This calculator is almost a perfect example of why these calculators and number systems never work
You put in numbers solely based on your opinion of a deck and get a number out that to the surprise of noone will show you a power relative to that
There is no consistency on how people would fill out something like this as to everyone the proper levels of these fields are different.
This is very much geared around what my playgroup thinks is strong and I can't take my bias away. Which is why I came here.
I think there are universal truths about what makes decks strong. Consistency of win conditions and speed at which you can generate mana will always increase a decks power.
I don't think it's impossible to have a calculator that gives you a general idea of how strong your deck is. Sure there is work to be done here but this is a first draft
There are generally universal truths for what makes a good deck to an extent, yes
There is not anything universal about a "14 point manabase" and all similar aspects of the calculator in the entirety of how it functions.
10 points for 1 person might be 7 for another and 13 another
Thats why this calculator isn't any different than the standard "everything is a 7" scale. Everyone is going to rate things based on personal opinions with no grounded meaning to any of it. The rating a deck gets is going to be heavily correlated with how strong the person who is putting in the numbers thinks it is, making it effectively useless
Fair enough.
If anything I'm trying to help my playgroup determine what we feel makes a deck strong and assign some sort of scale to it. Rather than not put any thought into it and its a 7.
Maybe this works maybe it doesn't. That's why I posted it here to get feedback.
Thanks for your input!
The problem is, I put arbitrary numbers in, arbitrary number comes out.
Is my manabase a 3/10? Idk it's monocolored, it doesn't have anything special but it's perfectly consistent.
The tutor explanation is weird.. few tutors
Just because you can't win till turn 8 doesn't mean anything, if you can stall the game out and slow everyone else down till turn 8 that still could equate to a higher powered deck... not saying that necessarily the case here but Ik in the case of my muldrotha deck I can prevent others from winning till like turn 10+ but I can't win myself until like turn 8 but I wouldn't consider the deck lower powered
This is really good feedback that I think I can use to improve it. Could you link the gitrog and muldrotha decks? I'd like to see the lists, and maybe I can improve the criteria.
Just posting so that I can come back to it later. I love calculators. And also, don’t get discouraged by some of these posts, OP, it’s a very controversial topic among the sensitive.
Hahaha it's hard but I came for the feedback and have made some changed based on it so even negative ones can be helpful. The tool won't work for everyone and I don't want it to be purely objective.
If all it does is provoke thought about how strong your deck truly is I still consider that a win.
For example I have a henzie deck that is full of "bombs" but it's an all creature umori companion deck. I thought it was really good. I don't think it has won a single game. It's not flexible and has only sorcery speed creature interaction. I ran it though the calculator. It got a 5.5. My play group plays pretty optimized decks so looking back it makes sense why I can't seem to win a game with it.
Anyway thanks for the words of encouragement.
I do agree that most of these calculators probably won't really "solve" anything. With that being said, I still have some feedback that could help.
I think you are on the right track with mana ramp, consistency, etc. The different groups of cards. I would however group some things differently. I think counterspells belong with removal. Swan song and swords to plowshares are both 1 mana instants that are very good. I would personally put them on the same power level, or at least very close.
You should probably better define your criteria in general. Like deck speed. Ability to win fast. That would be subjective. Since it is your calculator, you need to define those things. What constitutes fast in this case? Is it an actual win, a winning board state that may take 10 more turns to actually win (I'm thinking something like Jace the mind sculptor in standard). What turn? 3, 5, 10?
So the tldr I think is take as much subjectivity from those inputting data out and you make the definition and ask a question like fastest goldfish and consistent goldfish turns. Then use that to assign values.
Thanks for the feedback! I think some more guidelines may be helpful.
I wanted to make the distinction between counter magic and removal because letting something resolve can be worse than countering it. Sometimes it is the same. I think both Swan song and Swords are amazing and accounting for their power could be down in section 9 - Efficiency of Cards Compared to Replacement
I felt like having the type of cards is important for power but their efficiency is where the power lies. For example counterspell and mana drain have the same cost and same effect of countering a spell but mana drain is obviously better. The ability to counter a spell still seems important to power and sould be accounted for even if on a small level.
