Hearthstone Arena - Paladin Deck 1 win

Well I just had a horrible arena run as a paladin. Here's my deck:

I got rocked. Hard. Lost 2 won 1 lost 1. I don't even know where to start. Please review the deck list and comment.

Hearthstone

Sometimes you just don't have the time to head to the store and crack some packs. Personally I just can't take the plunge pay money for MODO. Well there's a new kid on the block. Hearthstone is a free to play online card game made by Blizzard. It's like magic the gathering without all of the priority passing. Right now the game is in closed beta but invites are pretty easy to come by. Just head over to http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/ and opt in. So far four of us have gotten invites.

We started this blog just to talk about magic but there is a lot of overlap with this newcomer so we are broadening our horizons.

Limited Resources - Draft Cast

In case you missed it the guys at LR posted a video of Brian and Marshall doing a draft on MODO. No Spoilers on the results. Just go watch it.

http://lrcast.com/limited-resources-theros-draft-featuring-brian-wong/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=limited-resources-theros-draft-featuring-brian-wong&utm_reader=feedly

Mana Screw

Last time I talked about Type II mana screw. Now let's move to the tough part, Type I. And as always we are talking limited. Constructed is dumb and mulling properly requires too many inputs.

So let's take a look at that hand Sam Pardee called a screw job. To be fair he could be talking about not drawing the land that he needed as opposed to the opening hand. But for the moment we are just gonna focus on the decision to mull or not to mull. Here is the 7 that pardee had.

His deck mained 25 lands and he drew one in the opener. Certainly this hand is below the expected value of lands for a random 7. I haven't crunched the numbers in like 7 years so I don't quite remember what the EV is.

Here is his analysis of the hand, "This is definitely a very risky keep, but I think that the upside is very high as well. If I draw the first Island on the first turn, I expect to win the game a vast majority of the time, while if I miss and hit on the second turn, I still think I'm probably going to be in good shape. As it turns out, I missed my second land for several turns and died to some random creatures."

Fair enough. He is way better than me. If you click through to the article and scroll down there is a huge nerd who ran the 'odds' and agrees with Sam. Usually I am pretty afraid of something like this because I could simply not draw a land and loose. But this is constructed so he probably doesn't even need that Island, I don't know.

Type I Mana Screws

SnapMull:  Zero or Seven lands or Six lands. Nothing you can do. You simply aren't winning with that. Even if you got a perfect curve in your hand do not play it.

TheTease: Basically the hand that Pardee had. You got some early action and not enough lands. I haven't done the math. I really need to. That's sort of the theme of this article.

ToughCall: Two land or five lands. It's not really a screw. You see this kind of distribution a ton. It depends on what's in your hand.

Sam Pardee. Did you really get mana screwed against Todd Anderson?

So I was reading a tournament report from Sam Pardee and he made the following comment, "I was given a rematch with Todd Anderson, and the games played out similarly to our first match—except with him getting mana-screwed in game 3 instead of me,"

I read this line and immediately I react with the following question, "was he actually mana screwed?" This issue is one that I have been grappling with for a while. You absolutely no doubt 100% can just get screwed, sometimes with your pants on. But sometimes our perception is a bit in accurate, especially in the heat of battle. I like to dissect my losses and figure out why I lost. If I did get a bad mana then it is important to recognize that and not waste time. However as I say, I identifying those instances is tough. The best advice you can get is to realize that your choices are why you lose. But sometimes you just aren't going to win. (enough back and forth? I think you get it?)

First a general comment on luck and skill to set the mood and then I'll move into defining mana screw (and all it's flavours, and kin, oh my!). In magic there is randomness and there is hidden information, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Those features are what make the game exciting year after year (that and a bunch of new rare lands that I just have to acquire). They can be annoying but ultimately without them the game turns into chess, and chess sucks. So how does luck and skill come into it.

In Magic your luck sets the potential. Your skill is what makes the most of it.

Does bad luck suck. Yes, yes it does. Can you control it? Nope. You can stuff your deck with all the best cards but sometimes you shuffle up and draft 7 lands. So don't worry about it. Focus on what you can control.

