6 piles of 10 and 5 piles of 12 are bad; there's articles about pile shuffling but I think the consensus is that 7 is the best (both for randomization + ease).
Pile shuffle then riffle shuffle, repeat process 2 more times, then present for cut.
You want to riffle shuffle with the horizontal (long) side interlacing because it's less damaging to the cards and easier to shuffle.
Also, for g2 and g3, I like to place the played cards (lands, permanents, graveyard, exiled cards) mixed up back to the library. Otherwise you'll have a well-shuffled deck + lumps of categorized cards immediately prior to shuffling.
Some people might call that cheating, but you're still going to pile+riffle shuffle several times afterwards.
7 is the best for sure. Also never pile shuffle into 3 piles. I don't have any statistical evidence but have seen several physical demonstrations. I've heard that you can actually call over a judge for a consistency check in they pile shuffle your deck into 3 cards.
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Even if the cards are made to handle it, if I see someone riffle shuffling there own deck I kindly ask then to not do the same to mine. I don't know about you or the others, but I would like to keep my decks in as best condition as possible. Seeing as many many decks are well over $500 at the moment.
This.
I too have had Judges called over at Provincials, 100+ player FNMs and other semi-large events, and basically the Judges usually say you can shuffle your opponent's deck if you feel they haven't shuffled/randomized enough, but conversely, they tend to also uphold protests that someone may be potentially damaging your cards with a method of shuffling.
It's really just common courtesy, though. If someone asks you not to shuffle their cards a certain way, it's better if you don't. If someone asked me not to side shuffle their deck, I wouldn't, no problem. If that's not good enough, call a Judge over to shuffle for them (every Judge I've seen do this has always side/overhand shuffled).
I remember LSV talking about someone who did this on a legitimate Vintage staple (P9 maybe?), creased the card, and ended up having to buy it.
I've also tested it on a lot of tokens/inserts and the slightest error and you've pretty much ruined the card. Even if you do it right, the card is never quite the same. I mean, do the bend test and let your card sit on the table, do you think it's going to flatten out on its own?
It has nothing to do with whether or not the cards can handle it, it's all about respecting your fellow player. I own all kinds of stuff that are built to withstand certain things, but that doesn't mean you need to push those limitations.
LSV said the guy did the bend test wrong and just creased the card. Bend test done right will still damage cards over time if done a bunch of times but bend test stress level is like 100x's more than riffle shuffling and are not normally done anymore due to damage they do. I riffle a lot and i played games for 2 years (if iam not playing staples than my friends are) in standard and i never done any damage to my cards.
Don't let them do it, just call the judge. Damaging (or risking the damage) of another player's card is punishable.
if somebody riffles your cards hard enough to bend them after the shuffle then they're doing it wrong. a correct riffle shuffle does almost nothing to the cards and any minor bending can be removed just by keeping the deck stored in a deck box when not in use.
you wanna see real card bending? its not from riffle shuffling. its from stuff like rubber banding around the middle, or storing them unsleeved in high humidity conditions and just leaving them out on a table top. seriously. its card storage thats the most relevant thing here.
i'd call a judge too if somebody riffled my cards so hard it bent them immediately. but a normal, correct riffle doesn't damage cards and is in fact quite necessary for proper randomization.
I shuffle gently (1/3 to 1/2 of the deck into the middle of the rest, alternating top and bottom of the deck, bottom corner into long side holding the deck vertically in one hand) a lot of times, usually after stacking the deck outright or making piles once (usually 6 or 8 stacks) after picking cards up jumbled, in order to start actual shuffling with similar cards somewhat well spaced.
After reading the linked article by Flores, I think I'll switch to adding cards into the rest of my deck well spaced, a few at a time, between abundant shuffles, without piles.
