A different approach from tier lists: a power level/flexibility plot.

[Maniacal_cackle]

So those who have seen me comment on tier lists before know that I think they're a bit rubbish for Malifaux. The big reason for this is there are too many different components of what makes a master competitive. Ideally you'd have like a 10-dimensional matrix to capture this, but that gets a bit too complicated, so... I present a 2-dimensional one for Ressers to get the ball rolling:

On one side I plot Raw Power and on another I plot Flexibility.

Raw Power captures just the traditional strength of a master (and the crews they are likely to lead). Some crews just have devastatingly powerful tech (often with the weakness of falling over to certain tech).

Flexibility captures how many different situations a model can handle. From the 16 different strategy and deployment combinations to the thousands of scheme combinations to the 54 enemy masters you can face... There's a lot of scope to be good in different situations. Flexibility captures how many different situations a master can handle competently.

So for example I think Jack Daw and Kirai have enormous raw power. Nothing else in Ressers quite compares to how brutally devastating they are. But they don't have as much flexibility as the other crews. When you face Jack Daw/Kirai, you have a pretty good idea of what tech you need to deal with the situation.

Molly is the opposite. Her raw power is on the low side for Ressers, but her flexibility just blows everything else out of the water. It is basically impossible to predict what Molly will bring beyond "what are the models I least want to see when I face her?"

Yan Lo I think nicely illustrates why I think he is so powerful. His raw power is just a smidge below some of the true powerhouses, but he has enormous flexibility. There is almost no situation that Yan Lo can't handle, and almost nothing that universally shuts down his engines. Although I think in double masters I'd probably rate his flexibility maybe one point lower, as I don't think he is very good at doing double masters...

What do you think? Is this a good alternative to tier lists? How would you rate the masters in your faction?

I combine titles for a master (so McMourning captures both 1 and 2 for example). When you declare a master, you are giving yourself access to both titles, so the raw power and flexibility calculations reflect the overall combination of titles for every master.

[Adran]

I think the concept is a good start, the choice of axis seems fairly good for showing two very different malifaux strengths. 

Since I find tier lists fairly pointless, I do think this is a "better" alternative. 

Not sure I have any more useful feedback yet, I'll give it some thought. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Just now, Adran said:

I think the concept is a good start, the choice of axis seems fairly good for showing two very different malifaux strengths. 

Since I find tier lists fairly pointless, I do think this is a "better" alternative. 

Not sure I have any more useful feedback yet, I'll give it some thought. 

Yeah, I generally just scoffed at tier lists today but someone pointed out that actually for players who don't know every single master of the meta, they do actually provide some useful information.

For example, if you've never faced Guild before, even a a simplified tier list is useful...

But being dissatisfied with how much they failed to capture... Inspired me to make this! Glad you think that this is a good start. I'm still thinking if improvements can be made.

Certainly graphically it has a long way to go 🤣

[SEV]

Nice... I like the axis bit I'm not sure of the scale... 5 should be an average master isn't?  Anyway, I'll consider McMourning as your 5 in power level and Seamus as your 5 in flexibility (I'm surprised here... I tough he was more flexible than that)... Schtook (arguably one of the best master in the game) being only 7/6 confused me a bit though.

I would like to see what fellow purple player think of our masters. My take (Master/power/flexibility)

Zoraida 7/8

Dreamer 7/7

Titania 5/6 (?) 

Pandora 6/3

Nekima 7(?)/4

Marcus 6 (in arc he certainly has more power)/8

Lucius(?) 3/6

Euripides ?/?

 

[regleant]

8 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Raw Power captures just the traditional strength of a master (and the crews they are likely to lead). Some crews just have devastatingly powerful tech (often with the weakness of falling over to certain tech).

Flexibility captures how many different situations a model can handle. From the 16 different strategy and deployment combinations to the thousands of scheme combinations to the 54 enemy masters you can face... There's a lot of scope to be good in different situations. Flexibility captures how many different situations a master can handle competently.

I think this is off to a good start, but you need to define the terms a little better. For example:

Flexibility: 

• Mobility?
• Capable of taking hits? (Armor, Shielded, Hard to Wound, Hard to Kill)
• Capable of making attacks?
• Capable of X / 12 Schemes?
• Capable of dropping markers even while engaged?

 

Raw Power:

• Punishing numbers in attacks (e.g. Min 3 damage troops, 6+ damage capable)?
• Mobility? 
• Capable of taking hits?
• Causing questions for your opponent to answer?

