The Most Common Cheat In Magic: the Gathering
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Mana Weaving: The Most Common Cheat In Magic: the Gathering
MTG Rules referenced in this video: blogs.magicjud...
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So some thoughts based on comments. First off the rules (check description) specifically state that players are allowed to mana weave prior to sufficient randomization for the reason of COMFORT (psychologically). Not for any tactical ways to reduce bad luck. Remember your WHY. Still, I highly suggest you rid yourself of this behavior.
Next, I think if you and your friends unanimously agree to mana weave for smoother games, then it's acceptable so long as it's in your playgroup and no harm done. Just understand that mana weaving is unethical outside your playgroup and strictly against the rules at tournaments.
what if it's shuffled by using the circle of creation and destruction method?
I'm sorry if you don't know what method I'm taking about😅
I think that's a great distinction to make. There's a big difference between kitchen table and sanctioned play. I would only ever make it a big deal in sanctioned play
+1 about asking yourself 'why'?
This video was pretty tough to watch. You actually read the rules out loud, and are saying that a person doing something within the rules is cheating.
At what point exactly do you think a deck would be random? With what approach to shuffling?
Would any judge even allow someone to take an amount of time to realize pure 'randomization'
-I'm guessing not.
In real life we need to be practical.
Shuffling gets us closer and closer to random with each riffle. How many Rif's is 'close enough'?
Everyone is cheating if we cannot achieve randomization
Do you have any ideas on how to get close to random?
I will mana weave prior to the first match of an event. Then shuffle 3 times, then power shuffle, then shuffle 3 times. I feel like thats sufficient enough randomization to excuse the initial weave.
Pretty sure I have mana-shuffled (what you are calling mana-weaving) at sanctioned tournaments, it's pretty standard for the past 20 years
The idea of winning mtg is that you know what cards are in your deck but you don’t know what order there in. You win by playing what you draw.
So are you saying using vampiric tutor or any Scry/Surveil effect is cheating since i know what i am going to draw next turn?
I get the point but that definition implies using any card that allows me to know what card i draw is cheating.
Incorrect. Then Mulligan wouldn't exist in this game and side boards either. Don't assume you understand card games you don't. Smh
If you shuffle and your opp shuffles and cuts. Doesnt matter what happened before that. Your deck is random and how could you possibly know the order of anything....?
I’m talking about your opening hand.
any player with a minimum of experience would say that that is how you LOSE. If you want to WIN, then you're actually gonna work on controlling what you draw
I have never heard the term "mana weaving" before. I was actually taught by the people I learned Magic from that this is the proper way to shuffle and never thought any more of it. I have actually felt dumb at times because sometimes I just shuffle due to not feeling like going through all the effort....
I have heard it. It isn’t cheating in my opinion as long as you shovel after. I always mana weave.
@@jonathanpahnke7739 If you're going to shuffle afterwards, why mana weave? It only makes sense if you're hoping your deck isn't 100% randomized after the shuffle. Otherwise, it's a waste of time.
That's insane that people just do this. It's cheating. How can someone think that stacking their deck is in any way acceptable? Why would a game promote this? This is so inconsistent it's insane. It makes me never want to start playing. Is there any mode of magic that has 2 decks? A mana deck and a spell deck?
@@kdrgaming3344 Seems a bit extreme to never want to start playing because of how some people shuffle. If you shuffle well after I doubt it even has an effect on how your deck plays out.
@@kdrgaming3344 Actually, there is! It's called "No Land Magic" or something. Me and my friend played it once when we wanted to play Limited but didn't have any lands. It goes like this: Any spell in your hand can be played as a land that taps for any color of mana in its casting cost. You can designate this either by playing the card upside down (NOT face down) or having a clearly delineated space where you put your lands and not other permanents. Follow the usual rules for playing lands, e.g. one per turn.
Obviously, this is a variant and your decks would need to be built for it (e.g. no lands). It's purely for casual play, because it messes with the power level of certain cards. Cards like Rampant Growth won't do anything, and more expensive spells will be better because nobody has to miss a land drop if they don't want to. But it's preferable to not playing Magic at all.
Also, it sounds like you haven't heard of Magic Online or Magic: Arena? These are digital versions of the game where the shuffling is done by a computer, and therefore as close to random as practically possible. Arena is quite popular. It's technically free to play, but like most "free" games, it strongly encourages microtransactions. My friend has it on his phone, and he almost got fired, he played it so much!
The coin thing is every time you flip a coin there is a 50/50 chance it will either land heads or tails. The previous flip has no baring on what the new flip will land on. It's always 50/50 heads or tails.
Quarters are never 50/50, the head side of the quarter has been shown to weigh slightly more than the tails side and statistically will fall down slightly more often.
Randomization always increases entropy which means that the state a system is in will not be easy to uniquely identify. That's the laws of thermodynamics and applies just as much to a system of card randomization as it does to energy. HTHTHTHT.... is not random because it can easily be identified as an alternating pattern of H and T. If someone claims that manaweaving is random you can just reply with "I know science better than you know Magic."
Huh?
If you catch the coin mid flip and then flip it onto the back of your hand how would the weight even make a difference.@mattengel9239
@@mattengel9239 an off weight does not effect spin speed or the Earth’s gravitational force on a quarter.
Also, only really old quarters had mismatch weight. Modern quarters are minted at way higher weights and at much faster speeds.
I usually pick up all the cards I used in a round (battlefield, graveyard, exile, and hand, including the lands) and quickly shuffle those 3 or 4 times to randomise it a bit, then combine them with the library and shuffle 7+ more times.
Usually I drop a card as I finish shuffling and gotta shuffle again though lol.
I do the exact same thing, just so I know for peace of mind that my combo pieces aren't right next to each other.
The only time I mana weave, or I'm fine with is when you first make a deck primarily because I count lands into 10 piles and then the rest of the deck in each of them so I'm good on count. But that gets shuffled at least 20+ times before I ever play with it due to my habit of fidgeting and just randomly shuffling it.
I think a lot of it started back in the day when no one had sleeves. Most of us understood that riffle shuffling was hard on the cards, so we didn't want to do that. So you would mana weave and then do some simple overhand shuffles to mix things up and minimize damage to the cards. This was with friends of course, not in a competitive environment (at least for me).
Now with sleeves, it's much easier to properly shuffle without damaging the cards. I continued to mana weave for a while, but only after I first built the deck. After that, I would just shuffle thoroughly. Eventually I realized I was just doing it out of habit/superstition and it was a waste of time since I could just skip straight to the thorough shuffle and end up with the same results.
This is absolutely the reason that I was mana weaving. I have stopped since I got sleeves as well, thinking the exact same way. I got in trouble for doing it at a random FNM because I never wanted to get sleeves... I don’t understand how people build decks if they don’t separate the cards into piles... havent needed to worry as much since I got them, just found it funny we had the exact same experience.
Agreed. I also remember doing it with sleeves when they were dirtied and the lands would stick together. I didn't have enough to buy more sleeves at the time.
ive never thought to do this. Outside of the competitive realm it sounds like a good practice, fun games, no one wants to sit there and keep throwing away their hand or picking up clumps, you want to see the full potential of your deck, might be something to ask my friends to do with me so that we both have good plays throughout the game. instead of one of us having 7 mana while the other has none.
Bad idea. That just leads to a meta with fewer lands etc.
My group uses a "gentleman's mulligan" for kitchen table magic. Essentially, after a second or third mulligan, "scoop" the game and go to "game 2," but let your opponent keep their 7. No need for them to reset if they have a T0 board state.
100% agree with everything here - thought it was worth mentioning though a minor (but nonetheless interesting) difference between the coin toss analogy and MTG. The chances of a coin-toss being one vs. the other outcome is indeed 50%, but at any given point in a game of magic the odds of drawing specific cards like lands vs. spells changes with each draw, as the outcomes are coming from a fixed sample, i.e. every time you draw a land the odds of the next draw being a land go down slightly as there are fewer lands in the deck to choose from. After your first draw of 7 cards you might have 3 lands in hand. The odds of drawing a land on your first draw might be 21/53 or ~40%. If you draw a land, next turn your chances of drawing another are 20/52 or 38%. If you don't draw a land, your next turn's chances are 20/51 or 39%. Again, this isn't any sort of criticism of anything in this video, just something I think folks might benefit from considering alongside everything you mentioned.
