A Formula for Determining your Deck's Power Level

[WizardSpartan]

So I saw a post on Reddit discussing a formula created that defines the power level of your deck, and it intrigued me.

Here's the webpage describing how the formula works and how to plug your deck into it: https://discipleofthevault.com/2020/11/18/my-edh-power-level-formula/

Note that cEDH decks aren't supposed to be 9-10, they're supposed to be above 10 with this formula.

According to the formula, here are my lists:

Ezuri: 9.6

Kumena: 7.4

Alesha: 7.8

Meren: 7.7

I talked a little bit more in-depth about what I thought of the formula in terms of my decklists, but I think they are definitely sequentially correct in terms of power level. I think, though, that one big shortcoming of the formula is the lack of a metric for protection/recursion, both of which are very important for consistency. I think if something like that was implemented, then my decks would be a lot closer to my personal view of their power levels (Kumena dropping to about a point below Alesha and Meren dropping to half a point below Alesha).

Would love to see everybody else plug in their decklists into the formula and give a take on how well the number they get matches to their personal view.

Cheers!

[ekans_]

Do you know if there is a formular for non-EDH decks?

[WizardSpartan]

Do you know if there is a formular for non-EDH decks?

No, unfortunately, there isn't. Non-EDH decks can work in vastly different ways (aggro, midrange, combo, and control are just simple examples), so one couldn't create a single formula to accurately determine the power level of all of them. Also, there really isn't a current 1-10 system (I don't think) for constructed formats. Instead, I believe it's more along the lines of T1, T2, etc.

[Morganator 2.0]

I don't have time right now to go in-depth, but this looks like the best attempt at a formula so far. Of course there are ways of breaking it; a deck that is 100 tutors will have a power level of ~50.

[Dumb Luck]

So for the two decks in my signature, I got the following;

Arcades: 6.43
Charix: 8.22

[WizardSpartan]

Charix: 8.22

Out of curiosity, do you think your Charix deck is an 8.22 in reality? (An actual question, not being mean)

[Slyvester12]

Well, I gave it a shot with my four most played decks and... now I feel a little bad.

Ezuri, Elfball Combo: 12.57

Scion, Dragon Combo: 7.21

Mayael, Big Boi Tribal: 7

Thrasios and Silas Renn, Myr Combo:...13.43

So... I wasn't expecting that. The Scion score surprises me a little, but I think it's mostly due to the unorthodox nature of the deck. I didn't count reanimation in any way, and I only counted Scion for 2 in the tutors slot, and he's the only tutor in the deck. I feel the deck would score higher if I interpreted it a little differently, and probably be more reflective of its actual power level.

On the other hand, I think I might have to stop calling the myr combo deck silly. And maybe apologize to the people I've played with it. It is pretty consistent and it does have a lot of layered routes, but wow I was not expecting it to beat Ezuri.

Overall, I think the formula does a decent job. It needs to have variations for graveyard decks. I know the original post mentioned ways to adapt it, but there should be more concrete solutions. Leaving every graveyard strategy open to interpretation means the formula can be applied asymmetrically with those decks, leading to improper analysis. I also think the removal portion could be separated into more variables, lending different weight to stax effects, targeted removal, and board wipes. I would even go as far as to say that certain kinds of board wipes should be given higher value than others (symmetrical v asymmetrical, types of permanent hit, destroy/exile/bounce). Still, I'm pretty happy with this and look forward to the eventual, glorious day we can somewhat quantitatively talk about deck power levels.

[Jellyf1sh]

I knew beforehand that most of my decks fall squarely into the "pretty strong for a casual deck" category. But this formula is still ranking most of the ones I've done so far slightly weaker than they are in my brain, haha.

So far my Alela deck has blown all my others out of the water at 7.14, with the next highest being Edric at 4.92. Edric plays stronger than that though, seeing as most every creature in the deck is "card draw" if I'm doing things right.

I have a Kathril deck that's giving me trouble. Is he a graveyard deck? Does recursion count as tutoring? Agree that graveyards are hard to quantify here. It's still fun to have actual ~mathematics~ to apply to my decks, though! Gonna make my whole playgroup do this for comparison's sake, lol!

[Slyvester12]

Charix: 8.22

Out of curiosity, do you think your Charix deck is an 8.22 in reality? (An actual question, not being mean)

I was honestly thinking the same thing until I looked at the deck. I don't know if it's really an 8.22, but that is a sick Voltron deck. Nice build.

