Meta List (July format edition!)

[Maeriberii Haan]

Thing is with Ritual Beast, it's ridiculously underrepresented in tournaments compared to its tops. In a strict sense it won't be a Tier 2 or Tier 1 deck due to usage alone unless it somehow garnered a ridiculous amount of hype.

 

Which makes properly gauging their strength from the results to be harder.

 

Speaking of it, I'm actually a fan of Winston's NAWCQ build. It gets less explosive opening due to lack of E-Tele, but it gains a lot of resiliency in exchange. I'm not sure whether it'll pick up or not, but I'm eager to wait and see.

[ihop]

Whilst you are correct that a good player will seek out the best deck, a player can only play one deck. You could consider Nekroz to be the best deck and Ritual Beast the second and still be playing Nekroz along with 100 like-minded people, but it doesn't mean Ritual Beasts are a poor deck, just not the absolute best, which I never claimed they were. 

 

Jury's out on Towers Turbo and I wouldn't use it as meaningful evidence at all in this case - at the only relevant tournament (Euros) the German players bought every local shop in Dublin completely out of CROS-Advanced Edition and then sold Wavering Eyes for as high as £20, so the only people able to play the deck were ones who either believed in the deck so strongly that they were prepared to take a guaranteed loss of a good amount of money (seeing as they were always going to drop to way below that after the event) or people who had connections with those who had bought out the shops. I also don't see how Towers Turbo can be considered a higher tier than RB purely based off the fact that there's only been one tournament where the deck was completely new and people weren't able to adapt to it (the deck's very easy to adapt to), so it was jumped on by the most alert superstar players (after all, Wavering Gaze was only announced to be legal for Euros a week or two before the event). If it does well in more events then it's obviously a genuinely good deck, but right now RB have more tops than it and there's definitely no guarantee that the deck will get any more tops. Wait till Rimini or something.

 

edit: If they're not tier 1, they're DEFINITELY not lower than tier 2. Lumping them together with decks like HEROes, Infernoids and Yosenju is clearly wrong.

[Maeriberii Haan]

Noid HERO and Yosenju should be in 3 tbh. They don't top enough to be anywhere near the other decks, but they're not rogue enough and slightly expected at times.

[ihop]

That's fair, I suppose. In which case it'll look something like this

1

BA

Nekroz

Qli variants

 

2

Shaddoll

Tellarknights

RB

 

3 

Infernoid

HERO

Yosenju

Volcanic

Mermail?

 

irrelevant

Everything else

 

I still maintain that RB are more at home with Dolls and Tellarknights than all the crap in tier 3.

[Slinky]

Are Six Sams still a solid rogue deck? I know Sh'ien destroys the plays Qli and Nekroz have. But the match-up against pretty much everything else is pretty poor.

[Maeriberii Haan]

Sam won't survive longer tournaments, and in shorter tournaments it'll face a lot of non QLiphort/Nekroz which it'd have a great chance to die against, so I'd say no.

[CLG Klavier]

idk if 2 Dragoons makes Mermails that much better. With just 1 Diva and no Tidal, they feel so eh.

[Expelsword]

Noid HERO and Yosenju should be in 3 tbh. They don't top enough to be anywhere near the other decks, but they're not rogue enough and slightly expected at times.

 

Infernoids have the tools to deal with every other deck out there. The only issue is that they can start too poorly to do any work.

In addition to not being played nearly as much though (I can't say this is a bad thing, given how disturbing the mirror match is), they also suffer from careless players at times.

 

I dunno, maybe I'm a fanboy. By the same logic Yosenju aren't bad either, but they die to Breakthrough.

[Maeriberii Haan]

The lack of Djinn lock might give Infernoid more chance in the meta, but I don't think it'd get that much more representation post this list at least until CORE hits.

 

And referring to current tops, Infernoid is clearly Tier 3. Its appearance in bigger tournaments aren't as hot as its attribute, sadly.

[ihop]

I'll agree that Infernoid are probably the best of the bunch in terms of tier 3 decks, but they're nowhere near the level of RBs, Dolls and Tellars.

[Expelsword]

On the topic of RB, do they actually play Soul Absorbtion competitvely?

3000 a turn is pretty unfair.

[ihop]

no

[Expelsword]

Heh, I guess there's no time for screwing around against real decks.

 

I do agree that RBs are pretty good though. They have the whole quick effect dodge going for them that makes them difficult to play against, and the searchable monster crushing Trap does so much work, especially considering non-targeting.

[King K. Azo]

Why isn't there a rogue tier?

[CLG Klavier]

Why isn't there a rogue tier?

There is, it's called sheet tier. Harsh reality.

[King K. Azo]

There is, it's called s*** tier. Harsh reality.

I thought sheet tier was things that couldn't even make rogue.

 

So, what's worse than sheet?

[Expelsword]

Ice Barriers.

[Slinky]

I thought sheet tier was things that couldn't even make rogue.

 

So, what's worse than sheet?

 

Konami.

