What was expected to be a popular deck, but not the most popular, ended up giving perhaps the most impressive display of any archetype at a Pro Tour. Ever. Elves! placed six players in the Top 8, including a clean sweep of the Top 4. This is some rarefied territory here. With 33 different decks represented in the field, for one deck to show that level of dominance is pretty unique. Without getting too math-y here, the chances that a single deck in a 33-deck field would place six in the Top 8 are significantly less than 1%. Significantly less than .001%, even. Really, just very small. Elves! didn't stop with the Top 8 either; there were seven more decks in the Top 32 featuring those pointy-eared mana machines.
Before examining further the success of the Elves! deck, first let me recap what the field looked like as a whole, as first reported by Bill Stark.
| Deck | Competitors | % of Field | D2 Flow Through | |||
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | D1 | D2 | ||
| Zoo | 125 | 37 | 0 | 28% | 23% | 30% |
| Elves! | 71 | 38 | 6 | 16% | 24% | 54% |
| Storm | 39 | 7 | 0 | 9% | 4% | 18% |
| Next-Level Blue | 32 | 15 | 0 | 7% | 9% | 47% |
| Junk | 26 | 5 | 0 | 6% | 3% | 19% |
| Faeries | 24 | 11 | 1 | 5% | 7% | 46% |
| Death Cloud Rock | 21 | 11 | 0 | 5% | 7% | 52% |
| Affinity | 18 | 3 | 0 | 4% | 2% | 17% |
| All-In Red | 17 | 6 | 0 | 4% | 4% | 35% |
| Burn | 17 | 6 | 0 | 4% | 4% | 35% |
| Dredge | 9 | 4 | 0 | 2% | 3% | 44% |
| Hulk Combo | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1% | 1% | 20% |
| Life from the Loam Rock | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1% | 1% | 20% |
| Tezzeret Control | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1% | 2% | 60% |
| Bant Control | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1% | 1% | 25% |
| Martyr Proclamation | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1% | 1% | 25% |
| Second Breakfast | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1% | 1% | 25% |
| Blue-Red Tron | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1% | 0% | 0% |
| White-Blue Tron | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1% | 1% | 25% |
| Bant Aggro | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0% | 1% | 100% |
| Goblins | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0% | 1% | 50% |
| Swans Combo | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0% | 1% | 100% |
| Battle of Wits | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Beasts | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Belcher Combo | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Black-Green Rock | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0% | 1% | 100% |
| White-Black Tokens | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Green-White Slide | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Mindlock Orb Control | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Mono-Blue Control | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0% | 1% | 100% |
| Rift Slide | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Seismic Loam | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Blue-Black Tron | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0% | 1% | 100% |
What Zoo lacked in dominance, it made up for in Day 1 numbers. All in all, 28% of the field showed up with aggressively costed creatures and a sprinkling of utility spells. Only 30% of those players had to wake up early on Saturday (excluding, of course, those who were opening Sealed decks at the PTQ). Elves!, however, pushed through over half of its mages, beating out Death Cloud Rock for Day 2 flow-through rate (for decks with 10 or more players). Storm, Junk, and Affinity all performed terribly on Day 1, failing to move even 1 of 5 players into Day 2.
Note that anything over 35% should be considered good for flow-through rate (160 players in Day 2 versus 454 in the event). Next-Level Blue and Dredge should both get a complimentary nod for shaking off the hits the set rotation gave them and showing up with very respectable numbers.
Day 2 flow though fails to paint the entire picture, though. To get a clearer idea of exactly what went down in Berlin, we need to examine the win rates. Of course, there is bound to be a variance here. We're talking about hundreds of different players, each with different skill levels and tweaks in their decks. Some arrived to Berlin early, some were jetlagged. Some tested a lot, some none at all. Some got a good night's sleep, some might have been out too late. Even with all of those differences, what we can glean from the 2,263 matches played is going to provide us with a solid understanding of the format. As usual, mirror matches are excluded. I'll include decks where there were not enough matches played to make concrete inferences—use those as a starting point. Don't read too much into them as they could prove to be misleading. These are not meant to be predictors, but rather historical analysis of what happened.
