At Grand Prix: Strasbourg I was watching Tomoharu Saito play in a side draft, when the following situation occured:
Tomoharu’s opponent, playing Red/Blue, attacked with a Skirk Shaman into Tomoharu’s Fomori Nomad, playing Red/Green. Tomoharu had a Dead/Gone in his hand, and choose to let the attacker go through rather than blocking it.
The sequence of thoughts that occured to me after that simple play spurred me into writing this, and last week’s, article. Yes, the trigger for the articles ocurred in a Limited game… but more people are aware of the idea of game plan strategies in Constructed than in Limited. So where last week we talked about Regionals, this week we tackle the forty-card game.
From my experience, sucessful Limited players, generally speaking, are the ones who play Limited like it’s Constructed. This means that, in Limited as well as Constructed, it’s possible to identify a metagame of decks and establish different game plans for playing with or against them. It’s not the easiest thing to think ahead in a game of Constructed, but it’s even harder to do it in Limited, where most of the time we make our decisions on the fly, without thinking, simply because a certain play seems better for creating a tempo or card advantage.
For example, one of the most common plays we make on autopilot (because we’ve been told it’s card advantage) is to kill an opposing creature enchanted with an aura, since it’s a two-for-one. One of our removal spells dealt with two cards from the opponent.
Let’s take a closer look at Tomoharu’s scenario. His opponent, by attacking with the Skirk Shaman when Tomoharu’s life is around 15 or 16, indicates he’s holding (most likely) a Brute Force, or at least a post-combat removal spell like Orcish Cannonade. Since Tomoharu had the Dead/Gone, it’s safe to say that Tomoharu is going to get a card advantage if he chooses to block in this scenario.
It’s going to be a two-for-one if the opponent lets the damage resolve, as that results in the Skirk Shaman dying and then a burn spell being used to kill the Fomori Nomad. The opponent lost two cards to kill the 4/4 (the exception being with Orcish Cannonade), but it also takes his turn away because he’s forced to tap out in the second main phase to cast the removal spell.
It’s also a two-for-one if the opponent’s trick consists of a Brute Force. In his mind, this attack is correct – he’s trading the Brute Force for the Fomori Nomad – but we have the Dead/Gone. He needs to use the Brute Force before combat damage, thus we respond with Dead/Gone killing Skirk Shaman with him spending a valuable combat trick.
If he’s just bluffing and doesn’t have anything, then we just killed a free creature through the simple act of pointing at our Nomad and declaring it as a blocker.
Going through all the scenarios in my head, it seemed that blocking would be a good plan. This was my initial reaction, and one I would’ve made on autopilot without really thinking. The reason being because it generated card advantage, and tempo advantage is almost guaranteed since the opponent doesn’t know we’re holding Dead/Gone.
But Tomoharu refused to block, and he was not tempted by the "easy profits" on the back of his Dead/Gone. His reason? He believes his Red/Green deck is the agressor in this matchup and that his Red/Green creatures are bigger than the Blue/Red creatures. Two life points is also a small hit on his life total, and he’s clearly happy to see one less blocker on the other side of the table because he wants to attack with the Fomori Nomad. Basic arithmetic tells us that taking two points of damage and then dealing four benefits us. With these reasons, he doesn’t want to lose the 4/4, even if it gains him card and tempo advantage. He’d also rather save the Dead/Gone for later use, such as the removal of a key creature from the opponent, or for a combat situation in which he’s the attacker, perhaps one where his Fomori Nomad is blocked by multiple creatures.
Draft Archtypes
In Constructed, we have different decks facing off, decks we can usually identify from the moment our opponent starts playing cards, sometimes even just by the lands. In Limited, after many drafts using the same sets, you’ll also be able to identify emerging archtypes from the cardpool available. While in Constructed you know exactly what cards are available, and that everyone is free to include four of each at their own discretion, it’s very hard to estimate precisely what the metagame is going to be. In a Limited, after much practice, you will have an idea of the cardpool of the format, regardless of it being 24 Time Spiral Boosters or 8 Time Spiral, 8 Planar Chaos and 8 Future Sight. You’ll have a feeling on how fast the format is, how much card advantage is generated, and what are the most viable strategies that you and the other players will be looking for.
