What is harder to play, beatdown or control?
An age-old question is this one, and one with no easy answer. Not surprisingly, I have an opinion on the matter… but I think that any response can only be made in the context of some greater definition. What dictates being “hard” to play? Degree of difficulty? Number of possible stacks? Overall significance of relatively infrequent decisions? Opportunity to err? What about margin of error?
For example, look at two potential opening hands for Kamigawa Block:
Gifts Ungiven:
Sickening Shoal
Gifts Ungiven
Kodama’s Reach
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Forest
Forest
Swamp
…
Sensei’s Divining Top
White Weenie:
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Lantern Kami
Samurai of the Pale Curtain
Umezawa’s Jitte
Plains
Plains
Plains
Let’s look at Gifts Ungiven first. The first question the deck asks us is “what land do you play?” This is a good question because from turn 1, Gifts Ungiven already has the opportunity to err.
On the play, I am fairly certain that the right answer is Swamp, pass.
You can alternately play Forest, pass; other Forest, pass; or just pass without playing a land. So why is Swamp right? Think about it like this… If you see Swamp, pass on the other side of the table on turn 1 (yourself on the draw), what deck do you expect? I think that with no additional information, the majority of players would put the opponent on Black Hand.
Now consider that your opponent were playing White Weenie on the draw. Your decision of Swamp, pass could seriously change his first turn play. Given the initial seven for White Weenie (above) what creature would you play on turn 1 in general? Against a Swamp?
With no outside information, most players would of course run the Isamaru, Hound of Konda to start. It does two damage and Lantern Kami only does one. But if you know – or in this case suspect – the opponent to be Black Hand (especially with a Jitte grip like the above), the right play is Lantern Kami. Why? Because if the opponent has turn 2 Hand of Cruelty (my Black Hand opponents play it on turn 2 every game without fail), Isamaru never gets to attack, let alone acquire counters for Umezawa’s good old Jitte. For a while there, Steve Sadin actually said that against unknown opponent, you just run Lantern Kami no matter what. At the time, Black Hand was very prevalent, Gifts Ungiven hadn’t tipped on a large scale yet, and in matchups where it didn’t matter as much (like the mirror) you were probably either only losing one point or your Hound would be contained by Bushido soon, anyway. If you are the Gifts Ungiven player, you want an observant player to get his gears whirling like this; you would much rather take one from Lantern Kami than two from Isamaru… Even given a possible second turn Sakura-Tribe Elder, the Hound will likely be relevant and get 2-4 more damage in before you establish control than a Lantern Kami would; worse yet, it is more likely to contribute to the hyper-aggressive draws that can sometimes steal games from the favored Gifts Ungiven.
So what makes Swamp better than Forest? If you lay Forest, any thinking opponent with a reasonable knowledge of the metagame will almost certainly make the same play: Hound of Konda. Certainly there are many opponents who will not vary their play based on your first land, and others who aren’t thinking this way at all. Moreover, there are tons and tons of decks and draws that either don’t have a first turn play available, no say in what they will run out there to begin with, or no fundamental interaction with your first turn. Against this majority of players, your opening land drop isn’t going to make a difference whatsoever.
Yet the fact remains that White Weenie is the most populous deck in the metagame. Players who have tested against Black Hand may or should know what their best play is if they put you on that deck. As a Gifts Ungiven player, you would generally prefer to face Lantern Kami than a creature with twice its power. For those reasons, running Swamp to start gives you the best chance at misinformation and a shot at forcing a potentially game deciding misplay on the very first turn. To put it another way, say you have a lot of loose dollar bills crumpled disorganized in your pocket and someone offers you – no strings attached – a perfectly new Coach wallet that actually has some chance of containing a crisp one hundred dollar bill (he got several wallets for Christmas and his rich uncle stuffed one, but he is either too rich or too lazy to ascertain which before re-gifting). Do you not take the designer wallet that you actually have a potential need for simply because you aren’t certain it is full of cash to begin with? Remember: you’re going to have to organize your dollar bills either way.
Also remember that you don’t have Wear Away, and that even if you did, you probably wouldn’t play it over Sakura-Tribe Elder even if the opponent played Jitte.