[Maeriberii Haan]

Rogue is just that, rogue. Those decks that topped without anyone expecting them, then disappears without a trace in following tournaments.

 

They shouldn't be listed since they're outside of the meta, being rogue and all. This is a meta list speculation, after all. We're not smogon, trying to tier every single deck around.

[VCR_CAT]

That's fair, I suppose. In which case it'll look something like this

1

BA

Nekroz

Qli variants

 

2

Shaddoll

Tellarknights

RB

 

3 

Infernoid

HERO

Yosenju

Volcanic

Mermail?

 

irrelevant

Everything else

 

I still maintain that RB are more at home with Dolls and Tellarknights than all the crap in tier 3.

 

This is a list I can get behind; but keep in mind that a lot of this will probably change as tournaments happen and we see more cards released.

 

Anyways. Out of curiosity I double-checked the final breakdown of tournament results for April 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qHokg1A3zlXnx5uk9bWE6POjxfMYkZLfPkDH5wbgNE8/edit#gid=0

 

Okay, so looking over again now that I'm sure I have the right list, I can say I'm back on track. Ritual Beasts were on top of Tier 3 last I checked, but the gap between them and Tier 2 is quite a wall to climb over. The gaps between the non-Nekroz Big 5 decks are all fairly slim, and if Nekroz are balanced enough with the recent hits then we're going to be seeing a very close top-tier meta; kind of like the Trinity Format but with 5 decks instead of 3. I feel sorry for the competitive players; they're going to have a tough time siding.

 

Other thing I wanna flip this chair turnways and sit on it backways so as to get things real. Tournament representation. To what degree do you guys think that a deck's representation is due to its hype and what's due to its actual effectiveness? I'm of the opinion that if a deck is truly as good as one may say against a lot of the meta, than it should win despite representation consistently and to the point where other competitive players are going to notice and change over. Competitive players want to win, and many are going to do their best to get the best deck, and figure out what that best deck is; so I'm kind of the opinion that if a deck has a large representation, it's because of its actual effectiveness and not because of hollow hype. Granted, I really want to know what happened with those Mecha Phantom Beasts because that sounds hilarious and really awesome.

[King K. Azo]

Konami.

You win, just... You win.

 

This is a list I can get behind; but keep in mind that a lot of this will probably change as tournaments happen and we see more cards released.

 

Anyways. Out of curiosity I double-checked the final breakdown of tournament results for April 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dPI6_NCYweGtZSUQOQbj_WNLBgwwG4myou9tQMMbbmc/edit#gid=0

Overall, I was kind of surprised to see what I saw. I definitely thought Ritual Beasts were higher than they were (yes, contrary to what I've been saying). Shaddolls ended up being the best of Nekroz's playthings, and Mecha Phantom Beasts are the... best... of the rogue decks........all because they topped a major YCS/NAWCQ/W-E

 

Anyways, that rogue MPB win aside (Apparently went LOSSLESS; I'd LOVE to see some recordings of that guy's duels), This is what April 2015 left off results alone. With that in mind, I still stand by my "There's gonna be a big power struggle between the Big 5 for top dog position" statement and that the Tier 1 and 2 positions will be rather contested between those decks. Honestly, looking at what the banlist changes have been so far, those top 5 positions look like the only things that are going to change. No bones were really thrown for the lower decks. But, thinking again more, Clash of Rebellions is coming out in just a couple weeks, and I'm sure we're going to see some changes in the tier list with that. So I can't really say what's going to happen. If no cards were going to be released, I'd say that Ritual Beasts would continue their position in tier 3.

 

 

Other thing I wanna flip this chair turnways and sit on it backways so as to get things real. Tournament representation. To what degree do you guys think that a deck's representation is due to its hype and what's due to its actual effectiveness? I'm of the opinion that if a deck is truly as good as one may say against a lot of the meta, than it should win despite representation consistently and to the point where other competitive players are going to notice and change over. Competitive players want to win, and many are going to do their best to get the best deck, and figure out what that best deck is; so I'm kind of the opinion that if a deck has a large representation, it's because of its actual effectiveness and not because of hollow hype. Granted, I really want to know what happened with those Mecha Phantom Beasts because that sounds hilarious and really awesome.

I wanna see what happened with hose MPBs too...

 

I dunno... I think some decks are really hyped and live up to it, while others, I'm just sitting here thinking, "Either I got 5 bad players in a row, or this deck is not what it's cracked up to be," BAs being one of those decks. It's hyped and everyone plays it, then I duel people with it and they aren't... Overwhelming...

It's like everyone's like "You're going with Samurais? You idiot!" And I go and beat them... A lot. I dunno if they're being careless due to underestimating me or what.

Nekroz really does live up to it though. If I wanna win, I have to plan all my moves at least 3 turns in advance. And it's a struggle.

 

I feel like here are a lot of good decks out there though, but no one gives them a chance because "They aren't the meta". And honestly, it's frustrating when I'm insulted for not using the meta, and everyone else is, and they say my deck sucks, no matter how many times I whoop their ass.

