Matchmaking is WAY off..Playing the beginner decks or Planeswalker Intro decks against Control, RDW and other top 8 is just not my thing. Another example, I had to play 20 black spells to gain 500 coins - so I slapped together as many low cmc cards as possible. Diregraf Ghoul The 0/3 that surveils. So on so forth. NO rares, NO dual lands all basics, yet I am STILL playing against the same kind of deck..a form of control or Izzet blah blah.
Also my gawd the stalling on there. I play a Prowling Caracal. They pause to look at it. I play ANOTHER Caracal. They pause to look at it. They start letting the timer run down. Before my end step, they hang. Before I attack, they hang. Even if they have no mana available etc.
Stalling is a way to transfer the stress of being matched with someone who obvious has been playing since beta and also spent $5000 on the game, has 4 of every tier 1 mythics, dual lands, everything. In addition, getting matched with decks specifically chosen by the match maker to screw you over, as well as getting land raped. It makes me feel better to make the other guy have to pay for his win with a little waiting while I go off and make some coffee. And hell, sometimes they concede over frustration.
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Warning issued for casual use of "raped"
Stalling is rude. If winning means that much to you, you should probably buy a better deck. No shame in buying into something you really enjoy and spend a lot of time on, even if its just digital.
Stalling is rude. If winning means that much to you, you should probably buy a better deck. No shame in buying into something you really enjoy and spend a lot of time on, even if its just digital.
It is kind of a catch-22. I agree it might be worth buying into something, but I need to evaluate the game first, and I cant without a competitive deck or 2. Having super-uber-elite decks to play against rookies like me is also rude, yet the game doesn't provide a filtering system to have the guys with the pimped out decks to play against the other guys with pimped out decks and the rookies play against the rookies.
I'm sorry if stalling is an issue for you. Its nothing personal. I only need my 15 wins per day. Just be patient. You will win the game shortly. Just accept it. If you can't, just concede and move on. it will get me to my 15 wins that much faster and you wont see me for the rest of the day.
Stalling is rude. If winning means that much to you, you should probably buy a better deck. No shame in buying into something you really enjoy and spend a lot of time on, even if its just digital.
It is kind of a catch-22. I agree it might be worth buying into something, but I need to evaluate the game first, and I cant without a competitive deck or 2. Having super-uber-elite decks to play against rookies like me is also rude, yet the game doesn't provide a filtering system to have the guys with the pimped out decks to play against the other guys with pimped out decks and the rookies play against the rookies.
I'm sorry if stalling is an issue for you. Its nothing personal. I only need my 15 wins per day. Just be patient. You will win the game shortly. Just accept it. If you can't, just concede and move on. it will get me to my 15 wins that much faster and you wont see me for the rest of the day.
It's not a catch 22 at all, Stalling is simply rude. If you are fine acting rude then that is a decision you have made, but don't pretend that it isn't rude. There is a large group of people that find being rude in specific ways to be OK, while others believe you should never be rude. I also believe there are times and places where its appropriate but I'm not going to claim I'm not being rude at those points.
Deliberately stalling is against the rules of magic. Under bug reports, there is an option to report for player conduct. Expect to see your account sanctioned if you keep it up.
You are abusing the program and violating the rules to try and make other people have an unpleasant time without playing or trying to win the game. These forum have rules that forbid me from telling you what I think of you, but I'm sure you can guess.
If I am constantly playing my best hand, but its a pee wee football team level and coming up against the New England patriots over and over again, that's rude. Those players are giving me an unpleasant time, and, the match-making algorithm is giving them an unpleasant time by pitting them against non-challenging foes. Or are you saying you enjoy being a bully and beating up on little guys? Most people find that rude as well.
This game needs to have tiers or match play based on how powerful one player's entire collection is vs another. In baseball, the little league teams don't play the major league teams. IN martial arts, the black belts don't compete against the white belts. I wouldn't pay them a cent for this game if they continue to have this bullying is good mentality.
If I am constantly playing my best hand, but its a pee wee football team level and coming up against the New England patriots over and over again, that's rude. Those players are giving me an unpleasant time, and, the match-making algorithm is giving them an unpleasant time by pitting them against non-challenging foes. Or are you saying you enjoy being a bully and beating up on little guys? Most people find that rude as well.
This game needs to have tiers or match play based on how powerful one player's entire collection is vs another. In baseball, the little league teams don't play the major league teams. IN martial arts, the black belts don't compete against the white belts. I wouldn't pay them a cent for this game if they continue to have this bullying is good mentality.
