Everybody kept telling me that i needed no more than 60 cards in my deck and at first i thought that was kind of a wierd thing. Now as a person that understands consistency in a deck is one of the most important things you can have and i've been having much success with this new enlightenment.
My friend is a very stubborn person and refuses to accept this idea. Now i can understand his Point of View on this situation because of the type of deck he has. Its an innistrad Event Deck called Deathfed.
Cards in deck shown below:
His argument is that he needs more bad creatures to have in his graveyard the stronger his deck becomes.
What he doesnt realize is that he has less of a chance of drawing those good cards already would have had enough to take people out. He has i think
almost 80 in his deck. Even though i slaughter him all the time he is stubborn and refuses to trust me.
Can somebody help me with debate and list every reason why having a 60 card deck is better so i can get help from you pros out there.
Deck specific arguments would help greatly.
Understand he can drop 17/17's on the field with his unedited deck and he doesnt need 23/23's.
Help me :).
Can somebody help me with debate and list every reason why having a 60 card deck is better so i can get help from you pros out there.
I'm sorry, but you can't win this argument. The best way to prove he is wrong is to beat him, but since you already said that doesn't work, no amount of reasoning will get through to him.
It is something he has to learn on his own.
You could try trimming his deck, then you switch decks (ie you play the trimmed deck and he plays your deck), but for that to work you have to win.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Tell him it's about consistency. Too many bad creatures to throw in the graves will sometimes become "bad creatures clogging my hand and no wincons in sight."
Trim the fat out of his deck, and then switch decks would be a good start. You can physically show him that 60 is better than 80 if you can beat him with his deck against your deck that he never wins against
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While 60 is the "norm", I often see decks w/61, 62, 64, or more cards. It's not a "hard and fast" rule.
60 is the rule, if you want to win. There are only extreme circumstances in which 61 is the right number, but those cases are too rare. You shouldn't have more than 61, unless you are playing some sort of gimmick deck that requires a larger deck size.
The most recent success story with more than 60+ cards that I can think of is Gabriel Nassif winning Pro Tour Kyoto with 61 maindeck cards. Since then, we've had 12 Pro Tours.
Pro Tour Honolulu: Top 8 was Booster Draft. All Top 8 decks had exactly 40 maindeck cards. Pro Tour Austin: Top 8 was Extended. Seven of the Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. There was one deck with 61 maindeck cards. 2009 World Championships: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. Pro Tour San Diego: Top 8 was Standard. Seven of the Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. There was one deck with 61 maindeck cards. Pro Tour San Juan: Top 8 was Booster Draft. All Top 8 decks had exactly 40 maindeck cards. Pro Tour Amsterdam: Top 8 was Extended. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. 2010 World Championships: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. Pro Tour Paris: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. Pro Tour Nagoya: Top 8 was Booster Draft. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. Pro Tour Philadelphia: Top 8 was Modern. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. 2011 World Championships: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. Pro Tour Dark Ascension: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
In the most recent 12 Pro Tours, there have been a total of 96 decks in the Top 8. All but two of them ran the minimum required number of cards in the maindeck (60 for Constructed formats, 40 for Limited formats). The two that didn't run the minimum had only one card above the minimum.
Let me delve further into Pro Tour Dark Ascension because it's the most recent Pro Tour. A grand total of 98 decks finished with 18 or more points in the Standard portion of the tournament. (That's a record of 6-4 or better.) Of those 98 decks, one had 62 cards, one had 61 cards and the rest had 60.
There are a few reasons why 60 cards is best.
First, there is undoubtedly a central card in the deck that you want to draw as often as possible. You put four copies of this card into your deck and build the rest of the deck around it. If that card is four out of 60, it represents 6.67% of your deck. If that card is four out of 100, it represents a mere 4% of your deck.
Secondly, there are many instances in Magic where the correct play on what to do this turn depends on what you might draw next turn. You think "if I draw X card next turn, then play Y is correct." The more cards there are in your deck, the more possibilities you have to calculate in your head.
