I'm pretty sure the Pros found colourless eldrazi when no one else did. Sure, with colourless eldrazi in the meta other eldrazi builds were ended up being superior - but those were found by pros as well.
I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding to claim that pros don't build decks in modern. That being said, it should really not be a surprise that a community of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members will create a higher volume of creative output (deck designs) than will a much smaller community of several hundred pros.
But the colourless eldrazi example really stands out.
Just like with professional chess, most of the pros were reasonably well-off before pursuing the 'career'. The expense (opportunity cost?) isn't the major consideration. Many players try to make it pro at chess as well, and I don't think its right for people to be called stupid for pursuing what they enjoy.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Playing into or around cards aren't luck either. Case in point, my opponent does a lot of draw go stuff and casts and Elesh Norn. On my turn, I fire off a Slaughter Games naming Gifts Ungiven which my opponent didn't show me in game 1. I proceed to thumb through his deck and remove all 4 copies. As I was doing so, he asked me if I saw his deck before we started playing, to which I replied 'You're playing Elesh Norn.' It was not a 'lucky' guess.
That's cool and all, but the "luck" factor isn't your ability to guess correctly, it's whether or not your opponent actually has what you think he has. I have been Slaughter Games'd for some wildly irrelevant stuff (and total misses) when I was in my URx brewing phase. Based on the cards my opponent had seen, they usually made exactly the right call in what to name, but based on the luck of being matched up with me, instead of a more recognizable decklist, their SG result ranged from weak to whiff. Sometimes, even the "right" call is still wrong, and it's wrong because of luck.
Your example doesn't make a lot of sense. If your deck is way outside the norm, that isn't unlucky for your opponent, it's a good strategic play by you so long as your brew isn't total garbage that folds to commonly played decks.
All that said, I think your view on luck and Magic are ridiculously overblown. There is no way the data backs you up. The reason Owen Turtenwald won back to back GPs and made 7 top 8s in one year over 4 different formats was not because he was really lucky. It's because he was/is the best player in the world. If you or I played 10 matches against Owen where our decklist was favored 65/35, he would beat us 7 out of 10 times.
He also won back to back GPs because both of those GPs were not Modern. If they were Modern, I wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
So him finishing 28th out of 3,264 GP Las Vegas modern entrants (top 1% of the field) and came in second at the team Modern GP means nothing because he didn't win?
It certainly means nothing to him, you don't see him celebrating about that finish on social media. I wouldn't exactly be thrilled with that finish either if I was pursuing money and pro points. Magic doesn't reward you enough for consistent medium finishes. No one remembers your finishes outside of the top 8, the tournament structure is built in such a way that spiking and being lucky pays you off more than having consistent medium finishes. I hsve to make top 32 20 times to match the same amount of prize money as first place in a GP.
It certainly means nothing to him, you don't see him celebrating about that finish on social media. I wouldn't exactly be thrilled with that finish either if I was pursuing money and pro points. Magic doesn't reward you enough for consistent medium finishes. No one remembers your finishes outside of the top 8, the tournament structure is built in such a way that spiking and being lucky pays you off more than having consistent medium finishes. I hsve to make top 32 20 times to match the same amount of prize money as first place in a GP.
This is an astonishingly bad take; you're confusing several things. If we're evaluating the impact of skill, repeated finishes in the top 1% of the field over a longer tournament supports that. It does not matter how much it pays nor how a given pro feels about it when we're solely discussing skill. The Atlanta Falcons (or take your pick from sports, say Tottenham Hotspur or Cleveland Cavaliers) are most certainly disappointed in finishing second and receive significantly less money, but that doesn't mean their final spot isn't an indicator of their skill.
Imagine a hypothetical where every month every person on earth played in a winner-take-all chess tournament. If one person finishes in the 50-100 range for an entire year, they'll be incredibly disappointed and have no winnings to show for it. But that doesn't mean that we can't assume that they have a lot of skill to consistently finish in such a high percentile.
I'm pretty sure the Pros found colourless eldrazi when no one else did. Sure, with colourless eldrazi in the meta other eldrazi builds were ended up being superior - but those were found by pros as well.
And you're totally wrong. Eldrazi was an established archetype well before the "Eldrazi Winter" when every "pro" adopted the deck. People were experimenting with everything from colorless to black, blue and eventually what became bant eldrazi. The pros settled on colorless, mostly. That doesn't mean the pros invented colorless. Pros are not to be revered or emulated. They are to be questioned about their life choices and silently mocked (my opinion).
I had a different response typed up but I'm just going to leave this here so we can actually talk about numbers and people can stop theorizing and citing personal and biased examples.
I've said this numerous times but I'll say it again: everyone here agrees that luck plays a role in MTG and all MTG formats. We just disagree about the extent to which that is true. The data is just waiting for people to look at, but no one really wants to. They want to just speculate about their theories and cite personal examples.
Here are some actual numbers because no one else wants to do this work.
I compared the 50 players with the highest format win percentages in Legacy and Modern, seeing where they ranked on a list of 150 players with the highest MTG-wide win percentages. Of those top 150 winningest players, 16 appeared in the Legacy top 50. For Modern, 18 of that top 150 appeared in the Modern top 50. This means that if we look at the winningest 150 players in the game, there is no statistical difference between how many appear in the bracket of top 50 winningest Modern players vs. the bracket of top 50 winningest Legacy players.
Taking it a step further, I checked the overall win percentage across MTG for all of those top 50 players in both Modern and Legacy, averaging the final results. In the end, the average MTG-wide win rate of a top 50 Legacy player is 63%. The average MTG-wide win percentage of a top 50 Modern player is 61%. This is a statistically significant difference, so it is possible that there is something about Legacy that allows better players to win 2% more in Legacy than in Modern.
I took this yet another step further and only looked at top 50 Modern/Legacy players who were also top 150 overall players. In essence, we’re narrowing down the Modern and Legacy lists only to big name top pros. This removes many players who just don’t have a lot of events in their portfolio, and those who aren’t in that elite top 150 overall subset. Looking at those top players (16 in Legacy, 18 in Modern), we find their average MTG-wide win % is identical: 63.8%. This, despite there being only two elite top 150 players overlapping in the Modern and Legacy subsets (BBD and Royce Walter). But their win rates within those formats are not identical. In Legacy, those players averaged a 71.8% win rate. In Modern, they averaged a 68% win rate. This magnifies the number above, suggesting that for top players, there’s something about Modern which is translating to a 3.8% lower win rate.