In ancient times when it comes to drafting, draft archetypes were associated with the colors in the deck. Blue/White was the slow controlish deck, whose game plan was to lock the ground and win with fliers. Green/Red relied on efficient creatures backed up by some burn and pump spells, to quicly deal twenty damage. Black/Red could either be an aggressive deck playing cheap creatures with more power in attack than in defense, while playing a tempo game of killing all the creatures the opponent played to clear the path for the attackers… or it could be a heavy removal deck with more spells than creatures. White/Green is traditionally known for having good and hard-to-kill creatures plus pump spells, prevention, and protection to dodge removal spells, but it can’t deal with a creature with a re-usable ability (like a Healer or a pinger).
In my opinion, the modern age of drafting started with Onslaught Block, for two reasons. Magic Online went public around the time of Torment/Judgement, and Onslaught was the first stand-alone set released and heavily drafted online. Magic Online, and its ease of use, has to be a mark in the history of drafting. The second reason is that before Onslaught we named the archtypes by their colors, and since Onslaught we’ve been calling them by names. This shows an effort by Wizards in making the sets more focused toward drafting.
When playing OLS, just telling people the colors in your deck wasn’t enough for anyone know what archetype you were actually playing. You had to be more specific, with phrases like Beasts, Soldiers, or Elves. The following year, Mirrodin block was released, and many players were forcing the Affinity draft or the Sunburst draft. In Kamigawa we found the Spiricraft chain decks and the almost creatureless Arcane spell decks. In our current block, we can find the Sliver archtype, Suspend based decks, Thallids, Rebels or White Weenie decks, and at some point even an Empty the Warrens based draft. Knowing the archtypes will ensure your drafting improves, as you will take in consideration not only the power level of a card and its mana cost, but also its importance in the archtype you’re drafting. It also allows you to know the strengths and weaknesses of the archtypes, giving you a better idea on how to beat them.
Usually, to identify the power level of a card, we guide ourselves by the famous pick lists; to draft according to the mana cost and our mana curve, we guide ourselves by the mana costs of the cards we have so far. In order for us to draft according to our archtype and our synergies, we have to identify the game plan of our draft. Power level, mana curve, and synergy… these are three things you should take into consideration while drafting.
My best example would be at Grand Prix: Dallas in a side draft. I had drafted a Desolation Giant so I was taking more defensive cards instead of agressive ones like Amrou Seekers. This way I would force my opponent to play more creatures. Let’s say I play a 2/4 or 2/5: I’m forcing them to play more quality creature to get damage through. I also wanted cards that provided me an offensive burst after I cast Desolation Giant, cards that were still useful without the walking Wrath (like Urza’s Factory and Thunder Totem).
Metagame in Limited
I can distinctly remember a Limited metagame that resembled a Constructed Rock-Paper-Scissors metagame, where deck A beated deck B, which in turn beat deck C, which beat deck A. It was during Odyssey Block, where the three most popular archtypes were classic Blue/White control, classic Blue/Black evasion, and Red/Green with Rites of Initiation.
The Blue/White deck could easily lock the ground with many "Walls," or creatures with higher toughness than power. It was also very difficult to bring down a Blue/White player’s life total, thanks to cards like Hallowed Healer, Teroh’s Faithful, and Embolden. It would slowly win with a creature enchanted with Psionic Gift, or a big flier like Mystic Zealot which served the double purpose of being a blocker pre-Threshold (2/4) and a finisher with Threshold (3/5 Flying). Let’s put this deck under the category of "Long-Game Plan."
The Blue/Black deck was a tempo-oriented deck with many creatures with evasion but very low toughnesses, like fliers and fear creatures tend to have. Usually, it used bad creatures as temporary blockers, such as Phantom Whelp, as well as bounce spells like Aether Burst to delay the attacks or to remove creatures that could block the fliers. Black also gave the deck access to some removal. Summing it up, it had good spells and weak but evasive creatures. This deck is filed under the category "Mid-Game Plan."
The Green/Red deck relied on cheap and fast creatures to deal the damage, such as efficient men Wild Mongrel and Ember Beast, which could be combined with Rites of Initiation for huge amounts of damage. Chatter of the Squirrel provided two bodies for the Rites bonuses, and burn spells like Firebolt and Flame Burst were amazing against Blue/Black creatures, but rather unefficient versus Blue/White. In theory, this was the fastest archtype of the block, therefore we’re putting it in the category "Early-Game Plan."
So what happened when they met? Due to the nature of the cards and the inherent game plans of each archetype, Blue/White easily won over Green/Red, which in turn had no problem winning against Blue/Black, which had a good matchup against Blue/White. Instead of Rock-Paper-Scissors, I like to use the metaphor of a Sword, a Bow, and a Shield. The Sword can’t get past the Shield’s defense. The Bow can attack through the defense the Shield provides, but the Bow has no way to defend from the Sword.
