How not to be a scrub - Part 7 - The best deck - "Netdeck"ing is bad!

It has happened to everyone. Round 1 of a large tournament. You greet your opponent, shuffle up and present. You banter a little with him and everything seems friendly. You win the die roll, choose to go first and drop your Island, and then cast Delver of Secrets. Suddenly your opponents demeanor changes instantly. He gets red in the face, mutters under his breath and stops talking to you. After you handily beat him 2-0 in record time he begrudgingly signs the match slip and congratulates you on beating him with a lame "Netdeck" and the begins berating you as you put your things away on not building your own deck and playing Magic the right way.

If there ever was the battle cry of the Magic: The Gathering scrub it is this. Netdeck. NETDECK!

There are two major factors in Magic: The Gathering. Playing and deck building. You cannot have one without the other. To know how to build a competitive deck, one must know how to play. You must know how to play the current decks in the meta to be able to build a competitive deck. They go together and are not mutually exclusive to one another.

Before I begin, I need to explain a specific term. Deck tiers. The short answer is, the deck tier is roughly how good it is against the field.

Tier 0: Dominating. (Caw-Blade, Affinity)
Tier 1: The best deck(s) in the format. (Faeries, Jund, Delver, etc)
Tier 1.5: Great decks but auto losses to one of the tier 1s. (Mono Black Control today, Grixis Control vs Jund, Jund in Faeries land)
Tier 2: Solid deck. Needs work or is always a turn too slow. Can steal games. (My pet deck Time sieve when Modern first came about, always 1 turn slow)
Tier 3: Solid concept of a deck but the cards aren't right in the meta. (Right now, Turbo fog would be Tier 3)
Tier 4: Casual only. (A non-synergistic tribal deck)

I frequent the mtgsalvation.com forums quite a bit, especially the rumor mill. More importantly the developing sub-forums for standard. You can see a wide arrange of decks here. They hardly ever range above a tier 2. I see many solid decks, some excellent concepts and card interactions, some even give me excellent ideas (1). But you always see one thing in common with these threads. They don't play test, they don't refine.

Who designed Faeries? Who designed Jund? Who designed Caw-Blade? Who designed UG Madness? Truth is, if you aren't speaking about a specific build the answer is No one. No one designs these decks on their own. Every single one of those examples was designed by a team or the community at large. Each individual making incremental changes that better the deck. No one can say, "I designed Caw-Blade from scratch in its final form." It simply isn't true. In the context of Caw-Blade it was a team of several people who came up with the initial idea and the community who shaped it into what it would become.

The scrub doesn't understand this process. (True story here) In their mind Caw-Blade was designed by a single person with no help from the outside. Only the person who designed the deck could possibly play it and if you do you're just an lame net decker who can't play magic the way it was mean't to be played.

The truth is, building a deck is hard. Its more than hard its downright one of the most difficult things for an individual to do in Magic the gathering. Its so difficult in today's game, that the highest level players don't bother to even begin designing a deck anymore. They add on to an existing deck and improve it. While the team Channel Fireball may of brought Caw-Blade into the spot light in a huge way that year the deck existed prior to them getting a hold of it and improve it greatly. A couple of months down the line the magic community at large made even more improvements and continued its development to become one of the most dominating decks in a format ever. Even surpassing Affinity in terms of tournament play.

Lets not get into the other facet of the argument by saying no deck is original and someone else has come up with the idea before. With as many magic players in the world, and decks always being designed your original deck has been done before. Most likely not the same 75, but close enough the decks are the same.

In conclusion Net decking isn't "bad". The term is used by players who play the game differently than the competitive player. While in their mind they play the game right and you're wrong, but the facts of the matter don't hold water. No one designs the next Caw-blade on their own. Anyone who believes as such isn't looking at the bigger picture.

Play those net decks. Use them in tournaments. Make your community contributions to the list and further the advancement of Magic: the Gathering.