Thirdly, mana screw and flood becomes more prevalent in larger decks. Consider a deck with 24 lands out of 60. The odds of drawing an opening hand of exactly 0 or 1 lands is 14.27%.
Now consider a deck with 40 lands out of 100. This is the same proportion of lands as before, but this still changes the odds. The odds of drawing an opening hand of exactly 0 or 1 lands is now 14.92%.
Realistically, you can't win this one. Stubborn people rarely give in. However, having said that, this is what I'd do.
1. Play a best of 3 with your deck against his as is. Most likely you will win.
2. Take his deck and then tweak it to where you think it should be card wise. After you're done, switch decks.
3. Play his deck against your deck. This is risky because his deck, even with just 60 cards, may just not be that good.
To give yourself the best chance of pulling this off, this is what I would do before hand.
1. Analyze his deck as is. See what you'd cut out of it. You can't replace any cards because then he could say, "Ah, but those are new cards." It has to be the same deck with 20 less cards.
2. After analyzing the deck, build a deck for yourself that you feel CAN beat the old deck but CAN'T beat the new deck. This is going to take a lot of testing that you can do online before hand.
3. Once you have a good matchup against the old deck but a poor matchup against the new deck, approach your friend with your proposition. If he says no (some people are REALLY stubborn) tell him you'll give him 5 bucks if he agrees to the test and afterwards, he doesn't have to change his deck if he doesn't want to.
Unless he's an absolute (I don't have the words to describe him) he'll not only take you up on your offer but after you beat him with his new deck, he'll probably keep it as it is.
Another good idea is just buy the pre-con from somewhere or construct it on your own, then play it against him. If he loses to the pre-con which is his deck with out "improvements" and you explain it's because you drew your stuff, then he may be more willing to cut out some of the cards he doesn't need.
Or find some way to show in this context that once a creature hits a certain size, it doesn't really need to get any bigger. Unless it's Merit Lage for a turn one kill, having something bigger than 14 is almost completely unnecessary. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's power could have been 14 without much difference at all. That extra power on such a large creature already rarely means life or death.
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He's not having fun. lol he keeps raging cuz he loses this is why im trying to help him
Well, that's a head scratcher...it would seem you are at point where you may have to agree to disagree. Of you'll have to suffer through his raging until he gets tired of it and agrees to change.
Another good idea is just buy the pre-con from somewhere or construct it on your own, then play it against him. If he loses to the pre-con which is his deck with out "improvements" and you explain it's because you drew your stuff, then he may be more willing to cut out some of the cards he doesn't need.
Given the information you've given us, this seems like the way to go. I second it.
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tell him if he wants to play standard then he needs to follow the rules or cant play.
That's a bad way to go about it, because he is infact following all of the rules (presumably nothing out of the ordinary going on here). I would agree that if his deck is a precon with "modifications" to just construct the original Precon list and play a best of 3 or 5 against him tweaked list and show him that he made it worse by adding the chaffe in.
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
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Show him this graph I attached. It's actually not tested at all and I just made up the testing results, but your friend doesn't have to know this small detail and you're not the one lying. Besides, even though it might not be accurate at all, it's definitely at least somewhat in the correct direction.
showing false numbers is only going to screw things up more. Odds are with that graph it would just make him respond with "well that's not my deck so it doesn't matter". In game demonstration of the concept is what will serve the OP best here.
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
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i like the try to borrow his deck and tweak it to beat your deck approach. when i had first started the other guys who had been playing longer would do this with my decks to show me what was crap, or that i didn't need, and it worked out pretty well. the downside is he has to be willing to listen.
that idea of picking up the precon and beating him with it was also a good one.
i like the try to borrow his deck and tweak it to beat your deck approach. when i had first started the other guys who had been playing longer would do this with my decks to show me what was crap, or that i didn't need, and it worked out pretty well. the downside is he has to be willing to listen.
that idea of picking up the precon and beating him with it was also a good one.
