Sabledonk - math and analyzation

[Regis_Neo]

Well definitely an interesting post...this is more of the front page material we should be getting I think.

While I do like the math behind it and that the new BW rules definitely support pro-Sabledonk and it will likely get lots of play, I still don't see everything panning out so well. Mainly because real life can't reflect what math will say all the time; cards stick, aren't completely randomized when you shuffle, etc etc. So to me at least in my probably somewhat flawed view, it's inherently risky to play sabledonk because you can't force a donk every game, and that if the opposing deck can set up or recover, sabledonk then falls behind I would tend to guess as they can only recycle uxie/crobat g so many times and such.

 

[Morten]

This problem is even worse at smaller turnements where you are out by loseing the first match. I have tried that 4-1(lost the 3 round) wasn´t enogh to reach the top cut.

 

[LionheartEX]

But you're assuming that I play Vilegar. What's a Luxchomp player to do? "Tech" in 4 Spiritombs and 4 Sableye to avoid the donk? That completely ruins your consistency and your chance to win a game in the mirror. And even in Sableye vs. Sableye starts, a Sabledonk can still win the flip and donk you. In fact, adding 4 Sableye into a Vilegar list increases the chance that you'll get a Sableye start instead of a Spiritomb start. It's pretty lame, but the presence of Sableye in your deck can actually lead to a loss.

Also overlooking the sheer fact that to counter a problem, you have to use the problem itself. Spiritomb is a lesser problem, but as it stands the game becomes centralized around Spiritomb and Sableye.

Arguably, running 4 Sableye and 4 spiritomb still doesn't mean you'll win (I believe someone brought this up already).

What lies before us is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Jason]

Did a few test runs with Sableye Donk myself.

I have to agree with the majority - the deck is bad. Very bad indeed.

The consistency may be good but the odds is very, very risky. Much more riskier than the rest of the format. Those who played Uxie Donk knows it all.

Too much percentage on LUCK.

1) Flips would not go your way. The deck ran the following flippy cards:
Dual Ball, Pokeblower, Super Scoop Up, Victory Medal

2) Topdecks can be very random, and will not get what you need.

3) Can get bad hands with a bad start. Like if you get flippy cards and alll of them failed, you're boned.

4) Odds of starting with Sableye is not too high, and it is vulurable to mulligan ALOT.

5) There are many autolosses that the deck would expect - such as Mewtwo Lv.X, Spiritomb, Spray, Mesprit chains, swarm of high HP pokemon, etc.

6) Expert Belt attached to Sableye, when if you failed the donk, you will lose REALLY easily - especially in prize exchange.

7) So yeah, bad deck is BAD. In fact, Lock versions is far more reliable and can lead you to win games, especially against autolosses that Sableye Donk would expect.

 

[NoPoke]

Sabledonk is a simple to analyse deck that HIGHLIGHTS the problem with the early introduction of B&W rules.

The issue is not Sabledonk, but the family of Sableye decks that just had their donk capability taken to a whole new level . These are themselves a subset of decks that can pull off a T1 kill. A set that includes SP.

Shen is correct that the best outcome for skilled players could well be that the sabledonk players all go for the speed list. It is probably the version that is simplest to counter. But even then you are still going to lose sometimes because counters are not guaranteed themselves.

We face a format where many players wont even get to draw a card. Is this good? Is this in line with the declared goals of OP? Roll on September. I'm glad I'm not P!P as I can't honestly see how they can provide the fix that is demanded of them by players. Damned if they do and damned if they don't.