[WizardSpartan]

Ezuri, Elfball Combo: 12.57
Thrasios and Silas Renn, Myr Combo:...13.43

Don't mind me, just going to take a look at your, uh, Myr Combo list to see exactly what's going on. Hmm. I honestly don't have the brainpower right now to see the actual combo. I see you have Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge/Phantasmal Image/Sculpting Steel to essentially give you a very cheap Myr Battlesphere? Master Transmuter is there to bounce said cheap Myr Battlesphere back to hand? I'm such a noob.

One thing that the formula does a bad job of measuring is how you win the game. Tutors and draw to get you to your combo are nice and all, but Consultation Oracle vs a 6 part jank combo (not talking about your Myr combo, Sly, I'm sure it is very compact) is a major difference, even if Consultation Oracle has only 5 tutors and the jank combo has 10.

One thing that was noted on Reddit was that unorthodox decks suffered with this formula. For whatever reason, the cEDH deck Heliod Stax was only a 5-6 according to the formula, but that's obviously incorrect. Scion is definitely the case there.

Jellyf1sh, I would say that recursion isn't tutors. Tutors would be anything that can take a part of your win condition out of your library and put it into either your hand or a zone that you can access. Still, definitely hard to measure graveyard decks. I feel ya.

[Slyvester12]

Yeah, I've been meaning to write a primer for the deck, but haven't gotten around to it, yet.

The most compact combo in the deck is infinite mana -> Thrasios draws the whole deck -> BSZ everyone for infinity cards.

I usually try to win with finite mana, flash, a bounce effect, at least two copy effects, Myr Battlesphere, and something that makes mana, like Urza or Earthcraft. I then bounce Myr Battlesphere and replay it to make 4 Myr Tokens. I make mana with the tokens, bounce Battlesphere again, and repeat until I have enough tokens to attack with three Myr Battlespheres (two copied versions), tap all of the tokens for the attack trigger, and one shot everyone before combat damage. Perfectly compact, minimal jank combo.

There are a lot of layered routes involving making infinite artifacts of some kind, which make infinite mana with Urza, Clock of Omens, Ashnod's Altar, etc... and finish with Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge death lasering everyone.

Basically, the power rating is probably not entirely unwarranted and I should reconsider the deck in my mental rankings.

EDIT: I should also mention that the jank combo only costs 1 mana per loop if the Myr Battlesphere I'm bouncing is a Sculpting Steel using Deadeye Navigator, and can be free or even mana-positive if I have an affinity/artifact discounting effect or something that produces more than 1 mana per token I create. Again, totally not a 10 card jank pile.

[Xaarvaxus]

I tried my hand at running a few of my decks through this formula and the exercise mainly served to remind me why I'm not in a profession that requires a ton of math....

After looking at the write-up then looking at my decklists, I'm not really sure how to quantify some cards.  Would I count a card like Muddle the Mixture twice for being a tutor and interaction? [It's in the deck as a tutor so I only counted it as such] Would most people consider Lim-Dul's Vault as a tutor? [I didn't in my 'calculations' but YMMV]  I guess I'd want to see an expanded list of examples in each category that were fringier inclusions to get a better idea of a baseline for each. 

Assuming I did the math correctly, the decks I sampled all came in at just over a 5 to just shy of a 7 with Kess the lone exception at just over 10 which probably isn't how far off from where I've considered them. 

[WizardSpartan]

I counted Muddle the Mixture twice in Kumena, as it serves both purposes. Lim-Dul's Vault is 100% a tutor as it can, at the cost of a bit of life, essentially be a 2 mana Vampiric Tutor with an additional upside.

I also definitely think commanders should count as 2+ for relevant sections. My Kumena deck only has 6 pieces of card advantage in the deck, but I have ample protection for Kumena to lean on his 2nd ability to provide a lot of draw.

So far, though, this is pleasantly surprising. I find it interesting that such a simple formula is doing such an decent job (on average, ofc there are outliers) giving an estimation of a deck's power level. Obviously it's not perfect, but it's still really cool.

[Aetherium Slinky]

My Merieke Ri Berit scores 10.55 but it's really not THAT strong.

My Kinnan cEDH scores 17.15 so I think it just breaks the formula completely.

I think tutors are overvalued in this formula because that is what the two decks have in common.

[WizardSpartan]

My Merieke Ri Berit scores 10.55 but it's really not THAT strong.

My Kinnan cEDH scores 17.15 so I think it just breaks the formula completely. I think tutors are overvalued in this formula because that is what the two decks have in common.

Also, your Kinnan deck has, like, 16 pieces of ramp. It's probably that, not the 4 tutors. I only saw the section labeled spell tutors, missed the other 2 tutor sections. Who puts all their different kinds of tutors in different sections anyway?? /s