(1): For example when I designed Dredgevine at the end of the era Shards/Zend . Someone made some odd Jund colored deck trying to abuse Vengvine poorly, I then modified my mono-ish black dredge deck to include it, and eventually Blue for more card draw/dudes. After a week of constant play testing I came up with the deck. It was Tier 2, 2.5ish, and had its week in the sun. A friend of mine nearly won a 5k with it (he took it off MTGO daily results, ugh ;)

MTGO - Double Queuing M13 Release Ugh.

... As I write this I'm between rounds on the MTGO Prerelease for M13. I am double queuing. This is not a choice I made.

I hate double queuing. I can never keep the games straight, I make way more play mistakes than normal. Just now, I missed an attack with a Bladetusk boar in one game because I thought it was the OTHER Bladetusk boar I just cast in the other game. Nearly cost me the match that mistake did, with a lucky top deck of turn to slag on his Lich + Ring of Blackness (heh, seemed like a good idea from his standpoint I suppose) got me back into the game.

To make matters worse, one of my decks is 140 cards. You see the ORCs made a mistake when creating the first queues. They are all Phantom events. Phantom event means the cards you open you don't keep. This is for Newplayer events, Cube, etc, not Prerelease queues. So I'm dirdling around building my deck up and suddenly I get 25 tickets! I thought they cancelled the queue since I had read about some issues in the chat. My deck wasn't good, and I had 0 good rares (ok I had a door to nothingness, my pet card ;) but it was MY DECK DAMN IT! Oh well. I joined another queue and waited.

Suddenly, a random game launched, there it is, in all its 140 card glory. My starting hand was Island, Mountain, Swamp, Silvercoat Lion, Serra Angel and an Arbor elf...

Thanks ORCs =) Next time I'll pay attention to the windows open in MTGO and not do this.

Update: I won round one! My opponent Conceded the entire match. Thank you kindly sir. Now I just have to win one more round for a free pack! The things I do for free stuff...

Update 2: Free Queue, got a buy round 4, WOOT FREE PACK. Paid Queue: currently 3-0 with a hyper aggressive GR deck. Today is a good say thus far.

How to not be a scrub - Parts 5 & 6: Not going on Tilt and Pet cards

I'm combining both parts 5 and 6. I realized once I wrote part 5 there really isn't much to say. Learning to take a loss is personal growth. Nothing I really say will help that along. So I shortened up what I was saying and translated it to English (from incomprehensible gibberish) and present it here.

Look. The harder you take that loss, the worse you'll feel. The worse you feel will reduce your chances of winning that next round which in turns repeats the cycle. I can't say it more straight than this. Let it go, and move on. The tournament isn't over yet, keep going. You're only hurting your own chances by feeling bad about the past.

Part 6: Time to let go of Pikachu

We all have our pet cards. For me its Door to nothingness. I love this card. Its so cool, the effect is awesome, the art (both now) is incredible, and it conjures up images of my favorite fantasy concept.  Tap, YOU LOSE! Bawahaha. Enjoy your trip to New Jersey, don't forget to send a postcard! You could say my Pikachu is Door to nothingness. 

I have thrown Door to Nothingness in many decks. Any 5 color EDH deck I've built over the years, you can find this card in the list. Of the casual decks I've made (I have some friends who have 0 interest in draft, competitive, etc. Since I'm not going to bring Delver to play against them I have to have a casual deck or two that aren't EDH decks, its a sacrifice I make) Door to Nothingness is always in them. At one point I owned a little over 500 of them. I have alters, I have a few misprints. I love this freaking card. When it was reprinted in M13, I'm not ashamed to say this, I jizzed in my pants. 

However, outside of some outlying situations, I have never diluted myself into considering it to be a competitive level card. It just isn't there, and never will be unless some sort of incredible power level shifts in the cards happen where this is a constructed bomb:

Yes, thats a 5 mana 2/2 that doesn't let your lands untap next turn. This is the kind of power level we need for Door to Nothingness to be a competitive level card. 