 

[Volt]

I just played 10 games with SableDonk against LuxChomp and here are the results (I'll only share them since some people can't believe in math for whatever reason):

Game 1: Sableye vs. Luxray GL 1:0
Game 2: Sableye vs. Bronzong G 2:0
Game 3: Uxie vs. Crobat G (went second, he had Call and Collector) 2:1
Game 4: Unown Q vs. Garchomp C, Luxray GL, Uxie, Crobat G, Crobat G (went first, KO'ed Garchomp C, Crobat G and Seeker'd his Uxie) 2:2
Game 5: Sableye vs. Toxicroak G Promo, Garchomp C, Crobat G (Seeker and 10 Flash Bites) 3:2
Game 6: Uxie vs. Garchomp C, Ambipom G (went first) 4:2
Game 7: Unown R vs. Luxray GL, Toxicroak G Promo, Azelf, Uxie, Garchomp C (went second) 4:3
Game 8: Unown R vs. Dragonite, Drifloon (went first) 5:3
Game 9: Uxie vs. Toxicroak G Promo (went first) 6:3
Game 10: Sableye vs. Dragonite, Crobat (Seeker and 10 Flash Bites) 7:3

Figure out for yourself what that means. For the record, I played 4 Collector and Unown D.

That being said, shall we just wait and see what's going to happen in terms of mid season rotation, etc?

 

[pokemon54]

I will just say it. This is sounding like the lostgar hype. The thing is. its one turn. Thats it... Plus its a small chance they get the donk, even with the new rules. This is all theorymon. sure people will call me an idiot, but I just know that all of us shouldn't worry this much!

 

[ShadowGuard]

btw, here some calculations I made with Yoshi- for the 4 Spiritomb + 4 Sableye deck against the Collector version of Sabledonk.

To make it easier, we assume:
- if you go first, you have some search cards to get your 2 Spiritomb + stuff and win
- if your Sabledonk goes first and you have no Spiritomb active, it wins

40 % you start with Sableye
- in this case, your opponent goes first for 25% (he has to start with Sableye too and win the coinflip)
--> 10 % to be donked, 30 % to not be donked

from the remaining 60 % there are another 40 % you start with Spiritomb, which is 24 % of the total
- you have about 25 % to get a second Spiriomb on your starting hand and win which makes a total of 6 %
- from the remaining 18 %, you start 25 % of the times, which goes to another 4,5 % of win
- there are still 13,5% where your opponent goes first, with Uxies, Unown R etc there is about 60% chance that he nets a collector without burning trainer cards or has it on the starting hand. So he can still donk you as stated above. This means there are about 8 % to be donked and another 5.5 % to not be donked.
--> as a total for the case you start with Spiritomb, you have 16 % of surviving and 8 % of beeing donked.

There are 36 % left where you don't start with either Spiritomb or Sableye. In this case, the calculation of JWittz against an unprotected deck applies and you get donked in 75% of the case.
-> this makes 27 % more to be donked and 9 % more to to win

When we sum up that, whe get 55 % to survive and 45 % to be donked. That's just an approximation but it should be near that number.

That means, even if you run an anti-deck with 8 (!) starters to counter Sabledonk, there is still a 45 % chance (almost half of the times!) to be donked by that deck.

 

[Morten]

hyped yes, but the problem is that all players can take this deck and beat the best players just with luck. This game is suposed to be strategy and not a luckgame. Many players will now play 4 spiritomb or 4 sableye to get a decent chance against this deck.

Not all of it is theorymon. There are close to 50 % chance to start with sableye. There are above 40 % chance to get the collector, but spiritomb will hut anyway if you have 2 basics with it. Sablelock are able to spread 90-100 damage most of the times and i know because i made a speed deck before junk arm that did 80 average. Anymore annoying facts I forgot?

This is facts but I still don´t see it like a deck I would play because I want better that 50-60 % chance to win and I like playing rou-ge(anyone there know why this gym changes the word) decks.

 

[Darkmot]

This is like the biggest load of dumb ive seen gettign posted here in a long, a very very long time. Seriously, Im trying to hold back right now to not get banned or somethign.

I HAVE PROVEN, THROUGH CALCULATIONS(!!!), THAT SABLEYE HAS A POSTIVIE MATCHUP AGAINST ANYTHING TOMB! P E R I O D

AND YOU SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY GO AHEAD AND SAY "ignore the math, ignore common logic, ebcause I say so"

ARE
YOU
KIDDING
ME?

I know that "i ignore logic and just hope I get lucky" is the way youre playing but please try to understand that other players will actually go with logic instead of dumb luck.


SHEESH -.-





Im confident there is a limit to the amounth of stupidity one can put in one sentence and im confident youre breaching that limit.

