Level One

The Complete Course

Reid Duke

Contents

Copyright

The Basics

1. What is Magic?

2. The Basics of Mana

3. The Basics of Card Advantage

Concepts of Game Play—Part 1

4. Attacking and Blocking

5. Tempo

6. Tempo & Card Advantage: A Delicate Balance

7. Linear Strategies

Deck Archetypes

8. Aggro Decks

9. Control Decks

10. Midrange Decks

Concepts of Game Play—Part 2

11. Board Sweepers

12. Permission Spells

13. “Creature” Lands

14. Symmetric Effects

15. Threats and Answers

16. Inevitability

17. Role Assignment

18. Damage Racing

19. Mulligans

20. Sequencing

21. Play or Draw

Concepts of Game Play - Part 3

22. Investment

23. Line-Up Theory

24. Playing From Ahead, Playing From Behind

25. Going Through the Motions

26. Mulligans Part III: Constructed

27. Playing Safe and Playing Scared

28. When to Cast Your Spells

29. Flexibility

Limited

30. Sealed Deck

31. The Basics of Booster Draft

32. Sideboarding in Limited

33. Signals in Booster Draft

34. Booster Draft, Part 3

35. Draft Walkthrough

36. Mulligans Part II: Limited

Deck Construction

37. Building a Mana Base

38. An Introduction to Popular Constructed Formats

39. The Sideboard

40. Sideboard Plans

41. Choosing Your Deck

42. The Metagame

Other

43. Playing in a Grand Prix: Part I

44. Playing in a Grand Prix: Part II

45. Becoming a Better Player

46. Glossary of Terms

LEVEL ONE: THE COMPLETE COURSE

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The Basics

1

What is Magic?

"So what is Magic?" They ask me.

You know, they. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, girlfriends, boyfriends, coworkers, strangers, everyone—they.

This is destined to be a universal question because Magic: The Gathering is so much different from, quite frankly, everything else. They know chess, but Magic isn't quite chess. They know playing-card games like bridge, but again, Magic isn't quite one of those either. Even for gamers, the small details about Magic—and more importantly, their consequences—are difficult to grasp. For the majority of the people who make up our they, Magic is a completely different world.

"So what is Magic?" Is a question that I'm setting out to answer—in short today, and in depth in this ongoing column.

Magic is the greatest game on Earth. I feel comfortable making this bold claim in part because Magic: The Gathering can suit itself to the needs of so many different people. Magic is for the collector, the deck builder, the lover of the game's lore or art, and—of course—the player. It's just as well-suited for players like myself, who play every day of their lives, as it is for players like so many of my friends, who only get to play on occasion, once every year or two.

Along those lines, I suppose I ought to introduce myself. My name is Reid Duke, and over the span of the last nineteen years (since I was five years old), I've been all of the people above: the player, the deck builder, the collector, and the lover of the Magic world. Today, I'm a full-time professional Magic player and writer.

This column won't feature much about Magic storyline, art, or collecting. Nonetheless, my writing will be for absolutely anyone, at any level of expertise, who might one day aspire to play competitive Magic. The goal is to take you from the most basic concepts of Magic all the way up to playing at a competitive, Pro Tour Qualifier (PTQ) level. Starting here.

So without further ado, let's take a look at the gameplay of Magic.

WHAT MAKES MAGIC, MAGIC?

It's not particularly scientific, but when I can only give a one-sentence, cocktail-party answer to their question, I might say, "You can think of Magic as a cross between chess and playing-card games."

Magic shares some similarities with chess, but it also features some very key differences. Both are one-on-one strategy games; at the simplest level, your creatures are your chess pieces and your spells are simply one extra layer of support for them. Both games require strategic thinking, long-term planning, and an eye for advantageous openings. However, in chess, the whole game is laid out clearly on the table, where in Magic there is uncertainty.

Art by Brad Rigney

Variance

While there are a number of variables in tournament Magic, far and away the most prominent is simply that you can't know what card will be coming off the top of your library (or your opponent's) next.

Chess is about thinking several moves ahead. The same is true of Magic, but with the extra challenge of considering possibilities. What can happen if you draw a land next turn? What if it's a creature? What if the opponent draws a way to take out one of the creatures you left back as a blocker? Playing the game without knowing exactly what the future will bring adds a layer of complexity.

It also means that every game will be different, even between the same two players using the same two decks. It would be difficult to memorize openings in Magic, because you won't know exactly what you'll have to work with until the game starts. Let's say that in chess I always move my knight first. Well, in Magic I might not even draw my "knight" at all! What's more, my decision to move my knight first is based on the way it matches up against my opponent's pieces. In Magic, you also don't know for sure what "pieces" your opponent will have.

Hidden Information

In addition to the variance aspects of the game, there's also uncertainty in that you don't know what cards your opponent has in his or her hand or library. Often, you'll face situations where one choice is better if your opponent has a removal spell, while another choice is better if he or she does not. You might have a powerful spell to cast, but you'd rather wait on it if your opponent has Dissipate. Cases like these can feel largely like a guessing game, but there are, in fact, a number of techniques you can employ to help you work toward making the best possible decision.

WHAT SKILLS DO YOU NEED TO PLAY MAGIC?

The "Playing-Card Game" Skills

In the aspects of variance and hidden information, Magic more closely resembles games played with a standard deck of playing cards, like bridge. In the movies, Wild Bill Hickok might see the tiniest twitch of another cowboy's eyelash and immediately know, with mortal certainty, that he's holding exactly the Ace and Eight of Spades. Moments like this (at least to my knowledge) are the things of fiction. While there are certainly times when a variety of factors can combine to give you an educated guess about what's in your opponent's hand, you do not need any mystical powers to be great at Magic or at other games of hidden information.

In my experience, it's rare for two Magic players to engage in a deadly staredown in the wake of a game-changing bluff. Similarly, the times when you want to pull out your calculator and pinpoint your odds of drawing a certain card are also few and far between. If you're a wizard at reading your opponents, then great! If you're a lightning-fast and razor-sharp mathematician, that's a skill you should bring to the table! These things will come up from time to time, and they may accelerate your growth as a player. However, for my money, they aren't the most important skills in Magic.

Handling uncertainty in Magic is less of an exact science and more a matter of simply being aware that these possibilities exist. Some games, you won't draw as many lands as you like. Other games, you'll draw far more than you can use! Sometimes, your opponent will have Flesh to Dust for your powerhouse creature and other times he or she won't. These uncertainties are in the background of every game of Magic, and that's the point! All you can do is be aware that not everything is under your control.

The "Chess" Skills

The first and foremost skill in Magic's gameplay is simply the ability to play your own cards well. To truly master the game, it can be helpful to learn to read your opponents and to brush up on your probabilities. However, these things should come after (long after) learning how to best deploy the resources that your deck gives you. In short, focus most on the "chess" aspects (the board, the information you have), and simply be aware of the "playing-card game" aspects (variance and hidden information) that underlie everything.

As this column moves forward, I'll be going into substantial detail about a number of ways to improve the way you play your cards in a game of Magic. For today, though, let me leave you with the number one, most important skill for Magic's gameplay.

Art by Craig J Spearing

Focus

Other names for the same thing would be "thoughtfulness," or "presence in the game." This is not a natural talent that some people are born with and some are not. Every single person reading this can force him- or herself, the next time he or she plays a game of Magic, to slow down a little bit; to minimize your distractions; to keep thinking about the game during your opponent's turn, instead of letting your mind wander.

If you want to play good Magic, focus is the most important thing. It will lower your chances of making silly mistakes and raise your chances of seeing winning plays. It will provide you with more hints about what cards your opponent might be holding. Perhaps most importantly, it will accelerate your learning process, because you'll have a better understanding of what's going on, and you'll be better able to pinpoint where things are going right or going wrong.

To recap, here's a short list of skills a Magic player can cultivate in order to improve his or her game.

"Chess Skills"

• General strategic thinking: How can you win? How can you stop your opponent from winning?

• Looking for opportunities: Is your opponent vulnerable to an attack? Is this a good time to get in some damage?

• Patience: Is this not the time to attack? Sometimes in Magic, waiting is best. Don't feel like you need to make a big play, just for the sake of making a big play

• Thinking a move or two ahead: Is the game going to come down to a damage race? If so, how can you make sure you win that race?

"Playing-Card Game Skills"

• Factoring in variance: Remember, you don't need to be a math wiz; if you can count, you can be good at Magic. Just remember that you don't have total control of what comes off the top of the library, and try to make the most of any situation.

• Considering hidden information: And you don't have to be a mind reader either. You're not meant to know every card in your opponent's hand at all times. However, sometimes you might get a hint or two. What are the likely possibilities? What is your best play for each of these possibilities?

• Focus: Be present in the game, be aware of everything on the board, take it slow, and don't jump in without thinking.

"So what is Magic?" That's my short answer to a complicated question. Check back next week when I'll begin to explore some more advanced concepts in Magic. Until then, take it a little slower, think things through a little more, and remember to focus!

2

The Basics of Mana

Nearly every game of Magic begins the same way: a player plays a land. Mana is one of the fundamental resources of Magic. Without it, you simply can't play the game.

Mana is central to the game play of Magic, but its importance begins even before we reach that point. Mana is also one of the key elements of deck building. In the same way that you can't cast a spell without the proper mana in a game, you can only put creatures and spells in your deck if your mana base can support them.

THE MANA BASE

A deck's mana base is its lands and any supplemental ways to produce mana, such as anything along the lines of Leaf Gilder or Nissa's Pilgrimage. A mana base can be simple (say, seventeen Plains in a mono-white Limited deck) or it can be quite complex: featuring multiple colors of mana, lands with unusual abilities, and indirect methods of making mana (via artifacts, creatures, or spells).

There are no hard and fast rules about what a mana base should look like; any guidelines I can offer might need to be adjusted or completely scrapped under certain circumstances. However, what I can give you is a helpful starting point.

HOW MANY LANDS TO PLAY

Traditional knowledge is that lands should make up a touch over 40% of a deck. This means about 17–18 lands for a 40-card deck and about 24–25 lands for a 60-card deck. This is a tried-and-true structure that's worked for many players for many years. You'll rarely be making a big mistake if you always stick to such a guideline. That said, there are a number of factors that might make you consider small adjustments.

Consider if you have any nonland ways to produce mana. The presence of creatures like Leaf Gilder might impact the number of lands your deck needs to function.

The correlation isn't one-to-one—as in thinking one Leaf Gilder equals one land—for a number of reasons. First, you cannot cast it unless you have lands already. Second, Leaf Gilder is less reliable than a land because it's easier for your opponent to kill. Third, you'd normally put such a card in your deck because you're looking to jump ahead in mana, but you still want to play a land every turn, at least for the first few turns. These cards shouldn't be counted directly as lands, but two copies of Lead Gilder can be a fine reason to play, say, seventeen lands instead of eighteen in your Limited deck.

An equally important question is, simply, how expensive are the cards in your deck? If all of your spells cost four mana or less, you won't need as many lands as a player sporting multiple cards that cost seven or eight mana.

COLORED MANA

A question that can be even more challenging is how to balance your colored mana requirements. There's not much to it if you're only playing one color, but once you get into the realm of playing three or more colors, things get a little hairy.

Often in Magic, you'll be presented with small tradeoffs between power and consistency. The more colors you play, the wider the range of cards you have access to. So it's likely that your deck will be capable of more powerful draws when everything runs smoothly. However, when you play more colors, it also becomes more likely that you'll be stuck without the proper colors of mana to play one of your spells, which will lower the consistency (or reliability) of how your deck functions.

Finding the right balance of power and consistency can be tricky. When it comes to a mana base, one important question is: What tools do you have access to?

In the simplest case, you'll only have basic lands (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest) to work with.

When you're working with basic lands, a two-color deck is virtually always where you'll strike the right balance between power and consistency. If you only want to play one color, that's a perfectly fine choice, but if there's an appealing card that you'd like to play in a second color, you can feel safe in doing so. With two colors, you'll be able to cast both colors of spells in most games (not all games, but what most players would consider "an acceptably high" percentage of games). With more than two, you'll begin to notice problems.

However, that's a description of the simplest case. A deck builder is like a carpenter—the better the tools the carpenter has access to, the more complex projects he or she can undertake. Nonbasic lands, as well as nonland ways to produce mana, can be quite powerful and can assist you in playing multiple colors in your deck.

Meteorite, Evolving Wilds, Caves of Koilos, Shivan Reef

If you have access to a bevy of cards like these, which have the ability to produce multiple colors of mana, you can begin to feel comfortable playing a three-color deck if you choose to. Playing with more than three colors is a rather advanced technique; I recommend against it until you feel very comfortable with two- and three-color decks.

Even when playing multiple colors, it can be in your best interest to center your deck primarily around one or two colors, and be a little bit less reliant on the rest. Say, for example, you have a sealed deck that's primarily black and red, but you want to play with two copies of Possessed Skaab. It might be fine to only play with three or four sources of blue mana in your deck. You'll often find a way to make blue mana by the time you're ready to cast Possessed Skaab. And even if you don't, having one card stuck in your hand for a little while isn't a complete catastrophe. This is commonly referred to as splashing a color.

To play a deck equally reliant on all three colors of mana is possible, but difficult. After all, the more things that can go wrong, the less often things will go exactly right. Here are a few more guidelines to use as a starting point:

• For a 40-card deck, if you really want to have a land that produces a certain color of mana in your opening hand, you should play at least nine or ten lands that produce that color (eleven to be safe).

• For a 60-card deck, you should play at least fifteen or sixteen lands that produce that color (seventeen or eighteen to be safe).

THE MANA CURVE

The question of mana isn't fully answered once you've decided how many and what types of lands to play. It also influences what spells you play with and the overall structure of your deck.

A deck's mana curve is the balance it strikes between cards of varying mana costs—cheap cards and expensive cards. You might refer to a deck as having a "high mana curve" if it has more expensive cards than usual, or a "low mana curve" if it's comprised mostly of cheap cards.

It would be a mistake to play with all cards that cost five mana, because you'd have nothing to play in the first four turns of the game! On the other hand, if your deck was made up entirely of weaker, one-mana spells, you wouldn't be making the best possible play on any turn beyond the first one. There's a lot of value in having at least a couple of cards of each mana cost.

Like most things, the mana curve is not an exact science. There's no "master formula" for how many cards of each mana cost you should play. The answer to that question depends a lot on context. What cards do you have access to? What's your strategy for winning the game? What are your opponents likely to be doing at each point in the game?

The concept of the mana curve is important to all decks, but it's most clearly illustrated in the case of a fast creature deck. If your goal is to play creatures and unload a lot of damage very quickly, you really want to come out of the gates starting on turn one or two. Some Constructed decks play twelve, fourteen, or even more creatures that cost one mana!

Again, this is a question of strategy. If your goal is not to win with a quick creature rush, playing dozens of one- and two-mana creatures will water down your deck and reduce the number of more powerful spells you can play with. You should have some plays that you can make early in the game, but there's no mystical number for how many it should be. Ask yourself how fast your opponents are likely to be. Do you have to start defending yourself immediately on turn one, or might it be okay if you sometimes don't play anything until turn three?

MANA "HOSED" AND MANA "FLOOD"

It's a sad fact, but every new player learns these concepts early in his or her Magic career. "Mana hosed" is one slang term for when you don't draw as many lands as you want, and "mana flood" means that you've drawn far too many. These things can happen to any player, with any deck, at any level of competition—it's simply part of the game.

But not to worry! Although any one particular game where you get mana hosed might be aggravating and unfun, variance in the number of lands you can draw is actually something that enriches Magic and helps to make it the game it is.

There are things you can do to manage being mana hosed and mana flooded, both in deck building and in game play. It all starts with doing a good job of building your mana base and your mana curve, but here are a few other tricks you can use.

To mitigate the risks of mana flood, one thing you can do is look for mana sinks. Mana sinks are cards that, while not necessarily expensive in themselves, can make use of your extra mana in late-game scenarios.

Note that it's completely normal to draw eight, nine, or even more lands in the course of a long game. When you have a mana sink in play, you might still prefer to draw more spells, but when you inevitably start drawing more lands than you need, at least you can put them to some use.

If your goal is to mitigate the effects of being mana hosed, you can look for cheap cards that have the ability to answer or trade with more expensive cards.

My best piece of advice is simply to recognize that drawing the wrong number of lands is a normal part of the game. Try your best not to be frustrated by it. A common pitfall for a new player is to overcompensate by adding or removing lands from a deck after every mana hosing or mana flood. If, after a couple of dozen games, you notice a pattern of things working out poorly, it's good to learn from that and be ready to adapt. The point is to not let short-term frustration overcome rational decision-making.

EXAMPLE

Let's take a look at an example sealed deck, with an eye toward its mana.

EXAMPLE SEALED DECK

This deck is mostly red and green, but splashes black for a removal spell (Cruel Revival) and a particularly strong creature (Blazing Hellhound).

The first question is how many lands to play. A typical sealed deck should play with seventeen or eighteen lands. This one looks fairly typical, so there's no reason to deviate from that. It has a handful of expensive cards, costing five and six mana; it has a mana sink in the form of Volcanic Rambler; and it's three colors. These factors would normally make me lean toward playing eighteen lands rather than seventeen.

However, it also has a Leaf Gilder and a Meteorite, each of which can count as a fraction of a land. Also, the presence of two Elvish Visionaries, a cheap card that draws another card, can help this deck find more lands if it gets stuck early in the game. All things considered, I think it's best to go with seventeen.

Next, what about the colored mana? Black is only a splash color, so we want to play enough black mana that we'll usually draw one in a normal game, but there's no need to go far beyond that. Three sources of black mana might work, but four would be ideal. Thankfully, this deck has Meteorite, Evolving Wilds, and Llanowar Wastes to help out! One Swamp (to go with the Evolving Wilds) makes four sources of black mana, which is perfect.

The rest of the deck is pretty evenly split between green and red, so we want close to an even split of Forests and Mountains. However, most of the cheap plays are green, and this deck really wants to be able to cast Elvish Visionary early in order to come out as smoothly as possible. Counting the Llanowar Wastes as a source of green mana, and the Evolving Wilds as both red and green, seven Forests and seven Mountains makes nine total green and eight total red. (I chose not to count Meteorite, because this deck really needs both red and green mana before turn five). If I decided to play an eighteenth land, I'd make it another Forest.

Hopefully, that example gave a basic sense of what you should be thinking about when building a mana base.

If your deck has a good mana base and a balanced mana curve, you've managed to avoid one of Magic's most dangerous pitfalls. If you can make your mana serve you well, instead of feeling helpless against awkward mana draws, you're well on your way to success.

3

The Basics of Card Advantage

THE COST OF PLAYING A SPELL

Last week, I named mana as one of the fundamental resources of Magic. When you want a particular effect on the game, you amass the proper mana and cast a spell that will cause your desired result. That much is fairly simple, but it's not the only thing that happens when you cast a spell. Consider these two cards:

If you need to block a creature with flying, you could cast a Hitchclaw Recluse or you could build a similar creature by using Mantle of Webs to enchant, say, a Bellows Lizard. In either case, you're spending three mana and winding up with a four-toughness creature with reach. With the Bellows Lizard, your creature even has an extra ability and lets you pump your Lizard up for two mana! Looking at things just from the perspective of mana, you would never choose the Hitchclaw Recluse.

However, the reality is that casting Hitchclaw Recluse is the far more efficient way to produce this effect. In fact, Bellows Lizard and Mantle of Webs are both rather weak Magic cards. It's true that, in terms of mana—one of Magic's fundamental resources—these two options cost the same amount. However, in terms of Magic's other fundamental resource, the two options are vastly different.

Casting Bellows Lizard and Mantle of Webs costs you two cards out of your hand, while casting Hitchclaw Recluse costs you only one card out of your hand.

You start the game with seven cards in your opening hand, and you get to draw one more each turn. This puts a strict limit on what you have to work with in a game of Magic. If I cast Bellows Lizard and Mantle of Webs and you cast Hitchclaw Recluse, we've both spent three mana, but you've gotten the better of me. We've both produced an effective defensive creature, but you'll be left with one more card in your hand, which might help you pull ahead in the game in any number of different ways.

CARD ADVANTAGE

Players who do not treat cards as a resource are likely to be frivolous, squander their spells, and quickly run out of things to do in a game of Magic. They'll soon be at the mercy of the top of their libraries, which is a frightening and unreliable way to play. A player who does treat cards as a valuable resource, on the other hand, will squeeze every bit of value out of each spell, and do everything possible to pull ahead in a game.

Card advantage is, very likely, the single most important concept in competitive Magic. A tremendous proportion of games are decided, in one way or another, by card advantage.

The term is nearly as old as the game itself. One of the founding fathers of Magic writing and theory was Eric Taylor, who defined it like this: "Card advantage is any process by which a player obtains effectively more cards than his [or her] opponent."

If that definition seems a bit nebulous, it's because card advantage can take such a tremendous variety of forms. Let's start with a simple one.

Drawing Extra Cards

Here, card advantage is just a simple matter of counting. When you cast Weave Fate, you draw two cards. Don't forget, however, that it costs you a card to play a spell out of your hand. Weave Fate nets you one card. Jayemdae Tome draws you an extra card each time you activate it, but requires the initial investment of one card. If you activate it four times, it will net you three cards. Both of these spells provide fairly reliable card advantage.

Note that if a spell had no other effect except to draw you one card, then it would not provide card advantage. Imagine you cast Dark Dabbling not to save your creature, but just to see a fresh card off the top of your library. You would draw one card and spend one card, with no net gain in card advantage.

Read the Bones has a similar effect to Weave Fate, except that it costs you 2 life and you get to scry 2. Losing life and scrying are both important in a game of Magic, but it's very hard to make any direct comparison between these different effects. In counting card advantage, you would also say that Read the Bones nets you one card, and any other consequences of casting the spell would need to be considered separately.

Card advantage is about more than just the number of cards in your hand. Typically, adding a permanent to the board should be counted toward card advantage as well.

Remember that a spell which draws you one card offers no net change in card advantage; you simply break even. With Tower Geist, though, you get to add a card to your hand while also adding a creature to the battlefield. Like Weave Fate, this is a net gain of one card. You wind up with a 2/2 flyer in play, but the same number of cards in your hand!

Taking Away Your Opponent's Cards

By definition, the term advantage has to do with your own position relative to your opponent. You can gain card advantage through favorable interactions with your opponent's cards.

You cast Mind Rot and knock two cards out of your opponent's hand. As always, you're down the one card that it cost to cast the spell from your hand. However, your opponent is down two cards for your troubles. Although both of you are technically down on cards, card advantage is relative. Your opponent is down one card more than you are, so you've "gained" one card.

For the purposes of card advantage, attacking your opponent's permanents is the same as attacking his or her cards in hand. When you cast Languish, you have the potential to eliminate several of your opponent's creatures at once. If three of your opponent's creatures die, but only one of yours dies, then you've lost two cards (Languish and your creature) and your opponent has lost three. Again, you've achieved a net gain of one card.

VIRTUAL CARD ADVANTAGE

Counting card advantage in the way described above is simple, it's helpful, and it's good to get into the habit of doing so. Unfortunately, it often doesn't tell the full story of what's going on in a game.

In a very strict technical sense, Dragon Fodder adds two creatures to the battlefield, and should therefore be considered two-for-one card advantage. Sure, in the exact case where I attack you with two Bellows Lizards and you block with your two goblin tokens from Dragon Fodder, then it has traded for two of my cards, and it's fair to describe the spell as having provided card advantage.

However, a shortcoming of the simplistic method of counting card advantage is that Dragon Fodder and Priest of the Blood Rite are treated as the same card!

Both cards put two creatures onto the battlefield, and therefore provide two-for-one card advantage. But how can you account for the fact that I, as your opponent, need only play a 2/2 creature before those goblin tokens can no longer profitably attack? How can you account for the fact that my 5/5 flying demon might win the game all on its own?

In practice, games of Magic reach a point where some cards are capable of affecting the outcome and some cards are not. At points like this, it can become misleading to continue counting spells like Dragon Fodder (or anything else that's unlikely to change the outcome of the game) as card advantage. Instead, it can be more helpful to consider virtual card advantage, which (while being more difficult to quantify) accounts for the fact that not every Magic card is the same or, for that matter, equal.

Dead Cards and Blanking Cards

Anyone who's ever suffered from a mana flood can tell you that games sometimes reach a point where drawing more land is simply not helpful. Once you have enough mana to do everything you want to do, extra lands can become dead cards—they no longer impact the game at all.

One way to gain virtual card advantage is to blank one or more of your opponent's cards—turn them into dead cards. This might sound like an advanced concept, but I'd venture to guess that everyone reading this has done it before. If you've ever played a big creature to block, then you've blanked your opponent's attackers!

Once you put a Pharika's Disciple onto the battlefield, your opponent's 1/1 and 2/2 creatures can no longer profitably attack. That Pharika's Disciple can serve to blank essentially any number of small would-be attackers, providing the potential for virtual card advantage.

If your opponent has cards like Mind Rot or Nightsnare in his or her deck, you can employ a strategy where you cast all of your cards right away and never have anything sitting in your hand. If you do, you've blanked any future discard spells your opponent might draw off the top of his or her library.

Similarly, you can blank cards during deck building. If you're worried about facing the card Smash to Smithereens, you can simply build your deck with no artifacts. You've suddenly turned that Smash to Smithereens into a dead card!

Reducing the Risk of Dead Cards

On the other hand, you can also earn virtual card advantage by avoiding dead cards or finding a use for cards that might otherwise be dead.

Imagine a game that's dragging on and on. Maybe it's gone fifteen turns, maybe it's gone twenty. Neither player can get much benefit from any land beyond the sixth or seventh. However, while Johnny is sitting there getting frustrated with every useless land he's inevitably drawing, Jenny is using her Sigiled Starfish to scry-to-the-bottom all of her extra lands and low-impact cards, making her draw steps more effective and digging toward the cards that actually matter.

The Sigiled Starfish has never technically given Jenny card advantage, it's simply changed what cards wound up in her hand. Nevertheless, it's given her virtual card advantage by helping her avoid dead cards.

Low-Impact Cards and High-Impact Cards

Often it only takes a quick glance at a game of Magic to tell that some cards have simply been outclassed. Bellows Lizard is an example of a card that's very likely to be outclassed and very unlikely to change the outcome of a game. Bellows Lizard is a low-impact card. That's why, despite its affordable mana cost, it's often left on the sidelines.

Technically speaking, Dragon Fodder provides a two-for-one advantage. However, if one player casts Dragon Fodder and the other plays Shivan Dragon, who do you think came out on top? Shivan Dragon is an example of a high-impact card. It's the type of card that's very likely to swing the outcome of a game if it goes unanswered.

Putting an emphasis on high-impact cards is one more way to earn virtual card advantage.

It's not always the player who technically gains card advantage who wins the game. One player might be casting Weave Fates until the cows come home, but if he or she is only drawing into Bellows Lizards and Dragon Fodders, then it might only take one high-impact card like Shivan Dragon on the other side of the table to make it all look silly.

It's important to understand the theory behind card advantage and be able to count card advantage in simple exchanges. However, there are also times when the technical way of looking at things is not enough and you should recognize when virtual card advantage can be just as important.

Competitive Magic often runs on very thin margins, and small sources of card advantage like a two-for-one trade or blanking an opponent's card can easily be the difference between a loss and a win. Card advantage is at the heart of much of the game's strategy and theory. You'll encounter these concepts again and again as you read Level One. For now, though, I hope this has served as a helpful introduction—or refresher course—for a very deep concept.

Concepts of Game Play—Part 1

4

Attacking and Blocking

You've been very patient, my friends. You've stayed with me through many weeks of background information and tedious fundamentals. But you don't go see The Terminator for the love story, and you probably didn't learn Magic because you like building mana bases. Well, it's finally time for the action scene. This will be Level One's version of shoot-outs, car chases, and explosions!

Combat!

The only difference is that some people might argue that cheesy action movies are a waste of time (for the record, I'm not one of them). They might say that fights and chase scenes have little substance and don't add enough to the plot of the film. They'd be fools, though, to say the same thing about Magic. Yes, mastering the fundamentals is important, but if you can't execute when the combat phase rolls around, then it's all for nothing. At its core, after all, Magic is a game of beating the person sitting across the table from you.

Art by Daarken

USE YOUR CREATURES

Your first lesson is that you should probably be both attacking and blocking much more than you are.

A common strategic error is being too passive during combat. What is a creature for if not to attack and block? There's always something to fear in combat: losing your creature when you attack, the opponent having a combat trick when you block, or letting your life total get too low when you don't. However, you have to be bold to win. The value of your creatures plummets if you're unwilling to put them into combat.

Let's take a classic example: your opponent attacks a Cleric of the Forward Order into your Hitchclaw Recluse. He or she could have a spell like Mighty Leap, or could be holding a Fiery Impulse to finish off your creature. However, the whole point of putting a defensive creature like Hitchclaw Recluse into your deck is to block! If you block, you might lose your creature, but if you play the whole game without blocking, then you've lost virtually all the value from it anyway! Unless you have a very specific reason not to, you should generally block in a situation like this.

Playing too passively is just as bad as playing recklessly.

When two similar creatures face off, you should usually attack if you can and you should usually block if you can.

Imagine your opponent attacks his or her Dwynen's Elite into your Dwynen's Elite. You should block, because you're making an even trade and saving yourself 2 damage. You could take the damage with the intention of attacking back, but what if your opponent plays a bigger creature? Even in the best case scenario, where you trade damage evenly, you're still behind in the race.

One way of viewing things is that creatures provide value every turn that they attack or block. If you neither attack nor block with Dwynen's Elite, then you've wasted a turn's worth of value. If you decline to block and instead attack back, you've wasted half a turn's worth of value. (Players don't always get the same number of turns in a game of Magic, so mirroring your opponent's actions when you're on the draw will often be a losing battle). You should virtually always block an attacking Dwynen's Elite with your own Dwynen's Elite.

Why should you attack when the situation is reversed? Well, for one thing, your opponent might not block. He or she might be afraid you have Might of the Masses or might simply make a mistake. Even if your opponent blocks nine times out of ten, that's still free damage some amount of the time. You'll win more games in the long run if you give yourself opportunities for free value.

More realistically, though, the Dwynen's Elites are destined to trade off at some point in the game. If you do it sooner rather than later you leave fewer chances for things to go wrong. If you don't attack, your opponent will probably attack you back and you'll probably block (for all the reasons above). But now you've opened the door for something to go wrong. What if your opponent now has Might of the Masses? What if your opponent plays a removal spell and takes away your ability to block?

Sometimes you'll have a special reason not to trade creatures, like if you have Joraga Invocation in your hand and are trying to set up for a big turn later. In the absence of that, however, you might as well trade off creatures sooner rather than later so your opponent can't take away your ability to do so.

BLUFFING

Bluffing isn't a huge part of Magic. You can do well for yourself by simply playing your cards in the obvious way, and never trying to pull the wool over your opponents' eyes. That said, why not do it if you can?

The most traditional bluff is simply attacking a smaller creature into a bigger creature in the early turns of the game. If I attack my Timberpack Wolf into your Kytheon's Irregulars, what will you do? I'd only make the attack if I had Titanic Growth in my hand. Or would I?

There's no easy solution to this situation, and that's the point. Both players are considering risk vs. reward, as well as sizing up how bold a player the opponent might be.

From my perspective, let's say that I have nothing in my hand and I'm considering whether or not to bluff. How costly is it to lose my Timberpack Wolf? How valuable is the 2 points of damage I stand to deal? How likely are you to block?

From your perspective, I've attacked a smaller creature into your bigger creature. What makes this special is that Kytheon's Irregulars is quite a powerful card that's capable of giving you a big advantage as the game goes long. Doesn't that mean you shouldn't risk losing it in combat? But don't I know that, and wouldn't it make me more likely to bluff?

As I said, there's no easy solution. All I can offer is one piece of knowledge from my long experience with the game.

People bluff less often than you'd expect and people block less often than you'd expect.

If I found myself in this situation against an opponent I'd never met before, I'd most often not block with my Kytheon's Irregulars, thinking that my opponent probably had Titanic Growth. The question of whether I'd bluff attack with Timberpack Wolf comes down to the exact situation. If I had a strong hand and felt that I could win the game without taking the risk, I probably would not bluff. If I thought the game would come down to a close race and that I could only win by sneaking in some extra damage here and there, then I would probably attack. If I did attack, I'd be surprised (although not shocked) if my opponent blocked.

Semi-Bluffing

It takes gall to attack a smaller creature into a bigger creature, especially in a high-pressure tournament setting. However, what players might be more willing to do is a semi-bluff. With a semi-bluff, you might prefer that your opponent not block, but it's not a catastrophe if he or she does.

You might consider attacking one Dwynen's Elite into another as a semi-bluff. I hope that my opponent doesn't block and takes 2 damage, but if my opponent does block . . . oh well. We traded creatures of equal power that would've traded sooner or later anyway.

Maybe you have some direct damage to finish off a weakened creature. You attack your Timberpack Wolf into Patron of the Valiant. If your opponent blocks, you have to shamefully put your creature in the graveyard. However, at least you can finish off the Patron with the Fiery Impulse in your hand. You're not thrilled about the exchange, but it's not a game-losing disaster.

Sometimes you have a combat trick as a back-up plan, even though you'd rather spend your mana on something else. You'd really love to just cast your Rhox Maulers this turn, but on the chance that the opponent does decide to block your Timberpack Wolf with Patron of the Valiant, you have Titanic Growth to save your creature; you'll just have to wait a turn to cast the Maulers. As a side note, the fact that your opponent will have to spend mana on a combat trick instead of anything else (like casting another creature) should make you more inclined to block.

Exact situations aside, the concept of bluffing and semi-bluffing are just more reasons to use your creatures aggressively in combat. Every time you attack, there's at least some chance that your opponent won't block. Every time you block, there's at least some chance that your opponent was bluffing or semi-bluffing.

THE COMBAT PHASE

When using combat tricks—like Titanic Growth, Mighty Leap, and Might of the Masses—timing can be very important. Using your spell at the wrong time can be disastrous. On the other hand, there's tremendous value in concealing your intentions until the last possible moment. With that in mind, I'd like to go through exactly what happens during the combat phase.

If you're reading this, you know the basic rules of Magic. However, the devil is in the details, so let's go over a few things.

Having priority means that it's your turn to act—to either do something or do nothing. A simple way to explain it is that any time something happens (spell, ability, attack, block, or moving from one step of the turn to another), each player gets priority. If both players do nothing, then the turn moves forward and you repeat the process. The vast majority of the times you have priority, you'll do nothing; to the point that the game can zip along without anyone ever mentioning who has priority at what point. It's simply good to know when you have opportunities to cast a spell, and exactly how things progress in the rare case that they do get complicated.

To illustrate what I mean, let's consider a turn where your opponent simply draws a card, plays a land, and says, "Go." Your opponent has whizzed through his or her turn, but technically speaking his or her upkeep, combat phase, and end of turn step have still happened, and you have the option to cast a spell at any of these times. Even in the simplest of turns, both players get priority many, many times. It's simply not mentioned unless someone decides to take an action.

The player whose turn it is, is called the active player. At the beginning of each step or phase, the active player always gets priority first. If the active player does nothing, the nonactive player gets priority, and if the nonactive player does nothing, the turn moves on to the next step or phase. (A special case is that you always get priority after you cast a spell or activate an ability, so even if you're not the active player, you have the first chance to respond to your own stuff).

Here are the steps of the combat phase:

Beginning of Combat Phase

The active player has exited the main phase, so he or she cannot play lands or cast spells other than instants right now. This is the last chance to cast a spell like Send to Sleep if you want to tap a creature and stop it from attacking.

Declare Attackers Step

First, the active player chooses his or her attackers and taps them. At this point, there's no turning back; nothing can cause a creature to "un-attack." This is the point where the nonactive player might cast a flash creature like Bounding Krasis to ambush the opponent

Declare Blockers Step

First, the nonactive player chooses his or her blockers. Once blockers are declared, the active player has priority, and this is where he or she might use a combat trick like Titanic Growth. Once the active player has done everything he or she wants to do, the nonactive player will take actions such as using his or her own combat tricks or removal spells like Swift Reckoning (only if they have spell mastery, of course). If the nonactive player takes an action, the active player can then take more actions, until both players decide to do nothing.

Combat Damage Step

Combat damage is dealt. Life totals are adjusted and creatures that die are put in the graveyard. After that, any abilities that trigger upon damage being dealt or creatures dying will happen.

End of Combat Phase

One final chance to take actions before combat ends. You'd only use this phase in some strange, corner-case situations.

There's no reason to go explicitly through all of these steps every time; to do so would make the game slow and tedious. However, it's good to be aware of these details because they do come up from time to time. If there's a turn where combat is shaping up to be particularly complicated, slow things down and make sure both players are clear on exactly what's going on and when.

The major takeaway is that the active player must act first. If you're the active player, you pass priority, and the nonactive player also does nothing, then it will be too late to go back and cast your Titanic Growth. Getting the last chance to make a move is an advantage for the blocking player, because he or she has full information on exactly what the opponent is up to before making his or her own decisions.

COMBAT TRICKS

Combat tricks can be extremely useful tools in Magic, but be careful not to misuse them. They offer the potential for big rewards when things go well. However, they also pose big risks when things go wrong.

Try your best not to use your combat tricks when your opponent has a lot of mana available. If you try to cast Dark Dabbling and your opponent is able to Unholy Hunger the creature in response, you've probably just walked into a game-losing exchange. Your opponent just got two-for-one card advantage (your creature and your Dark Dabbling for his or her Unholy Hunger) and also got tempo advantage from removing a creature from the board, while you spent your mana accomplishing nothing.

Combat tricks are great when you can use them on your own terms, but are extremely risky when you're forced to play into your opponent's hands.

For this reason, you shouldn't plan to use combat tricks when you block, because your opponent will have all of his or her mana open. Titanic Growth is great in the case where your opponent taps out for a blocking creature and you're able to attack into it without fear. It's not great in the case where you have to cast it on your blocker and cross your fingers that your opponent doesn't have a removal spell or a combat trick of his or her own.

When a situation comes up where both players have open mana and the possibility of a trick, it's important to be very precise when moving through combat. Remember that the active player must make the first move, which is an advantage for the nonactive player, who gets to have all the information before he or she makes a move.

Another risk that comes with combat tricks is that sometimes you don't have a creature to use them on. I always advocate a high creature count in Magic decks. Nobody's ever complained that they drew too many creatures, but you'd better believe that there's a risk of drawing too few. When you don't draw any creatures, or if you only draw a small number that your opponent's able to kill, then all of your combat tricks will simply rot in your hand, unable to help you.

Along the same lines, if you draw a good hand with a single combat trick, then you can find the perfect window to use it. If you draw an awkward hand with too many combat tricks, you'll be forced to use them in imperfect situations, playing into your opponent's hands.

Play safe with your combat tricks to avoid messy situations. The more combat tricks you put in your deck, the more often you'll be compelled to use them at bad times. The combat tricks in Magic Origins are particularly strong—some aggressive green-white Booster Draft decks might be happy to play with as many as four tricks. However, under most circumstances, use caution when playing with more than two combat tricks in your Limited decks.

Attack and block aggressively with your creatures. That's what they're there for! Know how to use your own combat tricks safely and effectively, and force your opponents to play theirs right into the hands of your Swift Reckoning or Unholy Hunger. Mastering attacking and blocking will make every one of your creatures and spells more valuable than your opponent's. It's remarkably satisfying to be on the winning end of a combat exchange, and I hope you'll be on the winning end a lot!

5

Tempo

One of my greatest joys in life—aside from Magic, of course—is music. I learned at a young age, though, that my love of music was to be relegated to listening, and not making it myself.

The one concept that I never could get was that of tempo—how fast or slow to play. I didn't want to pay attention to my sheet music, or to my teacher, or to my bandmates. I just wanted to do my own thing and play at my own pace. Eventually, there came a point where even I could no longer listen to my disharmonious clatter, so I gave up playing music and went back to playing Magic.

But I don't like to make the same mistake twice, so when it comes to Magic I have a deep respect for the concept of tempo. Like mana and card advantage, tempo is a resource. It differs, however, in the sense that it cannot easily be "counted" like the other two can.

Tempo, in the most basic form, is board presence. It's derived from how your creatures, lands, Planeswalkers, artifacts, and enchantments match up against those of your opponent, and the consequences that follow from it. We call it "tempo" because of the way the two players jockeying for the resource dictates the pace of the game.

As a resource, tempo is very closely related to mana. It's often (but not always) related to life total as well. When it comes to card advantage, you'll sometimes have to choose between gaining tempo at the expense of card advantage, or vice versa. For example, if you take a turn to cast Weave Fate, you gain card advantage, but you've spent a turn without improving your board presence, and so may have given up tempo in the process. Other times, though, you might be able to leverage a tempo advantage into card advantage instead. Say you're so far ahead on the board that your opponent is forced to chump block—block and lose a creature—just to preserve his or her life total!

Art by Winona Nelson

USING YOUR MANA EFFECTIVELY

Two weeks ago, I introduced the concept of the mana curve, building your deck with a healthy mix of spells that cost varying amounts of mana. Mana curve is important because of tempo. If your deck is made up of all five-mana spells, you'll have nothing to do on the first four turns of the game. Your mana on turns one through four will be wasted. If your opponent is able to use his or her mana more effectively, then you'll fall behind on the board, fall behind on tempo, and fall behind in the game.

Mana is a resource, and one aspect of tempo is making sure your mana doesn't go to waste. If you find yourself very often ending the turn without using all of your mana, this should be a red flag that there might be an inefficiency in either the way you've built your deck or the way that you're playing the game.

Let's say, for example, that your opponent has just played a Cleric of the Forward Order. You play your second land, and the only play you can make is to cast Reave Soul on the Cleric. Should you do it?

Well, this is a complicated question. Sometimes, other factors can outweigh your tempo concerns (for instance, maybe you want to save your Reave Soul for a flying creature later in the game). However, casting Reave Soul is the play that gains you the most tempo—you spend your mana efficiently and save yourself from falling behind on the board.

Imagine that your hand also contains Read the Bones. This is a three-mana card that you're hoping to cast next turn. If you don't cast Reave Soul now, then you'll either have to wait until much later to use it, or else you'll have to delay casting Read the Bones. The longer it takes you to cast your spells and deploy your threats, the more tempo you'll lose. Even after you cast Read the Bones, you'll probably want to start casting the creatures and spells that you drew with it. This may be your one good window to cast Reave Soul!

YOUR LANDS

Tempo is about developing your board, and playing lands is part of developing your board. Each land that you play provides you one more mana every turn for the rest of the game. This is why progressive turns tend to become more powerful, with wilder tempo swings as the game goes on. This is also why missing a land drop is so devastating; you fall behind on tempo right away and your ability to recover tempo on future turns is also damaged.

Sometimes lands, like the one you search for with Evolving Wilds, enter the battlefield tapped. This means that they cause you to miss out on one mana on the turn you play them—potentially leading to a loss of tempo. The flip side is that Evolving Wilds gives you much more versatility than simply playing with basic lands (since you can search for a land of whichever color you happen to be missing). On any turn you didn't have something pressing to spend your mana on, playing a land like Evolving Wilds can be a good long-term investment. Whether to avoid "enters the battlefield tapped" lands or to include them in your deck is a question of your exact strategy, and how much you can afford a small loss of tempo in the early turns.

And what about a card like this?

Leaf Gilder can function the same way as a land once it's in play. Like a land, it offers extra mana every turn for as long it remains on the battlefield, potentially allowing you to pull ahead of your opponent in tempo as the game progresses. The catch is that it requires an initial investment of mana. Again, some decks will be willing to make this investment and others will not.

CREATURES AND INITIATIVE

At any given moment, a player is playing in one of two ways: either being proactive (deploying threats, attacking, or otherwise progressing his or her own game plan), or else being reactive (defending, trying to answer the opponent's threats). It's good to be proactive whenever possible.

The proactive player takes the initiative, meaning that he or she sets the pace of the game and forces the opponent to react.

A number of advantages come along with taking the initiative. One of them is that if you're attacking very aggressively, it's often difficult for your opponent to find a way to attack you back. You don't have to mount a defense, don't need to worry about your life total, and don't need to protect your Planeswalkers. The best defense is a good offense!

Moreover, if you're forcing your opponent to block, you're putting them in a frightening position. For one, removing a key blocker often means a big tempo swing and a lot of damage being dealt. Even when the creature survives to block, the attacking player will usually have all of his or her mana available (since it's the attacking player's turn) while the blocking player might not (perhaps having just tapped out to play a blocker). This means that combat tricks like Titanic Growth and Mighty Leap can be used to their full potential.

For a player who wants to be attacking, creatures also require this initial investment, since they cannot attack the turn they enter the battlefield. However, for a player who's concerned with blocking (who is jockeying for tempo exactly the same as his or her opponent is), a creature can create a tempo swing immediately. "Enters the battlefield" triggers and abilities like haste can be excellent in terms of tempo.

REMOVAL SPELLS AND "REMOVAL SPELLS"

Removal spells can be a great way to gain tempo advantage. With a removal spell, you can take out a blocker to continue attacking or you can take out an attacker and defend yourself with little risk of anything going wrong.

Unholy Hunger is a simple, elegant, no-questions-asked removal spell. If your opponent spends his or her turn playing a creature and you spend your turn casting Unholy Hunger on it, you've probably broken even on tempo advantage. (As a side note, you've also broken even on card advantage—a "one-for-one" trade).

If Unholy Hunger has one flaw, though, it's that it's a little pricy.

A perfect example of a tempo-based strategy is to deploy a lot of cheap creatures and try to win the game before your opponent can answer them all or have time to cast more powerful spells. Unholy Hunger costs five mana, but against a strategy like this, it can do nothing better than kill a creature that cost two or three mana to put into play.

If you fill your deck with cheap creatures, it's likely that your cards will be less powerful and unable to stand up to your opponent's cards in a fair fight. Fortunately, you don't have to engage in a fair fight! Imagine you're able to deploy four or five creatures in the first five turns of the game, and then your opponent begins fighting back on turn five starting with an Unholy Hunger on one of them. It might be the case that turn five resulted in no net gain of tempo, but since you were so far ahead before that, you've managed to preserve your tempo advantage. Once you're ahead on tempo, every turn that the game state does not change you'll able to glean an advantage in another form—in this case, massive damage by attacking your opponent.

Now imagine an even more devastating scenario: the player ahead on tempo is the one with the Unholy Hunger. Again, you've managed to get ahead on the board by playing a handful of cheap creatures on the early turns. Now your opponent, in an act of desperation, casts a Sentinel of the Eternal Watch, hoping to block and stabilize both the board and his or her life total. You cast Unholy Hunger on the Sentinel and are free to attack with all of your creatures.

This is a perfect example of preserving—or pushing—your tempo advantage. In other words, you've made a play that realizes a concrete advantage because you have the upper hand in tempo. When your opponent misses a beat, knowing how to capitalize on your tempo advantage is key. Removal spells are great for pushing a tempo advantage because, unlike creatures, there's no initial investment—their impact on the board is immediate.

Unholy Hunger offered a one-for-one trade—no change in card advantage. A bounce spell, like Disperse will actually leave you with card disadvantage much of the time. You'll have spent a card, but your opponent's creature, while off the battlefield, will still be in the game as a resource that he or she can use in the long-run. Nevertheless, Disperse and Unholy Hunger will sometimes have an identical impact on the game. Given that it costs only two mana, Disperse can be a great tool if your game plan is focused on tempo (at the expense of card advantage).

In the case where you have four creatures and your opponent has just played Sentinel of the Eternal Watch as the first blocker, casting Unholy Hunger and casting Disperse are likely to be very similar—either one will win the game! The Sentinel will be in your opponent's hand instead of the graveyard, but it's likely that you're going to win immediately by attacking. If not, then your opponent will have to invest six mana again (this is probably a full turn) and in either case, the game is likely to be decided before your opponent has time to cast every card in his or her hand.

Traditional measures of card advantage go out the window when one player loses the game with five or six cards left in-hand!

Note that these are perfect circumstances for a bounce spell to be effective for three specific reasons. First, you're ahead on tempo already and are using Disperse to push your advantage (you realize an advantage in the form of life total by leveraging your tempo advantage). Second, you're bouncing a six-mana creature, forcing your opponent to spend far more mana to replay Sentinel of the Eternal Watch than you spent on Disperse (you might even cast another creature this turn to further your tempo advantage). Third, your opponent has a hand full of other cards he or she is waiting to play and is therefore bottlenecked on mana (he or she has more things to spend mana on than he or she has mana available).

What makes tempo such a challenging concept in Magic is that it can be hard to know how its value changes from one situation to the next. There are plenty of times where neither player has the ability to push a tempo advantage. One example is a creature stall, where neither player can profitably attack. Another is a late-game scenario where both players have plenty of mana to spare. Imagine that you cast Disperse on your opponent's Sentinel of the Eternal Watch but are unable to attack. On your opponent's turn, he or she has plenty of mana and nothing else to do with it besides replay the Sentinel. For a split second you've gained tempo, but you were unable to push your advantage. The end result is the identical game state as before, except you've lost Disperse as a card in your hand.

In cases like these, tempo should take a back seat and you should instead focus on considerations like card advantage.

The value of tempo changes from one game to the next, and even one turn to the next. Knowing when you can capitalize on tempo can offer you a great advantage, but identifying when you should focus on other aspects of the game instead is just as important.

6

Tempo & Card Advantage: A Delicate Balance

Of all the concepts we'll cover in Level One, tempo and card advantage are the ones with the most power to directly influence the outcome of the game. In discussions of Magic theory, they're the most talked-about, and they draw the most interest. It seems strange that, by now, no one's been able to—so to speak—"crack the code." No player, writer, or theorist has been able to come up with simple, all-encompassing guidelines for how to manage these two resources.

Part of the problem is that tempo and card advantage frequently compete with one another. You make sacrifices in tempo to gain card advantage, or you make sacrifices in card advantage (or card quality) to gain tempo. These tradeoffs can stem from either the way you build your deck or the way you play the games.

Art by Slawomir Maniak

There's no equivalency formula between the two resources that will always hold true in every situation. It's impossible to say that "this much tempo is a fair trade for this much card advantage." And it's impossible to say that one is more important than the other, since falling too far behind in either can lead to losing the game. Therefore, the best you can do is to be able to identify, in a game, how the values of tempo and card advantage are changing, and where you should focus your efforts.

You can think of games of Magic as playing out in two stages. For lack of creativity, we'll call these "the early stage" and "the late stage."

In the early stage, both players have hands full of spells, but limited mana. It's a race to get ahead and develop the board. This is the stage where it's possible to gain substantial tempo advantage, and the rewards of doing so can be very great.

In the late stage, the dust has settled; players have played out the lands and spells from their opening hands. Either one player has emerged with an advantage, or the game has remained even and begun to slow down. There's more mana and less to do with it. In the late stage, it becomes more difficult to gain a tempo advantage.

The length and importance of these two stages can vary wildly, and that's the challenge! In a matchup between two slow, White-Blue Control decks, the early stage might consist of a tiny window where one player can get a quick Planeswalker into play and gain a minor advantage. On the other hand, in a matchup involving a hyper-aggressive weenie deck, the game might be decided before it ever reaches the late stage! Identifying the stage of the game, and knowing how to play accordingly, will ensure that you're making the best possible use of your cards.

THE EARLY STAGE

In the early stage, there's the chance of getting out ahead. If you can come out fast, unbalance your opponent, and push a tempo advantage, you can earn an easy win. Most often, this will mean quickly getting ahead on the board with creatures and Planeswalkers.

You can seek to finish out the game in the early stages if your deck is fast enough. Often, the best-case scenario is to simply kill your opponent before he or she even has a chance to cast all of his or her spells! However, equally often an early-stage tempo advantage will translate into a late-stage advantage of another form. Life total is an easy example.

Red Aggro decks can come out fast, often deploying several cheap creatures before the opponent ever casts a spell. They gain an early tempo advantage and convert it quickly to damaging the opponent. Eventually, the slower and more powerful deck might manage to stabilize the board with End Hostilities or Elspeth, Sun's Champion. At this point, you can think of the game as shifting into the late stage. All things equal, the slower and more powerful deck will have the advantage in the late stage. However, if the red aggro deck was able to successfully convert its early-stage tempo advantage into 14 or 16 damage, then it can easily win the game in the late stage with a simple burn spell or two! (An aggro deck's ability to win in the late stage is called reach.)

Despite all my emphasis on trade-offs between tempo and card advantage, an early-stage tempo advantage can be converted into card advantage under the right circumstances. A perfect example is a Planeswalker like Xenagos, the Reveler. If you can get Xenagos into play quickly, then each turn that he remains in play, uncontested, he adds a free 2/2 Satyr to your board—card advantage. Eventually, the game will reach the late stage and perhaps your opponent will even kill your Planeswalker, but much of the damage will already be done, and you'll be left with the advantage of a number of extra creatures on the battlefield. Some creatures can also provide this effect, as in the case of Goblin Rabblemaster making tokens or Jeskai Elder providing the virtual card advantage of perfecting your hand.

If one deck is faster than the other, it will have the advantage in the early stage. Its goal is to jump ahead in tempo and press the advantage. The slower deck's goal is to keep pace, minimize damage (to life total or any other aspect of the game), and get to the late stage as quickly as possible.

If the decks are of comparable speed, the player who goes first will have an advantage in the early stage. Last week, I touched on the fact that mirroring your opponent's plays when you're on the draw is typically a losing battle. You'll start out behind, and you'll remain behind for the whole game. In order to "break serve," the player on the draw will have to trade resources, slow the game down, and try to get to the late stage on even footing (or as close to it as possible).

THE LATE STAGE

The early stage is defined by the bottleneck of mana. You have many spells, but few lands. The late stage begins when the bottleneck gives way and a great expanse of open space and available mana is left. The limiting factor in the game shifts away from mana (and tempo) and toward card advantage and other resources (like life total).

Finally, you'll be very glad to have spells that provide card advantage, like Dig Through Time or Bitter Revelation. Since the early stage is about developing your board, you'll err on the side of playing out your creatures and removal spells first and leave your card drawing for the late stage, when things have slowed down and you have the leisure to cast these types of spells.

In the late stage, most decks will have spent the spells in their hand and will be forced to play off the top of their libraries. This means that it becomes crucial to squeeze every bit of value out of each of your spells, even if it means slowing yourself down to do so. Where you might scry a land or a cheap play to the top of your library in the early stage, in the late stage you're looking for long-run power, even if it means slowing yourself down to get it.

Let's take a look at a couple of common types of spells and how you should use them differently in the early stage and late stage of a game.

PERMISSION SPELLS

Permission spells, like Dissolve, have a very interesting relationship with tempo. If you're ahead or even on the board, they're great for preventing you from falling behind. However, when you find yourself behind already, they can't do much to help you get back into the game.

In addition to that, permission spells are reactive cards that can only be used in the proper window. You have to decide ahead of time if you're going to hold up mana for your Dissolve. Only when you've left your mana available and when your opponent has cast a spell will you have the option to use your Dissolve.

In the early stage, if you make the commitment of leaving three mana untapped for Dissolve, then you should often be willing to counter whatever spell your opponent casts, even if it wasn't exactly what you were hoping to counter. If you don't, then your three mana will be wasted, and failing to use your mana in the early turns is a sure-fire way to fall behind in tempo.

Along those lines, if you suspect that your opponent has left mana open because he or she has Dissolve, a great play is to cast one of the weaker spells out of your hand. This will give your opponent the choice of either falling behind in tempo or using up his or her Dissolve, allowing your more powerful spells to get through later. Even better, if you have an activated ability like a Rakshasa Deathdealer or a creature with outlast or monstrosity, you can use your mana on that instead of casting a spell and never give your opponent a chance to use his or her mana at all.

Permission spells have a bit of a different function in the late stage. Here, you have the option (if you find it best) to be patient and wait to counter your opponent's best spell. There are very few other ways to defend yourself against a Crater's Claws for X=10, so perhaps you'll want to save your Dissolve for that, even if it means letting your opponent's Heir of the Wilds, or whatever other spell, resolve first.