Now don't get me wrong, I have tried to make this card competitive several times. When Modern was announced, I took my pet deck (Time Sieve, more on this below) and updated it with Modern cards. It was always 1 turn too slow against the then combo decks. One of the cards I added was a single Door to Nothingness. It gave me an alternate win condition. The deck was fine for it, mana generation was not an issue, including colored mana. (I routinely created 15+ mana with Amulet of Vigor and Borderposts, when I played it and mana of all colors was not impossible) It still didn't work. Eldrazi, another time walk, anything was better than the Door. 

If I had ended up taking this deck to a tournament, I would of been laughed at, and rightfully so. Pet cards, especially those in the realm of casual only are just that. Casual. Sure you may mise a few wins with your pet card and it will make you feel really good. But unless your pet card is Snapcaster Mage, leave them in your trade binder if you want to win a PTQ. 

Standard Thoughts: Choosing a standard deck for MTGO.

I'll be honest, I haven't played standard in quite some time now. Things in my life prevented me from playing mostly due to lack of money and time from a crappy job. Since I sold most of my physical cards to eat during this time, I no longer have staples. Staples are expensive. So I've been looking hard for a deck to play and make some tickets to build up a collection. I've spent the last month pouring over decklists, reading reports, playing various decks in my mind trying to come up with the ultimate deck. Also, money is a concern. Such is life.

So here are my options, and my thoughts on each deck.

B/R Zombies
I was captivated by Tom Ma's stream playing B/R Zombies. I learned at GP Anaheim how powerful bonfire truly is by going 6-3, and having to read my opponents cards every round. This is what Tom was playing.

--- B/R Zombies: Tom Ma build ---


4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Dragonskull Summit
12x Swamps
3x Mountain
3x Tragic Slip
4x Diregraf Ghoul
2x Fume Spitter
4x Gravecrawler
3x Geth's Verdict
3x Blood Artist
4x Highborn Ghoul
2x Walking Corpse
4x Brimstone Volley
4x Geralf's Messenger
2x Falkenrath Aristocrat
2x Bonfire of the Damned

---- Sideboard ----

2x Pillar of Flame
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Shrine of Burning Rage
2x Crypt Keeper
2x Manic Vandal
1x Sever the Bloodline
1x Skinrender
2x Zealous Conscription
1x Bonfire of the Damned

* Deck copied off his stream, might be 2 mountains not 3, unsure as I couldn't see it all.

Two issues. The deck is aprox 200 tickets. Quite a steep price. Even after selling my JTMS's online I'm still quite short. Bonfire is 30 each alone, plus the Aristocrats are 20/each. Everything is manageable. I cannot commit to this deck with a sound mind purely because I truly don't believe either one of those cards is worth it. The second reason is, B/R zombies is not a "deck" yet. Its Tier 1.5 at best. Now while I advocate in my Scrub column to never consider cost if you're trying to play your best, cost for me is a major factor in my decision simply because I'm not trying to give my self the best shot at winning a PTQ and getting on the next pro tour. My goal is small, win some tickets and get back into magic.

Now with rotation happening online tomorrow, my deck selection has gone up. A few new arrivals have shown up, most notable mono-u wizards. Looking at the top 8 for the StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States on 2012-07-22 I noticed a trend from the previous weeks. B/R Zombies is now a real deck, took not only 1st place, but another similar build took 3rd. 8th and 13th we're also Zombie builds of some sort. Thats a huge step above the previous weeks. Zombies is now a real deck! My choice has been made!

Only one problem, I have a personal dislike when grinding for tickets on MTGO. I hate the mirror. I hate playing mirror matches like I hate trimming my ear hair. (I'm getting older, what do you want) When I'm grinding for tickets, I want fast, effective decks that require little to no thought from myself once I'm familiar with the deck. I don't want to think about, "Is this card better now, or this one" i want to go, oh, this setup, I play card X because of Y and Z. Mirror matches are all about thought process. Who can process the game state better while reading their opponents better. I bring this up because, now that Zombies is on the scene, people will play it online. Sadly my search continues.

