So it's been about another two weeks and I've made a few more observations from playing MtGO. Some are specific to online play and others are just good common sense practices.
Watch Your Stops
If you're not familiar with the Magic: the Gathering Online client, it has a feature called "stops" which are exactly what they sound like--a point in the turn where the client stops to ask for your input. The stop location options are all at priority passes as you leave phases and steps, of course, so you have a chance to act.
Some people will set every stop on so they get every chance to act and others will be selective. Personally, I have a few that are on all the time (opponent's end step, opponent's enter combat, my enter combat, etc.) Then, if I need to act during my opponent's upkeep or draw step I enable it on the fly before we get to that point.
Basically, what I've learned is that if you're not thinking ahead you'll miss the right time to act. Also, if you're a real scrub, you probably have all the stops on (like my upkeep) and you're draining your own clock when you walk away after your turn thinking it won't stop until my main phase!
Don't Tilt
This is probably the most often repeated phrase and one of the most written about pieces of advice--don't go on tilt when you are losing, when you are drawing poorly, when your opponent "just has it," or when the numbers just didn't add up (locked out of top 8 by 0.02% on breakers.)
It does you no good to tilt. Just find your out (see observation #3 further down) and play to it. Granted, you have no real "out" if you've just been locked out of top 8. In that case your out is running for coffee or playing side events.
Learn Your Outs
There is a "way out" of almost any situation. The way you learn them is by playing and by thinking about playing through as many situations as possible. Honestly, this is my main goal with playing extensively on MtGO.
I've played against a number of opponents lately who just scooped up when they still had a very viable out worth playing to (drawing Path to Exile, finding the combo piece before I can draw Lightning Bolt, etc.)
On the other hand, I've had some opponents who--rightly--have forced me to walk through my win so that they get all the draw steps they are entitled to in order to find their out. In fact, I've been doing that lately. Even if I know the only out is a weak one, I want to see how hard I have to work and what things I should do to optimize my odds of drawing it.
That's how you win at Magic, after all: you play to your outs. If you get to them, great. If you don't, don't tilt (see above.)
Showing posts with label mtgo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mtgo. Show all posts
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
MtGO Stats: RUG Twin 13 Jan to 27 Jan
Some interesting stats from my last two+ weeks of playing RUG Twin on MtGO.
I'm being fully transparent here--I have just under a 50% win rate right now. A lot of that is due to misclicks, F6'ing inappropriately, and such. I'd guess a 65-68% win rate would be more accurate had I not made those mistakes.
However, I do 100% deserve the losses (the misplays, misclicks, and the variance) and am learning from it. I'd like to post this type of update every once in a while to track my progress with real data... we'll see if that actually happens or not.
MtGO Stats with RUG Twin
13 January to 27 January 2015
 |
| Games and matches won/lost against various decks. I have a breakdown of all the "Homebrew" decks too. |
(Edit: For clarity... the first row on this second chart is my total MWP and GWP for all Modern matches. The following rows are for individual matchups.)
 |
| MWP: Match Win Percentage -- GWP: Game Win Percentage |
Playing MTGO: A Few Observations
As you may have seen, I recently bought a Modern deck on MTGO in order to get more practice and play time in. It's allowed me the opportunity already--just in two weeks--to improve my skill and to know my deck better.
In the two weeks that I've been playing, I have put in a lot of games. I've played a handful of practice games, a handful of 2-man queues, and about half a dozen 8-person single elimination events. All of these matches were Modern format and I played using Patrick Dickmann's TarmoTwin list from GP Omaha.
(I made one change in the side board, though, because Batterskull is double the price on MtGO. I replaced the two Batterskull with two Thragtusk and have actually really benefited from that difference in the Burn heavy meta. Honestly, I should have just bought the Batterskulls. What's $80 to finish a side board when the other 73 cards already cost me $600?)
Observation #1 - Plan Ahead
This should be obvious--in any match, in paper or online, you should always plan your turn and your next turn. You should be considering alternative plans for the few likely scenarios based on what your opponent could do. This type of planning is even more critical in MtGO because you can so easily hit F6 and miss a critical priority pass or be blown out by an unexpected card choice in your opponent's deck.
You are also on a different kind of clock online. It's much harder to stall out game two (assuming you won the first game) since you and your opponent have individual clocks rather than one round clock. It's very important to plan several turns out to make sure you can close a game in a timely manner--putting the pressure on your opponent to have to close a game while you hinder them. Again, this seems obvious but is amplified by the digital medium.
Because the consequences for not planning well are so much heftier online, I'm becoming more aware of my (lack of) planning in paper Magic too.
