While multiplayer Magic is currently dominated by EDH, my group continues to play mostly regular chaos games. Whether you play EDH or regular chaos, multiplayer tactics change very little between the two formats. Instead of boring you with a list of tactics and options for dealing with those tactics, I’ll use a previous game my play group has played to better demonstrate how a particular multiplayer tactic applies.
My group plays almost exclusively in my dining room. My wife bought our used dining room set more than ten years ago — and it was ten years old then! Until my Magic group started playing in the dining room regularly about two years ago, everything was still in perfect condition. Since then, one chair back has broken and another is on the way to splitsville. Hosting Magic players each week is not easy on the host or the host’s furniture. That is, however, another article.
The game started with the traditional twenty-sided die roll to determine who starts. With our group, this has proven to be some kind of karmic kiss of death, since the likelihood of winning the game drops to almost zero for the winner of the roll. Jesse was the unlucky winner this time around (let the foreshadowing begin!).
The Setup
There were five of us playing in this game: Jesse, Eric, Matt, Josh, and me. Jesse started off with a land and the first few turns were pretty much as expected: everyone played lands and some small creatures. Josh opted for a red wall deck, while Jesse’s deck came roaring out of the gates with crazy burn.
A brief note about Jesse’s deck: This particular deck can really put the hurt on someone, but most times he runs out of cards before he takes out everyone in the game. Jesse thinks the deck is successful if he takes out one other person…. But most of the time, “not being the first target” is all you need to do to survive his assault.
Thankfully, Matt’s part of my group… And this is where knowing the personalities of the group becomes more important than knowing their decks. Jesse chooses his target based on who he thinks is currently leading the game. If that’s you, then you can expect to be beaten down until Jesse believes you’re no longer the primary threat.
At that point, Jesse generally switches to target the new primary threat,
unless
you complain loud and long about how unfair it is that he is constantly targeting you. Matt consistently complains in just that way — so not surprisingly, Jesse will just continue to attack him right out of the game.
Now, to be fair to Matt, he will regularly attack back at Jesse. He wants it to be clear that if you attack him, he
will
attack you back and hit you for more than you hit him. He is consistent on this. The problem is that if you continue to hit Jesse, even when he wants to change his attention to the newer, greater threat, he will continue to hit you because you won’t leave him alone.
Not surprisingly, Jesse took Matt out of the game, but
not
before Matt forced him to use every card and resource he had. Not surprisingly, Matt verbally assaulted Jesse, bringing into question his parentage, his mother’s employment, and the moral values of anyone with curly hair… all performed in a voice akin to Peter Griffin. Yes, that gets old. No, the Family Guy references keep coming. Thankfully, Matt is now watching Invader Zim. Newer catchphrases should be coming our way shortly.
That left Jesse, Eric, Josh, and me in the game. Eric deck had started slowly, but his U/B deck had started to pump out creatures and the milling subtheme in his deck was beginning to come to the forefront.
My deck? A landfall deck, featuring Roil Elemental, using the Kamigawa Soratami to bounce my lands and protect the delicate Roil Elemental. Things were starting to come together for me: I had several 4/4 beast tokens and some small flyers setting things up for the Elemental to join in.
Josh was showing R/U with a couple of red walls threatening to kill anything coming his way. I was confident that I could take him down the next turn, as I dropped the Roil Elemental and stole a couple of creatures from Eric. Eric took his turn, tapping out to force me to dump half my library into my graveyard.
Josh’s next turn? Insurrection. Everyone got killed by their own creatures.
…I hate that card.
Multiplayer Tactic: Read the metagame, a.k.a. “Know Your Opponents.”
So can
you
list all the play mistakes in that game?
Matt made himself Jesse’s target.
If you know that the most dangerous threat on the board is going to be the target, then you should try to ensure that
you
are not seen as the most dangerous threat on the board.
Note that I didn’t say that you shouldn’t
be
the most dangerous threat, but that you should not be
perceived
as the most dangerous threat. If Jesse didn’t think Matt was the biggest threat at that time, he wouldn’t have attacked him.
Admittedly, this
was
early in the game, and Matt was the biggest threat simply because he had more than one creature out early on. Matt can hardly be blamed for that. However, I do make efforts to grow my board situation slowly to ensure that I am not the target early on.
Jesse treated Matt as the primary threat too early in the game.
