Dane Bachelor Project on the Pokemon TCG – Need Your Help!

Written by | June 4, 2011 | 13 comments | 1,156 views | Rating: +8

Hello everyone!

Since this is my first article here on SixPrizes I will start off by introducing myself. My name is Steffen Eriksen and I am currently doing my bachelor in Mathematic-Economics in Denmark. I have been playing Pokémon TCG for around 6 years and have played tournaments in many countries.

The article is about the data collection process for my bachelor, which I hope you will be a part of.

Some time ago I got an idea about a so-called “win-rate” model for the Pokémon TCG, so I asked my university if I could write my bachelor project about this model and I got a yes! So now I have this huge opportunity to write my project about my hobby, which is really cool!

To explain a little more about what this win-rate model, it is a model where I try to explain what will affect a Pokémon player’s win-rate. What I mean when I say win-rate, is how many percent of your premier rated games you have won.

The methods I will use to estimate such a model is generally different types of regression models, which is borrowed from econometrics.

This model I can then use to answer some hypothesis I will state in the beginning of my paper. Such a hypothesis could be: Will playing the game for a longer time give you a higher win-rate?

So I will with this model maybe be able to answer some pretty interesting hypotheses about the game.

Before I can even start thinking about setting up such a model I need data from Pokémon players. Unfortunately I can not just use data from every player out there. I have to make some certain conditions in order to make my model valid. I will state these 3 conditions and if you do not fulfill all 3 of the conditions below I will not be able to use your contribution.

Condition 1 – Masters Division Only

I have chosen only to make this model for players in the Masters divison. This is done because in different age division there might be different decks which does well. For example in the Junior division a “Speed Jumpluff” deck might do well.

However I do not think that such a deck will do well in the master division. So such a sample will give a misleading picture of my model and maybe show that the highest win-rate will be achieved with a “Speed Jumpluff” deck, when it in reality not is. (Sorry to all Jumpluff fans out there).

Condition 2 – Results from This Season Only – Prior to B/W

I am only working with the current season. So all questions below assume the current season. It is then your tournament record from the 1st of September until now that counts.

If you have already played with B&W and the new rules (e.g. in the USA) then it is your tournament record from Regionals and back that counts.

The reason why I will not take B&W into account is because it will have too big of an impact on the decks that are being played and also increase the luck factor even more.

Condition 3 – You must have played at least 25 Premier Rated games

You have to have played at least 25 premier rated games this season. The reason for this is that with a low number of games played will give a more unstable win-rate. A single loss will lower your win-rate too much when your number of games played is below 25.

Then you might ask yourself, why 25 and not 30, 35, or 42 (which is the answer to everything). I just have to pick a suitable number. Picking a to low number will give unstable win-rates. Picking a too high one will result in too few samples.

So after stating these 3 conditions I can now go on to the actual questions. All questions are simple and can be answered right away, except for the last 2, which requires you to log onto your Pokémon account on Pokemon.com, unless of course you can remember by heart how many games you have played this season and how many you have won.

You also have to answer all the questions, otherwise your contribution will not be valid.

Here are the questions:

  1. What country are you from?
  2. How old are you?
  3. How many years have you played the game? (approximately)
  4. What type of deck have you used the most this season? (Examples: LuxChomp, BlazeChomp, VileGar, LostGar, DialgaChomp, MagneRock, Gyarados, MewDos, etc…)
  5. Do you have a full-time job? (Full-time student does not count as a job for this question.)
  6. Are you a Pokémon Professor?
  7. Have you played a Premier Rated tournament abroad this season? (For players in the US, I count playing in a different state as playing abroad.)
  8. Do you have family members who also play the Pokemon TCG?
  9. How many Premier Rated games have you played this season? (You can check on your My Pokemon account.)
  10. How many of those games have you won? (This you can check on your my-pokemon account.)

E-mail your answers to: steff5001@hotmail.com

Or simply fill out my survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8GWP8F9

Thanks so much for your help!

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Image Credits: S.S. Anne Pokemon, Pokemon Paradijs, Pokegym, Pokebeach

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  • Anonymous

    Completed, Good luck on this project :)  Must be awesome to be able to research you’re hobby

  • http://adamcap.com/ Adam Capriola

    Good luck Steffen and be sure to share your project with us once it’s completed!

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, I’d definitely like to see the results!

      • oliver barnett

        i’m sure we all will josh :p

    • Anonymous

      Ill sure do! However Im still figuring out if I should write it in Danish or English, maybe I should do it in English, so I can share it with you guys :D

  • Anonymous

    This is epic.  Good Luck! Ima gonna filll up mah form!

  • http://twitter.com/peetzaman Austin Mitchell

    I would really like to help, but I haven’t played enough premier rated games this season. xP

  • Anonymous

    Awesome – seems like someone finally took my pokestatistics up a notch in conjunction with the TCG, great! I myself have only been logging what minor deck-changes does to an archetype as f. ex Luxchomp towards the different matchups by testing with my friends over and over, but this is much more big scale. Best of luck man!

  • Dave W

    Do you have a null hypothesis? Some of the questions seem to be irrelevant as far as independent variables, but a couple good questions that could have a potential effect on win/games might be, “How often do you attend Leagues or non-premier tournaments?” or “How soon (on average) before a tournament do you finalize your deck choice?” Lastly, good luck on your project it sounds very interesting!

    • kurt rosales

      He is going to run a regression, many of these will become dummy variables entered as 0 or 1. He does have a null hypothesis but it may not be the way you are thinking. All these answers once regressed will create an equation that he will be able to use to explain the end result. It will look something like Win-rate= AX1+BX2-CX3 etc. so he will be able to tell whether each variable affects win-rate positively or negatively. And the regression output will actually tell him which questions actually play a role in affecting the win-rate and those that do not affect the win-rate.

      I recently completed a project like this regarding NBA players salary determinants. This is why I love economics, so much more than what people think it is.

      • Anonymous

        Your absolutely right. This is gonna be used to runa  regression, where I hope it will tell more about what has a “significant” influence on a players win-rate.
        I really like econometrics to, it can really be usefull :)

    • Anonymous

      You got a point, but since people often play so differently at non-premier tournaments and premier tournaments, then it wouldnt make much sense to include league questions, non-premier rated tournament questions ect. Some of these questions are also only gonna be used “indirectly”, for instance if a person is playing LuxChomp, DialgaChomp or another sp engine. I could make an SP engine dummy.
      Thx for you suggestions!

  • bjgames2011

    “Will playing the game for a longer time give you a higher win-rate?”

    The answer to that is a strait up no. In all honesty and no offense to one of my friends I made over playing the TCG, he has played for roughly 3 years and me about 1/2 a year (1 full year since my first interest in it, but I played on and off), and I am better then him. Sure he tought me alot, but he is not that great at finding great synergy in cards to make strong, consistent decks, so what I am getting at here is that the only thing that makes you better at TCG is knowing how to make good decks.

    By the way, welcome and congrats on the whole Front Page Contributer thing, hope you do well with this college research!