Without diving into the particulars of the formats they were playing and how that may pertain to their results, think about this:
Poker is a very luck-based game. To those unfamiliar with it, most would say it's entirely based on luck. But if you look at the biggest poker events each year, you'll see the same few faces at the top tables year after year. If it were purely luck, that wouldn't be possible. The same goes for Magic. While the guys you seeing winning most often do attend more events than you and I, their accomplishments aren't based strictly on volume. I've played against a few pros at events. I've beat a few, lost a few, but never once did I feel like they weren't in the game. These guys are top level players who, despite luck, will use smart plays to minimize the effect luck will have on their games.
I don't think looking at a few games of limited online is at all dispositive of their overall skill or the impact luck plays in the game. Part of getting better is being able to minimize luck's role. In other words, even if you get unlucky - paired with your worst matchup, bad mulligans, mana flood, etc. - a good enough player can find ways to put themselves in the best possible position to win. That doesn't mean they're going to win everytime. Sometimes you're just going to lose. If it were purely luck, everyone's win percentages would average out around 50/50 at best, but that's not the case for me, and I'm sure it's not the case for most people here, which means there has to be a lot more going on.
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Currently playing:
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
In our local meta, we are blessed with a bevvy of amazing players - they are smart, friendly, helpful(some), and very good at decision making. We have had local people play on the Pro Tour as well. The goal of making it to "the show" is one that will work out well for a small handful of people, and work out terribly for the other 99,999 players that didnt make it (or more).
I will never be pro. I don't have the time it takes to learn strategies and propel myself to a level to compete on a consistent basis. Those that do have the drive and time to succeed, do. One of my good friends plays 6 nights a week in 4 different formats, and has positioned himself to make it to the PT. I believe that he will do so, because he has the right combination of drive, intelligence, time, and determination to succeed. Sure he goes 2-2 at FNMs still on occasion, but those are what puts his four 3-0-1 or 4-0 performances throughout the week into perspective. I even try and coach him through his losses, always asking "what did you do wrong?" or "what could you have done differently?" Deconstructing the losses and finding out how to improve your play is a never-ending battle.
I'm not trying to tell a story about some people I know, but what I'm getting at is that the "Pro" level of decision making is in another league than those of us like myself. I play competitively, and would like to think i'm a decent player. But when it comes to making thorough, quick, important decisions game after game, match after match, I do not hold a candle to the understanding and skill of those players.
Keeping with the poker analogy, I was drawn to magic because of the similarities it held to Poker. Being an avid poker player, it was apparent to me that Magic was similar in many ways including the fact that at the bottom line it revolved around luck. The reason that I like poker (and now mtg) is that you can get a significant advantage if you know what the hell you are doing and make the "right" choices at any given moment. Poker and mtg are a skill game as much as a luck game, why do you think you see the same poker players at final tables over and over? It is not all luck, and that edge you can gain is what makes it worth playing competitively.
"Why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas?"
-Rounders
Thanks for the reference, I was trying to remember where I heard that!
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Check out our podcast exploring the casually-competitive side of Magic! Extra Turns Podcast
I do not see why have some amount of variance is a bad thing top decking the right card to win you the game feels sooo good. Like Nasif (?) topdecking that cruel ultimatum for the win. That is awesome.
There aren't many competitions that don't involve luck at all. There are obvious examples of luck in sports - tipped balls that fall right into the hands of a defender sometimes, right to the wide receiver other times and fall to the ground others, despite no one targetting where the tip goes in any way. There are also less obvious examples. For example, a figure skating competition could be decided by two people trying the same difficult move and one falling while the other doesn't. That doesn't necessarily seem like luck until you consider a potential scenario where neither nails the move 100% of the time and the person who fell actually hits it far more often (say 80% versus 50%) - the other one simply took a risk and lucked into a coin flip of it working out while the other wasn't as fortunate.
The better player will still tend to win more often over lots of matches. Why do you think you get the same few repeat players who regularly finish near the top mixed in with the randoms who just got lucky? Poker is the same way. Yes, someone might just have a crazy lucky streak and beat out better players and the best players occasionally lose early to bad luck (or the rare misplay), but they'll tend to win far, far more consistently than worse players.
I think the amount of consecutive correct decisions needed to be made in a high level game is extremely underrated and misunderstood. Watch BBD's comebacks, he's number 1 in player points for a reason.
