These are some basic do's and don't for constructing a deck. There are no secrets of the universe in here, but if you are a novice player these points may help you get past some of the early mistakes that people make. It is aimed at someone who is constructing a deck for the first time or who has played a few games and has not had a great deal of success.
For example, I was playing at a qualifier tournament for the Origins Professional Tournament. I came in 10th. Since I was not in the finals (top 8), I was out. I then proceeded to finish my set of black-bordered dual lands (4 of each) and pick up some other cool stuff. I would not have had the opportunity to do this if I had not dropped out.
Seyil Yoon wings@io.org
"Metagame". What images does that one word bring to mind? The best players, playing a game *outside* the game, perhaps? Not just what's happening, but what's *really* happening? The ability to make an incisive analysis of the field, and then going for the jugular?
Well, here's some news. At the upper levels, there is no metagame. Oh, it's a fancy word which is often bandied about, but when you think about it (something which I shall later show is quite dangerous...), it's just a fancy name for guesswork. And I deliberately leave the word "educated" out as a possible adjective to "guesswork", for reasons which I'll discuss later.
Let's set the scene with a classic example. The place is the US National Championships, and the year is 1995. A group of eight players had been created from the top finishers in the pool games, and were to play off for the title, and the right to represent the USA at the World Championships that year. The deck which a player used in the finals did not have to be the same as the deck used in the pool games. To be horribly broad, six of the eight players had used Black decks in the pool games, and two had not. Mark Justice elected to play his Finals deck with Lifeforce and Whirling Dervish standard in the main deck, and scored a resounding victory when, to all intents and purposes, no one else changed their deck. Justice was hailed as a "Master of the Metagame" in a number of articles at the time (both on the Net and in print), which is to the best of my knowledge the first published use of the term as it is used today.
Unfortunately, this has created an impression about a "higher level" of the game which is out of all proportion to its significance. Certainly, there are some aspects involved in thinking about the environment within which ones plays, but there are quite low limits on how far such thought processes can be legitimately applied, before running into the wall of pure, blind luck. What I want to do here is set out a few of the precepts, concepts, and dangers involved in thinking about "the game outside the game".
In World War II, there were thousands of spies employed on both sides of the conflict. A few hundred or less were what is known as a double agent: side A thought that Mr Spy worked for them, but he *really* worked for side B. Of course, if side A found out about Mr Spy's real employer, they generally became pretty pissed off. As a result, we know of less than ten cases of triple agents: either a double agent who "turned" to save his skin, or an elaborately planned dupe to plant a false double agent. [Aside: of course, the *really* successful agent's, we'll never know about...]. As you might well imagine, there are no recorded cases of deeper deception *by people* than this - although you might try to turn a few double agents, anyone prepared to change sides again just wasn't worth the risk.
This introduces the idea of the extended bluff. We all know about the single bluff - I leave UU untapped. I am trying to give the impression that I have a Counterspell, in an effort to discourage you from taking some action. Essentially, I am trying to turn any card I might draw into a Counterspell by the very threat of such a possibility. If I don't have UU, then there's no bluff. If I have no mana, there's even less of a bluff. [Aside: Alliances changes this, but that's a detail :-) ] But what if you try and turn this bluff around on me? I have UU, you draw, smile, and cast a spell, looking enquiringly in my direction and without releasing the card, all ready to move it straight to the graveyard if I counter it. I am in a quandry - are you bluffing? Or are you just trying to make me *think* that you're bluffing?
Now, go one step deeper. Is UU ever a bluff? What happens if a bluff is always called? What happens if you actually didn't think about all this, just went ahead in your cheerful way and cast the spell without thinking about the possibilities of a Counterspell? Where does that leave the poor UU player? :-) Bluffs only work against thinking opponents. Bluffs do not work against deep-thinking opponents. Double bluffs occasionally work against deep-thinking opponents, but generally fail on people who just think. Triple bluffs only get you shot :-) And the non-thinking player doesn't care at all....
A similar example is the case of a Green player attacking with an Elvish Archer, while an untapped Serra Angel sits on the opposite side. Should the Angel block? Is there a Giant Growth waiting? Does it matter? Trying to figure out the reasoning of an opponent can be very, very tricky, especially if they are working to a plan of non-predictability. Which looks very similar to someone who doesn't have a bloody clue :-)
So, the concept of a bluff is dependent on the opponent. The precept of a bluff, what you require to make it work, is a thinking opponent. The wise man does not become involved in a games of wits with an idiot, since he can only lose by frustration. "Your puny Jedi Mind Tricks will not work on me..." - is that because you think too much, or too little? :-) Any group of people is made up of individuals, and the behaviour of such a group is only tenuously linked to the behaviour of the individuals as far as MtG is concerned. To quote Henry Stern, another USA National Representative, when talking about his deck for the Worlds:
Henry perhaps suffered from thinking too much. Does this mean that he doesn't understand the metagame? Or that he just guessed wrong? By the same reasoning, did Justice just get lucky, or did he know something? I don't think anyone can honestly credit a player with telepathy or precognition, which leaves the first option. As to *how* lucky he got...well, we'd have to ask him for his own thoughts at the time to get an idea of motivations, and the six Black players as to what they thought at the time. Did any of them consider changing? Did any of them go through the circuit of possibilities: if we all play Black, then anti-Black will win; if everyone else thinks the same way, then robust will win; if anyone else gets this far, then Black will win; oh, but then... :-)
Often, such thinking can lead to such a roundabout of ideas, and you have to choose where to get off the ride. You can try and think what your average opponent will do, but you must always bear in mind that you play an individual, not a gestalt being.
To take another example from game theory, consider the Mad Hatter's Party. You are in a room with a group of other people. You are wearing either a red hat or a green hat. You aren't allowed to look at your own hat, but can of course see everybody elses. You "win" by leaving the room, and announcing correctly the colour of your hat to the referee. You lose if you get the colour wrong. You get pretty bored if you're the last person sitting in the room :-)
Generally, you have some knowledge about the distribution of colours. Let's take the simplest worthwhile example, where there are five players, and no more than three hats of each colour. When you sit down, you see before you two Red hats and two Green hats. What colour is your hat?
Obviously, you can't work it out by yourself :-) However, the game can be solved by putting yourself into the position of one of the other players, and assuming they are intelligent. Take one of the Red-hat people you can see, for example. If your hat is Green, then he can see three Green and one Red hat, and should know immediately that his hat is Red (there can be no more than three Green hats, as stated above). Hence, if he gets up and leaves, then you know your hat is Green, and you can leave too. If your hat is Red, then he sees two Green hats and two Red hats, and is in your position. So if he doesn't get up, then your hat is Red, and you can leave.
Easy, hey? However, what if he's a bit slow on the uptake? You, with a lightning-quick brain, work out the entire sequence above, and when neither of the Red-Hats gets up, you charge out of the room and say "Red!"...only to find that the two Red players were still working their way through it, and you're actually Green :-) Or, just as you get up to leave, the two Red players stand up. You look at each other, wondering who got up first (they've been trying the same trick, you see...). So you all sit down again. Etc, etc, etc....
Now extend the game to more players and different hat distributions :-) How do you best solve the game? Walk out and take a 50-50 call....'coz you just can't trust the others to be as smart as you are :-/
Of course, in something as simple as MtG, this sort of thing tends not to happen - you can beat the poor player without relying on such obscure concepts :-) But thinking about an opponent's motives can be very, very dangerous. I mean - did they make a mistake? Or do they have, to quote S.-O. Baldrick, "A cunning plan"? It's a step up on the two-untapped-U bluff, really, which is always best solved by calling the bluff. If you always call, then it isn't a bluff...sente :-) Do what you want to do ("...be what you want to be, yeahhhh", from some rather poor song). Trying to reason out an opponent's actions is based on a large number of quite variable parameters, and inherently dangerous. If you're that way inclined, you could try and reason out the probabilities of your opponent: 1) having a counter; 2) being able to cast that counter; 3) wanting to counter whatever you cast. Of course, if you base your decision on what your opponent has done before, be prepared for the occasional rude shock ("What?? You didn't do that last time?!!", "Oh yeah, I forgot to. I do that sometimes.").
