How strict do you play when playing serious decks with friends?

[JoshuaD]

How strict is everybody when playing with their friends?  I'm talking about a group of people who go to tournaments regularly and think hard about the game, not casual players.

Do you play like it's a tournament?  Do you allow small takebacks?  What's the general tone of the game?

[Webster]

How strict is everybody when playing with their friends?  I'm talking about a group of people who go to tournaments regularly and think hard about the game, not casual players.

Do you play like it's a tournament?  Do you allow small takebacks?  What's the general tone of the game?

Generally, when playing with friends, the tone of the game is, well, .... friendly, .... regardless of the level of play.

[Implacable]

Generally, when playing with friends, the tone of the game is, well, .... friendly

This should be in a signature.

At any rate, most of my play with friends is either small tournaments (Thursday Vintage, Friday Draft) or testing.  In the first, it's normal tournament play (REL nada), and in the latter small 'take-backs' are fine, but only happen rarely.  We like to try and simulate a tournament, but at the same time we like to have a good time and occasionally we'll take about a play before it happens. 

When playing casually with your friends, just don't be a douche and let whatever rolls roll.

[zeus-online]

We allow take backs, and sometimes even help each other figure out the correct play.
Playing with friends is for me an exercise and thus we try to help each other get better.

/Zeus

[LotusHead]

Team Vacaville allows any number of minor takebacks (even major ones), but if you scrub where Chalice of the Void is concerned, suck it up, you scrubbed.  No take backs on that. It happens to everyone. On that we simulate tourney rules to the nth degree...Chalice of the Void appeared on the scene the same time I discovered modern T1, and even though the Chalice is on the field, visible, everyone forgets about it at one point and that card will never go away ever ever ever...

Other than that, just casual and shit-talking.

[JACO]

I play serious Vintage decks against friends and foes to get better, and play relatively strictly. I shuffle my opponent's deck, make sure graveyard is in correct order, etc. I will still talk trash and joke around, but the point of testing is to get better, and by allowing takebacks and the like, neither you nor your opponent really get better. All you do is reinforce sloppy play.

Now if we're playing Type 4 or Cube, that's much more friendly, as there isn't much to gain by practicing those formats.

[Webster]

The point of testing is to get better, and by allowing takebacks and the like, neither you nor your opponent really get better. All you do is reinforce sloppy play.

This is incorrect. Having relaxed playsessions doesn't promote sloppy play in the tournament scene.

Playtesting itself serves as a method for understanding a matchup, whether a test card is good against something, discovering optimal lines of play, pattern recognition, etc.

What people need to understand are the differences between tournament play and non-tournament play. People who are unfamiliar with the former will have a higher tendancy to want to take plays back not because their practice sessions reinforced sloppy play, but rather because they never knew the difference between the two.

It's one thing to say that a lax playtesting environment doens't help people who don't understand the differences between sloppy and tournament play underestand those differences and prepare themselves for tournament play by simulating it. It's another thing to say that a lax playtesting environment promotes sloppy play in the first place.

[Implacable]

The point of testing is to get better, and by allowing takebacks and the like, neither you nor your opponent really get better. All you do is reinforce sloppy play.

This is incorrect. Having relaxed playsessions doesn't promote sloppy play in the tournament scene.

Playtesting itself serves as a method for understanding a matchup, whether a test card is good against something, discovering optimal lines of play, pattern recognition, etc.

What people need to understand are the differences between tournament play and non-tournament play. People who are unfamiliar with the former will have a higher tendancy to want to take plays back not because their practice sessions reinforced sloppy play, but rather because they never knew the difference between the two.

It's one thing to say that a lax playtesting environment doens't help people who don't understand the differences between sloppy and tournament play underestand those differences and prepare themselves for tournament play by simulating it. It's another thing to say that a lax playtesting environment promotes sloppy play in the first place.

Webster: do you never 'test for tournaments' in the sense that JACO is taking about?  In other words, do you never test exactly as though you were playing a Swiss round?  Because I agree with you on one hand, but on the other I think that JACO has a point.  In particular, when playing decks like Long it's critical that you develop the ability to formally and without mistakes play out a kill or meticulously play against a Shop deck.  At your level (I know you've done well on the PT circuit), do you no longer practice in this way?  Did you ever?

[The Demon]

We usually allow some take backs, but if you go on a long run of scrubbing it up in testing you get stuck with the play.  We also keep cards that have been seen via Duress or Thoughtseize  open on the table. 

