I play enough long to be sure about boards. Let’s imagine rank of starting boards (before first turn): (1) good board with already combined tiles (tiles going to attack without your turn); (2) good board with lots possibilities to do good tile combination (3) average board (have choices but not much) (4) bad board with few or only one tile combination available (5) bad board without any combination available (automatically reshuffle).
I have all types of boards except (1). So as for me statistically boards RNG little shifted to bad boards from average. So I propose to add in this game same rare chance (as (5)) to get very good board as in point 1.
Also question: Does anyone have board point (1)? If yes - then all is ok with RNG, and it’s just me who don’t saw it yet.
Boards always start in an inert state, without an automatic match.
Given that, your rankings of “good to bad” boards are off, since (2) is essentially the best possible board.
You might be interested in this thread that breaks down the odds of different board combinations:
You may also be interested in this thread, demonstrating through extensive data collection that the number of tiles on boards are just random, and thus so is whether it’s a “good” or “bad” board to start:
And in any event, I’m quite certain you’ll be interested in @Garanwyn’s work 
Don’t agree with merge since it’s not similar ones (at least on first sight for me, need to go and read). Will look that links.
Looks like you are right about inert state (at least from my experience). But as I said I have all boards except 1. And board n5 is really bad one (but I got it so far only one or two times - so odds pretty low). (and it was left bad even after reshuffle, which is twice unbelievable). So that’s why I propose about slight chance (same low odds as N5) of not inert board to balance board N5.
It’s actually debatable whether a starting board with an automatic match would be a good one.
It could easily lose you a Raid or War hit, just as easily as it could help. You don’t want to randomly charge up the mana of the enemies, after all.
The “color stacking” thread actually addresses board combinations in general — the discussion just came up as an examination of whether the boards were “less random” when you color stacked heroes. But the data applies to the same cases you’re asking about. I think you’ll see the applicability when you read through it.
Oh by the way, that thread even addresses the “type 1” board frequency and exclusion.
Will check it, thanks. Although from my experience boards are completely RNG, it’s just psychologically you notice bad boards when play monochrome team (because it’s hurts much than bad board with rainbow team).
This is absolutely correct. Evolution programs us to remember when bad things happen so we can avoid them. It’s much easier to remember failures and frustrations than successes.
Just read that thread. Little not similar( I don’t saw no mention about (1), but maybe I am not attentive cause it’s very late here). Because I am not saying anything about colour. Just only about possible combinations you can move (without correlation to colours and to subjective good/bad board feeling). Anyway, thanks for conversation.
I think in the entire time I’ve been playing the game, I’ve had maybe one or two instances where the starting board had no moves, reshuffled, and the reshuffled board had an instant match and sent tiles without me doing anything. Whether something like that would be a good thing or bad thing depends largely upon whether the matched tiles correspond to the heroes you brought and where they land. However, that’s as close as the game gets to your (1) scenario as the game filters out starting boards that directly contain automatic matches.
It’s not heavily discussed, it’s just noted in the calculations of board combination possibilities, after @KingArchur pointed it out from the original calculations:
I’m not sure how the “goodness” of the board can be independent of color. Isn’t it effectively a subjective measure of there being tile matches that you’re happy about?
Yes. It’s very close, but then statistically it’s still may be little shifted to bad boards. Because odds of no moves board is little, and then this low odds must be divided in even lower odds of every possible result of reshuffling which most probably (1) not equal to the starting odd of no moves. And my range will need to rewrite to (1) -(4) but with statistically (1) < (4). Probably 1:2.
Because of late night I did little mistake in formulating (also because English not native for me). Bad board = no possible moves board.
Edit: (1) it’s n5 with reshuffling and automatically going tiles in new system
This sounds like a calculation @Garanwyn might enjoy figuring out (don’t want to speak for him) — namely, the distribution of boards in your various categories (and whether the categories make sense as the delineations to use):
NOTE: I excluded the “type 1” from the quote, since we’ve determined it’s not really a possibility to consider.
Need to reformulate formulas without words good and bad. Because good or bad based on number of possible moves, not on colours of that moves.
Right, and there’s the question (in my mind, at least), about whether a board with lots of moves — but few or no tiles of colors you’d like — is a “good” or “bad” board.
Is the criteria solely about number of move options, or is it about number of useful/desired move options? It’s the latter that I have trouble imagining as separate from color composition of the board.
No. Without correlation with colours at all. Only numbers of moves. Because truly bad board when I get board with only one possible combination. Because it’s almost automatically charging the enemies most of time. I play mostly monochrome teams. So when I have board without colour I play but lots of possible combinations it’s still not bad board because there are lot of options to turn it in my win (like attacking less dangerous hero trying to get colour I need etc.)
I’ve had a board 1. Maybe twice since starting November 2018. Very rare. I usually get pretty good boards. Just almost never a lot of strong tiles, but a lot of weak tiles across the board. This is especially noticed with titans. I usually blow the weak tiles away in the beginning to make room for the strong ones.
I’ve never had a 5 board to start out. I’ve had them during battles though.
You mean exactly board that was not inert on the start or board which have no possible moves and then was automatically reshuffled with automatic tile combinations? Just want to avoid misunderstandings
Hmmm… Haven’t had a start board that needed reshuffling.As far as the “strong tiles dilemma. Most of my boards like for Titans would work like this - Yellow/Holy titan. Maybe if I’m lucky there would be 4-6 purple tiles across the board. No way of using them unless I cleared the board to make room for more purple. It has always been this way on PVE since I’ve started playing. This is not random. As far as PvP, the boards have truly been random meaning sometimes I get strong tiles to stack and sometimes I don’t. I should start taking screen shots since peeps here don’t believe me. It’s the same with my husband too, so it’s not just me.
By all means start taking screenshots and counting the tiles of the titan’s weak color. That’s what I’ve been doing for raids. It’s a fun project, and my guess is you’ll find the number of tiles of the titan’s weak color is truly random.
Ever since I started counting boards, I’ve been super attuned to what kinds of boards I’ve been getting, and my sense is that my titan boards distribute about like my raid boards.
If you want help setting up a spreadsheet to keep track in, just let me know.
Well. If you mean colour tracking - I believe it’s random. With truly Gauss range. About possible number of moves on the start - little more complicated to do such calculation (because counting by hand may be time-eating). Possibly you have some methodology how to do it more easily?