A few months back, right after Mike Flores wrote his article Velocity, I was excited. See, there was this cute young woman in my Statistical Computing class, and …
[Hey, I thought we had a deal! No personal stories in the articles, right? -Mark’s sense of shame]
Um, yes, I was excited about the Velocity concept, because I thought there was a lot of room for exploration there. Velocity was an interesting new concept to consider for deckbuilding; it seemed an interesting way to quantify such things as “explosiveness” and “staying power” which you normally can’t capture when you’re designing and testing.
Unfortunately, not much has happened on the Velocity front since then. The decklists which Flores promised in his article have not seen the light of day (I guess they couldn’t beat Tooth and Nail). Nathan Xaxson tried to really quantify the concept of velocity, and I give him an A for effort – as well as an A in physics – but I’m not a big fan of needing a calculator to make my deck design decisions.
Eventually, something happened during my run on the Star City Daily a couple of weeks ago that gave me a real idea of what velocity is, and what it means to the average player. So, rather than whine and complain about other people’s articles, it’s time for me to write my own. Enjoy.
What Is Velocity?
Velocity is speed with a direction.
–From The Physics Classroom
At first glance, it’s not so easy to apply that definition to Magical velocity, since all Magic games are headed in pretty much the same direction, 20 to 0. It’s a good definition to keep in mind, though, as I first define what Magic velocity isn’t.
As in the physics case, velocity is not the same as speed. Consider two Goblin decks for the upcoming post-rotation Extended season; I’ve been thinking about these a lot since I saw that they’re changing Goblin King’s creature type to “Goblin Lord” in Ninth Edition, which may well break the Extended format. I haven’t looked into the rest of the format too much, but it certainly seems like you’ll need some manner of accelerant to compete against an Arcbound Ravager deck.
So, one of your two decks runs Seething Song as the accelerant, and the other runs Aether Vial; we’ll say for argument’s sake that both creature sets are the same and include four copies of Goblin Ringleader. Obviously the Song deck is certainly going to be faster – you can’t be much faster than turn 2 Siege-Gang Commander, which can be done via a Mox or a turn 1 Skirk Prospector – but I will assert that the Vial deck will have the higher velocity.
The reason for this is that even if the Song deck hits its Ringleader and its accelerant, it’s going to summon a 2/2 for four and draw some cards, but only its absolute nut-high draws will be able to explode any further on that turn. The Vial deck may have to wait a turn or two longer to get its Ringleader, but in exchange it will be able to summon or Vial out men on the same turn, which can be really explosive. So, being high-velocity is not as much about going off fast as it is about sustaining yourself while you are going off.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, velocity isn’t about control. High-velocity decks may play the control role in some matchups, and they might include enough card-drawing effects to be mistaken for a control deck, but in general control decks like to do nothing but answer the opponent’s threats, and most high-velocity decks are not that way at all. Consider the Black Thumb deck which Mike Flores used as a fine example in his Velocity article:
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Faceless Butcher
2 Spiritmonger
1 Thrashing Wumpus
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Tainted Pact
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Diabolic Edict
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Smother
1 Skeletal Scrying
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Tainted Woods
14 Swamp
1 Wasteland
(Incidentally, the only really important card that this deck loses in the Extended rotation is Vampiric Tutor, so it could be playable this winter, replacing Edict with Smother. However, the “Pithing Needle on Deed” play could be a further problem.)
Flores has a playset of Pernicious Deed, nine draw/tutor effects, and nine targeted removal effects; that’s a lot of answers for stuff. However, this should not be confused with a Black/Green Control deck, i.e., The Rock. It’s not. All of the tutors and removal and disruption do control the opponent’s plays a bit, but their main role is simply to make a hole that a Dryad or Spiritmonger can walk through, while simultaneously being cheap enough to make the Dryad gigantic in a hurry.
Conversely, if you look at the various Splice decks from Kamigawa Block Constructed, they don’t always seize control because they have velocity, and they don’t have velocity because they play the control role. The ability to turn a single Gifts Ungiven into “infinite Arcane spell of choice” is definitely a high-velocity play, but the deck can also simply sideboard out its combo and still keep control, thanks to the raw power of cards like Kagemaro, Ink-Eyes, Ghost-Lit Stalker, Nezumi Graverobber, and so on. Aggro matchups in particular are usually won by resolving Hideous Laughter, a sufficiently large Kagemaro, or Meloku – none of those being a particularly high-velocity play. So, high-velocity cards may accomplish several goals, but they can be the beatdown or the control as you see fit.
