Hello all, I've lurked here for quite a while and due to some recent frustrations I've decided to try posting and figure out how to improve my draft skills.
I've been trying my best to become a better drafter, but I just can't seem to get to a skill level where I can break from swiss drafts on modo to the 8-4s.
With swiss I think I've probably got around a 60% 3-0 and probably 85% 2-0. But whenever I try to go to 8-4s I usually scrub out in the first round, and almost always lose in the second.
Are there any decent ways to up my skill level, so that I can compete in the 8-4's without throwing money out the window and ripping all my hair out in frustration? =P
If you're asking how to make the jump to 'going infinite', that's basically a pipe dream.
The top heavy nature of the prize payout and the tougher nature of the competition (you need to be a much better player in 8-4s to go 0.500 than in Swiss) means that there's quite a gulf of skill between what you need to be a big fish in swiss and a shark in the 8-4s.
The pros cannot go infinite drafting in the 8-4s. Some online grinders can.
That said, if your goal is a 0.500 record, then that's possibly achievable by dint of some effort plus having some drafts eviscerated on here in the subforum.
Yeah, I know there's no chance of going infinite by drafting. But I'd like to be able to move closer to a .5 win percentage. So would the first step be to start recording my drafts and posting the information in the draftcap discussions?
If you're winning 60% of your Swiss drafts over a reasonable sample size, you're already playing at a much higher level than somebody who wins 50% of his matches at the 8-4 level. Just increase your volume and let variance sort itself out.
Bear in mind that a loss in Swiss doesn't make much of a mark on your psyche, whereas a loss in an 8-4 burns like hot sauce. If over half of your matches are actually 3-0, and the overwhelming majority are at least 2-1, your score should be 1800 or so, in which case you should be able to hold your own in the 8-4s.
I do Swiss nearly every time mostly because I want all three games regardless of the outcome... playing one or two games is not worth the tix.
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If you're winning 60% of your Swiss drafts over a reasonable sample size, you're already playing at a much higher level than somebody who wins 50% of his matches at the 8-4 level. Just increase your volume and let variance sort itself out.
Not true at all, since in Swiss you can win matches in the losers' bracket. The real question is, what is your win % in Swiss for Round 1 + Round 2 when you're 1-0 + Round 3 when you're 2-0. The rest of the Swiss matches don't matter because you don't play them in 8-4, and by definition you're playing those matches against inferior competition so your win rate is going to be better.
If your online rating is maybe 1700, then I'd make the switch. Below that and you're probably going to get some harsh lessons. (Although I want to stress that if your goal isn't winning so much as it is getting better, then you ought to make the switch right now, regardless of anything else: good competition will make you improve more than anything.)
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Back when I was grinding limited heavily, at the end of a format where I had done very well and broken even or made a small profit I'd expect my limited rating to be around 1900-1950. If I'd done bad to horrible and had to shell out a few hundred dollars in lost tickets, sold cards or cash injections I'd expect to be mid-1700s. As far as I can tell, that hasn't changed much so you can use that as a very rough benchmark. If you just want to learn, then probably 1700-1750 is fine; any lower than that, if your rating is a reflection of current ability, you'll probably get your ass kicked too fast to take any knowledge away.
If you just want to learn, then probably 1700-1750 is fine; any lower than that, if your rating is a reflection of current ability, you'll probably get your ass kicked too fast to take any knowledge away.
I disagree with this a bit.
There's a belief among a lot of people that Swiss is a good training ground for playing 8-4s, and once you can start doing well in Swiss then it's natural to progress into 8-4s as a higher bracket. And it's obviously true to an extent: if you want to get familiar with the cards, then that's a great way to do it. But Swiss teaches you bad habits. Swiss teaches you to be greedy and unfocused in your drafting. Swiss encourages raredrafting. Swiss fosters a completely different metagame than 8-4 does. GoodStuff tends to be stronger and more present, while archetypes tend to be less common.