Next deck: Delver.
Take a look at this bad boy here. Pretty sexy isn't it. Sadly this is the style of deck I can't grind with at this time. If, by chance I had been playing since Innistrad came about I would have no issue with grinding with an aggro control deck. It's my style. It's what I do best. The problem stems from, I haven't been playing long enough with or against it to understand the deck. It would take me a month of solid play to really feel comfortable with the deck and format to be able to make tickets online. That leaves me with only 2 months of pure grinding. While this deck remains in my top choices (I may even be able to borrow it completely which negates the cost issue, granted I have 2 snapcasters and 3 Restoration angels from Inn drafts last week now) I want to give myself the most possible time grinding as possible before rotation so I can be up on the cards and meta and dive right into my favorite time of magic, a set rotation.

Round 2: G/R Aggro
So beautiful, So wonderful, so Aggro. I have had a leg up on this deck by being dragged to standard daily tournaments by my best friend with this deck. (He handed it to me, told me to play, went 4-0 five days in a row). This deck is the best grinding option for me. It's powerful, its fun, and requires little thought once I get use to it. I've watched Cedric Phillip's streams religiously since he began and I love the deck. Even playing against it during GP Anaheim gave me respect for the deck. This is my #1 option. The problem? Sadly cost.
Most lists run 2-3 swords, 4x Bonfires and 4x Huntsmaster of the Fells. Thats $300 in JUST those cards. When we factor in new 'hot' cards for the deck like Thundermaw hellkite and Thragtusk, the price will skyrocket tomorrow. Sigh.

A new Contender: frites
Seen here. I love me reanimator in legacy and vintage. (One of the few Vintage decks I own is a JTMS Reanimator hybrid, down to 8 proxies). I just have one answer to this deck: Grafdigger's Cage. Normally I would say this isn't a card. Same with Surgical Extraction. These aren't magic cards. They're trap filler cards. Except in this context. I'm grinding on MTGO. Someone WILL intentionally hate me out with this card. They'll lose, during the match modify their deck, and rejoin the queue when I do. It happened a lot when I was grinding with Time Sieve. (Side note: Don't grind with a heavy trigger based combo deck on MTGO.. its a bad idea) It will happen again with Frites. I love the deck concept, but I dislike the MTGO queue players.

Honorable Mention: Esper Aggro.
I'll admit this deck intrigues me. I have some of the cards already and it seems easy enough to play. I'll seriously look into this deck in the next few days.

So for now, I'm deckless. My time is running shorter for grinding season every day I linger my soul on this decision. Maybe the Day of judgement will come soon for my decision...

... I've been reading too many LSV articles.

How to not be a scrub - Part 4: Knowing your outs - Never give up, never concede.

"Never give up! Never surrender!". Ahh Galaxy Quest. An excellent 1999 parody film. But we aren't here to talk about old, awesome Tim Allen movies today. We're here to talk about not giving up a game you still have a chance to win. The movie's tag line however embodies today's lesson perfectly.

All to many times I've seen my opponents, both new and old just give up a game in a tournament setting. They think its hopeless. Sure they may have to draw perfectly the next three turns to get out of the situation, but they still give up. I, for the life of me cannot figure out why. There is always that chance it happens. The game isn't over until you sign the match slip.

Let me first start off by saying this. There are situations where it is perfectly acceptable to give up early. Your opponent's combo deck is solid and is going off and you have zero counters for it. You know this deck is consistent to military time, and your opponent has never (okay rarely) makes a mistake going off. Time in the round is short and you just want to get to game three to have a chance. This is acceptable. Another situation that comes to mind is practicing. A good practice group knows when the chance to win is 1 in a million. Once that situation has established, it is acceptable to enter your scoop phase and go on to another game. More games means more practice. These situations are the exception, not the rule. If you're in a tournament, don't give your opponent a win unnecessarily.

Gather around, its story time.

I'm going to paint a picture of a tournament I played a few years back. Jund was the new faeries and everyone played it, including myself. It was the night before a large SuperStars 5k invitational event, and I played the last chance qualifiers (For byes) to get in. I played, you guessed it, Jund. It was horrible. My technique sucked, I casted Blightning first in the mirror several times, I always cascaded into Goblin Ruinblaster without kicker mana. Hell, I even lightning bolted one guys Putrid Leech prior to him pumping it. I was off my game.