The point of competitive Magic is to play a reason other than "for the lolz". It doesn't matter if you lose or win at casual Magic because nothing is really at stake. Even at the FNM level, you're playing for your pride, to test your skills and knowledge of the game, and of course for fabulous prizes.
Of course there's luck involved. You have a 60 card deck, finely tuned to your specifications, and you have a certainly likelihood of drawing what you need based solely on shuffling and the caliber of the resources in your deck. Luck is a part of pretty much every TCG and just something we all have to live with. *shrug*
When it comes to competition, it is about distilling the best you can do personally. I find that the idea that you can play a deck, match-up or sideboarding plan perfectly and still lose to variance is hard for some people to swallow.
I come to the table at an event to play the perfect game, the best game I can play with my cards and choices. That doesn't guarantee so win every game or match.
I've been to the show 3 times....back in the day. I went 23 matches without dropping a single game and I qualified on rating once (Top 25 in the world - anyone previously qualified).
The game was much easier then. People were terrible, the internet wasn't a thing and if you were good at the fundamentals you could turn tiny edges into monstrous ones. Some people just didn't have a clue.
Fast forward to 'now' and things are totally different. LOTS of people show up to PTQ's. Everyone has perfect information. Everyone either plays on Modo (or you are at a massive disadvantage). Everyone has access to all the cards etc etc. So qualifying 'now' is very very difficult. You are basically playing 6-8 mirror matches with people who are either at least as good as you (or better!).
The point of 'competitive' magic is to try and best your peers and have fun doing it But trying to cop out and say the game is 'all luck', is one sure way to never make it to the show. No one is entitled to anything and if you aren't winning against your peers then there is something either missing from your game or there is some psychological thing holding you back. Good players find what's broken in their game and fix it. Bad players 'blame luck.'
Without diving into the particulars of the formats they were playing and how that may pertain to their results, think about this:
Poker is a very luck-based game. To those unfamiliar with it, most would say it's entirely based on luck.
I think that with Magic and with Poker it depends on how broad your scope is. If you look at a holdem tournament with raw percentages it may look like luck is the predominate factor because even the best players win so few hands, but if you narrow it down and look at only the hands that each player plays and chases, then that percentage is substantially larger because one of the skills of poker is patience and knowing what hands to play (hint: very few). You can say that it was luck that made so few hands playable, but I would say it is skill to know which to play and the less skilled players play a lot of hands they shouldn't and the hands you play are the ones that matter.
The same goes for magic, but it is far more complicated where to draw the line because a MTG tournament probably has 10% of the hands that a pro might play in a big poker tournament. Regardless, whenever I see a person complaining that luck it too big of a factor I know that they are not going to ever get very good at the game because they are leaning on a crutch of blame. Luck is a factor, but the best players minimize it so much better than the average player through lots of little micro-decisions that add up to success.
Everytime I start to lean on the "luck" crutch I go back and re-read parts of Next Level Magic because despite what you may think about Chapin as a player, he is an excellent theorizer and communicator who breaks things down so well that I immediately identify where I am messing up. There are a few wacky MTG books out there I wouldn't bother with, but NLM is fantastic (even though I assumed it was going to be worthless).
Sorry to disabuse any true believers of their cherished notion that Magic is primarily a skill game, but it's not. I've been playing on an off for about 16 years, and in that time I've learned most games don't really present any meaningful play decisions: the victor is determined by the strength of the starting hand and timely topdecks. The only real skill, aside from tight technical play, is trying to manipulate variance in your favor (I.e., playing to your outs). And even despite playing to your outs and crunching the numbers on probabilities, you're still at the mercy of the topdeck. I could play to my outs all day, but if I don't actually draw them, what's the point?
I play online, and on
MODO I've beaten Owen Turtenwald, Andrew Cuneo (sp?), Ben Stark, Chris Pikula, etc. Does that mean that I'm better than these pros and Hall of Famers? Hardly. It just means that I drew better than they did. To me, that is unfortunate. I can't take any pride in having beaten the best, because I know that I won because of RNG and not by being a superior player.
Sorry to disabuse any true believers of their cherished notion that Magic is primarily a skill game, but it's not. I've been playing on an off for about 16 years, and in that time I've learned most games don't really present any meaningful play decisions: the victor is determined by the strength of the starting hand and timely topdecks. The only real skill, aside from tight technical play, is trying to manipulate variance in your favor (I.e., playing to your outs). And even despite playing to your outs and crunching the numbers on probabilities, you're still at the mercy of the topdeck. I could play to my outs all day, but if I don't actually draw them, what's the point?
