Since Duels 2013 became backwards compatible, I've been playing a decent amount, and it's got me thinking. Did we ever find a common ground when tiering this game, or is there still any debate to be had? Based on what I remember, and on playing this game recently, this is the conclusion I've come to.

S

Goblin Gangland

A

Ancient Wilds
Mana Mastery
Sepulchral Strength
Crosswinds
Obedient Dead

B

Mindstorms
Peacekeepers
Born of Flame

C

Grinning Malice
Aura Servants
Collective Might
Grim Procession

D

Sky and Scale
Celestial Light
Pack Instinct
Exalted Darkness

E

Rogue's Gallery
Berserker Rage
Act of War

Irrelevant

Dream Puppets

EDIT: I definitely agree about moving Obedient Dead up to A tier. And that makes me feel better about moving Mindstorms up to B tier with Peacekeepers and Born of Flame. Also, I agree that I put MM too high. I think I just got so annoyed when playing against it that I overestimated it too much in my head. It's not quite the god-tier that Goblins is.

EDIT 2: I decided to add in my thoughts for 2014 as well, at Barney's request. Let me know what you think

Let me just explain my placement for Dream Puppets... It's no secret that I despise the mill deck. I don't think it belongs in the game, and using the deck or playing against it, in my opinion, is EXTREMELY dull. The person playing it is off in their own little world doing their own thing, and it just feels like it's completely separate from what the opponent is doing. I understand that some people build it in such a way that it doesn't win by milling the opponent, but even that way seems dull and non-interactive and separate from the rest of the decks. I know that this was a hot topic back in the day, but that's just my opinion.

TLDR: I don't care where mill falls in the tier list, so I just put it in it's own category.

The only other deck placement that I think will stand out to people is Ancient Wilds. I'm extremely biased because it's my favorite deck out of all the games, but I honestly think it ranks that high. I almost put it in the S tier because I think it's about 50/50 with Goblins, and can hold it's own against Mana Mastery (mostly because of Slimes and Beast Withins), but settled for A tier. In my experience, it beats OD almost every time. I think it wins 55/45 against SS. The only deck I really struggle against is Crosswinds. I'm curious to hear others' opinions on this deck in particular. If you wanna do any playtesting, I can play on Steam or Xbox.

As for the rest, I'm open to changing my opinion, because there are still things in this list I'm not sure about. Aura Servants is one I have relatively no experience with because, like with Dream Puppets, I feel like it doesn't really fit with the rest of the decks. There's very little interaction between it and the opponent, and I just get bored playing against it. I've really only used it a handful of times. Also, Mindstorms... I've used this deck extensively, it's another one of my favorites. I think it's better than all the decks in its current tier, but wasn't sure if it quite belonged with the decks in the tier above it.

Again, this is all my opinion. I'd really like to hear what other people think of this list, and encourage everyone to post their thoughts, and even their own tier lists. I love talking about this game. I wish it was still the digital game everyone was playing today.



DOTP 2014 Tier List

S

Dodge and Burn
Lords of Darkness

A

Avacyn's Glory
Chant of the Mul Daya
Deadwalkers
Mindmaze

B

Sylvan Might
Bounce and Boon
Warsmith
Firewave

C

Hall of Champions
Up to Mischief
Guardians of Light
Enchanter's Arsehole

D

Enter the Dracomancer
Sword of the Samurai
Masks of the Dimir
Unfinished Business

E

Sliver Hive
Hunter's Strength
Hunting Season



I'll admit, I'm not as well-versed in the 2014 decks. I get bored with this game quickly because mostly I run into only the top-tier decks online, and I mostly play the lower-tier decks. Enter the Dracomancer and Bounce and Boon are two of my favorites, and I think they're better than people give them credit for. Personally, I think they got a bad rap because people don't build them correctly. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I've got them both pretty-well perfected, and they're probably both higher on my tier list than where other people would put them.

I probably have Enchanter's Arsenal lower than most other people would put it, but I truly don't believe it's as good as people think it is. Maybe I'm just biased because I think it's extremely dull to play, just like 2013's mill deck, and all the other enchantment/aura decks that have been in these games. Other than cards like Pacifism and Journey to Nowhere, it doesn't interact with the opponent at all. It just lays a bunch of global enchantments, auras, and creatures that get bigger based on the number of enchantments/auras you have out. It just isn't any fun. When the deck loses, it takes about 50 turns to lose because it keeps stalling with annoying cards. And when it wins, it takes about 50 turns to win by drawing the game out with more annoying cards.

