Odd distributions of cards at PT2...
Cathy Nicoloff
I have overheard from a couple people at PT2 about the booster draft
and how it was run. I was surprised to learn that the packs were
_not_ sealed. They had been previously opened by WotC and cards
removed, most notably the ante cards. They were then sealed with a
logo and placed at specific tables for specific people... not randomly
at the time of distribution, as you'd expect.
If hearsay is true, Weissman was in 2nd place at the end of the first
day of the booster draft. Entire tables were getting extremely bad
cards, and entire tables were getting extremely good cards. At the
end of the second day, Weissman got seated at a table of extremely bad
cards and didn't retain even a modicum of his lead the day before.
This seems somewhat... fishy to me. You'd expect that leading people,
if the card distribution were truly random, to at least finish
somewhere close to where they were the day previous. I would have
expected anyone in the top eight the day before to finish at least in
the top 12 or so. Also to note, almost _none_ of the exceptionally
good players made the top 8. We got, instead, people we'd never heard
of... presumably people who sat at the tables that happened to get
actual Direct Damage, which an *entire other table* completely failed
to get. I hear that a couple Immolation was the best they did with
those cards... oh, and a Bottle of Suleiman. If those were the best
cards at that table, no wonder they lost.
Congrats to the winner - I hear he's a good player and I believe that.
But why were so many of the other good players entirely absent from
the top echelons of the tourney? These are the players who went on to
do well in Alliances sealed deck, after all, dealing with cards they
had never seen before. It seems ludicrous to assume that they would
be that terrible at booster draft.
I don't suspect foul play, but I do wonder what cards WotC took out of
the packs. Did anyone actually get a Balance, a card I have heard was
not seen by the spectators? Why did entire tables get crappy rares
and even crappy commons, while other tables got Bolts and Fireballs
and Floods? Why were these cards, as I hear, not thrown together into
a box and then shaken vigorously in open view and then given to the
contestants?
Simple cards in booster draft and sealed deck are often the most
powerful. Flood. A single Fireball. A landwalker. Giant Slug.
Coumbajj Witches. Clay Statues. Lightning Bolt. Carnivorous Plant.
Bog Imp. Immolation. Weakness. Fissure. Etc... mostly commons. It
simply defies me how any random distribution of sealed boosters could
fail to spread such wonder cards somewhat equally - yet was had great
discrepancies in the quality of cards at each table in PT2.
If anyone knows the processes WotC used to unseal the boosters, remove
the cards, and then reseal the cards with their logo... and especially
which cards they removed, I'd be curious. I'm not trying to propose a
conspiracy theory. I'm just trying to get some other people wondering
what the hell happened.
Cathy Nicoloff =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= qu...@nexusprime.org
"Let's see if I've got this straight. It's a lazy Saturday afternoon,
and there's this couple lying naked in bed reading the Encyclopaedia
Brittanica to each other and arguing about whether the Andromeda
Galaxy is more 'numinous' than the Resurrection. Do they know how to
have a good time, or don't they?" - Carl Sagan, _Contact_
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Daniel Gray
qu...@nexusprime.org (Cathy Nicoloff) writes:
>I have overheard from a couple people at PT2 about the booster draft
>and how it was run. I was surprised to learn that the packs were
>_not_ sealed. They had been previously opened by WotC and cards
>removed, most notably the ante cards. They were then sealed with a
>logo and placed at specific tables for specific people... not randomly
>at the time of distribution, as you'd expect.
The booster draft was well-run. What WotC did was take several boxes
of boosters and open them all. Any booster that contained an ante card was
then thrown away(since they couldn't think of a good way to randomly
substitute another rare without bringing a huge stack of rares with them,
which they didn't have). The cards were all marked with purple blue mana
symbols. Each booster had its marking placed at one of eight locations(top
lr/, middle-high l/r, middle-low l/r, or bottom l/r). This was not only to
determine where at a table of eight people this booster would go, but it also
avoided the problem of people cheating by trading marked cards they got. Tom
Wylie or one of the other judges could lay out an entire deck and tell just
from the markings whether or not it was a legal deck.
The boosters were then sealed in small plastic boxes, bundled
together(4E + 1 HL) and stuck in boxes. Before each wave of draft, the judges
and referees would stick a bundle, according to its marking, at each of the
eight places at each drafting table(top left would be #1 through on down to
bottom right at #8).
>If hearsay is true, Weissman was in 2nd place at the end of the first
>day of the booster draft. Entire tables were getting extremely bad
>cards, and entire tables were getting extremely good cards. At the
>end of the second day, Weissman got seated at a table of extremely bad
>cards and didn't retain even a modicum of his lead the day before.
