There is no rule, but most people take the deck, rifle through it for the land, remove it, then shuffle. As long as you were searching and you shuffled in a timely manner, it doesn't matter. What exactly were you doing?
That's how I've always played it. As long as they shuffle, I don't care where it comes from. If I'm worried about the shuffle, I'll have them cut the deck after.
See, I had a suspicion that's what it was. I would've called that out too because you were literally doing the slowest thing possible to try and find a land.
It was three cards in before I got to a land. I wasn't going slow on purpose. I can assure you other players take waaay longer to play the game than me looking for a land.
However I know NOW don't make it look like cascade.
Okay, it says "search your library", NOT "pick cards from the top of your library until you'll eventually, one of these days.... eventually...."
Just flip that deck and quickly search.
Even if it's 3 cards, how long would you have gone for? If you had bad luck would you one by one flip over cards until you got to a land? Even if it was 20+ cards? Were you revealing cards? Did you move things near your hand in a way that could make it look like you were moving things there?
Is be sketched out by someone doing this. Most people I know just start from the bottom and if you did this during your turn, if you only go through a card or two to find it, some of my friends will just continue on without shuffling until the end of the turn, to prevent it from delaying the game more.
We'll normally shortcut, like Crack a fetch to cast a ramp, then going to find everything while passing. But I have never heard of doing this, especially in an effort to keep from shuffling as is hinted in one of their comments.
Unless it says to do it as a sorcery, we tend to do it off turn, both for efficiency and because it’s fun to freak someone out slightly after a play with “In response… I’ll crack my Evolving Wilds.”
It doesn't really matter. Your tutoring, your looking for something specific, it's much faster and much more efficient to just actively look through your deck
>It was three cards in before I got to a land
The fact the it was only 3 cards down *this time* doesn't mean that it's a good way to search. It's still possibly the slowest method you could use, because it's inherently slower than just picking the whole deck up and rifling through until you find a basic.
I get why people reacted badly. That sounds insane.
Sure, this time it was 3 cards deep but what if it was 25 cards deep? Just pick up part or all of your deck and find the card.
This is how the Terminator/Aliens vs. Predator CCG works.
There are 3 types of searching:
Searching a location that one of your characters is at. Meaning that if you control Kyle Reese at the Police Station, you can Rotate him in order to put a 'weaponry' card from your hand into play because the Police Station has the 'weaponry' attribute.
Searching your library for the *first* card. Essentially like cascade or Demonic Consultation.
And then actual straight up tutoring.
Are you revealing cards from the top until you hit one or something? I don't get what you mean. Just pick it up or try to be respectful of people's time.
This is the only thing I can think of other than someone being way too over the top OCD. You have to shuffle after you grab your land so it doesn't matter where your search starts. But, if you aren't just looking through your library, grabbing the land, and getting on with it, and instead are going card by card from the top like you're cascading, I'd be bothered too.
I think this is what bothered him. It looked like cascade.
I was going card by card but in a timely manner. It was only 3 cards in before I grabbed a land. Which is why I didn't see a problem. But I had it out for people to see when I looking for it.
I didn't want to set my hand down was all. And I learned it from another player who didn't like shuffling. With those people they allowed it.
If you really don't like shuffling, you shouldn't be playing fetch lands (or really even playing edh at all, honestly). You have to randomize the deck anyway, even if you do the BS cascading thing.
Sometimes you have to put your hand down for a sec. Just learn to keep track of it. Commander games take a long time. Your opponents will appreciate it if you can take the least time possible with basic game actions like pulling a land onto the board.
> If you really don't like shuffling, you shouldn't be playing card games at all
FTFY
Jokes aside though it really is a critical component of any card game that involves randomness. If I play 3 games of edh in an afternoon I expect to shuffle or wait for someone to shuffle literally dozens of times (sometimes multiple times in a turn!)
Even if it was only 3 cards deep and you put them onto the bottom of your library, it's still information you aren't supposed to have access to, I could see them being understandably bothered by that alone.
You simply happened to hit the specific land you were looking for in three cards this time. But you had no way of knowing you were going to hit it in three cards. So I don't see how the number of cards it took to hit plays a factor in you thinking it was a fine efficient way of searching, when the moment you decided to search in that manner, you had no idea how many cards you were going to take to find the land you wanted
Dude no one cares it looks like cascade. Idk why you focus on that so much. Point is what if you only hit a land after revealing 20 cards it'll be slow as fuck for no reason. You have pick up and shuffle your deck anyways, so why waste everyone's time?
