AverageRatingGain

Elo-Based Commander Rating System for Direct Strike

The Problem with Winrate in Direct Strike

• No Matchmaking System: In Direct Strike, players are not matched based on skill. This results in teams that can be vastly uneven in strength, leading to scenarios where one team has an expectation to win over 80% of the time. In such cases, the raw winrate of a commander becomes misleading because it doesn’t account for the quality of the opposition.
• Skewed Winrate Data: A commander might have a high winrate simply because it's commonly picked by higher-rated players who consistently win, while another commander may have a low winrate because it’s often used by newer or less skilled players. This doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual strength or effectiveness of the commander itself.

Elo-Based Rating: A Better Approach

• Measures Performance Relative to Expectations: The Elo-based system calculates how much a player's rating changes after each game based on whether they exceed or fall short of their expected performance. If a lower-rated team beats a higher-rated team, the rating gain is substantial, while the gain is small if a high-rated team wins as expected.
• Accounts for Team Strength Imbalance: When computing commander stats, the average rating gain takes into account not just wins and losses, but also the relative strength of the players involved. This means that a commander can still show positive rating gain trends even if its winrate is lower, as long as players using it are consistently outperforming expectations.
• Reflects Skill Expression with Each Commander: Commanders that are difficult to play effectively may show up as having higher rating gains, as skilled players are able to make a bigger impact. Conversely, commanders that are straightforward but not as strong may show lower rating gains even if their winrate is decent because they don’t provide as much opportunity for skill expression.

Why the Elo-Based Commander Rating is Better

• Adjusts for Opponent Quality: It factors in the quality of the opposition. Beating a strong team rewards a larger rating increase, while losing to a strong team results in a smaller rating decrease. This helps to measure the actual effectiveness of a commander rather than just counting wins and losses.
• Balances Out Luck and External Factors: Since Direct Strike games involve 3 vs 3 teams, the result of a single match can be influenced by a variety of factors outside an individual player’s control (such as teammates' skill levels). The Elo-based system helps to smooth out these fluctuations over time, providing a more accurate picture of a commander’s effectiveness.

Practical Example

Let’s say:

• Commander A is played frequently by highly skilled players and has a 70% winrate. However, its rating gain is low because these players are expected to win most of the time.
• Commander B is played often by less experienced players and has only a 40% winrate. Despite this, it shows a positive rating gain because players using Commander B are still able to win some games against stronger opponents, which results in larger Elo rating increases for those wins.

In this example, Commander B's higher average rating gain suggests that it has the potential to perform better than its winrate implies.

Conclusion

By using an Elo-based system, the commander ratings are more robust, accurate, and meaningful. They reflect the true impact of commanders in a competitive environment, factoring in skill discrepancies and giving a clearer picture of a commander's potential beyond just winrate percentages. This approach encourages a more nuanced understanding of commander performance, aligning player expectations more closely with reality.