Quantum Index

[iancudorinmarian]

I figured I might update the QI topic started by scaredgirl a long time ago here. I'll be brief, I don't want to do a fancy topic, but I'll do it if I get requests.

So, what is QI? QI (Quantum Index) is a formula that calculates the amount of quantum your decks needs. One QI for each element you have in the deck. It may not be perfect, but it may give you an estimate of your deck's needs.

QI=(total cost of all cards+total cost of all abilities)/(number of pillars)

The QI has to be around 4-5. So if the QI is around 4.5, the deck's quantum generation is perfect. It might not work for stalls or some other decks. If QI>5, too few quantum. If QI<4, too much quantum.

Pretty simple, you might say. But things can get very complicated:

- mark counts as 2 pillars (since you'll always have it and it doesn't depend on you drawing the card)
- quantum generating creatures count as pillars (like Ray of Light)
- abilities that would be activated each turn by the player if he can get counted thrice (chrysaora counts as 3 for ability, for example)
- situational abilities get counted once (like maxwell's demon)

What about quantum pillar? What about nova? Immolation? Towers?

Unupped

Elemental Pillar/Quantum generating creature- 1 for its element
Pendulum- 0.5 for its element and 0.5 for mark's element
Quantum Pillar- 0.25 for each element
Nova- 0.2 for each element
Immolation- 1.2 for and 0.2 for the other elements

Upped

Elemental Pillar/Quantum generating creature- 1.2 for its element
Pendulum- 0.7 for its element and 0.5 for mark's element
Quantum Pillar- 0.30 for each element
Nova- 0.4 for each element
Immolation- 1.6 for and 0.2 for the other elements

If you don't like that formula, you can use this one:

[ ( "Total cost of useful cards in your deck" + "skill costs (double if it is used every turn)" - "spell bonus" ) / 5 ] - "mark" - "constant quanta producers" = "The amount of pillars needed"

Spoiler for additional info by Submachine:

I used this topic to understand the logic behind Quanta Index: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/elements-articles/using-quanta-index-to-determine-the-optimal-number-of-pillars-in-a-deck/
But I'll tell you in a nutshell how I'm using it.
First you build your deck without adding any pillars or pendulums. Then you choose 1 element from your deck and do the following calculations (only for that chosen element):

[ ( "Total cost of useful cards in your deck" + "skill costs (double if it is used every turn)" - "spell bonus" ) / 5 ] - "mark" - "constant quanta producers" = "The amount of pillars needed" for chosen element. Your deck might still work with another amount of pillars, but with less pillars, your deck will be slower. On the other hand, with more pillars, your deck will gain some speed.

I explain some things in my formula:
"Total cost of useful cards in your deck": It happens sometimes that I only include more copies of 1 card in my deck, because I want to draw them with a higher probability (aka. faster). However, I don't need to play all of them, so I don't count those that I just added as extras.
"skill costs (double if it is used every turn)": Some creatures and permanents have skills that cost quanta which you also need to pay for. However, if you plan to use an ability every turn, count the double of the skill cost. You should still only count the useful abilities and skip the ones that your extra creatures/permanents have.
"spell bonus": a Nova's spell bonus for each element is 1, a Supernova's is 2 (except for ) and an Immolation's is 1 for each element except for . If you have Towers or upgraded pendulums from the chosen element, each tower/upgraded pend counts as +1 spell bonus.
"mark": If your mark matches your chosen element, this counts as 1. Otherwise, it counts as 0. (It can also count as 2 or 3, but only when you're building an arena deck which has double or triple mark.)
"constant quanta producers": There are some creatures which count as pillars. If you have 6 Devourers, then you add +6 if your chosen element was .
When you know how many pillars you need, you can change them into pendulums or quantum pillars. 1 pendulum counts as 1/2 both for its own element and for your mark. A quantum pillar counts as 1/4 quantum for all elements.

For better understanding, here is an example:
You want to build this deck, but you don't know how many pillars to add:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pm

Let's choose first.
"Total cost of useful cards in your deck"=20+12+6=38. I only counted Dusk once, because I only plan to play 1.
"skill costs (double if it is used every turn)"=0. There's no creature here that uses a darkness skill.
"spell bonus"=0, unless I plan to use upgraded pillars/pends.
"mark"=0, because mark is not darkness.
"constant quanta producers"=6, because Devourers generate 1 quanta every turn.
So for darkness, I will need ~1,5 pillars, which means 1 pillar and 1 pendulum. But because there's a very low chance that I could draw 2 cards from at least 30 cards, it's better to change the mark to darkness (which will make us need 1 pillar less) and we add 1 pendulum to the deck too. Now my deck looks like this:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5aa 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pt

