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Magic: the Gathering - Shadows over Innistrad |OT| Blue's Clues

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K

kirblar

Member
That 30% loss percentage- the majority of it is going to be non-games. When you have a really good matchup- what's the upper bound on your win %? It's not 100. It's usually 75-80%.

Mirror that, and suddenly, you realize a significant number of games are already over before they start. The goal is then fighting over that middle 40-60% of winnable games. The reason you "feel" the amount is higher is because you spend way more time in the real games, because the non-games are over fast.

edit: For an example of this- look at the way winrates crater in limited play the moment you mulligan.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
charlequin said:
No, there is not remotely any way in which this is an issue. Strong players win very consistently (modulated by effectiveness in deck choice, for constructed formats.) When OP wants to have an event that is almost entirely skill-based, they can do team sealed, a format where performance is so directly correlated to skill that it's actually kind of boring to follow.
Click to expand...

Ain't nothing boring about watching Infiltration win literally every Street Fighter V tournament he enters.
 
K

kirblar

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";202881499]Ain't nothing boring about watching Infiltration win literally every Street Fighter V tournament he enters.[/QUOTE]
The Chris Moneymaker aspect is really important to MTG because of it being so awful as a spectator event.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
kirblar said:
That 30% loss percentage- the majority of it is going to be non-games. When you have a really good matchup- what's the upper bound on your win %? It's not 100. It's usually 75-80%.

Mirror that, and suddenly, you realize a significant number of games are already over before they start. The goal is then fighting over that middle 40-60% of winnable games. The reason you "feel" the amount is higher is because you spend way more time in the real games, because the non-games are over fast.

edit: For an example of this- look at the way winrates crater in limited play the moment you mulligan.
Click to expand...

Not at all, a bunch of that is bad matchups. Every deck has that 1 deck they hope to dodge all tournament.
 
W

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I would say that there are so many factors at play when it comes to equally-skilled players losing that pointing to a single cause of loss percentage and saying "this is why" is impossible. Variance is obviously a large percentage of it, but the types of variance are huge and are inextricable from the game we're talking about.

Yes, part of that is the mana system occasionally screwing you up. But part of that is the color pie. Part of that is the non-mana draws. Some of that is pairings when playing. Some of that is deck selection that while otherwise is a skill play, being entirely random based on who you play that day. Some of that is format specific (limited passes, sealed opens). What percentage do these factors play in?

Some of that is based on player ego. I'm quite sure there are local grinders (because I've met them, I hazard a guess that many of y'all have to) that style themselves as just as good as the pros. They may think they're equally skilled, but they ain't. Or brewers who totally think their T3 zombie deck (cough) will totes break out and become a T2 deck someday. How many losses does ego account for? If Owen and Efro are anything to go off from, ego isn't reserved solely for the undeserving, either.

And that's ignoring the real world elements that affect play. Having to fly long distances to events, having an actual job outside of Magic, family, hydration and food at events, etc. Pros have definitely come out and said they've boogered events because of jet lag, so this is clearly a factor.
 
K

kirblar

Member
Some of that is based on player ego. I'm quite sure there are local grinders (because I've met them, I hazard a guess that many of y'all have to) that style themselves as just as good as the pros. They may think they're equally skilled, but they ain't. Or brewers who totally think their T3 zombie deck (cough) will totes break out and become a T2 deck someday. How many losses does ego account for? If Owen and Efro are anything to go off from, ego isn't reserved solely for the undeserving, either.
Click to expand...
This is why they hide the actual winrates.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
More modular cards and fewer obviously powerful cards at uncommon and above is always the answer.

More Ojutai's Commands and less Dragonlord Ojutais.
 
K

kirblar

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";202882497]More modular cards and fewer obviously powerful cards at uncommon and above is always the answer.