When we look at those players who aren’t top 150, there is a bigger difference between the Modern and Legacy win-rates. In Legacy, it’s 70.4%. In Modern, it’s 67.3%. So for the non-pro players, Modern is also affecting win rates.
If we assume the sample is big enough, and if we assume that skill should generally average out to decide matchups over many datapoints, we can conclude that there’s something about Modern which accounts for between a 2% and 4% drop in your win rate that would otherwise be expected in Legacy. I believe this is the variance that people cite as being present in Modern and not in Legacy, but I don’t actually know if variance causes it. I don't know what causes it. I just know it’s a real difference. And, again, it doesn’t actually affect how many top players appear at the top in Modern events.
The Byes are artificially raising the win rates for Pro players. They are getting 2-3 free wins a tournament with byes not to mention they are missing out on all the early rogue decks.
You have a 37.7% chance of drawing land on T2, 38% on T3, 39% on T4, and 40% on T5. Cumulatively, that's about a 64% chance of drawing your land by T5. Those ain't great odds!
Well, the odds become much better when you consider the cumulative chance is actually closer to 77%. I'm fairly sure that's better odds than you'd get on a mulligan, making the keep the correct choice.
I'd like to briefly revisit this chunk of the conversation, because mulligan decisions have become an area of recent interest to me.
Let's say I open seven cards with two lands and loads of very good 3 CMC spells. If I want to draw a land by turn 5, on the play, while drawing naturally 1x/turn (no filters or extra draws) in a deck of 60 cards that runs 23 lands, here's how I would try to calculate the odds:
It's easier to figure out what are the odds I won't draw one or more lands, and then subtract that value from one.
I have 53 cards left in my library, and 21 of them are lands. So my odds of drawing a non-land card on T2 are 32/53 or 60.4%.
If I draw the land (39.6% chance) then the experiment is over. But I have 52 cards left in my library, and if I didn't draw a land, then 31 of those cards are non-lands. So in the 60.4% of cases where I whiff on T2, I could still whiff on drawing a land on my second draw on T3 in 31/52 or 59.6% of the time.
Missing on both draws, combined, equals [(32/53)*(31/52)] or 36.7% chance--I have a 63.3% chance to cast one of my amazing 3 CMC spells on-curve.
My odds of drawing a land by T5 are 1 - [(32/53)*(31/52)*(30/51)*(29/50)], or 87.7%. I'll only brick (whiffing on four draws in a row) in 12.3% of cases.
I probably did not start with the same assumptions as the original two posters but what I'm after here is the reasoning. I don't have any formal higher-level math training and so I came up with the above algorithm by deduction. How are other users arriving at such widely variant probability estimates? In particular, ktkenshinx comes across as very shrewd with statistical modeling and I was a big fan of his work on Modern Nexus. But when I read his recent comments about the probability of drawing a crucial land in early turns, they seem too low to me, by a LOT. And so I am looking for clarification.
If this is too off-topic please advise and I'll post a separate thread.
You have a 37.7% chance of drawing land on T2, 38% on T3, 39% on T4, and 40% on T5. Cumulatively, that's about a 64% chance of drawing your land by T5. Those ain't great odds!
Well, the odds become much better when you consider the cumulative chance is actually closer to 77%. I'm fairly sure that's better odds than you'd get on a mulligan, making the keep the correct choice.
I'd like to briefly revisit this chunk of the conversation, because mulligan decisions have become an area of recent interest to me.
Let's say I open seven cards with two lands and loads of very good 3 CMC spells. If I want to draw a land by turn 5, on the play, while drawing naturally 1x/turn (no filters or extra draws) in a deck of 60 cards that runs 23 lands, here's how I would try to calculate the odds:
It's easier to figure out what are the odds I won't draw one or more lands, and then subtract that value from one.
I have 53 cards left in my library, and 21 of them are lands. So my odds of drawing a non-land card on T2 are 32/53 or 60.4%.
If I draw the land (39.6% chance) then the experiment is over. But I have 52 cards left in my library, and if I didn't draw a land, then 31 of those cards are non-lands. So in the 60.4% of cases where I whiff on T2, I could still whiff on drawing a land on my second draw on T3 in 31/52 or 59.6% of the time.
Missing on both draws, combined, equals [(32/53)*(31/52)] or 36.7% chance--I have a 63.3% chance to cast one of my amazing 3 CMC spells on-curve.
My odds of drawing a land by T5 are 1 - [(32/53)*(31/52)*(30/51)*(29/50)], or 87.7%. I'll only brick (whiffing on four draws in a row) in 12.3% of cases.
I probably did not start with the same assumptions as the original two posters but what I'm after here is the reasoning. I don't have any formal higher-level math training and so I came up with the above algorithm by deduction. How are other users arriving at such widely variant probability estimates? In particular, ktkenshinx comes across as very shrewd with statistical modeling and I was a big fan of his work on Modern Nexus. But when I read his recent comments about the probability of drawing a crucial land in early turns, they seem too low to me, by a LOT. And so I am looking for clarification.
If this is too off-topic please advise and I'll post a separate thread.
For that post I just did the math myself ((X+Y-XY)+Z)-Z(X+Y-XY) in excell.
Usually when I do "odds of drawing X" I just plug it into http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
53 Cards remaining, 20 Lands remaining, 3 draws (I assumed that T5 was too late, and it would appear Kenshin also used 3 draws for his post)
So that's a population of 53, 20 Successes in the population, 3 card sample size, 1 success needed.
Probability of 1 or more lands comes out to 76.7%
So 77% chance of drawing the land if you do all the math. But on the fly there is no hard math to review before you make a decision. Like in poker, experts play by "feel". Keeping a 2 lander in hopes of drawing a 3rd land "feels" like a solid choice to me. The math makes it as close as you can get to a safe bet that you're likely to find in MTG. Is it a guarantee? No, but nothing is a guarantee.
