Avalon, WOTC has already put it on the record that they felt Batterskull was a mistake, and that they will never print anything as powerful as the swords for equipment and standard ever again (And the swords aren't even that good in the other formats).
SFM is not at all like POD, it's impossible not to make broken and synergistic combos and values with creatures, equipment in WOTC has been a joke for years, it's not a POD situation
I'm tired of begging for an SFM/Preordain combo though, it's not happening until early next year at the earliest
I wish these modern events weren't so spaced out, we don't even know what the meta should look like, we're seeing decks hold down Shadow, which i'm pleased with, Tood Anderson's assertion that the deck was secretly as oppressive as Bant Eldrazi was a joke
IDK, traditionally that hasn't really been the case has it? Usually doesn't combo break the toys control would have or could have used more fairly? Both ponder and preordain are on the list explicitly because combo abused them to the breaking point. I feel that's why they are still on the list today. Not because they are too powerful, but because they are too abusable.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Control looks like it's in a good place. It's always been a strategy played by a smaller number of players so low metagame % should not mean anything as long as the deck can viably win...looks like UW control is doing just that.
Look at the MtG color wheel. Blue is the color of control and if you look to the left and right of Blue you see Black and White. Combined those three colors are the "control" colors of the game. Directly opposite of Blue on the color wheel you have Green and Red. G/R are the aggro colors of the game. G/R are positioned opposite of Blue for a reason. In any format that WotC is looking to make control viable they only need to make UBW/UB/UW viable, not any combination of U/R or U/G. We should not lament that fact that U/R or BUG control strategies are hard to win with in the format it should be that way.
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Avalon, WOTC has already put it on the record that they felt Batterskull was a mistake, and that they will never print anything as powerful as the swords for equipment and standard ever again (And the swords aren't even that good in the other formats).
SFM is not at all like POD, it's impossible not to make broken and synergistic combos and values with creatures, equipment in WOTC has been a joke for years, it's not a POD situation
I'm tired of begging for an SFM/Preordain combo though, it's not happening until early next year at the earliest
I wish these modern events weren't so spaced out, we don't even know what the meta should look like, we're seeing decks hold down Shadow, which i'm pleased with, Tood Anderson's assertion that the deck was secretly as oppressive as Bant Eldrazi was a joke
It doesn't have to be as powerful as Batterskull normally is to be broken by SFM though. For instance, you could have an equipment that is normally balanced by a very high cmc but has a low equip cost, and it wouldn't necessarily be a mistake in WotC's eyes, especially if there is no cheap way to cheat it out in the Standard they release it in. It's not _likely_ to become like POD, but that doesn't mean it can't be at all. I'd also love for preordain to be unbanned, I just don't think unbannning it, or even unbanning it and SFM in the current meta, would be what is needed to fix the control problem modern's metagame has. They might contribute to a powerful deck, but the deck might not behave like control is meant to and thus not serve the same metagame role (reigning in on combo and some other stuff while being soft to aggro and and some kinds of ramp). Mainly for the reasons I noted in my post, SFM takes up an extra card slot in the deck to work, (which control doesn't like) and Preordain is sorcery speed.
Question about what is going on w/ the Tier 1 & Tier 2 forums here. I see there was a forum update yesterday but how are there suddenly 31 decks total in Tier 1/2??? Before the change I think there were 11 decks combined in those two Tiers on this website. What changed w/ how decks are rated to see such a jump in the number of decks showing up in those Tiers? If this is correct and there are that many Tier 1/2 decks in the format, and 15 in Tier 1 alone, who could possibly complain about the Modern metagame? There has to have been a mistake somewhere...Lantern can you shed some light on how you reordered the tiers?
And for the lack of control lamenting crowd UW control is shown as currently being Tier 1. Wassup w/ dat huh?
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Not going to list all the millions of changes I did in the last 7 hours... But Since there was an update:
Tiers updated... ALOT
Some of you may have noticed the tiering updating has lagged behind alot recently. Our data collection manager (ktken) is retiring from staff, so collection has been pretty hard for us. We are changing our systems completly, and over the next month I'll be rolling out the new benchmarks we use to tiering and testing them over the next half a year or so.
So just bare with us for a month, and everything will be clear and tip top shape.
Yikes, new tiering system incoming AND Sheridan retires from staff. I hope he still passes by from time to time.
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Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
I look forward to a new tiering system. Had some qualms with the existing one (not a criticism of Sheridan).
