to determine "what beats what".

Because of this, one would expect the popularity of an archetype to result in a perception of "dominance". It's entirely possible, for instance, that if decks like Oath or WGD were far more frequently played, then we too could see far greater top 8 finishes for both decks. Therefore, perhaps the only good feasible way of assessing dominance is to look at the numbers of each archetype played in all of the events examined (which should include events with 25+ people) versus the number of those archetypes making top 8. We could also collect some data from these events showcasing exactly what these top 8 decks are beating in the swiss rounds.

After experiencing this year of Vintage there is only 1 thing I'd like to see go...  Tinker/Darksteel.  It has become too much of a crutch for a lot of decks and is number 1 on the Cheese scale.  I don't believe it's overpowering, I just believe it's frustrating.  Is there a way to errata either card as to not be able to work in conjunction?

I feel the same frustration with Oath of Druids, which inexplicably seems to always be glued to an Orchard. At least with Tinker there are decent outs via Welder or StP or any one answer to DSC. Against Oath one answer won't be enough.


As a final comment, permit me some gloating here. As one of the people that was pushing for Trinisphere's restriction, I predicted that Mana Drain decks would NOT subsequently dominate, and that Stax decks would actually INCREASE in strength (I felt that Trinisphere was inferior to CotV, and that Trini bridged the gap between the weak and strong players to an unacceptable extent). This turned out to be correct on both accounts. My reasoning behind the first prediction (Drain decks not being a dominant force subsequent to the restriction) was that the T1 environment had reached a point where it can take care of itself - there are enough resources that any archetype can be sufficiently addressed by *any other major archetype* if it starts getting out of hand.  I mention this because it goes along with the point I was making above - we've reached a point where anything can beat anything. And this is neither a "good" nor "bad" thing.

[Komatteru]

Please don't discussion possible restrictions, people.  We've all seen how just off hand comments can turn into big debates and totally highjack a thread (and how much the mods HATE restriction threads).  One line comments in bigger posts like the ones in Evilkin's and Diceman's posts should be ok, but don't turn it into a significant portion of the discussion.

[Lou]

Back on topic, I really like this article Steve, and the way you wrote it.  I am looking forward to the next article, and I love seeing how the metagame has shaped into what we have today.

Reading this really makes me amped for Richmond, and as I haven't done any testing over the holidays, I am ready to play some Magic.  Bob, get your ass back to CO.

Or, any of the fellas should hit me up, pm styles.

[BigMac]

I have no access to th article and therefor i cannot say anything about it. I am just wondering, i figure you looked solely to top 8 appearances. Is it possible to look at how many decks per tournament there are.

I am asking this because part of the metagame is defined by the decks played the most. But a deck that is not played much but does well almost everytime it is played should be considered as well. I know this is not easy as most of this information is not given when posting a top 8, but perhaps it is nice to see how this works out.

I am asking this because a lot of people will netdeck a deck that a lot of people would say is good. This results in many of the same decks in a tournament enhancing the chance of such a deck getting to top 8. To an extend this clouds the results somewhat. When 25 percent of a deck is played, chances are that 25 percent of top 8 will be that decktype.
Next to this the people that pilot a deck are a factor. But that is something completely different.

[cssamerican]

Seems that it would be fairly easy to do something as simple as (Number of X Archetype in Top 25%)/(Number of X Archetype in Tournament) the closer that number is to 1 or 100% the better that archetype is performing. Using top 8 numbers exclusively to decide what deck are good or viable is too narrow in scope in my opinion. I think all that does is tell people what the best players in the format are playing rather than what decks are performing better as a whole. I would rather play a deck that on average put 50% of its pilots in the top 25% of tournament finishers than a deck that puts one of its pilots in a top 8 and the rest scrub out in the first three rounds. An example of this is when Team Meandeck played their Tendrils Deck and one of their players made the top 8, but even they said the deck was not a good tournament deck because it required a a lot of luck and skill to avoid a catastrophe. To me this type system would seem like the best way to gauge the tournament performance of archetypes over the course of six months to a year.

[Harkius]

If everyone wants to see better numbers, then everyone needs to start posting as much information as possible in the Tournaments Forums. This way, people can crunch the numbers and get some accurate information.

