Ok, as I look at the top of the rankings list:
1. SeaLeta 14214 32 1904/1397
2. Plynx 13528 31 553/229
As I sit happily ranked 5,690, I kept seeing 2 - 3 people listed in threads as the best players. I went looking at the master rank list to see what all was there. I am pretty sure what has me thrown off is the different amounts of points won/lost as affected by the level spread in the matches. Please check my thoughts on this:
Plynx seems to have placed quite high and only seems to have played a minimum of games to do it (72.5% win). In order to so so and get the amout of XP he has he would have had to consistantly beat people who were higher than his level by several levels to gain the max points. True? So on a straight game to game Plynx is ~15 percent hight in the win column than SeaLeta (58% win).
SeaLeta who is at the top, appears to have earned more points over more games against a larger variety of opponents indicating there was an average less point spread as compared to Plynx's opponents. Correct?
I am just trying to grasp the lvl/points/position possibilities. It would appear that consistant good play is rewarded more so than a winning record???
Not that I care to take an ass whipping from either one, both are definitly awesome players just based on their positions. And I'm definitly not trying to start a debate on who is the better player (please do not let this thread drift in that direction), Or, all this math may be more than my publik skool edukatshun can handle  Modified by Volt on 2010-02-03 19:20:57 | Wavelength | 2010-02-03 19:43:02 |
Plynx might have played people who were lower than his level more often than SeaLeta, it would be difficult to determine. Yes, beating a higher-ranked player will boost your score more, but the effect is small in comparison to the effect that winning or losing has. The fact that he had a higher winning percentage directly contributed to the fact that he topped Level 30 quicker than anyone else.
It's also worth noting that Plynx played a bunch of unranked training games since very few people at the time were close enough in rank to him that they were allowed to Duel for rank.
| undefeated | 2010-02-03 20:06:53 |
What happened with Plynx, is at a certain point he had nobody left to duel. He was level 31 and the second to highest player was 22, then after that it was 20 (couldn't duel). He didn't wanna do tournaments because they are buggy. But he beat people of any level at a ridiculous ratio, especially once he started using control, so his only limiting factor was other people's levels. So if there was someone level 32 out there then, he would've been 42.. Though, some people who have high ranks but not crazy win percentages, it just took them awhile to learn the game and on their second accounts they won at a high percentage (sealeta and duomaxwell are both sealeta; erickiller and plynx103 are both me). Modified by undefeated on 2010-02-03 20:09:10 Ahh, I can definitly see where an alt account would have a much different win percentage than one where you learned from. I have been mostly playing a friend of miner lately to help him get at least to the little bit on knowledge that I have. That has boosted me to my level 4 possibly inaccurately. Hopefully I'll get on tonight for a few lessons :)
| undefeated | 2010-02-04 03:17:21 |
Ya, also I think some people have better win percentages early on because they have played games like this before.
| garcia1000 | 2010-02-04 07:01:23 |
Also remember you get a 1 point bonus for losing a game. So you'd subtract 1397 from Sealeta's rank points and subtract 229 from Plynx's rank points to get their "real" rating.
| Cooler | 2010-02-04 11:38:47 |
erickiller and plynx103 are both me).
Wow! Interesting... BTW, why you made an account similar to Plynx?
| wiggin | 2010-02-04 13:01:19 |
Also remember you get a 1 point bonus for losing a game. So you'd subtract 1397 from Sealeta's rank points and subtract 229 from Plynx's rank points to get their "real" rating. Not really though. If Sealeta had had this lower rating throughout, he would also have won less rating and lost more, because of the level difference rules of the rating system. So it's not that simple. The most direct way to look at it, is too see how many more matches a player has won compared to how many he has lost. For most high-ranked players, that number is ~320. For Sealeta its higher, so he has played a higher proportion of his game against lower ranked players.
Modified by wiggin on 2010-02-04 13:04:25 | TurinTuramba | 2010-02-04 13:01:20 |
I think Erickiller has made 50% of the active Spectromancer accounts, so it probably was a coincidence. ;)
| wiggin | 2010-02-04 13:06:18 |
... Wow! Interesting... BTW, why you made an account similar to Plynx?
To confuse us. He even told me he was TurinTurambar after I found it he wasn't Plynx.
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Not really though. If Sealeta had had this lower rating throughout, he would also have won less rating and lost more, because of the level difference rules of the rating system. So it's not that simple.
The most direct way to look at it, is too see how many more matches a player has won compared to how many he has lost. For most high-ranked players, that number is ~320. For Sealeta its higher, so he has played a higher proportion of his game against lower ranked players.
