Power Level Model Discussion

[HoffOccultist]

Hello everyone.

For a while, I've been tinkering with a model for looking at power level in Commander. There are a lot of different models out there right now, and all of them have some solidly good points and some weaknesses.

The experimental model I've been working on is called SCARS, short for Speed, Consistency, Approach, Resiliency, and Synergy. It tries to marry both the power level of a deck with the intentions of the pilot, as I believe the two are both important to understanding power level (and I think this is one of the biggest issues with other models).

That said, it's very much a first draft, and I'm looking for feedback. It's pretty unwieldy right now, which is certainly a knock against it. I want to get feedback from as many different angles and places as I can to try to tweak it so it's more usable, more accessible, and more accurate, and it was time to bring it beyond my local playgroups.

Hopefully you can find some time to take a look and let me know what you think.


Thanks!

[CrazyPierre]

I read it!
I like where you went on the different axes of social play, construction, intent and time-to-win. These are all fantastic.
I really, really liked that you used examples of players and their decks, how they built them and where they felt they fit on interaction scales.

I'd like to see this model tested/used at large-scale Commander events, but I feel it would need some paperwork beforehand that might go beyond "Hey, you're running a degenerate combo/super-tuned build, go sit here" and so on. So....you'd probably need to test this internally (maybe on a local level, maybe in Discord channels) and go from there.

Thank you for your time in writing this!

[Rumpy5897]

Heh, I was literally just thinking today about starting up a thread about having a meaningful pre-game power level discussion, as my attempts to do so on Cockatrice have been reasonably patchy. I've had the most luck getting people to ballpark a win turn, that seems to carry the most immediate relevant information when conversing with randoms. I've kind of wanted to get some feelers for consistency and resilience, but haven't figured out how.

With regards to your model, you've got a lot of bases covered. I feel it could be simplified a bit:

• The speed/consistency/resilience deck categories make perfect sense. If nitpicking, your current definition of consistency is kind of wonky, as if you're performing "on time" in 25% of games then you've picked the wrong timing to expect. You could either go for altering your speed definition to specify a good/decent hand, or try to reword consistency towards variance. I like the latter a bit better, but don't know how to word it elegantly.
• The approach and synergy deck categories are indirectly covered by the other ones. If you start doing things turn eight, it doesn't matter if you did it with a pet card Marchesa or a chiselled Daxos.
• Most of the intent ones cover similar ground, which can be collapsed down to "how good of a pilot am I?" and "am I playing for fun?". As such, you could keep approach and synergy here... maybe rename synergy to skill. And you've got a new SCARS with half the fields to evaluate. Yeah, that seems good. Do that?
• Since I got into this a bit now, wording speed so that it's either turn ~6 or 9+ is kinda weird. Most of my decks reside in the turn 7-8 range actually.
• It could be worth to split up resilience and interaction, as those are different things. This would break up the nice SCARS abbreviation though.

Oh yeah, and the TL;DR was quite nice, consider linking to it early in your document or moving it up a lot.

[HoffOccultist]

I read it!
I like where you went on the different axes of social play, construction, intent and time-to-win. These are all fantastic.
I really, really liked that you used examples of players and their decks, how they built them and where they felt they fit on interaction scales.

I'd like to see this model tested/used at large-scale Commander events, but I feel it would need some paperwork beforehand that might go beyond "Hey, you're running a degenerate combo/super-tuned build, go sit here" and so on. So....you'd probably need to test this internally (maybe on a local level, maybe in Discord channels) and go from there.

Thank you for your time in writing this!

Thanks for taking the time to read it. I agree that it needs some testing and some real paring down to be more useful, but I wanted to get a groundwork out from my notes. Thanks for the feedback.

Heh, I was literally just thinking today about starting up a thread about having a meaningful pre-game power level discussion, as my attempts to do so on Cockatrice have been reasonably patchy. I've had the most luck getting people to ballpark a win turn, that seems to carry the most immediate relevant information when conversing with randoms. I've kind of wanted to get some feelers for consistency and resilience, but haven't figured out how.