I play online, and on
MODO I've beaten Owen Turtenwald, Andrew Cuneo (sp?), Ben Stark, Chris Pikula, etc. Does that mean that I'm better than these pros and Hall of Famers? Hardly. It just means that I drew better than they did. To me, that is unfortunate. I can't take any pride in having beaten the best, because I know that I won because of RNG and not by being a superior player.
Any game that has hidden information is a guessing game. You can just play the odds and you have to bite the bullet if its not in your favor.
If a game further introduces randomness in what you have available, you have to play the odds again.
If you make the perfect choices all the time, it comes down to topdecks, obvisiously, as that is what makes the game ultimately interesting, that everyone at least "can" win against any opponent simply by luck.
However, over the course of many games, everyone will have topdecks and everyone will have super good hands and super bad hands. All that evens out, it doesnt matter as much as you think, as you have to play more than just 1 game.
For example, even if your are really unlucky and you lose to someone that is much worse player, you still can win the next 2 games and you still win the match.
You have to be "unlucky" 2 times in a row to lose that match, and even then, you are not out of the tournament, you can still crush anyone else and top 8.
Magic involves a lot of choices and theres plenty of room to make misplays, from playing the wrong lands (especially with fetchlands involved and such) to combat and especially making the choice if you have to use the "topdeck" removal on that specific card or not.
You have to know your odds and you have to play much more than just hoping for the very best.
In the end, players will have the average draws and the better player will simply win more games.
If you can 2-0-1 the usual draft, you are already ahead to someone that struggles to win a match.
Especially Limited has so much skill involved. You have to draft a deck, know the cards involved, build your deck accordingly and then still have to make choices about what your opponents have and what you could see in the draft.
Constructed has less skill involved in that sector, as deck building can be short-cut to net-decks and you can read a lot of deck-guides and play matchups in advance, something that doesnt work out that well in Limited, as the games tend to be fairly different each time (unless you for whatever reason draft the same stuff every time and that for whatever reason even works out).
Winning a single game simply doesnt matter, especially not to determine skill in any way.
If you cannot find the correct play in a given situation you are simply a worse player, even if you can win against that player because you are lucky, they still made the correct choices, while you didnt, so simply said, you could win even while making your odds to win worse.
Its like Poker. If you are a terrible player, you CAN still win against anyone if you are godlike lucky. But theres a limit to how lucky someone will be and especially not over a long time.
Anyone can win a single match with some luck. Winning a GP is almost impossible for a bad player, as they have to not just make the top 8 , but beat everyone in the top 8 , and even as a very good player, you have to be lucky to win more than your skill alone would allow you.
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The worse a player actually is, the more they assume they either win or lose just because of luck. Some simply dont see the play they have to make or they cannot understand that a single misplay they dont even recognize ultimately snowballs into them losing. If you dont attack for some damage or bluff if theres no risk involved for you doing so, you lose portions of the game left and right, and you win some % less games then you could have.
But its just a % of the games. Theres still games that are so much in your favor and they struggle hard, that it becomes trivial to win (even if you make misplays, they simply dont matter in such a superior game state).
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That all said, magic involves a tremendous amount of skill, especially across multiple formats and involving multiple very different kinds of decks.
Even knowing the rules to a level to even notice all your options is a skill that not even all the pros have (but playing a lot in practice will at least teach your the "examples" as a lot of problems come up).
Play enough to attend a Pro Tour. If you can have a good result at the Pro Tour you can certainly have a fair deal of pride if you did well, and at the least it will be a nice time with people that share a hobby.
I think that local casual/competitive makes great sense. The part that doesn't is the nationals, PT, and GP, since they tend to have a ton of cheating involved, require a ton of preparation to go to, and barely have worthwhile payouts. They don't even reflect what people can do in the current standard meta and often are severely inbred, especially in unsolved metas like standard, and a lot of the top decks are really beatable.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Is there a degree of skill involved in this game? Sure. Is it as high as everyone would like to pretend it is? Not remotely.
