“Two heads are better than one…”
I had to write that down, because in the brief amount of time I thought about making that the title of my article I actually devised ten thousand four hundred and eighty one ways to kill myself. That must to be a record, and thus the sentence that inspired that onslaught of self-destructive revelry should be preserved for posterity. Much like, say, every word that comes out of my mouth. Derf Derf. Get it? It’s double-entendre. It’s an oft-used over-employed adage that also applies to the article, since the point is that Two-Headed Giant is more fun than normal Sealed Deck Magic. Lord have mercy. Honestly, I am so clever, it’s sickening. Do they give out awards for this stuff?
But really, let’s remember that aforementioned Lame Sentence (as opposed to aforementioned Small Child) is not a part of this article in any way, shape, or form.
Moving on.
This article is about Two-Headed Giant Limited, a.k.a. one of the coolest formats to come around in quite some time. I haven’t sat down and playtested the format, per se – after all, who cares about States, anyway? – but I have battled (Magic is so much more exciting when you refer to it as “battling”) many a time with random Two-Headed people at The Apartment or at Jack’s House, and can say with confidence I know a little bit about how it works. I’ve also gone a combined 14-1 at the last three sanctioned 2HG events I’ve played in, courtesy of my teammate (is it acceptable to call him a “better half” without obvious blaring homo-erotic implications?) Jack Cooke, also known as one of the best and most under-appreciated Limited Magic players this side of Calaveras County. Hopefully, someone will read this, say “sweet,” and then go win their respective States. I’ll obviously take all the credit, thanks, but at least you can put in your time and effort.
Before that, though, I’d like to mention a couple of things.
Heh. I love awful transitions. Are they as painful for you to read as they are for me to write? I might as well say something like, “speaking of time and effort,” or “How about them Vols?” It’s truly heinous.
That reminds me, it’s great being on the “writer” end of this computer, by the way. I can totally prolong the time it takes to come across any actual content within my article for as long as I choose, completely abusing the trust of my faithful reader who is searching for ways to improve his game. The idea is that a strategy writer will produce strategy, right? There’s some kind of social contract whereby I get an audience in exchange for some sort of reciprocal increase – however small – to one’s Magic ability? Well, boys, I am an iconoclast, after all, and I specialize in ripping apart virtual contracts, agreements, trials, and tribulations before your very eyes. I’m only on page one of this introduction, son. You’ve got a looooong way to go.
In fact, I don’t know if this exists already, but there really should be some sort of “waste of time/rant/off-topic” tag that we can put on the website so that when a writer goes off the deep-end, Craig can segue it off all nice and pretty so as to alert the reader to the approaching barrage of raw, fresh BS. [That sounds like a wonderful idea… – Craig]
If there isn’t, well, just imagine said tag like two paragraphs earlier. In the mean time, if Death ever comes for a visit and you ask for your thirty seconds of life back that I took long ago in 2006, well, just tell him where to find me.
Oh, and also imagine that I spattered off some old-school Tim Aten bemoaning of my own ability and life situation in general. As well as a playlist of sub-par music. I’m trying to garner some respect for my ability, see, and rather than actually earn any of it. I figure I can just liken myself to the young, edgy writers of days gone by. Except for ffeJ, who so subliminates the whole of Magic literature already that it’s almost sinful to mention him without the preface of His Holy Most High Exalted.
If I were a responsible writer I’d have edited all of that awful copy out now that I’m through. By that I mean, say, everything beyond the first paragraph. That’s what they teach you in writing class – learn to let go. Get rid of it. Good material is cut material. I also would have said the sentence, “I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing, how the sun was shining that summer. I think about all those people who tended and picked the grapes,” because according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, that is somehow great writing. I love thinking about people who pick grapes, personally. Menial labor really gets me going in the morning. Instead, I’ll move on to my first point:
1) Drumroll please…
I’d like to thank those of you who commented on my Daily Series in the forums. I appreciate the discussion, support, criticism, and all of that. I also would like to thank those of you who didn’t come to my house, uproot the entire thing from its foundation, and dump it into the Mississippi River for my implying that Peel from Reality was anything other than stone nuts. My bad on that one. The card is most assuredly insane.