 

There is a lot of potential overlap on how different people will think of these terms. If I see that a keyword is flexible, I might think it's easy enough to throw them into a scrap. But that might not be your intention at all. Also, neither of these metrics really take into account the most important item: Scoring. Some of these traits (e.g. mobility) will make scoring various Strategies and Schemes much easier, even though it would traditionally be rated lower on the Raw Power and even Flexibility scale. But then we get into the 10-dimensional problem...

 

Anyway, good start. Just offering some thoughts.

[dannydb]

Arcanists	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	flexibility
1
2
3
4
5
6					Meifeng
7								Marcus	Sandeep
8				Ironsides		Kaeris				Hoffman
9									Colette
10
Raw power

 

so this is my thought on arcanist one 

Meifeng is a difficult one because Mei one has so many issues so her position is mostly based off meifeng 2 which i don't have a lot of experience with but has been doing well in world series, although how much of her effect is down to a gimmick that will be countered is yet to be seen 

Ironsides as a "bubble master" is restrictive in her flexibility although Ironsides 2 opens her up a lot more and i think she might drag her maybe to a 5, but its hard to say with so little play time and lack of info from MWS

 

Sandeep and Marcus feel fairly similar, both of them have a fair amount of flexibility with diverse keywords but have weakness. Marcus has some terrible match ups and can be quite fragile, while sandeep is quite card intensive with little card draw now and his summons and with his powers combined seem quite neutered with gg2 changes 

 

Kaeris is quite powerful in what she does and is a hard one to rank in terms of flexibility, one one side she has one of the best scheming flankers in game in carlos and a realy good tanky beater in Elijah, and fire golem, deacon (in kaeris 2) and fire branded all have good roles. but then you don't have much beyond that. iggy can be a good disruption model but doesn't offer much else, Firestarter is generally a worse wind gamin outside of his disruption and fire gamin arnt worth taking so she needs veracities to fill in spots, but then kaeris one can operate with almost nothing else in keyword 

 

Hoffman has an amazing keyword full of diverse models and then hoff1 has extra synergies on top of that with the various veracities and even coryphée duet (i think metal gamin/golem are the only construct I've not brought in a hoff crew) he might not have the raw power of Colette but hes still pritty good and in some pools superior

 

Colette despite her nurfs I still think is top of the arcanist tree, Don't mind me is such a great ability in gg2 and no other keyword has as much as Colette has. add on the mobility of Carlos, the ap of duet, flexibility of Cassandra and even the movement tricks of angelica and you have a some great models. then you have option of solo coryphée, Harrata, Dorian and mannequins. 

 

Raspy I've not ranked cos I've almost no experience with either version so i don't want to put a pin in a yet. if your were going to force my hand id maybe say 6/7 in both categories but I could be clutching at straws either way 

 

obviously if someone else wants to chime in with their thoughts on arcanist be my guest, but thats my thoughts 

[Maniacal_cackle]

To define the terms a bit more...

Flexibility: if you play 1000 games, how often are you feeling that the master is living up to their potential in that game? Between pool and opposing matchup, how much can the master handle every situation?

Raw Power: this represents the master in the games you actually want to play them in. How strong are they when they get a chance to shine? Jack Daw in his ideal matchups is just devastating, but that's such a small pool of situations that it is still pretty balanced. Raw power can look very different (Jack Daw can table people and win the game. Colette can outscore and win the game). The question is how much raw power do they have for winning when they're in a situation where you are likely to play them.

The most problematic masters of course are the ones with super high raw power and huge flexibility. I would argue pre-nerf Nexus easily fit into this category, having an extremely high raw power level combined with the flexibility to handle basically every situation in the game. Same for pre-nerf Colette. But the way they achieved these things was very different.

The key things are: How much diversity of situations can they handle (flexibility) and how powerful are they at winning the game when they are in the situations where you're likely to actually play them (raw power).

The two interact of course. Molly for instance I ranked her raw power relatively low, but her flexibility as super high. She is so flexible that she can find a way of making a power of 5 good enough to win.

It's all still quite subjective of course!

EDIT: Flexibility also includes 'ability of opponents to answer your game plan.' Jack Daw's game plan is fairly easy to counter. Yan Lo's game plan is slightly weaker, but he can adapt to pretty much any counter and keep going.

[Maniacal_cackle]

7 hours ago, SEV said:

Nice... I like the axis bit I'm not sure of the scale... 5 should be an average master isn't?

I think that Malifaux has been quite good at getting the power levels pretty close together.

Most things below 5 are filtered out from playtesting (usually).

7 hours ago, SEV said:

Lucius(?) 3/6

Funny, I would rate Lucius as a 6/3 or 6/4 or maybe 7/4. He has some solid power, but he is just so narrow. I've found one list I like with him xD

[Maniacal_cackle]

Here's the same information in a prettier format.

