I'm with vert, Banedon's pretty good at mtg even if Nexus is banned everywhere, i'm surprised you doesn't see the similarities.

Exact same between Poker and MTG, there is a fair share of games that are unwinnable and a fair share of games that are unloseable, but the skill lies in eeking out the middle ground murky water

You guys sure hold mtg players in high esteem

If you are claiming that "if you are winning anything 60% of the time, then it isn't random", then you are showing you don't understand what I'm saying. The post you quoted says "Heck, if this trend is an argument that the game is not random, then you could argue that rock-paper-scissors is not random", and I literally showed you another game earlier where the top players win 75% of the time. Hell, I get 75% win rate myself in yet another game I play, more if I were to tryhard every game (win rates in that game with 5q and full tryhard approaches 100%, but it's less fun to stomp everyone all the time).

Why do you think I quit Magic in the first place? What exactly is it that you think I think of poker?

I can imagine this conversation between two Magic players ...

Alice: how'd you do in that limited tournament?
Bob: I went 1-3.
Alice: Oh? What happened? Didn't you have a good deck?
Bob: Yeah, but I was on the draw four times.

I wonder if anyone's ever done some kind of analysis. Put one's favorite deck against a gauntlet of different foes, with that deck on the play every time. Then repeat, with the same deck on the draw every time. See what the difference is. It might even be worse than the pre-homecoming Gwent blue/red coin mechanic.

/shrug. I'm close to uninstalling again. Maybe someone like divinevert who doesn't mind grinding hundreds of games can enjoy it, but I am not one of them.

I'm sure no one has ever kept track of on the play and on the draw stats... That's groundbreaking stuff man!!

I just about spit out my coffee

Gee, thanks! Do you think I can write a paper, get it published in Nature or something?

Did all the gold-to-gold events (i.e. those that take gold to enter and rewards gold) disappear? I clearly remember that BO1 constructed used to take 500g to enter and rewarded gold for example, but all the events seem to reward gems now.

If they did disappear, is this a temporary or permanent change?

It was a part of an economy BS thing... you can look it up, but it's permanent.

They raised the entry fee by A LOT the B03 Events where my way to avoid ladder...
Some guys say that is actually better, but I'm not convinced... also it's really bad for new players.

So, since only real experts can go infinite in limited, I have to play constructed to keep playing limited. Which isn't terrible, since Historic is unexpectedly fun. There are so many decks out there, all pushing their own strategy. I've run into Simic Flash (lol, I still remember losing to this with Fires of Invention), Waste Not discard, Soul Warden lifegain, Mono G Stompy, Gruul legends, and more. The mana in Historic is very good, which must've helped these decks exist.

I copied the Selesnya humans deck from mtgtop8and it's been great, the aggro plan is superb and Esper Sentinel & Thalia can randomly lock people out. It's got its weak matchups, of course (I find it's weak against linear creature decks like Elves & Merfolk) but the deck still feels like a well-tuned beast. On the other hand I don't really get the sideboard. I feel like there're lots of cards I simply never bring in, like Tormod's Crypt. Many of the other cards seem very narrow, like Kraul Harpooner, which I've only used against UR Phoenix. Portable Hole is another weird one. It's nice against creatures, but I'm also bringing Brutal Cathar against creature decks that I need to interact with, and there's a big hole in my 2-drop slot especially after I board out Thalia. On the other hand, it seems clear to me which cards are the worst maindeck - Adeline and Katilda - and I board them out a lot; there are also no ways to diversify my threats against control. I'd have thought creature decks want to bring in planeswalkers and vehicles or whatnot that survive sweepers against control, but there's not much to change with this sideboard. Now it's true that the maindeck is already very strong against control since it's got all these taxing effects and innate 2-for-1s, and also that boarding down on creatures is bad news for Collected Company and Inquisitor Captain; on the other hand I still feel pretty naked without more units that survive sweepers. I'm kind of surprised there isn't a playable 1WW planeswalker, or even a 2WW planeswalker.

The other decks I crafted are BR midrange (which seems rather mediocre in BO1; I didn't craft the sideboard) and UW control (You know what? I'm not done yet). UW Control is not bad, and it's nice to Wrath creature decks, but I still think it was a mistake to craft it since I just spent so many wildcards on a deck that overlaps colors with GW Humans.

With no gold-to-gold events most of my games are played in the unranked queues. Not great. It feels like gold is more precious than gems, incredibly enough. I am also not sure how much longer I'll play. Right now I'm playing to 15 wins every day, but it's because I have a lot of free time; if I need to free up time to play another game MTGA is probably the first one I cut.

Barney, any idea what's the win rate of top players in Twilight Struggle?

That's a good question. There's a deck of cards so there's randomness to it. I'm assuming top players mostly play against other top players?

When I used to play, I didn't play against top players. I'm gonna sound like a goddamn magic player here, but I had a 100% win rate for YEARS. I never lost at that game, it was insane. I wasn't playing against good players tho. They would routinely fall for that trick in Germany (I forget what it's called now), and on top of it, I think I was playing as the US player who has a disadvantage in the game. So it was really nuts. I think one of the times I played as USSR I got control of Europe which is totally insane and shouldn't ever happen.

But top players? I think it would be high. 66-75%? I dunno

It's weird how anti-variance Banedon is, considering didn't he end up quitting Gwent because the game got stale due to how well you could manipulate your deck to manufacture hyper consistent draws? MtG would have died in 1996 without any variance.

i dont think he understands the difference between randomness and variance. Especially the fact that you can account for variance and mitigate it properly

You think I quit Gwent because "the game got stale due to how well you could manipulate your deck to manufacture hyper consistent draws"? Haha. You are incorrect, but why bother explaining something to you. You won't understand anyway.

WHY BOTHER

YEAH, CAN'T EXPLAIN NOTHING TO ME, BROTHER

Well, I've largely lost interest in Magic again. Sayonara, Magic Arena.

Adios Banedon. I don't play magic right now either

Me neither, I think the only thing that might bring me back is a new Duels of the Planeswalkers game for Xbox or possibly iPhone. But even then, I suspect I’m done forever.

I’ve kept six physical decks so if my daughter is curious one day, I’ll teach her

Stern was talking about Magic on his show last week with his staff and they had it so wrong, that it bothered me lol

I haven't booted it up since November, many reasons but the main one being they killed the only none rotating format (Historic) and i don't plan on rebooting till a new one emerges

It's always been the case, i miss the community way more then the game, e.g the NGA/CGB/LVD crew but i realised it probably wasn't smart to play a game solely for that reason.

Miss a lot of people though