Also, can you tell wizards that their shuffler is cheating...?
LOL, the Arena shuffler is the only instance of deck manipulation put into law.
Haha veritas in the comments nikachu day has been made. Much love veritas!! I watch you all the time love your understanding of MTG
Yeah, the coin toss vs card draw analogy is bit of a false equivalence. As the statistical probabilities change with each card draw, but always remain fixed with a coin toss.
That might mean something if the mana weaving/shuffling didn't happen before you draw any cards.
Yeah it was a simplification, but the analogy is accurate enough for demonstration purposes. And MTG Arena does that intentionally because it makes the game more fun, it's fair because both players have it, it's equal, and it's part of the game rules.
I tried explaining this to my friend in Ravnica allegiance standard, but I ended up catching him with a thief of sanity.
(It mills 3 cards and his deck was organized in a way that every other card was a land.) So when I connected, he never drew an actual spell until he died.
Im glad you showed him otherwise
So their deck was 66% land? I'm calling bullshit.
@@omeganova4332 That would be 50% land. Land, spell, land, spell, land, spell, etc. They draw a land, thief of sanity mills 2 spells and a land, they draw a land, thief mills 2 spells and a land, etc.
B
thats glorious 😂
I've always thought that in tournament settings, judges should have to randomize the decks for players. That way they can learn how to sufficiently randomize them and in an impartial way, which is (more or less, barring corruption) immune to any kind of favorable or unfavorable tricks players like to use. There's probably money in inventing a reliable machine to shuffle sleeved decks quickly too.
In a tournament once, my friend's opponent told him he could shuffle his deck any way he liked, so my friend took his deck, and sorted all the cards 2:1 face down(no card visible) the stacked them back up and shuffles a little. Because the guy had weaved his deck, that guy lost drawing only lands.
i 3d printed a hand crank model that is just a scaled up version by 2mm on the intake where you slide the double sleeved cards. two small rubber wheels make contact with the rear of the cards and each operate off of offset gears so they cycle the cards one from each split stack at a time. the amount of time i spent designing plus modifying it i can guarantee their may not be "Much" money in it. could i make a couple dollars per machine? sure. do i want to? no. its time consuming for one printer. and plus im super lazy haha. lots of other designs on 3d print websites have small motorized options but you dont need all that.
After watching this video my win rate dropped to 99.98%
As someone who only plays edh with one playgroup I would say it comes down more to pregame expectations. Myself and my friends would rather have a game where everyone is less likely to be mana screwed and so we all do it. Of course things are different when you are playing with randoms or in a tournament and it just comes down to the rules the group agrees on before the game.
Yea I play with some friends and if you miss 3 land drops you reveal cards from the top of your deck until you hit a land, put it on top of your library, and put the rest on the bottom in the order you drew them.
I think it's fine if everyone does it, it's not fine however if only a few do it. I think it's also more acceptable in commander because the point is to have fun.
Then establish a house rule that allows 1 free mulligan. 😁
My edh playgroup when just playing casually just gives mulligans for free because we're all good friends and don't believe anyone would cheat
@@zackmorris4977 Better to just allow free mulligans on all hands with 2 or less lands.
That allows everyone to have a decent starting hand.
I mana weave. But then I shuffle at least 7 times. It makes me feel better like maybe I won't get flooded or screwed.
Fun fact, I often get flooded or screwed anyway.
So anyway, my mana weaving is super effective.
Fun story: the friend that introduced me to MTG taught me mana weaving. He said at the time that it was to keep lands from clumping together, so I picked the habit of doing it before storing my deck. Years later, the same friend told me mana weaving was a cheat. The facepalm moment was epic. I have never done it since.
BTW: I always shuffle like 30 or so times. Suffice to say, people get annoyed. The same friend taught me that xD.
bro i cut their deck so many times to the point where even if they did mana weave of top deck a good card on purpouse their is no way they know where tf anything is anymore, XD
Same here and even if i shuffle my deck 10 times I get bad hands and everything
I've been getting better at it lately, but I'm just so slow at shuffling that usually in games with me and my friends my partner just shuffles my deck for me
Can't cheat if it's out of my hands!
Sample A
Same with me, the guy who taught me how to play showed me a lot of ways to cheat, but of course he didn't say It was cheating. About 7 months later when I was already better at the game, he said multiple times that I was cheating.
When he said, "if you manaweave, you will be able to keep more starting hands, curve out more often, avoid being mana flooded or screwed..."
It basically sounded like he was describing a game in which all players have a better time playing with less frustration and more balance.
When you said, "It basically sounded like he was describing a game in which all players have a better time playing with less frustration and more balance." It basically seems like you like cheating then.
@@darkblade830 Exactly it sounds like these people do not like playing MTG. Theses aspects are part of the game and what makes deckbuilding interesting. People will get frustrated because only one person can win. The game is balanced around the random nature of the deck. It is a core aspect of MTG if you do not like it there are hundreds of other CCG or TCGs.
To clarify, I'm not saying that mana-weaving is not cheating. I'm just saying that people enjoy the game more when they (and their friends) draw into smoother mana curves. If we're playing a game of commander and my opponent gets stuck on two lands for a couple of turns, we're going to feel bad for them. In friendly matches, you don't want to win just because your opponent didn't draw a red mana source for four turns, especially if they are running a large number of basics - though this need for color-fixing lands is why the lands often cost more than the rest of the deck.
@@darkblade830 Doing something stated explicitly in the rules as legal doesn't seem like cheating. But if you have a hard time shuffling your opponent's deck, I can see why you'd rather bring everyone else down to your level so it's "even".
I went thru the rules for competitive play and it requires sufficient randomization by both players thru shuffling prior to play. If the mana weaving player does it b4 a game starts and makes sufficient shuffling without delaying the game i.e. a slow play while time is already running in the clock, you cant actually call it a rule violation.
If the player doesnt shuffle after the mana weave, you can actually totally screw ur opponent hand by a specific way of pile/side shuffling which ends up bunching up the lands.
I think Nikachu has to expand on this video to point out the specific ways mana weaving is actually illegal, instead of giving a blanket statement as it will be factually irresponsible.
How do you mana weave without delaying game? Time spent on mana weaving could be used on shuffling.
@@colgatelampinen2501 the player weaves before assignment of opponent i.e. in between matches. Also, between games, given the need to sideboard, if the player is experienced and knows the ratio of cards to land order, it only takes 10-15 seconds to weave into sequence. It simply cannot be penalized. Nikachu must elaborate how it becomes illegal, rather than give a blanket statement like this, becoz it will be factually irresponsible.
@@edwinpoon Think about it like this, if you mana weave there are two possible outcomes:
A) It has an effect on your draws (positive or negative), in which case it's cheating.
B) It in no way impacts the game because you sufficiently randomized afterwards, in which case WHY DID YOU DO IT?
@@dapperghastmeowregard as stated in the rules, weaving is for the psychological aspect, becoz sufficient shuffling and randomization is still required before play. So why not, if the game is not delayed? As for the angle of cheating, looking from the other side, your deck shld be giving a ratio of X:Y for lands and non-lands, on average. Weaving helps to prevent land screw or flood in the case that there is insufficient randomization by either yourself or opponent. By right, your opponent also needs to shuffle your deck, but often they may only cut it. So weaving actually cuts the argument both ways. Lastly, weaving can provide an indication whether opponent is a shuffle-cheater(see related videos by Nikachu); it gives u the ammo to make a case to the judge if u keep getting screwed when opponent shuffles and refuses to cut.
Therefore, if you are not lazy or are not taking too long to do it, WHY AREN'T YOU DOING IT?
It's bewildering to me that people are having an argument about whether something that THE OFFICIAL RULES EXPLICITLY STATE IS NOT CHEATING, is cheating.
Best video yet!
To add some more fun math to the context of the video, it takes roughly 2500 overhand shuffles to sufficiently randomize a 52 card deck, even more for 60 cards, but only 7 riffle shuffles to!
I recommend always doing *at least* 8 riffle shuffles before a game, and ditto for your opponents' decks.
In our playgroup we always manaweaved, even in our draft tourneys. Then when I started playing in another playgroup, where it was highly frowned upon, I really had to stop that habit. To be fair, the games in the mana-weaving group were more fun because in the other group there was always 1 person at the table who got mana-screwed or flooded and it made the games less fun. Nothing more annoying than playing a 2HG with you vs the other 2 because your teammate is stuck at 3 mana for the entire game.
