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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Magic: The Gathering Online  |  Topic: Fuck this retarded shuffling 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Fuck this retarded shuffling  (Read 6054 times)
Margalis
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Posts: 12335


on: November 01, 2004, 08:55:02 PM

The last 2 weeks I feel like the shuffler has been totally broken.

I have played SO MANY games where I do not get land. I have a deck with 17 lands in it. My opening hand has 1 land and I am going first. I mulligan. Next hand has NO lands. Mulligan again. Next land also has no lands.

Next round, my starting hand has 2 lands. 8 turns later, I still have 2 lands.

I played a league match the other day where I was stuck on 2 lands for each of the last 2 rounds...just retarded.

I feel like I am either getting really unlucky, or the mulligan rules need to be different, or SOMETHING. I seem to mulligan a fair amount more than my opponents, but they don't seem to have land problems as often as I do.

I am not talking about running a low number of lands, or having expensive creatures. I am talking about 17 lands in a 40 card deck, and it feels like half my starting hands have zero lands in them.

vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #1 on: November 04, 2004, 02:52:33 AM

Wow, I'm not the only one. For the past 2 weeks or so my most common played hand has been 5. I've kept 2 starting hands in the past 2 weeks. Only 2. Most of my hands have been hands of 0-1 lands, but I've also had a few 1-0 non-land hands too (and one memorable round had me suffer ALL 3 of my mountains in a G/W/r deck in 2 of the games... no other lands of course). It never used to happen to me, and it doesn't seem to happen to my opponents. It a bitch mulliganing down to 5 for all 3 rounds of a damn game and only just lose in the last one. So I'm off drafting for now, leagues and constructed only for a bit. Losing a draft because of the damn shuffler is just too painful.
Xilren's Twin
Moderator
Posts: 1648


Reply #2 on: November 04, 2004, 04:23:36 AM

If it makes you feel any better, this is not a new complain.  It sucks majorly but the shuffler has been long despised by many mtgo players.  It seems to affect everyone, but it's easier to remember when you got land screwed and lost than it is to remember it happening to your opponents and winning.

Personally, i think it's because it's a true random shufflers where as almost everyone i know who shuffles their decks in real life doesn't start from a truly random order.  Fer instance, i know when i layout my desk pre shuffle i do it in a 2 card, 1 land pattern, then pile shuffle from there.  Others put all land in one pile and cards in another as their starting point.

In any event, the land order post shuffle is probably the single greatest measure of luck in MTGO going, more than even the old topdecking goodness.

As such, in 40 card decks I usually try to run about 18 or mana sources and some fixers like card drawers and the like.  I dont like it, but I definately do it b/c even though it could lead to some dead draws in the late game, if you're land screwed early, you're done.

Xilren

"..but I'm by no means normal." - Schild
Scribble
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9


Reply #3 on: November 04, 2004, 02:24:53 PM

I find complaints about the shuffler on MO somewhat amusing. I mean, it doesn't
take much more than a college course in programming to be able to code a
random number generator that would be good enough for the purpose of simulating
a random shuffle. Magic has a significant element of luck, it's just something
one has to accept. Given the astronomical amounts of shuffles going on in a day
of play on the MO servers, incredibly unlikely draws will happen all the time.
I wonder if online poker players also whine about the shuffler when some guy at
their table gets the goods on every hand.

As for the 'stacking' tactic Xilren mentions, it's true that many casual
players get into the habit of doing that (placing your cards in a
land/land/spell pattern). Try it at a high-level tourney though and you'd get
disqualified, or watch as your chuckling opponent pile-shuffles your deck into
three piles after you present it, leaving you with a high probability of mana
screw. Your deck must be randomized when presented to your opponent, and that's
why doing such pre-ordering is ultimately pointless - if you do it and then
don't shuffle enough to completely remove that ordering, you're cheating.

I second Xilren's advice though on running 18 lands in most sealed deck builds,
especially if you're more than two colours. Part of the skill element in Magic
is figuring out how to minimize the effect of luck in your deck - making a
stable mana base, not running cards that don't do anything unless you draw
specific other cards, avoid narrow and situational cards etc.
schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345


WWW
Reply #4 on: November 04, 2004, 06:11:17 PM

Quote from: Scribble
Try it at a high-level tourney though and you'd get
disqualified,


I did this at over 250 tournaments. Including the pre-release xilren and I attended (for Kamigawa). I believe he did it as well. They don't disqualify you because EVERYONE does it and they do 'pile shuffle' after doing it. It doesn't leave you with shitty hands near as often as the online shuffler.
Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335


Reply #5 on: November 04, 2004, 07:19:17 PM

The thing is, this is a recent occurence. I understand that randomness will lead to some bad hands, but in the past couple of weeks I have had an inoordinate number of 0 or 1 land starting hands. I am used to getting mana screwed, but not used to getting mana screwed 5 rounds in a row.

Magic has a enough luck in it already that IMO it could do with one free mulligan, for example. Or bring back the old mulligan rule in conjunction with the new one. (Free mulligan if you have all lands or no lands)

vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #6 on: November 05, 2004, 02:37:00 AM

Yeah that's the thing, you occasionally hear people go off about a bad week or so of shuffling. And it seems MArgalis and myself just copped the same thing. I'm not talking "oh, I got a 1 land hand, daman shuffler" whinge. I'm talking about periods where you mulligan almost every single goddamn hand over a period of a week or so because they all suck. Just today I kept a hand with 5 lands, a kabuto moth, and a samurai enforcer (and only one plain, so i better draw one soon or I can't cast the enforcer, oh, but he's the only card in the deck costing 6, and one of only 2 cards with double-white, so drawing the plain will be useless for casting almost any other card) because, quite frankly, it's one of the best hands I've had all fortnight. Now that's a pain in the ass.

The shuffler has been relatively good to me over time, I mulligan a few times, I've had rounds where I mulliganed down to 3 before I even see a land (I go to 3 just to see when I'd get land, I wouldn't play a 3-card hand), and other random events. But I know how random generators work so I understand that sometimes you get screwed. This past fortnight has been different, I've not had a single match where I haven't mulliganed 3 times over the rounds. And only 3 rounds where I didn't mulligan at all (the 3rd was one I'd send back on a normal stretch of luck).

Something is screwy with the shuffler. Not knowing how this particular one works, I can't say what. But there are many ways in which a random shuffler could be made that this would occur. Random shufflers aren't entirely random, and it's quite possible for many of them to break down over a period of time depending on how initial orders, seeds, and random processes are both handled and changed over time. My guess is that the shuffler works off the last order the cards use, and then either stores seeds for a person, or uses a measure on a person's computer to seed the randomization. Lots of ways for that to mess up for a period of time.
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