Commander Powertable

[Judaspriester]

Hey,

I've promissed that I'll post the power table I wrote together with dexflux some time ago. Here it is.

The following table seeks to rank the power level of individual Commander/EDH decks to better the playing conditions and level the playing field between decks.

Capabilities of each deck are categorized in between 0 to 5 in the following categories:

Manabase   ☆☆☆☆☆
Tutors   ☆☆☆☆☆
Acceleration   ☆☆☆☆☆
Interaction   ☆☆☆☆☆
Mana Curve   ☆☆☆☆☆
Combo Potential   ☆☆☆☆☆
Utility   ☆☆☆☆☆
Card Power   ☆☆☆☆☆
Synergy   ☆☆☆☆☆

The categories are defined as followed:

Manabase (how consistent the deck potentially is regarding mana accessibility)

☆☆☆☆☆ - only basics and taplands/gainlands
★☆☆☆☆ - basics/taplands/utility lands
★★☆☆☆ - basics/taplands/few untapped nonbasics
★★★☆☆ - basics/taplands/many untapped nonbasics
★★★★☆ - shock/fetch manabase + unfetchable nonbasics
★★★★★ - full suite of ABUR duals/shocks/fetches/powerful nonbasics

Tutors (how consistent the deck potentially is regarding card accessibility)

☆☆☆☆☆ - no tutors
★☆☆☆☆ - few high cmc tutors (e.g. Diabolic Tutor)
★★☆☆☆ - few low cmc tutors (e.g. Demonic Tutor)
★★★☆☆ - many low cmc tutors (e.g. Vampiric, Mystical, Enlightened)
★★★★☆ - many low cmc tutors + other (repeatable) tutor cards (e.g. low cmc tutors + Sidisi, Rune-Scarred Demon, etc)
★★★★★ - full suite of low cmc and/or deck relevant tutors

Acceleration (how fast the deck can generate large amounts of mana)

☆☆☆☆☆ - no ramp
★☆☆☆☆ - basic land ramp/no rocks
★★☆☆☆ - basic land ramp/Sol Ring/signets
★★★☆☆ - nonbasic land ramp/higher density of rocks
★★★★☆ - mono green ramp or Urborg+Coffers
★★★★★ - full suite of rocks and ramp (e.g. Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Serra's Sanctum, etc)

Interaction (how well the deck can interact with the board and other players)

☆☆☆☆☆ - no interaction
★☆☆☆☆ - very low interaction (e.g. two spell removal/counter suite)
★★☆☆☆ - low interaction (e.g. basic removal/counter suite + few boardwipes)
★★★☆☆ - medium interaction (e.g. low cost spot removal + modal boardwipes)
★★★★☆ - high interaction (e.g. extensive removal/counter suite + boardwipe suite)
★★★★★ - full control suite

Mana Curve (mana cost effiency)

☆☆☆☆☆ - extremely high average cmc (cmc >- 5)
★☆☆☆☆ - high average cmc (cmc <- 4.5)
★★☆☆☆ - medium average cmc (cmc <- 4)
★★★☆☆ - low average cmc (cmc <- 3.5)
★★★★☆ - very low average cmc (cmc <- 3)
★★★★★ - extremely low average cmc (cmc < 2.5)

Combo Potential (potential to win on the spot via combo and/or lock)

☆☆☆☆☆ - no (infinite) combos
★☆☆☆☆ - janky multiple card combo without redundancy and/or consistency
★★☆☆☆ - janky multiple card combo with redundancy (and potentially consistency)
★★★☆☆ - typical combo wins without redundancy and/or consistency (e.g. Kiki-Jiki combos)
★★★★☆ - typical combo wins with redundancy (and potentially consistency)
★★★★★ - typical combo wins with redundancy and consistency (and potentially protection)

Utility (access to utility effects)

☆☆☆☆☆ - no utility
★☆☆☆☆ - few utility cards (e.g. Bojuka Bog and Ghitu Encampment)
★★☆☆☆ - high power utility at high cost (e.g. card draw on lands for 5 mana)
★★★☆☆ - moderate and high power utility at moderate cost
★★★★☆ - high power utility at low cost (e.g. Maze of Ith)
★★★★★ - abundant high power utility at low cost (e.g. Maze of Ith)