Other than those decks, I think my list is pretty solid. I'm pretty sure the top two tiers are mostly undisputed. Dodge and Burn is just stupid, and maybe has a couple close matchups, but I think it mostly dominates the meta. Same goes for Lords of Darkness. Creature heavy decks (which is what about 90% of this game consists of) can't really compete with it because of all the mass removal. I think its only really bad matchup is Dodge and Burn because D&B has no creatures for it to remove. Let me know if there's anything you disagree with. I don't think this game is as interesting to talk about because the decks are pretty meh, but I'm always down to talk about Magic.

I think you have Mana Mastery too high

Can you do this for 2014 too?

Cool list, just gonna throw in my thoughts:

-I'm with Barney, Mana mastery was great, but it was never "omfg my opponent played turn 1 goblin guide **** this game" levels of overpoweredness I think i'd put it at tier A.

-I'd also bump up Obedient dead up to A, i don't think it was ever hugely favoured (except phyrexian obliterator vs mono green lol) but it's one of those decks that can beat anything, and was never happy to go up against.

-Ancient wilds is insanely fun, but i'd probably bump it down to B, with so many broken stuff in this game your beast within's were often stretched too thinly with must answer threats but deck was such a blast

-I'd probably bump sky and scale and celestial light up to C's, Celestial was boring but did what it was trying to do pretty well and had some powerful stuff going on, and sky and scale could do some absurd things with fable of wolf and owl and had enough disruption to carry itself sometimes

I would put it something like this:


Tier 1:
Goblin Gangland
Peacekeepers
Ancient Wilds
Obedient Dead
Born of Flame
Mana Mastery
*Mastermind

Tier 2:
Pack Instinct
Celestial Light
Dream Puppets
Crosswinds
Aura Servants
Grim Procession
Sepulchral Strength

Tier 3:
Exalted Darkness
Act of War
Mindstorms
Grinning Malice
Collective Might
Sky and Scale

Tier 4:
Rogue's Gallery
Berserker Rage


Mine is a very simple "three"-tier list. Duels of the Planeswalkers has always been primarily a midrange creature-based meta, so the decks that sit on top are the ones that can spew out the most dominating board presence as early as possible, or get as much value-per-card from their creature spells, or just straight up kill everything all day long. It's not a coincidence that this tier is mostly mono-colored decks and the two decks with the most reliable color fixing, because Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are a big part of what often trips up the lower tier decks.
If I were to go up against a random mystery deck from within this tier, I would only feel confident choosing another deck from this tier to face it. You can sideboard the lower-tier decks to be good against these decks, but you can't make one build that's good against all of them simultaneously.

Tier-two holds the rest of the mono-colored decks and the best of the guilds. They can do aggro, value, control, etc., but they get out-aggro'd, out-valued, and out-removal'd by the top tier. These decks still have thier unique strengths that give them advantages over certain top-tier decks, just not all of the top-tier decks. If I knew I was going up against a mystery deck from this tier, I'd be okay choosing a deck from this tier to face it.

Tier three is what we keep trying to make work, but failing. The card pool is inherently weaker and more shallow because of a lack of the 10 free promotional unlocks. They have numerous specific weaknesses against most of the higher-tier decks. They feature extreme vulnerability to removal-based strategies, multicolor "aggro" that doesn't work with enters-tapped lands, small but not numerous creatures, bad mana curves, very limited removal suites, and a near-total lack of enters-play value.

Tier four is the same as tier three, but nobody likes any of the cards enough to keep trying. You have to run trash vanillas just to have any semblance of a workable mana curve, and it just feels bad. These are the decks I play against when I get sick of losing with my pet builds from tier 3.


*Mastermind is the Nicol Bolas deck from the regular campaign. My copy of DOTP2013 has a weird bug where my build for Mana Mastery resets to the default every time I start the game up, so I modded it to replace that deck with the Bolas deck, which has no sideboard to reset anyway. They have the same basic strategy, though Mastermind is better at it, more flexible overall, and more interesting to play.

Omg I might have 2014 all wrong. I would put TWO of your B tier into S tier!! I think Sylvain Might and Firewave are both S tier in my opinion. I never lose with those two.

