Sometime ago, before I was a columnist, I wrote an article called Scenarios For Success, which you can find here. In that article, I described a handful of situations that I had witnessed or heard of in which players made bad plays and tried to elaborate on the concepts they were lacking. This article originally started as a second edition of that one, except with plays that were very good instead of very bad, but then I realized most of them actually had the same “moral of the story,” so I decided to elaborate more on that particular point.
Let me start with a scenario:
The Scenario:
Marcio Carvalho against Tomoharo Saito, Grand Prix: Atlanta 2008, round 9
This was a feature match, but since I found no records of it I assume it was one of those “fake” features where you can watch but no one covers. They were both 8-0 at that point, playing the last round of the Sealed Deck.
At some point during the match, in what I believe was game 3, Marcio was tapped out because he had just played a five-power creature. Marcio had two cards in hand, and Tomoharo was at five life — and he knew, from the previous game, that Marcio had two Soul’s Fire in his deck. Then Tomoharo cast Brilliant Ultimatum.
The revealed cards were Tidehollow Sculler and four reasonable cards, including Tower Gargoyle. Marcio split Sculler against the other four cards, and Tomoharo took the Sculler pile. When he played it, Marcio revealed two lands. Marcio went on to win the game, the match and remain undefeated, when he surely would have lost had Saito taken the second pile.
I believe this is a very nice example because there is much that can be drawn from it. First, you have to understand the context of it — it’s a match between two very good players, in Sealed deck, where one was able to see some cards in the other player’s list. If any of those variables is not what it was, the play would probably not have worked.
One moral of the story is that your opponent is also a rational being (well, most opponents), and he will try to find a reason for everything you do, and play accordingly. Sometimes you cannot win by playing “fair.” In this situation, playing fair would only make Marcio lose to the superior cards, so he used the knowledge he had – that his opponent was good and would think of Soul’s Fire — to give him an edge and a chance to win. If his opponent doesn’t buy it, then the game is very likely lost — but the game is also very likely lost if he doesn’t try it, so he doesn’t have much to lose.
The thing I want to take from this example, though, is something different. What I want to explore is something akin to “The Fear.”
A lot of people talk about “The Fear” when deckbuilding and choosing a deck. Sometimes, The Fear is not justified… and sometimes it is. I experience it a lot when choosing a deck, because, well, no one flat-out wants to lose without having a chance. I don’t play Dredge, for example, because if my opponents choose to beat me, they will do so. I want to play my matches; I don’t want to be a victim of their will. I want to depend on myself, on nothing else. The possibility of flat-out losing scares the hell out of me, and I shy away from that deck. The better player you are, I think the more likely you are to have this feeling. After all, you know that if you get to play the games you’ll have an advantage, so you’re more likely to want something that lets you do that.
What I don’t see exploited often enough is that The Fear is also something that applies to in-game situations. In this situation, the fear of losing plays a very big part. If Saito thought he was going to lose the game, he would obviously pick the big pile to give himself a chance, but, as he thought the game was even or slightly advantaged for him, and he liked his chances, the possibility of just losing the game on the spot, without getting to play it out, was too scary for him.
The real point I want to make here is that, most of the time, when you have a slightly superior board position, you’ll panic when confronted with the possibility of suddenly losing the game. You’ll do everything in your power to stop that, even if it’s not the most rational course of action at that moment. You cannot control that as far as your opponents are concerned, but what you can do is provoke a situation that’ll make them fear losing the game. If Marcio hadn’t split the cards the way he did, the possibility of losing would probably not have crossed Saito’s mind as strongly as it did. By doing what he did, Marcio was able to force that situation upon his opponent, and his opponent acted instinctively out of it.
Another interesting situation in which the fear of losing causes you to lose happened with my friend in an Extended PTQ, when he was playing TEPS. He had a desperate Mind’s Desire for a storm of 4 because his opponent was going to kill him next turn. He had one card in hand, and some mana, and his opponent had lethal damage and a Tormod’s Crypt. His last copy flipped a Cabal Ritual — he had threshold. He grinned at it. Before his last copy resolved, he announced “I’ll play Cabal Ritual with Threshold.” His opponent could feel the game that he thought was won slipping away at his opponent’s smile, but he had a trump — he used Tormod’s Crypt to negate the Threshold. Then the last Desire copy resolved, and my friend played his last card — Sins of the Past — and won the game.
