A topic of discussion: Scoop now, or no?

[LotusHead]

  If I sense that I am purely beaten on the board I will often scoop to ensure I have a shot at winning game three and taking the match.  Especially against good players who I know may be trying to drag out game one, and thus stalling me out in game two.

This came up in the rules forum.

I myself played a workshop aggro deck to 3rd/4th out of 24 last week, and game 2, round 1 I was faced with this dilemma.

I won game 1 because I had beats on the board (Juggernaut, maybe Karn/Triskelion) early and my opponent could not do anything about it.

I conceeded game 2 when my opponent and I were BOTH at 20 life, he had 9 cards in hand (Intuition AK for 3 and 4) and I had shit on the board. There was about 10 minutes left before time would be called (maybe 15 minutes).

My reasoning was that on game 3, I will go first, and possibly get Chalice for 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 first turn, or Crucible/Waste, or a threat or something game 3.  Point is, I would go first, and kick ass...

I lost that game and the match because my opponent had or brainstormed into Yawgmoth's Will, Demonic Tutor and other broken stuff.

The question:  Should I have played out game 2 to see what happens, even though I was CERTAIN he has at least 3 counters, some draw cards/tutors and say, 4 mana sources in hand?  or should I have scooped to the inevitable and tried out game 3 hoping I would win?

My thoughts after the fact:  I wanted to win round 1.  I thought I had a better chance game three than finishing off game 2 and losing real bad.  My deck didn't neccessarily have a combo finish (I use the attack step and no Colossus/Oath)

More thoughts after the fact:  A draw is better than a loss.  If I continued game 2, and played it out to it's end (with me losing), then game 3 might not actually finish (resulting in a draw). 

Did I make an OK decision to scoop at 20 life game 2 to get on with game 3?

I played The Gilded Claw and my opponent played T1T.

EPILOGUE: I did make top 8 in said event.  Actually, top 4.  I lost to this opponent in the semi finals.  Congrats to my opponent for defeating me twice.

[Gabethebabe]

Your action looks like a very reasonable one.

It didn´t pay off because you were unlucky and that is what makes you doubt now, but I think if you would have played game 2 until the end and drawed the 3rd game in a favorable/winning position due to time constraints, you would have been kicking yourself a lot harder than you are now.

So forget about it. You did the percentage action and statistics show that the percentage action does not always win.

[forests failed you]

If you have game one and it looks like you can stall out game two;  I will try to stall out game two.  But if I know I am going to lose I conceed as quickly as possible.  I scooped up a game two at Richmond when I kept a hand of Recall and five land, and had my Recall Misdirected on the first turn.  I knew I couldn't win that game and I'd rather go to game three and have time to win, than play a losing battle for ten minutes.

Especially when you are playing the deck with a slower kill condition, sometimes it is just better to accept defeat than to waste time.  You only have fifty minutes to get two wins, I would advise everyone to try and use those minutes to their advantage. 

[benthetenor]

I would probably have played it out. If you lose, then it's a draw which isn't that bad. You could theoretically win, unless of course you've Duressed him and know that he has more counters/answers than you have threats. If he cannot win, then you still win the match. Worst case, he kills you and you don't have time to play out a third game, but a draw really isn't that bad.

[Jacob Orlove]

A draw is terrible when you have a good shot at just winning the game instead. A workshop deck on the play has a tremendous advantage, and the odds of winning that last game should be high enough to be better than a probable draw. The reason for this is that a win is 3 points, while a draw is only 1 point. Even if you have only a 50% chance at winning game 3, that's an average of 1.5 points, so over the course of several events, you'll do better overall to just scoop and go to game 3. If you're favored in game 3 (eg, good matchup, being on the play, whatever), then those odds get even better. If you have a two out of three chance of winning that third game, then the value of scooping goes up to an average of 2 points, which is twice as good as a draw in the long run.

Granted, in any individual situation, you can lose that third game and end up with 0 points that time, but if you keep making the correct play (scooping a lost game), then over time your results will be much better than if you just played for a draw.

[LotusHead]

Thanks for the responses so far...

The question:  Should I have played out game 2 to see what happens, even though I was CERTAIN he has at least 3 counters, some draw cards/tutors and say, 4 mana sources in hand?  or should I have scooped to the inevitable and tried out game 3 hoping I would win?

My thoughts now on the matter are the benefits of playing out game 2.

With say, 10 minutes to go, and an opponent who naturally plays things out very slowly (no slam on him, it's just how he plays), my opponent may not have been able to flat out win game 2.  (We were both at 20).  How much should I have considered the possibility of game 2 being a draw? (and thus winning that match since I won round 1)

Keep in mind that I had no idea what his kill was at this point (I could guess Tendrils and Tinker for Colossus), but I could have chosen to simply topdeck threats and have him counter them (or topdeck wastelands, chalice, welder, etc) and have him burn off excess draw/control cards.

Thoughts?

[gustoh]

I was actually in this situation a few weeks back except I was on the other end. We were playing a T1T mirror and my opponent casted AK for one and at his end step I casted Intuition for triple AK. During my turn he Forced my AK for 4 and then during his turn I Drained his AK for 5. I then drew my last AK and casted AK for 6 and my opponent then scooped.

Acouple things struck me about this. First of all he won game 1 and there was about 10 minutes left in the round and with playing a control mirror, I was almost assured that we'd end up taking a draw. (I actually ended up losing to Tinker-Colossus with FOW backup) When he annonuced that he scooped I looked at my top 4 cards and 3 of them were mana sources(2 land and 1 mox) and the 4th was a Mystical Tutor. I know I had two more cards to draw but just the first 4 didn't seem like enough for me to win that turn.

I feel you should have just played the situation out. Worst case scenario would have been he ends up beating you and you have to go to a game 3 with a high possibility of a draw. By scooping you ensured your opponent that he had a chance to win the match as well.

LT...

[LotusHead]

I feel you should have just played the situation out. Worst case scenario would have been he ends up beating you and you have to go to a game 3 with a high possibility of a draw. By scooping you ensured your opponent that he had a chance to win the match as well.

LT...

Thanks for the advice.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that drawing is always better than losing, and a climb up the "I lost game 1" ladder may be easier that climbing up the "I won game one" ladder.  This came into play when paired against a teammate Round 2 out of five (We both won round 1 and we were both confident of our decks)

Maybe possibly, losing round 2 with a few minutes left for game 2 would mean that either A) The game really really should be a draw or B) I might really screw my opponent and beat down with Trike or Juggernaught game 3.

I am still undecided on the best course of action.

Quote Fixed. -Klep

[BigMac]

Especially when i do not know what the wincondition of my opponent is i will have them play it out.  Especially when i have won the first game. However, i play combo and can win really fast.

If you play the control mirror and you have won game 1 and am certain to lose game two, it really depends on how much time you have left in the round. But i probably would play it out anyways, if only to see their deck so i know what to expect game three.

When in front 1-0 i probably would like to see them win always. Having enough time to win always means you also have enough time to lose. This is vintage and  both people can go broken the last game. I would rather go for a draw than a chance on winning/loosing.