Following my first post about the ArkhamDB.com data, lots of people asked questions about popularity of cards/investigators over time. In this post, I’ll begin to take a look. This post will focus on the Investigators. I’ll look at cards in future posts. First up – how many decks are created for each faction? The first chart shows the number of decks

Out of all the decks, then, who comes out on top? Who’s the most popular on ArkhamDB?

It’s Jenny Barnes! Everyone loves the Dilettante, with her bags of cash and wonderful weapons.

You’re number 1!

Of course, Jenny’s been around for ever, and you can see in the chart above that the 10 most popular Investigators all come from the Core Set or Dunwich Legacy (the first deluxe campaign).

Let’s look at the data in a different way. Instead of looking at total number of decks, let’s see how they rank in number of new decks each month. In the next few charts, I’m going to use a bump chart, which shows ranks over time.

Those Rogues: it’s clearly not just Jenny. The Rogues are the most popular faction. The chart also shows that the Rogues have only recently taken the top slot from the Guardians. And look at those Mystics: ranked at the bottom for an entire year (excluding Neutral – but there’s only one investigator in that class (Lola Hayes).

Now let’s look at the investigators ranks over time. The next set of charts contains all the Investigators. In the first one, I’ve highlighted the Core Set investigators.

Ah, Roland! With his rounded stats and ability to Search and Fight: it’s no wonder he’s the most popular Core Set investigator. Daisy’s in at number 2. The Investigator that is most intriguing is Agnes Baker. She was wallowing near the bottom of the table recently, but has gone from 22nd most popular to 15th most popular in recent months.

A rising star!

Moving on to Dunwich Legacy, we see a bunch of investigators with enduring popularity.

In December 2018, every Dunwich Legacy investigator was in the top 10. There’s Jenny – a reliable number 1, but you can see that Rex, Zoe and Pete all sit near the top of the table.

Carcosa came next but I’ve not included the chart for those investigators, as they’ve all been middle-of-the-table performers. You can investigate them yourselves in the interactive version of this chart (link at the bottom).

The Forgotten Age investigators, however, are interesting. Here they are:

Finn’s come in hot and sits just behind Jenny. The top 2 most popular investigators in December 2018 were both Rogues!

Ursula is bouncing back, but look at poor Calvin Wright. Only 9 Calvin decks were built in December 2018. The guys on Drawn to the Flame love playing Calvin but the community at large doesn’t seem to know what to make of him. Have you done a Calvin deck? I’ve not played Calvin. I confess I don’t quite know what to make of him.

Poor Calvin – no wonder he looks so anguished: the community don’t love him!

For the final chart, I’ve highlighted the Rogues. They fall into two categories: the popular and the less popular.

Jenny and Finn? The Community love ’em. Skids and Sefina? Not so much.

That’s all for now. If you want to explore the data for yourself, there’s an interactive version on Tableau Public. It’s not very well optimised for mobile, I’m afraid, as Bump Charts need quite a lot of space)

I hope you enjoy these. Let me know what other questions you’d be interested in seeing the answers to.