So, I had a run of bad luck today. BO1 ranked, even using the same deck without any changes, I kept running into matches of either mana flood or mana screw, even with the best choices of mulligan I could pull off and relatively decent looking opening hands. I would either not be able to get past 3 mana until it was way too late, or hit, like, one non-land card after hitting 8 or 9 lands on the field in a non-ramp deck before losing, reliant almost entirely on the cards that were in my opening hand. It was super-frustrating, because it lasted long enough to go down multiple full sub-ranks. I got back up to where I started afterwards relatively quickly, but the maches that I then won were very dissapointing, because it seemed like the same thing that happened to me was happening to my opponents, and most of them conceeded after playing relatively few cards and tons of lands, or after being stuck at 2 or 3 lands after I'd hit my 5th or 6th land drop in between steady non-land playable cards.
The matches were overall very uninteresting because of this, and I wound up more stressed than having fun like I usually do.
I'd never had this long a run of bad matches in arena before, and only once I'd experienced something like this in paper magic.
Any suggestions for how to deal with the stress of runs of bad luck leading to long strings of losses and uninteresting wins?
Note that I got roughly even amounts of mana flood and mana screw, and have decent card draw/fixing, so adjusting the number of lands in my deck won't help, it really was just extreme bad luck that even really good deck design wouldn't be able to help with. I know it doesn't happen very often, but in a random thing like a game with shuffled decks, it can certainly happen again, and I'd like advice for how to deal with the situation without having another morning like this one.
Should I have just quit for the day before that many matches went by? I was trying to get all my daily stuff (the first 5 wins and the daily bonus from doing a special thing) so I wouldn't fall behind too much when relying primarily on free play. Should I try switching up decks more to try to get into a different mindset even if that doesn't really affect luck? Should I take a break and come back later? Should I adjust my lands and cantrips and stuff up and down and such a bit for psychological reinforcement even if it defies statistical sense? Should I build an even more cantrip heavy deck like a phoenix deck even if it's not my favored playstyle and switch to that on days when I hit a string of bad luck?
As with everything else you do for fun, if its stops being fun, stop doing it. Fortunately with magic you can simply stop what ever specific form of magic you are playing and play a different deck, format, or style. If you keep doing something that is making you unhappy eventually you won't be able to be happy doing that thing, even when it normally made you happy. Arena is great for this as unlike a tournament where you are getting bad beats you have already committed your entire day to that tournament while in arena you are, presumably, at home and can go on to do anything else at home or even leave.
Never adjust your deck after bad beats to try and 'fix' flooding or screwing. It will almost always result in a worse deck, unless your deck was already improperly constructed.
Sometimes you just get sucky draws. I can't count the times I have had two checklands in my starting hand in Esper, then mulled to two more checklands. Sometimes you win if you get a shockland or basic, etc.
When I start getting destroyed I move to another deck or I just direct challenge one of my Arena forum friends. That makes it considerable more fun.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Can relate. Drawing 2 checklands then no land (out of 25!), especially against RDW tends to lose interest quick..however if I get bad beats, I either play "Sparky" or go do something else.
The clumping of cards, not just mana, still seems way more common than "randomness" would allow. I just played a game where my opponent had all four Wizard's Lightening spells in his hand on turn 4. And I regularly pull Thought Erasure after Thought Erasure in a row, yet don't see my large mana cards that frequently even though I have the same amount of them in the deck.
I've stopped playing RDW Burn. All because Experimental Frenzy is just awful for me in Arena.
Every time I play this card, the top of the deck will usually be another Frenzy on top, followed by about 10 lands in a row.
I've made the switch to Chandra, just because of pure mana flooding, even though it's a poorer card choice.
Frenzy in arena seems to be nerfed, but from what I can tell, I'm not the only one having this problem. The other burn players I come up against seem to commonly whiff on Frenzy until I kill them.
As far as mana-screw & mana-flood, I constantly have this problem too, but some decks can get around this easier than others.
The clumping of cards is a problem. But try taking a card out of a deck, and putting a new one in. I seem to get that new card in my opening hand for like the 7 or 8 games. Hmm.....
But try taking a card out of a deck, and putting a new one in. I seem to get that new card in my opening hand for like the 7 or 8 games. Hmm.....
Accuracy right here. I put in ONE Dimir Guildgate in my deck as a test, and it came up EVERY game from then on. Even in consecutive hands after mulligan.
I see the same thing constantly. it is like the random generator is not random at all. More like it is designed to screw you or your opponent or both of you over. I just look at this game as follows:
I am a noob. I have nowhere close to the right cards in the right volume to be competitive. To get there, I need to farm. Play every day, earn decks, earn wildcards, maybe get some lucky randoms, and do this over and over again, every day. So, to me, its not a fun activity. Its a job. Nothing personal. I try not to get pissed, but i still do. take a break, and then go back.
If you feel like this about a game, you should probably find something else to play...
Maybe I didn't word it right. What I mean is, to play the game, you need the cards. I'm not going to actually spend money on this game, so I have to farm each day for the gold to get packs to get cards and wildcards. While I am doing that, presumable for a long time, I have to try and be unemotional about the outcome of each game. I am going to keep running into people with pimped out decks, all the sweet cards and such. I just try to ignore all that, lose or hit concede and move on, and remember why I am doing it, to get the cards to one day have competitive decks. Its not about each game. its about the long term strategy. Just keep swimming...just keep swimming. Yes, its a game, but I'm not really playing it yet, because I dont have all the "game pieces". I'm "working" to "buy" the necessary cards to eventually get to play.
