This year has been a year full of great Magic for all kinds of players. For the competitive scene in general, the StarCityGames.com Open Series has
impressed time and time again, and is the place to be for tournament Magic every single weekend. That said, these tournaments aren’t getting any easier,
and players as a whole are getting better and better. Because of this, margins for error are becoming smaller and smaller, and often times, the decisions
you make outside the game can be just as important, if not more important, than inside the game. Deckbuilding, for one, is one of the most difficult and
often one of the most controversial things to do in competitive Magic. It isn’t uncommon to hear the divide of players that are for or against it.
“You should just play the best deck.”
“I played this deck and it’s surprisingly strong.”
“I’ve been playing this card before everyone else, and now people are starting to catch on.”
Well, what if I told you that none of these things are really something you should be following blindly?
There is no hard or fast rule for building a deck. It greatly depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you trying to maximize your chances of
winning? Are you trying to maximize a specific card? Are you trying to maximize your definition of fun? We all have our motives, but for the purpose of
this article, we’re going to look at deckbuilding and the other topics for the sole purpose of maximizing our chances of winning a tournament. This doesn’t
mean that there’s something lesser or otherwise inferior going on with anyone’s reason for building, but this is one of the reasons I have most experience
in, relative to most other motives. I am not, by any means, a casual, or casual-competitive player, so it’s much more difficult for me to speak on those
grounds.
Never be a worse version of something else.
You’ll hear this from time to time, but you hear it a lot because, well, it’s true. If you’re trying to maximize your chances of winning a tournament, then
playing the cards that maximize your chances of maximizing your chances is of utmost importance. Trust me, I’d love to put Chandra in every single deck I
play, but often times it just isn’t what I should be doing. So I don’t.
Never go into a tournament with a deck you don’t think can win.
As much as I loved Burning Reanimator and Omni-Tell, I made the grave mistake of turning in those decklists at the player meeting with the cards in those
decks. Those are tournaments I’ll never get back. I used to want to be different from everyone else, being the player that did their own thing to the beat
of their own drum. Not anymore. Being different does not win tournaments. Putting in the work and making the best decisions you can at all points, before
and during the event; that wins. You can be different, but have a reason that isn’t predicated on convincing yourself or others. Even now, I have to do a
better job at making decisions that isn’t just “I like it”, or “I think it’s sweet.”
Comfort is a perk, not an excuse.
There are plenty of times where you’ll hear someone say that they’ll play a deck because they’re comfortable with it, but with no other real good reason. I
know that I’m certainly guilty of this, and with as much encouragement there is out there for playing what you know, there should be counter-encouragement
for not just making the better choice.
The biggest deck choice mistake in my Magic career was when I decided to play Splinter Twin during the Caw-Blade era. Sure, the deck was fine, but not
playing Caw-Blade was, put bluntly, foolish. Not only did I lose a massive amount of the time, but I missed an opportunity to simply get better at Magic in
general. Caw-Blade mirrors were some of the most skill intensive matches of Magic you could play at the time, and I gave that up because I spent most of my
time trying to convince myself that Splinter Twin was better, and I was “more comfortable” with my deck. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that my growth
as a player was stunted big time because of it. Ever since then, I made a conscious effort to play decks for the sake of getting better, regardless of if
it’s my kind of deck or not. The more I do this, the more I’m convinced that comfort is actually overrated and is used way too much as an excuse for not
doing something better than what you’re doing. Don’t fall into this trap. If there’s a deck that’s noticeably better than yours, play it! If the margins
are close enough to where you can lean a little bit on comfort level, then it’s fine.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling how you want to feel…after the tournament.
This is a tough one, especially for someone like me, who basically always has his emotions on a high (and it’s very obvious during a tournament). I
basically run off of it, and I don’t know how I survived without letting myself ride that emotional wave that tournaments will give you. The big thing is
to prioritize the task at hand. If you made a crucial misplay, getting upset about it isn’t going to help you during the game, so focus on what you can do
to make the best of the situation. The tournament isn’t going to feel bad for you or help you, so best not dig a deeper hole for yourself. That top deck
your opponent just had? Better shake it off quick and focus on sideboarding for your next game. Your task is to do everything you feel is correct, as many
times as possible. Don’t ever let anything deter you from that.
Time won’t wait for you
You have fifty minutes per match.
Stop wasting them.
When you sit down for your match, do your best to be presented at or before the start of the round. Work on your shuffling and pile shuffling outside of
tournaments so you can be more proficient at it. Those that have ever watched me play a match of Magic may have noticed that I don’t pile shuffle. I just
don’t do it. I know I’m very slow at it. By the time I would have finished a pile shuffle, I could have easily done fifteen to twenty regular shuffles.
It’s important to shuffle efficiently, but nothing is accomplished by pile shuffling after a mulligan, after cracking a fetch, or otherwise after you know
that your maindeck has the correct amount of cards.
“But Lowry, what if you’re missing a card?”
I’m not advocating for this, but I will happily take a game loss for accidentally presenting an illegal deck via missing/losing/dropping a card once in a
very long while if it means that I’ll save a minute or two per match. I’ll always do a quick check of my sideboard for fifteen cards and to see that the
correct cards are in there, and if it’s all there, then I’ll assume that my maindeck is correct. I’ve never, ever had any sort of illegal deck presentation
penalty before, and if a card does go missing, it shouldn’t be hard to tell if you’re sharp with the cards that belong to you. I understand that accidents
can and will happen, but honestly, unintentionally drawing is much worse to me.
During sideboarding, have a plan. If it means that you need a guide to make the process faster, then by all means, go for it. If you’re unsure of what to
do in a common matchup, make sure you figure it out between rounds so it doesn’t come up again.
Figure out where and when you’re spending too much time doing things around a match. If you can’t figure it out, then have a trusted friend watch you. The
time you have in a match isn’t free. Stop treating it like it is. Pick up your pace and get a move on!
Choose your battles
The short version: Stop trying to beat everything.
No matter what deck you play, no matter how good the deck can be, you’re going to be awful against certain cards, decks, or even players. Some cards will
line up very well against you, some decks will outright beat you, and some players will have a better understanding of the matchup, or may just be better
than you in general. All of that is perfectly okay! If you spend too much effort trying to beat every single possible thing in the format, then your
performance is going to suffer in general. This also applies to in-game situations. There will be certain draws that line up well against you, and there
will be certain boardstates where you need specific things to happen at specific times to win. You can either try to play it safe, or go for it. It’s
probably a small sample size, but I’ve been doing a lot better than before by just making them have it. You can call it variance, getting lucky, or
whatever, but putting yourself in a position to get lucky as often as possible is part of what you should be doing.
A big part of this involves knowing what your deck is good at and what it isn’t good at. If you’re an aggressive Temur Monsters deck, then be that! You may not be good against things like Hornet Queen, but that shouldn’t keep you from doing what the deck is supposed to do.
Utilize your tools a bit differently to prepare for that card in the decks that play them, but don’t go sideboarding in those Anger of the Gods just to
make up for it. Similarly, if you know Mono-Red is a bad matchup, consider just giving up the matchup if you don’t think it’ll be too popular in the
tournament that you’re playing in in order to save valuable sideboard spots.
The tools are yours, and it’s up to you how you want to use them. The great players of the game are great because of the things they do around the game as
well as inside of it, and the rest of us have to start somewhere.