| Deck | Win % | Matches |
| Blue-Black Tron | 68.75% | 16 |
| Black-Green Rock | 68.75% | 16 |
| Goblins | 65.22% | 23 |
| Tezzeret Control | 60.66% | 62 |
| Elves! | 60.35% | 645 |
| Dredge | 59.14% | 95 |
| Faeries | 58.06% | 255 |
| Swans Combo | 56.25% | 32 |
| Mono-Blue Control | 56.25% | 16 |
| Bant Aggro | 56.25% | 32 |
| Next-Level Blue | 50.97% | 315 |
| Death Cloud Rock | 50.71% | 217 |
| All-In Red | 50.60% | 166 |
| Martyr Proclamation | 50.00% | 36 |
| Black-White Token | 50.00% | 8 |
| Life from the Loam Rock | 48.94% | 47 |
| Burn | 48.24% | 170 |
| Bant Control | 47.06% | 34 |
| Blue-White Tron | 45.00% | 40 |
| Zoo | 44.78% | 842 |
| Junk | 43.63% | 207 |
| Green-White Slide | 42.86% | 7 |
| Beasts | 42.86% | 7 |
| Storm | 42.31% | 291 |
| Affinity | 41.55% | 142 |
| Blue-Red Tron | 39.29% | 28 |
| Hulk Combo | 36.84% | 38 |
| Second Breakfast | 34.48% | 30 |
| Seismic Loam | 28.57% | 8 |
| Rift Slide | 25.00% | 8 |
| Battle of Wits | 25.00% | 8 |
| Mindlock Orb Control | 25.00% | 8 |
| Belcher Combo | 14.29% | 7 |
At the top, we see Blue-Black Tron and Black-Green Rock decks that each went 11-5—good for 31st and 36th places, respectively. I'll avoid further discussion on these, as each had only one player using the deck. If you're interested, look up Shouta Yasooka's (Tron) and Lasse Nørgaard's (Rock) decklists in the coverage.
Goblins had one pilots, one finishing 10th (Johan Sadeghpour) and one in 305th. If you're interested, go check out Johan's deck.
Tezzeret Control ("The Tezzerator")
Tezzeret is something we can talk about. One of 2 non-Elf decks on day 3, Tezzeret was only overshadowed by Rofellos's family for generating the most chatter at the tournament. 3 of its 5 mages were playing on day 2, but only Kenny Öberg placed in the money.
| Opponent's Deck | Win % | Matches |
| Hulk Combo | 100.00% | 1 |
| Goblins | 100.00% | 1 |
| All-In Red | 100.00% | 1 |
| Burn | 100.00% | 2 |
| Junk | 75.00% | 4 |
| Faeries | 71.43% | 7 |
| Next-Level Blue | 66.67% | 6 |
| Affinity | 66.67% | 3 |
| Zoo | 53.33% | 15 |
| Storm | 50.00% | 2 |
| Dredge | 50.00% | 2 |
| Elves! | 50.00% | 14 |
| Death Cloud Rock | 33.33% | 3 |
| Grand Total | 60.66% | 61 |
Those are pretty good numbers across a host of different decks. You'll notice that against our newly crowned champion, Tezzeret earned a full-on split. No opponent looked truly frightening for this deck. It's possible that people weren't really sure what to expect, but whatever the reason was, Tezzerret certainly performed admirably.
Elves!
No slow-roll intended here—I'm showing Elves! this far into the analysis because that's where it fell.
| Opponent's Deck | Win % | Matches |
| Seismic Loam | 100.00% | 2 |
| Rift Slide | 100.00% | 3 |
| Mono-Blue Control | 100.00% | 3 |
| Mindlock Orb Control | 100.00% | 1 |
| Beasts | 100.00% | 2 |
| Battle of Wits | 100.00% | 2 |
| Hulk Combo | 87.50% | 8 |
| Martyr Proclamation | 85.71% | 7 |
| Junk | 78.95% | 38 |
| Affinity | 76.19% | 21 |
| Bant Control | 71.43% | 7 |
| Death Cloud Rock | 71.11% | 45 |
| Burn | 69.57% | 23 |
| Storm | 68.52% | 54 |
| All-In Red | 64.00% | 25 |
| Zoo | 56.91% | 188 |
| Next-Level Blue | 55.17% | 58 |
| Life from the Loam Rock | 54.55% | 11 |
| Black-Green Rock | 50.00% | 4 |
| Tezzeret Control | 50.00% | 14 |
| Bant Aggro | 50.00% | 4 |
| Faeries | 47.54% | 61 |
| Swans Combo | 44.44% | 9 |
| Blue-White Tron | 40.00% | 10 |
| Dredge | 38.89% | 18 |
| Blue-Red Tron | 33.33% | 3 |
| Blue-Black Tron | 33.33% | 3 |
| Second Breakfast | 25.00% | 4 |
| Goblins | 20.00% | 5 |
| Grand Total | 60.35% | 633 |
There are a lot of matches played here, and a lot that were won. Surveying the numbers, Faeries should be the one that jumps at you as being scary. Though it didn't happen that way in the Top 8, Faeries is certainly a threat. The good news, though, is that there are a lot of very good numbers up there. The 188 matches against Zoo actually lowered the win percent.
