u/CabbageKyabetsu

I tracked the data of my opponents in Gemini, there are different graphs for rounds 1 and 2, and I also included Round 2 of Taurus for comparison. I'm doing this to gauge the strength of the league after its recent change to A+ and below.

First data point is the rating of the opponent horses, Round 2 results are similar for Taurus and Gemini but in Round 1, Gemini had about 15% more above 13500 rating. What this tells me is that overall people are getting more comfortable running Trackblazer and getting the stats and skills they want.

Next is Distance Aptitude and I thought it was a fluke that in Taurus round 2 horses had Distance S less often than in round 1 but it happened again in Gemini. I did notice a good number of horses that were not great but still had Distance S in round 1 so what might be happening is that casual trainers are overvaluing Distance S while more experienced trainers are more focused on stats and skills.

Next is the track-specific bonus of extra speed for hitting thresholds of Stamina and Guts. I didn't track Stamina since I assumed everyone would be going for 601 anyway, but 601 Guts is not something casual trainers would stumble on by accident so I thought that was a decent stat to track as a knowledge check. In Taurus we had Red Shift which was a good universal knowledge check, 601 guts in Gemini is not as universal but still something. Many more trainers had 601 Guts than had Red Shift in Taurus, make whatever conclusion you want from that. I didn't track it but I did keep an eye out for true Guts builds, I saw fewer than 10.

Next are Scenario Run and Date Trained, the biggest difference in the former was that URA-trained horses went way down. Maybe the most shocking finding is that 40% of horses entered in Gemini were trained over a month ago, all the way back in April before Taurus happened, even *before Aries*. This is way higher than the number of "old" horses entered in Taurus and I am struggling to come up with an explanation. Perhaps more trainers are burnt-out and mailing it in. Perhaps more Graded trainers tried Open for the first time and were wondering how well they could do without trying.

Next is wins* of URA/Unity-trained horses VS MANT-trained horses. The asterix is there because I am not counting myself. Wins for URA/Unity went down but they are still viable and I am beginning to think a rating of 13500 is good enough to beat almost anyone with some luck. As long as you have a decent stat line and the necessary skills, you can win even if you have 1000 less rating points.

Finally is the number of Fronts and those with Groundwork and those that were Runaway. No change from the B and below era but Open trainers are generally staying away from Fronts and they are rarely building them "correctly" with Groundwork. Compared to what I am hearing from Graded trainers, they went very heavy on Fronts which pushed Paces out of the conversation, but with the low-ish number of Fronts in Open, Paces could and did shine.

So that's it for Gemini, I'll track Cancer in the same way but with a focus on Xmas Oguri, should be interesting.

For this first CM with the A+ restriction in Open League I am recording a variety of pieces of data of my opponents to get an idea of how competitive is the userbase. I'll explain why I chose to record these data points and guess at what we can learn from it.

For Rating Points I drew the cutoff line at 13,500 because that is the lowest I saw serious JP Open League users go. It turned out to be a good spot because I saw a fairly even balance between above and below. What I believe this chart tells us is that 39% of the userbase has mastered the career scenario while 61% still struggle with it.

Next is Distance Aptitude and this represents how much effort the userbase puts into their training. Distance S is not guaranteed even with 18 distance sparks so even best-case scenario, multiple runs can be expected. Only 21% got it which is about half of those with over 13500 rating so even among those who have mastered the career scenario, not all will go the extra mile for the aptitude.

Then is Red Shift which is a knowledge check about the course. It's a powerful acceleration skill that any style can use and yet only 6% had it (not counting OG Maruzensky aces). This tells me only a small fraction of the userbase seeks out meta build knowledge.

The next slide has Scenario Run, the majority aces having been trained in Trackblazer/MANT, 78%. Only 16% were trained in Unity even though there was a lot of talk beforehand that A+ Open League trainers could stay back in Unity.

