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Pro Tour Avacyn Restored Results Analysis

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After Pro Tour: Avacyn Restored (#PTAVR), I decided to revisit this article and examine how people did at #PTAVR (which was much smaller) based on how they qualified. Another important aspect going into #PTAVR was the formation of a number of teams, and I decided to look into how the various teams performed as well. This article was originally planned to be named “The Rise of the Super Team” and focus on the performance of SCGBlack and ChannelFireball  (CFB), but CFB essentially didn't show up, failing to put even one member into the Top 8 of a Pro Tour for the first time since the team, as it exists now, was formed at Pro Tour Amsterdam.

Multiple Invite Hierarchy

For this analysis, each player could only be counted for one invitation category, which necessitated the creation of a hierarchy to deal with players who had earned multiple invitations to the event. The goal of my hierarchy was to count the primary way the player was invited and avoid counting invitations gained incidentally in obtaining that invite. The hierarchy I ended up with (after consultation with a few other people was):

  • Pro Player Club (PPC) Levels 6 to 8
  • Pro Tour Hall of Fame
  • Pro Player Club (PPC) Levels 4 to 5
  • PTQ Wins (both online and paper)
  • Pro Tour Top 25
  • GP Top 4
  • Pro Player Club Level 3

Legend to the Charts

Before the charts are presented, here is a legend for them:

  • Number (#) – Number of players who qualified (and showed up) from that invitation category.
  • Percent (%) – The percentage of players in the Pro Tour who were invited from that invitation category.
  • # Day 2 – Number of people who day 2ed from that invitation category.
  • % Day 2 – Percentage of players in the invitation category who made Day 2.
  • # Cash – Number of people who cashed from that invitation category.
  • % Cash – Percentage of players in the invitation category who cashed.
  • # Top 50 – Number of people who made Top 50 from that invitation category.
  • % Top 50 – Percentage of players in the invitation category who made Top 50.
  • # Top 8 – Number of people who made Top 8 from that invitation category.
  • Average Constructed – Average number of Constructed points earned by players in that category.
  • Average Limited – Average number of Limited points earned by players in that category.
  • Average Points – Sum of Average Limited and Average Constructed.
  • Average Money – Average amount of money earned by players in that category.
  • % of Money Won – Percentage of the overall prize pool won by players in that category.
  • % Money Won/%Composition – This is % of Money Won divided by %.

Pro Tour: Avacyn Restored

Year: 2012

PTQ Format: Modern

Constructed Format: Full Innistrad Block Constructed

Limited Format: Avacyn Restored ×3 Draft

Pro Tour: Avacyn Resotred Number (#) Percent (%) # Day 2 % Day 2 # Cash % Cash # Top 25 % Top 25
Pro Tour Hall of Fame 8 2.122016 7 87.5 3 37.5 1 12.5
Pro Player Club Level 8 9 2.387268 7 77.77778 3 33.33333 2 22.22222
Pro Player Club Level 7 6 1.591512 6 100 3 50 2 33.33333
Pro Player Club Level 6 18 4.774536 13 72.22222 5 27.77778 1 5.555556
Pro Player Club Level 5 13 3.448276 8 61.53846 5 38.46154 2 15.38462
Pro Player Club Level 4 32 8.488064 26 81.25 11 34.375 3 9.375
Pro Player Club Level 3 31 8.222812 24 77.41935 11 35.48387 5 16.12903
Magic Online PTQ Winner 15 3.97878 11 73.33333 3 20 0 0
PTQ Winner 192 50.92838 101 52.60417 24 12.5 7 3.645833
PT Top 25 9 2.387268 5 55.55556 1 11.11111 1 11.11111
GP Top 4 38 10.07958 26 68.42105 6 15.78947 1 2.631579
Sponsor's Exemption 5 1.32626 3 60 0 0 0 0
Special Invitation 1 0.265252 1 100 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 377 100 238 63.12997 75 19.8939 25 6.6313
Pro Tour: Avacyn Resotred # Top 8 Average Constructed Average Limited Average Points Average Money % of Money Won % Money Won/%Compostion
Pro Tour Hall of Fame 1 17.25 8.25 25.5 1500 5.139186 2.421841542
Pro Player Club Level 8 0 15 9 24 777.7778 2.997859 1.255769688
Pro Player Club Level 7 0 15.66667 13 28.66667 916.6667 2.35546 1.480014276
Pro Player Club Level 6 1 12.61111 8.833333 21.44444 1361.111 10.49251 2.197596955
Pro Player Club Level 5 0 12.69231 7.384615 20.07692 846.1538 4.710921 1.366167024
Pro Player Club Level 4 1 14.53125 8.875 23.40625 734.375 10.06424 1.185693255
Pro Player Club Level 3 1 14.22581 8.032258 22.25806 1854.839 24.62527 2.994750294
Magic Online PTQ Winner 0 12 7.666667 19.66667 300 1.927195 0.484368308
PTQ Winner 2 9.776042 6.057292 15.83333 307.2917 25.26767 0.496141149
PT Top 25 1 10.77778 7 17.77778 1111.111 4.282655 1.793956698
GP Top 4 1 11.63158 7.605263 19.23684 500 8.137045 0.807280514
Sponsor's Exemption 0 9.6 7.2 16.8 0 0 0
Special Invitation 0 15 9 24 0 0 0
TOTAL 8 11.4695 7.129973 619.3634 619.3634 100

#PTAVR had a number of interesting occurrences. The first, and most important, was the collapse of Level 8 performance mostly affected by CFB’s poor performance (see below), as only one-third of them cashed, and their percentage of the total prize pool was barely ahead of where they would be as just a fraction of the field.