I find that the type of sleeves involved makes a difference in shuffling. Example: I have one set of sleeves that is particularly stiff, with thick edges. This makes the "mash" or "overhand" shuffle annoying because the edges don't slide well into each other. But, it makes riffling without bending the cards rather easy. On the flip side, softer sleeves with normal edges I much prefer to mash/overhand shuffle.
Riffle Shuffle: I personally dislike riffle shuffling, as it adds a chance to wreck cards. However if you feel confident in your ability doing this, it is a great way to get randomness
Mash Shuffle: This is when you split the deck in two, and then mash the two halves together to achieve the same style of randomness as riffle. With bad sleeves this process can be clumsy, so definitely look into getting good sleeves and practicing this.
Block Shuffling: Block shuffling is a horrible way to achieve randomness. It takes about 32 block shuffles to achieve "good" randomness. Anything less and you're not breaking up land clumps.
Pile Shuffling: Is fantastic way to shuffle when coupled with mash or riffle. Always pile shuffle in piles of 7. Since 7 is prime and not divisble by 60 or 40, this eliminates the chances of preserving runs and clumps when pile shuffling.
Mana Shuffle: A mana shuffle is when you separate your deck into spells and lands, and then evenly stack the deck with them (usually 2 spells, 1 land, 2 spells, 1 land..etc).
Mana shuffling is useful for initially breaking up any major clumps. No matter how many shuffles you do you'll never achieve pure randomness, so by doing a mana shuffle you influence (slightly) that your end result will be closer to a even distribution, rather then having clumps.
Here's my routine whenever I compete in tournament.
1. Before leaving for the tournament I do a mana shuffle, then followed followed by at least 7 riffle/mash shuffles.
2. Before each game, 7-pile shuffle, then at least 7 riffle/mash shuffles. Statistically it takes around 7 riffle/mash shuffles to achieve "good" randomness.
3. This is important! After a game, when scooping your cards try to pick them up so you reduce clumps of lands. I do this taking my graveyard and permanents and evenly dispersing the cards over my lands to make several evenly distributed piles. This helps alot to breaking up clumps while doing your riffle/mash shuffles.
if somebody riffles your cards hard enough to bend them after the shuffle then they're doing it wrong. a correct riffle shuffle does almost nothing to the cards and any minor bending can be removed just by keeping the deck stored in a deck box when not in use.
you wanna see real card bending? its not from riffle shuffling. its from stuff like rubber banding around the middle, or storing them unsleeved in high humidity conditions and just leaving them out on a table top. seriously. its card storage thats the most relevant thing here.
i'd call a judge too if somebody riffled my cards so hard it bent them immediately. but a normal, correct riffle doesn't damage cards and is in fact quite necessary for proper randomization.
I've seen people's decks who rifle shuffled and if you looked at any one of their cards from the top or the bottom it looks like a curved U.
I don't know about you, but I like my cards in A+ Mint condition.
I usually divide it into seven piles, then set them together, then start doing a "side" shuffle, where I take the deck in hand, and let small amounts of cards slide from the top into my other hand, going back and forth, as well as pushing two halves together (using the corners of sleeves) and slide them together, then continue to shuffle. I've seen bridge shuffling done, but I'm not really able to do it well.
I do one or two pile shuffles, then mash shuffle for a minute or two, cutting and varying my pattern in between so that it is sufficiently random. I've almost never had a shuffling related land problem, in my experience it is almost always deckbuilding if you shuffle properly.
Riffle Shuffle: I personally dislike riffle shuffling, as it adds a chance to wreck cards. However if you feel confident in your ability doing this, it is a great way to get randomness
Mash Shuffle: This is when you split the deck in two, and then mash the two halves together to achieve the same style of randomness as riffle. With bad sleeves this process can be clumsy, so definitely look into getting good sleeves and practicing this.
Block Shuffling: Block shuffling is a horrible way to achieve randomness. It takes about 32 block shuffles to achieve "good" randomness. Anything less and you're not breaking up land clumps.
