Analyzing North American Destiny Champs

It has happened. The proverbial cat is finally out of the proverbial bag. Rainbow FN is officially the best deck in Spirit of Rebellion Destiny, and now everybody knows it. Today, we’ll be diving in to the GenCon tournament results, dissecting what happened, and discussing how Destiny will change moving forward. An Empire at War announcement should be coming soon, but for now, Rainbow FN is the talk of the town. If you’ve been sleeping on this deck up to this point, it’s time to wake up. Your nightmare is just beginning.

1^st –        Rainbow FN

2^nd –       Rainbow FN

3^rd-4^th – Phasma/Trooper/Guavian

                Poe/Maz

5^th-8^th – Kylo/FN/Trooper

                Poe/Maz

                Poe/Maz

                Rainbow FN

9^th-16^th- Poe/Maz

                Poe/Maz

                Vader/Raider

                Rainbow FN

                Vader/Guard

                Rainbow FN

                Jabba/Dooku

                Poe/Maz

Before breaking down individual performances or archetype conversion rates, the first place to start when analyzing any event is a holistic view of the ‘cut metagame’ before any matches are played. In this case, here is the Top 16, ranked according to archetype representation.

Poe/Maz – 6

Rainbow FN – 5

Phasma – 1

Kylo/FN/Trooper – 1

Vader/Raider – 1

Vader/Guard – 1

Jabba/Dooku – 1

Our first takeaway should be how top heavy this archetype breakdown looks. 11 out of 16 decks (or almost 70% of the field) is split among two archetypes, Poe/Maz and Rainbow FN, while the rest of the metagame only won five slots. This is the definition of ‘unhealthy’, but that’s an article for another day. What I’m interested in today is what that says about the metagame as it stands currently, and what we can do to adjust to that. Before looking into the matches, Poe/Maz and Rainbow/FN are clearly far and away better than all other decks in the field, as evidenced by their domination of the top cut slots.

This first chart shows the number of copies each archetype was able to field in each cut. So, Poe/Maz placed six copies in the Top 16, but only three made it on to the Top 8, only one to the Top 4, and none to the finals. For Rainbow FN, 5 copies made Top 16, three in Top 8, two copies made Top 4, and both copies went on to face each other in the finals. Using this data, we can then apply a percentage conversion to see how well those archetypes were able to do in the cut once they reached it.

This is another way of looking at the same data. Ideally, for an archetype to have a strong performance in the top cut, what we’d like to see is its percentages increase as the rounds go on. So, a strong performing archetype in the top cut would see its representation numbers stay the same (or increase) as other decks are eliminated and the field shrink. In a perfect scenario, eight copies of an archetype in the Top 16 all win their matches and move forward to the Top 8, turning a 50% representation into 100% representation. This doesn’t get us what we’re looking for, however.

This last chart communicates what we are after, which is the conversion rates of each archetype as it progresses through the single elimination rounds. So, six copies of Poe/Maz made the Top 16 of the event, but only three copies were able to continue to the Top 8, hence the 50% conversion rate. Of those three, only one made the Top 4, and that deck lost before the finals, hence the 33% and 0% values, respectively.

Alternatively, of the five Rainbow FN decks, 3 copies made the top 8, two of those moved on to Top 4, and both of those copies moved on again to the finals, hence the increasing percentage values. So while the overall number of Rainbow FN decks in the field decreased (or remained constant, as was the case from Top 4 to Top 2), the conversion rates actually increased.

This might all sound like numbers and jargon, but trust me, this is essential data. The big story on the day was Poe/Maz’s success alongside Rainbow FN in placing a large number of decks into the top cut, but that only tells half the story. In truth, Poe/Maz’s results are highly disappointing, when you factor in the fact that of six copies, only three made it to the Top 8, only one made it to the Top 4, and no copies were able to battle in the final round. This suggests a few things, but I’ll focus on one major takeaway from these results here.

It’s hard to look at the data and argue with the fact that Poe/Maz was a strong archetype that placed many copies into the top cut, but it struggled tremendously with translating that representation into strong finishes. The numbers bear out the fact that the archetype fell flat once it reached the single elimination rounds. Above all else, this suggests a prepared field that knew how to handle the archetype, and handle it they did, quickly dismantling Poe/Maz in the bottom half of single elimination. There are a few other explanations, but the main takeaway here is that Poe/Maz is an incredibly powerful deck, but the answers to beat it are straightforward, or at least known. Rainbow FN has its number, as evidenced by the stark differences in conversion rates in the top cut.

Unfortunately, nothing is as cut and dry as it seems. One thing we need to keep in mind when looking at data this way is the ‘self-destruct’ scenario, where two copies of the same archetype face each other in the single elimination rounds. Poe/Maz on Poe/Maz results in one winner and one loser, which can only hurt conversion rates as the archetype preys on itself. This happened twice in the single elimination rounds, as two copies of Poe/Maz faced each other in the Top 16, and then two victorious Poe/Maz lists matched up again in the Top 8. Luckily for us, Rainbow FN faced each other in the Top 16 and Top 8 as well, which builds in some consistency for our data. Were that not the case, an argument could be made that Poe/Maz experienced such poor conversion rates because it had to face ‘itself’ a disproportionate number of times. 

One final piece of information I want to draw attention to is the performance of each archetype in non-mirror matches. Of the top 16 matches, Poe/Maz was 2-2 on qualified games, while Rainbow FN was 2-1. These format giants only faced each other three times in the top cuts, but Rainbow won out in 2 out of 3 of those matches.

So, a ton of data, all pointing towards one possible conclusion. Poe/Maz and Rainbow FN are both the clear ‘top decks’ of Star Wars Destiny, as of today, but one archetype appears to perform better in the single elimination rounds compared to the other. I believe, as I did before the event, that Rainbow FN is the best deck in the game, and the numbers appear to agree with me. Moving forward, its up to us to either join the ranks of the format king, or do everything we can to unseat it from its throne. Look for more articles from me in the coming weeks dealing with this very issue, but for now, I’ll leave you with a few tidbits.

Shields remains a strong strategy for taking the edge off of Rainbow FN’s burst, but just soaking damage is half the battle. Fast, consistent damage of our own is an absolute necessity as 15 of the 16 top cut archetypes demonstrate. Four character strategies have a chance against Rainbow strategies by overloading them with too much health to fight through, but such strategies struggle against Poe/Maz. While that archetype remains a core part of the metagame, one of the potential ‘best’ answers to Rainbow might be held in check. Finally, disrupt works wonders at, well, disrupting Rainbow’s strategy. It’s incredibly difficult to do so consistently, as damage must be dealt along the way, but if you can keep Rainbow off their engine for long enough, you might be able to sneak out a win. Attacking them where it hurts (their hand or their money) is a great plan of attack, but in the end, good old-fashioned damage is what is necessary to secure victory.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Trevor Holmes