Here you are guys, the finished thing.

I plan on shipping it in to HN, but I would like your opinion on it before I do so:

The Ground Floor

Preparing for an event, it has a myriad of meanings that apply to everyone. It sometime means dedicating time to getting ready to win the event, or helping others get ready for an event. But for everyone is means one thing: A new large event has been announced and everyone is racing towards the finish line and trying to win that event.

In this 3 part article series I’ll be taking you through what I do personally to prepare for an event, what I do before/during/after an event; and the posthumous details that are given in event reports (more widely known as tournament reports). The first part of this series will be detailing my process for preparing, and it’s going to a lengthy article that most will just tl;dr. I implore you to actually read the whole thing, as you’ll learn things you did not know before about the preparation process that will help you.

Now, what happens after an event like a Jonin is announced? Well the reactions are so wildly varied that I can’t give you an accurate answer, but one theme prevails in every players minds when they are announced and that is: I will win this event no matter what. You can’t tell me I’m wrong because I know everyone thinks that way, just because it’s the best way to think about an event. It doesn’t matter where the event is; you just know that if you go you’ll win, because it’s your god given right to win it.

Part 1:

In this part of this series of article, I’ll be going over what process I personally take when preparing for an event, from my deck choice to my testing sessions to building my deck list and finally to my finished deck and the tweaks made to it after it’s ready. I wont be explaining the whole process because some of the information is extraneous or hidden, but it will be explained well enough that anyone reading this could apply it to their own play test group and get results.

The first thing I do when an event is announced is contact my play testing group, the entire group is called within 15 minutes of the events listing and everyone knows about it. We then get together and design a play test schedule that fits all of our schedules and start ironing out who will be doing what in the weeks leading up to the event. Some of the group is tasked with going out and gathering up the cards needed for every deck that could be played by and given person; others are assigned with proxying up every viable deck for the format, and still others are tasked with finding out information from other play testing groups. The last are basically just spies we have in our group to help us out with gathering meta information.

Now each group is it’s own given entity until we decide on what day/s to meet up to play test. All the groups are equally important and if one group fails to produce results the whole team is hurt, which is why generally only the best of the best are used on teams. The only group given any leeway is the group tasked with gathering up the cards, that’s because resources are limited and we can always pick up the cards at a later date.

For about three weeks, we all lay in wait while the individual groups go out and do their tasks, and on a Thursday we meet up and discuss what has been learned by each group, what cards are super hot that everyone wants and what cards that are not and will be under-estimated by the outside player base. With the current Chunin exam round coming up, GiG Itachi is a super hot card that everyone has to have but Goal Itachi isn’t, both are good in their own ways, and while most would say GiG is just flat out better, you can make plenty of arguments on the behalf of Goal being a card you should play. Now I’m not saying that you need to immediately jump the gun and just get every super you can find, but generally watch what people are doing in regards to trading and you will start to see what people are building.

That’s what the second group is tasked with, finding out what others are planning on playing and why. Maybe store A is playing fire because it just dominates there, but store B could be playing primarily earth because it’s a solid deck there. Its learning small things like that, that will get you the edge in you need in the competition that is up coming. Now this is less helpful the larger the play area if your group is small, this method isn’t as effect in say So Cal as it is in say CT. You can still get a feel no matter what the size, but you will know less and less the larger the area is in relative size to your play testing group. Generally what we do in regards to gathering information is take 2 Saturdays out of each month and go to a random store in pairs and play in that stores events, it’s startling just how much people will volunteer information if you just ask them for it. I know of very few players that will just flat out ignore you if you ask them what they’re playing or planning on playing at an event.

The third and generally final group in any team is tasked with proxying up the decks that are likely to see play. That will generally take anywhere from a half hour to three days depending on just how many event reports have rolled in and how big the format is. This group is the most important in the immediate sense, because you as a team are relying on them to be able to competently find the publicly available information and discern from what’s out there what will and what wont see play in your area, and building play testing decks according to that information. There are plenty of ways to proxy, anything from the simple Sharpie + Back of card classic to printing out fancy slips of paper will all the information typed up on them. No matter how it’s done everyone needs to be able to realize what the cards are representing so there is no confusion, so we assign the people with either the best penmanship or the best typing skills to this.

