When I’m playing cards with my brother, I often bitch at him for not shuffling his deck a whole lot before games. Maybe he’ll “power shuffle” (which I now know is called “table shuffling”, distributing the cards into 5- 7 piles) once and then do a little “overhand shuffling”. I, on the other hand, will “power shuffle’ a couple of times each game, and then overhand shuffle quite a bit afterwards.
The funny thing is we both get mana choked/screwed about the same number of times. My brother finds this funny because when it happens to him I say it is because he doesn’t shuffle enough.
“Well, what is your excuse then?” he asks. “You suck at shuffling?”
Thanks to Mike Flores and his article over at Five with Flores, I know the answer to that question. I do, in fact, suck at shuffling.
According to Flores, table shuffling does not get rid of mana clumps or even do a decent job of randomizing a deck. In fact, he’s shown how a deck can be rigged by table shuffling. I think back to a FNM a month or so ago where a kid told me he was warned at a big-time event for “power shuffling”. Now I know why. When I did it, I always made sure to overhand shuffle quite a bit afterwards so nobody would think I was countin’ the cards.
However, if table shuffling isn’t so good at randomizing the cards, I’m going to learn to “riffle shuffle” as Mr. Flores suggests. I can think of a few games last Friday where I lost because I drew 4 non-land cards the entire game. In the B/W mirror, this really sucks, FYI. Most of the big-league players agree, fully randomizing your deck can really cut your losses due to repeated crappy draws. Who wouldn’t want that edge? Losing to some smart-ass kid with the deck his daddy built for him because you’re mana screwed is not fun.
Flores also mentioned the need for shuffling your opponents deck, as opposed to just cutting it. I’ve heard this before and follow this rule religiously. I’ve actually seen dudes mana-weave and then get all sad-faced when I pick up their deck and shuffle.
While I’m practicing my riffles and frowning at slightly bent cards, the guys at Grand Prix Seattle/Tacoma are playing away for the big money. I’m really curious to see what goes down. Five-Color Blood Braid finished first on Saturday, and Faeries *gasp* finished second. Just Jund color Bloodbraid Decks, B/W tokens and Cascade Swans are also in the mix. A lot of people must have expected Cascade Swans, because the fae look to make up 20% of the field. Ouch! I am curious to see who wins the battle between the Bloodbraid decks and Faeries.
Of course B/W might just pimp slap them both, but I think it is a tough fight for the weenies. Sweepers and counters; oh my…god, just let me have a few tokens already.
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