I have just completed a little bit of data entry in OpenOffice Calc and we now have some hard numbers about the main event portion of the DMF.

Metagame breakdown

 

Band Name	Number	% of field	Number in top 8	% of top 8
Velen Wall	8	33,33	5	62,5
Mortimers	6	25	2	25
THX	5	20,83	0	0
Jaina Zoo	2	8,33	1	12,5
Tyrande Zoo*	1	4,17	0	0
Thrall Morganis*	1	4,17	0	0
Jaina Dizz*	1	4,17	0	0
Total	24

*(Tyrande Zoo, Thrall Morganis and Jaina/Dizz(demona) are names I came up with as descriptors and not 'official' band names, just so the creators don't run at me with pitchforks and torches.)

What can be first seen here is the popularity of both Velen and Mortimers in the field, with Ben Isgur being only one of two players opting for Jaina Zoo (four if we count variants including Tyrande or Dizdemona). These both made at least 25% of the field each, with Velen being a whopping 33% of it! Right after comes THX with 20% or so. How far has Jaina fallen!

The other big story out of Boston is that while Mortimers showed up in the top 8 as much as chance would predict, Velen was WAY over represented in the winning bands, as well as Jaina (which we assumes is due to Ben's great mastery of the band. And THX had the same fate as Vashj in Turin, scoring exactly zero top 8 appearances in spite of it being still relatively popular. Is it possible that Velen Wall takes the same role as THX as the defensive band, but fulfills it better in a Warlock meta? After all, the Warlock bands were designed expressedly to prey on Haruka, and Haruka can't pack Cleanse as an answer.

Matchup analysis

These table total up all the matches played in the main event, including the top 8.

Number of matches
	Velen Wall	Mortimers	THX	Jaina Zoo	Tyrande Zoo	Thrall Morganis	Jaina Dizz
Velen Wall	8	11	4	2	0	1	1
Mortimers	11	2	9	1	0	1	0
THX	4	9	2	2	2	0	1
Jaina Zoo	2	1	2	0	1	0	0
Tyrande Zoo	0	0	2	1	0	1	0
Thrall Morganis	1	1	0	0	1	0	1
Jaina Dizz	1	0	1	0	0	1	0
Wins
				Losing Band
Winning band	Velen Wall	Mortimers	THX	Jaina Zoo	Tyrande Zoo	Thrall Morganis	Jaina Dizz
Velen Wall	8	7	4	1	0	1	1
Mortimers	4	2	6	1	0	1	0
THX	0	3	2	1	2	0	0
Jaina Zoo	1	0	1	0	1	0	0
Tyrande Zoo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Thrall Morganis	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Jaina Dizz	0	0	1	0	0	1	0
Wins %
				Losing Band
Winning band	Velen Wall	Mortimers	THX	Jaina Zoo	Tyrande Zoo	Thrall Morganis	Jaina Dizz
Velen Wall	50**	63,64	100*	50*	-	100*	100*
Mortimers	36,36	50**	66,67	100*	-	100*	-
THX	0*	33,33	50**	50*	100*	-	0*
Jaina Zoo	50*	0*	50*	50**	100*	-	-
Tyrande Zoo	-	-	0*	0*	50**	0*	-
Thrall Morganis	0*	0*	-	-	100*	50**	0*
Jaina Dizz	0*	-	100*	-	-	100*	50**

- No matches so cannot calculate
* Extremely suspect match wins % as the sample has less than 5 total matches
** By definition, the mirror match is a 50/50 match

This doesn't tell us much outside of the dynamic between Velen, THX and Mortimer. Jaina and the other bands are too under represented to take any conclusions about how good their matchups are with the field. Even Velen VS THX gives us somewhat suspect numbers, with only 4 total matches in the tournament.

What does seem to arise is that Velen vs Mortimers is about a 60/40 matchup in favor of Velen, while the reverse is true of THX vs Mortimers. With the popularity of Mortimers in the field all weekend, and it being only second most popular compared to Velen, this seems to explain the lopsided presence of Velen in the top 8.

In reality I would think most of the top players will agree with me that the Velen VS Mortimers matchup is not quite as good as shown here. I can say for instance that many of these games went to time, and that the coin could have flipped the other way in many of those cases. However it is my opinion that it is clearly superior to the THX vs Mortimers matchup, and that can be seen clearly in these numbers. Still, don't take them as gospel. Even 10 matches is a relatively small sample, and chance could easily sway the results. But the fact is this: both bands tend towards a defensive style of play of high defenses with healing, and large Honor totals. But one has access to answers to DOTs, and one doesn't. It would seem natural to conclude that this would be a factor favoring Velen in the match against Mortimers. A relatively low Honor total Warlocks band can overwhelm even a defensive band through auto-damage, and if the other band doesn't have an answer to DOTs it makes it even less likely that it will be able to stop the warlocks from killing enough characters to win.