Now that you have a clear idea on what my team does even before we actually convene and start talking about what will be played and what wont, I need to tell you all that you WILL fail in at least one regard when you assign these groups, whether it being the fact that you couldn’t gather everything up or the other stores are being secretive or even the fact that the information about the heavily played decks just isn’t out there. Don’t fret; you’ll just have to supplement what was lost at a later date and update from there. It happens every time without fail, and if you let it get to you, you’re destined to fail before you even start testing.

Now, once you’ve assigned your groups and said groups have done their tasks you meet up on a weekday when no one else that plays your game is at your shop and you peruse the information and cards that have been gathered. You comb over deck lists that have put up results, how much variance is there from Deck A and Deck B of the same type, were they the exact same? If so, how many events did said deck put results up at. Are all the cards not the same? If so, what changed between the decks and why, generally during your first group meeting you talk about past events that have happened, what won them and why that particular deck won that event. You talk about what the meta breakdown was, how many of Deck 1 showed up; did big up and coming deck 2 put up results at the event? Why or why not? You’ll get a feel for what’s out there from these results sheets and your own information gathering.

After that point you start the most important part of this article, the actual laying out of all the big decks and learning the match ups between all of them. After that first meeting you generally have a feel for the format and you’ll know what to look for coming into the second meeting. During the second and subsequent meetings you’ll just specifically learning about what’s good and what isn’t in the established deck realm. Is Deck A really that good, or is it all just hype. What about rogue Deck B? It’s out there and putting up decent results, is it worth looking into as a serious contender for your gauntlet or not? Just how many events did Deck A win? How many did Deck A top 8 without “getting there”? These are all important questions that you’ll answer with one thing, and only one thing. That’s play testing the deck against the rest of them.

So you’ve found the top lists and seen the information for what it is, and you know that Decks A, B, C, D, and E are all worth looking at, but you can’t decide on what is best for you in particular. Well then you start what we magic players generally refer to as “gauntlet” testing, where you have all the big decks proxied up and ready to rock. To begin, you need at least one person per deck, and at least five hours worth of testing time per session to really get the results you’re looking for.

Here’s where the meat of this article is, how exactly to play test to get the best results, at least from my long and storied experiences.

To start, I’ll explain how I shuffle, and how my play test partners also shuffle. We sit down across from each other and if the we’ve just been handed the deck we will do something called the pile shuffle, which basically means we lay the cards down on the table in a specific amount of piles (normally 7) going in one direction (which in my case is left to right) then going the opposite direction (right to left) until all the cards are laid down in piles. You then combine those piles together by pushing them into one large pile, after the large pile is straightened out, you’ll for a couple of riffle shuffles (which is the method where you grab half the deck and push it into the other part of the deck) and you’re done. That’s how we shuffle because it really randomizes your draws. Other groups do it differently, but generally the cut and bridge is NOT good enough randomization and will skew your test results because how the cards are randomized isn’t very high.

After we shuffle and present, we roll the dice to determine who goes first in our “test pod”. I call it a test pod because you wont be involved in other peoples games, it will be as if only you and the person you are playing with are the only ones there. That’s excellent training for working under pressure when you’re under the Sunday lights at whatever large event you’re practicing for, as a note for everyone. Now as a general rule we play 20 games as our test amount, ten without sideboards, and 10 with. The person who won the dice roll goes first for all those game, to show how the match works if they go first during every game. After the results of the first game are established then you move onto the second batch of games where the player who lost goes first. Same as before, 20 games, 10 without sideboards and 10 with, that will generally give you a good analysis of any given match up because you’ve played enough different hands to learn how the game will play out no matter if you are on the play, or if you are on the draw.

During the 40 test games, you’ll take notes on what plays won you the game, and what mistakes lost you the games you played, and after they are done you’ll talk over your session with your partner discussing what went right, and in some cases, what went wrong. Was one deck just so dominate in that match up that the other had no chance no matter what it did? Were the decks evenly matched and it was determined by player skill? Just how many mistakes did you make during your games, were the negligible, or did they cost you the game where you made that mistake? These questions should all be answered by your opponent/partner. After everyone finishes their test pods, the group will meet up and discuss what won what match up, how many of the games did deck A win over B. You can even go so far as to develop a graph showing what’s won over what with which player ran the deck that day.

