@Hakeem The video has also been uploaded to YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBicltcrF2U

You can post both links from Twitch and YouTube

If you guys want me to hype your matches up and try to get some viewers, please message me either on Twitter @danno029 or via XBLive and give me a heads up when you schedule your matches. I know I don't want to miss one

Looks like you're doing well in all these matchups. I watched the video, and I saw a couple plays that seemed odd to me, but you were still in the drivers seat for seemingly the entire game. GJ man. And of course GG.

This tournament so far has provided some interesting evidence for a hypothesis I've got: Black in Duels is bad, and you should not play it if you want to win.

I went through and checked, and in games where a deck without black has played against a deck with black, the decks without black lead 14-3. And two of the three wins for black are from Megabeast's five color list, which is basically just a black splash for three cards.

Black in Duels basically wants to be a Control color, as the Standard playable black cards - Read the Bones, Ob Nixilis, Liliana, Fleshbag Marauder, Languish, Vampiric Rites (iffy inclusion, but was in the sideboard for a top 8 deck at the last GP) - fit best in Control shells. But Black matches up pretty badly against what the strongest decks in Duels are trying to do. Every other color has a better answer for Ulamog - including Green, who can run ramp of their own and answer with their own Ulamog and tutor to find it, or with Titan's Presence and Ulamog or Desolation Twin, and Red, who can go with fast aggro to win before Ulamog drops. Black also is not as good against aggro as Red is, because black does not have early interactive cards as good as Fiery Impulse or Twin Bolt, and Radiant Flames is a better anti-aggro sweeper than Languish.

Basically, what Black is good at in Duels, White is just better. So don't mess up your mana - or have a bunch of fixing and just splash Black for Ob Nixilis and/or Languish.

Thoughts?

Can't really say your wrong.

I think you're pretty much right random.. except in the case of Rakdos Aggro where black is a great color. But.. black as a control color is pretty meh. I still think Kothophed is underrated.. and there's a couple black ally/lifegain cards that make for a good 2HG deck (Retreat to Hagra, Drana's Emissary, Kalastria Healer, Bloodbond Vampire) but for top tier, competitive, 1v1 play.. black is pretty weak. Black would be sick if we got some of the removal that was excluded from duels.. like the 3 mana destroy target creature/planeswalker card.. the Drana legendary card (which was Uber pushed). Oath of the Gatewatch has a bunch of really amazing black and blue cards.. and I keep hearing that U/B is currently the strongest draft deck so far. Hopefully that'll help both black and blue as they are the two weakest colors in Duels at the moment (in my opinion).

Remember how when Duels Origins first dropped black was the best color in the game? Ulamog, a bunch of fatties (making you use the garbage 5 mana kill spells to remove them), and planeswalkers that don't require flipping changed all that.

That's because I wanted to go to sleep badly.

hmm so gemini is going to have to play the winner of hakeem v covert next round

you're also garenteed into the top 8 anyways though so no pressure

I basically only have to win 1 of the next two rounds (4 & 5) to make top 8 and have a record of 8-3 OR win both and have a record of 10-1. There are a few 4-4's currently like smoky, barney, and mega. In the 5th round there might be many playoff's because scores are so evened out.

In Hakeem vs. Covert, I predict a 2-1 in either parties favor. Either Hakeem has a total score of 6-1 leaving Covert at 5-2; or visa versa. I think the current scores for round 3 are this.

***InFaMoUsGeMiNi*** 6-1
Naya Moss

**smokyalaterz** 4-4
Jund Midrange

**Black Barney** 4-4
UR Thopters

*Megabeast37215* 4-4
5-color Moss

the game scores don't matter too much right now

what really matters is the fact that you're 3-0 in your matches Gemini

I have the scores written down regardless. In the other League tournament I'm also 3-0. I also notice how Covert and Hakeem put up the most money and they're also the only ones leading with perfects 6-0 records. They probably thought they had a good shot of just getting it back.

i doubt that is why they put the money up very much. especially given how blatantly they are doing all the organization and promotion to generate interest in the game and hopefully heighten the level of competition.

You oughta here the conversations between Mobius and Hakeem. They're solely focused on keeping people interested in the game, fostering interest, growing to community, etc. They're actually quite selfless in all this. They believe (as do I) that when we get the double expansion in April.. that this is going to be an outstanding version of Magic the Gathering overall. This tournament is all about the health of the game/community. The money is just icing on the cake.

The only downside of the tournament is that Hakeem's YouTube channel is back in hibernation.

Gemini still seems confused with how Magic tourneys keep track of ranking and such

9 points is 9 points is 9 points. So whether you are 6-1 and Hakeem is 6-2, you'd both have 9 points. So when you matched up if you went 1-2 against Hakeem and he went 2-1 against, even though your game records would be 7-3 and 8-3, Hakeem would be way ahead of you at 12 points to 9, Your game win % really only ever matters for tiebreaks, in a tourney this size, probably won't make a significant difference. Game win % is actually the 3rd thing looked at for a tiebreak, so we may not even use it all.

Here's a place you can read more about tourney maths, even though it may just add to the confusion.

https://www.wizards.com/dci/downloads/tiebreakers.pdf

Thopters and ramp everywhere ........ Well ramp was pretty rampant (yup i just did that) before as well , even more so now but Thopters was hardly to be found - which has completely changed. Really crappy meta right now

Well, when you bring the two best archetypes into a tourney of 16, you kind of have a good chance of making it to the money rounds.

I still say dimir aggro or rakdos aggro would have swept the floor with all y'all

You seem really high on that Dimir list. How spikey is it?

16-1 and 9 of those were turn 5 kills

preeeety spiky

Well said! Very, very well. Couldn't have put my thoughts regarding current state of Black any better, and you've also provided the facts I had no idea about. Like the percentage of B in the most successful decks of this tourney.

It saddens me that Black currently has the less answers to the most powerful threats of our card pool. I was playing Abzan control recently and I've caught myself thinking "Naya would deal with this sh*t so much better" far too many times. So despite my deep love for B I totally support the decision of currently most winning decks NOT running it. Best wishes to Jund crats and Mobius though.

Ruinous Path would be such a cool tool to deal with PWs and a reason to actually run Black (along with Ob and Fleshbags) but someone at WotC or Stainless thought it would be too OP and now Black can do **** about them.

I'd say that currently it IS the weakest color for control and I don't see OGW additions actually changing that. Let's hope for the SoL...