It also seems that Velen straight up beats THX, but this number is somewhat suspect due to the very small sample size. It is, however, possible that the auto-damage available to the Velen team (Call of Fire, Velen crit, Sulfuras) would make a difference, since both teams have good protections (Velen's is actually a bit less impressive than Haruka's) and similar Honor costs but only Velen can ignore defenses entirely.

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"The beatings will continue until morale has improved."
- Standard corporate management technique

hhhmm great work but i fear it is useless in the end.
If you look at the Top8, you have only the great players with prior winnings and their minions (excuse this term^^). But in the rest of the field, there are a lot of players without prior winnings playing similar decks.
Look at Turin, the 4 Players with Prior Winnings piloting THX Hans, Pierre, Oilver and Me three made Top8. If you look at the Boston Bands you can see the same.
So the key to making top8 doesnt seem to be the warband choice, but to be a good player.

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"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy'", she read out loud. "'Lesson One: Correct Use of Shovel...'"

Thanks for posting this.  When I first saw the Velen Wall, I thought that the high honor cost might be a big negative for it.  After doing some playtesting against HHT over the weekend, I saw that it wasn't much of a problem at all.  My first thought was that if you had some sort of weenie rush or maybe even something like Marlowes, that it'd be a tough time for the Velen team.  I've yet to playtest it though so it could just be theorycrafting.  I am a bit surprised at the lack of Jainas though.  Was Jaina pretty prevelent in the Qualifiers?

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"It's like Michael Jordan going to the YMCA to play basketball."
WOW Minis Judge Level 1, Tourament Organizer, Player Management Level 1

2918206:

hhhmm great work but i fear it is useless in the end.
If you look at the Top8, you have only the great players with prior winnings and their minions (excuse this term^^). But in the rest of the field, there are a lot of players without prior winnings playing similar decks.
Look at Turin, the 4 Players with Prior Winnings piloting THX Hans, Pierre, Oilver and Me three made Top8. If you look at the Boston Bands you can see the same.
So the key to making top8 doesnt seem to be the warband choice, but to be a good player.

My starting assumption is that the good players pick the right band too, usually, and that a lot of 'player advantage' is actually them making the correct meta decisions, which is something you can learn from as an observer.

Talent will skew the matchups, so that a close 55/45 might show up as a whopping 67/33 advantage in the table, but it would be surprising if it was to give it as a 2 to 1 matchup if it actually was the other band that was favored, even assuming the players are really good.

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"The beatings will continue until morale has improved."
- Standard corporate management technique

You did a great job but as I'm not much of a Maths man, I'm dizzy with all these numbers. You nearly took all the joy out of playing and I'm thinking of quitting the game.

2918206:

... So the key to making top8 doesnt seem to be the warband choice, but to be a good player...

I really  have to quit playing now. 8-)

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The only thing I win is honor...

The issue is that a lot of these matchups require attack v defense rolls with very close amounts of dice. 4 dice on 2 armor, etc etc etc. What it means is a small sample size like this will skew the %s even more because a couple of key rolls in one match will have an impact on the results.

Ultimately I think the Mort v Velen matchup is so painfully close that I am not sure I'd comfortably put one over another. The other issue is that I think Morts are better in the 45 minute round and go down somewhat in the longer round time.

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My top 8 appearances are limited to bringing good players water and crabs.

I also think Mort is basically a coinflip matchup. In particular, this 7/4 distribution becomes 5/6 just if you take away my two first round victories, that went to time with a single point difference, and award them to Mortimer. Even if you divide them between the two bands, that's 6/5, still somewhat of a coinflip matchup.

However, I would say this still definitly makes that matchup better than the THX/Mortimer matchup, which I feel is clearly in Mort's favor. Except maybe for the variant with X = Illiana.

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"The beatings will continue until morale has improved."
- Standard corporate management technique

2918206:

hhhmm great work but i fear it is useless in the end.
If you look at the Top8, you have only the great players with prior winnings and their minions (excuse this term^^). But in the rest of the field, there are a lot of players without prior winnings playing similar decks.
Look at Turin, the 4 Players with Prior Winnings piloting THX Hans, Pierre, Oilver and Me three made Top8. If you look at the Boston Bands you can see the same.
So the key to making top8 doesnt seem to be the warband choice, but to be a good player.

I agree and disagree on your assessment of what is needed to be in the top 8.  Being a good player helps, but if you bring the wrong warband to the table, you can pack your stuff and go home.

The opposite is true as well.  Having a good warband and piloting well is a definite plus.  Luck can play a role but in my opinion, it is not always the case.

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Wishes - When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.