These responses don't make a lot of sense. What does tapping out gain you? Remember, I have Wall to block for one turn, so Angler isn't even connecting until T5. Why open up that T3 to my outs? I didn't even add the two Gideon of the Trials copies which brick Angler forever and buy me even more time. Now we're up to about a 20% chance of me getting the out with no chance for the DS player to interact. By waiting, you only open yourself up to a topdecked Leak. SV into Leak doesn't even get there; you can actually still counter it with Spike-mode Denial! Is one extra swing on T5 worth opening yourself to that 20% chance of a blowout? The cost of waiting is a roughly 8% chance of a straight Leak topdeck.
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
When I play Modern, I don't want to allow my opponent to play to their outs. I want those outs as improbable as possible. More than doubling the chance of their out from 2/25 to 1/5 is a needlessly risky play.
These responses don't make a lot of sense. What does tapping out gain you? Remember, I have Wall to block for one turn, so Angler isn't even connecting until T5. Why open up that T3 to my outs? I didn't even add the two Gideon of the Trials copies which brick Angler forever and buy me even more time. Now we're up to about a 20% chance of me getting the out with no chance for the DS player to interact. By waiting, you only open yourself up to a topdecked Leak. SV into Leak doesn't even get there; you can actually still counter it with Spike-mode Denial! Is one extra swing on T5 worth opening yourself to that 20% chance of a blowout? The cost of waiting is a roughly 8% chance of a straight Leak topdeck.
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
When I play Modern, I don't want to allow my opponent to play to their outs. I want those outs as improbable as possible. More than doubling the chance of their out from 2/25 to 1/5 is a needlessly risky play.
So you would do nothing and drag the game out into the turns where i have no chance at all to win? No thanks. Maybe I have a fatal push or terminate for your wall so we are looking at 10 damage off angler. Now you are forced to tap out for supreme verdict, and maybe I play Kommand at your eot and basically win the game right there.
You have to play to win. Your line of thinking gives the grixis player no chance at all to win. I'm not buying it.
So you would do nothing and drag the game out into the turns where i have no chance at all to win? No thanks. Maybe I have a fatal push or terminate for your wall so we are looking at 10 damage off angler. Now you are forced to tap out for supreme verdict, and maybe I play Kommand at your eot and basically win the game right there.
You have to play to win. Your line of thinking gives the grixis player no chance at all to win. I'm not buying it.
The choice is not the hyperbolic binary of:
Line 1: do nothing
Line 2: jam Angler immediately with no Denial backup
It's the more nuanced option between:
Line 1: wait one turn to cast Angler with Denial backup
Line 2: jam Angler immediately with no Denial backup
The cost of that one extra turn isn't as decisive as you make it out to be. I agree that Grixis needs to be proactive here, but waiting a turn until you can have Denial backup is not suddenly ditching a proactive plan. It's increasing the odds of the proactive plan working. I do think this changes if you have a second threat in hand, or a second threat in the yard that you can recur with K-Command. Then you can definitely jam Angler knowing you have a backup win route. But if you mulliganed already and are down to the one threat with K-Command and Denial in hand, you need to go with the winning angle you have. That plan is landing and protecting Angler, and the best chance of that succeeding is waiting a turn.
To be clear, I was not skillful in this line. I was lucky. My opponent, however, made a bad decision by opening up a strong position to a 20% out.
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
I've been on both sides of this kind of choice many times.
As the control player, nothing terrifies me more than a quick clock when I don't have an immediate answer for it. I absolutely need to draw the answer quickly or I risk falling too far behind (or outright losing). The more draw steps I get without pressure, the more time I can spend sculpting my hand and drawing answers. There's not much more that I hated when playing Control than playing the "cross fingers and hope to draw the right answer" game. Whatever those percentage points are, they're not favorable, and not even half of a coin flip. Every draw step I get without pressure takes me closer to being able to control the game.
As the GDS player, if I jam an early Angler after multiple discard spells, I'm massively ahead and working with near perfect knowledge. I know you have no way of dealing with it and I know the chances of you drawing it are minimal (and increased with each successive draw). I am the aggressor and I set the pace of the game. You have to deal with this Angler right now or you likely lose, especially if I untap with Denial. As the aggressor, I have to pressure you and hope you whiff on your one draw step, because I am surely not winning the long game against a huge suite of card draw, removal, counters, and planeswalkers designed to wreck my deck. Also, Supreme Verdict is not stopped by Stubborn Denial. Knowing Verdict is in the deck, I want the Angler to get in as much as it can before dying. One less attack step means 5 less damage; that could be the deciding factor in a close game.
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
I've been on both sides of this kind of choice many times.
