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.
Yeah... I'm not sure what metrics justify decks like Death & Taxes and Bant Knightfall being classified as "Tier 1"...
Tier 1 should represent the top of the top. Decks you expect to see at every tournament, putting up consistent results. Decks that you have a very high chance of seeing at top tables or in Top 8s. Expanding out Tier 1 to include so many lower decks with small meta shares and few meaningful results just dilutes the definition of what it means to be a "Tier 1 deck." IMO.
We have a lot of competitively viable decks that can randomly spike tournaments with a good meta call, excellent play, and/or positive variance, but that's what we used to call Tier 2. Tier 1 decks should ALWAYS be a good call ALL the time.
I've always thought of Tier 1 in this way. If I'm at a high-level event and go 3-0 in my first 3 rounds, what decks should I expect to face for the remainder of the tournament?
There will always be outliers and people doing well with brews or pet decks or lower tiered strategies, but by and large the majority of your round by round opponents should fall into that bucket.
As such KTKen's metrics were spot-on and I never had issue with them.
Yeah... I'm not sure what metrics justify decks like Death & Taxes and Bant Knightfall being classified as "Tier 1"
I think Bant Knightfall is a good enough deck to become tier 1, so that one's not too much of a stretch for me, but Death and Taxes is definitely a stretch.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think what people should take from this discussion, that I somewhat started and I apologize for it, specially to Ktkenshinx since he got some undeserved bash, is that we should take any tiering with a grain of salt. Each meta has its own perks specially due to the nature of the players in that reason, the cost to transition to a deck to another, etc.. This means that we can't fight tooth and nail for this issues.
So, should I punch the next person that tells me blue is not viable because there are no tier 1 decks that are blue? Because what you say, and what really is, are two different things.
I understand YOU prefer the bigger picture, but the majority of regular Modern players do not. I hear it all the time at my LGS. People talk about tiers as though decks outside of Tier 1 should lose to Tier 1. I hear people walking up and asking to build "this list" which ends up being a tier 1 list net decked from the most recent event(s).
People here on MTGS live in a bubble, and we rarely realize that what we think differs greatly from general Modern players (or magic players in general).
So, regardless of how YOU think tiers should be looked at (which I may agree with you on that), the fact of the matter is, for most people, they will look at tiers as a strict indicator of what is good and what is bad. If its not tiered, its some random rogue brew with no viability (until some pro decides to take it to a top 8 finish).
I understand YOU prefer the bigger picture, but the majority of regular Modern players do not. I hear it all the time at my LGS. People talk about tiers as though decks outside of Tier 1 should lose to Tier 1. I hear people walking up and asking to build "this list" which ends up being a tier 1 list net decked from the most recent event(s).
People here on MTGS live in a bubble, and we rarely realize that what we think differs greatly from general Modern players (or magic players in general).
So, regardless of how YOU think tiers should be looked at (which I may agree with you on that), the fact of the matter is, for most people, they will look at tiers as a strict indicator of what is good and what is bad. If its not tiered, its some random rogue brew with no viability (until some pro decides to take it to a top 8 finish).
Tiers are an important tool for metagame construction and analysis. A data driven approach is always the best (if you can avoid collection bias and preferential bias) for more a rigorous explanation of the metagame itself. However, it is still incumbent upon the individual to understand what that tiering system means, and be able to apply it's lessons in a subjective context for their local metagame.
I understand YOU prefer the bigger picture, but the majority of regular Modern players do not. I hear it all the time at my LGS. People talk about tiers as though decks outside of Tier 1 should lose to Tier 1. I hear people walking up and asking to build "this list" which ends up being a tier 1 list net decked from the most recent event(s).
People here on MTGS live in a bubble, and we rarely realize that what we think differs greatly from general Modern players (or magic players in general).
So, regardless of how YOU think tiers should be looked at (which I may agree with you on that), the fact of the matter is, for most people, they will look at tiers as a strict indicator of what is good and what is bad. If its not tiered, its some random rogue brew with no viability (until some pro decides to take it to a top 8 finish).
