I have been using a spreadsheet I developed to analyze my collection for a couple of years now. I have tried many different systems to help me identify decks I might like in my collection or for sale.
Karen Brown knows this, and when someone puts up a collection for sale she asks me to run the collection through my spreadsheet to see if anything interesting jumps out. She asked me to do so again a few days ago, but my card ranking was in shambles. Instead of my usual 0-5 ranking, I gave a few cards a score of 1 in search for something, and I don’t even remember what.
I gave her my Spreadsheet and told her to rank the cards so she could use it. But then I remembered how fragile it is, breaking fairly often. So I decided to invest some time in making it better.
The Spreadsheet
Before we go any further, here is the Spreadsheet. To use it make a copy of it in File -> Make a copy.
You will also need to download a CSV file of decks from Decks of Keyforge. You can get your collection, or a list of decks for sale.
If you support DoK on Patreon you can download 1000 and 5000 decks easily. However, if you don’t, you will need to scroll down and click “load more” to load the decks, and then click the download, each “load more” loads another hundred decks, so getting 5000 is a huge hassle, but getting a collection of 2-3 hundred decks is fine.
The Spreadsheet is currently loaded with 5000 decks on sale for $5-$30.
Uploading the CSV
- Make sure the Collection Data sheet is selected.
- Click File -> Import.
- Go to the Upload tab and upload the CSV you downloaded from DoK.
- Then you will be greeted by the Import File popup.
- Important: Under Import Location select Replace current sheet. If you select another option it could replace the entire Spreadsheet. If something happens you can always use the History to revert to an older version, but still.
That’s it. You have replaced the collection being analyzed and you can now move to the Collection Analysis to inspect the collection!
Card Ranking
The Spreadsheet comes built-in with 3 methods of ranking. Well, two, but one can be used differently to help you find what you want.
Pub Meeple
Pub Meeple is a ranking engine that lets you rank any list of items by comparing two items at a time. It’s not perfect, and if you run things through it multiple times you will get different results, but that’s because we’re not very consistent as humans. One problem with this is that you only get the title of the card, so if you’re not familiar with the card you’ll have a hard time ranking and will have to keep Archon Arcana open on another window and search for the cards. On the flip side, it’s a great way to memorize card names!
Anyway, the Spreadsheet has a sheet for every house and a list of the cards in the house. It also has a sheet for other, which includes anomalies, Dark Æmber Vault, and It’s coming, because those show up in multiple houses.
The Spreadsheet has my ranking in it, which means the collection you upload is analyzed based on how much I like it, which may not be what you like. In fact, if you like Saurian, I can guarantee it’s messed up, as my Saurian ranking is weird.
If you wish to rank the cards yourself, simply copy the list of card names and paste them into Pub Meeple, and get to sorting. Then once you’re done, copy the result back. Be warned, the big houses like Logos can take over 1000 comparisons and a good hour of your time. If you sorta like my ranking, you can just move some stuff around instead of ranking everything.
Once everything is ranked, the Card Ranking sheet will show the score of each card between 0 (lowest ranked in the house) and 1 (highest ranked in the house). The Collection Analysis sheet will show the three houses separately, and the aggregate score. Bazi, my favorite deck, is a huge outlier in my collection with a score of 27.1. Looking at my collection, I found all decks scored 21 or higher worth exploring, or ones I already knew I liked.
Column T, U, and V are the ranked score by house. W is The total, and X is the total rank divided by SAS, which means the higher the number, the bigger the difference between how much you like the deck and the SAS score. Conversely, the lower it is, the higher the SAS.
Desirable and Search
The Card Ranking sheet has two other columns, Desirable and Search. You can use them however you want. Before Pub Meeple I used to rank every card on a scale of 0-5 (with an honorable -1000 for Heart of the Forest). You could do that, or something else. The Search column is handy if you’re looking for something in particular and don’t want to mess up your Desirable ranking.
Analysis
The Collection Analysis has a Filter on it, however, sorting the sheet messes up the formulas, so don’t do that. Instead you should click at the top of the column and apply a filter. For example if you want to see all decks with a score of 21 or higher, you could do that.
You could also filter out specific houses if you’re looking for Alliance pods. And if you want, you can also apply filters to data provided by DoK like SAS, creature power, etc.
Additional notes
When you copy the list of items into Pub Meeple it will remove quotation marks. So when you copy the data back you’ll need to put the quotation marks back in Francis the “Economist” and Special Agent “Fingers”.
The Brews in worlds collide are a little weird as they all do exactly the same thing but come with different creatures. When I first ranked them I had Chieftain’s Brew really high while Narp’s Brew was all the way at the bottom. This is due to the obvious bias I have towards Ganger Chieftain. I recommend only having 1 item in Pub Meeple “Brew” and rank it for what it is, one Æmber and 2 power counters. This will also reduce the number of comparisons needed.
The ranking will rank cards inside the set, but not between sets. So the best WC Brobnar house will have the same score as the best MM Logos. Just bear that in mind.
Updates
You may have noticed the complete lack of Winds of Exchange in the Spreadsheet. If you know how to use Google Sheets, I am sure you can figure out how to add them if you want. I will likely add them only after I actually get mine.
Other than that, there are a few things I’d like to improve, and we’ll see when and if I have the motivation to do so. In no particular order:
- Separate the houses by set so Pub Meeple ranking will take less time, and also cards will be ranked in the context of the set and which other cards are available. This will require a creative solution I haven’t thought up yet.
- Allow people to submit their Pub Meeple rankings so an average score of the community can also be seen.
- Create a tool to replace Pub Meeple that will show Card Images for easier ranking. I tried to write the entire ranking tool as a web application in the past, but it was beyond my abilities. Plus, DoK is an excellent collection manager, sale platform, and search engine. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel.
- Write a plugin to show the ranking score while browsing DoK. I don’t even know if this is possible.
If you would like to help with any of the above, find bugs, or wish to make suggestions, please come chat on the Sanctumonius Timeshapers Discord.