"Ignore what the calculation shwos to be true, because Ill get lucky" ?!?!?!?!?! "luck makes it statistically favorable?!" THE POINT OF STATISTICS IS TO IGNORE LUCK. Seriously, I might print that sentence and stick it onto our student council board thing...

If we play 1000 games tomb vs eye youll loose about 600 of them, thats the law of big numbers and mathematically proven, even your dumb luck wont save you.
_____________________

@Jason

Show me a deck that has 50% wins in mirror, 50% wins in its worst matchup (4tomb/4eye) and 75% wins against anything else. SHOW ME ONE. YOU CANT. BECAUSE IT DOESNT EXIST. AND THAT MEANS, UNLESS IM totally miscalculating, that sabledonk is calculated to be the bdif.


Assuming you run 4 tomb/eye the odds of mulligan will be pretty small so well ignore that for now.
You start tomb 40% of games, youll win about 55% of those.
You start eye 40% of games you dont start tomb (as it is the better starter), youll win 75% of those.
Youll also win 25% of games you dont start with either(0,36)

So you win: 0,4*0,5 + 0,4 * 0,6 * 0,75 + 0,25 *0,36 = 0,2 + 0,18 + 0,09 = 47

There you have it, thats your best matchup against sabledonk, awesome isnt it ? I know tomb / eye sounds like a good solution but in the end massing more starters will only change the odds of starting with one of them, not the odds of actually surviving with one of them, thats the tricky part





For everything else please see pijamas/pajamas/ post while ill continue to smack my head against objects of choice -.-


And for the record, if I were to play nats which Ill probabyl dont If we get this (and I still dont believe that this iwll happen honestly) Id play sabledonk because maths prove its the best deck.And believe me, I dont like giving up on the thought of defending my title, but what can I do? id rather hope that, if this really happens, something gets done in time for worlds and I definitly wont put my invite on the line for a 1/200 odds if winning...

And Im sorry for getting angry but if you went through the trouble of calculating all this stuff just to get told "just ignore it, because youll get lucky, because I say so"... sheesh -.-

Once again, MATHS WON'T HELP YOU!!!!
It is all about luck with that damn Sabledonk.


I could bet you're not going to win the DM with it.... Because you will not be that lucky.
Darkmot.

 

[Yoshi-]

And then you play red face powder and have these matchuos:

25% win against sabledonk
60-70% against metagame
40% against tier2 deck youre not prepared for

Sounds like a plan? No? Guess what...

Or you can go with roque with 4tom/4eye and get:

50% against sabledonk
50% because of a pile of garbage in your deck, against metagame
awful% against decks you wouldnt beat anyway because every roque has some kidn of nemesis...

 

[baby mario]

I will just say it. This is sounding like the lostgar hype. The thing is. its one turn. Thats it... Plus its a small chance they get the donk, even with the new rules. This is all theorymon. sure people will call me an idiot, but I just know that all of us shouldn't worry this much!

What do you call a 'small chance'?

If your answer is '60%' then you have a different definition of 'small chance' to what I do.

Do you have anything more than a gut feeling to counter all the maths and playtesting in this thread?

 

[Darkmot]

And then you play red face powder and have these matchuos:

25% win against sabledonk
60-70% against metagame
40% against tier2 deck youre not prepared for

Sounds like a plan? No? Guess what...

Or you can go with roque with 4tom/4eye and get:

50% against sabledonk
50% because of a pile of garbage in your deck, against metagame
awful% against decks you wouldnt beat anyway because every roque has some kidn of nemesis...

You don't even need rogue for that.
For example you have Gyarados, with let's say 4 Collector
2 Darkness SP Unown D Crobat SSU/Turn and DRawer+ and 4 Seeker.
It works just fine, is good against most Decks of the Meta and has a decent chance to donk too.
Everybody telling me Sabledonk is better than this is a joke for me. ;D

Darkmot.

 

[Yoshi-]

Once again, MATHS WON'T HELP YOU!!!!
It is all about luck with that damn Sabledonk.


I could bet you're not going to win the DM with it.... Because you will not be that lucky.
Darkmot.