Pile Shuffling: Is fantastic way to shuffle when coupled with mash or riffle. Always pile shuffle in piles of 7. Since 7 is prime and not divisble by 60 or 40, this eliminates the chances of preserving runs and clumps when pile shuffling.
Mana Shuffle: A mana shuffle is when you separate your deck into spells and lands, and then evenly stack the deck with them (usually 2 spells, 1 land, 2 spells, 1 land..etc).
Mana shuffling is useful for initially breaking up any major clumps. No matter how many shuffles you do you'll never achieve pure randomness, so by doing a mana shuffle you influence (slightly) that your end result will be closer to a even distribution, rather then having clumps.
Here's my routine whenever I compete in tournament.
1. Before leaving for the tournament I do a mana shuffle, then followed followed by at least 7 riffle/mash shuffles.
2. Before each game, 7-pile shuffle, then at least 7 riffle/mash shuffles. Statistically it takes around 7 riffle/mash shuffles to achieve "good" randomness.
3. This is important! After a game, when scooping your cards try to pick them up so you reduce clumps of lands. I do this taking my graveyard and permanents and evenly dispersing the cards over my lands to make several evenly distributed piles. This helps alot to breaking up clumps while doing your riffle/mash shuffles.
This is a good distinction, except you didn't actually say what riffle shuffling (taking two stacks side by side and slightly bending the edges so that the edges of one pile will end up neatly between the edges of the other, so if you counted down from the top, they'd go left pile card, right pile card, left pile card, etc, etc) and block shuffling (???) are, but it always helps if everyone is familiar with the terms.
At provincials last year, after I won a game 1 despite being someone manascrewed, I proceeded to mana shuffle before going through my regimen of pile, mash and overhand shuffling. My opponent complained that I was stacking my deck, to which I replied that I was organizing my deck prior to thouroughly randomizing it, and after I finished randomizing it, if he wasn't satisfied, he was welcome to shuffle it himself as many times as he liked, or call a judge over, which is what I encourage anyone to do if they aren't confident their opponent has thouroughly shuffled or randomized.
I always riffle shuffle. With my friends in casual, if they don't want me to then w/e, I don't start fights with my friends. But at anything like FNM and up, i riffle. I've had judges called and the judge has never sided against me. I'm not doing it to damage your cards, but if you are THAT worried about it, don't play the game. Like the poster above me, i don't believe that only pile shuffling is enough to not be random, and I've watched people do the side mesh shuffle and come up with the same hand repeatedly. They knew how to move the two piles between there hands enough that a casual observer would not notice the lack of shuffling.
I do not know but that sounds like a A hole thing to say. I do not mind you shuffling my cards but I take it as a personal affront if you riffle shuffle them. It is like asking you to respect my personal space. Cross that and I get peeved.
To say do not play the game is very elitest. Some people cannot afford just to buy expensive cards and when they see someone riffle shuffle they get the idea that it is ruining the cards.
Now I riffle shuffle my cards, but Do not let someone else do it. If they have a problem with that call the judge and the judge can watch me shuffle. I do not mind if you mash shuffle, or pile shuffle my deck, but the truth is I do not know you from jack. You are not riffle shuffling my deck.
I never heard of the mana shuffling routine but I am going to try that. I like that idea. Makes sense. My routine is I 7 pile, in between each game, riffle, mash, 7 pile riffle. It works nicely but always nice to find new ways to get more randomess.
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I've seen people's decks who rifle shuffled and if you looked at any one of their cards from the top or the bottom it looks like a curved U.
I don't know about you, but I like my cards in A+ Mint condition.
so that means they're doing it wrong, like I said. what's your point? that people should learn how to shuffle so as not to damage their cards? yeah, I agree.