I went home that night defeated. I knew my pet deck (1) Grixis Control just wouldn't cut it in a field of Nissa's Elves and Boros. Both pretty weak matchups for me. I had a few options at my disposal for the tournament in 12 hours. I could play Jund again and hope for the best. I could play Elves which had been pretty good to me. I could just hope for good matchups with Grixis, or, I could build a new deck no ones seen. I took the last option and build a very solid Mono-Green ramp, big dudes, Eldrazi Monument deck. Sleeved it up, typed my decklist, printed and got some sleep.

The tournament was a breeze. I went 9-0 before cut to top 32 without dropping a single game. My super sideboard tech against Open the Vaults (the one that uses creatures, not my precious Time Sieve deck) worked 3 times to insane results. Nothing could get in my way. Until the top 32 came.

Round 10, I was matched up against Shahar Shenhar. This was prior to his rise to fame and was still a kid. He was playing Naya. I knew this matchup would be easy for me. All I needed was to throw guys in his way, drop monument and bash face. Easy right? Well, game 1 was easy. I crushed him. No mercy was shown. Noble into Leatherback Baloth, into Noble + Huntsmaster into Monument. Boom. Headshot.

Game 2 is the lesson. Shahar allowed me to make a mistake, and I did. He started off strong as did I. He got me down to 1 life (he was at 19 or so) and I finally was able to drop a monument and stabilize. The turn after the monument was the critical one. I had 14 damage exactly, except I had sacrificed a Wolf (2/2) token instead of a Snake (1/1) token leaving me at exactly 13 damage. I knew what I did exactly when I did it. I had already done the math. I was so use to sacrificing a wolf token to the monument that I had forgotten about the snake from my Cone of Dudes.

Suddenly I was on the back foot. Shahar had a gigantic Knight of the Reliquary with a Behemoth sledge attached. I had just enough creature toughness to not die on the board if I blocked with everything. I couldn't attack, I couldn't slowly chip away at his life total. All he had to do was top deck a lightning bolt, or another sledge, or a knight of the reliquary, or any number of things for the win. The crowd started gathering.

The game went on. Every turn I either top decked another creature to counteract the increasing size of Knight of the Reliquary, and Shahar top decked more fetch lands and was slowly thinning his deck trying to get one of three lightning bolts left in it. Eventually he started to attack with extra Knights, gaining more and more life, putting my large in number but small in power army ever so slightly behind every turn. Every end of turn, one of us had the upper hand and would win, and the following turn reverse those fortunes. Every turn we had to count up the combat damage to confirm the standstill. Neither one of us would give up, we both had outs.

Luckily for me, I eventually got another Eldrazi Monument, plopped it down and went sideways for the win. Dealing something like 50+ damage in that turn. Lightning bolt was the top card of his deck. Neither one of us gave up on this game. Every turn we had to draw either the final answer, or something to counteract an alpha strike, anything else would of resulted in a loss.

I'm using this example for one reason. (Not because it has a now big name in MTG) But because it was one of my most memorable games. Both of us were losing, both of us had outs, both of us could of just given up at any time. I heard the comments from the very large group of spectators that I should concede, or Shahar should concede based on the board situation all the time during that match. Things like, "Well hes losing and its not getting better, I would concede if I were him referring to both of us at various times. In the end, we both played to our outs. His Lightning bolts, or my Monuments.

In closing just remember this. If you're playing for money, don't just give up. Even if your opponent restarts the game with Karn and has a Platinum Empirion + 4 lands on turn 0. Just don't do it. If there is a glimmer of hope, or a lightning bolt of a chance, go for it. Its money. You don't have to be the good guy, and no one with a brain will fault you for doing it.


