A recurring dilemma for tournament Magic players has always been whether or not to stick with the same old familiar deck or jump ship for the new hot deck
of the day. There are good arguments on both sides of the coin; however, I believe that standing by your deck is becoming an increasingly smarter
move for the majority of players.
First of all, there are certain players to whom my advice on this matter simply may not apply. If you possess the ability to pick up any given deck in any
given format and know all of the matchups inside out and can play the deck nearly flawlessly, then by all means, I encourage you to switch back and forth
at will…
Yet for the overwhelming majority of Magic players in any tournament, anywhere, at any given time, this is not the case.
Most players are not in a position where they possess the specific format knowledge to simply pick up any deck in the blind and know exactly what is going
on.
I can say that there was a time in my life when I was on the Pro Tour train and played an absolutely crazy amount of Magic tournaments when I had that kind
of knowledge about a bunch of Magic formats at the same time. The thing is that in order to possess this kind of knowledge about all of the formats, an
individual needs to be playing a ton.
I still play in a lot of Magic tournaments, but not nearly at the same level that I did a few years ago when I was at the absolute top of my competitive
game. One thing that I’ve noticed is that when I don’t play as much Magic all the time, that I lose my ability to “play every deck.”
At first, I was kind of frustrated that I would sleeve up a decklist that I pulled from online that I felt was “well-positioned,” and then not do well with
it at my next event. As I noticed a correlation between doing this behavior and getting mediocre results, it all seemed to make more and more sense to me.
The game of Magic, or at least the tournament scene associated with the game, has changed a lot in the past few years.
First of all, there are way more players in the game than there have ever been. Second of all, the level of play is much, much higher than I can ever
remember it being. I correlate the rise of the level of play, plain and simple, to the amount of information and coverage that is available to individuals
online. Since there are so many articles and so much information available to players who want to learn and want to get better, it is unsurprising that
players are better than they were when this was not the case.
If we follow this train of logic to its natural conclusion: if everybody is getting better than they used to be, it is harder and harder for players to get
an edge than it used to be.
One of the absolute best ways to get an edge in Constructed Magic is to become an expert on the deck you are playing. It doesn’t matter which deck you
choose to play, the only thing that matters is that you learn to play it at a very high level.
Another thing that I’ve really taken notice of about the competitive tournament scene is that more players are already doing this than I would have
believed previously in my Magic career. For one thing, a lot of players only have one competitive deck that they can build with the cards that they own,
and they basically “make due” with what they have.
The ironic thing about this situation is that I’ve noticed a lot of the players who can’t build a new deck every day of the week oftentimes outperform the
players who can (and often do), at least on the local scene. I’ve also taken note over the past year or so at the local level that the players who play the
exact same deck every single week are the most difficult to beat of the players in the room, much more so than the players who bounce around from deck to
deck.
The reason is that the players who stick with a deck tend to know their deck very well and understand what is going on from matchup to matchup.
It is very easy to have a general understanding of how Magic works and what the cards do, but there is a razor’s edge that separates good and mediocre play
at the more specific level.
For example, there are many decks that I’ve played for a really long time in my years playing Magic. In Vintage, I played, built, and tuned Grixis Control
Slaver decks for years and played the archetype religiously for a really long time. When I was watching somebody play a match with a Control Slaver deck
during that time, I could watch any given game and tell a player exactly where they went wrong and what they should have done differently.
I understood what the deck did and how it worked at such a high level that I just knew what the right plays were because I had so much experience playing
the deck. It doesn’t take a genius to get to this point, just a lot of practice and experience with a deck!
One of the most overlooked aspects of “good play” is deck construction. Most players disconnect deck construction from actually playing the game, but
metagaming is one of the most critical elements of Magic gameplay. I bring this up because players who stick with a deck for an extended period of time
tend to have the best builds of their respective archetypes, or at least, they have the best builds for themselves.
When you play a deck for a couple of months you really learn why every card is in the deck or the sideboard. It doesn’t take very long with a deck to
figure out which cards are not carrying their weight and which cards simply don’t work. As strange as that seems, it is very possible to have cards in your
75 that are not good.
Here’s an example:
When I was playing Affinity in Modern, one thing that I learned was that I didn’t want my hate cards to be artifacts when possible. Now, that is completely
counterintuitive because there are a lot of benefits to having artifacts in an Affinity deck. For instance, they help a player achieve the conditions of
metalcraft, they work toward Affinity, and they power up both Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating.
Nonetheless, when an opponent is sideboarding in artifact removal, it stands to reason that our most important card is better served as one that doesn’t
die to half of an Ancient Grudge!
I would never have guessed that Nihil Spellbomb or Grafdigger’s Cage were not the droids I was looking for when I started playing the deck, and this kind
of familiarity and understanding of game play and deck construction only comes from real life experience.
There is a big difference between playing a deck in a tournament against a difficult matchup and trying different angles of attack post-sideboard and
seeing how they play out, as opposed to simply theorizing about how a sideboard plan will work out.
Sometimes a sideboard plan will seem pretty solid in theory, but then after you actually play some games it will become obvious that it isn’t going to work
the way you thought it would. These are things that one learns from experience with the same deck.
There are certain pro players who have basically made a career out of playing the same deck in every format over and over again. For instance, look at the
tremendous success that Tom Ross has achieved over the past few months. He has basically taken a style of play, all in combo/aggro decks, and applied the
principles that make those decks good across multiple formats.
The cards may change across formats, but the basic principles of Magic tend to hold true all the way from Vintage to Block Constructed. A person who gets
really good at playing fast aggro decks in Standard can port that expertise to other formats such as Modern, Legacy, or Block.
One area where I think many players could really amp up their game is to not only focus on one deck in one format, but to focus on getting really good at
playing an archetype style of deck.
For players who get good with one deck in Standard and then continue to play that deck into older formats like Modern and Legacy, this phenomenon is fairly
common. I know a lot of players who piloted Jund or Rock decks Legacy who really came into their stride playing Bloodbraid Jund when it was in Standard.
One thing is for sure, you never forget the first deck that you learned and got really good with.
The moral of the story is that if a player reaches a plateau where they are moving from deck to deck and getting the same mediocre results with everything,
that perhaps it is time to dig in and focus on just one deck for a while.
Sure, there are advantages to playing the hot metagame deck of the week—but, I also think that most people overestimate the advantages to having the
well-positioned deck of the moment compared to having lots of experience with a deck.
One solid way to level up at Magic and improve one’s win percentage is to simply pick a deck and stick with it for a month or two. Learn the deck inside
and out. Customize your sideboard to suit your experience and playstyle perfectly.
When you are totally in harmony with a deck, it is really a thing of beauty!
Stick with it and your persistence will pay off.