[Deck] Death and Taxes

[FTW]

Obviously you both must be the kings of hax if neither of you have run into situations where you have drawn 5 cards in a row that have been duds in the situation that you happen to be in, and where you wish you had some way to randomize your deck a little. I know I sure have been in that situation.

Are you shuffling your deck again to randomize your next draw or to not draw a dud? Because here's how math works: if it's truly random (with equal probabilities for each card), you will draw duds sometimes. Sometimes multiple duds. Using a shuffle effect will not prevent the next dud. Period. Says my Math PhD.

If you are trying to "correct" your deck because you don't think it was sufficiently randomized in the first place, then you are admitting to cheating. Because EACH time you shuffle your deck, you are supposed to ensure it is sufficiently randomized before stopping and presenting it to the opponent to cut. So unless you did not shuffle your deck according to the rules in the first place, you should not be able to make it "more random" with an additional shuffle.

Let me pose you a math question:
If you are playing Magic on a train that left San Diego at 7:30 AM Pacific Standard Time traveling roughly east at 50 mph and there is another train traveling west from Austin at 65 mph on the same track that left at 4:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time, and you are playing a Legacy sanctioned event on the train with Death and Taxes and just drew 5 duds in a row, and there are 37 cards left in your deck and 8 more duds, how much do you decrease your chances of drawing a 6th dud by using a shuffle effect before your next draw step?

BONUS QUESTION: How long before Richard Garfield on the other train arrives and smacks you upside the head?

[FTW]

Shuffling after said 5 duds are in your hand isn't necessarily going to help. but it can't hurt either.

Yes, if there was 0 cost to shuffling (i.e. there was a basic land with "0: shuffle your library" and no one had a Suppression Field or Pithing Needle in play), then it may not help but can't hurt either so why not. But in real magic, there is usually a cost to shuffle: paying 1 life and Stifle vulnerability (fetchlands), or vulnerability to Blood Moon and tempo screw (Flagstones), etc. It also takes up time in a timed match.

You might get lucky and shuffle your best card to the top of your deck. Or you might get unlucky and shuffle a dud to the top. Or you may shuffle an average card to the top. The important thing to remember is that ON AVERAGE the new card will be neither better nor worse than the card you would have drawn without shuffling.

Let's say after drawing 5 duds the chance your next card is a dud is 1 in 5. If you use a shuffle effect, there is still a 1 in 5 chance the next card is a dud. Shuffling doesn't change that. If you flip a fair coin 10 times and it comes up heads 10 times in a row, there is still a 50/50 chance the next one will be tails. The past ones don't matter... the next one is still random.

So then why would you pay a cost for something that has no expected benefit?

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.

But why is it a good thing either?

With library manipulation, we have additional information. That means the next card is no longer random - we know what it is! So then shuffling can be very useful because you are getting rid of a card you don't want to get a random card (which should be, on average, better than something you don't want). But without library manipulation, you don't know what the next card is. It could be the card you want already! And the new one after shuffling may not be. They're both random!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

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.

Also, that next shuffle effect may just well make a new cluster into previously 101% perfectly randomized deck.

I'd hardly call it a study. It's more like a discrete distribution that a chimp could work out with Excel open.

It still more than I've ever seen from the fetchland-thinning cultists.

Are you shuffling your deck again to randomize your next draw or to not draw a dud? Because here's how math works: if it's truly random (with equal probabilities for each card), you will draw duds sometimes. Sometimes multiple duds. Using a shuffle effect will not prevent the next dud. Period. Says my Math PhD.

If you are trying to "correct" your deck because you don't think it was sufficiently randomized in the first place, then you are admitting to cheating. Because EACH time you shuffle your deck, you are supposed to ensure it is sufficiently randomized before stopping and presenting it to the opponent to cut. So unless you did not shuffle your deck according to the rules in the first place, you should not be able to make it "more random" with an additional shuffle.

+1

[Darklingske]

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.

