One of the most ridiculously difficult tasks you’re going to undertake while playing Magic is the difficult choice of what deck you should play for an
event. It doesn’t matter if you’re battling at an FNM, preparing for an SCG Open, figuring things out for a PPTQ, or working with your team on the next big
thing for a Grand Prix. Whatever deck you play you will agonize over, even if you think you won’t.
Something I, as well as my fellow writing friends, get asked quite frequently by people over social media is “what do you think of this list?” or “how can
I improve my deck?” With each question I try to take my time reaching the correct answer whether it’s a tribal werewolf deck or the Abzan Midrange deck
you’ve been teching out for a bunch of mirror matches at your local shop. Whatever your request is I want to grant it to the best of my ability. However, I
may have been doing you a disservice. Here’s why.
I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine a couple days ago about the kinds of roles that players often find themselves in when they’re
choosing a deck, and he made a pretty good point when we talked about what I always find myself battling with.
“I don’t think you’ve ever played an aggressive deck at an event that mattered.”
Hmph.
He was right.
This is when I started worrying about the advice I had given in the past to people who had reached out to me.
As a player it is very, very difficult to want to play a purely aggro deck no matter what kind of tournament I’m in. There were formats where it’s entirely
possible I was basing my choices on preference rather than reason, and it’s a common pitfall that I’ve found myself in more than once.
When Person A says “Mark, what do you think about this Temur Midrange build that I’ve been working on?” my knee-jerk reaction is to begin critiquing the
deck and looking for holes that the metagame might use to exploit it and how to fill those gaps to make it as successful as possible. What I should be
doing is asking them a simple question before I address any of their concerns, and you should be asking yourself this as well:
“Is this even your style of deck?”
Because we live in an age where it’s commonplace to want to default to a certain type of deck, it’s becoming more and more difficult to figure out what
kind of style fits you best. People sending me lists for their Abzan decks might be terrible at playing midrange, but excel at aggressive strategies, or
someone sending me Boss Sligh could be a control player at heart.
I specifically suck at playing aggressive decks. Almost every bit of tournament success I’ve had has been with midrange or control decks. I understand
them, I like playing them, and I can switch gears very fluidly when the time is right. Conversely I am miserable at being aggressive. I have two gears:
ludicrous speed and “what if he has removal? I’m gonna play like a scared baby” speed. Great aggro players are fantastic at making those decisions, but I
suck at them, and I usually find a way to screw things up when I’m playing them.
Today I’d like to spend some time talking about the different kinds of archetypes that exist and how you might fit into them. We’ll discuss the modes of
play that they require, how you should (or could) approach battling with each one, and maybe you’ll find that you’ve been trying to fit a square peg in a
round hole all along.
Aggro Decks
Famously, aggro decks get a bad rap. They are considered “noob” strategies and are regulated to ridicule by elitists who believe that jamming creatures or
burn spells somehow makes you less of a player, and that Magic in its purest form is based heavily on interaction and these decks somehow take that out of
the equation.
These people are wrong. Just playing an aggressive deck and playing an aggressive deck well are two completely different concepts that need to be
differentiated immediately.
Core Concepts of Aggressive Decks:
1. Cheap, effective creatures.
2. Supplementary spells: usually direct damage or pump effects to make your creatures deal more damage.
3. A very low curve.
4. Land light.
5. Sometimes synergistic capabilities. (ex. Affinity, W/U Heroic)
With an abundance of creatures, spells, and being as low to the ground as possible, the aggro deck will try to end the game quickly and before a midrange
opponent or control player take ahold of the game with their (usually) more powerful spells that have a greater impact on the game. Classic examples over
the years for aggressive decks include Sped Red, Ravager Affinity, Kithkin, or Burn.
Playing these decks involves a great emphasis placed on resource management, as most variants have very few ways to refill their hands (minus Thoughtcast,
Treasure Cruise, Ordeal of Thassa, etc.) A player battling with traditional Boss Sligh has to best allocate their creatures in the correct spot, doing
their best to not play into mass removal like Drown in Sorrow or End Hostilities.
That is where the finesse comes in. On many occasions I’m sure you’ve heard a friend piloting one of these decks say something like “he had Day of Judgment
so I lost. There was nothing I could do.”
Did they tell you about how they had enough damage to get their opponent to burn range before they decided to deploy an extra two creatures to the board?