You are right. They have to listen, but that is true of everything in most cases. I've only met a few people that were so stubborn as to snub evidence that was right in front of them just because they didn't agree with the point previously...and those people you can't help
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the user formerly known as isopsycho86
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You are right. They have to listen, but that is true of everything in most cases. I've only met a few people that were so stubborn as to snub evidence that was right in front of them just because they didn't agree with the point previously...and those people you can't help
most of the people i've met that are like that... have been magic players.
What I normally go with is trying to help them realize that not all cards are made equal. Some cards are simply better than others. In fact, you can rank all cards on a subjective power scale for your deck and come up with ~36 (constructed 60 not counting land) of the best cards. Everything else is worse than those cards. When you put more than that many cards in your deck, you're going to draw cards that are worse than you need to draw. If Constructed magic were 40 card decks, you can bet your butt we'd only play 40 cards because we want to consistently draw those best cards possible.
Put it this way, imagine instead of a deck you're stocking your refrigerator for a month. Obviously, you'll only fill it with things you want to eat. You don't put in random crap you don't like on the off chance you think you might be in the mood for it. Even if you can outline a set of circumstances where you think "Ok, if x, y, and z, then sure I'll be in the mood for chocolate covered chicken rice balls", you don't buy chocolate covered chicken rice balls because you're not going to eat chocolate covered chicken rice balls. What makes it even worse is you get to pick from EVERY OPTION AVAILABLE in your fridge. Your deck isn't that nice. It gives you 7 options day 1, then randomly replaces one option each day. If you bought those chocolate covered chicken and rice balls, you know that some day you're going to be stuck eating them.
My friend is a very stubborn person and refuses to accept this idea. Now i can understand his Point of View on this situation because of the type of deck he has. Its an innistrad Event Deck called Deathfed.
Cards in deck shown below:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/innistrad/eventdecks#deck2
His argument is that he needs more bad creatures to have in his graveyard the stronger his deck becomes.
What he doesnt realize is that he has less of a chance of drawing those good cards already would have had enough to take people out. He has i think
almost 80 in his deck. Even though i slaughter him all the time he is stubborn and refuses to trust me.
Can somebody help me with debate and list every reason why having a 60 card deck is better so i can get help from you pros out there.
Deck specific arguments would help greatly.
Understand he can drop 17/17's on the field with his unedited deck and he doesnt need 23/23's.
Help me :).
It is something he has to learn on his own.
You could try trimming his deck, then you switch decks (ie you play the trimmed deck and he plays your deck), but for that to work you have to win.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
If he's having fun who cares how large his deck is?
60 is the rule, if you want to win. There are only extreme circumstances in which 61 is the right number, but those cases are too rare. You shouldn't have more than 61, unless you are playing some sort of gimmick deck that requires a larger deck size.
The most recent success story with more than 60+ cards that I can think of is Gabriel Nassif winning Pro Tour Kyoto with 61 maindeck cards. Since then, we've had 12 Pro Tours.
Pro Tour Honolulu: Top 8 was Booster Draft. All Top 8 decks had exactly 40 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour Austin: Top 8 was Extended. Seven of the Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. There was one deck with 61 maindeck cards.
2009 World Championships: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour San Diego: Top 8 was Standard. Seven of the Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards. There was one deck with 61 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour San Juan: Top 8 was Booster Draft. All Top 8 decks had exactly 40 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour Amsterdam: Top 8 was Extended. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
2010 World Championships: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour Paris: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour Nagoya: Top 8 was Booster Draft. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour Philadelphia: Top 8 was Modern. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
2011 World Championships: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
Pro Tour Dark Ascension: Top 8 was Standard. All Top 8 decks had exactly 60 maindeck cards.
In the most recent 12 Pro Tours, there have been a total of 96 decks in the Top 8. All but two of them ran the minimum required number of cards in the maindeck (60 for Constructed formats, 40 for Limited formats). The two that didn't run the minimum had only one card above the minimum.
Let me delve further into Pro Tour Dark Ascension because it's the most recent Pro Tour. A grand total of 98 decks finished with 18 or more points in the Standard portion of the tournament. (That's a record of 6-4 or better.) Of those 98 decks, one had 62 cards, one had 61 cards and the rest had 60.
There are a few reasons why 60 cards is best.
