Goodbye Power Levels, Hello CRISPI

Overview

Meet the CRISPI Score

Today, DeckCheck officially retires power levels and introduces CRISPI. Crispy like a crispy potato chip. Shoutout to user Legobumb for coming up with the playful name. It's a clear, open rating that tells you exactly how your deck performs and, more importantly, why.

If you read the announcement post last week, you already know the high-level story: power levels were competing with brackets, the number was opaque, and you made it clear you still wanted something you could actually use as a tuning tool. The CRISPI Score is that tool. Now I was going to wait until the 12th to push this update, but I cooked on CRISPI so hard that I got it done a week early. So, because life is fleeting, there's no reason to wait around till the 12th when I can get it into your hands now!

This post is the full breakdown. By the end of it, you'll understand exactly what each attribute measures, how scores are assigned, and what you can do to move them.

The System

How the CRISPI Score Works

CRISPI stands for Consistency Resilience Interaction Speed Performance Index. Every deck on DeckCheck is rated on these four attributes—each scored 1 to 10 as whole numbers. The Performance Index (the CRISPI Score itself) is simply the average of those four ratings, displayed to two decimal places on a 1.00–10.00 scale.

CRISPI Score = ( Speed + Consistency + Interaction + Resilience ) / 4

The Black Box is Gone: The best part? CRISPI is completely open-source logic. It is no longer an AI "black box." If you wanted to, you could sit down with your decklist, a calculator, and the rubrics below to assign your own exact CRISPI score. Our AI doesn't use secret vibes or hidden math, it just does the counting and calculating for you in seconds instead of hours.

If your deck scores Speed 7, Consistency 6, Interaction 7, and Resilience 5, your CRISPI Score is 6.25. And because you can see each component, you know exactly which stat to target if you want to push that number higher.

Methodology

Ceiling-Anchored Scoring

Before diving into the individual attributes, it's worth understanding how the numbers work.

Every score in the CRISPI system is anchored to the top end of the Commander format: Competitive Elder Dragon Highlander (cEDH). cEDH isn't a separate format—it's the most optimized version of the same Commander ruleset everyone plays. By looking at deck composition, tournament win rates, and the stats of top-performing cEDH archetypes, we define what 8, 9, and 10 actually look like in concrete, verifiable terms. Every deck below that ceiling is then graded on the same consistent scale.

This gets rid of the "vibes" problem. A score of 8 means something specific and measurable, based on real tournament data—not a gut feeling. When the system says your deck's Interaction is a 6, that number sits on the same scale that rates a fully optimized Blue Farm list at 10. You always know where you stand.

Speed

Definition: How quickly the deck can realistically win or lock out opponents, measured by its "fundamental turn"—the earliest turn the deck can threaten a win in at least 50% of games. This is not the best-case nut draw; it's the turn the deck reaches its win condition at least half the time with normal draws and no disruption from opponents.

Speed is the most intuitive attribute: how fast can this deck end the game? But the key word is reliably. A deck that can theoretically win on turn 2 with a "magical Christmas land" hand doesn't get a 10. You can verify this yourself: goldfish your deck a dozen times and take the average turn your deck was able to win on to find your fundamental turn.

What Gets Counted

• Fundamental turn—the main metric. The earliest turn the deck can consistently threaten a win.
• Average Mana Value (AMV) without lands—this acts strictly as a sanity check. A deck claiming Speed 8+ shouldn't realistically support an AMV above 2.20. However, the fundamental turn is the ultimate decider. If your deck reliably goldfishes a turn 3 win, that dictates your score, even if your AMV is artificially inflated by high-cost spells.
• Mana acceleration suite—mana dorks, rocks, rituals, and fast mana. Dork-heavy strategies get fair credit, but they're weighted differently from artifact fast mana.
• Lock vs. tax distinction—for stax decks, a full lock (opponents literally can't play) counts as the win turn. A single tax piece like Thalia slows people down, but that's disruption, not a lock.

Consistency

Definition: How reliably the deck finds its key cards, puts its game plan together, and executes it—working around the built-in randomness of a 100-card singleton format.

What Gets Counted

• Tutors—counted and weighted by quality. Cheap, unrestricted tutors count for more than expensive or narrow ones.
• Card draw—weighted by power. Burst draw and premium engines like Rhystic Study count for more than one-shot cantrips or card selection.
• Commander utility—a commander that tutors, acts as a combo piece, or draws cards boosts consistency significantly.

