Jan 20, 2020
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas
Hello friends!
We here at 1939 Games like to look at numbers and data. In this dev blog we’re going over some of the interesting metrics surrounding Kards and share some interesting insight. We’ve done something similar once before, perhaps this will become a regular thing. Who knows? Let’s get the ball rolling.
This chart shows how often each nation is used as the main nation in Battle matches the last couple of months. It counts all Battle matches, it is not filtered by player age or MMR. This means this chart does not necessarily reflect what is being played the most in the top echelon. Germany has always been the most popular choice for players, the other nations trailing behind in a tight pack.
In an ideal world it might be good to have each main nation played exactly 20%, but we acknowledge that when you have a game based on history, there will always be bias towards certain nations regardless of other things.
Here we see quite a different picture, with the USA being the standout most popular ally by far. The others are in a similar range, except Britain, which is noticeably less popular than the others. This is not surprising, as the USA not only has strong ally only cards like The Alliance, but also can be used for its ramp or for its big, powerful units on the side. Infantry based decks using Unity in Strength are also very popular. Britain being less popular as ally is also not surprising either as many of their strongest cards are Elite, and thus can no longer be used as ally. In addition, many of their more popular strategies also do not lend themselves very well to ally status, such as commandos, air decks and Naval Support decks.
Again, the data here is for all Battles in the last two months.
Please note the graph only goes from 45 to 55 to make the differences clearer - on a 0 to 100 graph the difference is hard to see.
There are a few obvious takes from this data. One is that the most popular nation also has the lowest win rate (though it should be noted, like with all data, there are always random variables to take into account). The other big takeaway is that the Soviet are performing significantly better than the other nations. Of course, what this chart does not show is the individual performance of deck archetypes - there certainly are, for instance, British and German decks with better performance ratings than what we see here. Also, this chart shows the combined win rate of the nation, of course individual main/ally combinations often vary significantly.
Speaking of ally nations it is important to note that the overall win rate of the new minor nations, France and Italy, is very bad regardless of who they are paired with (one reason likely is that people are still finding the best configuration and are trying many crazy things). As Britain and Germany are the most popular nations to pair with the two new nations, their overall win rate suffers as a result and is closer to 50% if France/Italy are removed from the equation. This is corroborated by looking at the win rate for Britain and Germany from before the expansion came out, it was much better, close to 50% for both of them. So the data here needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
However, there are still strong indicators, not just with the win rate displayed here, but other data as well, that indicate that Soviet are a bit too strong and Germany a bit too weak. We’ve been testing out some changes internally lately, you can expect to see some balance changes in the near future. As a rule of thumb, anything between 49% and 51% is in an acceptable state, if the win rate/loss rate is between 1 and 2 percent from 50%, then it needs to be monitored closely and anything above 52% or below 48% should be addressed.
I’m presenting both together because there is such a strong correlation between what people are finding success with and what they are picking (and vice versa). We can still see a bit of a German bias same as for Battle matches, but apart from that we see that people pick the USA very highly because, surprise surprise, their win rate is very good, and on the other end, Britain is the least popular choice, because their win rate is abysmal.
The strong performance of the USA in draft is no real surprise as they have many big units at standard rarity, like 3rd Marine Regiment and A-26 Invader that are too slow for constructed, but shine in draft.
Same as with the Battles, the win ratio is skewed a little bit by the presence of France and Italy, which again are not showing good performance stats. Some of it can be explained by unfamiliarity of these nations, but a bigger part is likely the limited card pool and that many France and Italian cards are only really good when you have critical mass (resistance and Alpine respectively), and getting critical mass in draft is very unreliable (this is the same reason for instance why Japanese burn, German blitz or Soviet token strategies are difficult to pull off in draft).
For standard rarity, we see an Alpini unit, an aggressive unit buff card and a unit tailor-made to stall the game. The Alpine mechanic is a close second to the resistance one in terms of popularity - people obviously and understandably want to try out the new stuff after months of playing the same cards ad infinitum. The Juggernaut is solid in many of the Soviet based aggro decks that are performing well at the moment and D4Y Suisei is very solid in any kind of deck aiming to delay the game, especially in tandem with cards like Deadly Duty.