BEN STARK'S JESKAI, PRO TOUR KHANS OF TARKIR

Here's an interesting example of the two different ways to use permission spells. Ben Stark's Jeskai deck features Nullify in the main deck and Disdainful Stroke in the sideboard. Both are two-mana permission spells, and yet they serve very different roles.

Nullify is in the main deck because one of Jeskai's weaknesses is that it doesn't have much to do on the second turn of the game. Mr. Stark's plan is to play his second land, and pass the turn with the intention of Nullifying absolutely anything his opponent casts. It's an early-stage tempo play that helps him avoid falling behind.

Disdainful Stroke, out of the sideboard, is exactly the opposite. Jeskai normally has to spend several cards to undo the damage of a Siege Rhino or an Elspeth, Sun's Champion, but Disdainful Stroke can come in against a slow deck as a late-stage play, where Ben can patiently wait to answer his opponent's most important card.

BOUNCE SPELLS

Bounce spells can be excellent tempo plays. In the early stage, when there's a bottleneck of mana, bouncing a creature to the opponent's hand can feel like making the opponent skip his or her turn!

A common sequence in Khans of Tarkir goes like this: You're on the play and play a two-mana creature followed by a three-mana creature. Your opponent's first play is a three-mana creature, and you cast Force Away on it. Already you've dealt a noticeable amount of damage to your opponent, and you have two creatures to your opponent's zero. Your opponent probably has a hand full of great cards, but with only three lands in play, it's unlikely he or she can cast more than one spell each turn. If you have a good follow up, you can be in a great position to take this game.

A good guideline, when you're ahead and trying to push an early-stage tempo advantage, is to cast your bounce spell the first time you don't have something else to spend your mana on. In other words, play out your creatures first, and then cast Force Away on the first turn that you don't have a creature to cast (or can cast two spells in the same turn). Bouncing one of the first creatures your opponent casts will have a long-lasting effect on the game, because it will take your opponent that much longer to play out the cards in his or her hand and get to the late stage.

What you don't want to do is cast Force Away on the last creature your opponent casts. If you bounce a creature, but your opponent has nothing else to do with his or her mana the following turn other than recast it, then you've only enjoyed a tempo advantage for a brief snapshot in time. This can be okay if you're able to gain an immediate advantage (say, via a big attack), but in general this is not the way that bounce spells should be used in the late stage.

Bounce spells typically result in card disadvantage, since you're spending a card out of your own hand, but are not destroying one of your opponent's cards. In the late stage, this can translate directly into a loss, so your challenge becomes to find a window to cast Force Away without suffering card disadvantage.

Some convenient examples include bouncing a creature with an Aura attached to it. The creature will eventually find its way back to the battlefield, but the Aura will be gone forever. Similarly, if you bounce a token creature it will be lost to the opponent forever.

In the absence of these conditions, patience becomes key. Sometimes you can use Force Away to save your own creature from an opponent's removal spell. If your opponent casts Rite of the Serpent on your Jeskai Windscout, and you respond by Force Awaying it to your own hand, you've suffered a minor setback in tempo, but you've found a way to trade your Force Away for a powerful removal spell out of the opponent's hand. In the late stage, avoiding card disadvantage is far more important than tempo concerns.

Force Away can also help you make favorable trades in combat. For example, if your opponent casts Awaken the Bear and you Force Away the creature, you've made an even trade in terms of cards, and probably saved yourself a lot of damage to boot! Alternatively, if your opponent double-blocks your Glacial Stalker, you can Force Away one of the two creatures in order to save your Stalker while it gobbles up one the remaining blocker.

In short, it's all about patience in the late stage. In the early stage, you want to cash in your cards quickly if you smell blood and think you might be able to earn a quick win. In the late stage, things slow down and it takes patience and creativity to find the best use for your cards.

Some games of Magic are decided long before the late stage ever arrives. In cases like this, concerns of card advantage might hardly matter. However, if you're unable to see when the texture of a game begins to change, then you won't be able to make the best use of your resources. You'll risk being disadvantaged against a player who's more patient and more mindful of card advantage.

Magic is about adapting. The best way to play your cards will change based on the circumstances. Be able to identify what's important in a game, and be able to play accordingly.

7

Linear Strategies

What do you think of when you think about Magic? It's probably attacking, blocking, creatures, removal spells, and some of the other hallmarks of a close, back-and-forth game. Well, Magic can take a variety of forms. Today, we're going to discuss decks that aren't interested in playing close, back-and-forth games.

We're going to discuss linear strategies. We'll go over what they look like and some of their strengths and weaknesses. At the end I'll preview a Fate Reforged card that could be very valuable to at least one linear strategy in Standard.

To employ a linear strategy means that you're entirely focused on one goal or theme. Every card contributes to that goal, and you have little interest in deviating from that plan. Worrying about what your opponent is doing is largely just a distraction. In short, linear strategies follow a "straight line" from point A to point B.

In my days as a more casual player, I built a deck that employed a linear strategy. I saw the card Elvish Champion and thought, "Hmm, I like this card and I like elves." Nothing came of it until my interest was later piqued by Imperious Perfect. When Elvish Archdruid and Joraga Warcaller were printed, I knew exactly what I had to do.

I built a deck with a lot of Elves and a lot of creatures that give bonuses to Elves. Genius, right!?

Now, not all green creature decks fall under the umbrella of "linear strategies." You could even build a deck with Imperious Perfect and a lot of Elves without necessarily employing a linear strategy. However, in my deck I eventually reached a tipping point. I added so many cards that benefited me from playing with Elves that I no longer wanted any cards in my deck that weren't Elves. I didn't want to draw my Giant Growths anymore, I didn't want to Doom Blade my opponents' creatures, I just wanted to draw more and more and more Elves. I cut all of these miscellaneous cards and simply played with all lands and Elves. I had a linear strategy.

THE STRENGTH OF LINEAR STRATEGIES

Linear strategies have the potential to be extremely explosive and powerful. Their goal is not to play a fair game of Magic. They frequently succeed in that goal—running over opponents whose decks might be slower, might be less powerful, and certainly are less focused.

In the time period that I was playing my Elf deck, one of the best creatures in the format was Kitchen Finks. One on one, Kitchen Finks greatly outclasses Elvish Champion. However, how do four Kitchen Finks match up against four Elvish Champions? What if I then spent five mana to add Joraga Warcaller to the party? Linear strategies are often designed to spiral out of control. If my linear deck is allowed to "do its thing," and your normal deck is allowed to "do its thing," the linear deck will come out on top—often in impressive fashion.

Here's another linear strategy that we touched on once in this column.

LEE SHI TIAN'S JESKAI ASCENDANCY COMBO—PRO TOUR KHANS OF TARKIR

Combo decks are great examples of linear strategies. In Li Shi Tian's deck, you'll note a lack of combat-ready creatures and a lack of removal spells. Basically, there's a lack of anything that does anything! Anything, that is, other than contribute to his combo.

A recap from the last time I featured this deck: "Lee Shi Tian's deck is built around Jeskai Ascendancy. In addition to a number of other powerful interactions, he would aim to assemble Jeskai Ascendancy, Retraction Helix, and Briber's Purse. He would cast Retraction Helix on a creature—say Rattleclaw Mystic—tap it to return Briber's Purse to his hand, cast Briber's Purse for zero mana, untap his Mystic with Jeskai Ascendancy, and repeat the process until his Rattleclaw Mystic had +1,000/+1,000 from Jeskai Ascendancy, then attack for the win."

Li Shi Tian was able to assemble this combo with deadly effectiveness. He didn't need removal spells or defense of any kind because he was simply faster and more powerful than his opponents. He would win the game on turn four, and in many cases there was nothing his opponent could do about it.

THE WEAKNESSES OF LINEAR STRATEGIES

When everything is forced to contribute toward the linear strategy, the quality of a deck's individual cards can suffer. After all, I named Kitchen Finks as one of the best creatures, and yet the single-minded nature of my deck forced me to pass on the opportunity to play with it. When things were going well, I never missed Kitchen Finks, happy instead to have more Elves. However, when things were going poorly I sometimes regretted my choices.

One on one, Kitchen Finks beats Elvish Champion. Four on four, Elvish Champions beat Kitchen Finks. So it becomes the normal deck's goal to keep things as close to a one-on-one fight as possible. It becomes the linear deck's goal to expand things out to make sure its cards are at their most powerful. We call this achieving critical mass.

One way to combat linear strategies is to keep them from achieving critical mass. I liked playing against Kitchen Finks with my Elf deck. You know what I didn't like playing against? Lightning Bolt. Shock. Doom Blade.

When my opponent was able to kill a lot of my guys and keep me with only one or two creatures on the battlefield, my Elves were simply weaker than whatever creatures the normal deck had chosen to play with. When I couldn't achieve critical mass, my deck didn't function the way I wanted it to.

Linear strategies give up flexibility in exchange for power. Two additional weaknesses stem from this.

First, linear strategies typically have very little ability to interact with their opponent. They're unprepared to shut down their opponent's game plan, instead banking on the fact that their own strategy will be more powerful.

What happens when my Elf deck goes up against Jeskai Ascendancy combo? Well, I have no way to kill an opposing creature, no way to destroy an enchantment, and no way to make my opponent discard cards. These things are true because every non-Elf card that I could've added to the deck would weaken my strategy. Well, now my decisions have come back to haunt me because I'm up against a deck that's faster than my own, and I can't do anything to stop it. All I can do is play out some Elves and wait until my opponent kills me on turn four. I hardly get to play a game of Magic at all!

Second, linear strategies are sometimes very easy to attack. When we discussed sideboarding, I said, "A rule of thumb is that the more extreme a strategy is, the easier it will be to sideboard against." Linear strategies are as extreme as it gets.

I mentioned my Elf deck's weakness to Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade. Imagine having to face down these cards:

My strategy is extreme and exploitable, so my opponent can easily sideboard cards that utterly devastate me. The problem is compounded because my lack of flexibility makes it hard to employ counter-measures or damage control.

WHITE-BLUE HEROIC

It's all a game of weighing pros and cons. Linear strategies can be attackable, and they can lack flexibility. However, often their raw power is worth making these sacrifices. If you're a very big favorite before sideboarding, maybe you're willing to accept being a small underdog after sideboarding.

There's another linear strategy in standard that's been having success.

TOM ROSS'S WU HEROIC

White-Blue (WU) Heroic seeks to quickly and efficiently create a single, giant creature. This creature typically winds up being unblockable and sometimes gaining lifelink! The whole deck is designed to support and protect this one threat.

As is typical of linear strategies, you'll notice no removal spells in Tom Ross's WU Heroic deck, except for one Singing Bell Strike that can be searched up in a pinch by Heliod's Pilgrim. To play with more removal than that would be a mistake, because every card that does not contribute to the primary game plan will only serve to weaken the deck. Remember, you're going from point A to point B, and you cannot afford to take detours.

That is, until the printing of this card:

Valorous Stance is an exciting and versatile card from Fate Reforged that might wind up being a perfect addition to WU Heroic.

Much of the WU Heroic deck must be dedicated to protecting its powerful creature. Otherwise, a single removal spell would be able to shut down the strategy completely. Valorous Stance protects a creature in a direct, reliable, and efficient way. It contributes directly to the WU Heroic strategy, doing a job that needs to be done.

It also serves as a way to incorporate a removal spell, and in turn some much-needed flexibility into the deck. Again, WU Heroic cannot afford to play with Suspension Field, Reprisal, or any other dedicated removal spells because they do not contribute to the linear game plan. However, that doesn't mean that it never comes up that you wish you had a removal spell!

Valorous Stance takes out Courser of Kruphix, Siege Rhino, Butcher of the Horde, Savage Knuckleblade, and any of a dozen other hallmark creatures of standard! For WU Heroic, this can mean getting through an annoying blocker, swinging a race in your favor, or simply buying some extra time to enact your game plan.

It's all possible because of the versatility of a card that can play two different roles. A removal spell alone would not make the cut, and Feat of Resistance might be preferable to the indestructible effect. However, putting both abilities together makes for a card that will be tremendously valuable in a large number of games.

Art by Willian Murai

Valorous Stance is an excellent card, and need not be restricted just to WU Heroic. It could be a great addition to any white-based creature deck.

One particularly valuable use is to save your best creature from End Hostilities.

It also has applications in combat. It can allow your Mantis Rider to beat your opponent's Mantis Rider in combat, for example.

Valorous Stance has the potential to be a game changer in Standard. Even if you don't add it to your own deck, you'll have to be aware that it's out there. Think twice before making your Rakshasa Deathdealer or your Seeker of the Way into a 4/4. Consider using that Hero's Downfall on your own turn, before your opponent untaps his or her white mana…

The addition of Valorous Stance to WU Heroic might make for a particularly deadly linear deck in Standard. Be the one to benefit from its power, or else be ready to dismantle the strategy with counter-measures of your own.

Deck Archetypes

8

Aggro Decks

The best defense is a good offense.

At this point in Level One, it's time to begin putting together the fundamental concepts of Magic which have been covered so far and learning concrete ways to apply them. This means looking at the complete picture—not just the gameplay of Magic, but at deck building as well.

Deck building is also important in Limited formats (like Sealed Deck), but the greater challenges—and rewards—come from deck building in Constructed. In Constructed formats (the most commonly played of which is Standard), the possibilities are virtually endless, as you may build your deck from any cards (that are legal in the format) that you can get your hands on. The challenge becomes to hone in on a particular strategy, and to make sure every card you choose contributes to that strategy.

Perhaps the simplest and most common strategy is to exploit tempo, covered last week. By building a fast deck geared toward playing and attacking with creatures quickly, you can put your opponents on the back foot right away and win lots of games with minimal resistance. We call these aggro (short for aggressive) decks.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEMPO IN AGGRO DECKS

With an aggro deck, your goal is to get ahead early and stay ahead until you either win the game or create an advantage large enough to leverage into a win. Tempo is your most important resource and ought to overshadow other concerns. Let's put this in the perspective of some of the other concepts we've touched on in Level One up to this point.

Card advantage is a bigger concern for players aiming to play a long game. With an aggro deck, you want to be able to decide the game with your opening seven cards plus your first small handful of draw steps. You wouldn't turn down drawing extra cards if you could do so for free, but you cannot afford to sacrifice tempo in order to do it.

Your mana curve should be carefully built and as low to the ground as possible. If you cannot begin putting creatures into play in the first couple turns of the game, you risk losing the window where you could have developed your biggest advantage.

Focus on mana efficiency. For every job that needs to be done, choose the cheapest (in terms of mana) option available to you. Ideally, you should spend less mana to deploy threats than your opponent spends to answer them. You should spend less mana answering threats than your opponent spends to deploy them. Do not invest tempo into cards like Sandsteppe Citadel and Abzan Banner, since (hopefully) the games won't go long enough for such cards to be worth their initial investment.

Focus most on your own threats instead of seeking to answer whatever your opponent might be doing. The small number of answer cards that you can play should be geared to counter the cards that might shut down your own game plan (like blocking creatures).

Be concerned with attacking your opponent's life total, not with protecting your own.

In short, you should thrive in the early turns instead of planning for a long game.

EXAMPLE #1: WB AGGRO

First, take a look at the mana curve of this deck. A full 22 spells cost one mana! There are five white and black creatures currently legal in Standard that cost one mana and have 2 power; this deck plays four of them in four copies each! This means having the highest possible chance of making a good, aggressive play on turn one, and also a high chance of playing two additional one-mana spells on turn two! Deploying your threats as quickly as possible is an important aspect of a tempo-based strategy.

Notice also that no spell costs more than three mana. This means that all of your weapons will be at your disposal in the early turns of the game. It also allows for a relatively low land count (only 21), making more room for threats.

Regarding individual card choices, Herald of Torment is a perfect card for an aggro deck. It only costs three mana, so it has a great chance of coming down early and putting pressure on the opponent. However, in the case where you draw too many lands, or if the games goes a little longer than you might like, Herald of Torment's bestow ability provides a back-up plan. The bestow ability can provide a big tempo swing by allowing an existing creature to fly over a blocker right away. While many creatures require an initial tempo investment due to their inability to tap or attack on the first turn they're in play (we used to call this "summoning sickness"), bestowing Herald has an immediate impact on the board, and a big one at that! The flexibility of being able to use either option is what's so appealing about Herald of Torment.

A number of cards in this deck cause you to lose life: Herald of Torment, Pain Seer, Thoughtseize, and Ulcerate, to name a few. From my experience, new players tend to instinctively avoid cards like these like the plague. However, it's important for all players to get over this phobia. After all, aggro players do not need to worry much about their own life totals. Remember, the best defense is a good offense!

In the early game, you're going to be so far ahead in tempo that your opponent won't be able to attack you back. If things go awry and your opponent is able to swing things back in his or her favor, a couple of life points are unlikely to make the difference. Your goal is to win the game before your opponents can get their more expensive and powerful cards online; your goal should never be to beat those cards in a fair fight.

Along the same lines, slower WB (white-black) decks might prefer Scoured Barrens to Caves of Koilos and Mana Confluence. However, when you play an aggro deck you should be happy to make sacrifices in terms of life total in order to preserve tempo. Lands that enter the battlefield tapped slow you down and throw off your mana curve. That can be very costly for an aggro strategy.

Finally, let's take a look at the answer cards of this WB Aggro deck. Hero's Downfall is a reliable way to take out virtually any blocker and keep attacking. Ulcerate and Murderous Cut are slightly more situational—they require certain circumstances to be at their best—but make up for it in their mana efficiency. If you can ever kill a creature with an Ulcerate or a delved Murderous Cut and play your own creature in the same turn, then you've created a huge tempo swing that you can use to your advantage.

Thoughtseize is also an answer card, although in this particular deck you'll most often use it to answer your opponent's answer. After all, the two biggest threats to an aggro strategy will typically be blocking creatures and removal spells. You cannot Hero's Downfall a removal spell, but you can Thoughtseize it away before your opponent casts it! This will be particularly valuable when your opponent has planned the entire game around a high-impact spell like End Hostilities and you can strip it away at the last moment.

ATTACKING YOUR OPPONENT'S LIFE TOTAL

The key to Constructed formats is building your deck with a concerted strategy. The beauty of an aggro deck, like the white-black deck featured above, is that every card contributes to attacking your opponent's life total. No single card need win you the game on its own; if your Tormented Hero deals 4 or 6 damage to the opponent before dying, then it's done its job! The rest of your deck can continue working toward that concerted goal of getting your opponent from 20 down to 0.

Aggressively attacking your opponent's life total can limit your opponent's options. Just as you, as the aggro player, might utilize some cards that cause you to lose life, your opponents will naturally want to do the same thing. However, when facing down a horde of cheap creatures, your opponent is going to be filled with regret every time he or she casts a Thoughtseize or taps a Mana Confluence for mana.

What's more, you can leverage a card like Athreos, God of Passage in a way that other decks cannot. In a slow deck, your opponent might gladly choose to pay 3 life in order for your creature to be dead forever. However, when you're aggressively attacking the life total, you take away that option. You can face your opponent with the choice of giving you back your creature, or of dying immediately! With Athreos, you can leverage an advantage of tempo or life total into card advantage by returning your dying creatures to your hand.

REACH

There's a saying in Magic that no point of damage matters except for the last point of damage. When players say this, they mean that there's no difference between winning the game at 20 life and winning the game at 1 life.

There's some wisdom behind this saying. However, the fact is that it can sometimes be quite valuable to get your opponent low on life, even if you don't finish him or her off right away. As demonstrated by the example of Athreos, God of Passage—decimating an opponent's life total can also limit the opponent's in-game options.

What's more, when players get low on life, panic inevitably creeps into their gameplay—as it rightly should. The lower their life totals get, the more likely they'll be to make unfavorable blocks and the less likely they'll be to make bold, risky plays. Your opponents are forced to play in this way because of reach.

Aggro decks are based primarily on tempo. They get ahead early, stay ahead as long as possible, and try to leverage their tempo advantage into a win or an advantage of another form. Often, they will leverage their tempo advantage into a life-total advantage. Reach refers to the ability to finish off a wounded opponent, even once you've lost your initial tempo advantage.

In the WB Aggro deck, your reach comes primarily in the form of Herald of Torment and Mogis's Marauder. Even if your opponent can successfully take over the ground using bigger creatures, if his or her life total is low enough, it's frighteningly easy for you to simply draw a Herald of Torment (to create a flying creature) or Mogis's Marauder (to get through damage via intimidate) and close out the game.

EXAMPLE #2: RABBLE RED

Traditionally, red is the color that lends itself best to building aggro decks. In addition to having lots of cheap, aggressively-slanted creatures, red's removal spells come in the form of burn.

Burn, also known as direct damage, in addition to being able to kill a creature (like a blocker), can deal damage straight to the opponent. Burn is one of the simplest and most effective forms of reach. When facing Rabble Red, a player must do everything in his or her power to stay at a high life total. If a player goes down to 7 life, the game (in a way) is no longer in his or her hands. No matter how well things can be going, no matter how far ahead that player can get on the board, a Stoke the Flames and a Lightning Strike can appear at any time to take the game away.

Red aggressive decks, like Rabble Red, are best equipped to pressure their opponent's life total. Their reach in the form of burn makes them deadly indeed.

PROACTIVE STRATEGIES

I'd like to close with a few words on the value of being proactive—a concept I've touched on a number of times thus far in Level One.

Tournament Magic presents a special challenge. You're paired up against a series of unfamiliar players using unfamiliar strategies with unfamiliar combinations of cards. It's difficult or impossible to be fully prepared for all of them.

In a tournament, the slower your deck, the more risks you open yourself up to. When your games are going long, your opponents can surprise you with any sort of powerful creatures, Planeswalkers, sorceries, instants, or combinations of cards that one could imagine. You'll need an answer—or at least a game plan—for beating them all.

Being proactive—in other words, having a strategy that's fast, aggressive, powerful, or all of the above—means that you can focus on executing your own game plan rather than trying to counteract your opponents'. You're likely to be an expert at executing your own game plan, but it's much more difficult to prepare for every possible eventuality of a drawn-out game.

It's simple: win every game by turn five and you won't have to worry about any card that costs more than five mana! Burn your opponents to death and you won't have to worry about any card that doesn't gain them life! Be aggressive, and make your opponents defend themselves against you! That is, if they can...

9

Control Decks

Magic is a complicated game with many battles to be fought and many opportunities to gain advantages. Last week, we discussed aggro decks, which capitalize on tempo to win games. However, countless different strategies are possible in Constructed Magic, each focusing on different aspects of the game and earning advantages in different ways.

Control decks represent the polar opposite of aggro decks. Where aggro decks strive for speed, control decks are geared for the long game. While aggro decks win by executing their own game plan, control decks focus on shutting down the opponent, and win the game later, at their own convenience. We call them control decks because their goal is not to kill the opponent, but merely to control the game. Their top priority is to stop the opponent from executing his or her game plan. This can be an amazingly effective strategy and particularly appeals to players who enjoy playing long, and oftentimes complex, games.

CARD ADVANTAGE IN CONTROL DECKS

All Magic decks must be built with the concept of tempo in mind. Aggro decks aim to win the game (or at least gain a big advantage) through a fast start and a tempo advantage. On the other hand, control decks merely need to avoid falling so far behind in tempo that they lose the game because of it. Aggro decks want to get ahead in tempo. Control decks want to keep pace in tempo. Aggro decks want to win via tempo. Control decks are concerned with tempo only as it relates to defending themselves.

Instead, control decks typically get their edge through card advantage. If the control decks can succeed in surviving the early turns and making games go long, most opponents will run out of resources and peter out. The control deck itself, on the other hand, will become more and more powerful once its expensive spells and card advantage come online.

A control deck wants as much card advantage as it can get its hands on, and ideally it will come in the most simple and direct forms possible. Traditionally, a favorite mode of card advantage is simply to play with spells that allow you to draw extra cards.

Imagine a game that's reached turn ten or eleven. Your opponent, playing an aggro deck, is more or less spent. You've answered the early rush of creatures, and now the opponent is stuck simply drawing one card off the top of the library per turn. Often, this card will be a useless land.

You, on the other hand, are playing with a control deck featuring the card-drawing spells shown above. By turn eleven, you've cast several of these spells, so you've drawn about twenty-five cards out of your deck to your opponent's eighteen. This likely means you have more mana, more cards in your hand, and more relevant creatures and spells to fight with. Beating your opponent's measly one draw step per turn will be academic! If you have enough of these card-drawing spells in your deck, one will draw you into another into another and you'll never have to worry about suffering from mana flood. Your opponent will simply be buried in card advantage until eventually you'll find some powerful creature or Planeswalker to put your opponent out of his or her misery!

INEVITABILITY

Your card advantage might come in any number of different forms via creatures, spells, Planeswalkers, or anything else. However, it must be there, and it must be there in a high enough concentration or else your deck will not function properly.

Control decks are built on the premise of inevitability. The deck must be powerful enough in the late game that its pilot can be confident in a win so long as he or she can defend him- or herself and drag the game out indefinitely.

Achieving inevitability is always the first step and the top priority when building a control deck. If you succeed in defending yourself against your opponent's early rush of creatures only to find yourself suffering from mana flood and losing anyway, then all of your efforts were wasted!

Inevitability is an important and complex concept that I'll be returning to in the future. For now, though, think of like this:

You have inevitability if your deck is powerful enough that you'll win a very high portion of games that go long.

Ensure that you have inevitability by building your deck with plenty of card advantage and powerful cards.

EXAMPLE WHITE-BLUE CONTROL

This white-blue deck is a very classic example of a control deck, featuring many of the most recognizable features of the archetype—a word we use for a recurring strategy with numerous possible variations.

MANA IN CONTROL DECKS

The first thing to notice is the high land count: 26! We've already touched on the fact that card-drawing spells and powerful cards reduce the risk of mana flood (meaning that the deck can afford the risks of playing a high land count). However, we've not yet covered why it's so important for control decks to have a high concentration of mana.

While some of the aggro decks featured last week would be happy to never draw another land again beyond number three or four, control decks typically need to hit all of their land drops all the way into turn six, turn seven, and sometimes even beyond that. Since they're focused on the late game instead of the early game, control decks might not have as many cheap plays as other decks, and therefore cannot operate if they miss their land drops. Instead, they lean on powerful plays like End Hostilities and Elspeth, Sun's Champion to catch them up on tempo, so it's paramount that they have the mana to play those cards when the time comes.

CREATURES IN CONTROL DECKS

Newer players might also be shocked to see a deck featuring only two creatures. After all, the aggro decks featured last week had 28 or more, and I recommended a minimum of 14 creatures in Sealed Deck—and that's with 40 cards instead of 60! However, such a small creature count is actually not unusual for control decks. As mentioned above, control decks focus on defense and card advantage, and only seek to win the game later once they're firmly "in control." A small number of potent and reliable win conditions is the most effective way to execute this game plan.

There are a number of advantages that go along with a low creature count. One is that you can gain virtual card advantage by blanking your opponent's creature removal spells. Imagine yourself playing against this White-Blue Control deck and having a hand full of Murderous Cuts and Devouring Lights. What can you do with them? You can spend them on one of Elspeth, Sun's Champion's tokens, but that's hardly a winning battle. (It's also an exchange that leaves the control player ahead on card advantage). Or you can use them to tap Prognostic Sphinx for one turn. Either way, your removal spells are going to be stuck in your hand until the game is all but decided anyway. You will never have a chance to use them effectively.

A second advantage of having a low creature count is that your deck is configured in a way to make great use of symmetric effects. In the White-Blue Control example, End Hostilities is a tremendously powerful card that's central to your game plan. Fated Retribution and the -3 ability of Elspeth, Sun's Champion are also useful tools.

PERMISSION SPELLS

Finally, this control deck features a category of cards that we've not yet discussed in Level One. These are permission spells (as in: "Please, Reid, may I pleeease cast my spell?").

We also call these counterspells because of their wording and in honor of their most iconic ancestor. (Counterspell itself would be too powerful by today's standards and has not been printed for many years).

Permission spells are great defensive tools as they can stop virtually any threat before it ever becomes a problem. Consider that Murderous Cut cannot prevent a creature like Siege Rhino from triggering its ability when it enters the battlefield, it cannot kill a Planeswalker, and it cannot stop an instant or sorcery. Dissolve can answer any of these problems.

Permission spells are ideal for control decks because of the way they contribute to the goal of inevitability. Once you get to the late game and things are going according to plan, having a Dissolve in your hand means there's very little your opponent can ever hope for in order to claw back into the game.

The only catch is that permission spells cannot help you to come back from behind; once a creature or Planeswalker is on the battlefield, you'll need to find another way to deal with it. Because of this, permission spells can be somewhat tricky to use properly during game play. There will be some times when you need to cast your Nullify on turn two on absolutely anything your opponent plays, just to avoid falling behind. (This is in a game where tempo is a big concern.) Other times you'll need to be very patient and save your Dissolve for some devastating threat your opponent might have, which you can't answer in any other way.

Having a mix of permission spells and removal spells is ideal, since that will give you the flexibility to handle any situation.

BUILDING A CONTROL DECK

When you build a control deck, your number one priority should be inevitability. Chock your deck full of enough card advantage and powerful cards that you feel very confident in winning the late game. If you fail to do this, your strategy simply won't work.

Next, focus on your early defense. All you want to do is survive, develop your mana, and generate card advantage. Do whatever you can to dismantle your opponent's aggression. You can use permission spells, removal spells, blocking creatures, or any number of other tools in order to do this. No one way is better than another so long as it allows you to survive long enough to begin overpowering your opponents in the late game.

Although I only featured one example of a control deck, they can come in a wide variety of forms. Blue is the most common control color (and the color of permission spells), but not all control decks are blue. Some seek to dominate the game with Planeswalkers; some achieve inevitability by recurring cards from their graveyard; some assemble powerful combinations of cards that are hard for their opponents to overcome. Whatever form they take, the heart of all control decks is the same: card advantage, inevitability, and defense.

Often, the late-game power of a control deck is too alluring to resist. A control deck can be an excellent choice for a tournament. Because of their complexity and the fact that they cause games to drag on for so long, there can be great rewards to practicing ahead of time and truly mastering a control deck.

However, be wary that building a control deck presents the special challenge: you have to be prepared for anything your opponents can throw at you. Know what strategies you're likely to run into and have a plan for utterly dismantling them. Do this, and before long, your opponents will be begging for mercy.

10

Midrange Decks

Pushing extremes is often a good way to learn, but finding balance is often the best way to play. Aggro decks want to attack; control decks want to defend. There's a third category of decks that features similarities with both, yet doesn't quite fit the mold of either one. We call these midrange decks, which are built with both offense and defense in mind, and have the ability to adapt to whatever situation they face.

Art by Richard Wright

ADAPTABILITY AND VERSATILITY

Ari Lax won Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir with Abzan Midrange. He navigated through thirteen rounds of play against control decks, fast creature decks, burn decks, opposing midrange decks, and plenty more. At the heart of his success was adaptability. The keys were the ability to play offense when he could, a willingness to play defense when he needed to, and an excellent sideboard that allowed him to attack each of his opponents in the perfect way once he knew what he was up against.

ARI LAX'S ABZAN MIDRANGE

Mr. Lax's deck looks much different from the other decks featured over the past few weeks. It has a healthy number of creatures, but it also emphasizes answer cards, mana development, and resilient noncreature threats. Its strategy is based neither on speed nor longevity, but on grinding small advantages and setting up a winning board state. In short, it's a well-balanced deck.

The perfect card for a midrange deck is one that's good on either offense or defense. Note that there's nothing in Ari's deck along the lines of a Firedrinker Satyr—a card that's only suited to attacking. Nor is there anything like a Jace's Ingenuity—a card where you sacrifice a substantial amount of tempo as an investment for a long game. Midrange decks are adaptable in part because their individual cards are versatile—they have a range of uses for a range of possible scenarios.

Look at Siege Rhino. This is a creature that's capable of unloading a lot of damage fast, and it can win the game all on its own if the opponent fails to answer it. However, with its high toughness and lifegain ability, it's also excellent at catching you up from behind against an opposing creature deck. It can come down, stabilize the board and your life total, buy you time to cast the rest of your spells, and—when you're ready—it can start attacking.

Siege Rhino and Wingmate Roc are hand-picked to be effective game enders that are also good on defense. Beyond that, every creature in the deck has a noncombat ability that's useful in a long game. Elvish Mystic and Sylvan Caryatid can block in a pinch, but their main purpose is to serve as extra mana sources, and to give the deck a speed boost so it can keep pace with aggro decks. Courser of Kruphix can sit in play holding off weenie creatures while also giving you long-run card advantage and a healthy bit of lifegain.

Another perfect example of versatility is Abzan Charm—a card with three distinct modes is the definition of versatile! Moreover, one of Abzan Charm's modes is defensive (exiling the opponent's creature), one is offensive (pumping up your creature for extra damage or to win a fight in combat), and one is an investment for the late game (drawing extra cards). You will never be disappointed to draw Abzan Charm because it's useful in nearly every imaginable situation.

Along those lines, note how Ari Lax was able to fill his deck to the brim with answer cards without choosing any cards that would likely be dead in a particular matchup.

Thoughtseize: Every deck plays nonland spells and Thoughtseize is particularly excellent at combating noncreature spells in control decks.

Abzan Charm: Three modes, so you can find the right one for the given situation.

Hero's Downfall and Utter End: Even against a control deck, you can take out a Planeswalker or a Banishing Light to free up one of your own threats.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion: Capable of destroying troublesome creatures like Stormbreath Dragon, but also serves as Abzan's most powerful win condition!

THE SIDEBOARD

Since their greatest strength comes from their flexibility, it's impossible to discuss midrange decks without the context of sideboard. They lack the speed of aggro decks and the late-game power of control decks. However, they excel at exploiting weaknesses of other decks and finding the best way to approach any set of circumstances. Midrange decks tend to shine after sideboarding, when they can hone themselves to perfection for a particular matchup.

In the main deck, avoiding cards that can be dead in certain matchups is tremendously helpful. However, in your sideboard there's no need to sacrifice power for versatility.

Because midrange decks are well balanced, and their strategy does not lean too heavily on any one thing, they can sideboard virtually anything. Notably, Ari Lax chose to make use of a number of symmetric effects, such as End Hostilities. Although most creature decks shy away from cards like this, Ari knew that in the matchups where he'd sideboard in End Hostilities, his opponents would be so decimated by it that he might gladly sacrifice one or two of his own creatures as collateral.

However, midrange decks have access to more than just defensive sideboard cards. The fact that they play creatures and have the ability to pressure the opponent's life total mean that they can also look for specific threats that might give certain opponents trouble.

Take Nissa, Worldwaker for example, a card that's very effective against control decks. It would be clumsy and ineffective for one control deck to sideboard Nissa against another. After all, attacking the opponent's life total isn't part of the plan, so unless Nissa can somehow manage to take the opponent from 20 to 0 all on her own, she hasn't accomplished much. However, in the context of an Abzan Midrange deck (with Siege Rhinos, Wingmate Rocs, and other Planeswalkers to compliment her), Nissa represents a threat that could easily be too much for an opposing control deck.

Traditionally, midrange decks excel after sideboarding. In fact, their advantage is two-fold. For one thing, the flexibility of their strategy means that they have access to all the best sideboard cards in their colors. For another, the balance of their deck means that they are very difficult to sideboard against. The more extreme the strategy, the easier it is to sideboard against; the more balanced the strategy, the more difficult it is to sideboard against.

MANA AND TEMPO

As with any deck, mana curve is of the utmost importance for a midrange deck. Along those lines, there's a unique problem spawned from the claims I've made above.

Every deck must have early plays, but it's extremely difficult to find cheap creatures that are good on both offense and defense. If they have low power and toughness, then they're too likely to be outclassed later in the game. One option is to eschew cheap creatures in favor of removal spells, but then you're likely to have a lot of dead cards when you face control decks. The challenge is to find early plays that are good across all matchups and maintain their value throughout the game.

The solution, in the case of Abzan, is to play with creatures that ramp your mana. In addition to meeting the criteria above, they offer you the side benefits that you can play a slightly higher concentration of expensive cards and a slightly lower land count.

Similarly, midrange decks are also well-suited to make use of enters-the-battlefield tapped lands like Temples (like Temple of Malady) and tri-lands (like Sandsteppe Citadel).

To preserve the power level of your deck, you can instead plan to spend your early turns making investments in tempo in order to develop your mana. It's all worth it if you're able to function smoothly, reliably, and effectively in the midgame.

CARD ADVANTAGE

Card advantage is important to midrange decks. However, where control decks can play cards like Divination and Jace's Ingenuity, midrange decks are forced to be more creative. If your goal is to shine in the midgame, it's a bad idea to spend a crucial turn drawing cards instead of developing or managing the battlefield.

Instead, midrange decks need to look for incidental card advantage—card advantage that comes indirectly, or is attached to another effect. Courser of Kruphix is a perfect example. On turn three, you really want to be adding a creature to the battlefield, but Courser continues to pull its weight for as long as it remains in play. Playing lands off the top of your library means getting more cards into play without spending anything out of your hand. It also means an increased chance of drawing nonland cards to mitigate the risks of mana flood.

We've already touched on Abzan Charm. While it wouldn't be a good idea to play with Divination, Abzan Charm's primary function is as a removal spell. There's a tremendous amount of value to having a card advantage option when the situation calls for it.

Last but not least, in terms of incidental card advantage, we have the Planeswalkers. Midrange decks are best suited to use Planeswalkers for a number of reasons. First, they have enough creatures alongside their Planeswalkers that they can control the battlefield. Second, they have enough removal to protect their Planeswalkers even when they aren't ahead on the board. Third, and perhaps most important, they're aiming to play a slightly longer game and therefore get tremendous long-term value out of activating their Planeswalkers every turn.

Virtual card advantage is also important to midrange decks. Very often, this comes in the form of simply having bigger creatures than your opponents.

Imagine the case of Abzan Midrange facing off against a red weenie deck. On any given turn, as the game goes long, the Abzan deck might draw Siege Rhino while the red deck might draw Foundry Street Denizen. Abzan gains virtual card advantage simply by having a higher average card quality.

Imagine a Siege Rhino in play against a swarm of smaller red creatures. The red player might decide not to attack, in which case the Abzan player has blanked his or her creatures (at least temporarily). The red player might decide to attack and lose one of his or her creatures, just to get in damage, in which case the Abzan player has killed one creature for free. Alternatively, the red player might have to trade a creature along with a Titan's Strength or a Lightning Strike in order to kill the Siege Rhino, in which case the Abzan player has gotten a two-for-one.

The more card advantage that you can build into the structure of your deck, the better off you'll be.

ENDING THE GAME

The most important difference between a midrange deck and a control deck is that the midrange deck does not (necessarily) have inevitability—it is not guaranteed to win the game just by virtue of surviving long enough. Some midrange decks have a sizable risk of mana flood. Others might have trouble answering particular cards or combinations of cards.

For example, Ari Lax's Abzan deck would have trouble against the card Hornet Queen in Game 1, having to spend multiple cards to answer it. This might pose a minor problem, but it's certainly not a fatal flaw in the deck.

The solution is simple: kill your opponent!

Up to this point, I've emphasized the importance of creatures playing defense in a midrange deck. "Siege Rhino can stabilize the board..." "Wingmate Roc can protect your Planeswalkers..." Well, they have another purpose as well.

Once you're ready, you turn your creature and your Planeswalkers on your opponent. You can use your removal spells to kill their blockers, and your opponent can be dead before he or she knows what's happened!

Flexibility is key for a midrange deck, and part of that is being able to attack when the situation calls for it. Ideally, the game will go in two stages: the first is where you're defending yourself, developing your mana, and dismantling your opponent's game plan, and the second is where you're attacking and going for the throat. We call this turning the corner—the turn where your goal shifts toward killing your opponent.

The ability to turn the corner and end the game fast is crucial for midrange decks precisely because they do not have inevitability. Your answer to certain troublesome cards is to win the game either before they show up, or very soon after. If you're playing Abzan and you smell a Hornet Queen coming, try to get your opponent to a low enough life total that something along the lines of a Siege Rhino backed up by Ajani, Mentor of Heroes can finish the job.

When you play a midrange deck, you're never totally out of the game. You'll have a diverse suite of answer cards to handle many of the most common problems. More importantly, in the cases where don't have the right answer, you have the plan B of simply killing your opponent!

Note that midrange decks can come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Finishing in the Top 8 alongside Ari Lax was Yuuya Watanabe, with Jeskai Midrange.

YUUYA WATANABE'S JESKAI WINS DECK

Despite sharing virtually no cards in common and the games playing out in a vastly different way, the principles behind Abzan and Jeskai are largely the same. Like Abzan, this Jeskai deck will take a defensive posture against faster decks and an aggressive posture against slower decks. Like Abzan, it features a small handful of potent creatures. Like Abzan, after sideboarding it will adapt itself to whatever role it needs to play for the given matchup. Even more so than Abzan, it has a remarkable ability to turn the corner, ending the game with a flurry of burn spells once it's time to do so.

In a Magic tournament, a collection of various strategies bash into one another until one comes out on top. Instead of guessing which strategy will be best, you can play something more flexible and adapt to whatever your opponents will be up to. Choose a midrange deck, emphasize balance and a good sideboard, and you'll have a fighting chance no matter what situation arises.

BONUS SECTION: PREVIEW FROM COMMANDER (2014 EDITION)

One of the keys to a successful midrange deck is incidental card advantage—card advantage built into the very structure of the deck. I've also brought up a common problem for midrange decks—a lack of early plays—and one possible solution—investing your early turns into lands that enter the battlefield tapped.

Along those lines, today's preview card is one that might be too slow for aggressive decks, but that has the potential to be a game changer for a midrange or control deck. Any deck that can afford to give up some tempo in the early turns in exchange for extra mana and card advantage down the road could be a great candidate.

In the short term, Myriad Landscape is worse than a basic land, as it enters the battlefield tapped and only produces colorless mana. However, for a deck with lax mana requirements in the early turns, this might not be a particularly steep price to pay. In the long term, Myriad Landscape will turn itself into two basic lands, which means mana ramping and card advantage all without ever playing a spell from your hand. This is exactly the type of incidental card advantage that'll allow your deck to run smoothly and offer a consistent advantage over many opponents.

Myriad Landscape is functionally quite similar to an old card: Krosan Verge. Krosan Verge was a defining card when it was legal in the Standard format. Despite not appearing in any top Legacy decks in recent times, both Krosan Verge and Myriad Landscape are Legacy-power-level cards under the right circumstances, and probably deserve more attention than they get.

Landscape, compared to Krosan Verge, features the important ability to search for any type of basic land. This ought to make it a strong consideration for any deck that benefits from having many lands of the same type, such as those built around cards like Cabal Coffers or High Tide. As a side note, it could also be good if you had a reason to play with Snow-Covered basic lands (a reason like Skred, for example).

Look for high-value lands like Myriad Landscape to give your midrange decks that little boost they might need to become tournament winners.

Concepts of Game Play—Part 2

11

Board Sweepers

I typically shy away from discussing individual cards in Level One. However, certain categories of cards are so important, so powerful, and so recognizable, that even a fundamental strategy guide would be incomplete without mentioning them. Today, we're going to cover board sweepers. At the end, I'll preview a powerful and exciting new card from Magic Origins!

Board sweepers are cards capable of destroying many creatures at once. They're also called wraths—named after their oldest and most iconic ancestor.

Wrath of God is quite simple (in its wording, if not in its effect on the game), but board sweepers can take many different forms. Many, like Wrath of God, are symmetric. Some, like In Garruk's Wake, are not. Some, like Seismic Rupture, are conditional. Some, like Perilous Vault, destroy more than just creatures. Whether you're playing with them or against them, it's important to understand all of these subtle differences between board sweepers.

BOARD SWEEPERS ARE FORMAT DEFINING

Format defining is a weighty term. For a card to be format defining means more than just being powerful. It means more than being commonly played in multiple different decks. It means that most, or all decks in the format are warped around its existence. Board sweepers have great potential to be format defining.

One of the first things you need to learn about a new format is what board sweepers are out there. This will impact both the way you build your deck and the way you play. Some Limited formats have few or no board sweepers. Great! You can just play a normal game, focusing on developing your side of the battlefield. Other times, you'll need to be more careful.

Dragons of Tarkir, for example, has Seismic Rupture at uncommon, which means that you won't play against it every game, or even every Draft, but that you shouldn't be surprised by it either. It's a conditional sweeper, so you can make some small adjustments to reduce your vulnerability to it. Green-red decks can make great use of Seismic Rupture if most of their creatures have a toughness of 3 or more. Blue-red decks can make great use of it if they have few creatures, or if most of them have flying. Other red decks can simply sideboard Seismic Rupture against opponents who are particularly vulnerable. If your Draft deck is utterly devastated by Seismic Rupture, this is a weakness that you should be aware of.

Fate Reforged has Crux of Fate at rare. Technically, Crux of Fate is also conditional, but in many cases it's going to destroy all of the creatures on the battlefield anyway—it's hard to adjust your deck to be resilient against Crux of Fate. However, since it's a rare, you probably shouldn't worry about Crux of Fate in Limited until you see for certain that your opponent has it.

In Constructed, being aware of the board sweepers is even more important, since anyone who wants to play with them will be able to do so. In current Standard, you should be aware that most control decks play with one copy of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and one to three copies of either End Hostilities or Crux of Fate. You should be aware that Drown in Sorrow is a common sideboard card. You should be aware when you cast multiple copies of the same creature that you're making yourself vulnerable to Bile Blight.

When you build your deck, if the prevalent board sweepers pose a threat to you, you ought to brainstorm solutions to your problem. For example, some mono-red decks turn to dash creatures in order to beat Drown in Sorrow. Nearly all Green Devotion decks feature Whisperwood Elemental as insurance against End Hostilities.

When you play the games, you should weigh the risks and rewards of casting more creatures onto the battlefield and into a possible board sweeper.

WHEN TO PUT BOARD SWEEPERS IN YOUR DECK

Board sweepers are powerful in both Constructed and Limited. In Limited, though—where power levels are lower, and where all decks play with a healthy number of creatures—board sweepers are typically bombs. You should always play with a card like Crux of Fate, no matter how many creatures you're playing or how aggressive your deck is. The fact that you get to be the one in control of such a game-breaking effect gives you a big advantage almost any way you look at things. If it looks like you're going to cast Crux of Fate, you can save a few creatures in your hand. If you're going to win the game without it, you can choose not to cast it at all!

Lower-power board sweepers like Seismic Rupture, are slightly more in question. They can be strong main-deck cards if they fit your deck well and/or if the format is right for them. (The faster the format and the more weenie creatures, the better Seismic Rupture will be). They will virtually always be excellent sideboard cards.

Control Decks

In Constructed, board sweepers are at their best in control decks. Control decks value card advantage, and they want the games to go long. Board sweepers fit with both of those goals. Perhaps most importantly, control decks typically play few creatures of their own, so an effect that reads as being symmetric is hardly symmetric at all!

Creature Decks

Sometimes, circumstances are right for creatures decks to play with board sweepers also. However, the costs of doing so are much higher than for control decks.

Board sweepers ask you to center your game plan around them. They're not particularly helpful when you're trying to play a normal game and fight a fair fight. Consider this example:

You're on the play in an Abzan mirror. On turn four, there are no creatures on the battlefield and your hand contains Siege Rhino and Crux of Fate. What should you do? If you do nothing, then you're not using Siege Rhino to its full potential. But if you cast a creature, you might not use Crux of Fate to its full potential.

Let's say you cast Siege Rhino (as you probably should). Now your opponent plays his or her own Siege Rhino. Now what? Casting Crux of Fate would have a completely symmetric effect, and wouldn't accomplish much, so let's suppose instead that you do nothing. Now your opponent casts Anafenza, the Foremost. Now you can trade two-for-two (Crux of Fate and Siege Rhino for Siege Rhino and Anafenza). That's a fine trade, but it's unexciting and your removal spell has been overpriced and awkward. You could hold out and hope that your opponent casts a third creature, but what if he or she doesn't? What if instead he or she kills your Siege Rhino and attacks for more damage than you were counting on?

I find scenarios like this to be very common. Crux of Fate isn't a bad card in an Abzan mirror—you can almost always find a use for it. However, it's also somewhat unreliable. Return to the beginning of this game and replace Crux of Fate with Hero's Downfall…and your life becomes much easier. You cast your Rhino, Downfall your opponent's Rhino and start beating down!

In short, spot removal spells tend to fit better with the plan of creature decks than board sweepers do. However, if there's a matchup (think Green Devotion) or a particular card (think Wingmate Roc) for which you really need a board sweeper, then the option does exist.

MAIN DECK OR SIDEBOARD?

Board sweepers are easier to put in your sideboard than your main deck. They're great in certain matchups (creature decks) but very poor in other matchups (control decks).

Ironically, though, board sweepers are much more powerful as main deck cards than as sideboard cards. An astounding number of Game 1s come down to: "Player A will win if they have a board sweeper. Player B will win if he or she does not."

This is true for two reasons. First, the creature deck often does not have the tools necessary to "play around" the board sweeper before sideboarding. If a deck is designed to put creatures into play and attack, then it's likely to be excellent at executing that game plan, but not at much else.

Second, the control (or midrange) deck often does not have enough spot removal to reliably beat the creature deck before sideboarding. In order to dismantle Green Devotion or Mono-Red in Game 1, a deck would have to play so many removal spells that there wouldn't much room left for anything else. They'd have far too many dead cards against decks that don't win via creatures!

For these reasons, Game 1s often come down to the "do you have the board sweeper or not?" situation, and board sweepers are at their most powerful. After sideboarding, the dynamic changes. Creature decks know that they must be prepared to beat board sweepers after sideboarding, so they adjust their game plans. They diversify their threats using Planeswalkers, dash creatures, or any other tools they have access to. Sometimes, they might bring in direct answers to the board sweepers such as cards like Thoughtseize or Negate.

The control/midrange deck will be sideboarding in all of the removal spells and defensive measures that they have access to. Now the plan becomes to kill every creature on sight, as quickly as possible. There's no opportunity for the creature deck to build up a huge army. The board sweepers might still be effective, but they're no longer the primary game plan.

For this reason, if you've decided to put unconditional board sweepers (End Hostilities, Crux of Fate, etc.) in your deck, they'll be at their most potent in the main deck. Conditional board sweepers like Drown in Sorrow are still very good as sideboard cards, since they're so effective in the particular matchups in which you want them.

Today's preview card is a new board sweeper from Magic Origins! Languish straddles the line between a conditional and unconditional board sweeper. At four mana, it's relevantly cheaper than End Hostilities and Crux of Fate. These two characteristics combine to make Languish an incredibly exciting card for the new Standard. It might prove to be format defining!

Languish will wipe up all small creatures (even through regeneration and indestructible), but will leave creatures with 5 or more toughness alive. This makes it very convenient for black creature decks, since Siege Rhino; Tasigur, the Golden Fang; Dragonlord Silumgar; and Silumgar, the Drifting Death will all live through it. You can easily design your own deck to be resilient to Languish, taking maximum advantage of the symmetric effect.

At four mana, Languish is fast enough to save you from red weenie decks and Goblin Rabblemaster. However, its effect is large enough that it will remain powerful into the late game, answering Thunderbreak Regents and Dragonlord Ojutais.

I don't know that Languish will replace Drown in Sorrow and Crux of Fate, but it will certainly have a place beside them. With so many board sweepers all available, you can choose the one that best suits your needs. Building your deck to be as resilient as possible against the variety of board sweepers available in Standard will be a challenge. However, there will be great rewards for those who can do so properly!

12

Permission Spells

"Masters of the arcane savor a delicious irony. Their study of deep and complex arcana leads to such a simple end: the ability to say merely yes or no."

Art by Karl Kopinski

They're among the most feared spells in all of Magic. They're challenging to use properly, and terrifying to play against. Today we're going to discuss, in depth, permission spells.

WHAT IS A PERMISSION SPELL?

Permission spells have the ability to counter an opposing spell as it is being cast.

It's easy to understand why we call it "permission":

Johnny, staring down six untapped Islands on the other side of the battlefield, will say, "I'll cast Siege Rhino . . . Is that okay?"

And Jenny, after pondering her options, might say, "Yes, that's okay." Or she might say, "No, I'll cast Clash of Wills for five!"

The original permission spell was called "Counterspell." Counterspells can also refer, generally, to the category of cards as a whole.

"Counterspells" = "Permission Spells" = "Counters" = "Permission"

Many new players are confused by permission spells, probably because the cards are so unique in what they do. At various early points in my career, I remember trying to use Counterspell to destroy a permanent already in play (not legal), and trying to use Counterspell to stop my opponent from playing a land (not legal either).

While there are times when memorizing the technicalities of Magic is overly tedious, in the case of permission spells, it's very helpful. The following terms will definitely be familiar, but their exact definitions may or may not be.

Stack: The stack can feel like a scary concept when you first learn about it, but it's really not so bad. It's simply where spells and abilities wait to resolve. When you cast a spell or activate an ability, it goes on the stack, and both players get a chance to respond to it. If they choose not to, the spell or ability resolves as normal.

Spell: A spell only exists while it's being cast, while it's on the stack, and while it's resolving. You can use permission to remove a spell from the stack, before it has had its effect on the game. Instants and sorceries are spells as you're casting them. Creatures, planeswalkers, enchantments, and artifacts are also spells as you're casting them, but not once they're on the battlefield.

Permanent: Once they're on the battlefield, they're instead called permanents. A permanent is any card (or token) on the battlefield.

Land: Lands are permanents, but they are never spells. Playing a land is a special action and does not use the stack. In other words, it happens immediately, and cannot be countered or responded to.

Card: In zones other than the stack and the battlefield, everything is merely "a card." Just as you cannot use Path to Exile to remove a creature card from the graveyard, you can only use a permission spell on a spell that's currently on the stack.

PERMISSION AS EARLY DEFENSE

One of the traditional weaknesses of the color blue is its shortage of removal spells. Instead, blue mages sometimes rely on permission to keep from falling behind in the early game.

One strength of using permission as early defense is that it can answer anything the opponent chooses to throw at you. Lightning Strike cannot kill Courser of Kruphix, and Ultimate Price cannot kill Fleecemane Lion; but Nullify can stop either.

Indeed, if you can keep from falling behind, your opponent might not be able to get a creature onto the battlefield in the early game at all!

A problem arises, however, if you do somehow fall behind. Permission spells cannot remove a creature or planeswalker from the battlefield, so if one slips through the cracks, you'll need another way to answer it.

When using them as early defense, permission spells have a slightly higher value when you're on the play than when you're on the draw—since you're less likely to fall behind. They can be excellent against medium-speed decks like Abzan. Decks like these sometimes won't play a creature until turn three, by which time you're ready to counter it.

However, they can fall short against blisteringly fast decks like Mono-Red or White Weenie. You won't be able to counter a turn-one creature (at least not in Standard), so you'll be starting the game with a big problem. Either you'll suffer a ton of damage from that creature, or you'll have to tap out to answer it with a removal spell or creature of your own. At this point, your shields will be down, and your opponent can resolve another threat. You'll have to tap out to answer that one, and if you're not careful, you can find yourself in a vicious cycle where your permission spells are largely useless.

For this reason, having a mix of permission and removal is often your best bet. There are matchups and situations where leaning too heavily on permission will be costly.

PUSHING A TEMPO ADVANTAGE

If I told you that the final spell cast in a game of Magic was Disdainful Stroke, what would you think might've happened in that game?

We tend to think of permission spells as defensive. After all, their purpose is to stop whatever the opponent is doing. However, sometimes they're best used to stop them from stopping you.

Here's one thing that could've happened: An aggressive blue deck had a fast start with some cheap creatures. On turn five, the opponent tapped out for End Hostilities, hoping to get back in the game, but the blue player countered it with Disdainful Stroke. One last attack ended the game, making Disdainful Stroke the last spell played—and very likely the winner's MVP!

Permission is poor when you're behind, good when you're at parity, and downright deadly when you're ahead.

Traditionally, blue-based aggressive decks are cold-blooded killers of slow, controlling decks. They get ahead early, and then sit back on counterspells to prevent the control decks from clawing back into the game.

LOCKING UP THE GAME

Another great thing about permission is that it maintains its value throughout the game. While you can often use it as early defense, or to push a tempo advantage, it can also help you lock up the late game. Permission can be important to the concept of inevitability.