Tribal/synergy deck exception: When a deck has 10 or more cards filling the same role (like 20+ elves), that heavy overlap counts as +2–3 tutor density for scoring purposes in the 5–7 range.

Interaction

Definition: How well the deck disrupts opponents' game plans and protects its own, based on total piece count, mana efficiency, timing, stack control, and coverage across different threat types.

As you move toward the cEDH ceiling, interaction shifts completely from board-based control to stack-based control. "Free" interaction is a hard requirement for scores 8–10.

What Gets Counted

• Total interaction density—every interactive card in the deck (removal, counterspells, stax, protection, board wipes).
• Targeted removal—cheap, versatile removal counts for more than expensive or narrow answers.
• Counterspells & Free spells—free interaction counts the most. Being able to protect yourself while tapped out is a massive advantage.
• Turn denial—Silence effects like Grand Abolisher and Ranger-Captain. These are the best combo protectors in the format.

Addressing the "Blue Bias": If your deck has zero counterspells and zero free spells, its Interaction score is capped (total score minus 2). This isn't a bias against non-blue decks; it reflects a genuine strategic vulnerability. If a deck cannot interact on the stack, opponents can resolve game-winning spells by simply playing around your permanents.

Resilience

Definition: How well the deck can force a win through opposing interaction, bounce back from disrupted combos, rebuild under stax, and keep a path to victory open when things go wrong.

Resilience is where the system catches glass cannons. A deck with maximum Speed but minimal Resilience will produce a moderate CRISPI Score that matches its real-world win rate.

What Gets Counted

• Combo layering—the number of distinct, efficient win conditions that don't share critical pieces.
• Non-combo resilience—stax decks that lock opponents out, value decks that out-draw answers, and combat decks with heavy creature redundancy (10+ threats) plus protection.
• Recursion & Recovery—format-defining recursion like Underworld Breach counts heavily. The key question: can you rebuild a winning board 1–2 turns after a wipe?
• Commander dependency—how much worse does the deck get without its commander? If the deck still works at 80%+ without it, no penalty.

The Composite

Putting It All Together

Once the four attributes are scored, the CRISPI Score is their simple average. But it's worth understanding what the score is and isn't good for.

What CRISPI is good at

• Sorting and filtering—find decks in your power range quickly.
• Tracking changes—did your card swaps improve the deck? Re-analyze and compare.
• Comparing within a bracket—both decks are Bracket 3, but which is more tuned? The CRISPI Score tells you.

What CRISPI is not good at

• Predicting head-to-head outcomes. A deck scoring 9/3/3/9 (fast but fragile) is nothing like a deck scoring 6/7/7/6 (balanced). Both produce a 6.25, but they'd have a very different game against each other.

For pregame conversations, think about bracket (first) + attribute profile (second) + CRISPI Score (third).

Brackets

How Brackets Stay Accurate

DeckCheck's bracket calculation already factors in the official bracket rules—Game Changers count, combo presence, mass land destruction, extra turns, and tutors. The one blind-spot Brackets have is intra-bracket differences. I've setup CRISPI guardrails to catch decks that technically meet a lower bracket's restrictions but actually play above that level.

With the CRISPI system, those checks now use two inputs: the Speed rating (which enforces the minimum turn rule) and the CRISPI Score. Either one can trigger a bracket bump:

• Bracket 5 Floor: Speed 9+ OR CRISPI 8.5+
• Bracket 4 Floor: Speed 7+ OR CRISPI 7.5+
• Bracket 3 Floor: Speed 6+ OR CRISPI 6.0+
• Bracket 2 Floor: Speed 5+ OR CRISPI 4.5+

And because both inputs are visible to you, if your deck gets bumped you can see exactly why: was it because your deck is too fast, or because it's too strong overall?

These checks only bump up, never down (since no one finds issue with the person playing a weak deck that does nothing all game). A low-power deck that contains four Game Changers is still Bracket 4 because of the card restrictions (though, DeckCheck will still flag the deck making note of it likely being able to play in a lower bracket).

Wrapping Up

Start Using It

The CRISPI system is live as of today. Every new analysis on DeckCheck now uses this framework. Existing decks will have their CRISPI Score calculated from their current attribute ratings—and if you want the full benefit of the updated scoring, just re-analyze your deck.