Tiers are an important tool for metagame construction and analysis. A data driven approach is always the best (if you can avoid collection bias and preferential bias) for more a rigorous explanation of the metagame itself. However, it is still incumbent upon the individual to understand what that tiering system means, and be able to apply it's lessons in a subjective context for their local metagame.
You are asking for a lot. lol
In a vacuum, of course Tier analysis is necessary. Im not asking to get rid of Tiers. But either we make it clear what they are meant to indicate, or we widen the criteria. Because at the end of the day, 10-20 people of MTGS understanding the nuance of the Tiering system, is not sufficient.
I understand YOU prefer the bigger picture, but the majority of regular Modern players do not. I hear it all the time at my LGS. People talk about tiers as though decks outside of Tier 1 should lose to Tier 1. I hear people walking up and asking to build "this list" which ends up being a tier 1 list net decked from the most recent event(s).
People here on MTGS live in a bubble, and we rarely realize that what we think differs greatly from general Modern players (or magic players in general).
So, regardless of how YOU think tiers should be looked at (which I may agree with you on that), the fact of the matter is, for most people, they will look at tiers as a strict indicator of what is good and what is bad. If its not tiered, its some random rogue brew with no viability (until some pro decides to take it to a top 8 finish).
Tiers are an important tool for metagame construction and analysis. A data driven approach is always the best (if you can avoid collection bias and preferential bias) for more a rigorous explanation of the metagame itself. However, it is still incumbent upon the individual to understand what that tiering system means, and be able to apply it's lessons in a subjective context for their local metagame.
You are asking for a lot. lol
In a vacuum, of course Tier analysis is necessary. Im not asking to get rid of Tiers. But either we make it clear what they are meant to indicate, or we widen the criteria. Because at the end of the day, 10-20 people of MTGS understanding the nuance of the Tiering system, is not sufficient.
The tier system does not simply indicate viability of a deck, but consistent viability over a multi-round tournament.
The tier system has ALWAYS been specific regarding this, as it uses actual tournament results to rank decks.
A non-tier deck is typically trash because it is not consistent (see zombie-loom or 8 rack in modern). But that doesn't mean it can't win.
People hate those decks because they can often steal games... but will very rarely actually win a tournament since they are not consistent enough for a multi-round, multiple day finish.
EDIT: at local tournaments with 6 or less rounds before a top 8, tier system is less relevant.
That's because fewer games = less variance.
If you make 30% of the meta for any particular tournament 8-rack, I assure you 8-rack will end-up in top8/16. Decks actually showing up have a chance of being ranked in Tiers. The fact that a deck does not show up, does not invalidate its viability. Tiers miss this fact. If 30% of the decks brought to a tournament are DS decks, then obviously we will see DS in the top8/16.
There is a skewing factor that the tier system does not take into account. And for the most part, it cannot. So we widen the criteria, or we make the disclaimers more clear.
At the end of the day, those are only numbers posted by certain decks during a certain period of time, and it's up to each one of us to give them whatever use/weight we want, whether we personally choose to disregard them entirely, assign sideboard slots accordingly, theorycraft or whatever. Point is, if most people can't or don't want to understand it's mostly a prevalence metric, you can either tell them or move on.
While I will argue the tier system actually reflects power level to some extent, since the data is the successful metagame rather than the Round 0 metagame, we lack the information to rank decks by power level (winrate % comes to mind). Even if we had that information, tiers would still need some cutoffs, which would still be debatable, although a much less discussed topic.
For me, Bant Company is a Tier 1 deck with 4.7% and Tier 2 decks are decent, for someone else 36% Eldrazi was the only good deck in Modern, ever
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If you make 30% of the meta for any particular tournament 8-rack, I assure you 8-rack will end-up in top8/16. Decks actually showing up have a chance of being ranked in Tiers. The fact that a deck does not show up, does not invalidate its viability. Tiers miss this fact. If 30% of the decks brought to a tournament are DS decks, then obviously we will see DS in the top8/16.
There is a skewing factor that the tier system does not take into account. And for the most part, it cannot. So we widen the criteria, or we make the disclaimers more clear.
I would actually disagree with that. Tier system does take into account conversion rates.