Imagine that you're playing a late game control deck focused on card advantage. You've succeeded in fending off your opponent's early rush of creatures. Now you're in a dominant position, drawing countless extra cards off of Dig Through Time and Dragonlord's Prerogative. You see your opponent tap a land, then two, three . . . eight, nine lands . . . Crater's Claws for eight knocks you right out of the game! Just when everything was going so well!

This nightmare scenario can be avoided with the presence of a modest amount of permission. If blue is known for two things, it's its permission spells and card drawing, and the two make a deadly combination. Once you've taken control of the game, your card-drawing spells allow you to see a large portion of your library, and if there are even a few permission spells in there, you can use them to make sure the game doesn't slip through your fingers.

PERMISSION IN YOUR SIDEBOARD

Counterspells can make great sideboard options for aggro decks, control decks, and combo decks alike; virtually anyone with access to blue mana can consider some permission for their sideboard!

First off, permission spells in your sideboard won't be a liability against those super-aggressive decks that are going to put you on the back foot right away. Too many permission spells in your main deck would be.

Second, just like with removal spells, after sideboarding you can tailor your permission suite perfectly to beat the person sitting across from you. Disdainful Stroke is great against ramp decks like Green Devotion. Negate is excellent against controlling decks like Esper Dragons. Annul is stellar against Blue-Red Artifacts and Constellation decks.

Finally, many matchups slow down a bit after sideboarding, and you may need extra answers to whatever your opponent is bringing in against you. For example, you might normally consider a card like Ultimate Price to be your best weapon against Green Devotion, but if your opponent is siding in Nissa, Worldwaker against you, you might need to sprinkle in a few permission spells in order to be better prepared.

PERMISSION IN LIMITED

Everything you know about counterspells in Constructed is also true in Limited. The important factor to remember, though, is that decks in Limited—both yours and your opponent's—are likely to be less focused than they would be in Constructed.

In other words, balance is key. Make permission spells one extra tool at your disposal, but don't lean too heavily on them. It's great to have a small number of counters in either your main deck or your sideboard, but you'd want a special reason before you'd play with more than two or three.

Their stock goes up in Sealed Deck as compared to Booster Draft. Sealed Deck is slower and more centered around late bombs. An ordinary common like Bone to Ash can be the perfect answer for a bomb creature like Kothophed, Soul Hoarder. In fact, look to counters as perfect sideboard cards once you know whether or not your opponent has a late game bomb (and importantly, what it is).

PLAYING WITH PERMISSION

We've touched on playing with permission spells in our previous discussions of tempo. Early in the game, you'll sometimes need to pull out all the stops in order to avoid falling behind on tempo. Don't be too proud to Dissolve a Foundry Street Denizen, if that's what the situation calls for!

Later in the game, though, you sometimes have the luxury of being more selective with your permission.

Art by Yan Li

Imagine you're playing a Blue-Black Control deck with a modest amount of permission in your deck (we'll say five counterspells), but you also have a lot of removal spells and a few creatures. When you play this deck against Abzan, it's important to use the right tools for the right jobs. If your opponent casts Anafenza, the Foremost, you can consider letting it resolve. After all, this is a card that you can answer just fine with a Hero's Downfall, Murderous Cut, or Languish. A morph that could be a Den Protector, however, will be troublesome if it hits the battlefield, so maybe you ought to save your Dissolve for something like that.

Important to note is that these questions are fluid and might change from one situation to the next. If you're at 20 life, you might let a Siege Rhino resolve and kill it with a removal spell. If you're at 5, maybe it's worth the Dissolve. If you expect to tap out for a creature on your next turn, maybe it's a fine call to counter Anafenza, just to keep the board under control.

PLAYING AGAINST PERMISSION

It's incredibly frustrating to have your game-winning spell countered. Sometimes, there's nothing much you can do to avoid it. Other times, there is.

Permission spells do have one weakness that can sometimes be exploited: They must be cast in a narrow window. If your opponent passes the turn with mana open for Dissolve, they've made a commitment of mana, and they must either use their Dissolve, or let it go to waste. If you suspect that your opponent is holding up a Dissolve, you can choose to cast your second-best spell, or perhaps not cast anything at all if you have that luxury.

If you can create a situation where you're ahead on the board, then your opponent won't be able to continue sitting on his or her counters. If your opponent passes with three Islands untapped, you might just want to attack with your Rakshasa Deathdealer and pump it up! After a few turns of this, you'll force your opponent to make the first move, and perhaps open a window for you to resolve a spell.

Art by John Severin Brassell

In Standard, most permission-heavy decks will also be playing with board sweepers like Languish or End Hostilities. Plan for the turns where your opponent will tap out for these cards. For example, you don't want to let your opponent Dissolve your Siege Rhino, and then untap and Languish the rest of your creatures away. Instead, you might lead with one of your weaker creatures, saving the Rhino (perhaps your most important spell) for the turn your opponent taps out.

On certain turns, though, your opponent can hold open mana for a counter without letting anything go to waste. This would be on a turn where he or she is planning to cast an instant-speed card-drawing spell like Dig Through Time or Jace's Ingenuity. If you suspect that this is the case, it can sometimes be in your interest to play right into the counterspell, because at least you'll force your opponent to wait a turn on his or her other spell. It's all about making things as inconvenient as possible for the opponent.

All of these techniques can be applied when you feel like you have a good hint about what's in your opponent's hand. However, my last piece of advice is not to be too passive. The worst thing you can do is let the fear of a counterspell cause you to lose the game when your opponent doesn't have one at all! Each turn that passes with no action favors the late-game control deck, so you don't want to give them any more time than you have to.

When in doubt, err on the side of being aggressive. Your opponent won't always have it. If they do, oh well, you might not have been able to successfully play around it even if you'd tried.

Permission spells are an important, complex, and challenging part of Magic. However, there's no reason to be afraid of them. Understand their strengths and weaknesses. Learn how best to use them yourself. Learn when you can make them inconvenient for your opponent. These are skills that will serve you well throughout your Magic career.

13

“Creature” Lands

Most Magic players learn to play the game using basic lands. They're simple and reliable, and they're the one tool that we'll absolutely always have access to. However, nonbasic lands are a tremendously important part of the game as well. As players become more and more competitive in Constructed Magic, they begin to encounter nonbasic lands more and more.

Soon, Magic will return to Zendikar—home to adventure, treasure hunting, and hostile landscapes. Those who played during the original Zendikar block might recall that the landscapes are, quite literally, hostile.

Lavaclaw Reaches is an example of a "creature" land. Creature lands are an incredibly powerful and important category of cards. They're played at the highest level of competition in every format, ranging from Vintage all the way to Standard and Booster Draft. Here are some more examples of creature lands:

These cards all have different sets of strengths and weaknesses. Some produce only colorless mana, while others enter the battlefield tapped. Foundry of the Consuls is a different type of "creature" land, in that it must be sacrificed before it can actually produce creatures.

Nonetheless, all creature lands have the important quality of increasing the midgame and late game power of the decks they're in. While they can be used for mana in the early game, they later become deadly threats. Importantly, they provide insurance against mana flood, and can thereby help increase the consistency of a deck.

Today's preview card is a powerful new creature land from Battle for Zendikar.

Lumbering Falls is templated just like its ancestors, two of which are Lavaclaw Reaches and Celestial Colonnade. It enters the battlefield tapped, but can produce two different colors of mana. For an affordable (though not cheap) cost, it can become a relevant and hard-to-kill creature.

Investment

When you play a land that enters the battlefield tapped, you're making an investment. Clearly, it's more powerful to have Lumbering Falls in play than it is to have either an Island or a Forest in play. However, the catch is that an Island or Forest can be used right away, whereas with Lumbering Falls you're forced to wait a turn. In other words, you spend a turn "investing" in Lumbering Falls—and in return, you'll find yourself with a powerful creature land in play later in the game.

This type of investment is costly for a blisteringly fast deck, since it can prevent you from playing out your creatures on time. However, for an average deck, especially in Standard, it will be well worth it. Consider that many Standard decks only play with a small number of one-mana creatures, if any. If you play a Forest on the first turn, but have no creature to cast, then your mana is going to waste anyway! You might as well use that opportunity to lay down a Lumbering Falls.

Mana Curve

Even if you have an Elvish Mystic for turn one, you might still be able to lead with a Forest and find a convenient time to play Lumbering Falls later in the game. In fact, you can consider lands that enter the battlefield tapped as giving you more flexibility in how you build your mana curve.

You can play Lumbering Falls on turn one, but you could also play a two-drop creature and a Lumbering Falls on turn three. If your goal is to waste as little mana as possible, laying a tapped land is effectively a way to spend (or invest) one mana on whatever turn is most convenient.

Insurance against Mana Flood

We've discussed the "land" side of Lumbering Falls, but what about the "creature" side?

In many games, creature lands are relatively simple to play with. You treat them as a normal land in the early game, until you've played out all the spells in your hand. Then, once you reach the late stages of the game and no longer need to spend all of your mana every turn, you can start attacking!

Art by Titus Lunter

In this way, creature lands help mitigate the risks of mana flood. Think of every game you've played where you've drawn too many lands, and had nothing to do with all of them. Wouldn't you have loved to cash one in for a 3/3 hexproof Elemental? Lumbering Falls gives you that option!

In an indirect way, creature lands can also help mitigate the risks of being mana hosed. When you don't have to worry as much about mana flood, you're free to play more lands than you normally would. (You might feel comfortable playing, say, 24 or 25 lands instead of 23). All in all, they're a fantastic way to improve the consistency of your deck and make sure you have fewer awkward hands.

Turning the Corner

Creature lands give their controller a remarkable ability to "switch gears" at a moment's notice. You can be defending yourself or developing your board for the early part of the game, and then BOOM, you start firing up your creature lands and attacking your opponent's life total much faster than they'd been prepared for.

Recall that turning the corner is an important part of damage racing, and realize that creature lands will help you turn the corner in a big way. Turning the corner means switching quickly between playing defense and going for the win. Once you've survived your opponent's early onslaught, there will come a turn when you can fire up your creature lands and make a big attack back, suddenly putting your opponent on their heels.

What's Special about Lumbering Falls?

So far, most of what I've said can apply to any creature land, but there are a few reasons that we ought to be particularly excited about Lumbering Falls.

First is that Lumbering Falls does, in fact, produce two colors of mana. So in addition to reducing the risks of being mana flooded and mana hosed, it's also a dual land that will help you have all of your colors on time! I expect Lumbering Falls to be a four-of "auto-include" for any blue-green deck in Standard. In fact, I expect it to be a huge incentive for players to choose that color combination!

The second reason to be excited about Lumbering Falls is hexproof. Creature lands already have built-in resilience to board sweepers like Languish. Since Lumbering Falls cannot be targeted by spot removal spells like Abzan Charm, it will really make for a nightmare threat against control decks.

Moreover, a four-mana activation would ordinarily be somewhat pricy, opening you up to an unfavorable tempo swing when you plan to attack or block with your creature land, only to see it get killed. The fact that Lumbering Falls has hexproof means that you can comfortably plan on it doing exactly what you need it to do, when you need it to do so. If you leave Lumbering Falls and four other lands untapped, it's going to be difficult for weenie creatures to attack into you, whether or not the opponent has a removal spell in hand.

All told, I'm quite excited for both Lumbering Falls, and for Battle for Zendikar in general! I've always loved playing with creature lands, and I think all of you will come to love them too.

14

Symmetric Effects

In the gaming world and in Magic, gaining an advantage means gaining an edge relative to your opponent. Last week, we discussed card advantage. How you can make plays—either by earning more cards or by destroying opposing cards—that will lead to getting ahead of your opponent in resources.

A game of Magic is a struggle to set yourself apart from, and ahead of, your opponent. With that in mind, there exists an entire category of cards which seem, at first glance, nearly impossible to use effectively. These are cards that feature symmetric effects. A symmetric effect impacts both players the same way, so it's difficult to glean an advantage from one under ordinary circumstances.

Nevertheless, some of the most powerful cards in Magic feature symmetric effects—including the preview card I have at the end of the article. If you have the creativity and the vision to find a use for them, you can wield weapons other players cannot. A proper understanding of symmetric effects will give you an advantage in both deck building and gameplay.

Making Better Use of a Symmetric Effect Than Your Opponent Can

The secret is that no event can ever really impact two people in exactly the same way, because no two people ever exist under exactly the same conditions. The summer sun feels less oppressive to me when I'm standing in the shade of a tree than it does to my friend six feet away, in the open. What about the effects of a brutal winter on an ill-equipped, invading army, compared to the effects of the same winter on the locals, who have the clothing, the shelter, and the know-how to cope with it? The key is to put yourself in a position to take better advantage of a symmetric effect than your opponent can.

Dictate of Karametra makes lands—all lands—produce additional mana. If you play Dictate of Karametra, you're going to provide your opponent with extra mana; there's no way around it.

What you can do, however, is to make sure you make better use of the extra mana than your opponent. If you've decided: first, to put Dictate of Karametra in your deck and, second, to cast it in this particular game, then it should mean that you're going to untap on your turn and spend a lot of mana to do something very powerful. Perhaps you're going to cast Genesis Hydra for X=10; maybe you're going to monstrous Polukranos, World Eater for enough to wipe out all of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter exactly what it is, so long as it's substantially more powerful than whatever your opponent is going to do.

And that may not be as difficult as you think. After all, you're the one who put Dictate of Karametra in your deck, not your opponent. You're the one who planned your strategy around it, not your opponent. It might be likely that your opponent is playing a very basic creature deck, with not much to do with this extra mana. In this case, you can make much better use of the Dictate than he or she can. The impact of the symmetric effect was, in reality, not very symmetric at all!

Eidolon of the Great Revel is a powerful card that can very much change the dynamic of a game. Over the course of a long game, it's not surprising if the Eidolon deals 6 or 8 damage to both players! But there's no need to panic.

Well, that's not entirely true; someone ought to be panicking, but hopefully not you. The thing to do, when you play Eidolon of the Great Revel, is to make sure that you're pressuring your opponent's life total more aggressively than he or she is pressuring yours. It's fine if your own Eidolon causes you to end the game at 12 life instead of 20; so long as your opponent winds up at 0, it won't matter in the slightest.

In both of these examples, we've found a way to take advantage of a symmetric effect by employing a strategy that makes effective use of the effect.

Dodging a Symmetric Effect

Fifteen years ago there was all this to-do about this thing called Y2K. When January 1, 2000, rolled around, dates in computers around the world would change from '99 to '00. Could they distinguish between the year 2000 and the year 1900? Would computer systems start failing? Would businesses lose money? Would banks fail? Would missiles go off? Would volcanoes erupt and aliens invade? Nobody knew exactly what would happen, but everybody was in a state of panic. I never worried, though.

Why? Because I was ten years old! I had no investments to depreciate, no job to get fired from, and no money to lose! I was pretty sure I'd still be able to climb my favorite tree in my backyard no matter what was going on with all those crazy computers.

Sometimes, you can take advantage of a symmetric effect by, quite simply, having nothing to lose!

For example, it's perfectly legal to cast Renounce the Guilds when you have no multicolored permanents on the battlefield. What happens is that your opponent sacrifices a multicolored permanent and you simply go about your business. You can make good use of Renounce the Guilds by putting it in a mono-white deck, or in any other deck that happens to not play with very many multicolored permanents.

Similarly, Whispering Madness forces both players to discard his or her hand and draw new cards. Fortunately, however, you get to choose when you cast it! If the situation calls for it, you can simply make sure to play out the rest of your hand and make Whispering Madness the final card you cast. This way, you discard nothing, and draw cards equal to however many your opponent was still holding.

Creating the Best Window for a Symmetric Effect

The key to the Whispering Madness example is the fact that you, as the player with the symmetric effect, have control of your own spell. You choose when, and even if, you cast it. Given that symmetric effects are often powerful and game changing, this flexibility is extremely valuable. Take, for instance, this card:

Gaze of Granite has a tremendously powerful effect. If you spend enough mana, it "blows up the world." To dodge this effect would be quite difficult. After all, nearly every deck plays with noncreature permanents. However, the fact that you get to be in control of such a powerful weapon makes it a very appealing card.

The simplest factor at play here, and yet one of the most important ones, is that you don't have to cast it unless you want to! If it just so happens that you're winning on the board, you have the option to press that advantage and forget that Gaze of Granite even exists. So long as you're in control of it, a symmetric effect need never hurt you.

Let's say, however, that you're not winning on the board, and that it's becoming clear that you're going to have to cast Gaze of Granite as your "get out of jail free card" to reset the game. Well, once that becomes clear, you can simply start saving creatures in your hand to cast after Gaze of Granite cleans things up. This way, you're likely to wind up killing more of your opponent's creatures and fewer of yours (card advantage!), and you're in a position to recover faster than your opponent after the Gaze of Granite. In short, you can put yourself in a commanding position in the game.

You control the symmetric effect, so you have the greater ability to plan your strategy around it.

Using a Symmetric Effect to Lock Things Up Once You're Ahead

Sire of Insanity is an example of a card that you're likely to cast if, and only if, you're winning on the board. If you're ahead, your opponent will discard his or her hand and lose any hope of clawing back into the game. However, if you're behind, casting Sire of Insanity will effectively "freeze" the game state, making it very difficult for you to turn things around.

Remember, symmetric effects impact players differently depending on their starting conditions. When you're winning, or when you have no cards in your hand anyway, having both players discard their hands is a blessing! When you're losing and need your spells to fight back into the game, having both players discard their hands is a disaster. Let's look at another example:

When Ember Swallower becomes monstrous, both players sacrifice three lands. Again, this is an effect that the player with more and better creatures (the player ahead on the board) is going to love, and the player with fewer or weaker creatures (the player behind on the board) is going to hate. After all, it's very hard to come back when you no longer have enough mana to cast your spells!

A great thing about both Sire of Insanity and Ember Swallower is that they're giant creatures and contribute greatly to "being ahead on the board" in and of themselves. After all, when you're in the process of making your Ember Swallower monstrous, it's very likely that you're about to have the most powerful creature on the battlefield, and that the symmetric effect of each player losing three lands will benefit you in a huge way.

Once you understand symmetric effects, they become some of the best tools you have at your disposal as a player. You can build your deck to make the best possible use of them. You can plan your strategy around them. You can cast them when they benefit you and save them when they don't. All of these factors combine to make them a huge driving force in Magic.

Symmetry in Khans of Tarkir

With that background on symmetric effects, I'm thrilled to share with you an exclusive preview card from Khans of Tarkir!

You can tell from the first three words that this is going to be a big one. "Destroy all creatures" is a game-breaking effect that can be worth playing at virtually any mana cost. As it happens, End Hostilities is efficiently costed at only five mana, and even has another important ability to boot: "and all permanents attached to creatures." This means Equipment, Auras with bestow, and other Auras attached to creatures (these would normally die along with the creatures, but it could come up that they're still destroyed if the creature is indestructible or gets regenerated). Talk about blowing up the world!

End Hostilities has the potential to provide card advantage; it answers your opponent's best cards; and it provides you with a safe, clean board state as soon as you hit five mana—perfect for any deck powerful enough to win in the late game.

From the perspective of Sealed Deck or Booster Draft, this card is going to be a bomb! I don't know much about Khans of Tarkir yet, but every card similar to End Hostilities that's ever been printed has been a Limited powerhouse. Look for it on Prerelease weekend.

From the perspective of Standard, End Hostilities has the potential to be a format-defining card. The very-popular Supreme Verdict will be rotating out of the format and leaving a hole that needs to be filled. End Hostilities has the potential to do so with flying colors.

It has two important advantages over Supreme Verdict. First, it doesn't require blue mana, so it could be played in a mono-white deck, or in a multicolor deck that doesn't involve blue—say RWB (the colors of the Mardu Horde) or WBG (the colors of the Abzan Houses). Even in a deck that does happen to be WU, End Hostilities is still easier on your mana and more reliable to cast.

Second, End Hostilities destroys permanents attached to creatures. This is particularly important with the bestow creatures of Theros block. I can't count the number of times that I've needed Supreme Verdict to get me out of trouble, only to find that a bestowed Boon Satyr comes into play and finishes me off. Never again!

To see where we might be able to use End Hostilities, let's review some of the ways to best use symmetric effects.

Making Better Use of the Effect of End Hostilities Than Your Opponent Can

If you've decided to put End Hostilities in your deck, and you know it, then you can plan your strategy around it. You can be prepared to play a slightly longer game, since End Hostilities will put a stop to any early creature rush. You can build your deck to recover quickly and dominate the game starting around turn six.

Art by Jason Rainville

Dodging the Effect of End Hostilities

You don't have to play a creatureless deck in order to make End Hostilities a great card, but you might want to play a slightly lower number of them. You won't want to put too many creatures onto the table in the first four turns of the game since you'd simply wind up destroying your own cards along with your opponent's. However, if you wanted to aim for a turn-five End Hostilities and follow it up with a powerful six-mana creature, that sounds like a winning strategy to me!

Creating the Best Window for End Hostilities

You're in control of End Hostilities, and that flexibility means everything. If you have creatures in play, you can continue attacking and simply save End Hostilities in case things take a turn for the worse. You can cast it right away on turn five or wait patiently for your opponent to play out more creatures. It's all up to you as the controller of the spell!

Locking Up the Game With End Hostilities

In previous examples, I referred to the player ahead on the board as the player with more and better creatures. However, there are plenty of other ways to be ahead in the game. It might mean having one or more Planeswalkers in play. It might mean having a powerful artifact or enchantment. Or, it might simply mean having a bunch of lands in play and a deck that's very powerful in the late game. In any of these cases, End Hostilities can serve to lock up the game for you.

While End Hostilities is clearly a tremendously powerful card, it sometimes takes some creativity to make the best possible use of symmetric effects. I, for one, am excited to try all the ways I can think of to make End Hostilities work for me. I hope you'll give it a try as well!

15

Threats and Answers

Magic is a game of threats and answers. Mana, card advantage, and other fundamental concepts are in the background of every game of Magic, but threats—like creatures and Planeswalkers—are what win games. A well-placed answer card—like a removal spell—can swing a game in your favor, and the lack of one can mean watching things slip away from you.

Today's preview is an efficient and reliable removal spell from Khans of Tarkir. To fully appreciate its value, it's helpful to first understand the importance of both threats and answers in a game of Magic. It can be difficult to compare the values of these very different types of cards, but the key is to strike a sensible balance between threats and answers.

BEING PROACTIVE

At any given moment, a player is playing in one of two ways: either being proactive (deploying threats, attacking, or otherwise progressing his or her own game plan), or else being reactive (defending, trying to answer the opponent's threats). In the Magic world, the word "proactive" has a positive connotation—it's good to be proactive.

There's a famous saying first voiced by Dave Price, a pro player from the early days of Magic who, to this day, is known as "the King of Beatdown." It goes like this: "While there are wrong answers, there are no wrong threats."

In other words, when you draw a threat, one of two things can happen: either your opponent does not have the right answer and your threat sets you on a course toward winning the game; or your opponent does have an answer and you've made a (usually) neutral exchange. There's little risk when you fill your deck with lots of potent creatures.

Drawing an answer (a reactive card) is very different. Your opponent may not even have a threat, in which case your answer card is not particularly useful. In the best case, you can answer a threat and undo one of your opponent's actions—again, a (usually) neutral exchange. However, there's a third case that can be disastrous, which is when your answer does not match up correctly against your opponent's threat, as in the case of Pillar of Light against a 3/3 creature.

This is not to say that answer cards are useless; there are plenty of situations where you need them to survive! However, while filling your deck with answers can buy you time, it will not actually contribute to winning the game. Generally speaking, the player proactively deploying threats has an easier route to victory than the player reactively trying to answer them.

Another advantage of being proactive is that you're not at the mercy of your opponent's strategy. In the course of a long tournament, you can face ten different opponents with ten different decks. You might not know exactly what strategy all ten of them are using. You certainly cannot tailor your deck to be perfect against all ten of them at the same time! However, if you're employing a proactive strategy, focusing on executing your own game plan, you have a fighting chance even against a strategy that you weren't specifically prepared for.

THREATS

Threats are what win games. You can win a game easily by catching your opponent unprepared for a particular threat. You can win quickly by deploying more threats than your opponent can answer in a timely fashion. Alternatively, you can take your time and win in a longer game with a resilient threat, which may not be particularly easy to answer. No matter what form a game of Magic might take, threats are going to play a central role.

Let's take a look at some different types of threats, and what advantages they bring to the table.

Quick Threats

A tried-and-true strategy is to deploy a lot of cheap creatures and try to win the game before your opponent can answer them all or have time to cast more powerful spells. While plenty of creatures cost only one or two mana, the vast majority of answer cards are more expensive than that.

Last week, we previewed End Hostilities, which is likely to be one of the commonly played answer cards from Khans of Tarkir. It costs five mana! A one-mana creature has a good chance of attacking four or more times before End Hostilities can remove it from the battlefield.

Similarly, many of the commonly played one-for-one removal spells, like Hero's Downfall, cost three mana. If you're on the play and cast a creature on turn one, turn two, and turn three, your opponent has a tough battle ahead if he or she wants to get back into the game using expensive answer cards. As your opponent is trying to battle back, you can be playing more creatures as fast as they are answered, and attacking all the while!

One catch is that if your creatures are all 1/1s and 2/2s, it will either take a lot of time or a lot of creatures in order to kill your opponent from 20 life.

Potent Single Threats

Alternatively, you can employ more powerful creatures as your threats, such as the monstrosity creatures of Theros block.

In this case, you give up the option of outpacing your opponent's answer cards, but in exchange, any single one of your threats, if it does go unanswered, will win the game in short order. High-impact cards like these have the potential to provide virtual card advantage and run away with a game.

Remember, "While there are wrong answers, there are no wrong threats." By playing with potent single threats, you put yourself in the best possible position to take advantage of this concept. You put your opponent through maximum punishment if his or her answer comes at the wrong time or in the wrong form.

Resilient Threats

Alternatively, you can employ threats that dodge many of the common removal spells. In this way, you maximize the chance of your opponent having a "wrong answer."

Examples include Prognostic Sphinx or any other hexproof creature. The best example from recent times is Ætherling.

If you're careful to leave blue mana available at all times, there's virtually nothing that can permanently remove Ætherling from the battlefield! Resilient threats like these can be especially good choices if your deck only has a small number of threats, since in such a case you can't easily afford to have them killed.

Threats That Provide Guaranteed Value

Sometimes, you can get something out of your threat even if your opponent does have the right answer. Examples can include creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers and haste creatures. The best examples, though, are Planeswalkers, since you can activate them immediately—as soon as you cast them.

For example, say you cast Nissa, Worldwaker and make your Forest a 4/4 Elemental. Even if your opponent destroys Nissa with Hero's Downfall, you're left with a 4/4 creature permanently. Either your opponent will need an additional answer for your Elemental (which essentially means card advantage for you), or else it will stick around and might contribute to you winning the game.

ANSWERS

Despite the truth and wisdom behind Mr. Price's words, answers are, in fact, also tremendously important. After all, your opponents are going to have threats as well, and being caught without an answer at the wrong time can mean defeat. You need answers, such as removal spells, for when things aren't going well. If your deck is all threats and no answers, you're likely to have a very hard time coming back from behind.

While the word "proactive" tends to have a positive connotation, the word "reactive" is not necessarily negative. Some reactive strategies are very effective. More importantly, situations come up where any player, with any deck, will be forced to be reactive in order to have a chance in the game.

Those potent single threats (like Polukranos, World Eater) will dominate a game if they go unanswered. Therefore, it's very valuable to have access to at least a small number of answers in order to have a fighting chance against them.

Even if you're employing a fast strategy that's trying to win the game before more expensive and powerful creatures can enter the equation, you're still at risk of being "shut down" by a blocking creature or other defensive card. In this case, your opponent's "threats" might not be attacking you directly, but they are neutralizing your game plan and will eventually cause you to lose. Having access to some sort of answer can actually be a valuable part of your proactive game plan. Take a look at this deck, for example:

TOM ROSS'S RABBLE RED

Tom Ross's Rabble Red deck is an example of a very proactive, threat-based deck. However, even this type of strategy benefits from some carefully chosen answers. Notice first that this is a deck focusing on quick threats. It intends to deploy a lot of small creatures as fast as possible. With so many small creatures, the deck is at risk of being "shut down" by a blocking creature.

However, this deck does have its own form of answer cards, including Stoke the Flames, Lightning Strike, and even Firefist Striker and Rubblebelt Maaka. Since the most dangerous "threats" to the deck are blocking creatures, all of the answers are tailored to removing them. You can burn them with Stoke the Flames and then attack (a direct answer), you can kill them in combat by using the bloodrush of Rubblebelt Maaka (a situational answer), or you can take away their ability to block with Firefist Striker (a temporary answer).

The beauty of Rabble Red's answer cards is that they can never really be "wrong answers." Even in the worst-case scenario, you can always cash them in for damage on your opponent!

So even one of the fastest strategies possible employs its own form of answer cards. Generally speaking, the slower your strategy, the more answer cards you're going to need, and the more directly they should answer your opponent's threats.

Today's Khans of Tarkir preview card is exciting in its simplicity and its directness. It's a clean and reliable answer card.

In the context of threats and answers, the effect of Murderous Cut is exactly what you want in an answer card. If you need to answer a creature, Murderous Cut will rarely fail you. It can kill anything from a Firedrinker Satyr all the way to a Polukranos, World Eater. It can take out an attacker that's threatening your life total, or it can take out a blocker that's trying to shut you down.

Its secondary ability, delve, is related to its mana cost and its efficiency. On paper, Murderous Cut costs five mana. It is true that you're unlikely to be able to cast it in the first couple turns of the game, before you have a lot of cards in your graveyard. However, on a later turn of the game, you might use the delve ability and cast Murderous Cut on the cheap, giving you the crucial ability to cast it and another spell in the same turn.

Delve is a powerful ability, and it's possible to build your deck to make very good use of it. Imagine, for example, a deck that features cards like Satyr Wayfinder and Necromancer's Assistant. Those cards ensure that there are always plenty of extra cards in the graveyard. In a deck like that, Murderous Cut will often cost only one mana once you're ready to cast it!

However, you don't need to do anything special to make delve a useful ability. Even in an ordinary deck, creatures, lands, and spells will wind up in the graveyard over the course of a long game, and the ability to use delve to make Murderous Cut cheaper will come up often, and be quite valuable.

Khans of Tarkir is sure to have a number of powerful threats for us to make use of. It looks as though Murderous Cut and End Hostilities will be at the head of a wide variety of answer cards as well. Over the coming months, we'll all be trying to learn how to choose our answers to line up well against our opponents' threats. And how to make our threats get the better of our opponents' answers.

16

Inevitability

What are you waiting for?

You ought to ask yourself this question often. Applying for your dream job? Asking out the girl or guy you like? What are you waiting for? It's a good question to ask yourself in a game of Magic as well. After all, nothing's going to happen if you just wait around.

Well, that's not entirely true. Something is going to happen. In life, Benjamin Franklin pretty much told us what it is, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes." In a game of Magic, the question is a little bit more complicated.

WHAT IS INEVITABILITY?

So what are you waiting for? What's going to happen if the game drags on indefinitely? In most cases, one player or the other will have an advantage as the game goes long. If one player is virtually guaranteed to win the game if it goes long enough, we say that that player has inevitability.

When we discussed control decks, I made the statement, "You have inevitability if your deck is powerful enough that you'll win a very high portion of games that go long." In truth, the concept of inevitability is even more extreme than that. I might have a powerful deck with lots of card advantage, but if my late-game strategy does not utterly and unquestionably crush my opponent's, then I don't really have inevitability.

Consider this test: if you were to let both players draw 30 cards and spot them 100 free mana every turn for the rest of the game, who would win? You'd probably expect it to be the player with the more expensive and powerful cards, which sometimes it will be. But what about the player who has enough burn spells to kill you from 20 life? What if one player had cast Scout the Borders and will therefore run out of cards before the opponent?

Things begin to look strange when you consider the extreme long term, but these are important questions to ask. They all serve the larger question of "What are you waiting for?" I can have the patience of a saint if my waiting will eventually lead to a win. If I'm waiting around to die, on the other hand, I'll look for ways to speed up the game and end things before it gets to that point.

The question of which player has inevitability is important for both deck building and for your in-game decisions. If you have inevitability in a given matchup, you can focus on defending yourself and simply seek to survive. If your opponent has inevitability, you need to force the action and try to end the game.

ACHIEVING INEVITABILITY

Inevitability is a late-stage issue. Inevitability is concerned with a point in the game where tempo no longer matters. It's a point where both players have ample mana and ample time to spend it. More than that, you can think of it as a contest of a complete deck against a complete deck, instead of about whatever particular cards happened to have been drawn early in the game.

I first brought up inevitability in the context of power and card advantage, and it is most certainly related to those two things. However, it's also about ensuring that your late-game plan trumps your opponent's late-game plan. Your opponent must not be able to shut you down—by killing your creatures and Planeswalkers, for example—and must not be able to circumvent your defenses and kill you directly—as with a flurry of burn spells.

Win Conditions

Control decks tend to play a small number of win conditions, but the ones they do play tend to be very reliable and very resilient. They're chosen in order to grant inevitability.

A single Pearl Lake Ancient will beat out an unlimited number of Hero's Downfalls, Murderous Cuts, and Crackling Dooms if it's given enough time to do so. If the win condition of your Blue-Black (UB) Control deck was Riverwheel Aerialists, then a single removal spell would be capable of shutting you down. Even if you played two, or four, or twenty creatures along the lines of Riverwheel Aerialists, it would still be within the realm of possibility that your opponent could kill all of your creatures and leave you floundering. Pearl Lake Ancient provides inevitability in a way that other cards cannot.

This time one year ago, White-Blue (WU) Control was a popular strategy. Traditional knowledge was that Elspeth, Sun's Champion was the "best" win condition. It had a huge immediate impact on the board, finished the game quickly, and was good in virtually every matchup. The problem was that against a deck with ways to answer Planeswalkers, it could come up that your two or three Elspeths could die, and you'd no longer have an easy way to win the game, no matter how much card advantage you accrued.

Control players began to turn to resilient win conditions—either Elixir of Immortality or Ætherling—to combat the problem. Elixir and Ætherling were much slower at impacting the game than Elspeth, and therefore they were cards that you never particularly wanted to draw early in the game. Nonetheless, the presence of a single copy of either card in your deck meant having inevitability. If you could survive indefinitely, you would win by recycling your graveyard (in the case of Elixir) or by attacking with an unkillable creature (in the case of Ætherling).

Stopping Your Opponent's Endgame

I've stated that a single copy of Elixir of Immortality or Ætherling provides inevitability, but this claim is rather silly because question of inevitability is related to how two decks match up against one another. Of course, it also matters what your opponent is up to. What if your opponent also has Ætherling? What if your opponent has something even more powerful? Perhaps something I'd never even thought of before?

If your goal is for the game to on indefinitely, you must have a plan for all eventualities. A good way to do that is with permission spells. Dissolve can stop your opponent's Ætherling. It can also stop your opponent's Crater's Claws for 20, or it can stop whatever spell your opponent might use to take your win condition away from you.

Dissolve is a hard counter—it can counter virtually any spell under virtually any circumstances. Something like Temur Charm is a permission spell, but it is not a hard counter. I like to include at least a couple of hard counters in any blue control deck that I build, because they're great for locking up the late game and contributing to inevitability. Sometimes their early-stage applications aren't great, but in the late stage, when you can save them for the small number of cards that might give you trouble, they're invaluable.

Another way to contribute to a deck's inevitability is to include lifegain. Experienced players know that a card like Font of Vigor is relatively weak because it asks you to spend mana and a card for no impact on the board—it's both tempo disadvantage and card disadvantage! However, a bit of incidental lifegain—say a repeatable source of lifegain built into your deck—can be very helpful. For example, you might choose Nyx-Fleece Ram as one of your cheap defensive creature. Alternatively, you could find a way to include Dismal Backwaters and Radiant Fountains in your mana base.

Once you take control of a game, gaining life is a great way to shut the door on your opponent.

Aggro decks go far out of their way to have reach—a plan for finishing off a weakened opponent in the late stage. Most often, this comes in the form of burn spells, unblockable creatures, or something of the like. Taking away your opponent's reach is a prerequisite for achieving inevitability. In many cases, lifegain does a good job in this respect.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF INEVITABILITY

The player with inevitability wants the game to be long and the player without inevitability wants the game to be short. If you have inevitability, you can feel secure in waiting around; if your opponent has inevitability, you should be forcing the action.

The biggest consequence that follows from having inevitability is that you can focus your efforts entirely on defense. All you need to do is sit around and not die, and you can eventually win the game in the late stage, at your convenience. This means that your deck construction and your gameplay might as well be centered around defense.

Let's return to the example of Pearl Lake Ancient. This is a seven-mana card that will be very slow to defend you if your opponent has even a single removal spell. So in a fast matchup, wouldn't the Riverwheel Aerialists be better, just by virtue of being cheaper? Wouldn't a five-mana or a four-mana win condition be even better?

From a deck-construction standpoint, Pearl Lake Ancient is a great win condition, even against fast decks. Oddly enough, this is true despite the fact that it's a slow and inefficient card that you'd never want to draw early in the game. The key is that the presence of one or two Pearl Lake Ancients in your deck provides inevitability. In order to feel comfortable winning a long game, you might need to play with six or eight less-resilient creatures (such as Riverwheel Aerialists), which takes up a lot more space in your deck. Against that super-fast red deck, I'd feel better having two Pearl Lake Ancients and four Drown in Sorrows rather than having to devote six slots to other creatures in order to win the game.

This is why it's common to see control decks playing a very small number of win conditions. Do the bear minimum you need to do in order to achieve inevitability. After that, focus the rest of your deck on early defense. Survive, slow the game down, and a win will eventually fall into your lap.

A MASTERPIECE OF INEVITABILITY

Ivan Floch won Pro Tour Magic 2015 by, in essence, doing nothing. His deck featured no creatures, and just three Planeswalkers, which could only damage the opponent in the slowest and most indirect of ways. Instead, he would simply draw cards, gain life, and recycle his graveyard via his one Elixir of Immortality. Eventually, he would run his opponent out of cards, dole out a slow and painful death via two Mutavaults, or (much more often) the opponent would see the writing on the wall and concede the game.

Floch took the concept of minimal win conditions to the extreme. He didn't even need Elspeth, Sun's Champion! Instead, his deck consisted entirely of card drawing, defense, and of course that single copy of Elixir of Immortality.

Ivan Floch spent the entire tournament waiting. After three days of competition, he'd outwaited all of the other competitors, and was the winner.

By the way he'd constructed his deck, he put the pressure on his opponents to try to close out the game. Nobody was able to do so; instead, they all fell victim to inevitable. Death. Taxes. And Elixir of Immortality.

Well, what are you waiting for?

17

Role Assignment

Being adaptable is key in Magic. Knowing how to defend yourself is useful, as is knowing how to be aggressive and close out a game. However, you can't make full use of your skills if you don't always know when you ought to be employing each one.

Once you know the basics of Magic, you're able to decide whether you want to play offense or defense in a game. The problem, however, is that many players make this decision far too early. It's natural to fall into this trap because right from the point that you lay out your cards to build a deck, you do so with the plan of being either aggressive or controlling.

Of course, it's wise to construct your deck with a game plan in mind. That said, it's essential to be able to alter and reevaluate that game plan. Going into a particular matchup, you might realize that your normal game plan isn't going to work and that you'll have to adapt. Other times, you'll have to make similar evaluations as the texture of the game begins to change.

Today, we're going to discuss adaptability, and more specifically the concept of role assignment. We'll also go over the types of cards that can make your deck more flexible and more able to function under a variety of circumstances. At the end, I'll preview a card from Fate Reforged that fits well into this category.

Art by Raymond Swanland

In 1999, Mike Flores, my predecessor as Level One columnist, posed perhaps the most poignant question in all of Magic theory, "Who's the Beatdown?" His question is, in other words, which player ought to be attacking and which player ought to be defending?

Answering this question correctly won't guarantee victory. However, answering wrong—or worse yet, failing to ask at all—will most certainly lead to a quick and convincing loss. Do not try to race against an opponent who can output damage faster than you. Do not try to outlast an opponent with a stronger late game. Identify whether you ought to be forcing the action or trying to extend the game, and act accordingly.

The question of who's the beatdown is tied closely to inevitability. If one player has inevitability, the opponent most certainly ought to be "the beatdown," because if he or she is not, the game will steadily move toward a state where the opponent can no longer win.

Looking at things from the opposite perspective, the question is also closely tied to which player is capable of winning faster. This player will have an edge in the early game and will virtually force his or her opponent into playing defensively. Identify the point in the game where your advantage is greatest, and center your strategy around it.

BLOCKING WITH STORMBREATH DRAGONS

Let's take a look at the Temur deck that Jeremy Frye played to the Top 8 of Grand Prix San Antonio.

JEREMY FRYE'S TEMUR—TOP 8, GRAND PRIX SAN ANTONIO

This deck uses the early turns to develop its mana via Sylvan Caryatid or Rattleclaw Mystic, and then begins to deploy single creatures capable of unloading lots of damage very quickly.

Undoubtedly, Mr. Frye built this deck with aspirations of attacking with Stormbreath Dragons on turn four, knocking away his opponents' life points huge chunks at a time, and winning many of his games right around turn six. This is, in fact, what the Temur deck does...

Most of the time...

There's a small problem, which is that some decks in Standard are capable of winning before turn six. Temur's plan A game plan works like a charm against slower decks. It's powerful and consistent, and the presence of cards like Stubborn Denial and Temur Charm can shut down whatever defensive measures the opponent was hoping to employ. Against faster decks, though, the strategy must be reevaluated.

Art by James Ryman

Round after round, you get used to making the same plays. Turn-two Sylvan Caryatid, turn-three Savage Knuckleblade and attack with haste, turn-four Stormbreath Dragon and attack with both. The first five times, it works exactly as planned, but in that sixth match you might never untap for your fifth turn. Why not? Because your opponent dealt you 20 damage and you lost the game! Decks like Mono-Red and WU Heroic are simply faster than Temur, and trying to race against them is a losing battle.

What you have to do instead is to go off-plan and do something that your deck wasn't built for, which is to defend yourself. You have to be willing to cast your Stormbreath Dragon and not attack, as strange as it may feel to do so.

Needless to say, Temur isn't great at playing defense, but having even a small chance is much better than dying without a fight. Try to identify quickly when a plan is not going to work and look around for alternatives, even if they aren't particularly appealing.

Moreover, sideboards can be tremendously helpful in this regard. Jeremy Frye's sideboard featured Anger of the Gods and Magma Spray. These are not merely "good cards" against Mono-Red; they contribute to a complete reversal of strategy, changing you into a defensive deck designed to handle a fast creature onslaught. Now you can use a single big blocker to hold the ground, and as soon as your opponent develops his or her board enough to attack past it, Anger of the Gods can clean up the mess.

MIRROR MATCHES AND LIMITED

In many cases, who's the beatdown? is an easy question; one deck will be clearly faster and more aggressive than the other. It gets more complicated when the two decks look similar, and when role assignment can be fluid as the game progresses.

The most common example is Limited Magic (Sealed Deck or Booster Draft) where both decks will likely have elements of both offense and defense. Both decks will have creatures on a balanced mana curve with removal and other spells to support them. In such cases, you'll have to decide your role not only based on the matchup between the two decks, but also on what cards are drawn and how the board develops. You may have to adjust your game plan as the game progresses.

Similarly, sometimes decks of comparable speed will be forced to play against each other. Mono-Red and WU Heroic are both fast decks designed for racing. At what point will one player have to reign in the aggression and start leaving back blockers?

An even easier example is a mirror match—i.e., when both players are playing with the same deck archetype. Mono-Red players aren't used to blocking or voluntarily trading off their creatures, but in a mirror match, they might be forced to do so.

In these borderline situations, what factors contribute to role assignment? The first and simplest one is simply which player goes first. Recall:

"If the decks are of comparable speed, the player who goes first will have an advantage in the early stage. Last week, I touched on the fact that mirroring your opponent's plays when you're on the draw is typically a losing battle. You'll start out behind, and you'll remain behind for the whole game. In order to "break serve," the player on the draw will have to trade resources, slow the game down, and try to get to the late stage on even footing (or as close to it as possible)."

In more concrete terms, Johnny's Foundry Street Denizen, if he's on the play, will usually unload damage faster than Jenny's Foundry Street Denizen, if she's on the draw. Jenny should identify herself as needing to play defense and trade creatures right away instead of trying to damage race.

￼The second factor is precisely what cards each player draws. Whose opening hand is better? Which player misses a land drop? Which player draws a bunch of creatures and which draws a bunch of removal spells?

Don't be afraid to press an early advantage. Sometimes your opponent's draft deck might be a bit faster and more aggressive than yours, but that doesn't eliminate the chance of you having a faster draw than your opponent! If you have a one-drop, a two-drop, and a three-drop creature while your opponent plays nothing in the early turns, it might be best to take on the role of the aggressor and try to keep your opponent on the back foot so he or she can't turn the tables on you.

Then again, once your opponent starts playing creatures, it might be right to switch back to playing defense; the question depends on a variety of factors. Maybe your opponent's deck is constructed in a way that he or she can still beat you in a race despite a slow start. Maybe you have a bomb card in your hand that you think will win you the game as long as you can survive to cast it. Maybe some minor differences between the two decks mean that you have inevitability, or at least a noticeable advantage as the game goes long. In any of these cases, you might consider taking on a defensive role.

The third factor is a perceived advantage in the late game. In an exact mirror match, this might not exist. However, maybe you've sideboarded in three copies of Chandra, Pyromaster for the Mono-Red mirror, and you feel that she'll be able to pull you ahead if the game goes long. In such a case, you'll be slightly more inclined to play defense.

This will come up more often in Limited, where the presence of a bomb rare might make you want to drag the game out. It also works in the opposite direction. If you lost Game One to your opponent's Duneblast, you might decide that you have to close out Games Two and Three before he or she draws it, in which case you'll have to play the role of "the beatdown."

It's important to remember that there can be a bit of fluidity in role assignment. The way your two decks match up matters a lot, but once in a while it can be outweighed by the cards drawn in a particular game. Your deck might be aggressive, but if your opponent has a fast start you simply have to play defense. You never know what might happen in a game of Magic, and the longer you keep yourself alive, the more unexpected opportunities for victory might arise.

BUILDING YOUR DECK TO BE FLEXIBLE

The major strength of midrange decks is their flexibility. Midrange decks can play a control game against fast decks and can play the role of the aggressor against slow decks. Many factors contribute to this quality, including a balanced game plan and a sideboard that helps its pilot perfect his or her deck for any matchup. However, a lot of it comes down to individual card choices as well.

Some cards have flexibility built into them. Midrange decks strive to find cards that play effective defense, but can also turn on their opponents when the time comes to go for the throat.

Creatures that gain you life or excel at blocking are great when you're playing defense. If they also pack a punch when your opponent fails to mount a defense, then they're perfect for most midrange decks.

Versatile answer cards are also great. You can use them to remove an attacker, or you can use them to create an opening for a threat of your own.

￼￼Removal spells generally add to the flexibility of your deck. Having control over the creatures on the board means being able to slow down your opponent's offense or take out a blocker in order to keep attacking.

The problem comes when you face dedicated control decks, which simply might not have many targets for your removal spells. This is why it's particularly valuable to choose burn spells as your removal. When there's no creature that you need to answer, you can simply point them at your opponent!

Burn spells are great for aggressive and midrange decks alike, and they're at their best when you master the concept of role assignment. They're capable of stopping an attacker, taking out a blocker, or going straight after your opponent's life total. When you know which choice to make, burn spells will help you win the maximum possible number of games.

PREVIEW CARD: WILD SLASH

One-mana burn spells are as old as the game itself, and yet it's always exciting when a new one is printed. It's always exciting because they're almost invariably important cards for both Constructed and Limited!

Long-time players always compare new burn spells to older ones. In the case of a new one-mana burn spell, the question is where does it fall relative to the tried-and-true Shock? Shock tends to be a staple card, and I've certainly played with burn spells far worse than Shock. Wild Slash is noticeably better! It always has at least the same effect as Shock with the potential for much more!

It's difficult to pinpoint the specific applications of Wild Slash's damage prevention clause without knowing everything about Fate Reforged. However, one obvious one from old Standard comes up against Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Let's say my Stormbreath Dragon's been targeted by Kiora's +1 ability and is slated to have its damage prevented this turn. I can Wild Slash my opponent or one of his or her creatures, and because the Dragon gives me ferocious, I can now successfully attack and kill Kiora!

Another interesting interaction comes up with the protection ability. Protection "reduces damage from a source to 0," which is another way of saying that it "prevents the damage." Remember that Wild Slash cannot target a creature with protection from red, but its ability can allow a Slagstorm to kill it or a red creature to deal damage to it in combat. Are you sure you want to block my Ember Swallower with your Master of Waves? I'll Wild Slash you for 2 damage, and I'll kill your Master and all of your Elemental tokens! Look for this to come up against God's Willing and Feat of Resistance out of WU Heroic as well.

Such a deck isn't popular right now, but every once in a while someone shows up with the nefarious strategy which goes by the name "Turbo-Fog." Turbo-Fog decks cast cards like Fog or Defend the Hearth every turn of the game, either by drawing lots of extra cards or somehow recurring cards from their graveyards. The best way to foil this strategy is to stop damage prevention, and Wild Slash is an easy way to do that.

The need to stop damage prevention comes up often, in places you wouldn't always think of. I expect Wild Slash to be a big card in Standard and Limited, simply by virtue of its similarity to Shock. It's a good, efficient card that provides flexibility to decks that might not know ahead of time what role they'll need to take in a game of Magic. Its damage prevention clause might have important applications either in Standard or in older formats, and is something that's well worth keeping in mind. Use it well!

18

Damage Racing

Typically, in Magic, we tend to think of one player being the aggressor and the other playing defense. However, role assignment can be fluid, and often times both players can utilize elements of offense and defense at the same time.

When should you be conservative? When is it time to throw caution to the wind? Today we're going to tackle the important question: What's the best way to kill an opponent who's also trying to kill you? In a few weeks, we can try out our answer using today's preview cards from Modern Masters 2015 Edition!

WHAT IS A DAMAGE RACE?

A damage race (or simply a race) is an element of Magic that shows itself when neither player is able to take firm control of the game.

Johnny is attacking Jenny. Jenny cannot effectively stop Johnny's attack. Her only course of action is to race—to try to win the game before Johnny's creatures deal her the finishing blow.

Races are most often driven by one or both players having creatures with evasion (flying, unblockable, etc.). However, the presence of anything that makes it easier to attack than to block might lead to a race. Prowess, heroic, or the threat of a combat trick are just a couple of the innumerable reasons why it might be more profitable to be attacking than to sit back and try to block.

What does a discussion of damage racing make you think of? Is it the last minutes of a hockey game where even the goalie leaves his post and tries to score? Is it an image of soldiers pouring over enemy ramparts? Han Solo and Princess Leia desperately trying to shut the Death Star's shields down before it's too late? Conceptually, a damage race might invoke the spirit of primal rage, boiling blood, and reckless abandon. Ironically, however, it can be the aspect of Magic that requires the most precision, thinking ahead, and careful planning.

It's easy for a race to come down to just a few life points in either direction. Winning a close race is about thinking ahead, squeezing every bit of value out of all of your resources, and planning things out to make sure you're on the winning side.

Art by Janine Johnston

USING YOUR LIFE TOTAL AS A RESOURCE

We've discussed mana as a resource, cards as a resource, even things like tempo as a resource. Your life total is a resource too, though with some important differences. You can use your mana and your cards to impact the game, often in a repeatable way. Life total does not help you control the board or the flow of the game. It cannot be spent to your advantage. Sort of….

In some ways, the only meaningful life total is 0. Being at 1 life or being at 20 life doesn't impact your ability to play the game, or your control over the board. However, being at a low life total can limit your options. You must block a creature that attacks you. Perhaps even the threat of an attack can limit your options. Do you need to leave an extra blocker for fear of your opponent drawing a removal spell or a haste creature? Will it limit your ability to use your Mana Confluence or cast your Read the Bones?

Life total is a resource, but each point of life can have a very different value. Your last point of life is worth everything—you'll do whatever is in your power to protect it. On the other hand, you're thrilled if you can start the game with Llanowar Wastes and Elvish Mystic, even though it means being at 19. Against an Esper Control deck, you don't mind taking some frivolous damage, but against a Mono-Red Burn deck, every point really matters.

So how do you equate a change in your life total against a card in your hand or an advantage on the board?

CHUMP BLOCKING

To chump block means to block with a creature to preserve your life total, even though you're going to lose the creature. You generally want to avoid chump blocking when you can, especially early in the game. After all, creatures in play can generate advantages as the game goes on, whereas your life points cannot.

Everyone learns quickly that it's a bad idea to chump block an attacking Fleecemane Lion with an Elvish Mystic on the third turn. The Elvish Mystic still has work to do: helping you cast your four-, five-, and six-mana spells. In deciding to take the hit, you've sacrificed one resource (3 points of life) in exchange for a relevant effect on the board—keeping your Elvish Mystic around.

However, chump blocking is an important technique, and knowing when to use it can help you win close races. Later in the game, you might be thrilled to chump block Surrak, the Hunt Caller if it buys you the extra turn you need to take over!

We haven't yet touched on the most important factor in the Fleecemane Lion vs. Elvish Mystic battle. This is that you're overwhelmingly likely to have the same opportunity later in the game. In other words, you can take 3 damage down to 17, tap your Elvish Mystic for mana for a couple of turns, and then once it's done its job, you can chump block the Fleecemane Lion on turn six. In fact, you'll probably have an opportunity to save yourself even more damage later by blocking a bigger creature, or by blocking the Lion once it's gone monstrous!

Art by Slawomir Maniak

When the game is shaping up to be a damage race, you should strive to get the most value possible from your chump blockers. There's often little point to chump blocking early because you might still be able to get some value from your creature, and because your opponent's most threatening attackers aren't even in the picture yet! As long as you have some life points to spare, you might as well take the damage from the 3/3, because you might be able to block a 5/5 later in the game.

The flip side is that you don't want to wait too long and miss your window for an effective chump block. Several things can go wrong if you wait too long. For one, you might go too low on life and unexpectedly die to an evasion creature or a burn spell. For another, your opponent might decide to spend removal on your chump blocker, denying you the opportunity to block at all. For yet another, your opponent might have an unexpected card like Press the Advantage or Flying Crane Technique to ruin your plans.

Winning a race is about thinking ahead. It's not often a good idea to chump block early in the game, but trying to wait until the last minute can sometimes be disastrous. Be aware of the changing value of your life points, and look for the opportunities to best protect them.

TURNING THE CORNER

Let's backtrack to the start of our discussion.

Johnny is attacking Jenny.

There are two countermeasures Jenny can take: defending herself or attacking back. Sometimes a combination of the two is best. Sometimes her approach needs to change as the game goes on.

When you find yourself being attacked, it often means you're behind in the game. If you immediately turn to an all-out race, you're likely to lose. Instead, your first priority is to stem the bleeding using blocking, removal spells, and any other measures available to you.

You can't always establish a wrought-iron level of control over the game, but you can usually at least do something to slow down your opponent's attack. In such a case, once you've done all you can, you need to know how to turn the corner.

Turning the corner is like flipping a switch, where your game plan suddenly changes. You turn the corner in the moment when you stop playing defense, and instead set your sights on killing your opponent.

A good example from Standard comes from the matchup between Abzan Aggro and Mono-Red. Abzan Aggro is not necessarily built for playing defense. It deals a lot of damage to itself via Thoughtseize, Mana Confluence, and other pain lands. It's not chock-full of removal spells like Abzan Control or Esper Control might be. Nonetheless, it has one advantage against Mono-Red that these other decks lack. It can win the game very quickly once it's ready to do so.