[Edek]

My view on Bayou masters. I feel pretty strong about Mah, Ophelia and Brewie. Somer, Ulix and Wong I have the least experienced with so probably could be placed better. I did a good number of games with Zoraida and Zipp but I didn't play them a lot lately.

[Math Mathonwy]

On 5/24/2022 at 11:48 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

What do you think? Is this a good alternative to tier lists? How would you rate the masters in your faction?

I can see the logic.

I kinda think that it might lose a bit of accuracy in situations where a Master is super polarizing as they might not have all that much raw power but they just really fit certain situations super well. But of course traditional tier lists don't tackle that situation well, either!

On 5/24/2022 at 11:48 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

I combine titles for a master (so McMourning captures both 1 and 2 for example). When you declare a master, you are giving yourself access to both titles, so the raw power and flexibility calculations reflect the overall combination of titles for every master.

I can see the argument for flexibility but surely the "raw power" would differ between the two versions?

[SEV]

9 hours ago, Edek said:

My view on Bayou masters. I feel pretty strong about Mah, Ophelia and Brewie. Somer, Ulix and Wong I have the least experienced with so probably could be placed better. I did a good number of games with Zoraida and Zipp but I didn't play them a lot lately.

It feels like a really optimistic view on the Bayou to me. 

The more I'm thinking about this, the more I think flexibility is still to broad. Ulix for example can do most strat and scheme but he has some attocious matchup... imo matchup should be an other axis.

As for raw power, I think it's quite broad but it should be seen as the power of your master/crew in a vacuum (not related to scoring but to the effectiveness of the action and/or action denial)... Looking at it as the power of a master/crew in its ideal scenario skew thing to much imo. 

Having access to powerful versatile/ook option should bump the raw power of a whole faction. Having access to a super synergistic KW should bump the raw power of a master, etc.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Raw power you can take to be when they're at their best (or close enough).

So if one title is basically irrelevant, the plot will just largely reflect one title. For example if Lucius one is a 4 and two is a 6, then the number to use is a 6 as you'll rarely play one anyway. 

Similarly flexibility is meant to capture everything.

Imagine you play a thousand games against different situations, pools, enemy masters. How many can you handle? If Ulix can handle all the pools, but not all the matchups,  then I would say he is only pretty flexible.

[AverageGatsby]

I think a better approach to tier lists would be to create a radar chart for each master with a few different variables. You could do something like survivability, damage potential, maneuverability, crew buffing/ synergy, and keyword strength etc. That way, rather than trying to encapsulate everything that a master means and represents into two values, you cave a bit more wiggle room. It's always going to be subjective, but it would give a bit more room for comparison to evaluate say Nekima 1 vs broodmother in terms of crew buffing or raw damage potential.

[Maniacal_cackle]

The World Series event is doubles atm.

One thing I'm really noticing about double masters is that it tends to be high power, low flexibility.

You have basically no room to pivot in doubles. If your opponent happens to counter your plan (or brings a plan you need to counter), it gets really rough.

Round 1 I went singles and was glad for the flexibility. Round 2 I went doubles and missed the flexibility. Round 3 I correctly predicted the opponents double master combo and took one specifically to hard counter his combo.

So varying experiences so far xD

[Maniacal_cackle]

On 5/27/2022 at 7:37 AM, AverageGatsby said:

I think a better approach to tier lists would be to create a radar chart for each master with a few different variables. You could do something like survivability, damage potential, maneuverability, crew buffing/ synergy, and keyword strength etc. That way, rather than trying to encapsulate everything that a master means and represents into two values, you cave a bit more wiggle room. It's always going to be subjective, but it would give a bit more room for comparison to evaluate say Nekima 1 vs broodmother in terms of crew buffing or raw damage potential.

That's a good idea, but again starts go get a bit complex.

If you're doing one faction at a time could make sense!

[Adran]

On 5/31/2022 at 11:55 AM, Maniacal_cackle said:

The World Series event is doubles atm.

One thing I'm really noticing about double masters is that it tends to be high power, low flexibility.

You have basically no room to pivot in doubles. If your opponent happens to counter your plan (or brings a plan you need to counter), it gets really rough.

That's not surprising. Your opponent knows about half your power ( your master and about 1/3 of your stones) so you have very little ' flex' left and they have a lot of information to base the counter on. It's not perfect, as they don't know the titles. 

You could argue that the flexibility of the masters is still there, but as you have had to commit a significant choice earlier, your opponent is able to adapt to your choice, so it's a little less flexible than normal.