It’s clear that, at this point, the mana is very likely not to matter — after all, my friend had six for Sins anyway. His opponent acted out of impulse, because he could see the game slipping away the way my friend played, and when he found his solution he was quick to use it, except it didn’t actually solve anything — he was so scared of losing that particular game that he made the play that actually made him lose.
Much like the fear of losing clouds your judgment, the prospect of winning does the same, but I believe even stronger. Even in a game where you have the advantage, when confronted with the possibility of suddenly winning, you’ll go for it — it doesn’t matter that, if the game stays the way it is, you’re likely going to win — you want to win NOW. Many a game has been thrown away because people wanted to hurry out a win instead of consolidating it, and I believe you should do everything in your power to provoke that situation in your opponent. Let’s see some more examples:
The Scenario: Olivier Ruel playing against someone in Grand Prix: Prague, which was Ravnica block draft.
I did not witness this match, but I read about it in an article by Olivier Ruel himself, and it had such an impact on me that I remember it to this day.
In his article, Olivier describes a game situation in which his opponent had a lot of creatures out, including Scorched Rusalka, and one of the cards in his hand was Reroute. Then he describes his thought process — he was not going to win the game if he just let it be played normally, so he needed a plan. He worked out a situation where his opponent would be able to sacrifice every single one of his creatures for lethal damage, and then he would be able to Reroute the last point of damage to clean his opponent’s entire board while staying at one life.
For that, he made sure he took exactly enough damage to ensure that this was a possibility, and he made sure that he tapped all his White mana — so his opponent wouldn’t fear Withstand – and would go for it. By playing the way he did, he created the ideal situation — he brought out the prospect of winning into his opponent. His opponent, seeing it when his opponent was out of White mana, happily took it, though he very likely didn’t have to — after all, Olivier would not rely on that desperate measure if he was going to win the game otherwise. Had he just waited, he would have won the game — but the possibility of a quick win clouded his judgment, and he acted on it. And he lost the game. It’s very possible that, if Olivier had done anything different, the situation would not have occurred and he would have lost.
Something similar happened to me once, in a PTQ finals for the first PT: Honolulu. This play has a lot of relevance to me to this day, since it was the first PTQ that gave plane tickets to the winner, and since that Pro Tour I haven’t missed any — it was really where my Magic career started, and without this play I have no clue where I’d be in the Magic world today.
It was Extended, and I was playing Gifts Rock against Affinity. My opponent had a pretty fast draw, and I was stuck on lands, and the game was not looking good. The turn I drew my fourth land the situation was as follows:
I had in play
Overgrown Tomb
Temple Garden
Forest
Swamp
My opponent had in play:
Blinkmoth Nexus
Arcbound Ravager
Somber Hoverguard
Myr Enforcer
Enough artifacts to kill me if his Ravager gets through.
My hand is:
Living Wish (with Kataki in my board)
Putrefy
Smother
Ravenous Baloth
Though my hand was pretty good, I didn’t really have time to play it all. If I Wish for Kataki and cast it, he is just going to activate Nexus and sacrifice it all to kill me and I’ll be tapped out. If I Wish for Kataki and do not cast it, leaving two open, he will certainly suspect something is up — most likely Smother — and will do something easy to prevent it (like also attacking with his Nexus). If I don’t cast Living Wish, not to tip him off, then I don’t have mana to play Kataki + Putrefy next turn, in case I draw a land. So, I’m in a position that I have to act, because if I don’t it’ll make the game next to impossible to win even if I draw a land next turn, but anything I do will get me killed.
So, I went with the only chance I thought I had — I created a situation for him to win the game, and hoped that would be enough to make him ignore everything else. I played Living Wish using my Temple Garden and Forest, and then acted like I had mis-tapped my mana so could not play Kataki, and was going to lose because of that.