Next is Date Trained, the interesting thing here is 24% trained the horse in March or earlier telling me they were not trained specifically for this CM, they were an old Team Trials horse or something else unused. A quarter of aces entered are there simply for the participation prizes, they are not there to win.

Last pie chart is Wins with an asterix because I did not count myself, if I did it would be 100% MANT. Instead I looked at who placed next after me and Unity picked up 13% of that spot. Considering they only made up of 16% of the racers, I think that's pretty good and Unity aces look viable (so far).

Finally are Xmas Oguri and Front Runners, both of which were rare in B Open League presumably because they are tricky to build. Of the 240 opponent racers, there were only 9 Xmas Oguris, 4 of which were properly built with 3-4 recovery skills, one of which was Triple 7s. There were 39 Fronts, only 6 of which had complete Groundwork packages, and just 3 Runaways (0 of which had Groundwork). Open Trainers still seem to be avoiding these types of horses.

That's it! I'll post again with side-by-side charts to compare Rounds 1 and 2, let's see if there is a big difference.

Trainers might be wondering what to use their yellow crystals on to prepare for the next scenario, Grand Live, so here is a list of good cards. Getting rainbow trainings ASAP will be the most important thing so Initial Friendship and Specialty Priority are needed. Skill Point Bonus is also very welcome and lower priority are Friendship Bonus, Mood Effect, and Training Efficacy.

The typical deck is going to look like 3 Speed 2 Wit and Light Hello so we'll focus on Speed and Wit cards. The top SR Speed cards are King Halo, Sweep Tosho, Curren Chan, and the upcoming El Condor Pasa. Of the handout SSRs Tosen Jordan is the best but her stat growth will be meh because of low-ish Friendship Bonus and 0 Mood Effect. Choose her if you really want her gold recovery skill.

Next are Wit cards, many are actually useable but Agnes Tachyon, Daiwa Scarlet, and the upcoming Seiun Sky are the best. SSR Mihono Bourbon should only be used as a 2nd Wit to a max SSR or else Wit gains will suffer.

The only Stamina cards worth using in this scenario are Super Creek, the upcoming Manhattan Cafe, Mejiro Palmer, and handout Biwa Hayahide for their gold skills (so no SRs are useable). The only Power cards worth using in this scenario are Rice Shower and the upcoming Daiichi Ruby for their gold skills (so no SRs are useable).

Finally are Guts cards if we want to do a Guts build which is 2 Speed 2 Guts 1 Wit and Light Hello. Tamamo Cross is the best and the upcoming Oguri Cap is a distant 2nd. The best handout SSRs are Yukino Bijin and the upcoming Sakura Chiyono O. And apparently these are so good that there is no need to use any SSR Guts cards.

In Trackblazer/MANT I personally believe running just two distances is enough to make top-tier aces. This is great because we can devote our red sparks to getting distance/surface S and it opens up our options on who we can run. These are the schedules I follow, the red circles are optional races.

There’s been a lot of confusion on the restriction for the next CM due to bad translations and what seem to be trolls making B or lower room matches but it’s finally confirmed to be A+ or lower. Hope people who were misled have enough time to make a team and I’ll see you there.

With the upcoming change to Open League, the restriction now being A+ or lower, I thought it would be good timing to re-up this chart (and also someone pointed out something was missing so I added it). What was missing was the entry fee of 30 carats for the 4th tickets done during Round 2; I adjusted all the final totals down 60. I also added a little more clarification below each league name to hopefully make the parameters more clear.

But regardless of the update, the original point still stands: similar performances in Open and Graded B will award similar carats. In order to get more carats in Graded B, you must win the finals. I threw in the Graded A chart for laughs and because there was empty space, but there *is* a scenario where Open trainers can earn more than Graded A trainers.

Disclaimer: I am not trying to dissuade anyone from playing Graded A. If you like carats and you can consistently win in Graded A, by all means do that. But if you're trying to decide between Open and Graded B, carats can't be a real factor.