A Proposed "Self-Synergy" Rating

Settemio
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Post by Settemio » 3 years ago

I'm trying to develop a new axis for analyzing and rating cards based on how advantageous they are when their effects are duplicated. I'm calling it the "Sakashima Score" and, in honor of the recent Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, a card's Sakashima Score is an integer from -500 to 500 Faces (this means there are 1001 different ratings possible, including 0 Faces).

This rating is in no way objective, but my aim is to try to factor in all the different ways a card's effect can be duplicated (copying just their triggered ability, copying just their activated ability, creating a copy of the spell/permanent, returning the spell/permanent to hand and recasting it, etc.) and compress that down to a single value. I think this will be somewhat interesting in some cases, and maybe even lead to some valuable revelations. This 'system' of ranking is still more of a rough idea than a fully developed method; any feedback is appreciated.

-500 to -451 Faces "Oopsies"
These are cards with effects which you generally want to NOT duplicate (depending on the method of duplication). It may be a mistake to commit an entire 51 potential rating positions to this group, as I doubt there are even 50 cards that could be considered in this group; Magic generally doesn't print "truly bad" cards. Even something like Imperial Outrider or Bog Hoodlums, while overpriced, is still better to have 2 of than 1 of. However there are some cards with effects that are made worse by duplication, such as Barren Glory which actively inhibits its own goals when you have multiples of it, or Phage the Untouchable, which can result in its controller losing the game to something like Dual Nature.

-450 to -151 Faces "Unlikelies"
These are cards which generally do nothing when duplicated, or do very little when duplicated AND are difficult to duplicate, like legendary permanents without EtB/LtB triggers. One with Nothing I think fits into this category better than it does into the "Oopsies" because, while discarding your hand is generally a bad thing, doing it twice is usually not any worse than once; so I think OwN gets about -340 Faces. Also in this category are non-creature permanents with effects that don't usually do anything extra when you have access to more of them, like Soothsaying and Fires of Invention; an additional copy would only by useful if you were worried the first one would be destroyed / sacrificed by a non-sweeper effect, or if you had some specific synergies with their permanent type (like Skybind or Opalescence). Something like Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh would probably be somewhere around -220 Faces - you have to jump through several hoops to copy it and have both copies remain, and even then you don't get much benefit unless you have additional support. Also now is probably a good time to point out that while Sorrow's Path is a terrible card, generally far worse than Rograkh or Phage, I feel it does deserve a higher Sakashima Score than Phage and possibly even higher than Rograkh, simply because it's easier to duplicate its effect in a positive way because the "positive effect" can be landfall or land count (there are also some cases where you can copy the activated ability without triggering the damage again, such as using Rings of Brighthearth, although swapping two blockers twice in a single combat is usually not all that useful, and there are some cases where the damage is the positive element, like a Jared Carthalion, True Heir or Darien, King of Kjeldor deck, but these cases are narrow enough that I don't give them much weight).

-150 to -51 Faces "Wimps"
These are cards which usually do at least something positive when copied, but that thing is unlikely to impact the outcome of the game at all. Teyo, the Shieldmage is a great example; a copy of it does very little that the first Teyo didn't already do, just can create a few extra 0/3 Walls. Darksteel Relic is probably here because 'artifacts matter' is among the more well-supported themes, but I wouldn't argue against anyone rating it below this category.

-50 to -11 Faces "Mehs"
These are slightly more likely to impact the outcome of the game when duplicated. As long as it doesn't have a drawback, anything that makes an Eldrazi Spawn token, a Treasure token, a Clue token, a creature token with at least 1 power, as well as any creature card with at least 1 power all earn at least this many Faces. Lands that tap for mana also fit here; there aren't many cards which can copy them directly (Mythos of Illuna and a few others) but I do consider Caged Sun and Mana Reflection to be ways of 'duplicating' their effects, and having one or two more mana can often make the difference between victory and defeat.