As the control player, nothing terrifies me more than a quick clock when I don't have an immediate answer for it. I absolutely need to draw the answer quickly or I risk falling too far behind (or outright losing). The more draw steps I get without pressure, the more time I can spend sculpting my hand and drawing answers. There's not much more that I hated when playing Control than playing the "cross fingers and hope to draw the right answer" game. Whatever those percentage points are, they're not favorable, and not even half of a coin flip. Every draw step I get without pressure takes me closer to being able to control the game.
As the GDS player, if I jam an early Angler after multiple discard spells, I'm massively ahead and working with near perfect knowledge. I know you have no way of dealing with it and I know the chances of you drawing it are minimal (and increased with each successive draw). I am the aggressor and I set the pace of the game. You have to deal with this Angler right now or you likely lose, especially if I untap with Denial. As the aggressor, I have to pressure you and hope you whiff on your one draw step, because I am surely not winning the long game against a huge suite of card draw, removal, counters, and planeswalkers designed to wreck my deck. Also, Supreme Verdict is not stopped by Stubborn Denial. Knowing Verdict is in the deck, I want the Angler to get in as much as it can before dying. One less attack step means 5 less damage; that could be the deciding factor in a close game.
Yup exactly this.
The verdict isn't going away so I'd rather get some damage from my Angler and get it out of your hand as fast as possible. Doing what you suggest I get no damage out of angler. Jamming it now forces your hand on verdict and you only get 1 critter with it. Now the path is clear for my other beaters. Not to mention the push removing your wall and angler hitting for 10 possibility.
Waiting to cast the angler here is stupid, he will still die to Verdict. Sorry ktk you are just wrong about this. I also think you are wrong about your other scenario where the guy had a 77% chance to get his land.
I saw a perfect example of poor decisions being written off as variance on Twitch this weekend. The streamer kept a two-lander on the play that was very strong if they ever hit three lands. They proceeded to brick on lands for 5 turns and lose the game. Naturally, the saltometer was sky high as they ripped on variance and the MTGO shuffler. All I could ask was, why the hell didn't this player mull that hand?? They knew they had zero cantrips to increase velocity, and they knew most of their bombs required three mana or more. With just 20ish lands left in their deck, they had around a 40% or so chance of drawing that land each turn, and only around a 60% cumulative chance of hurting it by T4 or so. The bad deckbuilding decision of running that curve with no consistency tools and that land count, and THEN not mulling, was not variance at work.
Given the information in your post is correct:
On the play he/she had a 56.8% chance of hitting the land within turn 3, and a 72.1% chance of hitting the land within turn 4. On the draw the chance is 72.% and 82.1% chance of hitting land on turn 3 and 4 respectivly.
On the draw he/she is better of keeping the hand. On the play it's up to debate whether to keep on the play. If the pay-off spell at 3 mana has a high enough impact even on turn 4 (or later) he/she should probably keep the hand on the play as well.
One should also consider the likelyhood of getting a better 6 card hand then your current 7 card hand. A 6 card will most likely be a 2 land hand anyway (given a land count of 20), so mulliganing for 3 land hand seems foolish.
In summary: My conclusion is the opposite of yours, this was a reasonable keep. And not hitting land within the first 5 draws is only a 11.3% chance, so this WAS variance at work.
Regarding the other scenario it is all about how one evaluate the risk vs the reward. The risk is higher playing the Angler without Denial backup, but the reward is also higher. Either way, you drawing the Path from the top is certainly not skill.
Back to the orginal topic. As an indicator of how skill intensive a game is one can look at the learning curve for the game. In Magic you'll find sucessfull players with short previous history. You won't find any such cases in games like Chess or Go. That is a strong indicator that the luck factor is much larger in Magic.
Top8 Norwegain Vintage Nationals 2003
Winner Norwegain Vintage Nationals 2006
Finalist Vintage Open at Arcon 2013
Finalist Modern Open at Arcon 2013
Winner Sweden Vintage Nationals at Eternalkungen Sweden 2013
Top8 Norwegian Legacy Nationals 2014
Winner Vintage Open at Arcon 2014
Top8 Legacy Open at Arcon 2014
Top4 Legacy Open at Arcon 2015
Winner Modern Open at Arcon 2015
Finalist Norwegian Legacy Nationals 2016
Winner Vintage Open at Arcon 2016
My two cents: First of all we need to define what "luck" is. For a quick and sloppy analysis we'll just associated it to randomness. Then good luck is having the randomness inexplicably tilt in your favor, bad luck is inexplicably against your interest. The randomness of a magic deck is significantly less than that of a deck of playing cards. So, even when putting two competing decks head to head, the amount randomness, purely in card draw would still be less than a deck of playing cards. Now there is another level of "luck" that is relevant and it comes in the form of meta gaming. Decks have good and bad matchups where a deck can be favored purely on design principle. Aggro is favored vs control but is not against tron type decks for example. Going into an unknown meta is a crap shoot. You can mitigate your chances by playing a tiered deck but ultimately until you familiarize yourself with the environment, it is significantly random.
