I've never ragequit Magic over luck. Like everyone else, I've had improbable things happen that lost me games, and it can be very frustrating. But for every game that I've lost due to manascrew/flood, there's one that I've won in a landslide because the same happened to the other guy. It's just part of the game and you have to accept it, as well as building your deck to minimize the chances of it happening. For example, my Modern deck has a lot of what I call "flood insurance": Horizon Canopy, Tectonic Edge, Ghost Quarter, and Stirring Wildwood all give me things to do with my lands even if land is all I'm drawing. You can achieve a similar effect in Standard with the scry lands. You'll never "solve" bad luck, but there are things you can do to somewhat mitigate it.
A little background is that I've played the game off and on since 1994 until Mirrodin/Kamigawa, since which I've stayed on.
The one thing that has kept me from getting too upset from variance is that I have yet to play what I consider to be "perfectly." If I had played perfectly for several tournaments and still did poorly due to variance, I would truly be upset. Every tournament, I see a few plays where I could have done something better. For some reason, I'm good at analyzing the mistake after it happened rather than correcting it ahead of time.
Yesterday, I saw the other side of variance. In 5 matches of Modern that I played, my opponents mulliganed around 7 times to my only 5 times. Some of the games felt unfair because I'm used to being the one who mulliganed.
I actually did a pretty dumb play against UW GiftsTron. Previously I had mulled 2 hands in separate matches due to missing a single Green source for my GR Trap deck. The first card would have been that source. So, I kept a 3 Red source hand against the "slow" Gifts deck. I ended up losing to an Iona, Shield of the Emeria when I failed to draw a land of any kind and went to the discard step 4 times, binning 2 Farseek and 2 Sakura Tribe-Elder. I kind of hoped to draw 2 lands of any kind to play Through the Breach with Prime Titan, but it was my only Red card in hand. It's just too greedy of a keep and I agreed that the other 2 hands were the right decision at the time.
I have yet to play a perfect tournament in my eyes. The closest I've come is probably a 3 round tournament where I felt that I made 95% of the right plays.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
1) learn good shuffling practice
- makes the process more fun and enjoyable
- more than not helps to actual make your deck "random" (instead of semi-stacked decks, for the good or worse)
2) Analyze a game in detail
- Play with an opponent with open hands, analyze ever detail of plays you make, why and what to expect
- Dont let mistakes slide in these games, take them back, you play as optimal as you could
- The Discussion helps you to become a better player, discover hidden good plays you would miss and eliminate common mistakes you might do over and over again that give you disadvantages on the long run
- Doing lots of these will help you to think faster, as you know the optimal way to play your deck against specific matchups, so you also know what hand you can keep and what hands you better mulligan
3) Do the mulligan quick play
*This means, just draw multiple piles of 7 from your deck and discuss if you would keep that hand or mulligan
- For the hands you would keep, remove 1 of the cards and think if you still would keep it
- Doing this for like ~30 minutes gives you a good idea what hands of your deck are reasonable keeps and what you mulligan, this is ofcourse matchup dependend
4) Test more games with sideboard
- Common mistake is to playtest only with your maindeck. This is "fine" but it matters much less than games with sideboards. You might lose all game 1, but get a big edge with your sideboard.
- If you find yourself sideboarding a specific card A LOT , think about maindecking the card, even if it might be a miss against some matchups, it will give you an edge game 1 against your specific metagame (even more so if you have means to search for your 1-off or get it away with draw-discard like effects)
...
So yes, if you think magic is all about "luck" and random draws, it is a good idea to go deeper into the strategy and analyzing the details, as more often than not a player will do critical mistakes they cant identify or count as "bad luck" , and if they never see these mistakes, they will never get better.
4) Test more games with sideboard
- Common mistake is to playtest only with your maindeck. This is "fine" but it matters much less than games with sideboards. You might lose all game 1, but get a big edge with your sideboard.
- If you find yourself sideboarding a specific card A LOT , think about maindecking the card, even if it might be a miss against some matchups, it will give you an edge game 1 against your specific metagame (even more so if you have means to search for your 1-off or get it away with draw-discard like effects).
This is a mistake that I still make to this day. It takes a lot more time to figure out what you would SB against each deck and then there is always a chance that you "miss" the decks that you primarily tested against. But you should always have some idea of how you will SB against the top decks if you plan on having tournament success, even if you are good at thinking on the fly.
I made the top 8 of a PTQ during Caw Blade Standard with RW Landfall when I play tested against only Caw Blade for the 3 weeks before the tournament. I honestly was not prepared for other decks, but I faced 0 Caw Blade in 6 rounds played (2 IDs), the top 4 match (RUG), and the top 4 match (UB Infect!). Stuff like that happens, but still people should know what they will SB. They can even make notes and look at them during the SBing time! Many people don't know this.