A big part of why people have such a hard time moving to 8-4 is because they're learning lessons in Swiss which are actively detracting from their ability to perform at a higher level. If someone wants to make the switch, it really is best for them to do it early, before their understanding of the metagame confuses them too much. Yeah, they'll lose a bunch at first, and it'll hurt, but they'll learn the optimal ways to play much more quickly as a result.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Sure, swiss teaches you to be mediocre at magic; I'd argue, though, that below 1700 or so you'll get more learning for your dollar in swiss even though you'll have to unlearn some bad habits. In an infinite time+money scenario, you can jump straight into 8-4s, but it's not for everyone; I did that in 2007, assuming that my RL ranking from LGS, PTQs and GP day ones would be roughly equivalent, and it wasn't. I learned pretty quick, but I would say it was an expensive and often frustrating lesson.
Not true at all, since in Swiss you can win matches in the losers' bracket. The real question is, what is your win % in Swiss for Round 1 + Round 2 when you're 1-0 + Round 3 when you're 2-0. The rest of the Swiss matches don't matter because you don't play them in 8-4, and by definition you're playing those matches against inferior competition so your win rate is going to be better.
Keep in mind I wasn't comparing a 60% Swiss match-win rate to a 50% 8-4 match-win rate but rather a 60% Swiss draft-win rate to a 50% 8-4match-win rate. OP stated that he goes 3-0 in 60% of his drafts and gets 2 or more wins in 85% of his drafts. This would amount to a match-win rate in the high 70s or low 80s which, even at the Swiss level, would take a very high level of play and near-mastery of the format to sustain over the long run. In a later post he stated that he would like to get to a .5 win percentage in 8-4s (which I assume is match-win), which would be easily obtainable for somebody capable of putting up such numbers at the Swiss level. If you're winning 60% of your Swiss drafts (and getting fewer than 2 wins only 15% of the time), your drafts are costing you far less on average than somebody winning 50 or 55% of his 8-4 matches.
No one wins 60% of the Swiss drafts they enter. Give me a break.
If we assume OP is being truthful, then his results are:
60% 3-0
25% 2-1
15% 1-2 or 0-3
That translates to a match win % of approximately 80%, and that's if you assume equal likelihood of 1-2 vs. 0-3 in that last bucket which is a very conservative assumption. Otherwise it's over 80%. The shuffler alone makes that virtually impossible. The only way it's even feasible is if you're playing against such inferior competition that you win literally every match where you don't get screwed by the shuffler. Maybe at a store with a bunch of newbs, but not online.
If the OP is being honest, then frankly he has nothing to learn here. He has already mastered drafting and should not be struggling at 8-4s. They are not THAT different from Swiss that a player could so thoroughly dominate Swiss and never win a match in 8-4. The concept is absurd.
Maybe I did have my win percentage a bit off, but before I started trying to break into 8-4's to improve my game and was only doing swiss drafts my limited rating tended to hover between 1750 and 1780. Now after beating my head against 8-4s for a while it's dropped to 1700 ish. But I do 3-0 my swiss drafts quite frequently and it's rare for me to get less than 2-1 unless I've drafted a truly horrible deck.
There's no simple answer beyond analysis of what is happening differently between the two queues. It's difficult to get better with only anecdotal evidence. There's no secret to share with you to make you better at 8-4s.
Here is my data collection method.
1) Use the MTGO Draft Recorder.
2) After the draft but before Round 1, I open up the Notepad file and start adding notes to the bottom as the games go on. I always make sure to note mulligans, missed land drops, and mana flood (on both sides) as these can significantly alter the perceived quality of each deck.
3) Watch for misplays on either side. In hindsight, did you have any chance of winning that match had you played differently? Did your opponent punt it?
4) At the end of the event, I record the exact deck that I ran. Technically you can do this at any time, I usually just wait because I'd rather focus on the matches until the event is over.
If you collect this type of data, then you can really figure out what's different between Swiss and 8-4. Maybe it's a card quality issue. Maybe it's a match play issue. Maybe it's a small sample size and bad luck. But there's no way to know without hard evidence. Your own hindsight will always be significantly flawed, it happens to everyone.