[Tha Gunslinga]

Sloppy playtesting leads to sloppy play.  No takebacks, ever, is the way I rock it.

[meadbert]

Sloppy playtesting leads to sloppy play.  No takebacks, ever, is the way I rock it.

Bullseye!

When you lose in playtesting because of a dumb mistake you stay up all night kicking yourself for it and you do not make it again.

If you are allowed a take back and then win, then you soon forget you ever made the mistake and are doomed to repeat history!

[RaleighNCTourneys]

I welcome/encourage takebacks in testing b/c I want to test against the most optimal plays possible. It's not that hard to remember the correct play...

[Webster]

Webster: do you never 'test for tournaments' in the sense that JACO is taking about?  In other words, do you never test exactly as though you were playing a Swiss round?

When I test for tournaments, which isn't terribly often, I absolutely do not test the way JACO tests. Why? Because I've been immersed in the level of play required to compete at the highest level for so long. I know exactly what to expect, what I can get away with, and the way decisions will go. I playtest solely for the purpose of figuring out the format, not the skillset required to play it.

 Because I agree with you on one hand, but on the other I think that JACO has a point.  In particular, when playing decks like Long it's critical that you develop the ability to formally and without mistakes play out a kill or meticulously play against a Shop deck.

If you goldfish enough with combo, you should be able to develop the ability to quickly see lines of play. You don't need to be strict about it. You just need time. It's good to see what happens if you do X and then go back to see if Y is better. If you repeat enough scenerios, you'll get a good feel of what is likely to happen. It's better to know that X worked better than Y instead of just knowing that X worked.

At your level (I know you've done well on the PT circuit), do you no longer practice in this way?  Did you ever?

Like I said earlier, I don't test the way that JACO does. I don't find it productive personally. That isn't to say it's wrong, because it's not. People are different, and thus have different needs. I don't feel the need to practice for the purpose of improving sloppyness. I've tested IRL and on MODO (magic online) for high level events. I use magic online (mainly for drafting) which is basically tournament level practice. There are no takebacks simply because of the nature of the medium. Whether or not the practice online was more beneficial for I than had it been IRL with the same people is impossible to say.

[The Atog Lord]

My teammates and I are quite lenient about takebacks in testing. As Andystoke once said, "You test the deck, not the player." So, we test with an attitude of allowing takebacks, and are never cutthroat in testing.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

it really depends on why I'm playing. If we are testing out a deck, we will allow take backs, to see if the deck as the ability to overcome situations. Other than that no take backs. most of the time, I'd say no take backs is the way to do it

[LotusHead]

it really depends on why I'm playing. If we are testing out a deck, we will allow take backs, to see if the deck as the ability to overcome situations. Other than that no take backs. most of the time, I'd say no take backs is the way to do it

I suppose that in testing, a massive amount of dialog happens, except in the extremely rare case that I have a decklist proxied up, and want my opponent to know nothing about it (Flash, Tyrant Oath pre-popularity, Izzet Control, etc).

The take backs allow us to shit talk the other, talk about why said take backs make a better play and help us be better players.  As Webster said, knowing how to play in a tourney (time limits, floor rules, ubertechnical stuff) is what is expected, and I supposed that is the primary reason that Chalice of the Void is ALWAYS tourney level in our testing and even casual play.  Gotta play tight and especially not scrub with it on the field.

When it comes to trying to make an optimal play with limited info, we often flash our hands, and say, I was thinking about this play, but this might be better, and the opponent/tester gives his piece.  That's testing.

When it comes to the rigors of actual tourney behavior, that also comes up in testing and takebacks and dialog.  Much of Team Vacaville are seasoned veterans, but all of us have made bad decisions tourneywise whilst learning how to be tourney players.  (I basically picked LSV's brain apart at every opportunity on "Standings before last round" to find out how things work.  In facing JeffTheFob I learned about time limits and getting more wins than my opponent in the allloted time (unless playing for the draw).

Testing is mostly about Deck Matchups and near-Mirror Matchups rather than the rigors of Tourney play.  Except Chalice.  If you scrub, you scrub.

Dialog often happens at a tourney, even versus Arch Nemesi unless one or both players have secret SB/MB tech that had yet to be revealed.  Talking with real opponents after the match proves valuable knowledge.

