A snapshot of Malifaux World Series data.

[Maniacal_cackle]

We're one and a half events into the World Series, so here's a snapshot of some data:

Win-loss-draw

• Arc: 37-39-5
• Bayou: 25-32-3
• ES: 30-29-8
• Guild: 23-24-4
• Nvb: 22-40-8
• Outcasts: 23-17-3
• Ressers: 38-18-11
• 10T: 29-28-6

So most of the factions are surprisingly balanced so far. Neverborn initially there was a theory that all the top Neverborn players abandoned the faction... But even if that's true, there's probably a reason for that. They're really underperforming.

Ressers... Are just DOMINATING across the field. Von Schtook, Yan Lo, Jack Daw, Reva are currently the dominating factors. Seamus 1 is dominating, but Seamus 2 has only been played once.

Kirai comes in with a paltry 7 wins, 5 losses, and 2 ties... So she is dragging the record down a bit there... 😂

Molly and McMourning are seeing very little representation, and the general view is they're pretty underpowered... BUT they could just be being pushed out by strong competition. My personal take is they're a tad on the weak side due to weak keywords, and would love to see some combination of Philip, Rafkin, or Sebastian buffs.

And... A whole lots of nerfs for the rest of Ressers xD

Neverborn also stands out as a clear 'please buff'. 

• Dreamer: 3-6-1
• Euri: 3-8-1
• Hinamatsu: 0-1-0
• Luci: 4-6-1
• Marcus: 1-2-0
• Nekima: 2-6-0
• Pandora: 6-6-3
• Titania: 0-2-1
• Zoraida: 3-3-1

The Marcus performance is a bit puzzling as he is dominating in Arcanists right now... But also my impression is Neverborn players just don't like Marcus due to hangover from Marcus 1. But also Marcus in Arcanists has better versatiles (like soulstone miner, mech rider, etc). Although Mysterious Emissary... Not sure what to make of that one. Only 3 games for Marcus of course.

But for the rest... Yes, that's a bit of a sad showing for Neverborn.

[Shakyor]

Wow - did NOT see that coming. As a Resser player who has won some local tournaments, I am a little shocked. I always knew they were strong - but international data a couple of erratas back suggest them to be underperforming and I honestly would have thought ES to be completely dominanting.

Any Data on what models and types of lists stood out? Any obvious critiques of the data - higher percentage of top players / pools obviously benefting ressers / rules constraints? But with this many games I am doubtful.

The masters sound about right though, I thought for quite a while that Kirai is overrated. She feels so powerful in games, because she clearly would win most endless games. But it is hard for her to meaningful score in those 5 turns compared to other top picks. Also I have for a long time suspected that Reva is much better than her reputation, especially Reva 2. Was she played more than 1? I also felt that Jack Daw was way underrated. I wonder that Seamus 2 is not played more, he is definitely strong as well. The only thing I find surprising is that McMourning is viewed as weak, especially 2.

[Adran]

Am I right in thinking that most of this is pre errata results?

[SEV]

We must be careful with those data... A lot of great player are playing green right now... And NB seems to attract more beginner (and our purple top dog are bo where to be seen).

Also, in my opinion, the best NB masters (Dreamer 2 and Zoraida 1) are quite hard to play.

Edit : I would actually like to see the average ranks in last year MWS for the players of each faction. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 hours ago, Adran said:

Am I right in thinking that most of this is pre errata results?

It is all inclusive up until the week I posted this. So from January to last week. Has pre-errata and post-errata data.

That said, I suspect the impact of titles massively dwarves the impact of the errata (except for ES).

4 hours ago, SEV said:

We must be careful with those data... A lot of great player are playing green right now... And NB seems to attract more beginner (and our purple top dog are bo where to be seen).

Also, in my opinion, the best NB masters (Dreamer 2 and Zoraida 1) are quite hard to play.

Edit : I would actually like to see the average ranks in last year MWS for the players of each faction. 

Individual players tilt the data a LOT. In ressers for example, we have two ridiculously good players dominating the top tables, while I (a pretty good resser player) have 2 wins and 4 losses xD There were some funky circumstances for my games of course.

Ideally we could do a simple regression to account for player skill... But getting the data into R (a data analysis programme) and then doing transformations of the data and dummy variables sounds tedious... So far the only regression method I could think of involved setting up a dummy variable for literally every single master 🤣

Although there is also a relationship between player skill and the factions they choose to play. The best Neverborn players chose to play other factions as they thought they could win more with those factions despite being less experienced with them.

5 hours ago, Shakyor said:

Wow - did NOT see that coming. As a Resser player who has won some local tournaments, I am a little shocked. I always knew they were strong - but international data a couple of erratas back suggest them to be underperforming and I honestly would have thought ES to be completely dominanting.

Any Data on what models and types of lists stood out? Any obvious critiques of the data - higher percentage of top players / pools obviously benefting ressers / rules constraints? But with this many games I am doubtful.