Riffle Shuffling doesn't require much pressure at all. If you do it right it doesn't damage cards. Some people are clumsy or bad or careless so they'll do it wrong alot. Thats their own fault. Riffling does not imply card damage.
edit:
and to other posters who claim that "mash shuffling" or some other technique somehow is a way of avoiding damage, its not. mash shuffling is much worse. you can ding the edges straight through sleaves by mash shuffling.
[color=Green][b]
Also, to those people that say pile shuffling is a good way to randomise, you clearly have no idea of what you're talking about. Pile shuffling does not randomise, it reorders. If you pick a deck that's ordered 1-60 and pile shuffle it in piles of 7 then put them together, your deck will look like this:
1 8 15 22 29 36 43 50 57 2 9 16 23 ... etc
If you knew what order your deck was in, any number of pile shuffles will still allow you to work out where any card is - this is basic mathematics.
If you're going to nit-pick, riffle shuffling and mash shuffling are not "random" either, if you can observe the order in which cards reorder. It is a question of observability/controllability, and since you shouldn't know the order of the cards before you pile shuffle, the lack of randomness should be irrelevant to the bigger picture, that you want your deck to look more "randomly" distributed. If you have a mathematical proof that pile shuffling does not help a deck achieve an ideal distribution, that would be helpful.
"Mana shuffling" also has the alternate name of "cheating". Separating your land from your spells and then evenly stack it is strctly forbidden by the DCI rules.
Not quite. What's illegal is doing nothing else. Same for pile shuffling. In a tournament you can do all sorts of stuff to your deck so long as you perform some actual randomizing shuffles before you present it to your opponent. So say, for example, it's just before the first round and your deck is still laid out in order from registering your list. You mana weave, give it a couple mash or riffle shuffles, then pile shuffle, then give it a few more riffle or mash shuffles; that's perfectly all right, and in fact that's what most players I know will do. There won't be any chance of you or anyone else knowing the locations or order of cards in the deck at that point, which is mostly what the rules care about.
Also, to those people that say pile shuffling is a good way to randomise, you clearly have no idea of what you're talking about. Pile shuffling does not randomise, it reorders. If you pick a deck that's ordered 1-60 and pile shuffle it in piles of 7 then put them together, your deck will look like this:
What most people care about is not randomizing with piles, but rather breaking up clumps and runs quickly. Since you only get three minutes between games in a tournament, this can be helpful.
If you're going to nit-pick, riffle shuffling and mash shuffling are not "random" either, if you can observe the order in which cards reorder. It is a question of observability/controllability,
yes, it is a question of observability.
in a pile shuffle the cards are dropped into their piles at a slow rate of speed, and it is very easy for a human observer to know which card went into which pile. it takes a strong memory and some training to keep track of the order but that can be done. people count cards in black jack through similar tricks, for example.
in a riffle shuffle the cards are interlacing an a too-rapid speed to be observed accurately by human eyes. a riffle is completed in what, a tenth of a second? there's no way any human can see whats happening. it is not sufficiently observable by human eyes to allow for any type of card counting technique to happen.
and this is the real point. i mentioned in a previous post that if i see an opponent only pile shuffle i don't consider their deck sufficiently randomized and this is why. if they stacked the deck ahead of time their pile shuffle just changed the stacking order, it doesn't randomize it. maybe they know what the new order will be and they actually stacked it so that the post-pile order is what they wanted. a simple cut in the middle isn't a good enough foil for this type of cheating. they could have stacked their deck all the way through, not just the top 7. but a couple of quick, gentle, riffles is all it takes to completely foil deck stacking cheats.
its important to be considerate and try not to damage your opponent's cards. but its not ok to let him get away with an unriffled deck. i'll "mash" instead of riffle if thats what he wants, but i'm pretty sure mashing damages more than riffling so i don't see the point. but in any case only piling is not good enough.
I've seen people's decks who rifle shuffled and if you looked at any one of their cards from the top or the bottom it looks like a curved U.
I don't know about you, but I like my cards in A+ Mint condition.