Sold on Swamp yet? Here’s the counterintuitive follow-up question: If you are on the draw, what do you do?
In our case, the eighth card is Sensei’s Divining Top. Therefore, rather than just Forest or Swamp, you have twice as many possible plays as the original (seven card) version of the same hand. To wit:
Forest, pass.
Swamp, pass.
Forest, Sensei’s Divining Top.
Now any of the last two plays is probably better than any of the first two plays, just because you are not wasting a mana. Even if you plan to run Sakura-Tribe Elder on turn 2 (and you almost certainly will facing beadown), getting the Top out there will save you a minimum of one mana down the line; not playing it is just not an acceptable option.
So you have two different possible plays that are both better than the first two plays. Nevertheless, of the four potentials, three are wrong. Given our rationale for starting on Swamp in the first example, what play do you make?
In this case, I think that Swamp into Divining Top is worse than Forest into the same, for the same reasons a naked Swamp was better than naked Forest before. If you play Swamp and Sensei’s Divining Top, you are essentially declaring yourself Gifts Ungiven. Yes there are other Tribe Elder/Reach decks playing basic Swamps in the block, but they are nowhere as common or competitive as Gifts Ungiven at this stage; if this were a couple of weeks ago, you could also make the argument for Kite Control… but that deck is nowhere near anyone’s radar at present. On the other hand, Forest into Sensei’s Divining Top gives you a lot more room to bluff. It is only in the last two weeks that Gifts Ungiven stormed at the PTQ level, and geographically, decks like Heartbeat/Maga and even the original TOGIT deck are popular… or popular enough that you can might be able to pit the opponent against his own ability to make the right read.
In the case of a Divining Top opening, changing the opponent’s read is a lot less relevant than just playing the basic land. That said, once you get to turn two, the Gifts Ungiven deck really challenges your ability to make correct decisions. What lands do you have in play? Assuming you are going to sacrifice the Elder, what land do you get? Does this change if your ninth card is Tendo Ice Bridge?
A lot of players would automatically grab the Gifts Ungiven deck’s invariable lone Island. Others would sit back and set up with Kodama’s Reach. The right play is not going to be obvious in the abstract – unlike with some solitaire decks, that play will depend on what the opponent is running, and what he has played so far – but the point I am trying to make is that come turn 3, every opportunity is not just a potential mistake waiting to happen, but a string of mistakes. What if it is wrong to go for Kodama’s Reach but you do anyway? At that point, it might be right to get Swamp, Swamp… But you get Forest, Forest. Do you get the Plains if you don’t have the Haze? What about the Mountain if you don’t have the Godo? Say you make the right call and go for Gifts Ungiven… What setup do you choose?
Contrast this with the White Weenie opening hand. To begin, White Weenie doesn’t have a lot of flexibility on land decisions: in this case – and in some 60-card stacks in total – it’s Plains or go home. As for one-drops, on the play, the White Weenie deck scripts Hound of Konda as the default, with an expectation of Pale Curtain and Jitte + Lantern Kami for the first three turns given no additional information. This will only realistically change if White Weenie expects Hand of Cruelty on turn 2, which switches up the incentive to Lantern Kami and probably Umezawa’s Jitte, followed by attach mana. Realistically, it’s more important to press the advantage and potentially clear the board of the critical (projected) Samurai than to approach a symmetrical beatdown matchup with a baseline race strategy. Especially given the fact that you can expect to play a 2/2 on turn 3 along with the Kami equip, the ability to take out the opponent’s best in-matchup fighter/stop sign helps to race anyway; of course you do look like a buffoon if he’s got Sickening Shoal.
From this perspective, it looks like control is a lot harder to play. Because of all the colors in the Gifts Ungiven deck, the Gifts deck has more chances to screw up on which lands it can play, which lands it can search for, what to do with its Fact or Fiction/Intuition hybrid, and so forth, and what order to play its spells. In the early turns anyway, White Weenie’s plays are fairly scripted. With a different draw glutted with two-drops, that might not be the case… On the other hand, part of the reason we have redundant two-drops (thanks Hacker) is that they all do the same thing. Come the midgame, though, both decks require a measure of interactive skill where especially close games revolve around a single well- or poorly-played turn.