There has been a lot of discussion about information destroying the innovation in the environment, with one person in particular feeling that oversharing results in netdecking and a lack of interesting play. This may or may not be true. However, with the advent of the Internet, information sharing became a whole new reality. A paradigm needs to shift here (sorry for the buzzwords!) if people want to see this information. The next time you go to a Type I tournament, write down (as best as you can gather, at least) the number of players, notable people (if you think that the operator has an impact on the play), and what is being played and by whom. Then, we may get a better feel for what is going on.

We won't be wandering around in a dark room, fumbling with our blinded hands, trying to find the shape of an animal that none of us has ever seen, some thinking it is like a snake and others like a bat or a rope. Information is necessary. Anything less is random crap and statistics, and those have already been listed.

Next time I attend a Type I tournament (of any size), I will attempt a full tournament report, with a discussion of the meta, interesting builds, a full decklist of my own, explaining my choices, and what the Top 8 decks are and what the total number of players are. I don't require people to do the same, but if you don't report, be a good citizen and sit on your hands instead of griping about this kind of thing. Be a part of the solution or don't whine about the problem.

Harkius

[arj]

Great overview article, just a small nitpick:

Gothenburg is in Sweden, not Germany 

[BigMac]

If everyone wants to see better numbers, then everyone needs to start posting as much information as possible in the Tournaments Forums. This way, people can crunch the numbers and get some accurate information.

There has been a lot of discussion about information destroying the innovation in the environment, with one person in particular feeling that oversharing results in netdecking and a lack of interesting play. This may or may not be true. However, with the advent of the Internet, information sharing became a whole new reality. A paradigm needs to shift here (sorry for the buzzwords!) if people want to see this information. The next time you go to a Type I tournament, write down (as best as you can gather, at least) the number of players, notable people (if you think that the operator has an impact on the play), and what is being played and by whom. Then, we may get a better feel for what is going on.

We won't be wandering around in a dark room, fumbling with our blinded hands, trying to find the shape of an animal that none of us has ever seen, some thinking it is like a snake and others like a bat or a rope. Information is necessary. Anything less is random crap and statistics, and those have already been listed.

Next time I attend a Type I tournament (of any size), I will attempt a full tournament report, with a discussion of the meta, interesting builds, a full decklist of my own, explaining my choices, and what the Top 8 decks are and what the total number of players are. I don't require people to do the same, but if you don't report, be a good citizen and sit on your hands instead of griping about this kind of thing. Be a part of the solution or don't whine about the problem.

I could not agree more. Next time i write a report i will do just as you and try to implement as much information as possible. This basically is what i was trying to say but you did it way beter.
This may give all top 8 netdeckers something to think about. Statistics of just top 8 may not give you the best deck, it will give you the best players of that tournament, but without a metabreakdown it will not say enough about what decks are good and what decks are slightly less good.

[Smmenen]

To everyone's point about quantity of a deck in the environment versus top 8 appearances, everyone here MUST concede that Stax is hugely under represented in the overall field compared to its top 8 appearances.

Just to take one example, at SCG Chicago in July 30th, there were 141 players.  There were 51 Mana Drain decks and 27 Workshop decks.  The top 8 was as follows:

1) Workshop
2) Workshop
3) Workshop
4) Drain
5) Drain
6) Drain
7) Drain
8) Dragon

Think about that.  And in Europe the effect is even more pronounced because there are no proxies so Workshop decks - and Uba STax - is ridiculously difficult to build.

Stax was 36 top 8 appearances in July through October but it was 40% of all tournament wins as well.  So it is over represented not just in top 8 appearances, but in tournament wins. 

Now, as for Dicemans comments, I think everyone should mark what he is saying about the metagame because he is dead on... but I have one gripe:

So yes, a Vintage year in review clearly shows that Stax dominated the metagame.  I blame the Manadrain, SCG, self promotion (in general), secrecy and laziness.

