Monday, June 1st – I recently had the pleasure of volunteering to edit Patrick Chapin’s new book, and reading Next Level Magic really illuminated some of the fundamentals of the game for me. I’ve been mulling over about how some of those principles they affect multiplayer Magic, and how the Stages of Magic explain why some of my decks win and others languish in the “loss” pile.I recently had the pleasure of volunteering to edit Patrick Chapin new book. That doesn’t mean it’s an official product of StarCityGames.com — as a company we’re just going to be selling it, not putting our seal of approval on it — but Next Level Magic has, at least, my personal seal of approval.
Why is this relevant? Because reading Next Level Magic really illuminated some of the fundamentals of the game for me — stuff I’d sorta known about, maybe, but never thought about in such depth as to have it affect my strategy. On one level, Next Level Magic is all about basic play…. but having the principles outlined so clearly and so thoroughly gave me a framework that changed how I viewed Magic.
And dude, after having edited a Magic site for the better part of a decade? That is saying something.
I’ve been mulling over about how some of those principles they affect multiplayer Magic (which Patrick, quite rightfully, does not get into). I’m not the greatest Magic deckbuilder — usually, I win on my technical play and reading the table properly — but Patrick’s concepts helped me realize why some of my decks continually failed and why others succeeded.
I’m going to be rehashing some of Patrick’s book here, but I assure you that I don’t put things as clearly as he does. If you find it helpful, well, buy his book. If not, “buying his book when it comes out” is still probably not the worst idea, especially for a casual player who wants to up his game, because he puts it better than I do.
In this case, what I want to discuss are the Stages of Magic and how they apply to multiplayer.
There are, essentially, three stages of strategy in any given Magic game:
Stage 1 is generally in the early stages of the game, where you don’t yet have the mana to get the minimum segments of your game plan online. You can get stuck in Stage 1 a lot later in the game due to mana-screw, which is why you lose; your opponents have moved on to Stages 2 or 3, where they can cast their good stuff, and here you are struggling to cast your weakest spells.
The exact nature of Stage 1 depends on your deck, of course. If you’re playing a control deck where most of your spells cost four mana to play, then you exit Stage 1 come four mana. If you’re playing a hyper-aggressive Goblin deck where your curve tops out at three, then you might exit Stage 1 by your second land drop.
Skipping ahead to Stage 3, Stage 3 is where you start casting your Semi-Soft Locks — which is to say, the huge spells that are likely to trump everything else your opponent can do. The classic example of Semi-Soft Lock in modern Standard is Cruel Ultimatum; in a duel, it almost doesn’t matter what your opponent has out, because usually losing three cards, five life, and sacrificing a creature is going to be game over. They can recover from a resolved Ultimatum, sure, but their likelihood of doing so? Not so much. Stage 3 is where you’re casting the spells that your opponents either have to answer instantly, or they are going to take so much hurt that they won’t be likely to bounce back.
Stage 2 contains all the times in between; it’s when you have the mana to cast most of your spells, but you haven’t ramped into the uber-kills of Semi-Soft Locks (if you have any). Stage 2 is generally where the game is won or lost, because it’s where you have the mana to make lots of decisions (unlike Stage 1), but the spells you cast aren’t so powerful that having them resolve isn’t an automatic game-win (unlike Stage 3).
Knowing what stage you win in is, according to Patrick, critical for understanding your deck.
That hyper-aggressive Goblins deck wants to do the brunt of its damage before its opponent exits Stage 1, getting in fourteen points to the dome and leaving its Stage 2 decisions as an easy set of attacks and burn spells. On the other hand, the Cruel Ultimatum deck wants to win by stalling the game long enough that it can get to Stage 3, where it can start dropping bombs that other decks can’t easily answer.
And, of course, there are mid-range decks like Faeries, which have a strong Stage 2. None of its threats are overwhelming by themselves — a couple of flying 1/1s and 4/4s aren’t really enough to trump most decks, but a steady stream of Counterspell and Mana Short effects usually serves to keep the opponent trapped in Stage 2 long enough for the Faeries player to win.
Which is all good to know for Standard — but of course, this is me, so you’re doubtlessly asking, “How does that apply to multiplayer?”
The concepts of Staging still apply in multi-person games… But realistically, having this bit of theory explained so clearly and concisely helped me to understand why some of my favorite decks consistently lost, and why other decks triumphed.
So let’s examine the Stages in multiplayer, because they are different.
Applied Stages
The biggest difference is that winning in Stage 1 just does not happen in multiplayer.
This is not to say that there aren’t locks (like, say, Winter Orb and Stasis) that can artificially trap people in Stage 1… but realistically, the goal of doing massive amounts of damage to four opponents before they all make their fourth or fifth land drop is not a possibility.
This is why rush decks fail miserably in large games; they’re hoping to destroy people before they exit Stage 1, then mop up with a few burn spells, and they realistically can’t. (Sometimes it’ll work in a three-player game, but add a couple of people and everything collapses for the Aggro player.)
