“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
-Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Magic is nominally a one on one game. Magic (like poker) is quite literally mano a mano. However, there are actions you can take that will make it seem like an actual army has got your back. You’ll be able to read the future like an open book. Pull a Cassandra and tell people you’ve already won the tournament. They won’t believe you, of course.
Through no small effort, you’ll get the skills and an arsenal that will serve you in any kind of setting.
Today, that means talking about plans. A plan is simply a rote rule that guides your actions. A good series of plans is a boon in many ways. Your plan can give you focus, allowing you to stay on target for your most effective strategy. A plan can save you precious mental energy. Having your sideboarding plan set up ahead of time allows you to channel your resources to more productive ends, like watching for tells or extra shuffling or even just figuring out what to eat for lunch.
A well crafted plan is your set of blueprints. Put them together and it looks like you’ve designed a trophy. Make the perfect deck, play in an ideal manner, and game wins will fall into your lap. The best part is that all the work is done in advance. Memorizing the spoilers, perfecting the mana ratios, etc. just means you get to relax and cruise through actual tournament time.
Strategies, decision trees, schemes; call them what you want. A good plan goes a long way towards success, both before the round begins and while you’re in the trenches. In fact, mastering and utilizing the planning process will fundamentally alter your approach to the game, since the total process affects every aspect of Magic.
Pre-game planning is critical for both Limited and Constructed. For Constructed, you have relatively infinite time for deck construction. You use that time to determine exactly how your deck plays out, enough for you to make informed in-game play decisions. Through tons of playtest games, you get to cull the cards that don’t do enough, that interrupt your streamlined goals. Tweaking your list, and your strategy, helps plot your course of behavior against any archetype you face. Furthermore, you get to master your sideboard strategy, which is 100% fundamental to the effective tournament player.
For Limited, it’s nearly the opposite. Deckbuilding is a finite, time-based exercise. I previously wrote that having an archetype in mind while drafting is a sound strategy. At the most basic level, this means determining whether you want a Control deck or an aggressive one. Figuring that out for Dimir is understandably critical.
All this pre-game strategy and knowledge helps tremendously. Knowing the way your deck is supposed to develop, besides everything mentioned above, is necessary for the mulligan quandary.
At turn zero, having your opponent know your hand is borderline is definitely a disadvantage. The longer you hem and haw, the more time and info you give your opponent to craft their own effective stratagem. Certainly there are mulligan decisions that require a lot of consideration, no doubt. But having an effective plan in mind beforehand reduces your agonizing and the material you give your opponent. A quick trip to Paris makes it seem like a no-lander. Only you know that you tossed it because you’re aware your deck can’t go anywhere with just splash mana. Beyond all of that, taking or not taking a mulligan at the incorrect time can end a game on the spot. Plan ahead to minimize this potentially fatal error.
Every single step can be planned for before the actual event. Do you want to lead with your most abundant color? How about your splash land, to project a different archetype? With the limited amount of game time available per round, every decision made before the event gives you extra time for winning.
As the game goes on, your plans continue to operate. You know what spells are worth countering. You know to save removal for that inevitable double block, or to save Faith’s Fetters for the imminent Stinkweed Imp, not that Lurking Informant that’s merely annoying you. Your strategies, your smooth reactions to expected stimuli, allow you to make the correct decisions when it matters. Foresight means better choices, and better choices lead to winning. Simple and effective.
That’s it! Make strategy, win more! Good luck.
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Except it’s not quite that easy.
“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern wit.”
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The above portion is totally accurate, and depressingly pedantic. Instead of “people who work harder win more,” we could say “water is wet” and call it a day. A lot of people do plan and strategize intuitively. These people, the people who like to write lists just so they can cross things off, understand the safety and efficiency a good plan provides. Yet strangely, the Js don’t win more often. If planning and strategizing is so great, and it is, why doesn’t it guarantee games?
The reason is simple. There are times where your plans are no good. They suck. They will cost you winnable games. Games lost only because you, O strategic one, adhered to your schemes despite their ineffectiveness.
There are two reasons to give up on a plan. The first is because your plan, your basic logic, is faulty. This really shouldn’t happen, especially if you’ve done your homework, but it is possible. Recognizing this soon enough will allow you to salvage some remnant of your tournament experience/rating/dignity.
I was at a comic shop one evening, before a Type 2 event. I was interested in playing, but I had no deck. A friend of mine at the store generously loaned me his Zvi Bargain deck. This was definitely the strongest deck in the format, but it was one I had only read about previously. Worse, I was —and am — a horrible Combo player. As expected, the first round was a mockery. My attempt to speedily combo the win was laughable. I don’t understand how, but I recall Soul Feasting myself. I knew after that round that any attempt to play the pure Combo game was not going to be effective. Luckily Zvi Bargain contains Skirge Familiar, which in addition to being a combo enabler, is also a 3/2 flier. Those I know what to do with.
