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Author Topic: Superior Numbers – Land Counts  (Read 1662 times)

robort

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Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« on: March 03, 2019, 05:11:17 pm »
https://articles.edhrec.com/superior-numbers-land-counts/

I know it is an older article on Edhrec but it was interesting to read.

The average deck on EDHREC is running 29 lands and four mana rocks. Is that number too high or too low?


That statement is the opening for reading and the analysis of the stats is also interesting.

The average deck on EDHREC is running just over 29 lands.
Decks added in the last year average 31 lands.
The average deck on EDHREC has 4.15 mana rocks

But if you also read A couple of notes about those stats:
There are some reasons behind it.

Then even on the Cedh statistical part of that as well. 

Then something for the Non Cedh.
Number of lands = 31 + amount of colors in commander’s color identity + commander CMC, with 0-CMC mana rocks counting as lands. 

I like this part "Regardless of how you get there, the current average numbers are far too anemic for anything but the most tuned of cEDH lists"

Now after all that reading It made me think... Weather I am running enough lands, or what type of lands from shock, bounce, fetch, tapped et-cetra there was this one part of the article where he did some experimentation..

26% of the decks tested missed their T3 land drop and were unable to play any mana source within the first three turns.
21% of the decks tested missed their T3 land drop but were able to play a mana source, i.e. two lands and a Birds of Paradise or Talisman of Dominance or fetching a land with something like Wayfarer’s Bauble.
More than 1/4 of all decks tested just flat out missed their T3 land drop. That is terrible, and it will make you lose games before they’ve even begun

I've hit that terrible aspect for whatever reason. I've seen some others in my playgroup also do the same thing. Could it be because one isn't playing enough lands or enough ramp/rocks? Are though process of thinking is I will make it work no matter what ingrained? We to stubborn to actually mulligan to get out of that "terrible" to actually "to this is allright".

To me it was just a reminder that lands do matter/count in any game of EDH. I personally like to try to play the game of magic instead of draw/go all because I had a 2 land hand that I was on intent on keeping no matter what because I was going to make it work.

A car needs gas, and just like a car a deck needs gas. So without any lands/ramp/rock to gas your car, that car isn't going anywhere fast.


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Soren841

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2019, 05:12:53 pm »
Basically cEDH is skewing the land count and casual is skewing the mana rock count. Also I dont think they counted dorks as rocks, which are popular in cEDH.
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robort

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2019, 05:26:46 pm »
If you took the time to read on it especially in the notes soren but I will post what was under the notes..


Some decks choose to not run any mana rocks, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have other ramp options. Looking through my own list of decks, for example, my Sigarda, Host of Herons enchantress deck has zero artifacts, and thus zero mana rocks, instead electing to run enchantment-based ramp like Overgrowth and Wild Growth. Decks like this will drag the overall stats down while still being able to ramp effectively.

Landfall or other themed decks may also run less rocks. Again, looking at my own decks, my Mina and Denn, Wildborn Landfall list is running a single rock – Sol Ring – because the deck is designed around generating Landfall triggers. The ramp there is skewed heavily towards green’s land ramp spells like Nature’s Lore and Sakura-Tribe Elder. Green is also statistically the most popular color in Magic, and its native land ramp probably also somewhat depresses the mana rock count while still leaving a deck with enough non-rock ramp to function.

Mana dorks like Llanowar Elves were also not figured into the equation, giving us yet another ramp archetype that allows a deck to function while dragging our above statistics lower and lower.
Small draw spells and filtering like Ponder, Preordain, and Opt also make it easier to find the lands and rocks in a deck with a lower land count.
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Soren841

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2019, 05:40:49 pm »
I read it when it came up last but I don't remember
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Morganator 2.0

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2019, 06:51:27 pm »
I actually think that EDHREC has its numbers wrong. Each commander gives its average lands and none of them ever went below 29. The lowest I found was 33.

cEDH is a minority, so it's strange that the minority of decks would skew the data this much.

