The Maths of Malifaux

[Mike3838]

I'm not sure if this has already been done, but I've crunched the numbers to find the probabilities of reaching different target numbers, both with a straight flip, and with a single or negative flip.

The basic results are here, with further detail in the main post:

Hopefully someone will find this useful. If you spot any errors in my working out please let me know!

Mike

[xxXhayzelXxx]

o.O wow...

[DoogTheMushroom]

What are these target values based off of?

[Q'iq'el]

Target Values are numbers on the cards. When you flip, you know which is the minimal value you need to meet to succeed.

Having said that, the reason why there's little in the area of Math-faux on the forums lies in the specific of card based mechanic. These numbers work only for the first card flipped out from freshly shuffled deck, right?

After that probability of meeting target values (not to mention suits) depends largely on what has already been discarded. In practice these numbers aren't as useful as knowing the probabilities related to dice-roling (which are the most important when you have to decide how many dice to spent from the pool).

Edited March 14, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[Sliver Chocobo]

Also no black Joker

[Yazza]

i uess this is based on a full deck, so as soon as you pull one card all odds change right?

not to mention the 6 cards you hold

[Sliver Chocobo]

Why is easier to get a weak on any number of : than it is to get a server or moderate, shouldn't they be equal Since you choose?

[Wodschow]

Also no black Joker

There is a Black Joker..

There's a reason the '1' doesn't say 100%.

Also I agree that those numbers aren't nearly as useful as the statistics applied on the inferior dice-based games.

Your deck changes all the time and is at no point 54 cards during the actual game..

And really - as long as you have a basic idea as to what's been flipped you can make rought estimates in your head. xD

(Editide: the whole element of cheating also steals from the value of this table.

But it looks right as far as I can tell )

Edit:

Why is easier to get a weak on any number of : than it is to get a server or moderate, shouldn't they be equal Since you choose?

It's 'target number' or higher.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Wodschow

[PicklesGrr]

Also no black Joker

Yes there is or the chance of getting 1 would be 100%

ninjaed

I like the table - it shows just how huge the difference between a + flip & a - flip is.

I am curious why you stopped at ++/-- rather than doing the whole lot of +++/---.

Edited March 14, 2011 by PicklesGrr

[waferthinninja]

Nice! You should extend it to show the odds required to flip a specific suit too, since that's something you commonly need to do to cast a spell or activate a trigger.

Interesting analysis on the wrinkles caused by the Jokers too. The card flipping mechanic is definitely more than just a gimmicky replacement for dice rolling.

[hippieshopper]

Nice! You should extend it to show the odds required to flip a specific suit too, since that's something you commonly need to do to cast a spell or activate a trigger.

Interesting analysis on the wrinkles caused by the Jokers too. The card flipping mechanic is definitely more than just a gimmicky replacement for dice rolling.

Hehe, yeah

I think getting a 9 of crows or better for Nico is something like 11% on a straight flip.

But Kirai's Evolve Spirit is closer to 24%

it's 9% for McM and Seamus

Not counting things like SS.

[Mike3838]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

You're right that flipping a couple of cards off the deck is going to change these numbers. I plan to do a follow up piece with a bit fuzzier maths to try and make a guess at how much it changes, and also add in triggers and Soulstones.

As for why I didn't go to +-3, I'll be honest, I'm new to the game and I didn't realise that was the maximum. I'll add then in the V2

[WUWU]

Cool chart.

I've always just used some simple poker math for Malifaux, and counted my "Outs". How many cards left in the deck that will give you success divided by the number of cards left in your deck.

[nachtnebel]

My 2 cents:

Malifaux is less like other tabletops and more like Black Jack. So if you are searching for a winning strategy think more of card counting and not of set in stone contingency analysis like probability tables.

To summarize the theory of card counting for Malifaux:

Before the game starts compare both crews and divide the cards into three groups:

(-1/+1) target values that would never be high enough to win a duel against your/your enemies models

(0) target values that are high enough to win a duel against most of your/your enemies models but should be cheated

(+1/-1) target values that are high enough to win a duel against most of your/your enemies models

Everytime a card is fliped or played just add or substract the value in brackets to calculate the "fate value" of your and your opponents deck.

Substract your opponents fate value from yours:

negativ value - you probably need to cheat

value close to zero - risky

positiv value - you probably don't need to cheat

This way you only need to remember 2 fate values and the target value groups.

To improve this very basic system just calculate fate values for Willpower, Casting, Combat and Defense. And, based on the target number groups, it is also possible to calculate odds out of the different fate values, but this is not that easy.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Also card counting is a form of cheating in vegas and most part in Malifaux. It is a bit harder to do so since suit requirements pop up. But I think these kinds of charts kind of break the whole reason to use dice over cards. This game is not really based on chance as much as dice based games. Especially since you have a control hand you can cheat with.