Decks didn't become viable overnight because some tier system changed and put more decks in tier one. All it did was make it harder to distinguish what you actually may face in a tournament, which was the whole point of tiering in the first place. And who cares about the perception of the people not playing the format? I don't care if some newbies think there are 2 or 500 viable decks because that is part of the learning curve of the format and I never saw the tiering system as something meant to really help them. If people couldn't be bothered to read any explanation of the system or ever play modern to understand it then it isn't anyone else's fault if they think tier represents power instead of likelihood of seeing it.
Why would we cater the tiering system towards those new to the format or those that don't play it just to change perception, instead of cater it to actual modern players for their deckbuilding and SB plans?
And your comments are basically proof we have alternate universes because I cannot see how anyone, under any circumstance, could accuse KTkenshinx of being anything other than extremely data driven. Any bias you saw was from a lack of perfect sampling conditions and trying to extrapolate as best he could.
EDIT: at local tournaments with 6 or less rounds before a top 8, tier system is less relevant.
That's because fewer games = less variance.
So we should ignore most of the events on MTGO, dailies specifically.
And why should we discount the events the majority of people will be playing in? The majority of the player base only plays those smaller local events and never strives to go to PTQ's or GPQ's. For most players States is the biggest event they play in or even want to play.
I personally think using mainly the larger events for Tiers and decks viability is the wrong way to go about it.
Tap dancing your way through a larger event and missing all your bad match ups skews the numbers. Luck plays a huge factor in larger events. More so then smaller ones. Granted, you possibly may not see as many types of decks in a smaller event.
One can be biased and data driven at the same time...if you present your data in a way that pushes or presents a bias. Anyhoo...it would be nice to hear Lantern speak about the massive change in tiering system sooner rather than later, b/c whether or not new decks became viable overnight there was a complete shift in how we are looking at decks now. What's the explanation for that?
You are also all welcome for spending the last two pages of this thread discussing how we should be looking at the metagame (that is constructive and how we will come to understanding together) rather than arguing about what should be banned/unbanned. Keep up the good work.
And just to be clear I'm a huge, huge Sheridan fan...Phil Sheridan, that is.
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
With so many decks in the top two tiers what would people's opinions be of going to established and developing in similar ways to vintage/legacy lists are on here? Or do the tier lists add something more worth retaining?
Most of the decks in the top 2 tiers at the moment could very easily be called 'decks that aren't going anywhere' or 'decks you're likely to see at a large tournament'.
I think the new tiering system is awful and would rather go with Sheridan's data. I don't trust MTGsalvations tiering system whatsoever and will not, I mean---seriously, Bant Company is tier 1 now?
I understand YOU prefer the bigger picture, but the majority of regular Modern players do not. I hear it all the time at my LGS. People talk about tiers as though decks outside of Tier 1 should lose to Tier 1. I hear people walking up and asking to build "this list" which ends up being a tier 1 list net decked from the most recent event(s).
Then that's their problem. They think of tiers as if it's Super Smash Bros. The ultimate issue comes down to educating the greater encompassing player base all about what Tiers in the Modern format really mean.
The more I think about it, the more I like MTGtheSource's view of Tiers. There is no "Tier 1", it's simply "Decks To Beat" which is comprised of what are often the strongest and most popular decks that you need to prepare to face at tournaments. Instead of "Tier 2", you have "Established Decks", and these decks are ones that you could feasibly face at a tournament as they have decent records. T3 is just New and Developmental decks.
With so many decks in the top two tiers what would people's opinions be of going to established and developing in similar ways to vintage/legacy lists are on here? Or do the tier lists add something more worth retaining?
Most of the decks in the top 2 tiers at the moment could very easily be called 'decks that aren't going anywhere' or 'decks you're likely to see at a large tournament'.
I'm not sure about the new system's specifics, but if the site uses an established, replicable, and transparent scoring/grading system, then tiers are fine. In my opinion, tiering should be as objective as possible and also use the best statistical methods available given the data. If this can happen, the subjective "established" and "proven" division should not return; Modern did this years ago when I first got here and we moved away from it.
