TWDA: What it is and is not useful for

Izaak wrote:

And because they are bad, there will not be another 1000 Abomination decks being played. You're inverting the logic here.

I'm sorry, but you also invert the logic. People don't play deck because they are good, but because they believe they are good. NOBODY know what is better, not even the invisible hand of TWDA.

The distortion between what is played and what would be "best" (if it can defined) is enormous, that's why TWDA is at best a clue.

*** double post because of lousy connection ****

echiang wrote:

So whenever players continue to claim "Clan X is too strong or Clan Y is too weak because that's what the TWDA says," I'm just going to continue to roll my eyes and ignore it since it is a terrible metric for that particular purpose.

I agree with most of your arguments but not your conclusion.

As Kuta says, it's all we have. We simply don't have any other measuring stick to analyze objectively with. I agree that it's a terrible way to measure value. Especially for clans, where you get sample size issues. Interestingly, I value the "how often do cards show up" slicing of the data much more than the clan numbers. The clan numbers are just easy and provide material for trying to tell a story about the game.

Let's say you stop using the TWDA to support arguments. Then, what are people arguing about? Opinion vs. opinion doesn't mean anything, however much fun it might be for people.

You roll your eyes at using the TWDA in arguments. I roll my eyes at people who ignore it and simply make claims based on what they think is true.

Izaak wrote:

If another 1000 Abomination decks get played, they'll win more, be in more finals, and win more tournaments, but that doesn't mean Abominations will be good.

And because they are bad, there will not be another 1000 Abomination decks being played. You're inverting the logic here.

No I'm not. You yourself have already admitted that:

Izaak wrote:

People win 10-men tournaments with stupid decks all the time by virtue of getting into the finals with 0 GW 2 VP and then getting a random VP before timing.

Some decks are more likely to be viewed as table threats and be ganged up against.

Oh god... really? Guess what: It's the *good* decks that get conspired against because here it comes *they are actually good*. And despite all that they STILL get a lot of tournament wins, because ya know, they're good decks.

Some good decks are subtler and fly under the radar. Some good decks often attract a knee-jerk reaction (I know some players who immediately start to go cross-table if they get wind of a Tupdog deck). Some good decks result in irrational hatred (Imbued oftentimes).

Among the good decks, there will be variations regarding which ones are commonly ganged up against. You're the one who is asserting everything is "equally likely to happen to each and every deck."

In the old days, "bad seating" also didn't apply because back then you had the seat switchers. Even now, decks that can go backwards or crosstable (as opposed to a deck that is pure forward momentum) has a better chance of dealing with bad seating.

Keep hanging on to your straw men. What kind of stupid argument is this? "Hey look guys I can just play this DU with my Lawfirm to get away from this intercept wall!" Uhuh.

And people did that (usually using a Daring the Dawn or Day Op, back when Day Op was better) to get away from the intercept wall deck, and maybe vote it out cross-table. How is this a straw man? The impact of bad seating is not equal on all decks.

As much as you don't want to believe it, the TWDA gives us a very solid base ground to determine which decktypes (and by extension clans and cards) are good choices to play if you want to win.

wastaz provided an anecdotal example of how that is not true. The TWDA data might apply to certain circumstances (what is winning in this particular geographic region, what is winning at qualifiers or championships) but that's a narrower subset.

I suggest you just hit the negative on my karma counter another time, move away from this thread and go design a new storyline.

Yeah, because I'm the only one you've antagonized right? Maybe you forgot about all the people you argued with heatedly in the "New set in 2012" thread. Or the other people who have disagreed with you in more recent threads.

Despite your disbelief of conspiracies, congratulations! You have uncovered me! I am obviously a secret mastermind manipulating a vast conspiracy to try and undermine you with negative karma! (That was SARCASM by the way).

You know, my karma has gone down several times lately, particularly after arguments with you. But I'm going to take the high road and not accuse you of being the one behind it. Whether or not it was you, it doesn't matter because I don't care.

ICL wrote:

As Kuta says, it's all we have. We simply don't have any other measuring stick to analyze objectively with.

The information could be refined pretty easily.

Including a brief description of the other finalist decks, would provide a useful context to understand the dynamics of the final table.

A brief commentary from the player on how much he has played it, how it generally performs, could give us an idea of the deck's consistency.

More time-consuming and less feasible improvements would be to collect full deck lists from all the finalists, and to keep track of clan participation statistics from all players.