They couldn’t recover after the mass removal, whereas if they assessed the board and their hand they’d have seen playing those superfluous threats wasn’t
necessary and unless their opponent had a followup Wrath, they could have easily taken the match.
Knowing when to go “all in” or to keep your hand close to your vest is a skill I’ve seen tons of players not have, or thought that they had when it was
apparent they didn’t. “Well if you have it you have it” is a common mantra to mask not knowing if they have it at all, and if you’re not someone who is
great at reading an opponent, the board, or how to best deploy your threats early in a game than an aggro deck may not be for you.
Midrange Decks
The term “midrange” is one that gets thrown around a lot to describe various strategies that aren’t quite control and not quite aggro. Sometimes decks that
aren’t midrange somehow inherit this title while not really being midrange, but for the sake of this discussion we won’t delve too far into them.
Core Concepts of Midrange Decks
1. Powerful and reasonably cost creatures.
2. Several “haymaker” spells. (Rakdos’s Return, Sovereigns of Lost Alara).
3. Moderate amount of lands to achieve land drops in early/midgame.
4. Removal or permission to protect winning cards.
5. Can be hybridized. (Abzan Pod, Jeskai Twin).
Midrange strategies are among the most powerful and rewarding ones to pursue in Magic because they afford the pilot several different dimensions to choose
from, but in order to maximize that potential the player must understand the capabilities of the deck.
Jund, in the era of Bloodbraid Elf, is a good example of a deck with a midrange plan in mind. The early game was wrapped up by playing cards like Lightning
Bolt or Terminate to save your life total from an early rush or Blightning to disrupt the growth of an opponent. The midgame was spent with cards like the
aforementioned Bloodbraid Elf or Goblin Ruinblaster gaining two-for-one value, and the end game was wrapped up by cards like Broodmate Dragon. All stages
of the game were accounted for, although as the name implies, the “middle” of a match was where Jund was most powerful because it’s four and five mana
cards generated several layers of card advantage, whether it be cascading into a Blightning off of your Bituminous Blast that killed an opposing creature
or destroying their man-land with your kicked Ruinblaster.
The perk of playing midrange is that it can act as an aggressor early in a game, for example ramping into a turn 3 Siege Rhino and following it up with a
second copy on turn 4 to stunt any hopes an opponent has of winning, or it can play a long game like you saw Dan Jessup partake in against Jim Davis where
he was able to keep up with a control deck’s card draw, planeswalkers, and threat density during the semis of the Season Four Invitational.
The downside of playing midrange is that the draws are historically clunky, and while they do everything well, they don’t succeed at any particular
dimension better than any other deck except for a few turns in the center of a game.
We’ve all seen midrange players play their deck like it was an aggro deck and get swallowed up by the superior power of control, and oppositely we’ve all
seen midrange decks try to be the control deck, but still get overwhelmed by the early onslaught of aggressive decks.
Knowing how to mulligan is a huge deal when playing midrange because your deck does several things, so having a strong mix is paramount to your success
regardless of the matchup you’re playing. Midrange players should be well-versed in when to “go for the throat” and switch gears. When a game seems firmly
in grasp, a knowledgeable midrange player will understand that it is time to close things out rather than sit back and continue to play it safe. Seeing a
midrange pilot with a superior board and answers in their hand playing around what a wounded opponent could possibly have only harms their chances of
winning, especially if that opponent also plays equally powerful spells in their deck. Basically you’re giving them a chance to get back in the game rather
than just ending it. It is that fear that disables many players from piloting midrange properly, and issues them loses when it was apparent they should
have won. If you’re the kind of player who doesn’t know when to pull the trigger, mulligan well, or sideboard matchups based on margins, midrange might not
be for you.
Control Decks
The “thinking man’s deck” is control, and I use quotes because those elitists I mentioned earlier will use control as the de facto in their discussion for
what decks take the most skill to play, and again I will argue that it is not even remotely the case.
Core Concepts of Control Decks:
1. Scant on win conditions (Psychatog, Aetherling).
2. Heavy dedication to removal spells or permission.
3. More lands to make sure every drop is hit.
4. Aims to put a stranglehold on the match that can’t be relinquished.
5. Attempts to have tools to handle almost any situation.
Control decks are, at their core, what Magic was all about when it first started. Decks boasting Counterspell and Serra Angel ruled the tables. Eventually
theories about card advantage, tempo, and board presence began to permeate through the scene and change the face of Magic, but the face of control stayed
quite similar to what it has since its conception.