On the other hand, if the system doesn't make sense or doesn't meet those above benchmarks, then tiering becomes much less helpful. I am not as familiar with current format data as I was with it in the past, but I sincerely doubt there are truly this many Tier 1 decks. The most I ever saw when doing updates was maybe 8-9 (estimate; don't quote me). With so many Tier 1 decks, I suspect it's because the new system uses a very broad definition of Tier 1 that might not be as helpful as people think it is. Personally, I prefer narrower definitions that establish tiers with more confidence. No system is perfect without the full dataset, but I'd be cautious about a system that had so many Tier 1 decks; it's unlikely all Tier 1 decks are truly as viable as each other if the tiering is so wide.
Statistically speaking, this is incorrect/backwards. Variance and standard deviation ideally decrease with more data points; it's basically the whole point of statistics.
I understand YOU prefer the bigger picture, but the majority of regular Modern players do not. I hear it all the time at my LGS. People talk about tiers as though decks outside of Tier 1 should lose to Tier 1. I hear people walking up and asking to build "this list" which ends up being a tier 1 list net decked from the most recent event(s).
People here on MTGS live in a bubble, and we rarely realize that what we think differs greatly from general Modern players (or magic players in general).
So, regardless of how YOU think tiers should be looked at (which I may agree with you on that), the fact of the matter is, for most people, they will look at tiers as a strict indicator of what is good and what is bad. If its not tiered, its some random rogue brew with no viability (until some pro decides to take it to a top 8 finish).
Tiers are an important tool for metagame construction and analysis. A data driven approach is always the best (if you can avoid collection bias and preferential bias) for more a rigorous explanation of the metagame itself. However, it is still incumbent upon the individual to understand what that tiering system means, and be able to apply it's lessons in a subjective context for their local metagame.
You are asking for a lot. lol
In a vacuum, of course Tier analysis is necessary. Im not asking to get rid of Tiers. But either we make it clear what they are meant to indicate, or we widen the criteria. Because at the end of the day, 10-20 people of MTGS understanding the nuance of the Tiering system, is not sufficient.
The tier system does not simply indicate viability of a deck, but consistent viability over a multi-round tournament.
The tier system has ALWAYS been specific regarding this, as it uses actual tournament results to rank decks.
A non-tier deck is typically trash because it is not consistent (see zombie-loom or 8 rack in modern). But that doesn't mean it can't win.
People hate those decks because they can often steal games... but will very rarely actually win a tournament since they are not consistent enough for a multi-round, multiple day finish.
EDIT: at local tournaments with 6 or less rounds before a top 8, tier system is less relevant.
That's because fewer games = less variance.
EDIT: at local tournaments with 6 or less rounds before a top 8, tier system is less relevant.
That's because fewer games = less variance.
So we should ignore most of the events on MTGO, dailies specifically.
And why should we discount the events the majority of people will be playing in? The majority of the player base only plays those smaller local events and never strives to go to PTQ's or GPQ's. For most players States is the biggest event they play in or even want to play.
I personally think using mainly the larger events for Tiers and decks viability is the wrong way to go about it.
Tap dancing your way through a larger event and missing all your bad match ups skews the numbers. Luck plays a huge factor in larger events. More so then smaller ones. Granted, you possibly may not see as many types of decks in a smaller event.
One of the reasons we should look at data in aggregate is to try and reduce as much of the statistical variance as possible. Luck/Individual Skill/Tournament Bias/etc are all things we remove as extraneous factors the larger our data set gets and the less biased it becomes.
With the recent display of our community's ability to comprehend statistics I'm going to really miss Ktkenshinx.
EDIT(to actually add something to the discussion):Anyway, curious myself to see the new criteria. I am in the camp that more exclusive tiers are better at actually representing the tiers. An 11% deck should not be classified similarly to a 2% deck. It doesn't do either of them or their players any favors.
I think the new tiering system is awful and would rather go with Sheridan's data. I don't trust MTGsalvations tiering system whatsoever and will not, I mean---seriously, Bant Company is tier 1 now?
Whoever is in charge is doing a poor job of it
Just wanted to agree on this point. There should at least be some sort of announcement or justification for why things are tiered the way they are. Ponza, 8 rack, and sultai delirium being listed as tier 2 seems disingenuous at best and downright wrong at worst.