More Ojutai's Commands and less Dragonlord Ojutais.[/QUOTE]
Slower formats in general favor better players.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
kirblar said:
I'm not. That deck was the best deck at the tournament by a mile. It's "bad" matchups weren't very bad at all.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/teamcfb-deck-tech-modern-eldrazi/

That number is not an accident.
Click to expand...

the deck was an outlier not the norm, hence Eye got banned and that deck had a bad matchup in UW Eldrazi after the tournament.

Bringing up a deck that literally made a season be called Eldrazi winter won't prove a point. The correlation of their winrate being close to 70 is much more along those lines. Still going from 70% winrate meaning there's 30% nongames is far fetched.
 
W

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";202882497]More modular cards and fewer obviously powerful cards at uncommon and above is always the answer.

More Ojutai's Commands and less Dragonlord Ojutais.[/QUOTE]

This is why the Commands and Charms are some of the best cards ever made. So elegant. So functional. So expertise-testing.
 
R

red13th

Member
New rules to offset mana screw/flood seems very unlikely since the game's design for decades has been based on how lands work, I don't think they can "fix" it by now. It IS annoying but if the alternative is Hearthstone (yuck) I'd rather MtG have mana problems.
 
K

kirblar

Member
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
the deck was an outlier not the norm, hence Eye got banned and that deck had a bad matchup in UW Eldrazi after the tournament.

Bringing up a deck that literally made a season be called Eldrazi winter won't prove a point. The correlation of their winrate being close to 70 is much more along those lines. Still going from 70% winrate meaning there's 30% nongames is far fetched.
Click to expand...
The point is that with a broken-ass deck that's the best thing to do in the format, you're still not breaching that barrier.

To do so, you need a skill/information/deck edge that's far beyond the norm. Personal example: I won GPT in OdyBC because I was the only guy in the room who understood how the mono-black control post-sideboard games worked. (Similar to how Romao won by realizing not to counter Fact or Fiction.) That type of edge isn't common. Zvi in PT Tokyo's probably another example with his deck designed to just blow up the room.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
kirblar said:
The point is that with a broken-ass deck that's the best thing to do in the format, you're still not breaching that barrier.

To do so, you need a skill/information/deck edge that's far beyond the norm. Personal example: I won GPT in OdyBC because I was the only guy in the room who understood how the mono-black control post-sideboard games worked. (Similar to how Romao won by realizing not to counter Fact or Fiction.) That type of edge isn't common. Zvi in PT Tokyo's probably another example with his deck designed to just blow up the room.
Click to expand...

Yes it's a strong argument but you're looking at an average across a team not single players. CFB was matched against each other and they were matched against other teams having built Eldrazi decks IIRC. The amount of non games I'd argue is much less than 32% of the games they played.
 
K

kirblar

Member
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
Yes it's a strong argument but you're looking at an average not single players. CFB was matched against each other and they were matched against other teams having built Eldrazi deck IIRC. The amount of non games I'd argue is much less than 32% of the games they played.
Click to expand...
Very few players were actually on the Eldrazi deck, actually. That was why its prevalence in day 2 was so alarming from a data perspective.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
I was gonna change my deck from the one on the left to the one on the right but it turns out none of the local guys have Duskwatch Recruiters and the PPTQ is tomorrow.

riseupp8szh.png


Still probably worth it for the Silumgars and Painful Truths, but I dunno. Also, Silumgar's Command is insane right now. The format is filled with planeswalkers and 3 toughness creatures, and bounce kills Ormendahl.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Silumgar's command is an all star it's 5cmc so I only ever ran it as a 1 of but at least another one in the board.

Even if there are no targets I repeatedly went -3/-3 the manland bounce another land if they made the landrop. Jace -3 bounce land kill a creature. Went from 5 to 2 lands.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The deck on the left looks like a better deck imo
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Angry Grimace said:
The deck on the left looks like a better deck imo
Click to expand...

What makes you say that? It's basically the same deck with upgrades.

Gitrog -> Dragonlord Silumgar
Read the Bones -> Painful Truths
Grip of Desolation -> Silumgar's Command.


