Between games, I pick up my lands/spells in L-S-S order, then proceed to overhand shuffle the living hell out of my deck. I do so about 20 or 30 times. And I don't just cut in the middle - that will achieve nothing - sometimes I cut 1/3 way down, sometimes 75% of the way down - everywhere! After 20 - 30 times, well with the 5 minute allotted time, I have achieved the following:
1) Sufficient randomization - no, not perfect L-S-S-L-S-S randomization, that's the realm of scumbag cheating deck stackers, but close enough. In fact, if you try my method, turn your deck over, and obsrve how random your deck is, you should find at most, a spellclump or landclump of 6 cards, only once. Maybe 2 5-card clumps, at worst, if you didn't find the above. And in true randomization, that's about as good as you're going to get.
2) I don't have to look at my cards. Instead, I can use the time to shuffle AND look at my opponent's hands as he shuffles. If it were up to me abd many others, pile shuffling would and should be illegal.
Then again, I have a friend who feels deck-stacking SHOULD be legal. WHY should bad draws determine who wins/loses? Then again, my friend's crazy.
Beware of backshuffling. This is when your opponent reshuffles your deck into piles of 3 (if he's stupid), or piles of six, in order to break up your randomness. He's assuming you're a deckstacker (as he probably is), and doing so will order your deck into something like 20 spells, then 20 land, then 20 spells. And this is illegal. Don't hesitate to call a judge over if you suspect backshuffling. It's illegal because he's attempting to reorder your deck in a certain way. In my method, though, it won't work. I'd still call over the judge, however.
Assuming you play honestly, you're going to lose one out of five games in Magic - you just are, thanks to bad draws, land clumps, or spell clumps, But that's not to say you can't go undefeated. It depends on how THOSE kinds of losses are spaced - two of those losses in a row are not recommended.
Before the Paris Mulligan rule, you would lose one out of four matches. So learn how and when to Paris! Parising is more of an art form, really, but consistant practicing with your own deck can help to make it 2nd nature. Beware OVERparising though - it's quite annoying to drop an "average" hand, whatever that is, and then get a bad hand. And keeping a bad hand because you HATE going down to 6 cards, HOPING you'll draw into what you'll need, is even worse. I've seen even good players do this when under pressure, and their loss was fairly preordained.
"Average" is a statistical construct. It's a line. Your hand will, 99% of the time, be on the good side or bad side of average, and this is where the 1 out of 5 thing comes in:
1) You: good hand; Opponent: bad hand - You should win
2) You: bad hand; Opponent: good hand - You should lose
3) You: good hand; Opponent: good hand - even ground
4) You: bad hand; Opponent: bad hand - neutral ground
Assuming nearly equal quality in decks and opponents (ha!), there should be one out of four games you should win, and one out of four you should lose. Throw in the Paris mulligan, and you each have a way out. And it may come down to who Parises better. Or, whomever was more the gentleman such that they didn't feel the Wrath of Gizmo's Pinky!