Now I believe that ktk is a good player and as such he should probably retract his earlier statement. IMO he just got a bad case of hindsight being an exact science.
So 77% chance of drawing the land if you do all the math. But on the fly there is no hard math to review before you make a decision. Like in poker, experts play by "feel". Keeping a 2 lander in hopes of drawing a 3rd land "feels" like a solid choice to me. The math makes it as close as you can get to a safe bet that you're likely to find in MTG. Is it a guarantee? No, but nothing is a guarantee.
Now I believe that ktk is a good player and as such he should probably retract his earlier statement. IMO he just got a bad case of hindsight being an exact science.
They also go by math. In this case the math works out, and a good poker player knows he has X outs and there's Y cards remaining to do the math. I have from time to time done the math on sketchy hands after the fact to reaffirm/deny my decisions.
So 77% chance of drawing the land if you do all the math. But on the fly there is no hard math to review before you make a decision. Like in poker, experts play by "feel". Keeping a 2 lander in hopes of drawing a 3rd land "feels" like a solid choice to me. The math makes it as close as you can get to a safe bet that you're likely to find in MTG. Is it a guarantee? No, but nothing is a guarantee.
Now I believe that ktk is a good player and as such he should probably retract his earlier statement. IMO he just got a bad case of hindsight being an exact science.
I don't think he was saying that keeping a 2-land starter is objectively a bad play, simply that it's silly to blame variance when a known possible—even somewhat likely—outcome happens (not drawing a 3rd land). If you're not acknowledging the existence of probability in your decisions based on draws, then that's on you. It is simultaneously a reasonable decision to keep a 2-land hand and a known risk.
So 77% chance of drawing the land if you do all the math. But on the fly there is no hard math to review before you make a decision. Like in poker, experts play by "feel". Keeping a 2 lander in hopes of drawing a 3rd land "feels" like a solid choice to me. The math makes it as close as you can get to a safe bet that you're likely to find in MTG. Is it a guarantee? No, but nothing is a guarantee.
Now I believe that ktk is a good player and as such he should probably retract his earlier statement. IMO he just got a bad case of hindsight being an exact science.
They also go by math. In this case the math works out, and a good poker player knows he has X outs and there's Y cards remaining to do the math. I have from time to time done the math on sketchy hands after the fact to reaffirm/deny my decisions.
Actual outs are always unknown, thus any on the fly math is sketchy at best. To continue the poker example you may think you have 8 outs left but your opponents are holding 4 of those 8. Your estimate is off by 50%. It certainly does give the play a "feel" for what's left in the deck, which was my point.
I'm pretty sure the Pros found colourless eldrazi when no one else did. Sure, with colourless eldrazi in the meta other eldrazi builds were ended up being superior - but those were found by pros as well.
And you're totally wrong. Eldrazi was an established archetype well before the "Eldrazi Winter" when every "pro" adopted the deck. People were experimenting with everything from colorless to black, blue and eventually what became bant eldrazi. The pros settled on colorless, mostly. That doesn't mean the pros invented colorless. Pros are not to be revered or emulated. They are to be questioned about their life choices and silently mocked (my opinion).
Can I ask you how many Pro Players you've played before or known as a person? Because I have played many Pro Players in the past. They are most certainly much better than the average player and have even slight edges over the seasoned Grinder/Semi Pro Player. They have dedicated more time than most people. They have practiced at a high level for a long time. They have many natural skills in the game as well. Sorry, I just don't buy that they are about the same skill as you and me. There is honestly no Pro that I've played more than 4 times before that I have above a 50% win rate against. And my win percentage is 65.4% as of today at kavu.ru, (gone down a bit in the past 2 years) which is not too shabby.
Joe Lossett is local, although he's hardly around anymore. There are others who I won't name that I see consistently top 8ing PPTQs and even GPs occasionally (more Semi Pro than full Pro).
And why would we mock them for doing what they love? I have a *****ty job. I'm a teacher, yes, someone with a Master's Degree that only makes a teacher's salary (which McDonald's managers would probably also laugh at with you). But I have peace of mind doing what I enjoy doing and what I'm good at. I don't need to be like others that have degrees and are making triple figures to be happy. I'm sorry, but that last sentence about "silently mocked" really struck a chord with me. I honestly don't care who thinks I'm stupid for having a low paying job. It's what I want to do, at least at this point in life. (and yes, I spent a lot of money for school to not get much back in return. I'm not telling others that it's smart to do so, but I will tell others to follow what they enjoy.)
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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'm pretty sure the Pros found colourless eldrazi when no one else did. Sure, with colourless eldrazi in the meta other eldrazi builds were ended up being superior - but those were found by pros as well.
And you're totally wrong. Eldrazi was an established archetype well before the "Eldrazi Winter" when every "pro" adopted the deck. People were experimenting with everything from colorless to black, blue and eventually what became bant eldrazi. The pros settled on colorless, mostly. That doesn't mean the pros invented colorless. Pros are not to be revered or emulated. They are to be questioned about their life choices and silently mocked (my opinion).
Can I ask you how many Pro Players you've played before or known as a person? Because I have played many Pro Players in the past. They are most certainly much better than the average player and have even slight edges over the seasoned Grinder/Semi Pro Player. They have dedicated more time than most people. They have practiced at a high level for a long time. They have many natural skills in the game as well. Sorry, I just don't buy that they are about the same skill as you and me. There is honestly no Pro that I've played more than 4 times before that I have above a 50% win rate against. And my win percentage is 65.4% as of today at kavu.ru, (gone down a bit in the past 2 years) which is not too shabby.
Joe Lossett is local, although he's hardly around anymore. There are others who I won't name that I see consistently top 8ing PPTQs and even GPs occasionally (more Semi Pro than full Pro).
And why would we mock them for doing what they love? I have a *****ty job. I'm a teacher, yes, someone with a Master's Degree that only makes a teacher's salary (which McDonald's managers would probably also laugh at with you). But I have peace of mind doing what I enjoy doing and what I'm good at. I don't need to be like others that have degrees and are making triple figures to be happy. I'm sorry, but that last sentence about "silently mocked" really struck a chord with me. I honestly don't care who thinks I'm stupid for having a low paying job. It's what I want to do, at least at this point in life. (and yes, I spent a lot of money for school to not get much back in return. I'm not telling others that it's smart to do so, but I will tell others to follow what they enjoy.)
