Why Some People Suck at Magic (But Are Still Victorius)

If you take a look at the top 10 Magic decks at the 2011 Wizard World Qualifier (TCQ) in Atlanta, Georgia, you'll see that four of the top eight decks that placed were Caw-Blade variants.  See for yourself here.  A similar trend can be spotted all across competitive Magic.  The question is why?

Secunda: "Well put simply, with the limited card pool in the current block, there can only be a limited number of effective deck types."

If this were true, then the metagame would see an equal number of opposing anti-meta decks.  This however is not the case.  Instead, we see deck after deck completely the same, save for some minor sideboard tweaking.  The real reason why there is such a lack of diversity in the competitive environment and deckbuilding is because of the rampant and endlessly spreading scourge of netdecking and copying.

When a new pool of cards is released, the metagame undergoes a rapid flux of change as dominant deck types emerge.  A young asian child is tirelessly working strategizing and combining each and every card, and studying and quantifying each result mathematically to determine the most effective deck.  Once this information is released, it is spread across the internet on various websites and forums until it is well known, and players are well-versed in the combos involved.

Mana Leak is good

This new deck becomes the dominant archetype, and all others fall behind.  But why?  Why is it that no other deck type ever seems to be able to turn the tides quite as much to be able to be a threat statistically?  The answer is that the majority of people quite frankly, aren't that bright.  And this majority is especially susceptible to what is called the "bandwagon effect."  From Wikipedia:

"...is a phenomenon—observed primarily within the fields of microeconomics, political science, and behaviorism—that people often do and believe things merely because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often called herd instinct, though strictly speaking, this effect is not a result of herd instinct. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy's success."

 

Essentially, it goes like this: "Jimmy uses Black Luster Soldier, and he wins games.  Therefore if I want to win games, I should use Black Luster Soldier."  Regardless of how good or bad Jimmy is, the fact is he wins his games, and he uses BLS.  So a player, let's call him 'Jordan' decides that he's going to make a deck using BLS.  Again, whether or not Jordan or Jimmy are good players doesn't matter, because at this point all victories can only be attributed to how powerful the BLS deck itself is.  The more and more victories won using overpowered cards, the more people will use these cards, regardless of how good they are as a player.  And this spreads exponentially until the entire meta-game is ruined for people who don't wish to copy-paste-print the decks the use from a site.

It gets to a point where every competitive player is using BLS and winning games instead of actually looking at cards and finding out new combos and ideas to try themselves.  It's as if they are simply miming the game and playing on auto-pilot instead of actively contemplating their decisions.  Kind of like driving a car, but not knowing how to build or repair the car.

"Sword of Feast and Famine without paying?  Brilliant!"

If a person is using an imbalanced deck and wins, it is human nature for that person to assume that they are in fact better than their opponent.  However, if you were to give this person a random assortment of cards and told them to construct a deck out of it, they would be forced to show their true competence as a player.  If they are clueless, then they frankly suck at the game.  If they try to emulate the dominant deck type from the given cards, then they are still lacking the intellect and skill to create new and dynamic decks. At the end of the day, almost all of Magic and gaming in general comes down to imitation. Imitate what works, instead of finding new ways to make it work.