Next I'll determine :
"Total cost of useful cards in your deck"=5+8+18=31 for same reasons as last time.
"skill costs (double if it is used every turn)"=7. But because I don't really plan to burrow the shrieker, I use 6 instead.
"spell bonus"=0, unless I plan to use upgraded pillars/pends.
"mark"=0, because we changed mark to darkness.
"constant quanta producers"=0.
So the pillars needed for earth are ~7,5, which means 7 pillars and 1 pendulum. Luckily we already have the pendulum, so we only need to add the 7 pillars. We will get here after that:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5aa 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pt

At this point our deck is not full. However, we have 8 out of 30 cards, so now I introduce you another thing, which is equally important when you determine your number of pillars: In a 30-card deck, if you have less than 10 free cards, you might not get any of them in your starting hand, if you have 10-12, you usually get only 1, if you have 13-14, you'll get a fair amount, and if you have more than 14, you probably won't have problems with quanta. This means we need to fill up the rest of the place with quanta if we want to have a good amount of them in our starting hand. Because we need to use the pulverizers, I fill up the rest the following way:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

576 576 576 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5aa 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pt

This is the point where formulas can bring you. After earning more gaming experience, you will find out when it is good to use the QI (Quanta Index) and when to use the other formula instead. After a personal fine-tuning (which cannot be taught, it has to be learned from experiences), I got to this version (which inherits a bit of both the QI theory and the other formula):

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

576 576 576 576 58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pm

I hope I didn't confuse you with all this. ^^" It's just the way I learned it.

[Zawadx]

I like QI ^^

Also, several people are of the opinion that abilities which are always used should have more effect in QI. e.g. a Lava Golem consumes one each turn, so its ability should be counted as 5 . I disagree with this, but with always-use abilities 3 quanta cost seems legit.

Maybe link the advanced QI formula?

[Dm]

I hate QI and was hoping it'd die out. Oh well...

[Drake_XIV]

I've always felt QI was only useful for 30 cards. Once you get past 35 cards, keeping QI = 5.0 seems irrelevant.

[Tirear]

The QI has to be around 5. If the QI is 5, the decks quantum generation is perfect. It might not work for stalls or some other decks. If QI>5, too less quantum. If QI<5, too much quantum.

If the point of this thread is to be an update, why are you still using that outdated figure? Here, have a quote:

Goes slightly against the general consensus here, but looking at the rush decks I've explored I find the optimal deck for speed purposes generally ends up with a QI of around 4-4.5.  Running a bit low helps dump the hand quicker and get an early advantage in damage.

Yep. I, and many others, have been going for 4.5 for a long time now (we even talk about it on this topic if I'm not mistaken). That 5 I posted in the original post was just a hypothesis I made without any real testing because I wanted a nice even number, and somehow a lot of people assumed that it was the "magic number" During later testing I quickly realized that the optimal number for a fast deck is actually closer to 4. Like I said, I generally use about 4.5.

Counting nova/imo/upPillar as fractional pillars instead of negative costs is an approach I hadn't heard before, but now that I think about it, it could be a more useful approximation. I'll have to experiment with it a bit.

I see no mention of the player's mark. A common mistake is to treat the mark as a single pillar, but the fact that it never lies at the bottom of your deck makes it generate more like 1.5-2 pillars worth of quanta. So it would probably help to mention it.

[Submachine]

At least highlight the formulas, bruh.

This is how I described the Quanta Index to my apprentice:

Spoiler for Hidden:

I used this topic to understand the logic behind Quanta Index: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/elements-articles/using-quanta-index-to-determine-the-optimal-number-of-pillars-in-a-deck/
But I'll tell you in a nutshell how I'm using it.
First you build your deck without adding any pillars or pendulums. Then you choose 1 element from your deck and do the following calculations (only for that chosen element):

[ ( "Total cost of useful cards in your deck" + "skill costs (double if it is used every turn)" - "spell bonus" ) / 5 ] - "mark" - "constant quanta producers" = "The amount of pillars needed" for chosen element. Your deck might still work with another amount of pillars, but with less pillars, your deck will be slower. On the other hand, with more pillars, your deck will gain some speed.

