we probably don't understand the london mulligan very well yet

My friend Justin Simpson reached out to me asking if I could help with a Magic related math question (or is it a math related Magic question?). He wanted to know what the optimal deck construction was for a deck with nothing but mountains and Lightning Bolts, but with 99 card decks and 40 life instead of 60 & 20, presumably for some EDH-related metrics.

my other blog

Not magic related, but here's a link to my other blog. It's mostly personal stuff.

https://amajreflections.blogspot.com/

my golden age of Magic

In response to this tweet from Rachel Agnes:

the hard way - PT Richmond report

I have two drafts sitting in my inbox that both have some form of the title "competitive magic post-mortem". I haven't been feeling too optimistic about Magic in 2019 due to all the turbulence with announcements and such, so I had a lot of thoughts about what I perceived as the end of tournament Magic as we know it, only to be too lazy to finish the post and have it become obsoleted by Wizards finally making an announcement.

I feel a little bit better about the future of competitive Magic lately, but not really enough to get super attached to it again.

GP DC and the quest for Gold

Recently I moved from my hometown and childhood home of Lanham, MD to Reston, VA so I could move in with my partner and be closer to work. Reston is OK, but it has the distinct advantage of being about 15 minutes away from the Dulles Expo Center, where they usually host the GPs they have in "DC".

I'm at the tail end of my quest for Gold, and I'm burned out like crazy, so I really appreciated getting to play an event without having to travel very far. I practiced as much as I could with the format - I played in two release events, did maybe 5 phantom drafts, and played maybe 5 sealed leagues on modo. I like both the sealed and the draft format a lot! When you draft and build the decks, it feels like you just got a bunch of packs as a gift or something and you're making decks to play with your friends at the lunch table. The synergies and interactions that are good also happen to be fun. I was very excited for the GP.

I needed 4 total points between DC and Seattle, so I was mostly just trying to make day 2. I tend to be pretty good at going 11-4 in any given GP, so if I could just go 11-4 twice in these two events I'd make Gold. My goal was to just make day 2.

The Main Event

This was the deck I opened.

GP Calgary mini report

I went to Calgary for the GP in search of pro points and more or less accomplished my goal - I got 2 of them, as well as $400 for 24th place. I finished 11-4.

unfiltered thoughts from PT Cleveland - the good, the bad, and the ugly

The Good

I top 8ed a PT. That's cool!

RNA #1

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A bag of bugles, a bolt, a washer, and a check for $1370

This is a Magic card story. A lot of the card-specific details have been left out to make it more accessible. (If you’re a Magic player, you’re probably smart enough to fill in those details on your own anyway, but feel free to ask me anything you’re curious about.)
*Some small updates for 2018 - Almost all of my friends play Magic and know what a Grand Prix is, so I went through and cleaned up some of the terms.*

US Nationals 2018 Report - by Alex Majlaton *24th*

Every once in a while, a tournament comes along that makes you remember why you started playing in tournaments. A tournament that reminds you that you can still have a blast playing Magic. A tournament that makes you want to write a tournament report. That's what Nats was for me.

I played four straight weeks of tournaments (GP DC, PT Richmond, the team RPTQ, and GP Vegas) so I was unbelievably burned out and very disinterested in Magic (especially Standard), so I skipped GP Pittsburgh despite it being so close to me. Felt great - I don't regret it for even one second. Even though I was so tired of Magic, I still really wanted to attend Nats.

GP Phoenix thoughts - Affinity in 2018

While preparing for GP Phoenix, Mark Jacobson linked an interesting blog post by Allen Wu. (You can find his blog here.) The post was about using Monte Carlo simulations to find the likelihood of certain opening hands for Eldrazi Tron. The conclusion he had drawn (at least, with respect to Eldrazi Tron) was that you should be willing to mulligan to 5 cards in search of a busted opening hand, because it happens more often than you might think. The blog post is super interesting and I recommend reading it.

Lessons from GP Memphis

At GP Memphis, I had a situation that I've been thinking about a lot.

I played Ari Lax's Naya Monsters deck (with shouts to Bobby Fortanely, Ethan Gaieski, and Scott Lipp). Despite how I felt about it after day 1, I think the deck is at least fine and probably really good. Knowing what I know now, I'd certainly make some changes, but having been partially involved in the development of the deck, I still believe the theory behind its construction to be sound.

XLN #1

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Tommy KLD #1

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Identifying strategies and strategy changes

Analyzing games is helpful, but one thing I think a lot of people do that looks like analysis but could actually be harmful is to review the game and ask themselves, "what could I have done differently?" Just because you lost, doesn't mean that you did something wrong - you could have chosen the strategy with the highest winning percentage, and just had something not break your way. Asking
what you could have done differently is a great way to occasionally convince yourself that the correct line you took in a game is worse than the one that actually would have won, and you'll start to associate negative outcomes to correct patterns of thinking.

My Hall of Fame Ballot for 2016

I crossed the pro point threshold to have a Hall of Fame vote again, and I am very excited about it. I always love reading about other peoples' ballots, and I'm so happy to contribute my thoughts about mine.

Sealed deck thoughts for Actual Drafters group

Agree with all of this. I've been losing a lot of league matches on modo as well and I've been trying to put together some observations.

It seems to me like there are multiple dimensions of strategy - aggro, control, and combo (hey just like in constructed!).

SOI #1

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