You wanna know why it's so hard to get on the pro tour? Because the pptq system is set up in such a way that you have to get absurdly lucky over multiple events in order to qualify. When I started playing all you had to do was spike one PTQ and you were in. Now, not only do you have to win a pptq, you also have to win the RPTQ that it qualifies you for. Assuming you even win the former, now you have to dedicate another entire day just to have a shot at making it to the PT (unless you spike a GP). Anyone who's played tournament Magic knows how well things have to go for you to win. Factors outside of the game itself--such as attendance level, getting good matchups, having your deck not crap out on you, drawing the right card at the right time, ad infinitum--are huge in determining who wins the game. Playing well just adds a few percentage points in your favor.
Anyways, now it's pretty much impossible to get and stay on the PT unless you were grandfathered in back in the day when the qualification requirements were much more reasonable. This is why I don't blame players who eschew the PT entirely and focus on grinding out SCG opens. A lot more lucrative, and better run if you ask me.
Is there a degree of skill involved in this game? Sure. Is it as high as everyone would like to pretend it is? Not remotely.
You wanna know why it's so hard to get on the pro tour? Because the pptq system is set up in such a way that you have to get absurdly lucky over multiple events in order to qualify. When I started playing all you had to do was spike one PTQ and you were in. Now, not only do you have to win a pptq, you also have to win the RPTQ that it qualifies you for. Assuming you even win the former, now you have to dedicate another entire day just to have a shot at making it to the PT (unless you spike a GP). Anyone who's played tournament Magic knows how well things have to go for you to win. Factors outside of the game itself--such as attendance level, getting good matchups, having your deck not crap out on you, drawing the right card at the right time, ad infinitum--are huge in determining who wins the game. Playing well just adds a few percentage points in your favor.
Anyways, now it's pretty much impossible to get and stay on the PT unless you were grandfathered in back in the day when the qualification requirements were much more reasonable. This is why I don't blame players who eschew the PT entirely and focus on grinding out SCG opens. A lot more lucrative, and better run if you ask me.
The point is thats the case for anyone.
If you are a skilled player you will win more than you lose against players that are at least remotely good.
Any newbie will make so tremendous mistakes, that losing against them is very unlikely, simply because they make this mistakes.
If you want to get in a pro Tour you have to play a lot of tournaments, to get a shot, which is completly fine, as this is exactly where the skill shines, you play more and you will qualify "at some point" , the better you are, more skill you have, the sooner skill will triumph over simple luck.
Some lucky people will win a match here or there because they are just plain lucky, but as long as they arent skilled players, they wont win enough games in a given tournament (if they are "that" lucky, they will at least get crushed at the next tournaments as they are not consistent).
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Theres no problem with this.
If you are a skilled player you can absolutely stick to the Pro Tour, as you put in enough effort and work that your skill can shine (which includes deck testing, tuning metagames and Pro Tours involve standard, limited) , so if you can get good results in the majority of the time in high level tournaments, your skill cannot be questioned, as it cannot be simple luck that gives you "consistent" results.
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If you want "money" you simply dont play magic , you simply work in a job, THATS way more lukrativ and consistent money.
You play to have fun and even to just get around and if you have friends that are on the train, you spend a lot of time testing, driving to events, and just playing the game.
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How important skill is , depends on the difference in skill also.
As long as your opponents are highly skilled, luck in some way or another will have more of an impact.
If you are much more skilled, that will show tremendously (like finishing 3-0 a lot in FNMs and consistently getting good results at Qualifiers, a lot of Top8 finishes ; if you are truly skilled, you win more).
Also, some lucky topdecks only matter because you played anything right to that point.
In that perspective your skill increases your chances to become lucky.
If you screwd up a combat, nothing will save you. If you played it right, you have outs to draw.
So even if it "looks" like its just luck, you have to make the plays to make this luck have any meaning.
So i say it again.
The worse of a player you are, the more you think luck is the deciding factor that wins you games.
The better of a player you are and the better your opponents are, the more luck becomes the deciding factor.
And face it, the majority of players is just average, they make huge mistakes, get game loses as they dont know the rules, or they cannot stand the pressure of a long tournament and become so nervous that they cannot make the best decisions.
Is there a degree of skill involved in this game? Sure. Is it as high as everyone would like to pretend it is? Not remotely.