Consider the following game state:
Your opponent has one card in hand and five lands — four Plains and an Eiganjo Castle. He has a Lantern Kami, Isamaru, and Hand of Honor tapped.
How lucky: you have 13 life.
On your turn, you play your sixth land and tap five to play Kagemaro with three cards of your own in hand; this is the doozy grip, though – another Kagemaro, basic Forest, and Gifts Ungiven.
What do you do?
As far as I can tell, there are nine distinct tactical sequences you can attempt:
1. Use Kagemaro immediately.
2. Wait until his turn and see if he plays anything pre-combat, then use Kagemaro.
3. Wait until combat and use Kagemaro prior to damage.
4. Don’t block; wait until damage is on the stack or resolves and then use Kagemaro.
5. Block; wait until damage is on the stack or resolves and then use Kagemaro.
6. Don’t block; wait until his end of turn to use Kagemaro.
7. Block; wait until his end of turn to use Kagemaro.
8. Don’t block; don’t use Kagemaro until you’ve drawn a little more gas.
9. Block; don’t use Kagemaro until you’ve drawn a little more gas.
Each of these has some variations, but the can be grouped together pretty simply.
- 1, 2, and 3, should they succeed, mitigate the most damage. 2 and 3 have greater flexibility and greater potential than 1; as we will see below, their worst-case scenarios are also much worse.
- 5 and 7 mitigate a medium amount of damage. 7 has greater flexibility than 5.
- 4 and 6 don’t make very much sense to me. They mitigate the least damage and have little incremental flexibility over 5 and 7; given a slightly different game state even one card different, though, one of these could be the preferred option.
- 8 mitigates the least damage but has the most flexibility and potential.
- 9 is to 8 what 5 and 7 are to 4 and 6; essentially it holds great flexibility and potential and also saves two life points.
Clearly the card you are most worried about is Charge Across the Araba. One way to analyze this board is to simply assume that he has the Charge. If he has it, why wouldn’t he have used it? To begin with, it wouldn’t have been lethal. He would have been stuck on turn 2 mana with a zero reach deck and an opponent who could lock him out with any number of cards following. So if he has the Charge but not another land, what are the implications of each of these plays?
1. You trade Kagemaro for Charge. You go to 8 the following turn but probably pull it out with the strength of your hand. He ends the next turn with three lands in play, meaning he can’t play + equip Jitte pre-combat; however he will have open mana for a different trick, like Otherworldly Journey, if need be.
2. You lose.
3. You lose.
I consider the first fundamental shift of my game as a Magic player to be when I stopped playing Lightning Bolt immediately to the opponent’s dome on turn 1. I always played Red in the summer of 1994 and I usually ran the “most efficient damage source in the game” as quickly as I could. Then one day, I realized that I might not want to Bolt the opponent every time, that I might want to hit his Kird Apes instead. That was when I started Bolting him… at the end of his turn.
Despite recognizing this as a gain in my operational understanding of Magic, the similar play of waiting until another clever time to use my card, the opponent’s turn, is weaker in any situation where the opponent has a pump spell. I don’t think I realized until 2000 or so, by the way, that Bolting on my own turn would sometimes save three points of Giant Growth damage.
Plays 2 and 3 have very little real incentive over Play 1, but terrible downsides if you get caught with your pants down. If the opponent is a full on HEE-HAW, you can get some extra cards, but the risk against any even minimally competent opponent is probably just not worth it over the much more conservative play #1.
4. You go to 8 and he is in a lot of trouble. You trade Kagemaro for Charge. He saves his team but likely loses them next turn. He ends the turn with a maximum of three lands in play.
5. You go to 10 and he is in a lot of trouble. You trade Kagemaro for Charge. He saves his team but likely loses them next turn. He ends the turn with a maximum of three lands in play.
6. You go to 8 and he is in a lot of trouble. You trade Kagemaro for Charge. He saves his team but likely loses them next turn. He ends the turn with a maximum of two lands in play.