Yes I agree. I just don't unstand why pile shuffling is allow yet manaweaving isn't? With all lands on top, spell on bottom initially, you pile shuffle the deck twice, that is even less random then manaweave + marsh shuffle. Yet pile shuffling in this case is allow, which absolutely does not make sense.
@@leol3301 Pile "shuffling" is not authorized. Pile counting is. Players are doing it to quickly check the number of cards in their deck, but they are SUFFICIENTLY SHUFFLING afterwards (and if they're not, then they are CHEATERS).
Plus i want to point out: if you feel the need for manaweaving, that probably means you are not using your mulligans enough
@@H2SO4pyro Well then it makes sense.
@@H2SO4pyro But I still think mana weaving can reach "true random" faster as as long as after afew marsh shuffles, mana weaving is perfectly fine.
@@leol3301 Well "true" randomness means the order cannot be predicted. You can't even know if it's well spread out or not, since it's supposed to be unpredictable. If your piling + few shuffles ensures your deck is well spread, then you have an information over the order of your deck, so the rules says you have to shuffle more until you can't know if your deck has balanced or clumped order
After having your deck organized from deck building, I find that pileshuffling the cards helps with the randomness (as otherwise everything is bulked together). Of course - you need to mash shuffle afterwards.
i shuffle the piles together before shuffling them into one big pile
@@HazmanFTW Reminds me of when I played the Pokémon tcg
i do a mix of bridge and cuts to create an more random than average deck composition
Pile "shuffling" is same as mana weaving. If you shuffle sufficiently afterwards, it is waste of time. If not, you give yourself unfair advantage.
@@colgatelampinen2501 you can't determine how shuffled a deck is if it was organized previously, hence doing piles first to "spread" the deterministic parts of the deck throughout to then be shuffled.
I only mana weaved when playing with my friends to test out if a deck works. We only did it when we played together. We would often shuffle like 15 times anyway. It mostly felt like trying to appease the mana gods to not screw us over. We still get mana screwed all the time anyway.
same here. Even when you do mana weaving, to shuffle in a normal way several time completely randomizes your deck. I tried it and lots of times I got six lands or none of them.
Only works cause you mana weaved
Try it randomized bet it wont
For a true display of randomness at work in Magic, watch Nassif vs Chapin - the dice rolls on the Ignite Memories are what randomness actually feels like! Being tilted by randomness is part of the human experience :)
The Pretty Deece episode of that is really good
"Being tilted by randomness is part of the human experience" - Especially if you play Hearthstone.
That has nothing to do with mana weaving. Shuffle your opponents' decks, and they will receive this "random" you speak of, no matter what LEGAL stacking they did beforehand.
10:43 An easy way to think about it: any state in which you've looked at every card is "furthest from random." Doesn't matter if you've got all creatures in order of mana cost and all lands together, or if you've weaved your creatures/instants/lands.
I've always believed that if you shuffle well enough mana weaving isnt needed.
Also I've seen people mana weave mid game, especially if they search their deck and find 3 of the same combo piece next to each other. I try to call it out even if I get dirty looks for it
The message I want to get at is mana weaving is never needed. Mana weaving is not a shortcut to a "random" deck state. It's a shortcut to VERY advantageous deck which you must now work to undo.
Then you don't know how shuffling works. And how randomness works.
@@NikachuMTG mana weaving is the proper way to randomize any deck of cards. Wotc doesn't actually play mtg or card games like we do. So they wouldn't know about proper shuffling. Lmaooooo
@@CardGamesTV1ignore this troll
@@CardGamesTV1 3Head
I can't help but watch every video on mtg cheating because I'm just so scared of accidentally cheating and feeling horrible about it...
For real this whole time I’ve been judging those other cheaters on his other videos when this whole time I was one too 🤦♂️ this video definitely opened my eyes to it 🤯
seasoned magic vet here. never accused of cheating. done this at tournaments. not between rounds but games. however in between rounds I will pick my cards up from play area, and sort those. I'm not going to just grab all my land in a clump and shuffle it in like that. it's stupid and your opponent has the right to shuffle your deck. pro players often cut the deck 6 piles. this is a game about probability, not chance, we learn to count cards even. I can count a graveyard, see what you have, how many of X you have on the board, how many cards in deck, and hand, and judge the probability of you being able to bring that card out to say, counter my next play. also if you know your meta you can also predict the cards that havent been played. if I know this deck is this kind, you have 5 cards in hand, 7 turns in and you havent played X then it's probably waiting.
bottom line, if your so bad at magic you have to rely on your opponent not getting what he needs because he got fucked with mana, then retire. you dont get the game.
@@Joza-M619 This isn't cheating, Nikachu is plain wrong in this video. There are way s to cheat through mana weaving, but mana weaving itself is a placebo that works both ways - doesn't help you, and makes people think you're cheating. But it's not cheating.
I actually used to do this when my friends and I first started playing Magic and didn't know the proper way to build a deck to actually function and was tired of getting Mana screwed or only drawing lands and just wanted to keep learning to play. I did this in front of them and they were like "What are you doing?" And I explained it and they all did it too.
“You’re a genius!”
I would often play my friends over the phone when we couldn't meet up. It was amazing how much luckier a couple of them were compared to the pack
My friend group encourages mana weaving so people don't get mana fucked and end up not having fun in a group EDH session. We always allowed infinite mulligans in the beginning anyway because we just wanted people to actually be allowed to play.
Our group did that aswell. Fun is more important than competitive integrity for us ahah
You might as well skip drawing cards and shuffling decks, and just search what you need lol
@@diemyfriend we dont let people muligan if they get 3 lands in their starting hand. Anything less then they can if they want to.
We used to do that too back in the day,but then mirrodin came out with affinity,it was nutty,could kill on turn 2 with good enough hand,so we had to stop “infinite mulligan”.
@@italianspiderman5012 Ya we ban out infinite combos or auto win bull shit unless it requires multiple parts that others can interact with and stop.
I mana weave, but only on the creation of the deck itself. I do this because it helps me figure out if I have a good mana-spell ratio. Afterwards I do the stacks, which helps me count if I have the right amount of cards in the deck. After this, I personally know this deck is not sufficiently shuffled, so I shuffle it close to 20 times before I even consider using it. The exact amount is unknown to me because as I do stuff on my computer, I do a lot of fidgeting by shuffling my deck. Sure, I COULD, in theory, count how many times I've shuffled, but I don't care to count that. And even then, I shuffle my deck (was 3, will be 7 in the future after watching your video on proper shuffling) times before allowing my opponent to shuffle as protocol dictates.
maybe the real problem is people are bad at shuffling. so it's not truly random if i shuffle the cards but it's actually MORE random if i mana weave before shuffling. this is definitely not a cheat imo
I feel like a lot of players don't think this through enough to realize they're cheating. Especially immediately after deck construction, where their Lands probably start in a separate block from their other cards.
@Jamie do you not call all of your lands being in one pile not a clump??
@@omeganova4332 do you not call shuffling the clump into the nonland cards a way to eliminate a clump?
I haven't played MTG in many years, but back in the day I always mana shuffled (or mana weaved according to this video) and then shuffled afterwards, not even knowing it was wrong. All of my friends did it and it was just an accepted part of the game to us. But now, having seen this video, I can say that my mind is blown and it's hard to believe that I never considered it cheating before.
Its like basically stacking a deck I know people that play Texas Hold’em that can stack a deck in a way that 2 people get a decent hand every time and they are in on it with the dealer so it looks like theres 5 people playing against each other plus the dealer and act like nobody knows each other. Meanwhile the 3 randoms get hustled
@@valdranne I would like to actually see statistical evidence that supports this claim. Because all I hear right now is anecdotes. In fact it's an omission that most players aren't properly randomizing their opponents decks prior to beginning the game. That's your problem to deal with and not your opponent. It's fairly straightforward you take your opponents deck you shuffle you randomize however way legally allowed until you are satisfied. Doing so will effectively minimize anyone trying to mana. Welcome to game theory, you must be new here.
Same here.
Always did the same back when I played tournaments, as long as you shuffle afterwards it shouldn't be a problem.
