Happy Holidays everyone, and thank you for making 2018 an unimaginably fun year for us! There’s no new puzzle this week as we do the whole holiday season thing, but for all you stats nerds, we have a slew of fun new data to show off! First, we’d like to acknowledge some milestones for the year:

• Brought StarCityGames.com on board as a sponsor and had puzzle videos produced and broadcasted on Twitch at SCG Live events
• Were featured in a series of videos on MTGGoldfish hosted by SaffronOlive
• Were featured on stream by Jeff Hoogland in a series of solve-it-live puzzles
• Attracted over 100 new Patrons and are slowly closing in on our 250+ Patron goal to unlock more perks
• Got to officially preview two cards, courtesy of WOTC (and guess what, there’s another one coming on Jan 10!)

Woohoo! We’re pumped about all these accomplishments in 2018 and ready to bring you another great year of MTG puzzles in 2019. But enough rambling, time for the numbers:

Puzzle Overview

Puzzles published:	51
Total Patron answers graded:	633 (509 of which were correct – 80.4%)

Difficulty Data

Let’s get a little more granular and see how well our difficulty assumptions lined up in actuality.

	Uncommon # of puzzles published: 17 Average fun rating (out of 5): 3.99 Average “Top 5” time: 8 minutes 35 seconds Average % correct: 82%
	Rare # of puzzles published: 20 Average fun rating (out of 5): 4.31 Average “Top 5” time: 15 minutes 10 seconds Average % correct: 81%
	Mythic Rare # of puzzles published: 12 Average fun rating (out of 5): 4.34 Average “Top 5” time: 33 minutes 28 seconds Average % correct: 72%

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Most “fun” puzzle:	4.86 / 5 (Dominaria Puzzle #9)
Puzzle with fastest correct answer:	2m 13s (Dominaria Puzzle #5)
Puzzle with longest correct answer:	1h 21m 50s (M19 Puzzle #9)
Most incorrect puzzle:	20% (Rivals of Ixalan #7)
“Overkill Damage” Claims
# of competitor “Puzzlebreaker” claims:	22
# of competitive puzzles successfully broken:	1 (M19 Puzzle #9) *two other non-competitive puzzles were also broken
Dollars Spent, Prizes Sent
Approximate total value of prizes sent out (USD):	$2,440
Approx total spent on puzzle testing, graphic design, and other services (USD):	$1050
Portion of costs spent within the MTG community:	As always, 100%!

The Competition

Highest competitive total for 2018:	44.7 (1.24 points per puzzle) – Allen Smith
Highest points per puzzle for 2018:	1.25 – Matthew Williams
Current number of competitors:	50
Lifetime competitors finishing Top 8 4+ times:	Allen Smith, Justin Francis, Hugo Rodrigues, Will Jennings-Hess, Christian John Hazlett

Thanks again for making this such a spectacular year and good luck in 2019!