You are not anywhere close to them. You are a teacher, and yes you probably should make more money. You are working a regular job making your ends meet. Furthermore you are actually helping future adults, making lasting impressions aka "doing good".
What good are these pros doing? They are the epitome of selfishness, avoiding actual work to try and squeak out a pathetic existence playing a damn fantasy card game. And I absolutely LOVE that fantasy card card! But if either of my sons came to me and told me they wanted to play MTG for a living I would square their asses away faster than you can say Fatal Push.
It's one thing to work a job you love even though it pays *****, because you love it and it has meaning. It's another thing to try and play a game to pay your bills. I'm sorry but the idea of doing that is ridiculous to me. Anyone who would choose to do this has bad judgment and life skills, is lazy and selfish and not too bright. It would be one thing if the 150~ "pros" all had endorsement contracts, sponsors and millions of dollars. But they don't, because it's not a legit professional sport. It's just a game. A great game to be sure, but it's just a hobby. You don't escape real life by dumping whole future into what should be just a hobby.
Now that we have established that, I think we can look at what the pros are doing in a whole new context ie take it with a huge grain of salt.
So your whole opinion on luck vs skill in Magic is clearly colored by your abject hatred for pro players. Got it, thanks for making that clear on page 4.
So your whole opinion on luck vs skill in Magic is clearly colored by your abject hatred for pro players. Got it, thanks for making that clear on page 4.
Hatred isn't the right word: shame, embarrassment, and pity feel more accurate.
And I think it's relevant. The discussion is about luck vs. skill, so the "pros" should be examined. But I feel they should be examined with a measured approach. Are they good at MTG? Yes absolutely. But are they measurably better than some of the experts that post here or are they just a small group of decent players that make the highly questionable life choice to go on tour to play MTG professionally? I think you know where I stand, but you should ask yourself how much weight you should be putting behind the opinion of a person like that.
Bottom line is luck and skill both play a huge role in this game. We don't have a Lebron James of MTG because the luck of variance makes consistency unattainable for any one person. But we also have skill playing enough of a part that a small group of "pros" can generally outplay the local yokels at various tourneys around the world. Especially when they get to skip by the early round where rogue decks could screw up they net decking strategies.
So your whole opinion on luck vs skill in Magic is clearly colored by your abject hatred for pro players. Got it, thanks for making that clear on page 4.
Hatred isn't the right word: shame, embarrassment, and pity feel more accurate.
And I think it's relevant. The discussion is about luck vs. skill, so the "pros" should be examined. But I feel they should be examined with a measured approach. Are they good at MTG? Yes absolutely. But are they measurably better than some of the experts that post here or are they just a small group of decent players that make the highly questionable life choice to go on tour to play MTG professionally? I think you know where I stand, but you should ask yourself how much weight you should be putting behind the opinion of a person like that.
Bottom line is luck and skill both play a huge role in this game. We don't have a Lebron James of MTG because the luck of variance makes consistency unattainable for any one person. But we also have skill playing enough of a part that a small group of "pros" can generally outplay the local yokels at various tourneys around the world. Especially when they get to skip by the early round where rogue decks could screw up they net decking strategies.
I think you're confusing "pros" and "grinders." If your definition of a pro is someone you see on camera every other week on the SCG Tour then sure. But if you look at most platinum pros, folks who are continually on the pro tour (and therefore more likely to be included in KTKen's analysis), most of them have full time jobs and play MTG on the side. Many of those without full time jobs are full time card players between Magic and Poker and make their money at Poker.
I suppose exceptions prove the rule but a huge exception to your argument is Jon Finkel, a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager who is also widely considered the best Magic player of all time.
The Byes are artificially raising the win rates for Pro players. They are getting 2-3 free wins a tournament with byes not to mention they are missing out on all the early rogue decks.
It's like people aren't reading the analysis. Very frustrating. First, the effect I observed was not limited to pros. It was also shared by the players with fewer, if any, byes. In fact, it was magnified with that group. This suggests byes aren't driving the effect and that the effect is probably happening (at least to an extent) independently of byes.
Second, even if byes are artificially inflating pro win percentages, that inflation would have the same effect in both Legacy and Modern where pros presumably get the same number of byes. This means our pro-to-pro comparison between the formats should hold regardless of the byes, which are probably the same/similar. In that comparison, their win rate (even if inflated) was slightly higher in Legacy than in Modern (where it should be equally inflated).
Third, it doesn't even matter if the win percentages are inflated in either format, because we're not measuring the inflation. We're measuring the drop in expected win-rates between the formats. If pros have inflated win rates in both formats, the null hypothesis would be that those win rates should be about the same in Modern and Legacy. They aren't; there's a small but significant drop in Modern which some combination of factors accounts for.
I will happily admit that byes dramatically increase your chances of getting to Day 2. But that doesn't actually matter for the analysis I ran.
I probably did not start with the same assumptions as the original two posters but what I'm after here is the reasoning. I don't have any formal higher-level math training and so I came up with the above algorithm by deduction. How are other users arriving at such widely variant probability estimates? In particular, ktkenshinx comes across as very shrewd with statistical modeling and I was a big fan of his work on Modern Nexus. But when I read his recent comments about the probability of drawing a crucial land in early turns, they seem too low to me, by a LOT. And so I am looking for clarification.
If this is too off-topic please advise and I'll post a separate thread.
I don't remember how I did it. I have an Excel sheet I made to calculate those things and I just threw in some numbers. I think I may have used 20 lands, not 21, but I'm not sure. I'll re-run it now to see what I got.