Duskwatch is better than most of the rares being played in Standard, and it fits the theme really well. It ramps, it draws cards. It doesn't die to removal at a mana deficiency which is my issue with Midwrack now that Ultimate Price is getting full playsets in decks. I pick all my creatures based on the played removal and Mindwrack is really good against grasp and languish but terrible against ultimate price.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
kirblar said:
That 30% loss percentage- the majority of it is going to be non-games. When you have a really good matchup- what's the upper bound on your win %? It's not 100. It's usually 75-80%.
Click to expand...

See, this is what I really want to break down. Where do we draw the border of "non-game"? When you get a deck with a 55% win rate in the matchup, but it curves out badly and the other deck gets their absolute nut draw, is that a non-game or not? Does it matter how many lands the first deck got, or how many turns the game went?

My thesis here would be that there's a huge variance on win percentage of two decks with two specific starting hands depending on what hands those are, and that therefore those percentages can vary pretty significantly from the win percentage of the two decks in a vacuum, but the number of the games where the former percentage is truly uncompetitive (say, <= 10%) is pretty small. But I'm not sure there's a good way to check this!
 
A

Ashodin

Member
Edited my build back toward more resiliency, the metagame is still too control-y and I want value from my stuff blowing up.

9UXZLua.gif
 
M

MoxManiac

Member
You guys think there is any viability to BR vampires currently? I have a lot of pieces for it already, want to build something. This would be for FNM level events.
 
H

Hecatonchires Custom

Member
Went to a Duel Commander tournament at my LGS, there were 6 players total and half of them had Geist. We played three rounds and I played against those 3 players. Boy, was it ever fun.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
Duel Commander just sucks the fun out of what Commander is, at least to me. I wouldn't dissuade someone from enjoying it, but I can't imagine I would have fun, especially with a lack of diversity.
 
G

GoutPatrol

Forgotten in his cell
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";202903481]It's probably the best green creature in Standard, I don't know if it's good enough for Modern, though.[/QUOTE]

Repeatable card draw sounds great, no matter what.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
MoxManiac said:
You guys think there is any viability to BR vampires currently? I have a lot of pieces for it already, want to build something. This would be for FNM level events.
Click to expand...

FNM go ahead. It's a Tier 3 deck though.

The problem is that key mechanic requires you to discard cards and they're not going to reprint Dark Confidant.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Locked in:

riseup27s1t.png


Taking another look at the Sultai mana, it turns out that I was a little short on colorless mana. I had to swap two Swamps with Caves of Koilos, which kinda sucks. I definitely don't want to tax my Evolving Wilds any more than they already are.

The 1-of Grasp is my flex slot, I was torn between that, a 2nd Blighted Fen(which would also let me swap a caves for a swamp) or a maindeck Silumgar's Command. I think maindeck I want as much early defense as possible, and I probably need more than 4 instants for the purposes of Mindwrack Demon.

Angry Grimace said:
FNM go ahead. It's a Tier 3 deck though.

The problem is that key mechanic requires you to discard cards and they're not going to reprint Dark Confidant.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're slightly ahead on tempo when Madness works, and horrendously behind when you actually have to discard a card.
 
H

Hecatonchires Custom

Member
OnPoint said:
Duel Commander just sucks the fun out of what Commander is, at least to me. I wouldn't dissuade someone from enjoying it, but I can't imagine I would have fun, especially with a lack of diversity.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, winning a game turn 1 with a broken 5 colors deck in regular commander isn't fun. Duel commander is a lot more balanced in that regard.

There is diversity in decks you can face in DC (about as much as Standard, especially after the Tasigur ban), it's just that my metagame is filled with pasty ass spirit clerics that hard counter me every game.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";202905779]Locked in:

iseup27s1t.png


Taking another look at the Sultai mana, it turns out that I was a little short on colorless mana. I had to swap two Swamps with Caves of Koilos, which kinda sucks. I definitely don't want to tax my Evolving Wilds any more than they already are.