With regards to your model, you've got a lot of bases covered. I feel it could be simplified a bit:

• The speed/consistency/resilience deck categories make perfect sense. If nitpicking, your current definition of consistency is kind of wonky, as if you're performing "on time" in 25% of games then you've picked the wrong timing to expect. You could either go for altering your speed definition to specify a good/decent hand, or try to reword consistency towards variance. I like the latter a bit better, but don't know how to word it elegantly.
• The approach and synergy deck categories are indirectly covered by the other ones. If you start doing things turn eight, it doesn't matter if you did it with a pet card Marchesa or a chiselled Daxos.
• Most of the approach ones cover similar ground, which can be collapsed down to "how good of a pilot am I?" and "am I playing for fun?". As such, you could keep approach and synergy here... maybe rename synergy to skill. And you've got a new SCARS with half the fields to evaluate. Yeah, that seems good. Do that?
• Since I got into this a bit now, wording speed so that it's either turn ~6 or 9+ is kinda weird. Most of my decks reside in the turn 7-8 range actually.
• It could be worth to split up resilience and interaction, as those are different things. This would break up the nice SCARS abbreviation though.

Oh yeah, and the TL;DR was quite nice, consider linking to it early in your document or moving it up a lot.

One of the reasons I started jotting down notes on this idea was seeing a number of people grumpy about pods during the CFB Commandfest Online and wondering if there was a better way. That said, I agree it needs work. Simplifying some of the guiding questions could work, or maybe combining some categories.

As to the speed wording thing with the turns for speed, I can see where that's a little inconsistent, so I will definitely go back and see how that can be tweaked wording-wise to make more sense as to where decks that fall between two "signpost" turns fit.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Rumpy5897]

The more I think about it, the more I like the abridged five-point version proposal, as it elegantly expands my own speed/consistency/resilience musings with a bit of quantified stuff that goes past the actual cardboard. Speed intent inherently matches speed deck, and consistency/resiliency/synergy intent are all flavours of "how well do I pilot this list". Plus this way having a 3/2 split in favour of actual deck construction also kind of makes sense. I've been trounced by enough clueless netdeckers

I'd quite like to do a bit of Cockatrice testing with this, but I'm not sure how well that would go.

[Rumpy5897]

I've been musing on this some more, and ultimately split up interaction and resilience before writing up STAIRS (consistency becomes sTability for the sake of an acronym). I'm quite happy with how this turned out, as it feels that these six categories cover the important gameplay aspects. This should make it a good list of things to touch on in a pre-game chat about power with willing parties. How does this look to you?

• Speed
  When will my deck get in a dominant position if undisturbed?

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  • Start at for 5 turns or faster, dock half a star for each turn beyond that, e.g. turn nine is .
• sTability
  How consistently will my deck get in a dominant position if undisturbed?

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  • Like clockwork on the forecast turn, rare delays.
  • Usually on time, 0-1 turns' worth of delay if encountered.
  • 1-2 turns' worth of delay pretty common, possibly tutoring impeded.
  • 2-3 turns' worth of delay pretty common, possibly tutoring and draw impeded.
  • 3+ turns' worth of delay pretty common, tutoring and draw impeded.
• Approach
  Just how much am I playing to win? Is the resource-denial social contract still in place?

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  • Gloves fully off, win at all costs, no social contract.
  • High desire to win, punches unlikely to be pulled, but respecting the resource-denial social contract (e.g. no Armageddon or Winter Orb).
  • Medium desire to win, likely to curb some interaction that would cause the table grief.
  • Low desire to win, prioritising table enjoyment over outcome.
  • Negligible desire to win.
• Interaction
  How much power do I have to interact with others?

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  • High quantity (15+) of premier interaction (e.g. top tier countermagic).
  • High quantity (15+) of efficient interaction.
  • Medium quantity (10+) of efficient interaction.
  • Low quantity (5+) of interaction.
  • Very low quantity (<5) of interaction.
• Resilience
  How well does my deck respond to being disrupted?

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  • Extreme levels of resilience, any interaction is shrugged off or stopped.
  • High degree of robustness, takes a prolonged effort to rein in.
  • A good amount of backup/redundancy/protection/recursion, can weather some interaction. Very commander dependent decks with maximum protection.
  • Depends on small set of cards, but runs some protection/recursion.
  • Crutches on 1-2 cards and runs very little protection/recursion for them.
• Skill
  How well do I pilot the deck?

