[EE] Revised Difficulty Ratings

Games Sentinels of the Multiverse
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In another thread, @The_Justifier mentioned the inaccuracy of SotM: EE’s difficulty ratings. To that, @Trajector replied that the Sentinels Statistics Project does have accurate info on the decks.

So, I decided to use the Statistics Project’s stats to make new difficulty ratings!

I’ve made new ratings for every standard Villain deck (including variants), every Team Villain deck, and every Environment deck in Enhanced Edition SotM, as well as OblivAeon mode (which I put in the standard Villain list) and all of OblivAeon’s Scions.

For the standard Villains, I rated them on a 1-10 scale based on their Win Rate percentages, as provided by the Statistics Project. Each Difficulty level covers a 5% range of Win Rates. Difficulty 1 Villains are the easiest, having a Win Rate of 99%-95%, while Difficulty 10 Villains are the hardest, having a Win Rate of 54% or lower. The Win Rate range is listed in the heading of each Difficulty level for convenience.

For the Vengeance Villains, I used the same Win Rate ranges, but as they all fell between Win Rates of 84% and 65%, they only have Difficulty levels of 4-7.

For Environments, I also used those same ranges, but renumbered the Difficulty levels to start at 1, giving us Difficulty levels 1-5.

The Scions’ Win Rates are all based on OblivAeon games, hence them being so low. For the Scions, I used 2% Win Rate ranges to determine the levels, because all of their Win Rates were within only a 7% range.

And before anyone asks, I didn’t include Advanced, Challenge, or Ultimate Modes, as those would require more work than I’d want to do.

All Win Rates were taken from @MindWanderer’s Stat Page at Sentinels of the Multiverse Tools.

And now, here are the revised difficulty ratings:

Villains

Difficulty 1 — 99%-95%

  • Chokepoint
  • Deadline
  • Infinitor, Heroic

Difficulty 2 — 94%-90%

  • Ambuscade
  • GloomWeaver
  • Kismet, Trickster

Difficulty 3 — 89%-85%

  • Apostate
  • Baron Blade
  • Baron Blade, Mad Bomber
  • Ennead, The
  • Kismet
  • Wager Master

Difficulty 4 — 84%-80%

  • Akash’Bhuta
  • Grand Warlord Voss
  • Omnitron
  • Progeny
  • Spite

Difficulty 5 — 79%-75%

  • Capitan, La
  • Citizen Dawn
  • GloomWeaver, SkinWalker
  • Infinitor
  • Miss Information
  • Plague Rat

Difficulty 6 — 74%-70%

  • Matriarch, The
  • Spite, Agent of Gloom

Difficulty 7 — 69%-65%

  • Dreamer, The

Difficulty 8 — 64%-60%

  • Chairman, The
  • Iron Legacy
  • Omnitron, Cosmic

Difficulty 9 — 59%-55%

  • Kaargra Warfang

Difficulty 10 — 54% or less

  • OblivAeon
Vengeance Villains

Difficulty 4 — 84%-80%

  • Capitan, La
  • Operative, The

Difficulty 5 — 79%-75%

  • Fright Train
  • Greazer Clutch
  • Miss Information
  • Proletariat

Difficulty 6 — 74%-70%

  • Bugbear
  • Citizens Hammer & Anvil
  • Ermine
  • Friction
  • Plague Rat
  • Sergeant Steel

Difficulty 7 — 69%-65%

  • Ambuscade
  • Baron Blade
  • Biomancer
Environments

Difficulty 1 — 84%-80%

  • Block, The
  • Final Wasteland, The
  • Freedom Tower
  • Mobile Defense Platform
  • Temple of Zhu Long

Difficulty 2 — 79%-75%

  • Celestial Tribunal
  • Champion Studios
  • Enclave of the Endlings
  • Fort Adamant
  • Magmaria
  • Megalopolis
  • Realm of Discord
  • Time Cataclysm
  • Wagner Mars Base

Difficulty 3 — 74%-70%

  • Dok’Thorath
  • Court of Blood, The
  • Insula Primalis
  • Madame Mittermeier’s Fantastical Festival of Conundrums and Curiosities
  • Maerynian Refuge
  • Nexus of the Void
  • Pike Industrial Complex
  • Silver Gulch 1883
  • Tomb of Anubis