Overall, I think people attribute way too much of the game to skill and ignore the luck aspect far too often because "being lucky" does very little to the ego...lol. Don't get me wrong: there is a significant amount of skill in the form of game intellect and moxie that the best players possess but ultimately a couple no land opening hands will end their day just as quickly as a novice.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
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Goblins
Burn
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Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
If you're afraid to cast into an 85% "Right Call" when can you cast?
Everyone is so hung up on the probability of a player drawing the card and is ignoring the probability of the opponent recovering from that draw. I'll happily make a play into 15%-20% risk with a deck like DS, but only if the cost of that risk isn't a probable gameloss. If I'm 70% likely to lose off that 20% topdeck and 70% likely to win by waiting, I'm waiting. No one adds that second layer of chance though.
When you play into your opponent's outs and get punished for that decision, particularly when you had a very high 20% chance to get punished, you weren't screwed by variance. You bet against an outcome that isn't very improbable and you lost. That's a decision, and it's not a good one. This gets back to the point I made earlier about people viewing anything over 50% as "certain" when it absolutely is not. Taking risks is part of Magic, but playing into risks that lose you the game outright isn't smart.
Waiting a turn is also playing to their outs since their whole strategy is predicated on slowing the game down.
Break that down into number. What outs am I drawing that solve this boardstate and what are the odds of those draws? It's really just Verdict, which DS is ready to beat with K-Command anyway. I need multiple removal spells drawn over consecutive turns, and then I need my opponent to brick on their draws; those are much lower odds than the 20% chance of the T3 out.
Re: ego
I agree ego is a huge factor in the variance and skill issue, but I see it much more on the "Modern has too much variance" side. I've read a lot of tournament reports here, on Reddit, and in articles. In almost all, wins are attributed to skill, deck construction, smart sideboarding, good decisions, etc. Or they are just written off entirely; "G2 I draw gas and run my opponent over." Losses are to bad topdecks, missing draws, opponent drawing well, etc. People rarely admit to misplays or being outplayed and are much more likely to blame losses on bad luck. Similarly, they don't say a win was due to a lucky topdeck. Here, blaming luck insulates egos from the reality of being outplayed or making a bad call.
Waiting a turn is also playing to their outs since their whole strategy is predicated on slowing the game down.
Break that down into number. What outs am I drawing that solve this boardstate and what are the odds of those draws? It's really just Verdict, which DS is ready to beat with K-Command anyway. I need multiple removal spells drawn over consecutive turns, and then I need my opponent to brick on their draws; those are much lower odds than the 20% chance of the T3 out.
I don't know your deck, so you'll have to tell me how much redundancy you have when it comes to: A second removal spell, a counter spell for the Zombie Fish, Remaining Verdicts, Snapcasters, Elspeths, Vendillion Clique, or whatever. But the point of this exercise may be the unknown information involved in which case there's a laundry list of topdecks which make waiting a bad idea. And Kommand doesn't blank your verdict because, again, that laundry list in addition to him prbably emptying his yard to cast it the first time. Even with the card back in hand you're going to have plenty of time before he tries it again.
My two cents: First of all we need to define what "luck" is. For a quick and sloppy analysis we'll just associated it to randomness. Then good luck is having the randomness inexplicably tilt in your favor, bad luck is inexplicably against your interest. The randomness of a magic deck is significantly less than that of a deck of playing cards. So, even when putting two competing decks head to head, the amount randomness, purely in card draw would still be less than a deck of playing cards. Now there is another level of "luck" that is relevant and it comes in the form of meta gaming. Decks have good and bad matchups where a deck can be favored purely on design principle. Aggro is favored vs control but is not against tron type decks for example. Going into an unknown meta is a crap shoot. You can mitigate your chances by playing a tiered deck but ultimately until you familiarize yourself with the environment, it is significantly random.
Overall, I think people attribute way too much of the game to skill and ignore the luck aspect far too often because "being lucky" does very little to the ego...lol. Don't get me wrong: there is a significant amount of skill in the form of game intellect and moxie that the best players possess but ultimately a couple no land opening hands will end their day just as quickly as a novice.
I agree, I see it like this. You go to a 100 man tournament playing a control deck because aggro has been non existent in the meta, right call. Only 3 people show up playing aggro in that 100 man tournament, again verification you made the right call. Some how your first three Matchups are the Aggro players. I see this as unlucky not just a variance of chance. I guess a lot of this debate comes down to if you believe luck is something that can be measured or it is something more supernatural.
My two cents: First of all we need to define what "luck" is. For a quick and sloppy analysis we'll just associated it to randomness. Then good luck is having the randomness inexplicably tilt in your favor, bad luck is inexplicably against your interest. The randomness of a magic deck is significantly less than that of a deck of playing cards. So, even when putting two competing decks head to head, the amount randomness, purely in card draw would still be less than a deck of playing cards. Now there is another level of "luck" that is relevant and it comes in the form of meta gaming. Decks have good and bad matchups where a deck can be favored purely on design principle. Aggro is favored vs control but is not against tron type decks for example. Going into an unknown meta is a crap shoot. You can mitigate your chances by playing a tiered deck but ultimately until you familiarize yourself with the environment, it is significantly random.