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  • Very familiar with deck, actively seeking out and deploying nontrivial secondary synergies where appropriate.
  • Familiar with deck, aware of some nontrivial secondary synergies and threat assessing well.
  • Quite familiar with deck, able to comfortably execute its primary game plan and threat assess decently.
  • Somewhat familiar with deck, able to follow primary game plan.
  • Barely familiar with deck.

[HoffOccultist]

I've been musing on this some more, and ultimately split up interaction and resilience before writing up STAIRS (consistency becomes sTability for the sake of an acronym). I'm quite happy with how this turned out, as it feels that these six categories cover the important gameplay aspects. This should make it a good list of things to touch on in a pre-game chat about power with willing parties. How does this look to you?

• Speed
  When will my deck get in a dominant position if undisturbed?

  Show

  Hide

  • Start at for 5 turns or faster, dock half a star for each turn beyond that, e.g. turn nine is .
• sTability
  How consistently will my deck get in a dominant position if undisturbed?

  Show

  Hide

  • Like clockwork on the forecast turn, rare delays.
  • Usually on time, 0-1 turns' worth of delay if encountered.
  • 1-2 turns' worth of delay pretty common, possibly tutoring impeded.
  • 2-3 turns' worth of delay pretty common, possibly tutoring and draw impeded.
  • 3+ turns' worth of delay pretty common, tutoring and draw impeded.
• Approach
  Just how much am I playing to win? Is the resource-denial social contract still in place?

  Show

  Hide

  • Gloves fully off, win at all costs, no social contract.
  • High desire to win, punches unlikely to be pulled, but respecting the resource-denial social contract (e.g. no Armageddon or Winter Orb).
  • Medium desire to win, likely to curb some interaction that would cause the table grief.
  • Low desire to win, prioritising table enjoyment over outcome.
  • Negligible desire to win.
• Interaction
  How much power do I have to interact with others?

  Show

  Hide

  • High quantity (15+) of premier interaction (e.g. top tier countermagic).
  • High quantity (15+) of efficient interaction.
  • Medium quantity (10+) of efficient interaction.
  • Low quantity (5+) of interaction.
  • Very low quantity (<5) of interaction.
• Resilience
  How well does my deck respond to being disrupted?

  Show

  Hide

  • Extreme levels of resilience, any interaction is shrugged off or stopped.
  • High degree of robustness, takes a prolonged effort to rein in.
  • A good amount of backup/redundancy/protection/recursion, can weather some interaction. Very commander dependent decks with maximum protection.
  • Depends on small set of cards, but runs some protection/recursion.
  • Crutches on 1-2 cards and runs very little protection/recursion for them.
• Skill
  How well do I pilot the deck?

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  • Very familiar with deck, actively seeking out and deploying nontrivial secondary synergies where appropriate.
  • Familiar with deck, aware of some nontrivial secondary synergies and threat assessing well.
  • Quite familiar with deck, able to comfortably execute its primary game plan and threat assess decently.
  • Somewhat familiar with deck, able to follow primary game plan.
  • Barely familiar with deck.

Interesting, I like some of the ways this goes. I still think it's important to merge pilot intent and deck construction together in a meaningful way, but there's some ideas here.

[Rumpy5897]

I mean, this is literally your original scale, with a lot of the redundant categories merged together and interaction split off Pilot intent is still in there, and is in fact the closest in wording to your original one.

[BaronCappuccino]

Both models presented here put my own deck at a solid 4 of 5, which was exactly what I was shooting for, without any feelings-based guesswork on my end, so I can't do anything offer thumbs up.

[Treamayne]

Nice and well-thought-out approach. The product does seem to be paper specific (e.g. MTGO pick-up games don't really offer a chance for rule 0 interaction, and generally have minimal to no "banter" or socialization). For socialization in that venue, you really need to have a playgroup/clan with ways to interact before making the table. Though the game table does have a low-quality chat available once the game has started.

Have you considered keeping the two axes separate (rather than sums 0-50 total, two sums of 0-25 each)? This would allow a matrix representation of the final "scores" which may also make it easier to identify what players and deck might find good games together. See my quick example below:

Example Matrix

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This might make it easier to identify when deck each scoring 4.5-6.5 on your previous scale might not have the best game together if one or more decks are "reduced" due to the social scale when others are reduced to the deck scale. For example, I tend to have better cards, lots of synergy but prefer a relaxed and thematic game and I rarely enjoy games that would nominally be the same "power level" but I am the only one low on the social scale.

