This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to gunsling at the prerelease in Minnesota. The local scene here is awesome, and I am going to make a point to make the trek out to events here more often (it’s a fair hike from Detroit, but not impossible). It is such a great time when 300+ players get together for an old school “Big Prerelease.”
At one point I was battling a challenger’s Extended Merfolk deck. In the spirit of innovation, I was armed with Faeries. Challenger had a complicated board position involving a number of creatures, all with abilities affecting other permanents. To make matters worse, Faeries had a Jitte, but was behind in tempo and facing Sygg, River Guide, Lord of Atlantis, and more.
The game slipped out of hand for the challenger when Lord of Atlantis was Path to Exiled when it could have been protected by Sygg. Faeries had just pointed out to challenger that Lord of Atlantis had been errated to be a Merfolk the turn before.
Now, it is probable that Faeries was still going to establish control by way of Jitte, but the long and short of it was that missing the play made the game completely unwinnable. From one perspective, you might say this was a relatively obvious play, but when you think about it, was it really?
I know that I have lost many matches to “On Board Tricks,” and just because the information needed to make the right play is available in play does not mean it is going to be obvious. In the game we are discussing at the moment, there were no less than 20 activated abilities exerting an influence on the board. How are we expected to keep track of every interaction between every one of those abilities and every other ability in play, let alone if we play a spell?
Many expert players have developed such a built in intuition with regards to Magic that they wouldn’t even have to think about using a Sygg River Guide on Lord of Atlantis in response to a Path to Exile. I would even go so far as to say that a majority of serious tournament players would stop the game and at least consider using Sygg’s ability. How do they know to ask this question, though?
When Faeries played Path to Exile on the Lord of Atlantis, how is the Merfolk player supposed to know to use his Sygg? Is he really supposed to check every one of the 20 permanents with activated abilities every time anyone does ANYTHING?
The secret is that serious tournament players use a system of shortcuts to aid them throughout their matches. There is just too much going on all of the time to consider every possible interaction every time someone passes priority.
All other things being equal, whoever has the most and best shortcuts tends to win at Magic.
In this case, a possible shortcut that could have been used has to do with Sygg River Guide. It is a deceptively complex creature (how many people forget that when you attack with Sygg, if your opponent blocks with a Knight of White Orchid and a Mulldrifter, your Sygg is going to die, even if you have plenty of mana…?). How can the challenger create a mental shortcut that will help him know when to consider activating Sygg?
Let’s look at Sygg’s ability.
1W: Target Merfolk you control gains protection from the color of your choice until end of turn.
To begin with, protection from is one of the most complex abilities in the game. It affects targeting, damage prevention, and evasion. What we should realize is that Sygg’s ability is potentially important whenever a “Merfolk” (who the ability affects) is going to be the target of a spell/ability, OR dealt damage, OR blocked (what the keyword affects).
When you look at it this way, you realize that when you put a Sygg into play, you can mentally place a “stop” whenever something is targeted, dealt damage, or at risk of being blocked. Then, when something triggers this stop, your shortcut kicks in and tells you that you to be aware, this may be an opportunity to use Sygg. Whether or not you use the ability is a different matter entirely. The issue here is that you have a system that tells you what to look forward, to let you know when to consider it.
This shortcut might not seem like a huge saving in mental abilities, but remember, most experienced players develop shortcuts for each keyword ability, so that instead of thinking about targeting, damage, and blocking as three different concepts, they just have it all labeled under the shortcut in their head that has to do with “Protection From.”
When you get in the habit of using shortcuts like this, the real savings will come when they become second nature to you. If you practice considering Sygg whenever a Merfolk is targeted, damaged, or at risk of being blocked, you will begin to do it automatically. Your brain will get used to thinking in this way, and then you will truly experience a saving of mental energy, as well as an increase in awareness of the board.
There are a wide variety of shortcuts players use to help them think about Magic. I want to look at some more types of shortcuts that might be useful to us, but first I want to say a few words regarding the mental game in Magic.
The Mental Game is one of the most important areas in which to develop effective shortcuts. The Mental Game includes everything from attitude to rapport, from mind games to mindset, and shortcuts are important In every aspect. Even in the way you sit in your chair, the way you talk to yourself; effective shortcuts will help us make better decisions.
Keep in mind, however, that this does not mean that you should be focusing all of your energy on developing your “Jedi Mind Tricks.” Too many players fall into the trap of thinking that “glamorous” mind games that seem impressive are the deciding factor in most tournament Magic.
This is akin to the highschooler who spends all his time practicing his dunking in basketball, instead of the fundamentals, and then wonders why the scouts aren’t interested in him.