People need to think of it mathematically. You will play more than 50% of your games sideboarded unless EVERY SINGLE ONE of your matches ends 2-0 or 0-2, which I seriously doubt. I have noticed to this day that there are some things that people do sideboarding that is better than myself. Happy sideboarding guys!
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
This is why my wife gets aggrivated and never wants to play. She loves it when she draws well but she hatesssss being mana screwed. Which sucks because shes been surprisingly good the few times I've gotten her to play.
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Trying to make crappy pet cards work since 2002.
I'm usually typing quickly at work or on my phone so I appolize from the crummy grammar
For freeware MTG, there could be an option to shuffle with bias added in, this way neither player is ever mana screwed or flooded. But, due to the number of cards that search your library for something or cards that for a higher or lower cost generate mana in multiple ways, one could argue that mana flood and screw evens out in the end.
I just like to do my best to try to alter it in my favour. I play things like critical mass of creatures/removal, (for example if you play 6 counterspells you are likely to see one by turn 3), Playing inherently redundant decks (one 2/1 for 1 is the same as the others), Play tutors (my early days of playing I played a lot of tutors to go find what I need so I'd have 5-8 copies of a spell), play more lands in a control stragey and more can trips in an aggressive one (including ponder and brainstorm etc.), Play mana sinks, play Thassa, god of the sea.
I don't like mid range stratgies because it is too hard to control variance in a deck trying to hit a happy medium of early and late game cards. Unless it involves a birthing pod then you have tutors.
4) Test more games with sideboard
- Common mistake is to playtest only with your maindeck. This is "fine" but it matters much less than games with sideboards. You might lose all game 1, but get a big edge with your sideboard.
- If you find yourself sideboarding a specific card A LOT , think about maindecking the card, even if it might be a miss against some matchups, it will give you an edge game 1 against your specific metagame (even more so if you have means to search for your 1-off or get it away with draw-discard like effects).
This is a mistake that I still make to this day. It takes a lot more time to figure out what you would SB against each deck and then there is always a chance that you "miss" the decks that you primarily tested against. But you should always have some idea of how you will SB against the top decks if you plan on having tournament success, even if you are good at thinking on the fly.
I made the top 8 of a PTQ during Caw Blade Standard with RW Landfall when I play tested against only Caw Blade for the 3 weeks before the tournament. I honestly was not prepared for other decks, but I faced 0 Caw Blade in 6 rounds played (2 IDs), the top 4 match (RUG), and the top 4 match (UB Infect!). Stuff like that happens, but still people should know what they will SB. They can even make notes and look at them during the SBing time! Many people don't know this.
People need to think of it mathematically. You will play more than 50% of your games sideboarded unless EVERY SINGLE ONE of your matches ends 2-0 or 0-2, which I seriously doubt. I have noticed to this day that there are some things that people do sideboarding that is better than myself. Happy sideboarding guys!
These are all real good suggestions that I think are good for players regardless of how burnt out or not on magic they are.
Just good ideas on how to make yourself, and your playgroup with usually different skill levels, better players. I will probably do this with a few of my newer friends that have recently built commander decks.
I thought that you can't SB in Commander? It takes the skill of SBing completely out.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I thought that you can't SB in Commander? It takes the skill of SBing completely out.
Oops I hit reply to the wrong post. It was more for the good shuffling etiquette, open hand play and the mulligan strategies of the post you commented on
I thought that you can't SB in Commander? It takes the skill of SBing completely out.
The rules for Commander include on optional sideboard of 10 cards, and if sideboard are being used you can perform sideboarding after the commanders are revealed.
Most people who use sideboards in commander are doing so for Wishes, though.
Modern: GW Hatebears/midrange, WGU Knightfall/evolution midrange stuff
Standard: nope
Legacy: W Death & Taxes
EDH (not Commander!): W Avacyn, Angel of Hope, GR Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, WGB Anafenza, the Foremost, WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
The one thing that has kept me from getting too upset from variance is that I have yet to play what I consider to be "perfectly." If I had played perfectly for several tournaments and still did poorly due to variance, I would truly be upset. Every tournament, I see a few plays where I could have done something better. For some reason, I'm good at analyzing the mistake after it happened rather than correcting it ahead of time.
Yesterday, I saw the other side of variance. In 5 matches of Modern that I played, my opponents mulliganed around 7 times to my only 5 times. Some of the games felt unfair because I'm used to being the one who mulliganed.