The case is, if everyone does mana weave, no one is cheating.
Technically having a clump of lands and shuffling is also knowing the order of the deck before hand too.
People can and do put those clumps on the bottom of the pile when playing things like speed, or red deck wins that have very low curves.
When you get into the nitty gritty of your arguments nothing before the shuffle would satisfy your requirements for randomness because its all in the shuffle afterwards, therefore mana weaving isnt really cheating if you shuffle enough and your opponent does too.
You don’t know how shuffling works.
If you sufficiently shuffle your deck (sufficient = have no way of determining where any one card is) the starting order is irrelevant. Any argument to the contrary means you don’t understand the concept or you’re not shuffling correctly.
@@xboxgamer474246 theres 2 ways to shuffle riffle shuffle like you do with a pack of cards and hand shuffle where you stick one half into the other guess what we do with mtg and guess what its like 10x less efficient
I'm an old school player, like 3rd/ 4th edition and back then it was called proportioning not mana weaving. So I do it cause I've always have and I shuffle afterwards. However, I must be the person that does actual shuffle afterwards cause I'm also the guy that is ALWAYS mana screwed. Like if I have a hand with 3 lands that is probably all I get, lol. I also only do it after a dozen or so games too.
It turns out, shuffling after mana-weaving often causes clumps. Especially if you get a good, even cut before each shuffle. The first shuffle will create clumps of 2 lands and then 4 spells, the next will create clumps of 4 lands, then 8, then 16, and so on. Eventually you start single-weaving one land, one spell and end up with a section of the deck that has no lands in it. Then you start clumping again when you shuffle that mess. It's not exact because the way we shuffle isn't typically super precise half cuts, so you'll typically never get the deck to that 16+ clump state and instead you end up with some minor clumps and some that are extreme resulting in poor mana draws even though you wove.
It's more or less the same as if you took a brand new, sorted deck of playing cards, cut each suit to its own pile, then shuffled the Clubs + Spades and Hearts + Diamonds together before shuffling them all together. You end up with 4 Kings together, 4 Queens, 4 Jacks, and so on. You're essentially doing this on a macro level.
Aa along as you shuffle afterwards before you present your deck to your opponent its perfectly legal. The shuffling creates the randomness. You could have a or create a mana and or a spell pocket.
Then why mana weave if you shuffle?
@@SNOT_JUST_DROP because it does not matter how you arrange your deck as long as you shuffle it a few times before you present your deck your opponent.
This is why I never separate my lands and spells. Never have even the chance to weave, so I don't have to have the talk.
I’ve always felt that at tournaments they should have a random judge do every shuffle in the game (doesn’t even have to be a judge ) I imagine so much less cheating would have transpired
This. It'd eliminate cheaters who put a card on the top of their opponents deck too like Jared what's-his-nuts.
There's so much deck manipulation with spells that this would not be nearly as effective as you think. It would fix turn 1 but once they get tutor it's like the judge never touched the cards.
@@46993-r tutors require you shuffle , therefore with my example the person on the side would instead shuffle instead of the player, the players never touch their deck , only when they draw .
Are you going to pay someone to run around your LGS / Convention hall and shuffle every single deck every single time it comes up? That’s a lot of work for very little return.
Have to put the deck in a shoe like the casino. Only a matter of time until judges get paid off like all major sports if they are required to shuffle. Imagine how much a judge stacking your deck with the winning spell would be worth in a championship game...
I only mana weave after I've built a deck. After that I shuffle and goldfish and shuffle and goldfish rinse repeat before I play in my meta. I've heard that a deck isn't truly shuffled until you've shuffled it 100 times.
That last part depends entirely on how you shuffle. The math on the topic makes it clear that 8 riffle shuffes is definitely enough to randomize a deck of 60 cards. If you do overhand shuffles however it isn't even randomized after 100 repeats.
After 6 shuffles, even if they're perfect Faro shuffles, any card in a deck at any position can end up at any other position. After 6 shuffles even poor ones your deck is in a brand new order never before seen in the universe and never to be seen again (probably). But for any card to end up at any position it's best to shuffle 7 times, because we're imperfect creatures and one or more of those shuffles could have unintentionally left a clump of cards in the same order near the top or bottom or randomly a clump in the middle. But you don't need to worry too much about that because some random orientations of your deck have those cards in that order in the end anyhow, just need to not do it on purpose and it's fine.
@@nicholasiverson9784 If it's a perfect Faro shuffle (aka the cards alternate perfectly) it doesn't matter how often you do it, it will never be random, because such a "shuffle" is entirely deterministic.
That's actually something to look out for when shuffling: The piles themselves aswell a the intertwining packages need to be randomly sized, that's where the randomness comes from. So your pattern should look a lot like sample B (6:57). However particularily with sleeved cards shuffles resembling sample A happen way too consistently.
Also if one shuffle leaves a clump of cards from one half untouched, that's not something that needs fixing, this is also part of the randomness. Shuffling one more time of course makes it more random still, just not for that reason.
@@Krunschy All shuffles are some combination of clumps of cards, that's just one where the clumps are size 1. There are two types of Faro shuffles, inside and outside, otherwise you wouldn't be able to reach a state where any card is in any position after as few as 6 shuffles. When you combine them is the top card still on top, or is it below the top card (a quality every shuffle has - not a deterministic quality unless you do it intentionally), alternating every card from the top half and bottom half of the deck from there, 6 times, can lead to a card being on the Very very bottom of a 60 card deck, to becoming the top card moving up half way or more each step, or even moving down one or more steps to become in the immediate preterminal shuffle the top card of the bottom half and ultimately the top card of the deck. If you specifically exclude a Faro shuffle by intentionally clumping you're actively avoiding a certain outcome - which gives you knowledge you should not have about your deck and is in fact cheating.
@@nicholasiverson9784 Firstly I don't recommend specifically excluding Faro shuffles. My point was that this shuffle happens unintentionally way more often than it should. The mathematical model that was used to calculate that 7 riffle shuffles are sufficient simply doesn't apply when the clump sizes consistently resemble sample A.
As for the perfect Faro I will admit that randomness can be introduced through the choice what pile to start with. However this can not only easily be abused by the shuffler to cheat, but also doesn't yield that many possible results. Since this can only result in two different permutations, after 6 shuffles there are a a measly 2^6=64 different orders the deck could assume. Compare this to the 60! = 8.3 * 10^81 different permutations a magic deck may have and it becomes apparent that this really isn't all that random.
Also the simple fact that a card may end up at any point of the deck is insufficient to call a deck properly randomized. The definition of a perfectly randomized deck is that every card has a 1/60 chance for any spot in the deck.
"Cheating!? I've never done that!"
Nikachu begins to explain...
"Shit."
I'm a good boy and often find myself mana screwed in my commander games 🤣 Some of the guys I play with regularly seem to consistent have amazing luck so I do get suspicious shenanigans are going on but I don't mind, I always have fun. Good vid Nikachu, much love and respect.
Probably nothing, if you know of the Commander Clash channel, then you would know sometimes people just can't get lands for the life of them like Crim from the channel, which made it a running joke.
There's a weird number of people missing the point, so I'll just restate it: If you shuffle enough after mana weaving that it is no longer cheating, then you didn't need to mana weave in the first place. It's binary in that you're either cheating or wasting time.
Both of which will get you a warning, coincidentally enough* lol
Not at all. If you mana weaved your deck then shuffle it properly 7 times, it is truly randomized but you still have some of the benefits of mana weaving, like limiting a lot a row of 5 lands or non lands cards
@@mathieudeicke9438 That's intentionally ordering the cards in your deck, which is what is discussed in the video. It's cheating. If the deck is actually random, clumps can occur, it's just part of how random works. If you're preventing that you are manipulating your deck.
@@josephrivera9818 no, ordering means you stacked the cards in a proper known order, which Indeed breaks the random ruling because you know where each card is in your deck. Mana weaving plus a proper shuffle doesn't give you any information about the order of the cards in your deck.
That said, i agree that mana weaving is a sort of deck manipulation, but as the ruling says, it's still considered random atter a proper shuffle.
@@mathieudeicke9438 You are changing the order of the deck, which is deck manipulation. Did you watch the video? Nikachu makes light of this entire issue, and THIS is why he thinks Wizards should change the rule AND why he advocates for shuffling your opponent's deck. Why are you trying to well actually me when you seemingly didn't understand the video?