Card Power (amount of individually powerful cards / average card power level)

☆☆☆☆☆ - very low individual card power (e.g. only commons or cards that are usually dead in hand)
★☆☆☆☆ - low individual card power
★★☆☆☆ - medium individual card power (e.g. most bulk rare cards)
★★★☆☆ - high individual card power (e.g. most planeswalkers)
★★★★☆ - very high individual card power (e.g. Parallel Lives, planeswalkers, Atraxa)
★★★★★ - extremely high individual card power (e.g. Wurmcoil Engine, Ulamog, Doubling Season)

Synergy (synergistic value of possible card combinations)

☆☆☆☆☆ - essentially just a bunch of cards with no effects
★☆☆☆☆ - the barest minimum of synergy - cards interact with each other at all
★★☆☆☆ - useful synergies, but relatively harmless (e.g. blinking Mulldrifter)
★★★☆☆ - less harmless (e.g. repeated blinking of Mulldrifter, Deadeye Navigator synergies)
★★★★☆ - dangerous (e.g. Brago blinking the board for five triggers or more per turn)
★★★★★ - extremely dangerous (e.g. Doubling Season into planeswalkers)


I've also added a pdf with a printable summary. If I haven't make any mistakes here, the size should fit with the normal card size, so you can put the summary in the deck box.

The table won't cover every problem, and there may still be strong and weak 3 star decks, but it should at least help to smooth out the matches.

[CleanBelwas]

Hey man.

This is awesome. Seems really comprehensive and should yield consistent results for people. Really cool document.

One potential future improvement that could be made if you feel inclined would be to update from a 1-5 to a 1-6 rating system. Scoring within an even range is widely considered more useful as it forces people to lean one side or the other. On a 1-5 scale it is very easy for people to sit in the middle, but those people would then be encouraged to lean towards a 3 (slightly weaker) or 4 (slightly stronger) result.

I appreciate that there is a 0 option as it stands but there is an argument that anyone who wants to make use of this is probably not going to be a zero.

Just an idea if you fancy it. I've read quite a bit on the subject for work and pretty much everything I read recommends 1-6 so thought I'd pass on the idea.

Either way though, this is really good and I'll certainly be using it in my playgroup.

Cheers for doing the legwork and writing it all down in a coherent fashion

[ApothecaryGeist]

@judaspriester - This is AWESOME!!!  I already like this better than the 10 point scale that I have seen, which has always seemed completely subjective and arbitrary to me.

Just curious how your group uses this table.  Do you calculate an overall ranking of your deck? (ex: my mana base is a zero, all other categories are a 5, therefore my deck is 4.5 stars)?  Or do you discuss your deck on each category separately?


The first 5 categories seem very straight forward and simple, as objective qualities have been included in each category.


The last 4 categories, though, seem as subjective as the general 10 point list.  How does your group overcome this subjectiveness?


Combo Potential:  It is my experience, that unless the deck was built to be a 5, people claim they have no combo potential.  They later discover all kinds of combo potential as they play the deck.


Utility:  I'll be honest, I don't really know what this word means.  I bet most other people really can't define it either.  I've been playing Magic since Revised.  I've been playing Commander REGULARLY since 2011.  I don't know the difference between a "utility card" and a card that has an effect that is good for my deck.  Where does utility end and  interaction/card power/synergy begin?


Card Power: again, this is the entire problem with the 10 point scale.  Different people and different playgroups evaluate cards differently.  My playgroup may not think that Cyclonic Rift is a very big deal.  But I may go to another playgroup that feels it is so powerful as to merit banning.


Synergy:  It is easy to see the synergy difference between a 0 star and a 5 star deck.  But what about evaluating between a 2 and a 3?  Or a 3 and a 4?  Again, very subjective.


Again, this chart is AWESOME!!!  Don't take these questions as a complete criticism.  I'm not trying to pee no your cornflakes here.  I'm curious how your group(s) address these issues.  I'm curious to use something like this with my group to help us all be on the same page.

[Judaspriester]

Well, the point is that we invented this for our playgroup some time ago, but never really put the list to use.

