competitive cards vs casual cards
TappedOut forum
Posted on March 5, 2023, 7:20 a.m. by Malicious
I typically use tapped out as a way to help build EDH decks, so I can more easily see how many cards I have for each function (Mana ramp, draw, board wipe, etc.)
I also want to try and make the decks as good as I possibly can, so I've tried to gauge some of my selections based on the competitive vs casual meter system. However there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for what cards are considered competitive vs casual. Can someone explain how the system determines if a card is competitive or not, and is there anyway they can make it where you can click on the competitive meter and it will show which cards are considered competitive and which are casual.
I want to make my decks better but unless there is some clarification on this system, then it really is a useless feature and should be removed.
wallisface says... #3
What seshiro_of_the_orochi said is correct, but just to extrapolate on that:
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individual cards aren’t “competitive” on their own. Amulet of Vigor, Murktide Regent, Stoneforge Mystic etc are all undeniably strong cards in decks we typically see them, bit their “competitiveness” is dictated entirely by the other cards in the deck and whether they have the support they need. Even cards that are seen of as “generically good” don’t show up in every top-tier deck that can support them (example being no Solitude in Modern Hammer Time).
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a decks competitiveness is also dictated by the meta it’s running in. The highest-tiered Burn deck would be completely uncompetitive in a world of Lifegain decks, and the strongest-possible Tron deck would completely suck in a world of land-destruction and/or Mill.
March 5, 2023 2:26 p.m.
it is an interesting discussion for sure, and for those who don't like it or find it useful or interesting, of course you can easily just opt your decks out of it so they don't display.
the above is true, you can't just jam a competitive card into your deck and the score will increase. the model looks at the composition of the deck and how that tends to be considered by users on the site--if its popular but isn't usually flagged competitive then we say its more casual. it would be nice to see some specific examples as to what seems wildly off so we can look into improvements, which we are always doing (or always attempting :)
March 5, 2023 2:39 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #5
I understand that the mechanics of the casual/competitive bar are probably (relatively) complicated and, at the same time, not complicated enough... but I love the idea and the fact that someone even tried. I like it and would vote to keep it, if for no other reason than to have people tinker with it and contemplate new ideas for it indefinitely.
March 5, 2023 3:01 p.m.
we'll be doubling down and releasing a deck uniqueness scale (think very unique vs practically a netdeck) at some point, which hopefully will foment even more controversy ;)
i get the criticism and know its very far from perfect or maybe even ideal, but its just too fun of a topic not to work on. very interested to see examples of what seems to be missing the mark, esp in eternal formats.
March 5, 2023 3:12 p.m.
wallisface says... #7
yeaGO that does sound cool. I think as these charts are added and expanded on, what could be very useful is to include a button popup/link roughly explaining how these are calculated and what message each chart intends to convey.
I think with the current one so few people know what’s going on with it, that it becomes hard to make any use from it. If there were an accompanying question-mark that when-clicked explained what’s going on, that would both allow people to make better use of this tool, while also preventing people making incorrect assumptions (and then deck building errors) because of it.
March 5, 2023 4:33 p.m.
i can do that. we have changed the methodology several times so its kind of been in forever-beta experimental mode for a while.
March 5, 2023 4:36 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #10
It seems like some of my decks don’t have the casual/competitive bar listed, is there a step I should take you have it included? My torture deck would be an example of that.
March 6, 2023 11:23 a.m.
DadHumanPraetor says... #11
The competitive meter isn't accurate. There is no objective way to rate a card's competitiveness, so the intention of the deck builder is usually what best characterizes a deck as being either casual or competitive, since these concepts are highly subjective in nature.
March 6, 2023 11:28 a.m.
wallisface says... #12
DadHumanPraetor there are some objective measures to rate whether a card is casual - for example, if a card is strictly-worse than another in the format, then there is no competitive reason to run it (unless you’re running it as copies 5-8), so that is one measure of rating. Some cards are also just universally bad, where no competitive reason could be made for running them.
It may be hard to judge a card as being “competitive”, but its pretty easy to judge a card as being “casual”.
March 6, 2023 2:05 p.m. Edited.
DadHumanPraetor says... #13
wallisface that's true, I have casual player bias and hadn't really considered that, but that is a good point, and it may be useful for me when I am explaining why my decks are NOT competitive, even if they have some spikey lines of play.