We used to do this as younger people because we had a friend that would consistently cheat with slight of hand stuff so we all agreed that doing so would put us on a level with him and it gave us a lot more consistently fun games rather than one getting screwed for a 20-30 minute game and they just sit and watch.
In my opinion mana weaving is fine if you literally just built the deck. Otherwise it’s actually not random because all of your lands, creatures, etc are bunched with each other. Now you also have to spend a bunch of time shuffling after before ever playing. This is also just based on casual play.
A good practice is to mana weave either when you've just finished BUILDING the deck, or after you've finished playing a series of games in sequence but after you're finished playing for the day. The worst feeling in the game is building a fresh deck, shuffling for 5 minutes, then getting tons of cards that are all put together xD but outside of those times it's pretty pointless.
strange use of CAPITALIZATION in my view. Seems KIND OF random
local man admits to cheating and then invalidating it but thinking it helped.
Interesting idea for a magic like game. You have two draw piles, a land draw pile, and a non land draw pile. Both are randomized. Each time you draw, you choose which pile to draw from.
There's a TCG called Force of Will (not the Magic card) that actually has a similar system to what you've described.
You should shuffle at least 7-10 times. I would include the shuffles from you opponents (2-3 times). It's psychological, just like someone snapping their cards when they are playing. I know it gets randomized after I shuffle a bunch after I have mana weaved. As I stated it's Psychological for me.
You know and everyone else who does it knows that is not why you do it. You do it in the hopes it does have some effect on the deck. All the rules change did was give cheaters the justification needed to cheat. If you weave you are cheating and it needs to be made so in the rules. I don't play sanctioned mtg anyway so I do not care what the rules say if you weave before you try and play against me I will walk away. There is NO reason to do it and the likelihood that it results in unfair games are enough for it to be against the rules. Weaving is done with the intent to manipulate the deck in a favorable way there are no other reasons for doing it.
I think for some people it's just psychological. It - feels - better mentally, especially if you are a high anxiety person, even if you shuffle for several minutes afterward. I stopped doing it for the reasons you mentioned - if you shuffle sufficiently, weaving is pointless - but mentally it's honestly hard to break.
EDIT: I think a better way of describing it is that I think for some people it's like a superstition or a compulsive behavior: kind of like not stepping on sidewalk cracks, knocking on wood, carrying around a "lucky" object, or whatever else, at least in terms of intent. Again, I agree that people should stop doing it for all the reasons you mentioned, but I think it's a plausible explanation (it was for me) and it's worth understanding the why.
If you want to manaweave, just pile shuffle instead. Does the same thing but cuts out any cheaty parts
I want to add, here, that putting piles together on your Deck is also a kind of sorting before shuffling. In this way, you might put a full combo next to each other on your deck. I also can look at my deck before shuffling (at least before the game starts) without any additional sorting, so I always can have the information about which card is on what position in the deck. In my opinion, is a Deck order never random before shuffling, so I can't say anything against weaving.
It seems that it is always cheating if you don't shuffle your deck good. The better question here is, how much do you need to shuffle until the Deck is random again after a state of not being random.
It is good to mana weave when you first put the deck together. No time after that. Of course, play test 10 plus times, with lots of shuffling each time, before ever facing an opponent. It gives you a feel how the deck will change over time.
You don't get any advantage once you play someone, but you can see how it would be when it's at it's best on the first play. Basically, if it stinks on game one of the play testing, or even games 2-5, you might want to scrap it and try something else. On games 6 - 10, if it does bad, you need to fix something. Anything after 10 it is more of the randomness and you might see some ways to improve, but it's less likely to need it to be competitive.
That's my thought on it. I do it to test the balance of the deck overall and I shuffle like crazy before I play any deck (I even shuffle after I'm done playing a deck). A quick few play tests go a long way to balancing properly.
if you just clump all your lands together at the end of every game and then shuffle your going to have awful mana pockets that aren't random. after multiple games this gets worse and worse no matter how much you shuffle there will be multiple mana pockets after multiple games. its not fun for anyone. if everyone just takes the time to de clump the mana pockets and then shuffles properly everyone gets a chance to actually play their deck. increasing everyone's fun. It's not all about tournaments either.
Exactly. In certain decks clumping the final board cards together would also technically give you an advantage since you are likely to be clumping win-condition cards together. Shuffling is great and everything but unless you are pile shuffling things are going to stick together.
That's why we shuffle thoroughly. If you manaweave, you have no incentive to shuffle enough. If the deck starts clumped, you have a lot of incentive to shuffle it to a point where it's not a disadvantage anymore.
I am sorry but you are just wrong, and you can even try it out yourself. The only way you have pockets is if you do not shuffle correctly. For reference, you can look at this video: ua-cam.com/video/UQxnZlHEnNk/v-deo.html
Also, sometimes having clumps, as Nikachu said, is part of the random nature of shuffling.
In my opinion mana weaving is only acceptable when goldfishing your deck to test it in the ideal scenario to ensure the card interactions work the way you want them too.
Meaning no disrespect, but you're blinding yourself by doing that. A goldfish test is already to your advantage (it's an opponent that does nothing). Going further by mana weaving to produce an "ideal scenario to ensure the card interactions work the way you want them to" is just going to skew the results and give you the impression that your deck works better than it will in actual play.
@@javierpatag3609 My thoughts exactly. After some proper testing I'd do the opposite, mana flood and screw myself on purpose to see how the deck goes when shit goes bad. I don't want a deck that only operates decently when everything is perfect.
I never said I do this just saying it's the only way I can see someone doing it.
Adding to this - many players make systematic mistakes with their mash shuffles. Their techniques often leave the top or bottom few cards minimally, if not completely, unshuffled. This is why it's so important to make cuts between shuffles, and vary the mash sizes/locations/etc
This is a great and informative video, as a former manaveawer who did it out of superstition and shuffled a shitton afterwards (but found the light later) I can relate to why players do this but really, no one should.
After watching this video, I feel that when I finish a game, if I don't want to be tagged as a cheater, I need to put my 13 lands that I played this turn during this game in one huge pile on top of the deck. If spreading them through the deck isn't random, well I don't understand how leaving them clumped up together is defined as "more random"
Even worse, I am building a new deck. I pull out 25 swamps, 4x of creature A, B, C, D, E, and 4x of spells F, G, H, I
What you tell me, is that in order to have a random deck, I should leave these all neatly organised and shuffle for a true random? I disagree, I should mish mash the creatures, mish mash the spells through the creatures, mish mash the lands through the rest, and now I believe I've created a random after I've shuffled my deck sufficiently.
I kinda feel like you are exagerating the situation. I will continu to do what I believe is right, and I will argue to anyone who calls me a cheater for it
Don't take it bad, I disagree with you, but I still respect your opinion.
I agree with you man - all this is is shuffling. If you know how to shuffle, then shuffle your opponent's deck before a match (which is legal). Then none of this matters, and eve ryone can stop crying and pointing fingers at people for doing something EXPLICITLY legal in the rules.
I wasn't even aware this was considered cheating, I only play commander casually with friends but before every game I try to do a pre-shuffle shuffle faceup so I don't just have all my same type cards together because they usually are sorted by card type when I'm editing the decks so a quick shuffle wouldn't give me a healthy balance, then once things are distributed better for an actual game instead of editing I'll do multiple reshuffles normally in different ways and let my friends cut.
It's not cheating, since it's effectively your responsibility to demonstrate your deck is randomized and to randomize your opponents. It's simple, pile shuffle, shuffle, and pile shuffle some more until you are satisfied thier deck is randomized. enough.
I also play casual commander (and no other format), even to the point where we take up to 3 or 4 mulligans for free. Its not cheating if everybody in the playgroup does it as well :)
If you shuffle 7 times that's enough.
I think there's an inherent problem with Magic's design. Of course, randomness is an essential aspect of any card game, but being locked out of playing anything due to bad luck seems a bit too unfair. It would be cool if land cards didn't exist at all and instead you could use any card as a land. This would also add another layer of eecision-making to the game, because you'd have to ask yourself " Do i wanna use this card for mana or save it for when i can actually cast it?". And you can still have cards that gain unique effects when used as lands.