A 60% win rate is extremely difficult to keep up. For reference, Jon Finkel has a 62% win rate in over 1,200 draft matches. If a deck is competing with Jon over any large sample size, that deck is dominant. There's no way of getting around it: Elves! was the best deck at this tournament. In subsequent tournaments of the same format, that may not be the case, as people will likely have their decks adjusted and tuned against those Orlando Bloom lookalikes. But in Berlin, on Halloween weekend, by any measure, Elves! were the best.
Dredge
Remember Dredge? Remember when it was the deck of Extended? Leyline of the Void and Tormod's Crypt were everywhere. Then a lot of cards rotated out. Most people assumed that the archetype was dead. Others wondered, "What if"? Here's what happened to those others:
| Opponent's Deck | Win % | Matches |
| Blue-Red Tron | 100.00% | 1 |
| Second Breakfast | 100.00% | 1 |
| All-In Red | 100.00% | 1 |
| Bant Aggro | 100.00% | 1 |
| Bant Control | 100.00% | 1 |
| Life from the Loam Rock | 100.00% | 1 |
| Black-White Token | 100.00% | 1 |
| Hulk Combo | 100.00% | 1 |
| Storm | 83.33% | 6 |
| Next-Level Blue | 75.00% | 4 |
| Blue-Black Tron | 66.67% | 3 |
| Death Cloud Rock | 66.67% | 6 |
| Elves! | 61.11% | 18 |
| Affinity | 60.00% | 5 |
| Junk | 50.00% | 2 |
| Tezzeret Control | 50.00% | 2 |
| Swans Combo | 50.00% | 2 |
| Faeries | 50.00% | 8 |
| Zoo | 47.83% | 23 |
| Burn | 25.00% | 4 |
| Martyr Proclamation | 0.00% | 1 |
| Mindlock Orb Control | 0.00% | 1 |
| Grand Total | 59.14% | 93 |
Not too shabby for a "dead" archetype. Dredge placed two people in the Top 16 (Phillip Summereder and Nikolaus Eigner) and one more in the money. The deck was popular with the Austrians, as five of the nine graveyard magicians were from that country. Somewhat scary numbers against Zoo notwithstanding, the environment lent itself to a successful Dredge deck. While the deck was certainly less powerful than its predecessors, the hate was virtually nonexistent, making this an extremely well timed deck decision.
Faeries
First Faeries were transported from Block to Standard. Now they're invading Extended.
| Opponent's Deck | Win % | Matches |
| Blue-White Tron | 100.00% | 1 |
| Mindlock Orb Control | 100.00% | 1 |
| Martyr Proclamation | 100.00% | 4 |
| Bant Aggro | 100.00% | 2 |
| Beasts | 100.00% | 1 |
| Belcher Combo | 100.00% | 1 |
| Life from the Loam Rock | 100.00% | 4 |
| Death Cloud Rock | 90.00% | 10 |
| Second Breakfast | 75.00% | 4 |
| Junk | 71.43% | 14 |
| Next-Level Blue | 63.16% | 19 |
| Affinity | 60.00% | 5 |
| Swans Combo | 60.00% | 5 |
| Storm | 56.25% | 16 |
| Zoo | 53.33% | 60 |
| Elves! | 52.46% | 61 |
| Blue-Black Tron | 50.00% | 2 |
| Hulk Combo | 50.00% | 2 |
| Burn | 50.00% | 6 |
| Dredge | 50.00% | 8 |
| All-In Red | 45.45% | 11 |
| Tezzeret Control | 28.57% | 7 |
| Goblins | 25.00% | 4 |
| Grand Total | 58.06% | 248 |
Fae players played almost half of their non-mirror matches against two decks, Zoo and Elves!. While posting about 53% against those two decks is good, posting 63% against the rest is great. In addition to netting the second non-Elves! Top 8 berth (along with Tezzeret Control), Faeries also had three more in the Top 16 and four more after that in the money. This is an impressive performance. Riptide Laboratory never looked so good!