Laugh at me for not actually making a point when I said I’d move on to one. I am a little stinker.
2) Some Magic Invitational comments.
Warning: Content Ahead! Proceed at Own Risk!
That is only one and a half-pages of irrelevant introduction for those of you who criticize me for front-loading my articles with purely stylistic drivel. I’m improving. Though I will confess that this time it was leaning much more to the “drivel” side, rather than the “stylized” one, that is for sure. What can I say; I am not perfect. Except on Tuesday.
Ah, Magic Invitational.
Blah blah Flores blah. All-Star Game etc. etc. Exciting stuff, this summarizing of at-hand issues.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like to bag on Mike Flores at every possible opportunity. Part of this is that I never understood what the big deal was.
I first encountered Mike at Maro’s trivia competition during US Nationals 2000. I was standing on a platform with a bunch of spectators staring down the then-surreal Zvi Mowshowitz. We were battling. The object was to see who could name from memory the most Green Instant cards. Each person would name a single card, and the first one of us who couldn’t think of anything would lose and forfeit The Amazingly Awesome Prize (I have no idea what it was, honestly).
Somewhere between Lull and Crossbow Ambush I noticed this guy off to the side talking to Random Pros. He had the air of being important, and suddenly it hit me: that broken Black deck! He’s the dude! OMG! Wait, now, what was his name?
I was confused.
Clearly, the guy looked Asian. This much appeared to be obvious. But… Mike Flores? Was he Hispanic? Naaaah, this wasn’t a Hispanic guy… or was it? I honestly had no idea. Was he a member of the witness protection program, adopting a false name so that evil minions did not track him across the Great Plains? Was it a Jack Bauer “I work for the government so I have to assume another identity” sort of thing? Could he have been adopted, maybe? I didn’t understand. Asian. Hispanic. Aispanic. Hisian. My mind could not wrap itself around this impossible conundrum. Maybe he was Tiger Woods in disguise. And suddenly—
“Mr. Hill, do you have a response?”
“Um… what? Err, uh, Fog”
“Ringading! Ringding! Named Already, BOY! You Lose, Zvizzle Wins! Listen Next Time, Sonny!”
That was a paraphrase. I am sure that Mr. Mowshowitz has never been referred to as “Zvizzle,” though I really wish that would catch on. The point is that I have some odd Pavlovian conditioned reaction to Mike based on this past sour experience that he probably does not deserve.
There is also, of course, the fact that I am a forgettable Magic writer whose name will fade from memory just as soon as StarCityGames.com musters up the sense to cut me from their payroll, whereas MichaelJ has written an infinite number of quality articles and has shaped the whole of Magic theory for better or for worse. Thus I peddle my insecurities on a platter and try to bring others down in order to make myself feel better. Obviously. That having been said, the fact is the deckbuilding skill Mike is arguably best known for generally applies to Standard – a format that has headlined a grand total of two (2) Pro Tours in the last six years. Yes, I know it is relevant for Nationals (see Napster), but the fact is that there are plenty of other deckbuilders out there who have been as important as Flores and yet will never see the light of the Invitational (Sully, anyone?). Now as far as “classic strategy” goes, MichaelJ takes the cake – but again, I don’t know that I would call him the best writer on the internet, though he is certainly one of the most prolific. There is, and has been, a lot of good competition. Wakefield. Zvi. edt. Adrian. Rizzo. Osyp. Cunningham. Aten. Etc.
The point being that I don’t think you automatically win the argument that Mike Flores is the most significant deckbuilder or the most significant strategist/writer on the internet today. I’m not saying the argument can’t be made; I just want to point out that there’s plenty of room for debate. Thus that particular precedent for his sitting on the Invitational list doesn’t necessarily exist.
All that having been said, I think he deserves a place.
The man writes. A lot. Even if Wizards is “rigging the vote” because Flores writes weekly columns for two popular websites, that argument completely ignores the point that:
Mike Flores writes weekly columns for two different popular websites.