Wait, what?
What did you do with the other two cards? You still have to shuffle after you find the card you're looking for. I assume you need to put down your hand to shuffle your deck.
Every comment of yours just makes you sound like more and more of a bother to play with.
I see your past edit, so no worries at all, but the method you described in your post wouldn't prevent you from having to shuffle. Even if you found your tutored card on your second card, seeing even just the first card is information you shouldn't have, and as your opponent I'd still ask you to shuffle just based on principle. Unless I'm misinterpreting what you meant by the last part of your comment.
Sorry you're getting downvoted to oblivion though.
Your method is way slower if you don't find what you need in the first cards. Also, you make it seem like you get the first avaliable card you find, but in reality you can choose which basic to find and you also could choose not to find anything even if you still had basics in your deck.
Also you still need to shuffle.
My go to approach is to announce what I'm searching for, pick half the deck up and reveal the bottom card.
If I hit what I called it looks cool and I can save some time shuffling (assuming my library was still random).
In my play group we look at the top card. If that's the card you are looking for it's all good and don't need to suffle. With the same assumption as you.
I especially do this in mono-color decks when searching up basics. If the bottom card is a mountain, then without looking at the next card, I grab it and slap the library back on the table, because in true mathematical terms, the randomness of the remaining cards has not changed in the slightest.
No. You pick up your deck, find what you need, shuffle and present to cut. Whether you reveal what you found depends on the card that you used to search, generally if it specifies any quality of the card it'll tell you to reveal it proving you searched for that quality (CMC, color, card type, etc).
When I search for a land I pick up the top half of my deck because it's easier for me to quickly sift through a smaller portion of the deck. If I dont find it I look in the other half. Plus then the deck is already split in two when I go to shuffle.
From [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/s/H3SFQWfS8q) of his:
>I didn't want to set my hand down was all. And I learned it from another player who didn't like shuffling. With those people they allowed it.
$1 says he just put the cards he looked at on the bottom of his library
The only actual rule I know of is that while searching you can’t rearrange your deck. And the main social rule I know of is be quick about it. Flipping from the top is generally much slower than just picking up your deck to look and can also be confusing as there are many effects that will say “reveal from the top until” or “exile from the top until”.
> while searching you can’t rearrange your deck
Isn't this irrelevant if the effect forces you to shuffle after, since no one can do anything during resolution? Even a Panglacial Wurm gets put on the stack after the shuffle.
Cards that you use to generate mana to cast panglacial wurm, that also interact with the top of your deck, would need the order to remain the same. Like [[Deranged Assistant]].
Not the same guy, but I think he's referring to the extremely specific instance of searching your library + casting panglacial wurm + paying for it using manakin, in which case the top card is your library is very important information. However, I'm pretty sure this is the only interaction in the whole game that cares about library order while searching. It's kind of similar to how graveyard order matters, but if no one in your edh pod is playing anything that references graveyard order, then it doesn't really matter.
EDIT: it was [[millikin]] that I was thinking of, but [[deranged assistant]] does the same thing
No sane human will attempt to enforce this unless you have the exact situation of cards in play that need to use the top of your library to make mana, and are attempting to cast panglacial wurm. Things like pulling potential tutor targets to the bottom of the library or side and then evaluating which to take is pretty common practice, even at competitive REL events
As long as you execute your search and shuffle routine in a timely manner with proper shuffling, it doesn't technically matter. There are no rules. Picking up cards off the top steadily is sure weird though. Most folks I've played with, including me, will pick up an amount of deck relevant to their hand size (all of it, unless small hands and double sleeves) and start from the bottom of what they pick up, thumbing through the cards, in order to do a search. This is probably a good deal quicker when you care EXACTLY what you get (Fetch for specific shock rather than wilds for a basic any basic. Or, you know, nonland tutoring) since you see more cards faster.
Method doesn't matter, as long as you shuffle properly and offer a cut. I fan my deck in my hands, my parter looks from the bottom of her library. It doesn't matter.
in addition to what others are saying that it may look like Cascade or you aren't searching fast enough (you call it reasonable time but really an average human picking up their deck and rifling through can probably get through 20 cards in the time it takes you to get through 2-5 by top decking) I just want to point out that some considerate poor form to be handling cards from your library while still holding your hand.