In fact, the interplay of deck interactions (the rock-scissors-paper analogy as a simple case) can be modelled surprisingly well by the Prisoner's Dilemma. In the Simple variation, you and an associate have to decide - independently - whether to cooperate (C) or fight (F). If you both cooperate, you each get 2 points. If you both fight, you each get 3 points. If just one of you fights, he gets 0 points and the other gets 5 points. The idea is to minimise your point score. If you take the simple, single-person view, then you should choose to fight, since you get a maximum of 3 points that way, and might reduce it to zero; whereas if you cooperate, you will get at least 2 points, and might get 5. But if the other person thinks the same way, then you'll always choose to fight, always get three points each, and lose to the pair who always cooperated :-)
Why the hell would you choose to cooperate, given that I've proved that
the best individual strategy is to fight? Because, like the iterations
in MtG, you're playing another player who can think a few steps deep.
In the Simple Prisoner's Dilemma, for example, although the "goldfish"
strategy might be F, if you think your opponent (partner?!) is smart you
might want to try C, since that will net less points to both of you. Of
course, he might think one step deeper, and choose F hoping you'll
choose C. In which case, you should choose F. But no, that's nasty -
surely he'll play for...
The Extended Prisoner's Dilemma increases the number of people, and
either looks at multi-player cooperation/fighting or, in the more
MtG-applicable case, considers a sequence of matchups between
individuals. To make it interesting, you might have 100 iterations of
the Dilemma between each pair of players, to accumulate a score. You
then move onto the next matchup. At the end of the experiment, you've
played everyone 100 times and have a total score, where the lowest
total score wins. The question is, is there a strategy for
cooperating and fighting in each set of 100 iterations which is the
"best" (lowest-scoring) strategy? For example, you might choose to
"Always Cooperate", or "Always Fight", and see how you go against the
rest of the field.
More advanced strategies might be "Cooperate, then Tit-for-Tat" (where
you always offer C first, then choose whatever your opponent chose on
the last iteration), or "Look, I Want To Be Friends" (where you offer C
twice before going TfT). Aggressive players might like "Fool Me Twice"
(where you offer C twice, and if you haven't had a return C you choose
F until he cooperates). There are more advanced strategies: the "You
Trusted Me, Didn't You?", or "Fink" strategy, where you play some
generally cooperative scheme like TfT, but make your 100th move F to
grab a few bonus points against fellow TfT users, for example. Or the
"Secret Handshake" version, where you follow a pattern of C's and F's
which only certain other people know, so that you get collectively more
points off the other strategies. Woe betide the "I Was Really A
Journalist" strategy here, though, where a Secret Handshake player uses
his inside knowledge to maximise his points off other Society members,
at their expense, by altering his own pattern :-) Then, there's the
random strategy. You use a random number generator to pick your tactic.
It is surprisingly successful, *especially* in a pool of otherwise
"intelligent" systems, because it's impossible to deal with in a
meaningful manner.
What happens at the end? Which system is the best? It all depends on
the people involved. Computer simulations indicate that there is a
stability plateau dependent on the exact point scoring for each of
[CC, CF, FF] and the pool of strategies employed: if you happen to be
the only always-F in a pool of always-C, you will win. If you happen
to be the only always-C in a pool of always-F, you will lose :-) But
if there are enough always-C's in the pool, they will win out over the
nasty aggressives....and at the end, the Finks come out on top.
Depressing, really, but strangely reminiscent of the real world.
Anyone who has got this far either has too much time on their hands,
or has read so much that they're hoping I'm going to say something
deep and meaningful. Bad luck, people. Life isn't that easy.
To go back to the initial "Justice" example, what would have happened
if the others had changed? They all had the same opportunity, and
could well have decided on a similar strategy. Or, of course, have
gone one step deeper, and entered the merry-go-round :-) The correct
choice can only be determined by hindsight: in this case, either the
opposition didn't think about changing, went full circle, decided that
no one would go for the anti-B option, decided they'd win anyway even
if that happened...or any one of a number of options :-) Occam's Razor
tells us that they probably just decided that what they had was good
enough anyway. Similarly, Justice either thought through all the
options, or didn't, but regardless he chose correctly. That time :-)
And that brings us to another point which is at least vaguely related
to the metagame concept: subjective (selective) memory. This is the
bane of many a new player, frequently dominates supposedly objective
reporting, and is the cause of many anecdotes and apocryphal stories
(perhaps its only redeeming feature :-) ). Classic example is the
first-turn Hypnotic Spectre. You know that it happens every other
game where the opponent is playing with Hypnos and Rituals, don't you?.
Well, it at least seems like it :-) In fact, the chances of it are
only about 20% - one game in five. Of course, if you're the Black
player, and you're up against a Red or White opponent, how often does
the first turn Hypno get Bolted or Plowed? Every f**king time :-)
Makes you wonder why you bother, doesn't it - you might as well be
playing Birds of Paradise given the speed with which that early Hypno
leaves the mortal coil. In a manner of speaking, of course.
That's the selective memory effect - it is natural for us to remember
the outstanding, odd, or otherwise *memorable* events, as opposed to
the run-of-the-mill, standard, boring things. Like stars in the night,
we remember the high points and wash out the low points. You really
want to try and train yourself to look at the big picture - in MtG
terms, how does your deck perform in the long term? That Necro/Land's
Edge deck is great - it keeps on killing people second turn!! So why
doesn't anyone (seriously) use it? Because those are the spectacular
results - a lot of the time, the combo doesn't appear. It is important
to be objective in both wins and losses, if you want to stand any
chance of learning and adapting.
A famous study on people outguessing themselves was presented by Paulos
in "A Mathematician Reads the Newspapers". The player is presented
with a red light and a green light, is told that the red light has a
70% chance of coming on, while the green light only has a 30% chance of
illuminating. He is asked to guess each time what light will come on,
and proceeds to get about 58% of his guess right. In essence, he
guesses "Red" 70% of the time, and "Green" 30% of the time; his success
rate is then (0.7)^2 + (0.3)^2 = 58%. If the player simply guessed
"Red" every time, he's be right about 70% of the time :-) By trying to
think too far in what is essentially a random environment, his
performance suffers.
The pack mentality: recently, there has been a lot of interest in the
so-called "Necrodecks" (mono-Black, hand denial/card superiority, with
Disks to reassert permanent superiority). Ignoring how the craze got
started (which would be the subject of a quite interesting study, I
imagine), reports at the peak of the craze contained stories of 80% of
tournament entrants playing slight variations on this theme. At this
point, it is very difficult to change people's attitudes on an
individual basis. For example, let's say you have a deck which beats
Necro 70% of the time. If everyone else is playing Necro, what is the
chance that you win a 6-round elimination tournament (64 players)?
(0.7)^6, or less than 12%. Anyone watching will only see you succeed
one time in ten or so - or, more to the point, they will see Necro
triumph over you 90% of the time! This can lead to funny stories,
such as the person who defeated seven Necro decks in an event, only
to lose to one in the final round, and promptly get told "See, Necro
is superior!" :-)
Note, though, that if your deck went just 50% against Necro (or the
field in general), you'd only win a 6-round elimination event
(0.5)^6 = 1.6% of the time. Your winning chances have increased by
a factor of eight or so, but the huge numbers of (inferior) Necro
decks dominate people's thinking. If you intend to play the
metagame, in terms of guessing the field, be prepared to have other
people play the same game. There are other amusing stories which
relate to 80% of the field turning up to play with *anti*-Necro
decks, fully expecting a huge Necro turnout. In that situation,
you'd be better off playing an *anti*-antiNecro deck :-) But if
everyone else thinks the same way...
You're better off, in many ways, just making a good, effective deck,
and sideboarding to cover your perceived weaknesses (and everyone's
got them). Guess about the field as much as you want, but it is
someone who guesses correctly, good? Or just lucky? The fact is,
there *is* a pool of unthinking players out there; but there are
also a lot of people who are willing to put the same amount of
effort in as you are, by reading this discussion. It's unlikely
that a community will spontaneous change states from stability
(say, 80% Necro) to incoherency (all sorts of crap) overnight,
but you should always be prepared for interesting "flip-flops"
(80% anti-Necro, for example).
Just as Harry Seldon's psychohistory could not deal with the Mule,
on the small scales involved in MtG it is dangerous to prepare for
"the average opponent". You never play such a beast, if it even
exists: your opponents are players - people - with their own sum of
experiences, foibles, blind spots, preconceptions, and yes, even
tricks. Remember - you're one, too. If you get nothing else from
this article, just think about seeing yourself as others see you.
David J. Low dlow@kurasc.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Reliability is key
When building a tournament deck, above all else, reliability
is key. After all, good ideas won't work if you cannot get them
to appear reliably. And the first step to building a reliable
deck is mana distribution.
Now this goes beyond just how many lands to play with, but also
how many sources of a given color one should play with, as well
as whether one should use "alternate" sources of mana, such as
creatures or artifacts.
