Hey, Morg, I've gathered you have a mild interest in stats. What are the chances that EVERY deck in EDH is either cEDH or a perfectly balanced 7?
Mild is putting it lightly. We've talked about power levels
one or
two or
three times.
I really can't solve this right now unfortunately. I mean, I'd like to try, but I have a lot on my plate. So I shouldn't. I shouldn't mess with this. I shouldn't even be spending time making this post. Even if I want to. I have other things to do.
...
Hey do you know what my favorite thing about Deckstats is? The stats!Screw it, let's do this. Get ready for a long post.
So the answer to "what are the chances that EVERY deck in EDH is either cEDH or a perfectly balanced 7?" is zero or very close to zero. If you're asking what are the odds that most decks are at 7, that I can try and help with.
I imagine that most people
consider the rating to be a percentile rating. This is different from percentages. What this means is that if you were to take one of the strongest decks and call it a "10" and one of the weakest decks and call it a "1" with 8 other increments in between, your deck would be at position 7. Either that or as you said, everyone thinks that their deck is average, and because the school system shows that 70% is generally the class average on a bell curve, they assume that their deck must be at 70% or a 7. If we were treating this like a percentage rating, on average we would expect people to rate their decks closer to 5 or 6. This is not the case.
As for finding out the chances that a given deck is a 7 versus any other rating... you'd think it would be about a 10% chance right? If you have 10 options for power level, and you guess your deck's strength at random, you're going to be correct about 10% of the time. Makes sense yes? Unfortunately, that's not how percentiles work. Continuing with the classroom analogy, if we have 100 students and ordered them from lowest grade to highest grade, the student at percentile 50 (and most percentiles around 50) would have a grade of about 70%. Percentiles work differently. It is quite possible that the majority of people have decks around the 70th percentile (power level 7 out of 10). I don't think it's likely, but it is possible. So in order to find out what the odds are that most decks are a 7, we would need some numbers to work with. This thread is a good start.
I'm not sure if this part will help, but it might. Do you remember
this thread where I wanted to make a commander league for everyone? With everyone being double vaxxed I wanted to give this a shot, so I got some friends together and we finalized the ranking system. We wanted to get people to rate their own decks so we had to make sure that the ratings were concise. Here's what we ended up with.
A-Rank
These are the competitive commander (cEDH) decks. The best of the best. They are refined and as well made as you can make them.
• You’re using a consistent game plan that you can enact in over 90% of the games you play.
• You have multiple combo lines, a resilient game plan, and/or combo protection.
• Your deck can consistently (not occasionally) either:
o Threaten a win on turn 3 or 4
o Stop a combo by turn 3 or 4
B-Rank
These are the fringe decks. They're not as fast or as consistent as Rank A, but they can still do amazing things, and only just fall short of greatness.
• Like rank A these decks are refined to perform really well, but they are less consistent, less resilient, and a little slower.
• Game plans are still consistent and can be enacted most games.
• Decks will try to threaten a win (or stop one) on turns 5 to 7. They might be able to win sooner, but not consistently.
C-Rank
Stronger casual decks end up here. Decks have a focused game plan, but there are noticeable flaws with consistency and interactive power. Their games aren't fast, but individual card power is still very high.
• Games will end around turn 9, but it’s unlikely that anyone is counting at this point.
• Individual card strength is high. Cards have good synergy with each other and the commander.
• Decks can still have combos as win-conditions, but strong synergies and incremental damage are more common here than in ranks A and B.
D-Rank
Your "average" casual decks end up here. There is a very general gameplan and a core strategy, but there are issues with trying to enact the plan.
• While there is an overarching strategy, there is no key line of play. The deck knows how it wants to win, but it is lacking in power and consistency. Variance between games is high.
• No combos at this point (unless they are super janky and convoluted) but mass combat damage and strong synergies between cards are common.
E-Rank
Low-power decks. Commander pre-cons would be rank E.
• Decks will almost exclusively win with incremental damage.
• Card choices are not optimized.
• If you weren’t in any other ranks, you’re rank E.
If you’re torn between your deck falling into one of two ranks, go with the higher rank.
The league never fired (due to logistical reasons) but I did get a chance to do some preliminary testing with this rank system. I wandered the tables and asked people "Read this. What rank do you think the deck you're using is?"
Any guesses as to what people said?
Most players said that their deck was C-rank.That was interesting to me. I specified that "D" should be the average and yet everyone was still inclined to rank their deck just above average. Even more strange, if you were to transpose the 5 ranks onto the 10 power levels, you would expect the usual rating of "7" to line up with "B-rank". That wasn't the case here. The same people that would say their deck is a "7" would also rate it at "C". Very interesting.
If you happen to want to talk about this rank system more, please only bring it up here if it is relevant to this discussion. Otherwise, you can post in the old thread.
Alright, enough rambling and stalling. Time to go over my decks. All decks are viewable through my profile link.
Edric = 9. This is a cEDH
counterspell deck but it has fallen out of favor with the recent power creep.
Sisay = 8. Formerly competitive (was likely a 10) before
Paradox Engine got banned. It's good at the toolbox stax strategy, but has trouble with closing the win.
Krenko = 7. A fringe competitive goblin swarm. Strongest Krenko I've seen but that's likely me being pretentious.
Scarab God = 6. A strong casual deck but it's too slow in the early game to make it's way into fringe and competitive pods. This used to be the deck I tend to pull out when people say "my deck is a 7". I would win ... often.
Haldan+Pako = 6. Strategy is to play Pako by turn 3, then figure out how to win with my opponents' cards as this deck has no combos or win-cons built-in. Except for commander damage through Pako.
Brudiclad = 5 (maybe 6, haven't tested it enough). Token deck. Mostly wins with that construct token from stuff like
Karn, Scion of Urza. This is my go-to deck when people say "my deck is a 7". This deck still usually wins, but it's a closer game. I'd like to think I'm winning here due to skill.
Vaevictis = 5. A casual disruptive deck that wins with
Primal Surge... or at least wants to. This deck is an even match against most decks where the owner claims "7".
Licia = 4. The idea here was to make a deck that can win with both
Near-Death Experience and
Test of Endurance. Mostly wins with commander damage. Deck is kinda slow and runs out of cards to cast frequently.
Mishra = Unknown. Individual card strength is high, but the strategy is weak. The deck is a huge glass canon. I have no idea how to rate it.