To carry this point further, we have to be careful in distinguishing dominance that arises from deck strength and dominance that arises from popularity (particularly among the stronger players). It's gotten to the point that any given top tier archetype  is only marginally stronger/weaker than any other archetype - this is quite a change from 1-2 years ago. For instance, Oath was once the bane of Fish decks, but the numbers are closer to 50/50 for that match-up. Likewise, despite the proclamation that UbaStax has a marked advantage over Gifts, this really isn't quite true. What bridges the gap even more between archetypes is the fact that a few metagame slots can be sufficient to swing match-ups, which makes it increasingly more difficult to determine "what beats what".

Because of this, one would expect the popularity of an archetype to result in a perception of "dominance". It's entirely possible, for instance, that if decks like Oath or WGD were far more frequently played, then we too could see far greater top 8 finishes for both decks. Therefore, perhaps the only good feasible way of assessing dominance is to look at the numbers of each archetype played in all of the events examined (which should include events with 25+ people) versus the number of those archetypes making top 8. We could also collect some data from these events showcasing exactly what these top 8 decks are beating in the swiss rounds.

After experiencing this year of Vintage there is only 1 thing I'd like to see go...  Tinker/Darksteel.  It has become too much of a crutch for a lot of decks and is number 1 on the Cheese scale.  I don't believe it's overpowering, I just believe it's frustrating.  Is there a way to errata either card as to not be able to work in conjunction?

I feel the same frustration with Oath of Druids, which inexplicably seems to always be glued to an Orchard. At least with Tinker there are decent outs via Welder or StP or any one answer to DSC. Against Oath one answer won't be enough.


As a final comment, permit me some gloating here. As one of the people that was pushing for Trinisphere's restriction, I predicted that Mana Drain decks would NOT subsequently dominate, and that Stax decks would actually INCREASE in strength (I felt that Trinisphere was inferior to CotV, and that Trini bridged the gap between the weak and strong players to an unacceptable extent). This turned out to be correct on both accounts. My reasoning behind the first prediction (Drain decks not being a dominant force subsequent to the restriction) was that the T1 environment had reached a point where it can take care of itself - there are enough resources that any archetype can be sufficiently addressed by *any other major archetype* if it starts getting out of hand.  I mention this because it goes along with the point I was making above - we've reached a point where anything can beat anything. And this is neither a "good" nor "bad" thing.

I have a quarrel with his argument that Stax has increased in strength.  It isn't that I disagree with his conclusion so much as I disagree with his reasoning.  The supporting point he makes is that COTV is stronger.  The fact of the matter is that the loss of Trinisphere is an objective and irreplacable net decrease in the power of Stax.  Now, saying that the restriction of Trinisphere caused stax players to get better confuses cause for effect.  Who is to say that Workshop players weren't finally catching on and that the explosion in stax that we saw was not going to happen anyway.  For example, Kevin Cron made first place in Feb with a Stax list with only three Trinisphere before it was restricted.  I can't say that Vroman and other Stax players wouldn't have come along and still did as well without Trinisphere unrestricted.  I think that the increase in the quality of Stax player is not causally related to the restriction of Trinisphere.  It only made those players more visible in some respects. 

So basically I disagree that Stax is stronger post restriction.  I'm not saying that it hasn't had better performances, but that doesn't make it stronger.  Those performances could have been even greater if Trinisphere had not been restricted. 

[dicemanx]

Now, saying that the restriction of Trinisphere caused stax players to get better confuses cause for effect.

Actually, there's no way to know for sure either way without actually testing out the hypothesis that in the hands of stronger players an unrestricted Trinisphere would make Stax stronger. I will nevertheless concede that what I said was conjecture. However, my basis for making that statement is something that myself and others stated during the debates before the actual axing of the card - Trinisphere is a card that suffers a huge drop off in strength beyond the first turn and possibly if you're on the draw. It also can be rendered meaningless if the opposing deck can reach 3+ mana without having the mana base attacked (for example via basics/fetches). This possibly makes TriniStax decks unnecessarily too high risk high reward, something that is more profitable for weaker players in their goal of bridging the skill gap by stealing many games due to the "conditional" brokenness.

CotV on the other hand (which has more or less replaced Trinisphere after a long hiatus) has strength even if drawn mid-late game, and doesn't suffer from the drawback of being possibly rendered virtually useless past the early game. A similar argument could be put forth for Sphere of Resistance (if that is what is replacing Trini), which doesn't have the same devestating early game impact but it has greater effect on spells costed at 3+ mana.