The Mono-Red player casts some early creatures and starts attacking. The Abzan Aggro player casts a Fleecemane Lion as a potential blocker, but the Mono-Red player immediately kills it with Lightning Strike, deploys another creature, and keeps attacking. Now the Abzan player casts Anafenza, the Foremost. The Mono-Red player attacks with everything, Anafenza is able to kill one creature in combat, but a lot of damage still gets through. The Abzan player untaps on turn four, but at a low life total, so it's not time to attack yet. He or she casts Siege Rhino, leaving the life totals at 17 to 7 in favor of Mono-Red. The Mono-Red player untaps, but has no profitable attacks into the two giant creatures and is forced to pass the turn. Now the Abzan Aggro player is ready to turn the corner. He or she attacks with Anafenza and Rhino (putting a counter on the Rhino), and then casts another Siege Rhino. Now the life totals are 10 to 5 in favor of Abzan! If the Mono-Red player can't win the game, he or she is facing death the following turn.

What happened in this example game? The Mono-Red player got off to a substantial early lead, but the Abzan Aggro player was able to stabilize by using his or her creatures—ones that are normally meant to be attacking—in a defensive capacity (not attacking with Anafenza on turn four). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Abzan player found the best possible chance of winning by turning the corner and ending the game before the opponent could find a way past their defenses.

One of the strengths of Mono-Red is its reach. Recall that reach is an aggressive deck's ability to finish off a weakened opponent. It's possible that the Mono-Red player was holding a Wild Slash or a Lightning Strike in their hand. Given enough time, he or she could've drawn another burn spell and won the game. Therefore, it's critical that the Abzan player gave the opponent the narrowest possible window to do so.

The Abzan Aggro player didn't win the game by killing all of the opponent's creatures. He or she never locked the opponent out, nor had total control over the game. Instead, he or she just went for the throat! There's a ton of value in being able to end the game quickly, because you leave much less room for things to go wrong. If your opponent can present a card or combination that you might have trouble with, you want the option to get around it by simply going for the win.

Even decks that intend to play defense can benefit from a strong ability to turn the corner.

PREPARING TO RACE

Which brings us to the final point, which is that you want to get in damage on your opponent any time you have a chance to safely do so. You might think of yourself as playing defense at a certain stage of the game, but that doesn't mean that you can't attack when the opportunity presents itself. If you're not intending to block with a creature, attack with it!

The reason is that you never know when the game is going to boil down to a race. You opponent might play a flying creature you don't have a removal spell for. Now you're forced to race, and any early points of damage you got in might prove valuable!

Similarly, you might have firm control of the game, but now you need to turn the corner and win before your opponent can draw a burn spell. If some early damage you dealt changes the clock by one turn, that's one less draw step for your opponent to kill you!

MODERN MASTERS 2015 EDITION PREVIEW CARDS

All signs point to an aggressive black-red strategy being a viable option in Modern Masters 2015 Edition draft. Cheap creatures backed up by burn spells and black removal is a timeless strategy, and it can be quite terrifying when it comes together well.

Vampire Lacerator is as aggressive as aggressive gets, sacrificing your own life points in order to damage the opponent at a faster-than-normal rate.

Goblin Fireslinger, for all intents and purposes, is an unblockable attacker that you can count on starting right on turn two. A substantial bonus of the Fireslinger is its ability to chump block in a close race. It's always untapped during your opponent's attack step, and you can even get in that 1 extra point before it bites the dust!

Stormblood Berserker was one of the strongest uncommons in the Draft format of its original set, M12. Bloodthirst is a mechanic that lends itself to racing, since your creatures will begin to lose value if you're not attacking. In such a case, the best defense is a good offense, and you'll need to master the tips and tricks mentioned in this article in order to manage your races in the best possible way!

Dismember is the poster card for "using your life total as a resource." Spending three mana on a removal spell is a little on the expensive side, but the flexibility to pay life in exchange for a tempo advantage can be game winning.

Dismember is a staple in a huge number of Modern decks (some of them not even black!). I'm thrilled to see it returning in Modern Masters 2015 Edition.

Master the art of damage racing. Even if it's not your preferred way to play the game, it might only take a Goblin Fireslinger on the other side of the table to force your hand. Be ready!

19

Mulligans

Whether or not to mulligan can be among both the most challenging and most important decisions you make in a game of Magic.

A Magic deck is capable of many millions of different opening hands, and your first handful of draw steps will offer a comparably large number of possibilities. It's simply impossible to think through all of the possible six-card hands you might get if you mulligan or the possible sequence of draws you might have if you keep your hand. Add to this the fact that as a Magic player you will play with different decks, in different formats, against different opponents, and you will never ever face the same mulligan decision twice.

In other words, mulligans are not an exact science. Someone might tell you that you should mulligan your hand, but under normal circumstances it would be impossible for them to prove it to you. Instead, we have to rely on our instincts and a handful of helpful guidelines in order to make our decisions.

Even world-class players can have different opinions on a close mulligan question. Whether you mulligan slightly more or slightly less, so long as you're consistently falling in the "reasonable" part of the spectrum, you can feel like you're doing pretty well.

To mulligan means to shuffle your hand back into your library at the start of the game and draw a new hand with one less card. Some people use house rules that allow one or more "free" mulligans, but this is never the case in tournaments. If you're playing for fun and free mulligans make things more enjoyable for you and your opponent, then feel free to play that way. However, if you have aspirations of playing in tournaments, I recommend playing with tournament mulligan rules, even when you're just practicing. Mulligans are an important part of the game.

Even if both players mulligan, you should play the game with each starting with six cards. While both players drawing an extra card may seem like a wash, a mulligan impacts different decks in different ways, and has different consequences whether you're on the play or on the draw. In a tournament, if your opponent suggests a free mulligan, you should never agree to it.

BASIC MULLIGAN STRATEGY

What I'm about to say may sound obvious, but it's an absolutely essential point that's at the core of all mulligan strategy.

Starting the game with fewer cards is bad.

Taking a mulligan is more than an annoyance or an inconvenience; it's a disadvantage, and a big one at that. We work so hard to earn card advantage, and by taking a mulligan your opponent is getting free card advantage!

It's not unrealistic to win a game when you start with six cards, but it's noticeably less likely than when you start with seven. The problem, of course, is that you're also less likely to win when you keep a bad opening hand.

So don't be afraid to mulligan, either! Whenever you're unhappy with your opening hand, treat it as what it is: a choice between two bad options. Just try to keep a level head and make the decision that you deem to give you the best chance of winning.

Mulligan decisions are challenging; they depend a lot on instincts and on the intricacies of the way two decks match up. Because of all this, it's important to have a baseline strategy when you don't have the level of experience (either in general or with a particular deck) necessary to decide. I recommend the "Two to Five Lands Strategy," which is exactly what it sounds like…

Keep your hand if you have between two and five lands. Mulligan if you have zero, one, six, or seven lands.

This is the strategy I give to people who are first learning Magic, but it's not terribly far off from the way I make my own mulligan decisions. I'd estimate that this strategy leads you to the right decision approximately 90% of the time. Even when it doesn't, you'll typically only be making a very small mistake.*

MULLIGANS IN LIMITED

Compared to Constructed, games of Limited are closer, go longer, and run on slimmer margins. These are exactly the circumstances that make mulligans most painful. In Limited, try to mulligan relatively infrequently.

Questions to ask about your opening hand include: "Do I have all my colors of mana?" and "Do I have anything to play in the first three turns of the game?"

You should be slightly more inclined to mulligan if your deck is very fast. In this case, you really want to have a cheap creature in your opening hand in order to press your early-game advantage. On the flip side, if your opponent's deck is very fast, you can consider mulliganing a slow hand so you don't fall behind. You still probably shouldn't mulligan a solid hand with three lands and four spells in Limited, almost no matter what.

MULLIGANS IN CONSTRUCTED

Constructed is where you'll want to deviate from the "Two to Five Lands Strategy," because games are faster, decks are more powerful, and you're punished more quickly for keeping a sub-par opening hand. Your mulligan decisions will also be very different depending on what type of deck you're playing with and against.

Aggro Decks

Just like in Limited, the presence of a fast deck should make both players more willing to mulligan. For example, if you're playing with a red weenie deck that has the goal of unloading damage as quickly as possible, your chances of winning will go down dramatically if you don't have a creature to play in the first two turns of the game. Something like four Mountains and three burn spells is a hand that you should strongly consider mulliganing.

Control Decks

Control decks are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Since you don't have devastating plays to make in the early game, there's not much in particular that you're looking for in your opening hand. Moreover, your strategy is based on card advantage, and starting down a card seriously interferes with that. Control players should mulligan relatively infrequently unless they don't have enough lands, or are playing against a fast deck where they desperately need early defense.

Midrange Decks

Midrange decks are closer to control decks than aggro decks in terms of mulligan decisions. However, a key difference is that a midrange deck is likely to have some cards that are great in a given matchup and some cards that are duds. (Thoughtseize is great against control but weak against red aggro; Bile Blight is the other way around). If you don't know what deck your opponent is playing with, you should mulligan relatively infrequently. If you do, you have a little bit more flexibility in looking for your best cards. You can feel free to mulligan a hand with three removal spells against a control player who hardly has any creatures.

Linear Decks

Recall that linear decks are the most extreme kind of decks, focused on a very single-minded game plan. They're often very reliant on a single card or combination of cards and can be very fast and powerful. Linear decks cause the "Two to Five Lands Strategy" to completely fall apart, both when playing with them and when playing against them. Let's take White-Blue (WU) Heroic as an example:

TOM ROSS'S WU HEROIC

WU Heroic doesn't exactly play like a normal Magic deck. Instead of trying to fight fair, it's interested in winning the game quickly while sidestepping a lot of the common defensive measures its opponents might employ. It tries to stick a heroic creature and begin targeting it over and over again with effects that make it enormous and unblockable, all the while holding protection spells like Gods Willing to save the creature from removal.

White-Blue Heroic is excellent at employing this one game plan, but not great at very much else. If your opening hand is not conducive to the game plan, you should mulligan.

This hand has both colors of mana and a good mix of lands and spells, but it's not what you're looking for as a WU Heroic player. You already can't achieve your first goal, which is to put a heroic creature into play! Moreover, you don't have a protection spell, so even if you're fortunate enough to draw a creature, you can be shut down by a single removal spell. Your goal is to be fast; you're good at pressing an early advantage but not great at clawing back from behind. This means that you don't have time to wait around and draw out of an awkward hand. You have a much better chance of winning with a six-card hand than with this one, and you should mulligan.

Now let's say that you're playing Abzan Midrange against WU Heroic.

PAUL CHEON'S ABZAN—TOP 8, GP DENVER

Trying to damage-race against WU Heroic is a hopeless cause, as is trying to defend yourself by blocking. Instead, your goal is to shut down the game plan by killing the heroic creature or Thoughtseizeing it away. Thoughtseize is your best card, and your removal spells are your next best cards.

Imagine you look at this opening hand. You're on the draw and you already know that your opponent is playing WU Heroic.

This hand doesn't have any of your best cards! If your opponent has a good hand, you're likely to be in big trouble by the time you're even casting Read the Bones. You could use it to find a removal spell, but it's very unlikely that you'll be able to beat a single Gods Willing with this hand, let alone more than one. You should mulligan, looking for something better with six cards.

Key Cards

There are some decks and matchups where a single card is abnormally important. Thoughtseize against WU Heroic fits the bill, but even better examples are Jeskai Ascendancy in the Jeskai Ascendancy combo deck and Anger of the Gods against a mono-red aggro deck.

When you have a card whose presence abnormally affects your chances to win the game, it should influence your mulligan decisions. If you're against WU Heroic and have a borderline hand without Thoughtseize, you can feel comfortable taking a mulligan because any six-card hand with Thoughtseize is likely to be better. On the flip side, you might consider risking a one-land hand with two Thoughtseizes because of the strength of the card in the matchup.

MULLIGANING BELOW SIX

The impact of losing a card becomes magnified as your number of cards gets smaller. Mulligans beyond the first one are very costly and should be avoided whenever possible.

Basically, after one or more mulligans, if you look at your opening hand and can see any realistic route to victory, you should keep.

For example, in Sealed Deck, you should keep a six-land six-card hand after a mulligan, so long as you have all of your colors. The chances that your first five draw steps help you are better than the chances that you'll mulligan into the exactly perfect five-card hand that you're looking for. (You'd probably be hoping for three lands with all of your colors and two relatively cheap spells—that's a pretty tall order!)

Of course, if your six-card hand has no lands, or otherwise has almost no realistic route to victory, you'll have to mulligan to five. Going below five cards might as well be the kiss of death, and you should keep almost any five-card hand that has one or more lands.

Just remember to loosen your standards as your number of cards gets lower. Also factor it in as a risk of mulliganing your seven-card hand. What if your six-card hand is bad and you have to go down to five, or even fewer, cards?

There's no easy answer to a tough mulligan question. There are a wide range of factors that can affect your decision, and a countless number of ways the game could play out with either choice you make.

However, despite the complexity in the background, every mulligan decision boils down to a simple question: Are your chances of winning the game higher if you mulligan, or if you keep your hand? Sometimes you'll feel frustration over previous mulligans or you might fear being embarrassed if you keep a risky hand and lose. If you can take these factors out of the equation, you'll be better off for it. Like everything in Magic, the best you can do is stay calm and approach your mulligan decisions with a level head.

*At high levels of competition, particularly in Constructed, you should be slightly more willing to mulligan than the "Two to Five Lands Strategy" would tell you. This contributes to a stigma that keeping a borderline hand is the sign of a weak player and mulliganing a borderline hand is the sign of a strong player. However, there's a huge risk to mulliganing too much as well. For further reading on the topic, read "Reasons to Keep Keeping."

20

Sequencing

We've talked a lot about what to do in a game of Magic. However, just as important as what you do is how you do it. Sequencing refers to the order and the manner in which you take your actions in a game. Proper sequencing will make the game as easy as possible for you and as difficult as possible for your opponent.

Sometimes, discussing sequencing might seem like nit-picking—like it's an aspect of gameplay that's unlikely to make a big difference. Trust me when I say that this is not the case. The fact is that you never really know when something that seems small might be important to the outcome of the game. It's best to develop good habits and to give yourself the best possible chance to take the advantages that come from proper sequencing.

A GOLDEN RULE

I'll begin with the single most valuable piece of concrete advice that I can offer to another Magic player.

Think through your entire turn before you do anything.

Untap your permanents, address any relevant upkeep effects, draw your card, and stop. At this point in each and every one of your turns you should take ten or twenty seconds to think through everything you intend to do this turn. Will you play a land? Which one? Will you attack? With what? Will you play a spell? What spell, and what will you do with it? You'll need a list in your head of what you're going to do before you can consider the best way to do it. This is a key to proper sequencing.

Along the same lines, you should consider any predictable actions of your opponent, and how you'll react to them. For example, imagine you start your turn with a 2/2 creature and Awaken the Bear in your hand. Your opponent has a 3/3 creature untapped. If you attack, there are two predictable actions that your opponent could take: either to block or to not block. Will you cast Awaken the Bear if your opponent blocks? Will you cast it if he or she doesn't block? The answer to these questions will help you decide whether or not you really want to attack in the first place. The whole thought process should take place at the start of your turn, before you do anything rash. There's no reason to find yourself in the middle of a hairy combat phase only to realize that you would've really preferred to use your mana to cast a creature instead of Awaken the Bear!

You can avoid unfavorable situations by thinking everything through at once instead of facing your decisions one at a time.

Developing this habit will make you a better player. You'll make fewer mistakes, you'll have a better grasp of what's going on in the game, and you'll be able to sequence your plays better. You'll also give away less information to your opponent because he or she won't know exactly what you're considering when you pause to think. If you attack and then stop to think when your opponent blocks, he or she is going to think, "I wonder if my opponent has Awaken the Bear?" If you think everything through at the start of the turn, your opponent is far less likely to guess what you have.

As Sun Tzu said, "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

A small caveat is just to be careful not to play too slowly. Slow-play rules and timed rounds are important aspects of tournament Magic (which will be covered in more detail in a future article). Taking twenty seconds to think through each turn is a great idea, but taking several minutes on each turn is too much in a tournament. Thankfully, taking time to think at the beginning of your turn will allow you to take your actions quickly and efficiently once you decide what you're going to do.

TYPES OF ACTIONS

Once you've decided everything that you're going to do on your turn, you can begin to consider the best way to sequence your plays. There are four categories of plays that are important for understanding proper sequencing. Every play you make in a game of Magic fits into one or more of these categories.

Actions That Give You More Information: Some actions allow you to see cards in zones that are normally hidden, such as your opponent's hand, or the top of either player's library. Anything that draws you more cards also gives you more information. Anytime your opponent takes an action, it gives you more information. You have the least information on turn one because you haven't drawn very many cards yet, and therefore don't know every tool you'll have to work with later in the game. You also might not know much about your opponent's deck or what he or she will be doing in the game. You have more information as things drag on, and the important aspects of the game reveal themselves.

Actions That Give Your Opponent More Information: Technically, everything you do falls into this category. When you cast a spell, not only have you revealed it to your opponent, but you've also shown him or her when and how you intend to cast it, and that you now have one fewer card in your hand. The key is simply to gauge how important different information might be to your opponent. Playing your land on turn three is very unlikely to affect your opponent's decisions. However, playing your bomb creature might change your opponent's decisions quite dramatically. Once you show your Brutal Hordechief, you can no longer trick your opponent into using Reach of Shadows on a weaker creature!

Actions That Force You to Make Decisions: When you attack your 2/2 into the untapped 3/3, you'll soon be forced to decide whether or not to use Awaken the Bear. When you cast Bitter Revelation, you don't know which four cards you're going to see, and you'll have to choose on the fly which two to put into your hand.

Actions That Force Your Opponent to Make Decisions: When you attack your 2/2 into the untapped 3/3, you force your opponent to decide whether or not to block. When you cast Rakshasa's Secret, you force your opponent to decide which two cards to discard.

The key to proper sequencing is that you want the most possible information when you make your decisions and you want your opponent to have the least possible information when he or she makes decisions. Therefore, actions that give you more information and actions that force your opponent to make decisions should be undertaken as early as possible in a turn while actions that give your opponent more information and actions that force you to make decisions should be done afterwards whenever possible.

Many cards fit into multiple categories. Bitter Revelation and Diplomacy of the Wastes both give you more information and force you to make a decision. In such cases, you ought to consider both aspects of the cards. Should you cast Diplomacy of the Wastes sooner in order to gain information for another decision, or should you take other actions first, allowing you to make the most informed decision possible when you finally see your opponent's hand? It all depends on the circumstances.

Example #1

Let's return to the example involving Awaken the Bear. You've untapped, drawn your card, and face the following board state.

Your hand is Swamp, Awaken the Bear, and Bitter Revelation and your opponent has no cards in his or her hand.

Before doing anything, you should think through your entire turn, as well as any predictable responses from your opponent (in this case, either blocking or not blocking). Let's say you decide you want to attack and you want to cast Awaken the Bear if your opponent blocks, but not if he or she doesn't block. If you don't cast Awaken the Bear then you want to cast Bitter Revelation. You also want to play a land this turn.

So now you have in your head a list of actions you want to take this turn, and it's time to decide how best to sequence them. The only remaining decision you'll have to make is which cards to choose if you wind up casting Bitter Revelation.

Your opponent will have the decision of whether or not to block with Longshot Squad. You want to force your opponent to make this decision with the least amount of information possible.

In this particular case, it's obvious that you should attack before casting Bitter Revelation because you'll need your mana for Awaken the Bear. However, even if you had seven mana available, you'd be better off attacking first both in order to conceal information from your opponent before he or she makes a decision and also to gather more information before you make your own decision. (You'll know whether or not your opponent blocked and whether or not you had to cast Awaken the Bear before you decide what cards to take with Bitter Revelation.)

Playing a land should be the last thing you do on this turn for several reasons. First, it's an action that gives your opponent more information, and therefore should not be done before you force your opponent to decide whether or not to block. Second, Bitter Revelation is an action that gives you more information and therefore could possibly change your decision. What if you choose a land that enters the battlefield tapped? What if you choose Dark Deal and decide that you don't want to play a land at all? Finally, if you cast Bitter Revelation before playing your land, it also keeps the door open (from your opponent's perspective) that you might've chosen a land from Bitter Revelation. Again, this conceals information from your opponent.

Attack.

If the opponent blocks, cast Awaken the Bear.

If the opponent doesn't block, cast Bitter Revelation.

Play a land.

Example #2

Consider a slightly different situation.

You've untapped and drawn and your hand contains Forest, Rakshasa's Secret, Awaken the Bear and Empty the Pits. Your opponent has three cards in his or her hand.

First, let's come up with your list of actions for the turn. You'll want to play a land, play Rakshasa's Secret, and attack. If your opponent blocks, you'll want to cast Awaken the Bear and if he or she does not, then you won't. Now, what about sequencing?

This turn, you won't have any new decisions based on new information. Your goal is to force your opponent to make his or her decisions with the least amount of information possible. Your opponent's biggest decision will be what to discard to Rakshasa's Secret, since he or she has three cards in hand.

Cast Rakshasa's Secret.

Play Forest.

Attack.

If the opponent blocks, cast Awaken the Bear. If the opponent doesn't block, end your turn.

WHETHER TO ACT BEFORE OR AFTER COMBAT

Under ordinary circumstances, attacking should be the first thing you do on a turn. If it doesn't have haste or a relevant ability, there's no reason to cast a creature before you attack. If your opponent is facing the decision of blocking or using a removal spell, all you've done is given him or her more information with which to make the decision.

One possible exception is playing a land. As in the example above, sometimes you'll need to play your land in order to enable the option of a combat trick, in which case it's fairly obvious that you should play your land before attacking. If you have no combat trick, your goal becomes to conceal information for as long as possible.

However, since players sometimes play a land precombat to enable a combat trick, what follows is the fact that playing your land precombat is sometimes actually the best way to conceal information! If you attack with your Ainok Guide before playing your third land, you're demonstrating that you cannot cast Awaken the Bear. If you attack into a 3/3 creature before playing your fourth land, you're hinting that you might have specifically Awaken the Bear, but not Dragonscale Boon.

Perhaps the best examples come from morphs. If you have four lands in play and attack a morph into another 2/2 creature, you're hinting that you either have a spell to cast or want to trade creatures. But if you play your fifth land before attacking, the possibilities multiply! Now, from your opponent's perspective, your morph could be a Snowhorn Rider, a Glacial Stalker, or any of a dozen different things. By increasing the possibilities of what might happen during combat, you've concealed information from your opponent.

Playing a land before combat also helps you prepare for the unexpected. You might hold a land to conceal information, but open yourself up to disaster if your opponent casts Stubborn Denial on your combat trick!

I recommend the general habit of playing your lands before you attack, particularly in Khans of Tarkir Limited. On the other hand, you should typically play most creatures and sorceries after you attack. However, you should be willing to deviate from this policy when circumstances call for it. In Example #1, where you might cast Bitter Revelation after combat, it's certainly best to wait before playing your land.

Proper sequencing is all about managing information. Play in such a way that you have the maximum amount of information before making your important decisions. Conceal information from your opponent for as long as possible, particularly when you can present him or her with a difficult decision.

In many of these examples, the sequencing might seem rather small and unimportant, but in Magic, the small things add up. If even one game out of a hundred you lead your opponent into making a wrong, uninformed decision, you'll be a better player for it. Proper sequencing is absolutely worth your effort.

21

Play or Draw

The same question begins each and every game of Magic. So it makes sense that each and every player ought to be able to give an educated answer for it.

The player who goes first skips his or her first draw step, but the player who goes second does not. There are advantages to either decision. So, would you like to play first or draw first?

To play first is to make the popular choice. If you choose to play first 100% of the time, you'll rarely be making a mistake. In the corner cases where you might be making a mistake, you're making a very, very small one. So I'll save us some time and headache: you want to play first.

But don't stop reading just yet! It's important to understand the reasons behind the decision. Even more, it's important to understand how whether you're on the play or on the draw can change the dynamics of the rest of the game.

Art by Chase Stone

THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING ON THE PLAY

The advantages of going first are often quite large, resulting in a much higher than 50/50 chance to win the game, if all other factors are equal. Being on the play offers a substantial tempo advantage that's typically well worth skipping your first draw step. For refreshers on tempo and its many important consequences, see "Tempo" and "Tempo & Card Advantage: A Delicate Balance."

The player who goes first is much more able to take the initiative, taking the game where he or she wants it to go, and forcing the opponent to react. The player who goes second will need to do something quite special in order to take back the initiative.

Moreover, there's nothing in Magic to guarantee that both players get the same number of turns in a game. Quite the opposite. The fact that the player going first has a substantial advantage more often than not means that the game will end on his or her turn (in his or her favor). Looking at a game where one player gets six turns and the other only gets five, it's easy to see the advantage in being on the play.

The advantages of going first are magnified based on the speed and power level of the format. As a game goes long, the advantages of going first begin to dissipate, but if the game ends quickly they're rather massive. Consider that, as the number of total turns played becomes smaller, getting one extra turn is more important (the ratio of four turns to three turns is larger than the ratio of eleven turns to ten turns, for example).

Being on the play or the draw is sometimes fairly unimportant in Limited, but can mean life or death in fast formats like Modern and Legacy.

Art by Titus Lunter

THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING ON THE DRAW

Relatively speaking, the advantages of being on the draw are smaller and more subtle. Always remember, you're drawing first, not necessarily drawing extra. However, getting to draw a card on your first turn does mean having more total resources to work with on each of your turns.

Two consequences of this deserve special attention.

The first is that it's easier to make your land drops. (More cards simply means more chances to have a land.)

The second arises when the game boils down to waiting for one player to draw a certain card or type of card. A good example is a creature standoff where each player is waiting to draw something to break the stall. In such a case, you'll draw what you need a half turn sooner if you were on the draw than if you were on the play.

If your deck is prone to such issues, you can take some advantages from being on the draw. If you need to hit a lot of land drops but don't have a lot of card advantage, being on the draw might be helpful. If you need to draw a certain card or combination of cards before your deck really gets moving, being on the draw might be helpful. In other words, if you have a slow deck, being on the draw might be helpful.

It's also better to be on the draw if you have a bad hand. If you mulligan to four, you prefer to be on the draw. If you keep a one-land hand, you prefer to be on the draw. If your draw is slow and you need to hit lots of land drops before you can do anything relevant, you prefer to be on the draw.

The trouble, of course, is that you don't know what each player's hand is going to look like until after you've chosen either to play first or to draw first. This fits with the issue of speed and power, mentioned above. In formats where the decks are faster and more consistent, the advantages of being on the draw are not likely to be important. In a format like Sealed Deck, however, where a shaky mana base and a low power level might lead players to be slower out of the gates, these advantages could prove helpful.

Art by Florian de Gesincourt

QUANTITY OF MANA ON THE PLAY AND THE DRAW

One interesting question is that of mana on the play and the draw. On the draw, you have more resources and are more easily able to hit your land drops. However, on the play, you get to take your turns and play your lands before your opponent, perhaps getting one more total turn than him or her.

If you were to oversimplify and say that your goal in a game of Magic was to spend as much total mana as possible, would you choose to play or to draw? Let's look at a sample game that I've fabricated for no reason other than to illustrate the question.

Johnny is on the play:

Turn 1 he plays a Mountain and taps it for mana…  (1 total mana)

Turn 2 he plays a Mountain and taps both for two additional mana…  (3 total mana)

Turn 3 he plays a Mountain and taps all three for three additional mana…  (6 total mana)

Turn 4 he misses his land drop and taps his Mountains for three additional mana…  (9 total mana)

Turn 5 he does the same…  (12 total mana)

Jenny is on the draw:

Turn 1 she plays an Island… (1 total mana)

Turn 2 she plays an Island… (3 total mana)

Turn 3 she plays an Island… (6 total mana)

Turn 4 she plays an Island… (10 total mana)

Except for a brief moment on Jenny's fourth turn, at every single point in the game, Johnny has spent an equal or greater total amount of mana than her. If the game is relatively short, the mana advantage goes to Johnny. If the game drags on longer, Jenny might catch up, in part because the fact that she drew first gives her a better chance of hitting more land drops.

There are many, many variables to consider in this question. Some include: how long the game lasts, the number of lands in each player's deck, their respective mulligan tendencies, and their ability to successfully use every available mana every turn.

The question is far too complex to make a blanket statement that will always hold true. However, it is fairly clear that the player who goes first will have the advantage in terms of mana quantity at most points throughout the early game. If the game goes long, the player on the draw has a chance (but not a guarantee) of catching up.

And again, it's a question of how good each player's hand is. If both players make their land drops and have spells to cast each turn, it's better to be on the play. If one player mulligans or misses land drops, it may be safer to be on the draw.

I've found this to be a rather important question in Khans of Tarkir Limited. The keyword abilities morph, outlast, and delve—combined with plenty of other activated abilities and lands that enter the battlefield tapped—make decks hungry for a large quantity of mana. Even slow decks that play for the late game (the ones that would normally take more advantage from drawing first), can make great use of an extra turn's worth of mana. You do want the best chance of hitting your land drops, but I've generally found that giving up the chance to play first is too high of a cost.

A ZERO-SUM GAME

A zero-sum game, also called a strictly competitive game, is played between two opponents and results in one winner, who takes everything, and one loser, who gets nothing. Tournament Magic is a zero-sum game.

What's good for one player is bad for his or her opponent. If your chance to win the game increases by ten percentage points, then your opponent's chance to win the game decreases by ten percentage points. A positive effect on one side implies a negative effect on the other side, and the two must always sum to zero.

This all might seem rather obvious, but is not always intuitive when you're in the midst of a game of Magic. When you're focused on playing your own game, it's easy to forget that causing something bad for your opponent can be even better than following through with your own plan.

This is why, even if you are playing with a slow deck that might take some advantages from being on the draw, you should still usually choose to play first! If your opponent has a fast deck, you need to take the play away from your opponent.

If Johnny chooses to play first in Game 2, and Jenny chooses to draw first in Game 3, then one of the two players has almost certainly made a mistake. It's impossible for both players to benefit equally from Johnny going first.

CHOOSING TO DRAW

This is the real reason why it's correct to play first in such an overwhelming majority of cases. Being on the play has the potential to yield quite a large advantage under the right circumstances, but being on the draw can only ever yield a relatively small advantage. Therefore if either player has the potential to benefit from being on the play, both that player and the opponent should choose to play first. Moreover, if you're unsure of what to do, it's far, far safer to choose to play first.

All that said, there can exist a perfect set of circumstances where it is in your best interest to choose to draw. The following must all be true:

• The chances of either player achieving a substantial long-term advantage via an early-stage tempo advantage are low.

• One or both players need a lot of resources to operate. (For example, they need a lot of land drops for their expensive spells or to meet their demanding colored-mana requirements.)

• Total quantity of mana is not a limiting factor in either player's game plan. (Note the distinction here between mana and lands. Drawing first helps you make your land drops, but playing first gives you an extra turn with which to spend your mana.)

• The game is likely to go long.

Such circumstances come up regularly in Sealed Deck (although not always, and perhaps not even a majority of the time), they come up occasionally in Booster Draft, but they almost never come up in Constructed. I have chosen to draw first in Constructed before, but only under the most extreme and unlikely conditions.

Art by Lake Hurwitz

If you had been unsure of whether you should play first or draw first, take my advice and choose to play first. If you had been choosing to play first already, then I hope I've been able to articulate some of the reasons why it's the right thing to do. If you're playing a fast deck, enjoy the tempo advantage of getting ahead of your opponent right away. If you're playing a slow deck, then take that opportunity away from your opponent, and make him or her play the game you want to play!

However, as you begin to master Sealed Deck and Booster Draft, also keep your eyes open for those times when it might be in your best interest to choose to draw instead. The advantage you stand to gain might be small, but the small advantages are what add up in Magic.

Concepts of Game Play - Part 3

22

Investment

Magic can be a fast and brutal game. Typically, you want your cards to have as big an impact on the game as early as they possibly can. However, some of the game's most powerful cards involve investment—spending resources with the promise of a payoff later. Let's explore the concept of investment, ending on a preview card from Dragons of Tarkir and a mechanic that might prove to be quite important in the coming months.

PRESENT DISCOUNTED VALUE

One of the most important things I took away from my study of economics in college was a concept called "present discounted value." After pages of equations and hours of mind-numbing lessons, I learned what my teachers could've told me in a single sentence. Money in your pocket today is worth more than the same amount of money tomorrow.

If I have money today, I can invest it or I can buy something that makes me happy—let's say a pack of Magic cards. With the same amount of money tomorrow, I'll have one less day of investment, or one less day of enjoying my pack of Magic cards.

Present discounted value applies to Magic as well. The same effect early in the game—for example, putting a 2/2 creature into play—is worth much more than the promise of getting the same effect later in the game. Just as you can invest your money, you can use your 2/2 creature (or whatever your card happens to be) toward your goal of winning the game. Advantages have the potential to beget more advantages; things snowball, and it's harder to come back from behind in a game than it is to stay ahead once you get an early advantage.

Along those lines, there's the risk that the game might be decided—or perhaps be over!—before you get to make full use of your slower, later-game effects. All in all, being quick to impact the game is a valuable quality of a card, while being slow to impact the game is a very real drawback.

This is not to say that you should blow all of your resources in a game of Magic right away, or that you should spend all your money the second you finish reading this article! However, it does mean that you should recognize the cost of waiting, and strike the right balance between forcing the action and being patient.

Art by Tomasz Jedruszek

INVESTMENT AND TEMPO

Investment, as a concept in Magic, falls under the umbrella of tempo. Recall that tempo is board presence. It's about getting ahead of your opponent (or at least not falling behind). So cards that require an investment instead of having an immediate impact on the game are bad for tempo, giving your opponent a window to pull ahead of you.

Your goal becomes to drag the game out long enough for your investment to pay off, at which time it might help you to turn the tables.

The saving grace of investments, when it comes to tempo, is that they can sometimes be mana efficient. Spending your mana in the most effective way possible is another important aspect of tempo, and sometimes an investment accomplishes that goal. Some cards require you to invest mana early, but then have a free impact on the game every turn after that. These cards will put you at a tempo disadvantage on the turn that you cast them, but if the games goes long enough, they can wind up paying off in a big way.

Let's look at an example.

THE SIEGES

Citadel Siege, Monastery Siege, Palace Siege, Outpost Siege, and Frontier Siege

Fate Reforged's Sieges are perfect examples of cards that require investment. They have a small impact (or no impact) the turn you cast them, but they offer a tremendous advantage as the game goes long.

Let's look at Outpost Siege, and specifically the Khans mode of the card. For most decks, this is comparable to drawing an extra card every turn. For a game that goes long, you might draw ten extra cards—an advantage so big that you almost can't lose! For a game that ends quickly, however, you might only get zero, one, or two extra cards—not worth the four mana you spent on Outpost Siege. This is the nature of investment, and what makes it such a challenging concept.

So how good is the Khans mode of Outpost Siege? This question depends very much on the nature of tempo in the deck, format, or matchup that you're playing. Two of the most important questions are: "How long is the game likely to go?" and "What's the cost of spending four mana on turn four?" In other words, it's just like an investment in real life! How much are you spending and how much do you stand to make?

If turn four is a very important turn for the deck or matchup that you're playing, then the cost of investing in Outpost Siege is likely too high. Say, for example, that your opponent is playing a deck with Goblin Rabblemaster, and turn four is a point in the game where you're likely to fall hopelessly behind if you can't put an effective blocker onto the battlefield right away. On the other hand, if your opponent is playing a control deck that's not attacking your life total, you can feel more comfortable taking a turn off from impacting the board.

Similarly, the Goblin Rabblemaster deck is trying to end the game quickly so, win or lose, Outpost Siege is not likely to be in play for as many turns, and its payoff will not be as high. The control deck wants the game to go long, so perhaps it's not unrealistic to get six or eight extra cards off Outpost Siege!

Speaking generally, investments will be better in slower matchups and slower formats. (Outpost Siege, Citadel Siege, and Palace Siege are bombs in Sealed Deck!) Speaking more specifically, they depend on exactly what else you could or should be doing with your mana at that point in the game.

INVESTMENT WITH EVERYDAY CARDS

It's easy to understand that the Khans mode of Outpost Siege is an investment—it pays off as the game goes long. However, you can apply the concept of investment to basically any Magic card.

In our earlier discussions of tempo, I mentioned cards like Elvish Mystic, Abzan Banner, and even lands as being a form of investment. You spend resources in the early turns in exchange for more mana in later turns.

When you're attacking, a creature is an investment that will begin to pay off the following turn. Creatures with haste, creatures with enters-the-battlefield abilities, and Planeswalkers will sometimes be preferable because of their ability to impact the game immediately.

Similarly, some spells have their full impact immediately, like in the case of Wild Slash or End Hostilities. Others can be considered investments. When you cast Divination, you're making an investment in the sense that it might take you a couple of turns to play the fresh cards you draw into, but you'll have gained card advantage when all's said and done.

REBOUND

Rebound is an old mechanic that's returning in Dragons of Tarkir.

If a spell with rebound resolves, you'll get its effect twice—once immediately and once the following turn. Rebound is a healthy, balanced way to make an investment. The fact that it has some immediate impact will prevent you from falling too far behind in tempo, and the investment pays itself off in full within a relatively short period of time.

Let's take a look at Profound Journey itself!

Simply on its own merits, Profound Journey provides card advantage, being able to return two of your permanents from the graveyard to the battlefield. Even more exciting, though, is the prospect of building your deck around the card and maximizing your chances to return something powerful.

Although Profound Journey is a white card, its effect seems at home in the Sultai colors, which are very concerned with the graveyard. My first instinct is to put Profound Journey into an Abzan graveyard deck, using green and black cards to fill your graveyard quickly.

These colors also have some of the most powerful creatures in Standard that you can return directly to play.

Profound Journey is particularly appealing compared to other cards with similar effects in that it can return noncreature cards to the battlefield. It would be perfect in a deck built around Whip of Erebos, allowing you to return your Whip to play if it dies or gets "milled" (i.e., put directly into your graveyard from your library). Moreover, we happen to have some rather powerful Planeswalkers around these days…

Now, before we get totally carried away, let's take a closer look at the possible weaknesses of Profound Journey. We focused today on investment, and the fact that you have to wait a turn for the rebound takes away a little bit of the card's value. In particular, when you're talking about a seven-mana spell, you really want it to swing the game in your favor immediately, even if you're on the brink of losing.

You're making an investment when you can Profound Journey, but one way to mitigate the costs of this investment is to return a permanent with a large immediate impact on the game. In other words, you could return Atarka, World Render to the battlefield, but now you're making an investment in both the rebound of Profound Journey and in waiting a turn to attack with your creature. You'll be in great shape if the game lasts a few more turns, but we don't want to count on that.

Instead, Ashen Rider, Hornet Queen, or even Siege Rhino or Doomwake Giant are the types of creature cards you'd most want to target. These creatures have an immediate impact on the game and help you survive to rebound Profound Journey. Planeswalkers are also great options. Permanents with immediate impact on the board will help you reap the rewards of your investment as quickly as possible.

One perhaps-not-so-obvious aspect of Profound Journey and its rebound ability is that, on the rebound, you can return something that may have died after you cast Profound Journey the first time. So, if you're able to chump block with a creature, or have a sacrifice outlet like Butcher of the Horde, you can wind up returning the same card twice! This will make it doubly difficult for your opponent to attack you while Profound Journey is exiled to rebound. If your opponent is going to kill your Hornet Queen in combat, your opponent had better be sure he or she is ending the game as well!

I'm quite excited about Profound Journey, and about the return of rebound in general. Evaluating spells with rebound requires an understanding of investment, since getting an effect next turn is less valuable than getting the effect immediately. However, casting a spell with rebound is an investment that you can typically feel safe in making, since you get at least some immediate impact and realize the full rewards of your investment within a fairly small period of time.

Try to think about cards in terms of investment and how quickly they can help you to turn a game in your favor. You can see investment in spells with rebound, in cards like the Sieges, and in just about any other Magic card you can think of.

23

Line-Up Theory

My father spent thirty years as a painter and a carpenter, and he's always taught me that "There's a right tool for every job."

An expert at what he does, I believe he could've painted the Sistine Chapel's ceiling with a Swiffer Wet-Jet Mop, but such a thing would never happen with my dad. Instead, he had painstakingly built up an enormous collection of paint brushes, ranging from giant rollers for walls and ceilings; to medium-sized brushes for doors; and tiny, pin-point brushes for corners and fine details.

If ever I'd get lazy in helping my father paint and fail to find the right brush when I changed from one task to the next, he'd immediately pause the project and insist that nothing more be done unless it was going to be done right.

In Magic, Line-Up Theory teaches us how to use the right tool for the right job. As a child, full of impatience and false confidence, I found my father's paintbrush system annoying and unnecessary. Today, I'm incredibly thankful for the values it instilled in me.

You see, if I made a mistake while painting it might mean an extra trip to Lowes for a new brush or some more paint. In Magic, you get one chance and there's no turning back. If I waste my Hero's Downfall on my opponent's Siege Rhino instead of using Murderous Cut, then I can later lose to his or her Elspeth, Sun's Champion and be out of the tournament. Take great care to line up your answers correctly against your opponent's threats. Make it as difficult as possible for your opponent to do the same against you.

PATIENCE

Line-up theory is used to inform your long-term planning. Sometimes, in a lightning-fast game against a red aggro deck, you just do whatever you can to survive in the moment. However, the longer games drag out, the more important it becomes to answer each of your opponent's threats in the best possible way, and in doing so to be prepared for what your opponent is likely to throw at you later.

Often, this means being patient. It means not going for the quick win, or it means taking a bit of damage from your opponent's creature. It's going to be tempting to use Bathe in Dragonfire on your opponent's Smoke Teller, but first ask yourself if there might be a different way for you to answer it. Perhaps it's best to save your Bathe in Dragonfire for a flying creature later? Perhaps your best course of action is simply to let Smoke Teller attack you for a couple of turns to see if you draw a creature that can block it? You'll know the answer to these question once you begin to think in terms of line-up theory.

DECK VERSUS DECK

In the most extreme and pure form of line-up theory, you consider your whole deck against your opponent's whole deck. Here's an example from Standard that I encountered very recently. Consider the following two decks.

SULTAI CONTROL BY JACK FOGLE

UB CONTROL BY JELGER WIEGERSMA

These are both control decks, but the UB (blue-black) deck is more dedicated to the control game plan, opting for extra counterspells where the Sultai (black-green-blue) deck has Satyr Wayfinders and more Planeswalkers.

My teammate, Jelger Wiegersma, explained why he felt so confident playing UB Control against Sultai in Game 1. "I think the key is to almost never fight their card drawing. They usually have about six threats and I have about twenty answers. They just deck themselves." (To "deck yourself" means to run out of cards and lose the game.)

Jelger's strategy for the matchup is the most extreme form of line-up theory. He looked at both decklists and saw through the distractions to the factor at the very core of the matchup—that the Sultai deck only had a small handful of cards that could actually win the game! If he could save his Disdainful Strokes, Dissolves, and Hero's Downfalls for only those cards, his opponent would be helpless!

This use of line-up theory ties in closely with inevitability. The matchup between UB Control and Sultai typically goes long. If it goes long enough, and the UB Control player employs line-up theory, he or she will always win, because the Sultai player simply doesn't have enough cards in his or her deck to overcome the UB player's answers!

But what if the UB player doesn't employ line-up theory? Imagine ten-year-old Reid going straight from using the wrong paintbrush to playing a control mirror in Magic. Maybe the Sultai player misses a couple of land drops in the early game, so Reid decides to Dissolve two Satyr Wayfinders. On turn six he uses a Disdainful Stroke on a Dig Through Time, and on turn eight he makes the same play. Several turns later, a Thoughtseize clears the way for a Garruk, Apex Predator, and the Sultai player manages to win the game.

This example illustrates the importance of line-up theory and how much you might be missing if you ignore it. Because of the contents of both decks, and the Sultai player's slow start, it should've been all but a foregone conclusion that the UB player would win. Little-kid Reid made reasonable decisions at every point in the game. All of the spells that he countered seemed relatively important, and he didn't make any obvious blunders. However, because he failed to look at the big picture, he opened a door for something to go wrong, and it cost him the game.

HAND VERSUS HAND

UB Control is the most controlling deck in Standard and has inevitability in nearly every matchup. It's a perfect deck for employing whole deck vs. whole deck line-up theory. However, an understanding of line-up theory can also be helpful for playing against UB Control as well. Let's take a look at things from the perspective of the Sultai player.

The Sultai player has a challenge on his or her hands. The UB player has inevitability, and simply by looking at the two decklists next to one another, it seems clear that the UB deck "should" win. It should win, that is, unless the Sultai player is able to make something special happen.

The Sultai player can still benefit from a good understanding of the whole deck vs. whole deck line-up. He or she should watch to see whether or not the opponent is employing a strategy based on line-up theory. Against ten-year-old Reid, it might have been clear very quickly that he wasn't being careful enough with his permission spells and wasn't playing for the long game. There might be a way to exploit such an opponent and turn the tides in your favor.

Once a number of permission spells are gone—either wasted on frivolous spells or milled with a couple lucky activations of Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver—it is possible for inevitability to shift from the UB player to the Sultai player. The Sultai player must watch carefully to take advantage of such a situation if it should ever come up.

But the Sultai player doesn't exactly want to count on this, since it depends on either a fluke of the draw or on the opponent making a mistake. Let's say you're playing Sultai and you get paired against Jelger Wiegersma, who is playing UB Control and who you know (from reading this article) has a good understanding of the whole deck vs. whole deck line-up. How can you try to earn a win?

I recommend employing hand vs. hand line-up theory. In doing so, you're neither playing for the ultra-long-term, nor are you rushing things. Instead, you're considering the resources that each player has immediately available and trying to find an advantage by lining them up properly.

You're on the draw. On your second turn, you each have two lands in play and you cast Thoughtseize.

Your hand:

Your opponent's hand:

Let's use this Thoughtseize as an exercise in line-up theory. For starters, you know based on the whole deck vs. whole deck line-up that you do not have inevitability, and that it's therefore in your best interest to force the action. You know based on the hand vs. hand line-up that you have Hero's Downfall to answer your opponent's Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and that you have Disdainful Stroke to answer your opponent's Jace's Ingenuity. All things considered, you'll want to take away either Dissolve or Hero's Downfall, since those are the answer cards that are allowing your opponent to line-up properly against your Ashiok.

If you think your opponent might tap out to play his or her Ashiok on turn three, you could take Hero's Downfall. Otherwise, you should take Dissolve. Then, instead of running out your Ashiok right away, you might consider holding the card in your hand for a while. The reason is that if you wait, you can draw another Thoughtseize and line it up against Hero's Downfall, creating an opening for your Ashiok. However, if you trade Ashiok for Hero's Downfall right away, then you've given up the opportunity to trade a Thoughtseize for the Hero's Downfall should you draw one.

You're not guaranteed to win this game, but this is the line of play that lines up the cards in your hand against the cards in your opponent's hand as well as possible. It gives you the best chance of winning a game in an otherwise unfavorable matchup.

Thoughtseize makes for some clear examples of hand vs. hand line-up theory for the obvious reason that you get to see your opponent's hand. (For a lengthier discussion of Thoughtseize, and how it relates to line-up theory, check out "Thoughtseize You.") However, you should be employing the same thought processes even when you don't know exactly what's in your opponent's hand.

Imagine you're playing Abzan against a red-white deck and your opponent casts Goblin Rabblemaster. You know you're going to kill it with either Bile Blight or Ultimate Price, but you need to decide which one to use. This is an example of hand vs. hand line-up theory!

The answer will depend on the details of the situation. Do you think your opponent has Hordeling Outburst? Do you think he or she has Stormbreath Dragon? Does your hand have a way to beat one or the other of these cards? Is your deck particularly well suited for beating one or the other of these cards? The answer depends on what tools you and your opponent each have at your disposal, and that's really what's at the heart of line-up theory.

LINE-UP THEORY IN LIMITED

In Constructed, you should basically always be thinking in terms of hand vs. hand line-up theory. Whole deck vs. whole deck line-up theory is still tremendously helpful, but is only applicable to relatively extreme matchups.

Both are very important in Limited. In Limited, there's also the extra challenge that you often know very little about the contents of your opponent's deck. You don't always know which player has inevitability, or what "must-answer" cards your opponent might have access to. That said, Limited games frequently go long (especially in Sealed Deck). When a game is shaping up to go long, being patient and employing line-up theory can greatly improve your chances.

There was an old saying from the early days of Limited Magic that you should, "only use a removal spell on a creature that's going to kill you." Today, Limited games are a little faster and tempo is a little bit of a bigger concern than it used to be. I don't recommend taking this saying as gospel. However, there's most certainly a good lesson to be taken from this extreme approach to the game.

Remember the example of the Smoke Teller and the Bathe in Dragonfire? Well, Bathe in Dragonfire is an extremely good Limited card, particularly because of its ability to line up well against a variety of threats. Consider this all-too-common sequence of events.

1 Johnny is on the play, but doesn't play a creature on turn one or two.

2 Jenny plays Smoke Teller on turn two.

3 Johnny casts Bathe in Dragonfire on the Smoke Teller.

4 Jenny plays Jeskai Windscout.

5 Johnny plays Salt Road Patrol, but eventually loses to Jenny's flying creatures.

What went wrong in that story? Well, it seemed that Johnny wasn't employing line-up theory. Salt Road Patrol is an absolutely perfect tool for answering Smoke Teller, but Bathe in Dragonfire was Johnny's only tool for answering a flying creature.

In Sealed Deck, you should typically expect your opponent to have one or more bomb rares in his or her deck. Although you don't exactly know what it will be, you should maximize your chance of being prepared for it when the time comes.

In other words, there might be other ways to beat your opponent's Summit Prowler, but you're going to desperately need your Reach of Shadows for when he or she plays Atarka, World Render.

In Game 1, you should use your best judgment, but err on the side of patience and preparedness. For Game 2, after seeing a card like Atarka, you might begin to employ whole deck vs. whole deck line-up theory and say, "I'm saving my Reach of Shadows for Atarka and I refuse to use it on any other creature."

As my father said, "There's a right tool for every job." Beating a card like Atarka, World Render requires a very special tool, and you don't want to be caught without it. Always look for the best ways to line up your answers against your opponent's threats. Be careful and patient, and give yourself the best chance to be prepared when the time comes.

24

Playing From Ahead, Playing From Behind

Most people play their best in close games. I see it in myself; I see it in other people; I see it in Magic; I see it in virtually every aspect of life. Fierce competition and a hard fight bring out the best in us. It's part of what's allowed our species to survive on Earth for so long! It's a heart-warming testament to the human spirit! Right?

…Right?

Well, put a different way, most people play their worst when games aren't close. They either lose hope or they give up completely when things look bad. They get overconfident and careless when everything seems to be going their way. So sure, trying your hardest when things are close might be good for a caveman fighting sabertooth tigers, but it's quite a self-destructive quality in a Magic player.

When you're behind, you need to give yourself every chance to steal a win. When you're ahead, you need to stay tight and close the door on your opponent.

If you can come back to win one out of a hundred games that look hopeless, you'll be a better Magic player for it. If you allow one out of every hundred would-be wins to slip through your fingers, your chances of winning tournaments will plummet.

Art by Bradley Williams

PLAYING FROM BEHIND

I'd like to share with you one of the most exciting moments in the history of the Magic Pro Tour:

Craig Jones, playing an aggressive deck with burn, finds himself in a losing position against Olivier Ruel, with the game slipping away from him with each passing turn. When Craig draws Char, one of the commentators wants Craig to make the obvious play of taking out his opponent's best creature. The other, however, advocates the bold play of firing Char directly at Ruel. Mr. Jones decides on the latter, and the rest is history.

Playing to Your Outs

Looking at that momentary snapshot of the game, burning the opponent's creature seems like a good play. However, Craig Jones was very far behind in the game, and making that play would've still left him in a losing position. It would've served to postpone the inevitable for a few turns, but he would've lost the game regardless.

When Captain Blackbeard is making you walk the plank, do you really care how long the plank is?

Instead, Craig thought through his possible paths to victory, and decided that this moment was do or die. His odds were slim, but slim odds are always better than a guaranteed loss. He cast Char on his opponent, and he drew Lightning Helix to deal the last 3 points of damage. This is called playing to your outs.

An out is a card or situation that you need to show itself in order for you to win. When you're losing a game, your focus needs to change from simply making obvious, sensible plays, to considering your outs. Figure out what your outs are, and play assuming that one of them will come up. If you successfully draw the card you need, you want to be in the best possible situation to take advantage and turn a loss into a win. If you don't, then the outcome will be the same as it would have been otherwise.

In other words, say you're losing and the only way you can come back is if something specific happens—you draw End Hostilities on your next turn. You can consider four different paths the game can take.

A You play normally. You don't draw End Hostilities. You lose.

B You pretend as though you're definitely drawing End Hostilities next turn. You play in a way that will leave you in the most favorable possible position if you do. You hold a creature in your hand, and you chump block your opponent's 4/4. You don't draw End Hostilities. You lose.

C You play normally. You draw End Hostilities. You even up the board but you're at a disadvantage and have a low life total. The outcome is uncertain but you're likely to lose.

D You pretend as though you're definitely drawing End Hostilities and play accordingly. You draw End Hostilities. You even up the board with a higher life total and an extra creature in your hand. The outcome is still uncertain, but you're likely to win.

When you consider these four different paths, it becomes clear that it costs you nothing to play to your out, the End Hostilities. If it doesn't come up, you lose in either case. If it does come up, then you've given yourself the best chance to turn a loss into a win. It doesn't matter whether you have four copies of End Hostilities or only one, if it's your only path to victory, then that's the path you should start walking.

Complicate the Game

Playing to your outs is relatively simple in concept, but can be more complicated in practice. It's rare that there's only exactly one route to victory. When you have more than one out, you have to start asking yourself extra questions like: what are the odds of each occurring and how can you play to maximize both at the same time.

Often, the situation is so complex that you can't see every possibility and can't clearly define all of your outs right away. In this case, you can neither start down a specific path, nor can you continue to play normally, and yet you have to soldier on. In such a situation, my advice is to try to complicate the game state as much as possible.

Complicated situations mean more choices and more possibilities. When you have zero creatures facing down two creatures, there's no room for interpretation—you're losing. When you have two creatures against four creatures, however, you might have some space to maneuver. Perhaps your opponent will make an overly aggressive attack and open up a draw like Become Immense or Rush of Battle as an out. Perhaps they'll play too defensively and give you time to set up Icy Blast or Flying Crane Technique.

When I'm ahead, or when the game is close, I tend to trade creatures at most opportunities. When I'm losing, however, I might be willing to take some extra damage in order to maintain a complicated board state where unexpected things can happen.

Allow Your Opponent to Make Mistakes

We normally think of an out as being a card that we need to draw, but it can take other forms as well. Sometimes, your out will be your opponent making a particular game-play decision.

Say you're behind on the board but you have Trumpet Blast. You can pass the turn, chump block with a bunch of your creatures, and survive one more turn before inevitably losing. Or you can make an aggressive attack. If your opponent blocks in a certain way, you're dead to his or her counter attack. However, if they block the way you want them to, you can cast Trumpet Blast and make some favorable trades, allowing the game to continue.

Don't Concede

Along those lines, don't concede a game of Magic until you're at 0 life. Sometimes you can draw a card or combination of cards that you simply hadn't thought of right away! Sometimes your opponent will make an odd decision that opens the door for you to come back into the game.

Even on the final turn of the game, when you're defenseless against a lethal attack, you should make your opponent turn their creatures sideways. They might decide to play around Kill Shot; they might miscount their damage and hold back; anything can happen!

The only reason to concede a game is to save time or conceal information for a future game. As long as you're still playing, you always have some chance of winning the game. If you concede, you have no chance of winning.

PLAYING FROM AHEAD

Losing hope when you're behind is a sure fire way to lose a game. Overconfidence when you're winning can be just as deadly.

My advice for playing from ahead is going to be the mirror image of my advice for playing from behind. However, that might not be quite as simple as it sounds.

Art by Marco Nelor

Think from Your Opponent's Perspective

When you're winning, your focus should turn to the ways you can lose the game. Just as you consider your outs when you're behind, when you're ahead you should consider the possible cards or events that would reverse the situation. The best way to do this is to put yourself in your opponent's shoes, and consider what they're probably hoping for. Remember that if your opponent has not yet conceded, they're still trying to beat you! You need to stay one step ahead.