Concerning the definition of luck: I lump everything I cannot control in to the category of luck. In deckbuilding I get to pick what's in my deck but for these purposes we'll treat the deck as fixed, so something like "the card on top of my deck" is luck.

 So with that "brief" discussion out of the way.

There are two main families of mana screw. The first deals with your opening hand (Type I) and is intrinsically tied to the decision to mull or not to mull. The second deals with drawing poorly throughout the game (Type II). Let's start with the latter.

Type II Mana Screws:

False Start: You kept your hand but it needs some help to get there. For example you stumbled out of the gate by missing land drop #3. Some think this is actually a sneaky Type I mana screw. They are wrong! You take the math into account and you rough out a plan from your initial hand and it just doesn't get there. You made the decision that it was worth taking on the risk of not hitting that 3rd land (btw: if you're playing the right numbers of lands you are going to hit that 3rd land drop on a 2 land opener). Maybe your hand looked great on paper but you never drew what you needed. 

Migitation tactics: Really know the odds for your deck, how important to my deck is the 4th land drop, etc. Know the format. It's Gatecrash, you have to come out with fire. It's M14, I've got all the time in the world. These things help your mull decision and help you game plan for how to survive and bridge to the next part of the game.

Half Deck: This is the kind of screw where you just see the wrong part of your deck. I hate that one. Maybe your hand had great mana and some good early action. But then you just never draw your real gas. You saw half your deck. You weren't gonna mulligan a perfect mana hand with early action. There is also a subset of this guy where you are rocking a two-color deck and only see the lands of the wrong color.

Mitigation tactics: You really gotta get a feel for what your opponent is up to. If you have the early half of your deck make sure not to race, you are running out of gas. If you get the late half of your deck, watch what you opponent does and try to push the game to a stall, you should be strong in the late game. The key is to watch your opponent. But most importantly DO NOT SIDEBOARD. Trust the math. If you see a weakness in your opponent's deck and have a good board card against them, by all means do it. But just because you see one slow draw from your deck don't go busting up your curve. One game means nothing.

Heartbreaker: This is the worst. You are playing a great game and then your turn five draw is a land, and six, and seven, and so on. These are the worst for me. Sometimes it goes on for five turns and you just run out of steam. 

Mitigation tactics: I got nothing for this one. Just learn how to recognize it and don't waste your time trying to find a mistake.



I started to write about Type I mana screws, but that leads directly into a discussion of mulligans and is a full post in its own right. See you next time.

Responding to Rosewater Making Magic #5

This week on Making Magic the topic was life advice.

At the end of the article Maro finishes off with the heading "Play to Win". This gives me a shameless excuse to link to my favorite YouTube clip on the topic of all time.

Also in remix form.

Also he reminds us that "Losing is an opportunity to learn". But sometimes it takes a little while before we are able to get to that point

Responding to Rosewater Making Magic #4

This week on Making Magic the topic was the Devotion mechanic. I'm a limited player so this one really isn't for me. I think where this puppy shines is in constructed (see lists from all the recent tournaments). But for limited there are a few guys that are quite fun which I'll highlight here.

I love this guy. 4/2 for 4 isn't the end of the world and it tacks on at least one to the face. What I think is really cool about this guy is how cheaper ?RR spells go way up in my book. Which is awesome because my favorite mechanic is double strike.

yeah I love this guy.

Another guy that is quite popular is the green devotion common.

Now this the kind of card that is really interesting. From a vanilla test stand point it is a little behind where I want to be in green. But the devotion mechanic makes things stand on end. I'm now super happy about the GG. However after listening to THE BEST PODCAST IN THE HISTORY OF MAGICAL CARDS I really now understand that GG means a solid commitment to green (which in Theros turns out to be a pretty safe place to be). I love holding this guy back and just flipping a race on its head. I have had more than one opponent groan when this bad boy hit the table and I gained 5+ life. That's the beauty. This format tends to be racy and so you can build a board state with a lot of broccoli. Give it a whirl, it won't disappoint.