That put my opponent in such a state of excitement — that I had messed up, and now he would win for sure — that he just attacked with his Ravager, Enforcer, and Hoverguard, without activating Nexus, and sacrificed a lot of artifacts when I blocked the Enforcer. He could then activate the Nexus, so it got counters, but it was already late for that. Of course, he could have attacked with the Nexus as well, and in that case all my efforts are futile, but I had to count that he would misplay that part — and, assuming that was true, I had to play my part well — I made it attractive for him to just kill me there and then and end everything. He bit it, and I won.
Another interesting situation is one that happened to a friend of mine. His opponent had two Tarmogoyfs in play (one untapped), and Counterspell in hand, which he knew from a previous discard spell, and was at two life. My friend had Dark Confidant and Sensei’s Divining Top in play, and was at one life.
At the end of his opponent’s turn, he activated the Top. Then on his turn he untapped, put the Bob trigger on the stack and Stifled it. His opponent thought that, since he was Stifling it, it meant he was going to die to it. His opponent could see the win, all he had to do was let that Bob trigger resolve — never mind that he had two gigantic monsters that were going to kill his opponent next turn anyway — he wanted to win right then. So he played his Counterspell on the Stifle. Bob resolved, revealing a land, and my friend drew his card for the turn — Threads of Disloyalty — stealing the untapped Goyf and attacking for the win.
In this situation, it’s very likely that he was going to win the game anyway, but the way my friend played provoked the situation that he was looking for — an easy win, without having to play it out. He could have thought that, if my friend had been topping into spells all over, he would have played something the previous turn — since he didn’t play two spells, one of the cards there had to be a land (since he wouldn’t draw a land over anything) — but he didn’t, all he thought about was that he was going to win the game right then. He bit it, too. And he lost.
You should always keep in mind that, if the game isn’t looking very good, there is a chance you can do something to induce the immediate victory/defeat feeling, and then hope it drives them to play incorrectly, because the possibility of losing or winning all of sudden changes the way people think about the game.
Generally, you have to be creative in the things you do — there isn’t a general set of rules that will make them think the game is won or lost. Mis-tapping mana can be great in some situations — if you want them to make a play that they wouldn’t make if you had access to Cryptic Command, then don’t leave 1UUU up.
If you want them to alpha attack you, consider attacking with some creatures yourself — if you are attacking, that’ll put into them the fear they might lose the game and will make them react quicker to try to beat you, and at the same time the lack of blockers makes an attack more appealing. If you need to Sower a Kitchen Finks to block Great Sable Stag (which, by the way, I’ve only learned is Sable, not Stable, some days ago), do everything in your power to make them play that Kitchen Finks — make it so that the threat of them dying is very real and they should play a blocker and gain two life.
Also mind the things you say, the faces you make — if you want them to think you cannot win, act like it. If you want them to be afraid of losing, act like you can kill them — it’s not like you have much to lose if it doesn’t work out.
The other lesson to take from those examples is not to do the same yourself — to not get overexcited at the possibility of an easy win when you don’t need one, to keep playing rationally even if it arises. A win on turn 15 is worth as much as a win on turn 17 — three points. That’s not to say you shouldn’t grab easy wins if they present themselves, but just that you can’t stop thinking just because they do — sometimes the best course of action is to try and take it, but sometimes it’s not, and you have to examine the pros and cons — how likely is it that you’re actually winning with your free win? What happens if you don’t? How likely are you to win if you do not take it? Each situation is a different one, but as long as your judgment is never clouded, you should be able to figure things out.
Before I finish, I’ll talk about something that has been happening on Facebook — a group for “bring back team events.” Team Events are among the most popular events, regardless of the format — it’s a feeling that’s different from all the other Magic tournaments, being able to play with your friends and all that. They are also very skill intensive, which makes them a good mix of “professional and casual,” and I’m not sure why they’ve disappeared. I’m not sure we can accomplish anything, but at least we’re telling Wizards we like and support them.
Note: Two-Headed Giant is NOT included!
I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and see you next week!
PV