The 1-of Grasp is my flex slot, I was torn between that, a 2nd Blighted Fen(which would also let me swap a caves for a swamp) or a maindeck Silumgar's Command. I think maindeck I want as much early defense as possible, and I probably need more than 4 instants for the purposes of Mindwrack Demon.



Yeah, you're slightly ahead on tempo when Madness works, and horrendously behind when you actually have to discard a card.[/QUOTE]

...tax your Evolving Wilds mana? What does that even mean?

The other problem is that Madness doesn't even reduce mana costs most of the time, so you're actually discarding stuff even if and when it has Madness.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
Hecatonchires Custom said:
In my opinion, winning a game turn 1 with a broken 5 colors deck in regular commander isn't fun. Duel commander is a lot more balanced in that regard.

There is diversity in decks you can face in DC (about as much as Standard, especially after the Tasigur ban), it's just that my metagame is filled with pasty ass spirit clerics that hard counter me every game.
Click to expand...
I don't play Commander competitively, and no one in my play group has decks that do that. Don't project your experience and thoughts on Commander as a whole, because that's not what it is to everyone.

It's a casual format. Personally, I play Commander with a group that enjoys longer games and politics. There are some good cards, and there is some jank. No one is usually winning by turn 20, let alone turn 1.
 
Y

Yeef

Member
Angry Grimace said:
FNM go ahead. It's a Tier 3 deck though.

The problem is that key mechanic requires you to discard cards and they're not going to reprint Dark Confidant.
Click to expand...
It's like the same card!

181.jpg


In all seriousness though, I think all of the (non-human) tribal decks will get better with the next set, even if they don't become competitve. Zombies, especially, are missing the bottom end of their curve. Also, the fact that all of the removal exiles is a problem, when zombies are all about graveyard recursion.

Spirits have it the worst though. There's not any real payoff card for a spirit-tribal deck.
 
G

"God's Beard!"

Member
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
1 of grasp is great to kill manlands which evade price, personally a strong proponent of maindeck SCommand, so many superfriend lists, mandlands, ormendahl,... and it deals with all of that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the problem is that I'm already running 6 five-drops and two Dragonlord Silumgars. I don't think I can support that many expensive cards as maindeck options.

I'm a huge fan of Grasp and still think it's better than Price, but the 2nd black mana means a lot when you're playing 10 painlands, and playing 4 yavimaya coast means double black on turn 2 isn't as easy as it used to be when I was playing basically mono black.

Familienoberhauptvogel said:
I assume giving it less targets
Click to expand...
Yeah, there's serious diminishing returns to having a bunch of Wilds targets. Also, cracking Wilds for Wastes is bad for a lot of curve reasons. Owen Turtenwald did it, but it still scares me.
 
H

Hecatonchires Custom

Member
OnPoint said:
I don't play Commander competitively, and no one in my play group has decks that do that. Don't project your experience and thoughts on Commander as a whole, because that's not what it is to everyone.

It's a casual format. Personally, I play Commander with a group that enjoys longer games and politics. There are some good cards, and there is some jank. No one is usually winning by turn 20, let alone turn 1.
Click to expand...

You did the exact same by quoting my post and saying that Duel Commander is unfun and lacks diversity based on your thoughts of what commander should and should not be lol. DC is a casual format that happens to have a competitive scene, if it wouldn't be fun, people wouldn't be playing it.
 
F

Firemind

Member
OnPoint said:
Duel Commander just sucks the fun out of what Commander is, at least to me. I wouldn't dissuade someone from enjoying it, but I can't imagine I would have fun, especially with a lack of diversity.
Click to expand...
This is a bit of an oxymoron since Commander in essence is diverse because of the singleton and 100 card deck rules.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";202907169]It'll go from wildly unplayable to just an embarassing deck registration error.[/QUOTE]

I tried a 1 of and it basically got treated like it was jace, remove at all cost. Given my grixis list doesn't care whether a card is in the yard or not. I eventually took it out again but there isn't much missing to make it great.
 
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