After your group has discussed the findings from the first session and the graph is in place for that week, you break to regain your mental acuity. Then you meet up for the second session of testing, and trade off decks with someone and test match ups with your partner. Eventually with this method of testing you should play every deck there against every player there, and that will give you a feel on what the meta will be and how particular decks will be played. This information enables you to make decisions on the fly on how to sideboard for any given match up against any given opponent, even if side opponent isn’t part of your group. Everyone plays the game the same way at the base level, so you can just update your previous information with how the current opponent plays a deck. But that will be explained in depth in another article.

Once you have a good feel on how the meta will be, you can start the next set of the process, which is establishing what deck fits with you, whether it be Deck A on the chart, or a deck not even on the chart. This part of the process is the deck building portion of this article, and the section where I will detail how I actually build my own decks, and why I win more often than most at any given event than others do.

To start my process, I look at the established decks and I find what they have in common, because nearly any deck has something in common with the rest of the decks in the format, no matter what game it is. For example: Every deck in Magic currently has at least 4 non-basic lands in them, and that is an important piece of information cause it changes how I’d build/play my deck. Likewise in Naruto every deck runs Shikamaru [Unwillingness], and that changes how I build my deck and how I play every match up. With those pieces of information available to you, you can build a “Rogue” deck that can take advantage of the fact that he wont go out, so you’d play a deck with cards that can target stand-by ninja’s and what not.

When I sit down and start building a deck, I spend dedicated time on it. Now dedicated time is different from normal time, because 1 dedicated hour of deck building is worth more than 2 hours of normal deck building. Basically a dedicated hour of time means you shut down AIM, you turn off the Bandai forums, you pause the Youtube video, you stop playing video games and you really buckle down and think about what you want to play. Generally the only things I have running in the background when I’m dedicating my time to deck building is my music and the Bandai card lists, so I can look up information on what cards are out there for what I want.

The next step in my process is to choose what I want to base my deck around, and any numbers of things influence this but my main contributing factor is this little guy:

[insert tin pic here]

I’ve had more deck ideas come to me just looking through that tin then anywhere else. The main reason that I decide from that tin is because I generally only keep the best cards in it, and when I want to build something it will come to me because it’s in there. After deciding what I want to base my deck around (whether it’s Water or Fire or Earth or Lightning) I start slogging through the card lists looking for cards that will supplement my decks plan of attack. I also look through the cards in the tin as well, pulling stuff out that will supplement my plan of attack. While I slog through the list I’m consciously picking out cards that others don’t see because they look “bad” on the surface, and those are the kinds of cards that will win an event from you. Since they look bad people will just gloss over them not even taking the time to read them and immediately dismiss them. That’s how decks like Greedy.Dec win, they run cards most wont because they haven’t been “discovered” by the majority and you wont know how to play against it.


While slogging through those lists I write down the names of cards that I want to play in my deck, and what set they are in. This helps in the long run because one you have a hard copy of what you want to play, and two you don’t have to constantly be looking over multiple documents on your desktop while building the deck. Yes you can say it’s inefficient, but it works, just ask Alperzlegacy, he’ll confirm what I’m saying. It also keeps your thoughts organized cause you aren’t trying to remember cards off the top of your head, you have a nice list sitting in front of you. (Shameless plug time: You can also look at [link=http://www.bandaicg.com/naruto/showthread.php?t=76351]This[/link] article for a listing of the standard playables.)

After finishing my list of what are possibilities in my deck, I go back through the list and start eliminating what I know for sure I wont play, and making a new list of what is definitely in and what might be in. Now it looks much simpler here than it actually is, and that’s because it’s very time consuming, the process goes back to “dedicated” time. If I were watching Youtube videos while working on my deck, I’d get distracted by a funny video and turn AIM on and start shipping the link to the video to others, which leads to conversations. Inevitably it leads to my process stopping and just doing other things. You do not want this, because whatever work you had started, well it’s lost. You may not think so, but it is. So I turn off everything but my music and the card lists and I keep on building.

When I reach this point, (having a definite pile and a maybe pile) I start deciding on what will go in based on what information has already been gathered. Are there a lot of sniper jutsu? Well out go things that sit back and help from the village. What about a lot of chakra destruction? I add in cards that combat those types of attacks. From that point I generally will have a rough deck list ready to sleeve up and play test with. Which leads back to the whole gauntlet testing part of the article. 40 games against every deck, and you’ll know what hands are keepable and what hands only look keepable. Generally when I build a deck, it goes through 500 test games before I ever sling it onto the table, because personally less testing means more things can go wrong, card choices could be incorrect in the deck, and that means I can lose because I didn’t sufficiently test.