(1): Remember what I said about Pet decks? (or will say, if forget ;) I built this puppy, and it was a tier 1 deck for quite some time. I cannot take all the credit, but I can safely say my build was the foundation for all other Grixis Control decks to come that season. I played it because one thing, after 500+ matches, I had a 56% chance of beating Jund. Also, Cruel Ultimatum is the best spell in Magic: The Gathering to cast.

How to not be a scrub - Part 3: Unfun magic archetypes - How I stopped worrying and loved the counterspell.

There was a Daily MTG article a few years back that I can't seem to find. It said something very striking to me. Casual players feel worse when their big Craw wurm is counter spelled, than if it was doom bladed right after it came into play. They felt like they at least did something. This sums up the casual player. Both effects are the same; the Craw Wurm is in the graveyard and I'm down a card.

Scrubs tend to keep this mentality with them when they first enter competitive magic. They feel control decks are unfun. They feel combo decks are not interactive enough. They feel you're "rushing" with a red deck, you aren't giving them a fair chance(1).

I honestly don't know what heart warming thing to say to make you, the aspiring competitive player to get over these mentalities. Suck it up. Suck. It. Up.

These things are apart of the game. Control decks (Casual hated), Sleigh decks (mono red), Mid-ranged creature decks (Casual favorites) and combo decks (Universally disliked by all). If you remove one archetype, you screw up the universal magic balance chart. Whats the universal balance chart you ask? Its simple, allow me to show you.

Small Creature Aggro  -> Beats Control
Mid-ranged-> Beats small creature
Control decks -> Beats small creature aggro.
Combo decks -> Depending on the combo, inserts itself randomly in this chart as the meta dictates.

Sure there are crossovers, (aggro/control, combo/control, Midranged/Control) that pop up every once in a while to shake things up or ruin things (think Caw-blade) but this is the standard deviation of deck archetypes that make up EVERY magic tournament(2).

Good players gravitate to the best decks. Sometimes the best deck is a control deck, other times its a midrange deck. And every so rarely an aggro deck.We play the best decks because we want to win. We aren't there to necessarily have fun while playing the game. We want to win the prize, be it packs or cold hard cash. We don't care if its enjoyable for you to turn 30+ Craw wurm style creatures 60 turns into the game. That isn't why we are at the tournament.

The aspiring scrub should ALSO be working to that goal. If you never play control decks because of your own prejudices against the archetype as a whole, you are only hurting yourself in a tournament setting.

Lets break here for a moment to understand how tournaments work in a magic setting. Remember a few articles back when I talked about randomness? Tournaments are random as well. Assuming you play perfectly and have a random matchup selection, you are rolling the dice against your deck's win percentage. Occasionally you'll hear people say something like, "My deck has a 60% win ratio against deck X" or 40%, or 75%, or whatever number they pull out of their ass at the time the question is asked. Truth is, there real numbers behind this. High level competitive players use these real numbers to determine if a deck is good or not.

As I write this in July 2012, the best deck in standard is Delver. A UW control/aggro deck everyone hates. Recently during a starcity games event, the casters revealed it had a roughly 52% chance to win. This is over hundreds of matches during that day and adding in a few other events. 52%. This is the BEST deck in standard. It was still played by some of the best players in the magic scene. Why? Because it has the best winning chance over all the other decks in the format at 52%. This may not seem like much, but it can be the difference between day 2, and going home early in a 9+ round tournament. You should take something from this small fact. A few percentage points different, and it wouldn't be the best deck in the format. Football may be a game of inches. Magic is a game of 1%.

There is another reason to play other decks. To get you out of your comfort zone so you CAN play the best deck, and to know your opponents deck better than they do. This is what makes LSV LSV, and not some random PTQ player.



Footnotes:



(1): True story, in one of my rare screw it moments, I played a mono red burn deck, second round opponent told me to stop rushing him. Uh, I wasn't aware I was playing Starcraft here and my Goblin guide was a zergling... but thanks for the round 2 win in a 250 person 5k tournament... I'll be sure not to rush my next opponent and give him a sporting chance at $5,000.