Difficulty 4 — 69%-65%

  • Mordengrad
  • Omnitron IV
  • Ruins of Atlantis

Difficulty 5 — 64%-60%

  • Rook City
Scions

Difficulty 1 — 35%-34%

  • Faultless
  • Sanction
  • VoidSoul

Difficulty 2 — 33%-32%

  • Dark Mind
  • Empyreon
  • Nixious the Chosen

Difficulty 3 — 31%-30%

  • Aeon Master
  • Borr the Unstable
  • Progeny

Difficulty 4 — 29%-28%

  • Rainek Kel’Voss
2 Likes
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FWIW, i actually wouldn’t use the win rates, but the model coefficients. The win rates are biased by what particular combinations of heroes, villain, and environment people tend to choose; the model coefficients compensate for that.

2 Likes
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My own rankings are completely subjective and based on substantial personal experience. Statistics don’t interest me; I go by what either looks true on paper or is supported by my memories of well over 500 games.

Deadline is substantially more likely to win than Chokepoint, or even Ambuscade and Gloomweaver. I suspect players are reluctant to engage with him in the tougher Environments, which likely skews the results.

I have minimal experience with Trickster Kismet, despite the past week of fighting her over and over. Based solely on the abilities printed on her card, I absolutely do not believe that she is easier than the original version.

The Ennead are way, way harder than Baron Blade. I’d move them up one and him down one, probably both versions, not that I know the Mad Bomber well.

Omnitron is not as easy as Blade, but it’s a modest difference. Voss is definitely harder, and Progeny far more so. Spite isn’t anywhere near a 4, he’s more like a 2, about even with Ambuscade, though less satisfying to beat.

Plague Rat is relatively easy. I’d call him 3, maybe 4, definitely not 5.

Dreamer above Matriarch is very dubious. People probably skew toward H=5 if the Stats project is indicating that.

Kaargra Warfang is NOT harder than Iron Legacy. She is very random, and doing well against her calls for specific strats, but if people are losing to her more than to any other single deck villain, they’re doing something wrong, showing off or refusing to play around her power cards.

Basically zero argument on the mini villains. Fright Train should probably be higher, Hanvil should maybe be lower, and Biomancer is definitely not as hard as Vengeance Blade. Whether Ambuscade is hard probably depends a lot on how you interpret his flip side; in the app, if you kill him last, the game instantly ends, but I always read his incap side as requiring you to kill any remaining Six members, even if the game would otherwise be over. That’s how I always plan to play it anytime I’m using physical cards.

Not sure that I buy the Block being quite as easy as MDP or Final Wasteland. Freedom Tower definitely isn’t; the Entry Points, Frost’s Cryo Chamber, and even Legacy’s Launch Pad all put the heroes in danger, just as much as the Wraith’s Arsenal or the Command Center will help them.

Magmaria should move down, as it rarely poses any threat whatever; only five cards in the whole deck harm the heroes at all, and all of those have upsides, with the remaining eight cards (excluding two accelerators) being effectively harmless. Celestial Tribunal, on the other hand, produces a LOT of explosive disasters when a villain suddenly kills multiple Trials, and Representative of Earth losses that come out of nowhere and are impossible to prevent happen quite frequently. I would definitely call that one a 3, despite my generally feeling pretty good about it.

Realm of Discord I hate, but that’s not an argument as to its objective quality. I just wanted to say it. Conversely, though, I’ve found Maerynia and the Void Nexus to both be very safe, as in diff 1, while Dok’Thorath and Court of Blood are diff 2, having significant threats but tending to be fairly predictable.

Insula Primalis and Tomb of Anubis should definitely be 4s. Omnitron-4, I can see an argument for that number, but I’d personally lean more towards 3, as you have to be fairly negligent for it to really get out of control in most matches

Ruins of Atlantis borders on a 5. Pillars of Hercules is most of why. God what a broken card. I think I might just houserule it to only fire on hero turns, as that alone is bad enough.

Minimal Oblivaeon experience, but VoidSoul being as weak as Faultless seems wrong to me, given his HP and the 2+2 global damage of his main attack. I might also move Empyreon down, since he’s rather self destructive. Progeny I would move up; the only thing that makes Rainek any worse than him is that he delays your victory, otherwise his attacks on the villain team make up for much of his own danger.

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I feel as though real statistics are more helpful than personal experience, when coming up with rating systems like this.