March 6, 2023 2:56 p.m.
grumbledore says... #14
i've been trying to quantify these types of views on decks and specific cards on a project ive been working on: https://www.commandersalt.com
i think commander is tricky because competitive can be pretty subjective, and there's no definitive metrics that can be scraped from competitive metas.
March 6, 2023 3:04 p.m. Edited.
Let's say for example I look up brago, king eternal on edh rec. Which has several thousand decks that it has pulled stats from.
And a card says it shows up 50% or more of those decks. Then it might be safe to say it's competitive from a sudo vote stand point. So let's say (with the exception of basic lands) your deck has 50 cards each of which has a 50% used rating on edhrec, and assuming basic land makes up 25 cards of the 100. So you have 50 out of 75 cards being "competitive". Your rating would be 67% comp vs 33% casual.
Not sure how hard it is to implement something like that, but I mean edhrec also sources thier information from decks not on thier website, so there has to be something they are using to gather those statistics.
March 7, 2023 12:05 p.m.
wallisface says... #16
Malicious the only thing that approach doesn’t take into account is “why” people are picking those cards. A card showing up 50% in a deck might be for budget reasons - due to the strictly better version being too expensive for most people. In that scenario, this card is still the “casual” option. For edhrecs statistics to be value to take at face-value, it would have to be doing some sort of filtering on its end, to only show decks intended for top-tier play.
March 7, 2023 1:26 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #17
I think the hyper-complex math that we do on our heads is ultimately the most important. This is why I really like the vote buttons, to fine-tune the first estimated evaluation. Be the change! Make those votes!
March 7, 2023 3:28 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #18
The competitive meter is 100% worthless. When Added Layers of Protection - Tymna & Sidar is supposedly 21% more competitive than Prossh's Dastardly Bastard Children - Group Slug (61% vs. 82%) that should speak volumes. My Tymna/Sidar is competitive but those scores should be reversed at the very least going off actual competitiveness, speed, and consistency.
March 7, 2023 4:52 p.m.
I wonder what might account for that? Is it possible that one has generally newer cards that we may have less data on? I see they are about the same age. We are trying to come up with a way to get more detail about what might be dragging down / inflating the score.
March 7, 2023 6:01 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #20
I think it might be newer cards can tank the scores since there's less data on them. I added Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Skyhunter Strike Force, and a couple other newer cards from ONE and BRO to my Isshin deck, and the competitive score dropped by about 30% lol. I've had it change by a few points give or take in the past, but the 30% drop was the largest I've ever seen. Since then it's more or less gone back up, but yeah I've tested changes on different decks to see what affects the meter.
March 7, 2023 6:11 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #22
It's not that big a deal. I figured the scores would eventually rebound, especially since the cards added were things you might find in "higher powered" lists.
It was kind of funny recently adding Demonic Tutor to a deck and seeing the competitive score move up by 1%.
March 7, 2023 6:31 p.m.
grumbledore says... #23
I would think that what is lacking is context behind the individual cards. Is it a tutor? Thats more competitive. Is it a fetch? Thats good. Is it a slow fetch? Thats bad. etc.
That's why I've been writing this rules engine to grep the oracle text of the cards and look for these types of patterns for analysis. It's pretty laborious and a crap ton of regex hah. But its fun. Anyways, I would think that you guys would need to do something similar in order to get accurate competitive classifications. Just my .02 ;)
March 7, 2023 7:21 p.m.
We do that in the card space feature (similar cards link on a card page) and as we perfect that we can tie it into this. For now we look at the pairwise cards and weight based on popularity and how it's tagged (competitive or casual). So it doesn't really come down to an individual score for a cards competitiveness but rather the whole composition. Aka adding a demonic tutor to a merfolk deck shouldn't push it meaningfully in either direction
March 7, 2023 7:31 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #25
yeaGO I've noticed that some hatebears seem to tip the scale a little more than they should imo (almost like they got grouped with stax pieces) so that's probably the majority of the difference in scores.
The newer cards thing is possibly an issue too but most of the newer stuff is around Streets of New Capenna or older (so I'd assume that's not too new?). Indulge / Excess, Scepter of Celebration, and Seize the Spotlight from SNC with only Blood for the Blood God!, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and The Meathook Massacre that're newer.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #2
The competitive meter is by no means any reliable source. Nobody really understands how it works, you'd be better of simply ignoring it.
March 5, 2023 8:08 a.m.