tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-632814656865840882024-03-05T21:09:19.994-08:00toordeforceLucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-73322985025927759792016-06-07T10:32:00.000-07:002016-06-07T10:32:36.245-07:00Don’t Loot Unless Your Bad (#Clickbait)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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LSV posed the following hypothetical:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/luis-scott-vargas/whats-the-play-the-looter-problem/" target="_blank">The Looter Problem</a><br /><br />This is my answer.<br /><br /><b>1) Looting in this
situation is functionally equivalent to milling yourself 1 card.</b><br />
<br />
The only difference is if we would keep the card we draw off the loot. Which we
would only do if the top card of the library is better than lightning blast. <br />
<br />
But if we knew the top card was better than lightning blast, in this situation
we would prefer to not loot anyways. So lets consider another less
controversial equivalent question:<br />
<br />
<b>2) In the middle of a game of limited if
you were given the opportunity to mill the top card of your library would you?<br />
<br />
2a) Decking<br />
</b>There is a small chance that you deck earlier and this ends up being
relevant. <br />
<br />
<i>Verdict: Very Small Negative</i><b>.<br />
<br />
2b) Information<br />
</b>Harder to evaluate but I think generally symmetrical information is bad for
player 1. The unknowns in your hand are the hardest part for an opponent to
play around optimally. Knowing that player 1 has milled their
bomb/sweeper/combat trick, is almost certainly going to be more valuable for their
opponent than it is for Player 1. In some sense, the most valuable information
for you is when some # of outs have been eliminated. But again we have a case
where in order for the information to be valuable our deck composition has
become worse. <br />
<br />
<i>Verdict: Net Small Negative</i><b>.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>2c) Variance<br />
<br />
</b><u>This is the most important factor for the decision.</u> If you choose to
mill you are increasing the variance of your draw. At the moment you mill each
card has some value to you. And your draw step has the expected value of those
cards. But if you remove a card at random you are changing the EV of your draw
step. If your remove a good card then you are decreasing it and if you mill a
bad card you are increasing it.<br />
<br />
However the EV changes of all possible mills is net zero. This should hopefully
be intuitive.<br />
<br />
So milling the card increases the variance of your draw step (it is now higher
or lower EV than before), but that change was net neutral in EV gained. <u>So
you have just generated variance with no gain in EV.</u><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<i><br />Verdict: Negative if
adding variance is bad.</i><b><br />
<br />
3) So when do want more variance?</b><br />
As usual we want more variance in the situations where we are behind or if we
think our opponent is better than us.<br />
<br />
In this particular example, there is no evidence we are currently behind. And I
would hope for most people that they think they are better than their random
opponent.<br />
<br />
<i>Verdict: In the middle of limited game
you normally wouldn’t want to mill your top card.</i><br />
<br />
<b><i><u>Final:
Thus you don’t loot.</u></i></b><br />
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Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-82405588553502407422014-08-18T13:21:00.002-07:002014-08-18T13:22:01.859-07:004th at the Toronto WMCQ with BW Midrange.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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3<o:p></o:p></div>
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Last Breath<o:p></o:p></div>
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1<o:p></o:p></div>
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Banishing Light<o:p></o:p></div>
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1<o:p></o:p></div>
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Doom Blade<o:p></o:p></div>
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2<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
I have been experimenting with a lot of versions of Bx in the past few months.
Before the PT I was interested in exploring versions which were similar to
standard jund decks of old. In other words:<br />
<br />
-Lots of Removal<br />
-A few insane finishers<br />
-A little bit of card advantage<br />
-A couple of anti-control cards<br />
<br />
Key to these builds were moving away from the standard MonoB synergy power and
towards individual card power.
Channelfireball had already moved towards this direction, but I had enough
experience with the deck to recognize a lot of things I didn’t like in their PT
build.<br />
<br />
After grinding for a week (including winning a Bye for WMCQ), I came across BBD’s
build at 8am on Sunday morning. His biggest innovation was 3x Obzedat and 0 Bloodbaron’s
main. Its also where I saw 4 sign in bloods. <br />
<br />
I did see his article on SCG, but mostly adopted the changes based on a couple
of things that really clicked for me after playing around with something closer
to CFB’s list.<br />
<br />
No BBoV: This card is good against MonoB and GW. But MonoB had already adopted
4 devour fleshes and 4 lifebanes main.
Rabble Red and Jund Planeswalkers had also adopted a million ways to
answer it. <br />
Meanwhile Obzedat is a faster clock (though worse at stabilizing) and more
resilient. Basically demons 5-7. The clock part is highly relevant, because
even if you tear their hand/board to shreds you can’t control the top of their
deck (as a true control deck can). So you need to kill them.<br />
<br />
Sign in Blood: Underworld connections becomes a debatable inclusion when not
playing with grey merchant. It’s definitely great against UW and decent against
the mirror. But sign in blood as a couple of key things going on. First, it
lets you play 25 lands. Secondly, it makes your deck better on the draw. There
is a significant portion of the field where connections is a mulligan on the
draw (MonoU, GW, rabble red, even planeswalkers sometimes). Your deck is
already bad on the draw because pack rat loses so much power. Against MonoB sign in bloods are great
because you want to start drawing cards in the midgame rapidly after you are
getting thoughtseize and lbz’ed. They also make your curve much smoother since:<br />
<br />
Sign -> 3 Drop or Removal ->Sign-> demon is much less awkward than
when you have a Connections.<br />
<br />
2 NVS, 1 LBZ: Lifebane Zombie is slowly becoming awful. Big green idiot decks
are pretty poorly positioned and I am tired of getting chandra’ed. The card is
good against GW, but NVS is reasonable there also. Meanwhile NVS is much better
vs MonoB, MonoU, UW and Rabble Red. The 4 most important decks in the format.
In general I am not high on 3 drops and almost cut them all from my deck. If
you noticed my analogy to Jund, than the 3s don’t really fit anywhere in it. You
could definitely save some sideboard slots and run 2 LBZ (cutting the one from
the board).<br />
<br />
4 Demon: Playing less than 4 demon is completely idiotic. Its your
anti-bullshit card. People obsess over pack rat, without realizing that demon
kills them just as quickly.<br />
<br />
Duress Main: Very good against jund planeswalkers. Decent against rabble, GW
and the mirror. Pretty bad against MonoU. <br />
<br />
SB: The sideboard really only has one interesting decision. Either you respect
Rabble Red (and play 3 drownn) or you use those slots to beat up on Midrange
Green decks or GW. On Modo I saw barely any GW all week and the dealers were
sold out of Legion Loyalists. So I decided on 3 drowns.<br />
<br />
<br />
Erebos is an awful card. Only good against UW and then often just turns on
Deicide.<br />
The second last breath, LBZ and BBoV are the cards you want to beat GW.<br />
You don’t really need to sideboard in the mirror.<br />
<br />
The only mistake in deck construction was the Whip of Erebos. It should
probably just be an interactive spell or a bloodbaron. I have never liked Whip
in MonoB or Bg. But because this was my first time playing 3 obzdaddy, I
decided to try it. Since BBD and Ben Friedman were clearly on board, I figured
it might be better in BW than the previous MonoB versions I was more familiar
with. I only drew it g1 twice and cast it once (vs Hayne and I lost). I included it to try and be better against UW
(since I was cutting connections), but am not sure it does enough.<br />
<br />
I side it out versus basically every deck since I am not really interested in
racing in any matchup except the mirror. <br />
<br />
WMCQ:<br />
Bye<br />
W - MonoU<br />
W - Jund PW<br />
W - UW <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
W - UW<br />
W - Br <br />
W - Jund PW<br />
Draw<br />
Draw (I couldn’t play for seed because I got paired against a friend). This would come back to bite me because I
would be on the draw vs GW in the semis (which probably swings matchup by ~10-20%).<br />
<br />
QF: Beat GW on play.<br />
SF: Lose GW on the draw.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-8876995342252301882014-07-29T10:36:00.000-07:002014-07-29T10:36:37.695-07:00NEW Organized Play Changes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Doing the Math.<br />
sPTQ=Sub-PTQ = Feeder events.<br />
rPTQ = Regional PTQ<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">THE NEW WORLD ORDER<br />
Toronto has a population of about 3.5M people. Those people are served by 30
stores according to site location on Wizards (was actually easy to find with
google!). I assume that 90% of the stores can and will host the sPTQs. An rPTQ
has to cover about 20.6M in NA assuming it covers an equal fraction (16 rPTQs
for 340M people in NA).<br />
<br />
So that means we expect the rPTQ to average about 160 people in attendance
(triggering the 128 cap). If the cap is not triggered (variance in attendance
or less than 90% of stores hold sPTQs) than things are worse for most people.<br />
<br />
Consider a “grinder”. This player will attend up to 10 sPTQs and has a 10%
chance to win all of them. He also has a 8% (1.5x a 8/160 chance) chance to top
8 the rPTQ (reflecting his skill relative to increased difficulty). <br />
<br />
Expected Cost of Qualifying:<br />
6.5 Local sPTQs (sub 1.5 hr travel) + 1 rPTQ (65% of the time).<br />
5% net probability of qualifying (you can increase to 7.1% chance if you attend
all 27 sPTQs).<br />
<br />
OLD WORLD ORDER<br />
Grinder is willing to travel to 6 PTQs a season (everything <4 hours away).
Has a probability of winning the PTQ = 2%.<br />
<br />
Expected Cost of Qualifying:<br />
6 PTQs (since low prob of winning).<br />
11% Chance of Qualifying (this falls to 5.9% if you are only willing to attend
3 PTQs). <br />
<br />
TL;DR <br />
You will have less travel time per event. But spend more time on Magic. You are
about ½ as likely to qualify if attended 6 ptqs a season. But only about 1%
less likely if you attended 3 PTQs (though your magic time is now 3x). </span></div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-36325518092914836052014-03-14T11:41:00.000-07:002014-03-14T11:41:02.505-07:00Random Thoughts on BTT Limited<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Biggest Disagreements with CFB articles on
limited (Limited to 2 cards per color):<br />
<br />
<b>Blue</b><br />
<u>Siren of the Coast Fang (MindControl Tribute):</u> Seems to be rated as one
of the better uncommons. I think it is mediocre. Essentially equivalent in
power to a Prescient Chimera. And since we get two packs of Chimeras/Horizon
Scholars I am not interested. <br />
<br />
Its often going to be a 4/4 flier which is obviously good but not a ton better
then prescient chimera. However on an empty board or versus a 2/1 (or 1/1, 2/1,
2/3 etc) it becomes a 1/1 + shitty creature. Imagine a board of three 2/1s. Mind
control can be worse than a 3/4.<br />
<br />
<u>Archetype of Imagination:</u> This is much better than mind control tribute.
It can single handedly win a game. It represents a fast clock with any other
board presence. Of course you can get blown out by removal but that isn’t much
different than many other game changing pants in history of magic. At least in
this format instant speed removal is much harder to come by. Perfect curve
topper in any aggressive blue deck, though if it could only stop the unbeatable
Nessian Asp it would be perfect.<br />
<br />
<b>White</b><br />
<u>Hero of Iroas:</u> Frank Karsten has it as the third best rare. Which mostly
doesn’t make sense in the context of how he rates Akroan Skyguard. I have had
the Hero twice, it makes about 2 mana per game (when you draw it). Usually only
one of that mana is meaningful (in terms of improving your curve). That upside
does not make it significantly better then skyguard/wingsteed/favored hoplite
etc… White is the best color, but Hero is much closer to Skyguard than Endless
Legions.<br />
<br />
<u>Akroan Phalanx:</u> White/Red is the best deck (or at least tied for it).
Phalanx is insane in that deck while serviceable if you can’t activate it.
