The Next Level Magic e-book is back, this time with the full paperback 2nd
edition text, previously unavailable in electronic form! The original e-book was a little under 300 pages, while a year later the paperback was
released with expanded text and updated examples (over 400 pages!). The 2nd edition has never been available in e-book form until now!
Why is Next Level Magic such a great investment in one’s game? It works.
Thousands and thousands of very satisfied readers have already taken advantage of the strategy and tools laid out in Next Level Magic. If you win just one more FNM, it has paid for itself, to say nothing
of the countless readers who have written in thanking for the help winning PTQs, making National Teams, and more. Besides, it contains years of fun
stories from my seventeen-year career as a professional Magic player!
Today, I’d like to share an excerpt from Next Level Magic, but first, some words
from a few Next Level Magic readers…
“Just finished reading Next Level Magic and wanted to say a huge thank you. I’ve been playing for 10 years, but having checked my
ego at the door, I’ve improved more in the last month than ever before, and it’s mostly thanks to your insight. As seems fitting, after over a
month of practice and reading, I finished the last page tonight I won my first 8-4 mtgo draft and boy did it feel good. So thank you, and congrats
on helping transform one more ambitious punk into a thoughtful, calculating opponent.”
-Allen Snell
“First of, let me do the obligatory, and congratulate you on Next Level Magic and let you know that I’m really looking
forward to the paperback version. Before I had read Next Level Magic was at best, an average player (3-3 at a PTQ was a good day,
going 2-1 at a draft was fantastic). I won’t go into detail, but least I say that my game has improved beyond recognition, since reading your book,
I finished third at a $1k event from a field of 120, finished 16th at a PTQ of 128, and won our states championship last month. I know I’ve got a
long way to go, but that in conjunction with the fact that I’ve been winning/splitting enough 8-4 modo draft cues that I’ve only ever had to pay
for about 4, out of about 20-30.”
-Steven Hitchcock
“I qualified for National championships… It was amazing, it felt like being one step ahead of the metagame, catching people completely unaware.”
-Martin
“I am right now making my way through your book, and find it really inspiring. I’m almost halfway through, and have only played a couple of
tournaments since I’ve begun, but I feel myself already able to see where the principles you’re stressing are coming into play. I’ve been playing
slower, focusing on the games and decisions I’m making: In short, it is, at long last, after 10+ years of magic, my goal to play perfectly. And it
feels so right. I thank you for your brilliance in bringing this to light, simple as it is…
…Thank you! I was reading Next Level Magic, last year. It changed my perspective on the game and gave me what I feel is the
extra edge that separates doing consistently well with consistently better.”
–Jon Kornacki (before and after winning SCG Las Vegas
“Hey I just wanted to thank you for all the great advice you gave in your book. Last Friday I won my local FNM! I was undefeated and 75
percent of the people I played were high ranked and far more experienced and I was able to say with confidence to my friend before we played that I
would win the tournament… and I was right! Thank you for everything and I will see you in the next couple years on the Pro Tour (hopefully) thats
my goal!”
-Nick Sutphin
From the Section on Shortcuts…
…What is the core principle around which all other Magic strategy revolves? For the purposes of this strategy guide, we are assuming that your
primary goal is to win though obviously, we want to have fun with people, and maybe make money. Still, when we note that the primary goal is to win, it
helps us be aware of what we are really trying to do.
In Magic’s various aspects—drafting, deck construction, sideboarding, in-game play—we are often faced with many option
s, most of which have nearly unlimited potential consequences. Yet we only have limited awareness. You can look at this as though it is a bottleneck:
we want to handle more information than we are mentally capable of in any given moment.
Imagine you are
draftÂing. You have a choice between Heartstabber Mosquito and Surrakar Marauder. Ideally, you would be able to freeze time for a few weeks while
you playtested two identical decks, exÂcept that one has the Mosquito and the other has the Marauder.
You’d play a thousand games against various other possible draft decks until you could be certain which pick was better in your parÂticular deck,
given your particular drafting situation at this particuÂlar table. Instead… you have seconds to choose. That is definitely a bottleneck!
Succeeding in Magic often comes down to having accurate systeÂmatic shortcuts in place to help you optimize complex decisions in short amounts of
time. You may be brilliant, but they haven’t built a computer yet that can play Magic well, let alone perfectly. There is just too much to consider.
The closest anyone has come is the AI found in the Xbox Live game, Duel of the Planeswalkers, but as advanced as that program is, it is still nowhere
near as good as a reasonable player. When the computer attacks with a 3/4 into your 4/4, it always has the Giant Growth. The computer does not
ever bluff, ever. It doesn’t know how. In addition, if you attack with a Teferi, Mage of ZhalÂfir into your opponent’s Platinum Angel, they will
block every time. Magic is far too complicated of a game for our current AI technology to produce anything but the most basic of strategies.