I also think Hall of Champions and Guardians of Light should be at the very bottom

I love Firewave, and it is a great deck. Maybe I haven't played with it enough, but I just run out of gas with it too quickly. Born of Flame was one of my favorites from 2013, and I was hoping for another amazing burn deck in 2014, but I feel like Firewave is just a weaker version of it. Only one Chandra's Phoenix, one Searing Spear, and barely any mass removal... I do love having 3x Sulfuric Vortex though. That card ruins a lot of the decks. But Idk, I just don't see FW stacking up against the speed of Illusions, Zombies, and Humans. And God forbid you let CotMD ramp up to 7 lands unless you manage to get a Sulfuric Vortex out beforehand.

Elves was amazing this time around. I definitely see where you're coming from there. But I keep running into the problem of having no removal, period. The closest thing to it is Taunting Elf, but there is so much spot and mass removal in this format, that she's just not reliable as a removal spell most of the time. I know a lot of people run Wellwisher, and maybe that's my problem. I should add a few of her in to stall so I don't need to worry about removing anything. I just despise life gain in general. You should post your build, and I'll give it a few runs. I thought I had mine optimized, but maybe it's in need of some tweaking.

"2014 Nissa Maxima"
A library for the Nissa 2014 deck (Sylvan Might)
60 Cards. 36 nonlands (30 creatures, 6 spells). 24 Lands (24).

cost  
   1x Copperhorn Scout
   1x Gladecover Scout
   3x Joraga Warcaller
   1x Spire Tracer
   2x Taunting Elf
   2x Rancor
cost  
   1x Fauna Shaman
   2x Gempalm Strider
   3x Nissa's Chosen
   4x Wellwisher
cost  
   1x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
   1x Imperious Perfect
   4x Timberwatch Elf
   4x Lead the Stampede
cost  
   2x Immaculate Magistrate
   4x Sylvan Messenger

I originally toyed with just 2x Lead the Stampede but really, this is a combo deck more than a swarm deck, so you want to dig through your deck for your pieces. I also like Rancor here because every now and again you can pick off a big time problem low-drop early on with your Taunting Elfs without having a Timberwatch or Magistrate present (lose the Taunter, get back the Rancor...small price to pay if you get an early Champion, Spiritdancer, LotUntreal, et al off the board pronto).

24 lands also because there's nothing worse than having to discard when you don't have the mana to actually play multiple dudes in the same turn that you draw.

For me Avacyn's glory was at least as broken as Goblin Gangland, That deck taught me to ******* despise Champion of the Parish haha

I think your Mana Mastery is still too high. It's a B tier deck. If we could manually adjust land counts it would be A. However; as it is, in order to get enough islands you have to run a few blue cards that you would normally replace. IIRC the optimal spell build only gives you 2 islands.

I would also drop Ancient Wilds to B. It's the worst of the remaining 4 decks in A. It's not as good as any of the other three and is actually on par with the power level of the 3 decks already at B and Mana Mastery. Honestly those 5 decks are the closest in power level that you'll find in any tier.

I don't know why you think Dream Puppets is irrelevant. It can win as quickly as anything in B Tier and the only way to disrupt it is through counterspells. The only way to beat it is to throw everything you have at it and hope you beat the clock or hope it has a bad draw.

I just listed mill as irrelevant because I don't really care where it falls. Anymore, if I ever run into it online, I just leave the game because it's that boring to play against. In my mind, I've written it out of the game. So you put it in whatever tier makes you happy.

Mana Mastery could be too high. It's kind of a wild card deck. If it gets the land it needs, it beats most decks in the game. If not, it struggles but still stands a decent chance. In my experience, and that's all I have to go off of, it gets the lands it needs to win most of the time.

I disagree with you about Ancient Wilds. It easily beats Obedient Dead, and I think it's 50/50 with Sepulchral Strength. Maybe even 55/45. It can struggle with Crosswinds sometimes, but stands a pretty good chance against it in my opinion. If Mana Mastery gets all its lands in order, I don't see it losing to Ancient Wilds, but if it's short a color, AW trounces it.

If you wanna play some of the other A tier decks against my Ancient Wilds, I'd be glad to play.