Actually, from my limited experience (five 8-4 drafts so far), I feel that drafting 8-4 is easier than in swiss. Playing and winnign is harder and getting a good deck if you're sloppy might be harder, but I don't really think so. But the actual drafting part I've found easier. Among the reasons:
1. Signals are clearer. By the 5th pick, you should be getting a clear idea which color is open. A 5th pick wingsteed, voyage's end or asp really means that color is open.
2. People seem to switch colors less often. Once a color looks open, it stays open. I got a lot less 'where did my black go?' feeling in 8-4.
3. You'll get your rares. If the person passing you is RG, he'll pass you that prognostic sphinx. I've 2nd and 3rd pick rares in 8-4 that I never saw in swiss.
The only downside is that by pick 8 the pack will be mostly devoid of any good picks. You really need to make those early picks work and be in at least one open color, otherwise you will feel miserable. OTOH, you need to stay open in the first pack to adjust for signals for at least one of your colors. That's the tricky bit, the first pack. You need to stay open enough and yet make your early pick work, which means identifying something in those key 2nd and 3rd picks. Then you can cut the color and get rewarded in the 2nd pack. If you did your job correctly, the 3rd pack shoudl again give you the same colors.
I'm about the same rating as you (usually hovering between 1750-1780) and I reached the finals twice in five attempts. Obviously, there's enough variance that this little sample means not much, but it is feasible.
4) At the end of the event, I record the exact deck that I ran. Technically you can do this at any time, I usually just wait because I'd rather focus on the matches until the event is over.
I found that in the beta client that it will automatically save your limited decks under the "limited" tab in the collection screen, so I just grab the deck, export it into text format, then I have the list.
So there's one shortcut, maybe. Perhaps the v3 client does the same?
I found that in the beta client that it will automatically save your limited decks under the "limited" tab in the collection screen, so I just grab the deck, export it into text format, then I have the list.
So there's one shortcut, maybe. Perhaps the v3 client does the same?
Your deck and pool should always be saved automatically in the Tournament Decks folder with the event number and date. You can pull them up in the editor anytime you want, including to test between matches. V3 does this too.
Maybe I did have my win percentage a bit off, but before I started trying to break into 8-4's to improve my game and was only doing swiss drafts my limited rating tended to hover between 1750 and 1780. Now after beating my head against 8-4s for a while it's dropped to 1700 ish. But I do 3-0 my swiss drafts quite frequently and it's rare for me to get less than 2-1 unless I've drafted a truly horrible deck.
Ironically, I think if you have a win rate that high that you may have gotten too used to drafting against the swiss players.
My best guess is that you have something where you are capitalizing on mistakes made by the majority of Swiss players and that these things don't translate beyond maybe the first round in 8-4s
Moreso that attempting to take advantage of those mistakes perhaps is putting you in a worse position whenever the mistakes don't happen.
Those are my guesses as to what has happened between swiss and 8-4 changeups.
Honestly, if that is your problem, I would imagine the best time to switch would be right as the new format drops. You won't see as many issues from evaluating cards in a way conditioned from playing them in swiss.
I know this debate comes up all the time, but I thought the last time anyone analyzed it that the average rating of 8-4 players was only a little bit higher than for Swiss players. Only 4-3-2-2 had a noticeable drop. Does anyone know of stats to confirm or deny this?
I'm talking other than anecdotal nonsense like "Every time I play Swiss I wheel Wingsteed Riders because it's just a bunch of noobs."
I'm talking other than anecdotal nonsense like "Every time I play Swiss I wheel Wingsteed Riders because it's just a bunch of noobs."
I don't know if this is in response to me (sounds like it), but my guess, and it's taken from my own attitude, too, is that when single-elimination is on the line and you know you need to pass two rounds to get any benefits, you discipline yourself and try to focus on getting the best deck instead of trying to grab a tix here and there or hate-draft others. As you'll face less than half of the table at most, staying on course is more important and rewarded.
So, that's my theory why ratings may not differ that much between swiss and 8-4 but drafting style still is different. Loose drafting in swiss must be the bad habits others are talking about.