Now working in the current TYPE II format, the considerations
are as follows:
Most decks, in order to be reliable, will require the ability to play
a source of mana every turn for the first three to four turns.
This means that on average, you want four mana producing lands (we will
consider alternate sources later) in your first eleven cards. This adds
up to around 22 mana producing lands in a 60 card deck. Now with the
key word being ``reliability'', we may want to up this to around 24
or 25. The reasoning for this is that it is much better to have too
much mana at the beginning of the game as opposed to too little mana.
Now for people who have not played much outside of casual groups, this
may come as a shock. The traditional ratio of mana cards to non-mana
cards has usually been 1 to 2. After all, if one plays with 25 lands,
then there is only space for 35 other cards. And as well, what happens
in the mid-game, when you're cursing under your breath because all you
are drawing is land? Without getting into actual deck building
strategies, my answer is that in the mid game, one should either be
putting all this mana to good use (e.g. Jayemdae Tome, Disrupting
Scepter), or be winning outright. Getting mana screwed is much worse
than having an abundant source of mana, as one situation will have you
drawing cards which you cannot use (becoming a target for Black Vise),
while the other lets you either increase your hand size (to counter
The Rack or Disrupting Scepter) or play some extra mana for future use.
The point is, you have more options, and when the cards you need are
drawn, you can actually play them.
Having alternate mana sources can also help in the mid-game, especially
if your opponent is playing with Armageddon. As well, it forces the
land destruction player to deal with non-land cards.
As a last point, alternate mana sources help to achieve a certain
amount of mana more quickly in the beginning of the game. Even if the
sources are disposable (Tinder Wall, Dark Ritual), the advantage
gained by an early boost of mana may make it very difficult for the
opponent to come back.
For a single color deck, it is usually straight-forward. In fact,
single color decks can usually get away with playing with very few
mana sources, since the type of mana they need will consistently show
up. Note that this only applies to weenie decks (and perhaps black
due to Dark Ritual), since their mana dependencies are very low.
All-green decks with big creatures tend to play with many mana-
producing elves and sometimes even with Nature's Lore and such, and
as a result tend to play with very few lands, but overall play with
many mana producers. For decks using two or more colors, it becomes
very important to determine the color dependencies of cards, and when
you are likely to play them. A card is considered very color
dependend if it requires a lot of mana of a particular color to play.
Cards which are very color dependend tend to be less reliable, since
the mana required to play them may not always be available. This is
one of the main reasons why artifacts are good, and this is also a
big part of why Erhnam Djinns are very dominant in TYPE II play.
Another factor in deciding how much mana of a given color to play is
when you are likely to play the cards of that color. If you throw in
one Fireball into your deck, and this is your only red card, then it
may not be such a bad idea to play with, say, 4 or 5 sources of red
mana, the reason being you've only included it in your deck for the
end-game, at which point you will very likely see at least 1 source
of red mana. On the other hand, if you play with Balance as your only
white card, then you may wish to play with quite a few white sources,
since Balance is not necessarily an end-game type of card. Keep in
mind that a white source of mana need not give white mana exclusively.
In fact, it would be very prudent to make those white mana sources
give up some other color as well. Being stuck with a plains could be
very bad if Balance is indeed your only white card.
Brasslands are very flexible in that they provide colorless mana
painlessly. If your deck contains many basic lands, this can be a
great boon because you will only take damage in tight situations.
Having that extra reliability is always good, though, because bad
draws will always happen and it is up to you as the deckbuilder to
minimize those bad draws.
As for the City of Brass, it is usually only necessary in large
quantities (3 or 4) if you are either REALLY pressed for reliability
(e.g. permission decks REALLY want blue mana in abundance) or your
deck requires a lot of differently colored mana. Two color decks with
a touch of a third color should consider playing with City of Brass,
depending on what cards are of the third color. Any deck which uses
three colors extensively will probably require the reliability of
City of Brass.
Seyil Yoon wings@io.org
When I build a sideboard, I build it based on several factors.
In detail, I'll cover each of these topics.
Almost all tourneys where I play are singles, but I have been in a
few Team and Multiplayer tourneys. For single tourneys, you must
design your deck and sideboard for the fast kill. For team play,
the emphasis is for coordinated attacks/spells. For multiplayer
the goal is ultimate defense, hold out as long as possible, slow
and unpreventable death for your opponents. Each of these factors
should replay over and over again in your head as you design your
deck and your sideboard. If you are unsure if you should add a
card to your deck or sideboard, ask yourself "Does this really fit
the tourney format?" and if not, dont add it.
Most people build sideboards to combat certain colors of cards.
But since you usually have only 4-6 cards/color in the sideboard,
this accomplishes nothing since they have a whole deck of that
color and you can only sideboard a few cards. Therefore, each card
has to REALLY REALLY count - has to do something major. Therefore
it is better to make a sideboard to face Deck TYPES, not deck colors.
For instance, you could make a sideboard like this:
But, it is important to realize the potential for ALL cards. A Karma
vs. a Black player is an incredible sideboard card, even though it
only attacks their color instead of their conecpt. That is because it
is a lasting, ongoing effect, not a oneshot, like Tsunami. Rather than
adding a Shatter, I would add either an Energy Flux or a Titanias Song.
The key to successful sideboarding is that any ONE of the cards has to
count. Having one REB vs. a Permission deck is useless. Having one
Mishra Factory can win the game.
The best way to determine this is to play the deck in casual play
against as many different decks as you can. Once you find out a
weakness, write it down, be it land, creature or spell. Once you
have a list, group common things into a single category, such as
Weenies, Blast, Permission, Land Destruction, Discard, Enchantments,
Artifacts, Green, whatever. If you have more than 3 things that
the deck is particularly vulnerable to, the deck needs re-working.
Having 2 vulnerabilities is average. Having 1 is terrific, and I'd
love to see the deck + sideboard once you win the World Champs...:)
There ain't no such thing as having none... Now, take 5 cards that
combat each weakness (or 7-8 if you only have 2).
Most decks have at least a few emergency cards or bonus cards (like
Ivory Tower, a few disenchants, a tranquility, etc.) It is important
when making your sideboard that you ALREADY KNOW which cards you'll be
switching for which. I usually make a list and keep it in my card box
so I can simply pull it out (I usually show a judge so they dont have
a fit) and quickly sideboard. Never pull out cards that are integral
to your deck concept, like Pestilence in a Pestilence deck or a Stone
Rain in a Land Destruction deck. It may seem that you could get away
with one less of your core cards for the sideboard replacement, but
any weakening of your core concept will negate the sideboard bonus.
I would also suggest playtesting the deck with the sideboard cards in.
Ken Lignelli kjl@dart.thomsoft.com
OK, here goes :-)
Firstly, I'll note the standard WW test deck, which Tom's deck mildly
resembles (in, like, it's a white weenie too :-) ):
Knights, Orders, Orders, Lions,
StP, Disenchant, Armageddon, Strips, Sleights
Tax, Balance, Vise, Orb
Adarker Wastes, Sextants, Plains
[Tune numbers to your personal taste - fours of everything legal, then
usually down one for Geddon; full land count puts you over 60, so prune
and maybe drop an Order/Sleight - Dave's school of deck tuning :-)]
Side: this is a test, remember? :-) You might want to go for something
snazzy, though, if you want to see how it fares against Necro :-)
Standard variations include things like going for banding via Infantry or
Pikemen, and varying the bauble component (these days) by adding
Lodestones, which help in your recovery after Geddoning, as well as
speeding up access to those handy little Restricted cards (ban the List!).
History of basic variations I've seen on this deck - it's taken top 4 at
a Regional, won the 95 Australian title, and a few other minor things
afterwards :-)
Basically, everyone serious about MtG testing and analysis has one of
these, with maybe half a dozen cards different. They're solid, but open
to hosing.
* [Note there was no U in this deck, Chanpheng forgot to list 4 Adarkar
Wastes in his deck listing and had to play with sleights, but no U mana! - Steve]
Essential variations between the "test" and Tom's: remove the Geddon
anvil, leaving a token one behind. Hence, Mishra's and Serras become
viable, as does the Outpost. Same for the Sleights. The rest is pretty
much icing (oh, there's a sweeping generalisation!). The sideboard is
interesting, when combined with the main deck: he can go up to seven
targetted critter removals (eight if you include SL), and eight targetted
artifact killers. Arenson's Aura confuses me somewhat :-) Unlikely to
get the mana for the counter option, lack of targets for the first. But
hell, he's World Champ and I'm not :-) Oh, and "Good white weenies don't
need Crusades", long-time readers might remember me saying :-) This is
an example. Crusades just slow you down.