-10 to 10 Faces "Okays"
As long as it doesn't have a drawback, any creature with at least 2 power earns at least this many Faces. I'm leaning toward putting Isamaru, Hound of Konda and Zurgo Bellstriker into this category, although "legendary" does count as a drawback (particularly in this context because most Clone effects will provide no additional value). I also think spells that are generally useless to duplicate but occasionally have huge jumps in value generated would fit here; a great example would be Rise of the Dark Realms, which most of the time does nothing because the graveyards have already been emptied when the second instance of it resolves, but sometimes you can sacrifice all creatures in between the first and second Rise for even more EtB triggers.

11 to 200 Faces "Goods"
The vast majority of cards that see a lot of play in this format have somewhere in this range of Faces. Examples include generic EtB value creatures, creatures with high power/toughness, spells that provide card advantage, 1-for-1 or 2-for-1 removal spells, etc. Even cards like Lightning Bolt which don't see a lot of play in this format do have at least a Good rating; there is substantial value gained in the jump from only killing a single 3-or-less toughness/loyalty target to either killing 2 of those targets or killing a 6-or less toughness/loyalty target. Spells that require you to pay an additional cost to cast them, which interact well with free or inexpensive copy effects, like Harrow and Magmatic Insight, also fit here.

201 to 300 Faces "Greats"
Cards may earn this many Faces by having abilities which benefit from themselves. Avenger of Zendikar, Risen Reef, Tireless Tracker, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Harabaz Druid, Synapse Sliver, Elvish Archdruid, etc. Cards with the drawback of being legendary and thus harder to duplicate are still able to earn this many Faces, if the advantage they provide when duplicated is significant enough. Edric, Spymaster of Trest and Tymna the Weaver both provide double the trigger, and an extra potential attacker when copied with Sakashima (old or new) or Spark Double or Helm of the Host. Krark, the Thumbless goes from alright to amazing when duplicated. Having two Niv-Mizzet, Paruns in play is only an extra flying threat and an extra ping per turn when nobody is casting instants and sorceries, but vastly better when anybody does cast an instant or sorcery.

301 to 401 Faces "Exponentials"
Cards may earn this many Faces by having a replacement effect which replaces [EVENT A] with [MORE EVENTS A], like Doubling Season and Alhammarret's Archive and Fiery Emancipation and Nyxbloom Ancient. As soon as you resolve one of these and duplicate it, you either win the game or at least become the Archenemy while you wait to draw into more support. If you have already duplicated one of these effects more than once, you probably really don't need to duplicate it again (going from 27x damage from three Emancipations to 81x damage from the fourth is likely unnecessary). Similarly, cards which count a resource and then use that count to provide you with more of that resource also go exponential, like Chancellor of the Forge and Clone Legion and Towering Titan and Pathbreaker Ibex and Boundless Realms (although Realms is capped by the number of basic lands in your library) and Sea Gate Restoration (although it has the potential to cause you to lose if duplicated too many times) .

401 to 500 Faces "Infis"
The title of this category may be somewhat misleading; not every card which can go infinite when duplicated actually earns this many Faces, but if a card can easily go infinite with many different duplication cards, like Palinchron, it probably belongs here. I don't believe Turnabout is quite in this range, as it only goes infinite in a few combinations.

Thanks to anyone who actually read through all of this, I know it's article-length but not quite article-quality. As I said, any feedback is appreciated.

onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Keep it simple. You have 9 categories. That's already plenty differentiation as it is, but if you want even more nuance making each category a range of 5 integers should be more than enough. I could see you wanting to do that to show that certain cards in a category are better when copied than others in the same category. There's no way there needs to be 50 degrees per category. Once you get to that degree of resolution the distinctions between the numbers become meaningless.

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Treamayne
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Post by Treamayne » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
Keep it simple. You have 9 categories. That's already plenty differentiation as it is, but if you want even more nuance making each category a range of 5 integers should be more than enough. I could see you wanting to do that to show that certain cards in a category are better when copied than others in the same category. There's no way there needs to be 50 degrees per category. Once you get to that degree of resolution the distinctions between the numbers become meaningless.
I think the numbering system was meant to be Punny, because the inspiration was Sakashima of a Thousand Faces.
V/R

Treamayne

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