7. You go to 10 and he is in a lot of trouble. You trade Kagemaro for Charge. He saves his team but likely loses them next turn. He ends the turn with a maximum of two lands in play.
8. You go to 8. He ends the turn with five lands in play.
9. You go to 10. He ends the turn with five lands in play.
Just as an aside, Josh points out that the White Weenie player can actually have one more land in play than I claim in a lot of the above situations if he lets Lantern Kami die. In the Grand Prix two weeks ago where he tied for Top 8, Josh played to keep four mana on his own turn as much as possible so that he could rip and attach Jitte but actually drew into Hokori several times, which could be similarly devastating. End aside.
Anyway, it seems like blocking is just better than not blocking in this situation. Many of the sequences have very similar outcomes.
The thing is, the opponent might have another bomb. Charge is the most important one to consider because it wins the game immediately and can save his team, but Otherworldly Journey on Hand of Honor would be annoying, and Hokori, Dust Drinker could be devastating. Imagine he had Hokori…
1. You have six tapped lands. Nice job, idiot.
2. You have six tapped lands. Hope you draw the Shoal.
3. You have six tapped lands. Even if you draw the Shoal, it’s going to hurt to use it.
4. You’re at 8 with six tapped lands. Gee el.
5. You’re at 10 with six tapped lands. Not where you want to be, but not as bad as some of the other plays.
6. You’re at 8 but he can’t play Hokori.
7. You’re at 10 but he can’t play Hokori.
8. You’re at 8 but he won’t play Hokori.
9. You’re at 10 but he won’t play Hokori.
What play should you make?
Play #7 seems like the best one to me because the opponent doesn’t have any reach and your hand is superb. Margin of victory doesn’t matter to you in most games because you’re infinite anyway… It’s much more important to be able to protect your assets and hold the last life point than to Win Big.
What play would Jon Finkel make?
I have a sickening suspicion that Jon would probably make play #1 a lot of the time. This is also the play I would be tempted to make, but for different reasons. It just isn’t that likely that the opponent’s card is Charge Across the Araba… but Jon would know when that card was Charge, mind you, allowing him to make the optimal play all the time. He would be less likely to make play play #1 in a Game Two situation because some White Weenie decks add a Charge and most have 3-4 Dust Drinkers that aren’t there in Game One. If it’s one thing Jon does, and well, it’s make a play that you wouldn’t… and be right.
But why would someone want to make one of the other plays? We already said Jon would be less likely to make #1 in a sideboard situation, but why make #1 at all? If the opponent doesn’t have a relevant card, the incentives are a lot different. Consider:
Greedy v. Tentative
1. You have 13 life and a nice hand. Your opponent can make a follow-up play but is probably kold.
2. You have 13 life and a nice hand. Your opponent can make a follow-up play but is probably kold.
3. You have 13 life and a nice hand. Your opponent can make a follow-up play but is probably kold.
4. You have 8 life a nice hand. Your opponent can make a follow-up play but is probably kold.
5. You have 10 life a nice hand. Your opponent can make a follow-up play but is probably kold.
6. You have 8 life a nice hand. Your opponent can’t make a follow-up play.
7. You have 10 life a nice hand. Your opponent can’t make a follow-up play.
8. You have 8 life a nice hand. Your opponent won’t make a follow-up play. You have a Maro.
9. You have 10 life a nice hand. Your opponent won’t make a follow-up play. You have a Maro.
Notice how 1, 2, and 3 all give you the most if you are greedy. The difference is that the downside to 1 is the same as the downside to the somewhat tight 4 (whereas 2 and 3 can get you killed), and the best case scenario is arguably better. One added bonus to 1 is that it also best handles the rogue factor. In every other situation, the opponent can lay Island on his turn and Squelch you out; it’s not likely, but stranger things have happened.
Plays 4-7 are quite similar. 7 is better than 6 because you get two more life, but all the plays 4-7 are in the same range, balancing card advantage with caution.
Plays 8 and 9 have potential in the sense that you are supposed to win long games, but they don’t really yield much. You can’t really fight any longer because Kagemaro can’t block either of the remaining creatures. Play 8 is just awful… It’s an already indecisive play 9, but with two fewer life points.