Although countless matches are decided by mental trickery, this is not what being good at Magic is about, and it isn’t what makes a player a champion.
More Magic games are decided by technical play than ALL other factors combined.
No matter if you are Mike Long and getting Mark Justice to concede in the finals of a Pro Tour or Joe Random employing “bush league psych-out skills” in a PTQ, your wins matter many orders of magnitude more than your “stories of trickery.” In any one given scenario, it may come down to a mind game being your best or only shot at winning, but the vast majority of your wins are going to come from tight technical play.
Besides, the games that do come down to mind games typically never would have gotten to that point if you played tighter… or perhaps you only arrived at this opportunity because of your tight play. Mike Long has one of the strongest mental games in the history of the Pro Tour, but even his staunchest critics would agree that his technical play was among the best in his era, and it was this technical strength that was at the heart of his success.
I do not want to polarize this discussion with a Mike Long debate. Regardless of anything else, he was a strong technical player and that is the important point here. If Mike Long’s strength as a player had more to do with technical play than mind games, then it is hard to argue the opposite for anyone else.
Regardless, no one has ever truly excelled at Magic on the back on mind games without technical play. If you want to get better at Magic, focus on decreasing the number of mistakes you make per turn. If you think you aren’t making mistakes every turn, you are probably making a mistake. Try to learn how to better analyze your play, as a clear understanding of the types of mistakes you are making will lead to a huge increase in your ability to improve.
In basketball, the highlight reels are often filled with impressive dunks that seem to defy gravity, incredible feats that leave you in awe.
Dunks don’t win most games.
Solid shooting, rebounding, ball movement, and tight defense. Those are the areas that decide games, seasons, and championships. The fundamentals may not be as sexy as that dunk from the free-throw line, but they are far more important. While many of your favorite players dunk regularly, there are a lot of good players that only dunk occasionally. ALL of the good players have strengths that revolve fundamental basketball.
I know I like to discuss Mind Games from time to time in my articles, but that is because they make for good stories, and it is an area that I have expertise in. I am an entertainer as well as a teacher, and I know that dunks are entertaining. If you will notice, the vast majority of my articles are about in-game decisions, card analysis, advice for preparing for tournaments, deck building, and how to think about Magic efficiently.
Decklists are not going to make you much better at Magic, but they are very useful. Advice, such as not evoking Mulldrifter on turn 3 against Boat Brew on the draw when you have Broken Ambitions and they have no creatures, with an explanation as to why, that is going to help you improve. Going a step further and helping you develop shortcuts on your own to aid your in game decision making is even more important on a fundamental level.
A story that leads to advice on Magic theory and how to think about Magic helps you win more in the long run.
A story that leads to a decklist to play with or test against helps you win more this week.
A story that leads to a killer “Jedi Mind Trick” entertains. It may help you improve to a degree, but that is rarely the primary function.
Shortcuts with regards to the mental game are not so much about “when can I mind trick my opponent?” as they are about useful ways to think about Magic in general.
For example, top players generally take responsibility for their losses much more often than weaker players. They have developed a shortcut for improving at Magic that includes honestly assessing the decisions they made in the game and evaluating what they could have done to change the outcome.
Most players just want to feel better about themselves, so they tell themselves a version of the truth that involves them losing because of “mana screw,” a “lucky topdeck,” or “a bad match-up.”
Do you think Luis Scott-Vargas sat around lamenting his mana screws at Pro Tour: Hollywood? Day 2, he did get a bit mana screwed in a key match. Did he lament his bad match ups? Again, he got some of those. What about lucky topdecks by his opponent? No, he took an honest assessment of his top 64 finish in Hollywood and took responsibility for the result.
You are going to get mana screwed, you are going to get bad matchups, you are going to get out-topdecked. There are certainly things you can do to minimize these obstacles, but LSV took a good look at what he could have done different and realized that he wasn’t making bold enough deck choices at Pro Tours.
Yes, he cashed at the Pro Tour, but this wasn’t an excuse to “settle” for anything less than perfection. He realized he couldn’t have done anything more to prevent that mana screw or that top deck. What he COULD have done, though, was play a different deck. Outside of the possibility of less “bad match-ups,” it could have offered him a chance to win despite mana screw or have chances to “top deck better.”
What did he do? He decided to play a “risky” combo deck at the next Pro Tour, Berlin. Honest self-assessment and taking responsibility for your losses can make all the difference in the world, and LSV would not be on top of the world with the likes of Gabriel Nassif and Tomohiro Saito if it were not for his mental approach to Magic and improvement.
You can use shortcuts in deckbuilding.
If you couldn’t, we would have to build every possible deck and test each one against all of the established decks. This would take lifetimes.