However its fairly easy to get a shimmering grotto or nylea’s prescence. I am
definitely first picking it over Vanguard of Brimaz.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">RED</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
<u>Everflame Eidolon</u> > Fall of Hammer >> Bolt of Keranos and Searing Blood.<br />
<br />
I think cheap removal is overrated since I only really want it vs ordeals (and
edict hero). You also end up low on space in your heroic decks since combat
tricks are also required. Everflame eidolon is cheap, trades with everything
and a huge threat on an empty board.<br />
<br />
<u>Fearsome Temper:</u> Second best common in the set. Can’t fathom a world I
take searing blood over this. Post PT I started taking it over Bolt (which I
didn’t have the balls for even though it felt right initially). Do not regret.<br />
<br />
<b>Green</b><br />
<u>Nessian’s Wild Ravager</u><b>: </b>Personal
bias definitely plays a part here, but I think the card is very overrated
again. Worse than nessian asp. If you are losing to huge flying creature (or
aqueous form etc..) the ability isn’t saving you. It comes down slow (acceleration
is now less common as well). Basically too interchangeable with other shitty
green boom booms to be a first pick. <br />
<br />
<u>Mortal’s Resolve: </u>Fantastic card. This is green’s wannabe God’s Willing .
Should be in discussion for best green common in the set (at least your first
copy). On that note stop passing Boon of
Erebos.<br />
<br />
<b>Black</b><br />
For commons/uncommons:<br />
1. Bile Blight<br />
2. Asphyxiate<br />
3. <u>Servant of Tymaret<br />
<br />
</u>Don’t like Shrike Harpy in aggressive decks and its more replacable than
the servant (though maybe slightly more powerful).<u><br />
<br />
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Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-47973420095462146712014-02-27T14:03:00.001-08:002014-02-27T14:03:23.617-08:00Welcome to the Jungle.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I played Zoo at the PT. It didn’t go well.
Limited didn’t go well either. <br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I still think this is the best Zoo deck. But given that 3 people played the deck and the other two hated it, maybe its time to let go. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
The List:<br />
</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">4 Wild Nacatl</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Kird Ape</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Loam Lion</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Experiment One</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Tarmogoyf</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">2 Flint Hoof Boar</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">3 Mutagenic Growth</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Ghor-Clan Rampager</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Lightning Bolt</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Path to Exile</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Tribal Flames</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Verdant Catacombs</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Misty Rainforest</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">4 Arid <st1:city w:st="on">Mesa</st1:city></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">1 Forest</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
1 Hallowed Fountain<br />
1 Steam Vents<br />
1 Blood Crypt<br />
1 <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Temple</st1:place></st1:city> Garden<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Sacred Foundry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Stomping Ground<br />
<br />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">sb:</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">3 Pyroclasm</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">3 Scavenging Ooze</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: whitesmoke;">1 Destructive Revelry <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Ancient Grudge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Ray of Revelation <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Combust <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Torpor Orb <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Thrun, the Last Troll <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Sword of WaP <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Harm's Way<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="background: whitesmoke; color: #5b636e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">1 Stony silence.</span><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
<br />
On this Zoo deck:<br />
16 one drop zoo makes you a 50/50 deck where 15% of the time you draw 3 one
drops and they are just dead. You also get a bunch of free wins against people
who just didn’t really respect zoo. The main question is why this is better
than a bigger version of zoo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Going large is a lot less effective in the mirror these days. It used to be
that a 4/4 (or 4/5) blocking a 2/3 or 3/3 was always a 2 for 1. Mutagenic
Growth and Rampager changed that. All of the sudden your opponent often has to
block on turn 3 or 4 with his 5/5 knight and you are going to blow him out. <br />
<br />
People were also focused on fighting Zoo with permanents so I wanted to have
the best reach possible. Once the board gums up you often need to be able to
deal 5-8 damage off of two cards. Enter Rampager/Tribal Flames. We tested the
mirror a bunch and felt that the added instability/damage from lands was
basically the never deciding factor in the mirror. Against most big decks you
are the aggressor (and life is not relevant) and against the other smaller
decks flood/screw and helixes were the most important things. Taking an
additional 2 from your lands wasn’t a big deal.<br />
<br />
3 drops in general suck because you end up having to build a manabase which
wants to get to 3. This means you can’t operate on 1 or 2 effectively and when
you flood you draw 5 or 6 lands instead of 4 or 5. I think 3’s also generally
are a trade off between resilience and speed. For an open format I generally
want speed.<br />
<br />
Maindeck I wanted to be immune to 2 power creatures (electrolyze/grim
lavamancer/magma spray) being relevant by themselves. E.g. I didn’t want the
front half of voice, back half of Finks or other random 2-power dudes to do
anything against me by themselves. Thus there are no Goblin Guides or Burning
Tree Emissarys. In most matchups you are fast enough without them.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">The biggest sideboard innovation came from
Todd. His suggestion of Pyroclasm was excellent in a variety of very close
matchups: Affinity, Pod, BW Tokens, UR Pyromancer. It was also randomly decent
against things like Boggles. In those matchups they are often relying on
chumping while stabilizing or racing. Being able to clear multiple blockers
(for two mana) is often enough to swing the game. <br />
<br />
You can’t really bring out more than 5 cards in any matchup with this deck, so
the rest of the sideboard is to provide you with some disruptive cards that
cover almost any and every matchup. You can have insane 4 drops for the UWR
matchup because they path you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
I had concerns with 3 matchups:<br />
1) Burn.<br />
2) UWR.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">3) Twin decks built like our team’s. Tempo
twin decks (such as ones that top 8ed) are much easier to beat because
Spellskite is the real problem card. Didn’t think most people would play the
more combo-ish version.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
The Manabase is a work of art. Avoiding the chronic Steam Vents + Scalding Tarn combo that seems perennial in almost every tribal flames deck.<br /><br />
On Deck Selection:<br />
The reason the top pros didn’t do well (in my opinion) is because even if you found
the best archetypes with 3-5 days to go it didn’t matter. You weren’t going to
be able to play/build them proficiently. Not having experts in the "hard" decks
also made some of the fringe strategies seem better than they probably were.
For example I know that going into the week of testing I thought that
Scapeshift crushed Pod. I still think its favorable but much closer than I
previously thought. <br />
<br />
2-3 days before the PT I thought Pod was the best deck. But, after watching Josh
McClain, talking to Sam Pardee and trying a few games for myself, I realized I
couldn’t play it. I just don’t have the intuition to be able to pilot the deck
with anything close to optimality.<br />
<br />
In addition to Pod, I was confident we also had the best Affinity list
(courteousy Alex Majlaton), the best Burn deck (courteousy Glenn McIelwain and
team refinements), the Best Zoo deck (me and Todd) as well as the best Twin
list (Glenn again).<br />
<br />
Burn: This was our best anti Zoo deck. But it was a bit of a glass cannon and I
(pretty much alone on the team) thought there was a good chance that Zoo would
be a small part of the metagame (~10%) or not at the top tables.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Affinity: Early in testing we were all looking at cutting affinity hate or
playing more generic cards (e.g. Destructive Revelry over Stony Silence). We
didn’t think affinity would be a big player. When everyone starts believing
that, it becomes the perfect time to robot some people. I am not good at
affinity so it wasn’t really an option for me. It also turned out that other
people kept their affinity hate for the most part. <br />
<br />
Twin: For the metagame Face to Face was testing I thought Glenn had broken it. It
was a better version of Burn as far as I was concerned. The all in Twin version
had much better game vs Zoo and sacrificed against U-Control decks and Thoughtseize
decks. Neither of which I thought would be big players (but I was open to being
wrong here). However after testing a few games I was miserable. I think in 10
games I won 1. It was a weird headspace where I couldn’t beat the deck and I
couldn’t win with it. I was drawing 3 Splinter Twins in every game or missing 4<sup>th</sup>
land drops. My mind said the deck was great, my practice said it sucked. On the
other hand I was confident in every card choice for Zoo. <br />
<br />
Zoo: From our testing even the decks built to beat Zoo only won 40% of the
time. And doing so contorted your deck to be worse against everyone who wasn’t
trying so hard. Thus I thought the top tables would just be the versions of
decks where they didn’t try so hard to beat Zoo (and that is essentially what
Sam/Jacob/Josh did). Unfortunately most people decided to just jam 3 Anger of
the Gods main and it didn’t hurt them because everyone was doing it.<br />
<br />
Going forward I would be okay playing this deck again. The only matchup I
wouldn’t want to play against for sure in the top 8 was Sean’s deck. Storm
might also be bad, but I assume it will be unplayable in the near future as
people go back to having some hate for it. I have no idea how Blue Moon plays
out, but I know they have a lot of cards I normally don’t mind seeing across
from me. Maybe their LD is good enough.<br />
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span></div>
</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-44480621353822531442013-11-19T06:42:00.000-08:002013-11-20T13:40:03.788-08:00Facts of MODO <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-CA">There are a lot of
conversations about why MODO (Magic Online) is broken. This post is designed to
collect information to inform that conversation. People correctly criticize me
for opinions without facts. So I am going to try and go the other way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
I do not have any access to truly insider information from Wizards of the Coast
or Hasbro.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">What I do have access to:<br />
Hasbro Financials (this includes transcripts from Investor Day, Accounting and
Financial Statements, Annual Investor Report).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Facebook Comments (assorted from friends
and acquaintences)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">LinkedIn Profiles for various WotC
employees</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Hipstersofthecoast.com historical review of
the MODO program (highly suggested reading).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Various salary and employment websites
(glassdoor, salarylist, careerbliss)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Reddit, Wikipedia, Google etc..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>The TL;DR estimates</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>Magic Revenues: $360M</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>Magic Players Worldwide: 3.3M - 12M</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>MODO Revenues: $140M</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>MODO Employees: 50-150</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>MODO Players: 500,000 - 700,000</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b><u>MODO Developer Salaries: $60,000 (Industy Median is $75,000)</u></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>MODO Costs: $60-120M</u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">The biggest problem with accuracy is that
my statements will aggregate data from 2011-2013. And the timeline isn’t
exactly clear even to me. So you might feel that the following answers are an
unfair characterization of the situation.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">What
is the Problem with MODO?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"> Hipstersofthecoast
explains the problem with version 2 (note current client is v3 and Beta is v4)
as said by Randy Buehler: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"> “</span><i><span lang="EN-CA" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">You might
think that we could add more servers to deal with this problem, but that’s just
not how </span><b>Magic </b>Online works. We can add more game servers to handle as
many games as people want to play, but there is only one master server that
handles everything else that goes on (chat, trading, ratings, etc.). Every time
any user does anything outside of a “duel,” <b>Magic </b>Online has to spend some
time thinking about that user. As we add more cool new features to the game,
the amount of memory that needs to be allocated to each user keeps going up. At
some point, when enough users are logged in doing enough things, the whole
master server comes crashing down.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I would highly suggest reading the full
article here:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-CA" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/11/what-we-learned-16/">http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/11/what-we-learned-16/</a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">From what I can tell they attempted to go
from one server organizing all non-game activity to multiple, but that clearly
has not worked. It is unclear if we currently operate on one server still or
multiple servers which do not scale well. Further discussion on Reddit suggests
that MODO is built on antiquated language/framework (.NET /non-scalable etc…). I am in no way
qualified to tell if this is true (EDIT 11/20: Reddit has also since commented that I am wrong).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">How
is Magic Doing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Very good. Based on my readings of
financial statements, the has been between 150%-300% growth in revenues during
the 4 years since 2008. Additionally there is an expected growth of 35% in
2013.<br />
<br />
Based on those numbers we would have revenues of 250-500M (Million) dollars
this year.<br />
<br />
Alternatively Hasbro reports 12M active magic players (including digital). Assuming
each only spends 30$ per year on average. Then revenues are $360M. Hasbro’s
revenues from “Games” is $1.2 Billion. It has
stated that Magic is the biggest brand in the portfolio. Thus the the estimates seem reasonable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
*EDIT 11/20: The Hasbro 2012 report states there are 3.3M players currently. Despite their being an NBC article which quotes 12M as of 2013. The only official Hasbro source which uses the 12M number is a few years old, so I will be editing the range of players.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">How
is Hasbro doing? Any reason to think they are pinching pennies?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"> As a company Hasbro had a rough 2012
(in terms of stock price). It has since rebounded during 2013 (though that was
simply consistent with US Large Cap market in general). During 2012 things were
bad enough that Hasbro was engaging in layoffs and restructuring as a cost
saving measure.<br />
<br />
However there is little
evidence that Hasbro makes many decisions re: the Magic the Gathering brand. I
have read (in a statement by Aaron Forsythe I believe) that Hasbro has little
input on the decisions to manage Wizards of the Coast properties. Sean McGowan
(an analyst at Needham & Co.) says “The Best thing [Hasbro] did was leave
[Magic] alone for several years.” when discussing the explosion in Magic’s
popularity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"> In
all financial statements Hasbro touts Magic as its model product. They reference digital (though in most cases Duels
of the Planeswalkers) and paper growth. Many people associated with MODO since
2008 (when Buehler et al. were fired), have been promoted. This includes Worth,
Arron and Elaine Chase. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Unclear whether MODO growth has mimiced paper.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">How
