
How meaningful are these stats?
When looking at cube stats people always say:
"this data means nothing, you would need a way bigger sample size."
I'm not claiming these stats are bullet proof, but I challenge you that they are more accurate at showing trends than you might think. The consistency in the data certainly surprised me.
We can examine this by looking at functional reprints and near identical cards in the cube list.
After 106 drafts and over 600 games of data Fyndhorn Elves and Llanowar Elves have almost the exact same rating. with only a .14% difference.
Fyndhorn Elves: 68.95%
Llanowar Elves: 69.09%
The Black Doom Blade variants are all within .43% of each other even after being in the cube for very different amounts of time.
Cast Down: 72.51%
Heartless Act: 72.18%
Go for the Throat: 72.61%
"But these cards are probably being played in the same decks a lot of the time so it makes sense that they have similar numbers."
Luckily we have Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond which have 0 colour restrictions limiting which decks they are played in and still only have a .9% difference.
Mox Diamond: 76.38%
Chrome Mox: 75.48%
Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista, another non-colour alligned pair, are also nearly identical:
Fabled Passage: 78.49%
Mana Confluence: 78.28%
Looking at all the functional reprints and near identical cards in the cube, the average difference in rating is 1.04%. I feel this is a marginal enough percentage of error to draw conclusions about general trends.