I don't know about you, but I wonder if you read his post. (I'm assuming you did since you quoted it) but he very, VERY clearly stated that if their deck looks like that... They are doing it wrong! it's really not that hard to understand.
If i'm at FNM I usually cut my opponents deck and be done with it. But if and when I do shuffle my opponents deck, I riffle shuffle. And nothing you say will stop me from doing that. Especially if i'm at a ptq or some such. In fact I will be the one calling the judge if you feel it is an issue.
I honestly do not believe that pile shuffling, and tossing your cards a few times adds any sufficient amount of randomization. Not only do I not believe it, but there are a number of online sources to support this fact. In fact riffle shuffling is nowhere near perfect, but it is the closest thing we have.
The way I look at riffle shuffle is this: You are bending the cards, no matter how you look at it. Repetitive bending of anything is slowly going to to cause wear. You can take a paper clip and slowly, carefully, or even barely bend it, but do it enough times and it WILL break.
On the other side of things, likely, if done properly, you will not notice the damage done to the card. Perhaps many of you have done this your whole life and your cards are straight as an arrow in A+ condition.
As for me, I won't chance it. Besides, I can side-mash shuffle 3-4x faster than riffle shuffle (and I am confident to say it is easily as effective at randomization), and I can riffle shuffle pretty quickly.
I always used to mash shuffle... til I realized that I was going through a set of sleeves about once every 2-3 months from damaged corners/sides. Now I riffle shuffle. My sleeves now last 1+ years, with nothing but regular wear on them.
If i'm at FNM I usually cut my opponents deck and be done with it. But if and when I do shuffle my opponents deck, I riffle shuffle. And nothing you say will stop me from doing that. Especially if i'm at a ptq or some such. In fact I will be the one calling the judge if you feel it is an issue.
Damn straight. If you want your cards to be in perfect mint condition, you shouldn't be playing with them. Put them in a glass case. I am going to riffle shuffle decks regardless.
I spread shuffle into five piles, and in the formation of a W because it's the middle initial of my favorite President ever
EDIt,
@conrad bluff, my friends and I call it "taco shells" when your cards get bent in the "U" shape because it looks like them when you turn the card apropriatly
A mash shuffle is just as damaging as a proper riffle shuffle.
How so? The cards do not bend at all. Unless you REALLY get a horrible angle on it, the cards won't even contact each other, but simply, slide right into place. I have worn out a few sleeves at best using this method.
My trademark way of shuffling is 7 piles with the last 4 cards going into the first 4 piles I started. Then randomly choose piles and block shuffle. If you are going to pile shuffle make sure you do it in 7 or 9 piles so that it won't shuffle into even numbers. If you do shuffle into an even number of piles you may end up "sorting" the cards together and end up getting not enough or too much mana. However, if you block shuffle after pile shuffling you should be good anyways.
I roll a die after thrusting them together 5 times to determine how many pile shuffles to do following that, then repeat 3 times.
I figure rolling a die to see how many piles I should do randomizes things a little better than just doing 5 pile shuffles 3 times in between games over and over...
Riffles are good, but they actually do a pretty poor job of breaking up "adjacencies". Suppose you sideboard in two copies of a card, and you stick them in next to each other. Even a good riffle shuffle will typically leave 2 or 3 or 4 cards from one hand together, then a few cards from the other hand. So after one riffle, there's still a ~70% chance those two cards are still stuck together. Even after 8 riffles, that's still 0.7^8, or about a 6% chance that they've never been broken up. Added to the normal odds that they've been broken up and then randomly re-assembled, you've got a significantly-larger-than-normal chance of drawing them both together. If you're entire deck is fully ordered i.e. you've just built it, or just been deck-checked, it can take a lot of riffles to really randomize it.
Pile shuffling does a very good job of breaking up "adjacencies". But as has been said, if you know the order you start with and you follow a particular pattern, then you've "re-ordered" but not "randomized". Don't trust anyone who just pile shuffles, or just piles followed by a few ineffective overhands.