many people play MODO?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Note I will use multiple methodologies to
arrive at different estimate and see how much they align.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">According to the Linked In of Vice President of Digital Technology – ( See description below). He alludes to “Direct
Brand revenue impact of 150M+”.<br />
<br />
I remember seeing somewhere that MODO is equivalent to North American revenues
for Magic, was also equal to about 30-50% of overall revenues. Assuming this is
true (it was according to Worth in 2007), and using the base number of 360M
revenues overall, we estimate MODO has a <i>revenue
of 144M.</i><br />
<br />
Assuming the average player spends $100 a year (which seems reasonable), then
there are <i>1.4M people who touch MODO in a
given year</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Based on personal observation there are
only ~5000 people on MODO at peak times. Assuming each person plays 24 hours a
year on average there would be 730,000 players.<br />
<br />
According to Reddit other sources place MODO playerbase at 500,000.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">So the True Number is likely somewhere
between 500,000-1,400,000.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Note if we use the low end, then the
average player is spending ~$300 year. Making MODO the highest revenue game per
player that I could find.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">To keep scale in perspective - a year old estimate
puts League of Legends players at 32M active per month. Their revenues are in
the $200M estimate range (Wikipedia).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">How
much resources are thrown at MODO?<br />
</span></b><span lang="EN-CA">According
to the Linked In of Vice President of Digital Technology he is
“</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Responsible for managing the technology development and
operations for the Magic Online, free-to-play digital objects business, Duels
of the Planeswalkers game title (XBLA, Steam, iTunes, Android Market) and the
subscription D&Di digital experience.</span>”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">He states he has a Budget of 40M+. Note the budget presumably wouldn't cover the fixed costs of developing MODO that he has no control over (office space, legal etc). I would assume MODO costs at least 150-300% of that budget.$60-120M.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">He also
mentions having 200 employees (150 of whom work onsite). Wizards of the Coast
has 1000-5000 employees total according to glassdoor. There are 550 on LinkedIn. Given that Hasbro has 6000 employees total (based on company documents), 600-1000 overall seems about right for WotC.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-CA">Assuming
MODO comprises 2/3s of the Digital Team at WotC there are 100 people working on
it.</span></i><span lang="EN-CA"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-CA">To put this in
perspective Riot Games which makes league of legends has 2013 estimates of 200M
in revenues and 1000 employees. MODO should require less employees (because
actual game design is not part of the product). Blizzard (with Revenues in the
area of $2B) had 7061 employees in 2012.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Are WotC software developers underpaid?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA"> </span></b><span lang="EN-CA">According
to Facebook WotC software interns earn $4000 less for a summer then other major
software firms in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Seattle</st1:place></st1:city>.
Getting an accurate measure of compensation for senior developers is much more
complicated since few people actually report salaries.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA">Salary
List Reports the following for Developers: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-CA"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-CA"> “</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.0pt;">Wizards of the Coast Software Developer average salary is
$59,000, median salary is $59,000 with a salary range from $59,000 to $59,000.</span>
Wizards of the Coast Software Developer salaries are collected from government
agencies and companies. Each salary is associated with a real job position.
Wizards of the Coast Software Developer salary statistics is not exclusive and
is for reference only. They are presented "as is" and updated
regularly.”</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">The median for Software Developers overall
is $75,000 (average is slightly higher).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"> If
you look at the last 10 employee reviews on glassdoor.com for WotC, 7 out of
the 10 rated Wizards 2/5 or worse on compensation. The 3 people who rated them
higher worked in Graphics, Art and Game Design. A couple of people who
interviewed for software positions complained that interviews were conducted by
recruiters and not people working directly with the product. Those complaints
cited that recruiters had a lack of knowledge (both technical and regarding
magic). Take this with a grain of salt since I assume most complainees did not
receive job offers. I am unsure how common the use of recruiters is in the
software industry. Blizzard had similar people surrounding it.<br /><br />Also note that Hasbro is routinely voted one of the best places to work in the United States (via Fortune Magazine). However most of the benefits are perks and not direct compensation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Are
3<sup>rd</sup> Party Developers a realistic option?<br />
</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> Hasbro
already pays EA studios to develop games for 8 of its various brands. It has
also acquired a majority stake in Backflip Studios (a mobile game developer). Duels
of the Planeswalkers is developed by a third party and the original version of
MODO was developed by a professional studio. Current versions are made inhouse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Does
wizards have a track record re: inhouse development. Are they planning to move
it out of house?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA"> </span></b><span lang="EN-CA">I would
refer you the Hipsters’ article linked above. Wizards has repeatedly made
comments similar to the 11/2013 blog post. They have also removed premiere
events before. The last time they were down for about 4-6 months. The 3.0
version was delayed by about 18 months (on top of the 18 month schedule).<br />
<br />
Wizards is currently hiring Senior Magic Developers/Testers/Technology Project
managers to work on MODO (as of Nov 5/2013).<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-37068313316104464452013-07-29T10:33:00.001-07:002013-07-29T10:33:30.115-07:00Final Thoughts on the HoF and the Skill Paradox<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><i>A final thought on the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HoF</st1:place></st1:city>.</i></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">PT
Top 8s in the modern era are worth less than PT Top 8s from earlier in magic’s
history. This is in spite of the average modern player being much more skilled.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">**What I am writing about is an adaptation
of well known theory in investing, Sabremetrics and Poker. For those interested
in a more detailed analysis I suggest Mauboussin and googling the ‘Skill
Paradox.’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">The
Paradox of Skill<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We start with the fairly simple assumption
that</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Performance = Skill + Luck</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
We also assume each person’s luck is drawn each tournament from some
distribution that is equal to all players. E.g. LSV might have been be luckier
in PT Kyoto than Nassif because he opened Nicol Bolas at that specific
tournament, however they had equal chances to open it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Because a person’s skill and luck are
uncorrelated, we arrive at the Paradox of Skill:<br />
<br />
Variance of Population Performance = </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Variance of Skill in population + Variance
of Luck in Population</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">As the Variance in skill gets smaller, the
variance associated with luck starts to dominate in determining the overall
outcome of tournaments. <br />
<br />
<b>Consider the following example:</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">A)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">A PT in 1999, where Jon Finkel
is far and away the best player. The 100<sup>th</sup> best player barely knows
how to draft and the rest of population is somewhere in between.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">B)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">A PT in 2013 where, the top 100
players are all equal to skill Jon Finkel @1999 skill level. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">It should be clear that someone’s final
position in PT A is strongly correlated with skill. In other words we can be
confident that the person in 8<sup>th</sup> was better than the person in 16<sup>th</sup>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">In PT B, the opposite would be true. The
only difference between someone who gets 8<sup>th</sup> and 15<sup>th</sup> was
the amount of luck they had in that specific tournament.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Assumptions
I am using:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">The skill dispersion
(especially at the top of the game) is much lower today than it was historically.
In other words, the top 50 players in the game are much closer today (even if
they are all much better) than they were historically. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">And that’s it. Everything I have read from
Kai, Finkel and Kibler on the topic would seem to support the view, but I haven’t
bothered to try and prove the above assumption.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Just to reinforce that this situation isn’t
completely impossible. In a world where the top 50 players attend 3 PTs a year
and each have 10% chance to top8 a PT: we would still expect one person to top
8 two PTs a year. In other words the fact that some players do consistently well isn't enough to disprove assumption 1. If you have ever heard or read about the birthday paradox, the
same principles apply.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Practical
Implications<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We are seriously overweighting T8s and wins
in the modern era competitors. Instead we should focus on a looser metric (e.g.
32s/64s etc…). Rate metrics and consistency become much more important. For
older players, top 8s are more likely to imply that they were one of the best 8
players in the tournament. And a top 32 is more likely to imply that they were
NOT one of the top 8.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Recently in his SCG article Reid Duke made
the point we shouldn’t punish anyone for having a few bad initial years on the
PT. And I really wanted this to be true (Because me obv). But if we now know
that luck is the major determinant in people’s short term success rates, things like 3 Yr
medians should mean less for modern competitors. Forgiving a few “bad years”
makes it more likely you select someone who's results are variance driven (as
opposed to skill).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Putting this together for <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HoF</st1:place></st1:city> implications I think should go as follows. Suppose someone has 2 PT Top 8s and 6 PT top 16s. In the Modern Age: I
think “Hes unlucky”. If he is old school: I think “he probably wasn’t that good”.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Focusing on results through this lens I
think we could argue:<br />
Underrated (in no particular order):</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">Shouta Yasooka</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">Hoaen (do we consider him “modern”?)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">Osyp</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Overrated<br />
1)
Edel. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">Saito (if “Modern”) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">Ikeda</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">4)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span lang="EN-CA">Gary</span></st1:place></st1:city></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">Final
Unrelated <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HoF</st1:place></st1:city>
Thoughts:</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">
Stats I used in my previous formula driven HoF Ballot:<br />
<b>Longevity =</b> # of PTs, # of Pts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Consistency
=</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> PT Median, 3 Yr Median, Difference in Medians,
T16s, GP Top 8s</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Best
in World =</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> 3 Yr Median, POYs</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Place
in History =</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> These are indicator variables (e.g.
are you in the top 20%). In other words having 4 PT Top 8s is the same as zero
because 80% of ballotees had 4 or less.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Top 8s, Money List, GP Top 8s, Pro Points.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Skill
=</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> T16s per PT, Median Finish, POYs per years
played.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">My
Ballot (which I don’t have):</span></u></b></h4>
<span lang="EN-CA">
1. LSV</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">2. Edel + Ikeda</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">These are the only two who are not top 5
stat wise. I think pioneers in a field deserve credit. I am willing to go
beyond the stats if there is proof they did something truly unique. I feel the
case for Ikeda is weaker than Edel (he has more similar analogues in Fujita,
Oishi etc..). I could be convinced to vote for Osyp (easily the most underrated
candidate on the ballot) instead. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">3. Shota Yasooka.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Stats + Skill Paradox already implied he
was one of the best players skill wise on the ballot. Juza’s interview on cfb
was a nice (if unnecessary) confirmation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">4. Saito.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">He was (or at least top 3) the
best deckbuilder in the world for a long period of time. Still seems like he
might be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">He is one of the best players I
have seen play. I can sometimes remember individual matches where I was blow
away by the play I saw. Saito in TSP block is amongst those. Ditto <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Juan</st1:place></st1:city>. Most players I have talked to feel that he was easily amongst the best when he played.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-CA">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-CA">He was an angle shooter, but a
lot of people on the PT are. Stalling in particular seems like one of the most
hypocritical things for many players to call someone out on (based on my PT
experience). So while he might be the scummiest of successful players (which I
doubt), other players are close to that level. This might be too much
apologizing for someone who is arguably a cheater (I differentiate between rules lawyers/cheaters/angle shooters), but I don’t believe
(based on 1 and 2) that his results were significantly impacted by his angel
shooting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">The honourable mentions: BenS, Efro, Gary.</span></div>
</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-89626797935722248702013-07-16T14:03:00.000-07:002013-07-16T14:03:41.606-07:00One Game <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">It can be hard to figure out exactly how
good you are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">You can play a whole game and make zero interesting
decisions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-CA">Or</span></i><span lang="EN-CA"> you could spend eight turns finding out you have a long way to go.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Three friends went to GP Providence. We had
practiced a lot. We had a history of some success (2<sup>nd</sup> at the last
Team GP) etc. But this isn’t a feel good tournament report. And it isn’t an
appeal for pity. <br />
<br />
I have finally found some time (and my notes) to do some honest reflection on
facing two (maybe 3) future hall of famers; and then being weighed, being
measured and being found wanting. Not a tournament report. Not a
match report. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">So don't call this a report so much as a story about one game against the best
in the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Before the 2<sup>nd</sup> draft on Day 2,
we were 9-3. That’s not the end of the world, but it is not a great place to
face Cheon, Froelich and LSV. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I was summarily dispatched by LSV in the middle
seat. Jamie beat Paul. Which means it would be Maksym vs Efro for all the
marbles. In game 2, we played well and managed to find all the right attacks.