So what's your opponent's plan for beating you? Perhaps they're trying to get in a couple more points of damage, and then draw a burn spell. If so, then you should go out of your way to protect your life total. When you're winning, you have resources to spare, so you can sometimes afford to make otherwise-unfavorable trades and blocks if it means closing a door on one of your opponent's paths to victory.

Similarly, if it seems the only way your opponent can possibly come back is with a board sweeper like End Hostilities, then the situation is the exact reverse of playing to your outs. In this case you're protecting yourself from your opponent's outs. You'll win either way if they fail to draw End Hostilities, so you might as well pretend that they're going to draw it. Hold creatures in your hand, and maximize your chances of coming back if your opponent is fortunate enough to draw the card they need.

Simplify Things

As I mentioned above, when I'm winning I like to trade creatures and resources whenever possible. A simple game is a controlled game and a predictable game. In such a case, your advantages are more likely to remain advantages.

Consider also how an advantage is magnified when both players have fewer resources. Say your opponent mulligans down to five cards. On turn five of the game, you'll have eleven cards to their nine—this might not seem like a huge difference. However, if you've succeeded in trading for his or her first creature in combat, using a removal spell on the second one, and casting a Thoughtseize, now both players have fewer resources. Now you have eight cards left to work with and your opponent only has six. Your advantage has become both easier to identify, and far more important to the outcome of the game.

Don't Worry About Slowrolling

"Slowrolling" is a strange concept that's developed in Magic culture. To "slowroll" means to hold onto the game-winning card for longer than you need to, instead of casting it right away. For example, if you're at 3 life and I draw Lightning Strike, I either show you the card right away or else I'm "slowrolling."

The idea is that when the winner slowrolls, it makes the loss more painful for the person on the receiving end. Some players get angry when they feel their opponent has slowrolled them. I've always found this to be a strange and harmful attitude within the Magic community.

Of course, it's absolutely unacceptable to slowroll with the intention of causing your opponent mental anguish. However, this is virtually never what actually happens. For every ten thousand players who get mad about being slowrolled, I'd be surprised if even one of their opponents had done it maliciously.

It's silly to get mad about a slowroll, and it's silly to worry about hurting someone's feelings by slowrolling. Quite frankly, it's a horrible idea to ever rush the final turn of a game!

Okay, I drew Lightning Strike and you're at 3 life. Okay, I'm likely to win the game, but what might go wrong? Could you have a permission spell? Could you have a way to gain life? Have I forgotten that you have a Windswept Heath in play with two Courser of Kruphixes? It's completely unacceptable to blunder when you're so close to a win. You should always take your time and make sure you execute your plays in the best way you can, particularly if it's on the deciding turn of the game.

Erase "slowroll" from your vocabulary, and don't worry about how much time you take to make your decisions on the final turn of the game—I never do. If your opponent gets angry with you, that's their fault, not yours. When you play a Magic tournament your goal is to play the game the best you can, and give yourself the best possible chance of winning. So long as you treat your opponent with respect and are not rude in other aspects of the game, then they're not justified in getting mad about a slowroll.

Sometimes, if I feel like being especially considerate about not slowrolling, I'll say something like, "I think I might be able to win, but I'm still thinking it through." But even that is going above and beyond the call of duty. Just focus on your own game, and do what you need to do.

Art by Kev Walker

STAY FOCUSED

In the very first article I wrote for Level One, I named "focus" as the most important skill for a Magic player to cultivate. Focus is what allows you to stay present in the game, minimize your number of mistakes, and see what you need to do in order to win.

Being far ahead or far behind in a game are circumstances that often cause players to lose their focus. Recognize if this is happening to you, and do everything you can to correct it. Playing to your outs is a very important skill in Magic, and so is being able to close out a game safely and efficiently.

Everybody loves a great comeback story. Work on these skills and you'll be on the winning end of those great comeback stories as often as possible.

25

Going Through the Motions

Everything matters in Magic. Everything.

Consider this tragic tale:

Player A: "I'll cast Silumgar's Command to bounce your Island and give your Dromoka Warrior -3/-3."

Player B: "I'll cast Center Soul to save my Dromoka Warrior."

Player A: "What color are you choosing with Center Soul?"

Player B: "It doesn't matter, I guess I'll choose blue."

Player A: "Okay, Dromoka Warrior now has protection from blue. A creature with protection from blue can't be enchanted by blue Auras, so the Jeskai Runemark that had been attached to your Dromoka Warrior falls off."

This is a true story. I know it to be a true story because I was the poor sap casting the Center Soul and losing my Jeskai Runemark. I lost the game in a painful and embarrassing fashion because of that mistake. Nonetheless, looking back, I'm glad that it happened the way it did because it taught me a valuable lesson. It taught me that every decision I make matters.

Or, to put it more precisely, you never know which of your decisions is going to matter. Therefore, you have to behave as though each and every one of them is important. When I cast Center Soul to save my creature from Silumgar's Command, I had a choice between giving my creature protection from blue or giving my creature protection from black. I had to decide, and yet I didn't treat it as an important decision. Because of that, I made it incorrectly and it cost me the game.

Even if not for the Jeskai Runemark, this type of decision can matter. What if my opponent was planning to attack me with a black creature later in the turn. I could block it safely if I'd named black. What if my opponent had the option to follow up the Silumgar's Command with a sorcery-speed black removal spell like Rite of the Serpent. I would take that option away if I'd named black. By treating my decision as unimportant, I'm ignoring all of these possibilities, which might be important to the outcome of the game.

Today's article is dedicated to going through the motions, by which I mean being precise and careful with absolutely every decision in a game of Magic, even the small ones. I'll go over the proper way to "go through the motions." More importantly, I'll try to convince you why it's a good idea to go through the motions yourself, and also to insist that your opponents go through the motions as well.

Art by Jaime Jones

THE PROPER WAY TO CAST A SPELL

I had to decide what color to name with Center Soul. It was a good idea to make a careful decision. It would make me a better Magic player if I treated small decisions like that with respect. But, in this case, I actually mean it literally: I had to decide.

I broke the rules when I originally cast the Center Soul. By not choosing a color, I skipped a step—a decision—in the resolution of my spell. This is not the proper way to cast a spell and it's illegal to do it this way. This is not to say that what I did makes me a cheater or a villain, or that I deserve to be burned at the stake. However, anyone with the goal of being a tournament player should get in the habit of casting their spells exactly as the rules dictate, and they should insist that their opponents do the same.

Here's the proper way to cast a spell:

• Announce your modes and any alternate costs or additional costs. If you're casting a Command, be like Player A (from above), "I'll cast Silumgar's Command to bounce your Island and give your Dromoka Warrior -3/-3." If you want to reveal a Dragon with your Foul-Tongue Invocation, put the two cards onto the table simultaneously, or otherwise have your opponent acknowledge what card you're revealing. If you're casting Crater's Claws, announce how much mana you're going to spend on "X."

• Announce your targets for the spell.

• Distribute any effects that must be distributed. "I'll cast Pyrotechnics to deal 1 damage to Dromoka Warrior, 2 damage to Herald of Dromoka, and 1 damage to you."

• Pay the cost of the spell. Usually this will just mean tapping your lands. If you had mana in your mana pool already from another source, announce how much you're using, and how much (if anything) you still have left. If a spell has additional non-mana costs—like Collateral Damage—pay those as well.

Art by Igor Kieryluk

The order in which you do the above doesn't matter. The only important thing is that you do them in their entirety. You cannot take some of the steps of casting a spell without taking them all. You cannot take some of the steps of casting a spell, pause to see your opponent's reaction, and then take the rest of the steps. You must cast your spell completely and properly before your opponent is allowed to respond and before the game can continue.

(Note that with Center Soul, you actually choose your color when the spell resolves, not when you cast it).

Develop the habit of casting your spells like this, and insist that your opponents do the same. If you react (either an in-game response or simply with your body language) to your opponent's spell before they've paid all of the costs and made all of their decisions, then you're giving them an advantage. You're allowing them to have more information for their decisions than the rules would otherwise allow. Sometimes this won't matter. But as I've mentioned, you never really know when it might matter. So behave as though it matters!

Consider this example:

Player A is at 3 life.

Player B says, "Pyrotechnics." And reveals the card from his or her hand.

Player A casts Ojutai's Command to gain 4 life and draw a card.

Player B says, "Okay, well I wanted to deal 3 damage to you and 1 damage to your Dromoka Warrior." Now Player B decides which of his or her lands to tap for Pyrotechnics with the additional information that Player A is going to cast Ojutai's Command in response.

Simply put, this is a messy situation. Both players should work hard to avoid incidents like this. Player B cast their spell improperly, and Player A allowed the game to continue instead of insisting on going through the motions. These two things combined to give Player B an unfair advantage, and could potentially influence the outcome of the game.

IT'S NOT OVER UNTIL IT'S OVER!

In the past, I've advised against conceding and against worrying about "slowrolling." This is simply one more aspect of going through the motions. The game isn't over until one player officially loses or concedes. Until then, your decisions matter. You should make them precisely and carefully.

To return to the Pyrotechnics example, if you're Player B (casting Pyrotechnics), you should first consider everything that might go wrong and cause you to not win the game. Could your opponent counter Pyrotechnics? Could he or she gain life? How much life? What will happen if you don't win on the spot? How will you deal the last few points of damage? Is there a safer way to go for the win?

Now let's say you've considered all options and decided to indeed cast the Pyrotechnics. Now you need to be precise and careful about all of the decisions involved in casting your spell. Should you do it before or after you attack? How should you distribute the damage (in case something goes wrong)? What lands should you tap for it?

If you're Player A, facing down the lethal Pyrotechnics, you should first make sure your opponent has cast their spell properly. Have they distributed the damage? Have they tapped their lands? Only after you've confirmed this should you react, or even acknowledge that the spell has been cast.

If you have the Ojutai's Command, great! You'll survive the turn, but make sure you do so in the most favorable possible way. You know you'll be gaining 4 life, but what second mode should you choose? What lands should you tap? It might seem irrelevant, but what if you draw a white instant only to find that you foolishly tapped all of your Plains!?

If you don't have Ojutai's Command, you might be in trouble. But don't just concede in a huff! Survey they board, maybe there's something you're missing. Do you have Anticipate in your hand? Is there anything you might draw into to save you? The answer to these questions might be "no," but it doesn't cost you anything to take a final look and try to find a way out.

Art by Matt Stewart

EVERY DECISION MATTERS

I play Magic with the mindset that every decision matters. Should I play my Island or my Polluted Delta on the first turn? I have Silumgar's Scorn in my hand, so I'll want access to two blue mana as quickly as possible. But what if I draw Bile Blight? Do I have enough information to know what land I'll want to get with Polluted Delta? What changes if my opponent Thoughtseizes my Silumgar's Scorn? Which would be better to have in play if my opponent Thoughtseizes my Silumgar's Scorn and then I draw Temple of Deceit on turn two?

It's unlikely that this decision will influence the outcome of the game, but it's not impossible. Since you don't know for sure, it's in your best interest to treat the decision with respect.

Similarly, what about when you have lots of lands in play and you're casting a cheap spell. If it's Hero's Downfall, tap your Swamps and a Radiant Fountain, and leave your Temple of Deceits and Dismal Backwaters untapped. Maybe you don't even have a blue spell in your hand, but your opponent doesn't know that! If you treat the decision as unimportant, you might be unintentionally giving away information. Once in a while you might just be able to Anticipate into Dig Through Time, and Dig Through Time into another Dig Through Time, but you might give up on this possibility if you needlessly tapped too many of your blue-producing lands.

How to sequence your plays is another category of decisions that seems small, but can often be important. Proper sequencing is largely about managing information: giving yourself the most information with which to make decisions, and concealing as much information as possible from your opponent when he or she makes decisions. Once in a while, proper sequencing can help you to make a better decisions or lead your opponent into making a worse decision. Either of these things can change a loss into a win, so proper sequencing is certainly worth your effort!

DON'T DRIVE YOURSELF NUTS!

Treat every decision, even the small decisions, with respect. That said, don't go overboard. Magic is a game and ought to be fun. Even with the competitive backdrop of a tournament, you still want to have fun and your opponents still want to have fun. Moreover, in tournaments you have additional pressures on you to play quickly so that you don't run out of time to finish your matches.

In other words, don't agonize over your small decisions so much that it ruins the game for you. Don't burn yourself out; you don't want your brain to be fried by turn four of the first game of the tournament! Don't slow down your pace of play so much that you can't finish your matches.

Each choice you face, just take a quick second to make sure you're not missing anything, make the best decision you reasonably can, and go with it. More importantly, try to develop habits that allow you to make your small decisions slightly better and slightly faster. (Like tapping your basic lands and keeping your dual lands untapped). There will be times when you need to deviate from your habits but, with experience, you'll come to identify and understand those times a little better.

26

Mulligans Part III: Constructed

All Limited decks share common characteristics. It's true that some are faster, some are slower; some have bomb rares, and some do not. However, Limited decks are predictable in the sense that they virtually all try to win by attacking with creatures, managing the board with removal spells, and accumulating small advantages over the course of the game. This is not the case in Constructed.

Constructed decks can be wildly different. They employ completely different game plans, and can range from blisteringly fast to glacially slow. Cards that are great against one Constructed deck might do virtually nothing against another. Because of this, the issue of mulligans is much more complicated in Constructed than it is in Limited.

The previous Level One articles on mulligans (Part One and Part Two) feature a lot of important concepts that can be applied to Constructed mulligan decisions. Today, however, we'll go into greater depth on the topic, and how both the deck you're playing and the deck your opponent is playing should influence your decisions. At the end, I'll preview a unique new card from Magic Origins that relates to mulligan decisions in very deep ways.

KNOWING YOUR OWN DECK

Mulligan decisions in Constructed are all about context—the way your deck matches up against your opponent's. The first step is to understand your own deck. What is your game plan? What tools do you need to achieve it? What are the costs of mulliganing, or of keeping a bad hand?

Key Cards

Sometimes, the presence or absence a particular card can change the value of your hand in an extreme way.

In Modern, the Bogles deck tries to put a bunch of auras—like Rancor and Daybreak Coronet—onto a hexproof creature like Slippery Bogle or Gladecover Scout. In this way, it can beat the opponent down quickly and effectively without ever being vulnerable to creature removal spells.

The Bogles deck plays eight 1-drop hexproof creatures, and badly needs one of them to be in the opening hand. When playing Bogles against an unknown opponent, you should mulligan every seven- and six-card hand that doesn't have a Slippery Bogle or Gladecover Scout.

Razorverge Thicket, Windswept Heath, Rancor, Ethereal Armor, Daybreak Coronet, Unflinching Courage, Path to Exile

This hand has a good mix of lands and spells, but is lacking a key card, so you should mulligan.

The other side of the coin is that, when the key card is present, you'll need to loosen your standards a little. You don't want to mulligan a functional hand with a Slippery Bogle only to see a six-card hand that doesn't have one.

Forest, Plains, Horizon Canopy, Gladecover Scout, Gladecover Scout, Gladecover Scout, Rancor

Razorverge Thicket, Slippery Bogle, Rancor, Ethereal Armor, Daybreak Coronet, Daybreak Coronet, Unflinching Courage

Neither of these are perfect hands; each one will probably need a little bit of help from the top of the library to win. However, the presence of the key card makes both of them worth keeping.

Let's look at an example that's similar, but a little less extreme. In Standard, Green Devotion is a ramp deck that looks to generate lots of mana and cast ultra-powerful spells starting around turn four. With Green Devotion, you're really looking for a mana-producing creature like Elvish Mystic or Sylvan Caryatid to give you a jump start. You don't have to "automatically" mulligan a hand without these cards, but their presence or absence is a very important factor. If you get a borderline hand without one, you can feel fairly comfortable throwing it back.

Forest, Forest, Forest, Forest, Polukranos, World Eater, Genesis Hydra, Hornet Queen

Again, you see a hand with a good mix of lands and spells, but it has no mana acceleration and is simply too slow. You should mulligan.

Let's say that you follow my advice, mulligan, and look at:

Forest, Forest, Forest, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Elvish Mystic, Sylvan Caryatid

This six-card hand has no heavy-hitter cards. However, everything is in place for you to win the game if you do draw well. If you're fortunate enough to have something like a Whisperwood Elemental on the top of your library, you can cast it on turn three! Because you have your mana acceleration, you should keep this hand rather than mulliganing down to five.

As a side note, we discussed the issue of card quantity last time. Green Devotion, as a deck with a high mana curve, really needs its resources, and will struggle to win when it mulligans down to five cards.

Cheap Cards, Coming Out Fast

What do the key cards of these two decks have in common? They're both cheap! For most decks, the "key cards"—the ones that are most important to have in the opening hand—are going to be the cards that you want to cast in the early turns of the game. Your more expensive cards can come off the top of your library and be cast later, but if you miss out on making your ideal turn-one or turn-two play, you can never rewind the game to that point.

Constructed Magic is fast and unforgiving. Coming out too slowly is an easy way to lose a game. Your mulligan decisions should reflect that. Put a premium on having your best early plays in your opening hand. Mulligan more aggressively if either your deck, or your opponent's deck, is very fast.

There's an important difference between decks that try to win the game quickly and decks that play for longer games. If you want to win the game by turn five, then your opening seven cards must be able to do most of the work. After all, you only get a small handful of draw steps! On the other hand, a deck that's content to drag things out until turn ten or twelve can be patient and wait for the right tools to show themselves. Consider these two hands:

Mountain, Mountain, Mana Confluence, Wild Slash, Atarka's Command, Lightning Strike, Lightning Strike

Sandsteppe Citadel, Sandsteppe Citadel, Windswept Heath, Thoughtseize, Bile Blight, Hero's Downfall, Hero's Downfall

Both hands have three lands and four spells, both feature cheap spells, and both are capable of killing the first few creatures the opponent might play. However, one hand should probably be mulliganed, while the other hand is excellent!

With the first hand, you're playing an aggressive mono-red deck. You're seeking to end the game quickly, and your advantage comes from coming out fast and flooding the board with creatures before the opponent can mount a defense. Unfortunately, this hand has no creatures and therefore will struggle to achieve that goal. You desperately want to play a creature (hopefully two or three) in the first three turns of the game, but you don't have many draw steps before you miss that window. To keep this hand would mean not playing to the strengths of your deck.

With the second hand, you're playing Abzan Control, which is a defensive deck that seeks to drag the game out and grind small advantages. In this case, your goal is to survive to the mid and late game, where your powerful spells and two-for-one advantages will allow you to win a topdeck war against your opponent. This hand is perfect for that game plan! You get to dismantle the opponent's initial offense, and the nature of your deck means you can be patient and wait for the top of your library to deliver the rest.

KNOWING YOUR OPPONENT'S DECK

Knowing your opponent's deck is just as important for your mulligan decisions as knowing your own deck. While you'll go into a tournament with a game plan in mind, you might have to subtly (or greatly) adjust that game plan according to the way your deck matches up against your opponent's.

In a tournament setting, you often won't know what deck your opponent is playing until after you make your mulligan decision in Game 1. However, you will always know after sideboarding. Your sideboarding is a very important factor in your mulligan decisions.

Key Cards Against Your Opponent's Deck

Previously, I used the example of Thoughtseize being one of the best cards against Blue-White Heroic. What if you're playing Modern, and you've sideboarded in three copies of Back to Nature against the enchantment-based Bogles deck, or three copies of Ancient Grudge against the artifact-based Affinity deck? You don't necessarily have to mulligan until you find these cards, but you should consider the fact that a decent six-card hand with one of these cards will be much better than a mediocre seven-card hand without them. If you're on the fence, the presence of sideboard cards like these can be a great tiebreaker in favor of mulliganing.

Fast Matchups

You need to be prepared for what your opponent is going to throw at you. It can be fine to keep a slow hand in certain types of matchups, but once you know your opponent is playing Mono-Red Aggro, you should mulligan until you find a hand that won't simply get run over.

Slow Matchups

In other matchups, you can feel confident that the game won't be ended by an early rush. In these matchups, it's good to loosen your standards in order to avoid the disadvantages that come from starting the game down a card.

Imagine you're playing Esper Control and you look at this opening hand:

Temple of Enlightenment, Temple of Deceit, Polluted Delta, Swamp, Island, Negate, Dig Through Time

This is a hand that you're thrilled to keep against an opposing control deck like Abzan or Blue-Black Control. However, it's a hand that you should mulligan if you're playing against Mono-Red. Everything depends on context, and the pace of the matchup is one of the most important factors in your mulligan decisions.

MOLTEN VORTEX

Molten Vortex is the type of card that I'm most excited to preview. It has an effect that's both extremely powerful and extremely unique. Molten Vortex is a game changer.

There are only two cards in Magic's history to which Molten Vorex can be compared: Stormbind and Seismic Assault. Both have been tremendously powerful in their times, and I expect the same to be true of Molten Vortex.

In fact, Vortex probably compares favorably to these two. It's much more affordable, being cheap to cast and half the price of Stormbind to activate. Since Seismic Assault is free to activate, it has more potential in a combination deck that seeks to dump a hand full of lands at a moment's notice. However, I believe that Molten Vortex is the better card when used in any kind of "fair" capacity.

Perhaps "fair" is not the appropriate word for this effect, as there are plenty of ways to use it in an overpowered capacity. One thing that comes to mind is to use Molten Vortex in combination with Life from the Loam in Legacy or Modern.

However, Life from the Loam isn't the only way to put extra lands in your hand. I could also envision it in a Temur-colored Standard deck featuring Satyr Wayfinder and Treasure Cruise. Such a deck would offer you the volume of cards necessary to fuel the Vortex. Moreover, with the engine of Wayfinder and Den Protector, you could dump your Vortex into the graveyard, and pick it up in the late-game once you're ready for it.

All that said, you may not need to do anything special at all to make good use of Molten Vortex. Against a deck of weenie creatures, you only need to shoot down two or three creatures before Molten Vortex has had a huge, worthwhile effect on the game.

Decks with low mana curves that don't otherwise have uses for their extra lands might turn to Molten Vortex. Imagine, for example, that nothing in your deck costs more than 1 or 2 mana, but that the games sometimes go seven or eight turns. In such a case, it wouldn't be uncommon to have an extra three or four lands in your hand that you'd want to discard to Molten Vortex. It offers a tremendous amount of "reach" for a red-based aggro deck.

I felt it was important to preview Molten Vortex in the context of mulligan decisions for two reasons.

First, in any deck that chooses to play with Molten Vortex, it's likely to be a key card. If you've put Vortex in your deck, it's likely that you've sculpted your game plan around it in some way; your deck is probably going to function substantially better when you draw it than when you do not. In such a case, you'll be more inclined to mulligan a hand without Molten Vortex in it.

However, you'll have to strike the right balance with the second factor, which is that Molten Vortex demands a large card quantity. It allows you to make use of your resources that would otherwise be fairly unimportant, but you can't take full advantage of Molten Vortex if you're low on cards in hand. Under these circumstances, going down a card is extra costly.

Mulligan decisions are about weighing pros and cons, risks and rewards. What's the cost of going down a card? What's the risk of keeping a subpar opening hand? In this three-part series, I've been able to offer lots of questions, but few concrete answers. However, improving at mulligan decisions is largely about cultivating your instincts and getting a feel for what works and what does not. Keep working at it, and your efforts will be well placed.

27

Playing Safe and Playing Scared

If you've stuck with Level One this far, then by now you know your fundamentals. You know the basic concepts important to deck building and Magic gameplay. You know the common pitfalls that hit new players, and how to avoid them. As you become a more advanced player, though, there's a fine line you're going to have to walk. Today, we're going to discuss the difference between playing safe and playing scared.

THE BENEFITS OF PLAYING SAFE

Playing safe means avoiding risks, and taking the game down a path where catastrophe cannot strike you.

• "I'm not going to play a fourth creature, just in case my opponent casts Languish next turn."

• "I saw Hixus, Prison Warden in Game 1, and those five untapped Plains look very suspicious. I'll make a more conservative attack."

• "I have this game locked up, but don't want to lose if my opponent draws a haste creature. I'll leave my Satyr Wayfinder on defense."

Playing safe is an incredibly important skill to employ when games are even, or when you're ahead. Being a great Magic player means squeezing out every advantage, and giving your opponent as few opportunities as possible to steal games away from you.

When you're ahead in a game, there's a huge difference between taking a line of play that gives you a 90% chance to win, and taking a line of play that gives you an 80% chance to win. If you allow yourself to play recklessly and leave doors open for your opponents to make a comeback, your results will suffer for it in the long run.

THE DANGERS OF PLAYING SCARED

But playing safe has a dangerous evil twin! Players will often think they're playing safe, when in reality they're playing scared. Make every effort to learn the difference between the two.

• "I'm not gonna block with my Sylvan Caryatid; what if my opponent has Titan's Strength!?"

• "I suspect my opponent has Clash of Wills. I'm not going to cast anything until they tap out!"

• "If I hold this Foundry Street Denizen in my hand, I'll have something to rebuild if my opponent casts End Hostilities."

One danger of playing scared is that you can sometimes allow yourself to lose the game, even if your opponent doesn't have the card you're worried about!

It's good to think about the possibility of a permission spell, but how can you win if you don't cast your spells?

Your mono-red deck will inevitably be scared of Languish, but if you hold back your creatures, you might instead lose to a Siege Rhino, or to an opponent with two spot removal spells.

Another grave danger of playing scared is giving your opponent extra draw steps. Players are prone to false logic such as "the only card I can lose to is Dragonlord Atarka, so I'll play around it!" Most games are far more complicated than that. If you play conservatively and give your opponent a handful of extra draw steps, there's likely to be some turn of events that you hadn't considered that could cause you to lose.

Art by Ryan Pancoast

AN EXAMPLE: WALKING THE FINE LINE

Recently, I played a game with a Blue-Black Control deck where I had stabilized at a low life total against a Red-Black Dragons deck. I didn't want to lose to Stormbreath Dragon or Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, so I declined to attack with my Silumgar, the Drifting Death for a few turns, until I had drawn a second flying blocker.

Well, my opponent didn't draw a haste dragon, but what he did draw was a Thunderbreak Regent to block, and since I'd missed an attack, I was forced to give him one more draw step than I'd counted on. Wouldn't you know it, that final draw step was a burn spell, and I lost the game!

Did I play safe, or did I play scared? It's hard to say, but what I do know is that there's tremendous danger in giving your opponent extra draw steps, even when you think you've planned for all eventualities.

HOW TO PLAY SAFE WITHOUT PLAYING SCARED

The first step is to evaluate whether or not you have the luxury of playing safe. Often, this will involve gauging how well the game is going for you, and how likely you are to win if it drags on.

Is your opponent racing you in the air with Dragonlord Ojutai? Well, you can probably no longer afford to play around Crux of Fate.

Are you at one life against a burn deck? You need to be aggressive and give them as few draw steps as possible.

As a general rule, it's a bad idea to play too slowly against late game control decks. Ironically, control decks are most often the ones playing the permission spells and board sweepers that you'd normally want to play around. Unfortunately, in many cases, trying to mitigate the damage of an End Hostilities is a losing battle. It's playing scared, not playing safe.

These control decks tend to be so powerful in the late game that they're likely to win if they have a clean board state on turn five, whether or not you've held back creatures. After all, you might cast a Foundry Street Denizen and a Goblin Piledriver to rebuild, but those cards will be virtually useless if your opponent follows up with Elspeth, Sun's Champion!

Of course, all of this depends on the particulars of the situation—and there are certainly times when you should hold back a creature or two. However, when in doubt, I recommend trying to close the game as quickly as possible. The more you hold back, the more time your opponent will have to deploy his or her powerful late game cards.

Art by Vincent Proce

So when should you play safe? Playing safe is a good idea when the game is going well for you, and when you want it to be longer instead of shorter.

If you've evaluated the game state and decided that you do have the luxury to play safe, your second step is to think about the worst case scenario. Or, more accurately, think about the realistic ways that things could go poorly for you.

"It would be bad if my opponent draws a removal spell for my blocker."

Third, think about what you can do to mitigate those risks.

"I could hold back an extra creature!"

Fourth, weigh the pros and cons of that decision.

"If I hold back, I'll survive the next turn no matter what, but I'll have to give my opponent two extra draw steps. Plus, if they do remove my biggest blocker, I'll have to start chump blocking and might lose anyway. . ."

Finally, act on your decision—but remember to reevaluate often if anything changes.

GET TO KNOW YOUR INSTINCTS

Some players naturally lean toward being aggressive, and don't play safe as often as they should. Other players naturally lean toward being conservative, and too often cross the line into playing scared. I'd like to share a very important concept that Hall of Fame pro Zvi Mowshowitz once highlighted:

". . .You need to get to know your instincts. It's not about good or bad instincts, it's about the biases that your instincts display. Watch to see which way you naturally lean. If you tend to focus on controlling the game all the time, then when the decision is close, choose the non-controlling path. If you tend to be hyper-aggressive, this is where you hold back. That helps protect you from yourself. . ."

Knowing yourself is important. It can help you avoid mistakes and is essential for growth as a player.

There was a point for me, a few years back, where I identified my own natural leaning towards being conservative. It wasn't inherently a bad thing; I still felt I was playing well, and that most of my decisions were sound. However, when I did make a mistake, it was much more likely to be because I was playing too conservatively than because I was playing too aggressively. In other words, I was playing scared too often.

So I began to play my games with that knowledge at the forefront of my mind. When I faced a close decision, I would say to myself, "Reid, you have a tendency to play scared too often, is this one of those times?" It wasn't any kind of cataclysmic change in my play style, it was just a slight recalibration to a gauge that was a little off-center. I learned that I should go for it when I smelled blood, and that I shouldn't pass up opportunities for advantage.

Art by Jason Rainville

WHEN YOU'RE AT RISK OF PLAYING SCARED

There are a few noteworthy sets of circumstances where players are at particular risk of playing scared.

One is when the texture of the game has shifted. Playing while you're ahead and playing while you're behind require two somewhat different thought processes, and it's not always easy to switch between the two.

If a player has been ahead in the game for a while, but something goes wrong and things are beginning to slip away, they're at risk of playing scared. It's because they've been in the mentality of playing safe, but now the game has taken a turn where he or she might no longer have the luxury of doing so.

The opposite can happen too. Imagine you're playing an aggressive deck, and feel pressure to end the game as quickly as possible. This might be the right way to play in most situations, but circumstances can also arise where you have a firm hold over the game, and ought to start playing safe. For example, you get your opponent down to a low life total, and have a burn spell to finish them off. You might be at risk of getting over-excited, and rushing to try to win, when in reality you should play safe, and wait for a moment when your opponent doesn't have mana open for a possible permission spell.

Another situation arises when a player first moves upwards to a new level of competition. I know this from experience.

Take, for example, a player who puts up great results in Friday Night Magic. He or she has played at the local store for months or years, and is one of the best players. They know that if they carefully play a long game, leaving few openings for things to go wrong, they'll beat most of their opponents via their edge in skill and experience.

When a player like this moves up to the Regional Pro Tour Qualifier or Grand Prix level, they'll sometimes have a hard time adjusting their play style. Now they're playing against players as good or better than them, and the wins don't come as easily. If they're playing scared and failing to capitalize on opportunities, they'll be at a disadvantage against equally-matched opponents.

Art by Yeong-Hao Han

Similarly, when players face off against an opponent whom they consider to be particularly skilled, they're at particular risk of playing scared. For different people, it might be playing against a pro player at a Grand Prix, playing against the local all-star, or simply playing against the person who won last week's FNM.

Under such circumstances, players sometimes give their opponent's "too much credit" during gameplay. They don't expect that a strong opponent might be vulnerable. "Surely she has the Clash of Wills!" Or, "He's definitely going to cast Languish next turn!"

The reality, of course, is that every Magic player is merely human (unless they're making a new Air Bud movie that I don't know about). A strong player is no more likely to have Languish in their top ten cards than any other player piloting the same deck. In fact, against strong opponents, you ought to be slightly more willing to take risks, since you can expect them to play well and make fewer mistakes if the game drags on.

Walking the line between playing safe and playing scared is about making an honest evaluation of the game state and of the other factors at play. However, it's important to recognize that we're all human, and there are conditions where our judgment can be clouded. Learn ways to center yourself, and make the best decisions you can. Play safe when it means tightening your hold on the game, but don't play scared when it means giving your opponent too much breathing room.

28

When to Cast Your Spells

One of the most important questions to ask yourself during a game of Magic is, should you cast your spell this turn, or wait for a better opportunity?

You carefully consider the question, and you answer it to the best of your abilities, but even now you're far from done! Any time the answer is, "Yes, I'd like to cast my spell this turn," another important question inevitably follows:

When is the best time to cast your spell?

Timing can be everything. In the case of an instant, you might cast it at the end of your opponent's turn, or you might cast it during combat, in your main phase, in the upkeep, or at any of a dozen different points! How can you be sure what's best?

Timing is one aspect of sequencing, and information management is an important consideration for both. However, when it comes to timing, there's a lot more to consider. You also have to think about minimizing risk, maximizing opportunity, and making things as difficult and inconvenient as possible for your opponent.

Your Default Course of Action

All things equal, it's best to wait until the last possible moment to cast your spells. In this way, you have the most information available when you cast your spell, and you conceal information from your opponent for as long as possible. Not only will your opponent remain unaware of the spell you're casting, but your mana will remain untapped for longer, which multiplies the number of possibilities that your opponent must consider, and might make him or her play more conservatively than they otherwise would.

That said, it's very dangerous to become locked into the pattern of always waiting until the last moment to cast your spells. It's fine as a default option, but it's not always best.

There are two main sets of circumstances where it can be in your best interest to cast your spells earlier than you otherwise would.

The first is if the spell can help you gather information to inform another important decision.

The second is if you fear a certain reaction from your opponent. In particular, look for times where all of your opponent's lands are tapped. There are plenty of spells which you'll want to cast at any safe opportunity, even if it means casting an instant at sorcery-speed.

Let's go over some examples of such situations, and the categories of spells for which proper timing is particularly valuable.

Art by James Ryman

THE TYPES OF SPELLS

Combat Tricks

We discussed combat tricks when we covered attacking and blocking. Knowing the fine details of the combat phase is important, and will give you an advantage in complicated situations where both players might have instants to cast.

Like most spells, you should normally cast your combat tricks at your final opportunity (after blockers have been declared, but before damage has been dealt). However, sometimes you ought to deviate from that pattern.

One example arises when you strongly suspect that your opponent has an action to take. Perhaps they have an activated ability on the board, like Anointer of Champions, or you just have a gut feeling that they're going to cast a combat trick of their own.

It's always an advantage to act last, so if you're sure that your opponent is going to do something, you might as well wait. This comes up most often when you're the one attacking. Recall that the attacking player (the active player) normally acts first. However, if the blocking player (the nonactive player) takes an action, the attacking player will get another chance. Consider the following example:

On turn four, you attack with Shambling Ghoul and Timberpack Wolf, and you have Titanic Growth in your hand. Your opponent blocks each one with a Cleric of the Forward Order, and has two Plains untapped. You consider casting Titanic Growth on Timberpack Wolf, so that it will survive combat against the Cleric of the Forward Order. However, in this particular case it's in your best interest to wait. Why would your opponent block your 2/3 Shambling Ghoul with a 2/2 Cleric when he or she is still at a high life total? Something is fishy! Instead, you do nothing (you pass priority), and your opponent casts Mighty Leap on the Cleric blocking Shambling Ghoul. Now you cast Titanic Growth on Shambling Ghoul, trumping the Mighty Leap and leaving your opponent with nothing on the board. Patience and proper timing has allowed you to get the most out of this exchange!

Now consider a case where one of your future actions depends on the success or failure of your combat trick.

Your opponent attacks his or her Watercourser into your Timberpack Wolf with three Islands untapped. You want to block and cast Titanic Growth, but fear things might go wrong. If you suspect that your opponent has Negate or Calculated Dismissal, you should cast Titanic Growth before you block. If you block first, and your Titanic Growth gets countered, you will also lose your creature. If you cast Titanic Growth first, and your opponent counters it, you can decline to block with Timberpack Wolf, since taking two damage is a small price to pay for keeping your creature in play.

Art by Ryan Pancoast

Removal Spells

Timing is very important when using instant-speed removal spells. When you wait, you can gather extra information, or you might even be able to goad your opponent into investing mana or an extra spell (like an Aura) into their creature before you kill it. However, waiting can also open the door to disaster.

One nightmarish scenario can arise with damage-based removal like Fiery Impulse. These spells can be trumped by combat tricks, so there's danger in waiting until your opponent's turn to cast them.

You pass the turn, and after your opponent untaps, you cast Fiery Impulse on his or her Charging Griffin. They respond with Titanic Growth, and not only does the Charging Griffin live, but you take 7 damage to boot!

Things can go wrong with "unconditional" removal, like Ultimate Price, as well. Sometimes, it's simply best to cast your removal spells right away, before your opponent can untap their mana. That way, a permission spell or a "protection spell" like Feat of Resistance can't ruin your day.

Card Drawing

This category could actually encompass any card that's generally progressing your game plan. Dragonlord's Prerogative and Dig Through Time are good examples, but so is casting Collected Company, using Abzan Charm to put two +1/+1 counters on your creature, or pointing a Lightning Strike at your opponent.

You might cast these spells right away, on your own turn, if they can help you find another helpful play. For example, you can cast Jace's Ingenuity to try to hit your land drop, or you can cast Collected Company to try to hit a haste creature and attack.

You might also need to cast these spells in order to inform your decisions. If you miss on Collected Company, for example, will you need to hold back additional blockers? If you can Dig Through Time and find Clash of Wills, perhaps you'll play an Island instead of an Opulent Palace this turn.

Finally, as always, there's the danger of your opponent having a particular reaction to your spell. If you don't want your instant to get countered, cast it when your opponent is tapped out! A little bit later, we'll cover some of the common types of responses that you ought to be thinking about when deciding how to time your spells.

Creatures

This includes all spells that you have to cast at sorcery speed. If you cast a creature before combat and your opponent counters it, their mana will be tapped and you might have more flexibility during your attack.

Putting your Fleecemane Lion into play might give you more options for using Dromoka's Command during combat. Alternatively, it might make your opponent think you have Dromoka's Command when you really don't!

The theory behind timing each of these types of spells is the same. Simply think clearly about the consequences of the spell, and about the common ways your opponent might react to it.

Art by Steve Prescott

THE TYPES OF RESPONSES

Permission Spells

Perhaps the most natural fear, when casting a spell, is that it will somehow fail to resolve! Timing is particularly important against opponents with the capability of countering your spells.

Time your spells in a way that minimizes the risk associated with them being countered. In other words, don't risk other aspects of your game plan on your spell resolving if you don't have to. Recall the example of Titanic Growthing your Timberpack Wolf before you block the Watercourser.

Another example would arise if you have both Ultimate Price and Languish against a Jhessian Thief. You'd prefer to use Ultimate Price, and save Languish for later, but your top priority is to not take a hit from the Thief. Maybe you should Price the Thief right away, and if your opponent counters it, you'll know to cast your Languish as a follow-up.

Next, think about how you can most inconvenience your opponent. Imagine that your opponent is at three life and you have Lightning Strike. You're not sure whether he or she has a permission spell in their hand, but you certainly don't want to give them any extra draw steps to find one. Here, a nice option to consider is casting Lightning Strike during your opponent's upkeep. If he or she doesn't have the counter, you win either way. If he or she does, you at least force them to spend mana on their own turn (possibly opening a window to resolve another burn spell if you draw one).

Pump Spells

We already covered the dangerous interaction between damage-based removal and pump spells. What about the interaction between a "minus/minus" effect, like Bile Blight, and a pump spell.

Let's say you want to Bile Blight your opponent's Swordwise Centaur, but you're worried about Aspect of Hydra. Should you Bile Blight on your own turn or your opponent's? Well, it can literally depend on how much devotion to green your opponent has. If Aspect of Hydra represents exactly +2/+2, the Centaur will survive the Bile Blight either way. However, if you wait until your opponent attacks, now you'll only take damage from a 2/1 instead of a 3/2. On the other hand, if your opponent has a devotion to green of five, now the Aspect of Hydra will greatly outclass the Bile Blight, and you'll wind up taking additional damage if you wait until your opponent's turn.

So far, we've been planning for the worst-case scenario, but you should also think about the best-case scenario! Maybe if you wait on your removal spell, your opponent might jump the gun and cast his or her pump spell, allowing you two kill two birds with one stone.

Timing your removal spells in the face of a possible pump spell is about minimizing risk, maximizing your potential for value, and making things inconvenient for your opponent.

Protection Spells

Protection spells, like Center Soul, are similar to pump spells, except that they don't necessarily come with the risk of dealing you extra damage. Alternatively, they're like permission spells that can only counter removal spells.

All of the above concepts still apply. Sometimes you can make things inconvenient for your opponent by forcing them to spend mana on their own turn. However, be careful about giving your opponent an extra draw step, or allowing all of your plans to be undone if your opponent can save his or her creature.

Art by Clint Cearley

TIMING YOUR SPELL IN THE FACE OF UNCERTAINTY

Things would be relatively simple if you always knew for sure how your opponent would react to your spells. Things are much more complicated in practice, when you don't know if, when, and how your opponent is going to act.

The best you can do is to be present in the moment, and consider all of the possibilities. Sometimes you'll have to make an educated guess, and you'll guess wrong. That's okay! What you really want to avoid is being blindsided by a protection spell because you simply hadn't considered the possibility that your removal spell might fail to kill its target.

Consider the possibilities, weigh the likelihood of each one, and time your removal spells the best you can. Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself to inform your decisions:

• Is there a risk of your spell failing?

• How can time your spell to make it most likely to succeed?

• Can you gain relevant information by timing your spell in a particular way?

• Can you gain additional value by timing your spell in a particular way?

• How can you most inconvenience your opponent if he or she does have a response?

It's impossible for me to cover all of the countless questions of timing that might come up in a game of Magic. However, hopefully the examples from this article have offered an idea of some of the factors you ought to have in mind as you cast your spells.

Remember, deciding to cast your spell is only the first step. Take great care in timing your spells, in order to make them as effective as possible and minimize the risk that anything will go terribly wrong.

29

Flexibility

Answering the toughest questions in Magic is about walking fine lines. It's about striking perfect balances. Power and consistency, risk and reward, speed and staying power.

Flexibility is an important concept when it comes to finding balance in Magic. Choosing flexible cards or building flexibility into the structure of your deck will lower your risk and increase your consistency. In other words, flexibility helps prevent things from going wrong. If flexibility doesn't come at the cost of too much power, you should jump at the opportunity!

MODAL SPELLS

A modal spell is simply a spell that asks you to choose "modes" when you cast it. Abzan Charm is an excellent card because it offers three distinct options, tailored to fit your needs under varying circumstances.

Modal spells are, by nature, very flexible cards. In the middle of a hairy combat step? Add two +1/+1 counters! Troublesome creature on the other side of the board? Exile it! None of the above? Cash it in for two new cards!

If you were to separate Abzan Charm's modes into three separate cards, it's possible that none of them would be good enough for competitive play in Standard. However, combining all of the options into one neat package makes it one of the best cards in the format. It greatly increases the likelihood that the Abzan player will have the right tool in any situation. In my opinion, the flexibility of Abzan Charm is one of the things that's made Abzan the most successful deck in Standard!

MANA SINKS

Recall that mana sinks are cards that, while not necessarily expensive in themselves, can make use of your extra mana in late-game scenarios. They increase the consistency of a deck by providing insurance against mana flood.

Mana sinks are flexible cards. If they aren't expensive to put into play, they won't make your deck slow, top-heavy, or reliant on having tons of mana. However, they're also helpful if you do draw too many lands, or if the game is dragging on into the very late stages.

CARDS WITH "X" IN THE MANA COST

One particular category of mana sink is cards with "X" in their mana cost, like Hangarback Walker. "X" means flexibility! It means that you can spend however much mana you please, and the card's effect will scale accordingly.

Hangarback Walker is an extremely good, flexible card. You can put it into play right on turn two, but if you draw it on turn eight, you can make it much bigger.

ENDLESS ONE

Today's preview card from Battle for Zendikar follows in the same vein as Hangarback Walker.

Endless One is also a creature with "X" in its mana cost. You can cast it early if you need to do so in order to keep pace in tempo. Later in the game, though, it can easily be the biggest creature on the table!

One of the greatest appeals of a card like Endless One is its ability to plug a hole in your mana curve.

Imagine that your goal is simply to use all of your mana to cast creatures on every turn. Ideally, you'd want to cast a one-mana creature on turn one, a two-mana creature on turn two, a three-mana creature on turn three, and so on. To maximize your chances, you can build your deck with a healthy mix of creatures at each of these mana costs. Inevitably, though, you're going to have games where your draws don't line up the way you were hoping. Maybe you have a one-drop and a two-drop, but you're missing a three-drop. Maybe you miss your land drop on turn five and can't continue moving up the mana curve.

Endless One guarantees that these things won't happen. On any turn, with any amount of mana, you can spend it on Endless One!

That's the real beauty of flexibility—it helps you in the games where your draw isn't perfect. It raises the floor for how bad things can go for you and ensures that you have something to work with in each and every game you play.

Flexibility is an important factor in striking the balance between power and consistency. Playing with flexible cards will always increase your consistency, but will sometimes come at the cost of power.

Art by Jason Felix

You can cast Hangarback Walker for two mana, but you'd usually prefer to cast Fleecemane Lion instead. You can cast it for four mana, but you'd prefer a Siege Rhino. You can use Abzan Charm to take care of Polukranos, World Eater, but Ultimate Price can basically do the same job for one less mana.

Your flexible cards will rarely let you down, but they'll also rarely be the best possible play you can make on a given turn.

Thankfully, Endless One doesn't force you to give up too much power for the sake of flexibility. Yes, spending four mana for a 4/4 isn't quite a Siege Rhino, but it's still a good rate and is likely to be one of the biggest creatures on the board.

Endless One also has the advantage of being colorless, making it playable in any deck, immune to Ultimate Price, and positioned to play well with any colorless-themed cards that appear in Battle for Zendikar. However, it's not an artifact for the purposes of being destroyed by Kolaghan's Command or Conclave Naturalists.

Finally, like Hangarback Walker, Endless One features +1/+1 counters, which pair well with many of the cards from the Abzan clan and the Dromoka brood. Hardened Scales is just one example.

It's a good habit to always keep an eye out for flexible cards. You'll find flexibility in Endless One. More importantly, though, you'll find it in any quality card that strikes a healthy balance between power and consistency. Putting cards like Endless One into your decks will lower the chances of a bad draw, but they won't cost you much in terms of raw power. It's a slam dunk!

Limited

30

Sealed Deck

To this point in Level One, we've been covering fundamental concepts of Magic. These can be applied to any game, played with any deck, between any two players. However, part of the beauty of Magic is in its many variations. New cards are released every few months, so we constantly have new tools to work with and new hazards to challenge us.

What's more is the variety of different tournament formats possible in Magic. On any given weekend, you can find tournaments in any of a dozen or more different formats! You can find information about the most commonly played formats here.

A tournament's format establishes what cards are legal. This means: what sets of cards you can build your deck from, whether or not any cards are banned, and any other special rules unique to the format.

Beyond that, there are two major categories of formats: Constructed and Limited. For Constructed events, you build a deck (usually 60 cards) at home and bring it to the tournament. For Limited events, you open fresh packs of cards once the tournament begins and have to build your deck (usually 40 cards) on the fly. Limited formats, while difficult to master, are perfect for beginning players, since they won't be at a disadvantage for not owning an extensive collection of cards.

Every format has its own qualities that make it unique and challenging. Each requires a slightly different skill set to master. Today we're going to focus on Sealed Deck.

Sealed Deck is one of the two common Limited formats (along with Booster Draft, which will be covered in a future article). You open six booster packs, add as many basic lands as you like, and build a 40-card deck out of it—simple as that! Of all formats, Sealed Deck is a great starting point because the fundamental concepts of Magic shine through most clearly.

Sealed Deck can be played with any set, and what we'll cover today can be applied to any Sealed Deck format, past or future. However, in honor of the Prerelease this coming weekend, we'll discuss the format with an eye toward Khans of Tarkir.

HOW SEALED DECK COMPARES TO OTHER FORMATS

Six booster packs is not a whole lot to work with. With all players having limited resources, it makes for a format with a low overall power level. While you might have some kind of rough strategy in mind, you typically won't be able to build a very focused deck because you won't get enough cards of any one particular type. Instead, you should aim for a well-balanced deck with a healthy mix of threats and answers.

Games of Sealed Deck often go long, rarely ending before turn six or seven, and sometimes stretching until turn fifteen or twenty. This means that if you're not careful, you can spend the seven cards from your opening hand very quickly and be at the mercy of drawing one card per turn for a large portion of the game.

Sealed Deck is about planning for these longer, more drawn-out games, as well as about avoiding a couple of common pitfalls.

MANA IN SEALED DECK

Mana ought to be your number one priority in Sealed Deck. Building a reliable mana base and a balanced mana curve is half the battle. If you're looking for a refresher course on how to make your mana base and the rest of your deck fit together well, you can find one here.

Note that in that article, I strongly advocate two-color decks. In Sealed Deck, generally speaking, sticking to two colors is usually best, as decks of three or more colors can be prone to awkward mana draws. However, Khans of Tarkir is a special case because it's a set that emphasizes multicolored cards; it's designed for players to most-often play three-color decks (although playing two colors or four colors may still be possible). Mana will be a special challenge in Khans of Tarkir Sealed Deck.

Thankfully, the set offers some tools to help meet the demands of a three-color mana base.

You can add any number of basic lands to your Sealed Deck, but you're limited to only the nonbasic lands that you open in your booster packs. Lands that produce more than one color of mana will be extremely valuable, and looking at which nonbasic lands you have is a very good place to start when you first open your packs.

Let's say that you want to build a deck with white, black, and green (the colors of the Abzan Houses). If you had to rely on six Plains, six Forests, and six Swamps to cast your spells, your deck wouldn't be very reliable. In some games you wouldn't draw any Plains, in some you wouldn't draw any Forests, and in some you wouldn't draw any Swamps. However, if you instead got to play with a Sandsteppe Citadel, a Scoured Barrens, and a Jungle Hollow in place of three basic lands, then you'd have extra sources of all three colors of mana and your deck would become a bit more reliable.

Another technique is to focus your deck primarily around two colors, and make your third color a splash for a couple of powerful multicolored cards. For example, you could center your deck around white and green, and just have a little bit of black. This way, you simultaneously get to play with more Plains and Forests and you reduce the negative impacts of not drawing your black mana right away (since you have fewer cards that depend on it).

It's a sad fact that some portion of Sealed Deck games are determined by one player or the other having an awkward mana draw. It won't matter how good your cards are if you simply can't cast them! Build your deck with a reliable mana base and you'll minimize the number of games you lose to an awkward mana draw. Build your deck with a balanced mana curve (with enough cheap creatures) and you'll maximize the number of games that you punish your opponent for stumbling on mana.

BOMBS IN SEALED DECK

Some number of games are decided by one player having an awkward mana draw. Once a game progresses beyond that point, though, there's one more clear-cut way that a game can be quickly decided. That's if one player has an unanswered bomb.

Bomb is a term used, usually in Limited formats, to describe a card that's so powerful that it will often determine the outcome of a game all on its own.

Just like when you have an awkward mana draw, losing to a bomb can be a frustrating experience. However, just like building a reliable mana base, there are things you can do to help make sure that you're on the winning side of a bomb.

The first, naturally, is to play with as many of your own bomb cards as you can! When you open your packs, take note of your very best cards (especially among your rares). Single cards that have an abnormally high impact on the game can give you a huge advantage in Sealed Deck, and it's often worthwhile to go out of your way to play with them.

The second is to have as many answers to bombs as possible.

Short of bombs themselves, removal spells are among the best cards in Sealed Deck. Having an answer to your opponent's bomb often means the difference between defeat and victory. Not only should you include as many removal spells as possible in your deck, but you should also be patient with your removal spells during gameplay. It's a shame to waste your removal spell on your opponent's Mardu Skullhunter only to lose to Necropolis Fiend later in the game.

PLAYING LONG GAMES

Some number of games are decided by someone having an awkward mana draw, and some number are decided by an unanswered bomb. However, when both players can manage to avoid these dangerous pitfalls, you can expect a game of Sealed Deck to go on for a long time.

Once in a while it'll happen that one player has an excellent draw of powerful creatures and wins the game in a convincing fashion. Remember that it's difficult to build a powerful or a focused deck with only six booster packs. Much more likely is that both players will deploy creatures of comparable power level until the board gets clogged up and neither player can profitably attack. This is called a creature stall.

Creature stalls are common in Sealed Deck, so it's important to have a plan for breaking parity.

Whenever possible, look for ways of earning card advantage (either technical card advantage or virtual card advantage). Drawing extra cards or having a high concentration of high-impact cards will give you an advantage in a drawn-out game.

A second way to break a creature stall is with evasion creatures—creatures that have flying or are otherwise unblockable. The value of evasion creatures skyrockets in Sealed Deck.

If neither player can manage to break the creature stall, then the game may be decided by mana flood (one player drawing too many lands). It can feel unlucky when you start drawing more lands than you want, but note that this is an inevitable part of a game that goes long and is very common in Sealed Deck.

You can minimize your chances of mana flood first by building your mana base and mana curve carefully, and second by including as much card advantage and as many high-impact cards in your deck as possible. Finally, you can look for mana sinks. Cards with outlast are examples of mana sinks.

HIGH-IMPACT CARDS

Again and again I've brought up the idea of high-impact cards. In a long game of Sealed Deck, it's easy to spend the seven cards in your opening hand quickly and be stuck playing off the top of your deck. In games like these, it's of paramount importance that you get as much as you can out of every one of your cards.

Remember, you need an adequate number of lands for your deck to function, and you need a balanced mana curve so that you don't get overrun in the early game. Keeping these things in mind, here are some techniques you can use to maximize your number of high-impact cards.

First, don't play too many cheap cards. Cheap cards are typically less powerful (lower impact) than expensive cards. This makes them less valuable in general, and less beneficial to draw off the top of your deck in a creature stall. Play enough cheap creatures that you won't get overrun, and then begin to focus on your late game. (It depends on your deck and the format, but you typically won't need more than five or six one- and two-mana creatures in Sealed Deck).

Second, make sure you have enough creatures. Removal spells are great in Sealed Deck, and you should play as many as you can get your hands on. However, you also want as many creatures as possible (I'd say that between fourteen and nineteen is ideal). You should play with very few cards that are not creatures or removal spells. If a card is not a threat, and doesn't directly answer a threat, it had better do something very, very special for you to play with it in Sealed Deck.

THE PROCESS: BUILDING YOUR DECK

To recap, these are the things to look for in a Sealed Deck:

• Reliable mana base

• Balanced mana curve

• As many of your best cards as possible (especially your bombs)

• As many removal spells and answers to bombs as possible

• Ways to win a long game and to break a creature stall (card advantage, evasion creatures, high-impact cards)

• Resilience to mana flood

• High concentration of creatures and low concentration of noncreature, non-removal cards

Even knowing all of these things, the actual process of building your deck can be a challenge. The first time you open six booster packs might be overwhelming. It's hard to even know where to begin!

While there's not necessarily a "best" process for building a Sealed Deck, it is important to have some kind of process, or else you might wind up wasting a lot of time and being unable to hone in on your best options. So to help those of you who might feel a little lost, what follows is a description of what I'll personally be doing when I open my packs at the Khans of Tarkir Prerelease.

First, I'll open all six packs and sort my cards. I'll separate the five individual colors and sort my multicolor cards into the five wedges: Abzan, Jeskai, Sultai, Mardu, and Temur.

Art by Johann Bodin

Second, I'll take a look at my nonbasic lands. Right away, this might rule out certain color combinations where my mana would be too unreliable. If I have a lot of mana fixing in certain combinations, I'll be drawn toward those combinations.

Third, I'll gauge what my most powerful cards are. What are my rares? Which of them are bombs? What about my premium uncommons and removal spells?