What's funny about this deck? It ignores everything the Americans talk
about as being important :-) One-to-many card advantage (except the
Outpost, which serves mainly as a Strip/LD target in today's environment,
I would guess), over-mana concerns, etc... It's just brutally efficient,
in a manner unto the Bentley Necro. Both Bentley's deck and Tom's are
examples of what's played at home a lot - kill, kill, kill, and take any
losses you get with a smile, then shuffle for the next game :-) Metagame
back home's a real pain in the arse for that reason, BTW, although Nathan
Russell was the first to take the "live, live, forget about killing them
now, but live!" approach to it :-) The number of times he came back from
life totals 1-26 down against me....anyway, that's beside the point :-)
Yes, it's a gamble. But I think people realise that to win a tourney -
especially one where the "chaff" factor will be lower than usual -
*requires* you to be lucky to win. Being good isn't enough - variability
will beat skill in small sample spaces.
This is an interesting difference in thought, actually. Justice, for
example, is a believer in gain through small amounts. IMHO, this is a
mistake. Take his view on Necro at the US Nationals [Duelist Sideboard,
V1#2, p.4]: in testing, he could find decks which beat Necro 60% of the
time, and up to 80%, although there were tradeoffs against the rest of
the field in between. But by trying to take a "best possible deck", his
overall expected win percent decreased - sort of like Paulos' Red/Green
light example. An alternative solution - one which is quite popular back
home - is to guess the field, and take something which is likely to kill
the field. If you happen to come across a nemesis, shrug :-) Some people
have a "mental block", in Julian's words, from being able to do that
somewhere like the Nationals or the Worlds :-)
Embrace variance, and it will be your friend :-) [No, Patrick, you
still can't have any of what I'm smoking....!]
What that means, is that Justice is likely to continue placing highly,
but is likely to lose in the finals of big events unless he goes the
gambit :-) Take the 1995 US Nationals - by betting big (Dervishes and
Lifeforce in the main deck), he won big. Magic's a pretty random game :-)
What does Tom do against a first turn Gloom, or a Sligh variant? He grins,
and looks forward to the next game (or, more likely, tournament!) :-) It
is sad, but I think true, that when a grafter comes up against a bloke on
a lucky streak, the bloke on the lucky streak will win :-) Hence, it's
better to plan to be the lucky bloke *if you want to win*. If you want to
place well, be a grafter :-)
There's a quote from Queen/Highlander here which people might or might
not agree with, but sums up a lot of philosophical differences - is it
better to burn out than to fade away?
In analysing the relative performances of these two decks, consider a
number of things:
Critter ratio: Justice has 9 (5 prot-W) plus 3 Mishra's
: Chanpheng has 20 (12 prot-B), 4 Mishra's, Outpost (+1S), and
Reinforcements :-)
Critter removal:
Artifact removal:
Other stuff:
Pre-sideboard analysis:
Post-sideboard analysis:
Evaluation:
Basically, White-Sleight-Knight walks through Necro, especially low-critter
Necro. When Stern defeated Tam, then Justice defeated Rade, I think all
watching/listening Aussies breathed a huge sigh of relief :-) 3-0/3-0 was
a bit harsh on the American Necro's, but highlighted the problems with
their approach to the game. Tom took the risk of an early exit to
non-Necro, against the chance of likely victory against Necros, and the
risk paid off. Would it do so next time? Probably not. But it doesn't
have to, and *that* is the key to that way of thinking. It only has to
win the World Championships once...some other lucky bastard can do it
next time :-) But I'll bet on lucky bastards a long while before I'll
bet on grafters, if we're talking finishing top in the short term.
And if you don't know, guess :-)
Conclusions? White weenie was unexpected, Tom got lucky :-) Good on
him. While the Necro of Justice would likely do extremely well against
other Necros or ErnieGeddon, and even TS, the sacrifices it makes to do
so (less critters for Contagion, use Dystopia rather than Gloom, and
play the Shatters, in essence) leave it open to the classic WW horde, and
conceivably the sort of RG-weenie-blaster that's popular in Adelaide.
Will we see a resurgence in WW? Well, to tell you the truth, it's been
back in Oz for a month or so, especially the Melbourne scene from what I
hear :-) Steve - has it spread to the hotbed of Necro in Oz, that den of
all evil and perversion known as Sydney? As far as the American scene
goes, I would imagine that there's likely to be some turbulence, before
things settle back down again. Weenie decks - even Necro-weenie decks -
need critters. Nine+Mishra's just isn't enough, against a balanced field.
Key word: *balanced*. If the environment is unbalanced, anything goes
(and usually does). But really, I think people will try it, and not like
the fact that it can suffer quick exits. It's a deck to bet on finals
with, probably not the sort of thing you'd want to try and win a Swiss
event. Unless you reckon there's going to be a lot of 9-critter Necros
:-) The most interesting thing might be that it forces people to
consider it, which obviously tends to weaken a deck. The more threats
you can ignore, the stronger you are; the more you have to worry about,
the weaker you get. Unless you start ignoring threats, which can
occasionally be the percentage play....
When I used my version in 95, it was a gamble. Necro was just taking off
back home around July 95, and I was praying not to meet anyone using it.
As it was, I met a BW-Knight deck in the last Swiss round (we don't play
no silly elim finals....) which served me my head, as expected. Nearly
made it through seven or eight rounds without seeing one :-) For the
Nationals, I reverted to my favourite RG, while Nathan Russell took the
WW gamble and ended up with a ticket to the 95 Worlds (finishing =12th
or so, I think; Glenn Shandley took =9th) :-) In the words of one of Oz's
top players from QLD (Tom's home state), "If you feel like claiming that
white sleight-knight is an SA invention, or that that lump of crap Nathan
was running was in any way representative, feel free, as long as it's in
jest, and I can claim to be the sole progenitor of ErnieGeddon". Well,
it would be silly to claim invention of something that simple; given
performances, it's a pretty good lump of crap; but I ain't going to name
names as far as ErnieGeddon goes :-)
Regards,
David ("Second Place is for Frenchmen" :-) ).
Introduction
Most players of Magic: the Gathering are familiar with the usual
environment where players make decks out of cards they own and
pit those decks against one another. This is known as "constructed
deck" play, of which there are three types, Classic (Type 1),
Classic Restricted (Type 1.5), and Standard (Type 2). Then, there
is the "limited environment", where players are given cards and
they must construct competitive decks out of those cards. There are
two types here, Sealed Deck (SD), and Booster Draft (BD).
Booster Draft is reportedly one of the favorite formats of Magic
creator Richard Garfield. It tests both the skill of the player in
recognizing the power of cards in the limited environment (which can
be very different from constructed environments), and the speed
at which he can construct a viable deck. It also tests the ability
of a player to play with scarce resources, and the ability to
improvise deck strategies almost instantaneously. BD is a recent
development on the MTG tournament scene, being officially formalized
in Pro Tour 2 (won by Shawn Regnier). It has since become a standard
part of the most major of MTG tournaments, particularly the World
Championships. A player who aims to become one of the best in the
world must necessarily be capable in Booster Draft.
Competitors sit down at a table (ideally eight to a table), and are
given identical sets of boosters - typically two (2) 15-card boosters
and one (1) 12-card booster. On the signal from the tournament judge,
the players open one booster specified by the organizers.
They then have a limited amount of time to look through the cards,
and "draft" one card. They then count out the remaining cards to the
player on their right or left, as specified. Once the allotted time
expires, the judge gives the signal to pick up the
cards on the players' left or right, and then draft again. The time for
succeeding rounds is reduced, reflecting the diminishing number of
cards to consider. This repeats until each player has drafted
fifteen cards. The second booster is then drafted in the same fashion,
with the passing direction reversed. Finally, the third booster is drafted,
with the passing direction reversed again. The players than are given
any type and amount of basic land they wish to construct their deck with.
As can be seen, the interactive dynamics of this format are very
different from any other. Players new to booster draft should consider
the following:
1) Familiarize yourself with the cards.
You don't have time to read cards during the draft - being able to take
time to consider the strengths of each card is crucial. Try to have at
the very least a passing familiarity with the card sets being drafted.
This can be done by reading the various card lists available on the net.
2) Know the strengths of cards in limited environments.
No one uses cards like Cuombajj Witches or Goblin Sappers in constructed
environments. In BD, these cards could win you matches. As the
motto of the Pacific Coast Legends goes - "If it flies, draft it!"
The primary reason for this is that cards that take away resources
are scarce in BD. Creatures that cannot be blocked (landwalking, flying,
protection), or that force your opponent to do things he would normally
not want to do (Norritt, Lure, Siren's Call), or that take away choices from
him (banding) are very powerful in this environment. Also, any card that
has direct damage capability of any sort, from the strangest (Brothers of
Fire, Banshee, Voodoo Doll) to the most obvious (Disintegrate, Incinerate,
Drain Life, Kaervek's Torch), and cards that kill or control creatures
(Afterlife, Ray of Command, Control Magic, Dark Banishing) are very
valuable in BD. My friends in Team Wyrms, Jun Llorin and DJ Paculio,
have a simple formula - if your deck has good creatures, and good anti-
creature capability, you have a good BD deck. Finally, for lack of a better
way to put it, BIG is good. Big boys like Crash of Rhinos, Craw Wurm,
Obsianus Golem and any Dragon are excellent drafts, simply because they
are fiendishly hard to kill.
3) Be flexibile in playing colors and styles.
You have to know how to play each and every color of Magic effectively,
and you cannot be stuck in a "color mindset". You cannot decide, before
the draft itself, that you will draft and play red and green. Be
prepared to end up with the strangest color combinations or strategies,
even if you hate "cheesy DD" or "cheesy counterspells". If they get
passed to you, draft and play with them. Don't play permisson? Learn.
Case in point here is Regnier's PT2 draft - he came up with a strategy
seldom seen in BD - the primary road to victory of his deck was by decking
opponents, and he had no Millstones to help. His draft of four Gaseous
Forms were essential to his game plan. He drafted them, and had a
strategy in mind when he did that. That's why he won.
4) Practice, practice, practice.
If you want to compete seriously, then practice makes perfect.
Don't have the cash to buy a lot of boosters? Simulate them with
the cards that you do have! There's a great program out there called
Decksealer that will generate boosters for you to make out of the
cards you have. Don't have a specific card? Substitute it with a
card of the same rarity. Then draft away. It helps to compare drafts
with the other people at your table when practicing. You will find
that each player has a unique outlook on how to use cards, or why
he took one card over another. (F'rexample, my teammate DJ drafted a
Kaervek's Torch over an Amber Prison. I would have taken the Prison
over the Torch - I prefer battlefield control, while he wanted a sure
finishing kick. Differences in opinion and style, neither obviously
better than the other.) After the practice draft, make decks and
play to see if your draft strategy worked, and to get the feel of
playing with a deck made in this environment. Soon, you'll notice that
you're drafting faster, and your choices are surer. Now you can go
to that tournament.
1) Check your table and choose your seating (if allowed).
Some tournaments will allow you to choose the table where you will
draft. If you can, sit beside someone who might not draft well.
If you know a certain player likes playing black no matter what, then
sit beside him and he'll probably pass you good cards that are not in
black. Or sit beside a kid who'll grab the rare card and pass you the
commons that win BD games. The people beside you in the draft are
important - they're the ones who'll be passing you cards that can make
or break your deck.
2) Let the first eight cards set the mood.
Don't expect to be able to go mono in BD. It's likely that at least one
other player at the table will be drafting the same color as you. A
simple rule we have made is that for the first four cards, take the best
card you can see regardless of color. You shouldn't have more than
three colors in the first four cards. For the next four cards, draft the
best cards in the two to three colors you already have, unless it's a
DD spell and you're not in red. At the end of the first booster, you
should have a clear idea of the two to three colors you'll be playing.
(The third color should be minor, typically just two or three important
cards with no more than one specific colored mana in casting cost.)
3) Recognize the colors being drafted.
You might notice that certain cards just float by you, and you wonder
what the guy beside you drafted. If a good card or two get passed to
you in the middle of the round, then there's a good chance that there are
few people drafting in that color. If you're already in that color, good.
If not, consider "jumping" to that color. If your guess is right, the
next two booster rounds will be very good to you.
One evening, we settled down to practice a Mirage/Chronicles draft.
Early in the first booster, I began drafting blue flying creatures.
By the fifth round, I noticed that two Dirtwater Wraiths had
passed by me - ergo, no one seemed to be drafting in black. I
drafted black cards in the next three rounds, and the Wraiths came
floating by again, confirming my suspicions. In the second booster,
I got passed Harbinger of Night and Abyssal Hunter in the middle
rounds, giving me a fantastic set of creature control cards. My
recognition that there was little competition in black paid off.
4) Review your draft after the first pack, and between packs.
Check the fifteen cards you now have. Remember that you should have
something like fifteen to twenty decent creatures in a standard draft.
If you already have lots of creatures, go for other stuff in the
next pack. If you're short on creatures, then that's what you'll be
drafting next. Remember, good creatures and good anti-creature cards
are essentially what you're after. Other things like fast mana (elves,
Nature's Lore, Untamed Wilds), land destruction and artifact destruction
are less important (though ideally you should draft one or two of those
in the later rounds when you've got all the creatures you need). Remember
to try to get small, fast creatures (for the early game), and BIG stuff
(to hold the field in the mid- and endgames).
Don't forget to count your cards between rounds. You should have the
exact number of cards for the boosters you just drafted. Miss out on
a card and you could get disqualified.
5) Round out your draft deck with the last pack.
By the last pack, you should know what's missing from your draft. This
is the last chance to grab the stuff missing from your deck. Now, you
can afford to pass up decent creatures (say, War Mammoth) to get a card
you need to destroy potential threats (say, Tranquility for COP:Green).
Take note that you won't necessarily be playing against the people at
the table where you drafted; BDs are usually Swiss in format. Get
some cards to deal with every permanent type, if possible - just in case
you run into the guy at the other table where less capable drafters passed
him all the COPs.
1) Balance your deck.
When putting your deck together, return to the axiom that I've been
repeating : creature and anti-creature. Toss in fourteen to
sixteen of the best creatures, keeping in mind that costs should
slowly escalate. Add all the anti-creature cards that you were lucky
enough to draft (note that these two categories may overlap; Orcish
Cannoneers, Prodigal Sorceror, Pirate Ship). Add whatever other
"good stuff" you think you absolutely have to play with (I tend
to slap in Living Lands and Orcish Oriflamme when I have them), and
add land. As in constructed (actually, those skills are what you're
relying on here), thirty-five to forty percent mana should be the
way to go (see why I like Living Lands?). That's about sixteen
land in a forty-card deck (as in constructed, try to stick to the
limit unless you have a good reason to do otherwise).
2) Designate your sideboard.
Set aside the stuff that you drafted "just in case" - cards that
get rid of enchantments, artifacts, land and whatever else. Note
the stuff in your deck that you'll use as "sideboard space". This
will make your sideboarding decisions during matches faster and
easier.
3) Test draw.
The simplest of the "testing tools", the test draw will give you a
feel for your deck. Actually, if you can play test games against
other players (ideally your friends), that would be best, but this
is usually prohibited. Besides, your friends might still be building
their decks. BD is a format where time is usually scarce. You can
also play against "The Punching Bag"; just see how fast your deck can
deal twenty points of damage.
1) Count your cards, before and after every duel.
Very simple, yet many players forget to do this. The main reason for
this is that lots of cards in BD get played in the opponent's territory,
notably creature enchantments. It's easy to forget that Pacifism you
played on your opponent's Volcanic Dragon. Failing to get it back may
cost you your the Pacifism (if the opponent leaves the tournament), or it
could even cost you a duel or match (if that Pacifism was your 4oth card
and you began your next match without realizing it was gone).
2) Patience, patience, patience.
It's easy to slap down creatures turn after turn and attack, but a single
Savage Twister, Wrath of God or Harbinger of Night could ruin you. Pay
attention to the environment, and always have contingency plans. Hold
a spare creature in your hand, or save that solitary Afterlife for
something really unmanageable, like a Crash of Rhinos. BD games tend
to last longer than constructed deck games. Watch and wait for the
opportunity to gain an advantage, and seize it when it comes.
In addition, try to save any "X DD spell". Use it to kill a creature if
you must, but these spells are best used to deliver a killing blow.
3) Exercise care in, and pay attention to creature combat.
Nine times out of ten, BD games are won and lost on the creature
battlefield. (Hammer's deck was that 1 out of 10.) Knowing how to
play creatures - maximizing combat abilities and playing creature
enhancers at the right time - is the key to winning close duels.
Players who habitually play creatureless constructed decks (I admit
to being one of these) tend to have problems in BD play. Practice makes
perfect, here. How do you use banding to the hilt? When do you cast
that Ether Well? Should you use your only Armor of Thorns to pump up
your Gibbering Hyenas, or wait and use it to kill an opposing creature?
These are the decisions that make or break you in BD play.
4) Use your sideboard.
Don't forget that you have a sideboard in BD - that's all the cards
that you drafted and didn't put into your deck. Check it after every
duel - you might see something that will help. Kaervek's Hex has won
me several games, and spells like Soul Rend and Mind Harness work very
well against specific creatures or strategies. Remember those "just in
case" cards you got? Now you can put in the Tranquility for the guy
with all the COPs in the world, or the Tropical Storm for Mr. Flying
Critters. Hosers work very well, even in Booster Draft.
1) Reflect.
You might have found a card that didn't seem like a good draft at the
outset, but which has now proven its worth. Conversely, you might have
lost a duel because of a card or strategy played well by your opponent.
As they say, there's no substitute for experience. Share your experiences
with your friends or team. If you didn't win this time, maybe next draft
will be better. It usually is. ;-)
History
The Duelists' Convocation introduced the Limited Standard environment
in Pro Tour 3, utilizing the first "standalone expansion" for Magic:
the Gathering, ICE AGE, and its own expansion, ALLIANCES. When he
first conceived the idea of expansions, Richard Garfield designed
them with card backs different from the basic MtG set, and meant them
to be played separately. The former idea fell through, and all
expansions were made with the same card back, but the latter idea
came to be when Ice Age (IA) was introduced as the first standalone MtG
expansion. The IA card set included several basic cards from the
basic set, with different art, and with black borders. The greatest
impact it had was the return of an out-of-print card, Icy
Manipulator, with new art, but functionally identical to the
original. Alliances made an impact with its powerful cardset, many
mimicking powerful out-of-prints cards.
Players can only draw from the Ice Age and Aliances cardsets to build
decks, which must conform to standard Type 2 deck construction rules.
There is only one banned card, Amulet of Quoz (an ante card), and
only one restricted card, the Zuran Orb. Players may use cards from
other editions/cardsets, as long as the card names are identical.
Functionally identical cards with different card names are not
allowed (Orcish Cannoneer and Orcish Artillery, Fyndhorn Elf and
Llanowar Elf, et. al.).
Red : Red retains its direct damage power in this environment, with
Incinerate, Lava Burst and Pyroclasm (which is the most efficient
"creature sweeper" in the environment). It is the most powerf land
destruction color, with Stone Rain and the dual-purpose Pillage.
Pillage is backed up in the anti-artifact department by Shatter and
the powerful Primitive Justice. Red's creatures are powerful,
particularly the fast Balduvian Horde, the firebreathing Storm
Shamans, and the large Goblin Mutant. Finally, red possesses the
most radical game-altering spell, the global destruction sorcery
Jokulhaups.
Black : Black is relatively weak in the environment, with its most
known Ice Age Card, Necropotence, hamstrung by the weaker black
creatures. Still black has Knights of Stromgald, Abyssal Specters
and the enigmatic Phantasmal Fielnds and Stromgald Spies to rely
upon. Its anti-creature suit is still strong with Dark Banishing,
Stench of Decay, Ritual of the Machine and Soul Burn, and it retains
its speed with Dark Ritual and the Lake of the Dead. It still has
nothing to deal with artifacts, but Dystopia, Infernal Darkness and
Leshrac's Sigil have their uses in the game.
Blue : Blue's countermagic arsenal is intact, with Power Sink,
Counterspell, Arcane Denial and the pitching Force of Will. The
enchantment Browse has an entire deck built around it, and blue can
still filch permanents with Binding Grasp and Magus of the Unseen.
It has the best deck manipulation cards in the environment with
Library of Lat-Nam, Lat-Nam's Legacy and Foresight, and the cantrips
Brainstorm and Portent, plus iits Alliances special land, Soldevi
Excavations.
White : White's weenie swarm is somewhat weaker, but is still potent
with Order of the White Shield, Wild Aesthir and Kjeldoran Knight.
Despite retaining Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant, white lacks
any creature sweeping effect to rival Wrath of God. What it does
have is the horrific creature-generating Kjedloran Outpost, which all
decks in this environment must prepare to face. Several enchantments
are also notable, particularly Inheritance, one of the few
card-drawing effects avilable, and Hallowed Ground, which effectively
makes its Kjeldoran Outposts near-invincible. Speaking of
invincible, Blinking Spirits and Ivory Gargoyles are just that, and
show up in decks quite often.
Green : Green's creatures are still its big ticket, and big is
definitely it when describing Yavimaya Ants and Deadly Insect.
Fyndhorn Elves and Elders generate fast mana, while Balduvian Bears,
Gorilla Berserkers, Gorilla Chieftains and Yavimaya Ancients are all
excellent creatures for their costs. By far the most-used greenie is
the Wooly Spider.
Gold : The only gold card truly worth mentioning in this environment
is the red/green enchantment Stormbind, which is seen in almost all
the deck with those two colors. Some decks sport the
library-searching Lim-Dul's vault, and a few utilize Surge of
Strength to bolster their creatures. The most-used gold creature is
another spider, the Giant Trapdoor variety.
Artifacts : Zuran Orb is in every single deck. Phyrexian Warbeast
finds its way into some, and the Jester's Cap and Soldevi Digger are
fixtures in Browse decks (and some others, too). The Icy Manipulator
is a staple in many decks, and the library-thinning cantrip-artifacts
Urza's Bauble, Lodestone Bauble and Barbed Sextant are fairly common.
Land : Other than the Alliances lands (of which the Kjeldoran
Outpost and Lake of the Dead are most seen), one other land deserves
special mention: Thawing Glaciers. This land pulls basic lands out
of libraries at the rate of one every other turn, and in multiples it
definitely helps thin out a deck. Decks of all stripes use them.
BugBind - R/G/(w)
BugBind's staple cards are just that: Bugs (Wooly Spiders, Giant
Trapdoor Spiders, Deadly Insects, Yavimaya Ants), and Stormbind. The
deck spits out creatures at a fast rate, clearing the way with
Stormbind, Incinerate, and Pyroclasm, and ending games with Lava
Burst if necessary. Some variants splash white for Swords to
Plowshares and Disenchant. Others, to live up to the "BaubleBind"
myth, add Urza's Baubles and Lodestone Baubles. Other cards to look
for in these decks are Pillage, Primitive Justice and Jokulhaups.
Browse - U/W/(r)
Browse decks operate on a complex concept : they put up defenses and
Browse to the bottom of their libraries, then use Soldevi Digger to
return certain cards to the bottom of their libraries. Those cards
are then recycled to kill off the opponent. Sounds easy, but it's
fairly difficult to achieve. The recycled card is usually either an
Incinerate, or in the absence of red, a Jester's Cap. Cards to look
for, other than the Browse and Digger, are the blue countermagic
spells, Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant, Circles of Protection
(often built in), Kjeldoran Outposts (used primarily to generate
blockers), and Icy Manipulators. Those variants with red will pack
Pyroclasm.
White Weenie - W/(u)
White Weenie lives in ALICE, though rather weakly. Other than the
aforementioned weenies, these decks pack Slight of Mind to help
protect against hosers like Anarchy and Dystopia. Other weenie
creatures that may show up are the banding Kjeldoran Warrioirs and
Skyknights, and occasionally Phyrexian Warbeasts are seen beefing up
the white troops. The usual Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares are
seen, and there are variants that employ an "infinite engine",
consisting of Enduring Renewal, Skull Catapult and Inheritance.
These variants often carry Arcane Denials to protect the engine.
GarBlinkyHaups - W/R/(u)
This deck type sports a set of virtually unkillable creatures :
Blinking Spirits, Ivory Gargoyles, and the boys of the Kjeldoran
Outpost. With the strong creature killing power of red and white, it
dinks away with its power 1 and 2 creatures until it can cast a
Jokulhaups, clearing the board of everything other than its Ivory
Gargoyles, which then clinch the victory. This deck carries the
usual red and white complement (Incinerate, Disenchant, Pyroclasm et.
al.), and some carry blue for Arcane Denials to make sure that the
Jokulhaups goes off as planned.
Dark Water - B/U/(r) or (w)
Dark Water decks are built around black creatures and blue defense,
usually bolstered by either red or white spells. Main offense is
provided by Phantasmal Fiends, Abyssal Specters, and Stromgald Spies,
backed up by countermagic (and blue to flip the Fiend's stats). Red
support is Incinerates, Pyroclasms and Lava Burst, while white
support is Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant. (Red is more
popular.) The Lake of the Dead powers game-ending Lava Bursts or
Soul Burns.
Any comments, flames, suggestions or reactions? Email me -
druid@cnl.net If you reply to the list, please snip irrelevant parts
of your quotes to save bandwidth. Just a reminder.
Rick Laig (The Steel Dragon)
Benjamin Seck bseck@WR.COM.AU
Have you ever wondered why some tournament decks get going, despite the
apparent slowness of the deck? How does a Willoggeddon compete in an
environment of Necro and other faster decks? A group of friends of mine
have discussed this idea, and I have decided to write about it. It all
comes down to a phenomenon we call flashpoint.
The flashpoint of a deck is the magical number of mana that a deck
requires to suddenly get rolling. The lower the flashpoint, the quicker
the deck. A "rolling" flashpoint is the number of mana required for the
deck to consistently win. For example, the traditional pre-hymnstrip
restriction necro has a flashpoint of two. At this two mana points we
have knights and orders, basically the meat of a necro deck. On the
other hand we have a willowgeddon, but it has a flashpoint of 4, where
ernhams, armageddon, wraths of god occur. the lower the flashpoint of a
deck, the more consistent it becomes. This is why sometimes a necrodeck
will steamroll a willowgeddon, with sheer speed.
But, a deck does not just contain one type of flashpoint. There is a
second level of flashpoint, which I will call the "disruption"
flashpoint. It is at this point that deck, does not necessarily get
going, but at least attempts to disrupt the opponents strategy. It is by
the "disruption" flahpoint that we may account for the apparent
disparity between the "rolling" flashpoints of different decks. For
necro, it is still two with the Hymns to Tourach. But we now see for
willowgeddon it is 1-2 with StPs, disenchants, elvish archers and
spectral bears. One may wonder why I classify elves and bears under
disruption. Well when you do see a willowgeddon really work, do the
early elves and bears actually kill? Usually not, they merely provide
early blockers, so that the ernhams and later elves and bears can finish
the job, usually after an armageddon of some sort. The "rolling"
flashpoint of willowgeddon is deceiving, as it contains mana elves and
birds that lower the unusually high flashpoint of the deck. To make an
efficient deck the "disruptive" flashpoint of the deck must be at least
equal or less than the faster decks of the general field.
Then why does willowgeddon lose to necro? Willowgeddon does, after all,
have a comparable "disruptive" flashpoint to necro's "rolling"
flashpoint. This is because that necro, with its prot white creatures
effectively makes Willowgeddon' "disruptive" flashpoint 4, as only
things such as Wraths of God and Serrated Arrows can effectively deal
with Knights and Orders consistently (we do not take into account
Balance due to its restricted nature). This is why Necro does lose
somewhat to a g/r Ehnham-Burn'em Deck, with the various bolts, an E-B
deck has an effective disruptive flashpoint of 1-2 against most decks
(since there are few early creatures that are either prot red or have
toughness greater than 3).
So what does this concept of flashpoints give us for Magic strategy?
Consider most of the tournament winning decks, and you'll come to the
conclusion that the most consistent decks have both a "disruption" and
"rolling" flashpoint of two or less. Necro-weenie, White-weenie, Stasis,
even the Prison to an extent. It is this fact that make Land Destruction
not a consistently viable strategy in type two (especially without
strips), as it is a turn behind most decks in terms of flashpoints. Deck
design has even been moving towards lowering this flashpoint further
with the inclusion of Contagion and Force of Will. It is these cards
that in the new era of deck design (post hymnstrip), will push
flashpoint to one and below. Force of Will allows Stasis a level of
consistency that it could never have achieved without it. Since it
effectively cannot actively disrupt an opponents strategy until the
stasis lock is achieved, many decks would roll over Turbostasis, but
with FoW, right from the start the option to counter makes it a
formidable threat.
When designing a deck, look for cards with a low casting cost with some
sort of disruptive ability. You will start looking at certain cards in a
different way, such as Ankh of Mishra. It provides an environment where
just playing (as you need to put down land) costs damage. It effectively
lowers the starting life totals by 4-8, and so if one can build a deck
with this reduction in life totals in mind, it can prove to be quite
formidable. It is important to keep the idea of lashpoints in mind, as
it can usually tell you how effective you deck is even before
playtesting.
With the idea of flashpoint in mind, it is also easy to see why Strip
and Hymn were restricted. Strip Mine was restricted because it allowed
colorless disruption at no cost. It effectively made many decks
"disruptive" flashpoints a heap lower, and often made powerful
strategies degenerate (such as LD with a vise in hand). Hymn's
"disruptive" power is contained within its potential disruption. Some
people say it balancing factor was its luck, but its degeneracy was its
luck. If one was to draw two lands in early game, it is powerful. If one
was to draw two creatures in mid-game it is powerful. If one was to draw
direct damage endgame, it is powerful. The simple power to disrupt at
any stage of the game "potentially", was enough to make it a problem.
Please feel free to write concerning the issues I have raised.
Benjamin Seck
Len Blado
Annonymous person writes:
> There was a whole lot more tactics and fun in playing that good old
> counterburn deck back when IceAge hit the market. Now the whole idea of
> counterdecks has degenerated into 'whoever has the most counters will win'
> deck. After Alliances has left the T2 environment, I believe/hope players
> are going to think of their counters as a valuable resource instead of a way
> of winning at the cost of the fun and creativity of deck construction and
> playing.
Ah... the good ole days... :) Hate to say it, but permission
vs. permission has *always* been 'whoever has the most counters will
win'- between players of equal skill that is. The fun in permission is
(1) most everyone is a bad permission player, so you can simply outplay
them... something you can't do with standard burn decks very easily and
(2) making sure that you always 'have the most counters'.
Since this *is* a strategy forum, though, as long as we're on
the subject, some personal 'rules' of permission:
1. Know everything. The reason the best players in Magic tend
to play blue a lot has much less to do with the fact that there some
sort of bias out there than with the fact that in *order* to play blue
successfully you've got to have an encyclopediac knowledge of rules and
strategy. Not only do you have to know your own options, but you've
got to accurate guess your opponent's options and be prepared to deal
with them. In addition, you've got to be able to instantly assess an
opponent's deck- in one deck, it may be essential to counter that Jayemdae
Tome; in another, it would be pointless. A good friend of mine often
wows the newbies by going to tournaments and, after 3-4 turns, rattling
off every card in their deck (usually missing by 5-6 cards). Needless
to say, he's pretty good at playing permission.
2. Be aware of what countermagic is for. The next time I see
a Turbostasis player counter an Ernham Djinn, I reserve the right to
strangle them. Countermagic plays many roles in many decks, but the
most common use is for protecting permanents, *not* denying your
opponent vital resources. Counterpost and Turbostasis are both examples
of this school of countermagic use. In each, your primary interest is
to protect the key permanents of your deck- that's why such decks are
so comparitively light on countermagic. In Turbostasis, for example,
all I need to do is have more countermagic than you have Disenchants,
and I'm usually ok. A Hammer/Permission deck, on the other hand, tends
to use Countermagic for 'disruption'- meaning that you could care less
if your Wildfire Emissary gets Terror'd, so long as you keep
countering the Tombstone Stairwells. This doesn't mean that countermagic
is 'locked in'- it just means that you should always be aware of *why*
you put it in the deck in the first place.
3. Don't get involved in countermagic wars unless you really
need to. Most players assume that, since they have a counterspell in
their hand, they should automatically aim it at any counterspell that
comes in range. Don't fall into this trap. It is almost *never* in your
interest to 'counter a counterspell'- it runs you out mana on your turn
(usually), giving your opponent free rein. It also unnecessarily
drains you of countermagic that (most likely) you'll need later. While
there are times when you'll want to ensure that a spell gets through
(or doesn't get through), make sure to 'pick your fights'. And if you
pick a fight, be sure to *win* it.
4. Watch the mana. The single most important element in playing
with countermagic (especially against another countermagic deck) is to
play the mana game correctly. I've seen people take booster draft decks
against tuned Type II decks and wreck them in countermagic wars, simply
because they paid attention to the mana situation and their opponent
ignored it. Every now and then you'll have to battle your opponent for
control of some vital point- make sure when you do, you have the mana
advantage. Without it, you're dead. With it, you're virtually
guaranteed to win. Even *if* you lose, it will be most likely because
of spells like Arcane Denial and Force of Will, which will come back to
haunt your opponent later.
5. Don't get sucked into the 'must counter' trap. A large
number of players are under the impression that some set of spells
exist that a countermagic deck *must* counter, or suffer some
heinous fate. This belief leads to bad permission players- the
kind that you say "I cast Tsunami", and the counterspell is already
on the table. There is no such thing as a 'must counter' spell- in
fact a large number of these probably won't hurt your deck much at
all if you stop to think about it. Countermagic decks have a
variety of other spells in them for a *reason*. You're not packing
Disenchant just in case you don't have a Force of Will in your
opening hand, after all. And those Thawing Glaciers and Cities of
Brass, while useful on their own, probably make a very nice answer
to that Tsunami. The entire point of playing permission is
versatility- if a single card hoses your deck, your permission deck
probably isn't so hot.
6. Don't play by the 'rules'. Basically, whenever a situation
comes up where you *might* have the opportunity to use countermagic,
sit back and think about the options- never blindly follow some set
of 'rules' for countermagic use. Each situation is totally unique, and
depends on a lot of factors that most folks simply don't pay attention
to- no set of general rules can possibly cover it. Little things like
using the wrong land, a creature being tapped or not, or how many cards
someone has in hand can have major effects on the game when countermagic
comes into play. Note that you should *always* think about these things
whenever *any* spell is cast- even if you don't have any countermagic in
your hand.
Len Blado
Have you ever wondered where those great 'new' decks come from?
Or those 'killer' cards or combos? They can't just pop out of
thin air, right? Well, here's where they come from: strict
analysis and testing of certain cards.
Many cards are killer on their own. For many of
them, their uses are obvious, and even the basest player
can pick up on them. Cards like Demonic Tutor, Black Vice,
and Regrowth fall into this category. But there is another
category of great cards, those that aren't apparently obvious
as amazingly powerful cards. They have to be tried and retried
until they are discovered, and include such cards as Juzam
Djinn, arguably the most powerful creature in the game, who
was scorned when first released because of the upkeep of
losing one life, as well as Necropotence, which for months was
labeled one of the worst cards in Ice Age because, again, of
loss of life only to turn into a pivotal card in a deck that would
dominate type II tournaments until Ice Age was rotated out.
This is a very good point, and something that deserves to be in
this article. Many cards may have a drawback that is only a drawback
in the current environment (such as a sacrifice of a land in a Land-
Destruction heavy environment, or loss of life in a Direct-Damage
environment). And while an environment may make one card
more harsh, it may make another more smooth. As Len said,
many good players can spot the abusable cards, even if they aren't
necessarily abusable at the moment. It takes a good player to
see it, work with it, and wait until it can be used to it's fullest.
Thanks, Len.
So you're asking, what's my point? Well, someone
had to figure out that these cards were good. Very good. And
that person had an edge that not everyone has. I'm going to
tell you how to get some of that edge. Basically, you need to
know three things: Why do I want to do this, How do I spot these
cards, and How do I use them.
So, why should you care, why do you want to use these
overlooked cards? You say you're happy using the same old
cards you've always used, and the same old decks. Well, then
be happy and play. But for those who say that tournaments are
boring, that they are dominated by a few decks that all look the
same, well this could be your cure. You can find a card that has
been overlooked by many and make your own, new, creative, and
possibly winning deck around it. For myself, that's what this game
is all about. For others, they would prefer to play, at least in serious
competition, with tried and true cards.
Now on to the most important, how do you spot the
overlooked and powerful cards? Well, there are a few signs
to look for:
-It breaks the rules: something that allows you do something
that the rule book does not allow is very often a powerful card.
the rule books are there for a reason, and breaking them is a
special privilege. Fastbond was a card that was ripe for
abuse, but the real spark didn't come along until Storm Cauldron
was released (which, in and of itself, minority breaks rules).
-It has a unique ability: Often if a card has a one-of-a-kind ability,
that means the ability is useful. As well as sometimes being
powerful, these are often the most fun cards to use. The Soldevi
Digger has the ability to repeatedly replace cards from your
graveyard to your library. WHile it's hard to use effectively, when
it is used effectively it works wonders. Stormbind, as well, had
a relatively unique ability, and turned into one of the most powerful
cards in Ice Age.
-The card has a nasty drawback: this is often the best indicator
of a powerful card. After all, those drawbacks are put there for
a reason, right? Some more common drawbacks are Upkeeps,
sacrifices of lands or creatures (Keeper of Tresserhorn, Polar
Kraken, Zuran orb), loss of life (Necropotence, Juzam Djinn), or aiding
your opponent with cards, permanents, or life (Phelldagriff, Soldevi
Sentry, Sibilant Spirit, Varchild's War-Riders). The fact that you
have to hurt yourself to bring a card out usually means long-term
value, especially if the way you hurt yourself is short term.
What Arthur says also goes along with having a unique ability. While
not unique (anymore), creatures that can attack the first turn they
are in play are rare, and generally fall in with 3 colors: Red, Black
and Green. They are a perfect example of a card that may seem
overcosted, but have an ability that is good enough to be worth it.
-the card is generally undercosted: this goes along with the
previously mentioned because drawbacks equate to lower
casting costs, and is easiest to spot in creatures. Just compare
the card to others of similar ability, for example the Erhnam Djinn.
As a 4/5 for G3 mana with a mediocre drawback, it's comparable
to Durkwood Boars, G4 for a 4/4 with no drawback, Ironroot
Treefolk, GG3 for 3/5 with no drawback, and Jungle Wurm, GG3
for 5/5 with a minor drawback. Obviously, we can see that at
4 mana, no matter what color, this card is undercosted.
Going along with this is sometimes multiple colors
in the casting cost. many spells use 2 or 3 colors and make
the casting cost lower for the reason that it's harder to use those
specific colors in your deck and get them out at the right time.
-Most people don't use it: One of the worst arguments I've heard
against using certain cards is that they aren't popular. This is
just silly; while many times the pack mentality is useful, if someone
can't give you a better reason that they dislike a card or that the card
'sucks', you might want to take a look at it.
So, you've got your great undercosted card with a huge
drawback. Now, how to use it. Generally, what you have to do is
look at the advantages and disadvantages of the card. These
are what you base the deck around. Use cards that make up for
the disadvantage; if it's loss of life, put in some life gainers (for
Necropotence, which paid life to draw cards, Ivory Tower was
perfect, as it gave life for excess cards), if the disadvantage is
a sacrifice of creatures, make the deck rely more heavily on
smaller, lower casting cost creatures. Watch out, though, if
you are devoting too much deck space to supporting your card,
you will probably find it counter productive.
Now, look at the advantages and capitalize on them.
If it's a big creature you've got, make it bigger or find ways to
get it through to your opponent. If you've got library manipulation,
try to remove select cards from the library that either you don't
want your opponent to have (in the case of manipulating your
opponent's library) or that you don't need (in the case of manip-
ulating your own library). This is where your deck needs to shine;
you're putting the card in because it has a great ability, now
capitalize on it.
So, now you have your deck with your new killer card.
Test it out. As with any deck, this is most important. What does
the card do? Do the support cards you put in work? (I remember
hearing many people using Library of Leng with Necropotence...
since you draw the cards into your hand at the end of the turn,
the RV forward Libraries basically meant you couldn't ever draw
again...) If something is wrong, go through the editing stages of
the deck, but always watch your key power card and see how it
works. You might have it pegged wrong, or perfectly right, maybe
it just doesn't work the way you thought, or has an unexpected
twist that lets you win all the time. But, sometimes, it just won't
work no matter what, and you have to know when to give up
So, go grab your commons box, and look over those
worthless cards again. maybe you'll see something like Spatial
Binding that breaks the rules. Or maybe you'll find Balduvian
Hordes which depletes your resources. Or perhaps Force Spike
which is undercosted compared to other counters. Whatever it
is, try it out, and you just might find it's not -that- worthless
after all.
Bennett Campbell
apparatus@juno.com --- hcschc@cnsibm.albany.edu
To build a successful tournament-level deck, the most important thing
to consider is reliability. And the first step to reliability is
good mana distribution. If you can ensure that you will never be mana
short, then you will actually be able to play your deck and test out
your new ideas.
4 Fellwar Stones (vs. Land Destruction)
4 Guerilla Tactics (vs. Discard)
4 Mishra Factories (vs. counterspell/permission decks)
3 Pestilence (vs. weenie decks)
Each time you get one of your sideboard cards, it does not just fight
one card or one color, but rather it fights their whole deck concept.
And aside from the Tactics, all the cards are REUSABLE, not oneshot.
If your sideboard cards are oneshot, then they are limited in use. If
they are lasting, then even one will attack their concept and weaken it.
Booster Draft
Tournament History
Format
BEFORE THE DRAFT
DURING THE DRAFT
AFTER THE DRAFT / BUILDING YOUR DRAFT DECK
PLAYING YOUR DRAFT DECK
AFTER THE TOURNAMENT
Format
The Environment, color by color
Common ALICE Decks
Len Blado
Arthur Kimes
FAQ