Missing Percentages
General forum
Posted on April 20, 2018, 1:45 a.m. by redbird97
I used to be able to see what % my decks were competitive v casual. From time to time I see them on decks I've looked at. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a box I need to check. Thanks.
I've heard random things about what the %'s mean. Does anyone have a definitive answer? Is it card quality or what?
April 20, 2018 11:32 a.m.
The best answer: It means nothing useful. It seems to compare the cards to other commonly used cards in the designated format, but also seems to take into account other, more nonsensical factors.
A while ago, someone built a deck that was entirely shock and fetch lands. It was given a score of 68% or so, despite being completely useless. When that user foiled the exact same deck, its competitive rating shot up to 75%, though there was no tangible changes.
Or, to use another example, I have a 240 card Battle of Wits deck on this site which is listed as 100% competitive, despite the fact at least 1.6% of the cards (the four Battle of Wits) are unplayable and it has some other less efficient cards to fill out the numbers.
It's a useful indicator that you have a bunch of commonly used, and therefore likely competitive cards, but you should not use it as your end-all-be-all, and certainty should not make its rating a point of pride (as I've seen some posters do).
April 20, 2018 11:44 a.m. Edited.
I've been wondering the same thing. My best guess is that cards that show up regularly in Top 8 or some arbitrary cutoff in any sanctioned format are competitive, while everything else is casual. It's easy to put together a deck with no synergy, bad land ratios, contradictory effects, and even mismatched lands and colors and still be 90%+ competitive. I use it as a rough guideline, not as a hard rule.
To be fair, measuring synergy is more of an art than a science. I'm not a programmer, but I suspect it's not easy to create an algorithm that describes how much better, say, Ripjaw Raptor + Pyrohemia is over Tarmogoyf + Karn Liberated.
April 20, 2018 11:44 a.m.
That was sort of my guess. I agree with the synergy comment you made. Thanks.
buckeyetron says... #2
there should be a checkbox in the "edit" option, but the competitive meter was entirely useless. it cannot accurately show how competitive a deck only is. at best, it measure how popular the cards are. not how good they are or how well they synergize together.
April 20, 2018 3:25 a.m.