Another idea would be to have a separate land pile that you can choose to draw from instead of your main deck.
Then just play Keyforge, or any other game that does not use resources. I don't see any good reason to change magic just because of this. Also we have mulligans.
I don't think having every card as a land would be a good idea, they are already cards that do that, and it would make games way too easy and quick. It's because of the randomness that make MTG fun, there will be game where everything is very smooth, and there will be game where you get completely screwed over.
I wouldn't really say it's unfair. Every card game has that luck aspect that every player runs into multiple times. Plus, it could also show some problem with deck consistency. That isn't an "inherent design problem," it's a feature. The mana system is part of what makes MtG challenging in its own way without taking the fun out of it. Plus, removing the mana system or integrating it with the spells is not really a practicable way of improving the game. Considering the power level of most of the spells, making them readily playable would cause a very drastic change in the game landscape in all formats which can (and would) ruin it especially if things weren't balanced and managed well. I mean, look at YuGiOh and its meta from the Pendulum era onwards... from a more interactive card game to a speedy 2-player solitaire game with barely any player interaction (at least that's how that card game's meta is when I left it to focus on MtG) other than causing life point damage in any way.
I think this is a really cool idea for a casual format. Every card can be used as a land in one of its color's instead. Would get rid of both mana screw and of expensive lands. :D
(Maybe even "can be replaced with a basic land of one of it's colors by exiling it form your hand" -> Thereby the used card is out of the game completely and other cards which are interacting with lands work as usual)
I see no issue in Mana Weaving as long as you shuffle afterwards. If your problem with it is that you see it as a waste of time, then don't do it. If you're problem is that you think it's cheating, then shuffle the deck. It's that simple.
3:00 that's not shuffling. That's weaving the bottom of the deck into the top of the deck. Smh
For "sufficiently" shuffled.
If you're doing the riffle/bridge shuffle method, a 52 card deck takes seven such shuffles to be fully randomized. I would assume a 60 card deck might take 8.
You don’t do that with magic you treat you cards like how you treat you prized possessions
26 Faro shuffles of a 52 card deck will result in a reverse order of the deck. With Magic, it would be 30 "perfect faro shuffles" to reverse. Then another to put it back in the same state it was in originally.
Doesn't actually work that way unfortunately. While yes, 7 times will make it into an order that has never statistically occurred before in the universe, in real, practical terms that can be as little as swapping the position of 2 identical cards in the deck.
I just looked up the randomization curve for pile shuffling a 100 card deck, saw that you get an essentially random distribution at ten shuffles, and just do that after every game (or after browsing through my deck). Doing any sort of mana weaving on top of that would just be extra effort.
Very interesting video there 👍
But i wanna throw some ideas.
1-Since mana weaving is not considered cheating in the official MTG ruling (if you shuffled afterwards)
2-Since mana weaving helps a lot, like you said, to reduce the pourcentage of non-games starting hands (i mean by that, non-landers hands, or 5-6 landers hands) which are pretty frustrating to any mtg player,
Why not just allow mana weaving for everyone and say you must shuffle your deck at least 7 times after that ? If both players benefit of such a thing, the odds would be the same for everyone and then no advantage to anyone.
I know they try their best to avoid non-games with the ruling and new sets releases, so could it be a good idea to add ?
Non rhetorical question. Could this benefit certain deck archetypes over others? He mentioned combo decks and I bet lower variance ( ? forgot my stats terms) could change the metagame.
If anyone can do it, everyone basically has to do it, and that is going to slow games way way down. Plus, fundamentally any deck manipulation with known cards in certain places and then some minimal amount of shuffling is advantageous. Best to just embrace the random nature of the game. Part of the excitement of the game is the idea that you can always catch a lucky break, your opponent can always draw something they don't need, and you can dig yourself out of a bad situation. I like pile shuffling as I think it's a time saver for new players who struggle with shuffling speed, but mana weaving is bad.
@@jacktorborg9862 While i agree with you for the most part, i also think starting hands which gives you non-games against your opponent is very frustrating and not exciting at all. For me, the exciting part about the variance of the game is about what you draw every turn and have some great topdecks that completely change the course of the game. And for both sides. I really enjoy games where im winning and then my opp draws exactly the good card which get them out of defeat. Winning or losing on a non-game due to the starting hand is really frustrating.
Then, if we talk about the logistic of mana weaving in game, and if we are afraid that it can slow down the games, why not just allow a mana weaving in the first game of a match ?
@@adamisforgiants6762 that's a good question but i would say no. Mana weaving do not give you your combo pieces faster or you answers in time
I used to weave when I first started playing and then I realized: if my deck is fully randomized then its starting state doesn't matter, and conversely if its starting state has an effect, then it wasn't fully randomized. In the end weaving just means that you are stacking the deck and while that is less of an advantage than stacking specific cards, it could be used to do more just as easily. instead I worked on shuffling technique and making sure I shuffled enough.
If you are worried about non-games casually then just be generous with mulligans, though this may encourage poor deck building in the long term. Better shuffling will help avoid non-games too.
The point of pile shuffling in competitive magic is that it gives a quick way to count the deck and be sure all cards are present. If you pile shuffle with a number of piles that is a factor of 60 (or whatever the decksize is) then you know something is wrong if the piles end up uneven. It doesn't really randomize much (though more than just counting out the deck would).
Well thought out and produced video. Clearly stated and shown.
Love the example you showed, and you get to shuffle your cards. Gotta love the feel of shuffling cards.
I would actually consider the analogy of flipping coins versus drunk cards to be a false equivalence and not completely comparable with one another.
Nah bro, the most common cheat is that one friend that just draws a card whenever nobody is looking.
after reading the official rules you presented in this video, I strongly disagree with you and here are the reasons why:
1. is not about what is right or wrong is about what is legal or not
2. in a competitive scenario anything that gives you an advantage will probably be exploit as long as it is legal
3. the rule explicit say that "Any manipulation, weaving, or stacking prior to randomization is acceptable"...
4. ... as long as the deck is thoroughly shuffled afterwards - we need the definition of " thoroughly shuffled" but I am assuming it means "the deck must be completely random when it is presented to an opponent" as shown in 3:33
5. the definition of random that should be consider is not what you think it should be neither what the consensus think it is. We should consider the definition of as presented in the rule, which is:
6. "Randomize is defined as putting the deck in a state in which no player can have information on the order or position of the cards anywhere in the deck" as shown in 5:44
7. so I would argue that: knowing that I have a better land distribution is not the same of knowing the order or position of the card. even if my deck have no manipulation at all, I still would know the probability of hitting a land each draw just by knowing how many lands I have in the deck- simply putting: knowing the probability of the cards to be drawn is not the same as knowing the order and position of the card - and argument number 3 already state that manipulating is acceptable.
bottom line is, if MTG wants to avoid mana weaving at all they should change their rules. the current rules that you presented allow such manipulation and if you don't do it you are willing not taken a clear advantage presented to you.
mana weaving cheater spotted
And maybe with this video, we can get them to change the rules. I’m pointing out a big hole in the game that isn’t being addressed.
@@NikachuMTG agreed. the rules should be clearer and the mana weaver seem to be a practice common enough to be properly addressed. I personally feel that either it be either be legal or ilegal as long as all players follow the same rule.
Traditionally, based on the famous 1992 paper by Bayer and Diaconis based on work by Aldous, 7 riffle shuffles (3/2 log (base 2) n) is sufficient to produce randomness in a 52 card deck. A serious issue here is that many players use overhand shuffles, which are much less efficient at randomising. Even 100 overhand shuffles barely move the cards from their initial positions and estimates for randomness tend to come in the thousands. So yes, if you only use overhand shuffles, manaweaving is an issue. Instead use 8 good riffle shuffles (without looking at the cards!) before every game and the initial positions should be irrelevant.
Rifle shuffling can permanently damage your cards, which is why I don’t like doing it.
I’m not going to stop you from doing that to your own cards, but please never do this to your opponent.
That would work with standard 52 card playing cards which are each a separate entity. However, with mtg it would be another form of cheating, as if cut deck in two and then riffle shuffle the two parts together, if one half contains a land clump those lands will be interweaved with non-land cards by the riffle process.