The masters sound about right though, I thought for quite a while that Kirai is overrated. She feels so powerful in games, because she clearly would win most endless games. But it is hard for her to meaningful score in those 5 turns compared to other top picks. Also I have for a long time suspected that Reva is much better than her reputation, especially Reva 2. Was she played more than 1? I also felt that Jack Daw was way underrated. I wonder that Seamus 2 is not played more, he is definitely strong as well. The only thing I find surprising is that McMourning is viewed as weak, especially 2.

We don't have list data unfortunately.

The big critique of this data so far is small sample size. I'd want to see another handful of events before drawing any firm conclusions, but also I don't think we'd get results like this unless something was wrong.

I think Yan Lo and Von Schtook are the most obvious powerhouses, with Reva 2 being a sleeper powerhouse. Everyone underestimated her.

McMourning I think was always a bit overrated. He seemed so strong on release, but once you got to top tables level of fight he dropped off in power level compared to the strongest stuff.

I think McMourning/Molly are probably just strong, but they're outshined by the rest xD

Seamus 2 is probably underplayed because Seamus 1 is so strong that people haven't properly explored 2 yet xD

[Morgan Vening]

On 3/19/2022 at 9:42 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Hinamatsu: 0-1-0

Can anyone provide more detail on this?

Just curious why someone would play a Henchman over a Master, even a Hench as good as Hina. Was it a specific pool or crew they wanted to work with, or was it a YOLO game?

[Maniacal_cackle]

13 minutes ago, Morgan Vening said:

Can anyone provide more detail on this?

Just curious why someone would play a Henchman over a Master, even a Hench as good as Hina. Was it a specific pool or crew they wanted to work with, or was it a YOLO game?

Haha, I have no idea, but there is one every season. Last year she won xD

Id write it off as an outlier.

We also had a Barbaros leader last season.

[SEV]

I played CR7 in a MWS tournament too... I mostly want to have fun. Hinamatsu allow to play puppets as a KW wich no master can't.

With 3 actions she's actually close to master power level... 8 attacks is something.

 

[Shakyor]

So which titles for von schtook and yan lo are dominant? They all seem strong in my experience, although I am guessing Yan Lo 2 over 1 and Von Schtook to be pretty even. (Honestly both are great).

McMourning is just sooooo curious to me, probably it is my local meta then and me just being in too small a pond, never really experiencing top table play for myself. On paper and when I am playing he just FEELS so efficient. His Summon, in my opinion is super great, desperate plot is many actions in one (great move, poison, situation dependent marker removal and great upgrades just short of mccabes ones (i mean flurry really changes rogue necromancy and kentauris, which are preemptive heal.) Also his scheming is exactly strong enough to what matters in the current pool in my opinion.

I mean stuff like banking a scheme marker and then triggering it yourself by shooting your own model in the right situation is often all you need to score with little counter play.

The only thing which plays worse than I thought is plastic surgery, but even there using the accomplice of the chihuahua often worked for me.

 

Is there any way I could get my hands on the original data, I am actually a data scientist in real life and maybe I can make some quick magic happen with some of the tools I have lying around (no promises)

 

[Adran]

15 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

It is all inclusive up until the week I posted this. So from January to last week. Has pre-errata and post-errata data.

That said, I suspect the impact of titles massively dwarves the impact of the errata (except for ES).

Thanks, I was partially thinking Explorer at this point, so whilst they were errata'd during the period, they don't have a dominant win ratio (I'm assuming that there were 4 rounds prior to the errata and 2 post., but I'm not playing in the events so I actually have no idea where they were up to when the errata changed them). 

 

15 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Individual players tilt the data a LOT. In ressers for example, we have two ridiculously good players dominating the top tables, while I (a pretty good resser player) have 2 wins and 4 losses xD There were some funky circumstances for my games of course.

Ideally we could do a simple regression to account for player skill... But getting the data into R (a data analysis programme) and then doing transformations of the data and dummy variables sounds tedious... So far the only regression method I could think of involved setting up a dummy variable for literally every single master 🤣

Although there is also a relationship between player skill and the factions they choose to play. The best Neverborn players chose to play other factions as they thought they could win more with those factions despite being less experienced with them.

Its hard to tease out player skill and player choice with this small a data set. I tried to do so with last years, by only looking at players that played more than 1 faction and seeing how they did in each faction to try and get an idea of which faction was doing best that way, but it makes an even smaller data set, and when I tried that last year, I got results opposite to what you are seeing here - Overall Players got a better result with Neverborn than they did with other factions they played, and did worse with Resurectionists than with other factions. 

 

I'm not sure what the data actually means, it could be that ressers are to good, but in itself I don't think there is really enough information here to show that in any meaningful way. 

 

 

[Shakyor]

Could just be that ressers are most fun and good player are catching on

[Maniacal_cackle]

On 3/24/2022 at 12:23 AM, Adran said:

Thanks, I was partially thinking Explorer at this point, so whilst they were errata'd during the period, they don't have a dominant win ratio (I'm assuming that there were 4 rounds prior to the errata and 2 post., but I'm not playing in the events so I actually have no idea where they were up to when the errata changed them). 

