I love threads like these.
A week never goes by unless someone somewhere argues about the meaning of 'random'. It really comes down to practicality vs principles.
On one side we have the correct assertion meaning that it follows a normal distribution and frequency. So a random deck being slightly shuffled is still randomized. In terms of practicality, nothing of value was lost, game state is constant, deck is still random.
On the other we have the folks who incorrectly think that it means "unknown". Apparently, knowing your decklist is a form of cheating. So if you scry 1, you cheated. So if you fetch a land at the bottom and see a card, the deck has to be riffled 20 times to be "fully randomized" meaning "so you really don't know where that card is". God forbid, you have 4 of those cards in the deck. This is highly impractical and shows the lack of understanding of what true randomness is. This, compounded with a lack of confidence in both the players, results in players shuffling decks harder than machines would.
However I am willing to say that all of this is nothing but an excuse. Players who shuffle a lot by experience will say that it increases the chances that the decks will come out as stacked in unfavorable ways. This is nothing but superstition at best and malicious at worst.
As pointed out earlier, heavy deck manipulation, even for the sake of "shuffling" can easily result in cheating. Now are you more worried about that or randomization? Because random order 1, 2, 3, 5, etc. are all random. It just so happens one is more advantageous than the other.
So, this really isn't a thing in modern and standard, but in some legacy decks, the shuffle effects are very important. Lets say i'm playing miracles, and I really need to get a terminus. I go top, don't like, crack a fetch, top, dont like, crack another fetch, top, see the terminus, tap top, cast terminus midcombat. In this case, you can't just shortcut things.
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I love threads like these.
A week never goes by unless someone somewhere argues about the meaning of 'random'. It really comes down to practicality vs principles.
On one side we have the correct assertion meaning that it follows a normal distribution and frequency. So a random deck being slightly shuffled is still randomized. In terms of practicality, nothing of value was lost, game state is constant, deck is still random.
On the other we have the folks who incorrectly think that it means "unknown". Apparently, knowing your decklist is a form of cheating. So if you scry 1, you cheated. So if you fetch a land at the bottom and see a card, the deck has to be riffled 20 times to be "fully randomized" meaning "so you really don't know where that card is". God forbid, you have 4 of those cards in the deck. This is highly impractical and shows the lack of understanding of what true randomness is. This, compounded with a lack of confidence in both the players, results in players shuffling decks harder than machines would.
You're making a terrible assumption here, especially when you're trying to link scrying to cheating. If you know the order of your deck because of refusing it to shuffle it, that is cheating. Knowing you have something on the bottom because you scryed it is not because a game effect let you do that. I honestly can't see how you came to your conclusion.
You're making a terrible assumption here, especially when you're trying to link scrying to cheating. If you know the order of your deck because of refusing it to shuffle it, that is cheating. Knowing you have something on the bottom because you scryed it is not because a game effect let you do that. I honestly can't see how you came to your conclusion.
You might want to read it again. This and the OP. The argument is not over shuffling but excessive shuffling because of the confidence of individuals in the meaning and practicality of "randomness".
Some people are confused here. This has nothing to do with a dictionary definition of randomness. MTG randomness assumes that no player knows the relative location of any card in their deck. That's all. All the lands could be on top and all spells on the bottom. That would technically be "random" if you got to that position by honest shuffling.
It's hard to figure out where to draw the line. In friendly games I definitely do my best to remain as unaware of the cards' sequencing as possible, and then shuffle extremely minimally since I've forgotten pretty much everything.
All I know is I long for the day where I can hand my deck to the player on my left, ask him to get me the first Watery Grave he sees in the deck out of it, then just put the deck back without shuffling at all since it's still randomized.
All I know is I long for the day where I can hand my deck to the player on my left, ask him to get me the first Watery Grave he sees in the deck out of it, then just put the deck back without shuffling at all since it's still randomized.
It wouldn't be, because now the opponent has some information about the location of the cards in your library. "Randomized" as defined by the rules means, that no player knows anything about the order of the cards in the library.
Er, I didn't mean the player to my left in a 5 player game, I meant like when I'm at FNM and the player to my left in a different match does it and then it doesn't matter if he remembers there are two lightning bolts next to eachother in there or not.
no player can have any information regarding the order or position of cards in any portion of the deck
So, using that definition of random, it absolutely is required to re-randomize the deck after looking at it.
And no, a couple of quick shuffles won't do.
But having information about the order or position of cards in the deck is NOT the same as not being non-random. This is mathematical fact and does not depend on MTG rules.
Um. Except it does depend on MTG rules for this discussion.
Because the MTG rules define random as no player having any information regarding the order or position of cards in any portion of the deck.
I quoted it right there.
But people here seem unwilling or unable to make the distinction I'm pointing out, so this will be my last post.
I'm aware of the distinction, but you're ignoring that you're using the word random in a way that the rules for MTG don't. That's pretty important.
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A week never goes by unless someone somewhere argues about the meaning of 'random'. It really comes down to practicality vs principles.
On one side we have the correct assertion meaning that it follows a normal distribution and frequency. So a random deck being slightly shuffled is still randomized. In terms of practicality, nothing of value was lost, game state is constant, deck is still random.
On the other we have the folks who incorrectly think that it means "unknown". Apparently, knowing your decklist is a form of cheating. So if you scry 1, you cheated. So if you fetch a land at the bottom and see a card, the deck has to be riffled 20 times to be "fully randomized" meaning "so you really don't know where that card is". God forbid, you have 4 of those cards in the deck. This is highly impractical and shows the lack of understanding of what true randomness is. This, compounded with a lack of confidence in both the players, results in players shuffling decks harder than machines would.
However I am willing to say that all of this is nothing but an excuse. Players who shuffle a lot by experience will say that it increases the chances that the decks will come out as stacked in unfavorable ways. This is nothing but superstition at best and malicious at worst.
As pointed out earlier, heavy deck manipulation, even for the sake of "shuffling" can easily result in cheating. Now are you more worried about that or randomization? Because random order 1, 2, 3, 5, etc. are all random. It just so happens one is more advantageous than the other.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
You're making a terrible assumption here, especially when you're trying to link scrying to cheating. If you know the order of your deck because of refusing it to shuffle it, that is cheating. Knowing you have something on the bottom because you scryed it is not because a game effect let you do that. I honestly can't see how you came to your conclusion.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
All I know is I long for the day where I can hand my deck to the player on my left, ask him to get me the first Watery Grave he sees in the deck out of it, then just put the deck back without shuffling at all since it's still randomized.
It wouldn't be, because now the opponent has some information about the location of the cards in your library. "Randomized" as defined by the rules means, that no player knows anything about the order of the cards in the library.
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(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
Um. Except it does depend on MTG rules for this discussion.
Because the MTG rules define random as no player having any information regarding the order or position of cards in any portion of the deck.
I quoted it right there.
I'm aware of the distinction, but you're ignoring that you're using the word random in a way that the rules for MTG don't. That's pretty important.