With the average list at 9-11 blue sources, a double blue card is not really feasible for us to cast till turn 5. (I used a hyper geometric calc that assumed 10 sources, on the draw and we've cast thirst, or have seen three extra cards. And that gives us ~78% chance)
The cards do look good and I would love to play Narset, but we'd need drastically more blue sources for us to reliably cast them by turn 3.
I do think narset is probably better against us than it would be in our deck (even if we shifted our Mana to be able to cast it). The static shuts down our main way to survive through the control mirror. Only drawing one card a turn is probably game ending if not dealt with.
Ashiok is probably not good in our deck, just like Narset. I personally play a lower number of tutors than other versions (only maps and new Karn). The incidental graveyard hate would be nice but Relic of Progenitus is a card we can maindeck that is on theme and draws cards.
I think Teferi, time raveler is also a rough card for us to play against UWx control. Losing instant speed is rough. I haven't played against UW since war has been released and I can't imagine that the match up is slightly in our favor anymore. It's probably more so in theirs now (assuming both players are on an even playing ability).
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May 17, 2019SwissRolls posted a message on [Primer] MonoU Tron - "The well-oiled machine"Posted in: Control
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hinterweltler posted a message on [Primer] MonoU Tron - "The well-oiled machine"Currently, Chalice of the Void is at an all-time high in terms of meta-gaming. I see lots of Burn, Phoenix and UWx Control / Combo plus many others where Chalice on 1 or 2 is close to a hardlock. See the list on my profile for reference, and those additional Artifacts are nice to have with 2+ Karn.Posted in: Control
Towards Gemstone Caverns and 23 Lands: I remember the spreadsheet some pages back with the related win percentage for most cards, and if I recall it right, the Caverns is a 3-4% boost, depending on how many times we are on the draw. I won a short tournament a while back because I always had it when I was on the draw. And with 2 Talisman of Dominance which either ramp for a T3 Karn (or even Ugin with natural Tron - happened!) and growing the Constructs while providing colored mana, 23 Lands are enough.
Greetings -
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thnkr posted a message on [Primer] MonoU Tron - "The well-oiled machine"Hi barrin_master_wizard It took a while, but I already had the template pretty much made thanks to my previous work on Lantern.Posted in: Control
So, breaking down the data, this is what's going on (please forgive me if you have already figured some of this out, I don't know what parts you don't know, and I'd rather be thorough in the explanation):
Opening Hand Data tab: This is where all of the data from the gameplay videos is entered. I enter in if it's preboard or postboard, what deck the opponent is playing, if the Utron pilot is on the play or draw, if the game is won or lost, if the match is won or lost, who the pilot was, and how many of each card are in the opening hand. The columns on the far right automatically calculate various things, like how many cards are in the opening hand, how many lands are in the opening hand, if there is a blue source in the opening hand, if the hand contains natural tron, if the hand contains two of the three tron lands, etc.
The data in the Opening Hand Data tab is used to create pivot tables that show win rates with various numbers of each card in the opening hand, or comparing statistics based on the columns on the far right (natural tron, etc.).
Weighted Data Trends tab:
Column A has each card name, referenced from the associated pivot table for that card.
Column B shows the number of wins with no copies of the associated card in the opening hand.
Column C shows the number of games with no copies of the associated card in the opening hand.
Column D calculates that win rate, using the numbers from columns B and C.
Column E shows the number of wins with one copy of the associated card in the opening hand.
Column F shows the number of games with one copy of the associated card in the opening hand.
Column G calculates that win rate using the numbers from columns E and F.
Column H finds the difference in win rates between having one copy (column G) and zero copies (column D).
Column I is used to weigh the data. There will be different numbers of games to be compared for each card, since the cards are randomized in the deck. The issue before weighing the data was that something may have a great increase or decrease in win rates when the card is in the opener, but the sample size is too small to be reliable. Thus, I use a function in column I to weigh the data according to sample size. The way the function works is that I divide the number of games the card was in the opener by the total number of games. The more games that the card was in the opener, the larger this fraction will be, and the greater the weight is that will be applied to column G.
Column J is the product of the difference in win rates from zero to one (column H) and the weight (column I).
I also wanted to be aware of diminishing returns, though. Sometimes a card will be great in the opener, but having multiples is not so great for us. So the block of columns K through O do the same steps for the difference between one and two copies, the blocks of columns P through T do the same steps for the difference between two and three copies, and so on.
Columns AE and AF are used to find the overall weighted data trends with diminishing returns considered. If there is no data on having multiples of a card, then column AF will display "No Data". If the overall diminishing returns is negative, column AF will display "Negative". If the overall diminishing returns is positive, the a value (the product of column J and column AE) will be displayed. The function isn't perfect, but it's what I've been using for now.
After I've entered the gameplay data into the Opening Hand Data tab, I update the Weighted Data Trends tab to see if there is new data for having multiples of a card and then sort the rows by columns AF, AE, and J, in that order. Those columns are also color-coded to help read the cards that correlate with wins better or worse.
Additional Data Points tab: Some decks have specific data points that make it unique from others. For example, with this deck we might want to compare hands that have natural tron to hands that do not. Or, we might want to compare win rates of being on the draw naturally versus being on the draw with Gemstone Caverns in hand (putting us "on the play", in a sense). It gives us win rates for the different numbers of lands in the opener, number of cards in the opener (mulligan trends), win rates if we have a blue source in our opener, etc. There's plenty more data points we can look at, but that's where I ask for suggestions. What specific combinations of cards do people want to see? I can set up the spreadsheet to look at exactly that, usually.