I don't know if this is in response to me (sounds like it), but my guess, and it's taken from my own attitude, too, is that when single-elimination is on the line and you know you need to pass two rounds to get any benefits, you discipline yourself and try to focus on getting the best deck instead of trying to grab a tix here and there or hate-draft others. As you'll face less than half of the table at most, staying on course is more important and rewarded.
So, that's my theory why ratings may not differ that much between swiss and 8-4 but drafting style still is different. Loose drafting in swiss must be the bad habits others are talking about.
Conversely, a 4-3-2-2 might seem attractive to newer players who are intimidated by 8-4s but haven't quite figured out the EV of Swiss. I know a lot of people start out in the 4-3-2-2 queue because the payout seems pretty good, but over time learn it's nowhere close to Swiss or 8-4.
Consequently, you probably see people in Swiss who actually know what they're doing. They've been in Swiss queues regularly, win regularly, and therefore can afford to draft more frequently. Whereas a 4-3-2-2 goer might invest in one draft every week or so (especially if they lose), and doesn't improve nearly as fast.
This is coming from someone who still plays 4-3-2-2s sometimes, depending on available time play windows.
No one wins 60% of the Swiss drafts they enter. Give me a break.
If we assume OP is being truthful, then his results are:
60% 3-0
25% 2-1
15% 1-2 or 0-3
That translates to a match win % of approximately 80%, and that's if you assume equal likelihood of 1-2 vs. 0-3 in that last bucket which is a very conservative assumption. Otherwise it's over 80%. The shuffler alone makes that virtually impossible. The only way it's even feasible is if you're playing against such inferior competition that you win literally every match where you don't get screwed by the shuffler. Maybe at a store with a bunch of newbs, but not online.
If the OP is being honest, then frankly he has nothing to learn here. He has already mastered drafting and should not be struggling at 8-4s. They are not THAT different from Swiss that a player could so thoroughly dominate Swiss and never win a match in 8-4. The concept is absurd.
You can certainly have a high win percentage over a smaller sample size. My first 10 Swiss Gatecrash drafts I went 28-2. My first 10 Swiss Theros drafts I went 26-4. Both those streaks got my rating up to around 1870. But over more drafts my win % is much lower than that.
You can certainly have a high win percentage over a smaller sample size.
OK fine but that's not what the OP said. He said that he wins about 60% of his Swiss queues. Not that he went on a hot streak recently.
These are all round-about ways to say that the OP was exaggerating his success. But that's relevant because it's impossible to offer help without a clear idea of his current skill level. That's the only reason I pointed out that his claimed success was long term unsustainable. What's the point of trying to help when he's not even being honest with himself about his record?
Hello all, I've lurked here for quite a while and due to some recent frustrations I've decided to try posting and figure out how to improve my draft skills.
I've been trying my best to become a better drafter, but I just can't seem to get to a skill level where I can break from swiss drafts on modo to the 8-4s.
With swiss I think I've probably got around a 60% 3-0 and probably 85% 2-0. But whenever I try to go to 8-4s I usually scrub out in the first round, and almost always lose in the second.
Are there any decent ways to up my skill level, so that I can compete in the 8-4's without throwing money out the window and ripping all my hair out in frustration? =P
If you're crushing the swiss queues on the regular then you should be showing a small profit. Use the excess tix to join 8-4s. When you burn out of the 8-4s, lick your wounds and accumulate tix in swiss again.
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I've been trying my best to become a better drafter, but I just can't seem to get to a skill level where I can break from swiss drafts on modo to the 8-4s.
With swiss I think I've probably got around a 60% 3-0 and probably 85% 2-0. But whenever I try to go to 8-4s I usually scrub out in the first round, and almost always lose in the second.
Are there any decent ways to up my skill level, so that I can compete in the 8-4's without throwing money out the window and ripping all my hair out in frustration? =P
If you're asking how to make the jump to 'going infinite', that's basically a pipe dream.
The top heavy nature of the prize payout and the tougher nature of the competition (you need to be a much better player in 8-4s to go 0.500 than in Swiss) means that there's quite a gulf of skill between what you need to be a big fish in swiss and a shark in the 8-4s.