Weak deckbuilders have worse systems (fewer shortcuts, and ones that are less effective), so the time they have to spend on Magic doesn’t produce much in the way of results. These people could spend more time and get better results, they could use the obvious shortcut of netdecking… but without good fundamental skills, netdecks aren’t enough. How do you choose which netdeck is best? What about how to “update” it based on the changes in the metagame over the past two weeks?
One important point to consider that most PTQ-level opponents will overlook is that, when examining a new decklist, it is vital to take the source into account. If you read about a new deck designed by Gabriel Nassif or Manuel Bucher, you can assume from the gate that there are going to be subtleties to the decklist; card choices made that may not be obvious.
On the other hand, if the pilot or deck designer is unknown, it is actually a much more realistic possibility that the apparently suboptimal card choices are just that: suboptimal.
Great new decks can come from the most unlikely places, no question; however, in general, better deckbuilders are going to produce better decks most of the time. That is what it means for a deckbuilder to be “better.” That is not a statement of flattery towards those people; it is just a statement of truth, as well as a useful shortcut to remember.
Many entertaining writers, local players, and other strategists may be great people and a lot of fun, but what we are concerned with in this matter is winning.
Of course, take care not to overcompensate by assuming that someone you have never heard of has nothing to teach you. For more on how to evaluate how much weight to place on a writer or deck builders words, check out the (wrong) side of Right/Wrong: A Vintage/Non-Vintage Split Article.
The source may be witty, they may be very smart, but are they building decks that actually win tournaments? Be careful here, as they may not have the benefit of having LSV, Nassif, or Saito making them look good. Just because someone doesn’t have a track record doesn’t mean they aren’t right, or that they couldn’t be the next big thing. All it means is that they are less likely to have built the perfect deck than Heezy, Wafo, Zvi, or Juza.
Shortcuts in deckbuilding extends far beyond how to analyze a decklist you see. When building a deck from scratch, one of the most useful shortcuts to develop is a system of comparing whatever concept you have with any precedents that may exist.
There really aren’t that many basic archetypes in Magic. I am still considering how to do my review of every major deck in the game, as it is a very ambitious project, but suffice to say there are rarely new archetypes added to this game beyond what is described by Michael Flores in Finding the Tinker Deck.
Developing a system of shortcuts to help you think about deckbuilding theory is vital if you plan on making an impact on the deckbuilding community. These systems can include shortcuts such as “borrowing” manabases from similar decks, studying decks that have successfully merged two strategies you are interested in, comparing mana curves, getting ideas for sideboarding, and on and on.
The whole idea is to develop “tricks of the trade” that allow you to not have to think about everything, every time. For instance, it can be tiring to have to compute a new mana curve and color ratio for every deck you build, especially if it is many colors and you are not very experienced working with mana ratios.
Building a Red aggro deck? Study every Red deck you can find that has enjoyed major tournament success. You will learn so much this way… like, for instance, how almost no one has ever used Terror-type effects to much success in burn decks.
Let’s switch gears a little, and talk about shortcuts with regards to drafting. A common difficulty here is that people don’t know which of two obvious shortcuts to use. Do you draft the best cards, or do you draft the best synergy (archetypes, color combos, etc)?
The best shortcut here involves a deeper strategy that combines both of those weaker shortcuts. One can do alright with a simple understanding of the typical pick orders for a color or combination of colors, just as one can do alright if one just picks cards that compliment a given theme.
However, to be a truly great drafter (or so I hear), one must be able to weigh the relative value of a card’s intrinsic power level with its synergistic power level in this deck. Our experiences (playing more with cards) will tend to take us down the right road… however, we can make better use of this experience if we develop a better system of useful shortcuts to make the most out of the drafts we do. We can’t play an infinite number of times, so we want to make the best of the opportunities we do have,
Reading articles and learning the “pick order” for a new set, from the perspective of pros you trust, is a good tool, but it should not be the only one you rely on. You are also going to want to examine each archetype that you may find yourself drafting, and examine which cards gain or lose value in that archetype. This way, you will be more able to make a decision in a matter of seconds that will help positively shape the rest of your draft.
One shortcut for improving at Limited formats that many amateurs don’t fully appreciate is of the value of picking the rare in practice drafts.
When you are given a decision between a decent common and a rare you have never used before and are unsure of, you should err on the side of picking the rare. If you draft a reasonable amount of time, you will have had plenty of opportunity to evaluate the commons.
However, an opportunity to see an obscure rare in action could be invaluable. Obscure rares have a tendency to get passed a little bit more, as many players are reluctant to use an early pick on a card with which they have no experience. If you bit the bullet and tried drafting the card in a practice draft, you will have a much better understanding of the card. Is it a sleeper bomb? Is it too expensive in practice? Is it good with fliers? Regardless of what you will have learned, the information is typically worth making a slightly risky draft pick in a practice draft.
