Magic Numbers

Format is now well developed and the pick orders stopped evolving - so it is time to start solving a static environment. And what better way to do it that re-evaluation of every card in the set? I look at each card and see how it performs in every color combination where data is available. Ping me for coaching. Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Di...

New format, new opportunities. We can start discovering the secrets of the MSH set, but you've got to start somewhere - and where better than with the early 17Lands data? We look at set statistics, color power levels, best cards at each rarity, key cards and biggest traps in each color pair. This should prepare you for your LGS and get you ready to explore the more subtle interactions and nich...

Few days before the new set releases on Arena - why not see our vision of draft format before starting to draft? Our eccentric, deck-centric set review is back. We look at format stats, design vision and then instead of grading individual cards we propose 40 card decks skeletons to showcase what we see in each color pair. This time we have Tresio https://x.com/Tresio/ and Rosemary Tea https://x.co...

This week we are trying something new. A journal club. And the reason for it is very simple - there are not that many Magic-related scientific papers out there. But last week Jess Williams and Zev Goldhaber-Gordon released a very interesting paper on opening hands, land percentages, mulliganing and mana flood.  I invited both authors to talk about their findings and what implications they have for...

This week we say goodbye to SOS and sending it off through testing some new deck clustering approach. This time it is capable of distinguishing sub-color pair builds. And this opens new possibilities of analysing limited data. What happens when a color(pair) is not open? Can we see the symptoms of drfting based on the 1st picks? I think that we can. The method I used here is experimental but based...

Card win rates can be misleading if you don't look at them with some amount of granularity. Two color pairs have a very different base win rate? Card played in both can look middling. Card is only good in one color pair but is routinely played in many? Win rate can look bad. To start correctly assessing card power using data to add extra context is crucial. And if you do it well, you might dis...

New set is upon us, and it plays out sweet in Limited. I look at the early 17Lands data in order to figure out what works, what doesn't. But for this one, I think the more important thing is: what are the rules of engagement. What do you have to do in this format in order to start winning that is not typical for all formats. Hopefully the way I present the data will help you figuring that part...

New set is almost there, so it is time for my eccentric, deck-centric set review with the ever changing but ever wise Skeleton Crew. This time we have Zach Kagan and Tresio and we dive into out hopes and aspirations for the Secrets of Strixhaven set. And what a banger it promises to be. Despite being a 5 guilds set, where only 5 color pairs are supported for draft, the design team tried to seed in...

No graphs in this seminar but we are looking at something that will help you in every format you play and, who knows, potentially also in your non-magic part of life. Today we look at some cognitive theory and find ways our own brain tries to make us lose. How does it do it, what can we do about it? How to find a right mix of instinctive reactions and analytical thinking that maximises our intelle...

Everything Pizza decks are the open secret of the TMT draft format. Some streamers chain one 5 color deck after another. And there is a good reason for that. Since it has not been covered by any podcasts, the top cards for the archetype, including its namesake, are still going relatively late. And it is by far the best deck in the format. Its win rate averages at 60% - way above WB ninjas. And, if...

Even with only 5 supported color pairs, some cards are not universally good. And after learning about the best cards in the last episode, figuring out the ones that have only one good home is important. We can fool ourselves by looking at the generic win rates of a card, but sometimes the difference can be massive. Extreme example is the poster boy of this episode, Armaggon, Future Shark. A bona f...

New set, new rules and despite its small size TMT looks interesting. There is a variety of diverse strategies which are viable - aggro, control, tempo are all there. And some cards do surprisingly well - check out this episode to see which ones and why. Ping me for coaching. Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Our deck-centric, eccentric set review is back - we cover the key aspects of the upcoming Turtle set. Get some head start over the rest of Arena folk by tapping into great minds of Jason Ye and Springbok7. I am also present. How to build the 5 main color pairs, some key cards and good ideas on what is going to be important in the format and what is not. Plus some silliness - but that one is a give...

Typal sets are tricky to navigate. How are we supposed to know if this particular Kithkin is OK in Elves or not? And how do we even start one of the unsupported color pairs? Well, here is the answer. I look at most cards in the set and try to figure out which cards are good in surprising homes and what cards are letting you stay open to non-canonical color pairs as much as it is possible. We also...

New set - new analyses. We look at the basics of Lorwyn Eclipsed - which color pairs are looking good, which are looking sus. Best cards at each rarity all in the sauce of context that will hopefully help you putting those trophies on board and - more importantly - letting you understand what makes the format tick. Ping me for coaching. Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Our eccentric, deck-centric set review is back. My class guests go through the skeletons of the 5 supported color pairs in Lorwyn Eclipsed, building functional decks using mainly commons and uncommons to keep it realistic. But there is more. Since there are only 5 main builds we let them loose to brew and got such bangers as Reanimator or Burn in the process. This time we have: Sam Pratt (bsky.app...

Is Arid Mesa better than Black Lotus (no) what cards make reanimator decks tick? What plan B should a Breach / Brain Freeze deck have for more resilience? All that in this weeks special episode on arena power cube. Ping me for coaching. Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ , sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

This week time to look at 2025 in retrospective - what cards were the heroes of last year's draft? I use data to highlight some bests in multiple categories. Part to reminisce, part to try and think more about the current designs and player psychology to see if we can get some advice from there. Did you know bonus sheet cards are more likely to be over and underrated? Me neither! Ping me for c...

Cutting that land is tempting when you build your draft deck. But is it? This time I explore some data on what are the features of a successful 16 land deck, which cards make it tick and which are not pulling their weight. Ping me for coaching. Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ , sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

How often did you regret a draft pick after the draft? That lingering feeling you should have made a different choice in a 50:50 decision? Well, hopefully today I will convince you to worry less. We will look at the cost of abandoning the picks and I will make a semi-coherent case that if your card evaluation is OK, you will end up just fine. We are also going to learn why pack 1 picks are more im...

17Lands win rates we look at the most show us how much a card is winning in all the decks it has been put into. And for many cards, this is enough. They are either generically good and play well in most shells, or generically bad and should be avoided. But what about those exceptions? Well, sometimes the generic win rate can be misleading. Some cards with. low win rate perform very well in one spe...

New set is upon us and it feels great! Drafts are fun, mechanics feel awesome, and there is still plenty left to discover. And this is why we are here: to lok at the early data and give you some pointers on what works so far and where to look for new possibilities. We will look at most powerful colors, cards, and what makes each of the 10 color pairs tick. Ping me for coaching. Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Join out deck-centric eccentric set review. Instead of reviewing individual cards, we are looking at whole decks for each color pair - how would we build them, which cards are we hopeful for and what synergies will be key in the early days of the format once it hits the Arena. My guests this time are SamP (Sam Pratt): https://bsky.app/profile/sampratt.bsky.socialZachy K (Zach Kagan): https://bsky....

Spider-Man set has not exactly been a crowd pleaser, but that should not distract us from some positive features it had. As far as I am not impressed by its execution, the idea of a pick 2 draft is interesting and I would love to see it implemented again - in a better balanced set. The concept of smaller pod and picking 2 cards has massive implications on the signals sent and received in the draft...

New set upon us and it is a challenging one. But worth giving it at least a couple of tries and you want to be prepared for that. What colors tick and which are duds? Which cards overperform and which failed to fulfil their promise? And why are there so many spiders in this definitely in-universe set? Find out the answers to at least some of those questions in my lates episode. Ping me for coachin...