The process is simple: see a low stat, check the rubric to understand why, make targeted card swaps, re-analyze, and watch the number move. That's the deckbuilding tool I've always wanted DeckCheck to be.

Below you'll find the complete scoring rubrics for each attribute—every score level, every benchmark, every threshold. This is the entire system, laid out so you can score your own deck if you want to.

Questions? Feedback? I'll be in the comments below and in the Discord.

Until next time,

Anthony

Reference

Complete Scoring Rubrics

Consistency — Full Rubric

How to read this table:

Tutor Density is scored on a scaled point system:

• 6 points — Premium true tutors, CMC ≤2, unrestricted (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Worldly Tutor, Gamble)
• 4 points — Standard true tutors, CMC 3–4 or restricted (Grim Tutor, Wishclaw Talisman, Fabricate, Eldritch Evolution, Finale of Devastation, Green Sun's Zenith)
• 4 points — Combo-enablers-that-tutor (Demonic Consultation, Tainted Pact, Doomsday)
• 2 points — Narrow or expensive true tutors (CMC 5+)
• +5 bonus — If your commander is a tutor, add +5 to the tutor total

Draw Engine Sources are scored on a scaled point system:

• 6 points — Burst draw (Ad Nauseam, Wheel of Fortune, Necropotence)
• 5 points — Premium asymmetric engines (Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, Esper Sentinel, Sylvan Library)
• 4 points — Standard repeatable engines
• 3 points — Card selection / filtering (Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Sensei's Divining Top)
• 2 points — One-shot draw (Night's Whisper, Read the Bones)
• +3 bonus — If your commander is a draw engine, add +3 to the draw total

Commander Combo Bonus: If your commander is a combo outlet, it adds a +4 general consistency bonus.

Tribal/Synergy Bonus: If the deck has 10+ cards filling a single critical redundant role, add a flat +10 bonus to the tutor total.

Resilience — Full Rubric

How to read this table:

Combo Layering counts distinct win conditions. Lines sharing a single point of failure count as 1.5 combos, not 2.

Commander Dependency Penalty: After determining your base score from the table, apply this modifier:

• Deck functions at 80%+ without commander = no penalty
• 50–80% = −1
• Below 50% = −2

Combat-based resilience (redundant threats + protection + recursion) is a supported path to scores 7–9. Decks do not need infinite combos to score highly on Resilience.

Interaction — Full Rubric

How to read this table:

Total Interaction is an unweighted count of all interactive cards. The Counterspell/Denial Pts column uses a scaled point system:

Counterspell Points:

• 8 points — Free counters (Force of Will, Fierce Guardianship, Pact of Negation, Force of Negation, Mindbreak Trap)
• 6 points — Efficient counters, CMC ≤2 (Counterspell, Swan Song, Dovin's Veto, Flusterstorm, Dispel, Spell Pierce, Mental Misstep, An Offer You Can't Refuse)
• 6 points — Turn denial / Silence effects (Grand Abolisher, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Teferi Mage of Zhalfir, Silence, Defense Grid)
• 3 points — Standard counters, CMC 3+

Post-Calculation Modifiers:

• Density Reconciliation: If the deck has 0 counterspells and 0 free spells, cap the final score at base minus 2. If it has 1–3 counterspells but 0 free spells, cap the final score at base minus 1.
• Board Wipe Cap: If the deck relies on 3 or more symmetric board wipes, the final Interaction score cannot exceed 7.

Speed — Full Rubric

How to read this table:

AMV = Average Mana Value (without lands). Cards not intended to be cast from hand (reanimation targets, cascade hits, etc.) use an "effective AMV" instead.

Fast Mana Pts is scored on a scaled point system:

• 4 points — Artifact fast mana, & CMC 0 mana creatures/fodder (Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Lotus Petal, LED, Ancient Tomb, etc.)
• 3 points — CMC 1 dorks & rocks (Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise, etc. & rituals (Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual).
• 2 points — CMC 2+ dorks & rocks

Sum the total points to get your fast mana density number. Piece counts are shown in parentheses for reference.

Speed/Consistency Coupling: If your calculated Speed score is 9 or 10, check your Consistency score. If Consistency is 7 or lower, Speed is capped at a maximum of 8.