New Average CMC Calculation Parameters?
TappedOut forum
Posted on April 2, 2015, 10:48 a.m. by xiao.wen
Hey Guys, I cant even begin to list all of my favorite tools on the site here, but the average cmc calculation is definitely one of them. I've really started to develop a working awareness of what the numbers feel like in execution when playing out a deck in terms of rhythm and flow. However, it seems like in the past week (or three?) the parameters of how the number is calculated has been changed dramatically. From just glancing through a few of my decks, it seems that the calculation now factors in lands in a way it did not before and the numbers are much lower. At first I told myself, 'hrm ok well thats annoying, but its just another scale to relearn and get used to', but I realized today when thinking it through that averaging in lands the way it seems to do now is problematic. A control deck with more lands and more expensive cards has its cmc lowered by the increased number of lands whereas a weenie aggro deck with radically less lands gets its number inflated because theres less lands bringing it down.
Is there another nuance to the new calculation that I am not understanding? I understand that factoring lands in is certainly not 'incorrect' by any means, but If its as simple as how I just laid it out, it seems this number is now inferior as a barometric tool because they now must carry additional context of land count in order to understand the actual card costs as previously provided. Is there some other factor involved?
Femme_Fatale says... #3
Well, I requested 0 cmc cards and that is what we got. But I didn't think it would include lands as well. Basically because of Path to Perfection (which was once kor legions) and other similarly constructed decks in terms of Puresteel Paladin storm and Legacy Cheerios that all utilize nonland 0 cmc cards, I thought it would be important to factor those in to the average cmc.
So yeaGO, if possible, could you remove only the lands from the average cmc calculation and keep the nonland 0 cmc stuff still in there?
April 2, 2015 10:59 a.m.
woo! thanks guys, you guys rock. One of my least favorite parts of treasure cruise was that I would have to make annotations in my notes on all treasure cruise decks like 2.76 [2.01] with the bracketed number calculating the deck's treasure cruises as a 1cmc spell to give a (somewhat) more reasonable representation of the spell costs in execution. Counting lands like this feels like it would again require a bracketed land count in addition because otherwise it would not be difficult to make slower and faster decks with the same cmc based on this new calculation because of a 5 land difference or something.
April 2, 2015 11:07 a.m.
Sorry remind me again what sort of stuff was being excluded before
April 2, 2015 12:40 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #7
Lands are to be excluded from the cmc calculation. Nonland 0 cmc cards like Mox Opal and Kobolds of Kher Keep are to be kept in the calculation.
Here's another suggestion, a method to be able to alter the cmc of a card manually. For example, none of us cast a Tasigur, the Golden Fang for the full 6 mana. At most it is at 4, at least it is at 1.
April 2, 2015 1:04 p.m.
Right, yea, being able to manually tweak the delve thing would be ideal but probably a bunch more difficult to execute?
Preserving the new updated 'mox count as 0' but restoring the original 'lands do not count' would be the first simple excellent step!
Thanks for being so approachable about this. I've always loved this site and have lurked/explored/playtested daily for over a year now and have learned an immeasurable amount, but being able to just get down and talk to you guys about this stuff feels great.
yeaGO says... #2
I think someone requested this.... Femme_Fatale?
April 2, 2015 10:53 a.m.