Three weeks ago, we published our Ashes Card Browser and Deckbuilder at the new Play Plaid site. Ashes fans have been over there customizing decks and logging games since then.

Ever wonder what the most prolific cards are? The rarest? The most popular die type? Look no further!

I'm using all legally built decks to research these stats, even decks that haven't been published for all to see. There are 306 legal decks in our system, with 139 being published.

It's still early! I'll be curious to run these numbers again just before we make the first expansions available to see where the base set meta ends up. As The Main Action podcast knows, trends and opinions are forever ripe for change.

Dice: Ceremonial FTW

There is no unpopular die type. Charm, which is the die type least likely to appear in a custom deck, still appears in 63% of decks. Ceremonial, the most popular, appears in 73% of decks. (Natural: 64%, Illusion: 67%.) So they are all close!

I also ran stats on how many of each die is in a deck. So this measures not just whether a die type is included but how much of that die type is included. When we look at the total pool of dice and average out them all, we end up with a 10-die pool that includes 2.9 Ceremonial dice, 2.6 Illusion dice, 2.3 Charm and 2.2 Natural. (rounded). Once again, it's close, with Ceremonial being the most popular.

Finally, how common are single, double, triple, and quadruple magic decks?

A die pool of all one type is uncommon: Only 10 mono-decks have been built. There are 5 Ceremonial-only decks, 3 for Illusion, and 1 each for the other two. Decks with two die types are more common: 110 such decks, with many combinations of each duet. Triple-die pools are the most common, with 154. And decks with all 4 die types are not rare at all, with 32 built with all 4 kinds of dice!

Card Rankings!

The card rankings show how likely a card is to appear at all (even 1 copy) in a deck. The highest percentage is 37.25%, speaking to the great balance of this game. There is no card that is truly "must-have" or even "most-have."

I'll note that the die manipulation cards are quite popular, and I'm not surprised as there are only 4 of them. As more options for manipulating magic appear, I expect their percentages will go down. The most popular summon spell is Summon Sleeping Widows at #12 and the most popular Ally is the almighty Anchornaut at #3.

Bring Forth and Summon False Demon bring up the rear. I believe in you, Demons!

What cards surprise you? What do you think is overrated/underrated? Comment below!

Click here to visit the Play Plaid site to browse cards, build your own decks and log games!

Ranking Title Count Percentage 1 Hidden Power 114 37.25% 2 Shifting Mist 112 36.60% 3 Anchornaut 111 36.27% 4 Expand Energy 103 33.66% 5 Open Memories 98 32.03% 6 Chant of Revenge 98 32.03% 7 Molten Gold 96 31.37% 8 Final Cry 90 29.41% 9 Iron Worker 84 27.45% 10 Call Upon the Realms 81 26.47% 11 Leech Warrior 79 25.82% 12 Summon Sleeping Widows 78 25.49% 13 Root Armor 77 25.16% 14 Fade Away 77 25.16% 15 Sympathy Pain 75 24.51% 16 Summon Gilder 70 22.88% 17 Redirect 70 22.88% 18 Enchanted Violinist 69 22.55% 19 Rose Fire Dancer 68 22.22% 20 Summon Mist Spirit 67 21.90% 21 Summon Butterfly Monk 67 21.90% 22 Bound Soul 67 21.90% 23 Sleight of Hand 66 21.57% 24 Steady Gaze 65 21.24% 25 Stormwind Sniper 63 20.59% 26 Hypnotize 62 20.26% 27 Undying Heart 60 19.61% 28 Transfer 59 19.28% 29 Summon Blood Puppet 55 17.97% 30 Mist Typhoon 55 17.97% 31 Hammer Knight 54 17.65% 32 Refresh 53 17.32% 33 Summon Three-Eyed Owl 52 16.99% 34 Small Sacrifice 52 16.99% 35 Shadow Counter 51 16.67% 36 Living Doll 51 16.67% 37 Massive Growth 50 16.34% 38 Seal 49 16.01% 39 Abundance 48 15.69% 40 Protect 45 14.71% 41 Golden Veil 45 14.71% 42 Empower 42 13.73% 43 Blood Archer 39 12.75% 44 Summon Iron Rhino 38 12.42% 45 Strengthen 38 12.42% 46 Reflections in the Water 33 10.78% 47 Purge 32 10.46% 48 Blood Transfer 27 8.82% 49 Spiked Armor 24 7.84% 50 Out of the Mist 22 7.19% 51 Strange Copy 19 6.21% 52 Cut the Strings 18 5.88% 53 Summon False Demon 17 5.56% 54 Bring Forth 15 4.90%

Here's a link to the full stats.