Jesse is well aware that his deck doesn’t have the strength for the long game — but he chose to target someone early, before the real threat on the board was revealed.
Also, he determined who the primary threat was by looking only at what was in play, and ignoring everything else. There was already enough information on the board at this early stage that he should have known what my deck, Josh’s deck, and Matt’s deck did. Based on that, he should have been attacking Josh immediately, since he had no way to counter the Insurrection and no way to stop the creature onslaught that would be coming.
(A viable alternate plan would have been to save his burn for my creatures, knowing that if there are only a handful of creatures in play, Josh will not play the Insurrection.)
To be fair to Jesse, when he plays that particular deck, he really isn’t trying to win the entire game. His goal is to burn one player out. Suggesting he made a mistake isn’t really accurate. Jesse’s goal with that deck is just… different, so his play decisions won’t necessarily match those of someone trying to win the entire game.
Eric should have known what Josh was playing.
Milling Josh’s deck would possibly have taken away the Insurrection, or at least put Josh into a position where he was forced to act or lose his entire library.
Now, his choice to mill my library made some sense, since getting rid of me removes my creatures from the possible Insurrection. In any event, using up all his mana was a mistake. Since Josh had no real counterspell backup for Insurrection, even showing two blue mana open might have been enough to force Josh to wait. Always having a counterspell ready (or at least the
appearance
of always having a counterspell ready) is key. Blue can struggle in multiplayer, but threatening counterspells forces everyone to play around that threat. It rarely makes sense to give up that threat.
When Josh played out the second red wall, I should have known what was coming.
I should have attacked into the walls and forced Josh to burn his resources to protect himself. I should have limited the number of creatures that I played. I was also playing blue, so I’m as guilty as Eric in failing to keep counterspell mana available, even I had no counterspells in the deck. While the guys in my group know my deck, they don’t know every card. For all they know, I
do
have counterspells in my deck. Either way, I lost the threat of it when I tapped out.
In the end, all of these mistakes were failures of knowing the opponents. Knowing your opponents and how they are likely to respond can only help you win games. It doesn’t matter what deck each person is playing; it’s a safe bet that each player in your group has a particular style of play and a particular talent level. You only have to look at the battle Matt and Jesse had to understand the value of knowing your opponent.
Knowing your opponent includes knowing their decks. I have seen Josh’s Insurrection deck often enough to know that when red walls start to hit the table, Josh is setting up to hide until there are enough creatures on the board to kill everyone and the mana to Insurrect. Had I been better aware of my metagame, the outcome could have been different.
The Solutions
The solutions to the mistakes are pretty evident:
Know everyone’s play style and play accordingly.
If you have a Jesse in your group who likes to attack right away, do what you can to avoid being the target. I’m not saying that the right play is always to capitulate to what your opponents want… but be aware of the consequences of your actions, or inaction, and include the likely result as a factor when determining the right play.
Pay attention to what everyone is playing.
Knowing what your opponents’ decks are trying to do can bring you a long way to determining the real threats and the best way to deal with them. If your play group has been together a while, you can probably pick out some decks just by the type of land they play on the first turn. “A Tempest-era mountain? Joe’s playing his ‘Wheel of Fortune’ deck!”
Change your play style.
Just as you’re scoping out your buddies’ play styles, they’re watching you. I prefer to sit back and quietly watch the game progress around me, then jump in at the end to win it. Sometimes, though, I just barge right in, knowing it’s not the best play, just to keep everyone else on their toes. Being unpredictable in your play style is a good thing.
Play with new decks….
…Or at least significantly change the cards in your decks. I have a Bird-themed deck I love, but everyone knows what I’m playing by the second turn. This makes it much harder to win games. However, I have many decks where I’ve played with them less than ten times, and they
still
surprise my friends when they are played. My win percentage is higher with decks when the contents are unknown.
A Final Note
Magic’s popularity appears to be climbing to never seen before heights, yet many people seem to be looking for play groups. I want to encourage the WPN
organizers out there to offer multiplayer Magic as an option. You only have to search for some multiplayer events on
dailymtg.com’s Magic Locator
to see how few locations offer the multiplayer option.
For those of you no where near a multiplayer group, become a WPN organizer and offer it yourself! My group has added three players this year due to being listed on the Magic Locator. Magic players are out there, but they need to find you.
Good luck!
Bruce Richard