The Importance of Data Informed Deck Building

Data informs every decision that we make as deck builders, and that's not controversial, that's just true. When you sit down to build a deck, you pull from everything you've seen: what topped the last regional, what others are running, and what works best for your playstyle. Even if you go full homebrew, you still have to start somewhere. Read the cards, figure out what's worth running, and build a shortlist. Data is the baseline!

And that's why deck building is so fun. It's the intersection of what the data says and what you actually want to do. Some people netdeck (and there's nothing wrong with that) while some brew from scratch (nothing wrong with that either.) Personally, I land somewhere in the middle. I love experimenting and making personal calls, but I do need to know what I'm working with before I can really dig in.

That's one of the things I’ve always wanted to solve. One of the (many) ideas behind Sleeved is that I shouldn't ever have to use any other deck builder. I shouldn't have to leave when I build a deck. I don't want to have all these tabs open: jumping from Twitter to Digimon Meta to Discord to Egman Events just to find out just to aggregate all the lists myself.

So here it is - tournament metadata, built right into Sleeved for the Digimon Card Game.

I'm so excited to share this, and it wouldn't have happened without AtomShell & DigiLab. I partnered with them to bring the community's tournament data directly into Sleeved, and I cannot overstate how cool it is that DigiLab even exists. The community effort that goes into pooling all of the local-level and regional-level competitive play together is just crazy cool to see.

If you all know my background, you know that I ran webcam tournaments for Digimon for a long time. One of my favorite parts was always the data that came out of the tournaments: what everyone was playing, how it performed, and what the matchups looked like. Part of the reason that I did that is because tournament data was so hard to come by, so it's great that we finally have something at a larger scale that is accessible for everyone and isn't limited to just a few.

Now let's talk about some of the features. Here’s the rundown:

1. First thing we have is a meta page where you can see every competitive archetype in the current format. If you just want a quick read on what's in the format (or previous formats, by using the selector at the top), this is the perfect place to start.
2. If you click into one of these archetypes, you get the full picture. Core cards are broken into different tiers. There's Rising and Buddy Cards, a Format History, various tournament placings and more. Start your deck from a shell or from one of the topping lists. It really is a one-stop shop for getting to know a deck and all the data that goes into deck building.
3. One of my favorite things about all of this: the Intelligence Panel, which is built into the actual deck builder. You'll see, on the sidebar alongside the Stats tab, a Meta tab. While you deck build, it detects which archetype your deck is closest to. It uses a combination of programming mojo jojo to figure out what it is that you're trying to build so you can see similar deck lists and find out what others are playing.
4. You'll also see a brew score so that you can see whether you're on the road to building a standard build or you're going down the janky/spicy route. Whichever road it takes you, you'll also see some things like what cards you should consider playing, meta pressure (which means, when these archetypes are in the field, how might your deck perform), and you can filter out events based on type (locals, regionals, etc.)
5. Every card tells a story. Any card you open anywhere on the site will display competitive stats like play ratem which archetypes run it, the role it plays in each, etc.

Sleeved’s mantra is Deck Building, Simplified. I mean it when I say that. I am focused on making deck-building easy and fun. Every decision you need to make about your deck should be available while you're building, and I’m glad to be bringing that to fruition with Sleeved.

Happy brewing!

– Varni