But what if you don’t have that kind of time? What if you have a job or a family or just are to lazy to do the work. Well don’t fret, because there is an abridged method that will obtain the same results that the long method provides you. But it requires a unique understanding of the game that only comes at the highest of levels, because if you’re just a regular player that only plays at Academy and Genin level events you don’t need this method. It’s called the “decision tree” method of testing, and it will literally cut ninety-five percent of your test time away and generally make you a better player.

Now, a “decision tree” is one of the easiest and hardest things to create, it’s easy because you can do it in thirty seconds flat; but it’s hard because you can create the wrong decision tree and that will end up ruining you. What a “decision tree” is at its core is a train of thoughts you have implanted in your mind that evaluates circumstances and give you the appropriate response to the given information. I’ll give you a good example: You go to your favorite restaurant and want to order the chefs special, so you ask your waiter or waitress for the chefs specials of the night. They tell you and you immediately decide to order one, or you decide to order something else.

You just used a decision tree, and the information for this tree is:
Your question
The wait staffs answer
Your decision

Now that’s a very basic decision, but you do it every day unknowingly. You decide whether or not to buy that chef’s special or whether or not to play that 8 Trigrams in response to them Water Dragoning something. This is especially prevalent at the top tournament tables because the players there have all sorts of decision trees in their mind about how the game will play out. Here’s an example:

You have 4 cards in hand, 1 Sasuke [Copying the Skills], 1 Temari [Wind Scythe], 1 8 Trigrams, and 1 Fireball Jutsu. Your field is: Itachi [Genius in Genjutsu], Kakashi [The Eye that Detects Falsehood], Sasuke [Severing the Bond], Temari [Wind Scythe], Shikamaru [Unwillingness], and a Naruto Uzumaki & Hinata Hyuga [Sudden Reunion]. Your teams are: Sasuke, Itachi, Naruto/Hinata; Kakashi and Temari. You have 5 Chakra in your chakra pile, 3 of which are fire, one of which is earth, and the last of which is wind. You have won 5 battle rewards at this point.

Your opponent has 5 cards in hand, a Yamato [Control by Fear], The First Hokage [Matchless Hero], Shizune [Medical Kunoichi], Naruto Uzumaki & Hinata Hyuga [Sudden Reunion], Shikamaru [Unwillingness] and a Choji [Infuriation]. Your opponent’s team looks like: Yamato, The First, and Shizune; Choji and Naruto/Hinata. The have 7 Chakra, 5 of which is earth, and two of which are wind. They have won 7 battle rewards at this point.

Your decision tree has already been laid out for this turn, and it looks like:
Itachi [GiG] (which you deployed this turn charging a Surprise! And used the effect on the Yamato team)
Shikamaru [U] (which you can not use because it’s negated)
Charge/Mission
Teaming
Attacking

Now you’re best option is to just attack right? You’re in the superior position, you have 2 jutsu and the chakra to use them, and you’re going to get 4 if they just don’t block. But your opponent has 5 cards in hand and the ability to cast them, if they aren’t Sealing the Evil or Four Pillars Prison. Your decision tree then becomes:
Attack
Not Attack

Now you would choose to attack, considering your opponent can’t really be sandbagging anything of importance. They don’t block and you try to Trigrams away the Yamato but your opponent has the First activation that he hasn’t used yet. So the tree becomes:
Cast 8 Trigrams
Don’t Cast 8 Trigrams
OR
Cast Fireball Jutsu
Then cast 8 Trigrams

If your opponent decides to counter the Fireball you can just 8 Trigrams away the first, but your opponent could just let the Fireball resolve, and you’ll have to decide whether you want to master it back or not, is it worth the extra fire cost or not? Are you sure you’re going to be able to defend the next turn if your opponent attacks? All of that is part of the “decision tree” process. In a perfect world, you’d be able to freeze your game and play hundreds of games where this specific instance happens, half of which you decide to go one route, and the other half in which you go the other route; therefore deciding which will benefit you the most. Unfortunately you don’t live in a perfect world, and you’re working off imperfect information so you decide on the fly how you’re going to play something out, and hope for the best.