I explain some things in my formula:
"Total cost of useful cards in your deck": It happens sometimes that I only include more copies of 1 card in my deck, because I want to draw them with a higher probability (aka. faster). However, I don't need to play all of them, so I don't count those that I just added as extras.
"skill costs (double if it is used every turn)": Some creatures and permanents have skills that cost quanta which you also need to pay for. However, if you plan to use an ability every turn, count the double of the skill cost. You should still only count the useful abilities and skip the ones that your extra creatures/permanents have.
"spell bonus": a Nova's spell bonus for each element is 1, a Supernova's is 2 (except for ) and an Immolation's is 1 for each element except for . If you have Towers or upgraded pendulums from the chosen element, each tower/upgraded pend counts as +1 spell bonus.
"mark": If your mark matches your chosen element, this counts as 1. Otherwise, it counts as 0. (It can also count as 2 or 3, but only when you're building an arena deck which has double or triple mark.)
"constant quanta producers": There are some creatures which count as pillars. If you have 6 Devourers, then you add +6 if your chosen element was .
When you know how many pillars you need, you can change them into pendulums or quantum pillars. 1 pendulum counts as 1/2 both for its own element and for your mark. A quantum pillar counts as 1/4 quantum for all elements.

For better understanding, here is an example:
You want to build this deck, but you don't know how many pillars to add:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pm

Let's choose first.
"Total cost of useful cards in your deck"=20+12+6=38. I only counted Dusk once, because I only plan to play 1.
"skill costs (double if it is used every turn)"=0. There's no creature here that uses a darkness skill.
"spell bonus"=0, unless I plan to use upgraded pillars/pends.
"mark"=0, because mark is not darkness.
"constant quanta producers"=6, because Devourers generate 1 quanta every turn.
So for darkness, I will need ~1,5 pillars, which means 1 pillar and 1 pendulum. But because there's a very low chance that I could draw 2 cards from at least 30 cards, it's better to change the mark to darkness (which will make us need 1 pillar less) and we add 1 pendulum to the deck too. Now my deck looks like this:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5aa 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pt

Next I'll determine :
"Total cost of useful cards in your deck"=5+8+18=31 for same reasons as last time.
"skill costs (double if it is used every turn)"=7. But because I don't really plan to burrow the shrieker, I use 6 instead.
"spell bonus"=0, unless I plan to use upgraded pillars/pends.
"mark"=0, because we changed mark to darkness.
"constant quanta producers"=0.
So the pillars needed for earth are ~7,5, which means 7 pillars and 1 pendulum. Luckily we already have the pendulum, so we only need to add the 7 pillars. We will get here after that:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5aa 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pt

At this point our deck is not full. However, we have 8 out of 30 cards, so now I introduce you another thing, which is equally important when you determine your number of pillars: In a 30-card deck, if you have less than 10 free cards, you might not get any of them in your starting hand, if you have 10-12, you usually get only 1, if you have 13-14, you'll get a fair amount, and if you have more than 14, you probably won't have problems with quanta. This means we need to fill up the rest of the place with quanta if we want to have a good amount of them in our starting hand. Because we need to use the pulverizers, I fill up the rest the following way:

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

576 576 576 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5aa 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 8pt

This is the point where formulas can bring you. After earning more gaming experience, you will find out when it is good to use the QI (Quanta Index) and when to use the other formula instead. After a personal fine-tuning (which cannot be taught, it has to be learned from experiences), I got to this version (which inherits a bit of both the QI theory and the other formula):

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

576 576 576 576 58v 58v 591 593 593 593 593 593 593 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5uo 5uo 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 8pm

I hope I didn't confuse you with all this. ^^" It's just the way I learned it.

[iancudorinmarian]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'll update the OP when I have enough time.

[andretimpa]

I prefer testing/tweaking a deck to death until I'm satisfied with the speed/consistency. This is best seen as a good first guess.

[Submachine]

I prefer testing/tweaking a deck to death until I'm satisfied with the speed/consistency. This is best seen as a good first guess.

Yes, but that's also the most exhausting thing that one can ever do. x)

[Pineapple]

I prefer testing/tweaking a deck to death until I'm satisfied with the speed/consistency. This is best seen as a good first guess.

Yes, but that's also the most exhausting thing that one can ever do. x)

It's more like having perfect quanta generation is an unintentional but much-appreciated bonus for actually playing your deck. This is true for PvE, where you would play the same deck for maybe 500 games, but even more true for PvP, where you would not field a deck after some cursory testing.

I for one almost never use QI, as you can usually eyeball how many pillars in how many total cards gives you how much quanta at what point in the game. Which is the exact purpose of QI, by the way, but without the frivolous point-giving and math.

[Submachine]

It still gives a nice starting guide. I also use my experiences now that I have them, but until I didn't have much, I was just testing bad decks continuously, which is a waste of time with every bad quanta balance you start off with.

[andretimpa]

I prefer testing/tweaking a deck to death until I'm satisfied with the speed/consistency. This is best seen as a good first guess.

Yes, but that's also the most exhausting thing that one can ever do. x)

Given that I don't grind anymore, this is how I spend time in-game nowadays

Which is also one of the reasons my deck manager has such a ridiculous size.