We had 4 malaks in my last group. The guy that got 1st didn't have drevan or malak. I can't speak for his other matches, but in the finals against me he won by 4 points - I needed 2 tries against 2 of his teams he needed 2 tries against one of mine but i screwed up and didn't leave myself a good counter to one of his so both of us ended up with a front territory holding on defense since he couldn't clear my malak, I couldn't clear one of theirs.
Strategy works, go figure.
I guess to be fair I faced 2 of the other 3 malaks, and I don't know if he faced the 3rd in round one, or only faced my malak.