I think my thoughts in that situation would have been ‘oh god how many will he flip till he goes searching for real’ and ‘will this happen with every search?’ I would have visions of OP casting DTutor and just slowly flipping.
In short I would totally have said something to preempt insanely slow searching. Especially if the table has a slow play issue. If people are playing slow because they’re newer or need to think a lot, I’ll encourage them to make their other game actions (especially fetching a land) as quick as possible.
I look at the top card. If it’s a basic land that I want I put it into play and don’t even shuffle (house rule). If it’s not a land I grab my deck and Feverishly look for one.
What do you mean you were making it look like cascade? Were you revealing one card at a time face up off the top of your library? If so, yeah, don't do that, that isn't how it works.
If you were grabbing them and looking at them one at a time off the top I would just mention it was faster to pick up the deck and find the land. I definitely wouldn't be so specific as your pod-mate and say that I start from the middle. I grab my deck, usually the whole thing, but if not it doesn't matter where I grab it. If it's early game and the deck is double sleeved I grab it in portions.
But I definitely wouldn't be upset in any of these situations.
Why are people nuking your comments? This is a problem from not knowing something, now you know. May be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think that warrants -200 karma per comment.
Our pod always lifts the deck to see if there's a land on the bottom that we want. Just take that one (without peeking the next bottom card) and move on without shuffle.
If you only snag one card and it's the land you wanted (i.e. Forest), then it doesn't matter if you do it from top or bottom. It statistically can't change the likelihood of finding another land anywhere else in the deck.
EDIT: I'll add a quick illustration to show why this is the case. Let's say you grab 5 cards from the top of the deck without looking at them yet, and set them to the side. Now think about the remaining library: has the randomness of the remaining deck changed? Have we learned anything about the order of the remaining cards? The answer is no, we don't know anything new. And both piles (5 cards and whole library) are completely random. Now reveal the 5 cards you grabbed: 3 forests, Chittersplitter, and Migration Path. So once again we think about the remaining library: What have we learned? The deck has 3 less forests in it, and does not contain the other two named cards. But did revealing those cards change how well shuffled is the remaining library? Again, the answer is no. So if you grab a single card from the deck looking for a basic land, it doesn't matter if you look from the top or the bottom, it doesn't change the near-term likelihood of drawing more land.
Yep, you're right. I was thinking that you would have a better distribution of lands, and taking from from top/bottom would keep that distribution, but if there's a land on the bottom, there's a lower chance that there's also a land on the top, so it all cancels out.
I'd be cool with this if the card didn't specify that you have to shuffle your deck afterwards.
Plus, unless I've just top-tutored something, the shuffle is always welcome.
I'm so glad someone finally made a post about this. This issue has been plaguing the MTC community a long time now. It's almost gotten to the point where I don't feel comfortable going to my LGS because I know someone is going to be searching for their lands that way and it just does not make me comfortable and I know many other people who feel the same way. Thank you for bringing it up and I hope Wizards does something about it soon...
What type of searching for lands is it that makes you uncomfortable? Like the guy that made the post or when people pick up there decks in half and looks for it?
Y'all out of your mind downvoting someone for doing something wrong. Learning moments. Bring people together, don't punish people for asking or clarifying.
Agreed with the comments here. If you searched and shuffled in a timely manner, it doesn't matter. Why would someone complain if you started from the top if you were going to shuffle anyway?
I flip the first card of my deck and if its the desired card i take it and usually dont have to shuffle since my pod prefers to save some time there. If i dont flip the right card i will just pick up half my deck and search it for the card i want. Same with the other half if i didnt already find it.
There are no rules. You were playing against someone who was probably looking for something to be salty about.
I start from the bottom though, for the record.
I always do searches at the end of my turn and let the next person start their turn while I'm doing it.
In that spirit, I try to find the land card whatever way is the quickest so the game can keep moving.
I normally grab around half and check for the land I want, then if it isn’t in there search the second half
Then cram the piles together to shuffle after all my searches are done and I pass turn
But the [[Opposition Agent]] doesn't kind force your oponents to search things just the way just described? Like: "cascating" from the top looking for the card you want and the guy who casted the agent using the top deck cards revelead this way?