 

Its hard to tease out player skill and player choice with this small a data set. I tried to do so with last years, by only looking at players that played more than 1 faction and seeing how they did in each faction to try and get an idea of which faction was doing best that way, but it makes an even smaller data set, and when I tried that last year, I got results opposite to what you are seeing here - Overall Players got a better result with Neverborn than they did with other factions they played, and did worse with Resurectionists than with other factions. 

 

I'm not sure what the data actually means, it could be that ressers are to good, but in itself I don't think there is really enough information here to show that in any meaningful way. 

 

 

I think it is probably the biggest/highest quality set of data that we'll get (the series as a whole, this is just a snapshot).

However, the series does include unusual and and weird formats. The first two events that this records were singles, and next event is going to include out-of-keyword restrictions. So there's an argument that this is completely irrelevant to Malifaux game balance since it isn't actually using the main competitive format.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also worth noting the terrain on vassal is probably VERY different from many metas (and often is not in line with Gaining Grounds advice due to the assets available and time they were built).

And rough terrain favours some factions over others, so that'll definitely be having an impact.

[Math Mathonwy]

On 3/31/2022 at 4:08 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Also worth noting the terrain on vassal is probably VERY different from many metas (and often is not in line with Gaining Grounds advice due to the assets available and time they were built).

And rough terrain favours some factions over others, so that'll definitely be having an impact.

OTOH all data that we could ever get is affected by terrain adding a ton of variance to the results. I mean, some of the tables shown from Adepticon were very sparse and some were quite extreme in other ways.

I always remember facing Kirai in M1e on a super dense terraclips city table (so accessible houses with multiple rooms each) in a tournament once  

[Paddywhack]

On 4/4/2022 at 2:49 AM, Math Mathonwy said:

OTOH all data that we could ever get is affected by terrain adding a ton of variance to the results. I mean, some of the tables shown from Adepticon were very sparse and some were quite extreme in other ways.

Glad I'm not the only one that thought that. Very open on some of those tables. 

[RisingPhoenix]

Are these timed, or are they playing it out every time since it's still online?

Also can the UK please get the stick out of their ass with regards to second masters?

[trikk]

26 minutes ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Are these timed, or are they playing it out every time since it's still online?

Also can the UK please get the stick out of their ass with regards to second masters?

3 hr limit per game but most games finish in time.

 

I hope second masters never becomes a thing

[Maniacal_cackle]

17 minutes ago, trikk said:

I hope second masters never becomes a thing

It would make a lot of sense to just make singles be the default format, and second masters be the variant format...

Given that the game seems to be largely balanced around singles, since that is what people play.

[Morgan Vening]

11 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

It would make a lot of sense to just make singles be the default format, and second masters be the variant format...

Given that the game seems to be largely balanced around singles, since that is what people play.

I'm not a huge fan of second Masters mainly because the pools favor elite crews in the first place (make smaller models more useful for winning, and the biggest issue fixes itself), but I'm definitely more in the "If it's broken, prove it" camp.

Banning something because it's a conceptual issue, not a balance one, just doesn't feel right.

I mean, I frikkin loathed Nekima in 2nd Ed. But I wouldn't have banned her in a tournament.

[Regelridderen]

12 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

… can the UK please get the stick out of their ass with regards to second masters?

Clearly, you’ve never had anything stick shaped up your ass. It is quite a delightful experience - and single masters is just a better format.

[Maniacal_cackle]

54 minutes ago, Morgan Vening said:

I'm not a huge fan of second Masters mainly because the pools favor elite crews in the first place (make smaller models more useful for winning, and the biggest issue fixes itself), but I'm definitely more in the "If it's broken, prove it" camp.

Banning something because it's a conceptual issue, not a balance one, just doesn't feel right.

I mean, I frikkin loathed Nekima in 2nd Ed. But I wouldn't have banned her in a tournament.

Changing formats isn't the same as banning.

DMH for example is not allowed by default, but I wouldn't really consider Nicodem banned or overpowered.

It also wasn't a ban when they shifted from unlimited master hiring to no more more half the pool.

Currently it feels like they errata primarily for singles but the default ruleset is doubles, which seems wonky.

[Scoffer]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Currently it feels like they errata primarily for singles but the default ruleset is doubles, which seems wonky

Errata does fix double master issues. A fresh example: McMourning title was changed to prevent infinite loop of Seamus attacks in a double master crew.

[im_open_to_suggestions]

17 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Also can the UK please get the stick out of their ass with regards to second masters?

If you aint in the uk why do you care how we play?

[RisingPhoenix]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:00 AM, im_open_to_suggestions said:

If you aint in the uk why do you care how we play?

Because they get their jank all over everyone else's stuff.  Witness this thread. 

[RisingPhoenix]

On 4/14/2022 at 3:11 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

It would make a lot of sense to just make singles be the default format, and second masters be the variant format...

Given that the game seems to be largely balanced around singles, since that is what people play.

Plenty of people play doubles.  If you hosted your series using the default rules rather than variant rules, you'd have plenty of people playing doubles.

What you've done is ban people from playing doubles in your tournament then go "well everyone seems to be playing singles from what I've seen..."

I know confirmation bias is the human condition, but please tell me you recognize the major logical fallacy in what you just did there.