For the points, we tried to add some examples, but I agree with you that it will be difficult sometimes to say this is 2 or 3 star in some categories. But with a scaling of 0-45 in total, a inaccuracy of 1-2 stars shouldn't be a that big deal.

about the subjective stuff, yeah, I agree with you that it can be difficult, but I think at least within an existing meta, it is possible to roughly describe these points. I've got alot of discussions with Deflux about these 4, but we finally decided to add them and then look what happends.

The idea for usage was to take the average of all categories and then try to match decks similar decks together.

In general, I don't think this table is enough to assure matches on a equal level. but its a foundation from where you can start to discuss how strong a deck is compared to another one.

[Morganator 2.0]

Alright, let's try this out. I'll try to include a wide variety of decks.

Captain Sisay

This was definitely my strongest deck. I say "was" because without Paradox Engine, it's just a fancy stax deck. This deck could consistently win turn 4, and had an adaptive stax strategy to deal with the faster decks.

Mana Base: ★★★☆☆ - basics/taplands/many untapped nonbasics. No taplands, but also no fetch lands. To be fair, this is true for all of my decks.
Tutors: ★★★★☆ - many low cmc tutors + other (repeatable) tutor cards (e.g. low cmc tutors + Sidisi, Rune-Scarred Demon, etc) I only really needed Enlightened Tutor, Worldly Tutor, and a few others to get some more specific cards (Namely Scavenging Ooze and Containment Priest). Sisay could search for almost everything I'd need.
Acceleration: ★★★★★ - full suite of rocks and ramp (e.g. Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Serra's Sanctum, etc). Ramp was super important for this deck.
Interaction: ★★★☆☆ - medium interaction (e.g. low cost spot removal + modal boardwipes). No boardwipes, but the removal I did have was top-notch.
Mana Curve: ★★★★★ - extremely low average cmc (cmc < 2.5).
Combo Potential: ★★★★★ - typical combo wins with redundancy and consistency (and potentially protection). Assuming it was safe, consistent turn 4 wins. There was also Dosan the Falling Leaf and stuff like Apostle's Blessing to protect both Sisay and Paradox Engine.
Utility: ★★★☆☆ - moderate and high power utility at moderate cost. I'm not liking how utility is defined. I had a lot of high power utility, but it wasn't always low cost. Stuff like Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Karn, the Great Creator could shut down entire strategies. And when I needed the game to end (and didn't have Paradox Engine) I'd go for Iona, Shield of Emeria or Brisela, Voice of Nightmares.
Card Power: ★★★★★ - extremely high individual card power (e.g. Wurmcoil Engine, Ulamog, Doubling Season).
Synergy: ★☆☆☆☆ - the barest minimum of synergy - cards interact with each other at all.
Overall: 3.77 (★★★★☆, approximately). Seems a little low for what I expect to be my best deck.

Mishra, Artificer Prodigy

This deck almost entirely depended on Possibility Storm. As a result, it didn't have much of a backup plan, and had huge consistency problems. It was also self-destructive... because it revolved around Possibility Storm.

Mana Base: ★★★☆☆ - basics/taplands/many untapped nonbasics
Tutors: ★★☆☆☆ - few low cmc tutors (e.g. Demonic Tutor).
Acceleration: ★★★☆☆ - nonbasic land ramp/higher density of rocks
Interaction: ★☆☆☆☆ - very low interaction (e.g. two spell removal/counter suite)
Mana Curve: ★★★★☆ - very low average cmc (cmc <- 3)
Combo Potential: ★☆☆☆☆ - janky multiple card combo without redundancy and/or consistency
Utility: ★★☆☆☆ - high power utility at high cost (e.g. card draw on lands for 5 mana)
Card Power: ★★☆☆☆ - medium individual card power (e.g. most bulk rare cards)
Synergy: ★★☆☆☆ - useful synergies, but relatively harmless (e.g. blinking Mulldrifter)
Overall: 2.55 (★★★☆☆ approximately). Fair assessment. This was one of my weaker decks.

The Scarab God

This deck is a little crazy. I've had some really weird plays with it, because of the interactions with both my creatures and my opponents' coming back from the graveyard.

