Has anyone actually tested giving bonuses or debuffs to players based on turn order?
I have seen the playgroup.gg analysis of winrates based on turn order and it's pretty interesting:
Seat 1 (Player 1): ~29.2% win rate (+4.2% over a expected 25% fair share)
Seat 2: ~25.7%
Seat 3: ~23.6%
Seat 4 (Player 4): ~21.5% win rate (-3.5% below fair share)
This is based on ~500k games so obviously it's probably the most robust source of this data, but I have noticed even starker win rate differences since I started tracking it in my playgroup. Currently 1st player in my playgroup enjoys a 54% winrate.
No matter how you slice it, I think these numbers range from egregious to really egregious. But I don't think this is really on the rules committee to fix, since it seems to vary quite a bit based on pod composition whether players in that playgroup capitalize on the first turn advantage. There can be no one size fits all solution.
Instead I am curious if any playgroups have tried experimenting with 4th player buffs or 1st player handicaps to try to correct for this. Have any of them worked for you? Have you collected any data on the impacts of these interventions? I would love to know.
Right now I am toying around with the idea of A/B testing a few interventions and pitching them to my playgroup. It would be a long term project to measure the effects of these so I want to start with some solid options that are likely to succeed, or at least clearly point us in the right direction. Curious to hear some feedback on what other folks think of these possibilities.
Intervention 1:
- Player 1: No first turn draw
- Player 2: None
- Player 3: None
- Player 4: 1 treasure token
Intervention 1:
- Player 1: No first turn draw
- Player 2: None
- Player 3: 1 treasure token
- Player 4: 2 treasure tokens
Intervention 1:
- Player 1: No first turn draw
- Player 2: None
- Player 3: 1 treasure token
- Player 4: Extra land drop on turn 1
Any tweaks you would suggest?
Posted Aug 27, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC