One of the most visited repositories of revealing information is Wikipedia’s list of commonly misunderstood facts. One of the most popular shows in the
past five years is MythBusters. In today’s day and age, there are a lot of holdover facts from earlier times that are finally being investigated
— and plenty of new misinformation is being spread faster than ever thanks to current media.
This article is Magic’s version of a fact-checker.
Part Wikipedia, part MythBusters, part the opinion of top Magic players, this series aims to look into Magic myths and point out when something just
isn’t true. Sometimes, I’ll be able to back it up with pure facts. Other times, I’ll use personal and anecdotal evidence to make my points.
Ready? Let’s go!
Myth #1 — Always sideboard out spells that deal you damage against aggressive decks
Few things seem as natural in Magic as this law. Once you gain a basic concept of Magic strategy and archetypes, this is one of the first artificially
constructed rules a player creates. If you’re in a war, you want to eliminate any traitors, and if you’re playing against burn, you don’t want to keep
in your Thoughtseize.
While this can apply in some cases, this “rule” isn’t even close to always true.
Sure, the two damage from Thoughtseize might not be ideal… But it’s actually acting as a Healing Salve if you nab a Beacon of Destruction. Not to
mention how much work it saves you if you take down a Boggart Ram-Gang or Bloodbraid Elf!
I think the archetypical mistake is made with Dark Confidant.
Players ritually remove The Great One from their decks against beatdown because they don’t want to take damage. However, most decks actually need their
Dark Confidants against aggressive decks more than ever!
With beatdown’s ability to quickly deploy a ton of threats, you need to dig to your removal/life gain/trump spells. In last year’s Dark Depths deck,
Dark Confidant was often the key to victory against Zoo decks. Gerry Thompson and numerous other notable Dark Depths alumni were actively hoping for a
Dark Confidant in their opening hand after sideboarding.
One more anecdote. Way back in the early days when Necropotence was reigning supreme, the finals of a long PTQ pitted evil genius Erik Lauer against a
formidable red deck opponent who had already sliced through multiple Necro decks that day.
Much to the red player’s surprise, Erik left his Necropotences in after sideboarding… and handily took the match on the back of them. Afterwards,
Erik’s opponent commented on how Erik was the only player to leave in his Necros against him all day. I don’t know what Erik’s response was, but in my
head it can only be, “clearly!” Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Myth #2 — Red Decks are highly favored against Faeries
Somewhere along the line, someone looked at a Red decklist and then looked at a Faeries decklist and said, “Yeah, there’s no way Faeries can ever win.”
Then they played ten games against what amounted to a stuffed teddy bear playing Faeries, won all ten times, and decreed it to be true for all time.
The truth is that sometimes Red Decks beat Faeries. The truth is that some Red players beat some Faeries players. But always?
Nope. In fact, several top-tier Faeries players, such as Sam Black, have even told me they have a 60% or higher win rate against Mountains and burn
spells. I know in my Faeries playing experience, I definitely have an above .500 average against the red decks.
You might look at the cards and feel it’s a bad matchup for Faeries, but in reality, it doesn’t always turn out that way. Spellstutter Sprite is often
a very live card; Mistbind Clique can close out games fast; the Faeries deck has plenty of removal against creature-based Red decks, and (going back to
Myth #1) Bitterblossom can actually be very potent in saving you life against the red decks.
Some builds of Red do well against Faeries. Others don’t. Some pilots know how to play with/against Faeries well. Others don’t. Tell me who’s playing
the matchup and what decklists they’re using, and then we can talk about who has the upper hand. Â
Myth #3 — Beatdown decks are easy to play
Early on, it seems to get drilled into players’ heads that beatdown decks are for simpletons, and control decks are reserved for the best mages. Not
only is this not true, but this mistaken belief leads to players playing decks far outside of their skill range.
Here’s what’s true: control decks want to play more turns than beatdown decks do. More turns gives you more opportunities to make a sequence of correct
plays and take over control of the game. Beatdown decks run out of resources faster.
Here’s what isn’t talked about as much: the sequence of plays the beatdown player makes in the first few turns can make or break the entire game.
Knowing when to cast or hold threats when facing mass removal and/or countermagic can decide everything. Knowing when to go aggressive and when to hold
back in a beatdown mirror can make a huge difference. Knowing when and where to cast burn/removal spells, when to activate manlands, when to equip,
when to use your disruption, how to mulligan properly, and so on are all crucial aspects of a beatdown player’s game.
It’s true some beatdown players play at the easiest level of play. I guarantee you that players like Mike with Mono Red the year he won Nationals, Kai
with White Weenie in the Top 8 of Amsterdam, and Rietzl with Boros in the Top 8 of Paris (not to mention his Pro Tour victory with White Weenie!) won
several games an average player in their position wouldn’t have been able to thanks to their keen prowess.
If you’ve never watched Michael Jacob play beatdown, go watch his Naya videos and see exactly what I
mean. It’s a science of damage in which only a few people have an education.
I’m not going to go so far to say that Mono-Red Burn is more skill intensive than Psychatog or anything — but there are definitely many beatdown decks
that are more skill intensive than the control decks of the format.
Myth #4 — Mike Long exiled his only Drain Life to Cadaverous Bloom, then won
When rumblings of this article began to surface, I made this claim to a few people, and it drew a number of reactions ranging from disbelief to
agreement.
Here’s the background story for those not in the know. One of Mark Rosewater favorite stories about the much-ballyhooed Mike Long is from Pro Tour
Paris 1997. Long was playing the breakout combo deck of the tournament, Prosbloom. It used Cadaverous Bloom and Squandered Resources along with
Nature’s Balance and Prosperity to generate a ton of mana, then cast Drain Life for lethal damage in one big turn. Long’s big secret is that, while
most other players were packing two or three copies of Drain Life, he went the minimalist route and only played a single copy. Back then, the players
didn’t swap decklists in the Top 8; the secret was still Mike’s to use in his favor.
The story goes that in game two of the finals of the tournament against Mark Justice, Mike was comboing out and figuring out his options. Eventually,
he figured out that he needed to pitch his only Drain Life to have enough mana to start up his combo. The problem, of course, was that by doing that,
he voided his only way to victory. Still, Long, ever the master of mind tricks, fearlessly exiled his Drain Life and then revealed two copies of
Prosperity and prompted Justice to concede when Long had no way to win.
The story was all well and good and still holds quite nicely as a testament to Long’s ability and character. The only problem? With the advent of
YouTube, the videos of the match were eventually posted online — and the bluff was nowhere to be found!
In game one, Long does exile his Drain Life while going off but ends up fizzling and loses.
In game two, Long does begin to go off and shows Justice double Prosperity, prompting his concession, but he clearly never exiles his only Drain Life.
Game three is not available online, but we know Justice won that one because the match goes to game five, and Long wins games four and five.
Game four
and five start with Mike comboing out, and the Drain Life can clearly be seen while
doing so. To confuse things even further, Mike makes a big theatric show in game five of going off in such a manner that he draws his whole deck and
shows Justice that he only has one Drain Life.
What is going on here!?
Pundits like Paulo Vitor and Richard Feldman have relentlessly argued that the bluff clearly did not happen and was just a stretch of the truth by
Rosewater. Others who want the bluff to be real point to the mysterious display at the end of game five and claim something must be missing from the
video somewhere.
I was firmly in the PV and Feldman camp and was planning to put it into the public eye that this never happened. And, it’s true: the myth as described
never happened. Better yet, along the way, Patrick Chapin heard about my claim and gave me a phone call to fill me in on the truth of the situation and
settle things once and for all.
This hasn’t been written anywhere else. Are you ready for the true mastery that Long ran?
Long sideboarded out his Drain Life!
Yes, you read that right. In game three, he sideboarded out his only win condition. Not only did he bluff Justice with his Drain Life,
but he was planning to do so the entire time!
Unbelievable.
Granted, Long ended up losing that game — but the play itself was amazing. Long boarded his Drain back in for game four because his back was against
the wall, but in game three, it wasn’t even in his deck.
And that’s just the first part.
In game five, Justice cast Coercion on Long and saw the Drain Life in his hand. If Justice just took the Drain Life, Long would instantly lose.
However, since Long carefully set up the bluff in game one, Justice took another card, and Long was able to pull out the win.
Let’s walk through the masterful setup here.
In game one, while fizzling, Long exiled his only Drain Life and made that fact clear to Justice. At this point, Justice no doubt believed Long had
multiple copies in his deck.
In game two, Long took his fine time, made plenty of annoying banter to make it seem even longer, then revealed double Prosperity to prompt Justice to
concede.
In game three, Long sideboarded out his Drain Life based on the fact that Justice was so willing to concede in the second game, but it ultimately
didn’t end up mattering.
In game four, Long boarded the Drain Life back in.
Then, in game five, the reason why Long made a show out of revealing he only had one Drain Life was to show Justice how he mind-tricked him in the
first game, which caused a ripple effect in the subsequent games. By carefully maintaining the illusion that there were two in his deck by not being
able to draw it, Long knew he could change Justice’s play.
So while the actual story isn’t true, Long still pulled off a pretty crazy bluff. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Long pulled off one of
the most daring mind tricks to ever grace the Pro Tour tables.
And that’s the truth of the Mike Long situation.
Myth #5 — Signals define drafting
Signals are a concept people hold onto far too strongly. With the power level of packs today, they’re difficult to always make work and much less
rewarding to follow as they used to be. In a close decision, they can be the tipping factor, and they’re worth keeping in mind while drafting, but they
shouldn’t be used as a basis for every single pick.
I wrote an entire article on this topic, which you can find here. Rather than just copy
and paste the entire article, if you’d like to read my argument in depth and with plenty of illustrations, check out that link.
Myth #6 — Mythic rares make Standard significantly more expensive
People like to grip onto the argument that mythic rares make decks cost more money. It’s become a scapegoat for all cost problems within decks. After
all, when cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor toe the $100 line, surely decks must be more expensive!
Interestingly enough, the cost of building a deck isn’t much different from the cost during Lorwyn, when $20 for a chase card like Cryptic Command,
Mutavault, or Bitterblossom was the norm.Â
What mythic rares have done for most decks is to change the cost of a deck from being evenly distributed to being focused on just a couple of
cards. Now, this can be both good and bad. Some people don’t want all their eggs in one basket. Others have the mentality that owning one playset of
Jaces, which will always hold some value, is much better than owning six expensive playsets of rares that will be worthless when they leave Standard.
(Especially true now that Extended is just double Standard.) Whichever way you feel, the fact is that most decks are comparably priced to the Lorwyn
pre-mythic era.
I began to do a ton of research on old card prices and carefully began assembling the costs from numerous decks long past. Fortunately, on the way, I
found this excellent article by Sean Morgan, which does something similar to what
I was trying to do. Instead of my just copy/pasting his analysis, I encourage you to look over his deck pricing.
For those who don’t want to read Sean’s look at the issue, the short version is that many decks of today are priced similarly to decks pre-Mythic
rares. The major difference is that, once again, the majority of the value is tied up in one or two playsets of cards as opposed to several different
playsets.
The great side effect of this? The price of everything non-mythic is drastically lowered! Decks like Boros, which are comprised of good, but not
mythic, rares, are priced significantly lower than they could have been before. Cards that used to be extremely expensive — say, rare lands — now sit
at reasonable prices. We live in a world where dual lands that are also manlands that are played in every deck can hold steady at under $10, and
the awesome Scars of Mirrodin fastlands can be bought for even less. There’s no way this would be the case if the mythic rarity did not exist.
Of course, yes, there are outliers. There are a couple of decks that use incredible amounts of mythic rares (RUG, for example), and those decks are
more expensive than decks pre-mythic rares. There’s no denying that. However, when you consider that decks that don’t overload on mythic rares can be
less — as much as $200 less, as Sean’s comparison of Boros vs. Ravnica Zoo points out — Standard as a whole has remained along the same baseline: the
two outliers balance each other out.
Now, this doesn’t mean I agree with all aspects of mythic rare pricing. It’s completely ridiculous that a Standard legal card (Jace, the Mind Sculptor)
is worth $100. However, Jace is the major outlier here, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing another card like Jace anytime soon. Nobody — R&D
included — could have foreseen his price tag. Once he’s gone, the upper limit on the price of mythic rares should be around $50, which is much more
reasonable considering how much lower the prices of everything else has become. Additionally, the high outliers will drop down even further.
With all that said, considering that even with Jace around, the prices of decks still go toe to toe with the prices on decks of the past, the numbers
support that mythic rares are not driving the cost of Standard decks significantly higher.
Myth #7 — Always kill the mana accelerator
You know the opening. Turn 1, Birds of Paradise. The other player lays a land and swiftly slides a Lightning Bolt from hand to graveyard. Classic and
very common.
And an easy mistake to make.
Whether or not killing the mana accelerator is correct depends entirely on the cards in your hand and what you perceive the matchup to be. If tempo
plays a huge role in the matchup, for example, I’d be more tempted to kill the Birds. However, if the game is going to go longer anyway, I’d rather
just Bolt something that’s going to kill me.
A great example of this is Scars of Mirrodin Limited. Tons and tons of players fire off a Galvanic Blast on my turn 2 mana Myr, then end up losing to a
threatening creature several turns later because they didn’t have a piece of removal for it. The tempo didn’t end up mattering, so my opponent was just
down a piece of removal. The better players figured out that Blasting a Myr was incorrect most of the time in this format and are usually content
letting that Myr live. That’s not to say it’s always wrong to Blast a Myr, but that in the majority of circumstances, the removal spell can be better
used.
Now let’s look at this in the light of Constructed.
Let’s say your opponent’s opening hand is something along the lines of three lands, a one-drop mana accelerant, a two-drop, and two three-drops. If you
Bolt that Birds, they’re just going to play the two-drop on turn 2 and follow it up with a three-drop anyway. Your situation is barely better than just
leaving the Birds alive would be. On the flip side, if you just let them play a three-drop on turn 2, then you can just Bolt that, and you end up
facing the same dilemma before, except they’re down a threat instead of just a Birds.
Let’s imagine a situation where they don’t have that two-drop and just have accelerators into three-drops instead. In that case, killing the Birds is
way better, right? Actually, many of the same lines of thinking as before apply. If you let them deploy a turn 2 three-drop and just Bolt that instead,
then you end up in the same situation, except they’re down a threat instead of just a Birds.
Now, clearly the nature of the situation changes your play. If the card they’re going to accelerate into is a Leatherback Baloth, suddenly that Bolt
doesn’t look so good. (On the flip side, if the removal is universal, you should usually save it; there’s a reason you almost never see Birds be the
target of Swords to Plowshares.) If you have other things to do on those turns, you might not want to invest the mana into Bolting at a later time. On
the other hand, if you’re holding a sweeper, it’s more tempting to leave the Birds alive, since you’re just going to wipe the board anyway.
There’s a lot that goes into this decision, and it should almost never be a snap decision one way or another. It can certainly be right — but often, I
find myself happier leaving that Bird alive.
Myth #8 — Some hands you can mulligan on the play but would keep on the draw
You know the hands I’m talking about. You happily win the dice roll, pick up your seven cards, and then see some hand that you really feel needs that
extra card from going second to pick up steam. The most common kinds of hands like these are probably two-landers that need a third land to start
rolling, but there are plenty of others. You might stare down at that hand and wish that you were drawing first.
Now, what if I told you that at that very moment, you could choose to go on the draw and keep. Would you take that offer? Some of the time, you
definitely would.
Well, the way it actually plays out you can already do something even better.
Let’s say you keep that two-land hand. You play a land and say go. You draw… Aw, still no land. You play your second land and say go. If you end up
missing on your second draw step (third turn) and don’t find a land, what happens is you essentially end up switching from being on the play to being
on the draw. Your opponent will take their third turn, then pass back to you, at which point you’ll draw your third card — a nearly identical situation to if you were on the draw.
The one obvious change is that your opponent ends up a card. However, considering you didn’t have to mulligan and go down a card as you would have
otherwise, you actually stay equal on card parity. Additionally, there’s the chance your hand will develop properly, and you just draw the piece that
you need, in which case you’re still on the play and have a great hand for the job.
A lot of people mulligan hands like this on the play but would keep them on the draw. However, it’s seldom correct to do so. There are some situations
that come up where it’s the right call, but for the most part, you’re either going to end up with a great hand in the best case or switch to being on
the draw in the worst case. That seems like a fine tradeoff to me.
Myth #9 — Magic Online is analogous to the real-life metagame
Magic Online is an awesome program for many things. Playtesting, refining decks, booster drafting, and other crucial elements of Magic take place in
the program. It can tell you a lot about how your deck will perform at a PTQ and can showcase new deck technology before it’s widespread. However, the
one thing you must absolutely not transpose onto a real-life setting is the online metagame.
The way Magic Online works, you have to continually win against the best decks, or you cannot afford to keep playing. Therefore, if a deck like, say,
U/W Stoneforge becomes dominant, you absolutely must either start playing it or play a deck that beats it. Since online metagame shifts like this can
happen as fast as twelve hours, essentially what happens is you end up with a hyper-compressed metagame. For example, if I were to model the decks I
expect to play at a real-life Extended PTQ in nine Swiss rounds based on what I currently face online, it would look something like this:
5 U/W Stoneforge
2 Elves
1 Stoneforge Bant
1 Faeries
This is probably the ratio of what I face online. However, it’s pretty unrealistic for a real-life PTQ! Why? Because the offline metagame doesn’t
compress in the same way.
Instead of just running against U/W Stoneforge over, and over, and over again and being forced to tune your deck as though you were online, in real
life, U/W Mystic doesn’t become the deck to beat until after a PTQ happens, and everyone in the area loses to it. By that time, it’s too late;
the event is over. Even then, that kind of situation only crops up if it’s a gigantic force at the PTQ. Until that occurs, all of the decks that can’t
beat it have no reason to be sifted out of the metagame; the real-life metagame compresses at a far slower speed.
For example, you’re going to face people who haven’t playtested since U/W Stoneforge’s advent; you’re going to face people who are running a metagame
call and have decided to just forfeit the Stoneforge matchup (something that you cannot do online, since that would be consistently losing packs, as
opposed to losing playtest matches with no value on them), and you’re going to face people who tested against a gauntlet of several decks (not just
Stoneforge over half of the time) and came to the conclusion that something else was the deck to play. Unlike online where you absolutely must beat the
deck or you cannot keep playing to a profit, in real life that’s not the case.
The only time you see an online-like backlash begin to occur is in the instance of something like Faeries at the beginning of this PTQ season, where it
relentlessly took down several events, and suddenly everybody knew you had to beat Faeries or go home. Even then, there were plenty of decks that just
folded to Faeries. Online, the metagame adapted to Faeries much faster, where in real life that only occurred because Faeries’ dominance was a clear
trend in PTQs and GPs.Â
In short, the offline metagame doesn’t have the ability to evolve fast enough for online results to match it. Unlike online, where you have to beat the
metagame or stop playing, offline the stakes are just a single seven-to-nine-round tournament that won’t define the metagame at nearly the same rate.
The number of rounds played in an entire region’s PTQs over three or four seasons is the same amount played on Magic Online in two or three days.
You’re likely going to face U/W Stoneforge at some point in the tournament — but not five times.
The online metagame has different stakes, reasons for deck selection, and speed of evolution from those in real life. Grabbing decks that show up
online and bringing them into real life is one thing, but there’s little to be gained by comparing the two different metagames.
Myth #10 — Sealed is mostly luck
I think every single Limited block as far as I can remember has been in a cycle similar to this.
Everybody, the Prerelease:
“This new block seems pretty skill intensive. Look at how hard it is to build your Sealed decks! Think of all the possibilities in draft! It’s a great
upgrade over the last Limited format.”
Everybody, two weeks after release
: “Some dominant archetypes seem to be emerging as we play more, but the decks still seem pretty skill intensive to build. It’s frustrating how good
some of the bombs are though. When my opponent plays one, it often feels as though there’s nothing I can do outside of a few answers.”
Everybody, beginning of Sealed PTQ season:
“I’m sick of this format. It’s so bomb-oriented. You basically open a good pool or lose, and losing to bombs is getting real old.”
Everybody, end of Sealed PTQ season:
“I’m so glad that Sealed format is over. It was one of the worse I’ve ever played. This format was so bomb-oriented! I really hope they do better with
the next block.”
Everybody, Prerelease of the second set:
“I really like the changes this set added. It changed the pace of the format and made different things from the first set matter. It seems to address a
lot of the problems I had with the block before. This is fun to play!”
Everybody, one month after release:
“Man, that expansion really messed up the format. I liked it so much more before that came out…”
Add the Prerelease of the third set, pepper with people waiting in anticipation for the next Limited format, then repeat. It’s comical how this process
has happened so many times, and people still say the exact same things over and over, only changing the script slightly here and there.Â
Yes, there are bomb rares. Yes, they are good. No, they’re not all that matter.
It’s gotten to the point where people say your opens are all that matter for Sealed. I’d say that about 5 to 10 percent of Sealed pools are actually
unplayable. The rest of them have plenty of potential builds that can catapult you to success — it’s just knowing where to look.
If all you know is how to do is build R/W metalcraft because you think that’s the only good archetype, then yeah, maybe there are only a handful of
Sealed pools in the room you can win with. However, it’s far more likely there are a ton of great builds of your deck that you just missed in the
process.
There are so many great rares for Limited these days that it’s very unlikely you’ll have no good ones to work with. Even in the unlikely case that
happens, you still have a lot of different options to consider. In almost every Sealed pool, there’s an aggressive build. In almost every Sealed pool,
there’s a controlling build. There are always ways you can build your deck to be more or less greedy. You can play your games in different ways.
There’s a reason so many great players make Day Two of Limited Grand Prix, and it’s not just because of bombs and byes. There is just so much you can
do! Â
Do you go into a Constructed PTQ without knowing what else is in the format and expect to play perfectly? No. Well, how then can you go into a Sealed
PTQ with minor experience building a range of Sealed decks and expect to build your deck perfectly? You can’t. Just like everything else, practice is
crucial. Working on your Sealed skills, just like any other part of Magic, will let you win even when things don’t go perfectly your way.
Sealed certainly has some luck elements — but Magic always does. Overall, there’s a lot of skill involved. It’s certainly not the rare-fest that
everyone makes it out to be, and it’s definitely not luck-based.
And with that, this list is wrapped up!
These are only ten of the myths I wrote down, and there are still more left, so perhaps I’ll revisit this Magic MythBusters series again sometime! If
you liked it, let me know, and I’ll come back to it. I’d also love to hear about any myths you feel pervade the Magic world. Tell me what you think by
either posting in the forums, sending me an e-mail at Gavintriesagain at gmail dot com, or tweeting me @GavinVerhey.
Talk with you soon!
Gavin Verhey
Rabon on Magic online, GavinVerhey on Twitter, Lesurgo everywhere else
www.Designspaceblog.com
*BONUS*
I wrote this section up as a myth originally, but I ended up cutting it because it didn’t feel like the myth was really being dispelled, just altered.
Though it didn’t end up fitting the bill, I still wanted to share this tip. Here’s a little bit of bonus content for all of you. Enjoy!
Bonus — Always hold one excess land
It makes sense, right? When you’re down to one card in your hand, and it’s just a land that enters the battlefield untapped, it’s just better to hold
it presuming you have no abilities to activate. If you draw a spell that requires it, you can just play the land anyway. If you draw a land.
Like so many other myths here, it’s correct to do this sometimes. However, it’s correct far less often than people make it out to be.
First of all, there are plenty of reasons why holding excess lands can be bad in the current Magic world. Maybe you end up drawing a Raging Ravine,
draw a land the turn afterward, and end up being one land drop short of activating it twice. Maybe you draw two lands, keep them in your hand, and then
end up being one mana short of casting a spell and paying for Mana Leak. Maybe you have Jace’s Ingenuity and can draw three cards you might want to
cast in one turn, making every land drop crucial. Obviously it’s matchup dependent — having lands to cushion a Blightning, for example, can be
important — but there are a lot of situations where you want that land out.
However, most importantly, it has to do with bluffing. Oddly, keeping lands in your hand can often lead to a worse bluffing situation than just playing
them!
Imagine this. You have plenty of lands in play. You have a Forest left in your hand and opt to not play it. Then you draw another Forest the next turn
and play one of them. Then you draw a spell and play it. In the opponent’s eyes, they probably have a good feeling your last card is a land. Even if
they don’t, they’re most likely going to play as though you have a land simply based on odds and your willingness to play your spells.
Now imagine this situation instead.
You play that first Forest instead of holding it. Then you play that second Forest instead of holding it. You draw and play your spell, and then in
your fourth draw step, you draw another Forest… But you hold it this time. Your opponent has clearly seen you play all of your lands, so why are you
holding this card? It clearly must be a spell!
Now, this won’t always work, and I understand it’s still the same theoretical principle of bluffing by holding a land, but it plays out very
differently than the general consensus of “hold your last land if it’s all you have.” It’s just one more small edge to consider that could turn a game
around.