Best and Worst Corps discussion

[RoyalRook]

Corbz is the best, he is a gentleman and a scholar.

Season 18 TM Arena Meta Data shared by Glados93:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraformingMa ... ames_base/

Achievements (10 days before the end of the season 18)
I thought it would be fun to start with some achievements obtained by specific players.

**Go Big Or Go Home (Highest Score)**

The highest score achieved in the dataset belongs to BGA user "somemartian", who is the current rank 7. He scored a whopping 160 points in a 13 generation game as Credicor.

**Optimizer (Highest Score per Generation)**

The highest score per generation was achieved by BGA user "SuperPikasso" who is the current rank 16. He achieved 143 VP in an 11 generation game as Saturn Systems for a vp per generation of 13!

**Underdog (Biggest upset based on elo of opponents)**

The biggest upset was achieved by BGA user "puffsnow" (elo 233) as Mining Guild when they won against "leonstar79" (elo 548, rank 21) and "anotherstew" (elo 559, 18). The probability to win against each of these opponents computed by elo score was 14 % and 13 %.

[Taruassassin]

1. Credicore - Really good starting cash and a good chunk of the best cards are 20+ mc anyway. You dont realize how good the corp is until you start spamming events.
2. Terractor - The only reason its lower than credicore is because credicore can sp greeneries and cities way better. Other than that, 60 starting cash is extremely good and there are plenty of earth tags in the game.
3. Mining Guild - If this corp finds tiles and card draw early on this is the best corp in the game and its not even close. Without tiles, this corp is actually really bad. Good news is, when you pick this corp you have tiles so its really solid. Also, people tend to place the first ocean on the cards so if mining guild gets oceans early there are three really good spots rather than the 1 that every other corp gets.
4. IC - Media group is one of the best cards in the game so having a slightly worse media group is a great ability. I still wouldnt pick this corp if you dont have a good steel target early because if you dont find any in the first couple drafts its actually really bad. Also, most events are really really good so IC makes them better. If you have a good steel target then IC kind of starts with 70 mc. I used to hate this corp but it has grown on me and I actually really like it.
5. Ecoline - Good for rush but make sure you can raise heat. You will know the pain if you maxed oxygen but heat is low amd your opponent out engines you. Trust me, raise heat as ecoline.
6. Inventrix - Underrated corp. 3 bonus cards is nice, the ability is actually surprisingly useful, and a starting science tag can also be really helpful. Being able to play early kelp farming, AI, or other power cards can make this corp really strong. The only thing this corp lacks is production so if you can manage a little bit of prod early this corp will do you good.
7/8. Tharsis/Saturn Systems - I put these corps this low because I play mostly 2 player and they do better the more players obviously. As tharsis you dont want to sp cities early and unless you have city and energy cards I dont like the corp. Good against ecoline and can claim mayor ealy but the corps ability isnt usually worth it because city cards arent that good. For SS, I think theyre better than tharsis in 2p because there are less people to cut jovs. If you manage to find all 4 jov mults you win, but you also win with any other corp so… I think theyre fun to play and an underrated part of this corp is the fact that there are a lot more cards that your opponent has to cut. People might flame me for putting tharsis this low but trust me, in 2 player competitive theyre mid. In 5 player casual best cop in the game because players spam cities for no reason.
9. UNMI - People hate this corp for no reason. As long as you have an efficient way to increase TR in your first couple gens then this corp is good. I agree its not as good as the other ones but its not the worst corp.
10. - Helion - I feel like this corp should be better than it is but theyre not good. As helion, you want to raise heat to max as fast as possible so that you get value out of heat and your opponent cant. However, that rarely happens and if you cant make it happen this corp might as well not have an ability. You almost never want to spend heat as mc so this corps ability essentially is just 3 heat prod. I wish it was better but alas, it sucks.
11. Phobolog - If you get no titanium prod this corp sucks. If you dont get a good titanium target they also suck. With good prod they can be decent but generally not a good corp.
12. Thorgate - I hate this corp dont play this corp. Energy cards suck in bulk and the only good ones are quantum and mass. Only good thing is they start with an energy.