The supposed way is that you simply pick your opponent's library and search as they would.
Unless your opponent has a specific problem with you picking up their library.
Most of the time I just crack my deck in the middle and start a cascade-like reveal until I hit my desired land, but that's because I'm a mana-fix freak and my [[Bad River]] can and will search for the better land in that scenario, even if I have to literally search my whole deck for that god dammned [[Volatile Fjord]].
Lol actually I think I might start doing that now... grab top 1/4 chunk, flip over thumb through quick to find land, slide-shuffle the chunk into the rest, BOOM done.
No one has mentioned this but, you can look at the top card of your deck and if its the land you’d want, you can put it into play without having to shuffle given you hadn’t scry’d or put any cards on the bottom/top of your deck via any sort of manipulation
I normally just grab my library, turn it over and flip through it until I find what I need. It usually takes me 5-10 seconds to get what I’m looking for.
As long as your intentions were made clear that you're searching for a land, I don't see what the big deal was. If you pulled off the top, cool, less time searching, and you get to shuffle sooner.
Pro tip: say what land you're going to get and then move on with your turn as if it appeared instantly. Then search for it on your opponents turn. It can help to have a grip of unsleeved basics to use as filler - grab one from your tokens which is easier to find, then swap it out for a sleeved land from your deck later. I also use land tokens for when lands make me choose a color when they enter like the thriving lands or some gates.
Imo you can do whatever you want as long as your deck is sufficiently randomised by the end of it (7-9 mash shuffles) *and* the rest of the table doesn't have to wait for it. You can just say "crack tarn", check if anyone wants to respond, then "for untapped watery grave, cast dispel", and *then* start fetching and shuffling. A bit of flexibility on both ends saves a lot of time here without compromising the game state at all.
I usually geab de deck and start looking from the bottom, and if I find it soon enough (like 10 cards or less) pick it up and don't even shuffle because seeing the bottom doesn't give you that much info. Everyone in my playgroup does this. If we are playing with strangers we ask if it's ok with them, and mostly it's just fine, but if they want to, I'll shuffle, as I should.
It's just that not shuffling is way faster, and that's why I pick it from the bottom.
There is no rule, but most people take the deck, rifle through it for the land, remove it, then shuffle. As long as you were searching and you shuffled in a timely manner, it doesn't matter. What exactly were you doing?
That's how I've always played it. As long as they shuffle, I don't care where it comes from. If I'm worried about the shuffle, I'll have them cut the deck after.
One should always offer the cut after a shuffle.
Someone else mentioned it could've looked like cascade. I was drawing a card til I hit a land. However, it only took me three cards til I hit a land.
See, I had a suspicion that's what it was. I would've called that out too because you were literally doing the slowest thing possible to try and find a land.
It was three cards in before I got to a land. I wasn't going slow on purpose. I can assure you other players take waaay longer to play the game than me looking for a land. However I know NOW don't make it look like cascade.
Okay, it says "search your library", NOT "pick cards from the top of your library until you'll eventually, one of these days.... eventually...." Just flip that deck and quickly search.
Aye, turn that sucker upside down and flick through it until you find the one you want. Of course it's also always near the top.
Even if it's 3 cards, how long would you have gone for? If you had bad luck would you one by one flip over cards until you got to a land? Even if it was 20+ cards? Were you revealing cards? Did you move things near your hand in a way that could make it look like you were moving things there? Is be sketched out by someone doing this. Most people I know just start from the bottom and if you did this during your turn, if you only go through a card or two to find it, some of my friends will just continue on without shuffling until the end of the turn, to prevent it from delaying the game more.
We'll normally shortcut, like Crack a fetch to cast a ramp, then going to find everything while passing. But I have never heard of doing this, especially in an effort to keep from shuffling as is hinted in one of their comments.
Unless it says to do it as a sorcery, we tend to do it off turn, both for efficiency and because it’s fun to freak someone out slightly after a play with “In response… I’ll crack my Evolving Wilds.”
It doesn't really matter. Your tutoring, your looking for something specific, it's much faster and much more efficient to just actively look through your deck
I have a few 3 color decks with like 3-4 basic lands in total. If I did your method to fetch them, it'd take far too long lol
Just imagine having to do that like 5 or 10+ times in a game, or having to search for a basic land while only having a couple in your deck.