…
I have done many hard things in life. One time Hulk Hogan was chasing after some girl I was dating, right, and just to shut him up I clotheslined him to the pavement. I then proceeded to exhume Andre the Giant, pick him up above my head, and piledrive him onto Mr. Hogan’s solar plexus. If you’ve ever tried to power-bomb a 500+ lb. individual—a dead individual, at that—you understand that it’s not an easy thing to do. And yet, that act of sheer muscular force does not hold a candle to the burden of producing two – and very often three – quality pieces of writing a week, every week, for a span of over a year (so far).
If putting MichaelJ on the ballot has in fact betrayed some kind of inherent bias in the system because his prolific writing would necessarily earn him votes, what would constitute a legitimate means of earning those votes? Flores interacts with the community, shares his experiences, helps people become better players, and (I hate to admit it) does design successful decks. Sure, he can’t play them, but Osyp evidently can. Thus, the argument that Mike himself doesn’t have the resume necessary to qualify him for entry into the Invitational seems to miss the point to me. He, as an individual, puts people into the Top 8 of Pro Tours. What more do you want?
I also don’t buy the idea that the Magic Invitational is, or ever was, some kind of All-Star game. I distinctly remember laughing up a storm because Brian Davis was voted into the Invitational, for example. Now, BDavis is my boy. Everyone’s favorite hogbeast tapper was (and still is, if you can drag him out) an extremely good player. But I play with him on Thursdays at Robert Larrabee’s house. I tested endless games with him in my attic from Invasion Block to last year’s Regionals, windmill-slamming everything from Rith to Reap and Sow. And I can tell you that he is no All-Star. Yet he played in the Invitational, submitted a card, and (from what I can remember) ended up doing reasonably well. I don’t know personally very many other people that have attended the Invitational, but I can tell you that if you went down the list we would find very many people who fall short of the “all-star” category and yet were flown around by Wizards to the far corners of the Earth. Flores has certainly made more of a lasting impression than many of them.
I can’t think of very many people for whom the chance to compete in such an event would mean more. Give the man his chance to shine.
And no, I am not barning Flores like everybody else in the universe. I simply don’t mind the fact that the Invitational is branching out to showcase a different variety of talent.
Oh, so 2HG.
That was another one of those amazing transitions I was referring to earlier that actually causes tribesman to kiss my feet and bow their heads in worship.
First off, you have got to take this 2HG stuff with a grain of salt. The only reason I am writing this is because I had to put my “Play Blue in Ravnica Limited” article on hiatus due to my complete and total inability to win 8-4 queues on Magic Online. I figured if I couldn’t at least do that consistently, then you had no reason to listen to me, dear readers. I would never, ever, ever consider doing you a disservice, being as that as a collective whole you all are the entire reason for my existence.
When I say I can’t win a Draft, either, I mean it. I could not win an 8-4 queue to save my life. Literally. You think I am kidding. There was this one time a pirate came into my apartment and was like “Arrgh, Matey, it’s either ProTourChampion (who is like 4356-0 against me on the Magic Online) goes or you do, boy, whatdyasay?” But, as I am sure you can imagine, it’s rather difficult to draft with the barrel of a blunderbuss pressed up against the side of your temple, particularly when a parrot is fluttering about your head and neck, constantly clicking on things like “Gruul Nordroog” because the art is pretty. I obviously 0-2ed like any of Tim Galbiati and JP Smee’s opponents in Money Draft since the end of 2005. So I throw out a bunch of Allah Akbars, praying for forgiveness and trying to content myself with what fate has so abruptly destined to be my end, when the real cool stuff happened.