It was one of those games, where you didn’t necessarily outplay your opponent.
But rather we had managed not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I think most grinders would know the
feeling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">So its time for game 3. The good news is
that Maksym’s deck had Aetherling, Pack Rat and Soul Ransom. The bad news is
that last year their team had more pro points then our lifetime totals
combined. We were fighting the civil war of Ratinum. Efro’s deck was an
aggressive boros deck splashing blue for Ral Zarek and Beck//Call. We knew
about at least one Weapon Surge and were on the draw for game 3.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Jamie and I do a mental high five when they
take their mulligan and we see a rat. At least I think we do. Jamie’s probably
too a nice guy to revel in our opponent’s misfortune, but I hate imagining
myself on the solo end of a high five. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade = A++. Opponent on 6. We have turn 2
rat with 3 lands in hand. Played this part perfectly.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA">Grade = A. Nothing to screw up. Yet.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv-o_4v5Y_976WKUkk6TDOHIQZAE1vJRCdMxx94wGhzFr6scWmi0R6szY0fZGJuvULGi5hq8xKXLriX9UEU3qpCn1hGzpG_Iq8kB2UN-_YNdapyXv9dTS0fwx5O-eGLAyZdoNtHf1nDA/s1600/T2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv-o_4v5Y_976WKUkk6TDOHIQZAE1vJRCdMxx94wGhzFr6scWmi0R6szY0fZGJuvULGi5hq8xKXLriX9UEU3qpCn1hGzpG_Iq8kB2UN-_YNdapyXv9dTS0fwx5O-eGLAyZdoNtHf1nDA/s640/T2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
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type="#_x0000_t75" style='width:6in;height:22.5pt'>
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<span lang="EN-CA">There are some small set of scenarios where
not playing pack rat is correct (and Maksym broached the topic). However,
against an aggressive deck I don’t think you can possibly afford to be that
cautious.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade: = A. Didn’t punt by not playing rat.
No victories are too small for this story.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">TURN
3<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipQYLMoYRLZTNzDaG61SzGAePxkxaiM5paGhdWuUTBrdlRkpQPx89SjzP69bjbEPUKz2w28B5teSsUmmeUK2xTGGEU-ea0-hmVJrPBDfTNmsTJowt7lnQrgdBhEeTqJSIIFt5eBmdk2A/s1600/T3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="48" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipQYLMoYRLZTNzDaG61SzGAePxkxaiM5paGhdWuUTBrdlRkpQPx89SjzP69bjbEPUKz2w28B5teSsUmmeUK2xTGGEU-ea0-hmVJrPBDfTNmsTJowt7lnQrgdBhEeTqJSIIFt5eBmdk2A/s640/T3.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">At 14 life we face our first real decision.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">3) Should
we spend a turn making rats or play a barrier?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">3a) If
we make a rat can we afford not to block? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">If we don’t block next turn we will be at
10 (if he plays another creature), or 6 if he just double pumps. After that we will have three 3/3s, but his
Truefire Paladin is an abyss and his other guys are trading for rats. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">3b)
So we have to block if we make a rat. What are optimal blocks?</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Presumably we would just block firstblade. A trick gets really costly here
since we would be at ~10 with one rat facing 2 creatures. And again Truefire is
close to abyss mode (assuming a 4<sup>th</sup> land).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">3c)
Whats the goal here?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We have soul ransom (he mulliganed) and
tons of gas. So we just want this game to go as long as possible. Which means
preserving life even if that means throwing away cards. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Hover Barrier makes the most sense in this
context. Its going to be especially good if his 4<sup>th</sup> land doesn’t
allow for double pumps (e.g. isn’t a mountain). A reasonable guess given his
mulligan and being on the play.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade: A. Found the important strategy for
the game.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">TURN
4<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Cluestone gives him double pump mana.
Truefire gives a way to grow an army that could potentially fight rats. The
whole game is going to shit. But he only has one card in hand and we have Soul Ransom.
We could also Fatal Fumes here. Millenial gargoyle, call of the Nightwing and
making PR#2 all don’t do enough defensively.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">4)
Should we Fumes or Soul Ransom?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">4a)
Assume Fumes whats the optimal target?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We can’t afford to let him have guildmage
in the long game and Soul Ransom isn’t a permanent answer. So we would have to
fumes guildmage. He then attacks with both. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">4a –
II) If he attacks with both what do we block?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Chumping with rat seems unadvisable (but
maybe we should of considered it), so where to put the Barrier is question.
Paladin would kill it setting us up with a Pack Rat vs his board of two
creatures and being at 10. We would ransom paladin, he would discard two and we
would still be at 10 and have to chump with Pack Rat or go to 2. Not a winnable
board state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">If we block the Viashino, he pumps twice we
go to 6 and Soul Ransom his Truefire. He discards and we put Hover Barrier in
front. Leaving us with a rat at 4 life versus his two creatures. Not a winnable
board state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">4b)
What about Soul Ransom? Optimal Target?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I think its safe to assume he is going to
crack the Soul Ransom to get back whatever we take. If he gets it back
immediately, taking the Truefire is better since he can’t attack right away and
the paladin isn’t useful summoning sick. If he is holding a good card (or draws
one) he might wait a turn or two to crack it. In which case taking the
guildmage is better. I didn’t want to give him option value (e.g. the ability
to draw cards just make dudes), so I suggested we take the Sunhome Guildmage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade: B. Not playing the fatal fumes is
good and not an obvious line. In retrospect taking the guildmage might have
been bad, since we can always fatal it the next turn if he decides to wait.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">TURN
5<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">After Efro plays Goblin Rally, its obvious
hes setting up to get his guildmage next turn. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">5)
Should we make a play, mainphase fatal fumes or hold up fatal fumes?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">5a)
Can we afford for him to get guildmage back?</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
No.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">5b)
So mainphase or wait for him to discard?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">The first question is the interaction
between Soul Ransom and Removal. Short answer is we get to draw 2. But, we had
to ask a judge to confirm. Luckily LSV seemed to get the wrong read here (based
on us asking the judge question). Maybe he assumed we knew basic rules
interactions. Joke’s on him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">5b2)
What happens if we wait, they figure it out and do nothing?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Well we have pack rat so our mana won’t
really be wasted. And they won’t be able to attack. Seems like waiting is fine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade A-: I think we made the right play,
but it should have been obvious that we had removal because we had to talk to a
judge. A massive leak which better players would avoid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">TURN
6<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-UH9jdcBNnC_ChVWJEAO6WaqiaqLe6wXuZm5HRdrWyqtUJqMfMK16oo48VIEdUeoL8fChfVEdQx8Up8wG4bxtg4iWuj7pOX9EjQoZ8OzBHeoFw-EYDHUp3bujkv3Jm6SznEvMlTtUUg/s1600/T6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="64" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-UH9jdcBNnC_ChVWJEAO6WaqiaqLe6wXuZm5HRdrWyqtUJqMfMK16oo48VIEdUeoL8fChfVEdQx8Up8wG4bxtg4iWuj7pOX9EjQoZ8OzBHeoFw-EYDHUp3bujkv3Jm6SznEvMlTtUUg/s640/T6.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">On his turn 6, efro discards two cards and
we respond with fatal fumes. I have listed the 3 cards drawn on our turn 6 (two from Soul Ransom). He still gets to attack his board into our Rat +
Barrier. We could also chump with a rat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>6a) Who are we blocking with Hover Barrier?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we don't block Truefire, we go to two life. We would also be facing 6 creatures, with 4 potential blockers. So we need to block Truefire Paladin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">6b)
Should we chump with rat?</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
We need to start making creatures at this point and Rat can make 2 a turn. Can’t
afford to chump block (on Efro’s T6). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">For our turn 6 making two rats is the only
way to make two blockers and not die. He has 6 attackers and we have 3 blockers during his turn 7.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade: A. Made all the right plays, though
it is not like there were real decisions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">TURN
7<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU55TuM3WhWpOaqwE-BSSh0X6kjHLsXR39YTO6tGZ8gcaHVeE8nlZJlYv55wPKN3eCzsZ92zOS9zD5wFQBEi88Mync47bxlIXSPFx8C47bhp0-L0driwX4DOL5rHVG8o0K1iLAM66z1Q/s1600/T7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="80" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU55TuM3WhWpOaqwE-BSSh0X6kjHLsXR39YTO6tGZ8gcaHVeE8nlZJlYv55wPKN3eCzsZ92zOS9zD5wFQBEi88Mync47bxlIXSPFx8C47bhp0-L0driwX4DOL5rHVG8o0K1iLAM66z1Q/s640/T7.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">After he attacks with everything (4 tokens,
firstblade, truefire). We make 2 rats going up to 3 total and chump + kill 2
tokens. On our turn we face a bunch of possibilities given that we have 2 rats
in play.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">7)
What are the options?</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Plan to make two more rats on his turn (while holding up Cancel). Suppose we
make the third rat and block everything but one token. He can either pump (+
first strike) his Paladin or not. If he does we make the 4<sup>th</sup> rat
going to one but ending up with 3 rats. If he keeps his mana up we can trade
boards and have cancel for his threat, followed by a threat. We can beat a burn
spell (assuming it costs more than 2 mana) with this line.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><u><span lang="EN-CA">Alternatively
we can play a land and cast CotN. <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">7a)
Why cast Call of the Nightwing (CotN)? Why Not?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">He can’t block the ciphered rat (because we
can make a third rat in combat). We end up with 2 bats, 2 rats (1 untapped) and
the ability to make 1 more rat, but no Cancel. Our ciphered rat is unlikely to
get in again. This is fine if he draws nothing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">However we lose to burn and maybe top
decked tricks. We are also lower on cards in hand (because we need to make
another land drop_ so in a stalemate we could conceivably lose given his abyss
Paladin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Jamie and I thought we could afford to play
around top decks (and hold up cancel). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Maksym wanted to CotN and try and end the
game. Maksym was losing a game with turn 2 Pack Rat, so we overruled him. Just
kidding. Kind of. Fuck Karma.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Grade: B. Upon further reflection I think
it is definitely a close call. Also an important note was that his land didn’t
make red.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u><span lang="EN-CA">TURN
8<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9Z9UUE3ZIYtDMgX5grzS9PkQ9YBO0UGbUIUTcftjEuI1gVcxL9mN9wSSjliCN7exJiwxKXx4I2F0Duc1e5mTVFJ1w1v4pieacaX_j0pVgVCUBgGGdzSWdcVOOgrSlGsjL3zIjizN7g/s1600/T8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9Z9UUE3ZIYtDMgX5grzS9PkQ9YBO0UGbUIUTcftjEuI1gVcxL9mN9wSSjliCN7exJiwxKXx4I2F0Duc1e5mTVFJ1w1v4pieacaX_j0pVgVCUBgGGdzSWdcVOOgrSlGsjL3zIjizN7g/s640/T8.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">With zero cards in hand. Untap. Upkeep. Efro
draws his card. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Looks at LSV. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Cheon ~ “We have to attack or eventually his rat
will get us”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Lucas - “100% they drew weapon surge”.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Obviously we go into the tank. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">8a)
Could this be a bluff?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Very unlikely. If we didn’t have cancel we
are essentially forced to make two rats and quad block. This goes very poorly
for them if they don’t have anything (the board becomes our 3 rats versus their
paladin + one token). Its worse then just sending Paladin probably. And since
we are dead, we can’t really afford to play around anything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
This just reinforces the Weapon Surge read. I would like to think they give us
enough credit to realize that bluff here doesn’t work. On the other hand the
way they Hollywooded before attacking is a signal they aren’t giving us too
much credit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">8b)
Then what Sherlock?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Well we have to make a dude because we are dead
without 3 blockers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Lucas – “First things first, make a third
rat”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Sometimes you need to be precise. To be
honest, I hadn’t even thought about what to discard. It was obvious to me that