@@Janders797 you can do a pharaoh rifle shuffle which will help avoid the damage
i'm going to point out that after a game of magic during the clean up alk your lands tend to be in 1 spot on the table creating clumps and failure to properly shuffle will leave you with the opposite effect of this and as far as your definition of random there is no such thing as random in our universe the outcome is always predictable just sometimes more complicated than we can calculate
Yup. Somebody else who gets it. With enough information you can predict anything. For instance if you could know the exact initial forces and everything about the environmental conditions initially for a coin flip you could 100% of the time predict the outcome of it. Randomness is a psychological construct produced by being ignorant of conditions. There’s literally no such thing as true random. Inb4 muh magic QM that doesn’t matter in meta objects.
Great video, and definitely something that needs more awareness in the community. Used to do it a lot in casual games with friend back when I first started since everyone else did it (we all normal shuffled quite a bit after) but realized it didn't really help since I'd still consistently get screwed (then again I also usually ran too few lands and didn't know the proper ratios for edh). Nowadays I really only do it when solitare testing to see how the deck would perform in terms of pace with optimal distribution, then do about 4 more tests with proper shuffles.
Bro I wish I was a stats teacher because you expressed a few very difficult concepts for people to grasp in a very simple and intuitive way. Very cool!
I had a teacher that illustrated how people think random is and what it actually is. "Ask someone for 3 random single digit numbers and they go '9 um...4...and...2' you want 3 random numbers? 3-3-6, because in randomness duplicates can happen"
Manaweaving does seem to be against the spirit of the game but if an opponent is allowed to shuffle the deck... it kind of seems up to them to prevent this from happening. As a player in a competitive environment you bear some responsibility to ensure rules are followed. Making sure a deck is sufficiently shuffled should just be a natural part of your game like making sure your opponent taps the correct amount of mana for a card.
2000% percent agree. I'll accept a lower win-rate if it means that I earned it fair and square. I don't want the win if it's through sleazy stuff like manipulating your deck. It's the level playing field that attracts me to these kind of single-player games.
Yeah, fuck the rules and what they say!
If you shuffle enough afterwards, what's the point of mana weaving? That's bull shit.
You're mana weaving in the hopes your opponent WON'T shuffle enough.
Mana weaving is like a superstition for me. I know that it doesn't technically have an effect, but it makes me feel more confident. Therefore, I mana weave and then shuffle seven times (the mathematically optimal number of times to shuffle a deck in order to get a truly random order). Then I present to my opponent for them to shuffle or cut as they see fit.
How do you figure 7 times is the optimal shuffles to get it truly random?
To be fair, when you build a deck, usually you have the cards completely sorted, by type, by converted mana cost, or however you sort while deck building. If you just grab the piles, stack them up, then start shuffling, it will be further from true random than if you start by mana weaving.
Personally, when I finish deck building, I shuffle my spells together, then shuffle my lands together, then I shuffle the lands and spells.
Yup. This is exacerbated by the fact that humans shuffle poorly and nobody wants to take 5 minutes to properly shuffle after every game.
Until your opponent "randomly" shuffles your lands to the top of your deck.
When my friend first introduced me to this, he didn’t even shuffle after he mana weaved. I told him there’s now way that wasn’t cheating but he claimed it was legal. That’s when we looked it up and saw you had to sufficiently shuffle afterwards. Now I only do it one time when I first put a new deck together because all of my lands and spells are already separated and I shuffle the crap out of it after. And don’t want to be mana screwed the first 5 games I play with it
If you're always getting mana screwed the first 5 games you play with it, then you're not shuffling enough. If you mana-weave and then shuffle that same insufficient amount after doing so, then you're cheating.
Wow, I never realized that I was cheating by doing this even though I do shuffle a ridiculous amount of times after I weave. I only mana weave though when I’m creating a new deck and don’t do that again after I start playing games. I’m definitely going to stop going forward because I don’t want to rob myself or my opponents a true victory.
As long as you properly shuffle, it's not cheating.
You're not cheating man, it literally says in the rules you can do it, don't listen to this pet peeve of his.
@@sergioa.7519 There's no reason to mana weave other than to cheat. If you're shuffling well it won't matter and if you don't it's cheating. So why do it if you're not trying to cheat?
@@3rdtimesacharm84 There's no reason to mana weave other than to cheat. If you're shuffling well it won't matter and if you don't it's cheating. So why do it if you're not trying to cheat?
@@mnm1273 Because in the rules it allows you to do it. Are you one of those people that like complain a card is cheating if you use it? If the rule makers say it's not cheating how is it they are wrong and you are correct? I think I'll believe what's written in the rules over some internet random o.0
In the casual friendly games I have every so often with friends, we manaweave. Simply because if we didn't, the decks wouldn't be sufficiently random. After a game, we tend to scoop our cards together into a deck. This means that all of our potentially 10+ lands are in one massive clump. The only way to be sure we sufficiently randomize the deck is to manaweave. Even shuffling 15 times doesn't make ot certain that we don't just have a clump of a bunch of lands from a previous game somewhere in our decks. And we also tend to not shuffle for long since we play short fun games.
clumps are normal! if you are taking action to deliberately remove clumps you are making your deck LESS random
As someone who regularly plays in groups where we use two decks, one for lands and one for other spells so that nobody gets mana screwed; this a video actually struck me as satire for the first 5 minutes
Ooh I like that idea. Might try it.
Video probably is, because he even showed the rule where it states that it is allowed.
To avoid this kind of cheating, when i play competitive tournaments i always separate my opponent deck in 3 piles, this way if your opponent did any kind of stacking like this you're gonna catch them separating all his lands in one of the piles...gotcha cheaters!
For this thing sometimes players were aggravated and called me cheater, but the truth is they're were the cheaters i was just punishing them for doing so. If you don't mana weave (aka cheating) there is nothing to fear about having your deck separated in 3 piles right?
Me and my friends we do mana weaving on casual EDH to avoid boring matches with one of the players being mana screw/flood, but that's different because you're not competing, like you do on a competitive tournament where you paid an inscription and you're opting for a prize.
just my opinion.
Do you actually meet people who don't do any shuffling after mana weaving?
@@Flamingcloud083 they shuffle, but it's stack shuffling, moving the same pile up and down, so it's not real shuffling
Love the subtle Peaky Blinders theme
I would rather lose to a mana weaver than win against a mana screwed opponent. Coming back to MTG after playing other card games just shows how flawed and luck dependent the mana system is, to the point where sometimes one side of the table can barely play the game. This is not fun in my opinion.
This is partially why we have a new and better mulligan system. But also we need to encourage people to build better decks.
Weaving everytime you play is cheating
I can agree with that. But weaving after deck building is never cheating. Even starter decks come pre mana weaved
I always do my first few test games with new deck ideas weaved and semi sorted so I can see how the deck could play in ideal circumstances, then if it seems promising I stop as I need to see it function in real world scenarios(Arena is a godsend for me as I cannot keep buying new every year to stay in standard format)
Like I said, why are you doing it? If you pit your mana weaved deck vs an opponent, it’s cheating. If maybe you’re just trying to playtest some hands quickly against a brick wall, it’s harmless.
@@NikachuMTG randomness isn't real. And the purpose of shuffling is to distribute evenly the contents of the deck. So no hand has more then 1 copy of a card. If you get more then 1 island in your hand. It's not really random. You are using random as your argument. But randomness isn't random. You probably think games are won by a dice roll. Smh. Instead of decision making. And you ignored Mulligan which is proof that wotc doesn't agree with hands being random. Smh. They only want the appearance of randomness. But consistency is the goal of players and wotc.
@@Four20Kevin you can play commons every year. And mtg arena is nice. But it's rigged. Which is worst the mana weaving. But wotc don't think that's cheating. 🤔
If your opponent shuffles, even half-assed, and then you shuffle, but manaweaving still gives them some sort of advantage: your shuffling isn't random enough. "You" are shuffle cheating. Why didn't your shuffling produce random results? This is the same as setting a dice to a specific number before picking it up and rolling it. If your roll consistently gets the number, then it's not the starting position that is the issue, it's the rolling method. Your deck was organized during construction, then shuffled, is it an issue all lands were in a stack at one point, or did you shuffle? Even if you didn't, your opponent is supposed to, and hands it back when they are satisfied. That stage is affirmative consent, you don't get to cry foul after.
I believe weaving should take place after curving; only affter curving. Curving should not take place immediately before play. Shuffling should take place SEVERAL times thereafter (by player AND by opponent). I disagree with zero statements in this 📹 .