[M.Solymossy]

It's really like Football.  the closer to the event I get, the less lenient I am about take-backs.  When  I'm perfecting the playbook(deck) i allow takebacks, but when I'm perfecting my team(my playskill) when I get closer to an event, CUTTHROAT!

[LordHomerCat]

My teammates and I are quite lenient about takebacks in testing. As Andystoke once said, "You test the deck, not the player." So, we test with an attitude of allowing takebacks, and are never cutthroat in testing.

I agree 100% with this.  Particularly when you test with people like Twaun (that kid is awful at the kitchen table), I generally will allow takebacks and stupid plays and on things that I would expect a good opponent to not mess up.  Basically, when I win a game in testing because my opponent misplayed or something, I don't feel like its evidence that my deck is good, but rather that my testing opponent sucks with their deck or something.  That doesn't really help me get better nor does it help me get an idea for the matchup nor does it teach me about whats important in that matchup, so basically it doesn't actually do anything except pass some time playing cards.  And, if I wanted to do that, I would probably Cube rather than test.  I basically never test with full tournament setup, particularly not for my opponent, because I don't learn anything when they throw games away.

[Eddie]

Sloppy playtesting leads to sloppy play.  No takebacks, ever, is the way I rock it.

Bullseye!

When you lose in playtesting because of a dumb mistake you stay up all night kicking yourself for it and you do not make it again.

If you are allowed a take back and then win, then you soon forget you ever made the mistake and are doomed to repeat history!

Why are takebacks always considered on mistakes. We do lots of takebacks, but we do it to see how the situation will evolve differently. Some nuances are tested like this. If we have a difficult choice we usually drop our hand on the table and work out the best plays with more than 2 people. It's interesting to see other peoples strategy. This is one of the reasons why I love to see different people play with my deck and see all of their plays. Why do they play card x while I would play y?

[lplaat]

The answers in this thread mostly seem to regard playtesting.

I'd like to ask the original question, but than with regards to casual games (i.e. multiplayer total chaos for example).

We play even more stict than tournament: mana is in the pool when the land/sol ring is tapped etc, no untapping there. When targeting an illegal creature with terror you have to choose another valid target etc. etc. Our motto: "think before you play".

Just curious to hear how others handle stuff.

Great thread!
lplaat

[LordHomerCat]

The answers in this thread mostly seem to regard playtesting.

I'd like to ask the original question, but than with regards to casual games (i.e. multiplayer total chaos for example).

We play even more stict than tournament: mana is in the pool when the land/sol ring is tapped etc, no untapping there. When targeting an illegal creature with terror you have to choose another valid target etc. etc. Our motto: "think before you play".

Just curious to hear how others handle stuff.

Great thread!
lplaat

That's not being "more strict than tournament", that's just being jerks.  The tournament rules are as they are for a reason, so that stupid things don't happen (like when you play Terror but there aren't any legal targets: I've seen more than a couple casual players say that it just goes to the graveyard then).  There's no reason to not allow people to physically move their lands around and stuff until they are satisfied.  If a spell is legal, then no takebacks and stuff is fine.  But to say "Oh, well that's not a legal target, so instead of just backing up to when something illegal happened, instead we are just gonna make you randomly target something else", well, I don't see the point of that other than making the game not fun for anyone.

In casual play, I'm pretty casual.  Takebacks are fine, if you play something, sit for a second, then realize it was awful, then a takeback is hardly a big deal to me.  Paul even specifies an extra phase in playing spells in Type 4 (paraphrased as the "Oh wait..." step), so that when you do something really dumb, and then remark "Oh wait, that's horrible", you get to take it back because that's just unfun.  I don't see any reason to be a super more-than-the-rules nazi particularly in casual games.

[LSV]

I think the issue of takebacks or not is going to be different depending on the level of familiarity you have with tournaments and strict play in the first place. Like Webster said (and usually its us battling each other when we test), we are both comfortable enough with tournament play that we don't need additional reinforcement of being extremely strict. We would rather just see how the matchup should play out, assuming optimal play, and that includes going back/doing things differently.

However, for people who have not played in an extensive amounts of tournaments, strict playtesting does help quite a bit. If you are not completely comfortable playing in the most strict of situations, it only makes sense to do some practice under those conditions to ensure that you will be comfortable and at ease with playing a high-level event. Practice is designed to make your game better, and for some that includes playing without takebacks if thats something you want or need more experience with. At this point Webster or I (or Shay, judging from his post) seem to be satisfied that we can make the distinction between tournament and practice without the need for very strict rules, and are more interested in seeing how the decks work and which is better.