Forge tender is a nice solution, but Crusader and mom don't help since Progenitus has protection from everything.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Forge tender is a nice solution, but Crusader and mom don't help since Progenitus has protection from everything.

I think he meant them as a way how to get fast damage past the green walls...

[Barbed Blightning]

I think he meant them as a way how to get fast damage past the green walls...

Plus double jitte = GG

[Finn]

It's better than that. Old school protection from Progenitus.

Run through it in your head to see how protection from green plus that sword, plus burrenton forge tender win against Elves featuring progenitus?

[Fry]

At GP Indy last year the Burrenton Forge-Tender & Mirran Crusader & Sword of Light and Shadow got me from the semi-finals in a grinder to the finals (lost to a damn belcher deck in the finals! grr...) It's a great trick, love the non targeting of the Forge-Tender.

[FieryBalrog]

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.

My brain hurts after reading this post. This might be the dumbest lengthy forum post I have read in quite a while.

I would think it was a parody were it not for the fact that I've seen this same fellow (user name) on a bunch of other boards and it's always the same.

[Koby]

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.

Whhhooooossh.

Not really sure what tree you're barking up Dalkon, but you're making a lot of splash and not a single wave. If you want to present a mathematical argument for card choices, I suggest you present some hypergeometric distribution calculations with clear and enumerated scenarios.

Even if you can demonstrate greater than 1% improvement over several turns, that's only going to effectively improve your topdeck once in 100 games. That's about once in 10 tournaments. Seems like a winning strategy.

[BlkdOutGsxR]

I have been wondering about flagstones, the shuffle effect has no benefit to the deck (Which is a mind-blowing argument if you cannot know the top card or what you will draw into) but I have been curious about it because I run cataclysm in the sideboard and the random annihilator triggers you will face with sneak and show. I have read a couple pages back (new member) but is there a distinct disadvantage to the card other then not being able to cast two swords to plowshares at instant speed on your opponents turn (if you have two flags with no other white sources)?

The statement that if it only helps 1% of your match-ups it is a bad card doesn't really fly, assuming that it doesn't hurt your deck in 1% then it is still an advantage to have the card, and that IS good magic unless your trading off a card that would give you greater then a 1% advantage.

Edit: Blood Moon, got it. So what do people think about running it if sneak and show is a big thing around your area? Worth it?

[Jungian Thing]

I have been using four flagstones, there are a number of pros and cons.

The main cons are Blood Moon and having it wasted during your upkeep, which happened to Kurpaska in a recent SCG final.

On the pro side, there is the fact it isn't a plains so anti-plains card Massacre is not a problem. They tutor a plains (can fetch a dual or Mistviel plains). Anti Pox, and synch with Cataclysm. Flagstone petals.

From my usage of them, I would say that they are neither overwhelmingly good nor for that matter devastatingly bad. They are a card the opponent could exploit though given time and exposure to DnT. I will keep mine until that happens.

[Fatal]

Vs Elves and Progenitus/Craterhoof you can use Wing Shards - its little forgotten hate but works perfectly as additional removal and dogde any kind of protection/counters, vs elves its works much better then you think :).

[Koby]

The statement that if it only helps 1% of your match-ups it is a bad card doesn't really fly, assuming that it doesn't hurt your deck in 1% then it is still an advantage to have the card, and that IS good magic unless your trading off a card that would give you greater then a 1% advantage.

The '1%' I mentioned is regarding the improved ratio of spells to land after consecutive "fetches".

Everyone should read this article regarding the mathematics of "deck thinning": http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096

Ultimately, then, I would argue that the data bears out the contention that playing fetch-lands for their thinning effects are a bad idea: Only a suicidally reckless aggro deck can afford 4 life for a card, and those decks can’t afford to wait 20+ turns for it.

So, if the entire reason for running Flagstones was to thin out the deck, then it's a bad idea and a waste of resources and availability/access to mana right away. The downsides are: Stifle, Wasteland, Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Price of Progress. The few upsides are synergy with Cataclysm or Weathered Wayfarer.

[BlkdOutGsxR]

Anyone have a link or know of a thread for sideboarding with this deck? Have a tourney this weekend but I just started getting into legacy.

Current Sideboard:
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sunlance
2 Cataclysm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Pithing Needle
2 Oblivion ring
2 Wilt-leaf liege
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 leonin Relic-warder
2 Rest in Peace

[monovfox]

Anyone have a link or know of a thread for sideboarding with this deck? Have a tourney this weekend but I just started getting into legacy.

Current Sideboard:
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sunlance
2 Cataclysm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Pithing Needle
2 Oblivion ring
2 Wilt-leaf liege
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 leonin Relic-warder
2 Rest in Peace

seems pretty standard. I'd prolly swap the jitte for a disenchant or a manrikiri gusari.

What's your 60?

[BlkdOutGsxR]

seems pretty standard. I'd prolly swap the jitte for a disenchant or a manrikiri gusari.

What's your 60?

Oh I was talking for specific's on games, like whats in/out in curtain match-ups. Running Enevoldsen's list -Castle/+Plains. I was also thinking about switching the Jitte for a Manrikiri but Jitte seems very good against the mirror. But Legacy is so new to me that I really have no idea what I'm getting into Lol. Trying to read up on it as much as possible before the weekend.

[from Cairo]

Running Enevoldsen's list -Castle/+Plains.


1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sunlance
2 Cataclysm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Pithing Needle
2 Oblivion ring
2 Wilt-leaf liege
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 leonin Relic-warder
2 Rest in Peace

...

Oh I was talking for specific's on games, like whats in/out in curtain match-ups.

I don't have a set SB plan currently, but in general these are the types of swaps I'd use.

In general against combo the 2 STP come out for 2 Canonist. Then the remaining 2 STP and Fiend Hunter are replaced with combinations of either Leonin Relic Warder (Belcher/TES/ANT), Rest in Peace (ANT), Pithing Needle (Belcher/Sneak Attack) or O Ring (SnT here FH stays in).

Against Miracles STP, Fiend Hunter come out. If it's the near creatureless builds I would consider Jitte and an SFM as further chops. O Ring, Cataclysm, Relic Warder and Needle are all solid, Canonist can fill out slots too.

Against DeathBlade and Jund decks I cut Mangara, and Aven Mincensor for the RiP, 2nd Jitte and Sunlance. Against Jund 1-2 Flickerwisp and 0-1 Thalia for 2 Wilt-Leaf Liege.

Against Elves I chop Mangara and Flickerwisp for 2 Ethersworn Canonist, Sunlance, Jitte, and Pithing Needle.

Against Shardless I drop Aven Mincensor, Mangara and maybe a Flickerwisp for 2 Oblivion Ring and 2 Rest in Peace.

Against Maverick/Bant I cut some Thalia and Aven Mindcensor for Umezawa's Jitte, Leonin Relic Warder and maybe an Oblivion Ring

Against the Mirror I cut Thalia and probably a Mirran Crusader for 2 Wilt-Leaf Liege, Umezawa's Jitte, Leonin Relic-Warder, and Oblivion Ring.

Against Goblins and Merfolk I drop some Thalia for Jitte and Sunlance vs Goblins; against Merfolk instead bringing in Oblivion Ring. Cataclysm might be good against Goblins too, I might replace the remaining Thalias on the draw for 'Clysm.

Hopefully that gives some insight to the common match ups. I'd imagine others will have some feedback as well. If there's another specific match you're concerned about or want some reasoning behind these picks let me know.

[monovfox]

from cairo has this shizzz covered. Against jund I usually pull 2 thalia. Seems reasonable IMO. Though, I guess I can see keeping her in.

[BlkdOutGsxR]

Thanks for the info Cairo. What are your thoughts on Elganjo Castle as a 1 of? Should I just run a plains or does the effect really come into play that often with Mangara? It would almost never save Thalia, so it stumps me a little.

I did notice that I just need to get some play in with the deck, being relatively new this deck is going to be one that I get better and better from here on out. Right now I am quite shotty with it.