This week, The Ferrett takes a break from Sealed discussion to talk about something that not enough Magic novices consider: Controlling information. There are a lot of articles devoted to giving yourself an edge at tournaments; this is a very basic primer on how not to hand your opponent the edge by mistake.Magic is a game of tiny edges. Playing a spell a single turn too late (or one turn too early) can cost you the game. The wrong land drop on turn 1 can come back to bite you on turn 3. The right two cards in your sideboard can mean the difference between winning and losing the PTQ.
Taken individually, they seem kind of trivial. But add them all together and they become a cascade of errors, an avalanche of mistakes that will cost you many, many games in the long run.
But one of the bigger mistakes you can make against a better player, turning his already-good odds into a tideswell of advantages, is giving out too much information.
It’s a common blunder among rookies, and an understandable one. After all, Magic is a social game, and it’s fun to talk about the cards — if you’ve got a good deck, you want to brag about it, and if you just lost you want to assuage your ego by telling the guy who just pounded you how you could have won.
Me? I’ve won a lot of games that I shouldn’t have with one question at Limited events:
“How’s your deck?”
If the opponent is smart, he’ll talk about it in the vaguest of terms, if he talks about it at all. “It’s all right,” he’ll say, or “I was hoping for bomb rares, but you know how it is.” (Cannier opponents will just flat-out lie about what’s in their deck, but that’s only happened to me twice. And yes, I laughed when it happened.)
Every so often, though, my fishing expedition pays off.
“I got an Akroma!” says my opponent happily. “An’ a Seht’s Tiger, an’ a Temporal Isolation, an’ a….” He’ll list off his cards like a kid telling me what he got for Christmas – which is not an inapt comparison, come to think of it — and all the while, I’ll be listing the cards that I need to play around.
It’s not a huge advantage. Knowing that he has an Akroma doesn’t mean that he’ll draw it, or that the game will go long enough that he can get out eight lands. But it does mean that I know to be extra-careful when he lays that eighth land, and maybe to sandbag some sort of trick like a Snapback or a Utopia Vow just in case. (Or, if it’s the other Akroma, I will kill every morph under the sun.)
It seems innocuous, but that bit of information just helped me. As it does when I beat him on turn 6, and he flashes the Tromp the Domains he had and says, “Now, if I’d ripped that sixth land, I would have smashed you.”
“Indeed you would have,” I nod… And now that I know it’s in his deck, I adjust my strategies accordingly.
The lesson here is to shut up. Don’t tell your opponent more than he needs to know. You can be friendly while you’re doing it, but every factoid you tell your opponent about your deck helps a good opponent to beat you.
There are a lot of ways to accidentally give information away. Here are some of the ones I know to avoid.
Shuffle Carefully.
No, your opponent isn’t supposed to look at your deck when you’re shuffling. But there are a fair number of players who riffle-shuffle outwards, with the fronts of the cards facing their opponent…. And it’s really hard to avoid a glimpse even when you’re trying not to when that Black/Green blur of Forests and Swamps slide by.
Pile-shuffle, or make sure you’re shuffling with the card faces either pressed firmly against the table or facing you. But whatever happens, keep your cards to yourself.
(Also, but far better known — keep your hand tilted towards you. Hardly anyone holds their cards that loosely, but still. Flashing your opponent your hand is not a good path to victory.)
Your Deck Is An Unknown Quantity, Part 1: Sit Down And Shut Up
Before the game, your opponent should know nothing about your deck. Zero. Zip. Nada. I don’t mind telling him it’s a “strong” or a “weak” deck in Limited, but aside from that, nothing escapes my lips.
This applies even if your opponent knows your deck. Even if your latest obstacle sits down across from you and says, “I saw you earlier. So you’re playing Dralnu, huh?” chances are good he doesn’t know everything that’s in your deck. He doesn’t know about your amazing sideboard tech — or, if you have no amazing sideboard tech, he probably doesn’t know that, either. The fact that your opponent has carved out a niche of what exists does not mean that you should tell him any more.
For the record: I have, occasionally, faked guesses at decks back when I played Constructed. I’d just pick the top deck. “So you’re playing Rebels, huh?” I’d ask.
“Nope. Fires!”
“Good to know,” I’d murmur, and value my opening hand accordingly. It wasn’t a strategy that worked on good players, of course, but every edge I got was something that helped.
That said, there are tournaments where everyone knows what’s going on. If you’re in the Top 8 of a PTQ (or near the top of the standings at a Grand Prix with a new deck), usually you’ll have been scouted. You might acknowledge that yeah, you’re the guy who’s finally broken Spellweaver Volute. But don’t answer any more than you have to.