If I am playing in the upper-right of my example matrix and they are playing in the lower left - the experience for everybody involved may suffer.

Anyway, just food for thought. Thank you very much for the obvious effort involved and for getting this iteration of the conversations started.

[Rumpy5897]

I like this! It elegantly solves a lot of problems - HO's desire for equal weighting of social and construction, and my gut reaction of "huh, this is neat, but too coarse" when crossing paths with the original quadrants. While I still think deck strength trumps game attitude, I'm not willing to die on this hill.

I'm still a fan of keeping categories as minimal as possible for ease of use, including springing this on randoms. The main thing I've had luck with getting people on Cockatrice to reciprocate on is speed, which is a very important one anyway, so a good rudimentary ease-of-use skeleton would be speed on one axis and approach on the other. And then have consistency/interaction/resilience components from the STAIRS simplified thing come into play as deck strength fine-tuners for those willing to participate. This brings us close to the two most sensible existing heuristics (just flat-out asking about speed, and the quadrants) by virtue of simplicity, while offering an opportunity to get more detailed deck strength scoring via meaningful questions for those so inclined. What do ya'll think?

Skill could be a similar fine-tuner of the social axis maybe? I'm not sure where to put that.

[Inkeyes22]

Skill could be a similar fine-tuner of the social axis maybe? I'm not sure where to put that.

Skill is a very hard to quantify thing, I mean if you are on the pro tour your within the top 5% right? But that doesn't necessarily mean you are within the top 5% of EDH pairings. I like to think of myself as a fairly skilled opponent, but where would I be on a scale of 1-10? No clue... Arena sent a thing saying I draft more than 90% of users, so am I a 9/10? I haven't played a game of EDH other than against my sons since Nov. so has my "ranking" decayed?

With all that being said, I don't think you have to be super accurate, if you are empirically an 8, but say your a 7 (Cause it is always 7) and I am a 6 but say I am a 7, we are probably close enough that it doesn't matter too much. Right?

[Rumpy5897]

An unwitting demonstration of why skill probably has to go, and why the speed x approach approximation is a pretty sensible one

[Treamayne]

An unwitting demonstration of why skill probably has to go, and why the speed x approach approximation is a pretty sensible one :P

Skill could be a similar fine-tuner of the social axis maybe? I'm not sure where to put that.

Skill is a very hard to quantify thing, I mean if you are on the pro tour your within the top 5% right? But that doesn't necessarily mean you are within the top 5% of EDH pairings. I like to think of myself as a fairly skilled opponent, but where would I be on a scale of 1-10? No clue... Arena sent a thing saying I draft more than 90% of users, so am I a 9/10? I haven't played a game of EDH other than against my sons since Nov. so has my "ranking" decayed?

Maybe, for the purposes of a tool like this, we are thinking of skill in the wrong context.

In a social game, is "skill" really the ability to play a (competitively) perfect game? Or is it simple the player's familiarity and comfort with multi-player format dynamics, threat assessment, time/board management, and board-state situational awareness. It's just an introspective look at how a player feels "this game."

If you feel you are rusty and expect to miss some board interactions, you grade yourself down; if you are fresh from the draft tables and new to the multi-player scene, you grade yourself down; if it's a new deck you are testing and tweaking and are still learning all the interactions, if your mates are playing a new deck and you may have some hiccoughs in threat assessment, or you know your deck has a bunch of triggers to track and you may miss a few - you grade yourself down.

[HoffOccultist]

Nice and well-thought-out approach. The product does seem to be paper specific (e.g. MTGO pick-up games don't really offer a chance for rule 0 interaction, and generally have minimal to no "banter" or socialization). For socialization in that venue, you really need to have a playgroup/clan with ways to interact before making the table. Though the game table does have a low-quality chat available once the game has started.

Have you considered keeping the two axes separate (rather than sums 0-50 total, two sums of 0-25 each)? This would allow a matrix representation of the final "scores" which may also make it easier to identify what players and deck might find good games together. See my quick example below:

Example Matrix

Show

Hide

SCARS_Matrix2.jpg

This might make it easier to identify when deck each scoring 4.5-6.5 on your previous scale might not have the best game together if one or more decks are "reduced" due to the social scale when others are reduced to the deck scale. For example, I tend to have better cards, lots of synergy but prefer a relaxed and thematic game and I rarely enjoy games that would nominally be the same "power level" but I am the only one low on the social scale.