In hand: 5 cards, 2 lands
In deck: 33 misses, 20 hits
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2: 33/53 (62%)
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T3 assuming miss on T2: 32/52 (61.5%)
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T4 assuming miss on T2/T3: 31/51 (60%)
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T5 assuming miss on T2/T3/T4: 30/50 (60%)
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2: 62%
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2/T3: 38%
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2/T3/T4: 23%
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2-T5: 14%
No idea where I got my previous numbers, but those above numbers should be right. I think the streamer drew the land on T5 if I remember correctly. From T1 onward, the probability of that happening was 23%, with about a 60%ish chance each turn to draw the land and a 77% chance to draw the land instead. My issue was that the streamer treated 23% (assuming they did the math, which they probably didn't) as if it was a certain outcome. 23% is far from certain. You can't blame variance when you gamble on 77% odds and they don't play out.
Here's another example of "variance" at play. Grixis DS mulls to 5 or 6 and plays IoK on T1, stripping Path. I draw Wall of Omens, play T1 Temple, scry Secure the Wastes to the bottom, and pass. On T2, opponent cantrips and plays TS to discard my Snapcaster. On T2, I draw Cryptic and play island, Wall of Omens, draw a Glacial Fortress or something, and pass. Then on T3, opponent IoKs me again to confirm I don't have removal (I don't), Scours, and drops Angler without Denial backup. Next turn, I topdeck Path and kill Angler. They rage for five minutes in chat about bad luck and it takes them 2-3 turns to find another threat, by which time I'm stable with Verdict and countermagic. What were the odds I killed his Angler there?
I had only 3 Paths left in the deck and had draw three cards before his T3 IoK. So that's 50 cards in deck at the beginning of my T3 with 3 hits, 47 misses. But I also scried to the bottom, so that's 3 hits, 46 misses. Plus I could have drawn Snapcaster to recur the binned Path, so we're at 5 hits, 44 misses. I could have also drawn SV and cantripped into a Path/Snapcaster. Or Wall/Seas/Think Twice and cantripped into a Path. The 5 hit/44 miss model gets me to 11%. Add in those other options and we're at roughly a 14%ish chance of hitting that answer.
So, what do you think? Should the opponent have waited to Angler on their T4 when they had guaranteed Denial backup? Or was it right to jam Angler there?
So, what do you think? Should the opponent have waited to Angler on their T4 when they had guaranteed Denial backup? Or was it right to jam Angler there?
I loved playing aggressive decks when Think Twice, Azorius Charm, and Supreme Verdict reigned... Supreme... in Standard and had many scenarios that were similar to what you described. I also played Jund and the old BG Rock deck back then. Even though I've seen the results, I can say that what I would do in that scenario would depend a lot on what else was in my hand and what game of the match it was. In game 3 (or 2 if I lost 1) I would absolutely hold until I had Stubborn Denial backup. The analysis isn't even based on math. It's just a quick mental list check of what cards/draws crush me if I were to play the threat then, and how that differs the next turn.
Surely play the Angler is the correct play in almost all cases. What's the advantage of waiting around for you to draw a counter spell or removal?
That's variance / luck / Magic / whatever you want to call it pure and simple.
I disagree here. If he waits, the only card he needs to worry about is Mana Leak. Most UW lists won't run more than 3 (format/metagame knowledge moment), and I can't even cantrip into them off Wall/Seas/Think Twice and have mana to cast it. So that means I need to topdeck either Leak (3 hits, 46 misses) or SV into Leak. That's about a 7% chance: much better odds than the 14% chance of hitting Path. Even if he doesn't know my exact list and assumes I'm running 4 Leaks or Knots, that's only a 9%-10% chance of a hit which is still much better than the 14% chance of that Path hit.
If I draw Verdict, he's losing Angler either way; is that extra 5 points of damage really worth it when he has K-Command to answer a sorcery speed Verdict anyway?
Also, my math above did not include the odds of drawing Detention Sphere. Those two copies increase all my hits dramatically, so now we're at a roughly 16%-17% chance of getting the removal spell.
So, what do you think? Should the opponent have waited to Angler on their T4 when they had guaranteed Denial backup? Or was it right to jam Angler there?
I loved playing aggressive decks when Think Twice, Azorius Charm, and Supreme Verdict reigned... Supreme... in Standard and had many scenarios that were similar to what you described. I also played Jund and the old BG Rock deck back then. Even though I've seen the results, I can say that what I would do in that scenario would depend a lot on what else was in my hand and what game of the match it was. In game 3 (or 2 if I lost 1) I would absolutely hold until I had Stubborn Denial backup. The analysis isn't even based on math. It's just a quick mental list check of what cards/draws crush me if I were to play the threat then, and how that differs the next turn.
Like you, I would have waited. I've made similar slower but safer plays in various matchups and been rewarded far more often than I've been punished. Examples include holding up extra mana in case Living End takes you off a land with Beast/Mage, playing around Judge's Familiar or Thalia in D&T, watching for Denial as a Force Spike against DS, etc. This gets back to De Mars' recent article about minimizing decisions that can immediately cost you a loss.
Agreed. Patience is often a virtue, especially when you're nearly guaranteed to nullify one of the answers to your threat.
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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)
So your whole opinion on luck vs skill in Magic is clearly colored by your abject hatred for pro players. Got it, thanks for making that clear on page 4.
Hatred isn't the right word: shame, embarrassment, and pity feel more accurate.
And I think it's relevant. The discussion is about luck vs. skill, so the "pros" should be examined. But I feel they should be examined with a measured approach. Are they good at MTG? Yes absolutely. But are they measurably better than some of the experts that post here or are they just a small group of decent players that make the highly questionable life choice to go on tour to play MTG professionally? I think you know where I stand, but you should ask yourself how much weight you should be putting behind the opinion of a person like that.
Bottom line is luck and skill both play a huge role in this game. We don't have a Lebron James of MTG because the luck of variance makes consistency unattainable for any one person. But we also have skill playing enough of a part that a small group of "pros" can generally outplay the local yokels at various tourneys around the world. Especially when they get to skip by the early round where rogue decks could screw up they net decking strategies.
I think you'd find if you actually looked that very, very few pros are full time Magic players. Reid Duke was an apprentice jeweler until he won enough to focus on Magic full time. LSV and Matt Nass among others are game designers. Eric Froelich and David Williams are professional poker players. And many have recently been able to turn Magic as a lifestyle into a full time job, playing tournaments and streaming content for thousands of subscribers who enjoy watching and absorbing content as much playing.
