Sup! I went to FNM tonight, and got third. Here is how things went down:
Round 1 I was against what I think best to call "GW Gavony Blink". Yeah, just by that name you could probably tell me the whole decklist. ;)
I had previously got to my LGS early to buy some cards I needed for the my MBC deck. Whenever I add cards to a deck, I sort it. Now I believe that even after shuffling a lot, I will always lose the first game I play after sorting a deck. It's just such bad luck! ...And that's just what happened. Game 1 he got birds out t1 and I killed it. I continued to kill his stuff, but the thing that really got me was {Restoration Angel}. I don't care which creatures my opponent casts as long as I have a turn to destroy them. Restoration might as well have haste, and it didn't help that he slapped 2 {Rancor}s on whatever he used to attack. As a final desperate move, hoping to draw a board wipe next turn, I casted {Phyrexian Metamorph} on his {Thragtusk}. it bought me a turn, but nothing came but a swamp.
Game 2 I killed his mana dorks right away as usual. I got a {Lashwrithe} out and stuck it on my singleton {Inkmoth Nexus}. he couldn't find any resto-angels this time, so the inkmoth made fast work of things.
Game 3 I felt better about my draws. The bad luck of sorting my deck had finally worn off. Every creature he cast I destroyed, and I killed him with {Vampire Nighthawk}s.
Stats: 1 - 0 with 2 wins and 1 loss
Round 2 I was set to battle my buddy, who on these forums is known as tunaboy. We had faced eachother before on cockatrice, so I felt good about this matchup. He was running GW Humans with lambholt, sigarda, and {Angelic Overseer}. It's not that his deck was bad (I barely beat him statwise; he got 4th place), my deck was just a good counter to his (or any creature-based deck).
Game 1 and 2 were pretty much the same: I got {Phyrexian Obliterator} out and then another, along with {Liliana of the Veil} and {Bloodgift Demon}/{Staff of Nin}, all the while never letting him keep a creature on the field. Gg buddy! :)
Stats: 2 - 0 with 4 wins and 1 loss
Round 3 I was against delver. I was happy because my deck does so well against delver. But alas! The bad luck of sorting my deck had not worn out.
Game 1 I had a 1-land hand: a swamp and also a {Sphere of the Suns}. I never take 1 land hands unless I have a sphere and 2 {Tragic Slip}s. I toom the muligan and got no land. I went to 5 and still no land. I had to keep it. I had 2 slips and it wasn't getting any better. Needless to say I lost.
Game 2 enraged me. The same hand came again: 1 swamp and a sphere. WTF IS THIS?? I said. I lost that game also.
Stats: 2 - 1 with 4 wins and 3 losses
Round 4 (final round) I was against the guy I had a reeeally close match with last FNM. However he didn't have a deck on him and had to use an exalted infect deck that someone let him borrow. One {Staff of Nin} shut the whole deck down, and I gave him more infect couters than he gave me. I could tell that he was as disappointed in this odd deck as I was.
Stats: 3 - 1 with 6 wins and 3 losses
The main thing I liked about this FNM was that:
a) The guy I faced last brought donuts for everyone
and
b) I got the cards I neededd to finish my mainboard for the deck. I just need 2 for the side now :)
Hope this was a good/interesting read.
Nice! Why do you think sorting gives you bad luck? I hate losing because of mana screw. I know it's part of the game and I always use at least 23-24 land but it's do frustrating !
Because all your Lands are in one place and all your other spells are in a place. So your draws are screwed up. Even if you shuffle, it's still kinda there.
Nice coffee! Sucks to hear about the mana screw but it's nice that if you had got good draws you probably would have gone 4-0.
Nice! Does your LGS do top four? How are the prizes split? I'm trying to find an FNM with 4 rounds. The one I go to does 6 and it ends around midnight each week which is too late.
Yeah top 4 gets prizes sometimes if a ton of people show up it's top 8. But most times it is top 4 (sixteen people; four rounds).
I got 3 packs for third place and tunaboy also got 3 packs. He pulled a jace memory adept and I pulled a dragonskull summit. Top 4 also tets an FNM promo. Right now it's the avacyn pilgrim.
16 people seems much nicer then my 60 @.@
Oh that sorting. I thought you were talking about something else.
You should try the solitaire shuffle. Just "deal" out all your cards into 6(or more) separate piles and then mix it up that way. I've heard that makes it the "most random" way of shuffling even though it's time consuming.
Quote from: Coffee Vampire on August 25, 2012, 01:40:05 AM
Because all your Lands are in one place and all your other spells are in a place. So your draws are screwed up. Even if you shuffle, it's still kinda there.
Just remember that 7 true shuffles = complete randomness. By true shuffles I mean the bridge shuffle and some hand shuffling is one shuffle, do it 7 times and the cards are as random as math will allow.
Quote from: Imdowd80 on August 25, 2012, 11:29:37 AM
Quote from: Coffee Vampire on August 25, 2012, 01:40:05 AM
Because all your Lands are in one place and all your other spells are in a place. So your draws are screwed up. Even if you shuffle, it's still kinda there.
Just remember that 7 true shuffles = complete randomness. By true shuffles I mean the bridge shuffle and some hand shuffling is one shuffle, do it 7 times and the cards are as random as math will allow.
Yeah but with sleeves you have to use alternate methods. I do stack then riffle.
You can bridge shuffle sleeves, it's just a pain to do it. And it's possible to do it with out a huge bend.
After rebuilding my deck I will always break up my land to every third card (at worst) and never have two of the same card sitting side by side.
Then I shuffle using a couple of different methods, and I don't often see a problem.
However if I skip the first step, things go badly more often.
Also with your deck, you can possibly get away with drawing down to 4 cards. Try some solo games on cockatrice and see how I goes. I suspect your deck will be quick enough to recover once you have the cards you need to start with.
Also don't be afraid to do a full reshuffle when mulling to 5. Obviously there's a problem and you are well within your rights to do so. Let them cut again and all will be fine :) (hopefully)