There is indeed problems with the match making system. But a system isn't rude, plying the game you are given isn't rude. Getting upset at the system and then deliberately trying to waste someone's time is rude. The person you are stalling hasn't done anything to you, you've even said it isn't personal, you are just being rude in an attempt to gain a few bits of joy out of making someone miserable. If you are mad at the system then don't take it out on the players. Drop every unfair match and complain to Wizards because your method only shows that there is a problem with jerks stalling, not a problem with the matchmaking system.
If I am constantly playing my best hand, but its a pee wee football team level and coming up against the New England patriots over and over again, that's rude. Those players are giving me an unpleasant time, and, the match-making algorithm is giving them an unpleasant time by pitting them against non-challenging foes. Or are you saying you enjoy being a bully and beating up on little guys? Most people find that rude as well.
This game needs to have tiers or match play based on how powerful one player's entire collection is vs another. In baseball, the little league teams don't play the major league teams. IN martial arts, the black belts don't compete against the white belts. I wouldn't pay them a cent for this game if they continue to have this bullying is good mentality.
There is indeed problems with the match making system. But a system isn't rude, plying the game you are given isn't rude. Getting upset at the system and then deliberately trying to waste someone's time is rude. The person you are stalling hasn't done anything to you, you've even said it isn't personal, you are just being rude in an attempt to gain a few bits of joy out of making someone miserable. If you are mad at the system then don't take it out on the players. Drop every unfair match and complain to Wizards because your method only shows that there is a problem with jerks stalling, not a problem with the matchmaking system.
On the contrary, I AM playing the game I am given. If even 1 person out of 50 drops the match because of the delay and gives me a win, that's just part of the system provided. It all honestly, the delaying seems to happen to me far more often than I am doing it to anyone else. And, when I am doing it, it is mostly not intentional.
@SardoNespa: I honestly do not understand the incentives for stalling for all.
First, why not quit instead of stalling? If it only takes you 2 minutes to load up and recognize an unwinnable matchup and 10 minutes to stall a game to the best of your ability, you could see five times as many decks by just quitting. Even if the matchmaker throws you against unwinnable opponents 90% of the time, you would still encounter far more games that you could actually play (and would gain wins at a comparable rate if you are a decent player). While one could argue that it shouldn't have to be your job to wade through a messy matchmaker system, you are making the conscious choice to frustrate other people instead of sitting with your frustration on your own, seeing a larger number of actual games, and claiming similar levels of reward.
Also, how do you know how optimized your opponent's deck is? Do you cast unmoored ego and search their library to make sure that your opponent is a "five-thousand-dollar-paying-playing-since-beta-arena-whale" before you start stalling? Did you somehow divine that the Chainwhirler your opponent just dropped is part of a playset instead of being the only copy owned by a player trying to ape a successful strategy with their own limited resources? Is stalling against anyone with $5 to spend on special sleeves fair game? In most cases, we don't know how optimized our opponent's decks are (unless they are a famous streamer, in which case trolling their streams with stalling is totally uncool). We can see what archetype a player is going for but we have no idea if they actually have all of the cards until the very late game, at which point stalling is petty but not too disruptive.
TLDR:
1. If playing the "matchmaker lottery" has a chance of providing winnable games, you can't really claim that you are winning in the only way you can.
2. Even if you "recognize" a deck or archetype, you can't really automatically assume that it is a fully-optimized version as you might if you saw it at Friday Night Magic. Using a couple cards that you see to assume that a player "deserves" to be stalled is not nice.
I'm sorry if any of that sounds mean. You claim up above that you generally do not do this (at least not intentionally) in most games so I'm not really chewing you out in particular. Just trying to wrap my mind around the mindset here as you seem to be playing the devil's advocate.
Sure. But maybe they're not stalling?
On occasion the server is reeeeeaaaaaaaaally slow for me, but my opponent seems to be able to play the game just fine.
I might struggle to play a land before I run out of time due to the game not responding sometimes... just sayin.
This game needs to have tiers or match play based on how powerful one player's entire collection is vs another.
Entire collection? I disagree.
I do think the matchmaking needs some serious work however. Maybe along the lines of win-streaks or win percentage of the deck you're playing? That way if you decide to play some silly deck just for fun, you're not immediately coming up against Esper-Control.
Personally, I would base matchmaking on three different criteria (number of wins, deck strength, and collection size)
First, I would use collection power and deck power to divide players into four player pools
1. Bad Deck + Small collection = new player
2. Good Deck + Small collection = Semi-Competitive
3. Bad deck + Huge collection = casual game
4. Good Deck + Huge collection = competitive
Further, if you get a sizeable winning streak, you would be matched against players one level up.
Sure. But maybe they're not stalling?
On occasion the server is reeeeeaaaaaaaaally slow for me, but my opponent seems to be able to play the game just fine.
I might struggle to play a land before I run out of time due to the game not responding sometimes... just sayin.