Observation #2 - People Can Be Jerks... or Awesome
I played a match against Bogles where, in game two, he had his Lifelink aura going and got up to 20 something life. I knew blocking with that guy (Vigilance) would gain him 12 life so the combo was going to require more copies. Well, he forced me to go through the combo. I jokingly asked if he was really forcing me to step through it and his response was, essentially, that he was punishing me for playing too slowly in game one. Well, I went on to lose game three (yes, I finished the combo in time) because he just had the nut hand on the play.
(Note that I can't really blame him for forcing me to combo. It's my clock and my combo. However, he does not have to be a jerk about it. We can be polite even when delivering bad news to our opponents.)
On the other hand, I played against a Pod player who actively wanted to discuss my list, play decisions, and to ask for feedback on how he could play better against RUG Twin. He added me to his buddy list so we can play again.
As is the case in real life, people can be awesome or terrible. I'm choosing to be a nice guy as much as I can.
Observation #3 - Know Your Deck!
The more experience you have piloting your deck the better you know your outs... and when you are out of outs.
Knowledge of the meta is definitely important and can increase your percentage chances of a win. However, there's a much higher expected value for the time you invest into learning your own deck. Both are essential but knowledge of the meta is more useful when you know your deck inside and out.
I thought I knew Twin pretty well before these last two weeks--and I did, compared to many Modern players in my area--but I'm now revealing interactions and intricacies that can't be revealed except by more extensive testing against more decks and with more variance.
Conclusion
Bottom line, I'm loving this experience and I hope it's making me a better player on a technical level.
I plan to keep playing on MtGO and to share more of my results, observations, and hopefully cool plays I've discovered on both sides of the table.
In the two weeks that I've been playing, I have put in a lot of games. I've played a handful of practice games, a handful of 2-man queues, and about half a dozen 8-person single elimination events. All of these matches were Modern format and I played using Patrick Dickmann's TarmoTwin list from GP Omaha.
(I made one change in the side board, though, because Batterskull is double the price on MtGO. I replaced the two Batterskull with two Thragtusk and have actually really benefited from that difference in the Burn heavy meta. Honestly, I should have just bought the Batterskulls. What's $80 to finish a side board when the other 73 cards already cost me $600?)
Observation #1 - Plan Ahead
This should be obvious--in any match, in paper or online, you should always plan your turn and your next turn. You should be considering alternative plans for the few likely scenarios based on what your opponent could do. This type of planning is even more critical in MtGO because you can so easily hit F6 and miss a critical priority pass or be blown out by an unexpected card choice in your opponent's deck.
You are also on a different kind of clock online. It's much harder to stall out game two (assuming you won the first game) since you and your opponent have individual clocks rather than one round clock. It's very important to plan several turns out to make sure you can close a game in a timely manner--putting the pressure on your opponent to have to close a game while you hinder them. Again, this seems obvious but is amplified by the digital medium.
Because the consequences for not planning well are so much heftier online, I'm becoming more aware of my (lack of) planning in paper Magic too.
Observation #2 - People Can Be Jerks... or Awesome
I played a match against Bogles where, in game two, he had his Lifelink aura going and got up to 20 something life. I knew blocking with that guy (Vigilance) would gain him 12 life so the combo was going to require more copies. Well, he forced me to go through the combo. I jokingly asked if he was really forcing me to step through it and his response was, essentially, that he was punishing me for playing too slowly in game one. Well, I went on to lose game three (yes, I finished the combo in time) because he just had the nut hand on the play.
(Note that I can't really blame him for forcing me to combo. It's my clock and my combo. However, he does not have to be a jerk about it. We can be polite even when delivering bad news to our opponents.)
On the other hand, I played against a Pod player who actively wanted to discuss my list, play decisions, and to ask for feedback on how he could play better against RUG Twin. He added me to his buddy list so we can play again.
As is the case in real life, people can be awesome or terrible. I'm choosing to be a nice guy as much as I can.
Observation #3 - Know Your Deck!
The more experience you have piloting your deck the better you know your outs... and when you are out of outs.
Knowledge of the meta is definitely important and can increase your percentage chances of a win. However, there's a much higher expected value for the time you invest into learning your own deck. Both are essential but knowledge of the meta is more useful when you know your deck inside and out.
I thought I knew Twin pretty well before these last two weeks--and I did, compared to many Modern players in my area--but I'm now revealing interactions and intricacies that can't be revealed except by more extensive testing against more decks and with more variance.
Conclusion
Bottom line, I'm loving this experience and I hope it's making me a better player on a technical level.
I plan to keep playing on MtGO and to share more of my results, observations, and hopefully cool plays I've discovered on both sides of the table.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Grinding the Games
Obviously, the best way for me to improve is by playing more... Well, I can't always play an event every week.
As of tonight, though, I have another avenue of getting in games...
As of tonight, though, I have another avenue of getting in games...
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