Overall, I think people attribute way too much of the game to skill and ignore the luck aspect far too often because "being lucky" does very little to the ego...lol. Don't get me wrong: there is a significant amount of skill in the form of game intellect and moxie that the best players possess but ultimately a couple no land opening hands will end their day just as quickly as a novice.
I agree, I see it like this. You go to a 100 man tournament playing a control deck because aggro has been non existent in the meta, right call. Only 3 people show up playing aggro in that 100 man tournament, again verification you made the right call. Some how your first three Matchups are the Aggro players. I see this as unlucky not just a variance of chance. I guess a lot of this debate comes down to if you believe luck is something that can be measured or it is something more supernatural.
I agree 100% with this, and it's a real part of the game.
That said, I'm much more interested to see if Ktk will actually be able to see the light around his anecdote.
To be clear, some are arguing here that "luck" is a supernatural force that causes altered outcomes? I'm having a hard time understanding what people are claiming that "luck" is. AFAIK, luck is just a subjective evaluation (positive/negative) of an outcome produced by a probability space.
If luck is supernatural, what is the supernatural effect you are seeing? Isn't it statistically possible to draw consecutive no-landers? Sure, getting all 3 aggro players in a field of 97 non-aggro might be improbable... but it is possible. I doubt that has ever happened, so it's a pretty weak rhetorical device. And if it did happen, it would be fully expected given a large enough sample size of such events.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
^ were just talking about making the choice with the best odds possible and whiffing". And were really only talking about the extremes. To use an arbitrary number let's say if the odds are 80% or better in your favor, then that is the "right" call. If you hit the 20% fail, you still made the right choice and should make the same choice in the future if it comes up again. The ~20% is variance that is just part of magic. It keeps things interesting.
Kind of like when the monster rolls a 20 in D&D - PLayer: but wait! That's BS!!!
To be clear, some are arguing here that "luck" is a supernatural force that causes altered outcomes? I'm having a hard time understanding what people are claiming that "luck" is. AFAIK, luck is just a subjective evaluation (positive/negative) of an outcome produced by a probability space.
If luck is supernatural, what is the supernatural effect you are seeing? Isn't it statistically possible to draw consecutive no-landers? Sure, getting all 3 aggro players in a field of 97 non-aggro might be improbable... but it is possible. I doubt that has ever happened, so it's a pretty weak rhetorical device. And if it did happen, it would be fully expected given a large enough sample size of such events.
I look at "luck" in this game as being able to make all the right decisions, correct plays and still lose due to things out of your control. You can also make multiple mistakes or poor decisions and still win because of that same luck and variance. This luck and variance is exaggerated or diminished based on individual skill, but there are so many factors outside play decisions that have a vastly greater impact on a game outcome than lines of play most of the time.
There's also the fact that absolute correctness is not clearly defined in black and white, as apparent by the last two pages. You cannot calculate the most correct action every given turn because multiple, different lines can be either equally correct, or close enough to be statistically irrelevant. Either way, no matter how calculated the play is, the outcome is still entirely dependent on luck and variance.
I agree 100% with this, and it's a real part of the game.
That said, I'm much more interested to see if Ktk will actually be able to see the light around his anecdote.
You still have to play the best that you can in any situation. Then, regardless of the results, you can be happy with how you played and reevaluate the deck decision that you made. (along with SB, etc.)
I used to take pride that I would choose a deck that beats some of the top decks in the meta, yet would never play against those said decks at my LGS. Still I would do extremely well. I remember doing this with Next Level Bant (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=605135)in Standard too long ago to say, which beat UW Control and Jund at the time. I rarely, if ever, faced those decks at my LGS, but top 8ed and usually better every single time. This made me proud to adapt to certain matchups that are not supposed to be good.
I will admit that it has gotten a LOT harder to do in Modern. I often run into a matchup in Modern that is super tough, I get outdrawn, and I literally have no chance to outplay them at that point (both of those things happening). I think things have changed and a lot more matchups are polarized than before. I feel that is one thing that really disturbs a lot of players, especially ones who post here on mtgs.
I look at "luck" in this game as being able to make all the right decisions, correct plays and still lose due to things out of your control. You can also make multiple mistakes or poor decisions and still win because of that same luck and variance. This luck and variance is exaggerated or diminished based on individual skill, but there are so many factors outside play decisions that have a vastly greater impact on a game outcome than lines of play most of the time.