And to a pro, when asked in an interview setting about how someone who wants to be a professional Magic player, I've heard every single one say that they do not recommend it.
This thread seems like it kind of got derailed. But as to the original topic of how much is luck vs skill...
if some of you can find ways to measure that, great. Anecdotes are never going to help a conversation like this because what people remember are the counterexamples. Someone can make the objectively right decisions and still lose to someone who messes up. It happens all the time. All you can do while playing is your best and hope things come out in your favor.
Having said that, the difference in ability between players is vast. When I watch an "average" player maneuver through a game, I see mistakes constantly. Technical errors sure, but also strategic mistakes stemming from them not knowing what cards are important or how best they should try and approach a matchup. I am also aware that elite players are so much better than I am that I sometimes can't even fathom getting to that level.
I think people get fired up about this topic because they think the better player should always win. And since they don't, they conclude that in fact the other person isn't better. In a footrace, the faster person wins most every time. In Magic, the baseline equivalent of "faster" is incredibly hard to determine in the first place, and on top of that the "wins most every time" person isn't winning anywhere close to 100%.
Surely play the Angler is the correct play in almost all cases. What's the advantage of waiting around for you to draw a counter spell or removal?
That's variance / luck / Magic / whatever you want to call it pure and simple.
If I see the coast is clear three turns in a row, you better believe I'm jamming Angler. In this instance, my opponent has exactly one draw step to kill it. They payoff is one less turn for them to stabilize, one less draw step to give a blue deck, higher stress for opponent, and greater need to respond to me rather than develop their own board. Opponent has no way to control what the top card of their library is at this point (no scry tops) so its entirely random blind luck whether or not a Path is drawn (or a cantrip blindly draws into one on that turn). Even using your numbers, that is a massively favorable 86% chance that the Angler lives through the draw step. If it dodges that one single draw, beats for 5 begin early, putting opponent on a 4 turn clock with Denial backup.
Surely play the Angler is the correct play in almost all cases. What's the advantage of waiting around for you to draw a counter spell or removal?
That's variance / luck / Magic / whatever you want to call it pure and simple.
I disagree here. If he waits, the only card he needs to worry about is Mana Leak. Most UW lists won't run more than 3 (format/metagame knowledge moment), and I can't even cantrip into them off Wall/Seas/Think Twice and have mana to cast it. So that means I need to topdeck either Leak (3 hits, 46 misses) or SV into Leak. That's about a 7% chance: much better odds than the 14% chance of hitting Path. Even if he doesn't know my exact list and assumes I'm running 4 Leaks or Knots, that's only a 9%-10% chance of a hit which is still much better than the 14% chance of that Path hit.
If I draw Verdict, he's losing Angler either way; is that extra 5 points of damage really worth it when he has K-Command to answer a sorcery speed Verdict anyway?
Also, my math above did not include the odds of drawing Detention Sphere. Those two copies increase all my hits dramatically, so now we're at a roughly 16%-17% chance of getting the removal spell.
So, what do you think? Should the opponent have waited to Angler on their T4 when they had guaranteed Denial backup? Or was it right to jam Angler there?
I loved playing aggressive decks when Think Twice, Azorius Charm, and Supreme Verdict reigned... Supreme... in Standard and had many scenarios that were similar to what you described. I also played Jund and the old BG Rock deck back then. Even though I've seen the results, I can say that what I would do in that scenario would depend a lot on what else was in my hand and what game of the match it was. In game 3 (or 2 if I lost 1) I would absolutely hold until I had Stubborn Denial backup. The analysis isn't even based on math. It's just a quick mental list check of what cards/draws crush me if I were to play the threat then, and how that differs the next turn.
Like you, I would have waited. I've made similar slower but safer plays in various matchups and been rewarded far more often than I've been punished. Examples include holding up extra mana in case Living End takes you off a land with Beast/Mage, playing around Judge's Familiar or Thalia in D&T, watching for Denial as a Force Spike against DS, etc. This gets back to De Mars' recent article about minimizing decisions that can immediately cost you a loss.
No way. You play the angler. The longer this game goes on the better chance UW has of taking control. Even if we use your best estimate of 17% chance of removal thats still 83% chance you brick for at least 1 turn. You casting Supreme Verdict to sweep a single angler is a trade thats in ultimately in my favor. No, you play the angler and hope for a swing or 2. If im the grixis play I need to get you in lethal range as fast as possible before you can cast a big ol sphinx's revelation, or start snapcastering cryptics.
I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding to claim that pros don't build decks in modern. That being said, it should really not be a surprise that a community of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members will create a higher volume of creative output (deck designs) than will a much smaller community of several hundred pros.
But the colourless eldrazi example really stands out.
Just like with professional chess, most of the pros were reasonably well-off before pursuing the 'career'. The expense (opportunity cost?) isn't the major consideration. Many players try to make it pro at chess as well, and I don't think its right for people to be called stupid for pursuing what they enjoy.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
It certainly means nothing to him, you don't see him celebrating about that finish on social media. I wouldn't exactly be thrilled with that finish either if I was pursuing money and pro points. Magic doesn't reward you enough for consistent medium finishes. No one remembers your finishes outside of the top 8, the tournament structure is built in such a way that spiking and being lucky pays you off more than having consistent medium finishes. I hsve to make top 32 20 times to match the same amount of prize money as first place in a GP.
This is an astonishingly bad take; you're confusing several things. If we're evaluating the impact of skill, repeated finishes in the top 1% of the field over a longer tournament supports that. It does not matter how much it pays nor how a given pro feels about it when we're solely discussing skill. The Atlanta Falcons (or take your pick from sports, say Tottenham Hotspur or Cleveland Cavaliers) are most certainly disappointed in finishing second and receive significantly less money, but that doesn't mean their final spot isn't an indicator of their skill.
Imagine a hypothetical where every month every person on earth played in a winner-take-all chess tournament. If one person finishes in the 50-100 range for an entire year, they'll be incredibly disappointed and have no winnings to show for it. But that doesn't mean that we can't assume that they have a lot of skill to consistently finish in such a high percentile.