[Q'iq'el]

Also card counting is a form of cheating in vegas and most part in Malifaux.

It is NOT cheating as long as you don't use any external counting device. Let's not propagate idiotic myths casinos chose to spread for their own benefit.

- Las Vegas is hardly an authority on this issue, because it is an area where gambling industry has disproportionate legal advantage over customers. In most countries (or even other gambling cities in the US) to ban a player for legitimate card-counting would in fact be illegal. Casinos employ random shuffling and forms of harassment (attempts to break concentration etc.) instead.

- About the only games where this gives player any serious advantage over the house are blackjack and its derivatives. To brand card-counting "cheating" in general is rather frivolous.

- In Malifaux, if you employed rudimentary card-counting and use it without good understanding of the game-related choices and rules, you'd actually shoot yourself in the foot. It is something which can give really good players some advantage in tournaments, but then really good players can all easily employ such simple counting methods, so it's hardly unfair.

- To call a tactic cheating is to imply people who use it cheat. To call someone a cheater is defamation. In a solid game store or well managed tournament you'd actually get banned for groundless accusations of this sort, just as you'd get banned for actual cheating.

So let's not spread silly myths. It's not like such a rudimentary system is actually game-changing.

[nachtnebel]

Counting cards is definitively not a kind of cheating. And as for Black Jack, since most european casinos use so called Shuffle Stars, card counting has gone out of use. It might be different in Vegas, I don't know.

And by the way: Here in germany (and I think most other european countries too) no casino needs a reason to ban a player, if they don't like your face, they can bar you from the house.

Back to Malifaux:

Every player has its own fate deck valuation system. We all keep track of the cards we and our opponents play, we try to determine our opponents control hand and we all balance pros and cons before we activate a model or take an action. While most of us do this by intuition and not based on quasi-scientific algorithm or valuation system, such a system would never break the game.

I'm still new to Malifaux and not done scoring all the different models and abilities, but I think I already have a solid concept of what my evaluation algorithm should look like. The main issue is to keep the system simple enough therewith it can be used without the aid of pen and paper.

But in the interest of full disclosure, I think keeping track of all the important cards that have been played is the way to go. From my current point of view more than 50% of the cards are unimportant, it only comes down to at max two different suits, both jokers and the card values of 8 and higher.

[PlasticBoy]

It is also worth noting that dice or cards doesn't matter. Both are means of random number generating. They are different but do not fool yourself into thinking that cards are not random.

Now the mechanics of Malifaux bring a fresh look on randomness. Which is in large part why I believe it has been a successful new game in the tabletop market.

[waferthinninja]

The key difference is that dice rolls are independent events, same odds each time, whereas card flips are not, since each flip changes the composition of the remaining deck.

In some ways card counting is easier in Malifaux - you are only dealing with one deck rather than a six to eight deck shoe. With your starting hand you get to see > 10% of the deck; in subsequent turns its even more since you shuffle, then discard and redraw. By the middle of a turn you might have seen half the deck depending on how much action there has been, so its not too hard to have a good idea whether the remainder of the deck is full of high or low cards, even without explicitly counting.

Having said that I think its a lot harder to really benefit from card counting in a complex game like Malifaux compared to a much simpler game like Blackjack. Even in Blackjack it only nudges expected return in your favour, so in the long run you will win. To make money card counting you have to play for hours on end, and you can still end sessions down.

In Malifaux, many of your flips are involuntary (defensive), so knowing your odds doesn't help on those. Of the active flips, its only really going to help on those occasions where you are making a judgement call about whether to risk something - maybe a couple of times per game - the luck factor is still going to overwhelm any edge card counting has given you.

[Peterdita]

I count cards(poorly) when I play malifaux... And I don't cheat.

But to say someone is cheating because they know they will not flip the red joker since I've already seen it is crazy. Or they have already flipped the 3 high crows and know the spell wont work... THats just paying attention, not cheating.

I beleive its been ruled, as long as you aren't using anything record events/porbability, you can do whatever you want in your own twisted little mind.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Your deck changes all the time and is at no point 54 cards during the actual game..

It is when you draw your first hand.

The first flip is usually from 47 cards, 46 if you reflip for initiative.

Anyway, the math of the game isn't really difficult, but it is very mercurial. Figuring out the chance of getting a trigger depends on how many cards are left in your deck, how many of the needed suite are left in the deck, and how many times you'll be flipping.