We want to talk about how to use shortcuts to think about Magic—so that when we get to specifics like card advantage and mana ratios, we have a
foundation for how to think efficiently.
|
“Someone who has more and better shortcuts, usually wins more” |
There are various sorts of shortcuts, and we want to cover a wide variety here in Next Level Magic. Let’s look at some types of shortcuts that
are useful to us.
One day I was at an event in Minnesota, and found myself battling in Extended. My opponent was piloting a Merfolk deck. UnsurpriÂsingly, I was
playing Faeries, a popular choice at the time.
The challenger had a complicated board position involving a number of creatures, each with abilities that affected other permanents. To make matters
more complicated, I had an Umezawa’s Jitte, but was behind in tempo and facing Sygg, River Guide, Lord of Atlantis, and more. The game ended when I
exiled his Lord of Atlantis with a Path to Exile. He forgot to protect it with Sygg, and the blunder was fatal.
I was probably still going to establish control with Umezawa’s Jitte—but the long and short of it was that missing that play made the game
completely unwinnable. From one perspective, some might say this was a relatively obvious play… but when you think about it, was it really?
I have lost many matches to on-board tricks; everyone has. Just because the information needed to make the right play is available on the battlefield
does not mean it is going to be obvious. In this game, there were no less than twenty activated abilities exerting an influence on the board.
How can you keep track of every interacÂtion between every one of those abilities and every other ability on the battlefield, let alone when your
opponent casts 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 usÂing Sygg’s ability.
But how do they know to ask this question?
When Path to Exile is played on the Lord of Atlantis, how is the Merfolk player supposed to know to use his Sygg? Is he supposed to check every one of
the twenty permanents with activated abiliÂties every time anyone does anything?
In this case, you can set up a possible shortcut with Sygg, River Guide. It is a deceptively complex creature—for example, how many people forget
that when you attack with Sygg, if your oppoÂnent blocks with a Knight of the White Orchid and a Mulldrifter your Sygg is going to die, even if
you have plenty of mana? ReÂmember, if you give Sygg protection from Blue, the Protection from White ability will fizzle, since Sygg is Blue. The
same is true in reverse as well!
So how can you create a mental shortcut that will help you know when to consider activating Sygg?
Sygg, River Guide has the following ability (aside from islandwalk): 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 abiliÂties in the game. It affects targeting, damage prevention, and
evaÂsion. 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).
It is almost like Magic Online, where you are placing stops when you want to be able to act. Here, our shortcuts are mental stops that tell us to
consider something when the condition is met—in this case, whenever a Merfolk is targeted.
It may seem like there is a lot going on there, but the key is that you are forcing your brain to get used to thinking about the releÂvancy of the
ability, so that your brain will begin to do it on its own. If you practice considering Sygg whenever a Merfolk is tarÂgeted, damaged, or at risk
of being blocked, you will begin to do it automatically. You will get used to automatically thinking in this way, and then you will truly experience a
saving of mental energy, as well as an increase in awareness of the battlefield.
There are a number of great opportunities for mental shortcuts to aid you in game situations like this. Sometimes these involve genÂeral areas
that warrant stops, such as when a card changes zones. Other shortcuts are more specific such as “when an opponent plays a Demigod of Revenge,
let the trigger resolve before countering it.”
Some other shortcuts that I find to be very useful include:
- Memorizing general pick orders for a Limited format
- Knowing whether I typically want to play first or second in a given format
- Knowing what to sideboard against common strategies beÂfore the tournament begins
- How to tap efficiently (for instance tapping legendary lands and artifact lands before basics, since
they are more vulnerÂable to disruption)
- Knowing what card to generally target when trying to disÂrupt a popular combo deck
- Asking yourself what your opponent could have when they make an unusual attack or block.
This last shortcut is particularly important, and I want to emphasÂize it here. When your opponent makes an attack or block that is not
logical based on the cards on the battlefield, you need to have a mental stop that tells you to slow for a second and ask yourself what the opponent is
up to. Do they have a Giant Growth effect? Do they have a lethal burn spell? Do they have a Day of Judgment? Put yourself in their shoes, and try to
ask, “Why would I make that play?” It is possible that it is just a misplay, but make sure you give them enough credit to at least ask what
they could have…
Thanks for joining me today, and thank you to everyone that has already purchased the 1st edition of Next Level Magic. The expanded Next Level Magic paperback sells for $10 more than the 1st edition e-book; but as
my holiday thank you present to readers who already purchased the e-book, this month you can upgrade to the 2nd edition featuring the full 400 pages of content found in the
paperback for just $5! Many readers having been writing asking for the full version in e-book form, either because of living internationally (so
shipping is tough) or just preferring e-books for convenience. Additionally, anyone who already purchased the Next Level Magic paperback can pick up the full version in e-book form for just
$5 all month long!
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”