[VCR_CAT]

Well, you need to keep in mind where you're playing. If you're playing an online sim, you're going to face a lot of bad players playing top decks. And I mean a LOT of bad players. It's like an ocean of garbage. Also recheck my post because I had the wrong link from the start and I had to edit it XD

 

But yeah, a lot of people you'll find in sims will never be in a YCS, so I wouldn't take those places as accurate representations of the meta when compared to real tournaments.

[King K. Azo]

Well, you need to keep in mind where you're playing. If you're playing an online sim, you're going to face a lot of bad players playing top decks. And I mean a LOT of bad players. It's like an ocean of garbage. Also recheck my post because I had the wrong link from the start and I had to edit it XD

 

But yeah, a lot of people you'll find in sims will never be in a YCS, so I wouldn't take those places as accurate representations of the meta when compared to real tournaments.

No, I play actual tournaments. And sims, but actual tournaments to.

 

That also frustrates me... The deck I use, not all its support cards have been released, and I can pull out wins. Not always, but I do win more than lose.

 

And they have most of their support and they have the gall to say mine will never get better.

 

I'll show them all....

[ihop]

This is a list I can get behind; but keep in mind that a lot of this will probably change as tournaments happen and we see more cards released.

 

Anyways. Out of curiosity I double-checked the final breakdown of tournament results for April 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qHokg1A3zlXnx5uk9bWE6POjxfMYkZLfPkDH5wbgNE8/edit#gid=0

 

I think I said this last time but I still disagree with this nominal points value assigned to different tops. For starters, Ritual Beasts went way deeper in their class 3 tops than almost any other deck did (4 out of the 5 made it to top 8), and anyway I'd consider a class 3 top to be weighted substantially higher than anything else because it takes way more than 3x the amount of effort to top a class 3 even than it does a class 1 event (or even a class 2 event, I'd say). 

[Maeriberii Haan]

Other thing I wanna flip this chair turnways and sit on it backways so as to get things real. Tournament representation. To what degree do you guys think that a deck's representation is due to its hype and what's due to its actual effectiveness? I'm of the opinion that if a deck is truly as good as one may say against a lot of the meta, than it should win despite representation consistently and to the point where other competitive players are going to notice and change over. Competitive players want to win, and many are going to do their best to get the best deck, and figure out what that best deck is; so I'm kind of the opinion that if a deck has a large representation, it's because of its actual effectiveness and not because of hollow hype. Granted, I really want to know what happened with those Mecha Phantom Beasts because that sounds hilarious and really awesome.

 

Tournament representation is one of the actually feasible way to gauge a deck's effectiveness, but it's never a perfect one, and it shouldn't really be taken for granted. Using Ritual Beast as an example again, it's a strong enough deck that has been proven many times that it can be run in longer tournaments reliably enough, and topping on top of that, but it's a deck that people rarely run in general due to several factors that doesn't necessarily have much to do with the deck's actual capability. It's still not Nekroz, of course, but getting 3 top 8 in NAWCQ of all things is enough to surmise that it's not really on the same level as other rogue strategies.

 

Hype is always a factor in representation. Players see others getting success with something, they'll try to do it similarly to see if they can get the same result. The bigger the hype, the bigger the representation, and the bigger the chance of that certain something to get many tops thanks to simple math. If a deck is good, it'll see tops without getting hype, yes, but hype really have a big factor in swaying the choice of players, both in persuading people to run a deck or to influence other deck's choices and playstyles. But really, the biggest proof here (unless I'm getting my data wrong), the later the last format went, people started to pick other decks over nekroz more and more, not enough to topple it from being the surefire top deck of the game at the moment, but significant enough.

 

Oh, speaking of that gdoc, that reminds me of something.

 

Going with this format, at first when CROS hits, Shaddoll was hyped as the second best deck after Nekroz, and it picked up tops after tops, but then people realized how good L1T in Qlip is (and started to hype it as the actual second best deck against shaddoll, especially after doll's poor performance in that one YCS and the success of Qlip there), and started playing it and utilizing it more and more, and at that point Qlip started to pick up more tops than Dolls. And then, later on, people concluded about how powerful BA actually still is when people mained denko less and less and Barbar getting more and more usage, and they get even more and more representation as shown by the NAWCQ and EUWCQ iirc (not implying that they're underplayed before, this is just what I'm observing). And this is not counting Towers Turbo since it's a change made by the existence of a new card, and it didn't get a lot of reps yet due to appearing very very late on the format anyway.

 

That's pretty much a nice way to show how a format is not strictly static even without new releases. Trend and hype changes the meta just like that. Another example would be the start of DUEA format in TCG. Satellars gets a lot of tops, while BA was barely played and no one was sure about how to build Dolls. Once people solidified on their core Doll builds and they realized that BA was already a top contender, Sats gets less and less tops, even before NECH hits.

 

...man I'm rambling, am I?

 

Bottom point is, metagame is not static even without new releases, representation is an usable way to gauge a deck's power but not a perfect one, and hype and trends play a lot of factor in determining how much top a deck would get.