Finally, you peer over that edge. Below you, thousands of crystal-clear gallons of water churn and churn, flowing seamlessly together like two clasped
hands. Churn. Swirl. Churn. Repeat. And the noise is so melodic, almost hypnotic, as the spirals in the water draw you inward.
In your mind, the railing disappears. The azure shine colors the cliff side, and your thoughts begin to swim in this whirlpool as the chatter of
humanity and the clatter of machinery fade into this vortex of beauty. Your leg begins to lift, and your shoes grip the side of the concrete. You feel
your sweaty palms clasp the cold, rusted railing.
Jump!
And that’s it! You spring over, and do a somersault midair, giving a goodbye glance to your loved ones above as you rotate.
The drop is a good feeling at first. The rush of the air. The sniff of the serene breeze. The growing image of the water below. Then the trance breaks.
The once-serene cavalcade of water droplets begins to sound like an unearthly cackle at your mistake; the vortex below serves as the beast’s
mouth and the white streaks of turbulence its fangs. You flap your arms, desperate to retreat, but the descent has begun. That mouth is only coming
closer; you’re in gravity’s tractor beam now. You close your eyes. And then…
And then…
And then…
***
Edgar Allan Poe called this epidemic the Imp of the Perverse, whispering bad decisions into your ear before your senses can counteract it. The natural
urge to do something impulsive — and often deadly.
Few people wake up thinking they want to jump off Niagara Falls, and if I asked you now, I’m sure most of you would agree. Yet, a majority of
people who visit the Falls each year look down and feel the want to jump in and join its pure, expansive waters. Fortunately, most people quickly
recover from this urge; their common sense overtakes the imp on their shoulder.
It’s not just a phenomenon of the Falls — it’s a phenomenon of human nature. Have you ever looked out an airplane window and felt
your heart rate quicken as some barbaric part of your being wants you to punch out the glass and unleash chaos? Have you ever felt the need to dart out
in front of traffic to reach the other side despite the inherent danger in doing so? Have you ever looked at a woman passing by you on the street and
wanted to grab her arm, pull her tight, and deliver a passionate kiss?
We don’t end up doing these things (or at least I would hope not!), but that impulse is there. With our lives on the line, we pull back.
But what happens when the decisions are less important?
You grab a candy bar from the checkout stand as you go through because it catches your eye. You turn the heat higher despite being plenty warm. You
find the opportunity to write a snarky forum post when somebody makes an incorrect comment.
And maybe, just maybe, you Shatter an Iron Myr because it looks so good.
It’s not like the morning of a PTQ you woke up and felt compelled to throw spells away and make mistakes. That was never your intent. Then again,
the person travelling to Niagara Falls never thought they’d want to jump off the cliff side either.
When your life is on the line, you tend to reconsider. The deep emotional response kicks in. Whether you’re about to jump off a cliff or lose an
intense Bitterblossom race, you lean back and take the time to think over your decisions. But when the consequences seem less dire, it’s easy to
give in.
Let’s put it this way. Your opponent leads on a Birds of Paradise, then misses their second land drop. You feel like you’re the Velociraptor, and a horse has just been lowered into your den. The instincts kick in. You have an Oblivion Ring in your hand, and it looks so
good to Ring that Birds. The imp whispers in your ear, and you nod, snapping the Ring down.
How many times have you done this and had the opponent come back to win the game?
Sure, it seems unlikely. But two lands in a row later, they’re unloading their built-up hand, and you’re down a removal spell to deal with
their real threats. Maybe it was right to remove the Birds, maybe it wasn’t — that doesn’t matter here. The problem was that it was
so automatic. The brisket looked so juicy that you didn’t stop to check if it was poisoned.
In Constructed, maybe you know what’s going on with their deck, and constraining their mana is right. Maybe you need the tempo, and maybe you can
overwhelm them with the extra time. But especially in Limited, far too often I Shatter their Myr when they miss a land drop — only to find my
opponent right back in the game two turns later. I should’ve saved that Shatter for when it mattered.
More importantly, these kinds of plays are the actions that can decide entire games. Have you ever noticed that people give a lot of thought to the
last few plays they make each game? This turn 3 play might arguably be more important than any subsequent one. It sets the pace and tone of
the rest of the game. You can’t just rush into it.
Going back to the Birds scenario, what if it’s turn 1, and you have Lightning Bolt in your hand? They play a Birds and say go. The imp will no
doubt flutter on your shoulder and direct you to Bolt the Birds. This long-standing convention is a maxim even the newest players learn. It’s a
good theory to know — but it certainly isn’t always correct.
Whether or not you should Bolt the Birds depends on a lot of factors, not limited to how many removal spells are in your hand, what your other spells
are, if you look to be mana flooded or mana screwed, and what your opponent’s deck is. Once again, it may very well be right to Bolt the Birds
— but to not think it through longer is a gigantic mistake. This play can be as game changing as the play made when the game ends. After all, how
many times has an opposing Birds met your Bolt, only for you to die one removal spell short and with them empty-handed several turns later?
It’s probably more often than you think.
There are a lot of times where these plays are correct, but there are no absolutes. I think, by far, the largest trap is the tempo play. Often the
tempo plays look so good, and your instinctual imp nudges you toward them. Unfortunately, they often end up being disastrous.
Let’s say on turn 5 you have the option between casting Hideous End on their sole blocker and cracking in for eight, dropping them to six, or
just passing the turn. Which would you make?
The instinctual play is to drop them to six, kill their creature, and force them to have an answer. It feels like you’re doing something and not
just piddling your time away.
However, how many times has a similar situation come up, and you’ve made the play for tempo, only for your opponent to play an even better
blocker next turn? This kind of play, which seemingly “gains you tempo,” actually loses you position in the long term because it means you
can’t attack now, just like you couldn’t attack last turn, and your opponent has an opposing threat. Your impulsive move put your
offense in an even worse position than before.
The best players of the game really take the time to think through the long-game consequences of every play, not just the ones made when there is more
going on. Have you watched Michael Jacob videos recently?
Watching Mike has made me realize how much better I can be at Magic! Why?
While I’m sitting back, making the same routine plays I always make, Mike is carefully calculating in his mind what every single play means and
how every play he makes will play out. I do this on some level, sure. But when I watched him play Naya and he was detailing the damage output of every
spell he cast, thinking ahead to every attack phase and opportunity, my mind was blown.
You know all of those games where your opponent ends the game at between one and three life (or vice versa), and you can’t help but reflect on
the life total sheet afterward and wonder what you could’ve done to deal (or prevent) those last few points?
Carefully thinking about every play and its output of damage is what leads to this innate ability to close the games others can’t. When you treat
each play with the same important gravity, the imp no longer pulls the strings. Â
I think back to all of the situations and experiences where I came up just short. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of games logged in my mental archives.
If I had treated them with the tenacity and tanking Michael Jacob shows in his video, I know I could’ve come on top in several of them.
I know many of you can take the same lesson away from this.
Now, that’s not to say there isn’t anything to be said for instinct. In an interesting parallel, in Michael Jacob Worlds report he talks about
the “DarkestMage” within him, the subconscious that tells him the right plays to make — the plays that his analytical style ignores.
Mike went on in his article to provide several stories of how he instinctually thought to make one play, thought about it more, and then made the other
play, which turned out worse for him. You could sense that Mike felt he could’ve done better had he always listened to what his instinct told him to
do.
But would he have really done better if he had solely listened to instinct? Not necessarily.
Some of the instinctual response is right — but some of it is a cruel trick that plays on what you want to see. Instinct is there for a reason,
and it can provide crucial feedback, and, as Mike notes, it should be listened to. If you have an odd, unmistakable feeling that he might have an
otherwise implausible card, you should take note when factoring in your plays.
However, choosing to play only by instinct is far more dangerous than ignoring it entirely.
There’s a fine line between playing by instinct and letting instinct play you. I’ve experimented with playing solely by instinct before,
with disastrous results. Your mind loves to toy with you, making you worried when there’s no reason to be and comforting you when things begin to
go downhill. It sends your Shatters straight at their Myrs every time, carried by the lofty hopes of what could happen — and not what’s
actually plausible.
Some of the largest advice I can provide to PTQ players is to focus on every play, in every game you play. Let it become natural to you. Michael Jacob
may hit the tank every once in a while, but it’s not his permanent residence. He can play in an analytical fashion, seeing ahead to make the
right play every turn of the game, without running out of time every match. With training, so can I — and so can you.
If you have any feedback or experiences with these kinds of instinctual situations, I’d love to hear about them. Have your instincts helped you
out of a tight spot, or have they betrayed you when you needed them most? Have you ever succumbed to a snap play you made that turned out to be bad? I
want to know! Please either post in the forums, send me a tweet @GavinVerhey, or send me an e-mail at
Gavintriesagain at gmail dot com.
Talk to you soon!
Gavin Verhey
Rabon on Magic Online, GavinVerhey on Twitter, Lesurgo everywhere else.
www.DesignSpaceBlog.comÂ