Had some qualms myself, and about Sheridan also. He was the one most vocally pushing the "only GOOD decks in Modern are Tier 1 decks" mantra, and apparently he reinforced that w/ his tiering system.
If this change is real and going to stick I wholeheartedly applaud it.
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
I look forward to a new tiering system. Had some qualms with the existing one (not a criticism of Sheridan).
Had some qualms myself, and about Sheridan also. He was the one most vocally pushing the "only GOOD decks in Modern are Tier 1 decks" mantra, and apparently he reinforced that w/ his tiering system.
If this change is real and going to stick I wholeheartedly applaud it.
I don't want to revive some old issues but I'm genuinely curious about what were the problems you saw in the old tiering system and how do you think it will be solved.
I never had a problem w/ the tiering system before. I did have a problem w/ Sheridan stating on multiple occasions that the only good decks in the format were the Tier 1 decks, and I said as much to him about it.
Now just look at the difference in perception one gets from the Modern format when you look in one case and see a Tier 1 w/ only 5-6 decks in it and then you look at a Tier 1 w/ 15 decks in it. It makes the format look much more alive and open when you see more decks listed in the top tiers. It does not seem so restrictive a format to get into, and it OPENS up the perception that a lot more styles of decks are viable as winning decks.
I don't know how much Sheridan had to do himself w/ the old system, but the change in tiering now coupled w/ his departure makes me think he wasn't just using hard data to tier decks but he was letting his own opinion about what made a deck "good" influence how he tiered them. That then influenced the perception of many readers/players and directed conversations down a certain line about decks and the format as a whole.
Overnight we have gone from from 11 Tier 1/2 decks to 31. Look at all the possibilities. It also gives a different perspective of the health of the format and a different baseline upon which to base our assessment of that health.
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Ktkenshinx, if anything, was too beholden to data. To accuse him of ignoring data and inserting his own opinion seems ridiculous to me. From every interaction I've ever had with Ktkenshinx, he leans on the metagame metrics he devised to give the most accurate depiction of the metagame available - and even acknowledged any deficiencies he could discern.
My own criticism of the way we think of tiers is based on how players decide decks. It seems to me that prevalence based metrics, such as those used by ktkenshinx, are insufficient given the cost barrier to changing decks. That being said, I have zero solutions for tiering in a way that cuts out the 'deck preference' or 'deck barrier to entry' from the tierings.
But again, to suggest Ktkenshinx ignored data is baffling to me.
Since when did Sheridan say anything such as 'only good decks in the format were the Tier 1 decks'
If anything, it's more likely he said that tier 1 decks generally gave you the best chance of doing well at an event and tier 2 and below decks also have a decent chance to spike events based on pilot skill and specific metagame conditions.
The only gripe I had with the tiering system was the frankly highly difficult task of quantifying the relationship between deck power level and popularity. Powerful decks tend to be more popular, that is of course true for the most part but isn't always the case.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
I'm curious as to why people are attributing Sheridan with saying that only Tier 1 decks are good. Sheridan has said many many times before that the Tier system is just a metric of how popular a deck is at a certain time and has nothing to do with the strength of a deck.
Anyway, thanks for your work on the site Sheridan, you will be missed.
While I agree with the first part, I would only add that if you dig through his posts he does say that popularity is a predictor of power, with few notable exceptions.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I'm curious as to why people are attributing Sheridan with saying that only Tier 1 decks are good. Sheridan has said many many times before that the Tier system is just a metric of how popular a deck is at a certain time and has nothing to do with the strength of a deck.
Anyway, thanks for your work on the site Sheridan, you will be missed.
While I agree with the first part, I would only add that if you dig through his posts he does say that popularity is a predictor of power, with few notable exceptions.
I am not sure how strong that correlation holds, but as a general heuristic it is probably true.
I wish had data to support this, but its been my general experience that there is a higher number of players that would refuse to play combo - even if it was the best deck in the format - over say, Aggro or Mid-Range. Granted, I'm just an anecdote, but I think that would pan out under scrutiny. Mostly, because I think creature combat and board interaction is a core draw of the game. Aggro and Mid-Range feel natural to the progression of the game, whereas storm combo doesn't.
I think this bears out in Wizard's philosophy as well. If combo ever does reach large metagame shares or if it becomes the default best deck in the format, you can be guaranteed some piece of it will be eat a ban. Because it's the archetype the fewest number of players both enjoy playing and playing against.