Zoo
It was an undefined format. Several sets had rotated out, injuring many existing archetypes, but not Zoo. Shards of Alara came in, offering some more gas for the deck. It looked like this format could be Zootopia.
| Opponent's Deck | Win % | Matches |
| Seismic Loam | 100.00% | 2 |
| Second Breakfast | 100.00% | 7 |
| Belcher Combo | 100.00% | 3 |
| Battle of Wits | 100.00% | 3 |
| Blue-White Tron | 66.67% | 12 |
| Affinity | 59.46% | 37 |
| Blue-Red Tron | 57.14% | 7 |
| Hulk Combo | 55.56% | 9 |
| Storm | 55.06% | 89 |
| Junk | 53.45% | 58 |
| Dredge | 52.17% | 23 |
| Swans Combo | 50.00% | 4 |
| Rift Slide | 50.00% | 2 |
| Green-White Slide | 50.00% | 2 |
| Tezzeret Control | 46.67% | 15 |
| Faeries | 46.67% | 60 |
| Life from the Loam Rock | 46.15% | 13 |
| Elves! | 43.09% | 188 |
| Next-Level Blue | 41.05% | 95 |
| Goblins | 40.00% | 5 |
| Mono-Blue Control | 37.50% | 8 |
| Burn | 36.96% | 46 |
| Bant Control | 36.36% | 11 |
| Black-White Token | 33.33% | 3 |
| All-In Red | 33.33% | 48 |
| Beasts | 33.33% | 3 |
| Death Cloud Rock | 27.78% | 54 |
| Bant Aggro | 27.27% | 11 |
| Black-Green Rock | 0.00% | 7 |
| Blue-Black Tron | 0.00% | 2 |
| Martyr Proclamation | 0.00% | 6 |
| Grand Total | 44.78% | 833 |
But it wasn't, thanks to Elves!, Next-Level Blue, Burn, All-In Red, Death Cloud Rock—just to name a few. Zoo got beaten up, and beaten up frequently. People were prepared for it, and the deck that made up 30% of the field on Day 1 put only two people in the Top 32, none higher than 19th (Aj Sacher).
Magic has long ago become a global game. Frequently in Top 8s you can see (or hear) the participants' countrymen cheering them on, in the name of national pride. Taking that into consideration, I was curious as to how each country performed in Berlin. Wouldn't you know it, we have that info.
| Country | Win % | Matches |
| Colombia | 73.33% | 15 |
| Czech Republic | 63.79% | 58 |
| Thailand | 61.29% | 31 |
| Panama | 60.00% | 15 |
| Belgium | 60.00% | 90 |
| Slovak Republic | 59.38% | 32 |
| Austria | 58.88% | 107 |
| Croatia (Hrvatska) | 58.62% | 29 |
| South Africa | 57.89% | 19 |
| Denmark | 57.45% | 47 |
| Japan | 56.08% | 378 |
| Chile | 55.56% | 18 |
| Turkey | 53.85% | 13 |
| Sweden | 53.72% | 121 |
| Portugal | 52.38% | 63 |
| France | 52.27% | 308 |
| Germany | 52.24% | 268 |
| Canada | 51.90% | 79 |
| Russian Federation | 50.82% | 61 |
| Estonia | 50.00% | 8 |
| Venezuela | 50.00% | 10 |
| Argentina | 50.00% | 72 |
| Philippines | 50.00% | 8 |
| Ukraine | 50.00% | 12 |
| Poland | 49.33% | 75 |
| Brazil | 49.18% | 61 |
| Spain | 48.91% | 184 |
| Mexico | 48.15% | 27 |
| Netherlands | 47.41% | 116 |
| England | 47.37% | 95 |
| United States | 46.62% | 843 |
| Australia | 45.45% | 55 |
| Switzerland | 45.28% | 53 |
| Finland | 42.50% | 40 |
| New Zealand | 41.38% | 29 |
| Italy | 40.96% | 188 |
| Taiwan | 40.74% | 27 |
| Israel | 40.00% | 20 |
| Greece | 40.00% | 25 |
| Norway | 39.29% | 28 |
| China | 37.50% | 8 |
| Hungary | 37.50% | 24 |
| Iceland | 33.33% | 6 |
| Slovenia | 33.33% | 3 |
| Singapore | 27.27% | 11 |
| Peru | 25.00% | 4 |
| Republic of Korea | 16.67% | 6 |
| Malaysia | 11.11% | 9 |
| Ireland | 0.00% | 3 |
First off, that's 49 countries. I knew there were a lot of countries represented at PTs, but I don't think it quite hit me that there were almost 50. Colombia is your winner, thanks to its lone representative, Carlos Amaya Troncoso and his Death Cloud Rock deck. Congratulations!
And finally, the largest concentration of a single deck from a single country came from the Americans, who sent 40 people playing Zoo. The next highest number came from the Japanese and their 20 Elves! players.
So far we've gone through a lot of empirical data, but to really understand the dominance of the Elves! deck I highly recommend going through some of the feature match coverage. The resiliency that the deck showed across numerous matches; against mass removal, opposing combos, and mass disruption among other things really made an impression on me. These numbers should only enhance your understanding of the extended metagame, not define it. Read the feature matches, play some games. It is very enlightening.