(2): Ok not vintage. Vintage is about casting Jace the Mind Sculptor and protecting it till he ultimates, be it from inf turns with time vault, or countering it. Everything else however...
Also worth noting, the more eternal a format is, the more crossover archetypes get.

How to not be a scrub - Part 2: Mana Screw - I could of won if I just had one more mana...

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.

How to not be a scrub - Part 1: Shuffling - Can you shuffle too much?

Every day Kibler's shuffl'n. Theres a good reason for it. Magic is a game of odds. Your deck choice, card distribution, even down to the die roll. Every thing you do in Magic: The Gathering is based on a chance. Even someone of Brian Kibler's caliber can lose against a person who's never played outside of Duels of the Planeswalkers. One of the biggest things that separates the the best players from your average kitchen table Magic player is one thing, playing to your outs.

What is an out? In simplistic terms, it is a card, or line of plays that allows you to get out of a losing situation, or outright win the game. Picture this, you're playing a core set draft, you have a fireball in your hand, but no red mana sources in play. You're going to lose next turn from his massive, about to be overruned army. Do you give up? Of course not, it isn't over until someone is at 0 life. (More on this in part 4), you cast your ponder, no mountains. You opt to shuffle your remaining 20 cards, draw, a mountain! You fireball them for the win! But what does this have to do with shuffling you ask?

You just played the odds. Your odds of drawing the one mountain were 1 in 20 (5%) off the ponder. (To save you from maths, i'll spare you the calculations for ponder as well). The better you shuffle, the more in line your odds will be with actual statistics allowing you to draw that mountain.

Since you're more likely an aspiring scrub looking to get away from scrubyness by reading these, you have undoubtedly heard the term, "Mana Pocket", or terms like "mana weaving". In short, there should never been whats called a "mana pocket", nor should mana weaving be valid (its actually against the DCI rules, and considered deck stacking, just FYI). If you shuffle enough, and play enough games, these will never be issues outside the normal distribution curve.

In closing, shuffle your deck. Shuffle often. Shuffle more. Shuffle your opponents deck. Everyday you should be shuffling so you can play the odds, and not mana screw because of your bad shuffling.

How to not be a Magic: The Gathering scrub - Introduction

I've recently started watching a lot more Magic: The Gathering streams on twitch and other sources. One thing I've gathered from reading the chat is, there are a lot of MTG scrubs in the world. I wish to dispel some of the myths and beliefs these "scrubs" hold in order to make you a better player.

Firstly, what is a scrub? Urban dictionary claims its from the depths of arcades in the mid 90's. These people would "scrub" the buttons in fighting games. While I disagree with this history, and being an arcade dweller in the 90's we just called them button mashers, the term is an accurate way to describe poorer players. People who don't play to win, have no grasp on the game concepts, or are just generally annoying to play against. What sets a scrub apart from the casual players is one thing, they try to win and consider themselves good. 

In this series, I'll address some of the habits of the scrub. Things they do which can be fixed easily. Many of these are just attitude adjustments, or play style habits that can be resolved. If you're a scrub take heart, you don't have to be one much longer.

Part 1: Shuffling - Can you shuffle too much?

Part 2: Mana Screw - I could of won if I just had one more mana...

Part 3: Unfun magic archetypes - How I stopped worrying and loved the counterspell.

Part 4: Knowing your outs - Never give up, never concede.

Part 5: Tournament losing - How to not go on tilt and lose more.

Part 6: Pet cards - Is it time to let go of Pikachu?

Part 7: The best deck - "Netdeck"ing is bad!

Part 8: Complaining - If I only... if you hadn't top decked... if you blocked this way...

Part 9:  Conclusion - I'm not a scrub! You just suck!

Update: I'm cutting "Part 8: Deck Building - All I need to do is draw all 5 of these cards and I can win..." This deserves its own hardcover book devoted to the art of deck building. I am no where near adept enough to begin covering the concept and where people go wrong. I've tried writing this section several times and came up with even more basic overviews of dos and don'ts. Thats not what I want. I may overview generic deck building for the rotation, aka How to build a control deck in a new format, but thats not how to not be a scrub.