I came across an article by Pro Tour Player Melissa Del Toro which guides us on how to conduct effective play-testing in a group environment. I have taken the liberty to edit the article so that the article will bear greater relevance for my readers.
1. Choose the right playtest partners.
I'm sure many of you have playtest partners or a “team” if you will. Being on a team is essential for any player who wants to do well at a tournament. In fact, choosing who you playtest with can be the difference between winning and losing.
The most important aspect to choosing who you playtest with is having similar goals. If you want to qualify for the Pro Tour, it will not be very effective to test with your buddy who only plays FNM. Even if he is playing the most competitive decks, he will not have the same dedication that you have. He may play badly and make mistakes that more committed players will not make, and it's likely that you will not learn anything.
On the other hand, if you have a group of people whose main goal is to qualify for the Pro Tour, your playtesting will be much more effective. You will be playing against the top decks in the format and your partners will be playing the decks as optimally as possible.
Overall, you will learn much more in your sessions if you have the same goals for the event you're preparing for.
2. Practice for the event you're preparing for.
There are different types of events you could be testing for. While it's obvious that you should not sit around and draft when you should be playing Standard matches (I am definitely guilty of this), what I mean by this is take into account the type of event you are playing in when playtesting. Testing for FNM is much different than testing for an SCG Open, and an SCG Open is much different from the Pro Tour.
Local metagames can vary from place to place, and it's important to know what kinds of decks people like to play in your area. We have a very interesting metagame in Singapore. For years, we have been known to always play control decks. That is still true to this day, but now we have two distinct groups of players, control players and super aggro players who want to beat the control players. Knowing this information is very valuable. You should always be prepared for anything, but having a good idea of what the metagame will look like before you sit down for Round 1 will give you a pretty nice advantage over those who don't.
On the other hand, testing for a local event is much different than testing for a Pro Tour. Of course, the format consists of both Limited and Constructed, so you need to prepare for both formats, but the main reason why it's different is that you will be playing against people from all over the world. Anything you know about your local metagame can be thrown right out the window. For the Pro Tour, you have to be prepared for a much wider range of decks and consider all possibilities.
3. Play with the top decks, but don't be afraid to try new decks.
Your gauntlet of decks will generally consist of six to eight decks that have recently performed well at past events. Gather up the top performing decks from the SCG Open and Bazaar of Moxen. Figured out which decks were the best decks in the format and establish the gauntlet. At first, just play games with those decks against each other, but learn the decks and try developing new ideas or decks that can affect them. If no one try out anything new and just jammed the top decks against each other, Necro, Caw-Blade or Trix would not have been been invented.
One downfall of trying out new decks is that it takes time. You will have to play games against every deck in the entire gauntlet just to see if the deck is viable. Obviously, playing ten or more games against eight different decks can take hours. If the idea that you came up with can't beat most of the top decks, the time that you've spent will feel wasted.
Another common problem for playtest groups (TMcMana is guilty of this too) is that if everyone on your team wants to try out their new decks, then no one will be playing the established decks. You will just be throwing new (and likely bad) decks against one another and not accomplishing anything. I have been on many teams in the past that have done this, and when it came time to actually play in the tournament, we ended up with a bunch of bad decks that couldn't beat anything, and we just wound up playing whatever won the last PTQ.
The best solution to this problem is to assign roles to your team members. Some players can be the creative deck designers, while others can play the stock decklists. The more creative minds actually built new decks, and they always had stock lists to play against, piloted by good players who are experienced with them.
4. Beware of inbred playtesting.
Inbred playtesting is very common. There would be a great deck that was perfect for the next tournament, and friends would build decks specifically to beat it. Then, the deck starts to adapt based on what those friends were playing. Soon enough, the said deck that was once a great choice for the weekend could no longer beat any of the top decks.
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1. Choose the right playtest partners.
I'm sure many of you have playtest partners or a “team” if you will. Being on a team is essential for any player who wants to do well at a tournament. In fact, choosing who you playtest with can be the difference between winning and losing.
The most important aspect to choosing who you playtest with is having similar goals. If you want to qualify for the Pro Tour, it will not be very effective to test with your buddy who only plays FNM. Even if he is playing the most competitive decks, he will not have the same dedication that you have. He may play badly and make mistakes that more committed players will not make, and it's likely that you will not learn anything.
