I analyzed over 1000 Genesys games, this is what I learned about going second

You may have recently read a post talking about how Genesys has an 80% win rate going first. I am here today to present data that paints a different picture of the format than that.

I host weekly online Genesys tournaments, and I collect the replays from every match that is played in them. I've meticulously gone through each of the replays and counted the going 1st/2nd winrates, along with other related statistics that you can see in the full data. These are matches from a large variety of players playing a large variety of decks. Overall, I've collected data from 408 games between the release of BLZD and BLGG, 322 games between the release of BLGG and CORI, and 307 matches to date since CORI released (1037 games total).

Here's the tabulation:

BLZD Format

• Total: 408 Games
• Going 1st wins: 249 Games (61.03%)
• Going 2nd wins: 159 Games (38.97%)

BLGG Format

• Total: 322 Games
• Going 1st wins: 177 Games (54.97%)
• Going 2nd wins: 145 Games (45.03%)

BLGG Format (Game 1 only)

• Total: 124 Games
• Going 1st wins: 75 Games (60.48%)
• Going 2nd wins: 49 Games (39.52%)

CORI Format - to date

• Total: 307 Games
• Going 1st wins: 184 Games (59.93%)
• Going 2nd wins: 123 Games (40.07%)

CORI Format - to date (Game 1 only)

• Total: 118 Games
• Going 1st wins: 75 Games (63.56%)
• Going 2nd wins: 43 Games (36.44%)

This paints an image of a format that has a ~60% winrate going first (~55% post side), a far cry from the 80% win rate you may have read about. This has also been fairly consistent across several formats and product releases. This is far from ideal, however for Yugioh it seems fairly par for the course, if not actually more favorable for going second than some other formats (looking at you, Masterduel format).

The truth about the format is probably somewhere in between the figures. Players at tier 2+ events tend to be more likely to play "unfun" strategies (shifter/floodgates/ftk/handloop) than they would be at a local event (which my events are more similar to), which will skew the data in a way I can't account for.

I don't think going second is problematic in Genesys, in fact, from what I can see it's about as good as we've ever known going second to be (tenpai excluded).