Pile shuffling with some riffles both before and after is the best way to break up adjacencies while truly randomizing. I generally use 2 or 3 riffles, piles (6 to 8, doesn't really matter), 3 to 5 riffles, present. If I'm starting from a fully ordered deck, I might do it all twice (technically, the initial riffles have a more-than-random chance of leaving initially adjacent cards exactly 7 cards apart, and a 7-pile shuffle will then re-adjacentize them, and the final riffles aren't certain to break them up. In practice it's pretty damn good, though if all 60 cards are in perfect order I might want to be a bit more thorough.)
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7 is the best for sure. Also never pile shuffle into 3 piles. I don't have any statistical evidence but have seen several physical demonstrations. I've heard that you can actually call over a judge for a consistency check in they pile shuffle your deck into 3 cards.
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This.
I too have had Judges called over at Provincials, 100+ player FNMs and other semi-large events, and basically the Judges usually say you can shuffle your opponent's deck if you feel they haven't shuffled/randomized enough, but conversely, they tend to also uphold protests that someone may be potentially damaging your cards with a method of shuffling.
It's really just common courtesy, though. If someone asks you not to shuffle their cards a certain way, it's better if you don't. If someone asked me not to side shuffle their deck, I wouldn't, no problem. If that's not good enough, call a Judge over to shuffle for them (every Judge I've seen do this has always side/overhand shuffled).
LSV said the guy did the bend test wrong and just creased the card. Bend test done right will still damage cards over time if done a bunch of times but bend test stress level is like 100x's more than riffle shuffling and are not normally done anymore due to damage they do. I riffle a lot and i played games for 2 years (if iam not playing staples than my friends are) in standard and i never done any damage to my cards.
if somebody riffles your cards hard enough to bend them after the shuffle then they're doing it wrong. a correct riffle shuffle does almost nothing to the cards and any minor bending can be removed just by keeping the deck stored in a deck box when not in use.
you wanna see real card bending? its not from riffle shuffling. its from stuff like rubber banding around the middle, or storing them unsleeved in high humidity conditions and just leaving them out on a table top. seriously. its card storage thats the most relevant thing here.
i'd call a judge too if somebody riffled my cards so hard it bent them immediately. but a normal, correct riffle doesn't damage cards and is in fact quite necessary for proper randomization.
After reading the linked article by Flores, I think I'll switch to adding cards into the rest of my deck well spaced, a few at a time, between abundant shuffles, without piles.
Riffle Shuffle: I personally dislike riffle shuffling, as it adds a chance to wreck cards. However if you feel confident in your ability doing this, it is a great way to get randomness
Mash Shuffle: This is when you split the deck in two, and then mash the two halves together to achieve the same style of randomness as riffle. With bad sleeves this process can be clumsy, so definitely look into getting good sleeves and practicing this.
Block Shuffling: Block shuffling is a horrible way to achieve randomness. It takes about 32 block shuffles to achieve "good" randomness. Anything less and you're not breaking up land clumps.
Pile Shuffling: Is fantastic way to shuffle when coupled with mash or riffle. Always pile shuffle in piles of 7. Since 7 is prime and not divisble by 60 or 40, this eliminates the chances of preserving runs and clumps when pile shuffling.
Mana Shuffle: A mana shuffle is when you separate your deck into spells and lands, and then evenly stack the deck with them (usually 2 spells, 1 land, 2 spells, 1 land..etc).
Mana shuffling is useful for initially breaking up any major clumps. No matter how many shuffles you do you'll never achieve pure randomness, so by doing a mana shuffle you influence (slightly) that your end result will be closer to a even distribution, rather then having clumps.
Here's my routine whenever I compete in tournament.
