About the Platform

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about ModoMeta's tournament data coverage, metagame metrics, deck classification engine, and third-party credits.

Jump to: Tournament Coverage Metagame Metrics Classification & Colors Credits & Acknowledgments

1 Tournament Data & Coverage #

Is the Magic Online Challenge data incomplete? #

Daybreak Games (the studio operating MTGO) typically publishes only the top 32 decks from Magic Online Challenges, regardless of total tournament players. Whether a Challenge draws 64, 128, or 250+ players, only the top 32 decklists and standings are published in the official MTGO tournament results dumps.

Because finishes below 32nd place are omitted from official results dumps, our Challenge Share and metagame metrics reflect only these top 32 lists. Decks that finish outside the top 32 are effectively invisible to ModoMeta. Some analyses like the Legacy Data Collection Project attempt to capture a more complete picture with painstaking work (support them!), but ModoMeta only uses the official published results.

What about Preliminaries and Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQs)? #

Preliminaries (usually 4-round events) and Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQs) are largely excluded from ModoMeta's metagame statistics because there are relatively few of them in the dataset. While we ingest these events for tournament and player records, they are excluded from Challenge and League share metrics.

How do League 5-0 decks work? #

Daybreak publishes decks that achieved a 5-0 match record in constructed Leagues. Our League Share metric counts the number of 5-0 decks published for each archetype over the total 5-0 league decks. However, decks that don't achieve a 5-0 are not published, so we don't have visibility into the total number of league decks played.

2 Metagame Metrics Explained #

Conversion Rate #

Calculated as Top 8 Finishes / Challenge Appearances. Measures an archetype's win efficiency: when a player brings this deck, how likely are they to convert their run into a Top 8 appearance? Very strong decks, especially those with lower overall play rates, will have a high conversion rate.

3 Classification & Color Inferences #

How does ModoMeta identify archetypes and colors? #

Decklists are processed through a multi-stage classification pipeline:

Curated Signatures: Formats define archetype signatures with mandatory cards, minimum signature card thresholds, and anti-signatures (cards that exclude a deck from an archetype, like preventing Delver lists with Bowmasters from matching Izzet Delver).
TF-IDF & k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN): Unclassified decks are matched against known archetypes using TF-IDF cosine similarity with recency decay.
True Color Deductions: Color identities are inferred by examining whether the deck's mana base (lands and permanent mana producers) can produce the colors required by its castable spells. Free pitch spells/cards (Faerie Macabre) and Phyrexian mana (Dismember, Surgical Extraction) do not count toward a deck's color identity unless its mana base actually produces their colors.

4 Credits & Acknowledgments #

ModoMeta is built with gratitude to the open-source Magic: The Gathering developer and data communities:

Scryfall

Card data

Card metadata, imagery, legality rules, and mana costs are powered by Scryfall bulk data.

Mana Font

Symbols

All MTG mana symbols, color icons, and card costs are rendered using the Mana font created and maintained by Andrew Gioia. These symbols are copyright Wizards of the Coast.