We were discussing deliberate match stalling with someone who said they did it because the matchmaking system was screwing them over. I am very aware that the game is far from perfect and boots people off at random times when they have been playing too long.
You mean you dont think it takes me 3 minutes a turn to decide what card I should play next in the same mono-red deck I've been playing since Amokhet? But what about when I only have one mana and need to decide if I should drop my Fanatical Firebrand or my Githu Lavarunner? That takes at least 4 minutes because I need to write out on paper the pros and cons of each and then flip a coin to get a best-of-7 result.
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Also my gawd the stalling on there. I play a Prowling Caracal. They pause to look at it. I play ANOTHER Caracal. They pause to look at it. They start letting the timer run down. Before my end step, they hang. Before I attack, they hang. Even if they have no mana available etc.
It is kind of a catch-22. I agree it might be worth buying into something, but I need to evaluate the game first, and I cant without a competitive deck or 2. Having super-uber-elite decks to play against rookies like me is also rude, yet the game doesn't provide a filtering system to have the guys with the pimped out decks to play against the other guys with pimped out decks and the rookies play against the rookies.
I'm sorry if stalling is an issue for you. Its nothing personal. I only need my 15 wins per day. Just be patient. You will win the game shortly. Just accept it. If you can't, just concede and move on. it will get me to my 15 wins that much faster and you wont see me for the rest of the day.
You are abusing the program and violating the rules to try and make other people have an unpleasant time without playing or trying to win the game. These forum have rules that forbid me from telling you what I think of you, but I'm sure you can guess.
This game needs to have tiers or match play based on how powerful one player's entire collection is vs another. In baseball, the little league teams don't play the major league teams. IN martial arts, the black belts don't compete against the white belts. I wouldn't pay them a cent for this game if they continue to have this bullying is good mentality.
On the contrary, I AM playing the game I am given. If even 1 person out of 50 drops the match because of the delay and gives me a win, that's just part of the system provided. It all honestly, the delaying seems to happen to me far more often than I am doing it to anyone else. And, when I am doing it, it is mostly not intentional.
First, why not quit instead of stalling? If it only takes you 2 minutes to load up and recognize an unwinnable matchup and 10 minutes to stall a game to the best of your ability, you could see five times as many decks by just quitting. Even if the matchmaker throws you against unwinnable opponents 90% of the time, you would still encounter far more games that you could actually play (and would gain wins at a comparable rate if you are a decent player). While one could argue that it shouldn't have to be your job to wade through a messy matchmaker system, you are making the conscious choice to frustrate other people instead of sitting with your frustration on your own, seeing a larger number of actual games, and claiming similar levels of reward.
Also, how do you know how optimized your opponent's deck is? Do you cast unmoored ego and search their library to make sure that your opponent is a "five-thousand-dollar-paying-playing-since-beta-arena-whale" before you start stalling? Did you somehow divine that the Chainwhirler your opponent just dropped is part of a playset instead of being the only copy owned by a player trying to ape a successful strategy with their own limited resources? Is stalling against anyone with $5 to spend on special sleeves fair game? In most cases, we don't know how optimized our opponent's decks are (unless they are a famous streamer, in which case trolling their streams with stalling is totally uncool). We can see what archetype a player is going for but we have no idea if they actually have all of the cards until the very late game, at which point stalling is petty but not too disruptive.
TLDR:
1. If playing the "matchmaker lottery" has a chance of providing winnable games, you can't really claim that you are winning in the only way you can.
2. Even if you "recognize" a deck or archetype, you can't really automatically assume that it is a fully-optimized version as you might if you saw it at Friday Night Magic. Using a couple cards that you see to assume that a player "deserves" to be stalled is not nice.
I'm sorry if any of that sounds mean. You claim up above that you generally do not do this (at least not intentionally) in most games so I'm not really chewing you out in particular. Just trying to wrap my mind around the mindset here as you seem to be playing the devil's advocate.
Sure. But maybe they're not stalling?
On occasion the server is reeeeeaaaaaaaaally slow for me, but my opponent seems to be able to play the game just fine.
I might struggle to play a land before I run out of time due to the game not responding sometimes... just sayin.
Entire collection? I disagree.
I do think the matchmaking needs some serious work however. Maybe along the lines of win-streaks or win percentage of the deck you're playing? That way if you decide to play some silly deck just for fun, you're not immediately coming up against Esper-Control.
First, I would use collection power and deck power to divide players into four player pools
1. Bad Deck + Small collection = new player
2. Good Deck + Small collection = Semi-Competitive
3. Bad deck + Huge collection = casual game
4. Good Deck + Huge collection = competitive
Further, if you get a sizeable winning streak, you would be matched against players one level up.