Shortcuts like these can add up to producing much more fruitful playtesting and practice sessions, moving you towards more wins come tournament time. Examine what shortcuts you are already using to aid you when it comes to drafting a deck. What about the shortcuts you use when learning about a Limited format?
Be honest with yourself.
Your opponent plays a decent spell for which you have no answer. You have one counterspell. Do you cast it? It would be nice to stop the game in progress, put together a research team to evaluate the pros and cons, maybe playtest for a few months and come to a conclusion as to the right play. However, we have to work with what we have.
Technical play is one area where focus becomes extra-important. Focus is always important, sure, but when making in-game decisions on the right play, it is crucial to focus on the task at hand. The more focused you are, the more useful information you are processing at once.
Jon Finkel may have said it best.
“Focus only on what matters.”
It is all good to be willing to concentrate consciously. During a match, however, there is more to focus. Getting your subconscious mind focused properly is incredibly useful – but how to do so is almost entirely unknown to most people.
Shortcuts, like the ones described in the Sygg, River Guide example above, are the types of shortcuts we mean when we talk about shortcuts in playing. Developing useful reminders as to how to think about situations is huge. As yourself how you could think about something. Ask yourself what is not that. Work backwards from where you are at to get back to the beginning. Start from where you are at, mentally, and imagine where this is going.
When you play (or are considering playing) a card, ask yourself, “What does this card do? What does it cost? When will I use it? Is there anything else I need to know, such as any way it could be a liability?” When you mentally ask yourself these things, you will soon find yourself doing it automatically. These four perspectives can offer insights that may lead to more efficient shortcuts on your part.
Let’s say we have just encountered a new obstacle, one where we find ourselves confused or in a situation we have never seen before. What are the first shortcuts that we’re going to want to use?
When people ask for me advice on how to handle a situation or just what to do, they are often surprised when they hear my response, “What are you trying to accomplish?”
There is a subtle wisdom with slowing for a moment and reflecting on what exactly you are doing. Ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish?” Perhaps even, “Who am I right now?” This is one of the most important things you will ever hear me say, and it is not just true relating to Magic.
I have avoided countless play mistakes, bad deck choices, wasted draft picks, even mistakes in tournaments that I could have made, such as drawing when I shouldn’t have, all by applying this idea. Of course, it should be no surprise that I have also saved wonderful relationships as well as resolved unfulfilling ones, I have made hard life decisions that needed to be made, and I have figured out great ways to enrich the lives of my friends and loved ones whether it be through a well thought-out birthday present or deciding to pick someone up at the airport.
The point is, whenever you face a decision that you are unsure about, regardless of whether it is “should I block?” or if it is “should I move to California?”, one of the most useful initial shortcuts you can utilize is to ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish.
There are a million things you could do to help you determine whether or not to block or whether or not to move to California, but if you start by asking yourself what you are trying to accomplish, your brain can automatically sort the information in a way that is much more useful for trying to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish (which is really the whole point to shortcuts).
Since there are so many factors to consider, it helps to have a system to arrange the information in a way that considers what you are trying to accomplish. For instance, if you are trying to avoid death in combat this turn, you will automatically approach blocking completely differently than if you are merely trying to not lose the unblockable creature you have on the table, or if you are trying to figure out a way to get an annoying creature off of the table.
One final shortcut that I would like to leave you with today:
“When you need or want help, ask for help… but don’t become dependent on others to help you. You have to be able to help yourself, but not be afraid to ask for help when you need it.”
One last thing I wanted to mention… I have a strategy guide coming out Memorial Day (or very nearly thereabout) available here on StarCityGames.com as an e-book. It is an extensive strategy guide that deals with the fundamentals of the game in just about every area, based on my 16 years of competitive play.
It will cover everything form manabases, to drafting, to building various archetypes, to reading people, to efficient use of mana, to studying the board, to playing around tricks, to knowing when to not play around anything, to bluffing, to operations managements.
It will include how to sideboard, how to metagame, how to practice efficiently, how to build a Magic team, how to identify which cards are going to be good, develop the types of shortcuts we talked about today, and ideas on how to think about the game, as well as so much more.
This will not be a collection of decklists; it will be 150ish page strategy guide focused on the fundamentals, designed to be as useful as possible, long term. I have put a lot of effort into this strategy guide and I am particularly proud of it. Watch this space for more information. I highly recommend it.
See you guys next week, and thanks for bearing with me, despite no decklists. The stuff in this article is actually important, and I don’t have any fresh new decks tested. Of course, you can count on me to be back with a vengeance next week.
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”