You wanna know why it's so hard to get on the pro tour? Because the pptq system is set up in such a way that you have to get absurdly lucky over multiple events in order to qualify. When I started playing all you had to do was spike one PTQ and you were in. Now, not only do you have to win a pptq, you also have to win the RPTQ that it qualifies you for. Assuming you even win the former, now you have to dedicate another entire day just to have a shot at making it to the PT (unless you spike a GP). Anyone who's played tournament Magic knows how well things have to go for you to win. Factors outside of the game itself--such as attendance level, getting good matchups, having your deck not crap out on you, drawing the right card at the right time, ad infinitum--are huge in determining who wins the game. Playing well just adds a few percentage points in your favor.
Anyways, now it's pretty much impossible to get and stay on the PT unless you were grandfathered in back in the day when the qualification requirements were much more reasonable. This is why I don't blame players who eschew the PT entirely and focus on grinding out SCG opens. A lot more lucrative, and better run if you ask me.
No, it is because of cheats.
Yeah, unfortunately they really need to work on honest play in the pro-tour and the GPs. The foreign GPs are even more unsupervised than the ones we have in the US.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
most of mtg is deckbuilding and what you draw /when, piloting is 3rd (we dont talk about people who dont know how to play) most of the decks play themselves, they are obvious plays to do and outplaying the opponent rarely is the case imo
there are more skill intensive games, like netrunner, magewars or other lcgs to name a few
Pretty much. The actual amount of significant I'm-game decisions is rather small, at least in modern Magic. I'll concede that vintage and legacy offer more opportunities for skill to come into play.
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Poker is a very luck-based game. To those unfamiliar with it, most would say it's entirely based on luck. But if you look at the biggest poker events each year, you'll see the same few faces at the top tables year after year. If it were purely luck, that wouldn't be possible. The same goes for Magic. While the guys you seeing winning most often do attend more events than you and I, their accomplishments aren't based strictly on volume. I've played against a few pros at events. I've beat a few, lost a few, but never once did I feel like they weren't in the game. These guys are top level players who, despite luck, will use smart plays to minimize the effect luck will have on their games.
I don't think looking at a few games of limited online is at all dispositive of their overall skill or the impact luck plays in the game. Part of getting better is being able to minimize luck's role. In other words, even if you get unlucky - paired with your worst matchup, bad mulligans, mana flood, etc. - a good enough player can find ways to put themselves in the best possible position to win. That doesn't mean they're going to win everytime. Sometimes you're just going to lose. If it were purely luck, everyone's win percentages would average out around 50/50 at best, but that's not the case for me, and I'm sure it's not the case for most people here, which means there has to be a lot more going on.
Standard: I, for one, welcome our new rhinoceros overlords
Modern: Pod's dead, Bob's back.
Legacy: Lands, Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Elves, MUD
Retired Legacy: Merfolk, Goblins, Jund, Delver, Reanimator
I will never be pro. I don't have the time it takes to learn strategies and propel myself to a level to compete on a consistent basis. Those that do have the drive and time to succeed, do. One of my good friends plays 6 nights a week in 4 different formats, and has positioned himself to make it to the PT. I believe that he will do so, because he has the right combination of drive, intelligence, time, and determination to succeed. Sure he goes 2-2 at FNMs still on occasion, but those are what puts his four 3-0-1 or 4-0 performances throughout the week into perspective. I even try and coach him through his losses, always asking "what did you do wrong?" or "what could you have done differently?" Deconstructing the losses and finding out how to improve your play is a never-ending battle.
I'm not trying to tell a story about some people I know, but what I'm getting at is that the "Pro" level of decision making is in another league than those of us like myself. I play competitively, and would like to think i'm a decent player. But when it comes to making thorough, quick, important decisions game after game, match after match, I do not hold a candle to the understanding and skill of those players.
Thanks for the reference, I was trying to remember where I heard that!
The better player will still tend to win more often over lots of matches. Why do you think you get the same few repeat players who regularly finish near the top mixed in with the randoms who just got lucky? Poker is the same way. Yes, someone might just have a crazy lucky streak and beat out better players and the best players occasionally lose early to bad luck (or the rare misplay), but they'll tend to win far, far more consistently than worse players.
Of course there's luck involved. You have a 60 card deck, finely tuned to your specifications, and you have a certainly likelihood of drawing what you need based solely on shuffling and the caliber of the resources in your deck. Luck is a part of pretty much every TCG and just something we all have to live with. *shrug*
When it comes to competition, it is about distilling the best you can do personally. I find that the idea that you can play a deck, match-up or sideboarding plan perfectly and still lose to variance is hard for some people to swallow.