There's also the fact that absolute correctness is not clearly defined in black and white, as apparent by the last two pages. You cannot calculate the most correct action every given turn because multiple, different lines can be either equally correct, or close enough to be statistically irrelevant. Either way, no matter how calculated the play is, the outcome is still entirely dependent on luck and variance.
Even if you make the correct decision, yet lose because of it, it still feels bad. I often am somewhat upset that I made the correct decision, down to the percent, but lost to some sort of aberration.
I think it's part of my own growth that at a recent PPTQ with Marvel, I lost the game 3 due to keeping a 3 land hand and not drawing another land (or Attune with Aether) until turn 6 or 7. I was 100% fine with that and would keep that hand if I had to make that decision 1,000 more times. In the past, I would kind of jokingly say that I should have mulliganed. But I shouldn't even joke about it. It is the correct decision and would work out in a good percentage of the games.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Well, I definitely didn't expect my post to get this big!
Glad to see people are finding meaningful discussion on the luck vs skill debate.
After reading through all the comments, and some brief research on the frequency of "pro" players making it to top 8's, I can feel safe saying the game is at LEAST 30% luck based. In a competitive game, that's an absurd amount of luck involvement.
If anyone is feeling motivated, please feel free to do a full on, true analysis of the numbers as Ktk has suggested so we can get a more accurate number.
Well, I definitely didn't expect my post to get this big!
Glad to see people are finding meaningful discussion on the luck vs skill debate.
After reading through all the comments, and some brief research on the frequency of "pro" players making it to top 8's, I can feel safe saying the game is at LEAST 30% luck based. In a competitive game, that's an absurd amount of luck involvement.
If anyone is feeling motivated, please feel free to do a full on, true analysis of the numbers as Ktk has suggested so we can get a more accurate number.
Well, I definitely didn't expect my post to get this big!
Glad to see people are finding meaningful discussion on the luck vs skill debate.
After reading through all the comments, and some brief research on the frequency of "pro" players making it to top 8's, I can feel safe saying the game is at LEAST 30% luck based. In a competitive game, that's an absurd amount of luck involvement.
If anyone is feeling motivated, please feel free to do a full on, true analysis of the numbers as Ktk has suggested so we can get a more accurate number.
Frequency of Top 8s is a horrid metric for determining how much luck and skill is involved. I guess it can show you luck with tiebreakers, but many times at very large tournaments, there are as many or more players out of the top 8 that have the exact same record as players in the top 8. Case in point, GP Vegas had 3 13-2 in the top 8. 11 other players went 13-2 and didn't make the top 8.
This is where I will agree that luck plays a bigger role, in getting the breakers to go your way or having the pairings Gods smile your way with favorable matchups.
I found this old article which actually gets to the heart of a lot of things discussed here. If you still think the game is at least 30% luck after reading it, I'd be interested to hear why: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=8771
I found this old article which actually gets to the heart of a lot of things discussed here. If you still think the game is at least 30% luck after reading it, I'd be interested to hear why: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=8771
The last sentence actually undermines much of the article itself:
"If you can accomplish these types of things with your deck, chances are that you're minimizing the luck factor in your games. And if you're doing that, there's an excellent chance you'll be sitting at table one when the dust finally clears. "
I don't think anyone here is saying that skill doesn't play a part, we're just squabbling about the actual number. As pointed out here, skill minimizes the impact of luck, but many individual outcomes are completely out of your hands, and are the result of randomization.
I found this old article which actually gets to the heart of a lot of things discussed here. If you still think the game is at least 30% luck after reading it, I'd be interested to hear why: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=8771
The last sentence actually undermines much of the article itself:
"If you can accomplish these types of things with your deck, chances are that you're minimizing the luck factor in your games. And if you're doing that, there's an excellent chance you'll be sitting at table one when the dust finally clears. "
I don't think anyone here is saying that skill doesn't play a part, we're just squabbling about the actual number. As pointed out here, skill minimizes the impact of luck, but many individual outcomes are completely out of your hands, and are the result of randomization.
The only thing that is completely out of your hands is your tiebreakers. Everything else is under your control in some way.
If you build and play directly, luck plays a small, mostly insignificant factor over the course of many games, though it's effect on individual games can be quite high.
I found this old article which actually gets to the heart of a lot of things discussed here. If you still think the game is at least 30% luck after reading it, I'd be interested to hear why: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=8771
The last sentence actually undermines much of the article itself:
"If you can accomplish these types of things with your deck, chances are that you're minimizing the luck factor in your games. And if you're doing that, there's an excellent chance you'll be sitting at table one when the dust finally clears. "
I don't think anyone here is saying that skill doesn't play a part, we're just squabbling about the actual number. As pointed out here, skill minimizes the impact of luck, but many individual outcomes are completely out of your hands, and are the result of randomization.
The only thing that is completely out of your hands is your tiebreakers. Everything else is under your control in some way.