How does this pertain to deck building? Well it cuts out that time you’d take playing games because you can play them in your head using your decision trees. It also will allow you on the fly to construct deck lists, if you have that much excess time on your hands. Generally a “decision tree” when deck building is all about the ninja line up, is Ninja A better or worse than Ninja B; and if it is, how many of Ninja A do you run. It helps with Missions and jutsu as well, but you’ll generally have them down pat at the point when you’re actually building a deck and you’re just building the “meat” of the deck and that is the Ninja line up.

After a while of building decks with these decision trees you start “clipping” away the chaff that doesn’t work and your monstrosity of a tree ends up looking like one of the giant redwoods that reside in California, showing just how much work you put into your game. Your tree becomes a template over which you can lay any deck that you want to build, and instead of spending over 60 hours testing decks, you can spend 5 hours testing a deck and you’ll know whether or not it’s worth running. The same logic applies to the limited formats of Naruto, and it really helps you when you can make decisions on the fly without having to think about them.

When all is said and done, you should have spent your time up wisely leading you to finish within 2 weeks of the event, and at that point you’ll feel prepped and like you’ll win no matter what. That’s what this article was about; a way to test yourself and the deck you choose to make sure you’ll win. Everyone tests differently, and that’s fine, no one system is the best. If you decide to not use this one I wont be hurt by it, it’s your decision, you might even change it to fit your needs and it ends up being better than this system. If that happens, I applaud you because it means you’re ready to play at any level event no matter what. Take this knowledge and use it how you will, if it only impacts just one person then all the time I’ve spent writing it will not have been wasted.

Now, there are just two things I want to go over before I close this article out and leave you waiting for article two, and that’s what I do and don’t do the night before an event. There are five things I do on the night leading up to an event, the first of which is find the PDF that houses the deck registration sheet, and I’ll type my deck list up then print it out. Doing this saves you time and frustration the day of the event, because it means you both have already gathered up and finished your deck, and that you’ll be ready for the event and wont be scrambling around for a pen and a list.

The second thing I always do before the event is de-sleeve my deck and re-sleeve it in new sleeves, while organizing the deck based on the order that its been written in. Again this not only saves time and frustration, but means that you’ll be giving less information away because you’ll only be showing your deck to one person, and that is the Meijin of the event. I cannot tell you just how many times I’ve been able to scout out decks because the people were too lazy to type or write their list the night before and have to scramble to do it the day of the event. It keeps your hidden information, well, hidden; and that gives you an edge over the competition, cause you’ll know half of the decks being played and no one will know yours.

The third is packing up, now I know it sounds like something you’ve heard a million times before, but guess what; if you don’t pack up the night before you’ll wake up in the morning scrambling around trying to find everything, and you’ll end up forgetting something. I’ve had to hand friends’ decks because they forgot theirs. It only builds upon the frustration of the player base that you’re slowing the event down because you can’t find you deck and write it down. I promise if you start packing the night before it will become a habit and not only help you when going to a large event, but you’ll start doing it for everything in your life. It not only makes you feel better that you’ll just get up and leave, but you’ll be ready when others are not.

The fourth thing I do on the night before the event is eat a good meal. People tell you to always eat a good hearty breakfast before the event, and while it’s important you should always eat good the night before going to an event. That means no 3 AM trips to McDonalds to pick up some breakfast, that’s not good food; it will only hinder you the next day.

The fifth and final thing I do is make myself a medicine bag and some healthy snakes for the next day. Mine generally has 20 Advil tablets, a handful of Tums, and maybe a caffeine pill to keep me going through the day. There are countless stories of someone losing out in the later rounds because they had an upset stomach or a headache late in the day. This curbs those at the start of the day. When you feel a headache coming on, take 2 to 4 Advil and generally you’ll be able to continue. Feeling sick from the breakfast/lunch you ate? Take 4 Tums; it helps immensely to keep you on track for the day. The same goes for the snacks, I generally have a couple of granola bars in my bag, and a Camelbak in my car. What a Camelbak is for the uninitiated is basically a very large water bottle that you wear like a backpack, they generally cost anywhere from 20$-100$ depending on the size you want. It will help you immensely to own one, because you not only won’t be taking in unhealthy amounts of sugar, but you’ll be saving money by not paying for the sodas that the store sells. If you want to buy one here’s a [link=http://www.camelbak.com/sports-recreation/hydration-packs/2010-classic.aspx]link[/link] to the official company site that sells them.