Translating it to Magic, the Early-Game deck, whose main weapon is speed, would crash into a defensive strategy that would nullify all their threats. The Mid-Game deck had the tools to go through the defenses, leaving himself kind of exposed, but the Long-Game deck couldn’t enter a damage race because the Mid-Game deck would win. When the Mid-Game and the Early-Game deck collide, all that mattered was the damage and the race, so evasion wasn’t so necessary because the creatures aren’t made to defend, or they’re tapped, therefore the Early-Game deck would win.
I read on Frank Karsten’s column a very interesting draft theory from Roel van Heesjwik, claiming that a draft deck that’s just a little slower and controlish than the opposing deck has the advantage, but if it’s much slower than the opposing deck it will lose to fast beats. I believe Roel was referring to Ravnica block, but we can certainly apply this concept to Time Spiral, which is a totally distinct concept when compared to the one from Odyssey Block. This serves to show you that, just like in Constructed, rules for the metagame change. Certain cardpools contain the tools for beatdown strategies to be dominant, while other cardpools benefit control-oriented strategies.
At Pro Tour: Kobe – Triple Time Spiral Booster Draft – I had this deck in my third draft
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Bogardan Rager
1 Drudge Reavers
1 Faceless Devourer
1 Flamecore Elemental
1 Goblin Skycutter
2 Keldon Halberdier
1 Magus Of The Scroll
1 Mana Skimmer
1 Sedge Sliver
1 Trespasser Il-vec
1 Feebleness
1 Dark Withering
1 Orcish Cannonade
1 Strangling Soot
1 Eron The Relentless
1 Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician
1 Assassinate
1 Conflagrate
2 Grapeshot
1 Premature Burial
In Round 8 I played against Julien Nuijten, who drafted according the Dutch White Weenie strategy. His deck was full of small creatures relying on the combo of Ivory Giant, Fortify, and all White men. In this matchup I was the control deck, and my deck was full of cards to kill all his key creatures, like Amrou Scout (and pretty much everything else, since they were all small). Thanks to the matchup, it was one of my easiest wins on that Pro Tour.
In the next round, I played against Bastien Perez, who had a Blue/White control deck that made me the aggressor. Bastien played a Dream Stalker that stopped all my creatures. Later he had an Errant Ephemeron that none of my removal spells (except for Dark Withering) could kill, and he easily destroyed me.
My deck was slightly more control-oriented than Julien’s, while Bastien’s deck was slightly more controling than mine. But I do believe that Julien’s faster White Weenie deck would have a better shot than my deck at defeating Bastien, which is exactly what the theory from Roel van Heesjwik tells us. After reading Roel’s words, I now understand the losses of my two-Headed Giant teammate Frederico Bastos in our drafts.
Frederico drafts the greediest decks ever (and, as a consequence, the slowest). Every time he draws his opening seven, his hand is composed of three lands and a combination of four cards with a total mana cost of twenty. Among his personal favorites are stuff like Mindstab, Haunting Hymn, Mystical Teachings, Sprout Swarm (which costs five), and Linessa (also a late-game and very mana-intensive card). Whenever their opponents start with turn 1 suspended creature, turn 2 random 2/2 or Blade of the Sixth Pride, turn 3 creature, and turn 4 anything, he loses. But he usually beats me, as I don’t tend to draft aggressive decks. I prefer creatures with reusable abilities, like D’Avenant Healer or Saltfield Recluse, or creatures with a higher toughness than power. Most of the time I’ll play a 2/4 for four mana as a filler, instead of a 4/2 for four. This leaves me with a non-threatning board for Frederico in the early game, while later, his more expensive spells absolutely destroy me.
Sealed Deck
If draft looks like Constructed because of archtypes and metagame, Sealed Deck is more about finding the game plan for your own deck. In Sealed you have a personal cardpool, not a shared one like in draft, so you have less information about the contents of your opponents’ decks. After building your deck you have to analyze whether you’ll be choosing to play or draw. When you first learnt how to play Magic, someone told you that you should play first. It’s easy to identify the decks that scream for you to play first, while it might be difficult to decide whether certain decks prefer to play or draw. Usually, in a slow format with few ways to pick up card advantage, you’ll want that extra card.
Many players already separate their deck in columns according to their mana cost, and keep an eye on the creature count. In order to have a better game plan, you have to identify your main win conditions. Cards like Thallid-Shell Dweller and Errant Doomswayers count as creatures but can’t be seen as win conditions, while personally I don’t consider Weatherseed Totem a creature but count him as a possible win condition. Also, knowing the number of removal cards you have, or the number of spells that deal damage directly to the opponent, can help you make better decisions and calculate your odds of topdecking at a certain stage of the game. I have two Sealed Decks from Grand Prix: Stockholm as examples here, and they are very different in their game plans.