Pretty much what i figured out in my math. Like I said, both are fomidible opponents and I have no desire to take a beat down from them at all 
I had a few games last night and one really good one. I played a level 10 (can't remember the name). Lost it early on, then either he misplayed or lightened up on me and I looked to win ithuge. I had 5 to 1 board control and equal life. Then he either came back hard and/or I know I miss played 2 cards back to back that eventually cost me the game. Nice long one game and as others have noted, a replay aspect would be great to learn from.
Another game I played last night had a glitch from what I can tell that cost me the game. The opponent had 2 priest of fire out and an Ice Guard. I had some cannon fodder out to beat up the mana generators. For what ever reason one of the Priests would not die. He stayed at 1 life point and would not budge for at least 3 rounds with my creature attacking him. He ended up with fire +10 and 2 Phoenix and crushed me. The second Fire Priest I was able to kill easily. Sorta had me distracted and pissed.
How do I type in the card name and get the underline linky?
| Grislo | 2010-02-04 14:55:46 |
Ahh, I can definitly see where an alt account would have a much different win percentage than one where you learned from. I have been mostly playing a friend of miner lately to help him get at least to the little bit on knowledge that I have. That has boosted me to my level 4 possibly inaccurately. Hopefully I'll get on tonight for a few lessons :) Without knowing for sure, I'd assume that most/all of the 'top players' have practised on alts. The stats on my main doesn't really reflect how I play, in terms of preferred class or win/loss since it's the account I played without throughout the beta and just kept using. Likewise, at lower levels, you can pick your fights carefully and do better than you otherwise would. I have a 40-19 on my mech only guy (not brilliant or anything), and I'm pretty sure that would look worse if I had just randomly accepted every duel. Being able to do that obviously becomes more problematic when you reach higher levels as there are going to be less people to duel, as in the case of the highest ranked guys.
| wiggin | 2010-02-04 15:39:01 |
...
Without knowing for sure, I'd assume that most/all of the 'top players' have practised on alts. The stats on my main doesn't really reflect how I play, in terms of preferred class or win/loss since it's the account I played without throughout the beta and just kept using.
Likewise, at lower levels, you can pick your fights carefully and do better than you otherwise would. I have a 40-19 on my mech only guy (not brilliant or anything), and I'm pretty sure that would look worse if I had just randomly accepted every duel. Being able to do that obviously becomes more problematic when you reach higher levels as there are going to be less people to duel, as in the case of the highest ranked guys.
Why would you do that though? You learn more from playing against better players.
| undefeated | 2010-02-04 16:08:53 |
Ha, I made the account as a joke/tribute because there was so much talk about Plynx and Sealeta saying he's beter than plynx etc. But also, I wanted to see if people would think it was really him. At some point, I didn't want people to know it was me, so when Wiggin asked who I was I said someone he'd believe (Turin). But as soon as I found out I was confusing people rather than being funny, I said who I was. Anyways, I doubt anyone cares. I also have an account for dragline/finalslayer "dragslayer". Modified by undefeated on 2010-02-04 16:15:10 | Grislo | 2010-02-04 17:13:31 |
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Why would you do that though? You learn more from playing against better players.
In that particular case, just for the hell of it. I'm bad with mech, and I think it's a fairly weak class, relatively speaking, so it was just an experiment. I don't think I suggested that that's how I generally play my characters.
Ok, after getting schooled last night by Undefeated/plynx103 I learned a bit (thanks for the training). A few of the tips I picked up from this thread and others helped out quite a bit. One problem I have with the forum and this thread specifically is tracking what I call "hard tips". Moves/stratagies that for 95% of the time are a good idea.
Example: I used to never play the goblin due to the side damage to my creatures. Having read here, placing him on the right end with a turtle, Ice guard, and one other card (I forget teh name) midigate his damage or nullify it totally. The goblin is cheap and does nice damage and now is in my arsenal giving me one more card to use 
A lot of threads have these type hints but desintigrate from basic help to very specific situational stuff better for the mid to upper level players from my POV. This thread is good in theory but hard to pull the nuggets out for noobs IMO. which leads me to this, would any one have serious if I farmed the threads for these type hints, copied and pasted local for my self. Granted I could, but it's not my work and tis better to ask than to grab another's write ups.
I know all the tips are good and should be used/tried, but I need to learn basic card use before I worry too much about a 3 card combo that is played when the opponet is Chaos and card ABC has been played.
| wiggin | 2010-02-06 02:22:41 |
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