Standard Mill input
Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 14, 2013, 8:19 a.m. by bluemax87
SUPERMILLTASTICO-ELSTANDARDO!!!
Looking for thoughts on this build. I've playtested it against other decks featured here on the site as taking top8, and I've copy+pasted PTQ decks to playtest against. I tend to win quite often with this list, however my fear is this: Playtests on this site are always subjective on a lot of levels...
On the first level you have player bias. The player will play their own deck to the peak of its ability and will not play the other deck to its peak due to either a) lack of knowledge or b) lack of commitment to an honest playtest (i.e. they want their deck to win so bad they will only record games on here in which the deck won, will not mulligan to 6, 5 etc but rather mulligan to 7 each time searching for the "optimal hand")
The next level is lack of experience. This has a couple layers to peel back, the first of which is player experience with the opponents' deck. I, for example, had to take significantly longer turns when playing with other decks here against my own because I had to carefully consider each card in-hand and what would tactically be the best play for each turn. An argument can be made for the flip side of that coin in that since I know MY OWN deck so well I should know what cards to reserve and what/when is the opportune time to play certain cards. On that note, during my playtests, I did play those decks with the full knowledge of what my deck could/would bring to the table...
The second layer of the lack of experience factor is more player-related. I, for example, may or may not have as much tournament/FNM experience as the guys who created these decks. Therefore, in real life, they may beat me with their decks even though I beat them during my playtests here. The same holds true vice versa, as well.
The final level considering playtests on this site is the "virtual shuffle" presented with the computer program. For example, I will always use my deck IRL and set my laptop in front of my playmat so I can simply look at the screen and then to my mat instead of switching between multiple screens. With the virtual shuffle, card-draw is based on odds and percentages, but when I shuffle my deck IRL, I know the likelihood of drawing certain cards and I know how valuable my opening hand is and whether or not its worth keeping versus a mulligan. With the computer system, if/when you mulligan (just the running example here) you still have a high chance of obtaining a solid opening hand if your deck is "built" with a good mana-curve. The shuffling aspect of a game of Magic is why I actually re-shuffle my opponents deck when they offer me the opportunity to split...
With those concerns in mind, is it possible to get unbiased playtests with a decent recollection of the plays? This way, I can evaluate what I may or may not have done each turn in the place of the person playing my deck...
bluemax87 says... #2
Some updates have been made based off recent suggestions. I appreciate any/all feedback!
October 14, 2013 4:50 p.m.