I actually did a pretty dumb play against UW GiftsTron. Previously I had mulled 2 hands in separate matches due to missing a single Green source for my GR Trap deck. The first card would have been that source. So, I kept a 3 Red source hand against the "slow" Gifts deck. I ended up losing to an Iona, Shield of the Emeria when I failed to draw a land of any kind and went to the discard step 4 times, binning 2 Farseek and 2 Sakura Tribe-Elder. I kind of hoped to draw 2 lands of any kind to play Through the Breach with Prime Titan, but it was my only Red card in hand. It's just too greedy of a keep and I agreed that the other 2 hands were the right decision at the time.
I have yet to play a perfect tournament in my eyes. The closest I've come is probably a 3 round tournament where I felt that I made 95% of the right plays.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)1) learn good shuffling practice
- makes the process more fun and enjoyable
- more than not helps to actual make your deck "random" (instead of semi-stacked decks, for the good or worse)
2) Analyze a game in detail
- Play with an opponent with open hands, analyze ever detail of plays you make, why and what to expect
- Dont let mistakes slide in these games, take them back, you play as optimal as you could
- The Discussion helps you to become a better player, discover hidden good plays you would miss and eliminate common mistakes you might do over and over again that give you disadvantages on the long run
- Doing lots of these will help you to think faster, as you know the optimal way to play your deck against specific matchups, so you also know what hand you can keep and what hands you better mulligan
3) Do the mulligan quick play
*This means, just draw multiple piles of 7 from your deck and discuss if you would keep that hand or mulligan
- For the hands you would keep, remove 1 of the cards and think if you still would keep it
- Doing this for like ~30 minutes gives you a good idea what hands of your deck are reasonable keeps and what you mulligan, this is ofcourse matchup dependend
4) Test more games with sideboard
- Common mistake is to playtest only with your maindeck. This is "fine" but it matters much less than games with sideboards. You might lose all game 1, but get a big edge with your sideboard.
- If you find yourself sideboarding a specific card A LOT , think about maindecking the card, even if it might be a miss against some matchups, it will give you an edge game 1 against your specific metagame (even more so if you have means to search for your 1-off or get it away with draw-discard like effects)
...
So yes, if you think magic is all about "luck" and random draws, it is a good idea to go deeper into the strategy and analyzing the details, as more often than not a player will do critical mistakes they cant identify or count as "bad luck" , and if they never see these mistakes, they will never get better.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
This is a mistake that I still make to this day. It takes a lot more time to figure out what you would SB against each deck and then there is always a chance that you "miss" the decks that you primarily tested against. But you should always have some idea of how you will SB against the top decks if you plan on having tournament success, even if you are good at thinking on the fly.
I made the top 8 of a PTQ during Caw Blade Standard with RW Landfall when I play tested against only Caw Blade for the 3 weeks before the tournament. I honestly was not prepared for other decks, but I faced 0 Caw Blade in 6 rounds played (2 IDs), the top 4 match (RUG), and the top 4 match (UB Infect!). Stuff like that happens, but still people should know what they will SB. They can even make notes and look at them during the SBing time! Many people don't know this.
People need to think of it mathematically. You will play more than 50% of your games sideboarded unless EVERY SINGLE ONE of your matches ends 2-0 or 0-2, which I seriously doubt. I have noticed to this day that there are some things that people do sideboarding that is better than myself. Happy sideboarding guys!
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I'm usually typing quickly at work or on my phone so I appolize from the crummy grammar
i hope that shuffle better is truly random, and not stockpile 2 cards 1 land 2 cards 1 land, etc.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
For freeware MTG, there could be an option to shuffle with bias added in, this way neither player is ever mana screwed or flooded. But, due to the number of cards that search your library for something or cards that for a higher or lower cost generate mana in multiple ways, one could argue that mana flood and screw evens out in the end.
I just like to do my best to try to alter it in my favour. I play things like critical mass of creatures/removal, (for example if you play 6 counterspells you are likely to see one by turn 3), Playing inherently redundant decks (one 2/1 for 1 is the same as the others), Play tutors (my early days of playing I played a lot of tutors to go find what I need so I'd have 5-8 copies of a spell), play more lands in a control stragey and more can trips in an aggressive one (including ponder and brainstorm etc.), Play mana sinks, play Thassa, god of the sea.
I don't like mid range stratgies because it is too hard to control variance in a deck trying to hit a happy medium of early and late game cards. Unless it involves a birthing pod then you have tutors.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
These are all real good suggestions that I think are good for players regardless of how burnt out or not on magic they are.
Just good ideas on how to make yourself, and your playgroup with usually different skill levels, better players. I will probably do this with a few of my newer friends that have recently built commander decks.
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Oops I hit reply to the wrong post. It was more for the good shuffling etiquette, open hand play and the mulligan strategies of the post you commented on
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
Most people who use sideboards in commander are doing so for Wishes, though.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
(P.S S1GH: Dota is better)
BWModern Black/White Control
WGBOGGLES
Draft My Innistrad Cube!