[LotusHead]

However, for people who have not played in an extensive amounts of tournaments, strict playtesting does help quite a bit. If you are not completely comfortable playing in the most strict of situations, it only makes sense to do some practice under those conditions to ensure that you will be comfortable and at ease with playing a high-level event. Practice is designed to make your game better, and for some that includes playing without takebacks if thats something you want or need more experience with.

Various memebers of Team Vacaville needed at least some experiience playing with the big boys at tourney levels (say, at least 5 tournies), beyond that, Shit Talking with takebacks usually gets the point across.  Teaching them to mulligan is something I haven't figured out how to do yet, other than "grow a pair, your hand sucks noob!".

In testing (and really, anything outside of strict judge controlled tourney play) is by definition casual play, getting teammates to play tourney level is actually much of the testing.  (teaching them about priority, stack issues (smokestack tanglewire, etc).  Actually picking what card is best to play is usually self=explanitory.  Having extensive meta-knowledge helps optimize that and helps prevent being blind-sided by new or gods-forbid existing tech.

Making optimal plays involves dialog, and much trash talking.

Yeah, Team Vacaville- We're not pros.



Neat thread by the way.

[ScottHatch(EYSPG)]

Casual T1 for me has always been playing with my younger brother and my good friend next door.

You may not want to do what we do.  Its entirely casual.  Yeah, me and my buddy play very strict to each other and work each other's deck, down to the last Yawgmoth's Will, but if I lose three games in a row, I'll start tossing his FoW's across the room, when he tries to play them.

Yay for home-land advantage. hahaha.

[Razvan]

We allow take backs, and sometimes even help each other figure out the correct play.
Playing with friends is for me an exercise and thus we try to help each other get better.

/Zeus

more or less the reason for testing. you make a clear mistake, you learn (hopefully), then the game can progress at a closer pace. in t1, usually, most mistakes can be disastruous

[lplaat]

The answers in this thread mostly seem to regard playtesting.

I'd like to ask the original question, but than with regards to casual games (i.e. multiplayer total chaos for example).

We play even more stict than tournament: mana is in the pool when the land/sol ring is tapped etc, no untapping there. When targeting an illegal creature with terror you have to choose another valid target etc. etc. Our motto: "think before you play".

Just curious to hear how others handle stuff.

Great thread!
lplaat

That's not being "more strict than tournament", that's just being jerks.  The tournament rules are as they are for a reason, so that stupid things don't happen (like when you play Terror but there aren't any legal targets: I've seen more than a couple casual players say that it just goes to the graveyard then).  There's no reason to not allow people to physically move their lands around and stuff until they are satisfied.  If a spell is legal, then no takebacks and stuff is fine.  But to say "Oh, well that's not a legal target, so instead of just backing up to when something illegal happened, instead we are just gonna make you randomly target something else", well, I don't see the point of that other than making the game not fun for anyone.

In casual play, I'm pretty casual.  Takebacks are fine, if you play something, sit for a second, then realize it was awful, then a takeback is hardly a big deal to me.  Paul even specifies an extra phase in playing spells in Type 4 (paraphrased as the "Oh wait..." step), so that when you do something really dumb, and then remark "Oh wait, that's horrible", you get to take it back because that's just unfun.  I don't see any reason to be a super more-than-the-rules nazi particularly in casual games.

Ouch, that was harsh....

I was just telling how we play, I didn't ask anyone to judge that. Your reply seems to show you feel superior in the way you handle stuff. Why do you think you can judge that we're not having fun when playing strict. Stuff you like isn't necessarily stuff others like as well. You don't seem to find "our rules" acceptable; fine, don't use them. I was just inquiring how others play when playing casual, but "for the win". We hardly ever play tournaments so we get our "magic-competion" from our "casual games".

To be honest, as I remember before the 6th ed. rules change, untapping lands when unsatisfied wasn't allowed, but I'm not sure. Please don't bring up the "interrupt vs instant" debate, we play by most of the post-6th ed. rules. I definately think you have a point when you say rules are there for a reason. Perhaps we should change our habits and allow takebacks, but as you know, changes are always met with resistance. I'll discuss it with my friends.

Thanks for the input, hopefully others will share how they play when playing "casual but for the win".

cheers,
lplaat