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Added an analysis of 509 online decks for the current standard (SOM+M12+ISD+M13)

mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2012/08/pre-r...



From 509 decks with 462 unique cards and a total of 33,076 cards the top 21 cards account for 37.45 percent of all the cards.

Thanks Riverx, I am still too new to know what analysis helps and what is just counting the leaves of a random tree. I love the depth of design of the game.

It's interesting that your own results were able to compare to tournament results. The don't go as far to break it down by card usage often like you did, but in result of deck usage Delver is one of the most frequent decks used ATM. The top 16 cards on your list are all cards that make up delver. I found that a little interesting, anycase. Yes the standard metagame tends to focus on a handful of decks usually and those are the ones that are frequently played by everyone. It's a little sad when you see the numbers really. It points out the lack of creativity within the MTG community these days. Kitchen table decks (made from someone's own creation from what they have available in their collection) are few and far between. I miss the days when I could go to FNM and see a unique build that no one else was running that managed to go in and make it to the top 4 or so.

MTG can be a very mathematical game is you chose for it to be. It's a great game in that regard since players that don't do/look into deep deck analysis can still do well, but deep deck analysis can really help some players in deciding many things. How many copies of a card to run, how many lands to run that produce a certain color and even how much siding in a card will effect you probability of you drawing it or the rest of the cards in you deck. Those are just some of the things deep deck analysis can answer. The last of which is especially helpful since it helps you realize what is important in your deck and what you should be taking out for the side boarded cards so that it doesn't hinder your game plan.

Anycase, enough of my rambling, welcome to the game and to the forums! I like the blog and am pretty impressed on the data you were able to collect. Nice job!

Thanks kashonismw for the kind words!

Great question silasw...I am plowing through the data in sequence. This is the first look at it. With 509 decks to analyze it will take me a while to clean up the file and to begin to answer even more interesting questions than the simple one I attempted first (and yours is one of them, for sure).

I analyzed another sample recently (100 or so ISD block from real-life tournaments-thanks Wizards for all this great data!), and in that case went down to which cards made it to the deck and which ones were sideboard favorites-not earth-shattering, but I think interesting. The sideboard makes Magic very interesting.

Just like the current standard is a Delver gig...and I also love variety, ISD block from the sample I looked at was a 4-Garruk 4-Huntmaster of the Falls gig.

Here is that other sample:

{Deck versus sideboard use}

mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2012/07/card-...

{Colors and Rarity of cards played}

mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2012/07/color...

{Land use and most popular cards}

mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2012/06/isd-a...

Bought three M13 packs at Target, pulled two Nicol Bolas in a row!!!

mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2012/08/satur...