>This seems somewhat... fishy to me. You'd expect that leading people,
>if the card distribution were truly random, to at least finish
>somewhere close to where they were the day previous. I would have
>expected anyone in the top eight the day before to finish at least in
>the top 12 or so. Also to note, almost _none_ of the exceptionally
>good players made the top 8. We got, instead, people we'd never heard
>of... presumably people who sat at the tables that happened to get
>actual Direct Damage, which an *entire other table* completely failed
>to get. I hear that a couple Immolation was the best they did with
>those cards... oh, and a Bottle of Suleiman. If those were the best
>cards at that table, no wonder they lost.
There were "bad" tables during the first day of drafting and during the
Juniors drafting as well. Table #12 during the first day, which my friend Kai
Martin was sitting at, had only 6 flyers at the entire table. Table #2 during
the second wave first day, which I judged at, was incredible, allowing ONE
player to get over 10 flyers with plenty more to go around for everyone else.
The result? Only 1 person at table #12 made top 64. Five of the eight at table
#2 made top 64.
I don't realyl think there was anything "fishy" about it. It was just
pure, random card distribution luck. If you want to blame anyone, blame Carta
Mundi for the imperfections of the sorting process. Presumably all the cards
at a given table(4E, at least) were taken from the same box-- with the way
boxes often run, I'm not surprised that one could go 16 packs with no Fireball
or whatever. It happens(a lot). The only MAJOR irregularity, which I heard
about while talking to Brian Weissman, was that one table during the top 64
draft had several packs with duplicate commons(like 2 COP: Red in row, etc.).
This, of course, happens too(I once had an entire box of Revised where each
pack had 11 of the same common).
>Congrats to the winner - I hear he's a good player and I believe that.
>But why were so many of the other good players entirely absent from
>the top echelons of the tourney? These are the players who went on to
>do well in Alliances sealed deck, after all, dealing with cards they
>had never seen before. It seems ludicrous to assume that they would
>be that terrible at booster draft.
Simple-- they got bad luck. This happens in any sealed deck or booster
draft tournament(although the luck factor is much higher in sealed deck than
in draft). It's also possible that many players had "bad" pairings(that is,
pairings against players with significantly better decks or players with decks
that take advantage of a weakness in the player's deck). This is Magic, a card
game, and no amount of play skill can overcome luck. The motto of most of the
PT players I talked to was "I'd rather get lucky than just be good."
>I don't suspect foul play, but I do wonder what cards WotC took out of
>the packs. Did anyone actually get a Balance, a card I have heard was
>not seen by the spectators? Why did entire tables get crappy rares
>and even crappy commons, while other tables got Bolts and Fireballs
>and Floods? Why were these cards, as I hear, not thrown together into
>a box and then shaken vigorously in open view and then given to the
>contestants?
They didn't "take" any cards out per se. They simply pitched whole
packs with ante cards as their rare. Everything else was left alone. Why some
packs had more or less cards than they should've can come from two things--
poor sorting at the plant(not likely, with as many short and long packs as
there were), or when the packs were being stuck in the boxes, some mistakes
were made and extra cards were stuck in or some were left out.
Someone did get a Balance-- Max Szalgor, the junior champ, had one
during the first day of juniors play. Crappy rares happen-- look at the 4E
rares, and see how many of them are easily useful in a limited environment
like booster draft, as compared to the commons.
Everyone who got hosed(especially Mark Chalice and Brian Weissman,
who, if anybody, deserved to make top 8) was simply the victim of bad luck.
There really isn't anyway to overcome it the way WotC did the cards. Perhaps
if they had had some sort of "duplicate draft"(where each table has the exact
same packs of cards, everyone drafts[differently, you assume], and then during
the tournament no one from the same table plays each other), they might have
solved this problem, but it would have created other ones(specifically the
logistical nightmare of running a tournament were certain pairings are illegal).
>Simple cards in booster draft and sealed deck are often the most
>powerful. Flood. A single Fireball. A landwalker. Giant Slug.
>Coumbajj Witches. Clay Statues. Lightning Bolt. Carnivorous Plant.
>Bog Imp. Immolation. Weakness. Fissure. Etc... mostly commons. It
>simply defies me how any random distribution of sealed boosters could
>fail to spread such wonder cards somewhat equally - yet was had great
>discrepancies in the quality of cards at each table in PT2.
This is true, but not all commons are created equally. Direct damage
and Flood are very, very good, while most of the creatures are good, but not
"awesome." Each table had at least one or two of these good cards, I'm sure,
it's just that not everyone at a given table can get the "best" cards for the
colors he or she is playing. You also have to take into account the "proximity
screw," where the person sitting in the middle of three people playing the
same color gets bigtime hosed in that color(as, I was told, happened to Mark
Chalice during the top 64 draft-- he was playing red and stuck between two
guys playing red, one of whom was my friend Ken Roth).