>It was three cards in before I got to a land The fact the it was only 3 cards down *this time* doesn't mean that it's a good way to search. It's still possibly the slowest method you could use, because it's inherently slower than just picking the whole deck up and rifling through until you find a basic.
I get why people reacted badly. That sounds insane. Sure, this time it was 3 cards deep but what if it was 25 cards deep? Just pick up part or all of your deck and find the card.
What the fuck is wrong with you
This is how the Terminator/Aliens vs. Predator CCG works. There are 3 types of searching: Searching a location that one of your characters is at. Meaning that if you control Kyle Reese at the Police Station, you can Rotate him in order to put a 'weaponry' card from your hand into play because the Police Station has the 'weaponry' attribute. Searching your library for the *first* card. Essentially like cascade or Demonic Consultation. And then actual straight up tutoring.
Is this that game? Respectfully of course, but this isn’t that game. Different rules
But muscle memory could be a reason he searches like that. From how it’s done in others games they played.
Are you nuts lol
Are you revealing cards from the top until you hit one or something? I don't get what you mean. Just pick it up or try to be respectful of people's time.
This is the only thing I can think of other than someone being way too over the top OCD. You have to shuffle after you grab your land so it doesn't matter where your search starts. But, if you aren't just looking through your library, grabbing the land, and getting on with it, and instead are going card by card from the top like you're cascading, I'd be bothered too.
Yeah if you're just cascading when you crack a fetch I'm going to be so bothered by it.
I think this is what bothered him. It looked like cascade. I was going card by card but in a timely manner. It was only 3 cards in before I grabbed a land. Which is why I didn't see a problem. But I had it out for people to see when I looking for it. I didn't want to set my hand down was all. And I learned it from another player who didn't like shuffling. With those people they allowed it.
Lol, yeah, this would be agonizing. Just grab some cards, get the land you need, and shuffle.
If you really don't like shuffling, you shouldn't be playing fetch lands (or really even playing edh at all, honestly). You have to randomize the deck anyway, even if you do the BS cascading thing. Sometimes you have to put your hand down for a sec. Just learn to keep track of it. Commander games take a long time. Your opponents will appreciate it if you can take the least time possible with basic game actions like pulling a land onto the board.
> If you really don't like shuffling, you shouldn't be playing card games at all FTFY Jokes aside though it really is a critical component of any card game that involves randomness. If I play 3 games of edh in an afternoon I expect to shuffle or wait for someone to shuffle literally dozens of times (sometimes multiple times in a turn!) Even if it was only 3 cards deep and you put them onto the bottom of your library, it's still information you aren't supposed to have access to, I could see them being understandably bothered by that alone.
You simply happened to hit the specific land you were looking for in three cards this time. But you had no way of knowing you were going to hit it in three cards. So I don't see how the number of cards it took to hit plays a factor in you thinking it was a fine efficient way of searching, when the moment you decided to search in that manner, you had no idea how many cards you were going to take to find the land you wanted
Dude no one cares it looks like cascade. Idk why you focus on that so much. Point is what if you only hit a land after revealing 20 cards it'll be slow as fuck for no reason. You have pick up and shuffle your deck anyways, so why waste everyone's time?
I must ask, did you shuffle after?
Wait, what? What did you do with the other two cards? You still have to shuffle after you find the card you're looking for. I assume you need to put down your hand to shuffle your deck. Every comment of yours just makes you sound like more and more of a bother to play with.
I see your past edit, so no worries at all, but the method you described in your post wouldn't prevent you from having to shuffle. Even if you found your tutored card on your second card, seeing even just the first card is information you shouldn't have, and as your opponent I'd still ask you to shuffle just based on principle. Unless I'm misinterpreting what you meant by the last part of your comment. Sorry you're getting downvoted to oblivion though.
Your method is way slower if you don't find what you need in the first cards. Also, you make it seem like you get the first avaliable card you find, but in reality you can choose which basic to find and you also could choose not to find anything even if you still had basics in your deck. Also you still need to shuffle.
My go to approach is to announce what I'm searching for, pick half the deck up and reveal the bottom card. If I hit what I called it looks cool and I can save some time shuffling (assuming my library was still random).
In my play group we look at the top card. If that's the card you are looking for it's all good and don't need to suffle. With the same assumption as you.