Fourth, I'll sort through and separate out the cards that I'm not excited to play with. This will include the bulk of my noncreature, non-removal cards, and some of my low-impact creatures. I can always revisit this pile later if my deck comes up a few cards short.

At this point, I'll have a lot of information in my head, and maybe some things will begin to stand out. Where is my mana fixing? Where are my bombs? What colors are deep in solid cards? What colors are shallow?

Now begins the work of actually looking at decks. If any color combinations stand out in my mind after sorting my cards, I'll start with those combinations. If not, it's okay to pick one at random (after all, you have to start somewhere).

Say I've laid out an Abzan deck. Now I'll go through my list of criteria (what I look for in a Sealed Deck, listed above) and see how I like the deck. How's the mana curve? Are there any obvious weaknesses? Once I've gotten a good impression of the Abzan deck, I'll repeat the process for any other color combinations I'm curious about.

I recommend using the full amount of time to build your Sealed Deck; there are tons of possibilities to consider! At a certain point, it'll be a matter of intuition; just go with what your gut tells you is the best.

That's Sealed Deck in a nutshell. It's a perfect starting point for new players, both because you don't need a collection to sit down and play, and because it perfectly demonstrates the fundamentals of Magic. You can improve very quickly by playing Sealed Deck! Whether you're a new player yourself, or you know someone just getting into the game, or if you're just looking to stay sharp and hone your skills, try to make time for the Khans of Tarkir Prerelease. I know I'll be there!

31

The Basics of Booster Draft

Booster Draft is one of the most played Magic formats among casual players, as well as at every level of competition. Together with Sealed Deck, it's the Limited format of choice for most tournaments, including Pro Tours, Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers, and Grand Prix. It's popular among occasional players who want to avoid the pressures of maintaining a collection and a Constructed deck. On the other hand, it's equally popular among serious players who enjoy the depth and challenge of the format. Learning Booster Draft should be a priority for any aspiring Magic player.

Booster Draft (or just "Draft") is like Sealed Deck, with the additional primary step of drafting the cards. The players—usually eight sitting in a circle—each open a booster pack, pick one card, and pass the pack to the next player, who picks one card and continues to pass it along. Eventually, all of the cards are picked and the players repeat the process with a total of three booster packs. At the end of a Magic Origins draft, players will have 42 cards (not counting basic lands) with which to build a 40-card deck. Just like Sealed Deck, players may add any number of basic lands to their deck.

DRAFTING A DECK

In Sealed Deck you open six packs and in Booster Draft you only open three. Nevertheless, the total number of cards that you see in a draft is much higher than in Sealed Deck. Since you have the flexibility of choosing which cards you think will be best for your deck, in a way, your total pool of cards is much larger in a draft than it is in Sealed Deck.

This means that you can expect Draft decks to be slightly better, more powerful, faster, and (most importantly) more focused than in Sealed Deck. You can choose all of your cards to work toward one concerted strategy. Things will never be as extreme as Constructed, but your Draft decks might fit the mold of an aggro deck or a control deck depending on the choices you make.

Synergy

Synergy is an important concept for every format in Magic. In particular, though, it should be at the front of your mind during a draft, as it can guide you in the direction of good picks and an effective deck. Synergy means cards working especially well together.

Synergy can exist between two cards (sometimes called a combo), like in the case where Act of Treason lets you sacrifice your opponent's creature to a Nantuko Husk. A single card can have synergy with the rest of your deck—say Shaman of the Pack in a deck with lots of Elves. Or, perhaps the best case of all is that synergy is built into your deck on the whole. Let's say your deck features a lot of cheap creatures with renown and a lot of combat tricks to help you keep attacking. In this case, your deck has a clear plan and all of your cards are working toward this plan. Your combat tricks will help you force through your renown creatures, and all of your cheap creatures will give you ample opportunities to use your combat tricks effectively.

Photo courtesy Christian Calcano, Grand Prix Dallas/Fort Worth

Archetypes

An archetype is a recurring strategy with numerous possible variations. The shell or pattern of an archetype remains recognizable despite individual cards changing. Archetypes exist in Constructed—you can build two functionally similar control decks even in formats where different sets are legal—and they also exist in Booster Draft.

An example of an archetype, in the context of Magic Origins draft, is a Blue-Red Artifacts deck. Ghirapur Gearcrafter is a card that goes perfectly in a Blue-Red Artifacts deck, but you can still build a Blue-Red Artifacts deck without it. The same is true of Artificer's Epiphany, Chief of the Foundry, Whirler Rogue, and so on. The recognizable traits of every Blue-Red Artifacts deck will be flying creatures, removal spells, card advantage, and taking advantage of artifact synergies. If you do a good job drafting Blue-Red Artifacts, these features will exist no matter what individual cards you wind up with.

In a perfect world, you would start a booster draft with one or more archetypes in mind. Having a vision for the way you want your deck to end up is extremely helpful. Moreover, like always, practice makes perfect. The first time you draft Blue-Red Artifacts or Black-Red Sacrifice, you might—to some extent—be muddling your way through. However, once you've drafted an archetype five or six times, you'll begin to learn its strengths and common pitfalls, and be able to draft accordingly.

Balance

A desire for synergy, or to draft a particular archetype, should never overshadow the basic principles of Magic. As always, foremost in your mind as you draft should be your mana base, mana curve, creature count, removal spells, and card advantage.

A well-built deck with a smooth mana curve and a good mix of creatures and spells will function just fine, even if it doesn't have much synergy. A deck that has a lot of synergy but a bad mana base and a bad mana curve will still be clunky and awkward. Synergy is good, but it should not come at the expense of what's most important!

Remember also that all cards are not created equal. Avaricious Dragon might not have any special synergy with a Blue-Red Artifacts deck. However, you'd better believe that I'm picking Avaricious Dragon over Ghirapur Gearcrafter, Artificer's Epiphany, or virtually any other card you can imagine! After all, this is still Limited Magic and a bomb is a bomb!

CHOOSING YOUR COLORS

One of the most interesting questions in Booster Draft is how to choose your colors.

The most basic strategy is simply to choose your colors ahead of time, before you even open your packs. This is a completely valid strategy that I often recommend as best for beginners. There's no shame in it! In fact, if you were to employ this strategy at higher levels of competition, so long as you did a good job drafting, building your deck, and playing the games, you'd have a perfectly fine chance to do well.

Just remember that it's illegal to coordinate with the drafters sitting next to you by telling them what colors you intend to draft or asking them what colors they intend to draft.

A very slightly more advanced strategy is to draft the best cards out of your first couple of packs, regardless of what color they are. Then, you just draft whatever colors your first couple of picks were! This way, you get the potential benefit of opening a premium card in any color but don't have to worry about wavering between colors. You won't waste any picks on cards of a color that doesn't wind up in your deck.

Advanced drafters, however, will be adaptable and let what happens in the draft determine what colors they choose. Sometimes, they won't completely decide their colors until halfway through the draft! They value the ability to stay open.

Staying open means looking for opportunities. For example, let's say you open Avaricious Dragon in pack two. In the case where you've decided your colors right away, it's completely up to chance whether or not you'll be able to put it in your deck. In the case where you've stayed open, you'll be able to jump on the opportunity of opening a bomb card and playing with that color.

Even more important is the ability to find an open color. Now let's say that I'm the one who opens the Avaricious Dragon instead of you. I'd decided early in the draft that I was going to draft white-green, and so I pass the Dragon right along to you. If you're able to correctly identify that I'm not drafting red, then you have the ability to get that Dragon along with every other good red card that I'm going to pass you over the course of the draft.

Art by Chris Rahn

WHAT THE OTHER DRAFTERS ARE DOING

What makes Booster Draft so interesting is that it's a dynamic process with lots of moving parts. What you do affects the drafters around you and what they do, in turn, affects you.

Although they'll eventually be your opponents in the tournament, ideally you wouldn't fight for colors with the drafters next to you, because doing so would wind up making both of your decks worse. If you somehow knew for a fact that the players on either side of you were drafting blue-red and black-red decks, it would probably be in your best interest to draft white-green, because you'd get passed all of the best white and green cards that your neighbors didn't want.

Signals

When neighboring drafters learn what one another are drafting, they're able to cooperate and will both wind up with better decks. This type of understanding and cooperation can be accomplished through signaling.

Signaling doesn't mean winking, shaking your leg under the table, or tipping your baseball cap three times. It certainly doesn't mean talking about the draft as it's happening. All of these things are strictly illegal. Instead, signaling comes in the form of what cards you pass, receive, do not pass, and do not receive from your neighbors.

The best example of a signal is receiving a very strong card late in the draft. Fiery Impulse, for example, is a premium card that any red drafter would love to add to his or her deck. To see a Fiery Impulse pick six means that the five players passing to you all declined to pick it. For each of these five players, it probably means one of two things. Either (A) they picked a stronger red card (perhaps possible for the player who opened the pack if there was a bomb rare) or (B) they aren't drafting red (more accurate is to say that they weren't drafting red at the time they made the pick).

Seeing a late Fiery Impulse is a signal that red might be an open color. This means that if you draft red, you have a slightly higher chance of being passed strong cards as the draft progresses, since your neighbors will be less interested in them. Likewise, passing a Fiery Impulse sends a signal downstream that red might be an open color. If you pass a Fiery Impulse, it shouldn't come as a great surprise if you later find out that a player you were passing to drafted red.

Signaling is a complicated concept, and I won't go much deeper on the subject today. (For further reading, check out my article on Signals in Booster Draft.) For now, let me leave you with the advice that you should simply try your best to be aware of what's going on around you in a draft. Note what strong cards are being passed to you and if any color is noticeably missing. That said, you also shouldn't go crazy trying to adapt your draft to signals. Sometimes, by the time you know what your neighbors are drafting, it's so late that all the best cards are already gone anyway! The more you switch colors, the more picks you waste and the lower the chances of piecing together an effective deck.

Choose your colors and archetype based on a combination of three factors: what you want to draft, what cards you've already drafted, and what you think might be open. The weights you put on these three factors will change based on the circumstances and as the draft progresses. Generally speaking, though, I don't think that any one is more important than the other two.

Counterdrafting

Do not counterdraft!

I'm hesitant to mention counterdrafting in Level One because it's a relatively unimportant aspect of Booster Draft. However, I do so in the hope that I can help my readers avoid a common pitfall of beginning drafters, which is that once they learn the concept of counterdrafting, they put far too much emphasis on it.

To counterdraft means to spend a pick simply taking a card out of the draft, so no one else can have it. Return to the example where I'm drafting white-green and I open Avaricious Dragon. If I were to pick it, not with the intention of putting it in my deck, but simply so that you won't get it, then I'm counterdrafting.

Art by Steven Belledin

Counterdrafting isn't mean or unsportsmanlike; it's simply a strategic decision that's part of the game. The problem is that it's typically a bad strategic decision. In an eight-player booster draft, you have seven potential opponents and should be thinking about how your deck will stack up relative to theirs. A positive addition to your own deck has a relatively great impact. Hurting one of your seven opponents' decks won't greatly increase your chances of winning any given round.

For me to regret passing you the Avaricious Dragon, here's what has to happen: First, we have to get paired (typically, you play against three of your seven opponents). Second, you have to draw your Dragon. Third, you have to beat me in a game and match because you had it instead of whatever the next-best card would've been. This is possible, but it's not particularly likely.

It's correct for me to counterdraft the Avaricious Dragon if and only if there's nothing I want from the pack. Prioritize your own deck first, and make counterdrafting only an afterthought. If there's a time for counterdrafting, it's usually much later in the pack, once most of the good cards have dried up. Then, if there's nothing for you and a playable card for an opponent, you can feel free to snatch it up.

If you take one lesson from today's article it should be that Booster Draft is as hard as you want to make it. Concepts like signaling and counterdrafting are deep and complex, but the fundamentals are relatively easy. You can go far by just focusing on things like balance, mana curve, and card advantage. If you're new to the Magic, don't be scared to try out Booster Draft. If you're more experienced, then I challenge you to focus on a new aspect of the format that you haven't yet mastered!

32

Sideboarding in Limited

In some ways, Limited Magic feels like the purest form of the game. Given its lower power level relative to Constructed, games are often closer and less frequently decided by a single card, combination, or big turn. In games like these, small advantages really add up and it's crucial to use every tool at your disposal. An important one, and one that's often underappreciated, is the sideboard.

You can use your sideboard in Limited to achieve any of the same effects that you can in Constructed. However, I'd like to emphasize a couple that are particularly important.

PERFECTING YOUR ANSWERS

The most useful sideboard cards in Limited are your borderline removal spells. Premium removal spells like Murderous Cut and Suspension Field will be in your main deck anyway, but some removal spells are borderline in terms of their power level (think of expensive ones like Bring Low or Rite of the Serpent) or because they're very specific in what they can kill (such as Windstorm or Naturalize).

Barrage of Boulders is a card that you may or may not choose to put in your main deck based on its ability to prevent your opponent from blocking. However, imagine that in Game 1 your opponent casts a Hordeling Outburst, morphs a Ponyback Brigade, and casts a handful more 1-toughness creatures. Suddenly, Barrage of Boulders becomes a great card that you most certainly want to bring in off the sideboard!

Similarly, you wouldn't think of Windstorm as being a stellar card in Khans of Tarkir Limited. However, it's capable of killing a number of extremely troublesome creatures, including what might be the single most powerful card in the format—Wingmate Roc! Once you see that your opponent has a card like this, you need to be ready to look for an answer in your sideboard.

Along those lines, the most important skill in Limited sideboarding is finding weaker cards that can trade for stronger cards. You won't always have as many rares as your opponents do in Sealed Deck and Booster Draft, and if you want a chance to win even when the packs are stacked against you, you need to be able to use your more everyday tools effectively.

Despise isn't super effective when you're taking away an Alpine Grizzly or a Sage-Eye Harrier. However, it might be one of your only ways to beat an opponent who draws Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker or Zurgo Helmsmasher. Similarly, Disdainful Stroke, Cancel, and Stubborn Denial offer a game plan for beating the Duneblast or Crater's Claws that might otherwise destroy you.

Any card that can answer a bomb, even if it's in an inefficient or indirect way, is useful in Limited. They're the cards that you'll most often look to during sideboarding.

SLOW MATCHUPS AND FAST MATCHUPS

In Limited, you typically want to build a balanced deck. You want cards capable of playing both offense and defense, and you want creatures spread out across the mana curve. One reason for this is that you simply don't know ahead of time how fast your opponents' decks will be and you want to be well prepared for everything. However, after sideboarding, you have the ability to gear your deck more for the matchup you're facing.

In Khans Limited, I take great pains to always include at least three creatures that cost less than three mana in my deck. This is because when I play against a fast deck, I want to be able to trade creatures early and avoid falling too far behind. However, once I see that my opponent is playing a slower deck and is incapable of beating me with a quick creature rush, I can choose to throw my policy out the window. I might "get greedy" and sideboard out my cheap creatures for more expensive ones that will be better in a long game.

To replace them, I'll look for anything that can offer me card advantage, even if it's a bit slow, like Dutiful Return. I'll also look for answer cards that are particularly useful in the late game, like Cancel.

On the flip side, if my opponent's deck is very fast, I'll try my best to bring in even more cheap cards so I can trade off early and have the best chance of keeping pace.

MATCHING UP POWERS AND TOUGHNESSES

Under the right circumstances, I might even sideboard in something like Firehoof Cavalry, which is a remarkably poor card by most metrics. Despite the general quality of the card, it might be just perfect for trading with the cheap creatures my opponent is attacking me with. Against a deck full of Mardu Hateblades, Leaping Masters, and Mardu Skullhunters, Firehoof Cavalry will find something to trade with and can help me avoid falling behind. It might even trade with a Temur Charger! It doesn't matter that Temur Charger is an uncommon and Firehoof Cavalry is a common; it doesn't matter that Temur Charger is a strong card that someone might take highly in a draft; all that matters is that Firehoof Cavalry has 1 power and Temur Charger has 1 toughness.

Matching up the right powers against the right toughnesses and the right toughnesses against the right powers will give you a huge advantage. It's something you should pay close attention to and be constantly looking for opportunities for. Imagine you're playing an Abzan deck and you're undecided on the 40th card in your deck. Well, if your opponent has Mardu Skullhunters, you want Jeskai Student; if he or she has Hooting Mandrills, you want Archers' Parapet; and if he or she has Snowhorn Riders, you want Rotting Mastodon. Whichever one you choose for your main deck, you should be ready to switch between them during sideboarding.

The same concept applies to aggressive decks. If you want your 2/2 creatures to attack through 3-toughness creatures, you should use Dragonscale Boon. If you want them to attack through 5-toughness creatures, you might sideboard out the Boon for Awaken the Bear.

SIDEBOARDING IN SEALED DECK

Sideboarding is most important in Sealed Deck. Remember, in Sealed Deck you don't get to choose what cards you're given, and you're likely to have a lot of strong options even past what winds up in your deck. Every card you don't use comprises your sideboard.

Every possibility mentioned above will come up in Sealed Deck, and often. Adjust your creature base to trump what your opponent has. Augment your card advantage when the matchup is slow and your early defense when the matchup is fast. Look for the perfect answers to take care of your opponents' threats, particularly their bombs.

But that's not all! It's possible in Sealed Deck to completely shift colors or strategies during sideboarding! When you build your deck, you might have an Abzan deck and a Jeskai deck that look pretty close in power level. Perhaps a small factor such as the Jeskai deck having a Cancel might lead you to switch between the two when your opponent has a Duneblast.

A side benefit is keeping your opponent guessing. Imagine you win Game 2 with a flurry of flying creatures. Your opponent might sideboard in Windstorm for Game 3 while you transform completely back into your Abzan deck with few or no flying creatures!

Be aware of all of your sideboarding options in Sealed Deck, and be aware that your opponents might be up to the same tricks.

SIDEBOARDING IN BOOSTER DRAFT

In Draft, you won't have the same level of flexibility as you do in Sealed. If you're drafting an Abzan deck, you almost certainly won't wind up with enough cards to transform into Jeskai. So your sideboard changes will typically be smaller, but that doesn't mean they aren't important!

Sideboarding in Draft features an extra layer of complexity because you actually have to draft your sideboard cards. This is something that's quite important. If there isn't a card that you want to put in your main deck, you still might want to snatch up that Dutiful Return, Naturalize, or Barrage of Boulders just in case you need it later. Look for more detail on this concept in next week's article.

Practice identifying possible sideboard cards and keeping track of what weaknesses your deck might have. A slow Abzan deck with few flying creatures and little removal might really need that Windstorm, and you should put a premium on drafting it, just to have in your sideboard.

GENERAL TIPS FOR SIDEBOARDING IN LIMITED

Always look through both your main deck and your sideboard between every game in a tournament match of Limited. This might seem annoying and time consuming, but it's a very good habit to get into. You'll learn quickly, and you'll begin to spot things that you never would have otherwise.

For example, sometimes there's a strong card in your main deck that just happens to not be particularly useful in the matchup. I'd rarely think of cutting Smite the Monstrous from my deck, but if I've played two long games without seeing any 4-toughness creatures, then it's correct to do so.

Other times you'll stumble upon a gem in your sideboard if you really look closely. "Hey, maybe I can use this Molting Snakeskin to save a creature from Duneblast!"

It doesn't cost you anything to think about your sideboard. It will often result in a small advantage if you sideboard well, and at worst it will accelerate your learning process and train you to think outside the box.

Bring extra sleeves for your sideboard; there are three good reasons to do so. First, and most obviously, it will save you time during sideboarding, which will help you finish your matches in time, and probably just make life more enjoyable for you and your opponent. Second, it will help you remember what cards to consider for your sideboard. Sleeve up that Windstorm and that Rakshasa's Secret before the tournament starts and you'll always remember to give them their due consideration every time! Finally, it will make it harder for your opponent to know exactly what you're doing during sideboarding. If you de-sleeve five cards and replace them with five cards from your sideboard, guess what…your opponent knows you sideboarded in five cards. Now imagine what happens if you switch colors in Sealed Deck without extra sleeves!

Which brings me to my next tip, which is that, even when you don't sideboard, you should at least pretend to. Shuffle a couple of sleeved cards into your deck and then pull them out. This way you keep your opponent guessing. Did you bring in Disdainful Stroke? Did you cut the one that you cast in Game 1? If you make it obvious that you're not changing anything, you're only making things easier on your opponent.

Finally, think about your sideboarding a lot in advance of your matches. When I play a Sealed Deck tournament, I spend the entire day between rounds analyzing my card pool and considering my options. I also ask my friends for their input. Sometimes I realize that I made a mistake in building my deck, and I wind up making a particular sideboard change in every match I play. Other times, I find a good sideboard option for a certain situation that I might not've been able to find on the fly during a match.

Again, it doesn't cost you anything to think about your sideboard. Knowing your options ahead of time can only help you.

Limited Magic is about small decisions adding up to (hopefully) give you a small advantage over your opponents. Your sideboard has the potential to provide a lot of these small advantages if you give it the respect that it deserves and learn to use it well. The next match you play, see what it has to offer you!

33

Signals in Booster Draft

The basics of booster draft are relatively simple. However, the subtleties are many, and can be quite difficult to grasp. Let's delve a little bit deeper into the format.

While I'll be using Khans of Tarkir draft as an example, like everything in Level One, the guidelines below are intended to apply to any format.

One of the most important and challenging questions in a booster draft is how and when to choose your colors. It's hard to know when to stick to the colors of your first pick, when to change colors based on a perceived signal, and when to move in on a bomb card you open in pack two or three. My hope is to be able to offer a relatively simple framework that will aid you with the complex decisions you face in a booster draft.

THE TIER SYSTEM

The tier system is a way of gauging the relative strengths of the cards that you see in a draft. Instead of creating an absolute power ranking of all the cards in the set, which is difficult and can unnecessarily constrain your options in the draft, you simply slot each card into a tier along with cards of comparable strength. When deciding between cards of the same tier, you're free to choose the one that fits better into your deck. When deciding between cards of different tiers, you'll think more deeply and begin to consider the concept of signals. (More on this below.)

Here are the tiers that I group cards into when I'm drafting:

Bombs

Bombs are cards that are powerful enough that they frequently determine the outcome of a game all on their own. Opening a bomb in your first pack of a booster draft is like winning the lottery! They constitute the highest tier because you should pick them over anything early in the draft, and later in the draft they can make you consider a dramatic shift in the direction you're going.

Premium Removal

After bombs comes premium removal. By "premium," I mean high in quality (versatile, reliable, and mana efficient) and hard to come by (there won't be an abundance in most drafts). Unlike bombs, these cards won't win you the game all on their own, but they do give you a great amount of control over the game and can sometimes answer opposing bombs. You should be happy if you can spend your first couple of picks on premium removal.

Strong Filler

Filler refers to the cards that will make up the bulk of your deck. In most drafts, you'll be lucky if you can get one bomb and two or three pieces of premium removal. The rest of your deck will be your run-of-the-mill, bread-and-butter cards—your filler.

Strong filler are the cards that you're happy to play with and will very rarely cut from a deck. This will include the better portion of common and uncommon creatures; removal that might be a little expensive, but is still reliable; and a small handful of the absolute best noncreature, non-removal cards like Force Away.

Weak Filler and Sideboard Cards

These are the "take 'em or leave 'em" type of cards that you'll need in order to round out your deck. It's normal (and totally acceptable) to play with a couple of unexciting morphs, overpriced removal spells, or average-quality combat tricks.

Typically, you'll end the draft with more weak filler than you need. Since some of these cards might not make your main deck anyway, there's value in leaving yourself with options for sideboarding.

Mostly Useless

You can save yourself some trouble by pretending these cards don't exist; if you do, you'll only be making a mistake a very, very small portion of the time.

THE FIRST PACK: FINDING DIRECTION

The tier system can help inform your individual draft picks and, in turn, steer you in the right direction toward an effective finished product.

Pack one, pick one (abbreviated P1P1) is easy; in the absence of strong preferences regarding color or archetype, you simply pick the best card from the pack.

Pick two gets more interesting. In a perfect world, your second pick will match the color of your first pick, but does that mean you should pass up on a stronger card in order to stay "on-color?"

What you should do is first to identify the best overall card in the pack, and next to identify the best "on-color" card. Assuming they're not the same card, how large is the gap in power level? If they're in different tiers, you should take the best card. If they're in the same tier, you can feel free to take the on-color card, using the fact that it fits well with your first pick as a tiebreaker.

Say, for example that your first pick was Wingmate Roc (hurray!). Your second pack contains both Feat of Resistance and Heir of the Wilds. Heir of the Wilds is almost certainly a better card than Feat of Resistance, but the gap in power is not huge—they both fit in the tier of "strong filler." In this case, you should take Feat of Resistance, delaying your choice of a second color and leaving you more flexible and open to opportunities for the rest of the draft.

Instead, let's say that your second choice is between Feat of Resistance and Murderous Cut. Murderous Cut is a tier above Feat of Resistance, being "premium removal," and the difference in power between the two cards is large enough to be worth dipping into a new color. It's good to stay open in a draft and wait for opportunities, but what are you waiting for if not something like a Murderous Cut!?

You can continue employing this strategy as the draft progresses. When two cards are in the same tier (they're of comparable power level), take the one that fits best with your deck. When one card stands out in a class of its own, then you should consider taking it. Either you can move into a new color or you can simply speculate on a powerful off-color card just in case you decide to switch into that color later in the draft.

SIGNALS

Recall from last time:

"When neighboring drafters learn what one another are drafting, they're able to cooperate and will both wind up with better decks. This type of understanding and cooperation can be accomplished through signaling….signaling comes in the form of what cards you pass, receive, do not pass, and do not receive from your neighbors."

Signals and the Tier System

The concept of signals is daunting, even for experienced drafters. But not to worry! If you employ the tier system, you'll be naturally acting on signals even without conscious effort on your part!

When you're passed a very strong card that stands out on a tier of its own from the rest of the pack, the tier system would have you pick that card, or at least consider doing so.

"The best example of a signal is receiving a very strong card late in the draft." In other words, if you're looking at things from the perspective of signals, seeing a card that stands on a tier of its own gives you a hint toward an open color, and you should be ready to start drafting that open color.

As you can see, the tier system and the concept of signals would lead you to the same decision in this case. So you can benefit from signals without even being conscious of it!

The Concepts Behind Signals

But if you're reading Level One, then you're an intelligent person (with good taste, I might add!), who might not want to settle for just a "trust me on this one." So let's delve a little bit deeper and try to understand more about how signals work in a booster draft.

Your goal is to draft different colors from the people around you; if you succeed, you will naturally be passed more good cards for your deck simply by virtue of your neighbors not wanting them.

You don't want to draft colors that are generally overdrafted at your table. (If six out of eight players are drafting black, black is overdrafted and the good black cards will dry up quickly.) You don't want to be sharing colors with the player on your right, or the player two to your right, or the player three to your right. You don't want to be sharing colors with the player to your left, or the player two to your left, and so on and so forth. Of course, you can't achieve all of these goals at the same time; it's simply not reasonable to expect that you can be the only drafter interested in your colors. I only wanted to note the fact that there are slight differences between all of these situations.

In pack one, you're receiving signals from the players on your right. If you're passed a strong, standout card like a Murderous Cut, that's a hint that the players passing to you might not be interested in black. I emphasize the word hint because a signal will never prove anything beyond a doubt. Perhaps your neighbor is drafting black, but took a Sorin, Solemn Visitor over Murderous Cut. Perhaps your neighbor passed the Murderous Cut, but will decide to start drafting black afterwards. Perhaps he or she simply doesn't have the same valuation of Murderous Cut as you do. However, being passed a Murderous Cut is one piece of evidence that you can take note of, and if you continue to see more signals that black is open, this evidence begins to add up and contribute toward a rough picture of what might be going on.

You can also take a signal from the absence of strong cards. Say you first-pick your Wingmate Roc and second-pick Feat of Resistance. Your third pack is disappointing, with the best white card being Sage-Eye Harrier. In pack four there's no white card, and in pack five there's only an Erase. What's going on here? Well, you're seeing an abnormally small number of white cards with a notable absence of anything exciting. This is a signal that one or more of the players passing to you might be drafting white.

In pack one, you're sending signals to the players on your left. If you pass along a Murderous Cut, it's very likely that someone downstream will wind up drafting black. If you snap up every good white card you see, it's a little bit less likely that the player to your left will be drafting white, but you can't be sure. You don't know all of the variables in that player's draft and you can never be sure of another individual's thought process.

Acting On Signals

Reading signals is about accumulating information over the course of the draft. Acting on signals, therefore, presents a bit of a conundrum. The longer you wait to act, the more certain you become about what signals you're seeing. However, the longer you wait, the less time remains for you to reap the benefits of finding the open color. Knowing how to balance these things is one of the more challenging aspects of booster drafts and will depend more on experience than on anything I can write in an article.

There are times when you should follow signals into an open color and times when you should stick to your guns.

Let's say your first pack has no bomb or premium removal and you first-pick Heir of the Wilds. Your second pack is relatively weak and you pick Force Away. Your third pack is stronger and has both Suspension Field (in the premium removal tier) and Savage Punch. This is a pretty close pick where the tier system can only inform your decision, not tell you for certain what to choose. We haven't yet assigned Savage Punch to a tier; it's noticeably weaker than Suspension Field but could reasonably be assigned to either "premium removal" or "solid filler." Moreover, you already have two different colors of cards, so jumping into a third so early comes at a cost. For the sake of example, we'll say you pick Savage Punch, but you take note of the Suspension Field as a signal hinting that white might be open.

Next, you see a pack with Mardu Hordechief as a standout card, with Wetland Sambar being the best card in your colors. At this point, you've seen two signals in a row that white might be open, and it's now a good time to act on that signal. Your green-blue deck isn't shaping up to be particularly stellar, and you won't desperately miss that Wetland Sambar. You should take Mardu Hordechief, but not because it alone is a strong enough card to make you change gears. What you're really doing is speculating on the chance of getting more strong white cards later in the draft, which reading signals has given you reason to believe might happen.

Other times, you should stick to your guns. Return to the example where you first-pick Wingmate Roc, second-pick Feat of Resistance, and follow up with some weak-filler-quality white cards. By pick seven or eight, white has dried up and you're pretty confident that one or more players on your right are drafting white. Should you jump ship?

Here, the answer is no. For one thing, Wingmate Roc is such a strong card that you're loath to give up on it. For another thing, it's late enough in the draft that you're unlikely to reap many rewards for finding an open color. By pick eight, the premium cards in pack one are already gone and you won't get passed anything spectacular even if you switch colors. Granted, it's a problem that you're unlikely to be passed good white cards in pack three. However, what about pack two? It's the players on your left passing to you in pack two, and you've sent them a reasonably strong signal that they should not be drafting white. (You've sent this signal by your failure to pass white cards downstream). You're likely to be passed very good white in pack two!

So Option A is to stick with white, get to play with your Wingmate Roc, hopefully get passed good cards in pack two, but risk a weak pack three. Option B is to jump ship, give up on your Wingmate Roc and the other four or five white cards you've picked, get marginally better filler cards to round out pack one, have an uncertain pack two, and hope for a good pack three. Between those two, I like Option A better!

Don't get me wrong, it's never ideal to draft the same colors as the player passing to you. However, the key factor here is that by the time you've gathered enough information via signals to make an educated decision, the time to switch colors has already passed. Again, knowing exactly how to make these decisions will come largely from experience.

HOW SHOULD YOU BE DRAFTING?

Hopefully, this article has given you at least a loose grasp on the concept of signals. However, signals, and Booster Draft in general, are deep and complicated subjects that can take years to fully master.

If you're still new to Draft, I encourage you to start thinking a bit more about signals, and taking note of what you're seeing in a draft, and what exactly it might mean. Being aware of these things will accelerate your learning process, but for the most part your primary focus should still be on putting together your own deck, rather than trying to take on too many challenges all at once.

The tier system is a good framework for thinking about your individual draft picks. When two cards are of comparable strength, take the one that's more valuable to you in the moment—matching your colors, filling a hole in your mana curve, etc. When cards are vastly different in power level, you can consider changing colors, or at least speculating on what might come later. In this way, you'll allow yourself to naturally go to, and benefit from, where the signals are taking you.

34

Booster Draft, Part 3

We've covered the basics of Booster Draft and we've covered signals in Booster Draft—one of the overarching concepts of the format. Part 3 of the Booster Draft series will feature some tips and techniques that might not occur naturally to beginning drafters. If you've read the previous two Level One articles on the topic, and are starting to get the hang of it, this ought to give you a head start on your way to becoming proficient at Booster Draft.

PRIORITIZING THE KEY PIECES OF YOUR DECK

Through everything you learn about Booster Draft—all of the fancy terms and concepts and techniques—the basic principles of Magic will remain the most important weapons at your disposal. Signals, archetypes, counterdrafting, and just about everything else should take a back seat to card advantage, removal spells, and mana base. Let's take a moment to focus on mana curve and creature count in a draft deck.

Here's a framework for what a well-balanced draft deck might look like in a triple-Khans of Tarkir draft. This is a very rough guideline, and things are likely to change substantially based on what colors you're drafting, or what strategy you might be going for.

• 40 total cards in the deck.

• 17–18 total lands. For a two-color deck, 0–2 dual lands. For a three-color deck, 4+ dual lands.

• 5–8 total noncreature spells

◦ 0–2 combat tricks

◦ 4–8 removal spells

• 14–17 total creatures

◦ 0–2 one–drops (one mana creatures)

◦ 2–4 two–drops

◦ 5–8 three–drops and morphs

◦ 2–3 four–drops

◦ 2 five–drops

◦ 0–1 six–drop

Your creatures' mana curve should look something like this:

The specifics of Khans of Tarkir cause a small glut at the three-drop slot because of morphs. (Note that I've counted a creature like Snowhorn Rider as a "morph" in the three-drop slot.) There's also less need to play with expensive non-delve creatures because you can spend your later turns turning morphs face up or outlasting your other creatures instead.

Remember that these are only guidelines, not a master formula. It would be a mistake to shoehorn every draft deck into this exact framework. Take note if your draft decks are looking dramatically different from this in one or more ways, but for the most part this is merely a tool for further discussion.

As you can see, there are certain types of cards—namely cheap creatures and removal spells—which are needed in healthy numbers for a well-balanced draft deck. There are other types of cards—expensive creatures; combat tricks; and other noncreature, non-removal spells—that are substantially more dispensable.

The quality, or power level, of a card is not the only factor that determines its value in a Booster Draft. The supply and demand of the particular card type also plays a big role. Tusked Colossodon is a completely respectable creature, but given that you only want zero or one six-mana creature in your deck at all, it would be a mistake to spend a high pick on an unspectacular, expensive creature.

It's like sitting at home and watching those infomercials on TV. It might be a great item! It might be of the finest quality and craftsmanship and somebody out there might really love it. It's just that I really don't need to own a ten-inch, glass Teddy Roosevelt figurine…

In Booster Draft, you should put a premium on the cards that are absolutely crucial to your deck. Pick them early and often, and let the fringe cards fall into place later in the draft. In pack three, when you already have enough two- and three-mana creatures and decide you really want a big guy to cap off your mana curve, that's the time to pick Tusked Colossodon.

The Tier System reflects this. Bombs and premium removal represent the highest tiers because of their quality and their scarcity. If you pass up on a bomb or a premium removal spell, you cannot count on getting another one later in the draft. Beyond that, efficient cheap creatures should be slotted into "strong filler" while unexciting expensive creatures and the bulk of noncreature, non-removal cards should be slotted into either "weak filler" or "mostly useless."

Early in the draft, any time you're in doubt of which card to take, err on the side of taking the cheap creature. After all, you can't really have too many creatures, but you can most definitely have too few. If you quickly wind up with a lot of cheap creatures, that's great! Now you can spend the second half of the draft picking up spells and expensive creatures as you see fit. On the other hand, if you find yourself without enough cheap creatures late in the draft it can be a disaster. Now you have to scramble and pick cheap creatures over stronger cards just to plug the hole in your mana curve.

CHOOSING YOUR COLORS: KNOWING THE ARCHETYPES

Sometimes we get an extra layer of complication thrown into our drafts, and this complication can change from set to set. It's the question of good color combinations and bad color combinations.

Sometimes choosing your colors in a draft will come pretty naturally. Maybe you'll first-pick a bomb in a certain color or maybe you'll wind up going where the signals tell you. However, if there are colors that clash with one another and cannot easily combine to make a good deck, then you might be better off steering your ship a little bit against the tides instead of going completely with the flow.

Imagine a fictional and very-simplified draft format. White is a very defensive color—the only white card in the format is Salt Road Patrol. Red is a very aggressive color—the only red card is Valley Dasher. In this format, it makes no sense at all to draft red and white together in the same deck! If your plan is to win a long game by outlasting giant Salt Road Patrols, then Valley Dashers don't contribute. If your plan is to win via a quick rush, Salt Road Patrol is far too slow.

Naturally, in all Magic sets, every color has several dozen cards to choose from. Draft formats will never be this simple, and therefore color combinations will never be this extreme. Nevertheless, there are some formats where particular color combinations are better or worse than others. Sometimes, you might play a draft format a lot and develop your own preferences for how to pair the colors.

Gold Cards

Khans of Tarkir is actually a perfect example of good and bad color combinations in part because it features powerful gold (multicolored) cards. In Khans, there are five "clans"—three-color combinations—which are more desirable than other color combinations. If you were to draft, say, green, white, and blue instead of drafting Abzan (white, black, and green), you'd miss out on Abzan Guide, Armament Corps, Abzan Charm, and a ton of other premium gold cards. What a waste!

Khans of Tarkir also has two-color gold cards, but they're all in enemy colors. (For example, white's enemy colors are red and black, and its allied colors are green and blue). Cards like Chief of the Edge and Icefeather Aven are strong incentives to draft enemy-color combinations.

Moreover, I find it convenient to start off a Khans of Tarkir draft with an enemy-color combination. This way you have three options: You can build a two-color deck (enjoying some powerful two-color gold cards), you can move into a clan featuring the two enemy colors, or you can move into the other clan featuring the two enemy colors. In other words, starting off in WB can lead you into Abzan, Mardu, or leave you with a two-color deck.

So in Khans of Tarkir, enemy-color combinations have the advantage over allied-color combinations. If my first pick is a blue card, I'll hope to also second-pick a blue card. If I can't do that, however, then I'd much prefer to pick a green or red card, rather than a white or black card.

Archetypes

Similarly, as you learn a draft format you'll undoubtedly begin to discover particular strategies that come together more nicely than others. You should have these archetypes in mind as you draft.

Sometimes you'll get a very strong but rather unique card and it's important to know how to make the best use of it. For example, let's say you pick Raiders' Spoils early in a draft. It's a mono-black card, leaving you open to a great number of possible color combinations. However, it's good to know that black and white are the colors with the most Warrior creatures, and specifically that WB Warriors is a very strong and reliable archetype. You might sometimes play Raiders' Spoils in a Sultai deck, but the card will only be at a fraction of the power level it would have in a WB Warriors deck.

Similarly, you should recognize that Treasure Cruise is a bit overpriced in an average green-blue aggressive deck, but that it's extremely good in a Sultai Delve deck that has lots of ways to put cards in its graveyard.

Being aware of the powerful archetypes and the other intricacies of the set can inform your decision of what colors to draft.

WHEN IS IT TOO LATE TO SWITCH COLORS?

Last time, we discussed using the Tier System as a way to inform your individual draft picks. Then we moved onto signals and how you can use them to find open colors and wind up with a better deck. Generally speaking, both approaches would have you stick to the colors of your first picks when it's convenient, but to pick an off-color card when it's in a tier of its own above the rest of the pack.

I also included an example of when it might be in your best interest to consciously decline a signal in favor of sticking with your first handful of picks.

The deeper you get into a draft, the more you should solidify yourself in your colors. This usually won't be a huge challenge, since you aren't likely to see top-tier cards very late into pack one. The problem, of course, is that if you continue switching between colors throughout the draft, you might wind up without enough playable cards or with some other problem that leads to a weak deck.

"Reading signals is about accumulating information over the course of the draft. Acting on signals, therefore, presents a bit of a conundrum. The longer you wait to act, the more certain you become about what signals you're seeing. However, the longer you wait, the less time remains for you to reap the benefits of finding the open color."

There's a sweet spot for following signals in a Booster Draft. You should be gathering information throughout the whole draft, but the best time to find an open color is between approximately pick two and approximately pick seven of pack one. At this point in the draft, there's still sufficient time to reap the rewards if you can identify a color that the players passing to you are ignoring.

You should have a good idea of what colors you're planning to draft around pick eight or nine of pack one. I'd say the latest time that you can safely switch colors is around pick two or three of pack two. However, there's a special question to consider if you decide to do so.

The Pack-Two Question

There are some times when you should act on signals and other times when you should decline to act on them. However, you should always be paying attention to the signals and considering what their consequences might be.

What happens when you open a bomb in pack two? Say, for example, you're drafting Abzan and you open Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. The question of whether to stick to Abzan or to change colors into red depends not only on the strength of Sarkhan, but also on what you can expect to happen in the rest of the draft.

Since it's the players on your left passing to you in pack two, the question is what colors are they drafting? You can try to answer this question based on the signals that you sent in pack one. What strong red cards did you pass? (Since we're discussing Khans of Tarkir) what strong Mardu cards did you pass? Did you pass anything so good in other colors that your neighbors would be strongly incentivized to draft something else?

If red was very open in pack one, an understandable mistake would be to take the Sarkhan in pack two hoping that red will remain open. However, if you received a signal in pack one that red was open (meaning you were passed a lot of strong red cards) and you were drafting Abzan, then you probably passed those cards along to the players on your left, signaling them that they ought to be drafting red.

If you were to take the Sarkhan, you might hope to get passed good red in pack three, but in pack two the players on your left are likely to gobble up all the red cards and cut you off. You could switch into red banking on pack three to reward you, but you'd really be playing with fire. It's incredibly dangerous to speculate so far in advance that you start pack three with only a couple cards of one of your main colors! There's a lot that could go wrong.

When you open a bomb in pack two, the question of whether or not to take it depends on the signals that you sent and received in pack one. (In addition, of course, to what other cards are in the pack along with the bomb).

Generally speaking, the earlier you can choose your colors the better off you'll be. However, like most things in Booster Draft, there's a lot to it.

35

Draft Walkthrough

As a culmination of the "Booster Draft" series, I'd like to walk through a complete booster draft. I'll explain how I used the concepts discussed in Level One to inform my decisions, and how I navigated toward a finished product.

Here are the previous articles in the "Booster Draft" series:

"The Basics of Booster Draft"

"Signals in Booster Draft"

"Booster Draft, Part 3"

I'll be using an actual draft that I played recently on Magic Online. It was the Top 8 of a large tournament called the Magic Online Championship Series, so the stakes were high and the competition was stiff.

PACK 1

Pyrotechnics is "premium removal" and would be a fine first pick. All things being equal, I'd take Pyrotechnics because taking a single-colored card over a multicolored card gives you more flexibility as the draft progresses. However, Dromoka, the Eternal is a bomb and is a tier above Pyrotechnics and anything else in the pack. It's a clear pick and a great start to the draft.

Despite the fact that Dromoka is not a black card, the fact that it's both white and green offers a tremendous incentive to draft Abzan. In Khans of Tarkir, Abzan is an excellent color combination, while there's little reason to stick to straight green-white and no reason at all to draft Bant (green-white-blue) or Naya (red-green-white). After first-picking Dromoka, second-picking a black card is nearly the same as second-picking a green or white card.

That said, Whisperer of the Wilds is an appealing choice as it's solidly in the "strong filler" tier. Sibsig Muckdraggers is not a bomb in terms of its mana efficiency, but it can sometimes approximate a bomb in the sense that it has an extremely large impact on the game and cannot be easily replaced with a different card later in the draft.

Card advantage and irreplaceability win out for this pick, and I take the powerful Sibsig Muckdraggers.

For pick three, I strongly consider Typhoid Rats, which is a solid defensive card for the early game. However, in Khans of Tarkir, particularly if you're open to drafting the "Multicolor Control" archetype, it's good to take early dual lands over any card that you won't desperately miss in your deck. Taking Bloodfell Caves here doesn't mean that I'm switching into red, I just want the flexibility to pick a red bomb like a Butcher of the Horde if I'm fortunate enough to see one later in the draft.

Again, I take a dual land over cards that I don't particularly need for my deck.

A "strong filler" card in Whisperer of the Wilds, and an early play that's good in control decks and aggressive decks alike.

Receiving a second Sibsig Muckdraggers so late is both a great addition to my deck and a very promising signal. The fact that the other seven drafters passed up on the Muckdraggers is a hint that they might not be interested in drafting slow, controlling decks involving black.

Just like choosing your colors in a booster draft, you want to be choosing an archetype. Archetypes have flexibility and its often okay to blur the lines of an archetype a little bit, but it is very important to have some end vision for the way your draft is going to go, and the way your deck is going to end up.

At this point in the draft, I'd settled into drafting one of my favorite archetypes: "Multicolor Control." The Multicolor Control deck is most often based in black and green, but can be three, four, or five colors as you please. The key to the archetype is to pick mana fixing early, so you can have the flexibility to pick up bombs in any colors if you see them later in the draft.

Other hallmarks of Multicolor Control include card advantage, lots of removal, and often a delve theme. I'd received some signals that Multicolor Control might be an open archetype because I got Sibsig Muckdraggers very late, and I was able to pick up a lot of dual lands in the first pack.

So I'm solidly in the Multicolor Control archetype where card drawing is very valuable. However, early defense is also important. Despite the fact that I take Enhanced Awareness, in retrospect I feel that Typhoid Rats would've been a better pick. Regardless, both cards are good for my deck at this point in the draft.

I'm hoping not to play any of these cards in my main deck, so I choose the one that I might sideboard in to answer an opposing bomb.

PACK 2

Abzan Ascendancy is at its best in a deck with lots of creatures. Nevertheless, it is a bomb and I take it here. This pick will cause me to put more emphasis on cheap creatures (particularly in black and green, which are shaping up to be my main colors), so that Abzan Ascendancy will have more synergy with my deck.

Duneblast is the perfect card for my deck! It's a bomb, and one of the absolute best bombs possible for a multicolor control deck.

Also note the signals received from the player on my left here. Duneblast and Suspension Field are both better than any common in Khans of Tarkir, and yet a common was missing from the pack. From this, I can infer (not with complete certainty, mind you), that the player to my left is not drafting white, and is probably not drafting both black and green, as otherwise he or she would've likely taken the Duneblast as a possible splash. This is good news for me!

At this point in the draft, I feel like I have my powerful late game locked up. I'll be prioritizing early defense and smooth mana. I'll also look for a little bit of card drawing to ensure that I can hit my land drops and bridge the gap to the late game.

Mardu Hateblade is far worse than Typhoid Rats for my deck because white might still wind up as a splash color, in which case I can't count on casting it on turn one or turn two. Highland Game or Glacial Stalker are reasonable options, as is Dismal Backwater. However, I go with Rakshasa's Secret because it provides card advantage and has great synergy with my two Sibsig Muckdraggers (or any expensive delve cards for that matter).

Dig Through Time is a borderline bomb, and fits perfectly in my deck. First, I'd been looking for a little bit of card drawing, and Dig Though Time is the best card-draw spell in the format! Second, my deck has a delve theme, and I'll be prioritizing cards like Rakshasa's Secret and Scout the Borders. The only concern here is that it costs two blue mana, and I'm not sure yet whether blue will be a main color or a splash color.

The specifics of what I've already drafted play a big role in this pick. Between Dromoka, the Eternal; Duneblast; Abzan Ascendancy; Dig Through Time; and two Sibsig Muckdraggers, I already have more than enough late game! I have no need for Riverwheel Aerialists or Shambling Attendants, despite the fact that they're normally decent cards for this archetype. Similarly, Enhanced Awareness and Dig Through Time are better (for my deck) than Treasure Cruise, and I don't need more of that effect. I take a dual land over cards that I hope not to play with anyway.

Under different circumstances, I might've jumped at Villainous Wealth, but I don't need more late game. I badly want Archers' Parapet, but I have little fixing for white mana and need the land more.

Since I have no red cards left, I take the "strong filler" morph creature over a red dual land.

Abzan Banner is not a strong card, but I don't mind playing one Banner in my Multicolor Control decks, especially with as many powerful late-game cards as I already have. Moreover, I need more mana fixing, particularly for white.

I need the land more than I need expensive cards, despite the fact that Rite of the Serpent and Sultai Scavenger would both be good cards for my deck.

PACK 3

Another bomb! I've been quite fortunate in the rares I've seen this draft.

Flying Crane Technique is a bomb, but fits well with neither my colors nor my strategy. Murderous Cut, as premium removal, is a clear pick.

My draft is going well for a number of reasons, but I'm still struggling in terms of early defense. Highland Game is the best card in this pack for prolonging the game and ensuring that I survive to cast my bombs.

At this point I'm definitely playing green, black, and white, probably with a bit of blue; I'm most likely not playing red. Two cheap removal spells in white are guaranteed to be a good additions to my deck.

Sultai Charm is a premium removal spell and finally locks me in on playing blue.

I'd jump at Wetland Sambar if it was a green creature, but since I might not have a ton of blue mana in my finished product, it might not be reliable as a two-drop. Rakshasa Vizier isn't exactly what I need, but is a very good card in a deck with delve.

I've given up on red, and just need to take the best defensive cards to round out my deck.

If these were nonred Banners I might be interested, but instead I take Cancel for my sideboard to bring in against a slow deck with bombs.

Mana considerations aside, Sultai Ascendancy is a better card than Scout the Borders. However, in the end I wind up deciding to restrict blue to a splash color, and Scout the Borders would've been a better pick.

Here's what the finished product looked like:

REIDERRABBIT—2ND PLACE, MOCS #7974043

DECKLIST STATS SAMPLE HAND +

SORT BY:

Overview

Color

Cost

Rarity

Creature (11)

2 Abomination of Gudul

1 Dromoka, the Eternal

1 High Sentinels of Arashin

1 Highland Game

1 Sage-Eye Harrier

1 Sibsig Host

2 Sibsig Muckdraggers

1 Sidisi's Pet

1 Whisperer of the Wilds

Sorcery (4)

1 Despise

1 Duneblast

1 Rakshasa's Secret

1 Scout the Borders

Instant (4)

1 Kill Shot

1 Murderous Cut

1 Smite the Monstrous

1 Sultai Charm

Artifact (1)

1 Abzan Banner

Enchantment (1)

1 Abzan Ascendancy

Land (19)

1 Dismal Backwater

5 Forest

1 Jungle Hollow

5 Plains

1 Scoured Barrens

4 Swamp

2 Thornwood Falls

40 Cards

Sideboard (22)

1 Forest 1 Swamp 1 Bloodfell Caves 1 Bloodfire Mentor 1 Cancel 1 Cranial Archive 1 Dig Through Time 1 Diplomacy of the Wastes 1 Enhanced Awareness 1 Grave Strength 3 Island 1 Jeskai Sage 1 Rakshasa Vizier 1 Shatter 1 Sultai Ascendancy 1 Temur Runemark 2 Tormenting Voice 2 Wind-Scarred Crag

This was a super high-power draft deck, able to make use of four rares and plenty of other late-game card advantage. Its weakness was a quick creature rush, as the mana curve was a bit too high and it only had three cards that cost less than three mana.

I decided to play a minimal amount of blue. My deck was powerful enough that I could count on having inevitability—so long as I could survive I would win the game with or without the blue cards. Because of this, mana consistency was my top priority and I simply wanted to minimize the number of things that could go wrong.

As it turned out, my draft would've turned out better if I'd immediately committed to Abzan and never looked back. However, much of the draft was devoted to staying open to opportunities, and it was largely coincidence that the rares I opened all fit into the Abzan colors instead of touching into red or blue.

I also fell victim to a very classic pitfall, which is that I didn't prioritize the key pieces of my deck. I picked expensive cards early, and found myself scrambling for early creatures at the end of the draft, often having to pass up more powerful cards in the process. A pick that illustrates this issue was pack 1 pick 2, where I took Sibsig Muckdraggers over Whisperer of the Wilds. I took the Muckdraggers because I viewed it as a powerful and irreplaceable card, but there's a strong argument for taking the cheaper card.

Every single deck wants premium two-drop creatures, but not every single deck wants a creature as expensive as Sibsig Muckdraggers. Moreover, I ended up with a deck that did make good use of Muckdraggers, but I also wound up with plenty of excellent other expensive cards! I viewed this as a very close pick. Given my uncertainty, perhaps it would've been wise to err on the side of the cheaper creature.

This was certainly a challenging draft with plenty of places where even experienced drafters might make different decisions. Two picks that I almost certainly made wrong were pack 1 pick 11, where I took Enhanced Awareness over Typhoid Rats, and pack 3 pick 12, where I took Sultai Ascendancy over Scout the Borders. If I'd had two more playable cards in the Abzan colors, I could've built a more rock-solid deck without the need to play a nineteenth land or to stretch for playables.

I played the deck to a 2–1 record, finishing in 2nd place to a good, aggressive RG deck (admittedly, this was my weakness). I found it to be quite an interesting draft, and I learned a lot from it. I hope you did as well!

36

Mulligans Part II: Limited

The topic of mulligans is impossibly deep and incredibly complex. Last time we discussed mulligans, the goal was to simplify the question and provide some guidelines to use whenever you’re unsure of what to do. In particular, I introduced the "Two to Five Lands Strategy."

Keep your hand if you have between two and five lands. Mulligan if you have zero, one, six, or seven lands.

Today, I’d like to delve into more advanced mulligan concepts. We’ll go over some of the important factors that should impact your mulligan decisions, and when they should lead you to deviate from the "Two to Five Lands Strategy." Today’s examples will come from Limited, and next time we discuss mulligans we’ll cover Constructed.

TWO IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

Whatever deck you’re playing, whether it’s Limited or Constructed, there are two questions that should always factor into your mulligan decisions. As with any complicated issue, these questions alone can’t tell you whether or not to mulligan, but they should always be considered as part of the big picture.

How Well Does Your Deck Mulligan?

Another way to say this is, simply, how much does it cost you to go down a card? For some decks, the cost will be tremendous, but others might be able to shrug it off.

The most important aspect of this question is the importance of card quantity. Card quantity (not to be confused with card quality) simply refers to the gross number of resources (in this case cards) that you have access to. Card quantity is very important to decks with high mana curves. If you want to cast Dragonlord Atarka, you’re going to need to draw her, you’re going to need to draw seven sources of mana, and you’re going to have to draw everything you need to fight and survive in the interim. If you mulligan to five, the numbers simply won’t add up—you won’t have enough cards!

Art by Raymond Swanland

Another example would be a deck that focuses on critical mass. Consider an example deck of twenty Mountains and forty Wild Slashes. The way you win is by pointing ten Wild Slashes at your opponent. (Naturally, this deck is fictional, but decks dedicated entirely to burning the opponent are very real). In a game where you draw three Mountains and ten Wild Slashes, you need a grand total of thirteen cards to win the game. You’ll accomplish this by turn six if you’re on the draw and you do not mulligan—not bad! However, for each mulligan you take, you’ll need one extra draw step (one extra turn) in order to get the number of cards you need to win. If you mulligan to five cards and draw five Mountains instead of three, now you’re not winning until turn ten on the draw, or turn eleven on the play. That’s not what you want at all!

Card quantity is very important to both the Dragonlord Atarka deck and the dedicated burn deck, so the costs of mulliganing are high. The opposite example would be decks with low mana curves, or with single cards capable of having an abnormally high impact on the game.

Let’s return to the Wild Slash deck, but now add to it eight one-drop creatures: four Zurgo Bellstrikers and four Firedrinker Satyrs. Let’s also say that if you cast one of these creatures on turn one, it’s likely to attack uncontested three times. That’s 6 damage, which is worth three Wild Slashes! Suddenly, the presence or absence of a one-drop creature in your opening hand becomes an important consideration, which might sometimes outweigh the issue of card quantity. If you get an unexciting hand without a creature (let’s say four Mountains and three Wild Slashes), you can feel more comfortable mulliganing. If your six-card hand has a one-drop creature, its impact on the game can make up for your disadvantage in terms of card quantity.