I come to the table at an event to play the perfect game, the best game I can play with my cards and choices. That doesn't guarantee so win every game or match.
Just my viewpoint.
Big Thanks to Xeno for sig art <3.
The game was much easier then. People were terrible, the internet wasn't a thing and if you were good at the fundamentals you could turn tiny edges into monstrous ones. Some people just didn't have a clue.
Fast forward to 'now' and things are totally different. LOTS of people show up to PTQ's. Everyone has perfect information. Everyone either plays on Modo (or you are at a massive disadvantage). Everyone has access to all the cards etc etc. So qualifying 'now' is very very difficult. You are basically playing 6-8 mirror matches with people who are either at least as good as you (or better!).
The point of 'competitive' magic is to try and best your peers and have fun doing it But trying to cop out and say the game is 'all luck', is one sure way to never make it to the show. No one is entitled to anything and if you aren't winning against your peers then there is something either missing from your game or there is some psychological thing holding you back. Good players find what's broken in their game and fix it. Bad players 'blame luck.'
The same goes for magic, but it is far more complicated where to draw the line because a MTG tournament probably has 10% of the hands that a pro might play in a big poker tournament. Regardless, whenever I see a person complaining that luck it too big of a factor I know that they are not going to ever get very good at the game because they are leaning on a crutch of blame. Luck is a factor, but the best players minimize it so much better than the average player through lots of little micro-decisions that add up to success.
Everytime I start to lean on the "luck" crutch I go back and re-read parts of Next Level Magic because despite what you may think about Chapin as a player, he is an excellent theorizer and communicator who breaks things down so well that I immediately identify where I am messing up. There are a few wacky MTG books out there I wouldn't bother with, but NLM is fantastic (even though I assumed it was going to be worthless).
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
I play online, and on
MODO I've beaten Owen Turtenwald, Andrew Cuneo (sp?), Ben Stark, Chris Pikula, etc. Does that mean that I'm better than these pros and Hall of Famers? Hardly. It just means that I drew better than they did. To me, that is unfortunate. I can't take any pride in having beaten the best, because I know that I won because of RNG and not by being a superior player.
Any game that has hidden information is a guessing game. You can just play the odds and you have to bite the bullet if its not in your favor.
If a game further introduces randomness in what you have available, you have to play the odds again.
If you make the perfect choices all the time, it comes down to topdecks, obvisiously, as that is what makes the game ultimately interesting, that everyone at least "can" win against any opponent simply by luck.
However, over the course of many games, everyone will have topdecks and everyone will have super good hands and super bad hands. All that evens out, it doesnt matter as much as you think, as you have to play more than just 1 game.
For example, even if your are really unlucky and you lose to someone that is much worse player, you still can win the next 2 games and you still win the match.
You have to be "unlucky" 2 times in a row to lose that match, and even then, you are not out of the tournament, you can still crush anyone else and top 8.
Magic involves a lot of choices and theres plenty of room to make misplays, from playing the wrong lands (especially with fetchlands involved and such) to combat and especially making the choice if you have to use the "topdeck" removal on that specific card or not.
You have to know your odds and you have to play much more than just hoping for the very best.
In the end, players will have the average draws and the better player will simply win more games.
If you can 2-0-1 the usual draft, you are already ahead to someone that struggles to win a match.
Especially Limited has so much skill involved. You have to draft a deck, know the cards involved, build your deck accordingly and then still have to make choices about what your opponents have and what you could see in the draft.
Constructed has less skill involved in that sector, as deck building can be short-cut to net-decks and you can read a lot of deck-guides and play matchups in advance, something that doesnt work out that well in Limited, as the games tend to be fairly different each time (unless you for whatever reason draft the same stuff every time and that for whatever reason even works out).
Winning a single game simply doesnt matter, especially not to determine skill in any way.
If you cannot find the correct play in a given situation you are simply a worse player, even if you can win against that player because you are lucky, they still made the correct choices, while you didnt, so simply said, you could win even while making your odds to win worse.
Its like Poker. If you are a terrible player, you CAN still win against anyone if you are godlike lucky. But theres a limit to how lucky someone will be and especially not over a long time.
Anyone can win a single match with some luck. Winning a GP is almost impossible for a bad player, as they have to not just make the top 8 , but beat everyone in the top 8 , and even as a very good player, you have to be lucky to win more than your skill alone would allow you.