1. Before leaving for the tournament I do a mana shuffle, then followed followed by at least 7 riffle/mash shuffles.
2. Before each game, 7-pile shuffle, then at least 7 riffle/mash shuffles. Statistically it takes around 7 riffle/mash shuffles to achieve "good" randomness.
3. This is important! After a game, when scooping your cards try to pick them up so you reduce clumps of lands. I do this taking my graveyard and permanents and evenly dispersing the cards over my lands to make several evenly distributed piles. This helps alot to breaking up clumps while doing your riffle/mash shuffles.
I've seen people's decks who rifle shuffled and if you looked at any one of their cards from the top or the bottom it looks like a curved U.
I don't know about you, but I like my cards in A+ Mint condition.
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This is a good distinction, except you didn't actually say what riffle shuffling (taking two stacks side by side and slightly bending the edges so that the edges of one pile will end up neatly between the edges of the other, so if you counted down from the top, they'd go left pile card, right pile card, left pile card, etc, etc) and block shuffling (???) are, but it always helps if everyone is familiar with the terms.
At provincials last year, after I won a game 1 despite being someone manascrewed, I proceeded to mana shuffle before going through my regimen of pile, mash and overhand shuffling. My opponent complained that I was stacking my deck, to which I replied that I was organizing my deck prior to thouroughly randomizing it, and after I finished randomizing it, if he wasn't satisfied, he was welcome to shuffle it himself as many times as he liked, or call a judge over, which is what I encourage anyone to do if they aren't confident their opponent has thouroughly shuffled or randomized.
I do not know but that sounds like a A hole thing to say. I do not mind you shuffling my cards but I take it as a personal affront if you riffle shuffle them. It is like asking you to respect my personal space. Cross that and I get peeved.
To say do not play the game is very elitest. Some people cannot afford just to buy expensive cards and when they see someone riffle shuffle they get the idea that it is ruining the cards.
Now I riffle shuffle my cards, but Do not let someone else do it. If they have a problem with that call the judge and the judge can watch me shuffle. I do not mind if you mash shuffle, or pile shuffle my deck, but the truth is I do not know you from jack. You are not riffle shuffling my deck.
I never heard of the mana shuffling routine but I am going to try that. I like that idea. Makes sense. My routine is I 7 pile, in between each game, riffle, mash, 7 pile riffle. It works nicely but always nice to find new ways to get more randomess.
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so that means they're doing it wrong, like I said. what's your point? that people should learn how to shuffle so as not to damage their cards? yeah, I agree.
Riffle Shuffling doesn't require much pressure at all. If you do it right it doesn't damage cards. Some people are clumsy or bad or careless so they'll do it wrong alot. Thats their own fault. Riffling does not imply card damage.
edit:
and to other posters who claim that "mash shuffling" or some other technique somehow is a way of avoiding damage, its not. mash shuffling is much worse. you can ding the edges straight through sleaves by mash shuffling.
If you're going to nit-pick, riffle shuffling and mash shuffling are not "random" either, if you can observe the order in which cards reorder. It is a question of observability/controllability, and since you shouldn't know the order of the cards before you pile shuffle, the lack of randomness should be irrelevant to the bigger picture, that you want your deck to look more "randomly" distributed. If you have a mathematical proof that pile shuffling does not help a deck achieve an ideal distribution, that would be helpful.
Not quite. What's illegal is doing nothing else. Same for pile shuffling. In a tournament you can do all sorts of stuff to your deck so long as you perform some actual randomizing shuffles before you present it to your opponent. So say, for example, it's just before the first round and your deck is still laid out in order from registering your list. You mana weave, give it a couple mash or riffle shuffles, then pile shuffle, then give it a few more riffle or mash shuffles; that's perfectly all right, and in fact that's what most players I know will do. There won't be any chance of you or anyone else knowing the locations or order of cards in the deck at that point, which is mostly what the rules care about.
What most people care about is not randomizing with piles, but rather breaking up clumps and runs quickly. Since you only get three minutes between games in a tournament, this can be helpful.