I would say inventrix -unmi so 6-9 is pretty interchangeable in corp era. but other than that i agree with you list. I still cant fathom why people rate thorgate so highly, its like the worse inventrix corp(i always forget its name because i wont play it its give you +/- 2 steps on venus only which both inventrix/adaptation technology gain as well) when you get to venus expansion. They just usually go unpicked or lose.

[Uowca1]

Objective Corporation tier list for 3p basegame with Corporate Era based on winning percentage from a sample of 1,556 games of the just finished Arena Season 18. All games included at least one of the top ~ 35 players in the Arena Season (most of you guys posting here )

Corp winrate (wins/games)

Credicor..... 42.6 % (225/528)
IC............... 42.0 % (177/421)
Saturn........ 37.1 % (176/474)
Ecoline....... 36.8 % (138/375)
Tharsis....... 36.2 % (210/580)
MG............. 34.4 % (154/448)
Teractor..... 31.0 % (137/442)
PhoboLog... 29.1 % (94/323)
Helion........ 25.8 % (86/333)
ThorGate.... 25.7 % (58/226)
Inventrix ....24.0 % (76/317)
UNMI..........12.4 % (25/201)

I would argue it's a misleading statistic in terms of strength evaluation. Best example being inventrix, which is more likely to get picked when your starting hand is bad, which artificially lowers it's win rate. For the same reason credicor is even better than what the statistic suggests. Perhaps win rate, when corporation was given as option would be useful to add some context.

[RoyalRook]

I could be wrong, but my win rate with Inventrix for season 18 is insane, is it 100%? Because I don't remember I lost a game with inventrix, and I played a ton of inventrix, because I learned a lot from season 17 that forced to learn to win with inventrix. If anything I think MG and Tharsis is rated too high. Essentially most of my losts are MG.

[Yahyra]

MG is very dependent on getting the placement bonuses for the steel prod. If you pick it and you get the placements, you can bully and win easy; if you don't... Best wishes.

[RoyalRook]

My season 18 Corp Performance Overview:

Corporation Plays Wins WinRate
UNMI___________________3________3________100
Ecoline_________________16_______15_______93.75
InterplanetaryCinematics_14_______13_______92.86
CrediCor_______________18_______15_______83.33
TharsisRepublic _________12_______10_______83.33
Helion_________________11________9_______81.82
Inventrix_______________ 5_________4_______80
SaturnSystems___________5_________4_______80
PhoboLog_______________10________7_______70
ThorGate_______________10________7_______70
Teractor________________11________6_______54.55
MiningGuild_____________11________5_______45.45

Just as I expected, my Inventrix was almost perfect, so people needs to put some respect to the corp, and MG had horrendous 45.45% winning percentage. Surprisingly, my UNMI was an absolute monster. The data reflects that I am a terraformer not a builder, as both Teractor and MG in my hands are duds.

[RoyalRook]

With meta maturing here at BGA and the introduction of prelude for the 3p arena I feel like UNMI has been weakened further, has anyone feel differently? The same can be said about helion and phobolog especially.

[Glados93]

Somewhat disagree.

In my opinion, UNMI is better in prelude format. The early TR from preludes and better start economy makes it much easier to setup and afford TR lines for UNMI. However UNMI is still a very bad corp - its just slightly better than in base.

Helion is slightly worse. There are now usually more heat bumps taken from other players via preludes. But overall Helion is not terrible - its a quite flexible crop when the right hand appears - its just quite rare for this hand to appear.

Phobolog Is about on par with base version. There are a couple of preludes that synergizes well with Phobolog, and Phobo can play the heavy terraforming game with events decently.

These evaluations are somewhat supported by the data. UNMI currently has better ARENA winrate than in base, Helion has a lot worse, and Phobolog has about the same. They are all pretty bad corps though.

[--Q--]

You can`t judge Phobolog or UNMI by their winrate. The problem is that without a way to terraform / without titanium cards in your opener you are forced to choose the other corp. A corporation that forces you to take the other one in about 80% of the hands is very, very terrible, even if your winrate is fine when you can actually play the corp.

For example: If you have a terrible hand without space tags and your corps are Teractor and Phobolog, you are going Teractor. That changes the winrates heavily.

[Glados93]

As per Rooks question im talking about internal relative winrate. I.e how did the winrate of specific corps evolve as we transitioned from base game to base game + preludes in season 19 Arena.