Today, I’ll talk about an unorthodox method of turning a game around in your favor. Often referred to as Jedi Mind Tricks or bluffs, this is the kind of thing that separates the good plays from the masterful ones, and will always produce a good story. First, I’ll show you a situation from an old Standard format in which a bluff could be justified:
Opponent: Playing old Type Two Wake, 1 card in hand (presumably a land), 7 lands on the board and Exalted Angel (tapped) in play, 23 life
You: Playing old U/G Madness, two lands, Deep Analysis (just drawn) and Circular Logic in hand (7 cards in the graveyard), five lands, two Wild Mongrel and Basking Rootwalla in play, 7 life.
As you can see, you’re losing to Exalted Angel if you don’t draw Wonder in two turns (assume that you have no other outs in the deck). You’ve been attacking with the team and Exalted Angel swung back a couple of times, and you were both dry on spells the last few turns. You’ve drawn Deep Analysis, but there’s no real way to win unless you draw Wonder. You play Deep Analysis and find Aquamoeba and another land. There are two things you can do at this point:
1) Flashback Analysis and try to find one of the two Wonders in your deck, but this would mean that if you don’t find it immediately, you’re dead on the next turn.
2) Bluff that you’ve just drawn the Wonder and hope that he does not attack with his Angel anymore.
If you decide to go for a bluff, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
* Your opponent must have a reason to believe that you have the Wonder, by giving up a slight chance to draw it that turn (not flashing back Analysis)
* The play your opponent has to make when he doesn’t believe you must be a major disadvantage that turns the game around when you do have it
* If your opponent chooses not to go for it, he must still be in good shape to win the game from there on
* If he does not go for it, there must be a valid reason for you not to show the out you don’t have
* Your opponent must be good enough to recognize and understand bluff situations like these
Looking at the situation described above, most of these conditions can be covered:
1) You can play a land, Aquamoeba, and attack with a Mongrel and Rootwalla, leaving enough power back to kill the Exalted Angel in combat. This also means that you didn’t flashback Deep Analysis to try and get Wonder, showing confidence.
2) If he loses his Angel in combat, you’ll have at least 7 power on the board (2 Mongrels, Basking Rootwalla, the Aquamoeba will have been killed in combat), meaning that he’s dead in three turns if you use the ability of Wild Mongrel to make it lethal. He probably doesn’t have anything in his hand so he’d have to draw his way out through your Circular Logic.
3) If he chooses not to attack, the Angel will hold back all creatures but the Mongrels and he’ll have plenty time to draw something and you probably won’t be able to go all-in on your Mongrels by discarding your hand because of the possibility of something like Cunning Wish, Vengeful Dreams or Moment’s Peace.
4) You’ll have to keep back guys anyway if you want to block his Angel, so it’s not odd for you to keep the Wonder you don’t have in your hand when he chooses not to attack.
The last criterion is not related to the game itself but directly to the player you’re facing. In order for the bluff to work, he has to think about the option of Wonder, but if he’s not a good player he probably won’t think about why you kept your guys back and just keep attacking you with the Angel.
Not all situations similar to this one are as big, but there are more than you would think. A few brief examples:
* Keeping your 7th land in hand to pretend you have something, rather than play it to be able to draw Counsel the Necrosages, a land and a five-drop
* Playing an Isochron Scepter while you don’t want to imprint anything, trying to draw a counterspell
* Countering a Smother on your Psychatog while you want the Smother to resolve because you have another Psychatog, and are merely trying to trade counters
These types of plays are somewhat disadvantageous for you when they don’t work out, but they are in at least the same extent for your opponent as well, meaning that if you think it’s more likely that it’ll work than not, you should usually go for it. Tricking your opponent with little plays like these can be a decisive factor in a close match; a good example is this year’s PT: Nagoya quarterfinals between Terry Soh and Frank Karsten. I do think Randy Buehler blew the whole thing way out of proportion though, since Frank told me he would probably have made the same play regardless of what Terry said.
I’ll get back to this tomorrow,
-Julien