we needed the first rat, and I wanted to take an action to buy more thinking
time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Except we needed to think first, because what we discard is important.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Unfortunately we discarded Deathcult Rogue. <br />
<br />
<b>8c) Can we make 4 guys and block?</b><br />
Not if we actually believe he has weapon surge since he can plague wind us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">8d) What
happens if we block only 3 guys?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">He can weapon surge or use 2 abilities from
Paladin, but not both. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">If he decides to surge, then we cast
Cancel, he makes paladin a 4/2. That ends with us at 1 life facing a token. Him
with zero cards, but we would have CotN and Deathcult Rogue. Pretty good spot. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Except we discarded Deathcult Rogue. So we
would have <st1:place w:st="on">Island</st1:place> and CotN When he attacks
with Token we have to chump with token. And it’s a topdeck war with us at 1
life. He has a cluestone he can crack to find an extra card as well. That isn’t
great for us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">If he doesn’t cast weapon surge and instead
makes a 4/2 first strike we can make another rat. He loses a goblin token and a
Viashino Firstblade. We are at 1 life, but have 3 rats. Even better then above.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">8e)
Ok so, assuming he players correct (and weapon surges), what do we do now that
have discarded Deathcult Rogue? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-CA">Then
the doubt creeps in. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">What made me so sure he had drawn weapon
surge? Obviously a snap read is based on intuition but if you put a gun to my
head how sure would I have been really? 70%? 90%? How likely are we to win the
games where he is actually bluffing, and we just call? <br />
<br />
Some people would tell you the pressure was overwhelming or they felt the world
on their shoulders. But it was nothing so dramatic. My lucky history in Magic
has given me wealth of experience on being embarrassed during feature matches. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Instead I gave my team “the speech”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Lucas: “We fucked up. We are probably
10-20% to win if play around my initial read. We are close to 100% to win if we
don’t play around and my read was wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">What do you guys want to do?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Them: YOLO. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Oddly enough this seems to primarily be the
refrain of those in the process of committing suicide. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We would be no exception.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Final Thoughts:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">They had the weapon surge. We lost. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We played a game for 8 turns (7 on our
side) and made at least 3 mistakes, 2 of which may have cost us the match.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">We played a turn 2 pack rat and lost.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Because we made the perfect read against
one of the best teams in the world, we had a chance to win even when they were
drawing pretty well. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Its unfortunate that Magic chose that
moment in time to be a skill game.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">FIN.</span></div>
</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-91439569825988325052013-07-05T12:57:00.000-07:002013-07-05T12:57:09.365-07:00HoF Voting. Quant Style.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I don’t want to get into an argument about
the use of intangibles or subjective achievements (penalties as well) for use
in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HoF</st1:place></st1:city> voting.
This is just going to be a simple explanation and presentation of a
mathematical approach to judging deservedness. Its not necessarily how I would vote exactly, but I think its a more a honest method then most.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">1. The first cut. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Due to time constraints (aka lazy
constraints) I only considered players with 5 top 16s or more. The cut is
somewhat arbitrary, but it left me with 25 considerations and it seems like
below that number you would have to rely on subjective arguments anyways (e.g. Pikula
and Herberholz’s of the world).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Once I did this, I did all analysis WITHOUT
names attached, to remove as much bias (during the methodology creation) as possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">2. The meat of the method.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I created 5 super categories. Each one has
multiple components. Then I gave a weight to each of these categories. This
creates an overall score for each player and the top 5 scores were reported. I
like this methodology since it can tell you where a player has a deficit or
strength. If you disagree with my weights it simple enough to see how the
rankings change based on your own personal preferences. For example, Lauren Lee
doesn’t think consistency should matter whereas my friend Sam seemed to think
it much more important.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Below I list the 5 categories, the weight
assigned to each, an example of a subcomponent and some discussion of players
who excel or fail in the category. Finally I might add some color commentary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br />
Note some weights changed since I posted on facebook based on discussions with
people I respect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Longevity
(10%):</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">How long was the player at a high level of
magic. The simplest subcomponent is # of PTs played. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Top 3 (always in order)<br />
Ikeda, Yasooka, Stark</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Bottom 3 (no order unless mentioned)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Krempels, Justice, Soh/Kaji.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">This is one the places where Justice gets
really punished. If you put little weight on Longevity, I think its hard to
argue that he shouldn’t get in. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Consistency
(15%): <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Was the person consistent at the highest
level of play. PT Median Finish is here. Note this is somewhat independent of
how long the player played.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Top 3)<br />
LSV, Efro, Osyp/Mori</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Bottom 3)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Jurkovic, Tiago Chan, Geoffrey Siron<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">I am not sure that consistency should be
that important. If someone was bad early on in their PT career, but became
dominant I could fully imagine they belong in the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">HoF</st1:place></st1:city>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Best
in World (25%):</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Could we consider the player amongst the
best in the world during some extended period of time. I think its hard to
argue that someone is among the best of all time if you can’t even provide
evidence that they were the best during their time. 3 YR Median is one of the
subcomponents.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Top 3)<br />
LSV (Get used to this), Saito, Wafo-Tapa</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Bottom 3)<br />
Reitzl (Booooo), Ikeda (first good argument for why he shouldn’t be in),
Jurkovic </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Place
in History (25%):</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> How unusual is their resume? Do
they have something that really stands out, makes you say “Wow that would be
hard to do”. How many standard deviations above the mean are their stats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Top 3)<br />
LSV, Saito, Yasooka (15 Gp Top 8s, 16<sup>th</sup> on Money List, insanely high
pro points)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Bottom 3)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Krempels (no idea who he is for good
reason?), Tiago Chan, Justice (0 GP Top
8s, almost no pro points).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Again this tries to quantify place in
history, I know lots of people would argue Justice should be higher but I need
a data point and I don’t have one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">Skill
(25%):</span></b><span lang="EN-CA"> This is probably the most controversial
category, I think even if you had low skill and had results from the above
categories you might deserve to be in. %Top 16s is an example of skill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Top 3)<br />
Justice, LSV (now I wanna see a Justice/LSV grudge match), Efro </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Bottom 3)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Tiago Chan, Ikeda, Fabiano</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">4<sup>th</sup> was a tie between Johns/Kaji.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA">The
Final Top 10 (with scores and lower is better):<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">LSV (1.65)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Saito (6.4)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Yasooka (7.55)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Efro (7.85)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Osyp (8.1)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Gary</span></b></st1:place></st1:city><b><span lang="EN-CA"> (8.1) <o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Stark (8.45)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Wafo-Tapa (8.85)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Mori (8.9)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-CA"> Johns (9.05)<o:p></o:p></span></b></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">What do the top 10 have to do make a move
into top 5:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span lang="EN-CA">Gary</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-CA"> – literally anything to break the tie with Osyp.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Stark – Scores worst in Skill (low Median)
and BiW (low 3 Year Median), which I am sure many would disagree with. Honestly
just weighting those two areas slightly lower and hes in. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Wafo-Tapa – Consistency and Longevity were
is two weakest areas and the ban definitely didn’t help that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Mori – Skill and BiW need improvement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Johns – Longevity is far and away his worst
score. Hard Time to start PTQing IMO.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Justice – If you put 0 weight on
Longevity/Place in History, Justice becomes a slam dunk candidate (2<sup>nd</sup>
to LSV, with Saito falling to 8<sup>th</sup> in this case).</span></div>
</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-85666238655507687902013-06-17T14:58:00.000-07:002013-06-17T14:58:42.093-07:00Welcome to Vegas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 id="welcometolasvegas">Welcome to Las Vegas</h3>
<p>Vegas is going to be the largest magic tournament ever. And its going to be the largest by a big margin. Which makes it an interesting exercise to try and figure out the implications for how that effects records and the cut to top 8.</p>
<p>For those who read my facebook notes, you will have seen my previous attempt to make a guess at what records would top 4 the Player’s Championship. Something I nailed with reasonable accuracy. The methodology is fairly simple. I assume everyone is 50/50 in every matchup and then simulate it a crapload of times. Draws are not allowed.</p>
<p>There were 3 problems adapting this framework to Vegas:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to incorporate byes.</li>
</ul>
<p>I figured Vegas would have about 4000 people and a large number of those would have some number of byes. The original program isn’t designed to handle that, so I figured I would compensate by just setting the number of participants at 5000. </p>
<ul>
<li>Time to Run</li>
</ul>
<p>The initial version was pretty slow, which wasn’t a big deal when I had to simulate a 12 round tournament with 16 people. I had to make some pretty big adjustments to speed it up for a 15 round 5000 person tournament. I don’t think I made any errors when making these adjustments, but who knows.</p>
<ul>
<li>Trials.</li>
</ul>
<p>I am down to about 100 trials because of how long this thing takes.
The information regarding 12–3 players is based on 10 trials.</p>
<p><strong>Results</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><p>The record needed to top 8 will be 13–2. In all 100 trials 8th place was 13–2.</p></li>
<li><p>Between 17–20 people end the tournament with that record or better. The average was 18.72. So on average 10 people missed the cut at 13–2.</p></li>
<li><p>An average of 87.8 people were 12–3 or better. Which means 20+ people were missing the money with a 12–3 record. The first GP I ever travelled to (GerryT winning in Denver) that record was a lock for t8. This actually makes me suspicious that I did something wrong (because the result is so ridiculous), but I haven’t found what it could be yet.</p></li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Practical Implications</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><p>You can drop at X–4.</p></li>
<li><p>Draws are much better then they would otherwise be, especially late on day 1.</p>
<pre><code>For example, assume you are 7-1 going into the last round of Day 1. A draw is going to be significantly better than a loss here assuming you care about t8 only. With either a draw or a loss you have to win out to have a shot at Top8ing. But with a draw you are 100% to top 8 assuming you win out. With a loss you are almost 100% eliminated from top 8.
