Modeling MTG Combo Wins With Monte Carlo Simulations

Modeling MTG Combo Wins With Monte Carlo Simulations

Monte Carlo simulations are a powerful method for generating forecasts—predicted scenarios with associated probabilities. These simulations are widely used across various fields, from estimating constants like π and e to predicting weather patterns and modeling fission energy production. In fact, the Monte Carlo method was originally developed by John von Neumann and his colleagues at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project to simulate atomic collisions in fission reactions.

A Monte Carlo simulation works by assigning multiple values to a single variable, generating multiple results, and then averaging them to estimate likely outcomes. For example, if we wanted to analyze land draw rates for different deck compositions, we could simulate thousands of games and weight the results to determine the most probable outcome. Similarly, we could estimate the likelihood of drawing into a combo with n number of key cards.

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Heliod 75

Heliod 75

Decklist on Moxfield Last Updated on March 2025.

Introduction

This deck is a response to a Discord deck-building challenge I joined. It attempts to achieve a cEDH-viable Rule of Law style stax and tax deck that can hang at any table based on solid fundamentals rather than a blown-out mana base and artifacts.

The rules were simple: $75 budget, Commander-legal format, and the cost of the Commander is excluded from the budget.

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CHOAM: A zero knowledge authetnication server in Rust

CHOAM: A zero knowledge authetnication server in Rust

CHOAM is a custom zero-knowledge proof implementation of the Chaum-Pedersen protocol, a challenge-and-response Sigma protocol, for acquiring authentication tokens. It’s written in Rust and distributes a JWT (JSON web token) upon a successful authentication response to the provided challenge.

Zero-knowledge protocols have interesting and even counter-intuitive properties that show up in even simpler exchanges like Chaum-Pedersen. The Chuam-Pedersen protocol, though relatively straightforward, is a powerful primitive that can be applied in many useful ways.

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projects

A few things I’ve been working on lately:

  • heliod 75, a low budget ($75), competitively-focused Heliod stax and tax list
  • vedh.xyz, A virtual boardstate tracker for web and mobile Commander games
  • choam, a zero-knowledge JWT authentication server
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