Close in importance was the excellent performance by the Hall of Fame members in attendance, who had the highest average points earned in Block Constructed. Another thing of note was that Limited performance (with the exception of Level 7s) was pretty close to even across all invite categories, backing up the theory proposed by some that Avacyn Restored Limited is not a particularly skill-based format.

The Sponsor’s Exceptions and Special Invite (also known as the "David Williams’s Magic Career Memorial Invite") once again produced no notable results (as expected), and also as expected, PTQ winners (with the exception of the two who Top 8’ed) performed relatively poorly.

Teams

As mentioned earlier, going into the Pro Tour, I assumed a Top 8 full of CFB and SCGBlack (with SCGBlue dutifully drafting on Day 2), but ummmmm . . . then the Pro Tour actually happened:

Team Name Number (#) # Day 2 % Day 2 # Cash % Cash # Top 25 % Top25
SCGBlack 12 10 83.33333 6 50 3 25
SCGBlue 16 13 81.25 6 37.5 2 12.5
CFB 13 11 84.61538 3 23.07692 0 0
French 9 7 77.77778 2 22.22222 1 11.11111
Hunt 9 9 100 6 66.66667 1 11.11111
Jurkovich 5 5 100 3 60 2 40
Canada 14 6 42.85714 1 7.142857 1 7.142857
Team Name # Top 8 Average Constructed Average Limited Average Points Average Money % of Money Won % Money Won/%Compostion
SCGBlack 2 15.91667 10.5 26.41667 2916.667 28.56865 8.975318
SCGBlue 1 15.6875 8.3125 24 1281.25 12.5498 2.957047
CFB 0 13.30769 9.230769 22.53846 346.1538 3.390565 0.983264
French 0 13.77778 7.333333 21.11111 333.3333 3.264989 1.367667
Hunt 0 15.88889 12.33333 28.22222 944.4444 9.250801 3.875058
Jurkovich 0 17.8 10.2 28 1600 15.67195 11.81665
Canada 1 8.571429 5.357143 13.92857 2857.143 27.98562 7.536127

As can be seen here, Jurkovich's team (consisting of Robert Jurkovic, Ivan Floch, Stanislav Cifka, Lukas Jaklovsky, Jan Brodzak, all playing Reanimator) had almost 2 match points in Constructed over all the other teams, whereas the deck that won the event (Hallelujah) performed the worst of all the team decks.

Mathias' team, consisting of almost exclusively Magic Online grinders (Michael Hetrick, Ricky Sidher, Shahar Shenhar, Kyle Stoll, Andrejs Prost, Matthius Hunt, Jason Schousboe, Matt Nass, Josh Mcclain), performed extremely well in Limited.

Team CFB performed worse than not only SCGBlack, but surprisingly SCGBlue as well. Jurovich’s team and SCGBlack performed the best in terms of money won (thanks to a skewed payout system), but look for the members of Hunt’s team to perform well in the future, as they had the highest average points of all teams in the Pro Tour.

Conclusion

While it was fun to gather this data and compare, performance at one event is in no way statistically significant, and I assume CFB’s failings were simply a fluke (or the team depended on Owen being a jerk, and him being nice threw off the dynamic).

Team performance will have to be examined at future events to see if the performances made by SCGBlue and SCGBlack are sustainable. What is important to note is that being on a team is now more important than ever to Pro Tour success, and not finding a strong playgroup is very detrimental to performance.

Bonus Section: Silver Players

With the Pro Tour season over, the inevitable complaints from players with Silver status in the Pro Players Club has reared its head. Silver gives no benefits (as anyone at this level will already have the byes off PWPs), but we all knew this going into the season. Giving Silver players an invite to the Pro Tour would make the decisions of many players (players conceded or drew in the last round of the Pro Tour with the knowledge that obtaining Silver would not matter to them) wrong and would deteriorate their trust in WotC’s ability to stick to its decisions.

Smaller Pro Tours are better as they not only create more interesting coverage but provide more opportunities for PTQ winners to play against the greats of past and present. For anyone who doesn’t think this last point matters, just look at this story from coverage from #PTAVR:

“He was absolutely giddy as he approached the table for his Feature Match. The first to arrive at the table, he smiled and told me, "I am happy! I get to play against Jon Finkel!" This is not a statement you hear very often. Or, like ever. I laughed a little and asked him why? "Because I have only ever seen him in magazines! Now I get to play him, and right over there is Kai, too," he said, indicating the Feature Match next door between Kai Budde and Tomek Pedrakowski. He was all smiles as Finkel approached the table, eager to introduce himself and shake Finkel's hand. Finkel smiled and the two of them sat down and began to chat about how the draft had gone for them.”

 

– Chris Mascioli

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