Another example would be a modern deck that plays with cards like Dark Confidant or Bitterblossom. Mulliganing down to six, or five, or four cards is incredibly costly. But if you stick one of these cards on turn two, the card advantage that they will provide can undo your initial disadvantage. A five-card hand with a Dark Confidant can often be better than a mediocre seven-card hand.

How Much Confidence Do You Have?

The second question is how necessary it is to take chances.

In Constructed, this will mostly be about how your deck matches up against your opponent’s deck. If the matchup is very favorable (let’s say you’re playing against Mono-red and you’ve sideboarded in four Drown in Sorrows and six lifegain cards), then you should be relatively less inclined to keep a risky hand. Your chances of winning are high, and they will probably remain high even if you mulligan to six.

In Limited, it will be mostly about the quality of your deck. If you’ve drafted a fantastic deck with lots of premium removal spells and four or five bomb rares, then you have an advantage over most of your opponents. There’s less need to keep a risky hand. On the flip side, if you’re very unhappy with your deck, and feel that its power level is low relative to your opponents, then you should be slightly more inclined to take a chance (let’s say keeping a two-land hand where you need to draw more lands).

If you’re on the draw and your opponent mulligans before you, you should be less inclined to keep a risky hand. (Although perhaps more inclined to keep a hand that’s slow, but safe). Your opponent can’t have their best draw, so you don’t need perfection in order to win—just something functional.

Finally, if you feel that the skill gap between you and your opponent is large, you can also factor that into your mulligan decision. It may seem heartless to judge someone else’s playing abilities, but in the end, Magic is a game about beating the player across from you. It’s a mistake to ignore the clues about what your opponent may or may not be capable of. So if your opponent is a new player or makes a long list of mistakes in game one, maybe you shouldn’t keep a risky hand in game two. You know you can outplay them in a fair game. On the flip side, if your opponent is a great player with a great deck, you might need something special in order to win.

Remember, though, that issues of ego and self-confidence can sometimes cloud your thinking on this question (no matter who you are). Something I see too often is that after a string of bad luck, a player will be more likely to keep bad hands instead of mulliganing. Either consciously or subconsciously, they begin to feel like they (or their deck) can’t do any better. Remember to always keep a level head when it comes to mulligan decisions, and not let the rush of emotions you can feel during a tournament make the decisions for you.

LIMITED: WHEN TO DEVIATE FROM THE "TWO TO FIVE LANDS STRATEGY"

We’ll begin with Limited (and save Constructed for next time), because mulligan decisions in Limited are more clear-cut. The games are slower in Limited, and mulligans are very costly. For the most part, you ought to be keeping most hands that are functional.

Mana Base

A question that applies much more to Limited than Constructed is that of your mana base. When the mana base in your deck is shaky, you have to be more careful about mulliganing. With bad mana, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to cast your spells if you mulligan to six cards. The consistency of your mana base falls on a spectrum. For simplicity's sake, let’s break Limited decks into three categories: decks with good mana, decks with normal mana, and decks with bad mana.

An example of a deck with good mana is one that’s mostly mono-white, splashing two red cards. It has twelve Plains, four Mountains, and a Wind-Scarred Crag. You don’t need to worry much about casting your spells, and have a little bit more freedom with your mulligans.

Art by Eytan Zana

An example of a deck with normal mana (leaning towards good) is a Blue-Black deck with nine Islands and nine Swamps. An example of a deck with normal mana (leaning towards bad) is a Blue-Black-Red deck splashing for a Dragonlord Kolaghan and a Roast. It has eight Islands, seven Swamps, and three Mountains. With these decks, you should use the normal mulligan guidelines. For the examples to follow, assume that your deck falls in this category.

An example of a deck with bad mana is a White-Green-Blue deck that’s equal parts three colors. It has six Plains, five Forests, five Islands, and an Evolving Wilds. Frequent readers of this column know that it’s important to avoid decks like this. Once in a while, though, a draft might go very poorly and you’ll be forced to make the best of a bad situation. With decks like these, it’s hard to mulligan a hand that has all your colors of mana, since you’re too likely to get a non-functional six-card hand.

When to Keep One-Landers and Six-Landers

You can strongly consider keeping one-landers and six-landers once you’ve already mulliganed. It’s hard to get a good hand in Limited when you’re down to five cards, so sometimes you’d rather just chance a risky six-card hand.

You should only consider keeping a six-land, seven-card hand under two circumstances: One is if your deck has very bad mana, but you have all of your colors. The second is if the one spell in your hand is something very, very special.

In order to keep a one-spell, seven-card hand, your spell needs to have an abnormally high impact on the game. It should be able to reliably trade for two or more of your opponent’s cards. It must also be cheap enough that you feel confident in casting it before it’s too late. Examples of this type of spell include Crux of Fate, Mastery of the Unseen, or Silumgar Assassin.

You should rarely keep one-land hands in Limited. Players are prone to the false logic of "if I draw my second land, I’ll be fine." The problem is that the mana curve of a Limited deck typically stretches up to six or seven. It’s rare that you’ll be able to operate at full capacity with only two or three lands. Plus, you’ll probably have to draw all of your colors before you can cast your spells!

In order to keep a one-land, seven-card hand, you’ll almost certainly need to be on the draw. You’ll need to have more than one card that costs one or two mana. Finally, you’ll have to be able to do something special with this hand, to justify the risk that you’re taking.

This hand is tempting, but you should mulligan on both the play and the draw. If you’re fortunate enough to draw your second land right away (about 50% in your first draw step, about 75% in your first two draw steps), you have two average two-drops to cast. The best these are likely to do is trade with your opponent’s creatures, and then you’re still stuck. You need to draw three lands (two of them Mountains!) before you can do much with this hand. The risk is high, and the reward is low.

This is a hand that you could strongly consider keeping on the draw. This time, you already have both your colors of mana, and you have more spells to cast early. Once you hit your second land, Jeskai Sage and Anticipate will help you get some momentum and draw more lands. You have card-advantage potential if you can either trade-off or exploit the Jeskai Sage, and you have a bomb to take over the game if you can survive a little while. With this hand, the rewards might be great enough to risk keeping on the draw.

When to Mulligan Hands with Two to Five Lands

In Limited, I advise keeping most hands that are functional, and most hands with between two and five lands can be considered functional. However, there absolutely are some circumstances where you should mulligan, even though your hand has both lands and spells.

Some two-land hands are not functional. For example, your hand could have two Mountains, with all green cards that cost 4 or more mana. That’s an easy mulligan; the risk is high and the reward is low (a hand where you cast nothing until turn four is not one or your best hands).

Fast Decks

A less-obvious issue arises when you’re playing a fast deck. Some decks with lots of cheap creatures are built to have an advantage in the early game. However, when they cannot press that advantage, they find themselves at a disadvantage in the late game due to their lack of powerful spells. In such a case, keeping a slow hand can be problematic, and you should be willing to mulligan slightly more.

If you’re playing an aggressive White-Red deck, you should mulligan a hand like this. If you keep, you’re not playing to the strengths of your deck. You’ll be behind by the time you reach the late game, and drawing a bunch of Dromoka Warriors and War Flares will not make it easy for you to claw back into the game.

Similarly, your standards should go up if you’re playing against a very fast, aggressive deck. Imagine that your deck is slow, and that your opponent ran over you on turn five in game one. Game two your hand is:

Although slow, this hand might be fine for a normal game. However, against a very aggressive deck, you’re likely to be in panic mode by the time you reach turn four. Even if you’re not dead, you won’t have the luxury to hold up mana for Contradict, and you’ll probably be forced into unfavorable blocks by the time you start casting creatures. You can consider mulliganing a hand like this against a very fast deck.

Notice also that all of your lands are Islands. It’s fairly likely that you’ll draw a Swamp by turn four, but the chance that you won’t can be a tiebreaker in favor of mulliganing a borderline hand. Furthermore, you’re taking away your chance to get lucky and draw a defensive black card that costs 2 or 3 mana. On the whole, not an ideal situation.

When You Need to Draw Both Lands and Spells

For the above hand to become good, you need to draw a Swamp, you need to draw more spells (preferably cheap ones), and you need to do it in a narrow time frame. This is a common problem, and it’s a good reason to mulligan a hand with between two and five lands.

Nobody likes to mulligan a hand with a good mix of lands and spells, but this hand is bad enough that you probably should. The first problem is that you need to draw one or more Forests in order to cast your green spells. The second problem is that you need to draw multiple creatures before you can use these spells to their full effect. It’s very hard to do both of those things at the same time! Sure, there are some sequences of draws that can turn this into a good hand, but there’s also too much that can go wrong. You can get color-hosed, you can get mana flooded, or you can simply have a slow, unexciting hand.

Yuck! Your deck is Red-Black with a small splash of blue. You have a premium three-drop that also combos nicely with your Ruthless Deathfang. However, this is a case where you already have too many lands, and yet you need to draw more before you can cast your spells. What can you really hope for? If you could teleport a Swamp and an Island to the top of your deck, you could cast the spells in your hand, but then you have seven lands and only two spells! You should mulligan this hand.

Mulligans are not an exact science, and every situation you face will be slightly different. That’s exactly why it’s important to understand the subtle factors that can influence your mulligan decisions. Nothing I can write will tell you with certainty what to do with your next opening hand, but I hope this has given you a few new things to think about when deciding whether to keep or mulligan in Limited.

Deck Construction

37

Building a Mana Base

A friend asks me, "Reid, what do you think of my new deck idea?" and shows me a list of cards.

"You only wrote down 36 cards," I say.

"Well, the rest are lands," my friend says.

"Which lands?" I respond.

This is a conversation I seem to have nearly every day of my life. The "friend" can take a variety faces, including players of every level of expertise. The fact is that building a mana base is the most neglected aspect of deck building. In reality, it should be the one you give the greatest amount of care.

It's impossible to see the real picture without understanding your mana base. Looking at my friend's list of 36 cards is like seeing a painting without a background, or reading a story without a setting. You cannot know what's possible and what's impossible before you have your mana base.

Building a mana base from scratch is a daunting process, but with the guidelines I'll give you today, you'll have a solid place to start from. Like everything else, the more you practice and the more attention you give to building your mana bases, the easier it will become.

If you're interested in a refresher course, you can find the "Basics of Mana" here. The mana base of a single-colored deck is often relatively straightforward. Today, the emphasis will be on decks of two or more colors. Let's start by establishing a frame of reference for how badly a given deck needs to draw each of its colors of mana.

THE SCALE OF COLORED MANA NECESSITY

These are the guidelines that I live by. Remember, they're just guidelines, not hard and fast rules. They're informed by my own long experience, as well as the opinions of other players and deck builders. In particular, I owe a special thanks to Hall of Famer Frank Karsten's writings on the topic.

These questions are different between Constructed and Limited for two reasons. The first and more obvious reason is Constructed decks are 60 cards and play with more lands than Limited decks, which are 40 cards. The second reason is that Constructed formats are faster and more powerful. Being unable to cast your spells on time is more costly and your standards for consistency should be higher.

1. I don't want lands in my deck that can't cast—this—card.

Once in a while, a card is printed that has such steep colored mana requirements that you have to build your entire mana base with it in mind.

Consider, for example, a black-green deck that wants to play with Phyrexian Obliterator or a five-color control deck that wants to play with Cruel Ultimatum. There's little sense in asking the question of "How much black mana do I want in order to play with Phyrexian Obliterator?" The wise answer is simply, "All of it."

If you play your seventh land, ready to cast your Cruel Ultimatum, and look down to find a basic Plains and a basic Forest in play, no matter what else might be going on, you cannot cast your spell on time. This is a situation you should do your best to avoid.

There are a few famous cases of decks with Nightveil Specter or Figure of Destiny also playing with Mutavault, a colorless land. This comes up only when both cards are so important to the deck that they simply cannot be passed up. Try to avoid situations like this, but when they do come up, just recognize the risk you're taking and make an educated decision.

Lands like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Twilight Mire can also complicate this question a little bit.

2. I don't want to keep an opening hand without—this—color of mana.

This is where a deck is entirely or almost entirely centered around a single color. You cannot operate at all if you don't draw this color of mana. A deck like this might have a color distribution that looks like this, where the full circle represents the entire deck (this is a tool you can look at for any deck on DailyMTG.com under the Stats header). You can see how this one is mostly green.

GAUDENIS VIDUGIRIS, AT PRO TOUR KHANS OF TARKIR

In Constructed, you'll want seventeen or eighteen sources of this color of mana. In Limited, you'll want eleven or twelve sources.

Note that if you want to see two sources of this color in your opening hand, you should aim for nineteen sources or more in Constructed.

3. This is a main color.

A main color is one that you're counting on seeing in every game. You hope to see it in your opening hand, but you're not necessarily compelled to mulligan if you don't. The color distribution might look something like this, as it did for Shaun McLaren's Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir deck.

SHAUN MCLAREN, TOP 8 AT PRO TOUR KHANS OF TARKIR

In Jeskai, for example, blue, red, and white are all main colors, but it's conceivable that you could keep a hand with only two colors of mana and at least be able to tread water for a few turns while you wait to draw your third.

In Constructed, you'll want fourteen to sixteen sources of this color of mana. In Limited, you'll want nine or ten.

When you're dealing with multiple colors that you really want to draw every game, you'll maximize your chances of drawing all of your colors by splitting your lands evenly among them. For this reason, if I build a green-white Limited deck, I'll most often simply play nine Plains and nine Forests. It's not uncommon to play ten of one and eight of the other, but it would take extreme circumstances for me to play, say, twelve Plains and only six Forests.

4. This is a secondary color.

A secondary color is one that you're planning on seeing, but it doesn't necessarily need to be right away. It's within the realm of possibility to win a game without ever drawing this color of mana. It might look a little something like this.

PEDRO CARVALHO, TOP 8 AT GRAND PRIX SANTIAGO 2014

This Temur deck features Savage Knuckleblade and Temur Charm as the only blue cards in the main deck. It can still function if it fails to draw blue mana, but Savage Knuckleblade is an important card that you hope to cast in a timely manner. Moreover, the sideboard features a healthy number of blue cards as well.

In Constructed, you'll want ten to thirteen sources of this color of mana. In Limited you'll want six or seven.

You may note that the featured decklist actually has fifteen lands that produce blue mana. It's always better to be safe than sorry, and if you can easily afford to exceed these guidelines it will only improve the consistency of your deck.

5. This is a splash color.

Splash colors come up often in Limited, but very rarely in Constructed. In Constructed, a color is either a part of your game plan (in which case you should play a lot of it) or it's not (in which case you should cut it entirely).

Some special cases where you might want to splash in Constructed include: an activated ability (such as one of Deathrite Shaman's two activated abilities); a sideboard card for a slow matchup; or a card that you've put in your deck with the intention to search for it (say with Chord of Calling), but would like the option to cast it in case you draw it. Let's use an example from Grand Prix Orlando.

SOL MALKA, TOP 8 AT GRAND PRIX ORLANDO 2014

Sol Malka's draft deck from the Top 8 of a recent Grand Prix does a good job illustrating splashes in a Limited deck. His deck is centered on black and green, but splashes into white and blue for one powerful rare each (Siege Rhino and Sagu Mauler). He has three sources each of white and blue, and except for one Plains, all come from nonbasic lands.

In Constructed, you'll want four to seven sources of this color. In Limited you'll want two to four.

THE COSTS OF ADDING COLORS

If you abide by the numbers above, your deck will run smoothly in a healthy portion of games. Remember, however, that there's variance in Magic and very few things are certain. Even when you follow my guidelines, the more colors you add to your deck, the more chances there are for something to go wrong. And, as I'll say every time we discuss mana, "The more things that can go wrong, the less often things will go exactly right." One cost of adding more colors to your deck is that you will get color hosed more often.

Beyond issues of consistency, lands that produce more than one color of mana often come with a drawback, or at least a set of pros and cons as compared to basic lands.

Enters the Battlefield Tapped

This is a phrase you ought to become very familiar with for the purposes of building mana bases. It's a very common drawback on lands that produce multiple colors of mana.

Without a doubt, entering the battlefield tapped is a drawback. Just how much of a drawback it is depends on the circumstances. To illustrate the point, think about the different ways it might impact gameplay. If you have a Dismal Backwater in your opening hand and have no spell to cast on turn one, then it hasn't negatively impacted you whatsoever! On the other hand, if you're facing down a lethal attack next turn with End Hostilities in your hand and you draw Sandsteppe Citadel as your fifth source of mana, then it's completely cost you the game!

In general, the costs of entering the battlefield tapped go up as the format becomes faster or more powerful. The costs go up as your deck becomes faster, and as you add more enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands to your deck. In other words, in a slow, black-green draft deck, Jungle Shrine has virtually no cost at all and you should play as many as you can get your hands on. In a super-aggressive Red-White Weenie deck in Standard, you'd hope to play with no lands that enter the battlefield tapped (or at least a very small number). The middle ground might be a slow Abzan deck in Standard, which can play eight tapped lands pretty comfortably (and ten or twelve a little uncomfortably).

Paying Life

Similarly, paying life for a land is a clear drawback, but exactly how much it impacts your chances to win a game is up for debate.

Aggro decks tend to have no problem paying life in exchange for mana consistency. This is especially important since enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands can be so disruptive to tempo strategies.

Slower decks certainly don't like to pay life, but they'll prefer it to getting color hosed. Also, there'll come a point where adding your fifteenth enters-the-battlefield-tapped land will indirectly cost you more life (by preventing you from casting your spells on time) than your first "pain land" will.

A small number of lands that force you to pay life is very manageable because you can use them if you're desperate, but you'll often have the luxury to use other lands instead.

Let's return to the example of the slow Abzan deck, where I really like to play about three copies of Llanowar Wastes. They're nice because they enter the battlefield untapped, allowing me to cast my spells on time, and they do produce two colors of mana, so they help me to not get color hosed. However, three is a small enough number that I'm not likely to draw multiples, and therefore don't have to lean too heavily on them. If I'm lucky, I might go the whole game only tapping them for colorless mana. Even when I do have to take a few points of damage, it'll mean casting my early spells when I need to, and then shifting in the later game toward using my other lands for black and green mana instead.

Making a Choice

It's important to draw a distinction between Bloodstained Mire and Bloodfell Caves, even though both can be considered lands that produce both black and red mana.

When you play a Bloodfell Caves, you have both black and red mana for the rest of the game; you're all set. When you play Bloodstained Mire, you have to make a choice between either a Swamp or a Mountain. In most games, this distinction won't matter. However, consider an opening hand like:

Forest

Bloodstained Mire

Rakshasa Deathdealer

Lightning Strike

Murderous Cut

Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Nissa, Worldwaker

Here, you'll have to make a weighty choice. Do you want to cast your Rakshasa Deathdealer or your Lightning Strike on turn two? What consequences will the decision have for the rest of the game?

In borderline scenarios, it's safest to treat your Bloodstained Mire as slightly less than a full source of each color. For the purposes of the above guidelines, perhaps you'd treat four Bloodstained Mires as three sources each of red and black mana. This isn't an exact science, but it's a factor to consider. It's one reason why Evolving Wilds is less appealing than a tri-land in your three-color deck. Furthermore, if your deck has Rakshasa Deathdealer, consider what it means to search for a Mountain early in the game, and whether or not this should be part of your primary game plan.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Now, for the sake of example, I'll play the role of that nameless friend, sending a deck idea with no mana base.

SAMPLE DECK, NO LANDS

What I've presented is not meant to be the best deck in Standard. It's not a deck at all until it has a mana base! What it will soon become might be a somewhat competitive deck, but remember that it's meant more for the purposes of example.

I've offered 32 cards above, which means there's room for plenty of lands, and perhaps some mana creatures like Elvish Mystic or Sylvan Caryatid as well.

First, let's consider the "scale of necessity." With what we have, I'd say that black, red, and green are all main colors. I don't automatically have to mulligan a hand that doesn't have all three sources (black and red mana with a Thoughtseize and a Lightning Strike can buy me a little bit of time). However, I'll probably wind up losing any game that I don't hit all three colors of mana. I should be in the range of fourteen to sixteen sources of each color. I should really be in the higher part of that range since I need two of each color of mana to cast my spells!

At this point, a good card to consider is Sylvan Caryatid. With expensive cards to ramp into and demanding colored-mana requirements, Caryatid is a great option. I'll count four Sylvan Caryatids as about two sources of each color of mana. However, I need to have a green-producing land before I can cast my Caryatid, so this addition will bump green up to being a color that I really want to see before keeping my opening hand. I'll aim for seventeen lands that produce green mana and at least fourtheen lands that produce red and black.

Next, let's consider the nature of the deck. This is a midrange deck that has an emphasis on pressuring the opponent's life total. It's not suicidally aggressive, but it does want to come out smoothly. I'd say that I can comfortably play about seven enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands (and uncomfortably play about nine). Unfortunately, in this color combination there's no tri-land.

4 Temple of Abandon

2 Temple of Malady

1 Temple of Malice

Next, let's look for lands that enter the battlefield untapped and produce multiple colors of mana.

4 Bloodstained Mire (I'll need at least two Swamps and two Mountains to go with this)

4 Llanowar Wastes

2 Mana Confluence

Playing more than two copies of Mana Confluence would mean taking a lot of damage, so I want to cut it off there. I always like to play one Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Adding the Mountains, Swamps, and the Urborg, and counting 4 Bloodstained Mire as three sources each of red and black, I have:

22 lands

12 sources of green mana

12 sources of red mana

15 sources of black mana

That's more than enough black, nearly enough red, but not even close to enough green. Let's backtrack and play two more, and slightly different, enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands.

4 Temple of Abandon

2 Temple of Malady

3 Rugged Highlands

Plus:

4 Bloodstained Mire

4 Llanowar Wastes

2 Mana Confluence

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

2 Mountain

2 Swamp

Gives:

24 lands

15 sources of green mana

14 sources of red mana

14 sources of black mana

Still not quite there. So I'm faced with two bad options. Either I can push my luck and accept that I'll get mana hosed in some games, or I can play with more copies of Mana Confluence and take a lot more damage than I can safely afford.

Let's consider a third option, which is to slightly reconfigure the deck. I'll swap the four Hero's Downfalls for a fourth Lightning Strike and three Murderous Cuts, and I'll cut the Rakshasa Deathdealers for two Elvish Mystics and two Boon Satyrs. Now black is only in the deck for three Thoughtseizes and a handful of late-game cards. There are no double-black spells anymore.

Black is now reduced to a secondary color. Counting the Sylvan Caryatids as two sources of black mana, eleven more should be enough.

4 Temple of Abandon

3 Rugged Highlands

2 Evolving Wilds

3 Bloodstained Mire

2 Forest

2 Mountain

1 Swamp

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Llanowar Wastes

2 Mana Confluence

Equals:

24 lands

17 sources of green mana

15 sources of red mana

12 sources of black mana

Now I have an adequate amount of green mana, and more than enough red and black. Whenever possible, I like to overshoot the minimums a little bit. Here's the finished product

SAMPLE DECK, LANDS INCLUDED

I cheated a little bit by counting my two Evolving Wilds as full sources of green mana, but at least now the deck should be functional, even if it's not perfect.

Most deck builders strive to make their lands fit with their spells, but this deck only became possible when I instead made the spells fit with the lands. This is why it's a mistake to build a deck without also building its mana base at the same time.

Always try to see the big picture. For a Magic deck, the mana base is one of the most important parts of that picture.

38

An Introduction to Popular Constructed Formats

Up to this point in Level One, we've discussed both Limited and Constructed, but have not yet delved into the differences between the various Constructed formats. The fact is that the game-play of different constructed formats can feel worlds apart, and each requires a different approach to be successful.

Art by Wesley Burt

THE VARIABLES

Before getting into the particulars of formats and cards, let's touch on what exactly makes Constructed formats different from one another.

Speed: On what turn can the fastest decks typically win the game? How much, and what type of early defense will you need to survive? How often do games drag on into the very late stages?

Power Level: Where is the bar for what you ought to be doing at each point in the game? How powerful are the creatures and spells of varying mana costs?

Balance: Do any decks, strategies, or cards stand out from the rest? If the answer is yes, what does it take to compete against the top dogs?

Diversity: Can you predict what you're likely to face when you enter a tournament? How many competitive decks are there? How much variation should you expect within each archetype?

Complexity: How challenging is the game play? This can affect your deck choice and other aspects of your tournament preparation.

This doesn't cover everything you need to know about a format, but these are among the most important questions to ask. In fact, many of these questions are closely related to one another, and are governed by the same overarching concept…

The Size of the Format: How many cards and sets are legal for play?

With very few exceptions, the larger the format, the more powerful and the faster it will be. It will usually also be more diverse and more challenging simply by virtue of allowing for more possibilities.

With an eye on these variables, let's discuss the most commonly played tournament Constructed formats.

STANDARD

Standard is by far the most played Constructed format. It's also the easiest starting point for a new player. As such, the vast majority of the examples that I choose for Level One come from Standard.

Standard is a rotating format, which means that it changes relatively often. For a technical and detailed explanation of the formats, refer to the various format pages. Put simply, cards released in the last two years are usually legal in Standard.

This is a relatively small card pool, which means that Standard has a relatively modest power level and is not terribly fast (it takes extreme circumstances for a game to end before turn 5).

With a smaller card pool, balance and diversity are not necessarily guaranteed. There are sometimes a small handful of cards that stand out in terms of power level, and it's often in your best interest to build your deck with these cards in mind.

The best cards are not always replaceable, and some decks will function much differently depending on the presence or absence of their key cards. For example, consider a Green Devotion deck that performs much better when it starts the game with Elvish Mystic, or a Sultai deck that really needs Satyr Wayfinder to fuel its graveyard.

These are some general concepts to be aware of in small formats. However, another hallmark of Standard is how often it changes, so it's important to stay open-minded and be ready to adapt.

Today's Standard is fairly balanced and fairly diverse, with strategies ranging from hyper-aggressive Mono-Red, to various builds of Abzan Midrange, to Blue-Black and Esper Control.

Below is an example of a Standard deck. It's a fast red-based aggressive deck that focuses on deploying a lot of creatures very quickly, and then unloading damage via Atarka's Command and Stoke the Flames.

MARTIN DANG'S RED AGGRO — PRO TOUR DRAGONS OF TARKIR

DECKLIST STATS SAMPLE HAND +

SORT BY:

Overview

Color

Cost

Rarity

Creature (15)

4 Foundry Street Denizen

1 Frenzied Goblin

2 Goblin Rabblemaster

1 Lightning Berserker

4 Monastery Swiftspear

3 Zurgo Bellstriker

Sorcery (8)

4 Dragon Fodder

4 Hordeling Outburst

Instant (17)

4 Atarka's Command

1 Become Immense

4 Lightning Strike

4 Stoke the Flames

4 Wild Slash

Land (20)

1 Forest

4 Mana Confluence

10 Mountain

1 Temple of Abandon

4 Wooded Foothills

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

2 Goblin Rabblemaster 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel 1 Goblin Heelcutter 1 Destructive Revelry 2 Hall of Triumph 4 Roast 1 Scouring Sands

BLOCK CONSTRUCTED

The only commonly-played Constructed format with a smaller card pool than Standard is Block Constructed. The chance of certain cards standing out in power level and being difficult to replace becomes even more likely.

For example, in Theros Block Constructed, Sylvan Caryatid; Courser of Kruphix; and Elspeth, Sun's Champion were staggeringly powerful. You would've wanted a very special reason to do anything other than play with these cards, or play a strategy that was effective at beating these cards.

MODERN

Modern is a non-rotating format. Sets that are newly released become legal in Modern, but they do not push older sets out. Sets from Mirrodin and Eighth Edition (released in 2003) to the present are legal, and will always be legal in Modern.

However, Modern also features a banned list, which is a collection of specially chosen cards that, despite being from Modern legal sets, are not legal to play with. These cards are usually chosen because they're too powerful, but a card can be banned for other reasons as well.

Historically, the Modern banned list has been adjusted about once per year, and has caused some of the most impactful changes to the format.

Despite the banned list, Modern has a card pool many times the size of Standard's. As you might expect, decks in Modern are much more powerful and can be much faster. There are many, many strategies that can win on turn four against an unprepared opponent.

Art by Todd Lockwood

Another hallmark of Modern is its diversity. Modern enthusiasts could probably produce a list of 50 or more competitive decks, with plenty of variation possible within each one! (Although they aren't necessarily all equally strong).

In a format as fast, powerful, and unpredictable as Modern, it becomes valuable to focus on a proactive strategy. A reactive strategy would struggle because there are too many decks attacking from too many different angles, you can't be prepared to shut them all down at the same time. Instead, it's better to focus on enacting a powerful game plan of your own and know that if you can succeed in doing so, you can win in spite of most things your opponent might throw at you.

Below is an example of a Modern deck. It's a blue-red deck with some reactive cards that give it the ability to loosely control, or at least slow down, the game. Importantly, though, it packs a big punch with the game-winning combo of Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin. If the opponent leaves an opening, this deck can cast Deceiver Exarch at the end of the turn, untap, and then enchant it with Splinter Twin. Deceiver Exarch then taps to make a copy of itself, which untaps the original Exarch and repeats the process. In this way, this deck is capable of making an unlimited number of tokens with haste, and killing an opponent from any life total at a moment's notice!

ANOTNIO DEL MORAL LEÓN'S BLUE-RED SPLINTER TWIN

DECKLIST STATS SAMPLE HAND +

SORT BY:

Overview

Color

Cost

Rarity

Creature (11)

3 Snapcaster Mage

2 Vendilion Clique

4 Deceiver Exarch

2 Pestermite

Sorcery (5)

1 Flame Slash

4 Serum Visions

Instant (16)

1 Peek

1 Dispel

2 Electrolyze

2 Spell Snare

2 Cryptic Command

4 Remand

4 Lightning Bolt

Enchantment (4)

4 Splinter Twin

Land (24)

4 Misty Rainforest

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Sulfur Falls

1 Stomping Ground

3 Steam Vents

1 Desolate Lighthouse

1 Tectonic Edge

1 Mountain

5 Island

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Dispel 1 Flame Slash 2 Keranos, God of Storms 2 Blood Moon 2 Spellskite 1 Negate 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Pyroclasm 1 Threads of Disloyalty 1 Jace, Architect of Thought 1 Shatterstorm 1 Anger of the Gods

LEGACY

Legacy is an Eternal format, which means that all sets from the entire history of Magic are legal. Like Modern, Legacy features a somewhat extensive banned list of cards deemed too powerful to be allowed.

A staggeringly large card pool defines Legacy. There are thousands of extremely powerful cards that can be combined in countless ways. For any effect you might be looking for, there are likely to be a huge number of options at your disposal.

Consider that in Standard, if you wanted a spell that cost one mana and dealt damage directly to your opponent, you wouldn't have many options beyond Wild Slash, Spark Jolt, and Collateral Damage. In Legacy, just to name a few, you'd have: Burst Lightning, Chain Lightning, Firebolt, Galvanic Blast, Lava Dart, Lava Spike, Lightning Bolt, Pillar of Flame, Rift Bolt, Seal of Fire, Shard Volley, Shock, Tarfire, and Assault & Battery in addition to everything legal in Standard!

When I play Legacy, even as a Magic player of 20 years, I still encounter cards that I've never seen before! The enormous card pool makes Legacy fast and powerful. The incalculable number of situations you might face make it unpredictable, diverse, and challenging.

Legacy has two defining cards that deserve special mention in any overview of the format.

Much of what's possible in Legacy is also possible in Modern, but one main difference between the two formats is the excellent library manipulation available in Legacy. Cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain serve to: (A) increase the consistency of blue decks (this is particularly important for combination decks), and (B) to multiply your in-game options exponentially. When you play with Brainstorms, you see a larger portion of your deck than you otherwise would in each game. You also have more flexibility and control over your draws.

The other defining card in Legacy is Force of Will. It might even be worthwhile to expand our scope and talk about all "free" spells.

Where the presence of library manipulation multiplies your own in-game options, the presence of free spells multiplies the number of actions that your opponent might take against you at any given time. The combination of these two factors make Legacy's game play much more complicated and challenging than smaller formats.

Additionally, free spells—and free counterspells especially—increase the efficiency and speed (they increase the speed in some ways but not others) of the format. They make it difficult to play with expensive spells, and force Legacy decks to be sleek, simple, and low-to-the-ground.

Below is an example of a Legacy deck. It's a white-blue dedicated control deck that plays with a lot of library manipulation (Brainstorm, Ponder, and Sensei's Divining Top) in order to utilize Counterbalance and cards with the miracle ability.

YUTA TAKAHASHI'S WHITE-BLUE MIRACLES

DECKLIST STATS SAMPLE HAND +

SORT BY:

Overview

Color

Cost

Rarity

Planeswalker (3)

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Creature (3)

2 Vendilion Clique

1 Venser, Shaper Savant

Sorcery (8)

3 Terminus

3 Ponder

2 Entreat the Angels

Instant (16)

4 Brainstorm

3 Swords to Plowshares

1 Pyroblast

2 Counterspell

4 Force of Will

2 Dig Through Time

Artifact (4)

4 Sensei's Divining Top

Enchantment (4)

4 Counterbalance

Land (22)

4 Island

1 Plains

2 Tundra

2 Volcanic Island

4 Flooded Strand

2 Misty Rainforest

2 Scalding Tarn

1 Polluted Delta

2 Karakas

2 Wasteland

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Venser, Shaper Savant 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Pyroblast 2 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Wear // Tear 2 Flusterstorm 2 Red Elemental Blast 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Pyroclasm 1 Rest in Peace 1 Blood Moon

VINTAGE

Vintage is not played at the Grand Prix or Pro Tour level, in part because the best decks card cards that are difficult to obtain for many players. Like Legacy, Vintage is an Eternal format. However, where Legacy has an extensive banned list, in Vintage, no cards are banned for power level reasons. (Some cards are banned for other reasons, and some cards are restricted to a maximum of one copy).

Vintage is as close to "anything goes" as you can find. The decks are outrageously powerful, with wins on the second—or even the first turn—being quite possible!

What Vintage has that Legacy does not is fast artifact mana (like Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire, and many others), and extremely powerful card drawing (like Ancestral Recall and Wheel of Fortune).

Like Legacy, Vintage is very challenging. It can be difficult to dive straight into the Eternal formats, so I recommend trying Modern first in order to bridge the gap between Standard and Legacy or Vintage. However, once they get there, many players fall in love with Legacy and Vintage because they're such deep, interesting, and rewarding formats to play.

All Magic formats are a ton of fun, and worthwhile to try out at least a couple of times. In fact, the best way to become a complete player is to cross-train in as many different formats as possible. Playing Modern or Legacy might teach you lessons that you can use to improve your game in Standard or Block Constructed.

Variety is the spice of life. Part of what makes Magic such a great game is the limitless possibilities available to its players. Try some of them!

39

The Sideboard

It's easy to explain, even to someone unfamiliar with the game, that a Magic deck consists of 60 cards, with a limit of no more than four copies of any particular card (except for basic lands, of course). It's a bit more challenging to teach them about the extra fifteen cards that come along with—yet are not part of—the deck. Harder still is the task of conveying just how important those cards are, and how vital it is to choose them carefully.

Tournament matches are typically determined by a best-two-out-of-three set of games. For the first game, both players play with their main decks—their primary 60 cards that will be the same for the start of every match. After Game 1, the players have the option to swap in any number of the fifteen cards from their sideboard in an effort to tailor their deck toward winning the next game.

Technically speaking, it's legal to play with a deck of more than 60 cards, but at all times your deck must be at least 60 cards and your sideboard must be at most fifteen cards. (Except in Limited. For a discussion of sideboarding in Limited, see this article.)

Sideboards win tournaments. Because your sideboard cards can be more specialized—pinpoint focused for a certain task or matchup—they're often your most powerful tools. Sometimes, sideboarding can be the most important factor in determining how two decks will match up against one another. Building and using your sideboard well will be crucial to your tournament success.

Let's go over a few of the useful things your sideboard can do for you.

ANSWERING PROBLEMS

You sideboard with the goal of making your deck better suited for a matchup. What simpler way is there to accomplish that goal than to bring in the perfect answers for your opponent's threats?

A classic example of a sideboard card is one that destroys artifacts and/or enchantments. Except in extreme circumstances, players choose not to main deck cards like Smash to Smithereens out of fear those cards will be dead—useless—against certain opponents. However, it's nice to have access to Smash to Smithereens in your sideboard for when you face a deck that's particularly reliant on artifacts—like the one featured toward the end of this article.

Similarly, if your opponent has lots of enchantments, you might want to sideboard in more answers to enchantments. If your opponent is trying to win via a swarm of cheap creatures, you might want a board sweeper like Languish. If he or she has a particularly devastating spell, perhaps Negate is your best bet.

Your sideboard lets you find the perfect tool for any job. Playing Game 1 ought to show you exactly what "the job" is in the case at hand.

ADDING THREATS

On the flip side, you can also use your sideboard to find a new threat that your opponent will (hopefully) struggle with. You might go about this in a number of different ways.

First, you might simply add more threats in an attempt to overload your opponent's answers. Imagine, for example, that you face a control deck that features very few creatures. During sideboarding, you get to take out some of your ineffective creature removal and increase your concentration of threats, which ought to be tremendously helpful.

Alternatively, you might just make some upgrades to your existing threats. Against a deck with board sweepers, a creature like Hangarback Walker can give you a bit more resilience. A Goblins deck might be interested in Subterranean Scout against a deck full of annoying blockers. Sideboarding is about perfecting your deck for the matchup, and a few minor upgrades can be a big part of that.

Most often, though, you'll sideboard with the goal of diversifying your threats. It's all about sticking a threat that your opponent cannot effectively answer. And the more angles you can attack from, the better chance you have of doing so. One exciting new sideboard card for red decks is Molten Vortex. Control decks will try to shut you down by killing off your creatures and countering your burn spells. That said, there's not a lot they can do to overcome the slow bleed from a Molten Vortex in a protracted game.

In general, look for planeswalkers and other noncreature threats as excellent sideboard cards against slow decks.

HATE CARDS

Answering problems and adding threats are examples of versatile ways to use your sideboard slots. Over the course of a long tournament, you're likely to turn to these cards often, as they'll serve as minor upgr ades in a lot of matchups. However, another approach is to look for hate cards—single cards that are extremely effective at beating (hating out) a particular deck, color, or strategy.

With Orbs of Warding, for example, decks heavy with burn spells will hardly be able to touch you. Gaea's Revenge is a nightmare for blue control decks hoping to sit back on permission spells and removal. Tragic Arrogance can utterly demolish a creature ramp deck like Green Devotion.

A rule of thumb is that the more extreme a strategy is, the easier it will be to sideboard against. You can hamstring a small creature deck with a cheap board sweeper like Languish. You can shut down a combination deck by knocking out one of their pieces before they can properly set things up.

Any time you find yourself with extra space in your sideboard, identifying and playing with hate cards against a popular deck is a great way to improve your chances in a tournament. You might not use them quite as often as your versatile sideboard cards, but sometimes they can swing a matchup in your favor at the low cost of only a sideboard slot or two.

TRANSFORM SIDEBOARDS

The most interesting thing about sideboarding is that it's done in secret. Most of the time, your opponent won't even know what cards are in your sideboard, let alone which ones you'll choose to bring in for Game 2! This means that every once in a while you'll have the chance to take an opponent by surprise, employing a strategy he or she hadn't expected or prepared for.

A simple example would be a control deck with very few creatures in the main deck. If your opponent sideboards out a lot of his or her creature removal while you sideboard in a number of threatening creatures like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Hangarback Walker, you might be able to steal an easy win.

On the other hand, a seemingly aggressive Jeskai deck might transform into a more controlling deck by sideboarding in End Hostilities, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and Dig Through Time. An opponent who goes overboard with creature removal and life gain can be easily outdone in the late game.

Transform sideboards can be fun and impressive when they work out, but I recommend turning to them only as a hail mary when nothing else is working. After all, sideboarding should be about perfecting your deck, not about clumsily trying to employ two conflicting strategies at the same time.

HOW TO BUILD YOUR SIDEBOARD

Building your sideboard is a task that's as challenging and as important as building your main deck. From my experience, though, it's typically given only a small fraction of the attention it deserves.

The Elephant Method

It can be quite difficult to hone in on the perfect fifteen cards. One way to start the process is to employ the elephant method. Legendary deck builder and Pro Tour Hall of Famer Zvi Mowshowitz explains the elephant method as:

"Writing out ideal realistic lists for all matchups and then trying to make the unique cards in those lists add up to 75 cards before deciding on the specific 60 for the main deck and the specific fifteen for the sideboard."

When you employ the elephant method, you're thinking of your deck as a complete 75-card unit. First, you consider what you'd like your deck to look like after sideboarding in each of the matchups you expect to face. Next, you make sure you have the proper number of cards to bring in and take out in each matchup. Finally, you construct your deck and sideboard accordingly. In short, you look at the big picture, and your sideboard is as important to the big picture as your main deck is.

Don't Over-Sideboard

One common pitfall to avoid is over-sideboarding. It's dangerous to bring in so many sideboard cards that you compromise the original game plan of your deck. In sideboarding, continue to pay close attention to your creature count, your mana curve, and the other important details of your deck's composition.

For example, if you're playing an aggro deck, you might encounter a problem if you swap out six creatures for six answer cards. You're liable to lose too much of the aggressive potential that made you choose the deck in the first place!

Similarly, if you're playing a control deck against a fast aggro deck, you might be unimpressed by a card-drawing spell like Read the Bones, especially since it causes you to lose life. To be sure, Read the Bones is not one of your "best cards" in the matchup, but you do need to maintain a certain density of powerful late-game cards, or else you might no longer be able to win! Many times, I've made the mistake of sideboarding in too many cheap removal spells, only to find myself suffering from mana flood and losing the long games that my deck had been originally designed to win. It's possible that Read the Bones is so important to the overall structure of your deck that you should leave it in, even against an opponent who's attacking your life total.

An Example

Let's take a look at how reigning the Player of the Year, Mike Sigrist, approaches sideboarding. He placed second at Pro Tour Magic Origins with an exciting Blue-Red Ensoul Artifact deck.

MIKE SIGRIST'S BLUE-RED ENSOUL ARTIFACT

The first thing to recognize is that Mr. Sigrist's deck had a very specific and focused game plan, so the risk of over-sideboarding was especially large. If he was to take out too many cheap artifacts, his Ensoul Artifacts would lose their effectiveness. If he shifted gears and became too defensive, he wouldn't be able to get his opponents into range of his Shrapnel Blasts.

So Mike's sideboard consisted mostly of cards that answered his problems. Roast is excellent against green creature decks featuring Courser of Kruphix, Siege Rhino, or Whisperwood Elemental. Seismic Rupture offers defense against creature swarms, and might even be considered a hate card against mono-red. Disdainful Stroke is effective against any slower decks that rely on expensive spells.

Important to note is that when Mike would bring in these cards, they would either be upgrades for the reactive cards in his main deck (Stubborn Denial or Collateral Damage), or he would only make small adjustments here or there. A top priority was always to maintain the structure and mana curve of his deck, and make sure that he could still function at maximum efficiency after sideboarding.

His final three slots were Thopter Spy Networks, which served as a way to diversify and upgrade his threats in matchups where he needed a little extra late game power. Decks like Abzan Control and Blue-Black Control would seek to defend, slow down the game, and grind small advantages. Thopter Spy Network would make this plan look silly by ensuring that Sigrist's opponents would be buried under a mountain of card advantage.

Practice with Sideboards

Sometimes the way two decks match up after sideboarding has virtually no resemblance to the way they match up in Game 1. When this is the case, you want to know about it ahead of time instead of facing a trial by fire in the actual tournament.

Like most things in Magic, there's no secret recipe to building a perfect sideboard. The key is simply to give it the attention it deserves rather than throwing it together the morning of the tournament. Personally, in the late stages of my tournament preparation, I like to be playing virtually all of my practice games with sideboards. In preparing for a tournament, if you aren't playing any sideboarded games, or are doing so only as an afterthought, I recommend rethinking your process to give your sideboard some extra emphasis. A little bit of work on your sideboard will pay off in a big way.

40

Sideboard Plans

Always go in with a plan. Magic will go better for you if you have a blueprint in your mind for how you're going to win the game; how you're going to beat your opponent's strategy; and, as we'll discuss today, how to best sideboard to do so. At the end, I'll preview a handful of potential new sideboard cards that will be printed in Dragons of Tarkir.

For a refresher on sideboarding, see "The Sideboard."

WHY HAVE A SET PLAN?

The topic of sideboard plans is actually a rather controversial one. Many of my colleagues recommend against having firm sideboard plans, instead emphasizing improvisation and flexibility. In my opinion, this advice does more harm than good.

It's never good to limit your options, and indeed, there will come times when you should deviate from your original sideboarding plan. However, creating a sideboard plan is a way to unify your deck construction with your in-match decisions and to ensure that they serve one another as well as possible. Your card choices are made based on what you intend to do during sideboarding, and what you do during sideboarding fits with your card choices.

Put a different way, having a sideboard plan means seeing the big picture, instead of focusing on questions one at a time, independent from one another.

It's easy to make mistakes when you don't think about your sideboard plans ahead of time. Let's say you're playing a black deck, and you decide to put three Pharika's Cures and three Bile Blights in your sideboard, because these cards are good against aggressive red decks. In Round 2 of the tournament, you find yourself sideboarding against an aggressive red deck and realize that your deck simply has too much removal. Now you either have to leave some of your Cures and Blights on the sidelines, or else start cutting your main-deck cards that were good for the matchup anyway! This inconvenience could've been easily avoided!

What could also happen, and is even worse, is that you might wind up compounding your deck-building mistake by mis-sideboarding in the tournament. Perhaps you make the obvious decision to trim some of your Read the Bones and your expensive cards for the Pharika's Cures and Bile Blights against your aggressive red opponent. But now you've lost the late-game power that was the original strength of your deck. You kill your opponent's first flurry of creatures only to find yourself flooding out and losing a long game. Because you weren't thoughtful enough about your sideboarding, you wound up losing a match that you might've otherwise won!

HOW MANY CARDS WILL YOU BRING IN AND TAKE OUT?

The above example highlights the biggest risk of not planning your sideboarding ahead of time. This is the risk that you won't have the same number of cards to sideboard out as the number of cards you have to sideboard in.

For each matchup, it's helpful to go through your main deck and count the number of cards that are dispensable and that you're unhappy with. This is a good target for how many sideboard cards you ought to have for the matchup. To return to the example of the black deck against the red deck, you might go through your main deck and decide that you can afford to trim one expensive card and two Read the Bones (leaving two to maintain your strength in the late game). Now you know that three cheap removal spells is an ideal number to have in your sideboard.

Next, you go through and count the number of removal spells that you want to sideboard out against a creature-light control deck. You'll want to cut six removal spells (leaving three Hero's Downfalls to kill Planeswalkers and as insurance against a surprise creature off the opponent's sideboard). Now you know that you need to find six non-removal sideboard cards so you don't have any dead weight when you play against a control deck.

If you do this preliminary planning in advance of the tournament, you'll have a better-tuned deck, and you'll make fewer mistakes during sideboarding.

SIDEBOARD FOR THE MATCHUP, NOT FOR THE CARD

You enter your weekly local tournament with a white deck. Playing against a red deck, the game drags out and your opponent casts Outpost Siege, naming Khans. Turn after turn goes by and, despite your high level of confidence in your deck, you simply can't beat the long-run card advantage that Outpost Siege offers your opponent.

The next week, you come prepared. You make room for four Erases in your sideboard to make sure that you don't have a repeat loss to the Outpost Siege. In the finals, you sit down against the same opponent playing the same red deck as last week. And…

Do you really want to bring in those four Erases?

Yes, Erase is a perfect answer to Outpost Siege; it's cheap, efficient, and reliable. But Erase is not a good card against your opponent's mono-red deck. She has no enchantments other than Outpost Siege, and you don't even know how many of those she has! It might be only one or two. Moreover, her deck is quite fast and you need every piece of early defense you can get your hands on. If you draw dead cards in your opening hand, it's likely to cost you the game.

You might not want to bring in Erase at all, and certainly not four copies!

Again, this dilemma could've been avoided if you'd been looking at the big picture.

When you add cards to your sideboard, you should do so with matchups in mind, not particular cards in mind. Perhaps Erase is a good card against this particular mono-red deck, but that would only follow from logic along the lines of: "This matchup is very favorable for me in the absence of Outpost Siege, so it's worthwhile to sideboard a narrow answer card because it prevents one of main ways I can lose." Such specific and thoughtful analysis of the matchup is great, and it might lead you to play with one or more copies of Erase in your sideboard. However, it's important to do so for the right reasons, and to understand the consequences of your decisions.

WHEN TO BE FLEXIBLE

As I mentioned, there are many players who argue against definitive sideboard plans. While I do believe that they're generally misguided, there is truth at the center of their argument, and there's most certainly value to be taken from it.

I advise creating firm sideboard plans, either in your head or on paper. (You are allowed to reference notes in between games in a tournament.) This will help you to make the best possible card choices for your deck, and will give you something reliable to fall back on.

However, if you're comfortable doing so, you should be ready to deviate from your original sideboarding plan when the situation calls for it. Tournament Magic requires quick thinking and the ability to adapt, and if you become too rigid and formulaic, it can sometimes hurt your chances.

IS YOUR OPPONENT'S DECK ABNORMAL?

Depending on your level of preparation, you'll probably develop sideboarding plans against the top four, five, or maybe even the top ten archetypes that you expect to face. You won't have a plan for the fifty variations of these popular decks that are out there. You won't have a plan for the new creations that some of your opponents will bring from home. It's simply impossible to prepare for all of the millions upon millions of different combinations of cards that someone might bring to a tournament!

In other words, you'll have your sideboard plans for the most common versions of the most common decks, but you'll inevitably be forced to adapt to small variations on these decks. You have your sideboard plan against a traditional mono-red deck, but what if the opponent you face happens to be splashing white for Chained to the Rocks? Does this change the value of your enchantment removal? Does it change the value of your big creatures like Arbor Colossus?

IS YOUR OPPONENT'S SIDEBOARD STRATEGY ABNORMAL?

Always reevaluate your sideboarding between Games 2 and 3. Let's return to a previous example, but this time look at it from the opposite perspective. You're playing mono-red, and normally your best card against mono-white is Outpost Siege. However, the opponent you're sitting across from at this particular moment is special. In the last game, you cast turn-four Outpost Siege, it got Erased, you cast turn-five Outpost Siege, it got Erased, you cast turn-six Outpost Siege, and it got Erased! You might have to formulate a new plan!

Well, you only have three enchantments in your entire deck, and your opponent has demonstrated the willingness to sideboard in three or more dedicated enchantment-removal spells. Instead of fighting this losing battle, what if you sidestep it? You can sideboard out your three Outpost Sieges and leave your opponent with dead cards. Perhaps winning the old-fashioned way is your best chance of beating this opponent.

IS YOUR OPPONENT PLAYING IN AN ABNORMAL WAY?

Is your opponent using cards differently than the way you're used to, and does this change the value of anything in the matchup?

Some Magic players are extremely aggressive while others are quite conservative. Perhaps you're playing a control deck with End Hostilities, but your opponent has demonstrated he or she is going to be careful and never play out a second creature onto the battlefield. Against this opponent, it could be the case that a simple spot-removal spell like Murderous Cut is better than End Hostilities.

On the other hand, if your opponent is very aggressive, and you can count on your opponent always playing the most powerful spell at the first opportunity, this might be an opponent you can use permission spells to good effect against. If your opponent always plays Stormbreath Dragon on turn five regardless of the circumstances, then you know exactly when you leave mana open for your Disdainful Stroke.

At this point, we're beginning to get into some rather advanced techniques. If this seems beyond your skill level right now, that's completely okay. Just put it on the shelf as something you might work toward in the future.

MIND GAMES AND GUESSING GAMES

You can also look for opportunities to trick your opponents, or to keep them guessing. Sometimes there's a lot of value in just being unpredictable. Keep your End Hostilities in for Game 2, but sideboard them out for Game 3. This way, your opponent might play conservatively and hold back creatures. You can get value from the mere threat of the card without actually devoting any slots in your deck!

COLOR-HATE CARDS

We already have some color-hate cards in Standard.

These cards are great at what they do and are made even better by Tarkir block's emphasis on multicolor cards. Yes, you can Glare of Heresy an Elspeth, Sun's Champion, but you can also Glare of Heresy a Siege Rhino, a Jeskai Ascendancy, or a Zurgo Helmsmasher!

The overlap of multicolor cards dramatically increases the value of these color-hate cards. I believe that today's preview cards will perform even better in practice than they look on paper. (And they already look quite good on paper!)

Surge of Righteousness is instant speed, which makes it a particularly great answer to the haste creatures that are so popular in the color red.

I think there's a tendency to look at something like "gain 2 life" as simply a small bonus tacked onto the effect of a card. In reality it's much, much, much more than that. Games of Magic are decided on thin margins, and these little advantages are what add up to determine a game. Without the 2 life, Surge of Righteousness would be a mediocre card, but with the 2 life it's really fantastic!

The same is true of Self-Inflicted Wound and the 2 points of life loss it inflicts on the opponent.

There's no shortage of good black removal in Standard, but there is a shortage of good black removal that costs less than three mana. Since the most dangerous weenie creatures in Standard are white and green, Self-Inflicted Wound will be a valuable sideboard tool, if not a main-deck consideration! Think of Warden of the First Tree, Rakshasa Deathdealer, Seeker of the Way, Soulfire Grandmaster, Sylvan Caryatid, and plenty more!

What makes me most excited about Self-Inflicted Wound is its ability to answer a monstrous Fleecemane Lion, which is a card that gives slow, removal-heavy decks nightmares.

While not as flashy as the above two cards, Encase in Ice is special because blue has very few effective removal options. In a deck that might not have access to black removal, Encase in Ice is likely to be very important.

What's more, Encase is a way to stop a creature without sending it to the graveyard, which is invaluable against the annoying Ashcloud Phoenix and Flamewake Phoenix.

Last but not least, we have Display of Dominance, which is green's way of putting the kibosh on black-and-blue controlling decks. The most common use will be saving your creatures from removal, but the real value of the card is in its flexibility.

Green Devotion, as a deck with tons of creatures and few ways to destroy permanents, is very weak against Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. Display of Dominance gives the deck a card that's generally useful but destroys Ashiok whenever you need it to!

Other great targets for Display of Dominance include Whip of Erebos and Kiora, the Crashing Wave.

As for the red version of this cycle? That's being previewed elsewhere later this week, so stay tuned...

What we didn't touch on is the strength of these color-hate cards in Limited. I can't say for sure without knowing more about Dragons of Tarkir, but I expect them to be high picks in Booster Draft, and perhaps to be considerations for main deck!

Pick them in Booster Draft, consider them for your Constructed sideboard. The key, as always, is to be thoughtful and consider your options ahead of time. It's always better to look at the big picture instead of muddling through your decisions one question at a time.

Art by Mathias Kollros

41

Choosing Your Deck

As a Magic: The Gathering columnist, what do you think is the question I'm asked more often than any others?

What deck should I play next weekend?

And just as often as I'm asked, I'm left wishing that I could offer some kind of simple and helpful answer.

The fact is that choosing a deck is a very complicated and challenging issue. It's the one that we Magic players agonize over the most—the one that keeps us awake at night. Although we certainly won't find an easy answer, let's explore the question of how to choose your deck for a Magic tournament.

COPYING DECKS AND BUILDING YOUR OWN DECKS

Among certain groups, there can be a bit of a stigma against "netdecking" (copying your decklist from the internet). Among a small circle of friends, it's okay to establish whatever play guidelines you like. However, once you venture into the world of tournament Magic, netdecking is the norm and you should be prepared to face, if not embrace, it. If anything, building your own deck from scratch can be considered admirable, but netdecking should not be looked down upon.

There are many advantages to copying a tournament-winning decklist. Perhaps most obviously, you're guaranteed to be playing a deck that's tried-and-true, which has already had good tournament results. Equally important, when you pick up a popular archetype from the internet, you're getting the benefit of thousands and thousands of players' hard work.

