Tag Archives: Magic the gathering

Magic the Gathering – Top Decking part 1

My informant is a Magic the Gathering player, and he tells me that when he really needs a good card, he’ll tap his teck, and talk to his deck and say stuff like “Come on, deck!”  And then my informant says that he will pick the card up really slowly, and put it at the back of his hand and not look at it right away.  He takes his time before he fully looks at the card.  He believes that if he doesn’t look at it right away there is a better chance of being the card he needs.

When this person opens up new packs of Magic cards, he also does something similar.  The rare card in the pack is always at the back, and most players will just go right to that, but he prefers to look at every card before it, hoping that if he takes longer to get to the rare then it will be a better rare.

When I play Magic, often times I will be in situations like these, where I desperately need a good card or else I lose.  And I will say stuff like “Heart of the Cards” as I pull the card from the deck into my hand.  Other times I will pick the card up from the deck and, without looking at it, place it on the table in front of me.  After waiting a few seconds, I will pick it up slowly and look at it.  I have seen a lot of players who will says “give me something good” or “Give me a good one” before drawing, and then in response to the card they will say stuff like “not a good one” or “close enough” or “I can work with this” as though they are speaking to the deck.  While this is definitely featured in the TV show Yugioh, the tradition can been seen elsewhere.  When playing poker or blackjack, players will often ask for good cards.  While they may be talking to the dealer, said dealer IS the deck in a sense.  The practice of asking the deck for a card can also be observed in magic routines (magician magic, not Magic the Gathering) where a participant picks a card and then the magician must either find the card or summon it to the top.  In the latter case, the magician often asks the card to come to him or her.

Magic the Gathering – Top Decking part 2

I asked my informant if he had any rituals or practices for when he is playing Magic the Gathering, and he really needs to draw a certain card or cards.  He says that he does not have any such practices, but that his friend does.  His friend comes from Taiwan, and he says that in Taiwan, all the Magic players will knock on their deck when they are desperate for a card, like when the right draw is the difference between staying in the game or losing.  Also if his girlfriend is around or any of his buddies are around, the player will get all these people to also knock on the deck.  My informant says that if you believe in it, it increases your luck of drawing what you need.  It’s similar to “believing in the heart of the cards” like in the show Yugioh.  And when you do draw that card, you make a big, dramatic effort of unveiling the card.

I find it very intriguing that this informant says that the “knock on the deck” tradition is practiced by his Taiwanese friends, but my other informant on Top Decking rituals, who is American, also does this “knock on the deck” thing even though he has probably never heard of the Taiwanese folk belief.

Magic the Gathering – Pile Shuffling 1

My informant plays Magic the Gathering.  One of the things you do in a game of Magic, before the start of the game, is you shuffle up your deck.  There are no strict rules to how a player may go about shuffling his or her deck, but there are a few preferred methods out there.  My informant prefers the method known as the 7-pile shuffle.  He learned this method by reading posts online from a Magic blogger by the name of Mike Flores.  According to Flores, who is regarded by my informant as an “activist of sorts with regards to the way people shuffle,” the 7-pile shuffle method is the best way to shuffle ones deck.  The 7-pile shuffle method involves taking your deck in one hand (or half your deck if it is too big to hold in your hand all at once) and dealing it out into seven piles in the way one would deal hands in poker.  After dealing out the entire deck into these piles, the player then recombines these piles.  After performing this shuffling ritual, my informant will then riffle shuffle about 5 or 6 times before deeming the deck adequately shuffled.  If he thinks the deck is particularly bad before starting out (usually right after a build session, where cards are often next to copies of each other and thus very non-random), he will perform the 7-pile shuffle twice before riffle shuffling.

I am also a Magic the Gathering player and I also employ the 7-pile shuffle method.  After each pile has been dealt, I will stack the 7 piles into two piles, then riffle shuffle those together before starting more riffle shuffle.  I learned the 7-pile shuffle method from a friend who simply said it was a good way to shuffle.  It’s also a good way to make sure you have the right number of cards in the deck, since you know which pile the last card should end up in if you did it right.  I also like the 7-pile shuffle method because when you start a game of Magic, each player draws 7 cards, so 7 piles for 7 cards lines up nicely.

Magic the Gathering – Pile Shuffling 2

My informant spoke to me about rituals and practices of Magic the Gathering.  Of the most ritual acts of Magic is the shuffling ritual.  Since shuffling must always take place before a game, and since it involves the player’s deck, often something very personal to them, shuffling is very ritualistic.  While each player does it slightly differently, they almost always do it the same way and sometimes doing it differently gives you a bad feeling about the game.

The way my informant prefers to shuffle is with two runs of the 5-Pile shuffle, followed by riffle shuffling.  5-Pile shuffling is where you take the deck in one hand, or half the deck if it’s too big to hold, and you place cards from the top into five piles as though you were dealing out hands of poker.  You continue to place the cards into these piles until you have placed all the cards, then you pick them up and put them back into one big pile.  According to my informant, one of his friends told him this was the optimal way to shuffle the deck for good randomization.

I am also a Magic the Gathering player and I also employ the 7-pile shuffle method.  After each pile has been dealt, I will stack the 7 piles into two piles, then riffle shuffle those together before starting more riffle shuffle.  I learned the 7-pile shuffle method from a friend who simply said it was a good way to shuffle.  It’s also a good way to make sure you have the right number of cards in the deck, since you know which pile the last card should end up in if you did it right.  I also like the 7-pile shuffle method because when you start a game of Magic, each player draws 7 cards, so 7 piles for 7 cards lines up nicely.

Attached to the submission are two photos.  One photo is a demonstration of 5-pile shuffling and the other is a demonstration of 7-pile shuffling.