I wont, but I wont either with any other decks. Did u READ?! anything I said? Thats like, exactly the point.

Sabelye works completly on odds and calculations, how it plays out in the end is luck, sure btu so is any other deck.
You can calculate the theoretical outcome and when choosing a deck the theoretical outcome is what matters, not the actual tournament. If I choose the deck with the best matchups for a tournament and get donked 3 times in a row I still made the best choice for the day.

A deck with the best matchups against any deck out there is the best deck in format, period, you dont need to play to understand this. If youre a great luxchomp player and win against any other deck 70% of games youll only survive a t16 0,7^4 = 0,25 = every 4th time. Pokemon is partially luck and thats no different with sableye. But with sableye you have the best odds of winning and therefore it is the best deck to play and therefor everyoner should play it.

But lets assume you dont want to play sabledonk, then what will you play? A deck where you can show your skill? When everyone else has done their math homeworks and you never get to play? Great idea...


e:/ Seriously, can you stay out of this thread? Your post make so little sence they givem e a headache

 

[Darkmot]

I wont, but I wont either with any other decks. Did u READ?! anything I said? Thats like, exactly the point.

Sabelye works completly on odds and calculations, how it plays out in the end is luck, sure btu so is any other deck.
You can calculate the theoretical outcome and when choosing a deck the theoretical outcome is what matters, not the actual tournament. If I choose the deck with the best matchups for a tournament and get donked 3 times in a row I still made the best choice for the day.

A deck with the best matchups against any deck out there is the best deck in format, period, you dont need to play to understand this. If youre a great luxchomp player and win against any other deck 70% of games youll only survive a t16 0,7^4 = 0,25 = every 4th time. Pokemon is partially luck and thats no different with sableye. But with sableye you have the best odds of winning and therefore it is the best deck to play and therefor everyoner should play it.

But lets assume you dont want to play sabledonk, then what will you play? A deck where you can show your skill? When everyone else has done their math homeworks and you never get to play? Great idea...


e:/ Seriously, can you stay out of this thread? Your post make so little sence they givem e a headache

So you want to tell me, that a Gyarados with 4 Sableye looses more likely to Sabledonk, than Sabledonk to Gyarados?
Lol, no way.... the chance to win is 50-50 for each of them.
But against the rest of the meta Gyarados may have imbalanced Match-UPs, but definitly better Match-Ups, while Sabledonk has the always the same chance to win vs. f.e. a deck with 4 sableye or 4 spiritomb or ...x.. not depedning on the other cards the oppenent plays.
Darkmot.

 

[Morten]

And then you play red face powder and have these matchuos:

25% win against sabledonk
60-70% against metagame
40% against tier2 deck youre not prepared for

Sounds like a plan? No? Guess what...

Or you can go with roque with 4tom/4eye and get:

50% against sabledonk
50% because of a pile of garbage in your deck, against metagame
awful% against decks you wouldnt beat anyway because every roque has some kidn of nemesis...

Now you're underestimate rogue decks. When I build rogue decks it is often a deck strong enogh to be a metagame deck. It isn´t random that i got top 16 2 times at worlds with rogue deck. Last year i had fine a matchup against 13-15 of the top 16 decks but met the deck with dialga g too bad. The year with gardelade i came top 16 and met blissey with crystall beach and had 3 good close games.

It is more like 60 % aginst metagame and even better because it is rogue. 70 % against 2 tier. This year I made the magnerock deck and i would also call that a metagame deck that wasn´t made. Why shouldn´t i could make another metagame deck with 4 sableye or spiritomb and get 45 % chance against sabledonk.

Sure maths is right and it is a very stupid deck but I just won´t win national with it wich is my goal. Have won it 3 times by the way.

 

[NoPoke]

r0uge is either jewelers grinding paste or red makeup applied to the face.
rogue is the spelling you are after.

The math won't help is true but only in the trivial sense that you can't change your deck mid tournament. The math (opening hand statistics) will most definitely help you in deciding how to build your deck. To understand that threat that Sableye poses with its ability to exploit the new B&W rule on what you can play going first.