If you build and play directly, luck plays a small, mostly insignificant factor over the course of many games, though it's affect on individual games can be quite high.
You cannot control the cards you draw, you cannot control the cards your opponent draws, and you cannot control what deck you are playing against. Those are all massively impactful to any game of Magic.
You can plan and estimate and design your deck to minimize the impact of such randomness, but those aspects are still random and almost entirely out of your hands.
Let's look at it like this-- If you are testing for an event, what do you think is more useful: Testing against one deck played by 20 different people or testing 20 different decks against one person? Which do you think contributes more to meaningful results?
Assuming competent plays on both sides, the deck with the better matchup and better draws will usually win. The point of such testing is to try and fill that gap with better knowledge of deck matchups and sideboarding strategies. But no matter how good you get at any given matchup, you still cannot eliminate the advantages and disadvantages produced by dice rolls, randomized pairings and randomized/shuffled decks.
The argument has never been that luck can be eliminated. The argument is that it can be significantly minimized by the proper application of skill.
Correct. And the degree to which luck can be minimized through skill is drastically over-stated. There is MASSIVE amounts of luck involved in every game of Magic, as I stated, from the cards you draw to the matchups you are paired with to who rolls higher on the dice. All of these elements highly influence the outcome of a game, and are only marginally diminished by "skillful play".
Jamming Angler makes very little mathematical sense in this matchup unless you think the extra 5 damage on T5 is worth the extra 12% risk you open yourself to, AND if you think the T5 extra damage is more likely to win you the game than a safer T4 Denial-backup line. Those odds don't line up.
When I play Modern, I don't want to allow my opponent to play to their outs. I want those outs as improbable as possible. More than doubling the chance of their out from 2/25 to 1/5 is a needlessly risky play.
So you would do nothing and drag the game out into the turns where i have no chance at all to win? No thanks. Maybe I have a fatal push or terminate for your wall so we are looking at 10 damage off angler. Now you are forced to tap out for supreme verdict, and maybe I play Kommand at your eot and basically win the game right there.
You have to play to win. Your line of thinking gives the grixis player no chance at all to win. I'm not buying it.
The choice is not the hyperbolic binary of:
Line 1: do nothing
Line 2: jam Angler immediately with no Denial backup
It's the more nuanced option between:
Line 1: wait one turn to cast Angler with Denial backup
Line 2: jam Angler immediately with no Denial backup
The cost of that one extra turn isn't as decisive as you make it out to be. I agree that Grixis needs to be proactive here, but waiting a turn until you can have Denial backup is not suddenly ditching a proactive plan. It's increasing the odds of the proactive plan working. I do think this changes if you have a second threat in hand, or a second threat in the yard that you can recur with K-Command. Then you can definitely jam Angler knowing you have a backup win route. But if you mulliganed already and are down to the one threat with K-Command and Denial in hand, you need to go with the winning angle you have. That plan is landing and protecting Angler, and the best chance of that succeeding is waiting a turn.
To be clear, I was not skillful in this line. I was lucky. My opponent, however, made a bad decision by opening up a strong position to a 20% out.
I've been on both sides of this kind of choice many times.
As the control player, nothing terrifies me more than a quick clock when I don't have an immediate answer for it. I absolutely need to draw the answer quickly or I risk falling too far behind (or outright losing). The more draw steps I get without pressure, the more time I can spend sculpting my hand and drawing answers. There's not much more that I hated when playing Control than playing the "cross fingers and hope to draw the right answer" game. Whatever those percentage points are, they're not favorable, and not even half of a coin flip. Every draw step I get without pressure takes me closer to being able to control the game.
As the GDS player, if I jam an early Angler after multiple discard spells, I'm massively ahead and working with near perfect knowledge. I know you have no way of dealing with it and I know the chances of you drawing it are minimal (and increased with each successive draw). I am the aggressor and I set the pace of the game. You have to deal with this Angler right now or you likely lose, especially if I untap with Denial. As the aggressor, I have to pressure you and hope you whiff on your one draw step, because I am surely not winning the long game against a huge suite of card draw, removal, counters, and planeswalkers designed to wreck my deck. Also, Supreme Verdict is not stopped by Stubborn Denial. Knowing Verdict is in the deck, I want the Angler to get in as much as it can before dying. One less attack step means 5 less damage; that could be the deciding factor in a close game.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The verdict isn't going away so I'd rather get some damage from my Angler and get it out of your hand as fast as possible. Doing what you suggest I get no damage out of angler. Jamming it now forces your hand on verdict and you only get 1 critter with it. Now the path is clear for my other beaters. Not to mention the push removing your wall and angler hitting for 10 possibility.
Waiting to cast the angler here is stupid, he will still die to Verdict. Sorry ktk you are just wrong about this. I also think you are wrong about your other scenario where the guy had a 77% chance to get his land.
Hmm.
