Where is it better to test? IRL or M-L/MWS

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 904

what if people want to do serious testing on mws, like some people work and dont have time to play irl all the time so you dont want to play vs noobs on mwsplay.

snoopster · Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 731 Location: nj

@guy who said modo was the best option:

modo is reallllly bad for testing

twodioz · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 101

yeah, for people who want real testing on MWS:

1. find a play group or test group which is competitive enough to have "good" players in it.

2. do a little homework before you play on MWS. It isn't that hard to find good players on mwsplay. They are there, just advertise correctly on your match table. and don't be afraid just to leave if your opp doesn't follow your game description.

3. you can also play singles games, trials, and minis. They have the better players on them.

syllogism · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 4

Surely a better question is how much "controlled" testing you should do, against how much "random" testing against a wider pool? Controlled testing allows you to form judgments with less noise, but some of what you thought was 'noise' might actually be really important.

As good as controlled testing is, surely only doing that is a mistake, unless you're desperately hiding your tech? You're playing against a really limited set of opponents, playing very limited builds. How is going X-0 in a trial possibly bad? Do you think it's a waste of time to play against other decks that have gone X-0? Do you really think the league is so bad that proving to yourself you can win out against it consistently isn't worth the time?

Even playing pick up games is good, because it shows you what bad decks people keep reinventing. Personally I don't rate the BW hybrids deck at all, but if you play pick up games on MWS, you'll play it again and again. It could be your round one opponent at your PTQ. Do you want to lose to that deck, or something similar? Well then, you'd better just play an average cross section of people, and if you're not smashing them, you'll want to ask yourself why. If the answer is "the mws shuffler", you're either going to lose in your PTQ, or you're going to stack your deck (since this is the only reason your shuffles would be significantly different IRL).

It doesn't matter at all what medium you use for controlled testing. But finding a convenient, arbitrary sample of people organised into tournaments is hard. And magic-league gives you that, daily, for free. How is that possibly bad?

Shagrath · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 212

U cant test correctly a deck in single elimination tourneys.
Find a good test group and mws will be a good tool to work and prepare for tourneys irl.

Trotsky1 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 902

Modo is not as good as it use to be but it's still better than this site, compare number of people who site modo as where they practised for topping gp or pt, its pv vs everyone else, for many reasons but mostly you don't have to put up with 15 year olds who's self esteem is entirely based around his magic-league rating, trying to cheat you out of a match or getting dodgey rulings from his judge friends.

In reality it depends what you are practicing for, if its something like a ptq or gp then irl is better as you have to interrpret and process and respond to information in the way an irl magic game is conducted and need to practice this skill set.

Whilst if your just looking to get free cards out of the ml, masters invitationals, with no intention of playing in bigger events etc, then clearly online practice is better, as it is again a slightly different and alot smaller skill set, though both sets do share alot of common skills.

jakeywakey · Joined: 17 May 2007 Posts: 24

it really depends, in real life you get to sit in front of your opponent, look him in the eye, pick up on tells, and all that kind of thing. there is no real substitute for that.

online you can improve your technical play tho, and ml is a great place to do it. tons of great players, and you can compete in tournaments and work on things like keeping your play tight when it really matters, irl alot of ppl get to the top tables and choke.

so i think the answer is both, provided your irl testing group is good.

Kaos · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 30

NONE of the above.

SHANDALAR. There are no noobs and quitters there.