stoken·games
APEX OBSERVATORY
the data dashboard
ACT I — HOW THE CARDS CHANGED
Analysis 01 · card pool
KEYWORD PREVALENCE OVER TIME
% of each year's new cards (first printings) carrying the keyword. Toggle keywords below — watch Ward get born in 2021 and Banding flatline.
The story: mechanics are born, live, and die. Ward appeared in 2021 and now rides on new cards every year; Banding has not been printed since the 90s. Every line here is a design era.
Analysis 02 · power creep, quantified
CREATURE STAT EFFICIENCY
Median (power+toughness) ÷ mana value of each year's new creatures. Higher = more stats per mana.
The story: creatures got better. A 1994 creature gave you about 1.3 stats per mana; today it is about 1.7 — and green gets the best deals. That is power creep, measured.
Analysis 02 · power creep, quantified
COMPLEXITY & LEGENDS
Median rules-text length (chars) and % of new cards that are legendary. The legend-ification of Magic is dramatic.
The story: in 1994, 1 in 10 new cards was legendary. Today it is more than 1 in 4 — because Commander became the way most people play, and legends are what Commander runs on.
Analysis 03 · color pie bleed
WHO GETS THE KEYWORD?
Color share of new creatures printed with a keyword, by era. Pick one and watch mechanics drift across the pie.
Analysis 04 · commander staples
STAPLES BY COLOR IDENTITY
Analysis 05 · archetypes by color combo
WHAT EACH COLOR PAIR ACTUALLY BUILDS
Most common deck plans (EDHREC tags in each commander's top 4) among the year's 100 most-built commanders, grouped by color identity. Full merge-and-spread treatment — the locked Flex methodology at field scale — runs on the complete 500-commander pull.
ACT II — WHAT THE NUMBERS WHISPER
Data science · association
KEYWORD × COLOR CORRELATION
Phi correlation between "card has keyword" and "card is this color," whole modern pool. Cyan = belongs to that color, red = actively avoids it. Reach living almost entirely in green is the color pie doing its job.
Data science · honest diagnostics
WHAT THE DATA CAN'T SAY
2026 is a partial year — every "drop" in the rightmost point is calendar, not design. Charts end honestly; don't read the last point.
"First printing" = earliest paper English release. Promo pre-releases can pre-date sets by weeks; year-level analysis is unaffected.
Staples reflect the top-500 commander sample, not all of EDHREC — popular commanders pull the numbers toward what popular decks play. Why does that matter? Players look up staples to copy them → the sample IS the meta they're copying → self-reinforcing, which is exactly why we state N on screen.
Legendary% tripled (9.9→28.3). Five whys, condensed: more legends ← Commander is the growth engine ← every product needs face commanders ← legends sell packs ← WotC design incentives follow the format players actually play. The chart is a picture of Commander eating Magic.
Forecasts are naive linear fits on 2013–2025 — trend illustration, not prediction. If legendary% really hit the projected ~31% by 2029, a third of all new cards would be legends.
"First printing" = earliest paper English release. Promo pre-releases can pre-date sets by weeks; year-level analysis is unaffected.
Staples reflect the top-500 commander sample, not all of EDHREC — popular commanders pull the numbers toward what popular decks play. Why does that matter? Players look up staples to copy them → the sample IS the meta they're copying → self-reinforcing, which is exactly why we state N on screen.
Legendary% tripled (9.9→28.3). Five whys, condensed: more legends ← Commander is the growth engine ← every product needs face commanders ← legends sell packs ← WotC design incentives follow the format players actually play. The chart is a picture of Commander eating Magic.
Forecasts are naive linear fits on 2013–2025 — trend illustration, not prediction. If legendary% really hit the projected ~31% by 2029, a third of all new cards would be legends.
ACT III — YOUR DECK, YOUR DATA
Data science · look up your commander
CARD INSPECTOR
Type any card that shows up in the top-500 commander ecosystem: who plays it, how much, since when, and how combo-prone it is — with a one-click jump to its atlas neighborhood.
Analysis 06 · clustering
ENDLESS ATLAS
Every playable card mapped across six lenses — what it is, what it does, tribes, overall, deckmates, and combos. Interactive, zoomable, shareable. This is the clustering analysis, grown into a standalone tool.
Analysis 07 · archetypes
TOME OF LEGENDS
Every color identity's game plans, ranked — with the 10 cards that define each plan (by lift vs. the identity's baseline) and how much distinctive tech neighboring plans share. Analysis 05's color-pair table, grown into a standalone tool.
Archive maturing
COMMANDER POPULARITY LIFECYCLE
Rank trajectory of new legends: spike → decay → survivors. Needs monthly EDHREC snapshots to compare. First snapshot banked 2026-07-17; monthly task scheduled. Chartable after ~3 snapshots, strong after 6.
Archive maturing
BAN & GAME-CHANGER LIST IMPACT
Deck counts and prices before/after list announcements. Builds from the weekly price archive + monthly EDHREC snapshots, sliced around each announcement date. Ready whenever the next list change lands.
Design ready
PRECON VALUE TRACKING
Precon MSRP vs. TCG-low sum of contents, over time. Needs per-precon decklists (one-time setup per release) + the weekly price archive. The "which precon is secretly worth it" evergreen.