Sunday, 7 February 2010

Playtesting for Competitive Cowies!

Hi fellow competitive cowies heading to GP KL!!!

Please take note that there will be NO playtesting groups until after Chinese New Year holidays (ie: 16th Feb 2010) If you are interested to meet up and playtest amongst yourself, please go ahead and make the necessary arrangements =)

Here are some plans for playtesting, feel free to follow or improvise

Weekday playtesting:

- West Side Group consisting of Chao Lin and You Wei. If both of you are free, do meet up and play test.

- East Side Group consisting of Me, Kenneth, Zhao Zhi and Alex. We will try to meet on some weekday nights to playtest a bit. (Hopefully Alex can book out and dont need to accompany his GF =X)

Weekend playtesting:

Personal Opinion: My current feel is- After FNM, we are left with little time to play test (little = 2hours plus/minus) and with an empty stomach we are more prone to mistakes and with blood going to our brain we may collapse and go into a comatose state.

Suggestions:
1) Meet earlier, before FNM to playtest. (I can't join you guys due to coaching session)

2) Push FNM to an earlier time slot. (Someone need to run and register the event as I can't be there earlier too.. -_-)

3) Playtest before and after dinner. (West side group may KPKB... But we try to end by 2230hrs... )

Please feel free to inject some suggestions on how to playtest on weekends. BTW, all Sundays are packed with GPT KL. So unless all of you are not playing, wecan actually playtest on Sundays too!

How to playtest:(The Go Fish method)


effectiveness: 1 out of 5
Dazed and Confused level: 0 out of 5
(if you can get dazed and confused from this, please sell your cards and go back to whatever you were enjoying before playing magic)

You can sit by the table yourself and shuffle your deck, draw 7 cards and play the deck yourself. More for getting the feel of your deck...

How to playtest (the RED BULL method)


effectiveness 4 out of 5
Dazed and Confused level: 4.5 out of 5

Set A:
1) Player A will go first, with NO mulligan rule in effect. Play 10 games
2) Repeat step 1. Now with Player B going first.

Set B:
1) Player A will go first, with mulligan rule in effect. Play 10 games
2) Repeat step 1. Now with player B going first.

Set C: (By now, both players SHOULD be DAZED...Break out the Red Bulls!)
1) Player A will go first, with No mulligane rule in effect, deck is in built with sideboard hate. Play 10 games.
2) Repeat step 1. Now with player B going first.

Set D: (Confirm plus stamp. Both players WILL BE DAZED and CONFUSED. Need Cafe Cartel Cakes!)
1) Player A will go first, with mulligan rule in effect, deck is in built with sideboard hate. Play 10 games.
2) Repeat step 1. Now with player B going first.

Total Games played: 80

You dont need to be a mathematican to calculate your winning odds yah? If you are piloting a rouge deck, and score an average of 50% or more, congrates, you may be the next pro deck builder =P

How to play test (Bull Dozer method)


Effectiveness: 5 out of 5
Dazed and Confused level: 6 out of 5

Step 0:
Pick out a popular archtype in the format as your opponenet (ie: Player B)

Set A:
1) Player A will go first, with NO mulligan rule in effect. Play 10 games
2) Repeat step 1. Now with Player B going first.

Set B:
1) Player A will go first, with mulligan rule in effect. Play 10 games
2) Repeat step 1. Now with player B going first.

Set C:
1) Player A will go first, with No mulligane rule in effect, deck is in built with sideboard hate. Play 10 games.
2) Repeat step 1. Now with player B going first.

Set D:
1) Player A will go first, with mulligan rule in effect, deck is in built with sideboard hate. Play 10 games.
2) Repeat step 1. Now with player B going first.

Total Games played: 80

Now repeat it for another popular archtype. And carry on.... You will hate Magic after playing agn 2 to 3 popular archtype. Congrates!

Currently known popular archtypes:
1) Jund
2) Vampires
3) Blue/White varient
4) Bant varient
5) Eldrazi Elves varient
6) Grxis Control
7) America Control
8) Turbo Fog

Which method are we going to use?

Decide when we meet =P
Additional Mental coaching will be taught too!

What should I prepare before playtesting

1)UNLESS you HAVE CONFIRMED what you are playing, please go shopping for all your cards. Buying the cards a week before the actual event or on the actual day itself is sucidal... I foresee chase rares like Jace, the Mind Sculptor will be like $70? And all star uncommons like Bloodbraid elf will be like $8?

2) If you are still whining and wussying around your deck choices, please do everyone a favour. Proxy your cards nicely. NO acronymns please! What is ABC to you may not be ABC to others. Write the proxy on the cards with markers or in a list so that everyone can refer to. POst it pads are effective too!

3) Be prepared by harsh critism. Trust me. Getting critical hits during playtest is less painful than committing a mistake during the actual event and losing the game/match.

4) Play faster le! Each match is entitled to 50minutes. The same rule goes for playtesting per match. PLEASE DO NOT BE LIKE SOMEBODY WHO DREW 3 GAMES IN GP SINGAPORE WHILE RUNNING AN AGGRO DECK!

5) Each playtester MUST PROXY OR BUILD A POPULAR ARCHTYPE DECK. In case we are using the Bull Dozer method. =P

6) Stock up tons of Red bull! Just Joking!

Hope this helps everyone in preparing their decks for the upcoming GP!
Ill post another one getting extra supplies for the GP next time!


(Images do not belong to the author and owners of the blog!)

1 comment:

  1. Steady lah! haha! I have been playtesting with YouWei and Alex hor... haha.

    ReplyDelete