Jesus Christ man, I'm playing a duo-color deck and I've whittled it down from 25 lands to 20 lands and I still just played like 3 games in a row where I drew 4 lands for every one spell. I dont even know what to say about this anymore.
This is still a problem. The code they use to randomize the deck HAS to be bad. I just played 10 games and got stuck on 2 lands or 2 non-lands in 9 of the games. 40 card deck, 17 lands. Seeing 14 cards and the ratio being 12:2 or 2:12. This ***** is just unreal. Uninstalling the game and sticking to paper.
Yup still bad. and I went through my hopefulness, tried several different deck and got screwed in various ways for about a dozen matches in a row, gave up, switched to RDW and still got screwed for at least 4 more matches before my first win of the day.
Ironically, this could all be saved by simple RNG. They say they use one but it seems the reality is different. We all have seen it. We all know about the 13 land red deck for example. And then there is the horrible matchmaking.
Simply, pick a random opponent from the same tier as me. Then randomly shuffle our decks and let us play. No tweaking. No messing. Whatever they do in an attempt to make things better only seems to make things worse.
My new theory is this. If its early to mid game, and you are down 3+ lands to your opponent , like 3 to 6, chances are you are getting land-screwed and might as well concede.
There is little rhyme or reason to the shuffling, it's either mana flood or screw with nothing inbetween. Lucky to get get 1 good game in 20. Back to using paper. Until the shuffling has a fix, arena is useless.
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The matches were overall very uninteresting because of this, and I wound up more stressed than having fun like I usually do.
I'd never had this long a run of bad matches in arena before, and only once I'd experienced something like this in paper magic.
Any suggestions for how to deal with the stress of runs of bad luck leading to long strings of losses and uninteresting wins?
Note that I got roughly even amounts of mana flood and mana screw, and have decent card draw/fixing, so adjusting the number of lands in my deck won't help, it really was just extreme bad luck that even really good deck design wouldn't be able to help with. I know it doesn't happen very often, but in a random thing like a game with shuffled decks, it can certainly happen again, and I'd like advice for how to deal with the situation without having another morning like this one.
Should I have just quit for the day before that many matches went by? I was trying to get all my daily stuff (the first 5 wins and the daily bonus from doing a special thing) so I wouldn't fall behind too much when relying primarily on free play. Should I try switching up decks more to try to get into a different mindset even if that doesn't really affect luck? Should I take a break and come back later? Should I adjust my lands and cantrips and stuff up and down and such a bit for psychological reinforcement even if it defies statistical sense? Should I build an even more cantrip heavy deck like a phoenix deck even if it's not my favored playstyle and switch to that on days when I hit a string of bad luck?
Never adjust your deck after bad beats to try and 'fix' flooding or screwing. It will almost always result in a worse deck, unless your deck was already improperly constructed.
When I start getting destroyed I move to another deck or I just direct challenge one of my Arena forum friends. That makes it considerable more fun.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I just had that EXACT same incident..LOL
Random: I tried putting 2x Guildgates in my deck...next 4 games in a row I drew BOTH of them in starting hand.
Although my last session would have been called MTG: Turn 1 Fanatical Firebrand. That's all I saw game after game.
Every time I play this card, the top of the deck will usually be another Frenzy on top, followed by about 10 lands in a row.
I've made the switch to Chandra, just because of pure mana flooding, even though it's a poorer card choice.
Frenzy in arena seems to be nerfed, but from what I can tell, I'm not the only one having this problem. The other burn players I come up against seem to commonly whiff on Frenzy until I kill them.
As far as mana-screw & mana-flood, I constantly have this problem too, but some decks can get around this easier than others.
The clumping of cards is a problem. But try taking a card out of a deck, and putting a new one in. I seem to get that new card in my opening hand for like the 7 or 8 games. Hmm.....
Accuracy right here. I put in ONE Dimir Guildgate in my deck as a test, and it came up EVERY game from then on. Even in consecutive hands after mulligan.
I am a noob. I have nowhere close to the right cards in the right volume to be competitive. To get there, I need to farm. Play every day, earn decks, earn wildcards, maybe get some lucky randoms, and do this over and over again, every day. So, to me, its not a fun activity. Its a job. Nothing personal. I try not to get pissed, but i still do. take a break, and then go back.
If you feel like this about a game, you should probably find something else to play...
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
Maybe I didn't word it right. What I mean is, to play the game, you need the cards. I'm not going to actually spend money on this game, so I have to farm each day for the gold to get packs to get cards and wildcards. While I am doing that, presumable for a long time, I have to try and be unemotional about the outcome of each game. I am going to keep running into people with pimped out decks, all the sweet cards and such. I just try to ignore all that, lose or hit concede and move on, and remember why I am doing it, to get the cards to one day have competitive decks. Its not about each game. its about the long term strategy. Just keep swimming...just keep swimming. Yes, its a game, but I'm not really playing it yet, because I dont have all the "game pieces". I'm "working" to "buy" the necessary cards to eventually get to play.
Ironically, this could all be saved by simple RNG. They say they use one but it seems the reality is different. We all have seen it. We all know about the 13 land red deck for example. And then there is the horrible matchmaking.
Simply, pick a random opponent from the same tier as me. Then randomly shuffle our decks and let us play. No tweaking. No messing. Whatever they do in an attempt to make things better only seems to make things worse.
Can only do so much.
This image says a lot, and this isn't an uncommon thing.