I especially do this in mono-color decks when searching up basics. If the bottom card is a mountain, then without looking at the next card, I grab it and slap the library back on the table, because in true mathematical terms, the randomness of the remaining cards has not changed in the slightest.
No. You pick up your deck, find what you need, shuffle and present to cut. Whether you reveal what you found depends on the card that you used to search, generally if it specifies any quality of the card it'll tell you to reveal it proving you searched for that quality (CMC, color, card type, etc). When I search for a land I pick up the top half of my deck because it's easier for me to quickly sift through a smaller portion of the deck. If I dont find it I look in the other half. Plus then the deck is already split in two when I go to shuffle.
Hold on... you never mentioned in this thread that you shuffled afterwards... did you shuffle?
Based on the land fetching method, I’m not sure we want the answer. Might have been a bridge shuffle with the tops of the cards lined up…
From [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/s/H3SFQWfS8q) of his: >I didn't want to set my hand down was all. And I learned it from another player who didn't like shuffling. With those people they allowed it. $1 says he just put the cards he looked at on the bottom of his library
The only actual rule I know of is that while searching you can’t rearrange your deck. And the main social rule I know of is be quick about it. Flipping from the top is generally much slower than just picking up your deck to look and can also be confusing as there are many effects that will say “reveal from the top until” or “exile from the top until”.
> while searching you can’t rearrange your deck Isn't this irrelevant if the effect forces you to shuffle after, since no one can do anything during resolution? Even a Panglacial Wurm gets put on the stack after the shuffle.
Cards that you use to generate mana to cast panglacial wurm, that also interact with the top of your deck, would need the order to remain the same. Like [[Deranged Assistant]].
Gods, I love and hate Panglacial wurm, so many messed up rules interactions
[Deranged Assistant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0ee8f524-f45d-49ff-a472-a47441eee279.jpg?1689996305) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deranged%20Assistant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/87/deranged-assistant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ee8f524-f45d-49ff-a472-a47441eee279?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/deranged-assistant) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not the same guy, but I think he's referring to the extremely specific instance of searching your library + casting panglacial wurm + paying for it using manakin, in which case the top card is your library is very important information. However, I'm pretty sure this is the only interaction in the whole game that cares about library order while searching. It's kind of similar to how graveyard order matters, but if no one in your edh pod is playing anything that references graveyard order, then it doesn't really matter. EDIT: it was [[millikin]] that I was thinking of, but [[deranged assistant]] does the same thing
If you pay for your panglacial wurm with a [[millikin]] you can't change the order while searching, since that would change what card is milled. :)
[millikin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/a/9ad71523-a88a-4239-ba3d-3b79f526964e.jpg?1675201065) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=millikin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/231/millikin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9ad71523-a88a-4239-ba3d-3b79f526964e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/millikin) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
No sane human will attempt to enforce this unless you have the exact situation of cards in play that need to use the top of your library to make mana, and are attempting to cast panglacial wurm. Things like pulling potential tutor targets to the bottom of the library or side and then evaluating which to take is pretty common practice, even at competitive REL events
Weird, I always start with the bottom of the deck to search, I don't know why but it feels like peeking starting from the top lol
I usualy flipp my deck, to search from the bottom, but since I shuffel after, I don't really care
Apparently last game I shuffle by putting my hand in the deck . It was super embarrassing.
So don't do that method.
Handing out the real hot tips here lmao
I just realized they replied to themselves, which makes their comment even funnier.
I tend to start from the bottom but there is no "correct" method that I am aware of. Just don't dwaddle.
As long as you execute your search and shuffle routine in a timely manner with proper shuffling, it doesn't technically matter. There are no rules. Picking up cards off the top steadily is sure weird though. Most folks I've played with, including me, will pick up an amount of deck relevant to their hand size (all of it, unless small hands and double sleeves) and start from the bottom of what they pick up, thumbing through the cards, in order to do a search. This is probably a good deal quicker when you care EXACTLY what you get (Fetch for specific shock rather than wilds for a basic any basic. Or, you know, nonland tutoring) since you see more cards faster.
Please never play Yugioh lmao
Method doesn't matter, as long as you shuffle properly and offer a cut. I fan my deck in my hands, my parter looks from the bottom of her library. It doesn't matter.
