Metagame Analysis Calculator (MAC) Tutorial

William Spaniel explains how to use an innovative new tool--the Metagame Analysis Calculator (MAC)--to find the optimal strategy in complex gaming situations.

Download MAC here: http://www.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=2912

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Magic
• the
• Gathering
• Starcraft
• Super
• Smash
• Bros
• Melee
• Brawl
• Statistics
• World
• of
• Warcraft
• WoW

[MSKAway]

is this a joke ? this is a joke right. this is the most useless "tool" I have ever seen.

[JimBobJenkins]

May I ask what makes it so useless?

[Gigliaronanomacon]

Is there anyway to get this Program without having to pay for the Subscription?

[JimBobJenkins]

Unfortunately, no.

[TeamMetaRebels]

may somebody load this onto mediafire?

[ForbiddianSC]

Continued from below....

And I just crunched the numbers. After 4 rounds, the chance of going 4-0-0 for Scissors is 1/20.

Compare to 1/160 for Paper and 1/320 for Rock.

[joeyisamartian]

You my friend, are a genius

[ForbiddianSC]

The populations in the N-0-0 category after one round would be roughly: 1 rock:2 paper: 1 scissors.

From this ratio, you can see that rock will go down, scissors will go up while paper will stay constant.

As rock declines, paper will begin to decline. After an infinite number of rounds, the winners will be equal at a 1:1:1 ratio. This should be intuitive.

I'd rather be one of the 20% filling into a 33% slot than one of the 40% filling into a 33% slot.

[ForbiddianSC]

Continued below....

If you would like another example about how the program might give misleading results, which would you play in this metagame: 40% Rock, 40% Paper, 20% Scissors?

You'd say Paper.

If it's a Swiss tournament lasting more than 1 round, I'd play Scissors.

After 1 round, the population of winning paper players balloons up, making paper the most common.

Rock is largely eliminated, since it can only go 1-0 off of the relatively rare Scissors.

[ForbiddianSC]

Continued from below....

Players don't want to end up 6-3 or 5-4. They want to maximize their chances of going 7-2 (or whatever the cutoff happens to be).

It's a tall order to fill, but these metagame excel sheets are a dime a dozen.

If you want a program, there are other calculations you could do:

"Best chance to win each match on the Swiss"

"Best chance to go 7-2 on the Swiss."

"Best chance to go 7-2 on the Swiss, then go 3-0 against the top 8 players."

Not easy, but definitely possible.

[ForbiddianSC]

Sorry, but this tool isn't sophisticated enough. It's good at what it does (which is save you like a few minutes), but it could do more.

In Magic: the Gathering, you play in a Swiss tournament. Winners play winners.

There are some decks that die to aggro but roll control. These decks win more often than they "should" because aggro decks are rarer later in the swiss. A control-crusher that chances into an early win or two can ride out the control matchups into the top 8.

Continued...

[redmoon3580]

It is a neat tool, but alot of people would rather play the deck that they think plays the best, not what is most likely to win. Also, it would be hard to get reasonable statistics for any TCG. But, it is still a good tool (the only problem is that when you factor how many people know the result, it changes the result, which causes a paradox).

[Gigliaronanomacon]

I wish I could get this without subscribing....O well. I looks like a pretty useful item and grats on making it.