So began one of the most idiotically played Zvi Bargain decks in the history of the game. There were times when the combo was possible, if things were very obvious. Mostly, it was about speeding out Black fliers and swinging. Renounce was not intended to be played with damage on the stack! Still, Plan B was enough to earn me a Top 8 spot.
A reason to abort your plan is not a welcome one, because it means you’re trying to mitigate a past error. As stated, it shouldn’t happen if you’ve done the necessary work. However, it’s still better than outright losing.
The most common reason to throw away your carefully crafted plan is because your opponent or the cards tell you to. Not in so many words of course, but a unique situation can give you the information to update or do away with previous intentions.
For example, the Dimir mill deck is a controlling deck that seeks to win by taking your opponent from forty to zero. However, while that might be the goal and the strategy behind the build, you’re not bound by that plan. There are instances where you’ll want to start attacking with your Stinkies and Tidewater Minions. Just because they’re in there for utility doesn’t mean they can’t play another role. There are times when your mana-light opponent cannot mount an offense or defense. Are you going to hang back with those Survelling Sprites? No, the new plan is do twenty before your opponent recovers. For the last five to seven points, this might mean a race situation, kind of the antithesis of the control deck. Nevertheless, it’s the right play. It won’t be a pretty win, what with racing with Lurking Informants and all, but if the situations calls for it, don’t hesitate.
There are so many situations where a slip from your opponent, or an unusual series of card draws, gives you a new opportunity for winning. That one Terrarion you’d planned to cycle now provides unexpected pump for your Undercity Shade. Unusual amounts of Signets and Wildfires let you destroy lands faster than previously intended. Extra painland taps from your opponent mean you get to start using Umezawa’s Jitte offensively. So many situations can go 180° in the space of a turn. The trick is to recognize and capitalize on the situation.
The number one player error in this regard is not paying attention to your opponents’ turn. It sounds absurd, but the autopilot phenomenon is really quite common. A player will have some plan in the back of his head, and come hell or high water, that’s how the game will go. Your opponent will do something to show you your plan is utterly worthless, yet the mindset is so locked-in it doesn’t even register. There will be times when a player doesn’t even look at the cards he draws, because he already knows what he’s going to do with what he’s got. How narrow can you be?
The middle ground, and the solution, is a style of fluidity. There’s nothing weak about recognizing your opponent’s plans and reacting to them. Sometimes a player will spend his opponent’s turn thinking about his own, impatient to get on with it. Needless to say, a lot of good information is lost. Instead of using your opponent’s turn to think about your own, or even how your opponent is affecting your turn, just… watch. Actively watch your opponent make his attacks, cast his spells. Try to figure out what he’s thinking in the midst of his actions. Then, and only then, when your turn rolls around, you can go back to the business of winning.
When your turn comes, reflect on your strategy then consider: “Is it time to do something new?” Each of your draw steps and your opponent’s main phases brings new information to the forefront. You can apply that information to your existing plans and see if anything changes. Or you can simply make a new plan as if you were looking at the board for the first time.
Nate Clarke would famously read every card in his hand during his turns. He would do this to look at the situation with fresh eyes, untainted by previous bias or preconceived notions. Some players will take their new draw into their hand and shuffle it, then look at their entire hand as a whole. All these ideas help you view the game state unencumbered by plans that may no longer be valid. That’s not to say that your previous ideas were wrong, or will certainly become wrong. Often, your original plan is still the best. But thinking it will always be the ideal option — or worse, the only one — is dangerous and limited thinking.
The purpose of planning is to prepare for the future, so you always know the right move at the right time. Theoretically, you could envision every possible sequence of draws for you and your opponent, and craft the ideal response. In practice, no one has that kind of time or memory. The appeal and true strength of planning is to give you a better percentage-based system of attack. “I often mulligan one land hands.” “I’ll probably play the Control game until draw one of my two Cerulean Sphinxes.” But for every nine times that preconceived notion is the most effective technique, there will be that one exception where doing something different wins the game.
The fluid approach is not about winning every game. It’s about winning more of them.
As usual, the optimum goal is balance. Craft those plans, make those strategies, and be prepared to throw them away at a moment’s notice. For every tactic, think about instances where you would welcome a complete reversal. The only failure is not recognizing what needs to be done.
Good luck.
–Noah Weil
Noastic on Magic Online