This is the latest article by Anusien. I found the suggestions fairly basic, but I guess they can be helpful for someone who is newer to Legacy. I wonder how much time he spent on figuring out which decks play which type of fetchlands and in which quantity.
The article
Nice read, but not really too much help for a newer player.
New players should first worry about knowing their deck inside and out. Second, they should learn other decks in the local meta. This will come with playing their deck. I often play matches that I go to game two and know nothing except a general basis for their deck.
The artical can't be applied to every meta, and thus is missing some decks.
Best way to become a better player is to play, watch, and ask questions to better players.
Nice. Especially for fairly crappy players like me.
Everything he listed is perfectly valid for players of all skill levels. Seriously, in every tournament, there are many, many players who don't do those things, especially two, three, and four.
One thing that he didn't mention that I know I've done in the past is fetch at the end of my opponent's turn which leaves me temporarily with no available mana (with the fetch on the stack) instead of just fetching during my upkeep when I have other mana available to respond to my opponent's spells.
Right, there were a couple of things that could/should have been included. Safe fetching is a growing concern (the article was written/submitted two months ago, when practicing safe fetching was cute but generally unnecessary). Generally I've found that in Legacy there are few situations where you have problems fetching; just whenever you're in lethal burn range and need UU up. It's not like T1 where your opponent can do something dumb like Gifts to set up the win while you've fetched below Gifts mana. Still, it is an omission, and it's good to discuss it.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Originally Posted by frogboy
There are times when first turn Brainstorm isn't correct. In Tog, assuming you have any other draw, when you have a perfectly valid turn two play, two very valid turn three plays, and need to find the third mana, and have at least one fetch in hand, to me seems to be an illustration of when you're getting far too carried away with your own cleverness. It's more important to be able to get into the game now than to wait for the opportunity to ship back an extra card, by which point you could already be dead.
"A good plan implemented with vigor now is better than a perfect plan ten minutes too late." - Patton.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Really, it would be depend on the hand, opponent, and how likely you were going to "be dead."
My Tog deck runs 26 lands, so assuming I kept my original seven cards and it contained two lands (I'd mulligan a one-lander), the remainder of my deck would contain 24 lands (45% of the deck) and 29 non-land cards (55% of the deck). It would be a safe calculated risk to think I'll draw a land over the next two draw phases (three, if I'm on the draw), so I can keep my Brainstorm for when I really needed it. If I failed to draw a land in my first draw step, I'd even have a slightly better chance to draw it in my second draw step (when my 52 card deck has 28 non-lands and 24 lands).
On turn-1, Brainstorm will give me the top 3 cards of my library--two of which I would otherwise see over the next two draw steps anyway, so the only new card I'd see is the third one down. But I'm wondering how critical this theoretical turn-2 play really is--which is likely going to be just having mana open for Counterspell. If there's nothing to counter, I could just Brainstorm at the end of turn 2 and see down to my fifth card if I were intent on making my third turn play (Shackles?).
Anyway, only if I were truly desperate (needing FoW for a Lackey or something) would I play a first turn Brainstorm for land in a deck that swimming in the stuff. I think Anusien's suggestion is right.
"I hate quotation. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We talked about this over aim, but I feel like the discussion is worth summarizing. The problem is that Brainstorm has an increasing effect the more bad cards are in your hand. This can be things like extra land or dead cards (Pithing Needle versus Thresh, removal versus Tide). Brainstorm can also dig three cards deep.
If you have two dead cards in your hand to get rid of turn 1, you strongly need to consider mulliganing. What's more is that if you Brainstorm on turn 1, unless you have an instant speed shuffle effect like Mystical Tutor in hand, you're going to get one of them back. Normally Brainstorm turns itself and the two worst cards in your hand into new ones, but on turn 1 it replaces only itself and the worst card in your hand. Brainstorm becomes much more effective on turn 5 or 6 when you have extra lands to trade in for new cards; I can't count the number of times I've lost because I made all the obvious anti-aggro measures in the early game and topdecked blanks into infinity. Also, Jack's logic assumes you'll be dead by turn 5, when in his example you have Counterspell and other anti-aggro tools available. According to his example, you have "you have a perfectly valid turn two play, two very valid turn three plays" which to me says, Why do you have to play Brainstorm now? Your hand is solid and not likely to improve significantly. All its doing is trying to replace Brainstorm with a land, which is a pretty poor use of Brainstorm. Assuming you have 2 land in hand and 24 in the deck, the odds of seeing the 3rd land by turn 3 on the play is just barely below 64%.