Take, for example, Mono-red Aggro in Standard. A countless number of players play Mono-red, and incorporate their own instincts, experiences, and opinions into their decklists. They play the number of lands that they feel is correct, they structure their deck in the way they think will give them the best chance of winning, and they sideboard the cards they predict to be the most helpful. There's no guarantee that any one individual will be exactly correct, but over time, the better versions of the deck will win more, and their characteristics will be incorporated into future versions of Mono-red. It's Charles Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest!

Art by Shelly Wan

When you choose an archetype from the internet, you also save yourself a lot of time and energy that can now go into other aspects of your tournament preparation. If you've already decided on mono-red, now you can put all of your efforts toward tuning your decklist and practicing your game play.

Building a deck from scratch is an extremely challenging endeavor. Even among world-class Magic players, there's only a select few who even attempt it, let alone ones that could be considered "masters." There's a common saying that for every one good deck idea, there are nine bad ones. It takes a ton of creativity, intuition, persistence, hard work, and discipline to succeed against such odds. Generally speaking, you'll be at a disadvantage when you try to build your own deck.

But that absolutely does not mean you shouldn't try! For one thing, when you succeed in building a good deck from scratch, you can realize a great advantage over the field. You'll have a deck that no one is expecting and no one has prepared for. They won't know what cards you're likely to throw at them.

More importantly, deck building is one of the best ways to learn and grow as a player. When you're in charge of everything from deck building to game play, you develop a deeper understanding of exactly what's going on in your games, and what's causing you to win and lose.

Don't feel obligated to always build your own decks, especially when the time you can devote to preparation is limited. However, deck building is tremendously helpful and rewarding, and I encourage everyone to give it a try at least once in a while.

A DECK THAT'S GOOD FOR THE METAGAME

Last week, I covered the concept of the metagame, and in particular what cards and decks you expect your opponents to be using. If you can accurately predict the metagame, you might be able to build, choose, or adjust a deck in order to make yourself razor-sharp against the decks you're most likely to face.

When Blue-Black Control is the most popular deck, it's great to enter a tournament ready to jump for joy whenever your opponent leads off with a first turn Temple of Deceit. Sometimes, when you're specifically gunning for certain decks and those decks aren't specifically gunning for you, you can turn it into a huge advantage.

Just remember that there's a lot of uncertainty in predicting the metagame. Often, the field is going to be quite diverse. Often, you're going to be mistaken (at least a little) about what other players are going to show up with. Even when you can accurately predict things to a tee, there's still no way to predict exactly which individuals you're going to be paired against in the tournament.

A DECK WITH RAW POWER

If you want to be at the mercy of your opponents as little as possible, you might want to choose a deck with raw power. "Power" is a bit of a nebulous term in Magic, but it refers to how good a deck (or card) is without the context of format and metagame. I like to think about the power level of a deck as, "how well would this deck perform (relative to my other options) against an infinitely large sample of different opponents playing different decks from different formats?"

Green Devotion, for example, has a lot of raw power. It's fast and explosive and, left to its own devices, it will outclass most things that other players will be doing. However, Green Devotion can sometimes be a bad metagame choice if too many people are playing with cards like End Hostilities, Crux of Fate, and Perilous Vault.

Sometimes the circumstances are right to make a metagame choice, and other times it's best to default to a deck with a lot of raw power. Finding an intersection of both is ideal.

A PROACTIVE GAME PLAN

Recall that being proactive means working toward a powerful goal of your own instead of simply reacting to what your opponent is doing. The best example of being proactive is simply playing an aggressive strategy, and trying to win the game as quickly as possible!

With how diverse and uncertain Magic tournaments can be, there's a huge advantage to focusing on your own game plan, and knowing that if you can succeed in executing it, you're likely to win. It's more difficult to have answers for everything your opponents might have. The longer the games go, the more you open yourself up to things going wrong.

I advocate having a proactive game plan, even in decks that are otherwise slower and more controlling. Dragonlord Ojutai is a great example of a proactive card for a control deck. It helps you leverage a small advantage into something insurmountable, and can close a game fast once you're ready to do so.

INEVITABILITY

On the other hand, inevitability is also valuable. You have inevitability if you're virtually guaranteed to win the game if things drag on indefinitely.

When you have inevitability, all you need to do is survive in order to win the game. Often, defending yourself is easier than actually having to put your opponent away.

The most dangerous scenario, however, is to believe that you have inevitability when you really don't. This is why a proactive game plan is important, because you want the ability to go for a win if something unexpected happens.

Esper Dragons is a successful deck in Standard because it has inevitability over most of the format's other popular decks. Also, despite being a slower deck, it has a healthy proactive game plan in its ability to simply dominate the board with Dragons.

THE NATURE OF SIDEBOARDED GAMES

A common pitfall of new Constructed players is undervaluing the sideboard. It's easy to get excited about a deck like Mono-Red because its win rate is so high in Game 1, before the sideboard gets involved. However, you don't really see the full picture until you begin to play games where the Abzan and Esper players are allowed to stock their decks full of Drown in Sorrows and Pharika's Cures.

How your deck fares in the sideboarded games can be a major selling point. Midrange decks historically benefit the most from sideboarding. Because they're well rounded, they have maximum flexibility in what they can sideboard, and yet are difficult for opponents to attack. In general, the more extreme your strategy (suicidal aggro, control decks that lack proactive game plans, and linear strategies), the easier you will be to sideboard against.

DO YOU ENJOY THE DECK?

This may seem like a strange factor to bring up in a dedicated strategy column, but I absolutely do believe that it can impact your tournament results. When you're having fun, and when you're passionate about a deck, you're going to perform better. If you force yourself to play a deck that you hate, or have little faith in, that will show as well.

With a deck that you enjoy, it's easier to focus, and natural to spend more time thinking about the deck. Consequently, you're more likely to have an inspired idea for a change to the main deck, or a new sideboard card.

On the flip side, when you don't enjoy playing with your deck, you can feel helpless and stagnant. You won't look for ways to improve the deck, and might make bad mulligan or game play decisions because you simply don't have faith that the deck is capable of something more.

STICKING WITH THE SAME DECK

That brings us to what I believe to be the single most important factor in choosing a deck: how well can you play the deck?

This will inevitably be closely tied to how much you enjoy the deck, but there's more than just that. Have you played the deck in previous tournaments? Have you done well? How much have you practiced? Have you played similar decks in other formats in the past?

How well you pilot your deck of choice is usually more important than which deck you choose. I'd rather play a weaker deck well than play a stronger deck poorly.

I believe that one of the biggest secrets to success in Constructed Magic is sticking with the same deck through multiple tournaments. You begin to learn the deck more intimately; you play better; you develop a deeper understanding of why you're winning and losing games; you sideboard better; you become better qualified to change cards and improve the deck.

You can accomplish a lot of this through practicing at home, but there's really no substitute for testing yourself in tournament conditions against a variety of opponents. As important as predicting the metagame is, it's also crucial to prepare for the unexpected. When you master your deck, you'll be faster to adapt, and will know what to do even when you play against a deck you've never faced before.

Most importantly, just like building a deck from scratch, truly mastering a deck is one of the best learning opportunities you can find. Developing a very deep understanding of a single deck will teach you lessons that you'll carry with you to other decks and formats.

Over the years, the periods of greatest success and greatest growth in my career were the ones where I was able to stick with the same deck through a long series of tournaments. I encourage you, unless you find a fatal flaw in the deck you've been playing, to err on the side of sticking to one rather than switching back and forth.

You don't need to have the absolute best deck in order to do well in a tournament. However, you do need to choose one that will allow you to realize your potential as a player. Think hard about your decision, and then dive in with both feet and don't look back. And as always, be sure to have fun with it!

42

The Metagame

Your tournament performance will be determined by more than just your skill in deck building and game play. In Magic, it's also important to predict what strategies your opponents will be using, and make an effort to counter them as effectively as possible. Understanding how other players think can give you a leg up on the competition.

The metagame (the game outside the game) are all of the decisions, resources, and information that, while not explicitly part of the game, are nonetheless important to Magic.

Art by Anastasia Ovchinnikova

In other words, the game that we play is called Magic: The Gathering. It's governed by precise sets of rules concerning deck building, game play, and tens of thousands of cards. The metagame is everything in Magic that's not defined by the rules. It's the deck archetypes that are popular, the new combo that everyone's talking about, and the hot sideboard strategy for the Esper mirror match. It's everything that the players know, and everything that the players know the other players know. As you read, this article is becoming part of the metagame.

Understanding the metagame can be just as important as the general strategy of the game itself.

Imagine that your group of friends loves to play strategy war games that involve three different, distinct factions—let's call them the α (alpha), the β (beta), and the ω (omega)—each with its own strengths and weaknesses. To master the game, you'd need a deep understanding of all three factions. However, if all of your friends always play β, then for your metagame, it's in your best interest to practice only against β. If your friend Sandy always uses flying units, this is an important aspect of your metagame. If your friend Tommy has a poor internet connection and moves slowly during battles, this is an important aspect of your metagame. If you decide to branch out and play the game against new opponents, then your metagame will change and you'll need to adjust your practice methods and strategy.

WHAT DECKS ARE YOU LIKELY TO FACE?

The most basic, and arguably most important, aspect of the Magic metagame is the relative popularity of different deck archetypes. (Recall that an archetype is a recurring strategy with many possible variations). If you could show up for your ten-player FNM knowing that three players will play Abzan, three players will play Esper, two players will play Mono-Red, and two players will play Green Devotion, then you could leverage that information into an advantage by building your deck accordingly. To think ahead about what decks your opponents are likely to bring to a tournament is called predicting the metagame.

For large tournaments, it's impossible to predict the metagame with the same level of precision with which we discussed the example FNM above. For a thousand-player Grand Prix, it's impossible to predict what every individual will do. Even if you could, it would be impossible to predict which of those individuals you're going to get paired against.

There's always a lot of uncertainty in predicting the metagame for a Magic tournament. However, it is absolutely possible to make a broad prediction like, "between ten percent and twenty percent of players will be playing Esper Control." Educated predictions like this are tremendously helpful.

Art by Lake Hurwitz

HOW TO PREDICT THE METAGAME

Years, ago, Hall of Fame pro Frank Karsten developed a method that's still used by many players and writers today. He called it the "winner's circle metagame." He would examine recent tournament results (for example, all Standard Grand Prix played in the last two months), he would assign each archetype:

• 2 points for finishing ninth through sixteenth

• 3 points for fifth through eighth

• 4 points for third and fourth

• 5 points for second

• 6 points for first

Then he would average out the data and assign each archetype a percentage. These numbers were meant to help predict what decks would be played and perform well the following weekend.

The "winner's circle metagame" is as good a method as any. What decks people have played in the past few weeks is a great indicator of what decks they're going to play this weekend. Moreover, the decks that people see doing well when they look at tournament results are also the ones they're likely to pick up for their next event.

Art by Mike Sass

However, it's important to remember that predicting a metagame is not an exact science. While the numbers can tell us a lot, in the end we're trying to guess at what a collection of individuals will do. There's no mathematical reason why a first place finish at Grand Prix Toronto ought to be valued exactly twice as highly as a tenth place finish at Grand Prix Shanghai played two weeks later.

The bottom line is that a variety of factors will influence the breakdown of archetypes you're likely to see at your next tournament. Here are some of them:

What archetypes have been popular lately?

For most things, what's happened in the past is the best indicator of what will happen in the future. Last week's metagame will have naturally accounted for most of the important factors. To ignore it would be a mistake.

What archetypes have been winning?

Players look at tournament results and see which decks are winning. Anyone who is undecided on what deck to play is very likely to pick up a deck that's had success recently. For some people it won't be the exact deck that got first place last weekend, but for others it will. You should put greater weight on better finishes and on more recent results.

What have the loudest voices been saying?

This could be a respected player in your region, or anything of the like. Most often, however, it means the popular columnists for the popular strategy websites. When Patrick Chapin speaks, the world listens. If he or one of his colleagues writes, "Mono-Red is great, everyone should play it!" that's well worth noting. Whether you and I actually think that Mono-Red is great is hardly relevant. The fact that it was said at all will make Mono-Red a larger portion of the field the following weekend.

Is Card Availability a Problem?

Are some decks prohibitively difficult to obtain? The older the format, the more important this will be. The higher the level of competition, the less important it will be. At the World Championship, every player will find a way to get the cards they want to use. For a low-stakes Legacy event on Magic Online or at a local store, budget decks might be major players.

Are There Any Other Applicable Trends?

There are plenty of intangibles that don't fall into one of the categories above, and yet can still impact the tournament field. For one example, I find that midrange decks like Abzan tend to be slightly over-represented because many people find them more fun to play with than extreme strategies like Mono-Red. For another example, fast strategies are slightly over-represented on Magic Online, because some players like to burn through lots of matches as quickly as possible.

In addition to not being an exact science, predicting the metagame is also a complicated issue with many, many factors to consider. I find it helpful to discuss it with my friends before a tournament. Where my own predictions often fall wide of the mark, a compilation of several educated guesses usually does pretty well. Moreover, I've found predicting the metagame to be a skill that one can cultivate through practice and experience.

Art by Dan Scott

WHAT TO DO WITH A PREDICTED METAGAME

There are three aspects of tournament preparation (in Constructed): archetype choice, fine tuning, and practice.

Once in a while, all factors might line up perfectly and lead you to predict a very extreme metagame. Such a thing is very rare, but let's say that you predict a single archetype to be thirty percent of the field at your next tournament! It might be in your best interest to make a metagame deck choice that will match up well against the field you expect, and absolutely crush the archetype that you feel will be most popular.

Some players have had a lot of success with such a technique, but it's rarely an approach that I choose personally. Particularly with all the uncertainties of predicting the metagame, I prefer to focus on the latter two aspects of tournament preparation—mastering my deck of choice and having the best possible decklist for it.

What I will most definitely do is choose some of my cards with the predicted metagame in mind. If I'm playing Abzan and I predict a lot of Mono-Red, you'd better believe that I'm going to pack three or four Drown in Sorrows in my sideboard!

Finally, your predicted metagame should help guide your practice sessions. Not only does this mean practicing against what you expect to be the most popular decks, but also putting emphasis on new breakout decks that you haven't played against before, and on oddball decks that are different from what you're used to.

For example, nobody knows what to do the first time they play against Jeskai Ascendancy Combo. Jeskai Ascendancy Combo is an unpopular deck, and one that you can typically ignore. However, if there was some kind of new information that leads you to believe Jeskai Ascendancy Combo might be heavily played at your next tournament, a little bit of practice in the matchup would be tremendously helpful.

INFORMATION CASCADES

In the seminal article, Information Cascades in Magic, Patrick Chapin described a phenomenon that, from my experience, is quite important to competitive Magic. Sometimes, the metagame reaches a point where what players are doing is determined more by what other players are doing than it is by what are actually the best strategies.

Chapin begins with an example of an archetype that history has determined was not a particularly good one. However, at the time, it was an extremely popular deck that lots of players chose to bring to tournaments. With enough popularity, even poor decks will break through to Top 8s and win tournaments. More players see the deck putting up good results, and choose to pick it up for themselves. In this way, a deck's popularity feeds on itself. Mr. Chapin called this an example of an Information Cascade.

The opposite can also be true. I believe that great archetypes and strategies often "get lost" from the tournament scene. People brush them off simply because they haven't seen other players using them recently. The archetype might be great, but if it's not popular enough, it might fail to have breakthrough finishes, and its lack of popularity will feed on itself.

It's easy to see with a quick look at tournament coverage which decks are making Top 8s. It's typically not easy to see which decks have strong or weak win rates, and which ones have untapped potential.

Art by Ryan Alexander Lee

Consider this fictional (but from my experience, quite realistic) example. Jane Doe builds a mono-blue beatdown deck and plays it to a stellar third-place finish at a Grand Prix. Her deck gets mentioned in the coverage, but largely overshadowed by the winning deck, and by a second deck that put three copies in the Top 8. Jane Doe is not a famous player, and through sheer coincidence, none of the most popular columnists choose to feature her deck. In the next two Grand Prix, a small, dedicated group of players pilot mono-blue to good overall results, but none break through to a Top 8.

Under these circumstances, mono-blue could well be one of the best archetypes in the format, but a month after Jane's great finish, it would most certainly be an unpopular deck.

Once in a while, finding one of these "lost decks," can be a great way to get an edge in a tournament. It's led me to success a handful of times in my career, especially in formats like Legacy, which are slow to change.

The major point that Patrick Chapin was trying to drive home is that there are times to listen to the community and to the tournament results, and there are times to think for yourself and make your own decisions.

The only thing that's certain is that you should always keep your eyes open and pay attention to what other players are doing. Some of the time, you'll take your strategy from what you read in an article or in tournament coverage. But all of the time, you'll benefit from knowing what your opponents are likely to be up to.

Other

43

Playing in a Grand Prix: Part I

Twelve years later, I still remember my first Magic Grand Prix just like it was yesterday. In fact, I'm quite sure the memory will stick with me until the day I die. While other kids my age waited all year for their vacation to Disney World, or a chance to go watch their favorite sports team, once I'd played in my first big Magic tournament, the greatest joy I could've possibly imagined was simply playing in another one.

I hope that anyone with the desire to play in a Grand Prix gets the opportunity to try it at least once. With the expanding GP schedule, it looks like those opportunities will become more frequent in the near future. Grand Prix Las Vegas, which will be played in a few weeks, will be the largest Magic tournament ever held. By far! There's really nothing that can compare to such a huge number of people coming together to share the excitement of a common interest.

Attending a Grand Prix has the potential to be a truly excellent experience. However, big tournaments can be hectic, stressful, and emotionally charged. In this two-part series, I'd like to give you what advice I can to help bring out the best aspects of playing in tournaments, and avoid anything that might make your experience less than perfect.

Art by Michael C. Hayes

SETTING GOALS

Most people will be entering a big tournament for some combination of three reasons. The first reason is to perform well in the tournament itself. Maybe they have their eye on the prize money, or maybe they just enjoy challenging themselves and want to play their best. The second reason is to learn and grow as a player (possibly to perform well in future tournaments). And the third reason is to have fun. None of these motivations are better or worse than the others. Personally, the reason I attend tournaments is pretty much an equal part of all three.

The reality is that the three are closely related. Achieving all of them depends, first and foremost, on having a healthy and positive attitude. In my experience, it's much easier to play well when you're having fun. Getting overly frustrated will usually ruin your chance of taking anything of value from the experience.

So the first thing I'd like to cover is setting goals for yourself as you go into a tournament. Different people have different ways of bringing out the best in themselves, so what works for me might be very different from what works for you. Nonetheless, clarifying your intentions and your expectations for the tournament will help guide you toward the experience you're looking for.

My best advice on this topic is that your goals shouldn't be completely rooted in your final ranking in the tournament. Remember that Magic is a challenging game and has many random elements; no one in the world can do well in every tournament they enter.

Moreover, there are two specific risks to setting a hard-line goal for yourself. Let's say you set a goal: "My goal is to make Day Two!" First, you might become stressed out and disappointed if you fall short, which can mean missing out on the other good things your tournament experience has to offer. Second, you make it harder for yourself to exceed that goal! Imagine you find yourself with a 7-1 record. You've already met your goal of doing well enough to come back for day two. However, you're doing very well in the tournament and might be in striking distance of a great finish! If anything, you should increase your efforts at this point, instead of being satisfied with what you've already done.

The most helpful goals are the ones that you can work on regardless of how you're doing in the tournament. For example, "My goal is not to get distracted when I'm playing." Or, "My goal is to be very careful with my mulligan decisions." Or, "My goal is to forget as few of my triggers as possible."

Art by Slawomir Maniak

All that said, some people (myself included) are very goal-oriented and need targets to help them perform their best. If you're like me, I recommend using benchmarks. "My goal is to win every match I play, but I'll be proud of myself if I go 6-3 or better." Or, "If I don't win at least half my matches, I'll consider switching decks for next time."

Here are my personal goals for Grand Prix Las Vegas:

• I'll be proud of myself if I can win at least nine matches (not counting byes).

• I want to make the best use of my sideboard that I possibly can.

• I want to stay focused and not get frustrated if I go on a losing streak.

• I want to play out every round, even if I'm out of contention to get a prize. (More on this to come in next week's article).

Naturally, every player is going to have a different set of goals. What are your goals for the next tournament you play?

BEING AT YOUR BEST

I see players practice so hard for a tournament. They care so much and want to do well so badly. And yet some of these players, when the tournament gets close, destroy their hard work by not taking good care of themselves. Maybe they stay out too late the night before and don't get enough sleep. Maybe they show up late to their round and receive a game loss penalty. In one way or another, they squander their chances of doing well for the wrong reasons.

For all the good that practicing does, it won't help you unless you show up on the day of the tournament ready to play your best.

Do whatever you have to in order to ensure that you feel good, physically, on the day of the tournament. Every human being needs sleep, food, and water. Get to bed early, sleep well, and leave time for breakfast before you start playing. People can have individual needs as well. Do you like to have your coffee in the morning? Do you have a medication that you need to bring with you, or take before you leave? Is there a particular song or ritual that helps to get you in the zone? Personally, I like to stretch a little bit in the morning, especially if I've come off of an airplane or a long car ride the previous day. Otherwise, I'll feel uncomfortable sitting for so many hours straight at the tournament and that can negatively impact how well I play.

In a perfect world, you should turn your eye toward feeling good at the tournament a couple of days in advance. I have one health-conscious friend who claims that the amount of sleep he gets on Wednesday and Thursday nights has more to do with his tournament performance on Saturday than how much he sleeps the night before the event. Remember, these are long days, so if something like a small improvement in your diet, or a small amount of cardiovascular exercise can increase your physical endurance, these things can make a difference.

Equally important is being in a positive and focused state of mind. I've already touched on the fact that disappointment and frustration can ruin the rest of your tournament. The same is true of stress.

Anything you can do on Friday night that will make Saturday morning less hectic is a good idea. Double check that you're registered for the event. If it's Constructed, have your deck built and your bag packed. If you're coordinating travel with friends, make sure everyone is on the same page. You already have enough on your plate playing the tournament, you don't need extra stress like rushing to find a card you need or waiting on a friend who thought the tournament started an hour later than it did.

Art by rk post

Along those lines, don't choose travel companions who won't allow you to be at your best for the tournament. If a friend is doing something that bothers you, bring up the issue with them. If they're still doing it, consider not traveling with that person the next time. You don't have to stop being their friend, but if you're routinely showing up at tournaments overtired or stressed out, you should most definitely make some kind of change.

Any problems you've been having at home, work, or school—set them on the shelf when you leave for the tournament and pick them back up when you get home. If you've decided to take the weekend off to play Magic, then that's exactly what you should do! You'll enjoy it more and perform better while you're playing if you're not worrying about how your boyfriend or girlfriend at home might be mad at you.

Finally, you might need to cut off your practice at a certain point. Playing a few games in the hotel room the night before the tournament is fine as long as you're having fun. Long hours of play dragging on toward midnight the night before the event is usually a bad idea. It can cause burnout and frustration, and you'd rather go in fresh. If you're practicing for a Constructed tournament, you might wind up second-guessing yourself and changing cards in your deck or switching strategies entirely. In my experience, this is typically more harmful than helpful. I like to play a lot Monday through Thursday before a tournament, and then take Friday as a light day.

DEALING WITH YOUR OPPONENTS

You'll truly face all kinds of opponents at a Magic tournament, especially a Grand Prix. They might be any age, gender, level of experience, they might come from any part of the world, and sometimes might not even speak the same language as you. The only thing that's certain is that they'll love Magic, just like you do.

Don't let the thick air of competition make it hard to breath. Sure, you're trying to beat each other, but the simple fact that you're sitting across from someone and playing Magic is a pretty good reason to be friends—at least in my book. There's definitely no reason to ever feel intimidated by an opponent, or to have a serious conflict with them. If they're nice to you (which the vast, vast majority of your opponents will be), you can be nice to them. If they're mean, annoying, or overly-competitive, you can simply tune out anything that bothers you and just play Magic. It's easy, I've done it this way for over a decade!

Playing against a stranger in a tournament setting really isn't much different from playing with a friend at home. The most important thing is just to communicate well, and make sure both players are very clear about what's going on at all times. Last week, I talked in detail about the "proper way to cast a spell." Take that level of precision to everything you do in the game, and insist that your opponent does the same.

Announce everything clearly. If you're unsure exactly what your opponent is doing, ask for clarification. If a particular turn is shaping up to be complicated, just take it slowly, one step at a time.

I'd like to put an extra emphasis on the fact that you and your opponent should always be crystal clear on both players' life totals. Keep track of both life totals with pen and paper. Verbally confirm any time there's a change in someone's life total. If you see that your opponent has an incorrect life total written down, you are required, by the rules, to clear up any confusion. The last thing you want is to make a decision thinking that you're at 8 life when you're really at 6 life. Worse yet, you don't want a life total discrepancy to go by for a few turns—until it might be too late to correct it.

Art by Raymond Swanland

PLAYING BY THE RULES

Just a moment ago, I encouraged you to be friendly with your opponents. Remember also that you are playing in a tournament, so the rules will be enforced strictly and precisely. Thankfully, these two things are not mutually exclusive so long as everyone is on the same page.

It goes without saying that there are no take-backs in tournaments. If you make a mistake and your opponent holds you to it, he or she isn't being a jerk, they're just playing by the rules. Never fault someone for doing exactly what the rules say while playing in a tournament. If you don't want to be a cutthroat player, you certainly don't have to be. However, you do need to be prepared, when you enter a tournament, to play seriously and precisely.

Which brings us to the messy topic of cheating. Cheating does happen in Magic tournaments, and it would be naive to think otherwise. Thankfully, it's not something you should live in fear of, and I feel confident saying that it won't ruin your tournament experience. Most players want to play an honest game anyway, and those that don't are kept in check by the vigilance of judges and other players.

All that said, it never hurts to protect yourself. Any time Player A shuffles his or her own deck (either before the game or after using a Windswept Heath, etc.), Player B is allowed to shuffle Player A's deck as well. I encourage you to shuffle your opponents' decks. Similarly, if something seems fishy, don't give your opponent the benefit of the doubt, clarify the situation.

In either of these cases, it's important to remember that you're not accusing your opponent of cheating. (Accusing someone of cheating can be taken very seriously.) You're just taking the normal measures that are expected of tournament players.

Next week, we'll discuss the role of judges, who can help you with the above issues and many, many, many more. Until then, use the advice from this article to make sure that your tournament experience is the best one you can have.

44

Playing in a Grand Prix: Part II

Last week, I offered some advice on how to approach playing in a big Magic tournament. Today, we'll delve into what you can do during and after the tournament to ensure that your experience is a great one.

THE ROLE OF JUDGES

Once the tournament begins, judges are in charge of running things. In essence, their job is to help the players have a positive experience. This includes making sure the tournament runs smoothly, and answering players' questions—both inside and outside of game play. Finally, they enforce policies designed to guide the tournament toward its most fair possible result.

If you find reading the dictionary a little too exhilarating, check out these three hundred pages worth of documents judges use to run tournaments: The Comprehensive Rules of Magic, the Tournament Floor Rules, and the Infraction Procedure Guide. The fact that judges are there to help us means that we players don't have to know all of this!

Art by Drew Baker

This is a long-winded way of saying that, as a player, judges are your friends. They want to help you. They want to answer your rules questions and help you learn the game. They want to protect you against cheating or being the victim of an unfortunate misunderstandings in a game. Finally, they want you to have fun at the tournament and come back to play again in the future.

Unfortunately, for one reason or another, new tournament players are sometimes slow to ask judges for help. Perhaps they haven't gotten over the hall monitor being mean to them in elementary school—I really have no idea. The reality is that judges are very approachable at all times. Calling a judge during a match isn't "tattling," nor does it mean you're accusing your opponent of cheating. Judges are a wonderful resource, and it's a big mistake to not take advantage of what they have to offer.

Here's a short (far from exhaustive) list of things judges can help you with at a tournament:

• They can help you find things. Where to register for the tournament, where to find your pairings, where the bathroom is, anything.

• They can answer rules questions. This includes during a game or between rounds. Any time I encounter a question while I'm at home, I make a note to ask a judge about it at my next Grand Prix.

• If you have to get up to use the restroom, a judge will give you permission to go, and will even give you a time extension for your match.

• They can resolve any problems in your match. A disagreement, misunderstanding, miscommunication. "I attacked for 3 damage with my Tarmogoyf last turn, but now I realize that it should have been a 4/5." A judge can help!

• They can address the situation when either you or your opponent has taken an illegal action. Someone drew seven cards after taking a mulligan. Someone played two lands in a turn. Someone cast a spell without the proper mana. Someone flipped over a card while shuffling the opponent's deck. These things usually aren't big deals, but a judge needs to know about them. They'll take the proper measures to help you finish the game as fairly as possible, and they'll decide whether or not a Warning (or any stiffer penalty) needs to be issued.

Warnings

If you attend a Grand Prix, you'll see judges issue Warnings. You might receive a Warning yourself. This is because Warnings are common, and they're no big deal. A Warning is basically an official statement of a judge saying, "Please try not to do this again." However, it does not come with a penalty attached to it. Don't worry if you receive a Warning at your first tournament.

Warnings are tracked, and that's exactly the point. Everybody makes mistakes while playing Magic—everybody. Everybody has accidentally tapped the wrong lands for a spell, or accidentally knocked a card off the top of their library. However, judges want to know about and track these things. If a player is tapping the wrong lands for his or her spells five or six times in every match they play, it's possible that they're doing it intentionally in order to gain an advantage. Tracking Warnings can help judges identify and investigate players like this.

So if you receive a Warning, don't sweat it. If you receive two Warnings, try to tighten up your play, but don't let it upset you. If you receive three Warnings in the same day for the same infraction, you might get a penalty. If you have a long-term pattern of getting far, far too many Warnings, you might get a penalty, but this ought to be easy to avoid.

When to Call a Judge

If you're deciding whether or not to call a judge, just go ahead and call one. Remember, they're there to help!

Do not try to fix a problem on your own, like you would when playing with your friends at home. For example, let's say your opponent puts his or her creature into the graveyard when it wasn't actually supposed to die, and nobody notices until the next turn. If you were playing at home, you might just put it back onto the battlefield and continue the game, but you should not do this in a tournament. Always let judges handle situations like this.

Do not take your opponent's word for it if something is unclear.

Example A:

You cast Lose Calm on your opponent's face-down creature, and you're not sure whether or not you're allowed to look at what it is. Don't ask your opponent, ask a judge. (You are allowed to look at it).

Example B:

You take a mulligan, but then you lay out seven cards face-down on the table. Your opponent tells you that you're forced to mulligan down to five cards. Don't take his or her word for it, ask a judge. (If you haven't looked at the cards yet, you probably won't have to mulligan down to five).

Example C:

You tap five lands intending to cast a spell, but before you say anything or reveal the card, you change your mind. You're not sure whether or not you're allowed to untap your lands. Don't ask your opponent, ask a judge. (You will be allowed to untap your lands).

Never take your opponent's word on something that seems unclear to you. Your opponent does not have your best interest in mind. They might lie to you. Even more likely, they might just be mistaken. In either case, there's no reason to let it impact your tournament.

How to Call a Judge

First, let your opponent know what's going on. "I have a rules question, so I'm going to call a judge," or, "I noticed that you only had one white mana when you cast End Hostilities, so I'm going to call a judge."

Next, raise your hand and yell, "Judge!" Yell pretty loudly, and keep your hand raised, because tournaments are often crowded and noisy. A judge will come over as soon as he or she sees you.

Explain exactly what happened, with no details left out, and none of your own speculations added. The judge may ask both players for their side of the story, or will at least make sure that both players agree on the facts.

Art by Jason Rainville

The right way: "John tapped these five lands and cast End Hostilities. Then he put his creatures in the graveyard. I picked up my creatures, but before I put them in the graveyard, I noticed that John only had one white mana, so I put them down again and called for a judge."

The wrong way: "My opponent tried to cheat me! He knew the only way he could win was playing End Hostilities, so he tried to do it illegally without me knowing!"

The judge will make his or her ruling. This might happen immediately, if the situation is relatively simple. It may take some amount of time if there's a disagreement, if the judge chooses to investigate further, or he or she wants to confer with another judge about it. The ruling may include an in-game fix (perhaps rewind to before End Hostilities was cast), it may include a penalty (such as your opponent receiving a Warning for improperly casting a spell), and you may be issued a time extension to finish your match.

If you feel that the judge hasn't handled the situation properly, you may appeal the ruling. This means getting a second opinion from the head judge. Let the first judge finish speaking, and then say, "I'd like to appeal that ruling." The head judge will weigh in, and his or her decision will be final.

Be Nice to Judges

Judges are people, and specifically they're people who volunteer an almost inconceivable amount of their time to the game we love. Without judges, we couldn't have tournaments the way we have them now.

They can also make mistakes. Just like players, judges can range widely in their level of experience. This is part of the reason why there is an appeal system. Don't be afraid to appeal a ruling, but always do so respectfully.

Finally, judging can sometimes be a thankless job. Any time there's a dispute, the judge has to make a decision that will likely make one or both of the players unhappy. If a ruling doesn't go your way, try to roll with the punches, don't take it personally, and certainly don't take it out on the judge who made the ruling.

THE CLOCK

In discussing judges, I've mentioned time extensions, but haven't yet explained exactly what that means.

In a Grand Prix (and most tournaments, for that matter), you get 50 minutes to play a best two-out-of-three match. You cannot begin playing before the clock starts, and cannot ignore it when the clock gets to zero. When the clock gets to zero, if you received a time extension for any reason (a judge ruling or a bathroom break, for example), you'll play for that much longer, and then you'll play five additional turns. If it's your turn when time is called, then when you say "go," your opponent's turn will be turn one, your next turn will be turn two, etc. If the game doesn't end before the end of the fifth turn, the game is a draw.

Art by Paul Lee

If game two is a draw, then whichever player won game one wins the match. If your match ends with game one or game three being a draw, then the entire match is a draw. In a tournament, your standings are based on receiving three match points for a win, one match point for a draw, and zero match points for a loss.

Even from that simple system, it's easy to see that draws are bad. When there's a winner and a loser, three total match points are awarded. When the match is a draw, only two match points are awarded. You'd rather win one match and lose one match than to draw two matches in a row.

However, draws are even worse for your tournament chances than that system might hint at. Grand Prix tournaments are very large, and very top-heavy. Many thousands of players enter, but only a few hundred make Day Two, and only a fraction of those win prizes. In other words, you're looking to hit a home run, not simply to stay in the middle of the pack.

Certain cut-offs, like the one to qualify for Day Two, are based on your number of wins (you need seven wins to play on Day Two). So for those purposes, a draw is the same as a loss. From experience, I can tell you that it feels lousy to miss Day Two with a record of 6-2-1 (six wins, two losses, and one draw).

Thankfully, 50 minutes is a pretty long time, so it's not as though you're playing Spit or some other lightning-speed game. However, you should make every effort to finish your matches on time. Play at a brisk pace yourself and don't take more than a few minutes to shuffle and sideboard. Make sure that your opponent does the same.

If your opponent is taking too long, you're within your rights to ask them to speed up, or to call a judge. Remember that these things are written into the rules. You must play at a fair pace at all times, you can't take too long on any one decision, and you cannot slow down your pace of play because you want the game to be a draw. The guideline is that you shouldn't take much longer than three minutes to sideboard and shuffle between games (although this is not a hard-and-fast rule).

Even if it's early in the match, or if it looks like you're going to finish in plenty of time, both players still need to play at a fair pace. If the rules say that you get a certain amount of time to make a decision, then taking more time than that gives you an unfair advantage!

Get in the habit of playing briskly, because you want to finish your matches in time. Don't rush your opponents, but don't let them take more time than the rules allow, and don't let them put you at the risk of running out of time on the clock.

PLAYING OUT ALL OF YOUR ROUNDS

Day One of a Grand Prix consists of nine rounds of Swiss play. This means that all players (who wish to do so) will play all nine rounds, and then the cut to day two will be based on their final records or standings. Your record will carry with you if you make Day Two, so finishing 9-0 or 8-1 is fantastic, but once you lose three rounds, you won't be making Day Two regardless of what happens for the rest of the day.

Nonetheless, I encourage you to stay in the tournament, and play out all of the rounds no matter what your record is. (That is, unless you'd be missing out on a side event you want to play, or unless you're feeling sick or are otherwise miserable continuing to play).

Art by Jason A. Engle

Tournament experience is tremendously valuable, and is very hard to come by. Playing games at home, or at your local store really cannot simulate the experience of playing in a Grand Prix. At a big tournament, you're paired against new opponents in a highly competitive setting. Everyone brought their best deck, and is trying their hardest to beat you. It's the best practice you can get!

Playing in Grand Prix will make you a better player. Even if you find yourself with a record of 1-3, you should still make the most of the day. After all, you've already travelled to the event, paid the entry fee, built your deck, and blocked a day out of your calendar. Why let the chance to gain tournament experience go to waste?

If you play out the rounds, you'll inevitably learn more about the format, learn more about your deck, and you can continue to work toward any goals that you might've set for yourself before the tournament.

REFLECTION

Always look at a big tournament as a learning experience. Whether you win or lose, there will always have been some things you did well and some things you can work on. Take note of these things, and try to reinforce the good aspects of your game, and improve on the weaker aspects.

It can be hard to balance healthy reflection with your desire to do well in the tournament. If you make a big mistake in round six, you certainly do want to remember it and learn from it for next time. However, you don't want to be thinking about it while you're playing rounds seven, eight, and nine!

Art by Chase Stone

For that reason, I recommend blocking out some time after the tournament for reflection. The car ride home on Sunday or Monday night is perfect. Just as good as personal reflection, you might be able to talk things over with friends. What did everyone learn, what were they proud of themselves for, what would they change for next time?

If you block off time after the tournament for reflection, it also means that you're free to keep a clear head while you're playing. Focus on the task at hand, not on what happened last round or what record you want to have at the end of the day. If you make a mistake, brush it off and make the best of the situation. Revisit it only once everything is said and done.

All in all, there's nothing like playing in a Magic tournament. If you can be present and focused throughout, you're sure to have a positive experience. Friends, judges, and other tournament officials will give you the resources to have a great time playing in a Grand Prix. In the end, though, it's up to you to make the most of it.

45

Becoming a Better Player

This will be the final article that I write for Level One. For the time being, the column will be going on hiatus. Over fourteen months, I've tried my best to build a complete, self-contained course that offers the tools one needs to become a competitive Magic tournament player. If you've enjoyed any of my articles, please direct intrepid new players toward them, or keep them in mind for any time you might be looking for a refresher course. Next week, look for a column that packages all of my columns into a single course.

But I still have one very important job left to do. Before we part ways, it's my duty to prepare you for "Level Two." For better or for worse, a complete, step-by-step manual for becoming a truly world-class Magic player may never exist. Instead, if your goals extend beyond the scope of Level One, the ball is going to be in your court. Let me tell you everything I know about becoming a better player.

PART I: PROCESS

Practice Makes Perfect

If your goal is to improve at Magic, the best thing to do, by far, is play a lot of Magic. The most dominant winning streaks in the game's history have been put together by players who were simply eating, sleeping, and breathing Magic. When you're playing a lot, you see winning lines of play more easily, you make fewer mistakes, and you understand what's going on in the games on a deeper level.

Furthermore, if you're not "in shape"—if the fundamentals aren't coming quickly and effortlessly for you—then it's going to be that much more difficult to improve at the more challenging facets of the game.

All that said, it's not just about putting in the hours, and having a full-time job or other commitments does not preclude you from being a world-class player. More important than the number of hours you play is how much you're actually taking away from those hours. Quality over quantity!

Deep focus on a single game of Magic, from start to finish, is a world apart from playing while you're distracted. Is the TV on in the background? Are you multi-queuing on Magic Online? Are you playing while you're frustrated, tired, or otherwise not in your best frame of mind? Not only is this type of playing an inefficient use of time, but if you do it too often, it can also train you into bad habits.

Art by Jason Rainville

Asking Why

The best way I know to get the most out of your time playing Magic is a method that I call asking why. When you finish a game, you should reflect on it, and ask yourself why the winning player won.

The exercise is more challenging than it sounds, particularly when you've just lost a game. It requires patience, honesty, and a level head. Asking why is about taking responsibility for your own decisions.

First, look for technical mistakes or judgment calls you made that could've led to the loss. Did you miss a potential point of damage early in the game that might've changed things?

Second, look for elements of the mental game that might've helped you turn a loss into a win. If you'd known that your opponent had a permission spell, could you have successfully played around it? Were there any hints that you could've picked up on to help you learn what was in your opponent's hand?

Third, consider how you could've put yourself in a different position via sideboarding or deckbuilding. Did you get mana flooded? If so, was it a fluke, or did your post-sideboard configuration lack late-game staying power?

Fourth, ask if you're playing the right deck. Have you lost enough games in this same way that you've revealed a fatal flaw in your deck?

Finally, after you've exhausted all other options, ask if it was simply bad luck. Many times, your losses will largely be due to bad luck. However, be careful not to hide behind that excuse. Look to it only after you've left no stone unturned with regard to the aspects of the game that you did have control over.

Research

Improving at Magic is going to be a largely internal process. However, trying to figure out everything by yourself will be difficult. Sometimes, you won't realize if you have a misconception that's causing you to persistently make the same mistake. Incorporating outside ideas into your study will help prevent this, and will accelerate your learning.

Thankfully, plenty of food is out there for a hungry mind to feast on! Check out the new decklists and tournament coverage that appear every single weekend. Read strategy articles from any of the dozens of websites out there. Study videos of the masters facing off at the Pro Tour or World Championship. Each week, more Magic strategy content comes out than one individual could possibly keep up with, and that's not even to mention the twenty years of backlogged information that you can still find on the internet! There's no reason to ever feel stuck.

Just remember that research should be supplementing your own practice, not replacing it. Use the resources at your fingertips to take in new ideas, and then incorporate them into your own gameplay, in your own way.

Art by Michael Sutfin

Other Players

The most valuable resources available to you are other players. There's no faster way to grow than to put yourself out there and be ready to learn from others. Listen to them, ask questions of them, watch them play, and play against them!

You'll learn fastest by playing against players who are better or more experienced than you. However, there's plenty to learn from everyone, even players who might not have enjoyed as much Magic success as you have. Everyone has had different experiences and cultivated different opinions. Listen to what people have to say, put it through the filter of your own mind, and figure out how you can use it to improve.

PART II: ATTITUDE

Mastering Luck

The concept of luck is challenging, but a proper understanding of it is essential for any serious Magic player. Blaming bad luck can make you blind to mistakes you might be making. Worse yet, it can make you complacent, and can diminish your desire to win and to improve.

That said, many of the losses you will take in Magic will be the result of bad luck. Sometimes you will get a hand with no lands and be forced to mulligan. Sometimes you will get paired against your worst matchup in the crucial round of the tournament. Sometimes the cards will simply come in an order that leads to you losing. There are many uncertain elements in Magic, and not everything is in your hands.

Blaming bad luck all the time is unhealthy, but the opposite is dangerous as well. Losing a game cannot be the end of the world for you. You cannot beat yourself up, scrap your deck idea, or quit Magic every time you mulligan down to five!

Instead, you need to find a healthy balance by mastering luck. You must not hide behind luck and let it excuse your own less-than-perfect decisions. However, you should also understand and accept that not everything is under your control.

When You're Losing

One trait that many of the best players I know have in common is that they take losses very hard. Great players tend to take responsibility for their own mistakes and misjudgments, and blame themselves for a high portion of the games that they lose. (This probably has something to do with how they became great in the first place.) Moreover, it's painful to put everything you have into something and come up short. Unfortunately, it's a common experience in Magic, since only one player can be the winner of any given tournament.

Art by Winona Nelson

It's okay to feel disappointed when you lose. It's a sign that you care! The key, though, is to be disappointed, and then to move on! Dwelling too long on a loss will make you miserable and stunt your growth. You can't accomplish anything when you're down in the dumps, and your gameplay will suffer if you allow yourself to become frustrated easily.

The best thing to do is honestly reflect on the loss—not with the goal of making yourself feel bad, but with an eye toward avoiding the same problem in the future. Go back over the game, using the asking why method. Remember, if you can honestly attribute your loss purely to bad luck, that's okay, too! Just make sure that you're turning to that conclusion only as a last resort.

When You're Winning

If you're winning a lot at Magic, you're probably getting lucky. It's a strange idea to stomach, but it absolutely doesn't take away from anyone's accomplishments. Tournament Magic is about putting yourself in the best possible position to take advantage of good luck, should it come to you. It's only when you prepare a lot, you play well, and the cards come your way that you'll be successful.

The point is, don't assume that you're not making mistakes just because you're winning. The vast majority of mistakes do not swing the outcome of the game. However, if you allow that fact to make you complacent, then how will you ever prevent the mistakes that do turn out to be game-losing?

There's always more to learn, even when you feel like you're on top of the game. Magic is a game with highs and lows. When you are on a high swing, keep working at improving. Your highs will last longer, and your lows won't swing as low.

A Healthy State of Mind

A healthy state of mind is the crux of a successful Magic career.

You must have the confidence to trust yourself, and believe that victory is possible. If you don't believe, deep down, that you can win, then you won't search your hardest for those subtle plays that define a great player.

You must have the humility to see how much you have yet to learn. If you become overconfident and disdainful toward other players, you'll destroy the most valuable resources for your own growth.

Art by Willian Murai

You must strive for perfection. Even though perfection may not be possible, you should still reach for it! Some of the topics I've covered in Level One may have seemed nitpicky at the time. However, these are the skills you need to cultivate in order to become an elite player. "Good enough" should never really be good enough.

You must have the dedication and strength of will to get through the hard times. If you enter Magic tournaments, you're going to lose, and you're going to lose a lot. If you allow yourself to give up when things aren't going your way, then you'll have no chance of ever achieving your goals.

Finally, you must love the game. If traveling to tournaments, firing up Magic Online, or spending your lunch break studying a strategy website are not truly joyous things for you, then becoming a great player is going to be impossible.

Life is a long road, and your dedication to Magic will inevitably wax and wane, and that's okay! If you're starting to burn out, or if other aspects of life come calling, then it's good to re-evaluate your approach to Magic, at least temporarily. The worst thing you can do is force yourself to keep playing until the game you once loved becomes a chore.

FAREWELL

I've enjoyed my time writing Level One, and will miss it now that it's over. I feel incredibly thankful for the opportunity to helm the column over this past year. I've been playing Magic for the bulk of my life, and offering what I've learned over the years to a new generation of players means a lot to me. Thanks for reading!

Level One covered everything you need to know in order to become a rock-solid, winning tournament player. It even touched on a few advanced concepts that more serious players might love to sink their teeth into. With this final article, I hope that I've given you the tools you need to continue your study, for as long and as far as competitive Magic can hold your interest. If the game can offer you any fraction of the joy it's given me over the years, then your time will be well spent.

With that, I leave the rest to you.

46

Glossary of Terms

After more than a year with the Level One column, we've covered dozens of important concepts. We've also covered many terms that might be unfamiliar to a new player, but which are important for anyone interested in learning more about Magic strategy and theory.

Below is a list of the vocabulary words from Level One. This is meant as a reference for any time you might encounter an unfamiliar phrase—not just in reading Level One, but from anywhere in the wide world of competitive Magic. For further reading, nearly every phrase contains a link that will take you to the article pertaining to or addressing that term.

• Adaptability: The ability to play offense or defense, depending on what the situation calls for.

• Advantage: Having more of a resource than your opponent, or any other beneficial position relative to your opponent.

• Aggro: (Short for "aggressive.") An aggro deck (also called "beatdown") exploits tempo by playing and attacking with creatures quickly.

• Archetype: Any recurring strategy with numerous possible variations.

• Blank: "To blank a card." To turn one of your opponent's cards into a dead card.

• Board Stall: The situation where the battlefield is clogged with creatures, and neither player can profitably attack. (Also called "Creature Stall.")

• Board Sweepers: Cards capable of destroying many creatures at once. (Also called "Wraths.")

• Bomb: A card so powerful that it will often determine the game all on its own. (Term used more commonly with regard to Limited than Constructed.)

• Bottleneck: A limiting factor. To be "bottlenecked on mana" is to have more things to do with your mana than you have mana available.

• Bounce: To return a card to its owner's hand.

• Burn: Spells that can deal damage to creatures and/or players. Burn is a hallmark of the color red, and is an example of reach. (Also called "Direct Damage.")

• Card Advantage: Any process by which a player effectively obtains more cards than his or her opponent.

• Card Quality: The ability of your cards to influence the outcome of the game.

• Card Quantity: The gross number of cards that you have access to.

• Chump Block: To block with a creature in order to preserve your life total, even though yours will be the only creature dying in the exchange.

• Combat Trick: An instant-speed spell that can improve or save your creature (or otherwise affect the board state in your favor) during combat.

Art by Karl Kopinski

• Consistency: Resilience against things going wrong. A deck is consistent if its failure rate is low and it can operate on a reasonable level in a relatively high portion of games.

• Constructed: For Constructed events, you bring a deck of at least 60 cards from home. Examples: Standard, Modern, Legacy.

• Control: A control deck focuses on shutting down the opponent, and only wins the game later, at its own convenience.

• Counterdraft: Spend a pick taking a card out of the draft, so no one else can have it.

• Creature Land: A land with the ability to become a creature.

• Critical Mass: Some strategies grow rapidly in power as more cards that contribute to the strategy are added. For such strategies, critical mass is the tipping point where the strategy can be successfully put into effect.

• Damage Race: When neither player can take firm control of the game, and both players are trying to win the game before the other. (Also called "racing.")

• Dead Card: A card with no ability to impact the game.

• Deck Yourself: Run out of cards in your library and lose the game.

• Diversifying: Intentionally choosing a variety of different cards instead of all of the same card for a given job. You might diversify in an attempt to gain flexibility, be unpredictable, or to attack from a variety of angles.

• Dodge: "To dodge an effect." To create a situation where part of a spell or ability cannot affect you.

• Early Stage: The first part of a game of Magic, where tempo is the primary concern.

• Elephant Method: Writing out ideal realistic lists for all matchups and then trying to make the unique cards in those lists add up to 75 cards before deciding on the specific 60 for the main deck and the specific fifteen for the sideboard.

• Evasion: Flying or any other ability that makes a creature difficult to block.

• Filler: The unexciting cards that will make up the bulk of your deck. Used more often in Limited than in Constructed.

• Flexible: The quality of being effective in a variety of situations. A flexible card can be used in different ways, and will help you to some extent in a relatively high portion of the games that you draw it.

• Focus: (1) The most important skill in Magic's gameplay: staying present in the game and minimizing distractions. (2) As opposed to a "balanced deck;" a focused deck is centered on a particular strategy.

• Format: The format of the game or tournament dictates which cards you can play with.

• Format-Defining: A card is format-defining if most or all of the popular decks in the format are warped around its existence.

• Going Through the Motions: Being careful and precise with every decision, even the small ones.

• Hate Cards: Single cards that are extremely effective at beating a particular deck, color, or strategy.

Art by Jaime Jones

• High-Impact Card: As opposed to a "low-impact card." A card with a relatively large potential to influence the outcome of the game.

• Incidental: Coming indirectly, or attached to another effect. Example: "Incidental card advantage."

• Inevitability: A virtual guarantee that one player will win if the game goes on indefinitely.

• Initiative: The player with initiative sets the pace of the game, and forces the opponent to react. The more proactive player will have initiative.

• Investment: Spending resources now with the promise of a payoff later.

• Late Stage: The last part of a game of Magic, where tempo is no longer a big concern and card advantage becomes the focus.

• Limited: For Limited events, you open fresh packs of cards once the tournament begins and have to build your deck on the fly. Examples: Sealed Deck, Booster Draft.

• Line-Up Theory: Teaches the use of the right tool for the right job. "Whole deck vs. whole deck" line-up theory concerns the matchup overall. "Hand vs. hand" line-up theory concerns the cards that have been drawn in a particular game.

• Linear Strategy: A strategy entirely focused on one goal or theme.

• Main Deck: Your primary deck (usually either 40 or 60 cards), which will be the same for the start of every match.

• Mana Base: A deck's lands and any supplemental ways to produce mana.

• Mana Curve: The balance between cards of varying mana costs in a deck.

• Mana Efficiency: (1) Ratio of impact to mana spent. To be as mana efficient as possible, choose the cheapest option for each job that needs to be done. (2) Letting as little mana go to waste as possible on each of your turns.

• Mana Fixing: Lands or other cards that can (either directly or indirectly) produce more than one color of mana.

• Mana Flooded: When you've drawn far more lands than you need.

• Mana Hosed: When you haven't drawn as many lands as you need.

• Mana Sink: A card that can make use of extra mana.

• Metagame: The game outside the game. All of the decisions, resources, and information (but not the rules of the game) that are important to Magic.

• Midrange: Midrange decks are built with both offense and defense in mind, and have the ability to adapt to whatever situation they face.

• Mill: To put cards directly into the graveyard from the library.

• Modal Spell: A spell that requires you to choose modes as you cast it. Example: Abzan Charm.

Art by Mathias Kollros

• Netdecking: Copying a decklist from the internet.

• Open Color: In a booster draft, a color that's not being heavily drafted by the drafters around you.

• Out: A card or situation that most show itself in order for you to win.

• Overdrafted: A color or archetype is overdrafted if too many people at the booster draft table are going for it.

• Permission Spells: Spells that can counter other spells on the stack. (Also called "counters" or "counterspells.")

• Power: How good a deck or card is without the context of format or metagame. (Also called "raw power" or "power level.")

• Predicting the Metagame: Thinking ahead about what decks your opponents are likely to bring to a tournament.

• Priority: Having priority means it's your turn to act—to either do something or do nothing.

• Proactive: When you're being proactive, you're trying to progress your own game plan.

• Pushing a Tempo Advantage: Leveraging an advantage on the board into an advantage of another kind.

• Reach: (1) The ability of an aggro deck to finish off a wounded opponent, even after it may have lost its initial tempo advantage. (2) The ability to block creatures with flying.

• Reactive: When you're being reactive, you're defending and trying to answer your opponent's threats.

• Sequencing: (1) The order and manner in which you take your actions in a game. (2) The order and manner in which you take your actions in a turn.

• Sideboard: After the first game of a tournament match, players may swap in any number of cards from their sideboard in an effort to make their deck better suited to winning the next game. In Constructed, sideboards can never be more than fifteen cards.

• Signals: In a booster draft, the cards you pass, receive, do not pass, and do not receive from your neighbors can provide information about which colors are open.

• Situational: A situational card requires particular circumstances in order to be at its best. The opposite of flexible.

• Slowroll: To hold onto the winning card longer than you need to. To slowroll maliciously is unsportsmanlike, but to be careful on the final turn of the game is just sound strategy.

• Splashing: To center your deck around primary colors, but have an additional color on which you're not very reliant. You'll only have a small number of cards of your "splash color."

• Spot Removal: A targeted spell that can remove one opposing creature.

• Stack: The zone where spells and abilities wait to resolve. Typically, both players have a chance to respond to a spell on the stack.

• Staying Open: In a booster draft, waiting to decide your colors until you've had time to read signals.

Art by Daniel Ljunggren

• Symmetric Effect: A part of a spell or ability that impacts both players in the same way.

• Synergy: Cards working especially well together.

• Tempo: Board presence. A resource derived from how one player's permanents match up against those of the opponent. The two players' jockeying for tempo dictates the "pace" of the game.

• Tier System: A way of grouping and gauging the relative strengths of the cards you see in a booster draft.

• Transformational Sideboard: A sideboard plan that has you employing a completely different strategy than your main deck.

• Turning the Corner: Shifting your focus from defense to offense.

• "Two-to-Five Lands Strategy": A basic mulligan strategy that instructs you to keep your hand if you have between two and five lands, and mulligan if you have zero, one, six, or seven lands.

• Versatile: Having a range of uses for a range of possible scenarios.

• Virtual Card Advantage: As opposed to "technical card advantage;" accounts for the fact that certain cards have a dramatically higher impact on the game than others.

• Win Condition: A threat, combination, or situation intended to finish the game. Typically used in the context of control decks.

• Zero-Sum Game: A game played between two opponents that results in one winner, who takes everything, and one loser, who gets nothing. Tournament Magic is, for our purposes, a zero-sum game. (Also called a "strictly competitive game.")