 

[Yoshi-]

So you want to tell me, that a Gyarados with 4 Sableye looses more likely to Sabledonk, than Sabledonk to Gyarados?
Lol, no way.... the chance to win is 50-50 for each of them.
But against the rest of the meta Gyarados may have imbalanced Match-UPs, but definitly better Match-Ups, while Sabledonk has the always the same chance to win vs. f.e. a deck with 4 sableye or 4 spiritomb or ...x.. not depedning on the other cards the oppenent plays.
Darkmot.

Ok jetzt mal auf Deutsch / In german this time:

Du hasts erfasst, 50/50 bei allen Sableeye Decks. Und gegen alle nicht Sableye Decks hab ich mit Sabledonk 75/25. Hat dein Garados Deck dieselben Matchups? Ich glaube kaum...

Also: Sabledonk gg Anti: 50 - 50
Sabledonk gg nicht anti 75 - 25
Garados gg alle anderen Decks: NICHT! 75-25

@Morten

Sure but not in this metagame. Even in our current metagame building a rogue is hard and youll never get decent matchups across the field. And yes I made t32 at worlds with roque as well and only lost a won game due to timeout so sorry but Im not really impressed. Its just not the same with roques that year.

Also a roque is mostly good because it counters something but has some other weaknesses. When I played Flygon/Torterra I had decent matchups against the top decks. But against Flychamp? GenChamp? CHarizard?

But please, go ahead, stuff 4 eye / 4 tomb into your magnerock and show me you have a positive matchup against gengar gyarados and luxchomp... You dont even have those without all the other clunk

 

[NoPoke]

....
Sure maths is right and it is a very stupid deck but I just won´t win national with it wich is my goal. Have won it 3 times by the way.

Why won't you win nationals with it? Because to win you would have to get lucky? That is the whole point of the thread : that you don't have to get particularly lucky to make the cut.

There is luck in pokemon. No point in pretending that any nationals winning deck didn't get lucky at some point (pairings luck, and going second for example)

Is this kind of deck going to be the best choice for the very best players in the tournament? I hope not. But what of all the players who they routinely defeat: is this kind of deck their best chance at winning nationals?

 

[fire spin]

people seem to mis understand that the deck is capable of knocking out 3 pokemon and seekering 1, this means that even if they don't start sableye you ARE NOT IMPERVIOUS TO THE DONK. for example darkmots, sableye vs gyarados as 50-50, means that you both have the same chance of opening with a sableye in their starting hand.
lets look at the likely outcomes, assuming that sableye can pull of the donk everytime ( which it should if it can play trainers)

sabledonk opens sableye, gyarados doesn't : gyarados loses
both open sableye : the coin flip decides if gyarados loses, if they get to go 1st then they have to fill their bench with ~200 hp in pokemon or again they will most probably lose.
gyarados opens sableye, donk doesn't : gyarados can try to set up however they are still reliant on their opening hand to provide them with lots of basics, as sableye will not aid in playing lots of high health pokemon.
neither sableye : coin flip decides if gyaradps loses instantly to the donk, and if not there is still a high chance that the sableye player will be able to donk going 2nd as there is no spiritomb.

Therefore with both decks having 4 sableye, the donk deck is still more likely to win, because even getting a trainer turn before them, you have to be able to survive their initial ~200 + damage without being completely crippled, and this only happens the 50 % of the time they don't go first. So if 50% of the time you don't instalose but instead have to survive 200+ damage, which even with the ~ 50% chance of a collector in your opening hand is no easy feat, subsequently giving the sableye-donk deck a significantly favourable matchup against you.

Even adding 4 spiritomb does not quell the chance of a donk, and sadly a format in which you MUST run 8 cards, regardless of their usefulness to your deck, just to be have a fair chance of surviving the donk, is not a nice format to be playing in. Especially considering the other possible decks ; machamp sablelock, magnezone, etc, that your extra cards ( for one matchup...) are not so useful against during a longer game, leaves you with the dilema of : teching vs sabledonk and making all of your games against decks that are not running these extra cards significantly worse, simply because you already have 4-8 dead cards, or having a high chance of being donked by sabledonk.

All of this results in a format which personifies flippymon.