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The worse a player actually is, the more they assume they either win or lose just because of luck. Some simply dont see the play they have to make or they cannot understand that a single misplay they dont even recognize ultimately snowballs into them losing. If you dont attack for some damage or bluff if theres no risk involved for you doing so, you lose portions of the game left and right, and you win some % less games then you could have.
But its just a % of the games. Theres still games that are so much in your favor and they struggle hard, that it becomes trivial to win (even if you make misplays, they simply dont matter in such a superior game state).
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That all said, magic involves a tremendous amount of skill, especially across multiple formats and involving multiple very different kinds of decks.
Even knowing the rules to a level to even notice all your options is a skill that not even all the pros have (but playing a lot in practice will at least teach your the "examples" as a lot of problems come up).
Play enough to attend a Pro Tour. If you can have a good result at the Pro Tour you can certainly have a fair deal of pride if you did well, and at the least it will be a nice time with people that share a hobby.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
/inbeforelock
Spirits
Well, the topic is as fresh as always, especially with current standard
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
You wanna know why it's so hard to get on the pro tour? Because the pptq system is set up in such a way that you have to get absurdly lucky over multiple events in order to qualify. When I started playing all you had to do was spike one PTQ and you were in. Now, not only do you have to win a pptq, you also have to win the RPTQ that it qualifies you for. Assuming you even win the former, now you have to dedicate another entire day just to have a shot at making it to the PT (unless you spike a GP). Anyone who's played tournament Magic knows how well things have to go for you to win. Factors outside of the game itself--such as attendance level, getting good matchups, having your deck not crap out on you, drawing the right card at the right time, ad infinitum--are huge in determining who wins the game. Playing well just adds a few percentage points in your favor.
Anyways, now it's pretty much impossible to get and stay on the PT unless you were grandfathered in back in the day when the qualification requirements were much more reasonable. This is why I don't blame players who eschew the PT entirely and focus on grinding out SCG opens. A lot more lucrative, and better run if you ask me.
The point is thats the case for anyone.
If you are a skilled player you will win more than you lose against players that are at least remotely good.
Any newbie will make so tremendous mistakes, that losing against them is very unlikely, simply because they make this mistakes.
If you want to get in a pro Tour you have to play a lot of tournaments, to get a shot, which is completly fine, as this is exactly where the skill shines, you play more and you will qualify "at some point" , the better you are, more skill you have, the sooner skill will triumph over simple luck.
Some lucky people will win a match here or there because they are just plain lucky, but as long as they arent skilled players, they wont win enough games in a given tournament (if they are "that" lucky, they will at least get crushed at the next tournaments as they are not consistent).
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Theres no problem with this.
If you are a skilled player you can absolutely stick to the Pro Tour, as you put in enough effort and work that your skill can shine (which includes deck testing, tuning metagames and Pro Tours involve standard, limited) , so if you can get good results in the majority of the time in high level tournaments, your skill cannot be questioned, as it cannot be simple luck that gives you "consistent" results.
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If you want "money" you simply dont play magic , you simply work in a job, THATS way more lukrativ and consistent money.
You play to have fun and even to just get around and if you have friends that are on the train, you spend a lot of time testing, driving to events, and just playing the game.
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How important skill is , depends on the difference in skill also.
As long as your opponents are highly skilled, luck in some way or another will have more of an impact.
If you are much more skilled, that will show tremendously (like finishing 3-0 a lot in FNMs and consistently getting good results at Qualifiers, a lot of Top8 finishes ; if you are truly skilled, you win more).
Also, some lucky topdecks only matter because you played anything right to that point.
In that perspective your skill increases your chances to become lucky.
If you screwd up a combat, nothing will save you. If you played it right, you have outs to draw.
So even if it "looks" like its just luck, you have to make the plays to make this luck have any meaning.
So i say it again.
The worse of a player you are, the more you think luck is the deciding factor that wins you games.
The better of a player you are and the better your opponents are, the more luck becomes the deciding factor.
And face it, the majority of players is just average, they make huge mistakes, get game loses as they dont know the rules, or they cannot stand the pressure of a long tournament and become so nervous that they cannot make the best decisions.
Skill has many faces in magic.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
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Yeah, unfortunately they really need to work on honest play in the pro-tour and the GPs. The foreign GPs are even more unsupervised than the ones we have in the US.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
there are more skill intensive games, like netrunner, magewars or other lcgs to name a few
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