The pros cannot go infinite drafting in the 8-4s. Some online grinders can.
That said, if your goal is a 0.500 record, then that's possibly achievable by dint of some effort plus having some drafts eviscerated on here in the subforum.
I do Swiss nearly every time mostly because I want all three games regardless of the outcome... playing one or two games is not worth the tix.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Not true at all, since in Swiss you can win matches in the losers' bracket. The real question is, what is your win % in Swiss for Round 1 + Round 2 when you're 1-0 + Round 3 when you're 2-0. The rest of the Swiss matches don't matter because you don't play them in 8-4, and by definition you're playing those matches against inferior competition so your win rate is going to be better.
I disagree with this a bit.
There's a belief among a lot of people that Swiss is a good training ground for playing 8-4s, and once you can start doing well in Swiss then it's natural to progress into 8-4s as a higher bracket. And it's obviously true to an extent: if you want to get familiar with the cards, then that's a great way to do it. But Swiss teaches you bad habits. Swiss teaches you to be greedy and unfocused in your drafting. Swiss encourages raredrafting. Swiss fosters a completely different metagame than 8-4 does. GoodStuff tends to be stronger and more present, while archetypes tend to be less common.
A big part of why people have such a hard time moving to 8-4 is because they're learning lessons in Swiss which are actively detracting from their ability to perform at a higher level. If someone wants to make the switch, it really is best for them to do it early, before their understanding of the metagame confuses them too much. Yeah, they'll lose a bunch at first, and it'll hurt, but they'll learn the optimal ways to play much more quickly as a result.
Keep in mind I wasn't comparing a 60% Swiss match-win rate to a 50% 8-4 match-win rate but rather a 60% Swiss draft-win rate to a 50% 8-4match-win rate. OP stated that he goes 3-0 in 60% of his drafts and gets 2 or more wins in 85% of his drafts. This would amount to a match-win rate in the high 70s or low 80s which, even at the Swiss level, would take a very high level of play and near-mastery of the format to sustain over the long run. In a later post he stated that he would like to get to a .5 win percentage in 8-4s (which I assume is match-win), which would be easily obtainable for somebody capable of putting up such numbers at the Swiss level. If you're winning 60% of your Swiss drafts (and getting fewer than 2 wins only 15% of the time), your drafts are costing you far less on average than somebody winning 50 or 55% of his 8-4 matches.
If we assume OP is being truthful, then his results are:
60% 3-0
25% 2-1
15% 1-2 or 0-3
That translates to a match win % of approximately 80%, and that's if you assume equal likelihood of 1-2 vs. 0-3 in that last bucket which is a very conservative assumption. Otherwise it's over 80%. The shuffler alone makes that virtually impossible. The only way it's even feasible is if you're playing against such inferior competition that you win literally every match where you don't get screwed by the shuffler. Maybe at a store with a bunch of newbs, but not online.
If the OP is being honest, then frankly he has nothing to learn here. He has already mastered drafting and should not be struggling at 8-4s. They are not THAT different from Swiss that a player could so thoroughly dominate Swiss and never win a match in 8-4. The concept is absurd.
Here is my data collection method.
1) Use the MTGO Draft Recorder.
2) After the draft but before Round 1, I open up the Notepad file and start adding notes to the bottom as the games go on. I always make sure to note mulligans, missed land drops, and mana flood (on both sides) as these can significantly alter the perceived quality of each deck.
3) Watch for misplays on either side. In hindsight, did you have any chance of winning that match had you played differently? Did your opponent punt it?
4) At the end of the event, I record the exact deck that I ran. Technically you can do this at any time, I usually just wait because I'd rather focus on the matches until the event is over.
If you collect this type of data, then you can really figure out what's different between Swiss and 8-4. Maybe it's a card quality issue. Maybe it's a match play issue. Maybe it's a small sample size and bad luck. But there's no way to know without hard evidence. Your own hindsight will always be significantly flawed, it happens to everyone.
1. Signals are clearer. By the 5th pick, you should be getting a clear idea which color is open. A 5th pick wingsteed, voyage's end or asp really means that color is open.