As for using the spreadsheet for deckbuilding and tweaking, I need to reiterate what I've posted before (and on reddit).
First, I should probably explain the approach. Using the idea that every competitive Modern deck is designed to either deny the opponent the ability to have significant interaction with the gamestate, or to minimize what interaction they are allowed to have with the gamestate, the first few turns of the game are key to how each Modern deck will successfully accomplish this task. The phrase "Modern is a turn four format" is probably not new to anyone reading this, and pretty much aligns with this concept. If a deck isn't trying to either win as quickly as possible, denying the opponent the "time" (future turns) to make significant interaction, then it's probably trying to stop the opponent from achieving a quick win. Our goal in Mono Blue Tron is to either deny the opponent from making the plays they need to win as soon as possible or to delay them until we can make more significant plays. In those first four turns each player will have access to ten cards on the play or 11 cards on the draw, assuming neither player takes a mulligan. Thus, the opening hand will account for between 64% to 70% of the resources available to maintain control of the direction of the game during those crucial turns.
So, with the idea that our ability to maintain some control over the first few turns of the game is (or just survive that long) is going to be crucial to winning the game, I focus on the opening hand. It is very important to pay attention to more than just columns AF, AE, and J! For example, it may look like Island is the "worst card correlating with win percentages in the deck". But this does not take into account the context! What kind of opening hands would an experienced Utron pilot keep that did not have an Island in the opening hand? Well, a hand with natural tron and a Wurmcoil is a great example. That's quite a good opening hand. If we actually look at the win rates of opening hands with an Island, we'll see that the win rate is 66.46% (315/474 games). That's still quite an impressive win rate. It just happens to be lower than the win rate of hands that are kept without one Island. Paying careful attention to each number is very important here, otherwise we could easily be misguided or misinterpret the numbers, as you mention above.
What I've been doing to use this data to tweak my list is to pay attention to the cards that correlate the best with increased win percentages, but also pay attention to the diminishing returns. Here are some examples:
Supreme Will: This card seems to correlating quite well with increased wins, but the diminishing returns shows a sharp decline. The sample size on the diminishing returns is also quite small, though. Thus, for now, I know that I would love to have one in the opening hand, but I'm not ready to risk increasing the chance of having two. Therefore, I run three in my main.
Chalice of the Void: Nearly the exact same scenario as Supreme Will, above. I run three of these as well.
Thirst for Knowledge: Yes, it's pretty much ubiquitous that we run a full playset of this card. For me, though, it's comforting to see the numbers support this decision. I don't want to simply believe something is true because it's popular and everyone agrees that it's true, I want to know what is true.
Remand: See Supreme Will and Chalice of the Void explanations Same scenario, I run three.
Now, I've skipped over Condescend and Anticipate. It appears that it might be better if we cut a Condescend for the same reason that I only run three Will, Chalice, and Remand. I just haven't personally pulled the trigger on that yet. I'm inclined to cut the fourth Condescend for an Anticipate, which scores great. These are my flex numbers for now.
The wincons (Mindslaver, Wurmcoil Engine, Ugin, etc.) are obviously not the best to have in the opener. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that having a 6+ drop in the opener isn't going to get us far in the first few turns without somehow assembling a fast tron. This does not mean we cut these cards, it just means that we need to be aware of how these cards are going to affect our chances at winning when they're in the opening hand. Most of that's relatively common sense, though.
I also use the data to figure out what the best performing sideboard cards are. For example, Summary Dismissal seems to perform very well, as does Spreading Seas, Negate, Silent Arbiter, and Filigree Familiar. Each of these cards are great at multiple matchups (Silent Arbiter being amazing in one of our worst matchups, Merfolk!).
So that's the spreadsheet, explained, and how I prefer to use the data. When combined with pierakor's MORT data (which gives better data on which wincons and singletons work the best, but isn't so good at finding correlating wins for cards that are run in multiples), we can use actual empirical data to tweak and build the deck. -
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thnkr posted a message on [Primer] MonoU Tron - "The well-oiled machine"First, let me start off by saying, "whew". That was a lot of workPosted in: Control
Just finished entering all of the matches from pierakor's "mono best tron" playlist, plus SwissRolls' games, into the sheet. We now have 960 games of Utron analyzed. You can view the spreadsheet here. Some key takeaways that I've noticed:
Best scoring three cards: The tron lands
Gemstone Caverns gets us just under a percent increase in win percentages when we're on the draw.
Best nonland cards to have in the opening hand are, in order, Repeal, Condescend, Supreme Will, Chalice of the Void, Anticipate, Thirst for Knowledge, and Remand.
Worst cards to have in the opening hand, in order from worst to best, are Treasure Mage, Ugin, and Wurmcoil Engine. Expedition Map is the next worst after that, but actually has a positive correlation to win percentages so long as there are no multiples. Ugin and Wurmcoil seem pretty self-explanatory for not being so great in the opener, but I'm a little more surprised at Treasure Mage. I suppose it makes sense, though. The body is fine, but what we get is useless if we don't live long enough to cast it. Having something that actually disrupts the opponent seems to perform much better for us.
The deck mulligans relatively well, going from a 69.41% win percentage with a full opener to 63.59% with six cards.
The deck performs relatively well with varied numbers of lands. Four is best (74.89%), followed by three (68.38%), five (64.15%), and two (63.12%).
Quite a bit more information to be gleaned there. Feel free to check it out, I figure it could help lead to some good conversation about deck tweaks.
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