Soren841

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2019, 08:17:31 pm »
 They might average them by price point (because EDHREC has categories by price) which would give lower land counts a higher impact on the average?
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WWolfe

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2019, 05:43:28 pm »
I'd be curious to see how they calculate this, it seems like it should be pretty straight forward but I agree with Morganator on his point that it seems odd that cEDH decks would skew the numbers that bad. However I do remember a few weeks ago posting that it seemed like I noticed a portion of decks on here that weren't cEDH decks that had a lower than normal land count.
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Soren841

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2019, 05:44:48 pm »
The problem is, of course, that TappedOut no longer is giving deck info to EDHREC..
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robort

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2019, 02:19:51 pm »
Morgantor, that is interesting..

157 decks that run on avg of 33 lands. I am interested to see when the 1st deck was posted for Marwyn compared to the last deck.. I scrolled to the bottom and did a count of lands and that was 19 so that leaves 14 other lands besides the top ones.. However this even baffled me..

Naturalize
36% of 157 decks
+22% synergy

Nature's Claim
28% of 157 decks
+15% synergy

There is more naturalize then nature's claim in decks and naturalize has a better synergy?

Then taking the supposive best synergy land you have..
Nature's Claim
28% of 157 decks
+15% synergy
Rounding up you have 48 decks running Nature's Claim. So 100+ other decks aren't running this, also could be the decks are incomplete and are a work in progress and who knows what.

Then running this formula..
Number of lands = 31 + amount of colors in commander’s color identity + commander CMC, with 0-CMC mana rocks counting as lands. The avg of Marwyn is 33 but the formula says it should be 35 lands. While looking in the list of Marwyn there is also 0-CMC mana rocks being played.

So is the Marwyn lists more based apon Casual players then instead of Cedh?

To me there seems to be misinformation that edhrec is presenting or just not enough information being presented when you look at say Marwyn or other commanders.
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Morganator 2.0

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2019, 07:55:48 pm »
The synergy is actually a measure of uniqueness. It works by taking the percentage of the card's frequency, minus the percentage of it's frequency among similar commanders (whatever that means, probably colors). So naturalize is used in 36% of Marwyn decks, and 14% of decks like Marwyn. 36%-14%=22% synergy.

Fortunately, EDHREC does use Deckstats data, so I'm going to run a few tests to see what's up. Don't be surprised if you see me posting some weird decks in the near future.

EDIT: I read some of the comments to this article, and double checked the math on one of them.

305 255 on EDHREC (as of March 7th, 2019)
242 686 decks use Sol Ring
Therefore, 62 569 decks do not use Sol Ring
On average, decks that use Sol Ring have 35 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the 62 569 decks without Sol Ring would have, on average, 5.72 lands.

Okay... Something's not right. I want to try this with other cards, but this one goes in basically any deck.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 08:18:43 pm by Morganator 2.0 »

WWolfe

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2019, 08:28:10 pm »
I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
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superduperbeans

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2019, 09:20:22 pm »
My best guess is, like Morganator said, they take deckstats into account. How many "EDH decks" are listed that are different banned lists or "best of" categories and such? Might not be all of the 62k+ but it certainly might be a contributing factor

Morganator 2.0

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2019, 09:29:33 pm »
Do you know what my favorite thing about Deckstats is? The stats.

So right now I'm working on trying to mess with EDHREC's algorithms. I'm making some weird decks, to mess with the stats of those commanders. Don't worry, they're not popular ones (Tobias Andrion, Gosta Dirk, and Livonya Silone, in case you're wondering). I'm probably going to have to wait until EDHREC refreshes it's data (likely at midnight tonight).

In the mean time, I'll show you what I have so far.

In the previous post, I calculated the average lands of decks not using sol ring, and found that it was 5.



So something is definitely wrong with EDHREC's data collection. But I replicated this for other cards to see what's up. I've also attached how I did these calculations to my post. The first equation is how to calculate the average number of lands across EDHREC, and the second is that same formula rearranged, to give us what the average number of lands is needed to skew the average to 29 lands.