Given the information in your post is correct:
On the play he/she had a 56.8% chance of hitting the land within turn 3, and a 72.1% chance of hitting the land within turn 4. On the draw the chance is 72.% and 82.1% chance of hitting land on turn 3 and 4 respectivly.
On the draw he/she is better of keeping the hand. On the play it's up to debate whether to keep on the play. If the pay-off spell at 3 mana has a high enough impact even on turn 4 (or later) he/she should probably keep the hand on the play as well.
One should also consider the likelyhood of getting a better 6 card hand then your current 7 card hand. A 6 card will most likely be a 2 land hand anyway (given a land count of 20), so mulliganing for 3 land hand seems foolish.
In summary: My conclusion is the opposite of yours, this was a reasonable keep. And not hitting land within the first 5 draws is only a 11.3% chance, so this WAS variance at work.
Regarding the other scenario it is all about how one evaluate the risk vs the reward. The risk is higher playing the Angler without Denial backup, but the reward is also higher. Either way, you drawing the Path from the top is certainly not skill.
Back to the orginal topic. As an indicator of how skill intensive a game is one can look at the learning curve for the game. In Magic you'll find sucessfull players with short previous history. You won't find any such cases in games like Chess or Go. That is a strong indicator that the luck factor is much larger in Magic.
Winner Norwegain Vintage Nationals 2006
Finalist Vintage Open at Arcon 2013
Finalist Modern Open at Arcon 2013
Winner Sweden Vintage Nationals at Eternalkungen Sweden 2013
Top8 Norwegian Legacy Nationals 2014
Winner Vintage Open at Arcon 2014
Top8 Legacy Open at Arcon 2014
Top4 Legacy Open at Arcon 2015
Winner Modern Open at Arcon 2015
Finalist Norwegian Legacy Nationals 2016
Winner Vintage Open at Arcon 2016
Overall, I think people attribute way too much of the game to skill and ignore the luck aspect far too often because "being lucky" does very little to the ego...lol. Don't get me wrong: there is a significant amount of skill in the form of game intellect and moxie that the best players possess but ultimately a couple no land opening hands will end their day just as quickly as a novice.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Everyone is so hung up on the probability of a player drawing the card and is ignoring the probability of the opponent recovering from that draw. I'll happily make a play into 15%-20% risk with a deck like DS, but only if the cost of that risk isn't a probable gameloss. If I'm 70% likely to lose off that 20% topdeck and 70% likely to win by waiting, I'm waiting. No one adds that second layer of chance though.
When you play into your opponent's outs and get punished for that decision, particularly when you had a very high 20% chance to get punished, you weren't screwed by variance. You bet against an outcome that isn't very improbable and you lost. That's a decision, and it's not a good one. This gets back to the point I made earlier about people viewing anything over 50% as "certain" when it absolutely is not. Taking risks is part of Magic, but playing into risks that lose you the game outright isn't smart.
Break that down into number. What outs am I drawing that solve this boardstate and what are the odds of those draws? It's really just Verdict, which DS is ready to beat with K-Command anyway. I need multiple removal spells drawn over consecutive turns, and then I need my opponent to brick on their draws; those are much lower odds than the 20% chance of the T3 out.
Re: ego
I agree ego is a huge factor in the variance and skill issue, but I see it much more on the "Modern has too much variance" side. I've read a lot of tournament reports here, on Reddit, and in articles. In almost all, wins are attributed to skill, deck construction, smart sideboarding, good decisions, etc. Or they are just written off entirely; "G2 I draw gas and run my opponent over." Losses are to bad topdecks, missing draws, opponent drawing well, etc. People rarely admit to misplays or being outplayed and are much more likely to blame losses on bad luck. Similarly, they don't say a win was due to a lucky topdeck. Here, blaming luck insulates egos from the reality of being outplayed or making a bad call.
I don't know your deck, so you'll have to tell me how much redundancy you have when it comes to: A second removal spell, a counter spell for the Zombie Fish, Remaining Verdicts, Snapcasters, Elspeths, Vendillion Clique, or whatever. But the point of this exercise may be the unknown information involved in which case there's a laundry list of topdecks which make waiting a bad idea. And Kommand doesn't blank your verdict because, again, that laundry list in addition to him prbably emptying his yard to cast it the first time. Even with the card back in hand you're going to have plenty of time before he tries it again.
I agree 100% with this, and it's a real part of the game.
That said, I'm much more interested to see if Ktk will actually be able to see the light around his anecdote.
If luck is supernatural, what is the supernatural effect you are seeing? Isn't it statistically possible to draw consecutive no-landers? Sure, getting all 3 aggro players in a field of 97 non-aggro might be improbable... but it is possible. I doubt that has ever happened, so it's a pretty weak rhetorical device. And if it did happen, it would be fully expected given a large enough sample size of such events.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Kind of like when the monster rolls a 20 in D&D - PLayer: but wait! That's BS!!!
