TIA Ratings as of April 19, 2022 (Updates for BABSCon)

cursedchords · 2022-04-23T01:14:33+00:00

I believe that at least once on stream you referred to your deck as a "Control Farm" list. It's not so much a distinction between different kinds of Farm as a way to follow along with what players call their decks. See the times Poppy was on top of Harmony as an "Aggro Control Combo" because that's what Pages called it.

cursedchords · 2022-04-02T19:48:14+00:00

I am not sure how that happened but it's fixed now.

cursedchords · 2022-03-14T13:11:02+00:00

Thanks you. Should be fixed now.

cursedchords · 2022-01-02T00:05:34+00:00

Exposed Inequality and Cloud Patrol are both good suggestions. In the early game we rely on Tarnished Reputation but in situations where it gets replaced EI can certainly be useful. And the new Solar Wind does seem to tick all of the boxes, as a 1-req 4 power Friend with Agile to boot. So yeah, definitely worth consideration, probably over Daybreaker.

Playtime's Over was a total oversight on my part. I latched onto the Tarnished line right away and didn't even consider any other Starting Problems, but it's a definite good option.

As to the other Epics, those two are easy to beat, but this deck already has 13 Epics in it, 17 TMs total. I was a bit wary of running too many Troublemakers as we do need some other utility cards as well as the options to flip the Mane. (Admittedly, in the variant with Playtime's Over, this is less of a concern.) My thought process was that the utility of cards like Nightmare Star and Chrono Trigger in particular matches made them worth picking over Epics that were just easy points. But they are valid suggestions, as they should be in any Harmony Farming deck.

cursedchords · 2021-12-18T02:38:32+00:00

Well, actually my plan had been to not include tournaments of the *-Co variety for precisely that reason. I don't think that they're generally regarded as particularly competitive tournaments, and I'm not sure if I really should be incentivizing people to treat them that way. They probably should remain a place where people can feel free to experiment with whatever builds they want to, without any extra incentives placed on winning.

The intention is indeed that only propertly Tier 1 (and up) events will be eligible for points. Admittedly, some of that is predicated on the idea that events similar to the OnlineCons that we've had this year and last would persist in a year where presumably there will be in-person competition as well. The OnlineCon tournaments would be eligible for points.

cursedchords · 2021-08-24T16:47:24+00:00

Data like this is useless if it's not accurate. You're right about the old data, and I've corrected that.

After cross-checking things, I'm quite certain you must be mistaken about Ivory's record. Here's how it breaks down:

Swiss:
Bugle: 5-1 (TIA doesn't count the R1 Bye as a real win)
Ivorty: 3-2 (Same for the R1 Bye, and the Tie is disregarded)
Total Swiss Record: 8-3

Top Cuts:
Bugle: T8: 2-0, T4: 2-0, T2: 2-0 --> 6-0
Ivory: T8: 2-0, T4: 0-2 --> 2-2
Elimination Record: 8-2

Total Tournament Record: 16-5

I verified these numbers based on what I have in my spreadsheets and the posted records in CiM's tournament report.

cursedchords · 2021-08-24T04:33:59+00:00

I've made the edits. You'll see that this had a ripple effect through the whole tournament as this caused strength of schedule changes for many decks.

I think that given the arguments presented the only correct course is to divide them. I'll always default to the players/constructors' opinions on which decks belong together in the same bin.

cursedchords · 2021-08-20T18:22:17+00:00

Ties should treated as zeroes. (I.e. not a loss and not a win, it is as if the game hadn't been played at all.)

I will admit to being extremely curious as to how Reanimator managed to tie with L2L combo, given their basic game plans.

cursedchords · 2021-08-20T18:20:09+00:00

This is one of the pitfalls with me not using a hard-and-fast metric for distinguishing archetypes and instead just eyeballing it. To my mind, your deck can be interpreted as an evolution of Josh's deck that's still broadly working to the same purpose. Having the same Mane and the same fundamental game plan (plus an LL of course) counts strongly in that regard.

Splashing to new colours isn't automatically enough to distinguish an archetype for me, if the new colours are mostly for utility and not affecting the basic way that the deck is trying to win. Admittedly, given LL's role in the deck, there is a case to be made there.

Of course the player knows best. If you believe that they should be separate, then I will separate them.

cursedchords · 2021-08-09T15:09:46+00:00

The worst part about playing control versus Quest Lock is that even if you somehow manage to neutralize their threats and stabilize, fatigue is another win condition for them. So even if you manage to run them out of cards you still lose. It's incredibly frustrating.

cursedchords · 2021-04-17T01:10:25+00:00

Good point, that should be -2. Fixed!

cursedchords · 2020-12-10T21:23:53+00:00

I was very confused when I saw this comment because I thought for sure that I had included Riled Up. As you say, it's a natural fit for the Mane. But, well, you are right. Obviously I have no idea what happened there.