Your Deck Is An Unknown Quantity, Part 2: Know When To Fold ‘Em
There are times when it’s absolutely correct to concede in order to save information. For example, if you know you’re going to lose the next turn anyway and your opponent casts some effect like Extirpate that will allow him to see your deck, it’s probably worth it to concede so he can’t scope your deck. (You can concede faster than a split-second spell — the only thing faster than the speed of light in Magic is, apparently, losing.)
Likewise, there have been more than a few times in Limited when I have a Tromp the Domains, I’m at five life, and if I Tromp I’ll only get my opponent down to two life and then lose the next turn. Thus, I fold. You’d be surprised how many opponents shrug and say, “All right, I’ll cast it anyway!” and attack, and then die — telling me that they have a bob-omb in their damn deck. Or they’ll cast Scourge of Kher Ridges when it won’t save them from my next attack, and now I know they have a Scourge.
(Of course, there’s a balance to be struck here — sometimes, your opponent has the opportunity to make a mistake, and you should give him every chance to screw it up. If you think there’s a chance that he might block wrong after you Tromp, then go right ahead and run it. But if you have no hope, keep it stashed.)
If you have a good card and it’s not going to make a difference in this game, save it… Particularly in Limited. Limited decks often revolve around winning because your opponent didn’t know you had Magnificent Card X in your deck, and he might have sideboarded in removal for it if he had known.
Your Deck Is An Unknown Quantity, Part 3: Take Your Whuppin’ Like A Man
If you lose, you lost. Do not mention the card you could have cast if you got to seven mana. Do not flash him your hand to show him all of the pretty spells you couldn’t cast because you didn’t get a Red mana. Do not mention your crazy sideboard strategy.
Do not do this even if it’s the end of the match. Who knows who this guy knows? I’ve been burned by mustachioed men sidling up next to my current opponent and muttering, “He has a Jedit Ojanen of Efrava in his deck.” And they just saw me play it in another match. It’s entirely possible that the guy who just beat you is friends with the next guy who’ll beat you, so keep it on the QT.
Your Deck Is An Unknown Quantity, Part 4: Parcel Out The Beats
Just a quick check from a recent match: I mulliganed down to six cards and kept a two-lander, and didn’t draw any more land for seven turns. But I didn’t concede, because I wanted to see what my opponent showed me.
Well, he showed me a second-turn Ashcoat Bears, and a fourth-turn Centaur Omenreader, and a fifth-turn Lucent Liminid. And then, when I was down to around three life with no hope of recovery (what three-mana spell would let me recover from a board like that?), he cast a sixth-turn Stuffy Doll. Just because he could.
I then knew to sideboard in Stuffy Doll removal. Thanks, pal!
The lesson is, if your opponent’s going to die and you don’t think he has any hope of rebounding, hold your fire. Try to crush him with what you have.
Your Friends Can Be Different. Maybe.
All this is to say, don’t be a jerk to people you know. If it’s someone who drove down with you? He probably knows your deck anyway. And if your pal shows you his Limited pool, it’s kind of jerkish not to show him back.
There are players who won’t show, and that’s fine. It’s probably a better strategy overall. But your friends, you should be at least kinda open with.
Even The Pros Get Bitten.
If you develop an amazing rogue deck that will beat everything in the field, well… Think again. Chances are good that your playtesting is off in some horrid way. A deck that beats everything in the field with a high degree of consistency is the Holy Grail of decks, especially in these crazy days of anything-goes Standard.
But if you do test correctly and by some stroke of luck you have developed a Deck of Many Things, then again, don’t brag. Just bring your gun to the shootout, and let the dull roar of its hammer-cock speak for you. The surprise will often be enough, since nobody will know how the hell to sideboard against you.
The pros have problems with this particular thing. Teams are built, and plans are developed, and then someone leaks a deck to a friend he trusts, and that friend runs it on MODO or drops some major hints on IRC, and whoops the tech is out and roaming in the full light of day. There’s a lot less Super-Sekrit Tech on the ground these days, but should you encounter some… Hoard that stuff.
Do Not Discuss Your Webcomic.
If, by any chance, you devise an awesome webcomic and you don’t want all of the troublesome money and fame that come with success, don’t talk about it. Don’t put it in your email sig, don’t drop the dime on IRC, don’t plug it in your latest Magic article.
Whatever you do, don’t tell the world that the next installment of your webcomic involves one of the characters getting stoked about the Transformers movie. And don’t tell them the URL is http://www.homeonthestrange.com.
You frickin’ n00b.
Signing off,
The Ferrett
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The Here Edits This Site Here Guy