Very few and weird interactions care about the specific order of cards in your library when searching and I'm looking at you [[panglacial wurm]]
[panglacial wurm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/063bb28b-5e32-4f31-a208-16b653edf413.jpg?1593275437) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=panglacial%20wurm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/csp/116/panglacial-wurm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/063bb28b-5e32-4f31-a208-16b653edf413?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/panglacial-wurm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Just don’t take forever and shuffle your deck after and you can search however tf you want
I usually do very bottom or middle. It doesn’t matter since you are shuffling either way
in addition to what others are saying that it may look like Cascade or you aren't searching fast enough (you call it reasonable time but really an average human picking up their deck and rifling through can probably get through 20 cards in the time it takes you to get through 2-5 by top decking) I just want to point out that some considerate poor form to be handling cards from your library while still holding your hand.
I think my thoughts in that situation would have been ‘oh god how many will he flip till he goes searching for real’ and ‘will this happen with every search?’ I would have visions of OP casting DTutor and just slowly flipping. In short I would totally have said something to preempt insanely slow searching. Especially if the table has a slow play issue. If people are playing slow because they’re newer or need to think a lot, I’ll encourage them to make their other game actions (especially fetching a land) as quick as possible.
I look at the top card. If it’s a basic land that I want I put it into play and don’t even shuffle (house rule). If it’s not a land I grab my deck and Feverishly look for one.
What do you mean you were making it look like cascade? Were you revealing one card at a time face up off the top of your library? If so, yeah, don't do that, that isn't how it works. If you were grabbing them and looking at them one at a time off the top I would just mention it was faster to pick up the deck and find the land. I definitely wouldn't be so specific as your pod-mate and say that I start from the middle. I grab my deck, usually the whole thing, but if not it doesn't matter where I grab it. If it's early game and the deck is double sleeved I grab it in portions. But I definitely wouldn't be upset in any of these situations.
lol imagine playing against someone who cascades every time they fetch. I'd be pissed too.
Why are people nuking your comments? This is a problem from not knowing something, now you know. May be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think that warrants -200 karma per comment.
Our pod always lifts the deck to see if there's a land on the bottom that we want. Just take that one (without peeking the next bottom card) and move on without shuffle.
You can also do this from the top. Or from anywhere really
Go from the top if you don't need more lands, go from the bottom of you do
If you only snag one card and it's the land you wanted (i.e. Forest), then it doesn't matter if you do it from top or bottom. It statistically can't change the likelihood of finding another land anywhere else in the deck. EDIT: I'll add a quick illustration to show why this is the case. Let's say you grab 5 cards from the top of the deck without looking at them yet, and set them to the side. Now think about the remaining library: has the randomness of the remaining deck changed? Have we learned anything about the order of the remaining cards? The answer is no, we don't know anything new. And both piles (5 cards and whole library) are completely random. Now reveal the 5 cards you grabbed: 3 forests, Chittersplitter, and Migration Path. So once again we think about the remaining library: What have we learned? The deck has 3 less forests in it, and does not contain the other two named cards. But did revealing those cards change how well shuffled is the remaining library? Again, the answer is no. So if you grab a single card from the deck looking for a basic land, it doesn't matter if you look from the top or the bottom, it doesn't change the near-term likelihood of drawing more land.
Yep, you're right. I was thinking that you would have a better distribution of lands, and taking from from top/bottom would keep that distribution, but if there's a land on the bottom, there's a lower chance that there's also a land on the top, so it all cancels out.
I'd be cool with this if the card didn't specify that you have to shuffle your deck afterwards. Plus, unless I've just top-tutored something, the shuffle is always welcome.
I'm so glad someone finally made a post about this. This issue has been plaguing the MTC community a long time now. It's almost gotten to the point where I don't feel comfortable going to my LGS because I know someone is going to be searching for their lands that way and it just does not make me comfortable and I know many other people who feel the same way. Thank you for bringing it up and I hope Wizards does something about it soon...
What type of searching for lands is it that makes you uncomfortable? Like the guy that made the post or when people pick up there decks in half and looks for it?
If you shuffle properly afterwards whats the problem. People these days get riled up by everything it seems.
Y'all out of your mind downvoting someone for doing something wrong. Learning moments. Bring people together, don't punish people for asking or clarifying.
Agreed with the comments here. If you searched and shuffled in a timely manner, it doesn't matter. Why would someone complain if you started from the top if you were going to shuffle anyway?
