Playgroup.gg: A New Way to Track Your Games
As EDH players, we understand the countless hours dedicated to brewing decks and acquiring the needed cards, leading up to those epic moments with your friends on the battlefield. It really is a shame that these moments are never recorded and fade away over time. Some players recently have resorted to some roughly thrown-together Excel sheets. Other players still use the old reliable pen and paper method. Players remember amazing moments in the game but can struggle with more helpful details for your deckbuilding process.
I wanted to find a tool that helps address this problem of forgetting some key details in my games. Whether it was what turn the game ended on or even my win rates with certain commanders, there was more I wanted to know about my decks, and since I'm not skilled with tech and can't produce my own helpful Excel sheet, it seemed hopeless. Thankfully, now there is a tool that takes care of all these problems and more over at Playgroup.gg.
Seamless Tracking Through the App
Playgroup.gg is a tool that takes care of recording your game details. The platform is a website and tracker app combined to create a powerful solution for everyone looking for an easy way to record their games. Featuring an app available for all your devices, Playgroup.gg really does innovate with how to track a huge amount of detail for each game. Players are able to track damage totals, kills, wins and losses, and so much more. Plus, the app will track exactly what happens between specific players. This gives everyone a huge amount of detail throughout the course of every game. Commander damage? Done. Turn length? Easy!
The app also features a way to rewind any mistakes made. Whenever your pod needs to make a "take-backsies," it's a simple action on the app. Best of all, the games are synced in real time with the primary platform so games can be picked up whenever they're interrupted.
Once you leave the app and head to the main platform, you'll be able to dive into all of the stats. These are collected and presented in an easy-to-digest dashboard that's available to each player. Due to the shared nature of the information, you'll be able to keep track among your friends and see how you're performing in your playgroup. Leaderboards, specific deck performances, in-depth stats, and player profiles can all be found in one place.
This information gives you a chance to answer so many questions: Who knocked out the most enemies but still lost? Who did the most damage? Did that one player really take 15-minute turns? The insights are endless, but the game dashboard shown below is where the fun starts.
Deck Insights
Once you dive into your deck insights, users are able to check on each individual deck's performance. Decks can also move seamlessly from one playgroup to another for those who have multiple regular groups or shops you play at. One of the unique features of Playgroup.gg is that they're able to help generate a relative power level estimation for each of your decks. This rating comes from all the games played with the deck regardless of playgroup. Now players will have an objective, data-driven way to quantify decks that doesn't exist anywhere else. While the system isn't perfect, it's a great first step in taking opinion out of the process.
In addition to the deck dashboard, there is a player dashboard to break down stats as well. This dashboard features additional details unique to each player, like most-played decks, historic win rates, and additional stats. Most interesting because of the shared and social nature of Playgroup.gg is how well you do against different players. Maybe you need some bragging rights over your best friend, and now you have a way to quantify that!
A Social App For a Social Format
Building upon the player profiles, Playgroup.gg is able to create a playgroup leaderboard for its members. This aggregates a wide array of information for the playgroup from total decks and player win rates and gives a chance to bring a little something extra to the stakes each game. Once you're able to see how you're stacking up against the competition, it can provide valuable feedback for how to possibly improve your decks. Maybe you're consistently losing to your friend who likes to cast Triumph of the Hordes, so now you know to play a few wraths or possibly a Ghostly Prison! The feedback can be valuable wherever you fall on the social to competitive spectrum.
Another great piece of data for each game is the subjective rating for each game. Players can respond how they feel each game went from "awful" to "excited" along with a salt score for the game. Playgroup.gg is able to provide incredible feedback for players along the entire spectrum of the casual/competitive scale through this. This continues to provide extensive information on how to craft their decks both from the practical standpoint and also the social scale as well.
Finding a Home
Some folks may not have a set playgroup every game night. This is where Playgroup.gg offers guest support for players without a Playgroup.gg account. This helps to track the personal stats for individuals who want to still track each game without requiring everyone in the pod to sign up. Some local game stores might have a bustling Commander night with new players each week. Even if you're seated with some newer players, everyone still can track life totals while you still record information you're seeking.
If your local game shop wants to get in on the action and leaderboard though Playgroup.gg is able to handle any number of players. This can help build the community up and help direct folks to seeking like minded players. The possibilities for the stores is endless!
In addition to competing against your local playgroups and game stores, Playgroup.gg offers a GLOBAL leaderboard. These stats are compiled from thousands of games all over the world from thousands of players. As more players use Playgroup.gg, we can see how a commander has been performing on the wider scale. The scale of the user base gives an incredible opportunity to help guide deck ideas and trends in the Commander community.
Future plans
Behind all of these features is the team of Playgroup.gg. The development team is constantly working on new ideas to improve the site and ways that the information is displayed. Playgroup.gg and its team has partnered with researchers from the University of Lisbon, Portugal to help direct feedback the team has gotten and putting it into motion. This in addition to seeking out feedback from the community, and the combined efforts will result in a comprehensive analytics dashboard for all Playgroup.gg users. When the range of information is combined with visual effects and support for online players, the future looks promising for users. Plans for tailored support to cEDH and pEDH players also provides excitement for all players within the Commander community.
For more details on future plans and current support, check out the Discord server for Playgroup.gg.
