Subject: Re: Mike Long = Cheating Bastard
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 14:56:38 GMT
From: edt@umich.edu (Eric Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy

Kevin Grumball (kgrumball@cix.compulink.co.uk) wrote:

: Sorry, what does this mean? Do you mean arranging your lands so that
: they aren't bunched together after a game? I routinely split up all the
: cards I have just played, since I've artificially grouped them during
: play. I'm just re-randomising them. That includes splitting up the two
: black nights (or whatever).
: I always shuffle several times (full riffle + hand over hand shuffle)
: after doing so. I find that protectors cause the cards to stick
: together so grouping can be a problem.

Let's think about this mana weaving thing a little shall we?

First of all you have described what mana weaving is.  You split spells
and lands and then do a 2-1, 2-1 to get a perfect mix.  There are
several methods to get this perfect mix that cheaters use.  For
instance, there is the "random pile" method.

Discretely put the lands on the bottom of your deck and the spells on
top while picking up your deck.  Now make 5 or 10 random piles of
cards.  So you can put card 1 in pile 2 then card 2 in pile 1, card 3
in pile 3 card 4 in pile 5 card 5 in pile 4, and then you do it again
for the next layer of cards again choosing random piles for each layer
of cards.  If you do a pile shuffle twice this gives you a perfect mana
weave.  The whole thing about "random piles" is to throw off your
opponent.  Then you pick up your deck do a riffle shuffle and "break
the bridge".  To do this, you riffle your cards together.  Then you
bridge them back but instead of tapping the deck together you quickly
pull the two halves apart.  You can also do a shotgun shuffle where you
pick up half the deck and slide it in to the rest of the deck.

Another technique is the "top half" method.

Once again start by discretely putting your lands on the bottom and the
spells on the top.  Now you riffle like mad, but when you cut to riffle
you only take the top 15 or 20 cards (which are spells) and riffle them
into the other top half of your deck.  This entire operation of
riffling like mad is to deceive your opponent that you are randomizing
your deck.  Now after you have done this you once again do 2 pile
shuffles for a perfect mana weave.  To finish it you want to do either
a shotgun shuffle or break the bridge.

Now even if you do a single riffle shuffle of your opponent's deck the
mana weaver still has a great advantage because a single riffle doesn't
disturb the mana weave very much.

That's a lot of trouble to get a mana woven deck isn't it?  I wonder
why anyone would go to so much trouble?

Now a lot of people don't even try to pretend.  They will mana weave
right in front of you.  Then like you have said you will riffle a few
times afterwards.

Why do you mana weave before you shuffle?

Because you get a better distribution of cards and lands.

That is the only reason to mana weave.

Now the explanation that most people give as to why their mana weaving
is ok is because they say that they do lots of shuffling afterwards.

But look at what is happening.

1) you shuffle a lot but don't mana weave what happens?

your cards are not in as good of an order, they are either random if
you shuffle like mad or they are clumped

2) you mana weave first and then you shuffle what happens?

now your cards are in better spell-spell-land order

Notice also that "clumps" of lands and spells in magic are something
you should expect.  Just because you see "clumps" doesn't mean you are
shuffling badly.  If someone plays an 8 round swiss and never comes
close to mulliganning, he is either the luckiest magic player alive or
he is mana weaving.

Let's think about it.  If you claim that you shuffle enough to
randomize your cards and that it would be the same if you mana wove or
didn't then why the hell are you wasting 5 minutes of time of mana
weaving.

All mana weavers expect to get better draws by mana weaving their decks
before shuffling.  If you got the exact same results from not mana
weaving as you with mana weaving then there would be no point to it.
You wouldn't bother.

Decks which are mana-woven are not random.

It's cheating plain and simple to mana weave.

For a while it seemed that WOTC was in favor of mana weaving, who knows
why.  Even on appr the shuffler mana weaves for you because apparently
that's how a lot of players like it.

But mana weaving is cheating no matter how you slice it.

p.s. thanks to Nate Clark for showing me these methods of mana weaving
and his efforts to stop it on the pro tour.

--- edt