There’s only really two things I don’t do the night before and event, and that’s play games with my deck. Call it a superstition or whatever, but I feel like if I play games with my deck, I feel like I spend up the luck I could have for the event. I don’t like wasting luck, because you need every ounce of the stuff you can get your hands on, because some people just straight up have more luck than you. You have to be able to supplement your skill with luck and just draw better than your opponent.

The second is not showering, I’ve seen so many people just wake up in the clothing they were wearing the night before spray themselves with their given deodorant and leave. That’s so nasty that it isn’t even funny. If you’re going to the store you support every week, take a shower, because it not only makes you look bad, it also reflects badly upon the store itself. You want these people to keep coming to your stores events right? Well if you present yourself in such a way that a person wouldn’t want to be around you, guess what they’ll apply that logic to all the regulars thinking: Well if this guy smells this badly right now what about the rest of them. I implore every gamer out there to shower both the night before an event, and on the day of said event. It reflects well upon you that you can show up in a shirt that is wrinkled from being on the floor, and a pair of pants that don’t look like they’ve been in a garbage can for 3 weeks. Not to mention you’ll keep the level of “gamer smell” down to a minimum at least near you.

Well that’s it for this article, I hope you enjoyed it, the next part of the “The Ground Floor” series will be looking at the day of the event itself, and what you should do before/during and even after an event for that day. Hope you guys enjoyed.

-VSA

PS. You can attribute this article to Saitsuofleaves, the people’s champ.

Very well written article, appreciate it on here

I do some similar things for testing although I can't say it's quite as intensive. When I am going to play at a bigevent I usually try to pick my deck out no less than 3 weeks before, given enough time to put thought into the original buil then playing it at a local making tweeks and perfecting itfrom there. You always start with a rough draft, I don't think I've ever made a deck without testing that's been the final version.

For playtesting I usually like to build a couple f other decks that I deem most threatening but generally just run as many situations about matchups as I can through my head.

IDK bout anyone else, and this may be a little nerdy but I have definitely had a nightmere or two about completely oversleeping through a big event and always worry about it, this past year I would set all three alarms on my phone so I would wake up while at the hotels, intact I nearly did oversleep for the gencon DB evnt lol.

Very good though and discussion provoking article, I almost tl; dr'ed but it was def worth the read.

If you want, you can post up a link to it on Bandai promoting your site.

I tend to scrub a deckup the night b4 an event, maybe drink to help my 0-30 mins of building. Drugs seems to do ok, but it depends on my mood. If i'm in a really good mood I'll make my build at the event itself. But it seems I have buddys in the sky who helps me build and playtest. Day 1 of playing naruto I've never kept a build longer than 2 weeks, I like to keep that trend. Ppl who Lose to me are just idiots and are overprepared.

My fave thing about naruto is blind swinging and opponents give me free brs when
I should be getting rolled.

visserac88 wrote:I tend to scrub a deckup the night b4 an event, maybe drink to help my 0-30 mins of building. Drugs seems to do ok, but it depends on my mood. If i'm in a really good mood I'll make my build at the event itself. But it seems I have buddys in the sky who helps me build and playtest. Day 1 of playing naruto I've never kept a build longer than 2 weeks, I like to keep that trend. Ppl who Lose to me are just idiots and are overprepared.

My fave thing about naruto is blind swinging and opponents give me free brs when
I should be getting rolled.

Thats cause if your playin NvS your a sack....If I did block a lot of your teams i woulda got rolled....I saw that SCJ against deven dont tell me you didnt use to always have them in your hand

WTF@saitsuofleaves?

Hes souch a fucking dumb ass piece of shit. He needs to be shot for being so fucking ignorant. Just saying.

Wow, this game must be serious business to you, lol.

I have never put that much time into getting ready for a big event, but maybe I will take some of this advice and change that.

Password wrote:Wow, this game must be serious business to you, lol.

I have never put that much time into getting ready for a big event, but maybe I will take some of this advice and change that.

Actually that was how I tested back when I was heavily into magic. At this point I can build decks on the fly and I have an even more abridged version of my testing procedures.