So here's what I got for the top cards in each color. If you don't like data, just read the parts in bold.

139 768 decks can use Swords to Plowshares
73 795 decks use Swords to Plowshares
Therefore, 65 973 decks do not use Swords to Plowshares
On average, decks that use Swords to Plowshares have 36 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the decks without Swords to Plowshares have, on average, 21.17 lands.

153 979 decks can use Cyclonic Rift
80 970 decks use Cyclonic Rift
Therefore, 73 009 decks do not use Cyclonic Rift
On average, decks that use Cyclonic Rift have 36 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the decks without Cyclonic Rift have, on average, 21.23 lands.

142 909 decks can use Cultivate
63 343 decks use Cultivate
Therefore, 79 566 decks do not use Cultivate
On average, decks that use Cultivate have 37 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the decks without Cultivate have, on average, 23.43 lands.


154 357 decks can use Demonic Tutor
50 621 decks use Demonic Tutor
Therefore, 103 736 decks do not use Demonic Tutor
On average, decks that use Demonic Tutor have 37 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the decks without Demonic Tutor have, on average, 25.01 lands.

137 306 decks can use Blasphemous Act
33 611 decks use Blasphemous Act
Therefore, 103 695 decks do not use Blasphemous Act
On average, decks that use Blasphemous Act have 38 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the decks without Blasphemous Act have, on average, 26.08 lands.

Interesting. The more popular cards have a greater skew to the data. I went with the top card in each color, but what happens when I go to the bottom.

60 896 decks can use Assemble the Legion
9 028 decks use Assemble the Legion
Therefore, 51 868 decks do not use Assemble the Legion
On average, decks that use Assemble the Legion have 36 lands
In order for the EDHREC average land count to be 29, the decks without Assemble the Legion have, on average, 27.78 lands.

Boring data stuff is over. It seems pretty consistent that the average lands for a certain card is around 37, and the decks without this card are 25 or so. But this shouldn't be happening. We should expect the average to be the same for decks using Assemble the Legion as those that don't. Same with Cyclonic Rift, or Swords to Plowshares, or any card on EDHREC.

The lower half is skewing the upper half, and I think I know why. If EDHREC takes incomplete decks into account, then of course the average is skewed. I've often seen decks that are just spells, no lands, because the deck is still a work in progress.

I won't know for sure until I figure out how EDHREC collects deck lists.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 09:31:44 pm by Morganator 2.0 »

ApothecaryGeist

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2019, 10:13:10 pm »
Possible explanation?:

How does deckstats handle the data from "works-in-progress"?  There are many incomplete decks on this site.  Usually land is one of the missing components.

Another factor ... I have seen many EDH decklists that are not really decks.  They are things like a list of removal cards or ramp cards or some such.  These lists are often flagged as an EDH deck because the creator made the list for the EDH format.  But it is not really a deck.  And these listed don't tend to have lands.

If 20% of the decklists being analyzed aren't really decks at all, that could account for these discrepancies.

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Morganator 2.0

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Re: Superior Numbers – Land Counts
« Reply #14 on: March 07, 2019, 10:28:46 pm »

Another factor ... I have seen many EDH decklists that are not really decks.  They are things like a list of removal cards or ramp cards or some such.  These lists are often flagged as an EDH deck because the creator made the list for the EDH format.  But it is not really a deck.  And these listed don't tend to have lands.


Gosh, I wonder what kind of low-life would do such a thing.

And this is something I've considered. However, EDHREC has no way of displaying these decks lists, and there is no legendary creature (or planeswalker) attached. EDHREC is pretty good at filtering out decks that might look like commander decks but aren't (Pauper commander, Brawl, Tiny Leaders). Still, I'll add this as another thing to test.

As an aside, EDHREC used to have other websites dedicated to Brawl and Tiny Leaders. But... well, see for yourself. https://brawl.edhrec.com/
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 11:07:22 pm by Morganator 2.0 »