How the numbers work

1. The win chance

During a game the panel and the overlay show one number: your win chance with best play. It is the chance that you win from this position if you take the best option Mana Odds found at your last decision, and the game goes on as well played as Mana Odds can see. It is not a forecast of the result, and it doesn't judge how you have played so far.

Two parts work it out together, on your PC:

• A neural network trained by playing against itself looks at the board, the cards you hold and what your opponent has shown, and estimates who is ahead.
• A search plays the game on from your decision: up to 1600 simulations, spread over 8 possible deals of the cards you can't see. Your opponent's hand and library are guessed from what the game has shown, never read.

The search runs while Arena waits for your decision, for up to 20 seconds on half of your processor's cores (at most 8), and stops as soon as you play. While it works the panel says thinking, and settled once the number is its last word. Before your first decision of a game it says waiting for your first decision. While your opponent plays, the number stays the one of your last decision.

2. When it is off, and why

Sometimes the panel and the overlay show off or a dash instead of the number. Each reason has its own words on the panel:

• off, “Live odds are off in this event”: qualifiers, Arena Opens, Arena Direct, championships, showcases and tournaments get no live win chance, on purpose.
• off, “Live odds are off: this match's event is not known”: Mana Odds can't tell the match's event, for example because it was started in the middle of the match, and it keeps the number off rather than guess.
• off, “Live odds are off (About & settings)”: you turned the live win chance off yourself, in About & settings.
• —, “This game has cards Mana Odds does not know yet”: Mana Odds follows only FRA Limited (Premier Draft, Quick Draft and Sealed). A game with cards of other sets has no win chance and no review.
• —, “Mana Odds could not read this game's card names from Arena's card database”: Mana Odds was started before Arena was installed or updated, or didn't find Arena; see Start Mana Odds after Arena. That game has no win chance and no review.

In the first three cases the game is still followed: the turn stays on the panel and, with Premium, the review comes when the game ends.

3. The review after the game Premium

When a game ends, the Last game card compares each of your decisions with the bot's: the option the search valued best at that decision. Suggestions arrive only here, once the game is over.

• same as bot: the share of your decisions where you chose what the bot chose.
• lost, pts: the points of win chance your choices lost against the bot's, added up over the whole game. If the bot's choice kept a 60% chance and yours left 55%, that decision lost 5 points. A long game has more decisions to lose them in.
• A mark on each decision unlike the bot's, from the points it lost, weighed by how open the game was: a point counts in full when the game is even, at 50%, and about 0.6 when it is nearly decided, at 95% or 5%.

Under the marks, the card shows the 3 costliest decisions, the win chance over your decisions as a chart, and every decision. Copy review puts the review in plain text, ready to paste into a chat.

Decisions Mana Odds didn't see coming, for example because it was started in the middle of a game, are judged later, while no search is running, with a smaller search of 512 simulations.

The bot is strong, not perfect: a decision unlike its own is not always a mistake. Take a mark as a place to look again.

4. Your decisions over time Premium

In Stats, Your decisions over time shows your last 30 games followed, the oldest on the left: in each, how often you chose as the bot and how many points you lost. The line is the average of the last 5 games.

Two tiles compare the last 10 games with the 10 before: the share the same as the bot's, and the points lost a game. Only games Mana Odds followed count.

5. The draft

• In the first pack of each draft, the pack ranked for the cards you've already taken, by Mana Odds' draft table. Beside each card, what it is worth to your pool against the pack's best card.
• The same in packs 2 and 3. Premium

Clear pick or Close call

Above the pack the panel says Clear pick when the best card is worth at least 0.010 more than the second, in the units the panel shows beside each card, and Close call when they are closer than that. A close call names the cards within 0.010 of the best: any of them is a sound pick, so take the one your plan prefers.

wheels ~N%

Beside a card, wheels ~42% tells how often, in the bot drafts the table was fitted on, a card still in its pack at this pick was still there when the pack came back, eight picks later. It shows only in the picks where the pack can still come back. Bots are not people: the drafters at your table may take what bots leave, so take it as a rough guide.

• Passing: for each colour, whether the packs you've seen pass more of it than usual (above 0) or less, and the pairs your pool builds best. The advice doesn't read the signals: they are shown for you to judge. Premium
• The review of your draft: each pick against the one the table would make with the same pack and the same cards held, how many were the same as table, the value lost, the 3 costliest picks, and a signal tag where you took the colour that was passing and the table didn't. The table was fitted on bot drafts: a pick against it is not always a mistake. Premium

6. What it never does during a game

Suggestions arrive after the game, in its review: with Premium. While a game is on, Mana Odds shows your win chance and public information only.

• It never shows a move, an option or the bot's choice.
• It never shows your opponent's hand or library: only how many cards they hold and the cards the game has revealed.
• It never reads the game's memory and never sends input to Arena: it only reads Arena's log and card database, and changes neither.
• No connection during play: your games stay on your PC. See the privacy page.
• It shows card names only, never card images.

That is also why the live win chance is off in competitive events (see when it is off). More on the rules it follows: Built to follow Arena's rules.