On the other hand, if you have a group of people whose main goal is to qualify for the Pro Tour, your playtesting will be much more effective. You will be playing against the top decks in the format and your partners will be playing the decks as optimally as possible.
Overall, you will learn much more in your sessions if you have the same goals for the event you're preparing for.
2. Practice for the event you're preparing for.
There are different types of events you could be testing for. While it's obvious that you should not sit around and draft when you should be playing Standard matches (I am definitely guilty of this), what I mean by this is take into account the type of event you are playing in when playtesting. Testing for FNM is much different than testing for an SCG Open, and an SCG Open is much different from the Pro Tour.
Local metagames can vary from place to place, and it's important to know what kinds of decks people like to play in your area. We have a very interesting metagame in Singapore. For years, we have been known to always play control decks. That is still true to this day, but now we have two distinct groups of players, control players and super aggro players who want to beat the control players. Knowing this information is very valuable. You should always be prepared for anything, but having a good idea of what the metagame will look like before you sit down for Round 1 will give you a pretty nice advantage over those who don't.
On the other hand, testing for a local event is much different than testing for a Pro Tour. Of course, the format consists of both Limited and Constructed, so you need to prepare for both formats, but the main reason why it's different is that you will be playing against people from all over the world. Anything you know about your local metagame can be thrown right out the window. For the Pro Tour, you have to be prepared for a much wider range of decks and consider all possibilities.
3. Play with the top decks, but don't be afraid to try new decks.
Your gauntlet of decks will generally consist of six to eight decks that have recently performed well at past events. Gather up the top performing decks from the SCG Open and Bazaar of Moxen. Figured out which decks were the best decks in the format and establish the gauntlet. At first, just play games with those decks against each other, but learn the decks and try developing new ideas or decks that can affect them. If no one try out anything new and just jammed the top decks against each other, Necro, Caw-Blade or Trix would not have been been invented.
One downfall of trying out new decks is that it takes time. You will have to play games against every deck in the entire gauntlet just to see if the deck is viable. Obviously, playing ten or more games against eight different decks can take hours. If the idea that you came up with can't beat most of the top decks, the time that you've spent will feel wasted.
Another common problem for playtest groups (TMcMana is guilty of this too) is that if everyone on your team wants to try out their new decks, then no one will be playing the established decks. You will just be throwing new (and likely bad) decks against one another and not accomplishing anything. I have been on many teams in the past that have done this, and when it came time to actually play in the tournament, we ended up with a bunch of bad decks that couldn't beat anything, and we just wound up playing whatever won the last PTQ.
The best solution to this problem is to assign roles to your team members. Some players can be the creative deck designers, while others can play the stock decklists. The more creative minds actually built new decks, and they always had stock lists to play against, piloted by good players who are experienced with them.
4. Beware of inbred playtesting.
Inbred playtesting is very common. There would be a great deck that was perfect for the next tournament, and friends would build decks specifically to beat it. Then, the deck starts to adapt based on what those friends were playing. Soon enough, the said deck that was once a great choice for the weekend could no longer beat any of the top decks.
When playtesting, it's important that your decks do not become inbred. Inbred playtesting occurs when players build decks that are designed only to beat other players in that group, and not to beat a broader field.
It's important to also not become inbred when making specific plays while playtesting, especially if the deck is not a known quantity. A player at the local tournament or the Pro Tour will not know your entire decklist and therefore not know to play around Cyclonic Rift. However, Syncopate and Dissolve are two very popular cards that see play in most blue decks, and most players will play around those cards before they will consider playing around Cyclonic Rift. If you were to play around Rift there, it is not valid playtesting. It isn't really fair that you know the entire decklist you're playing against because your opponent at the Pro Tour will not.
5. Takebacks are not that bad.
I feel that a lot of groups do not like allowing takebacks during playtesting. I disagree with this during serious playtesting mode. If I make a misplay due to never playing the deck before and I do not take back that play and lose when I otherwise would have won, the result of that game is not really valid. If I make that same mistake four more times, my results for that particular matchup would be 0-5. Had I been able to take back those mistakes (seriously, I should have learned the first time), the matchup could have been 5-0!
