Sitting Rank: 7 Months Later

Rank sitting is the practice of stopping play on the MTGA ladder after reaching a certain rank in hope of still staying in the top 1200 by the end of the season. The first article I wrote on this (I used the term rank decay back then) was actually 10 months ago. However, that time, I was not able to successfully sit my rank and still had to play in order to get a slot for the mythic qualifier just a couple of hours before the end of the season (I sat at 78^th place, 20 days before the end of the season). The first time that I was able to time my rank sit just right so that I did not have to play for a good number of days but still retained a spot for the qualifier was 7 months ago for Coreset 2020. That time, I started sitting at #108 13 days before the end of the season and ended up at #874 by the season’s end. In this article, I compare data from 7 months ago with data from the previously concluded season of THB, where I was also able to sit my rank successfully. Based on the data, I argue that the number of competitive players on the MTGA ladder has not changed considerably in the last 7 months.

In the THB season, I started my rank sit at #87 12 days before the end of the season. This is slightly better than my position during Core 2020. In contrast to Core 2020, I was not able to keep track of the rank decay rigorously from day to day, and only started taking record 2 days before the end of the season. Thus, I have much fewer data points for the THB season. The following plot shows the comparison of rank decay between the two settings.

The red dots are from 7 months ago and the blue dots are for this season. Note that chronologically, the graph must be read from right to left, as it starts at 12 (Blue) or 13 (Red) days before season ends and ends where the x-axis is zero. Note that at about 2 days before the end of the season, there is still a clear gap between the blue and red dots. Specifically, I was at #380 2.2 days before the end of season in Core 20 and at #336 1.9 days before the end in THB. This shows that my stronger start in THB is still showing. That is, starting the sit at #87 12 days before the end is still visibly stronger than starting at #107 13 days before the end even at the 48-hour mark. However, you can see from the plot that as the time moves to zero, the decay in THB becomes much more similar to the decay in Core 20. Nonetheless, my finish in THB at #857 is still better than #874 in Core 20.

Thus, the main takeaway from this comparison is that even after 7 months, the formula for sitting rank seems the same. That is, break top #100 at 13 days or closer to the end of season. Since now the number of spots have increased from 1000 to 1200, one can maybe even be less conservative, although I do not have data to determine how much less allowance can be given. For now, this will remain to be the rule I am sticking by when climbing up the MTGA ladder.

As I mentioned, an argument that can be made based on this data is that the competitive scene on MTGA has not really changed considerably in the past 7 months in terms of the volume of players competent enough to push through to the qualifying slots. As I explained in the previous article, the way rank decay works is that any time a person with a rank close to but worse than your rank wins a match, he has a chance to earn a rank better than yours, thus pushing you a rank down. The more people who are outside of top 1200 win while the people within top 1200 just rank sit, the more the people who were in the top 1200 will be pushed out. As your rank decays, it becomes easier for you to be pushed further down the ladder. Now, if the number of MTGA players who are capable and motivated to claim a qualifying slot doubled within the past 7 months, then we should expect the decay to become much faster. In particular, my rank about 48 hours before the end of the season in THB should have been dropping faster than my rank in the same situation in Core 20, particularly starting from the point in time that I mentioned earlier.  However, this is not the case. Rather, decay seemed to remain similar in THB as it was in Core 20. For people who are after a spot in the qualifiers (or mythic points challenge), this is good news, as it means that it has not become harder to grab a spot.

Update

It seems I spoke too soon about sitting rank still being the same like 7 months ago. This months rank decay was noticeably faster as evidenced by the following figure. The figure shows that while I started at a better position in April than where I was during the same time in March, by 15 hours before the end of season, my rank in April has already decayed lower than my rank in March. While #336 46 hours before the end of the season was enough to get me to #857 in March, #323 38 hours before the end of season got me to #1108 in April. It was still a successful rank sit, but certainly far different from what the situation was 7 months ago. Two reasons that possibly explain this are 1.) the previous season was not a qualifier season, it was just for mythic points so perhaps fewer people were trying to get a slot and 2.) more people are stuck at home this season, which means more people may have been motivated to play for a slot. In any case, I will continue to monitor succeeding seasons.

May the shuffler be with you.