And you're totally wrong. Eldrazi was an established archetype well before the "Eldrazi Winter" when every "pro" adopted the deck. People were experimenting with everything from colorless to black, blue and eventually what became bant eldrazi. The pros settled on colorless, mostly. That doesn't mean the pros invented colorless. Pros are not to be revered or emulated. They are to be questioned about their life choices and silently mocked (my opinion).
Let's say I open seven cards with two lands and loads of very good 3 CMC spells. If I want to draw a land by turn 5, on the play, while drawing naturally 1x/turn (no filters or extra draws) in a deck of 60 cards that runs 23 lands, here's how I would try to calculate the odds:
If this is too off-topic please advise and I'll post a separate thread.
For that post I just did the math myself ((X+Y-XY)+Z)-Z(X+Y-XY) in excell.
Usually when I do "odds of drawing X" I just plug it into http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
53 Cards remaining, 20 Lands remaining, 3 draws (I assumed that T5 was too late, and it would appear Kenshin also used 3 draws for his post)
So that's a population of 53, 20 Successes in the population, 3 card sample size, 1 success needed.
Probability of 1 or more lands comes out to 76.7%
Now I believe that ktk is a good player and as such he should probably retract his earlier statement. IMO he just got a bad case of hindsight being an exact science.
I don't think he was saying that keeping a 2-land starter is objectively a bad play, simply that it's silly to blame variance when a known possible—even somewhat likely—outcome happens (not drawing a 3rd land). If you're not acknowledging the existence of probability in your decisions based on draws, then that's on you. It is simultaneously a reasonable decision to keep a 2-land hand and a known risk.
CG
Can I ask you how many Pro Players you've played before or known as a person? Because I have played many Pro Players in the past. They are most certainly much better than the average player and have even slight edges over the seasoned Grinder/Semi Pro Player. They have dedicated more time than most people. They have practiced at a high level for a long time. They have many natural skills in the game as well. Sorry, I just don't buy that they are about the same skill as you and me. There is honestly no Pro that I've played more than 4 times before that I have above a 50% win rate against. And my win percentage is 65.4% as of today at kavu.ru, (gone down a bit in the past 2 years) which is not too shabby.
Joe Lossett is local, although he's hardly around anymore. There are others who I won't name that I see consistently top 8ing PPTQs and even GPs occasionally (more Semi Pro than full Pro).
And why would we mock them for doing what they love? I have a *****ty job. I'm a teacher, yes, someone with a Master's Degree that only makes a teacher's salary (which McDonald's managers would probably also laugh at with you). But I have peace of mind doing what I enjoy doing and what I'm good at. I don't need to be like others that have degrees and are making triple figures to be happy. I'm sorry, but that last sentence about "silently mocked" really struck a chord with me. I honestly don't care who thinks I'm stupid for having a low paying job. It's what I want to do, at least at this point in life. (and yes, I spent a lot of money for school to not get much back in return. I'm not telling others that it's smart to do so, but I will tell others to follow what they enjoy.)
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)You are not anywhere close to them. You are a teacher, and yes you probably should make more money. You are working a regular job making your ends meet. Furthermore you are actually helping future adults, making lasting impressions aka "doing good".
What good are these pros doing? They are the epitome of selfishness, avoiding actual work to try and squeak out a pathetic existence playing a damn fantasy card game. And I absolutely LOVE that fantasy card card! But if either of my sons came to me and told me they wanted to play MTG for a living I would square their asses away faster than you can say Fatal Push.
It's one thing to work a job you love even though it pays *****, because you love it and it has meaning. It's another thing to try and play a game to pay your bills. I'm sorry but the idea of doing that is ridiculous to me. Anyone who would choose to do this has bad judgment and life skills, is lazy and selfish and not too bright. It would be one thing if the 150~ "pros" all had endorsement contracts, sponsors and millions of dollars. But they don't, because it's not a legit professional sport. It's just a game. A great game to be sure, but it's just a hobby. You don't escape real life by dumping whole future into what should be just a hobby.
Now that we have established that, I think we can look at what the pros are doing in a whole new context ie take it with a huge grain of salt.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
And I think it's relevant. The discussion is about luck vs. skill, so the "pros" should be examined. But I feel they should be examined with a measured approach. Are they good at MTG? Yes absolutely. But are they measurably better than some of the experts that post here or are they just a small group of decent players that make the highly questionable life choice to go on tour to play MTG professionally? I think you know where I stand, but you should ask yourself how much weight you should be putting behind the opinion of a person like that.
Bottom line is luck and skill both play a huge role in this game. We don't have a Lebron James of MTG because the luck of variance makes consistency unattainable for any one person. But we also have skill playing enough of a part that a small group of "pros" can generally outplay the local yokels at various tourneys around the world. Especially when they get to skip by the early round where rogue decks could screw up they net decking strategies.
I suppose exceptions prove the rule but a huge exception to your argument is Jon Finkel, a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager who is also widely considered the best Magic player of all time.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
It's like people aren't reading the analysis. Very frustrating. First, the effect I observed was not limited to pros. It was also shared by the players with fewer, if any, byes. In fact, it was magnified with that group. This suggests byes aren't driving the effect and that the effect is probably happening (at least to an extent) independently of byes.
Second, even if byes are artificially inflating pro win percentages, that inflation would have the same effect in both Legacy and Modern where pros presumably get the same number of byes. This means our pro-to-pro comparison between the formats should hold regardless of the byes, which are probably the same/similar. In that comparison, their win rate (even if inflated) was slightly higher in Legacy than in Modern (where it should be equally inflated).
Third, it doesn't even matter if the win percentages are inflated in either format, because we're not measuring the inflation. We're measuring the drop in expected win-rates between the formats. If pros have inflated win rates in both formats, the null hypothesis would be that those win rates should be about the same in Modern and Legacy. They aren't; there's a small but significant drop in Modern which some combination of factors accounts for.
I will happily admit that byes dramatically increase your chances of getting to Day 2. But that doesn't actually matter for the analysis I ran.
I don't remember how I did it. I have an Excel sheet I made to calculate those things and I just threw in some numbers. I think I may have used 20 lands, not 21, but I'm not sure. I'll re-run it now to see what I got.