If I recall correctly I think I remember Vroman mentioning how more powerful UbaStax would be if Trini remained unrestricted, although in fairness I'm assuming that his deck would run both Trini and CotV anyways. Maybe regular Stax decks would move in the same direction, but that still wouldn't change the fact that Trini would remain so conditional. As I said in another thread, the format can take care of itself and would shift and adjust to such configurations (with heavier emphasis on basics/fetches, maybe even Ancient Tombs), and the Stax decks could very well find themselves in a situation where they are drawing an overabundance of meaningless lock spells.

[seer]

Well,

In my opinion the restriction of Trinisphere has increased the power level of the card because the meta has shifted such that some decks (like oath) are able to run more non-basic lands and get away with it.

Due to the number of non-basics in some of these decks, the first turn trinisphere can be devestating.

[pyr0ma5ta]

How is a Trinisphere devastating to non-basic land.dec like oath?  It's most devastating to storm decks, although it's pretty good against Drain decks, forcing them to wait to turn 3 to drain, by which time you should have established another lock piece or two, since they didn't force your 3-ball.  Trini is pretty horrible in the Stax mirror or against ShopAggro, for obvious reasons.

I think it was never correct to run Trini as a 4-of (look at the current lists.  Anyone running 4 Null Rods?).  3 seems to be the correct number, pre-restriction.  Restriction opened up some slots with which to experiment, and I think Stax as an archetype benefitted from this.

[Dante]

How is a Trinisphere devastating to non-basic land.dec like oath?  It's most devastating to storm decks, although it's pretty good against Drain decks, forcing them to wait to turn 3 to drain, by which time you should have established another lock piece or two, since they didn't force your 3-ball.  Trini is pretty horrible in the Stax mirror or against ShopAggro, for obvious reasons.

I think it was never correct to run Trini as a 4-of (look at the current lists.  Anyone running 4 Null Rods?).  3 seems to be the correct number, pre-restriction.  Restriction opened up some slots with which to experiment, and I think Stax as an archetype benefitted from this.

Trinisphere was devastating to non-basic decks because it's typically complemented by 5 strips and some crucibles.

never is a pretty strong word and quite frankly, wrong.  Early Stax decks (when 3 sphere was legal) wanted to see this ASAP, same with workshop aggro.  It was only once people started adjusting (more fetch/basic configurations in addition to 3cc "bombs" like Rack and Ruin) to Trinisphere that placing more prominence on other cards (such as Sphere of Resist.) was "more correct"

[Moxlotus]

I thought the article was a very nice recap and trip down memory lane from the past year.  A very nice piece that I will read for the 3rd time in a few minutes simply because I liked it.  I like the tournament recaps and the innovations that happened during those times.

[BigMac]

To everyone's point about quantity of a deck in the environment versus top 8 appearances, everyone here MUST concede that Stax is hugely under represented in the overall field compared to its top 8 appearances.

Just to take one example, at SCG Chicago in July 30th, there were 141 players.  There were 51 Mana Drain decks and 27 Workshop decks.  The top 8 was as follows:

1) Workshop
2) Workshop
3) Workshop
4) Drain
5) Drain
6) Drain
7) Drain
8) Dragon

Think about that.  And in Europe the effect is even more pronounced because there are no proxies so Workshop decks - and Uba STax - is ridiculously difficult to build.

Stax was 36 top 8 appearances in July through October but it was 40% of all tournament wins as well.  So it is over represented not just in top 8 appearances, but in tournament wins. 

Still, if the dragon player was the only dragon player that would put 100% of the dragon players in the top 8 making it a way higher percentage. I agree that 11 percent of a deck type reaching top 8 in a field of 141 is a lot. But i think the player behind a deck is more important than the deck to an extend. Some people can play well with almost any deck.

About the restriction of trinisphere. I think there has not so much been a change in the strength of the deck (sphere of resistance can be as troublesome as trinisphere) as there has been a change of how lucky the deck can be. Turn one trinisphere could be deadly for many decks and there was absolutely no skill in playing that turn one, just a little luck. With sphere, skill has become more important. So i like the current metagame as i have the feeling that good players come on top instead of sometimes lucky players.