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How ironic that you used the word “feel” there…

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How so? Part of that is me being polite, the other is that basing difficulty off “feel” (as you seemed to) is also a valid way to go about it. Some villains feel more or less difficult than what the statistics show, and so it may be helpful for people to pick a fight that feels as difficult as they want, regardless of what the stats show. But that is much harder data to get than statistically proven difficulty.

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It’s just funny that you basically said “in my emotional opinion, you shouldn’t rely on your emotional opinion”.

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Surprised Madame Mittermeier’s didn’t rank higher. :open_mouth: Most of that feels correct regardless.

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MM is more annoying than difficult. Alzrabar is very helpful. As long as you can blow up the Mirror Maze, about all you need worry about is the predictably Unstable Midway.

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Thanks for the advice, MindWanderer. I might make a revised revised difficulty rating list sometime in the future with that in mind.

I do have one question, though. Do you mean that I should simply use the values of the model coefficients to determine the rankings, or should I add (or subtract) them to the win rates?

Interesting. My personal experiences are quite the opposite — I’ve found Deadline to be quite easy, while I’ve been challenged by GloomWeaver and Ambuscade.

Really? I was unaware of that. I too have been playing the way you have, and will likely continue to do so.

Part of it may be due to its lack of targets; Heroes can use all their damaging powers and cards on the Villain.

As for the discussion on subjectivity — It’s completely fine for folks to have their own ideas of difficulty. But the thing to keep in mind is that people do have different playstyles, strengths, and weaknesses. A Villain that is easy for one person may be difficult for another. Thus, one can certainly use their own metric when thinking about difficulty in terms of oneself, but this is meant to be a resource that anyone can use, hence the use of statistics.

Additionally, the bias in the data that @MindWanderer mentioned above very well could be responsible for differences betwixt one’s own experiences and what the statistics say.

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Ambuscade never beats me unless some wildly unlikely circumstance, like a tough environment or a hero blowing themself up, gives him advantages. I mean, look at the cards he has. Two copies of a target that does 2 damage to a high HP hero a round. Two copies of a more fragile target that lets Ambuscade deal 2 damage, which targets based on cards in play, so it’s more likely to target heroes with defenses up, and only rarely affects vulnerable low-HP heroes. The Cloak and two Vanishes and two armor cards and the Sonic Mines and Quick Stim-Patch, all of which only delays your victory. A bunch of fairly weak damaging one-shots, plus the Traps, all of which are “Ambuscade does nothing this turn”, and may or may not eventually pay off. That leaves two cards that cause large repeatable damage to all heroes, Charged Attacks and Rocket Launcher. Losing to Ambuscade all but requires having both of those in play, probably at the same time.

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How do you normally play? Are you more of a “pick your team” kind of person, or do you go random?

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The model coefficients and win rates are separate statistics, not directly related to each other. Basically, the model coefficients are used in a predictive calculation to guess the odds of winning given particular elements. The higher the number, the more likely the win. You can see this in action using the randomizer/calculator tool on my site.

2 Likes
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Usually I choose, but rarely am I actually assembling a team specifically to try and win (or lose) to the villain I’m choosing to fight. My experience with Ambuscade has held for games which were random, rare though they were. I believe I have only ever lost to non-challenge Ambuscade once out of like fifty games against him, twenty or so of them on the app. The only loss I can distinctly remember did happen to be challenge, but it wasn’t a trap cascade that actually killed me, it was that situation I alluded to earlier of a Rocket Launcher boosted by Charged Attacks, plus I think a Sonic Mine and Ra’s Flame Barrier or something, so the Launcher and Mine came out and then suddenly everything exploded. If I’d had one turn of warning to deal with this threat before it occurred, then it wouldn’t, which is why the odds of him pulling off that combo being so low is a problem (apart from him being kind of a joke villain who isn’t meant to be super hard). If designing him and wanting a real threat, I’d double the copies of his two actually dangerous cards, and probably remove the trap mechanic entirely, and maybe add additional text to some cards like the remote turret, so they’re not so pathetic. (By way of compensation, I’d make him unflip instantly when the cloak is destroyed, so the players never have to just sit on their hands like Roadrunner waiting for Wile E. Coyote to notice that he just walked off a cliff.) He’s just got a ton of cards that do nothing immediate, and unlike Omnitron has too little health to survive while he’s setting up; this plus the lack of any destruct effects or massive damage blasts is why Omnitron is a serious threat while Ambuscade is a nuisance.