</code></pre></li>
<li><p>If you are 7–2 on day 1, your odds of top 8ing even if you win out are essentially zero. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Breakers are going to a matter a lot for the top 8 cut, so losing early is costly (See above). Though you can still obviously qualify for dublin.</p>
<br /></div>Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-43100065414556524052013-03-31T17:44:00.002-07:002013-03-31T17:44:23.244-07:00The Fog of War<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Decklist</h3>
<br />4 Breeding Pool<br />4 Temple Garden<br />2 Hallowed Fountain<br />1 Overgrown Tomb<br />1 Watery Grave<br />3 Sunpetal Grove<br />4 Glacial Fortress<br />4 Hinterland Harbor<br />1 Alchemist's Refuge<br />1 Nephalia Drownyard<br /><br /><br />
3 Augur of Bolas<br />2 Snapcaster Mage<br /><br />1 Gideon Champion of Justice<br />1 Jace Architect of Thought<br />1 Jace, Memory Adept<br />2 Tamiyo the Moon Sage<br />1 Garruk Wildspeaker<br /><br />4 Fog<br />1 Clinging Mists<br />2 Feeling of Dread<br />4 Supreme Verdict<br />1 Terminus<br />2 Azorius Charm<br />1 Selesnya Charm<br />3 Sphinx's Revelation<br />2 Urban Evolution<br />4 Farseek<br /><br />SB:<br />1 Nephalia Drownyard<br />2 Loxodon Smiter<br />2 Thragtusk<br />1 Pithing Needle<br />2 Witchbane Orb<br />3 Dissipate<br />1 Dispel<br />1 Oblivion Ring<br />1 Detention Sphere<br />1 Curse of Echoes<br /><br />Selesnya Charm - You need a way to kill obzeday (its basically the only relevant thing Junk Rites can do against you). It would be better if we could find an answer that hits Falkenrath as well.<br /><br />Gideon - The best win condition against Junk Rites. Also good against any lingering souls deck.<br /><br />Urban Evolution - Better then the 4th Revelation because its slightly less clunky early. Also going 5 into fog is very common.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<br />Strengths:</h3>
Junk Rites is a Bye.<br />Aggressive Red Decks are positive. Especially if they don't have skullcrack.<br />Esper Control/UWR are at all time lows.<br />
Often has decent matchups against the niche crap which people bring to beat Reanimator because they aren't really super interactive decks (Hexblade etc....)<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<br />Weaknesses:</h3>
Time Management.<br />Softness to blue cards especially when backed up by a clock.<br />Easy to hate (for example it would be easy to build a jund deck which just kills this).<br />
<br />
The deck isn't easy to play. Be very conscious of mana efficiency. Its often correct to Snap -> Fog before casting a fog in your hand, to make a revelation turn better. You need to be very precise technically (which is normally easy) but you also have to be super fast, since most games takes 10+ minutes even when you win.<br /></div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-54096348445601314432013-02-01T20:22:00.000-08:002013-02-01T20:31:52.178-08:00Simulations Part 2: Yuya, Jund v2, Bannings and PT Nagoya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<h3 id="summaryfromlasttime">
Summary from Last time</h3>
I think there was a misunderstanding about what I was trying to do with my last post. <br />
<br />
<strong>To be clear: If you could guess the metagame and win percentage matrix perfectly you would know the best deck.</strong><br />
<br />
But this is obviously both unlikely and extremely costly time wise. Instead I want to use the math, programming and examples to challenge commonly held beliefs of the “pro” community which may or may not be true. All of us rationalize deck choice and it is useful for us to try and at least take an analytical lens to these arguments.
So I wanted to summarize the practical advice that applied from my last article:<br />
<ul>
<li>Don’t play the most popular deck if its bad (even if you are good with it). The playskill edge you need to make this worth it is large. See later section for details.</li>
<li>If you want to top 8 (or “do well”) focus on beating the most popular deck.
<ul>
<li>But a complete glass cannon doesn’t work either. See example: affinity/scapeshift/tron.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>If you want to win, focus on (e.g. a PTQ) don’t worry about beating the most popular deck, worry about beating the decks that beat the most popular deck.
<ul>
<li>Top 8ing and Winning can require distinct deck selection considerations. See RPS example from previous post.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Just looking at what percent of the metagame (even a winner’s metagame ala Karsten/Chapin) is not a good indicator of what the best deck is and even more unintuitively it may not be a good guide as to what you should be focusing on beating.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="thisweek:motherfuckingscience">
This Week: Motherfucking Science!!!?#$</h3>
<ol>
<li>Addressing reader comments on the previous article.</li>
<li>How much is being Yuya worth (other than 57 pro points)?</li>
<li>What happened to Jund.</li>
<li>Theory as applied to PT Nagoya</li>
<li>Theory vs Simulations. Math! Proofs! Almost Rigorous!</li>
<li>5 minute break to relieve your boner from the last section.</li>
<li>Conclusions</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="issuesfromlasttime">
1. Comments from last time</h3>
I would like to take a moment and genuinely thank everyone who made comments on the previous post. Most of it was on my facebook wall and it was cool to see how many people enjoyed a slightly different approach to Magical analysis. I appreciate every single comment and will try to address some of the points here. <br />
<br />
Thanks to Paul Jordan who did some more analysis and hooked me up with some excel so that I could format things more easily.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Do More Trials</strong>
Short answer I think this is a non issue. I am not sure why 1000 trials is not enough. The distributions I am using aren’t exotic enough for me to think they warrant it and my code is unbearably slow (1000 trials is already an overnight process). That being said Jarvis has been the sent the code and may be able to optimize it. <br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>What happens now that Jund lost BBE?</strong>
To be answered in a third and final post hopefully next week. I also want to address the # of rounds importance. But I imagine it will require a subsequent post, because people only want to read so much boring math. Eli Priest already had the gist if you read his facebook post.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>What about writing for a major website?</strong>
Unfortunately not possible right now. I really appreciate everyone who shared and retweeted the link for this blog since I don’t have reach any other way. Special thanks to Sperling (who tweeted) and whoever posted it on Reddit (4000 views from Reddit and 400 from MTGSalvation forums). <br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>What about Model/Metagame uncertainty? Is this useful?</strong>
Again this isn’t a tool for predicting the tournament exactly ex-ante. Rather a tool that helps us analyze “How We Should Think”. <br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Top 8 is 3 of 5 did you account for this?</strong>
No. In a related point one reader thought I would systematically underestimate a top 8 deck winning (conditional on having top 8ed). Empirically that might be true. And the 3 of 5 might have to do with that. A deck with a great sb will get an edge in the top 8, rendering the win percentage matrix not constant throughout the tournament. Its a rather trivial addition to my program to correct for this but I am not sure how I would get the correct assumptions. Moreover many tournaments rely on 2 of 3 in the top 8 (GPs, PTQs, FNM etc..)<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Pro Tours have limited</strong>
Nothing much I can do about that other than assume it has zero impact or flip coins for every limited match. I have asked Paul Jordan to look into how Jund players did during limited rounds during PT RTR (to get a sense of how much it matters), but its a ton of work I imagine.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>What about variations in player skill and deck construction</strong>
See the section on what being Yuya is worth. Unfortunately I can only use Paul Jordan’s categorizations of decks. And he needs to aggregate disparate lists to get meaningful sample size on deck win percentages. <br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Is there anything else more practical we can do?</strong>
Some ideas I have had:<br />
<ul>
<li>How much can tie breakers actually move at the end of a X round tournament (Sorry Conley!).</li>
<li>Is the MODO metagame rational? Are there “sticky” deck choices (for all you economists out there). Whats the time-lag for information processing? Obviously you could check the IRL metagame as well.</li>
<li>Is Yuya a robot?</li>
<li>Prices. A long time ago I sent an involved article to Channelfireball about card prices, I am not sure exactly what happened to it. If there is demand for this kind of thing, I would consider trying to find it or redoing it. Essentially I wanted to mythbuster magic finance.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whyiwouldratherbedanielphamthanyuyawatanabe.">
2. Why I would rather be Ari Lax than Yuya Watanabe.</h3>
<strong>From this point on I will be using theoretical probability tools as well as simulations</strong> . For a detailed discussion of why this might matter check out section 5. Otherwise take my word for it that the theory is sound.<br />
<br />
We can measure how good a deck is in a given round by calculating its Expected Winning Percentage. Imagine Yuya has a 10% higher win percentage in every matchup (including the mirror). Thats a pretty substantial edge, especially at the Pro Tour level.<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 1.</em><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1b1Qrrx2EgWYabDY0V-o2n5r8wOjYmbu1ANLuNqAcwcUDdnkGJhg-jQ7uMrAzrZ68_B-Re_H9g-vEFq-2KQlyA1iOIdcwDtTUfbcor_KNwFKEw_cqGQwTxmbhJuis5PEqOFnXF1nTQ/s1600/Chart+1.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1b1Qrrx2EgWYabDY0V-o2n5r8wOjYmbu1ANLuNqAcwcUDdnkGJhg-jQ7uMrAzrZ68_B-Re_H9g-vEFq-2KQlyA1iOIdcwDtTUfbcor_KNwFKEw_cqGQwTxmbhJuis5PEqOFnXF1nTQ/s640/Chart+1.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
How do we make sense of this? In round 1 Yuya has the best win percentage of everyone. Yet in round 10, the value of being him with Jund is worse than being an average player with Poison, Eggs or Tron.<br />
<br />
If we stop and think this is just a simple corollary of the previous post. By the time round 10 gets around all of Junds good matchups have been drastically squeezed and its bad matchups have proliferated. This happens because of the popularity of Jund. So Jund’s win percentage at the top tables is in constant decline. Yuya still has his 10% edge, but it isn’t enough to overcome his deck selection disadvantage (theoretically anyways, since obviously he top 8s and thus implodes math). <br />
<h3 id="butcanweexplainwhathappenedafterptrtr-jundedition">
3. But can we explain what happened after PT RTR - Jund Edition</h3>
I think its fairly clear to most of us that the Pre-PT Jund builds were often inferior to what would become the best version of the deck. Deathrite, Liliana and Lingering souls weren’t even mainstays at that point. As a proxy for how the season developed I reran the simulation for PT RTR, but gave all jund players a 5% bump in every non mirror match. How did that change things:<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 2.</em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLYEwHofi9JBtaP_atSbrPr4Sknfr1vEp7j34VCDerwc-uoBAVxIir0HLnlkHHWLZ2Jf_idI8zS0Ddt5MhJ6cz85UpBBLI09iHby3OZMHfqBC58G842njG1jQUW8EVpyBHWEbFDoYZw/s1600/Chart+2.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglLYEwHofi9JBtaP_atSbrPr4Sknfr1vEp7j34VCDerwc-uoBAVxIir0HLnlkHHWLZ2Jf_idI8zS0Ddt5MhJ6cz85UpBBLI09iHby3OZMHfqBC58G842njG1jQUW8EVpyBHWEbFDoYZw/s640/Chart+2.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
Note if the improvements over the course of the last 4 months were even larger its reasonable to see how Jund might have won 75% of the GPs. But a large part of its dominance would still be due to its initial meta size. The “improved” Jund from this case only wins ~52% of its matches. If the newest versions “solve” the affinity matchup it wouldn’t up their win percentage by that much but would of changed their win tournament percentage to the ~35% range.<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>If an extremely popular deck has a positive expected win percentage (even if that edge is small), it will post DOMINANT results</strong> <br />
<br />
I wonder if there is some kind of psychological feedback mechanism in play at this point. The deck wins so people play it. But people playing it means it wins. Thus a deck seems dominant when in reality it would be perfect rational to play a host of other reasonable choices. #ThinkingCapsOn <br />
<br />
I don’t want this blog post to get sidetracked, but I think in the wake of the B&R announcement, its easy to see how wizards might have made a rational overreaction. <i>B</i><em>anning might have been needed to break up the cultural inertia that had built up behind Jund</em>. The metagame was stale not due to Jund’s dominance but because of its inertia. Bans are a way to encourage diversity by changing peoples perceptions (they think Jund is now as bad as it actually already was), but not the reality.<br />
<br />
Let me know if this makes sense. Summarizing:<br />
<ul>
<li>Jund is actually not a great deck (~53% with some bad matchups)</li>
<li>But people think its great (>60%) so a lot of them play it</li>
<li>The combination leads to a lot of success kind of like 10,000 monkeys on 10,000 typewriters. This reinforces the erroneous beliefs.</li>
<li>Wizards bans BBE which has zero impact on the actual viability of Jund but makes people adjust their beliefs regarding its power.</li>
<li>Now that its perceived power is equal to its actual power, people again begin trying alternatives.</li>
<li>Thus the metagame becomes more diverse.</li>
<li>If people were completely rational they would of tried new things even without a ban. But we needed a shock to a system because of incorrect perceptions/metagame inertia/some other reason.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Realistically Jund was probably overperforming too much for the above to be true, but I think its in the realm of possibility.</div>
<h3 id="ptnagoya">
4. PT Nagoya</h3>
Per PV’s suggestion I thought Nagoya would be an interesting second case because the popular deck was actually very good. As of this very moment the Simulation for the PT is running but I would like to present my estimates based on theory for similar metrics to the last post. If the simulation ends up being drastically different than my predictions it will be reported.<br />
<br />
In this case I am much less confident about how I filled in the win percentage matrix since I never played in the block format. If someone good wants to double check that for me shoot me a PM or comment. I also don’t have Infect or Tezzeret variations separated out.<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 3.</em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXNmJ4xq8e5RsOakytHylKhQM0M-nMI1Qr5ENSTzLUMLYpMBbNr3kPkzbu-UX54r3WHL1y6mYTZVeLK1WVWIPHQ5axjEKQIlqfOabHajqR3_awLUbe9UwCrEz4jd0xq5rJ00kgSJBlYw/s1600/Chart+4.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXNmJ4xq8e5RsOakytHylKhQM0M-nMI1Qr5ENSTzLUMLYpMBbNr3kPkzbu-UX54r3WHL1y6mYTZVeLK1WVWIPHQ5axjEKQIlqfOabHajqR3_awLUbe9UwCrEz4jd0xq5rJ00kgSJBlYw/s640/Chart+4.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoR1RBOFdBhosNxDEgUIUAckqAUy3maOe9Dnc4zq1uE-X_JuKAm1Kk2_utSCugvu-Ib2Osp7eCp7jb-8i-00JToJVmXl3353dyvlY4y9luZXA_ZjO7sNvHFKlDM_M1mQNHljRSAMLvfg/s1600/Chart+3.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoR1RBOFdBhosNxDEgUIUAckqAUy3maOe9Dnc4zq1uE-X_JuKAm1Kk2_utSCugvu-Ib2Osp7eCp7jb-8i-00JToJVmXl3353dyvlY4y9luZXA_ZjO7sNvHFKlDM_M1mQNHljRSAMLvfg/s640/Chart+3.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
In this case I think intuition lines up much better with the results. The three best decks in terms of overall win percentages also top 8 the most. The two non-Tempered Steel decks with the best Tempered Steel matchup are the best decks for both top 8ing and winning the tournament. We can take away:<br />
<ul>
<li>If the popular deck is good. Its a fine play. Especially if you want to top 8 (as opposed to needing to win).
