"Michael opens with Lotus Petal, Academy Ruins, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and Stifle. I Force of Will the Stifle, but he has Force of Will backup. I Ponder on turn one and again on turn two, but fail to find a Swords to Plowshares before he has smashed me twice. " That's losing to Mike Sanchirico.
Team Bad Guys.
Ben Wienburg
Patrick, how do you shuffle?
In the tournament rules, randomization is defined as bringing the deck to a state where no player can have any information regarding the order or position of cards in any portion of the deck. I have found that I am incapable of performing this action with any other type of shuffle other than a pile shuffle. No other shuffle that I have tried has caused me to feel as though I have no information about any sequence that my deck was in prior to my shuffle, while also not damaging my cards or sending them all over the table. Riffle shuffles cause me to fold my cards into neat little V's that are not neat when it comes to the value of my cards, and mash shuffles do not randomize my deck as much as they seem to split my sleeves when I do them seriously. For me, a pile shuffle sufficiently randomizes my cards, and after they become sufficiently randomized I can do one of the aforementioned mash shuffles lightly, given that pile shuffling alone is not accepted under the tournament rules. At this point, I am doing the mash shuffle for show, because I am incapable of doing such a shuffle in a way that would change the order of the cards in any meaningful way to a deck that was not previously made sufficiently random.
Since you seem to dislike pile shuffling, what you would suggest someone does to randomize their deck in this situation?
why has this thread turned into a discussion about shuffling?
Here is Mike Flores explaining about pile shuffling and it's applications towards cheating:
http://fivewithflores.com/tag/cheating/
I wrote a long post talking about a lot of personal experiences that got lost because I took to long to post and had to re-log in. Here are the basics:
I have seen my friends lose matches and stop having fun at tournaments because they let their opponent get away with some shady behavior and win because of it.
The biggest mistake players make is assuming their opponents aren't cheaters when they are forced to make that judgment.
The arguments for pile shuffling are:
I can shuffle my deck however I want.
Pile shuffling lets my count mine/my opponents deck.
Riffle shuffling damages cards.
1. Until the DCI disallows pile shuffling this is true. I feel that the potential pile shuffling has for cheating outweighs any benefits it has.
2. It took me 21.7 seconds to count my 60 card deck, and 34.1 seconds to pile shuffle it in six ten card piles and then put it back together (without shuffling the individual piles together, which people often do). This time can shave minutes off the clock, and nobody here should be a stranger to how many games are won in extra turns, or how many could have been won if their had been an extra minute on the clock.
3. Riffle shuffling does damage cards. However, a slide shuffle is functionally the same as a riffle shuffle and does not damage cards. This is how I shuffle mine and my opponents cards.
Here is how I suggest anybody concerned with the number of cards in the decks shuffle up before games:
Unbox your deck, count your sideboard and make sure only sideboard cards are in it.
Cut you deck in half, and slide one half into the other. Do this 4 times.
Grab about the bottom 50 cards of your deck. Take the large stack and throw several small stacks onto what was the top of your deck. This is hard to explain, but you should recognize this form of shuffling. Do this 3-4 times.
Do 4-5 more slide shuffles.
I cut my deck once, then present it to my opponent.
I repeat this same process with my opponents deck, wish them good luck, and draw my 7.
I have been doing this since the GPT's for Columbus and I have not since been concerned my opponent cheated with his shuffling or that my deck was poorly shuffled. I still mulligan, and my opponents still blow me out, but I am 100% sure that this is the variance of Magic and not because of library manipulation.
My arguments against pile shuffling are based on potential for cheating. These cheats are library manipulation and clock manipulation. Pile shuffling has no benefits that cannot be enjoyed in other, more time effective ways.
"Michael opens with Lotus Petal, Academy Ruins, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and Stifle. I Force of Will the Stifle, but he has Force of Will backup. I Ponder on turn one and again on turn two, but fail to find a Swords to Plowshares before he has smashed me twice. " That's losing to Mike Sanchirico.
Team Bad Guys.
I understand your dislike of riffle shuffling, and with side shuffling splitting sleeves. Investing in durable sleeves will decrease the number of sleeves your break during a tournament. I also recommend shuffling as carefully as you can. There is no reason to mash cards together during a slide shuffle. If you do this with as little pressure as possible you should not split any sleeves that weren't split already.
I look forward to your reply.
"Michael opens with Lotus Petal, Academy Ruins, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and Stifle. I Force of Will the Stifle, but he has Force of Will backup. I Ponder on turn one and again on turn two, but fail to find a Swords to Plowshares before he has smashed me twice. " That's losing to Mike Sanchirico.
Team Bad Guys.
Why bother trying Pat.
It's like arguing with Ben, these people are the best in the world at what they do.
I wanted to add my 2 cents here as I am an advocate of pile shuffling.
It doesn't really randomize your deck. It does seperate land clumps, and yes you can call this cheating. If you do other sorts of shuffling afterwards, the more you do, the less you can call it cheating/deck manipulation.
It certainly is time intensive and does take up completely unecessary amounts of time. You have 3 minutes to shuffle and present your deck, I will make the most of these 3 minutes unless I am the sap playing the slow deck. If I was playing a deck that I know may go to time, I'd probably skip the pile and try to get the match going. Against an opponent that you know is playing a slow deck this can start to be considered Saito-esque cheating. Saito is cool.
p.s. I can't believe you're wasting your time here repeating yourself anyways Pat, Neuad is right. If you can smelllllll-l-l-l-l-la what the Rock IS cooking!
It's easy to pile shuffle in a way that helps randomize your deck. For example I randomly distribute the cards among piles, and then I mash and riffle the piles together when combining them. This is a lot more thorough than just mashing and cutting. Simply mashing and cutting will leave many existing sequences of cards intact, especially pairs.
Since when I pile shuffle I have no idea which card is going where, it's ludicrous to pretend it isn't randomizing the deck. Only if I know the exact existing sequence of cards, and then follow them all as I randomly distribute among piles, will I have that information. What pile shuffling does is greatly break up existing clumps of cards, thus lessening your information about the deck's order. (usually you will have some idea of what cards are clumped together, but not necessarily where those clumps are). Of course you should mash and riffle afterwards to help things along.
Knowing that your lands are in clumps gives you significant information that you shouldn't have. Shuffling SHOULD break up existing clumps, and possibly create new clumps in the process.It does seperate land clumps, and yes you can call this cheating.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)