PTCGO Shuffling gone awry?

[pkolaboy]

So I just started playing again and I seem to have run into a bit of a problem. So my ordeal is that I am playing Night March because that is the cheapest deck I could make in real life so I wanted to playtest it. My problem is I have been having horrid opening hands along with crazy supporter draws. Everyone knows Night March is all about speed pretty much the first two turns. Anytime I play a mediocre deck I seem to have somewhat good draws/hands, but when I am playing against someone that knows what they are doing, I can't even get an attack w/in the third turn. The thing is, when I playtest opening hands/first couple of turns with my real deck I ALWAYS seem to have decent to really good starts. I do this over and over again and I really haven't had a bad start to where I could maybe fall behind. Maybe I am just ranting? But has anybody else had this issue?

 

[Purrloin]

PTCGO should be more random than irl, since it's true randomness as opposed to all the factors that affect irl shuffling, such as amount of passes, type of shuffle, order of cards going into the shuffle, etc., none of which PTCGO takes into account.

I'd say it's likely coincidental, or you don't shuffle well enough irl?

For comparison, the current deck I'm testing both online and offline appears to have about the same shuffle odds in both cases. If you find yourself with unplayable hands too often, I suggest keeping track of which cards tend to appear in those hands, and then consider reduction or alternatives.

 

[Sylencia]

Hand shuffling generally gives you better hands (assuming you dont do a pile shuffle and more random types of shuffles) because cards you play together will be put back into the deck together, causing them to clump. Due to the fact you aren't doing perfect riffle shuffles, clumped cards have a higher chance to stick together, meaning combos and better cards stick together more often (not necessarily next to each other, but within a few draws of each other)

 

[crann777]

To be clear, "randomness" in software isn't 100% random. You can get close, but the closer you get the more you sacrifice in terms of speed and performance.

Personally, I'm more interested in how PTCGO does coin flips. This could be bias on my part, but it seems like my opponents always get heads and I'm far more likely to get tails. I have a feeling that they're using some janky logic server-side for that one.

 

[pkolaboy]

Thanks for all input guys. I am actually going to do a little experiment. I am going to see how much it actually affects my hands if I do a pile shuffle then overhand as opposed to overhand/cut.

 

[TheStrictNein]

Thanks for all input guys. I am actually going to do a little experiment. I am going to see how much it actually affects my hands if I do a pile shuffle then overhand as opposed to overhand/cut.

I believe the theory is that it takes something like 7 Riffle Shuffles or around 2200 overhand shuffles to sufficiently randomise a deck.

Yes, over 2000 overhand shuffles.

Pile shuffling is slightly better, but to get a properly random hand you need to Riffle or Weave shuffle.

 

[Naglfar]

Overhand shuffling is pretty awful. You really ought to be mash shuffling, unless you have terrible sleeves. In which case you should buy better sleeves, then mash shuffle. It's good for you.