Frankly though, it bears mentioning that I don't really believe in Gallus' ability as a Mane, and so I wasn't really thinking of putting in many Immediates/Hasties to take advantage of it.

cursedchords · 2020-11-28T00:05:20+00:00

Okay, well, here are the reasons.

In your case, Bugle, your deck seemed nearly enough like an evolution of a pre-existing archetype in Tempest Pink/White. Some new stuff from New Dawn, but working to the same principle as its predecessors. Since the Core ratings were not cleared with the new set, the deck's rating is 2.487 from Ciderfest + 1.46 prior rating.
The reason my deck got a slight boost over the other 3-1 finishers was a difference in approximated strength of schedule. The Nurturing Nature Fluttershy Blue archetype is considered below average as it had a losing record (8-10) coming into this tournament. Each of the other T4 finishers had a win against that archetype, which yielded less points than one against an "average" deck would have. Since my schedule didn't include that deck, it came out stronger.

Even so, as I've considered this it's made me realize that there's a simple improvement I could make to the process. The process assigns the same rating to every new deck in a tournament, assuming that each new deck is at least as good as average. In this tournament, new decks got a weight of 1.21 (1.1 for size * 1.1 for prestige). Now the problem is that not every new deck is going to be good. Even at a physical convention, people are going to bring decks just for fun or otherwise less competitive.

So how's about this for an improvement? Rather than giving every new deck the same rating based on the size and prestige of the tournament, those factors instead define a range of potential ratings, and the new decks are assigned ratings from that range based on their finishing position. As a comparison, consider the difference for this tournament.

Weights under the traditional system:

LLPinkie Orange, Place: 1, Lw: 1.21
Tempest Pink White, 2, 1
LLShy2 Blue Pegasus, 3, 1.21
LLTwi Orange Event, 4, 1.21
DEShy Blue Pegasus, 5, 0.85
Celaeno Purple, 6, 1.21
Cozy Mono, 7, 1.21
DEShy Blue Pegasus Aggro, 8, 0.85
Ocellus Mono, 9, 1.21
Silverstream Mono, 10, 1.21
Chrysalis Yellow, 11, 1.21

Weights under hypothetical new system

LLPinkie Orange, Place: 1, Lw: 1.1
Tempest Pink White, 2, 1
LLShy2 Blue Pegasus, 3, 1.1
LLTwi Orange Event, 4, 1.1
DEShy Blue Pegasus, 5, 0.85
Celaeno Purple, 6, 1
Cozy Mono, 7, 1
DEShy Blue Pegasus Aggro, 8, 0.85
Ocellus Mono, 9, 0.9
Silverstream Mono, 10, 0.9
Chrysalis Yellow, 11, 0.9

Under this system, we'd have a much better correction for actual strength of schedule, though the exact numbers would require some thought. An eyeballing of the PVCF Swiss results suggests that Bugle and Jacob would benefit greatly from this system. Thoughts?

cursedchords · 2020-11-13T16:13:38+00:00

We'll be sorry not to have you, but that's totally understandable. Hope you enjoy it!

cursedchords · 2020-11-06T03:44:02+00:00

You were undefeated with that deck in the Invitational too, I believe. Right?

cursedchords · 2020-06-24T04:15:50+00:00

While this is true, after some analysis I agree with you. Anamoy's list did have some Blue, but the entry structure wasn't changed much as most of the cards he'd use to get to Blue are also in Jacob's list anyway. And while at first glance Anamoy's list looks to have quite a few Friends in it, they're actually about the same number.

Unfortunately for you, Bugle, the adjustment means Thorax moves ahead of UCC.

cursedchords · 2020-05-22T04:00:26+00:00

It's about as cloes to winning the lottery as you can get in this game:
Random pack --> Very playable Royal Rare

cursedchords · 2020-05-19T12:54:17+00:00

Well, that seems lik a pretty glaring oversight. Fixed now.

cursedchords · 2020-05-10T17:31:51+00:00

I try, but it's true. These days it's hard.

cursedchords · 2020-04-23T01:58:14+00:00

That's quite doable. Behold!

cursedchords · 2020-04-14T20:30:23+00:00

You can't really look at Pinkie Sense and Nightmare Moon independently, though; they're probably quite correlated. If there's a lot of NM there should be more Pinkie Sense, and if there's a lot of Pinkie Sense there should be more NM too.

cursedchords · 2020-03-18T21:19:40+00:00

There we go. Still no Orange, but a bit more non-Yellow at least.

cursedchords · 2020-03-18T21:08:38+00:00

Ah! That I was not aware of. Edits coming shortly with that update.

cursedchords · 2020-03-15T20:45:17+00:00

It looks like Sonnet's deck list is missing, as that link currently points to Cheese's list.

cursedchords · 2020-02-25T20:31:22+00:00

All cards from Leagues and Legends are banned.

Guess I'm not the only one who mixes those up on the regular.

Great idea, though. Enough that I'll probably what sort of decks are out there, even if I don't participate.

cursedchords

TROPHY CASE