I look at "luck" in this game as being able to make all the right decisions, correct plays and still lose due to things out of your control. You can also make multiple mistakes or poor decisions and still win because of that same luck and variance. This luck and variance is exaggerated or diminished based on individual skill, but there are so many factors outside play decisions that have a vastly greater impact on a game outcome than lines of play most of the time.
There's also the fact that absolute correctness is not clearly defined in black and white, as apparent by the last two pages. You cannot calculate the most correct action every given turn because multiple, different lines can be either equally correct, or close enough to be statistically irrelevant. Either way, no matter how calculated the play is, the outcome is still entirely dependent on luck and variance.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
You still have to play the best that you can in any situation. Then, regardless of the results, you can be happy with how you played and reevaluate the deck decision that you made. (along with SB, etc.)
I used to take pride that I would choose a deck that beats some of the top decks in the meta, yet would never play against those said decks at my LGS. Still I would do extremely well. I remember doing this with Next Level Bant (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=605135)in Standard too long ago to say, which beat UW Control and Jund at the time. I rarely, if ever, faced those decks at my LGS, but top 8ed and usually better every single time. This made me proud to adapt to certain matchups that are not supposed to be good.
I will admit that it has gotten a LOT harder to do in Modern. I often run into a matchup in Modern that is super tough, I get outdrawn, and I literally have no chance to outplay them at that point (both of those things happening). I think things have changed and a lot more matchups are polarized than before. I feel that is one thing that really disturbs a lot of players, especially ones who post here on mtgs.
Even if you make the correct decision, yet lose because of it, it still feels bad. I often am somewhat upset that I made the correct decision, down to the percent, but lost to some sort of aberration.
I think it's part of my own growth that at a recent PPTQ with Marvel, I lost the game 3 due to keeping a 3 land hand and not drawing another land (or Attune with Aether) until turn 6 or 7. I was 100% fine with that and would keep that hand if I had to make that decision 1,000 more times. In the past, I would kind of jokingly say that I should have mulliganed. But I shouldn't even joke about it. It is the correct decision and would work out in a good percentage of the games.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Glad to see people are finding meaningful discussion on the luck vs skill debate.
After reading through all the comments, and some brief research on the frequency of "pro" players making it to top 8's, I can feel safe saying the game is at LEAST 30% luck based. In a competitive game, that's an absurd amount of luck involvement.
If anyone is feeling motivated, please feel free to do a full on, true analysis of the numbers as Ktk has suggested so we can get a more accurate number.
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company
Frequency of Top 8s is a horrid metric for determining how much luck and skill is involved. I guess it can show you luck with tiebreakers, but many times at very large tournaments, there are as many or more players out of the top 8 that have the exact same record as players in the top 8. Case in point, GP Vegas had 3 13-2 in the top 8. 11 other players went 13-2 and didn't make the top 8.
This is where I will agree that luck plays a bigger role, in getting the breakers to go your way or having the pairings Gods smile your way with favorable matchups.
I found this old article which actually gets to the heart of a lot of things discussed here. If you still think the game is at least 30% luck after reading it, I'd be interested to hear why: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=8771
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
The last sentence actually undermines much of the article itself:
"If you can accomplish these types of things with your deck, chances are that you're minimizing the luck factor in your games. And if you're doing that, there's an excellent chance you'll be sitting at table one when the dust finally clears. "
I don't think anyone here is saying that skill doesn't play a part, we're just squabbling about the actual number. As pointed out here, skill minimizes the impact of luck, but many individual outcomes are completely out of your hands, and are the result of randomization.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The only thing that is completely out of your hands is your tiebreakers. Everything else is under your control in some way.
If you build and play directly, luck plays a small, mostly insignificant factor over the course of many games, though it's effect on individual games can be quite high.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
You cannot control the cards you draw, you cannot control the cards your opponent draws, and you cannot control what deck you are playing against. Those are all massively impactful to any game of Magic.
You can plan and estimate and design your deck to minimize the impact of such randomness, but those aspects are still random and almost entirely out of your hands.
Let's look at it like this-- If you are testing for an event, what do you think is more useful: Testing against one deck played by 20 different people or testing 20 different decks against one person? Which do you think contributes more to meaningful results?
Assuming competent plays on both sides, the deck with the better matchup and better draws will usually win. The point of such testing is to try and fill that gap with better knowledge of deck matchups and sideboarding strategies. But no matter how good you get at any given matchup, you still cannot eliminate the advantages and disadvantages produced by dice rolls, randomized pairings and randomized/shuffled decks.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Correct. And the degree to which luck can be minimized through skill is drastically over-stated. There is MASSIVE amounts of luck involved in every game of Magic, as I stated, from the cards you draw to the matchups you are paired with to who rolls higher on the dice. All of these elements highly influence the outcome of a game, and are only marginally diminished by "skillful play".
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate