MTGO Testing Lessons and Metallica

“I jumped up, fired my pistols, and I shot him with both barrels.”

In the early days of pistols, this had a distinct meaning. It meant that if you were lucky enough to carry two pistols, you most likely did not fire both of them at the same time for a few reasons.

First reason: The accuracy of the early pistol in that day and age was horrible. Anything outside of 10 feet from an opponent, your chances of hitting the target you were aiming for drop exponentially. Usually the first shot was to force your opponent into a bad position where you could get on top of them and use the second pistol to fire the final blow.

Second reason: Gunpowder and peripherals for firing a pistol were expensive. Firing both pistols at once and hitting your opponent twice was a waste of resources. The size of the shell in the early pistols dwarfs modern day projectiles. A hit from an early pistol shell would mean death, or at least a lot of pain. Today we go for quantity not size.

Third reason: The element of surprise can turn the tide in even the bleakest battles. Fire once, hide, let your opponent think you are loading, and you have created a spider trap for the fly.

Therefore, what I learned from deck testing on MTGO with a curses deck is a new level of patience.

Here is the deck list.

Auras

3x Curse of Misfortunes

3x Curse of Death’s Hold

2x Curse of Oblivion

4x Curse of Thirst

1x Curse of Exhaustion

(13)

Spells

4x Day of Judgment

3x Black Sun’s Zenith

2x Choking Fumes

3x Tragic Slip

3x Lingering Souls

4x Despise

(19)-(32)

Creatures

3x Solemn Simulacrum

(3)-(35)

Artifacts

2x Ratchet Bomb

(2)-(37)

Lands

8x Plains

9x Swamps

4x Isolated Chapel

2x Ghost Town

(23)-(60)

Sideboard

2x Curse of Oblivion

1x Curse of Death’s Hold

2x Curse of Exhaustion

2x Ratchet Bomb

4x Nihil Spellbomb

4x Revoke Existence

(15)

First reason: It is a combo deck and it is based on getting your opponent in enough of a disadvantage early that you can, overwhelm them with enchantments late game that lock them out of creatures and/or resources.

Second reason: All but one of the curses in white and black are 5 converted mana. The choice to extend the resources needed and keep a backup plan takes almost impeccable timing. That timing is different against different opponents. With a green rush deck(Pod or Ramp), I need to wait till the coast is clear, as opposed to UB zombies which can explode in an instant, but tends to ramp out damage with only a few creatures (Geralf’s Messenger) that are semi-manageable. Countermagic is also an issue. Although Death’s Hold is the only multiple black, it is expensive to get them out and working around Mana Leak and Dissipate is difficult, but not impossible at the rate they are run in the current environment.

Third reason:  Death’s Hold is almost a staple in the UB and BW decks at this point. It is expensive, but running one or two does not hurt the curve for them and it is an extreme advantage late game. Death’s Hold is a card that I usually hold until I get the one via the Misfortunes. In fact, I hold most of the curses until I can “fetch” one with the Misfortunes to double the Thirst fun. Enchantment removal and O-Rings do hurt the deck, but with multiple of each out, I can still accomplish my objective a little slower.

The environment is riddled with slowly elevating creatures or fast, pinging threats that this deck fares well with considering the all mass removal it contains. Early in testing, I would slam down as Oblivion followed by a Thirst so I could deal some damage with the Thirst only to find myself dead the next turn. I have since learned that sometimes holding for a turn or two or dropping the Death’s Hold first is the key. It is slow, but as long as I choose when to use the barrels, it works much smoother.

As a side note, one match in particular came down to the last few cards in the third game. My opponent was playing URG with graveyard dump, some Runechanter Pikes, Beast Within, and a Swiftfoot Boots or two. I waited until almost lethal to play AND use the Nihil Spellbomb. Usually I just drop it early when I have the mana and use it whenever. What I learned from this particular long experience is that sometimes the use of all your mana and resources each turn may not be the best plan.

Enjoy!

Day...ahh...err...Anyway, back to reality.

There has been a lot of talk lately in my circle of players in the comparison to a rogue deck player and a net deck player. There is the third group that never gets much mention in that conversation. That group contains the creators of the decks that become the net decks.

Yes, we all have the want to build the next best deck that dominates the Grand Prix or Pro Tour Qualifier. The sad truth is, unless Magic the Gathering is your life (as in, it pays all of your bills) then you are really stuck with making a lucky sandwich with a side of knowledge.

                “Information is not knowledge”

                                -Albert Einstein

That statement is so true and can be applied to the above-mentioned issue. You can know every card in the current field and even know the best cards to use for each color, but that does not translate to knowledge of how Magic the Gathering as a whole is played. Even history can be a hindrance in assembling a competitive deck. For those that did not play through Black Summer, the importance of card advantage is still evident, but the severity of that offset early OR late, can rarely be realized until it is too late.

So good deck designers get to the top 8. True. Sometimes. Good net-deck selectors get to the top 8. True. Much less of the time. It isn’t any wonder that there are players that are in the Hall of Fame. Those players are there because they consistently spend their time not only researching and building the next big deck, but they spend time play testing that deck against other decks. Not just other decks, but the decks in the field. Not just decks in the field, but the top tier decks in the field. I would like to think that because I go into the Tournament Prep room on MTGO that I am playing the top tier decks, but sometimes that isn’t always the case.

Assistance is the key to any good article or conversation. I am a firm believer that if you are going to pose a problem or issue, that you in turn have to pose a number of solutions to that problem. The solutions have to be neutral and not emotionally charged. I will pose a good solution to this issue, but my solution is not the be all and end all of solutions.

Go ahead. Build your rogue deck. But, also build at least 3 of the top tier decks from the last top 8 GP or PTQ. No, you don’t need to spend monstrous amounts of money to ACTUALLY build the decks, but build what you can and proxy the rest. You can even print out the cards cheaply in black and white and slide them in a sleeve in front of a land. Once you have these at your disposal, play against yourself. What? You cannot gain anything from this if you know what your opponent has? Yes you can. You can gain insight to what your opponent is going to do to your deck…quickly. Don’t dwell on this stage too much, but run a few trials with each of the top tier decks. You will be surprised how quickly you don’t even have to move past this phase without making major modifications or circular filing the idea all together.

Next, get your regular play test group together and let them play the top tier decks. This is where you get the fine tuning down on your used-to-be rogue deck that is no becoming a contender. This is not the short process. You should go through about 15 to 20 games against each deck, rotating between all the top tier decks before making any changes. Changes against one deck may falter against the other two or three decks. Make sure the change works for the field, not the plot of land you are standing on.

The final step is the obvious step: Field Test. There is nothing like going to a local or regional FNM or weekend specialty tournament and trying against the rest of the field. Top tier and rogues alike will appear and you can get a better dial on the nuances and sideboard changes that need to happen.

Again, this is not a proven method and may be stating the obvious for some of you, but it is a quick solution to move you from the rogue player to the “I just won the GP (insert big city)!”

Day 8 - Short read

Well, here it is. The day before I go back to work. I could really use a few more days to heal, but the grind waits. I don't want to get all philosophical and deep, but I do want to pass on what I have learned. I have learned that there is no substitution for good eating AND there is no sooner time to start than now. Again, I don't want to go viral with my ideas, but lets just say there is a LOT of food out there that has a LOT of bad stuff in it. Just for fun, look up cellulose and be disgusted. We can't spend every second of the day worrying about food, but I am certainly spending much more of my day and conscious paying attention to it.

I may not get to this blog as much as I have in the last 8 days, but when I get the bite, I will write. Thank you all that have sent me well wishes in my healing process.

I am listening to Maro on the live feed from GP Seattle. He is one of those people that thinks faster than he talks. I love listening to people with that much passion.

Design - Deck builder

Development - Deck tuners

Got it? Good!

Day 6 rolling into 7

I did not get a day 6 in the books for a few reasons. First, I felt pretty good yesterday and we took a short trip up to the Outlet Malls in Hagerstown. Walked the mall, enjoyed the family and fresh air, and ended up rolling home via FNM. I already knew that there were 8+ so it would be 4 rounds and I was not sure that if I got into the tournament I would be able to last the whole time. I did however have a great relaxing evening playing some Commander and assisting Don with opening a case of Innistrad. We are getting a great group of people in our local tournament arena and it certainly is becoming very enjoyable to just be there. I am not sure I am ready to get back into the competitive scene again yet, but when I do, I am certain I am in the right place for it. I did have a deck that is not in the top tier or was not used at the last GP or SCG open. I wanted to try it and I have been testing it against the MTGO field for a week or two. It reminds me of a time when.....

First, I want to re-post an article one of our Magic group posted recently. It says a lot of what I would have said about the subject and even more. I only have a few things to add and a personal experience with the subject as well.

http://wingmanmtg.tumblr.com/post/18590238620/being-the-rogue-in-todays-standard

So, if you got through the article, it is well written and detailed and even comes with a good example deck. I do hate to go to a tournament not only knowing that the deck I am playing is not my own, but also knowing that all the other decks are not the invention of the player. It reminds me of a time when....

The highest finish I had in my Magic the Gathering history was in Ft. Lauderdale Florida for a Pro Tour Qualifier. I finished second on the day. It was Invasion Block format and the flavor of the day was the deck built around Fires of Yavimaya and massive creatures. I had seen the deck for a month and played it, as well as playing against it. I deck tested everything I could against it and nothing was a match. I wasn't having much fun, so as a joke, I put together a U/B fun bounce/discard deck. I love manipulating the playing field and this deck did it to a T.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ptq-2-finish/

I loved going into the room with something completely counter environment and running the field dry. That was my personal experience. I do only have one thing to add to the article Tom wrote above. It is unfortunate that there is such a large gap between competitive and casual play. You cannot force the casual environment to not play a deck found on the internet or from the last big tournament just like you cannot force a rogue deck player to not play in a large Grand Prix or PTQ. The solid truth is that a rogue deck, unless extensively tested against the current field, will only work a fraction of the time. To drag a quote from Tom's post:

I've come to the realization that, while running these top decks (or at least testing against them) is usually a safe bet on any give week, some of these strategies are not ones that I am particularly comfortable with and I usually end up running worse than I would if I took the time and effort to build a deck that A) I was comfortable with and B) no one was expecting..

I think this is at the essence of why rogue players (and I consider myself one as well) do what they do. I think the only thing missing from this statement is that as a rogue player, you assemble a deck from scratch and usually out of what you believe is a fun mechanic or card. This brings you closer to each individual card through labored choice and keeps you in your "wheel house" when playing the deck as well. I think the whole article was well thought out, but this particular part needed to be elaborated on, in my opinion. The idea is there, I just think it goes deeper in the rogue direction, rather than the failure in playing a deck that wins consistently, but you are not familiar with.

I will go out on a limb and say that I believe that some of the issues with this stem from the structure of playing Magic. When I played while I was in college, Friday nights for us was 8 players around a table at Denny's playing "run what you brung" Magic. You didn't have restrictions or limitations (other than the four of rule) and money didn't bring the best cards. Yes, there were older cards that were quite devastating, but most of our group did not have enough of those cards to matter. What it did force us to do was be prepared to make decisions with cards that wouldn't be made in normal play sometimes.

I really enjoyed Tom's blog as a nod to the rogue player and hope that maybe some of it sticks with everyone out there. Remember, somebody brought a rogue deck to play test that ended up being the last GP winner and that somebody may be you next time!

Tag fűnf

So, I actually got up today for over 2 hours. I sat at my real computer and then flipped through some cards at my table. It felt good. Then I sneezed. I have been holding it back for over a week now. Let me explain recovery from surgery in the abdominal area in two steps. Rest and don't sneeze. I learned this when I had my appendix taken out (also as an emergency procedure). Sneezing was both the most painful think I have ever felt and the most scary on the internal sutures.

I winced when it came, but surprise...no pain. Ok, well, just a little, but nothing what I remember from before. I am not in pain in general anymore either. If I move wrong or breath a little deep, I can feel it. I am getting the healing spasms. Food is great though. I wish I had done this years ago, for obvious and personal reasons!

German. Ah, the non-love language. I took German for 3 years in high school. It was only required for 2, but I loved the teacher and all the students and most of us went the full 3 years together. I love German Magic cards. Just something about the harshness of the language makes it seem so forceful and angry. My daughter has decided that her two years of Latin (taking it because she wants to enter the field of forensics/anthropology) is more than enough in high school. After this she informs me that she wants to take German in college. I was excited, but realistic. I advised that she should take Chinese.

Wow, am I rambling. Well, that was a pure example of me taking my time to listen to things and pay attention to the small things. I think that Tori (my daughter) and I have not spoken past the shallow end in months and it was very exciting. I mentioned in a previous post that I am considering leaving Magic for a number of reasons. I am not sure why I chose Magic as the target, other than the fresh string of incidents and recent life changing event. I should have included all vices on the list of "do I need these things in my life." For one thing, I really miss playing guitar and writing songs. It was my life for just a little over three years in the band I helped form.(www.myspace.com/contrastband) It was fun AND gratifying and with initial monetary input, there was little upkeep cost involved.

Oh, vices, let me count the way: Magic the Gathering, MTGO, World of Warcraft, Painting, Drawing, Writing, and all the time spent researching each one of them. And let's not forget social media. I must check my phone 15 times a day to see what is going on.

I need to assess all of those vices I have, not just Magic. The Magic part of my life just had a string of things in a row that led me to question it. A majority of those things have been resolved with flying colors, but the question of if I want to spend my brain release time and money on it still looms. Of all my vices, it is certainly the biggest drain on the wallet.

It remains to be seen, but I can certainly say this week has been an eye opener for me in a plethora of different ways. I hope that I come out the other end of this tunnel with more than just a new diet and one less organ.

Day 4 - Walking and (still) rambling

I actually got interaction today! I saved up my walking/standing time to go to casual night MtG and make a few trades/drop off a few cards/look at some Alt 4th edition stuff. It felt good to get my mind off being in bed for a while. Nothing shocking or crazy today, except the fact that I WANT TO MOVE! I hate being restricted. I have so many things I would like to do, but even my computer situation is limited. I am using a laptop that is about 5 years old (ancient in technology standards) because sitting at my regular PC would be painful after a while. I guess it will all be over soon and I will be back to the grind, so I shouldn't complain.

I want to say a big thank you to all the guys at casual MtG for the well wishes and putting up with my disgusting looking midsection. A HUGE thank you to my wife for braving the storm and in general for everything else she has done for me this week and everything she will do for me in the future. In particular, thank you Misty for going along with the diet change as well. I could write 5 pages on how much I have learned in the last week about foods and how they relate to fat content. The best way to sum it up and not bore you? Stop eating out. Best think you can do for your life, trust me.

I was posting some fun stuff on mtgfanatic.com for a while I feel that I want to move them over here occasionally. Adam got me into building a Pauper Cube and I wrote a short take on the issue with putting one together.


Everyone has been there. You are in round 3 of an 8 round grinder and nothing to do after the end of a quick round or you are preparing for a pre-release or a qualifier and are burned out on the tier gauntlet. In that down time, friends and myself always found creative ways of passing that time, while still keeping limber mentally in the Magic world. We played group magic before it was ‘hip.’ We traded crazy decks to see how the other team mates thought about decks. We even took a stack of about 300 extra cards, threw them in the middle of the table and the same stack and graveyard. In that format, any card could be turned upside down and used as a painless City of Brass. Sometimes we would play mental magic where you could cast any spell you could think of that was the same casting cost as the one in your hand OTHER than the actual card you were holding. I miss those days and now with a much larger pool of cards, some of which I am not familiar with. I am slowly getting back into the world of playing both competitively and for fun and stumbled onto the Cube idea through a new work friend. An actual Cube is a little too much thought, so I chose to dig into the pauper variety. I totally underestimated the thought process that would go into such a simple sounding item.

I didn’t dive right in; I played with my work friend over lunch in a Winchester draft of a pauper Cube to get my feet wet. I was hooked instantly, but had a lot of questions. The basics of the Cube is a stack of 360 to ‘whatever number you choose’ individual and unique cards (in this case, all commons), a good mix of each color, non-basic land, artifacts, and multi-color cards, and a lot of patience and time. You can draft it with 8 people, you can two person draft it, you can even play like I used to…both right off the top with unneeded cards as land. There are a myriad of articles that give you more details of the Cube and the theories behind certain cards out there. This musing, however, is more of the angle of a novice and how it has spurred my interest and excitement over Magic the Gathering again.

In sitting down to a Winchester draft of my first ever Cube, I was as attentive as I could be and brought away what I could from the table. I saw some old staple cards, as well as some new ‘soon to be’ classics. Cards like Nightscape Familiar are very powerful when drafted correctly and Repulse becomes almost as good as removal when splashed. I went away from the experience enlightened and confused at the same time. “Why not play this card” or “what is wrong with X card.” Little did I know that it would consume a lot of my human RAM for the next week?

Through this process, I made a challenging discovery. You cannot just dig into your extra commons and take and stack of each color and throw them together. I came up with three major areas to be concerned with when looking through the stacks of commons available.

Creature/Spell Balance

Each color needs to have a heaping helping of creatures and not too many spells/enchantments. With too many spells/enchantments, the color becomes only a splash. Keep in mind that you will use the Cube in a general setting where you will most likely be playing with someone (or multiple someones) with whom you don’t know their playing style. When you are attempting to appeal to a general market of potential players, you don’t want to put off the blue mage by throwing in 10 blue creatures and 30 counterspells. Depending on the usability of the spells/enchantments, about 10% to 25% of the color should be spells/enchantments with a focus on handling creatures or controlling the deck or hand (yours or your opponents.) Land destruction is hard to support unless it is the focus of a color and then it gets narrow for the red or black mage. Discard is a good splash, but not as a main focus. Balancing out the creature to spell ratio is a not a high focus, but will help control the speed of the games.

Power

There is a LOT of powerful commons throughout all the sets available and some tend to stand out as splash cards or a sure bet to be put in. Not so fast, though. Some of them may be too powerful for this environment or too weak in only a single copy. Dark Ritual is notably one of the best commons in the game of Magic, but a wasted card in this environment. Accumulated Knowledge is a great drawing card…in multiples of 4. So consider that the environment will be middle speed and that you want good matches, not an overbearing color or deck, and then choose your spells accordingly. The same can be said of creatures. You don’t want evasive creatures like Trespassing Souleater that are going to ping your opponent in 10 turns without a solution and conversely, you don’t want cards like Shield of Oversoul that slow the game to a crawl.

Fun

The last part is easy. Once you have balanced out all the colors and spells to creature’s ratios, have fun with it. I got partially through the Winchester draft with my work friend and an Unhinged card was flipped over. I actually chuckled out loud and then realized it wasn’t a joke. The format is open to all cards and how you put it together is up to you. You can put conversation pieces in, signed cards, alternate art cards, even the silly Knight of the Hokey Pokey card from unglued if you want. The format is loose in the truest sense of the word and a great way to pass time between the serious playing with friends, acquaintances, or players you just met.

I have been told that even when I finish what I think is my pauper Cube, that it will evolve drastically after the first few trial runs and slightly there-after. I am looking forward to that process and encourage you to explore the idea as well.

A little fun Magic Math

I wrote this a few months back and wanted to share on my open forum. Enjoy!


Unwritten rules of Magic:

You should not get more mana out of something than you put into it.

Drawing cards is an advantage and should have an equal cost.

After that, it is pretty much fair game. Wizards has put a lot of time and effort into creating new cards and making sure they are balanced for both Standard play and the other 15 or so formats floating around. They take care to catch cards that may become too powerful or not see any play at all. Even though they go through great lengths to do this, cards still make into the environment that fit both ends of the spectrum.
With the two major unwritten rules above, I would like to throw a little new math out there that may explain some of the reasons cards are graced with the title “broken” and highlight a few cards that either come close to breaking the unwritten rules and some that even, based on the new math, break the rules, but are overlooked.

Lets look at the basics as it applies to mana production.

First remove all costs. Not just overall, but colorless for colorless and a single color for a single color produced. +1 if the item can be used the turn it comes into play (i.e. an artifact that is not a creature). +1 for each color it can produce. -1 for each requirement item involved (-3 if it has metalcraft, -3 if it only has three counters, etc.) +X, where X = Average Power/Toughness if it is a creature. – casting cost at 2 to 1.
Lets start with a creature like Llanowar Elves. Remove the cost (one green mana and it produces one green mana) and he is at 0. Add the average of power and toughness and Llanowar Elves becomes a 1. Sphere of Suns is a two color casting cost artifact that produces one of 5 color mana. Removing cost makes it a 3. Add one for being used the turn it comes into play and subtract 3 for the counters drawback now makes it a 1. If you look at a big rule breaker like Sol Ring, you remove casting cost and it is a 1. It produces an extra colorless mana after the cost is removed (+1) and can be used the turn it comes into play (+1). Sol Ring is a 2 on the new math scale. The Moxes would be a 2 based on the math. The granddaddy of them all, the Black Lotus, is a 0 casting cost that produces 3 of any color mana and can be used the same turn it comes into play BUT, it has the sacrifice drawback. So, on this math, it is a 3 due to its drawback. Only slightly better than a Mox. Many people may argue that fact, but if you look at the long game, a Mox, although limited to one color, will net the player more use to cost. Speed certainly can be a factor in Magic, but speed does not factor into this math.

Let’s take Lion’s Eye Diamond. In the right deck, it is extremely useful, but the difference in usefulness in the same situations as the Black Lotus show in the math. Lion’s Eye Diamond is a 0 casting cost that gives you three of any color mana. It has two drawbacks, one of which is an immediate -1, the sacrifice effect. The second subtraction comes in how many cards you are discarding. At best, Lion’s Eye diamond is a 3, at worst it is a -4. So, the new math is totally based on usefulness as opposed to speed or casting cost.

This new math for mana producers is not perfect, but it is a guide I have went by for years when choosing the most powerful cards for a situation where I could not make a decision between a few choice cards to fill a spot or two.