Obviously that is a huge difference in results. Talking about correct plays during the game is also good. Testing should be a learning experience. Your goal should be figuring out how specific matchups play out, what are the key cards in the matchup, and what particular lines of play need to be taken to win a game.
6. Results are not always accurate.
Most players think that in order to efficiently get a feel for a matchup, a ten game set is necessary. That statement couldn't be further from the truth. When you factor in the variance that occurs in games of Magic, ten games is much too small of a sample size. Of course, if you played a proper number of games to determine how a matchup plays out, you would probably be playing for months.
As long as you know how to play a certain matchup, such as what cards need to be drawn and what specific things need to happen, you don't really need to focus on the results. For example in Standard, suppose you are testing Monored Aggro against UW Control. Depending on how well you understand the decks, it should not take you very long to figure out how the matchup plays out. Monored plays a bunch of creatures and tries to do as much damage as possible, while the control player plays spells o buy time until a board wipe is cast. Once they resolve a Supreme Verdict, the red player has a hard time recovering. If the UW player casts a Revelation at some point in the game, the red player can't win. If you were to play fifty games of Monored Aggro against UW Control, I'd bet that the majority of those games will go something like that.
The point is that you are playtesting not to get results, but to learn how a particular matchup works. Once you figure that out, you really don't need to play more games of that matchup. The next step would be to figure out the weaknesses of the matchup, and then build your sideboard to overcome those weaknesses.
7. Don't get burnt out.
We play Magic because we find the game fun. Even hard work, like playtesting, shouldn't feel like “work.” If you are not enjoying yourself when preparing for events, you may be suffering from burnout or exhaustion.
It's important to also not become inbred when making specific plays while playtesting, especially if the deck is not a known quantity. A player at the local tournament or the Pro Tour will not know your entire decklist and therefore not know to play around Cyclonic Rift. However, Syncopate and Dissolve are two very popular cards that see play in most blue decks, and most players will play around those cards before they will consider playing around Cyclonic Rift. If you were to play around Rift there, it is not valid playtesting. It isn't really fair that you know the entire decklist you're playing against because your opponent at the Pro Tour will not.
5. Takebacks are not that bad.
I feel that a lot of groups do not like allowing takebacks during playtesting. I disagree with this during serious playtesting mode. If I make a misplay due to never playing the deck before and I do not take back that play and lose when I otherwise would have won, the result of that game is not really valid. If I make that same mistake four more times, my results for that particular matchup would be 0-5. Had I been able to take back those mistakes (seriously, I should have learned the first time), the matchup could have been 5-0!
Obviously that is a huge difference in results. Talking about correct plays during the game is also good. Testing should be a learning experience. Your goal should be figuring out how specific matchups play out, what are the key cards in the matchup, and what particular lines of play need to be taken to win a game.
6. Results are not always accurate.
Most players think that in order to efficiently get a feel for a matchup, a ten game set is necessary. That statement couldn't be further from the truth. When you factor in the variance that occurs in games of Magic, ten games is much too small of a sample size. Of course, if you played a proper number of games to determine how a matchup plays out, you would probably be playing for months.
As long as you know how to play a certain matchup, such as what cards need to be drawn and what specific things need to happen, you don't really need to focus on the results. For example in Standard, suppose you are testing Monored Aggro against UW Control. Depending on how well you understand the decks, it should not take you very long to figure out how the matchup plays out. Monored plays a bunch of creatures and tries to do as much damage as possible, while the control player plays spells o buy time until a board wipe is cast. Once they resolve a Supreme Verdict, the red player has a hard time recovering. If the UW player casts a Revelation at some point in the game, the red player can't win. If you were to play fifty games of Monored Aggro against UW Control, I'd bet that the majority of those games will go something like that.
The point is that you are playtesting not to get results, but to learn how a particular matchup works. Once you figure that out, you really don't need to play more games of that matchup. The next step would be to figure out the weaknesses of the matchup, and then build your sideboard to overcome those weaknesses.
7. Don't get burnt out.
We play Magic because we find the game fun. Even hard work, like playtesting, shouldn't feel like “work.” If you are not enjoying yourself when preparing for events, you may be suffering from burnout or exhaustion.