First, there is undoubtedly a central card in the deck that you want to draw as often as possible. You put four copies of this card into your deck and build the rest of the deck around it. If that card is four out of 60, it represents 6.67% of your deck. If that card is four out of 100, it represents a mere 4% of your deck.
Secondly, there are many instances in Magic where the correct play on what to do this turn depends on what you might draw next turn. You think "if I draw X card next turn, then play Y is correct." The more cards there are in your deck, the more possibilities you have to calculate in your head.
Thirdly, mana screw and flood becomes more prevalent in larger decks. Consider a deck with 24 lands out of 60. The odds of drawing an opening hand of exactly 0 or 1 lands is 14.27%.
Now consider a deck with 40 lands out of 100. This is the same proportion of lands as before, but this still changes the odds. The odds of drawing an opening hand of exactly 0 or 1 lands is now 14.92%.
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1. Play a best of 3 with your deck against his as is. Most likely you will win.
2. Take his deck and then tweak it to where you think it should be card wise. After you're done, switch decks.
3. Play his deck against your deck. This is risky because his deck, even with just 60 cards, may just not be that good.
To give yourself the best chance of pulling this off, this is what I would do before hand.
1. Analyze his deck as is. See what you'd cut out of it. You can't replace any cards because then he could say, "Ah, but those are new cards." It has to be the same deck with 20 less cards.
2. After analyzing the deck, build a deck for yourself that you feel CAN beat the old deck but CAN'T beat the new deck. This is going to take a lot of testing that you can do online before hand.
3. Once you have a good matchup against the old deck but a poor matchup against the new deck, approach your friend with your proposition. If he says no (some people are REALLY stubborn) tell him you'll give him 5 bucks if he agrees to the test and afterwards, he doesn't have to change his deck if he doesn't want to.
Unless he's an absolute (I don't have the words to describe him) he'll not only take you up on your offer but after you beat him with his new deck, he'll probably keep it as it is.
It's worth a shot. Let us know how it works out.
Or find some way to show in this context that once a creature hits a certain size, it doesn't really need to get any bigger. Unless it's Merit Lage for a turn one kill, having something bigger than 14 is almost completely unnecessary. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's power could have been 14 without much difference at all. That extra power on such a large creature already rarely means life or death.
Well, that's a head scratcher...it would seem you are at point where you may have to agree to disagree. Of you'll have to suffer through his raging until he gets tired of it and agrees to change.
Its a rather strange situation though...
Given the information you've given us, this seems like the way to go. I second it.
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That's a bad way to go about it, because he is infact following all of the rules (presumably nothing out of the ordinary going on here). I would agree that if his deck is a precon with "modifications" to just construct the original Precon list and play a best of 3 or 5 against him tweaked list and show him that he made it worse by adding the chaffe in.
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What rules are you talking about?
There's no rule against having an 80 card deck.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
showing false numbers is only going to screw things up more. Odds are with that graph it would just make him respond with "well that's not my deck so it doesn't matter". In game demonstration of the concept is what will serve the OP best here.
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that idea of picking up the precon and beating him with it was also a good one.
You are right. They have to listen, but that is true of everything in most cases. I've only met a few people that were so stubborn as to snub evidence that was right in front of them just because they didn't agree with the point previously...and those people you can't help
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most of the people i've met that are like that... have been magic players.
its still worth a go though.
Put it this way, imagine instead of a deck you're stocking your refrigerator for a month. Obviously, you'll only fill it with things you want to eat. You don't put in random crap you don't like on the off chance you think you might be in the mood for it. Even if you can outline a set of circumstances where you think "Ok, if x, y, and z, then sure I'll be in the mood for chocolate covered chicken rice balls", you don't buy chocolate covered chicken rice balls because you're not going to eat chocolate covered chicken rice balls. What makes it even worse is you get to pick from EVERY OPTION AVAILABLE in your fridge. Your deck isn't that nice. It gives you 7 options day 1, then randomly replaces one option each day. If you bought those chocolate covered chicken and rice balls, you know that some day you're going to be stuck eating them.
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