If I am playing in the upper-right of my example matrix and they are playing in the lower left - the experience for everybody involved may suffer.

Anyway, just food for thought. Thank you very much for the obvious effort involved and for getting this iteration of the conversations started.

Hadn't logged on in a while, so I just saw this.

First, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

I like the idea of a matrix, it looks pretty clean though with anything this bulky it's still going to be a bit intensive.

The idea of separating out the two axes (deck and intent) and taking each separately had occurred to me, but I initially dismissed it as possibly introducing too much complication. But, with the amount of complexity here already, it might be worth revisiting. Maybe it'll shrink it down some, so I'll have to give it a think over.

[Treamayne]

Hadn't logged on in a while, so I just saw this.

First, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

I like the idea of a matrix, it looks pretty clean though with anything this bulky it's still going to be a bit intensive.

The idea of separating out the two axes (deck and intent) and taking each separately had occurred to me, but I initially dismissed it as possibly introducing too much complication. But, with the amount of complexity here already, it might be worth revisiting. Maybe it'll shrink it down some, so I'll have to give it a think over.

Did you continue this project at all? I ended up making a QD list that can also pair with the same scale graphic.

The idea would be for players at the table to start at the top, and when they find their first "yes" answer (or closest match) that is the "score" for that deck and that game environment (since deck to deck the construction score would change, and game to game the payer's mood may change).

SPOILER

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QD Matrix:

Construction
5 - This deck, if unchallenged, will win/achieve dominance in 5 turns or less at least 75% of the time
5 - This deck always uses the most effective/efficient version of a creature/spell/effect with no "wasted" slots
5 - This deck has highly efficient interaction with significant compactness/backup/redundancy
4 - This deck shifts plans to win when advantageous and will have multiple lines of play available in at least 75% of games
4 - This deck usually uses the most effective/efficient version of a creature spell/effect, some consideration for theme/pet cards
4 - This deck, if unchallenged, will win/achieve dominance in 8 turns or less at least 50% of the time
3 - This deck has significant interaction/synergy, with some back-up/redundancy for its strategy
3 - This deck usually uses the most effective/efficient version of a creature spell/effect, based on synergy and theme
3 - Precon with less than half of the cards replaced/upgraded
2 - This deck uses some "goodstuff" cards, when/if they meet the theme/deck strategy and has synergy in some lines of play
2 - This deck can shift plans to win and has some back-up/redundancy, but doesn't generally push advantage
2 - Precon with 0-10 card replacements
1 - This deck usually uses the most thematically appropriate cards, regardless of individual card power/synergy
1 - This deck stays "on-theme" without regard for back-up/redundancy

Social:
5 - I prefer games where any legal spell/effect/strategy is an acceptable line of play ("anything goes")
5 - I want games to end as soon as possible (to shuffle up again), no matter who wins. Don't pull punches for any reason.
5 - I expect all players to play with a high comprehension/adherence to threat assessment, sequencing and/or table politics
4 - I prefer games with few concessions to social impact, with a high level of play
4 - I want games with good interaction that can end quickly, but don't drag the game unnecessarily
4 - I want all play-styles to be welcome but some "in the moment" consideration given to board state/struggling players (e.g. avoid LD on the player who already missed land drops)
3 - I want games that allow generally tight play, but allow for teaching/helping new/struggling players
3 - I want games where it is difficult for any one player to dominate quickly, but don't drag the game unnecessarily
3 - I want games that consider the social impact of strategies before the game begins
2 - I prefer longer games with a lot of interaction and opportunity for each player to "lead" at some point
2 - I enjoy improving threat assessment/sequencing, but don't expect high level of play from all players
2 - Social considerations for what is acceptable and "fun" supersede desire to win
1 - I prefer games to go at least 15 turns so there is plenty of time to enjoy the game and for each payer to contribute
1 - Socialization and enjoyment are more important that who wins, I just want to "do my thing"
1 - Little regard for threat assessment/sequencing, beyond immediate "threats"

It would not be as thorough, nor as accurate as the full SCARS scale, but it should be fairly quick and an easy primer to the idea of separating the social axis and how the two axes interact in the game.