With the recent display of our community's ability to comprehend statistics I'm going to really miss Ktkenshinx.
EDIT(to actually add something to the discussion):Anyway, curious myself to see the new criteria. I am in the camp that more exclusive tiers are better at actually representing the tiers. An 11% deck should not be classified similarly to a 2% deck. It doesn't do either of them or their players any favors.
Ktkenshinx is leaving?
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
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Yeah... I'm not sure what metrics justify decks like Death & Taxes and Bant Knightfall being classified as "Tier 1"...
Tier 1 should represent the top of the top. Decks you expect to see at every tournament, putting up consistent results. Decks that you have a very high chance of seeing at top tables or in Top 8s. Expanding out Tier 1 to include so many lower decks with small meta shares and few meaningful results just dilutes the definition of what it means to be a "Tier 1 deck." IMO.
We have a lot of competitively viable decks that can randomly spike tournaments with a good meta call, excellent play, and/or positive variance, but that's what we used to call Tier 2. Tier 1 decks should ALWAYS be a good call ALL the time.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
There will always be outliers and people doing well with brews or pet decks or lower tiered strategies, but by and large the majority of your round by round opponents should fall into that bucket.
As such KTKen's metrics were spot-on and I never had issue with them.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I think Bant Knightfall is a good enough deck to become tier 1, so that one's not too much of a stretch for me, but Death and Taxes is definitely a stretch.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
So, should I punch the next person that tells me blue is not viable because there are no tier 1 decks that are blue? Because what you say, and what really is, are two different things.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
People here on MTGS live in a bubble, and we rarely realize that what we think differs greatly from general Modern players (or magic players in general).
So, regardless of how YOU think tiers should be looked at (which I may agree with you on that), the fact of the matter is, for most people, they will look at tiers as a strict indicator of what is good and what is bad. If its not tiered, its some random rogue brew with no viability (until some pro decides to take it to a top 8 finish).
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Tiers are an important tool for metagame construction and analysis. A data driven approach is always the best (if you can avoid collection bias and preferential bias) for more a rigorous explanation of the metagame itself. However, it is still incumbent upon the individual to understand what that tiering system means, and be able to apply it's lessons in a subjective context for their local metagame.
You are asking for a lot. lol
In a vacuum, of course Tier analysis is necessary. Im not asking to get rid of Tiers. But either we make it clear what they are meant to indicate, or we widen the criteria. Because at the end of the day, 10-20 people of MTGS understanding the nuance of the Tiering system, is not sufficient.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
The tier system does not simply indicate viability of a deck, but consistent viability over a multi-round tournament.
The tier system has ALWAYS been specific regarding this, as it uses actual tournament results to rank decks.
A non-tier deck is typically trash because it is not consistent (see zombie-loom or 8 rack in modern). But that doesn't mean it can't win.
People hate those decks because they can often steal games... but will very rarely actually win a tournament since they are not consistent enough for a multi-round, multiple day finish.
EDIT: at local tournaments with 6 or less rounds before a top 8, tier system is less relevant.
That's because fewer games = less variance.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
There is a skewing factor that the tier system does not take into account. And for the most part, it cannot. So we widen the criteria, or we make the disclaimers more clear.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
While I will argue the tier system actually reflects power level to some extent, since the data is the successful metagame rather than the Round 0 metagame, we lack the information to rank decks by power level (winrate % comes to mind). Even if we had that information, tiers would still need some cutoffs, which would still be debatable, although a much less discussed topic.
For me, Bant Company is a Tier 1 deck with 4.7% and Tier 2 decks are decent, for someone else 36% Eldrazi was the only good deck in Modern, ever
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
I would actually disagree with that. Tier system does take into account conversion rates.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Uhh...What?
Decks didn't become viable overnight because some tier system changed and put more decks in tier one. All it did was make it harder to distinguish what you actually may face in a tournament, which was the whole point of tiering in the first place. And who cares about the perception of the people not playing the format? I don't care if some newbies think there are 2 or 500 viable decks because that is part of the learning curve of the format and I never saw the tiering system as something meant to really help them. If people couldn't be bothered to read any explanation of the system or ever play modern to understand it then it isn't anyone else's fault if they think tier represents power instead of likelihood of seeing it.
