Today we'll be talking about mana screw. This is mostly theory, but its important to take to heart. It happens to everyone. You draw your first seven cards, see 2 land and a bunch of gas and never seen another land again. I could go into shuffling practices and theories which help reduce mana screw (by normalizing draws to a random distribution) but I won't. What I will talk about today is two fold. Making use of what you have, not going on tilt, and how to survive to flip more cards in hopes of a land.
Making use of what you have separates the good players from the poor players. Stuck on 3 land with a Day of Judgement in your hand facing down an army of opposing creatures you're only job should be surviving long enough to draw the needed land to cast day of judgement and seal the win. How do you do this? Proper blocking and use of your spells in hand that you can cast. While these are highly dependent on the exact game, it can all be summed up in a single thought: Stay alive as long as possible. Make trades that are advantages to you, use removal on the ones you can't block.
On the flip side of this, lets say you keep a hand of 2 lands, 3x 4 CMC, and 2x 5CMC and you end up mana screwed and can't do anything. This is your own fault. One of the key rules of mulliganing hands is, If you never draw another land this game, do you still have gas? If you can't cast what you have in your starting hand with the mana in hand and 1 more, the hand is not keepable. Sure it may of been godly, would of won, should of won, etc etc etc. Truth is, you kept a bad hand and you paid the price.
Watch some videos of non-LSV players (LSV tends to keep sketchy hands and just happens to draw the one of land he needs... you and I aren't as lucky as him. I mean, have you SEEN his wife? yeesh, that guy). Every hand they're thinking about throwing back always contains some sort of gas on Hand Land + 1. Depending on the format this turns into just the mana you have in hand. The most skill intensive part of magic happens BEFORE the game even begins. Think carefully before accepting the hand about what your lines of play will be. If it requires a god draw of cards xyz in order abc to be good, throw it back. You should never let your game be decided by randomness when you can help it.
The most important thing you can do is not let the game get to you. It takes time, and practice but what will hold you back the most from becoming a strong magic player (and indeed many other games, and life itself) is looking past the last small failure and moving forward. I can't tell you the exact steps to do this, its more of a personal growth thing. It comes down to one thing.
Shit happens. Get over it, and stop keeping bad hands.
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