Here I am, standing on a makeshift plank this pirate has hung out my window, trying to buy some time as I slowly get defenestrated by means of a rapier and some really, really rank breath. I have just managed to come to terms with my own mortality when Johnny Depp, the critically-acclaimed director of the 1997 Cannes film “The Brave” who rose to notoriety as a mildly successful character actor known principally for his unconvincing and otherwise pedestrian portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Keira Knightley vehicle “Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” kicks down my front door. Storming into my living room, he accuses (falsely, let it be known, for rest assured that this was a very real pirate) the gentleman of stealing his wig and costume from the set of his latest Disney venture. I am being ignored for the moment. My captor freezes, and in a moment of apparent recognitions turns ever so slowly around. Mr. Depp, however, tends to act more quickly. I hadn’t noticed this before, and apparently his makeup people do a great job of concealing this rather blatant and tragic trait on screen, but Johnny Depp’s right hand resembles very strongly a tremendous pair of oversized, menacing hedge clippers. I would speculate that on normal occasions such a handicap would prove to be quite a hindrance, but in this particular instance it served very well the purpose of impaling the gentleman on the spot and splattering the entire contents of his intestines on my living room floor. The entire ordeal was all very foul.
Now I’m pissed. Here I am trying to mind my own business when a guy walks into my living room and threatens my life. Before I know it I am being marched out my own bedroom window, only to find a scary middle-aged man kicking down my door a moment later and committing wholesale homicide without any consideration of how I ought to clean it up. To make matters worse, the damned parrot is still flapping around haphazardly pilfering through the contents of my refrigerator, and Mr. Depp has turned his eyes upon me as if to say, “what, you got a problem?”
I quickly avert my eyes, but to no avail: he begins to stride toward me. I am terrified.
A hand moves. I cringe.
It’s on my shoulder. Ah, relief.
“Y-Y-Yes, Mr. Depp, what can I do for you.”
“Son, next time, pick the Wildsize.”
Before I could reply, he was out the door, wig and costume in tow. Magically the carcass had vanished, and the parrot was cuddling with the Furby I had sitting atop my television. Fortunately I was in such a state of shock I could hardly consider the mechanics of that union, or how Johnny Depp (of all people) knew I had made the mistake of picking Ghor-Clan Savage over The Best Cantrip In Recent Memory. But I had learned my lesson. I could not draft Ravnica to save my life. Only famous Hollywood personalities could do that for me.
Thank you, Johnny Depp. Thank you.
So instead I started playing 2HG.
The thing to realize about this format is that forty is a lot of life. More life, in fact, than the number of cards in a single person’s deck. Thus by far the most preferable way to win is to try and run an opponent out of cards. Killing an opponent via damage is twice as hard, whereas decking them is just as easy—and this time, you’ve got two people trying to do it.
The other most important principle is that, because combat by its very nature favors the blocker, games tend to last for a long time. Two times the number of defenders on the table as normal makes the math more of a headache for the aggressor, even with twice the number of attackers on the table. Therefore it becomes very hard to push damage through.
From these two underlying principles, a number of trends emerge.
1) Draw first.
Drawing first is such a huge advantage in Two-Headed Giant that I am amazed people even consider the decision. For starters, since both players draw a card, drawing first actually yields plus-two card advantage as opposed to the normal plus-one. In addition, you’re much less likely to get bum-rushed right out of the gates, because you have such an enormous buffer of life to start with. Thus the card advantage comes into play much more than the tempo advantage normally would.
As a corollary to this,
2) You can get away with much riskier manabases.
If you compiled a list of people who tended to advocate the most stable mana-bases possible in Ravnica Sealed, I would actually be so high on the list you could see my head floating vaguely above the surface. I love being the one actually casting spells when my opponent is looking at a sea of Green in his hand. But Two-Headed Giant is not normal Sealed Deck. You have a lot more time. It doesn’t matter as much if you hiccup early, because chances are your teammate can pick up enough of the slack so that you don’t die before you draw your second Red source, or whatever. In this format, you get a chance to cast most of your spells. Thus, when you do actually get around to casting those spells, you want them to be as powerful as possible.
Related to that last point is:
3) Play your bombs.
These go hand-in-hand, since the whole reason you’re playing several colors is to accommodate the most powerful spells. Cards that really shine in this environment, apart from (obviously) Wrath of God effects, are the Blazing Archons, the Sisters of Stone Death, the Choruses of the Conclave (yes, Noah, I did it properly), and even the Autochthon Wurms of the world. Now don’t ignore traditional theories of mana-curve entirely, and don’t mana-flood yourself trying to arrive at the mana to cast all of these bombs…. but be aware that oftentimes both teams are going to have slung a somewhat equal number of spells. The way you win games is to have the spells that come out of your hand trump the puny magical farts that come out of theirs. Hulk Smash, in other words, is what I am trying to say.