Fortunately, this aspect of multiplayer won’t ever change — Lord help us if it does! When you’re in a five-person multiplayer game, you would have to do somewhere in the range of seventy damage by turn 4 to be effective. If Wizards starts printing beatdown cards that do that regularly, I fear for the future of Magic.
And yes, there are combos that can do seventy damage by turn 4, but those aren’t Stage 1 decks — they’re combo decks that use older cards and heavy mana acceleration to ramp to their trump of a Stage 3 combo before everyone else leaves Stage 1. Which brings me to my next point:
There really aren’t any single-spell Semi-Soft Locks in multiplayer.
Cruel Ultimatum is a killer in a duel, but it only targets one person. You can pay seven mana to wreck one person, sure, but a Stage 3 play in a duel is often not going to win you the game in multiplayer.
There are few cards that can win you the game without further support. Take Akroma, Angel of Wrath — it’s a strong play, to be sure, and often will destroy some decks single-handedly. But will you cast Akroma and then get ten or eleven uninterrupted attack phases to kill off the other four people? Unlikely.
The strongest cards in multiplayer are ones that really do trump whole strategies… but even they don’t flat-out win without support. Kokusho, the Evening Star is repeatedly cited as one of the best multiplayer creatures ever, because he can kill multiple opponents at once and gain you the life to endure future attacks. But will even the mighty thrashes of a dying Kokusho put your all opponents in a place that they’re unlikely to recover from?
No. Which means that in multiplayer, a Stage 3 is usually a set of cards working together to create a hard-to-beat play. You have an army of creatures and a Titanic Ultimatum. You have Lifeline, Bogardan Hellkite, and Goblin Bombardment. You have Cabal Coffers, Innocent Blood, and Drain Life. You have multiple Kokushos and reanimation strategies.
The point is that a true multiplayer Stage 3 “Answer this or die” generally needs a couple of parts working together. That can be as efficient as a combo (and often is!), or it can be as “Let’s hope!” as attacking with an army of Essence Sliver, Might Sliver, and Crystalline Sliver.
Furthermore, Stage 3 is harder to get to in multiplayer because if it really will kill all your opponents, then all your opponents will team up to stop you. If you’ve just Buried Alive three Kokushos and have a Patriarch’s Bidding on the stack, then every opponent under fifteen life will be whipping out every resource they have to fizzle that spell. And unlike a duel, where you only have one person’s resistance to struggle through, you may have to endure the interference of four or five active antagonists.
Does this mean that Stage 3 plays are bad in multiplayer? Oh, heck no. A strong play is always good; if they don’t have an answer, they die. Sometimes they don’t have an answer.
But the problem with a Stage 3 is that it’s a paradox; if you ramp into a Stage 3 play on turn 4 and it fizzles because your opponents all said “No” — as they often will! — then you may have burned up all your resources and will be defenseless. On the other hand, if you wait too long to get to Stage 3, then your opponents may get there first and trump you.
(This is why it’s noteworthy that a lot of multiplayer’s best Stage 3 plays involve lots of lifegain; that way, even if you don’t destroy all your opponents with that one mighty blow, you have enough of a cushioned life total that you can survive to try to drop that Stage 3 play again.)
A good Stage 3-oriented multiplayer deck frequently looks like a Stage 2 deck, until it casts one single card that ramps it into a Stage 3. By the time your opponents figure out what you’re trying to do, it’s too late.
Of course, there are a lot of solid Stage 2 decks in multiplayer, which win largely on mid-sized creatures and the decision-making process. They may not have an inherent Stage 3, but they have a strong mid-game that can trump a lot of Stage 3 plays and win with “smaller” plays. They are, essentially, counting on the Stage 3 folks to bash each other into oblivion so they can mop up.
The problem that most people forget (including me!) is that Stage 2 plays in multiplayer tend to be bigger.
In a duel, successfully resolving a Dragon would mean that, barring some removal to trump the trump, the end is near. In multiplayer, a 6/6 flier is quite often a Stage 2 play. It won’t win the game on its own, but if your multiplayer deck doesn’t have an answer to a haranguing Dragon, you’re going to be in for a world of trouble.
In other words, a proper Stage 2 deck needs to be able to handle creatures that are a lot larger and more threatening on average. (The upside is that those creatures aren’t necessarily coming after you, but you need to be ready if they are.) This often involves mass removal, which is why, hello, Wrath of God is a good spell.
Then the line blurs, though; if you have a set of cards in your deck that can make it an inadvertent Stage 3 deck, but the deck is not dedicated to getting there, is it a Stage 3 or a Stage 2? Or just a bad deck?
Let’s look at some real-life examples.
Decks I Have Known
Thanks to Patrick, I now realize why some of my decks really have functioned at a high level, winning multiple games and being intensely strong, and why others have just sucked.
Let’s take an example of a real-life deck:
Creatures (20)
- 1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
- 4 Skyshroud Elf
- 3 Saber Ants
- 1 Rith, the Awakener
- 2 Conclave Phalanx
- 4 Selesnya Evangel
- 2 Selesnya Guildmage
- 1 Tolsimir Wolfblood
- 2 Twilight Drover
Lands (26)
Spells (14)
What stage is this deck expected to operate in?