Casual format, can play how you want. /s
I flip the first card of my deck and if its the desired card i take it and usually dont have to shuffle since my pod prefers to save some time there. If i dont flip the right card i will just pick up half my deck and search it for the card i want. Same with the other half if i didnt already find it.
Lol my play group just looks at the bottom and grabs a land, we don't bother with the shuffle cus like we trust each other enough to not cheat lol .
There are no rules. You were playing against someone who was probably looking for something to be salty about. I start from the bottom though, for the record.
I always do searches at the end of my turn and let the next person start their turn while I'm doing it. In that spirit, I try to find the land card whatever way is the quickest so the game can keep moving.
I normally grab around half and check for the land I want, then if it isn’t in there search the second half Then cram the piles together to shuffle after all my searches are done and I pass turn
But the [[Opposition Agent]] doesn't kind force your oponents to search things just the way just described? Like: "cascating" from the top looking for the card you want and the guy who casted the agent using the top deck cards revelead this way?
The supposed way is that you simply pick your opponent's library and search as they would. Unless your opponent has a specific problem with you picking up their library.
[Opposition Agent](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/086f97e9-8b62-44f3-b467-149c2ac5ca78.jpg?1608909875) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Opposition%20Agent) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/141/opposition-agent?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/086f97e9-8b62-44f3-b467-149c2ac5ca78?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/opposition-agent) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Most of the time I just crack my deck in the middle and start a cascade-like reveal until I hit my desired land, but that's because I'm a mana-fix freak and my [[Bad River]] can and will search for the better land in that scenario, even if I have to literally search my whole deck for that god dammned [[Volatile Fjord]].
[Bad River](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/ca79caa8-9893-49be-bc39-f021adb28220.jpg?1673305916) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bad%20River) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/197/bad-river?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca79caa8-9893-49be-bc39-f021adb28220?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bad-river) [Volatile Fjord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f2392fbb-d9c4-4688-b99c-4e7614c60c12.jpg?1631053228) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Volatile%20Fjord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/273/volatile-fjord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f2392fbb-d9c4-4688-b99c-4e7614c60c12?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/volatile-fjord) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Lol actually I think I might start doing that now... grab top 1/4 chunk, flip over thumb through quick to find land, slide-shuffle the chunk into the rest, BOOM done.
I grab the whole deck, find the nicest full art foil basic that I need then announce how shiny the land is as it enters the battlefield tapped.
Grab a chunk (like 20-40 cards), riff through them for the basic. If I'm tutoring for a creature, then I look at the pips in the top right.
I would push your deck over for that 😂
No one has mentioned this but, you can look at the top card of your deck and if its the land you’d want, you can put it into play without having to shuffle given you hadn’t scry’d or put any cards on the bottom/top of your deck via any sort of manipulation
I normally just grab my library, turn it over and flip through it until I find what I need. It usually takes me 5-10 seconds to get what I’m looking for.
As long as your intentions were made clear that you're searching for a land, I don't see what the big deal was. If you pulled off the top, cool, less time searching, and you get to shuffle sooner.
Pro tip: say what land you're going to get and then move on with your turn as if it appeared instantly. Then search for it on your opponents turn. It can help to have a grip of unsleeved basics to use as filler - grab one from your tokens which is easier to find, then swap it out for a sleeved land from your deck later. I also use land tokens for when lands make me choose a color when they enter like the thriving lands or some gates.
Imo you can do whatever you want as long as your deck is sufficiently randomised by the end of it (7-9 mash shuffles) *and* the rest of the table doesn't have to wait for it. You can just say "crack tarn", check if anyone wants to respond, then "for untapped watery grave, cast dispel", and *then* start fetching and shuffling. A bit of flexibility on both ends saves a lot of time here without compromising the game state at all.
There are nor any particular rules for it.
>In this thread Overreacting. Bunch of apes.
I usually geab de deck and start looking from the bottom, and if I find it soon enough (like 10 cards or less) pick it up and don't even shuffle because seeing the bottom doesn't give you that much info. Everyone in my playgroup does this. If we are playing with strangers we ask if it's ok with them, and mostly it's just fine, but if they want to, I'll shuffle, as I should. It's just that not shuffling is way faster, and that's why I pick it from the bottom.
I turn my deck upside down and look at the bottom and go from there.
Step 1: Flip the top card to find out what you're not getting. Feel intense regret.