What does a "popular" stud mean?

Hello! 

I have been wondering, what makes a stud popular or one of the "big names"? I get that being on the leaderboards makes you "big", but are there other factors, like amount of pups bred? I'm going through my wolves' heritages and wanna see if they are from common or uncommon lines :)

A stud usually gets popular when they are the first of something. Faelor was one of the first Fox studs- so he had tons of pups because people were excited for TIIIs. Sunfall has lots of pups because his stats were sky-high. Ursa, Hanta, MOOF, Ghost At Twilight, etc. were popular because they were some of the first mutie studs. Now, people want to stay away because these wolves are so prolific, it wouldn't be surprising if two wolves they want to breed are distant relatives of one, especially muties. If you want NIB wolves, that would be a problem.

Common just refers to how common their bloodlines are! Frequently, leaderboard and rare (tier III, mutations) wolves will have a lot of demand as a stud and potentially have even more studs in their offspring. I think it really refers to how likely it is that when you find a wolf for sale or with a particular trait, it is related back to that stud. This likely stems from the desire of exclusivity paired with the common play style of avoiding inbreeding wolves, since it’s easier to avoid with obscure wolves in the lineage or lack of big names. 

Alright, thank you! <3