Mana Base: ★★★☆☆ - basics/taplands/many untapped nonbasics
Tutors: ★★☆☆☆ - few low cmc tutors (e.g. Demonic Tutor)
Acceleration: ★★☆☆☆ - basic land ramp/Sol Ring/signets. These colors don't have many good options. maybe I should finally test out Charmed Pendant.
Interaction: ★★★☆☆ - medium interaction (e.g. low cost spot removal + modal boardwipes). Artifact removal is garbage. I'm stuck using Meteor Golem. Meteor Golem! That's Bojuka Bog level bad.
Mana Curve: ★★★☆☆ - low average cmc (cmc <- 3.5)
Combo Potential: ☆☆☆☆☆ - no (infinite) combos. However, I do sometimes steal other peoples combos. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Combat Celebrant were already in my opponent's graveyard. What am I going to do? Not grab them?
Utility: ★★★★★ - abundant high power utility at low cost (e.g. Maze of Ith)
Card Power: ★★★★☆ - very high individual card power (e.g. Parallel Lives, planeswalkers, Atraxa)
Synergy: ★★★☆☆ - less harmless (e.g. repeated blinking of Mulldrifter, Deadeye Navigator synergies)
Overall: 2.88 (★★★☆☆ approximately). Hmm... alright... I feel like it should be higher than this. While this deck lacks tutors, the card advantage is very high, mostly from various card draw effects, The Scarab God's scry trigger, and the copious amounts of graveyard recursion.

Edric, Spymaster of Trest

Currently my strongest deck (RIP Sisay). A very high interaction and heavy card draw deck. It wins by looping extra turn spells non-infinitely.

Mana Base: ★★★☆☆ - basics/taplands/many untapped nonbasics
Tutors: ★★☆☆☆ - few low cmc tutors (e.g. Demonic Tutor).
Acceleration: [blank]. Not sure how to rate this. The deck doesn't really need ramp (low mana curve). I have a few elves and Sol Ring, but that's about it. Probably a ★★☆☆☆ rating.
Interaction: ★★★★★ - full control suite
Mana Curve: ★★★★★ - extremely low average cmc (cmc < 2.5). I mean, just look at it.

Combo Potential: ★★★★★ - typical combo wins with redundancy and consistency (and potentially protection)
Utility: [blank]. I don't really know what else this deck needs besides removal and counterspells. I mean, it's got Null Rod. Probably a ★★★★☆.
Card Power: ★☆☆☆☆ - low individual card power. In any other deck, Faerie Miscreant would suck.
Synergy: ★★☆☆☆ - useful synergies, but relatively harmless (e.g. blinking Mulldrifter). Is card draw off of Edric synergy?
Overall: 3.22 (★★★☆☆ approximately). Really need to find a better way of averaging the ratings.

[Judaspriester]

Hmm.. according to Moganators feedback, I think we need something better than taking the average. The question is, what would be better?

For the "soft" criterias: if you got some ideas how to clarify them, I'm open for suggestions. If you think some of them should be replaced/removed, we can also talk about that.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I think you're too harsh. You should probably rate the deck for more in terms of what it needs, on an abstract level. If my Esper deck desperately needs better ramp than signets but none is available it's going to get a 2/5 for ramp. But if your CMC is below 2 I don't think you need any. That's 5/5 for being the best possible, ever, out of all cards that exist.

[CleanBelwas]

I think implementing some sort of weight multiplier to the categories would help.

For example, I have a Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain storm deck with an average cmc of 1.7. This deck doesn't care as much about ramp but cares massively about synergies.

Orchestrating a scoring technique that somehow takes this into consideration might mean the overall score is more reflective of the things the deck wants to achieve.

Off the top of my head, it could be something like this:

We have 9 categories: Mana Base, Tutors, Acceleration, Interaction, Mana Curve, Combo Potential, Utility, Card Power, Synergy.

We order these in priority order for what the deck wants. Using Jhoira as an example, it might end up like this:

1. Synergy
2. Combo Potential
3. Mana Curve
4. Utility
5. Tutors
6. Interaction
7. Card Power
8. Acceleration
9. Mana Base

All this deck cares about is storming off. It wants cheap and free artifacts to trigger Jhoira to draw more cards to play more cards to increase the storm count. Everything in it is cheap or free, so it doesn't need too much acceleration and is fine with basics (basically once it hits 4 mana it goes off). It doesn't care much about individual cards so card power and tutors are less important. It does care about triggering Jhoira over and over. A little bit of interaction just in case.