The answer is that it wants to be a Stage 3 deck. The whole goal of this deck is to amass an army of token creatures, resolve Titanic Ultimatum, and then win. Barring a Fog, that’s something most people won’t have an answer to (and you can always attack when the likely Fog player is tapped out).
This deck has a win ratio of 2-3. That’s not bad in multiplayer, where “winning” means being victorious over several opponents… but it’s not great, either.
The good news is that it’s decent at operating in Stage 2. It’s vulnerable in the air — that’s what the Radiant’s Judgments are for — but on the ground? It’s got tons of disposable critters it can throw away. And it can gain life with Loxodon Warhammers or the Conclave Phalanxes to buy time. And thanks to cards like Sprout Swarm, Kjeldoran Outpost, and City of Vitu-Ghazi, it has a lot of ways of amassing armies without forcing you to empty your hand.
The real problem, however, is that the Stage 3 is weak. There are only two Titanic Ultimatums — and really, to win I need to have as many of those as possible. I’d bump that up to three, and possibly four (though that seems like it’s pushing it).
And the mana is a clear “here’s all my dual lands” special — and the niceness of dual lands doesn’t get me past the fact that I have to consistently cast the three-color Titanic when I have it. Though the Skyshroud Elf helps, there are a lot of colorless lands (bad), no single Mountain to fetch if I stick an early Land Tax (worse), and that really needs to be tuned so that when I get my Ultimatum I can use that window before someone draws their Wrath.
To make this a better deck, it also needs to be able to “hibernate” efficiently in Stage 2 for long periods of time, until it’s ready to explode. That can be done by dropping the Selesyna Evangels (which are terrible on their own) and replacing them with Imperious Perfects, and bumping up the Loxodon Warhammers so that I can get more life early on from my tokens. (Yes, there’s Behemoth Sledge as an option, but since I don’t expect any of my tokens to survive combat, the extra point of power/lifegain is more important.)
The deck still collapses to any Fog or Cryptic Command effect. I’m still workin’ on that.
Now let’s take a look at another deck — my beloved Rogues deck. It’s all Rogues, all the time, and it handed me one of my favorite victories ever. But take a look:
Creatures (27)
- 2 Nezumi Graverobber
- 3 Infiltrator il-Kor
- 3 Boggart Loggers
- 4 Marsh Flitter
- 2 Warren Pilferers
- 1 Moonglove Changeling
- 4 Oona's Blackguard
- 4 Stinkdrinker Bandit
- 4 Sygg, River Cutthroat
Lands (23)
Spells (10)
Viewed from a perspective of Stages, this is a terrible deck.
It doesn’t really have a Stage 3 play aside from Notorious Throng; that’s not a bad idea. But unfortunately, its Stage 2 is so weak that unless someone leaves it alone, it’s destined to crumble under the weakest assault.
I mean, look; most of the cards are fragile x/1s that either can’t block (Nomads en-Kor) or you don’t really want to block with because you want to use them to beef up your other Rogues (Oona’s Blackguard, Stinkdrinker Bandit). It doesn’t really exit Stage 1 until it hits four mana unless you get lucky enough to get an early play a Prowl — and yet your only removal is Violet Pall, a five-mana spell that won’t hit most of what you need it to.
Sure, it can win — but is it any wonder this deck is roughly 2-8 in games? It’s really a deck that wants to be Stage 3, but has no accelerants or significant defense to help it consistently get to that stage.
(And yes, four Bitterblossoms would improve the deck greatly, which is why they’re on my wish list…. but I don’t have $80 to throw around on four cards for a marginal deck.)
Realistically, if I wanted to redesign the deck so that it was awesome, I’d need to abandon the Rogue theme and find more removal/better creatures for the mid-game. But not all of my decks need to be powerful; sometimes, I just like silly decks that aren’t efficient, but can do crazy things in a pinch.
So how about this deck?
Creatures (18)
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
This is one of my winningest decks for multiplayer. I don’t know the exact record for it, but I do know that people are now ganging up on it instantly the second they see an Augury Adept, and telling other players what it does.
The reason why? Because this is a very efficient Stage 2 deck, gaining life and cards with evasive Adepts (I have no problems leaving a Mother of Runes open to removal if I use its ability on the Adept to get me a card and some free life), then recycling things efficiently with multiple Twilight Shepherds.
But there is a secret Stage 3 play in here, which I didn’t actually discover until I played the deck: two Twilight Shepherds and an Oblivion Stone means that, given enough mana, I can pop an O-stone every other turn and have nine points of damage in the air.
(This only really works if you have one Twilight Shepherd with Persist and another without, and oodles of mana — you pop the O-Stone, which goes back to your hand, thanks to the Shepherd’s effect, and then re-cast both Shepherd and O-Stone — but this deck excels on getting to a really late game.)
Thing is, I’m a pretty bad deckbuilder. I’d never really thought of why this deck was so strong, but using the principles of Stage 2 and 3, I can see why it’s got a fighting chance in either.
Principles: Use ‘em.
Signing off,
The Ferrett
TheFerrett@StarCityGames.com
The Here Edits This Site Here Guy