I'll admit it.
I don't play competitive magic, just casual formats. I weave when I first put the deck together, then shuffle and golf fish it a few times before playing anybody else
The part that may interest you is; looking at it from a statistics perspective--just adequately shuffling your deck goes a LONG way to distributing lands. More shuffles = more entropy, more entropy = more equal distribution. And you won't have people saying "you shuffling so much is trying to cheat" because nobody thinks of it that way.
If you're getting mana flooded or screwed, it's probably because you didn't shuffle ENOUGH (assuming you aren't weaving).
A deck of playing cards has 8 fewer cards than the average MTG deck, so if 5~12 shuffles (7 or 8 average) is enough for playing cards, I'd say 9~10 shuffles should be good enough for a 60-card MTG deck, and if your opponent shuffles it it should make very little difference. Many decks have about from 30% up to 45% lands (with the most common being about 40%, or 23~24 cards of a 60 card deck). Your chances of not getting at least two lands, and not getting more than four lands should be at least every other draw.
So yeah, if you're having these mana issues, shuffle more. A lot more. Maybe even shuffle a few different ways.
2 points.
1. Only time my decks are ever in a nonrandom state is when i'm actively working on them. I shuffle immediately after i'm done with them, and i shuffle before i play with them. That way i can shuffle til i get sick of shuffling, without worrying about "have i shuffled enough?" because i've really shuffled twice as much.
2. after a game, i'll take all my cards not in my library and shuffle them together, then shuffle that pile into the library, it makes me feel better, because i know if i notice a pile of cards like "hey, this looks like last games graveyard" i'll feel like i haven't shuffled enough, but if i do this first, then see that pile, i know it's just chance, and not me shuffling badly. But no chance of me accidentally cheating, since my solution to "i feel like i'm not shuffling enough" is just... more shuffling, with extra steps.
When i first started playing magic with my friends we all used to mana weave our decks. After a few months i realised that i would shuffled my decks a lot more and my decks were almost as consistent as my friends that weaved. It was a whole lot faster to just shuffle more
In theory, shuffling doesn't randomize your deck* it is the best and cheapest way for us to randomize the deck
4:30 pause it right there. Screenshot it. Send it to your play groups. I've been wanting to nip this in the bud forever thank you Nikachu for an easy flow chart!
Mana weaving is not the further thing from random. At the end of the game if you grab all the lands, put them into a pile then grab all the spells and put them into another pile and put them in the deck to shuffle you are going the opposite way of randomness and it's just the same as mana weaving and shuffling afterwards
Around when Return to Ravnica was the current block, my AP stats teacher had us all for homework flip a coin 300 times. He told us we could use an RNG generator, but we had to do the flips 1 at a time and log the results.
He then basically shared all the results and clumped them in two groups without saying anything. and after telling us that the actual assignment was graded at 100% as long as you turned it in, asked us to admit if we cheated and just made it up or not.
He told us we wouldn't get in trouble and after about 10 of the 30 kids in class admitted to it, he pulled up the names on the assignments, and basically only one of students that cheated wasn't in the second group. The second group was entirely composed of cheaters and one false positive, and the other group was everyone who didn't cheat and one of the cheaters. The cheaters looked way more evenly distributed in heads or tails. Really cool blast from the past..
I kinda do this in yugioh, I try to balance my ratio of spells to monsters.
Every 1-2 monsters I put a spell and if 2 copies of a card are stuck together, I take one and place it at the back of the deck and then shuffle.
All perfectly legal in yugioh, even if I’m searching my deck in game I can unstuck my cards because I have to shuffle after every search anyway.
Please show me the Konami rule on that because stacking is not legal
IMO mana RNG is one of the biggest fundamental flaws of MTG. A huge chunk of games (maybe as high as 50%) are decided solely on one player either getting mana-screwed or mana-flooded. It's an auto-loss if it happens to you, or an auto-win if it happens to your opponent, with actual play and skill making no difference. And there's no way to prevent it (other than cheating). Even using the statistically perfect amount of lands you still get mana flooded or screwed pretty often.
People playing against Jared Boettcher experienced the pain of mana clumps 😂
TIL that mana-weaving has a name. I would only do this when first constructing a deck. After that, I would take my lands and randomly distribute them back into the deck, but everything else went on top for lots of shuffles. After Nika's video, I realized that my randomizing them back in the deck was pointless, and I should just shuffle more.
Thank you, Nika, for always trying to improve the game and teach people important lessons :)
And I imagine anyone who played against Trevor Humphries experienced the pain of a mana screw.
I've looked deeply into this from an information theory perspective - not for M:tG, but for setting up other games for a smooth experience (i.e., the crisis cards in BSG), where decks tend to end up in a clumped state by the end (and thus must be "de-clumped" to an extent to aid in randomization for setting up the next game).
Human shuffling *is* affected by the initial order (i.e., the initial biases) of the deck. Keep in mind that "true randomization" is practically impossible for human shufflers - an unbiased deck takes 7 riffle-and-cut shuffles for a 52-card deck (and it scales with the logarithm of deck size, so about 8 riffle-and-cuts for a 60-card M:tG deck). But again, a deck that has been "clumped" by prior play and cleanup is going to take far more riffle-and-cut shuffles - and I note that in your video, you neither use riffle shuffles, nor cuts, nor do you do it 8 times when demonstrating.
So if you *know* your deck has specific clumps in your deck before shuffling, it's incumbent on you to remove that bias from the deck first. However, to be clear, "mana-weaving" in this context isn't "removing all the clumps," but it *is* significantly reducing the bias from the prior game's ordering so that the size and number of clumps that *do* occur aren't egregiously outside of expectations from true randomization.
Decks *should* have their pre-game biases initially de-clumped in a *random* way - that means "mana-weaving," but *face-down* (as you want to reduce clumping to a randomly acceptable level, but not *eliminate* clumping). So if your deck has a 2:1 ratio (spells:mana), then "mana-weave" your cards, one at a time, into two or three piles - but again, all face-down, so you don't actually necessarily have mana in one pile and spells in another. After that, stack your two or three stacks atop one another, and proceed with at least 8 riffle-and-cut shuffles.
I remember once; I brought out a brand new deck. Ecerything was still in the piles that I had organized them in on Archidect.
Just slapped them together and started to shuffle. Shuffled like 20 times. And still my friends were amazed that I didn't pre-weave.
I mana weave after I'm done with a deck. The reason for this is so I can look through my deck and see what I have and what needs changing. My style of shuffling is to shuffle, make piles and then shuffle the piles together. I do this several times before I play any game of any card game. I then take the time after I'm done to weave, but that's for my own sake for changing things later, not for any advantage.
ok why do poeple mana weave, first because the deck does not feel properly mixed when you just put it up. having 10 consecutive lands means you did not shuffled the deck enouth when you first made it. or that the randomness was not properly made when you shuffled the deck. when you decide what you put inside your deck generaly cards follow up
4 card X, 3 card Y, 2 card Z, 4 card T, 4 card J, and finaly X amount of lands.
mana weave, breaks the deck when you first play it so that you don't get your 24 lands in a row. if after you did it once and the deck is properly shuffled, you do it again then yes you cheat. but first time is just saving time on the number of shuffles you have to do for them to be spreaded around. plus you technicaly shuffle the deck so it is random after that. and there is a way to proove it.
take 3 decks.
1rst one mana weave then shuffle
2nd one already shuffled deck that you shuffle again
3rd one freshly made deck with mana on one side creatures and spell on the other, then shuffle.
now take the first and second one and compare after you and some one else mixed them up.
now compare 3rd deck. and there you go. there is a diffenrece and the difference is.
1rst technicaly shuffled and has clumps, 2nd random totaly, 3rd disadvantage because clumps all over.
the 2 first ones are fine to play the last one may need more shuffling.
if both player manaweave on their first play then you take out the advantage of this methode so if someone does it, do the same. and there you go.
manaweaving is not an unfair advantage. unless you do it each time you shuffle your deck. it is not cheating, it is just a starting point for a new deck.
I never heard about it until today, I never thought about it like that. I might have done it with the intention to fairly spread out the cards after checking and checking the deck. But I never thought it was evenly spread inside the deck. I gotta shuffle way more now.