In this article I'll cover some updates I've recently made to the rating algorithm on SplinterGuide and also have a look at one of my favorite features, the Gold Foil to Regular Foil price ratio.
SplinterGuide rating algo updates
- Added +0.5 points for dual-splinter unit cards.
- Big overhaul of the way I input & calculate ability scores, which made me require a lot less "fudge" corrections (where I basically add or remove from the calculated score to compensate for the algo not quite getting it right).
- Realized I hadn't quite factored in certain OP ability synergies, such as Iziar's Taunt+Martyr combo. After correcting these, several cards got a big boost, such as Iziar, Chaos Adjutant and Acid Shooter (with their Scattershot/Poison combo), Truthspeaker and Anasth Soothsayer (with the awesome cleanse+tank heal combo), and a few others. Below you can see a few examples of how the old scores didn't properly factor in these synergies, and now the rating power curve looks way better (i.e. the higher rating kicks in at the level where the unit gets both abilities).
(The 4 numbers on the left are the previous ratings and 4 numbers on the right are the new ratings)
- Added a boost for when units have 3+ damage and Blast, since that increases the residual damage from Blast. This improved the accuracy of scores for units like Grenadier, who gets his 3rd damage at max level.
- Improved the way I calculate ratings for Weapons Training units by better taking into account the attack type (melee/ranged/magic) as well as giving a boost at 3 damage that doesn't increase (since WT is capped at 3).
Gold Foil : Regular Foil price ratio
As I've mentioned before, one of my favorite features on SplinterGuide is the GF:RF (Gold Foil:Regular Foil) price ratio which you can find in the market section of the site: https://splinterguide.com/list/market.
Here's a snapshot of what that looks like right now with Chaos & Riftwatchers filtered:
Looking at the first card up there (Coastal Nymph) it shows a ratio of 0.61. Now let's look at the cost to get a max RF and a max GF for this card on Peakmonsters:
Sure enough, the GF is about 60% of the price of the RF at the moment! Whether or not that's a screaming buy depends - maybe liquidity for the RF is so low that the price doesn't make sense. However in this case I think it's simply the case that the GF is priced cheap while the RF is priced a bit high, leading to the difference being detected by the GF:RF ratio.
The number doesn't always work perfectly however, as it only looks at the lowest price card available in the market. That means that while it's true when it compares the RF low vs the GF low, it doesn't necessarily hold true if you want to max the card out (unless the low price IS a max card, which was the case for the Coastal Nymph above).
Typically I would say that any card where the GF:RF ratio is <1.5 is worth at least having a look at. However each set will behave quite differently. A big factor here is the PP that GF cards bring to land - this causes GF cards in older sets to typically be much more expensive than their RF counterparts. However you can still find deals even in older sets! E.g. have a look at the Flamesmith here which shows a GF:RF ratio of 1.3:
A quick look at the market and it costs ~$25 to max this card out in GF and $24 to max it out in RF! Definitely a way better buy at GF.
Hope you found this useful and that you're getting value from SplinterGuide. As always, I welcome any and all feedback.