Power does dictate tiering rank to a large degree. Tiering rank does not dictate viability. DS was a thing way before it made waves in Modern. Someone simply decided to push it at a bigger event, and they beat the odds to top 8. The odds of making top 8 are so small, in general. The fact that tiering is strongly based on what made top 8-16, is problematic to me.
I still stand that a deck can make higher tiers simply by sheer volume. It does not mean it is the best deck.
If tiering could somehow take into consideration how prevalent a deck was in any tournament (as a negative factor), that would be interesting.
Then again, if Tiering is simply there to show you what showed-up in top16, and not make a statement on deck viability; it's fine as it is. But players take tiers too seriously to not take tiering criteria seriously.
I always saw the Tiers lists as a predictive tool for what to expect at the top tables of large events. It represents both what is popular and what is powerful. Popular decks are usually popular because they are powerful, powerful enough decks will eventually gain in popularity, and those are the decks you should expect to see at the end of events and consistently in Top 8s. It was a fine tool for classifying decks in a way that is relevant to competitive play. I guess I don't understand how having 15 "Tier 1" decks does anything to help clarify positions of decks, other than to make the lower ~3% decks feel better about not being "Tier 2"? I don't know. I don't see how this new classification is any more beneficial than the old.
I agree with cfusionpm. It seemed fairly clear that Tiers were not a direct correlation to deck power, but prevalence and success in the metagame. Tier 1 decks were the most-played decks putting up results, followed by Tier 2. These were the decks that you were more likely to encounter in an average event above FNM levels, especially in the top tables. Having trim and concise tiers makes it much easier to discern how to tool your own deck to combat the predicted meta. That being said, Tier 1 decks are usually high powered decks.
Playing a deck that was in Developing Competitive didn’t mean that your deck was “bad”. It just meant that it wasn’t a deck being represented significantly in the meta.
Playing a deck that was in Developing Competitive didn’t mean that your deck was “bad”. It just meant that it wasn’t a deck being represented significantly in the meta.
That is not how most Magic players interpret Tiers. Based even on how they discuss tier decks here. The problem is if a deck gets luky in one or two tournaments, then it shows-up in tiers and then everyone copies it. Which leaves other perfectly viable decks in the dust. And then people complain about diversity.
I have felt for a while that the way MTGS classifies what is Tier 1 was either way behind or using some other metric besides MTGO + Paper events. Taking a look at MTGGoldfish, which is going to be MTGO heavy based on the number of events compared to paper events, it looks really clear that the differences between the older tier 1 and tier 2 decks were marginal, with some of the decks classified as "Tier 2" overtaking the "Tier 1" decks in metagame percentage. Looking at the numbers, both Merfolk and Ad Nauseum make up a higher percentage of the meta than BGx or Bant Eldrazi, but they are still classified as Tier 2 while Bant Eldrazi and GBx are Tier 1.
Sheridan was a pure numbers man, it's ridiculous you guys would accuse him of having bias in tiering decks. If he had any biases, he straight up would say so before making statements
Don't be ungrateful, he did a lot here. Good luck to him
I really think we are living in one of the best times for modern players. Coming right off the heels of the best modern masters expansion yet, proving that wizards is willing to reprint the most sought after cards in the format. Despite minor inequalities in color and archetype balance, there is still an astounding array of diversity.
100 years from now, Modern historians will look back on this era as a "Golden Age" and reminisce about how good we had it.
I really think we are living in one of the best times for modern players. Coming right off the heels of the best modern masters expansion yet, proving that wizards is willing to reprint the most sought after cards in the format. Despite minor inequalities in color and archetype balance, there is still an astounding array of diversity.
100 years from now, Modern historians will look back on this era as a "Golden Age" and reminisce about how good we had it.
If you look at all the tier 1 and 2 decks list on MTGS and the developing its hard to not see lots of diversity. Even if you threw out all the tiers and put the decks in one list thats a whole lot of different and good deck types to choose from with none that break the format or a few that completely dominate. Stats or not from major tourneys and MTGO everyone. I agree that there is diversity very strong in Modern and maybe this current time frame is the best for Modern in terms of diversity. What Ive seen is a more enjoyable time at events and causal play at stores when in comes to Modern these days.
Competitive or causal Modern is in a very good place now.
I look forward to a new tiering system. Had some qualms with the existing one (not a criticism of Sheridan).
Had some qualms myself, and about Sheridan also. He was the one most vocally pushing the "only GOOD decks in Modern are Tier 1 decks" mantra, and apparently he reinforced that w/ his tiering system.
If this change is real and going to stick I wholeheartedly applaud it.