I agree that it's a terrible way to measure value. Especially for clans, where you get sample size issues. Interestingly, I value the "how often do cards show up" slicing of the data much more than the clan numbers. The clan numbers are just easy and provide material for trying to tell a story about the game.

Except that the clan categorization process is flawed.

- People are already discounting the clan results, due to superstar decks (Aksinya Girls doesn't *really* count for the !Gangrel)

- It's odd that a deck with more members of a clan (both absolute and proportion) might not count as a clan deck, when a clan with fewer members (on both measures) does count

- It's odd that a deck counts for a clan, when the majority of vampires in that clan are *not* of that clan

- It's odd that a deck could feasibly count as a "clan deck" for every clan at the same time


People are acting like the TWDA is sacred and holy when the criteria is arbitrary (set by Jeff, which he gets to do because he's maintaining the TWDA).

Some could just as easily maintain a subset of the TWDA data, claiming:

TWDA+ only contains tournaments with at least 30+ players. The smaller tournaments aren't really helpful because "People win 10-men tournaments with stupid decks all the time by virtue of getting into the finals with 0 GW 2 VP and then getting a random VP before timing." So in my arguments I am only going to rely on data from the 30+ tournaments.

TWDA++ uses the same TWDA data, but categorizes clans differently. So in my arguments I am only going to rely on data using this refined clan definition.

Let's say you stop using the TWDA to support arguments. Then, what are people arguing about? Opinion vs. opinion doesn't mean anything, however much fun it might be for people.

Even with the same TWDA data, you still have different people coming up with vastly different interpretations of what the data means. Interpretation vs interpretation doesn't mean anything either.

You roll your eyes at using the TWDA in arguments. I roll my eyes at people who ignore it and simply make claims based on what they think is true.

And yes, that's exactly what I see with the TWDA adherents. People "making claims based on what they think is true."

In fact, isn't that what most people are doing (making claims based on what they think is true).

Heh. I'm beginning to see some parallels with what happens when people trying to argue about "faith" and religion, and questions like whether a divine entity actually exists. I'm sometimes baffled by how some people think that the argument "it says so in the Bible/Koran/Torah/Avesta/Necromonicon!" is supposed to just settle things. Even when using the same text, you can end up with vastly different interpretations.

Some people have faith in the TWDA, and it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to convince them otherwise, any more than I am going to convince a devout religious person about the faith they have in their sacred text. You can critique and point out all the flaws in the TWDA (or religious book), but that's not necessarily going to change their mind while they are puzzled why you simply can't see the "obvious truth" that they see. But at the same time, just because you have faith in the TWDA (or faith in whatever holy book) doesn't mean you should automatically assume that everyone else does (or should).

Maybe this is just going to have to be one of those issues where many of us will have to agree to disagree!

echiang wrote:

People are acting like the TWDA is sacred and holy when the criteria is arbitrary (set by Jeff, which he gets to do because he's maintaining the TWDA).

The TWDA is certainly good for some things, and not good for other things.

The TWDA is good for:

-Seeing lots of examples of decks that can win.

-Seeing what cards show up a lot in decks that can win.

-Seeing what kinds of strategies seem to be generally successful.

-Being a collection of semi-random decks that are, at the very least, reasonably effective.

-Seeing trends in decks and cards.

The TWDA is not good for:

-Basing any iron clad arguments on.

-Being solid proof of anything at all.

The conditions that Jeff set to get into the TWDA and how the TWDA looks at decks are totally fine, assuming that folks realize all of the above points.

Yes, the "at least 5 of a single clan and no more than any other clan" aspect of "clan" decks in the TWDA is certainly something that could be changed in any number of ways. But there is no need to change it, as it is what Jeff, who maintains the archive, wants to work with. The TWDA is good to look at and see what are general trends for clans, but not good to look at and say "Well, clearly, the Ventrue are weak, as there are so few Ventrue decks in the TWDA!", as what is a "Ventrue" deck (or whatever) in the TWDA may or may not reflect on what someone who is making an argument thinks is a "Ventrue" deck.

Is the TWDA a good resource, for example, for seeing that Villein has been used a lot in reasonably effective decks lately? Absolutely. The TWDA is a moderately random selection of decks that are, at the very minimum, reasonably effective, so it is fair to look at that and extrapolate that Villein is showing up a lot in reasonably good decks. But that's about as good as it gets, in terms of using the TWDA as a data source.