2. People seem to switch colors less often. Once a color looks open, it stays open. I got a lot less 'where did my black go?' feeling in 8-4.
3. You'll get your rares. If the person passing you is RG, he'll pass you that prognostic sphinx. I've 2nd and 3rd pick rares in 8-4 that I never saw in swiss.
The only downside is that by pick 8 the pack will be mostly devoid of any good picks. You really need to make those early picks work and be in at least one open color, otherwise you will feel miserable. OTOH, you need to stay open in the first pack to adjust for signals for at least one of your colors. That's the tricky bit, the first pack. You need to stay open enough and yet make your early pick work, which means identifying something in those key 2nd and 3rd picks. Then you can cut the color and get rewarded in the 2nd pack. If you did your job correctly, the 3rd pack shoudl again give you the same colors.
I'm about the same rating as you (usually hovering between 1750-1780) and I reached the finals twice in five attempts. Obviously, there's enough variance that this little sample means not much, but it is feasible.
I found that in the beta client that it will automatically save your limited decks under the "limited" tab in the collection screen, so I just grab the deck, export it into text format, then I have the list.
So there's one shortcut, maybe. Perhaps the v3 client does the same?
Your deck and pool should always be saved automatically in the Tournament Decks folder with the event number and date. You can pull them up in the editor anytime you want, including to test between matches. V3 does this too.
Ironically, I think if you have a win rate that high that you may have gotten too used to drafting against the swiss players.
My best guess is that you have something where you are capitalizing on mistakes made by the majority of Swiss players and that these things don't translate beyond maybe the first round in 8-4s
Moreso that attempting to take advantage of those mistakes perhaps is putting you in a worse position whenever the mistakes don't happen.
Those are my guesses as to what has happened between swiss and 8-4 changeups.
Honestly, if that is your problem, I would imagine the best time to switch would be right as the new format drops. You won't see as many issues from evaluating cards in a way conditioned from playing them in swiss.
I'm talking other than anecdotal nonsense like "Every time I play Swiss I wheel Wingsteed Riders because it's just a bunch of noobs."
I don't know if this is in response to me (sounds like it), but my guess, and it's taken from my own attitude, too, is that when single-elimination is on the line and you know you need to pass two rounds to get any benefits, you discipline yourself and try to focus on getting the best deck instead of trying to grab a tix here and there or hate-draft others. As you'll face less than half of the table at most, staying on course is more important and rewarded.
So, that's my theory why ratings may not differ that much between swiss and 8-4 but drafting style still is different. Loose drafting in swiss must be the bad habits others are talking about.
Conversely, a 4-3-2-2 might seem attractive to newer players who are intimidated by 8-4s but haven't quite figured out the EV of Swiss. I know a lot of people start out in the 4-3-2-2 queue because the payout seems pretty good, but over time learn it's nowhere close to Swiss or 8-4.
Consequently, you probably see people in Swiss who actually know what they're doing. They've been in Swiss queues regularly, win regularly, and therefore can afford to draft more frequently. Whereas a 4-3-2-2 goer might invest in one draft every week or so (especially if they lose), and doesn't improve nearly as fast.
This is coming from someone who still plays 4-3-2-2s sometimes, depending on available time play windows.
You can certainly have a high win percentage over a smaller sample size. My first 10 Swiss Gatecrash drafts I went 28-2. My first 10 Swiss Theros drafts I went 26-4. Both those streaks got my rating up to around 1870. But over more drafts my win % is much lower than that.
OK fine but that's not what the OP said. He said that he wins about 60% of his Swiss queues. Not that he went on a hot streak recently.
These are all round-about ways to say that the OP was exaggerating his success. But that's relevant because it's impossible to offer help without a clear idea of his current skill level. That's the only reason I pointed out that his claimed success was long term unsustainable. What's the point of trying to help when he's not even being honest with himself about his record?
If you're crushing the swiss queues on the regular then you should be showing a small profit. Use the excess tix to join 8-4s. When you burn out of the 8-4s, lick your wounds and accumulate tix in swiss again.