Good luck vs bad luck

Usually when you hear someone use terms like luck in a contest such as MTG, especially "Bad luck" the first reaction is to think that this is the poor sportsman's excuse for playing unsuccessfully. However I want to point out a few things about MTG's unique game play as well as some very basic probabilities in the game that invite words that have the essence of misfortune. Mainly two phrases come to mind. "Mana Flood" and "Mana screw" and what do these two phrases have in common? Well mana. Now MTG's resource method has been one of the many reasons many people who have tried MTG decided not to continue it as a hobby. It requires a small bit of luck to work. Now for some very basic math here, I'm not going to get into the true math as it would be too difficult to go over and I want to keep this blog simple. The recommended amount of lands vs spells in a average deck is 2/5. For every 5 spells there should be 2 lands. In a 40 card deck this works out to be 16 lands to 24 spells. In a 60 card deck this works out as 24 lands and 36 spells. Now of course there are exceptions to this rule but this is a average way of building a deck. Now knowing this (and here's when my basic math comes in) every time you draw a card you have a 2 in 5 chance of it being a land. That's 40%. So at any given time if you want a land you have a 60% chance of not drawing one, on the other hand if you want a spell you have a 40% chance of not drawing one. Either way the odds are bad (worse obviously if you want the land) Think of it this way if you were told you had a 40% chance of dying if you have a unnecessary surgery would you have it anyway? How about a 60% chance of dying? Either 40% or 60% are both odds that's seem a high risk for having that surgery and you would probably not have it. So you see whether you want a land or want a spell the odds are a high risk of you not getting what you want. Now the argument against this way of thinking is that the odds are 40% and 60% of getting what you want as well. But here is the thing, when you get the perfect order, or at least good enough order of lands and spells you need, no one thinks about it much because it's the way it's supposed to happen, no one says "Mana Prime" when playing MTG. But when it works against you then the terms "Mana Screw" or "Mana Flood" are used. So what does all this mean? Well it means that luck has a bigger part of playing the game then some people are willing to admit. Luck even happens to you even when it's good luck but it's not as recognizable. So now that we recognize that luck plays a major part of MTG I want to tell you about a alternative way of playing MTG, casually of course. I was taught this way of playing MTG a few years ago that had only one library for all players to share, there was only commons in the library and there were no lands. The library had about 100 or more random cards and each player drew from it as though it was their own library. Instead of placing lands on the table players would lay down spells upside down on the table, these upside down spells were treated as basic lands of the color of the spell and was no longer a spell, for instance a red spell upside down became a mountain. If a creature had mountain walk then the upside down red spell was treated as such and the creature got to mountain walk it's way to the opponent. If a spell bounced a land back to a player's hand the "land" became a spell again and could be played as a spell the next turn. Colorless spells were colorless lands and multicolored spells were treated as multicolored lands (a blue black spell upside down is a island/swap) Get the picture? No more Mana Screw no more Mana Flood, the biggest problem you might run into is drawing two really good green spells and needing one of them to place upside down as your green mana source. The game is fun, and the fact that only commons are used does not in any way take away from the strategy or tricks a player could pull. Basically a MTG game that has no WOG's or BOP's or Planeswalkers still made for a good, fun game. So why do I tell you this? Well to point out that the method of getting resources in MTG is less than perfect, as a matter of fact it's far from perfect. But to mostly point out that the current method also makes cards like "Reflecting pool" more valuable and therefore harder to obtain. MTG is less about strategy and more about having the money to buy the expensive cards and having the luck to draw them before your opponents do.