l2shuffle really, given you have the right shuffling technique, you will never wind up with a so-called terrible start.
In my jumpluff I will, given I give myself the right time to shuffle, start with an energy in my hand 8/10 times. And even if I don't, in 9/10 times, of those i start without energy, I will draw into one, on my first turn.
This is absolutely absurd. If you are using a proper shuffling technique, the probability of the specific occurences should begin to make themselves known.
Starting with an energy 8/10 times? No. WAY. If you run 6 energy in Jumpluff, which many people do, then your odds of opening with one of those energy is 55%.
8/10 is impossible to get consistently. Either you are stacking your deck- cheating, or you are absurdly lucky.
As far as drawing the energy 9/10 off of the 8th card when you don't open with one... I call BS on that too. It's a marginal increase in odds of starting with it.
Basically, this is exactly the kind of flawed reasoning I am trying to convince people to overcome.
Learning to shuffle should show you just how poor the odds of that great set up actually are. Opening with an energy 8/10 times means you are running 11-12 energy, about double what you are probably running in Jumpluff. I don't buy it.
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@Lawman: With all due respect to Silvestro, and in no way doubting he is a very good player, he won hs T8 match due to 4 tails on SSU (iirc). Winning on luck is still a possibility no matter the ages involved.
@p_f: I mean Palkia should run Lux Ball, even though it is an SP deck with no Claydol and likely no counter.
Winning usually requires luck, but to rely on it is irrational.
I don't and won't drive 6 hours to attend a tournament and rely on luck, rather than my own skill in deckbuilding, to guide myself to my goals.
As they say, and I agree with:
it's better to be lucky than good
aka MBN, but I can't do it
If you're not devoting adequate consistency cards to a deck, you will be doing precisely that- relying on luck which can't be controlled over skill which can be.
Darth: Stupid luck happens all the time, regardless of how well we can build a deck. At my first states, I only started with a supporter 3 times in 5 games of top cut, and only started with a supporter 3 times in swiss of 7 rounds. I started with a Cyrus once all day- even though the odds of opening with one is about 40%. I ran 4 Cyrus, 4 Rose/Collector, 2 Bebe-10 desirable opening supporters, and with those odds I should open with one 75% of the time, but did so only 50% of the time.
Luckily, though, SP has other non-supporters to rely on. With luxury ball (for my M2X counter [sorry, but again, I refuse to drive X hours, or go to a huge tournament and risk, every round, a possibility of an outright loss to a popular card]), pokemon communication, SP Radar, etc. I was able to usually get set up well enough to get to t8- where I got no supporter starts for 2 of the 3 games I had, and lost those same 2 games.
Luck of the draw can be influenced, but only so far.
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I've changed my deck so many times, it's not even funny. Now, after reading this, I'm second-guessing myself again. But I suppose, in the end, it all comes down to luck, huh?
It does! Proper guesswork, analysis, and deck tweaking only works until you sit down and shuffle up.
However, given the sheer amount of consistency and options we have available to us, I don't see why people allow luck to have such an impact on their competitive play.
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I always have decks issues........ Ive never made top cut...:nonono:
A problem you might have is deck consistency!
I have only LIGHTLY touched upon some basic concepts here. I would love to go into further analysis, especially beyond the swiss rounds.
When we consider best of three, how well can your deck set up in sudden death? How likely is it to achieve a very hard to beat combo? Will it achieve it less than 2 out of 3 times? More?
If a deck like Gardevoir has a T2 Gardevoir with DCE/Psychic ~66% of the time, you can expect to roughly win a lot of best of three matches. Getting the deck to meet that threshold is therefore important, and using the right combination of Moonlight Stadium, Warp Point, Switch, or Unown Q is important- as well as the right number of psychic energy and DCE, as well as the right number of pokemon search (both supporter and non supporter).
Testing usually seeks to confirm or deny the math that we can't really perform. It is really challenging to consider all the factors that go into a deck's set up, but if you can spend an hour doing combinations and probabilities, it might actually be as worthwhile as a hundred hours of playtesting. After all, playtesting is just giving oneself the tangible experience of the deck's expected performances (aside from allowing the player using the deck to improve his ability with said deck).