The other risk of planning to throw the Brainstorm ASAP is that it doesn't always work. If none of the top three have a land when you Brainstorm, you're guaranteed not to see it turn 2. You fetch on turn 3 and have greater than a 50% (almost 58%) chance of not seeing the land on your draw for turn 3. The chances of the Brainstorm fizzling are almost 19%, which is a huge risk. The disadvantage of that whole sequence of plays is that almost one time in every ten you run it, you're going to miss your third land drop. If you hold the Brainstorm back, if you miss the land drop on turn 3, you have almost an 84% chance of seeing the third land. All told, the chances of missing your third land drop are less than 7% if you hold back Brainstorm.
Now yes, if you have to dig for it on the third turn, it can hurt your tempo, but those turn 3 plays won't become any less relevant by holding them a turn, and while it sucks to run Tog out on 4 instead of 3 if you need him as a blocker, it sucks even more to miss your third land drop and lose.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Theoretically, you could just skip the Brainstorm, and over a number of turns you would see every card in your deck anyway. Why not just go that route then, if space and time don't matter in Magic?
If you Brainstorm end of the first turn, you see three new cards, and put two back. You draw one and then play and sac the Fetchland at some point, losing your worst card and then seeing another completely random new card turn 3. If you wait, presuming you find another fetchland, you can somewhere down the road see a whole one extra card and put a whole one extra card back, if you find that you have two "bad" cards, which, presuming the ancient strategy of running good cards in your deck, isn't too amazingly likely (but I'll cede this point if you run 26 lands, pointing out only that an even easier way to avoid this problem is to cut three of them). But when? It is extremely likely that countering a spell turn 2 will be benficial to you on the play. Perhaps you might not do this if you get a random pairing where turn 3 Pernicious Deed is going to be GG anyway, but relying on Raffinity and White Weenie being your matchup is poor at best. Presuming you don't see, in those three new cards, anything else costing two or three to occupy your mana, you still go to turn 3 wanting to cast either Deed if you need to establish control, or Tog if you need to establish beatdown. So it comes down to turn 4 at the earliest likely opportunity, and how likely is it that you don't then either have a FoF, a pair of removal spells, a Deed ready to blow, or other card draw like Intuition or AK or whatever you do with your mana in the five new cards you've seen? I suppose if your gameplan leans heavily upon playing lots of land as you seem to indicate, this play is good, but assuming a more concrete and realistic gameplan, I see no disadvantage to starting it as early as possible.
The odds of failing to see a land in the top four cards of your library are not that much greater than failing to see a land in the top five, which is the only difference between a turn 1 and turn 3 Brainstorm in this regard. Neither is very likely. Your odds of seeing a land within the top two cards are, however, much higher, and within the realm of reasonable probability, thus forcing you to use your Brainstorm turn 3, when you cannot rely on drawing a fetchland, somewhere over a third of the time in this scenario. Unlike the turn 1 Brainstorm would've done, however, this play does not let you try and cast Psychatog or Deed (or Intuition or Cunning Wish or whichever) until turn 4, costing you an entire fucking turn, and, again, you still have a high probability of not drawing a fetchland, meaning you're seeing no new card selection and haven't shuffled away any subpar cards. Now, if I based my plays on that one time I got screwed in testing and it sucked, this might seem good, but acting on sheer probability, the first turn Brainstorm will be correct nearly every time in a deck that runs honest-to-God other spells. This is why it's not just flat-out Thirst for Knowledge, which doesn't rely on a fetchland.
It's ironic that you say to tell me what I know, since the entirety of your argument over AIM was telling me to ask Shaheen Sorani and linking me to a clip of a play Bob Maher made in 1999. So your own homework for today is go to the videos on Wizards' website of the top 8 matchups at Worlds. There were 16 copies of Compulsive Research at that table and 2 Careful Considerations. I want you to try and see how often the pro players you would profess to follow the advice of actually wait to cast Compulsive Research until they have an extra land in hand, or draw more "bad" cards to discard, or draw into more Think Twices or Chronosavants. They might do this in the late game when it's dragging out to card advantage, but I guarantee that everytime they have the chance to cast it turn 3 and no other play, it'll be cast.
Edit: This doesn't relate so much, but while I have ManaDrain attention, I'm going to raise the point that I see many decks that top 8'd a couple times at small tournaments in the "Proven" section of the Mana Drain, yet I see no Truffle Shuffle thread. When were you planning on Remedying that?
PS, Also: Fuck Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a pompous douche. And not the lovable murderous/ursine kind.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
More than thirty shuffles is not enough? Give me a break.
Statistically (as I recall), you get little benefit after five riffle shuffles, and essentially none after seven. Five is a pretty generally used number for sufficient randomization.
The statistics do assume good shuffling technique, but it shouldn't take many more shuffles even with subpar technique.
Pile shuffling will not increase or decrease the the randomization of your deck, but can change it from unrandomized in a way unfavorable to you to unrandomized favorable to you.
That entire article is filled with pretty poor information.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
If a deck of mine performs poorly or seems clumped in a bad way, I pile shuffle the deck at least once along with many riffle shuffles.
If the deck drew purfectly, I only riffle shuffle the deck with no pile shuffle.
Do you realize how much superstition that is? If you're going to have an opinion, have some solid reasoning for it.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Don't mock superstition. Prepare for a few small facts why: Positive supersitions like these give the player more hope that they will get the cards they need. By believing in these he creates a sort of faith about them, a mental strength that he can use against his opponent. Besides, having your own tradition for shuffling is kewl.
Team Multi-Grain - We're wholesome.
I'm referring to side shuffles, which are statistically similar to riffle shuffles but with a greater chance of not being perfect. One of the SCG writers was referring to the fact that pros shuffle more than normal players and benefit from it.
Also, your information is incorrect, and it depends on the randomness you need. Considering after 2-4 shuffles it's still possible to track cards through a deck, I would hardly say you get diminishing returns. After all, considering that you're dealing with randomization, each shuffle makes it much more unlikely that clumps remain together, for instance.
n practice the number of shuffles that you need depends both on how good you are at shuffling, and how good the people playing are at noticing and using non-randomness. 2–4 shuffles is good enough for casual play. But in club play, good bridge players take advantage of non-randomness after 4 shuffles, and top blackjack players literally track aces through the deck; this is known as "ace tracking", or more generally, as "shuffle tracking".From wikipedia on shuffling.The mathematician and magician Persi Diaconis is an expert on the theory and practice of card shuffling, and an author of a famous paper on the number of shuffles needed to randomize a deck, concluding that it did not start to become random until five good riffle shuffles, and was truly random after seven, in the precise sense of variation distance described in Markov chain mixing time; of course, you would need more shuffles if your shuffling technique is poor. Recently, the work of Trefethen et al. has questioned some of Diaconis' results, concluding that six shuffles is enough. The difference hinges on how each measured the randomness of the deck. Diaconis used a very sensitive test of randomness, and therefore needed to shuffle more. Even more sensitive measures exist and the question of what measure is best for specific card games is still open.
This is a pretty poor statement. All attempts at shuffling are inherently deterministic, and if you were smart enough to memorize your deck order, you'd be able to track the deck order throughout the shuffling and still keep a randomized but known deck order. The idea of pile shuffling is that it breaks up clumps and makes further attempts at riffle and pile shuffling more useful. If you have 2 Persecutes in your graveyard together it's entirely possible that the clump of 2 Persecutes goes through the deck without being broken by riffle or side shuffling; pile shuffling is guaranteed to fix this. What's more, even if pile shuffling had no effect on randomization, it's still good pre-tournament procedure. It's saved me from accidentally presenting an illegal deck more than once, and I recommend it to everyone for that reason; if you're paying any attention while doing it it becomes very difficult to present a 59 or 61 card list, and hopefully you'll notice if your deck is 7 cards too big or too small.Pile shuffling will not increase or decrease the the randomization of your deck, but can change it from unrandomized in a way unfavorable to you to unrandomized favorable to you.
Without doing the math, I do recommend side shuffling at least 15 times and I try to reach 30. I noticed a positive trend between number of shuffles and randomization of the deck. Maybe it's because the deck I'm referring to specifically, Confinement Slide, tends to see most of its cards, and the cards tend to clump by types, but when I only side shuffled about 10 times, pile shuffled, and shuffled 10 times again, I was getting bad distributions and consistently getting draws with less than the expected number of lands (there's only so many times you can see 1 land with a 28 land deck before you get suspicious). It was either believe that randomly I was in the <1% case, or the deck wasn't sufficiently randomized.
IBA: The math speaks for itself. 12% of the time throwing out Brainstorm on turn 1 is going to fail to find the land. It also cuts you off from turn 1 Swords to Plowshares and makes your deck weaker on turn 3-4. After all, I'd much rather be able to just fire off a Brainstorm on turn 4 and keep mana up for Counterspell or whatever than have to cast Fact or Fiction when I don't need it. Before I learned to play Brainstorm properly, I was having significant portions of test games topdeck into oblivion. After I learned to Brainstorm properly, that stopped happening. Now you won't listen to test results, and you won't listen to math, and you won't listen to multiple pros of both Eternal and Constructed formats who would tell you otherwise. The reason I brought up Maher v Davis is because if your logic held up, Maher would be firing off turn 1 Brainstorm every turn. But he wasn't, and that was against arguably a faster format.
Your logic about Compulsive Research is pretty flawed. If you have your choice of land, reanimation target, Martyr of Sands, redundant Wrath and Chronosavant to discard, Compulsive Research seems pretty bad. But how many dead or bad cards do you have in your opening hand? What's more is because Brainstorm on turn 1 forces you to eat one of those bad cards, it's not a valid comparison. If you could shuffle that turn, maybe, but "Draw + discard" is so much different than Brainstorm, both because of Brainstorm setting up your draw and because you don't always get rid of the chaff. If Brainstorm said "Draw 3 cards and discard 2 cards" for U, I might be more willing to cast it turn 1, assuming I had 2 dead cards, but I try not to keep hands that are a virtual mulligan to 5.
Edit: Thanks Jack for proving that the article needed ot be written.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
True, and taking that into a hand and seeing a hand that would need but one card or land in the next two turns to dominate the game, you are more likely to keep rather than muligan, specially being on the draw and seeing two cards before you'll need a certain card.
A deck that is shuffled too much can actually be shufled back into the same state it was before you started shuffling. I have done this with other cards to prove a point. Pile shuffling is the worst at doing this to you than any other shuffle type.
Also, when I mention Riffle Shuffle, I am refering to side shuffle. I don't Riffle Shuffle.
One last thing, try pile shuffling your opponents deck game 2. Card count can win you games.
We've been over this. In one scenario you see 5 new cards past your opening seven. In the other you see 6 new cards. The math isn't vastly different. The primary difference is that seeing six new cards either involves your not having Counterspell open or not being able to cast Psychatog or Deed turn 3. Saying "the math speaks for itself" and then failing to explain why and how you're interpreting the math to function so as to support your argument when there's no apparent reason for it do so does not a watertight argument make.
Having Swords to Plowshares in your hand makes for an entirely different scenario based around the question, "Which is more important this turn; optimizing Brainstorm or keeping StP available turn 1?" It does not then revolve around the question, "Which is better; getting into the game turn 1, or doing nothing for a turn?"
Already I can discount your argument. Failing to see one extra card early on will not make you stall out most of your games where seeing an extra card (just seeing, not drawing) will routinely win you the game. A couple obviously skewed testing results can rightly be ignored where there's little logical or mathematical basis for the argument and the results are obviously facetious.After all, I'd much rather be able to just fire off a Brainstorm on turn 4 and keep mana up for Counterspell or whatever than have to cast Fact or Fiction when I don't need it. Before I learned to play Brainstorm properly, I was having significant portions of test games topdeck into oblivion. After I learned to Brainstorm properly, that stopped happening.
By which you mean, I listen to the hundreds' of games worth of playtesting results I have with players I respect who have all top 8'd at and/or won major tournaments over... you?Now you won't listen to test results,
Yeah. Yeah, that's about right.
I'll listen to it, but you kind of have to speak it first and avoid equivocation and non sequitors. You can't say, "Six is more than five. Therefore, not Brainstorming first turn is the correct move." Try using a little intelligent conversation to broaden your point.and you won't listen to math
Your bullshit is so transparent you don't even try to hide it, do you? You have no idea whether or not they "would" tell me otherwise, but already you're presuming I ignore them. We would have to have actual testimony here to test your theory.and you won't listen to multiple pros of both Eternal and Constructed formats who would tell you otherwise.
No he wouldn't. Bob Maher is a human being and not a Magic God, the format was dominated by the color Blue, he ran a deck with far less shuffle effects, and I never said that first turn Brainstorm is always correct, it's just far and away more commonly correct, especially when you have fetchlands as did not exist in Maher's deck.The reason I brought up Maher v Davis is because if your logic held up, Maher would be firing off turn 1 Brainstorm every turn. But he wasn't, and that was against arguably a faster format.
Why? You're the one saying to cast it on turn three. Beyond that, "Draw 3, lose 2" assuming a Fetchland (as you have done), they seem pretty damn similar to me given the differing power levels. "How many bad cards do you have to discard" isn't an argument, because no competitive deck willingly runs bad cards, and most of them run a roughly equal amount of cards that can be situationally bad.Your logic about Compulsive Research is pretty flawed.
Turn 1 Brainstorm helps you find your best cards faster so you can get into the game quickly. Particularly in Toadimon's Tog list that you cite, which has no card draw other than Brainstorm which can begin working before turn 4, waiting as long as possible before casting Brainstorm will get you behind in tempo against all competitive decks played by competent people. I know you're under the impression that you're a Legacy guru that people rely on to tell them how to play the game, but until you actually do well at a tournament you might just consider shelfing the opinion and being al ittle less willing to eschew popular wisdom for an attempt at reinventing the wheel.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
The longer you wait to cast Brainstorm to dig for lands, the higher probability that your Brainstorm will dig up a land, assuming you don't draw one. Brainstorm on turn 1 shows you 11 cards by turn 3. Brainstorm on turn 3 shows you 12. The difference is when you see the extra cards. Because you've Brainstormed on turn 1 and put back extra lands.
P(Not Seeing Land on Initial Brainstorm Given a 2 land, 7 card hand with a 24 land deck) = (((53-22)/53)*((52-22)/52)*((51-22)/51)) = .1919
P(Not Seeing Land on your third draw step given the same conditions, with 1 fetchland activation (3 lands gone from your library, with 10 cards gone from library)) = ((50-21)/50) = .58
Probability of the two happening together = .1919*.58=.1113
And this is a case where the two events are multiplicative. The probability of not seeing a land by your third draw step under Jack's plan is the probability of the brainstorm not giving you land and the probability that your third draw step doesn't flip it up. All told, Jack's plan has an 11% chance of not finding your third land.
My plan of holding Brainstorm until you need it:
P(Not Seeing Land on your first draw given the same constraints) = ((53-22)/53)=.5849
We'll be generous and assume you had to fetch turn 2 to cast Counterspell on whatever.
P(Not seeing land on your second draw given the same conditions and a fetchland (21 lands left in deck, 9 cards gone from library)) = ((51-21)/51)=.5882
P(Brainstorm not finding you a land in the next 3 cards after your draw) = ((50-21)/50)*((49-21)/49)*((48-21/48))=.1864
Without having to do the math, there should be an obvious factor here, that not only do you get to see an extra card from Brainstorm but you essentially get a free coin flip to see that land. And if you draw that land, you don't need to cast Brainstorm, and can hold it until it can do you more good. It's almost the difference between casting Ancestral recall on your end step with 6 cards in hand and casting it on your opponent's upkeep.
For what it's worth:
P(My plan failing)=.5849*.5882*.1864=.0641
Again, the root question is, how many bad cards are in your average hand that you need to shuffle away with Brainstorm? Because if the answer is 2, you need to strongly contemplate mulliganing.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
My point is simple: if you're casting Brainstorm on turn one with the intent of drawing a third land for a third turn play--which you will likely see by your third main phase anyway--why throw away one of the best cards in your deck? I mean, there either is, or isn't a land in the top three cards--and we will find out one way or the other (whether we Brainstorm or not), before we need that land anyway. I would rather save the Brainstorm for when I actually needed it.
Totally off topic here, but anyone who would write "Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist," is awesome in my book. Self Reliance is fucking great.PS, Also: Fuck Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a pompous douche. And not the lovable murderous/ursine kind.
When someone posts a thread about Truffle Shuffle on TMD (or any other deck for that matter), it can be discussed at TMD.Edit: This doesn't relate so much, but while I have ManaDrain attention, I'm going to raise the point that I see many decks that top 8'd a couple times at small tournaments in the "Proven" section of the Mana Drain, yet I see no Truffle Shuffle thread. When were you planning on Remedying that?
Fundamentally? Because it's not throwing it away. It's making a play that's marginally worse in terms of semi-card advantage, in that your Brainstorm is likely to be a bit worse, in return for an increase in tempo. The turn one play gives you a quicker route into the game than waiting for it. This is why, for instance, we run Goblin Lackey over Goblin Wizard, Lightning Bolt over Beacon of Destruction, and the already mentioned Brainstorm vs. Thirst for Knowledge.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
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