Subject: Re: (Crazy) Norwegian Style. Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 01:52:16 +0100 From: Bjorn Revil Aaron W. Holmes wrote: > Interresting post. I don't think the off topicness of it is in any > way a problem. Most great thoughts seem to come from off topic > ideas. I can see the benefits of both Sweedish and Norwegian styles > in competitive tournament environments. > However - Is that what deck building is all about? Do you build > decks to get lucky? Or is it more important to build decks that can > win consistently? Maybe that's where the (Crazy) in (Crazy) Norwegian > comes in. If Raade _does_ get lucky he's already got a great chance > of winning, because he won't be wasting late game draws on land, but > it seems that he inherently sacrifices some consistency. ... I think that the main problem is that magic is a game of both skill and luck. This means that the best player playing the best deck do not necessarily win. This is contrary to a game like chess, where a really superiour player can trust that his skill will assure him the tournament victory more certain than any gambling will. In chess it is wise to play skillfully, while in magic both skill and luck must be taken into account. So, how do you exploit your luck? Some players are generally known to be luckier than others. Typical examples are Zak Dolan and Olle Raade. Others are known to be constantly unlucky (Lestree, perhaps). Does this really mean that some players are born luckier than others? To me which is very rational minded this is not at all a satisfactory explanation. Instead I do believe that some players are very good at giving themself the chance to succeed and giving the opponent an opportunity to miss. Exploiting your luck is in my opinion not a case of "going all out" on every occasion. That road must lead only to defeat. My exampel of first turn swamp-brassman-unholy-unholy is of course just a joke and not a serious attempt on winning the game. Going completely crazy need much more careful and skillful planning than this. What I mean is that a very good player will SENSE the moments where his best chance of avoiding defeat is to take a gamble instead of play normal. During a long tournament this might be done once, perhaps twice, but not more. But excactly those one or two moments might spell the difference between winning the tourney or just place average. Statistically trying to rely on luck in each game, will consistently lead to defeat, even if you are the luckiest guy in the whole tournament. Well, then if luck is not to be relied upon at all, how do adapt the "crazy Norwegian" style at all? I think the answer lies in skillful play and deckbuilding (good guys are luckier than bad) AND in including some extra opportunities to get lucky! I have tried this by including main-deck dystopias and mind-bends in otherwise decent necros, by adding one titanias song and one forest in a normal millstone and by using cards like balduvian horde,control magic and unholy strength. Of course these kind of attempts sometimes loses games, but more often than not those games would have been lost anyway. Some people view chess as a game where the players should try to figure out the "best" moves. My attitude is that chess is a game of constantely producing threats until the opponent makes a mistake and loses. The same attitude goes for magic. By using those "random" threats like a sudden main-deck karma or a fireball from an otherwise blue/white deck you are making life much more difficult for your opponent even if those cards sometimes end up as useless cards in your hand. Provoking the opponent to make errors is simply much easier by using a few "off the wall" cards than just play a normal deck normally. And bad play by your opponent is probably the most consistent road to winning anyway. My blue white permission deck that I posted a couple of days ago included a tiny little sprinkle of cards which main purpose was to provoke my opponent into making mistakes. I only used one control magic, but always tried to use it on the first turn. For some players the threat of a control magic on their horde/specter/ernie is so devastating that they do not dare to play them if they are not sure they can kill them if they are being stolen. Of course this attitude is the shortest route to defeat, but it need to be provoked. The "crazy" style is a way to achieve this. If the threat of a snake basket or twice unholy -strengthed black knight provokes your opponent to do something he otherwise would not have done, you will perhaps be able to exploit this, not by going crazy, but by skillful play. I would also like to add a remark on Raades too few land style. If he really under-landed his deck, I think this is just a stupid thing to do. He have to live with this in every round during the whole tournament. Of course this will sooner or later (probably sooner) lead to defeat. What he probably did was to evaluate the number of lands needed in his deck in another way than most of us would have done, which probably is one of the reasons for why he is one of the best players in the world. In my opinion playing with too few lands is an underexploited opportunity in one particular situation. If the standing is one to one before the third game, and you feel that your win was lucky, and you will be crushed in the third game whatever you do. Why not go completely "swedish", side out three lands! for some more useable stuff and hope you draw enough lands anyway. It will probably be foolish not to! Bjorn Revil (a little sidenote of the names "Norwegian" or "Swedish" style. This probably sounds utterly excotic to most people out there, and could as well be replaced by Mongolian or Albanian. Of course in the real world people do not generally play in this way either in Norway or Sweden (as well as not ALL Dutch ALWAYS play four balances). Still I like the names and what they describe, so I suggest that we keep,em)