I don't want to revive some old issues but I'm genuinely curious about what were the problems you saw in the old tiering system and how do you think it will be solved.
I never had a problem w/ the tiering system before. I did have a problem w/ Sheridan stating on multiple occasions that the only good decks in the format were the Tier 1 decks, and I said as much to him about it.
Now just look at the difference in perception one gets from the Modern format when you look in one case and see a Tier 1 w/ only 5-6 decks in it and then you look at a Tier 1 w/ 15 decks in it. It makes the format look much more alive and open when you see more decks listed in the top tiers. It does not seem so restrictive a format to get into, and it OPENS up the perception that a lot more styles of decks are viable as winning decks.
I don't know how much Sheridan had to do himself w/ the old system, but the change in tiering now coupled w/ his departure makes me think he wasn't just using hard data to tier decks but he was letting his own opinion about what made a deck "good" influence how he tiered them. That then influenced the perception of many readers/players and directed conversations down a certain line about decks and the format as a whole.
Overnight we have gone from from 11 Tier 1/2 decks to 31. Look at all the possibilities. It also gives a different perspective of the health of the format and a different baseline upon which to base our assessment of that health.
This is pretty off base. As another user said, if anything, I was too data-driven and should have used more subjective opinions to drive tiering. I'll also say that in an ideal world, we would use performance metrics to drive tiering, not prevalence, but sadly we don't have that data. Additionally, I'll add that my metagame updates were exceedingly clear that we were talking about prevalence, not performance, and the tier definitions reflect that.
Finally, I'll say I enjoy the new tierings but think they overstate how many decks are truly viable. Without the PT data and the performance metrics, we'll never know how viable decks truly are, but I suspect it's much LESS viable for many decks than we want to believe. At least, at the GP, Open, and Comp League levels.
SFM is not at all like POD, it's impossible not to make broken and synergistic combos and values with creatures, equipment in WOTC has been a joke for years, it's not a POD situation
I'm tired of begging for an SFM/Preordain combo though, it's not happening until early next year at the earliest
I wish these modern events weren't so spaced out, we don't even know what the meta should look like, we're seeing decks hold down Shadow, which i'm pleased with, Tood Anderson's assertion that the deck was secretly as oppressive as Bant Eldrazi was a joke
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Look at the MtG color wheel. Blue is the color of control and if you look to the left and right of Blue you see Black and White. Combined those three colors are the "control" colors of the game. Directly opposite of Blue on the color wheel you have Green and Red. G/R are the aggro colors of the game. G/R are positioned opposite of Blue for a reason. In any format that WotC is looking to make control viable they only need to make UBW/UB/UW viable, not any combination of U/R or U/G. We should not lament that fact that U/R or BUG control strategies are hard to win with in the format it should be that way.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
It doesn't have to be as powerful as Batterskull normally is to be broken by SFM though. For instance, you could have an equipment that is normally balanced by a very high cmc but has a low equip cost, and it wouldn't necessarily be a mistake in WotC's eyes, especially if there is no cheap way to cheat it out in the Standard they release it in. It's not _likely_ to become like POD, but that doesn't mean it can't be at all. I'd also love for preordain to be unbanned, I just don't think unbannning it, or even unbanning it and SFM in the current meta, would be what is needed to fix the control problem modern's metagame has. They might contribute to a powerful deck, but the deck might not behave like control is meant to and thus not serve the same metagame role (reigning in on combo and some other stuff while being soft to aggro and and some kinds of ramp). Mainly for the reasons I noted in my post, SFM takes up an extra card slot in the deck to work, (which control doesn't like) and Preordain is sorcery speed.
And for the lack of control lamenting crowd UW control is shown as currently being Tier 1. Wassup w/ dat huh?
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Had some qualms myself, and about Sheridan also. He was the one most vocally pushing the "only GOOD decks in Modern are Tier 1 decks" mantra, and apparently he reinforced that w/ his tiering system.
If this change is real and going to stick I wholeheartedly applaud it.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
I never had a problem w/ the tiering system before. I did have a problem w/ Sheridan stating on multiple occasions that the only good decks in the format were the Tier 1 decks, and I said as much to him about it.
Now just look at the difference in perception one gets from the Modern format when you look in one case and see a Tier 1 w/ only 5-6 decks in it and then you look at a Tier 1 w/ 15 decks in it. It makes the format look much more alive and open when you see more decks listed in the top tiers. It does not seem so restrictive a format to get into, and it OPENS up the perception that a lot more styles of decks are viable as winning decks.