Decks like U/W Control, Psychatog, Prison, or many others had a simple concept behind them: never lose control of the game and after it is not
possible to lose anymore…you can win. This has been achieved through the years through many means, but usually they involve some measure of counterspells,
mass removal like Wrath of God, Wildfire, Akroma’s Vengeance, and a couple of very difficult to beat threats that can end the game on their own with little
trouble after their resolution.
One of the classic follies players enter in when they choose to play a control deck is not understanding their own limits as a player, and if that is a
case it becomes more about beating yourself than it does beating your opponent.
As a control player it is your job to assess threats as either substantial, moderate, or weak. A blunder many of these players make is not knowing what
spells to counter, when to use your life as a resource to extract more value from your cards, and when it is correct to deploy your powerful spells.
Being “baited,” a term which means using a spell on something almost meaningless instead of saving it for something far more dangerous, is a mistake many
novice control players make without knowing it. An example would be an opponent with nine mana casting a Siege Rhino. You only have one counterspell, but
your hand can probably beat a Rhino without much trouble. You decide to counter it just to be safe. They tap the remaining five lands and drop Liliana Vess
into play and +1 her. You were at 20 life and still had four copies of End Hostilities in your deck, but you only have a single Banishing Light left in
your library. That Liliana is going to be a huge problem because you let yourself get baited.
If you find yourself questioning your moves a lot and often having trouble figuring out what spell pairs best as an answer with your opponent’s play,
control decks might be out of your ballpark.
Combo Decks
These decks have found themselves on the outskirts of Standard lately, but the printing of ridiculously powerful cards like Jeskai Ascendency, Dig Through
Time, and Treasure Cruise has rejuvenated the archetype in ways it hasn’t seen in years.
In older formats combo decks are a staple, and dying to Time Vault + Voltaic Key in them is as common as Fatestitcher + Jeskai Ascendency. Storm decks are
also a fantastic example of combo strategies.
Core Concepts of Combo Decks:
1. Wants to interact with the opponent as little as possible.
2. Cards to set up the combo through disruption/information (Cabal Therapy, Gitaxian Probe).
3. Incredibly synergistic; often with interdependent pieces.
4. Lots and lots of things to keep track of.
5. Tries to kill very quickly except in rare cases (Modern Jeskai Combo).
Of all the decks out there, many players believe combo decks are the most difficult to pilot. They often require a keen eye for detail and the ability to
keep track of a great deal of information throughout a game.
Legacy Storm is the deck most commonly pointed to as a great combo deck: it has the ability to kill very quickly through disruption, albeit not too much,
and can lock together several pieces like Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Past in Flames, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and a ton of cantrips to fuel a massive Tendrils
of Agony that will kill an opponent in a single swoop.
These decks are not for the faint of heart, but that’s not a dig by any stretch. Many combo players become very adept at winning due to the heavily
repetitious nature of their deck. Very few have great “Plan B”s. An example of a deck that can either combo or go to Plan B would be Elves in Legacy. If
the combo fails, Elves always has the benefit of attacking with creatures until an opponent is dead, but not many other decks can do that. Splinter Twin’s
Plan B was often to overload on ways to keep their combo safe through more Dispels or Spellskite, occasionally dipping into Blood Moon to lock out a
multi-colored opponent and let them go off unimpeded.
The sheer vastness of a combo can be daunting for even seasoned and exceptional Magic players because a single mistake can cause you to lose the game,
rather than with other archetypes where mistakes can be forgiven and the game doesn’t 100% hinge on them. I wouldn’t recommend just picking up a combo deck
and expecting to know how to play it without putting in an extreme amount of practice, and if near-perfection isn’t something you think you can achieve
almost every single match you play, I wouldn’t suggest these sometimes “glass cannons.”
I personally think figuring out what categories best suit you is the most important way of understanding where you should lend your strengths when choosing
a deck to play with. Of course, you may fall in several of these categories and be adept at multiple facets of the game, but sadly not everyone is so
lucky.
Your tournament may be decided before you even step into the hall, so come wielding the option that gives you the best chance to win.
Unless you’re me.
Then just always play midrange.
Maybe I should take my own advice.