>If anyone knows the processes WotC used to unseal the boosters, remove
>the cards, and then reseal the cards with their logo... and especially
>which cards they removed, I'd be curious. I'm not trying to propose a
>conspiracy theory. I'm just trying to get some other people wondering
>what the hell happened.
There was no conspiracy. I outlined the process to the best of my
knowledge(I only judged the draft and tournament, and was not there when they
marked and sealed the cards), and I don't think WotC had any real vested
interest in making sure certain players got good cards. The seating was random
anyways-- there were two waves of draft for the first day, and you were given
your drafting seat as you checked in.
>Cathy Nicoloff =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= qu...@nexusprime.org
>"Let's see if I've got this straight. It's a lazy Saturday afternoon,
>and there's this couple lying naked in bed reading the Encyclopaedia
>Brittanica to each other and arguing about whether the Andromeda
>Galaxy is more 'numinous' than the Resurrection. Do they know how to
>have a good time, or don't they?" - Carl Sagan, _Contact_
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dan Gray
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel M. Gray
Department of History
University of California, Santa Barbara
Alan Cade
qu...@nexusprime.org (Cathy Nicoloff) wrote:
>I don't suspect foul play, but I do wonder what cards WotC took out of
>the packs. Did anyone actually get a Balance, a card I have heard was
>not seen by the spectators? Why did entire tables get crappy rares
>and even crappy commons, while other tables got Bolts and Fireballs
>and Floods? Why were these cards, as I hear, not thrown together into
>a box and then shaken vigorously in open view and then given to the
>contestants?
I played in the Juniors division, and noticed some interesting things
myself. There were entire tables getting good cards, and entire tables
getting not-so-good cards. The seating was also kind of funny. Although
it was random, it seemed as though they seeded the players seating
positions. For example, here is the seating arrangement for 5 players at
my table. Seat 8- The guy that was #3 from PT1. Seat 1 (to 8's left)-
The #2 guy from PT1. Seat 2- Me. Nobody special. Seat 3- The #1 guy
from PT1. Seat 4- The #25 International Type 2 guy. The rest at my table
I don't know, I just paid attention to the 4 people that mainly influenced
my draft. Surprising to note, none of those 4 did well, meanwhile, I went
5-1 which was good enough for 17th place. Unfortunately, they scored by
games, instead of matches, and thus people with lower records (i.e. 4-2)
were placed higher than myself. That's life. As for the "Did anyone get
a Balance?" Yes. A friend of mine had Balance as his two rares for the
two packs he opened. For obvious reasons he played white. I don't
suspect WOTC of foul play. They can't afford that kind of reputation.
However, I must say that there was a lot of "interesting" bad/good luck
going around for everyone, everywhere at the tourney.
-Chris Cade
"Victim's, aren't we all?"
Rudy Edward
I dont believe the packs were tampered with other than replacing Ante
cards... Here's why:
while practicing for the pro tour, I noticed that certain cards seem to
appear together very frequently, for example:
disintegrate/lightning bolt
prodigal sorcerer/flood
this pattern was consistant with what I saw at PT2.
that doesn't mean that WotC didn't tamper with the packs unneccessarily,
just that it seems unlikely they would do so and retain normal card
distribution patterns.
Further, this makes it far more likely for one table to have multiples of
good cards of the same type than you would imagine otherwise.
As far as I can tell, the real reason some tables seemed to have better
drafts than others was because of the format of the booster draft. In a
normal booster draft tournament, where you only play people that draft
with you, Negative drafting is a factor (granted it's not as important as
in other types of draft) At PT2, you only had a 1 in 251 chance of
playing a guy you passed a decent card, so you are more likely to draft
something that might have value than negative draft something you
definitley wont use.
Combine this with the fact that just about everyone was an above average
player, and some mean decks happened. I'll bet a lot of the people who
didn't get good drafts were drafting with people who hadn't considered
that negative drafting wasn't worth it.
Of course, Maybe it was all rigged, at least then I have an excuse for
not winning the damn thing ;)
MJethro
Being at Long Beach and having played in the tournament, there were a
couple of things that I noticed that I think should have been done
differently. The first and biggest change I would have made would be that
each table would play the other opponents at their table and then take the
top records to move on to the next day. This would help eliminate the
biggest problem that I encountered which was running into opponents with
vastly superior decks due
-Jethro
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MJethro
My apologies for my previous post. My newsreader is having technical
difficulties.