Yesterday I worked on recreating my favorite FiveThirtyEight infographic using the data we’ve collected from the site. If you’re following me on Twitter, you probably saw some escapades as I tried repeatedly to get this right, and even the final image that I posted wound up slightly off. >.< The biggest culprit was the play-in rounds of Pro Tour Kaladesh and Pro Tour Aether Revolt, which deeply confused my script that attempted to figure out who was in the top 8 of a given event. Second-biggest was PT Kyoto 2009, which apparently only had 14 rounds of Swiss, and my program then gave everyone a bye in rounds 15 and 16. ^_^; Oops.

Here is, as far as I can tell, the correct table. This graph tabulates the percentage of players with a given record that have gone on to make the top 8. Data comes from all 16 round split-format PTs (ones with both draft and constructed). That’s the last 28 tournaments. Some multi-draw columns were omitted due to small sample sizes. On the new, standalone page with the updating version of this table in the stats hub you can now mouseover the cells (or tap them on mobile) to see the data; the tooltip shows {the number of people who made top 8 after having this record} / {the number of people who have had that record in total}.

Here’s a couple of notes about the unlikely numbers in the table.

• The only person to miss the Top 8 with a 12-3-1 record (37 match points) was Kenny Oberg in Amsterdam 2010. He finished a distant ninth on breakers; Kai Budde was eighth.
• There was also one person to miss the Top 8 from 12-2: Francesco Cipolleschi at Pro Tour Nagoya 2011. Sorry, Francesco…
• In seven of the 28 tournaments, nobody on 36 match points made the top 8. PT Kaladesh was the last time the door was closed on them. Twice three 12-4s made it (PTRTR, PTEMN).
• The 16-0 box belongs to LSV, but do you remember who the other person was to have a chance at matching him? That would be Stanislav Cifka at PT Return to Ravnica. Kelvin Chew beat him in the final round to relegate him to the 15-1 box. I was surprised that there was also only one inhabitant of the 14-2 box; I guess if you don’t have a good reason to dream-crush someone then at there’s no need to play the last round out with a 14-1 or 13-2 record. The lone person to achieve that record was Chris Fennell at PT Amonkhet, who (I believe) played the last round for team series reasons as he was paired against Musashi’s Ken Yukuhiro.
• I find it pretty amazing that nobody has flamed out from 10-0 yet. I guess it’s difficult to make it to 10-0, as there’s often only one or two undefeated players after day one to begin with. Plus your tiebreakers at 10-0 will be good enough to make it in at 12-4 when someone on 36 points is admitted. But you can go 1-5 or 0-6 from that position and miss, can’t you? My guess is that the 100 in that box should actually be in the 90s somewhere, and over time it will decrease a bit.
• One person has come back from 1-3 to make the top 8: Alexander Hayne at PT Avacyn Restored. It was… a miracle. (Sorry, had to.)
• The only recovery from 1-2-1 was Eduardo Sajgalik at PT Return to Ravnica.
• While I’m sure many people have run off five straight constructed wins from 7-4, the only one of those to wind up 12-4 and make the top 8 was Noah Swartz at PT San Juan 2010. It helped that Noah started 7-0, so his tiebreakers were as good as they could have been.
• Noah is also one of the answers to the following trivia question: which players have made top 8 of a PT despite going 0-3 in a draft in that PT? There are four total; the other three people to do this are Brian Kibler (PT Austin 2009), Naoki Nakada (PT Paris 2011), and Jiachen Tao (PT Oath of the Gatewatch). They all 0-3’d the draft to start day two. Note that the 0-3 box in the table is a flat zero, but that doesn’t tell the whole story about drafts on day one because the draft used to be rounds 6-8. Still, it is true that no one has ever 0-3’d their day one draft and made top 8.
• Last one for now: the seven people to come back from 0-2 are, in chronological order,
  1. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa (PT San Jose 2010),
  2. Alexander Hayne (PT Avacyn Restored),
  3. Kamiel Cornelissen (PT Theros),
  4. Anssi Alkio (PT Born of the Gods),
  5. Yuuki Ichikawa (PT Magic 2015),
  6. Ricky Chin (PT Battle for Zendikar), and
  7. Joey Manner (PT Kaladesh).

You’re not out until you’re out! (Or apparently until you’re 0-3.)