Sealed Deck 1
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Aether Membrane
1 Amrou Scout
1 Calciderm
1 Cloudchaser Kestrel
1 D’avenant Healer
1 Fomori Nomad
1 Greater Gargadon
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Knight Of Sursi
1 Outrider En-kor
1 Stingscourger
1 Subterranean Shambler
1 Weathered Bodyguards
1 Opal Guardian
1 Pentarch Ward
1 Dawn Charm
1 Ghostfire
1 Orcish Cannonade
1 Sudden Shock
1 Sulfurous Blast
1 Disintegrate
1 Rift Bolt
7 Mountain
8 Plains
1 Fungal Reaches
1 Terramorphic Expanse
Play/Draw: Play
Creatures: 13
Removal Spells: 6
Direct Damage: 6
Win Conditions: Fast creature rush, Opal Guardian, Greater Gargadon, Disintegrate, direct damage.
With this information, the conclusions I reached were to play an aggressive game and try to deal the maximum amount of damage with my creatures by clearing blockers for them, unless I have a Sulfurous Blast in my opening hand. If you deal a considerable amount of damage before your creatures are neutralized, there’s a good chance you can deal the remaining damage with direct damage.
How do you win against this deck? Usually, big Green creatures should be very hard for the deck to remove, since all the spells are based on damage dealt. The deck has very few answers to bombs. Also, a not-too-slow control deck should be able to stop the initial rush at a comfortable life total.
Sealed Deck 2
1 Mirri the Cursed
1 Nightshade Assassin
1 Vampiric Sliver
1 Urborg Syphon-Mage
1 Spitting Sliver
1 Blightspeaker
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Thallid Germinator
1 Havenwood Wurm
1 Wall of Roots
1 Mire Boa
1 Gemhide Sliver
1 Greenseeker
1 Feebleness
1 Strangling Soot
1 Mindstab
1 Kor Dirge
1 Sprout Swarm
1 Utopia Vow
1 Thrill of the Hunt
1 Wurmcalling
1 Ghostfire
1 Rift Bolt
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Mountain
7 Swamp
7 Forest
Play/Draw: Draw
Creatures: 14
Removal Spells: 6
Direct Damage: 2
Winning Conditions: Wurmcalling tokens, Sprout Swarm tokens, Urborg Syphon-Mage, Blightspeaker.
On the other hand, this deck’s main plan is not to be aggressive, though it can be a possibility if you have a fast draw. Your creatures should be able to handle most of the opponent’s so I think it’s wiser to save the removal. It’s very unlikely for this deck to have lots of damage, so the attacks should be carefully planned. The main win conditions are the pinging effects of the Black creatures, so you might want to save the Syphon-Mage from entering combat, but you can also win by token overrun, be it big Wurms or small Saprolings. I even considered playing with Fallen Ideal because of the tokens, but there was already a Germinator in the deck.
How do you play against this deck? It has no blockers for evasive creatures, so they need the removal for them. If the main win conditions are nullified – they can be countered or discarded, or not drawn – it can be very difficult for this deck to deal twenty damage.
These would be my game plans if I had any of these decks, or if I was facing any of them, though you have incomplete information during the games. You don’t know their full decklist, only the cards you see, which can mislead you.
These reflections on Draft, Sealed, and Limited in general are just the small tip of the iceberg, to demonstrate that Limited is more complex than cracking packs and playing the cards in your hand. There are far too many subtle decisions to be made. Knowing your deck, the archtypes, and the metagame can help you make better decisions.
Remember, there are many good Limited players out there. In fact, I think in the top-level competition there aren’t bad Limited players any more. There are no easy Limited matches thanks to Magic Online, which increased the Limited level all over the world. Every edge you can get is valuable. Players like Rich Hoaen win almost every side draft they play regardless of the teammates (even with me) and the opponents, and Kenji himself turned from an okay to an outstanding Limited player, so I like to believe that if you really know what you’re doing with your cards you’ll can improve in leaps and bounds.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to explain my points as clearly as I’d like, so feel free to ask any questions you may have on the forums, or to criticize any of my opinions in case you don’t agree. Like many of you, I’m still trying to understand why I lose in Limited, and I’m always looking to improve*.
Thank you for reading,
Tiago
* Maybe it’s because I always finish my drafts with only 18 playable cards!