----
Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
yes, it is a question of observability.
in a pile shuffle the cards are dropped into their piles at a slow rate of speed, and it is very easy for a human observer to know which card went into which pile. it takes a strong memory and some training to keep track of the order but that can be done. people count cards in black jack through similar tricks, for example.
in a riffle shuffle the cards are interlacing an a too-rapid speed to be observed accurately by human eyes. a riffle is completed in what, a tenth of a second? there's no way any human can see whats happening. it is not sufficiently observable by human eyes to allow for any type of card counting technique to happen.
and this is the real point. i mentioned in a previous post that if i see an opponent only pile shuffle i don't consider their deck sufficiently randomized and this is why. if they stacked the deck ahead of time their pile shuffle just changed the stacking order, it doesn't randomize it. maybe they know what the new order will be and they actually stacked it so that the post-pile order is what they wanted. a simple cut in the middle isn't a good enough foil for this type of cheating. they could have stacked their deck all the way through, not just the top 7. but a couple of quick, gentle, riffles is all it takes to completely foil deck stacking cheats.
its important to be considerate and try not to damage your opponent's cards. but its not ok to let him get away with an unriffled deck. i'll "mash" instead of riffle if thats what he wants, but i'm pretty sure mashing damages more than riffling so i don't see the point. but in any case only piling is not good enough.
I don't know about you, but I wonder if you read his post. (I'm assuming you did since you quoted it) but he very, VERY clearly stated that if their deck looks like that... They are doing it wrong! it's really not that hard to understand.
If i'm at FNM I usually cut my opponents deck and be done with it. But if and when I do shuffle my opponents deck, I riffle shuffle. And nothing you say will stop me from doing that. Especially if i'm at a ptq or some such. In fact I will be the one calling the judge if you feel it is an issue.
I honestly do not believe that pile shuffling, and tossing your cards a few times adds any sufficient amount of randomization. Not only do I not believe it, but there are a number of online sources to support this fact. In fact riffle shuffling is nowhere near perfect, but it is the closest thing we have.
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On the other side of things, likely, if done properly, you will not notice the damage done to the card. Perhaps many of you have done this your whole life and your cards are straight as an arrow in A+ condition.
As for me, I won't chance it. Besides, I can side-mash shuffle 3-4x faster than riffle shuffle (and I am confident to say it is easily as effective at randomization), and I can riffle shuffle pretty quickly.
Just my $0.02
Damn straight. If you want your cards to be in perfect mint condition, you shouldn't be playing with them. Put them in a glass case. I am going to riffle shuffle decks regardless.
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@conrad bluff, my friends and I call it "taco shells" when your cards get bent in the "U" shape because it looks like them when you turn the card apropriatly
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How so? The cards do not bend at all. Unless you REALLY get a horrible angle on it, the cards won't even contact each other, but simply, slide right into place. I have worn out a few sleeves at best using this method.
I figure rolling a die to see how many piles I should do randomizes things a little better than just doing 5 pile shuffles 3 times in between games over and over...
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Pretty interesting read.
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Pile shuffling does a very good job of breaking up "adjacencies". But as has been said, if you know the order you start with and you follow a particular pattern, then you've "re-ordered" but not "randomized". Don't trust anyone who just pile shuffles, or just piles followed by a few ineffective overhands.
Pile shuffling with some riffles both before and after is the best way to break up adjacencies while truly randomizing. I generally use 2 or 3 riffles, piles (6 to 8, doesn't really matter), 3 to 5 riffles, present. If I'm starting from a fully ordered deck, I might do it all twice (technically, the initial riffles have a more-than-random chance of leaving initially adjacent cards exactly 7 cards apart, and a 7-pile shuffle will then re-adjacentize them, and the final riffles aren't certain to break them up. In practice it's pretty damn good, though if all 60 cards are in perfect order I might want to be a bit more thorough.)