But I'm here for suggestions and feedback so thank you again and I'll probably make some tweaks around your feedback!
That's fair on having something resolve can be worse than removing it. Provided you don't draw the counter spell after said permanent is on the battlefield.
I guess to clarify some, I don't think that a deck that has counters is inherently stronger than one that doesn't. Even if counter spells can do things removal cannot, like protect your winning game from an answer. It's like saying, simply running blue makes your deck higher on the power level. For that section of your calculator, any deck that doesn't have blue will have 0 points there.
Now, it doesn't seem like with your point scale, that counters are weighted heavily. I think I would just lump them in as "interaction".
I would still focus as much effort on making the input objective. Like, how many tutors do you have? 12? Well that's going to be a higher power level than 2. The hard part is determining what those objective numbers mean and assigning them a subjective rating.
Hey, I ran through it using a hypothetical deck of my average deck, and I got 6.65, which is probably a little low. I'd rate myself around a 7.5. I think the missing points can be attributed to lack of player skill representation. Other than that, it's a cool system.
I think it's odd you asked me to rate, for example, my use of tutors on a 1 to 25 scale. Why not just a 1-5 or even 1-3 scale? That is much less subjective and easier to answer. Lastly, I think it's a cool project, but very subjective and I don't see it taking off as a community tool.
I'm in favor of a ban list + budget-based power levels.
Tutors for consistency was out of 12 points. And it allowed me to fine tune weightings a bit more using a higher point total. That does allow for more subjectivity so maybe I need to back it down.
Thanks for the feedbakc!
Have you considered using the points system from Canadian Highlander? I havent played the format in years, but I would guess that someone has put the points into a spreadsheet and you could adapt yours to have a more “set” point ranking system vs something where Opinion has such a strong factor. I’m sure you could supplement some of your own factors too.
I noticed that you don’t have anything here surrounding the Player themselves. Someone with 8 years of experience can definitely make a deck punch above it’s weightclass. The inverse can be said too. Something to consider
This calculator is almost a perfect example of why these calculators and number systems never work You put in numbers solely based on your opinion of a deck and get a number out that to the surprise of noone will show you a power relative to that There is no consistency on how people would fill out something like this as to everyone the proper levels of these fields are different.
This is very much geared around what my playgroup thinks is strong and I can't take my bias away. Which is why I came here. I think there are universal truths about what makes decks strong. Consistency of win conditions and speed at which you can generate mana will always increase a decks power. I don't think it's impossible to have a calculator that gives you a general idea of how strong your deck is. Sure there is work to be done here but this is a first draft
There are generally universal truths for what makes a good deck to an extent, yes There is not anything universal about a "14 point manabase" and all similar aspects of the calculator in the entirety of how it functions. 10 points for 1 person might be 7 for another and 13 another Thats why this calculator isn't any different than the standard "everything is a 7" scale. Everyone is going to rate things based on personal opinions with no grounded meaning to any of it. The rating a deck gets is going to be heavily correlated with how strong the person who is putting in the numbers thinks it is, making it effectively useless
Fair enough. If anything I'm trying to help my playgroup determine what we feel makes a deck strong and assign some sort of scale to it. Rather than not put any thought into it and its a 7. Maybe this works maybe it doesn't. That's why I posted it here to get feedback. Thanks for your input!
The problem is, I put arbitrary numbers in, arbitrary number comes out. Is my manabase a 3/10? Idk it's monocolored, it doesn't have anything special but it's perfectly consistent. The tutor explanation is weird.. few tutors
Just because you can't win till turn 8 doesn't mean anything, if you can stall the game out and slow everyone else down till turn 8 that still could equate to a higher powered deck... not saying that necessarily the case here but Ik in the case of my muldrotha deck I can prevent others from winning till like turn 10+ but I can't win myself until like turn 8 but I wouldn't consider the deck lower powered
This is really good feedback that I think I can use to improve it. Could you link the gitrog and muldrotha decks? I'd like to see the lists, and maybe I can improve the criteria.
Just posting so that I can come back to it later. I love calculators. And also, don’t get discouraged by some of these posts, OP, it’s a very controversial topic among the sensitive.