Why would we cater the tiering system towards those new to the format or those that don't play it just to change perception, instead of cater it to actual modern players for their deckbuilding and SB plans?
And your comments are basically proof we have alternate universes because I cannot see how anyone, under any circumstance, could accuse KTkenshinx of being anything other than extremely data driven. Any bias you saw was from a lack of perfect sampling conditions and trying to extrapolate as best he could.
So we should ignore most of the events on MTGO, dailies specifically.
And why should we discount the events the majority of people will be playing in? The majority of the player base only plays those smaller local events and never strives to go to PTQ's or GPQ's. For most players States is the biggest event they play in or even want to play.
I personally think using mainly the larger events for Tiers and decks viability is the wrong way to go about it.
Tap dancing your way through a larger event and missing all your bad match ups skews the numbers. Luck plays a huge factor in larger events. More so then smaller ones. Granted, you possibly may not see as many types of decks in a smaller event.
You are also all welcome for spending the last two pages of this thread discussing how we should be looking at the metagame (that is constructive and how we will come to understanding together) rather than arguing about what should be banned/unbanned. Keep up the good work.
And just to be clear I'm a huge, huge Sheridan fan...Phil Sheridan, that is.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Most of the decks in the top 2 tiers at the moment could very easily be called 'decks that aren't going anywhere' or 'decks you're likely to see at a large tournament'.
Whoever is in charge is doing a poor job of it
Then that's their problem. They think of tiers as if it's Super Smash Bros. The ultimate issue comes down to educating the greater encompassing player base all about what Tiers in the Modern format really mean.
The more I think about it, the more I like MTGtheSource's view of Tiers. There is no "Tier 1", it's simply "Decks To Beat" which is comprised of what are often the strongest and most popular decks that you need to prepare to face at tournaments. Instead of "Tier 2", you have "Established Decks", and these decks are ones that you could feasibly face at a tournament as they have decent records. T3 is just New and Developmental decks.
I'm not sure about the new system's specifics, but if the site uses an established, replicable, and transparent scoring/grading system, then tiers are fine. In my opinion, tiering should be as objective as possible and also use the best statistical methods available given the data. If this can happen, the subjective "established" and "proven" division should not return; Modern did this years ago when I first got here and we moved away from it.
On the other hand, if the system doesn't make sense or doesn't meet those above benchmarks, then tiering becomes much less helpful. I am not as familiar with current format data as I was with it in the past, but I sincerely doubt there are truly this many Tier 1 decks. The most I ever saw when doing updates was maybe 8-9 (estimate; don't quote me). With so many Tier 1 decks, I suspect it's because the new system uses a very broad definition of Tier 1 that might not be as helpful as people think it is. Personally, I prefer narrower definitions that establish tiers with more confidence. No system is perfect without the full dataset, but I'd be cautious about a system that had so many Tier 1 decks; it's unlikely all Tier 1 decks are truly as viable as each other if the tiering is so wide.
Statistically speaking, this is incorrect/backwards. Variance and standard deviation ideally decrease with more data points; it's basically the whole point of statistics.
I think you mean higher variance, right?
One of the reasons we should look at data in aggregate is to try and reduce as much of the statistical variance as possible. Luck/Individual Skill/Tournament Bias/etc are all things we remove as extraneous factors the larger our data set gets and the less biased it becomes.
EDIT(to actually add something to the discussion):Anyway, curious myself to see the new criteria. I am in the camp that more exclusive tiers are better at actually representing the tiers. An 11% deck should not be classified similarly to a 2% deck. It doesn't do either of them or their players any favors.
Spirits
Just wanted to agree on this point. There should at least be some sort of announcement or justification for why things are tiered the way they are. Ponza, 8 rack, and sultai delirium being listed as tier 2 seems disingenuous at best and downright wrong at worst.
Affinity
Death & Taxes
Mardu Nahiri
Forcing people to merge with twitch is stupid
Ktkenshinx is leaving?
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator