Ok. Maybe I am a tard. But please enlighten me. How does a free shuffle do anything?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Okay, take for instance my above mentioned example where you are drawing 5 cards in a row that are all duds in the situation.Originally Posted by Finn
Tonight for example I was playing a Jund match up. I had mulled down to 5, he had mulled down to 6. We both started off really slow. So slow in fact that we were still playing when time was called (this was game 2). The problem was that I had just enough on the board to deal with his threats, but nothing else whatsoever. Unfortunately he built up enough momentum to steam roll me and I was still drawing blanks.
A Shuffle effect (especially one I could use in the interim as a mana source) would have been super beneficial to me as it would have allowed me to play stuff while I waited for it to be triggered, and even if it didn't get triggered I still had it's mana source. The fact that I was being overwhelmed by superior numbers and stronger creatures meant that I wasn't too keen to play Horizon Canopy due to the life cost and the chance that whatever I drew off of it could have also been a dud (and the fact that if I did draw using it I would have still been mana screwed). At least with Flagstones of Trokair when you use its effect, if you are already mana screwed, you don't come off more mana screwed than you were to start with.
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
Even if you drop Canopies, you still effectively cut into your Plains count, when in fact, Flagstones is essentially just a Plains WITH the disadvantages already stated above (Blood Moon, Tempo play etc). Canopies are great in the sense that you use it for mana when you get it early, and cycle it much later. Flagstones is only good when you play Cataclysm and Armageddon, both SB cards at best and maybe a 2-of at most. I dare say that you can reload much quicker against most opponents post Cataclysm EVEN IF you don't have Flagstones. Furthermore, you already said it yourself, we are already susceptible to Blood Moon, so why make ourselves more susceptible by cutting into the Plains count without any benefits other than shuffling (which I still don't understand how it can be considered beneficial in our deck) and marginal deck thinning (proven through numbers that the minuteness of such effect makes it irrelevant). If untapped, Canopy can play around Blood Moon by cycling itself. Not to mention the corner case interaction between Enlightened Tutor and Canopy, which I think is more relevant than the Cataclysm play.
And again, can you explain how shuffling helps in this deck? Outside of Jace Fateseal, I can't think of another scenario where we want that shuffle effect.
Edit: Your scenario is what is called variance. Shuffling won't help because our deck has no deck manipulation, so it really just happens. How the heck would you know that you would be drawing 5 duds?
You are also forgetting that Deathrite Shaman is a card, and giving him more food to work with is another disadvantage than just running Plains in its place.
Except not everyone plays Enlightened Tutors in their sideboard anymore. The Team Rocket build that won GP Strasbourg certainly didn't. And you would be a fool not to play Cataclysm in a format featuring Eldrazi-Post.
You know that you have DRAWN 5 duds by the fact that you have 5 duds sitting in your hand. Shuffling after said 5 duds are in your hand isn't necessarily going to help. but it can't hurt either. And your right, we have no manipulation, but that doesn't mean we can't use the additional shuffle effect. Shuffling mid game is never a bad thing unless you just used a tutor that places the card you want on the top of your library.
As far as Deathrite Shaman is concerned, I run 3 Rest in Peace between my Main Deck and Sideboard. 1 of which is maindecked at the start of each match.
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
You are such a genius dude. If all your cards are in a random order a random shuffle won't help... unless you cheat. But I'm sure you are also one who believes the modo - shuffler has certain clusters...
Humphrey is always correct.
I am perfectly content with the Magic Online Shuffler, and other digital random number generators, because I am perfectly aware that such random number generators used for shuffling of cards replicate the effects of shuffling a deck of cards hundreds of thousands of times. You cannot replicate this effect with physical cards unless you own a professional poker automated card shuffler. Unfortunately automated card shufflers don't work with cards that are in sleeves so well.
Point is, that you are not going to get completely randomized shuffling effects when shuffling physical cards the way you will when using Magic Online. That said, even in magic online you can still get bad draws, at which point having a shuffle effect is beneficial.
But since you guys are all so bound and determined to be against shuffle effects... perhaps we should get rid of the shuffle effect tacked onto Stoneforge Mystic. Or the Shuffle Effect tacked onto Enlightened Tutor. But then those two cards have shuffle effects because they are tutors.
fact is... when you cycle Horizon Canopy in order to draw a card, you are creating card disadvantage for yourself. This is because you are removing a land source from play, permanently unless you have some means of recurring land sources. What this does in a deck with as few colored sources as we have, is to limit the amount of colored sources you have in play at a given time. Meaning you are far less likely to have 2 White Mana available to hard cast a Cataclysm, Mangara, Miran Crusader, or Flickerwisp if you need to hard cast them (especially since you can ONLY hard cast the Cataclysm). Additionally it means that you will only have 1 land period after a cataclysm at best, possibly less if the land your opponent chooses to keep is a wasteland, and the land you chose to keep is one of your far more numerous non-basic lands as opposed to your less plentiful supply of basic lands.
At least with the Flagstones of Trokair, when you cataclysm, you are ensured to get a basic plains out of it alongside 1 other land. Meaning you can immediately cast back up support for whatever creature you left on the field (well not immediately, but the turn after). It would probably have had to wait till the turn after a cataclysm is cast anyways under normal circumstances because cataclysm costs 4 mana, and we rarely have more than 4 lands on the field (unless you are playing some land heavy variant of the deck I am unaware of?). The only occasions I have ever had 5 mana on the field at a given time, is when I am purposefully ramping up so that I can hard cast Batterskull, and have the luxury of being able to do so without repercussion from an enemies mana disruption package. And yes, I have on occasion hard cast a Batterskull with this deck.
So basically, don't dismiss a card like Flagstones of Trokair, just because it was bad in the old environment. Keep in mind the old environment didn't have Cloudpost decks up the wazoo. Nor did it require us to counter those decks with Cataclysm. Cataclysm inherently synergizes with Flagstones of Trokair in an undeniable way. To try to shrug it off as being a minor interaction in a format where every advantage you can milk is of importance, is rather foolish. Especially for those of us not wanting to run an Enlightened Tutor Board the way some people still cling on to trying to do. Enlightened Tutor believe it or not, is not the end all be all solution to this deck's sideboarding practices.
And by the way, I did not have to respond to your post because you engaged in an ad hominem attack against me. I did so only so that other posters would not be mislead by what you said.
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
I can't seem to find a narrative in your words. We are all having to guess at what your position is, Dalkon, because you continue talking without actually saying anything.. It feels like I am reading a filibuster. I, for one am not categorically against shuffling. I don't think anyone is. So tell me, please.
What is a concrete benefit of shuffling the library of this deck?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Don't wanna burst your bubbles, but really - shuffling alone does nothing to improve your game state. Yes, it gets different when you play with SD Top, BS, Sylvan Library, Oracle of Mul Daya or Vexing Arcanix. But again: shuffle effect does nothing on it's own.
If you know your top, then the shuffle effect matters. If you don't know your top then it doesn't matter.
Q: Is D&T is a deck that does know it's top?
A: D&T is a deck that doesn't know it's top, because it doesn't play cards (like Top) that allow you to look at and/or return cards to top.
In D&T there's zero gain from shuffle effect.
edit: Finn beat me to it.
wow. All I can say, is that if you guys really don't know your decks well enough that you have to rely on Brainstorm, or other card advantage engines in order to know what your odds of drawing a useful card, and whether you need to shuffle are... you really aren't playing the right game.
This deck (Death and Taxes) is horribly efficient at getting mana screwed. While some of you may be content to ride it out and hope for the best. I say we use every tool at our disposal to make our game more efficient. Even if that means running a sub par fetch land that synergizes with our land destruction package.
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
Are you serious? This has nothing to do if I "know my deck" - which is, btw, quite unclear statement: you meant that I can recite the decklist, or that I can play the deck well, or what exactly? -, but rather with the fact that you don't know the top card of your deck, so shuffling does nothing to improve the game state. Unless you got X-ray eyes or are a real wizard, you may just as well shuffle a new crap on the top instead of a previous perfect card that waited there for you.
Again:
You don't know the top card of your library. It has nothing to do with your "imma knowin mah deck", because if the deck is properly randomized, you have no means to tell the top card: you don't play Brainstorm, Scroll Rack, Jace TMS, anything.
Yet again:
There is a random card on the top (that could be either good or bad) and you shuffle it away and end with another random card on top (which could once again be good or bad), but you have no means how to gain any value from all the shuffling, UNLESS YOU CHEAT.
I really think that this is a cwot, because I remember a similar discussion on deck-thinning fetchlands I had some years ago. If you're religious about the shuffle effects, I won't argue.
EDIT:...Brainstorm, or other card advantage engines...
Well played, sir!
If your top card is a random card, shuffling your library surprisingly won't change that. If you don't need Brainstorm or the likes to know the top of your deck, you are cheating.
Anyone else having trouble with elves and their natural orders into progenitus? They always seem to have it turn 3 and they can play around port and thalia because cradle is a nice card. I dont really want to splash Gaddock Teeg or Meddling Mage and options like Tariff/Humility dont feel right either.
How does shuffling your deck when you don't know what is actually on top help you at all?
You have almost the exact same chance to have the same crap on top of the deck after the shuffle minus 1 plains
There has been mathematical studies on how negligible thinning actually is.
2-3 Parrots could be helpful.
depends on how you accomplish it I suppose. Simple probability would accomplish the job of determining roughly what the odds that the next card you draw will be a land, not to mention what the odds the next card you draw will be a basic plains. All you need to know is how many lands or basic plains are in your deck and then keep track mentally of how many of each you have drawn vs. the rest of your deck and extrapolate from there. It's not that complicated a process and actually a lot simpler than what poker players do when they count cards. And in fact I think as long as you do this 100% internally there is nothing a judge can call you on about it.
Did those mathematical studies take into account thinning after 4 or more rounds of play, multiple tutor effects being played, and other similar factors? There are always mitigating circumstances that will make deck thinning more viable as the game goes longer.
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
Mrjumbo03 is correct in stating that you are experiencing variance. I think you're making the mistake of amusing the top cards of your deck are bad because the ones you just drew are bad. You are, however, more likely draw a real card after drawing a series of blanks - and this probability is not changed by a shuffle effect.
If you have say 45 cards left in your deck, and 15 of them are blanks in the current situation, then you have a 33% (15/45) chance of drawing a blank. If you draw 5 blanks in a row, then there are 10 left in your deck, and your chances of drawing another blank is now 25% (10/40). Shuffling your deck does not change this probability.
As to Horizon Canopy, I am unsure how you can justify it as being card disadvantage. It is in fact card parody. Any card that replaces it's self is not card disadvantage. In the situation where you drew 5 blanks in a row, let’s examine two possible 6th draws:
- Flagstones of Trokair - In order for this card to do anything when you play it you need another one in play, or a wasteland of your own to kill it. So let’s assume you have another one in play. You tap the old one for mana, play the new one and sacrifice the old one. You now have W floating, a freshly shuffled deck and 5 blanks in your hand.
- Horizon Canopy - So this card only requires you to have another mana available to use it. So you play it, tap one of your other lands and sacrifice it. End result: -1 mana (from available in play), and a new random card from the top of your deck.
Let's compare and contrast:
- Flagstones gives you W and a shuffled deck (all probabilities within the deck remain unchanged). The mana goes to waste, because you have no cards to play.
- Canopy gives you an additional card and uses 1 mana (probabilities within the deck are adjusted depending on what you draw with the canopy).
So Flagstones does not provide you the opportunity to play anything else that turn, you are stuck with the same cards in hand and nothing new to work with till the next turn when you draw a random card from the top of your deck. Canopy on the other hand presents the possibility of drawing a new card from the top of your deck, and possibly making a play that will alter the game state on that same turn. Horizon canopy changes the probabilities within the deck by removing a random card from the deck, whereas flagstones simply re-randomizes the deck (and does not change the probabilities of any draws as described above).
I hope this helps to clarify the concept. As a primarily blue player (RUG, Stoneblade, Maricles, and BUG), I understand that the concepts of card advantage (both physical and virtual) can be challenging. However, once you are able to grasp them - they become powerful tools in winning games. If you are still unsure how the concepts work, I would suggest playing a few blue decks just to get the feel for the concepts of Physical Card Advantage, Virtual Card Advantage and Card Quality.
Let me know if I can help anymore!
Cheers,
Pherion
In the past I have used Burrenton Forge-Tender since it does not target the Progenitus and can be recurred by Sword of Light and Shadow... I also play Mirran Crusader(nat. pro green) and Mothers for more pro green.
As far as the whole shuffling argument that seems to be going on here (completely ridiculous by the way.)... I don't care if you've gone x number of turns into the game and have tutored with a stoneforge or not. Thinning your deck by one or two cards won't increase the percentage of drawing something you may call useful when you start off with a sixty card deck. Yes things do increase the percentages of getting something else. The percentages however do not increase enough for the flagstones to be really worth it. It adds more non-basics to be disrupted by Blood Moon's, Magus of the Moon's, or even Back to Basics. One random shuffle effect without knowing what's on top to begin with does NOT help or make any substantial difference.
Cockatrice: EMFry
There is a case where Dalkon could be right. If a player doesn't shuffle well and puts their lands back together in a clump, then the conditional probability of drawing a land given that you've just drawn a couple lands is higher than if you've just drawn some creatures or whatever.
But that's not an argument for shuffle effects being intrinsically good, it's an argument for not being terrible at randomization.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
I'd hardly call it a study. It's more like a discrete distribution that a chimp could work out with Excel open.
C'mon, let us in on the joke, you've got to be trolling right? Nobody can be so articulately stupid and not be a troll.
There are currently 7 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 7 guests)
Reply With Quote