For the limited rarity, the top crafted card is perhaps a little bit of a surprise. 1st Airborne is a card that can go into a variety of decks, both aggro and more controlish and is one of these units that can go completely berserk if left unchecked. We have another British unit in second place, this time a unit promoting the Naval Support strategy, which remains very popular in the lower echelons where removal is not so prevalent. And in third place we have another mainstay of the Alpine strategy.
The most crafted special rarity card is the Panther A, one of the best new tanks in the expansion. A heavy hitter with a built in card-advantage is exactly what German mid-range and control wants. The 109th Combat Engineers are used to great effect in the Soviet/US aggro deck, one of the best performing decks currently. It can also be put to good use in Soviet tokens, German blitz and other strategies, so a very versatile and powerful card to pair with any sort of aggressive strategy. Finally we have yet another Alpine unit, this time a German one and one that can also be solid outside of dedicated Alpine decks due to its solid stats and powerful ability.
Finally, we come to the Elite category. The King of the Hill in that struggle is actually an old warhorse from the base set, the good ol’ Leopold, underlining that powerful phallic symbols hold an age old fascination with wargamers no matter what. Of the new cards, Shelling is the most popular one. It is still searching for the best home, but for a card that does so much that is bound to happen sooner than later. In third place we have the Soviet 83rd Naval Brigade, again showcasing the value players hold for cards with a built-in card advantage.
That’s it for now, hope this quick insight into some of our data has been interesting and helpful. Let us know what you think!
We here at 1939 Games like to look at numbers and data. In this dev blog we’re going over some of the interesting metrics surrounding Kards and share some interesting insight. We’ve done something similar once before, perhaps this will become a regular thing. Who knows? Let’s get the ball rolling.
My Nation for a Horse
One of the core metrics is how much each nation is played as a main nation. Let’s see how that stands currently.This chart shows how often each nation is used as the main nation in Battle matches the last couple of months. It counts all Battle matches, it is not filtered by player age or MMR. This means this chart does not necessarily reflect what is being played the most in the top echelon. Germany has always been the most popular choice for players, the other nations trailing behind in a tight pack.
In an ideal world it might be good to have each main nation played exactly 20%, but we acknowledge that when you have a game based on history, there will always be bias towards certain nations regardless of other things.
In the Friendzone
What nation is the favorite to ally up with? Again, this is looking at all Battle matches in the last couple of months.Here we see quite a different picture, with the USA being the standout most popular ally by far. The others are in a similar range, except Britain, which is noticeably less popular than the others. This is not surprising, as the USA not only has strong ally only cards like The Alliance, but also can be used for its ramp or for its big, powerful units on the side. Infantry based decks using Unity in Strength are also very popular. Britain being less popular as ally is also not surprising either as many of their strongest cards are Elite, and thus can no longer be used as ally. In addition, many of their more popular strategies also do not lend themselves very well to ally status, such as commandos, air decks and Naval Support decks.
Win the Battle, Lose the War
Now we come to one of the more important stats - win rate. How well are the nations actually performing? Let’s take a look.Again, the data here is for all Battles in the last two months.
Please note the graph only goes from 45 to 55 to make the differences clearer - on a 0 to 100 graph the difference is hard to see.
There are a few obvious takes from this data. One is that the most popular nation also has the lowest win rate (though it should be noted, like with all data, there are always random variables to take into account). The other big takeaway is that the Soviet are performing significantly better than the other nations. Of course, what this chart does not show is the individual performance of deck archetypes - there certainly are, for instance, British and German decks with better performance ratings than what we see here. Also, this chart shows the combined win rate of the nation, of course individual main/ally combinations often vary significantly.