Finally, if you want to know the difference between speed and velocity, look at a combo deck. The inclusion of combo decks in past articles about velocity causes a lot of confusion about what velocity means. Flores mentioned Cadaverous Bloom in his article, which I thought was a borderline mistake, because while Bloom can turn its lands and cards into whatever it needs to complete its combo, it doesn’t try to accomplish any goals other than comboing off, which is completely different from every other deck he mentioned. Xaxson did something similar; two of his examples revolve around Legacy decks that try to win all at once – a Fluctuator deck with cycling creatures and Living Death, and a Doomsday/Tendrils of Agony deck.
Remember the physics example: velocity is speed, with a direction. So while many combo decks will create their win out of nowhere fast, that’s not to say that they have velocity; they have speed, which is not the same thing.
(Incidentally, a combo deck can obtain both high speed and high velocity, but when it does the DCI tends to step in and neuter its components. The Goblin Recruiter decks were like that; they had speed combo kills with Food Chain or velocity kills by Ringleading into silver bullet goblins, i.e., Goblin Assassin to beat a reanimated Akroma. Skullclamp was the same way, and in fact it was even better because it served as a high-speed, high-velocity engine all by itself.)
The concept of velocity, at least as I see it, is not about having the “one big turn” that wins the game, which is what most combo decks try to do. If that’s high-velocity, then certainly Quirion Dryad would not be a high-velocity card, nor would Aether Vial. Velocity is more about your deck accomplishing something without losing ground. It’s about maintaining card economy while playing threats, or about having pressure and removal at the same time. If physics velocity is speed with a direction, then magical velocity is your deck’s ability to go in the direction you want it to – without sacrificing too much in the name of speed.
So here’s my definition: a card’s velocity consists of its ability to accomplish multiple goals per use, either by itself or in combination with other cards in your deck. In turn, a high-velocity deck either (a) runs on an “engine” consisting of high-velocity cards, or (b) runs lots of cards which by themselves don’t have much velocity, but which increase each other’s velocity when run in combination.
That definition may make high-velocity cards sound similar to high-utility cards, but it’s not so. High-utility cards can do a lot of different things, but high-velocity cards accomplish multiple things at the same time. For example, some old-school control decks ran Disenchant as a two- or three-of; the reason being, there were a great many cards, such as Nevinyrral’s Disk or Necropotence, that needed answering. However, Disenchant is not a high-velocity card, because each time you play it, only one goal is accomplished. However, a similar card which has some other ability – Dismantling Blow, say, or even Rending Vines – would have a higher velocity than plain ol’ Disenchant.
So, although it wouldn’t have had much velocity in a Mono-Black Control deck, Mental Note had a lot of velocity in the U/G Threshold decks because it filled your graveyard while replacing itself. Ravenous Baloth has very high velocity against decks where the lifegain ability is relevant, such as Red Deck Wins, but not so much velocity when it only serves as a 4/4, such as against the Rock. Splice decks are high-velocity, even though they might run cards which have very narrow uses by themselves like Ethereal Haze, because those cards put together can accomplish many things while staying in your hand for another go-round next turn.
Why You Should Care
So, what’s the point of all of this velocity chatter? Just another way for Mark to put some of Pete Hoefling money in his pocket? Yet another excuse for people on the forums to argue? It may seem that way right now, but trust me, it isn’t.
The current Standard is the problem. It may cause you to think that this article has no practical use, because some formats just aren’t conducive to high-velocity decks, and this is definitely one of them. People are either accelerating into Tooth and Nail, or they’re accelerating into Plow Under, or they’re trying to cast turn 1 Slith Firewalkers. Those are all fast plays, but they’re all also low-velocity plays; they go in only one direction. You’re not really trying to accomplish many things at once when you play a turn 2 Wood Elves or a turn 3 Zo-zu.
However, it’s very likely that once Mirrodin Block leaves the format, velocity will become an issue again. Like I said above, the splice decks from Kamigawa Block Constructed are all very high-velocity, simply because of the nature of the Splice mechanic. Being able to get two cards’ effects while returning one of them two your hand to do it again next turn is the very definition of a high-velocity play. Splicing Soulless Revival onto Goryo’s Vengeance so that you can reuse Kagemaro while regrowing Hana Kami who will retrieve Cranial Extraction which will have Soulless Revivial and Wear Away spliced onto it next turn – any more velocity than that, and your deck would be in orbit!