In hand: 5 cards, 2 lands
In deck: 33 misses, 20 hits
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2: 33/53 (62%)
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T3 assuming miss on T2: 32/52 (61.5%)
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T4 assuming miss on T2/T3: 31/51 (60%)
Discrete chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T5 assuming miss on T2/T3/T4: 30/50 (60%)
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2: 62%
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2/T3: 38%
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2/T3/T4: 23%
Cumulative chance on play of NOT drawing hit on T2-T5: 14%
No idea where I got my previous numbers, but those above numbers should be right. I think the streamer drew the land on T5 if I remember correctly. From T1 onward, the probability of that happening was 23%, with about a 60%ish chance each turn to draw the land and a 77% chance to draw the land instead. My issue was that the streamer treated 23% (assuming they did the math, which they probably didn't) as if it was a certain outcome. 23% is far from certain. You can't blame variance when you gamble on 77% odds and they don't play out.
Here's another example of "variance" at play. Grixis DS mulls to 5 or 6 and plays IoK on T1, stripping Path. I draw Wall of Omens, play T1 Temple, scry Secure the Wastes to the bottom, and pass. On T2, opponent cantrips and plays TS to discard my Snapcaster. On T2, I draw Cryptic and play island, Wall of Omens, draw a Glacial Fortress or something, and pass. Then on T3, opponent IoKs me again to confirm I don't have removal (I don't), Scours, and drops Angler without Denial backup. Next turn, I topdeck Path and kill Angler. They rage for five minutes in chat about bad luck and it takes them 2-3 turns to find another threat, by which time I'm stable with Verdict and countermagic. What were the odds I killed his Angler there?
I had only 3 Paths left in the deck and had draw three cards before his T3 IoK. So that's 50 cards in deck at the beginning of my T3 with 3 hits, 47 misses. But I also scried to the bottom, so that's 3 hits, 46 misses. Plus I could have drawn Snapcaster to recur the binned Path, so we're at 5 hits, 44 misses. I could have also drawn SV and cantripped into a Path/Snapcaster. Or Wall/Seas/Think Twice and cantripped into a Path. The 5 hit/44 miss model gets me to 11%. Add in those other options and we're at roughly a 14%ish chance of hitting that answer.
So, what do you think? Should the opponent have waited to Angler on their T4 when they had guaranteed Denial backup? Or was it right to jam Angler there?
That's variance / luck / Magic / whatever you want to call it pure and simple.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I disagree here. If he waits, the only card he needs to worry about is Mana Leak. Most UW lists won't run more than 3 (format/metagame knowledge moment), and I can't even cantrip into them off Wall/Seas/Think Twice and have mana to cast it. So that means I need to topdeck either Leak (3 hits, 46 misses) or SV into Leak. That's about a 7% chance: much better odds than the 14% chance of hitting Path. Even if he doesn't know my exact list and assumes I'm running 4 Leaks or Knots, that's only a 9%-10% chance of a hit which is still much better than the 14% chance of that Path hit.
If I draw Verdict, he's losing Angler either way; is that extra 5 points of damage really worth it when he has K-Command to answer a sorcery speed Verdict anyway?
Also, my math above did not include the odds of drawing Detention Sphere. Those two copies increase all my hits dramatically, so now we're at a roughly 16%-17% chance of getting the removal spell.
Like you, I would have waited. I've made similar slower but safer plays in various matchups and been rewarded far more often than I've been punished. Examples include holding up extra mana in case Living End takes you off a land with Beast/Mage, playing around Judge's Familiar or Thalia in D&T, watching for Denial as a Force Spike against DS, etc. This gets back to De Mars' recent article about minimizing decisions that can immediately cost you a loss.
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 think you'd find if you actually looked that very, very few pros are full time Magic players. Reid Duke was an apprentice jeweler until he won enough to focus on Magic full time. LSV and Matt Nass among others are game designers. Eric Froelich and David Williams are professional poker players. And many have recently been able to turn Magic as a lifestyle into a full time job, playing tournaments and streaming content for thousands of subscribers who enjoy watching and absorbing content as much playing.
And to a pro, when asked in an interview setting about how someone who wants to be a professional Magic player, I've heard every single one say that they do not recommend it.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
if some of you can find ways to measure that, great. Anecdotes are never going to help a conversation like this because what people remember are the counterexamples. Someone can make the objectively right decisions and still lose to someone who messes up. It happens all the time. All you can do while playing is your best and hope things come out in your favor.
Having said that, the difference in ability between players is vast. When I watch an "average" player maneuver through a game, I see mistakes constantly. Technical errors sure, but also strategic mistakes stemming from them not knowing what cards are important or how best they should try and approach a matchup. I am also aware that elite players are so much better than I am that I sometimes can't even fathom getting to that level.
I think people get fired up about this topic because they think the better player should always win. And since they don't, they conclude that in fact the other person isn't better. In a footrace, the faster person wins most every time. In Magic, the baseline equivalent of "faster" is incredibly hard to determine in the first place, and on top of that the "wins most every time" person isn't winning anywhere close to 100%.
If I see the coast is clear three turns in a row, you better believe I'm jamming Angler. In this instance, my opponent has exactly one draw step to kill it. They payoff is one less turn for them to stabilize, one less draw step to give a blue deck, higher stress for opponent, and greater need to respond to me rather than develop their own board. Opponent has no way to control what the top card of their library is at this point (no scry tops) so its entirely random blind luck whether or not a Path is drawn (or a cantrip blindly draws into one on that turn). Even using your numbers, that is a massively favorable 86% chance that the Angler lives through the draw step. If it dodges that one single draw, beats for 5 begin early, putting opponent on a 4 turn clock with Denial backup.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
No way. You play the angler. The longer this game goes on the better chance UW has of taking control. Even if we use your best estimate of 17% chance of removal thats still 83% chance you brick for at least 1 turn. You casting Supreme Verdict to sweep a single angler is a trade thats in ultimately in my favor. No, you play the angler and hope for a swing or 2. If im the grixis play I need to get you in lethal range as fast as possible before you can cast a big ol sphinx's revelation, or start snapcastering cryptics.
You hitting a 17% rip is luck.