4) Draw cards
Even if you’ve followed the last three principles, you have to realize that everybody else is going to be following them too. Therefore, the way that you win games, all other things being equal, is to draw more of your brokenness than your opponent. If you’re all slinging giant spells at one another, the last giant spell to be slung wins the game. Thus cards like Train of Thought go up considerably higher in value in a format like this one where you’ll routinely be announcing it with four copies on the stack. On the other hand, realize that if you draw too many cards you’re going to be the person targeted by their mill deck, and you’re teasing death more and more with every extra card you peel. So don’t get too greedy. Make sure you’ve got something to draw into.
5) Don’t get decked.
Obviously you’re going to incorporate every copy of Vedalken Entrancer, Lurking Informant, Duskmantle, Szadek, and Circu that you find in your card pool into one of your decks somehow. Realize that you’re not always going to be ahead on the race. Sometimes your opponent hits turn 4 Entrancer advantage and you find the game seeping through your fingers. What this means is that there’s no problem maindecking Junktroller – who is a house anyway – or the absolutely incredible Mnemonic Nexus. You know every pool you’re up against is going to have at least a minor milling strategy, even if it’s only something like Compulsive Research you/Cronarch/Compulsive Research you in the late game. What better foil to that plan than the Nexus? Oftentimes they’ll let extra damage through just to ensure a few more mills, since they’ve done the math and realized that their mill will kill you before your damage gets then. Whoops, monkey wrench time boys, here comes the Nexus, pack your bags and give me your sister’s number on the way out. It really feels that good.
6) Run your evasion
… Pretty much all of it. Again, I am sure you’re thinking, “Derf McDerferson, this guy’s telling us to run our evasion creatures in Limited, really, I have no idea how he’s not Premium, I mean, that stuff is pure genius.” I mean above and beyond what you’d normally be doing. Splash Screeching Griffin. Windmill slam the Harrier Griffin. Undercity Shade is not out of the question; he is actually, in fact, quite good. If you get a Cerulean Sphinx… well, when your mom told you it wasn’t polite to wipe your ass with a card before smashing it into the table, she didn’t mention that they sometimes make exceptions. Sometimes, you don’t get the luxury of milling. In that case, you’ve got to find a way to win before your cards all get placed into your graveyard in increments of two.
7) If you’re lucky enough to have repeatable resources, do everything you can to run them.
My meaning here might be a little unclear. I am talking about things like Elvish Skysweeper (who goes entirely too late, anyway), Plagued Rusalka, and even things like Rabble-Rouser or the aforementioned Undercity Shade. Anything you can do over and over again. You’re going to have access to a lot of mana, but you won’t be drawing gasoline on every turn. Make sure you’re able to do something with your mana on the turns you’re not slinging fire or bearl. Otherwise, again, you’re going to get bowled over out of sheer lack of velocity.
8) Countermagic is fine.
This is not simply the result of a bomb-laden format, but also because the nature of 2HG allows you to play spells and still have counter mana available on the same “turn”: if your teammate’s the one casting the spells, you can be the one casting the Convolute. This prevents you (the collective you) from having to sit and do nothing in order to fire off a timely Induce Paranoia. Most importantly, though, you’re going to have to deal with at least two bomb rares per match, and not everybody is lucky enough to pull a Faith’s Fetters for every single one. Sometimes the best way to deal with a problem is to stop it before it begins.
I love espousing proverbs.
I wish I had sample decklists for ya, but I’ve long since lost all of those babies to five-color Singleton decks. I do think that if you can follow these principles, though, you’ll have no trouble making Top 8 at your respective State Championships, since the format has been by and large unexplored by the Players Who Matter community. Again, I’m not saying that you should play Grozoth.dec; having a nice mana curve is still very valuable. Just realize that you’re going to have to be equipped to deal with the late game as well as the early one, and because of that you’re going to have to fight a war on several fronts. If you can do that, well, you’ll be seeing a lot of the letter “W” in your future.
-Zac