I don't know how much Sheridan had to do himself w/ the old system, but the change in tiering now coupled w/ his departure makes me think he wasn't just using hard data to tier decks but he was letting his own opinion about what made a deck "good" influence how he tiered them. That then influenced the perception of many readers/players and directed conversations down a certain line about decks and the format as a whole.
Overnight we have gone from from 11 Tier 1/2 decks to 31. Look at all the possibilities. It also gives a different perspective of the health of the format and a different baseline upon which to base our assessment of that health.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Ktkenshinx, if anything, was too beholden to data. To accuse him of ignoring data and inserting his own opinion seems ridiculous to me. From every interaction I've ever had with Ktkenshinx, he leans on the metagame metrics he devised to give the most accurate depiction of the metagame available - and even acknowledged any deficiencies he could discern.
My own criticism of the way we think of tiers is based on how players decide decks. It seems to me that prevalence based metrics, such as those used by ktkenshinx, are insufficient given the cost barrier to changing decks. That being said, I have zero solutions for tiering in a way that cuts out the 'deck preference' or 'deck barrier to entry' from the tierings.
But again, to suggest Ktkenshinx ignored data is baffling to me.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
If anything, it's more likely he said that tier 1 decks generally gave you the best chance of doing well at an event and tier 2 and below decks also have a decent chance to spike events based on pilot skill and specific metagame conditions.
The only gripe I had with the tiering system was the frankly highly difficult task of quantifying the relationship between deck power level and popularity. Powerful decks tend to be more popular, that is of course true for the most part but isn't always the case.
As plainly evident already it was thankless work.
So thanks Sheridan, hope you are on to good things.
Spirits
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I am not sure how strong that correlation holds, but as a general heuristic it is probably true.
I wish had data to support this, but its been my general experience that there is a higher number of players that would refuse to play combo - even if it was the best deck in the format - over say, Aggro or Mid-Range. Granted, I'm just an anecdote, but I think that would pan out under scrutiny. Mostly, because I think creature combat and board interaction is a core draw of the game. Aggro and Mid-Range feel natural to the progression of the game, whereas storm combo doesn't.
I think this bears out in Wizard's philosophy as well. If combo ever does reach large metagame shares or if it becomes the default best deck in the format, you can be guaranteed some piece of it will be eat a ban. Because it's the archetype the fewest number of players both enjoy playing and playing against.
Spirits
I still stand that a deck can make higher tiers simply by sheer volume. It does not mean it is the best deck.
If tiering could somehow take into consideration how prevalent a deck was in any tournament (as a negative factor), that would be interesting.
Then again, if Tiering is simply there to show you what showed-up in top16, and not make a statement on deck viability; it's fine as it is. But players take tiers too seriously to not take tiering criteria seriously.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Playing a deck that was in Developing Competitive didn’t mean that your deck was “bad”. It just meant that it wasn’t a deck being represented significantly in the meta.
That is not how most Magic players interpret Tiers. Based even on how they discuss tier decks here. The problem is if a deck gets luky in one or two tournaments, then it shows-up in tiers and then everyone copies it. Which leaves other perfectly viable decks in the dust. And then people complain about diversity.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
My H/W list
Spirits
Don't be ungrateful, he did a lot here. Good luck to him
100 years from now, Modern historians will look back on this era as a "Golden Age" and reminisce about how good we had it.
If you look at all the tier 1 and 2 decks list on MTGS and the developing its hard to not see lots of diversity. Even if you threw out all the tiers and put the decks in one list thats a whole lot of different and good deck types to choose from with none that break the format or a few that completely dominate. Stats or not from major tourneys and MTGO everyone. I agree that there is diversity very strong in Modern and maybe this current time frame is the best for Modern in terms of diversity. What Ive seen is a more enjoyable time at events and causal play at stores when in comes to Modern these days.
Competitive or causal Modern is in a very good place now.
This is pretty off base. As another user said, if anything, I was too data-driven and should have used more subjective opinions to drive tiering. I'll also say that in an ideal world, we would use performance metrics to drive tiering, not prevalence, but sadly we don't have that data. Additionally, I'll add that my metagame updates were exceedingly clear that we were talking about prevalence, not performance, and the tier definitions reflect that.
Finally, I'll say I enjoy the new tierings but think they overstate how many decks are truly viable. Without the PT data and the performance metrics, we'll never know how viable decks truly are, but I suspect it's much LESS viable for many decks than we want to believe. At least, at the GP, Open, and Comp League levels.