Speaking of ally nations it is important to note that the overall win rate of the new minor nations, France and Italy, is very bad regardless of who they are paired with (one reason likely is that people are still finding the best configuration and are trying many crazy things). As Britain and Germany are the most popular nations to pair with the two new nations, their overall win rate suffers as a result and is closer to 50% if France/Italy are removed from the equation. This is corroborated by looking at the win rate for Britain and Germany from before the expansion came out, it was much better, close to 50% for both of them. So the data here needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
However, there are still strong indicators, not just with the win rate displayed here, but other data as well, that indicate that Soviet are a bit too strong and Germany a bit too weak. We’ve been testing out some changes internally lately, you can expect to see some balance changes in the near future. As a rule of thumb, anything between 49% and 51% is in an acceptable state, if the win rate/loss rate is between 1 and 2 percent from 50%, then it needs to be monitored closely and anything above 52% or below 48% should be addressed.
Medium Strong Draft
Now let’s take a look at draft. Here are both the play rate and win rate of each of the main nations, based on data from the last couple of months:I’m presenting both together because there is such a strong correlation between what people are finding success with and what they are picking (and vice versa). We can still see a bit of a German bias same as for Battle matches, but apart from that we see that people pick the USA very highly because, surprise surprise, their win rate is very good, and on the other end, Britain is the least popular choice, because their win rate is abysmal.
The strong performance of the USA in draft is no real surprise as they have many big units at standard rarity, like 3rd Marine Regiment and A-26 Invader that are too slow for constructed, but shine in draft.
Same as with the Battles, the win ratio is skewed a little bit by the presence of France and Italy, which again are not showing good performance stats. Some of it can be explained by unfamiliarity of these nations, but a bigger part is likely the limited card pool and that many France and Italian cards are only really good when you have critical mass (resistance and Alpine respectively), and getting critical mass in draft is very unreliable (this is the same reason for instance why Japanese burn, German blitz or Soviet token strategies are difficult to pull off in draft).
Building a Bridge Too Far
Finally, let’s see what you guys are spending your hard-earned Resources on. Looking at the data from the last couple of months it should come as no surprise that it is dominated by cards from the Allegiance expansion. The resistance mechanic obviously resonated well with players because the key resistance cards are all near the top of the cards crafted. Apart from those, these are the top 3 crafted cards in the last couple of months in each rarity:Crafted Standard cards
For standard rarity, we see an Alpini unit, an aggressive unit buff card and a unit tailor-made to stall the game. The Alpine mechanic is a close second to the resistance one in terms of popularity - people obviously and understandably want to try out the new stuff after months of playing the same cards ad infinitum. The Juggernaut is solid in many of the Soviet based aggro decks that are performing well at the moment and D4Y Suisei is very solid in any kind of deck aiming to delay the game, especially in tandem with cards like Deadly Duty.
Crafted Limited cards
For the limited rarity, the top crafted card is perhaps a little bit of a surprise. 1st Airborne is a card that can go into a variety of decks, both aggro and more controlish and is one of these units that can go completely berserk if left unchecked. We have another British unit in second place, this time a unit promoting the Naval Support strategy, which remains very popular in the lower echelons where removal is not so prevalent. And in third place we have another mainstay of the Alpine strategy.
Crafted Special cards
The most crafted special rarity card is the Panther A, one of the best new tanks in the expansion. A heavy hitter with a built in card-advantage is exactly what German mid-range and control wants. The 109th Combat Engineers are used to great effect in the Soviet/US aggro deck, one of the best performing decks currently. It can also be put to good use in Soviet tokens, German blitz and other strategies, so a very versatile and powerful card to pair with any sort of aggressive strategy. Finally we have yet another Alpine unit, this time a German one and one that can also be solid outside of dedicated Alpine decks due to its solid stats and powerful ability.
Crafted Elite cards
Finally, we come to the Elite category. The King of the Hill in that struggle is actually an old warhorse from the base set, the good ol’ Leopold, underlining that powerful phallic symbols hold an age old fascination with wargamers no matter what. Of the new cards, Shelling is the most popular one. It is still searching for the best home, but for a card that does so much that is bound to happen sooner than later. In third place we have the Soviet 83rd Naval Brigade, again showcasing the value players hold for cards with a built-in card advantage.
That’s it for now, hope this quick insight into some of our data has been interesting and helpful. Let us know what you think!
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