Having been on Pojo’s Card of the Day team for a few years, and reading COTD for many years, I’d like to give my thoughts on rating cards. This is subjective, and to some degree arbitrary, but if I’m going to rate them, it may help to articulate my process.
My simple scale
- 4 – 5 = meta
- 3 – 3.9 = niche
- 2 – 2.9 = offmeta
- 1 – 1.9 = bad
One important criteria of meta of “what percentage of the time is this card the best choice for a main deck or side deck”. If a card is always a 4th or 5th choice for a given purpose, but never a first choice, even if it’s not inherently bad, it still wouldn’t see play because deck space is tight and there are better options.
Meta (4-5)
These cards are often the best choice, frequently seen in tournament topping decks. There’s levels of good. Maybe a 4 is a very good, but sometimes replaceable card. 4.5+ is likely very powerful and/or staple. And a 5 is probably a card that’s at risk of getting banned.
Niche (3-3.9)
Niche are occasionally the best choice and are sometimes seen in tournament topping deck lists. Oftentimes, when you have 38/40 cards in main deck (or 13/15 in your side) and you need just a few more cards, you’d probably consider a card in the mid to high 3’s. Cards in this range are often essential cards for mid-tier deck type or discretionary cards for high-tier deck types.
Offmeta (2-2.9)
An offmeta card is a card that is playable (to some degree), but there are just several cards that do the same card better.
If you have access to all cards, you’d just use the best cards. But there are some situations you may not have access to every card. Examples:
- A good card is expensive so you use a cheaper alternative (i.e. Malevolent Nuzzler vs. Axe of Despair in classic Yugioh).
- You’re playing a “draft tournament” (meaning you build decks out of randomly selected cards or packs)
- You and your friends agree to play lower tier decks.
2-2.9 may rarely (or never, in the low 2’s) top regionals or nationals, but may sometimes work in local tournaments that are less competitive.
Bad (1-1.9)
Cards that should never be played. I guess you could argue that there’s levels of bad, just as there’s levels of good (i.e. 4.5 vs 5). What really makes a 1 vs a 1.5? You could argue Gate Guardian is infinitely worse than Celtic Guardian, but both cards are an optimal choice 0% of the time, so they’re virtually equal.
A few more points…
The distribution is not an even bell curve. The 80-20 rule (pareto principle) exists. Most cards will be a 1-2 while maybe only a small percentage of cards will be a 4 or 5.
How do we rate deck-specific cards? (i.e. cards that are very good, but only for 1 specific deck type and no others). The score would be based on the viability of the deck itself. A card essential for a higher tier deck could get a 4+. Midtier, 3+. Lower tier, 2+. But if it’s for a deck that’s absolutely awful, even if its essential for that deck, it’s still a 1.
We could use that as a baseline and then go +0.5 or -0.5 depending on how crucial it is for that deck. Assume a mid-tier deck type. A really good for that deck type could be a 3.5, whereas a card that’s decent for it (but not mandatory) could be a 3 or even a 2.5.