When I first got back into Magic after a long hiatus, the whole of Invasion Block was Standard-legal. However, I was unaware of the proliferation of Internet strategy sites since I had last played, so I had no netdecks to work with. Thus, I decided to assemble a Green / Red beatdown deck, since those are generally easy to obtain cards for, and to play. About a week after I made that decision, I saw a card called “Psychatog,” and realized my decision might have been a poor one.
One of the cards I took to States that year was Browbeat. Like many players, I was infatuated with Browbeat because it seemed that both sides of the card gave my deck exactly what it needed. After you’ve spent your whole hand to get your opponent low on life, you either want five damage, or you want to draw three more cards to get to find some more damage, amirite?
Eventually, I learned the truth about Browbeat: it might be one of the best-designed cards ever. Not one of the best cards ever, mind you, but one of the best-designed cards ever. In many ways it is the ultimate skill tester. It’s costed just enough, and offers just enough advantage, to fake you into thinking that it might be good.
It’s managed to fool a lot of people so far, its re-printing in Time Spiral has only increased the amount of fooling going on, and now we have a couple of cards in Planar Chaos – Temporal Extortion and Dash Hopes – which use the same “punishing” mechanic. Witness this forum comment from Ben Bleiweiss article in which Dash Hopes was reviewed:
“oh noes, you’re Wrathing my board! Ok, take 5 and you can do it. Just like casting Browbeat, I like the outcome either way.”
Now, I’m not trying to be mean to this well-intentioned fellow. However, if it were that simple, you’d be seeing Browbeat in a lot more decks these days. You’re not, and here’s why.
By the Numbers
In order to examine why Browbeat’s supposed advantage is actually a drawback, consider what happens when you play literally any other sorcery. There are two possible events that result from the Mystery Spell:
(A) The opponent has a response. This could be anything from a counterspell to an activated ability from one of his permanents.
(B) The opponent allows the spell to resolve.
Pretty simple, right? By playing the spell, you put your opponent to a choice: either do something, or I will get an effect. Now, the effect may be bad for him, he might not care, or it may even be good for him. I’ll get to that in a minute. For now, just consider that playing Browbeat (or any other “punisher” spell) results in a slightly different set of events:
(A): The opponent responds.
(B): The opponent allows the spell to resolve, and gets one of the two possible effects.
(C): The opponent allows the spell to resolve, and gets the other effect.
Your opponent gets three choices with Browbeat, and two with any other. The mistake that most people make is that they think if all three choices lead to a result you’d be happy with for a three-mana sorcery, then the choice itself is irrelevant. That’s not so.
Tournament Magic is more or less a zero-sum game. Every time you gain percentage to win, your opponent loses an equal amount of percentage to win. If the opponent minimizes what you get out of a choice, his chances are also maximized. This is why Browbeat is a poor card: you always get the worst out of it, since your opponent has complete control over what you get, so your percentage from the play will never be maximized.
Let’s say you play Lava Axe against a mono-Blue control deck: the opponent either takes the damage or he counters. If you had played Browbeat instead, the opponent retains a third option of letting you draw three cards, which he will do if he thinks that is the best of all worlds for him. If he was at five life and without counterspells — probably the only time he would want to give you the cards — then Browbeat would keep the control player in the game, while Lava Axe would simply kill him.
It’s the same if you were playing against Boros. If they are at five life and you play Lava Axe, they better have the Lightning Helix or they’re dead. If you play Browbeat, however, they have that same decision, plus additional choice to keep death at bay a little while longer. Sure, you may draw into lethal burn with the three cards Browbeat gives you, but you also might not. By playing Browbeat instead of some other burn spell, you have actually given your opponent some amount of percentage to stay in the game; maybe not a large amount of percentage, but more than they would have had if you were running even a mediocre burn spell like Lava Axe.
Originally, I had a lot more math in this article, trying to prove that offering your opponent a choice is not the same as forcing them to make a decision. However, Magic defies a lot of mathematical analysis; there’s no real way to know how much percentage you gain or lose from a given move. All I do know is, if I have to choose between filling my last four slots with Browbeat, or with some other spell which puts pressure on my opponent via a more narrow decision, it’s not a choice at all. Browbeat will be sitting on the bench.
Having said all of that, I should now say that I could definitely imagine a Constructed environment where Browbeat would be a good card. If the burn spells in a given format were weak, I imagine Browbeat would be quite the spicy number, because the worst of Browbeat would usually be the five damage, and it would still be quite good compared to the other available burn. As it is, though, Volcanic Hammer is a good example of a spell which will be better than the worst of Browbeat most of the time, because it can kill creatures in addition to going to the face.
Getting Your Hopes Up
Now knowing what we know about Browbeat, I’d like to turn to Dash Hopes. Although the punisher mechanic as applied here still has the same fundamental problem described in the last section (the opponent gets to make the best choice for himself), the card is not equally disliked by me, for a few reasons:
*Dash Hopes is an instant. This is a big deal, because it lets you get some value back. Although the opponent can still minimize your return from the spell, you can try to time it such that even the minimum return would be maximally disruptive to them — either a key spell gets countered, or they take five damage at a time where they will already be tapped low.
It also helps that the Dash Hopes non-damage ability actually stops the opponent from doing something. In the Browbeat case, drawing three cards is nice, but on the downside the opponent’s plan is not actively disrupted. That works well with spells like Cabal Therapy and Castigate, in that you’ll know what is in your opponent’s hand, allowing you to make a better plan for when to play Dash Hopes.
*Dash Hopes does things that Black can’t do. Part of the reason why I’ve never been so high on Browbeat is that Red can get almost as much damage from a lot of different cards that cost almost as much mana. However, five damage has never come as cheaply for Black as it does with Dash Hopes: Consume Spirit requires 1BBBBBB, Corrupt wants six mana but five of it must be Swamps, and Soul Spike has to invest either seven mana or two cards to get a point less.
Of course, Black has rarely had “counter target spell” also, and when it has, the ability usually involved drawbacks galore (see Withering Boon). However, most of the time I doubt you will get this ability; the damage seems a lot more relevant.
*Damnation, which is a lot like Dwyane Wade: it’s Black, and it makes everyone else on your team better. When you can throw all opposing creatures in the bin at will, you can afford to give your opponent a little percentage with a card like Dash Hopes — especially since the Wrath is on-color.
At the end of the day, I still don’t know if I would play Dash Hopes; I just don’t see a deck that needs it. Black decks these days seem to be all about beatdown, or all about disruption, but it doesn’t seem to have enough room for a card that gives you the worst choice among the two.
However, it’s still useful to think about cards in the way I’ve laid out in this article, because it isn’t getting any easier to gain percentage solely from your deck. The proliferation of strategy websites and forums means that every single remotely playable card is going to get the twenty-thrice-over, and some of those cards are going to get a lot of conflicting reviews (check the forums to see how many people disagree with me about Browbeat). If you are thinking about the percentage you gain with a card, and those other folks aren’t, you just might be on your way to the Pro Tour.
This article written while watching the Washington Wizards struggle without Antwan Jamison. Jamison wasn’t an All-Star this year, and he is notorious throughout the NBA for his atrocious defense. However, without his locker-room presence, the Wizards have turned into a team of bickering shoot-first players. Every bit of percentage that you lose matters.
Later.
mmyoungster at aim dot com
mm_young dot livejournal dot com
mm_young on MTGO