<ul>
<li>If you personally had the a good mirror match than the deck becomes a very good choice. Unlike the previous Yuya example, there is no adverse selection in the metagame your bad matchups don’t get more popular.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Beating the most popular deck is much more important if the deck is good. This seems to be independent of your goal (Top 8 v Win) in this case.</li>
<li>If the popular deck is good, the number of viable decks is probably much smaller than when the most popular deck is bad (duh?).</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="theoryvssimulations.mathproofsalmostrigorous">
5. Theory vs Simulations. Math! Proofs! Almost Rigorous!</h3>
Estimating the results by theory has a couple of huge advantages. The disadvantage is that I have to make even more assumptions. The advantage is mostly to due with speed and being able to adjust parameters instantly for instant results.<br />
<br />
A comparison of results for the original PT RTR example. Simulation vs my Theoretical results. Note for the top 8% theoretical I am using the theoretical metagame of X–1s or better. This obviously isn’t exactly equal to the top 8.<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 4.</em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrhMkmvhfrjf_Z9UDEv3FqeP6d9uKB6sajBpuDpE5VCJXAMPTKq8jQKk0yRUfls3o5iLcFi9Udg-AN66FZBlcdYWHHYMmIre9LEyvabsGrPBdVjOML9GZA9NU3c0Gql-fTEClxSUyYDA/s1600/Chart+5.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrhMkmvhfrjf_Z9UDEv3FqeP6d9uKB6sajBpuDpE5VCJXAMPTKq8jQKk0yRUfls3o5iLcFi9Udg-AN66FZBlcdYWHHYMmIre9LEyvabsGrPBdVjOML9GZA9NU3c0Gql-fTEClxSUyYDA/s640/Chart+5.+Metagame+Blog+130201.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
The results are very close for the top 8. And kind of close for the Win %. Not sure if thats because the simulation has noise, or the latter theoretical numbers are overburdened by the assumptions. Either way I am pretty comfortable pending the results of the Nagoya simulation.<br />
<h3 id="takeaminutetopleasetweetthispost.youcanincludemetoordeforce">
6. Take a minute to please tweet this post. You can include me @toordeforce or not. Also feel free to share on fbook.</h3>
Don’t worry you can alt-tab. I’ll still be here.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
7. Conclusion </h3>
Obviously we are just barely scratching the surface of whats possible here. I hope to do one last follow up post on simulating metagames and then move on to other things (possibly one of the questions mentioned previously).</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-68790285838562671602013-01-28T20:04:00.001-08:002013-01-29T05:18:03.747-08:00Simulating Metagame Evolution and PT Return to Ravnica<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
The tl;dr</h2>
<strong>Generally:</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>Beating the most popular deck is overrated</li>
<li>If your goal is winning the tournament (as opposed to top 8ing or doing well generically) then the optimal strategy may be very different.</li>
</ul>
<strong>For PT: RTR</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>Eggs was the best deck in round 1.</li>
<li>Poison was the best deck in round 10 of modern.</li>
<li>Scapeshift, Robots and UW were worse then you know</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="tableofcontents">
Table of Contents</h2>
<ol>
<li>Introduction</li>
<li>The Rock Paper Scissors Example (Mascoli 2012)</li>
<li>PT: RTR<br />
3.1 Relevant Assumptions<br />
3.2 Simulation Results<br />
3.3 Theoretical Results (to be updated at a later date)<br />
3.4 Final Notes </li>
</ol>
<h3 id="introduction">
1. Introduction</h3>
Ask ten pros and you will get ten answers on how and whether you should metagame. However, almost all of us (or if I choose to keep it real “them”) are answering mostly based on experience and intuition. Until recently I thought that was fine. The truth is far more interesting. <br />
<br />
Chris Mascoli (check Gatheringmagic.com) recently published an article on metagaming and magic which was the entire impetus for the work I have done here. In the comments surrounding the article Mike Flores was credited with coming up with some ancient work which originally exposited on the idea. I hope to build on what they have started.<br />
<br />
I am going to try and give more explanation, do more theoretical work (as opposed to pure simulations) and finally apply it to the most recent pro tour. The conclusions are hopefully interesting and unobvious enough to be worth devoting a mammoth post to. The program I used to simulate the results was created completely independent from Chris’ work and this conveniently provides me a way to test the validity of the program (assuming Chris’ work was also correct).<br />
<br />
I summarize the key insights in <em>Metagame Rules</em> that are bolded below.<br />
<h3 id="advancedrockpaperscissors">
2. Advanced Rock Paper Scissors</h3>
Consider a rock paper scissors tournament where you pick one strategy and must play option every round. The tournament is run using with the standard swiss rules and a mirror match is 50/50. What is the optimal deck if the tournament featured 300 players and 8 rounds with the following metagame:<br />
<ul>
<li>40% Rock</li>
<li>33% Scissors</li>
<li>27% paper</li>
</ul>
<em>Chart 1. Metagame Shares</em><br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="t1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Original Metagame</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
% of Top 8 (Chris)</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" colspan="2" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
% of Top 8 (Lucas)</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Win % (Chris)</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Win % (Lucas)</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Rock</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td2" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
40.00%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td3" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td4" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
13.57%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td5" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
14.85%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td3" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td4" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
13.33%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td5" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
14.10%</div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Paper</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td6" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
26.67%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td7" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
55.43%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td8" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>53.90%</b></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td7" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
16.36%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td8" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
17.70%</div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Scissors</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td9" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
33.33%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td10" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td11" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
31.01%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td12" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
31.25%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td10" valign="middle"><div class="p3">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td11" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
70.31%</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td12" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>68.20%</b></div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br />
<em><br /></em>
I have included both the result of my simulation (1000 trials) and Chris’ so that we can gain a little confidence that the algorithm is working (admittedly using some assumptions). Note the use of 8 rounds (which is incorrect) was a small oversight by Chris but since the example still provides the intuition we are looking for I decided to run with it.<br />
The key results are that:<br />
<ul>
<li>Paper is the best deck for top8ing</li>
<li>Scissor is the play if you want to win</li>
</ul>
<strong>Metagame Rule 1:</strong> A popular but poorly situated deck will see its metagame share over the course of the tournament. The top situated decks start to become over-represented relative to initial popularity. The metagame evolves.<br />
<br />
<strong>Metagame Rule 2:</strong> This significantly impacts who top 8s (and as a corollary who wins). Beating the most popular deck is good for getting a top 8. But to win you want to beat the well situated deck. Winning and doing well (defined as top 8) should be treated as different goals.<br />
<br />
This chart shows what the above percentages mean from the perspective a specific individual. For example, if I told you the result was that Paper and Rock both had 33% of the top 8 you might think there was no advantage to picking one deck. But, there were different starting positions for the two strategies. While we might expect there to be 2.66 players for both strategies in the top 8, there were more people who started with rock than paper, thus showing up with rock is worse than paper for each individual rock player.<br />
<br />
<em>Chart 2. Player Value</em><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="t1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
Representative Tournament</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Original Metagame (# Players)</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
# Players in Top 8 (Lucas)</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
# of Winners</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Rock</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td2" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
120.00</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td3" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
1.20</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td3" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
0.14</div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Paper</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td4" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
80.00</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td5" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>4.32</b></div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td5" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
0.18</div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Scissors</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td6" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
100.00</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td7" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
2.48</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="td7" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>0.68</b></div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br />
In this case we can see that although roughly an equal number of tournaments are won by Paper and Rock, you personally are much more likely to win if you play paper (since fewer of them exist).<br />
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>Metagame Rule 3:</strong> Whether a deck is good, is <em>not</em> dependent on how much of the top 8 it expects to be, but rather whether or not the deck is increasing its metagame percentage from the initial position and by how much it does so. You would rather be 5% of the initial meta and 10% of winners, than part of a deck that was both 50% of the Meta and 50% of winners. This is important for when we analyze the actual Pro Tour.<br />
<h3 id="protour:returntoravnica">
3. Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica</h3>
<strong>Assumptions for Simulation</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>There were 382 players who participated in every round</li>
<li>The tournaments was 10 continuous rounds of Modern and had no limited portion</li>
<li>The win percentage matrix (see below)</li>
<li>The metagame consisted of all decks with an initial metagame share greater than 1.5% and all other decks are lumped into <em>other</em></li>
</ul>
The Win Percentage Matrix is a table of every deck which desrcibes the probability that the deck on the Y-Axis beats the deck on the X-Axis. For Rock-Paper-Scissors it looks like:<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 3. Win Percentages RPS</em><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="t1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
<b>Win Probability</b></div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Rock</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Paper </div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
Scissors</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