I think that's where our thinking diverges: Obedient Dead
I was of the opinion that OD was the 2nd best deck in the game. The only thing that's borderline S tier. It's got the cheapest most efficient creatures outside of GG. Only deck that has a stronger T2/T3 aggro play than GG and OD is a Garruk's Companion followed by a Leatherback Balloth unfortunately the rest of Pack Instinct is sub-par.

My problem with Ancient Wilds is the balancing act of having some sort of early game (due to meta reasons) vs having the Ramp vs having the late threats to cash in on the ramp. I do believe it's a really good deck. By "worst of the remaining 4 A tier decks" I mean it's the 5th strongest deck in the game IMO. I don't believe it's as good as SS. SS is a great deck. Targeted removal and a grip of GREAT board wipes. Stronk efficient cheap creatures followed up by overbearing late game creatures. It's pretty much the anti-deck for the meta that was weenie rush. It did what Mana Mastery tried to do, only more efficiently and in less colors.

Do you still have the game? And if so, for what system? I'd be interested in testing my AW vs your OD. I agree that it's one of the best decks in the game, I just think it has a bad matchup against AW. Slimes and the deathtouch 2/1 elves can take care of the Shades, Stingerfling Spider takes care of Griselbrand and any other big flier, Erratic Portal just completely wrecks OD's removal, and Thragtusk is a b*tch to deal with. And there's so much tutoring in AW that you can always find what you need. I've never had a problem beating OD with it. That's just what I've experienced.

I do still own the game on PS3 (and possibly steam) but the tests wouldn't be what they should be. The 10 promo card codes don't work so I don't have access to the best cards for most of the decks.

I guess I was mis-remembering what AW was. I thought it was the G/B ramp deck. That must have been in 2012 or 2014. Now that I'm remembering correctly I do wanna say that AW was probably my favorite deck. It does deserve to be the 4th deck in A Tier, and not the top deck in B Tier. I still think it's the 5th best deck in the game though. GG>OD>SS=CW>AW.

But yes, if you're bouncing Thragtusk every turn, not many decks can deal with that. Only way is to remove it on-activation but you don't activate Portal if OD has 3 lands untapped. I actually see it the other way around. Boardwipes and targeted removal make Erratic Portal lose value. As long as I have mana untapped, you're not using the Portal.

I don't run Grisslebrand. He's to expensive for a deck that like OD. I ran 22, maybe 21 lands in my OD build. Probably capped out at 4CMC, maybe 3. Bouncing one zombie a turn is not a problem for my OD build as I'll recast it, and another zombie next turn.

I’m happy to play any of these debated match ups on Xbox . I’m confident with my builds

I think OD is S tier and would be happy to play it .

Every deck Barnsworth plays is S tier. He's got a 90% win percentage with all decks.

I think you might be misremembering Obedient Dead too. That deck had a 25 swamp minimum in it, except for Liliana's revenge list which had 24.

Disagree with your Halls of Champions placement also but the triple color and exalted turned a lot of people off I guess. Mine ended up leaning white and rarely has issues as an aggro/midrange. I still play that deck first most of the time when I sign back in to play.

Edit: By the way I have both games in tip top shape on PS3 if anyone wants to do test matching. This wipe on Arena will determine how much more time I want to put in testing it anyway and I'm feeling I may have the time to play some 2013 and 2014.

Edit Edit: I agree with sixty that Obedient Dead should be higher up there. It's such a damn good deck that I could win easily in 1v1 or 4ffa without sideboarding. (not that there was any).

Lol only the decks I keep!

I think OD is S tier with the Goblins, I’d be thrilled to play it against Ayjays AW or whatever

But I'm not going to be bouncing anything if you're not removing it. At what point do you try to Murder Thragtusk? After he's dealt you 10 damage? 15? I'm happy to keep attacking with it if you're just going to continue leaving 3 mana untapped hoping I go to pick it up. And if it does manage to get killed, I'd probably go tutor up another one with Fauna Shaman or that 4-cost sorcery that puts any creature into play after sacking a dude, or play Eternal Witness to get it back. AW just has so many options, and so many ways to search for those options, it's stupid.

I used to not run Griselbrand for the exact reasons you stated. But he's just too fun not to run, so I put him in. Eight mana isn't hard to get to when you have so much removal, land-fetch, and artifacts that make all your spells cheaper. Now he's won me too many games to take him out.


I'll play you Barney, my Xbox GT is Copious Robyn. Probably won't be able to play tonight, but maybe tomorrow night?

Maybe