The important thing that I would want readers to take away from this article, though, is the ability to spot when they’re building decks where velocity is important. Velocity cards tend to feed off of each other, creating a sort of snowball effect: the Quirion Dryad is summoned on turn 2, he’s a 3/3 on turn 3, and all of a sudden you’re swinging for 8 on turn 5. However, if you misbuild your deck, failing to maximize the velocity it can achieve during a game, then things will go horribly wrong. As Flores said, velocity decks are like sharks – if they stop moving, they die.
Here’s the example that inspired me to write this article in the first place. During my last turn on the Daily, in which I presented decks that revolved around Godo, Bandit Warlord, I suggested this:
4 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Eight-and-a-Half Tails
3 Kentaro, the Smiling Cat
3 Sensei Golden-Tail
3 Isao, Enlightened Bushi
3 Reki, the History of Kamigawa
4 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
4 Honor-Worn Shaku
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang
2 Day of Destiny
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
3 Forest
1 Eiganjo Castle
15 Plains
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
In retrospect, the Godo and Tatsumasa probably should have been two copies of Hokori or Opal-Eye – I mistakenly thought that Godo could be summoned for colorless mana via Kentaro – but that wouldn’t have fit in very well during a Godo-themed week, would it?
Anyway, similar decks were posted in the forums, suggesting such cards as Time of Need and Enshrined Memories instead of Reki. At first it was difficult for me to put into words why these cards are not so good. A local player who was temporarily infatuated with the deck had told me, “You want to be beating down, you don’t want to be casting Time of Need,” which sounds pretty authoritative when you hear it from a player who has more experience with the deck than you. The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought, why? What’s wrong with tutoring for Yosei against control, or Eight-and-a-Half Tails against aggro?
The real answer is velocity. Honor-Worn Shaku and Kentaro increase the velocity of the deck quite a bit; each legend you play turns into a point of colorless mana, which can then be used to summon a samurai (and if I was not running Green, you can bet that Isao slot would be filled by another Samurai, probably either Kitsune Blademaster or Nagao, Bound by Honor).
So, you can generate mana while playing threats, which is pretty high-velocity. The only problem comes from the number of legends in your hand; once that number becomes zero, it kills your velocity stone dead, derf. You need a way to reload, and Time of Need won’t cut it since it only gives you one legend at a time. If not Reki, that leaves Enshrined Memories, which I will claim to be the lower-velocity card.
A typical start for the deck is something like this:
Turn 1: Plains, Isamaru.
Turn 2: Tendo Ice Bridge, Kentaro.
Turn 3: Plains, Shaku.
Let’s assume you miss your fourth land; then on turn 4 we can consider two different decks. A deck with Enshrined Memories will tap all of your lands and men, look at the top five cards of your deck, take all of the creatures out, and say go. If there are any lands, Shaku, or Jittes in your top five, you lose them. Plus, you don’t get to attack or develop your board at all on this turn.
If you run Reki, then you can attack this turn, summon Reki, and still have enough mana left over to play, say, a Jitte or a Golden-Tail, which will draw you a card. The odds are that the Enshrined Memories would have gained more card advantage right away, but the Reki + two-drop play will have dealt four additional damage this turn, with more to come in future turns.
Plus, there’s the possibility of a gigantic next turn with Reki. Even if you miss your land again, you’ll still have Reki, two legendary men including Kentaro, a Shaku, and three land. You can summon any man in your deck except Godo, because you’ve used the Ice Bridge counter. Each legend you summon generates another mana and a card; if the card were an Ice Bridge, then you could summon Godo, who himself would generate a card and two mana (one for himself, and one for the legendary equipment he would bring forth).
So, now we see why Reki is the higher-velocity card over Enshrined Memories. Memories can get you a one-time burst of cards at the cost of tapping its entire board, giving up a turn’s worth of pressure and damage, and risking a mathematical catastrophe (i.e., the whiff). Reki trades the possibility of a huge one-time gain for a long-term boost which you can utilize while maintaining pressure and with avoidance of the mathematical catastrophe.
Of course, you could have that huge next turn with Reki, drawing three or four cards and bringing forth ten points of damage, and overextend straight into your opponent’s Final Judgement. Just because you now know all about velocity doesn’t mean that you can stop playing solid Magic.
Until next time, here’s hoping you can answer your opponent’s turn 4 Rathi Dragon with a Cruel Edict (as I did at a 9th Edition Release Event; sadly, I still lost when he hit a mana pocket and played Flame Wave on my squad).
This article written while listening to “Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star.”
mmyoungster at aim dot com
mmyoungster on AIM
Later.