Tight v. Loose
“It never doesn’t pay to be the tightest player at the table.”
That’s what Josh once told me about playing small limit poker when the craze first took hold in the Magic community. When he was making money, Josh started with a small bankroll and played limits where he knew the opponents were weak. At the highest levels of poker, you can’t play this way, of course: you might just bite it to the blinds. That is why many poker experts, when talking about especially No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament play, say that you have to alternate tight and loose play, to keep the opponents off guard.
Willfully making play #1 is a good example of this kind of alternation. At the PTQ level – similar to small limit Internet poker – play #7 shines; it’s the tightest play, almost empirically better in worst case situations than almost every other. If you value one turn’s potential tempo over three very tactile life points, it is also the best play in best case situations. You keep a medium amount of life with the least risk in all situations… And when Jon deviates and make play #1, the opponent is going to rip a land, I promise you.
Theoretically, you should win whether or not the opponent has a relevant card. There are times though, like at the highest levels, where making the predicted play is just playing into an opponent’s hand, is not optimal. Against players on full tilt, playing their best games, drawing their luckiest cards, you may need to have more resources; you may need three or five life points to drag out a game and draw your answers if his follow-ups are Pale Curtain and double Otherworldly Journey to your rags.
One thing I noted when constructing this hypothetical is that if you only have two cards in hand, almost half the plays disappear. You can’t wait until the end of the turn to pop Kagemaro if you block. Therefore not blocking is increasingly attractive if Hokori might show his dusty visage, and our tightest play disappears altogether. Additionally, the downside to the opponent’s defensive Charge Across the Araba is reduced so that the opponent can finish the subsequent turn with at least one more land… That means that in some situations, Jitte + Equip and a second bomb become immediate dangers where a player stuck on three or even two lands who saved his Lantern Kami would not be able muster such a rally. Finally, Otherworldly Journey, already relevant, becomes a much bigger problem because, at least in the short term, it can keep Hand of Honor out of Kagemaro #2’s easy reach; this can lead down paths where the White Weenie player has a lot more outs: a Charge Across the Araba on a 3/3 Samurai might just be lethal.
Beatdown v. Control
So at the end of the day, which do I think is more difficult to play?
Once upon a time I thought it was control. The reason is that I heard – read actually – in the commentary for the first Pro Tour that if you are the control and you make a mistake, you lose. Forget about the fact that Loconto’s deck was 62 cards or that he ripped the Swords to Plowshares to save himself, dead on board to Lestree’s actioned plan.
Today I think it’s beatdown. Beatdown generally has fewer resources than control, and therefore has to make better use of what it has. It doesn’t get to draw two or four cards at the end of turn. It doesn’t get to say no. Beatdown has to manage not only its own life total, but the opponent’s. It requires more thinking and is more strenuously punished by misplays. Though beatdown generally asks for fewer individual choices, against decks with board control, those choices often require correctly reading the opponent, predicting which of his many removal spells are in hand, knowing when to hang back, and balancing restrained aggression with the ability to find an opening.
Consider the hypotheticals we’ve gone through in this article. Gifts Ungiven can make a bunch of mistakes. It can even make plays that look really similar and have very similar results most of the time… It can screw up over and over again, but its mistakes may only matter in 10% of games, with some mistakes mattering in some and other non-optimal plays punishing in others.
Now think about the poor White Weenie player. Maybe he was taken in by the first turn Swamp play. He wouldn’t be the first. What if he had just played his Hound of Konda to start instead of his Lantern Kami… We wouldn’t even be talking about the six-mana Kagemaro turn because White Weenie would have swept Plains into a kill the previous turn! The reason Weissman created the Fortress school at all was that he realized that there was no difference between one and twenty and even fifty life points for control; he was afforded greater freedom and greater ability to act, explore, err without consequence. Beatdown may make fewer decisions, but they are often of greater significance. Beatdown can play the right guy on turn one and win a threat-low game by a razor thin margin.
For control, one life point is one of twenty, nineteen of which are irrelevant.
For beatdown, one point is often the game.