So, now we have our order, let's start adding in some multipliers for relevance:

Category                       Star Rating       Multiplier         Score

Synergy                        4                      9                    36
Combo Potential            4                      8                    32
Mana Curve                  4                      7                     28
Utility                           3                      6                    18
Tutors                          3                      5                    15
Interaction                   2                      4                     8
Card Power                  2                      3                     6
Acceleration                 3                      2                     6
Mana Base                   2                      1                     2

So just taking an average of the start rating we end up with a 3.0 star deck. ((4+4+4+3+3+2+2+3+2) / 9)

If we add up the weighted scores, we get to 151. Divide that by 5 to get our equivalent total star rating (30.2), then divide by 9 to get our average -  3.25

It's still pretty inline with the original score, but it has given a little benefit in the areas the deck cares about and has been a little lenient in the areas the deck doesn't care about, giving it an overall better average.

If people can be bothered with it, this kind of thing might be slightly more reflective of what a deck's true score is as it goes some way to providing a score based on context.

Just a thought. If people like the idea, feel free to use and adapt it to your needs.

[Gothos]

@Judaspriester: Neat list, much appreciated!
@Morganator: Fair assessments. Unweighted mean does not do reality justice.
@CleanBelwas: Quite the elegant solution!
Great Forum

[dexflux]

Thank you all for the replies and criticism!

I like the idea of weighted values! Might need to test some variations of that.

As for the soft criteria, like utility, I think it would be better to clarify as far as possible (the list is getting old by now and of course our pool of knowledge of deckbuilding has become larger as well). The given examples for each category are fairly incomplete, too, so I'd like bolster them, as well.

What the list does not do well is judge based on matchups. Decks may be similarily strong, but one deck's strategy has some advantage against the other's. But that should be within reason not to measure given the singleton nature of the format.

       

[Judaspriester]

I've thought about the comments and suggestions.

first of all, I think we should concider the abilities of the colorcombination we picked while evaluating the deck. E.g. accelleration in mono white is very hard, but if I go close to the possible maximum (just excluding some inefficient cards) it should end up with 4-5 stars, even if this isn't comparable to a mono green deck with the same rating.

For the problem that the table doesn't cover some strenghts right, I would prefere a similar but easier solution than CleanBelwas suggested.
My problem with his solution is, that you'll have to weight all 9 categories compared to each other. This can be time consuming if you want to make this accurate and even then, there is some space for discussions.
In stead I would suggest taking 1 main category that has the weight 3 and 2 important categories with the weight 2. the remaining 6 categories stay at weight 1. Then get the total star rating and divide the outcome by 13.
I think this is the better solution since it's much easier to pick 3 important categories for a given deck in stead of ranking the whole catalog.

[CleanBelwas]

As for the soft criteria, like utility, I think it would be better to clarify as far as possible (the list is getting old by now and of course our pool of knowledge of deckbuilding has become larger as well). The given examples for each category are fairly incomplete, too, so I'd like bolster them, as well.

This is a great idea. Examples tend to help people contextualise things and should help people score more accurately.

What the list does not do well is judge based on matchups. Decks may be similarily strong, but one deck's strategy has some advantage against the other's. But that should be within reason not to measure given the singleton nature of the format.

I think this is fine. This list seems really good at figuring out power level in a vacuum, but naturally there are going to be good match ups and bad ones for any deck. People should be able to apply common sense and know what kind of decks theirs are good and bad against.

Again though, this seems like a really solid foundation to build upon for accurately judging power levels, so cheers to you guys for putting in the time and effort and sharing it with the rest of us.

[Aetherium Slinky]

Did some literal back of the envelope math here and ended up getting very similar scores for my decks. They're all hovering around 2.5 which probably isn't true because I know some are better than others. I think the whole average thing flattens deck variety, surprisingly, putting almost all decks in the mid category. We should actually test it out with some cEDH decks and see them get 4-point averages despite them being the best of the best.

The categories should definitely be more specific, giving substantially more credit for higher power levels.

