Written by a good friend of mine, Cheng Zhi. Cheng is a key member of the Chinese Eternal scene and Sean Brown of MTG Goldfish did a stellar job of editing it.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...fair-mana-base
The article attempts to define "fair" vs. "unfair" decks using objective definitions of mana curves and statistical analysis, as opposed to the traditional subjective definitions floating around (e.g. "I'm trying to cheat a fatty into play" = "this is an unfair deck!"). There is intuitive reasoning here, but it's backed up with analysis of actual decks in Modern/Legacy to prove a point.
There is a TON of statistical analysis here of mana curves to demonstrate what our intuition tells us about whether a deck is fair. You may also find some unexpected conclusions in here -- conclusions that will allow you explore and view deckbuilding in different ways!
A highly technical piece, to be sure, but something different that we hope you'll enjoy reading.
EDIT: the original source data can now be downloaded here -- https://bit.ly/2IslDUp
Last edited by Plague Sliver; 04-03-2018 at 02:31 PM.
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
Oh, hey, that's cool. Not like I did it 12 years ago or anything. Twice. No biggie.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/article...trics-and-mana
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/article...-and-mana-v2-0
Sweet article James. I'm not sure where Cheng Zhi's work ends and Sean Brown's begins, but the whole thing flows nicely so I have to assume they both did a great job. Its always interesting trying to pair the catch-all phrases of this game with quantitative definitions, as the results always yield some cool findings like they did in this article. Would love to see a follow up piece or something similarly math-oriented in the future.
You're right, it's not "biggie" because you guys were doing two totally different things. Props to you for totalling up mana producers and mana costs with examples from 12 years ago, but Cheng Zhi took it a step further by pairing it up with more data, meta-current examples and meaningful statistical analysis.
I know I always talk about Land's but...
I am not sure all the metrics play out for Lands as advertised. Whole there are 44 lands in my deck, there are only 14 turn one Green sources and 13 Red. So while the mana ability would seem on paper to be the lowest in the format, we actually compare to most Delver decks in mana stability.
@Dice, 14 is generally considered the minimum, but fully acceptable number for a T1 play of a specific color.
Last edited by Julian23; 03-30-2018 at 08:24 PM. Reason: Be nice.
I know. I just feel that people overestimate how effective Lands mana base is at actually making mana. The deck does run 34 Lands but it does not run 34 Mana sources and I feel the numbers in the article don't make that distinction.
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
As much as I love data crunching and indicators of sorts I'm not sure how useful the MUI gini-coefficient really is.
There's no need for a mathimatical definition of unfair decks, since each persons intuitive categorization rarely is questioned.
In that regard I find Morgan's mana base indicators more useful. Number of lands, dorks, fetches to duals ratio and more IS up for debate and intuituve landcounts can be wrong compared to what your deck is trying to achieve.
The original source data can now be downloaded here, in case you want to have a look and play with it -- https://bit.ly/2IslDUp
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
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