BSF 2019: Weiss Schwarz Top 4 Decks + Some Fun Stats

Because Bushi sometimes takes their sweet time releasing even just the names of the top 4 decks, about a third of this table is still unofficial for the time being – I’ll keep updating it until all the official info is out.

At locations for which they’ve already published the full top bracket and deck lists, I’ve added links to each individual deck list in the table (as usual, they only publish deck lists for the top 3 teams though). At all other locations, deck placements are based on either Bushi’s FB posts or information I’ve gathered from players who were there – big thanks to everyone who helped me put this together!

*Note – As of August 5th, all of this data should match their official posts and website entries.

If you’re into numbers, I’ve added some stats at the end of this post, and if you wanna read my tournament report from our Springfest in Munich, I made a separate post for that here.

Springfest 2019 – All Top 4 Weiss Schwarz Decks

Statistics

All of the numbers below are only in regards to the top 4 decks & teams, not the entire pool of decks (I might bother gathering that info next time, but that’s a big maybe). Since I’m still missing info for 3rd place in Houston, the current calculations are based on 59 teams and 177 players instead of 60 teams and 180 players in total. The calculations are based on 60 teams and 180 players/decks in total.

Considering all the hype for Konosuba after worlds, I kinda expected the teams playing it to top Springfest about as often as those with Bang Dream or AOT – and yet there were about 15% more teams with BD and/or AOT than teams with KS. Honestly, just the fact that almost half of all top 4 teams had a BD player is amusing to me. It’s also interesting that outside of BD (who got its latest English set in the middle of Springfest), the other two most prevalent sets on successful teams were SAO and AOT, both of which had their last support printed in 2017 … yeah, when something is impactful in the EN meta, it sticks around for a while.

It’s kinda funny how just between those two decks, there’s a fundamental difference in why they’re as good as they are and how people build and play them. AOT is one of those sets that have “the” meta build, and then you have slight variations depending on personal preference and expected match-ups. KS and LSS are kinda similar in that regard, but to a lesser degree: I still think there are more people choosing between 8 gate vs. stock-soul/gate or between Chika vs. Ruby than between the Eren or Christa climax combo. But on the other hand, SAO (and BD just the same) have so many different good card options that at the end of the day, they’re just as amazing as the sets with a more defined meta, if not better.

All in all, I’m really glad that the English side of the game right now isn’t absolutely dominated by one set with one build, since multiple similarly viable sets with similar tournament prevalence and similar standings are what makes the game interesting. And personally, I actually enjoy not knowing my opponent’s whole deck as soon as they play their first level 0 😛

Anyway, if you divide the above numbers by 3, you get the percentages of set prevalence on the individual player level. This is where, at least in my opinion, it’s really obvious that we have a pretty healthy meta right now.

Proportionally, no set really stands out at all. Sure, 15.3% of all top 4 decks were Bang Dream, but that’s really closely followed by AOT’s 14.7% and SAO’s 13.6%. There are easily more than 5 sets you could argue as the best and still have a valid point, both objectively and regarding tournament presence – so if the game continues to develop this way and there are no more sudden Eren-esque disruptions, I think the English meta wil be perfectly okay.

And for a final treat, I also made a breakdown of sets by each seat position – not that it really matters, I just found it interesting 😛

Thank you all for reading 🙂 I hope you guys did well in your Springfest tournaments and I wish you best of luck in the autumn circuit as well!