Example; Mana Base:
1 - no duals or tapped duals
2 - conditional untapped duals
3 - shocks
4 - shocks and fetches
5 - shocks, fetches and ABUR duals

Example; Synergy:
1 - no synergy beyond basic tribal (e.g. Coat of Arms, Lieges)
2 - some two-card synergies
3 - half of the deck has focused synergy (e.g. multiple sources and targets for untapping)
4 - most cards can interact with each other (e.g. almost everything is applicable for Krark-Clan Ironworks, Food Chain, etc)
5 - almost all cards can interact with each other in a variety of ways

Example; Interaction:
1 - basic removal (e.g. Disenchant, Murder), basic wipes
2 - low cost removal, modal wipes
3 - modal/asymmetric wipes, low cost extensive removal
4 - some control, asymmetric wipes, low-cost counters or protection
5 - extensive control, asymmetric wipes, low cost counters or protection (e.g. Force of Will and Pact of Negation)


Also note how I trunkated the categories. You could give yourself a zero but I like the idea that a good average deck is 3 and not 2.5. Scoring out of 6 seems a bit arbitrary.


***

I think you should really compare apples to apples. Green has access to some really good ramp and green should rightly get some high marks for ramp. Contrast: there's probably a cap to how much ramp you can put into a red deck so they shouldn't really get that good grades. You're trying to assess whether this deck is a good match for that deck in a pub environment. If you know your score beforehand it's all good or if you can hand out a piece of paper it's all good but you can't say "these are my rules and those are yours" based on the colour you're playing.

***

Weighting categories is easy, btw: just cap the points you could get. If you have a really important category you can give it seven degrees of freedom but for a less important one, like mana base, you could let people choose between "no untapped duals", "untapped conditional duals, some shocks" and "full suite of shocks, fetches and ABUR duals". That way the category can only contribute three points to the overall score.

[dexflux]

Did some literal back of the envelope math here and ended up getting very similar scores for my decks. They're all hovering around 2.5 which probably isn't true because I know some are better than others. I think the whole average thing flattens deck variety, surprisingly, putting almost all decks in the mid category. We should actually test it out with some cEDH decks and see them get 4-point averages despite them being the best of the best.

As for cEDH, 4,x values would be fine given the system, since a 5,0 average would mean to excel in any category, which even the best decks just don't do. Exactly 5 is currently meant as an "impossible value", or ceiling. It's more problematic when non-cEDH decks get similar values when they just could not compete. This needs testing.

Other than that, your examples for the given categories should help to evaluate. Just note: a mono color deck may use just basics and have the most efficient manabase possible. That should be considered in the examples.

Also note how I trunkated the categories. You could give yourself a zero but I like the idea that a good average deck is 3 and not 2.5. Scoring out of 6 seems a bit arbitrary.

I'm in favor of the 1 to 6 system that CleanBelwas mentioned. That forces the user to lean more into a direction instead of opting for average values if in doubt.

I think you should really compare apples to apples. Green has access to some really good ramp and green should rightly get some high marks for ramp. Contrast: there's probably a cap to how much ramp you can put into a red deck so they shouldn't really get that good grades. You're trying to assess whether this deck is a good match for that deck in a pub environment. If you know your score beforehand it's all good or if you can hand out a piece of paper it's all good but you can't say "these are my rules and those are yours" based on the colour you're playing.

I agree. A nongreen deck just has less and worse options for ramp. Therefore, no weighting according to color is needed - just state the fact and embrace that the deck isn't as strong in that regard.

[CleanBelwas]

For the problem that the table doesn't cover some strenghts right, I would prefere a similar but easier solution than CleanBelwas suggested.
My problem with his solution is, that you'll have to weight all 9 categories compared to each other. This can be time consuming if you want to make this accurate and even then, there is some space for discussions.
In stead I would suggest taking 1 main category that has the weight 3 and 2 important categories with the weight 2. the remaining 6 categories stay at weight 1. Then get the total star rating and divide the outcome by 13.
I think this is the better solution since it's much easier to pick 3 important categories for a given deck in stead of ranking the whole catalog.

This sounds decent. Even when I was just writing out my initial idea I was thinking "this is taking bloody ages".

Just adding weight to a few key categories could be a nice middle ground between accurate representation and speed.