Rock</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
50%</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
0%</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
100%</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
Paper</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
100%</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
50%</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
0%</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p1">
Scissors</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
0%</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
100%</div>
</td>
<td class="td1" valign="middle"><div class="p2">
50%</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br />
For PT RTR it looks like:<br />
<em>Chart 4. Win Percentages Modern</em><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Ff50je9XgVsZYZmNuNxiw5CzlEJZgAXKeycjhHaaWsKOXPxIr3963-1j4cpLhmce5W6aOEG9I-lv3hBmeIvhOcILX9ynNFHfnC2Sxq5FbLv_PeE7fCbLXtVvLTQ0-7RhxBSZdWxvCQ/s1600/Chart+4.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Ff50je9XgVsZYZmNuNxiw5CzlEJZgAXKeycjhHaaWsKOXPxIr3963-1j4cpLhmce5W6aOEG9I-lv3hBmeIvhOcILX9ynNFHfnC2Sxq5FbLv_PeE7fCbLXtVvLTQ0-7RhxBSZdWxvCQ/s1600/Chart+4.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Some of this was filled out using Paul Jordan’s metagame article and some of it was just my subjective best guess. I tried two different versions. In version one I used my best guess for rough win percentages. In version 2 (the one from above), I tweaked version one until the probability of winning a random match was equal (or close) to their actual total win percentage at the Pro Tour (again from Paul’s article). The big difference comes in how the decks are treated when they play the nebulous “other” decks. We can see based on these assumptions the overall win percentage and how it compares to what actually happened. This is simply a sanity check.<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 5. Comparing Assumed (based on above) vs Actual Win percentages</em><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_A6bEaMEjpN_35IvCnN6OGx8IXBsnabF7K8YXS4-MLOu0FgiNiPIdxYj8t62EgR1L0dqBWDVH-JN4FQP_Jam1ua8mRl7TbnnEBNWa483EArlUFp40J8bWjCOkPDPVnblVhBwQ7Xz3Cw/s1600/Chart+5.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_A6bEaMEjpN_35IvCnN6OGx8IXBsnabF7K8YXS4-MLOu0FgiNiPIdxYj8t62EgR1L0dqBWDVH-JN4FQP_Jam1ua8mRl7TbnnEBNWa483EArlUFp40J8bWjCOkPDPVnblVhBwQ7Xz3Cw/s1600/Chart+5.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" /></a></div>
<em><br /></em>
<em><br /></em>
<em><br /></em>
<em>Notes from the previous 2 charts</em><br />
<ul>
<li>Affinity and Scapeshift have very good matchups against Jund, but not great matchups elsewhere</li>
<li>The two most popular decks have below average win percentages (Jund and Other)</li>
<li>Eggs has pretty much universally favorable matchups</li>
<li>Poison has a high overall win percentage but a poor Jund matchup</li>
</ul>
<strong>Simulation Results</strong>
This shows us how we should expect the tournament to shake out in terms of composition.<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 6. Metagame and Top 8 Shares</em><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5nqvZSMhsJP3ms_GmdVgmAt9wo4BONl5tkpJxaqwoGnpJayXv-WjTQmw_y78kwgMGqdKq2SXtVPJ0Od1xD0NMc2U8i2TmOg6XYvO4PbSA7DoycU4ZyxZDInDwHY3HiiK7BvukkgL4g/s1600/Chart+6.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5nqvZSMhsJP3ms_GmdVgmAt9wo4BONl5tkpJxaqwoGnpJayXv-WjTQmw_y78kwgMGqdKq2SXtVPJ0Od1xD0NMc2U8i2TmOg6XYvO4PbSA7DoycU4ZyxZDInDwHY3HiiK7BvukkgL4g/s1600/Chart+6.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<em><br /></em>
The following gives us an idea of what the best decks are. The added value measure calculates your advantage compared to assuming that each person is exactly equally likely to top 8 (or win) the tournament. 100% means you are twice as likely as someone with no advantage or disadvantage from deck choice to top 8. −50% means you are half as likely. The probabilities are the probability that a given individual would accomplish top 8 (or win). In other words if I chose to play Jund at PT RTR I was giving myself .1% chance of winning which is distinct from Jund having an 11.8% chance of winning overall.<br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Chart 7 Finding the Best Deck.</em><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVerqrsqQtkBQl-uI8iYpSpYhRmsi6-6tT7L0y3ay2EI1AddyCkTiC7GCGxDu9e07FMv8GR7O28ARmyK-FoWBHLng-2lT_bF8p4Iv3Gl6qNK-Fj04PMrd8b7jFTnBDGKxcvzmn5-ADA/s1600/Chart+7.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgVerqrsqQtkBQl-uI8iYpSpYhRmsi6-6tT7L0y3ay2EI1AddyCkTiC7GCGxDu9e07FMv8GR7O28ARmyK-FoWBHLng-2lT_bF8p4Iv3Gl6qNK-Fj04PMrd8b7jFTnBDGKxcvzmn5-ADA/s1600/Chart+7.+Metagame+Blog+130128.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong><br /></strong>
<strong>My Takeaways</strong><br />
<ol>
<li>Poison wasn’t hurt much by its bad Jund matchup. The rest of the field slowly whittled Jund down and Poison was able to prey on the decks that were doing that (Scapeshift, Tron, Eggs etc.).</li>
<li>Affinity was hurt because its main source of +EV is dissapearing in the later rounds. It also starts to form a large part of the meta as the tournament evolved and thus faced increasingly frequent mirror matches (making it harder for individual pilots to succeed).</li>
<li>Only <strong>15%</strong> of decks significantly improved upon the benchmark for the purposes of top 8ing.</li>
<li><b>Edit: 01/29</b> Eggs was the second best deck choice for the tournament. But it was only the 4th most likely deck to win the tournament, of course this ignores the possibility that Cifka's list was better than generic eggs.</li>
<li>The fact there was so much Jund in the t8 was probably due to above average limited performances (Ochoa 15, Edel 12, Yuya 15)</li>
<li>Storm’s Performance (which was fairly solid) suggest a lack of “average” storm players. More likely were some people with very good decks and some people with very bad versions.</li>
</ol>
<strong>Metagame Rule 4:</strong> In this environment most decks are bad choices. Arguably 85% of decks were below average choices. If the most popular deck is not the “best deck” the metagame decision is very important.<br />
<br />
<strong>Metagame Rule 5:</strong> Being better with your deck (as opposed to trying to metagame) is better when the tournaments are less rounds. Imagine being a rock player with a 20% win percentage against paper and a 70% win percentage in the mirror. You still wouldn’t want to be in the average top 8 from the first example. In general we probably overestimate the value of being good with your pet deck. This will fall out of the theoretical work I plan to examine later.<br />
<h3 id="finalthoughts">
</h3>
<h3 id="finalthoughts">
Final Thoughts</h3>
I am going to add some further analysis based on theory to answer some hypotheticals that some may find interesting such as:<br />
<ul>
<li>How much is being Yuya worth?</li>
<li>Does number of rounds matter a little or a lot?</li>
<li>Does the theory (which requires even more simplification) agree with the Simulations (spoiler: Science works)?</li>
</ul>
I would also like to run some numbers on another metagame where the “best deck” was actually the most popular deck. In what I expect will be the mother of all plot twists, I assume the math will say to play the best deck. Not sure where to find that stuff so I will do some digging. Maybe PT: Tempered Steel or Cawblade.</div>
Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63281465686584088.post-53962029303330665662013-01-14T18:37:00.002-08:002013-01-14T18:37:40.659-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Modern UW Control<br /><br />List as of PTQ:<br />2 Scalding Tarn<br />2 Arid Mesa<br />4 Celestial Collonade<br />3 Seachrome Coast<br />1 Calciform Pools<br />1 Plains<br />4 Tectonic Edge<br />4 Hallowed Fountain<br />5 Island<br /><br />3 Vendillion Clique<br />1 Snapcaster Mage<br />1 Restoration Angel<br />1 Consecrated Sphinx<br /><br />1 Ratchet Bomb<br />2 Vedalken Shackles<br />1 Batterskull<br />1 Relic of Progenitus<br />2 Thirst for Knowledge<br />3 Supreme Verdict<br />2 Sphinx's REvelation<br />3 Path to Exile<br />3 Mana Leak<br />1 Remand<br />4 Cryptic Command<br />4 Spell Snare<br /><br />SB:<br />4 Meddling Mage<br />2 Celestial Purge<br />1 Ratchet Bomb<br />1 Disenchant<br />1 Stony Silence<br />1 Negate<br />1 Spell Pierce<br />1 Path to Exile<br />1 Wurmcoil Engine<br />1 Rest in Peace<br />1 Linvala Keeper of Silence<br /><br />MVPs:<br />Ratchet Bomb<br />Calciform pool<br />Vedalken Shackles<br /><br />LVPs<br />C-Sphinx<br />Stony Silence<br />Path to Exile<br /><br />Matchups<br />Twin 3-1 (loss was to RUG with Blood moons)<br />Poison 1-0<br />MonoWhite 1-0<br />RUG Delver 1-0<br />Storm 2-0<br />American Midrange 0-1<br />Jund 1-0<br /><br />I Apologize for all spelling and grammar mistakes which are sure to follow. They are my mistakes and exclusively the falt of the Canadian Public School system.<br /><br />I haven't tested the deck much because, I brewed it up mostly 1 hour before the PTQ. But I think all those matchups are things I am very happy to play.<br /><br /><b>The Genesis:</b><br />Early in the week I tried Jarvis and Fabiano's list for a couple of matches and wasn't happy with UW in general. I was losing in 2-mans to competent Jund (Cheon and Orsini Jones) and with the more creature heavy lists I felt only even against combo (as opposed to way ahead).<br /><br /><b>All the Wraths</b><br />Saturday evening I quickly 0-2ed with Zoo (went X-2 at last PTQ) and dropped. Waking up sunday I reviewed the decks at the top tables and realized everyone was playing creatures. Thus I decided I was going to play a bunch of insane cards against creatures. Shackles, Supreme Verdicts and Revelations. This combination of cards is almost impossible for any fair deck to play around (Jund does it the best). Unfortunately you can't really afford to play creatures when your on this strategy so you need ways to no-questions-asked close out the game (thus my choice of BOOMBOOM finishers).<br /><br /><b>Combo Me? Combo you!</b><br />I didn't want to play too many creatures (combo with wrath) and I needed to shore up combo matchups since I had many bricks so I played a crap ton of counters and a maindeck relic. My few early threats were also highly disruptive which helps since you often draw so many prices. V-Clique is also excellent with my boom booms since it easily strips their answer as you curve into your 6 (or 5). Thus I played Sphinx over Sun Titan since I felt I would be able to make it stick more often than previously. The one remand (#whatwouldOriedo?) is NOT an attempt to be cute. I actually think its worse then mana leak (especially with thirst in your deck), but I wanted to play two cantrips because I suspected 26 lands might be low.<br /><br /><b>Nice Spell Snares Bro</b><br />To alleviate the problem of drawing the wrong part of your deck in the wrong matchups i had the Thirst for Knowledge's. Where other people played Jace as a source of persistent card advatange I wanted to play almost exclusively on their turn and use my three drop card drawer to filter for the insane one ofs that were pertinent in each matchup. They are also excellent with situational sideboard cards. For example spell pierce is generally mediocre in the twin matchup. Early on you can just lose to blood moon (so it excels there), but the majority of games go long. So the card is pretty bad usually. Similarly you might want to bring in disenchant against RUG delver (in case of shackles or moon) but you don't want it rotting in your hand forever.<br /><br /><b>The only way Pikula Makes a top 8*.</b><br />Meddling mage is the allstar of this board. In every combo matchup you end up post board with essentially 10 disruptive creatures, 12 counterpells, 4-card drawers and some miscellaneous permanent hate. I like 1 Rest in Peace since its insane against storm (impossible for them to grapeshot you and this deck almost never loses to EtW) and I always bring in one against Jund. Stony silence is obviously #synergy with my shackles, wrath, revelations anti-affinity plan. I think the worst card in the board is probably the 4th path but its almost certainly a necessary evil. Without snapcasters you don't actually have very much removal.<br /><br /><b>Mana from the gods</b><br />The whole point of the deck as to make shackles work. Thus the 3 seachromes. I am also petrified of blood moon so I made the unusual choice to run 2 Arid Mesas. They usually cost you extra life but I like the insurance. The calciform pools was busy firing off revelations all day and I hated having 6 colorless sources essentially but it was probably the best one. The question isn't 25 or 26 lands. Its 26 or 27?<br /><br /><b>*</b>this is a joke and Pikula was actually within a match in the Sat PTQ I believe (assuming his MODO nick is the obvious). But rather than be whined at for lack of respect (#whathaveyoudoneetc), I figured I would put an asterisk and save myself some flame-mail. Because words mean things.<br />
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Lucas Siowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16083504337374495174noreply@blogger.com0