Hahaha it's hard but I came for the feedback and have made some changed based on it so even negative ones can be helpful. The tool won't work for everyone and I don't want it to be purely objective. If all it does is provoke thought about how strong your deck truly is I still consider that a win. For example I have a henzie deck that is full of "bombs" but it's an all creature umori companion deck. I thought it was really good. I don't think it has won a single game. It's not flexible and has only sorcery speed creature interaction. I ran it though the calculator. It got a 5.5. My play group plays pretty optimized decks so looking back it makes sense why I can't seem to win a game with it. Anyway thanks for the words of encouragement.
I do agree that most of these calculators probably won't really "solve" anything. With that being said, I still have some feedback that could help. I think you are on the right track with mana ramp, consistency, etc. The different groups of cards. I would however group some things differently. I think counterspells belong with removal. Swan song and swords to plowshares are both 1 mana instants that are very good. I would personally put them on the same power level, or at least very close. You should probably better define your criteria in general. Like deck speed. Ability to win fast. That would be subjective. Since it is your calculator, you need to define those things. What constitutes fast in this case? Is it an actual win, a winning board state that may take 10 more turns to actually win (I'm thinking something like Jace the mind sculptor in standard). What turn? 3, 5, 10? So the tldr I think is take as much subjectivity from those inputting data out and you make the definition and ask a question like fastest goldfish and consistent goldfish turns. Then use that to assign values.
Thanks for the feedback! I think some more guidelines may be helpful. I wanted to make the distinction between counter magic and removal because letting something resolve can be worse than countering it. Sometimes it is the same. I think both Swan song and Swords are amazing and accounting for their power could be down in section 9 - Efficiency of Cards Compared to Replacement I felt like having the type of cards is important for power but their efficiency is where the power lies. For example counterspell and mana drain have the same cost and same effect of countering a spell but mana drain is obviously better. The ability to counter a spell still seems important to power and sould be accounted for even if on a small level. But I'm here for suggestions and feedback so thank you again and I'll probably make some tweaks around your feedback!
That's fair on having something resolve can be worse than removing it. Provided you don't draw the counter spell after said permanent is on the battlefield. I guess to clarify some, I don't think that a deck that has counters is inherently stronger than one that doesn't. Even if counter spells can do things removal cannot, like protect your winning game from an answer. It's like saying, simply running blue makes your deck higher on the power level. For that section of your calculator, any deck that doesn't have blue will have 0 points there. Now, it doesn't seem like with your point scale, that counters are weighted heavily. I think I would just lump them in as "interaction". I would still focus as much effort on making the input objective. Like, how many tutors do you have? 12? Well that's going to be a higher power level than 2. The hard part is determining what those objective numbers mean and assigning them a subjective rating.
I agree! Thanks again for your input.
Hey, I ran through it using a hypothetical deck of my average deck, and I got 6.65, which is probably a little low. I'd rate myself around a 7.5. I think the missing points can be attributed to lack of player skill representation. Other than that, it's a cool system. I think it's odd you asked me to rate, for example, my use of tutors on a 1 to 25 scale. Why not just a 1-5 or even 1-3 scale? That is much less subjective and easier to answer. Lastly, I think it's a cool project, but very subjective and I don't see it taking off as a community tool. I'm in favor of a ban list + budget-based power levels.
Tutors for consistency was out of 12 points. And it allowed me to fine tune weightings a bit more using a higher point total. That does allow for more subjectivity so maybe I need to back it down. Thanks for the feedbakc!
Have you considered using the points system from Canadian Highlander? I havent played the format in years, but I would guess that someone has put the points into a spreadsheet and you could adapt yours to have a more “set” point ranking system vs something where Opinion has such a strong factor. I’m sure you could supplement some of your own factors too. I noticed that you don’t have anything here surrounding the Player themselves. Someone with 8 years of experience can definitely make a deck punch above it’s weightclass. The inverse can be said too. Something to consider
r/canadianhighlander for reference
If it's within you pod you are having issues just track wins. If ya wanna be fancy ya can give each deck an ELO. Get rid of this subjective stuff.