The Future Of Competitive Magic Is With Open Decklists

In 2018, Elaine Chase went onto The Game Awards announcing Magic’s launch into the esports world, an announcement that changed the way I play Magic. Before this, the World Championship was the only event I played in each year where we got to see the opponent’s decklist before each match. Now, playing without that information is an oddity to me. 

Today we’re going over why this shift has happened, what changes between the two structures, and how to best equip yourself strategically for open-decklist events. This might not seem like pertinent information right now, but it eventually will be if you ever have aspirations of joining me in the Magic Pro League. 

Where do we begin? The debate between open- and closed-decklist events is a passionate one. There are a lot of players out there that have never played in an open-decklist tournament and believe their beloved strategies or specific strengths would be hurt by doing so. While this may or may not be true, the reason why these events are run this way is not a feature. It’s simply a fix for an ever-present bug in the marketing system pertaining to top-level Magic.  

Tournament integrity is one thing we can all agree is important, and is also one of the first things that breaks down when a tournament is broadcasted on Twitch. The initial players on coverage end up at a disadvantage in events as their competition could have watched the stream after their own matches finished. This could cause an unfair advantage in the following rounds when one player may be privy to information their opponent does not have nor had access to. 

Other games in the esports industry may not have these problems, but Magic does. Information pertaining to decks, sideboards, and even general strategies can give some players a huge advantage in these important competitions. This is something that had to be addressed for events with coverage, and open decklists were the least-messy path. At first it only affected the World Championship and The Players’ Championships. Eventually other tournament organizers understood the plight of the players, but also the opportunities that could arise when hiding information was no longer a concern. 

Open. Between Feauture Match and Twitter / Stream / Scouting my decklist will be known anyway so I would only be disadvantaged. (Or my follower will be because I won’t disclose it before hand).

— Andrea Mengucci (@Mengu09) March 1, 2020

There’s no denying that the games of Magic themselves are slightly hurt by open decklists. It’s just that every other aspect of the event is better off for it! Coverage teams can openly discuss decks. High-profile players may now do deck techs when normally they’d be skittish about giving away any secrets. Teams don’t have to hire scouts whose job is to go around a venue figuring out which deck each individual is playing. Most importantly, players aren’t constantly fearing they may give up information, or worse, not be doing enough to gain information.

Most players on the Pro Tour were relieved when Wizards of the Coast (WotC) implemented open decklists at the major events. It got even better when we started submitting decklists the day before registration. This allowed players to openly find cards they were missing without the fear of giving away too much information. People weren’t scared of talking to other players in the event about the format, what they were playing, and so forth. Between rounds, players could take breaks instead of spending every waking moment scouting the competition. It was great! 

While this is a net positive for high-level competition, it doesn’t come without side effects. Certain strategies have gained and lost edges over the course of this transitional period. Decks like Infect which gained equity by catching an opponent off-guard no longer had that surprise factor. Graveyard decks like Dredge gained the ability to always know exactly what hate cards opponents had access to. Midrange decks like Jund now knew which half of their maindeck was good to keep in an opening hand and could now mulligan appropriately for the match.  

Some may think this hurts the integrity of the game itself, but I don’t buy into that. Every change to the game impacts what the optimal strategies are. I’m not just talking about new cards. Every rule change is going to affect things, and the London Mulligan’s a perfect example of this. Ever since this change, it’s become optimal to play four copies of good legendary spells when that wasn’t the case previously. Now it’s become easier for decks to function on the mulligan that decks need to be built more powerfully. Also, when mulliganing, it’s easy to get rid of an extra copy of a legendary spell when before you’d just get stuck with two of them instead. 

Now of course there are some things that do actually get lost in the change from closed decklists to open. One of the coolest aspects of Magic is when you can “get” your opponent. Whether that’s with a unique spell, sideboard, or strategy, it’s always nice to have a plan people aren’t prepared for. With open decklists, even if a player isn’t prepared for something, they’ll still be able to see it coming and prepare the best they can for it. 

This loss did sting for me as I was always looking for this sort of technology. I mean, my proudest accomplishment was sideboarding four copies of Fleecemane Lion in a Grand Prix. You really can’t do that anymore! 

The same can be said about bluffing cards that you didn’t even play. Sometimes you could get extra value by tricking an opponent into playing around a card that wasn’t even in your deck because it was usually found in stock lists. That’s not going to happen anymore! 

So yes, there are downsides to tournaments using open decklists. It’s totally reasonable to not like them, and to miss the things that are lost when they are used. I get it, I really do. It’s just that, well, it doesn’t really matter how we feel about it. At the highest levels of competition the pros outweigh the cons and it’s as simple as that. You might not like it, but you will have to get used to it. Most importantly, you’ll have to be prepared for it! 

I’ve played in a ton of open-decklist tournaments, and each one has taught me something new. There’s been a ton of trial and error, and I can’t even sit here and pretend to be a master on the topic. I just know that if my audience wants to get to my level, they will have to learn all of this eventually, so why not try to do my best to educate them?

It’s Not About What Cards You Have, It’s About What Cards They Don’t Have

One of the first mistakes I made was when I was preparing for my very first World Championship. It was my first open-decklist tournament, and I really ran away with the idea that information was going to mean everything. I made sure that all my Constructed decks had an answer for anything my competition could throw at me, and at the time that made sense. Looking back at that mindset makes me laugh, because I forgot one of the golden rules of Magic in my attempt to get cute. 

Being Proactive Beats Being Reactive

The more I tried to make sure I covered all my bases, the weaker I made my deck. Sure I had an answer for everything, but those answers rarely lined up for me. In the end I just made my decks weaker in an attempt to be able to beat everything. Eventually I realized that the information I was gaining from open decklists was best used for piloting my proactive plans. I started to think of it like a game of Minesweeper, and began navigating my cards around their interaction and not focusing on having too much interaction myself. 

A good example is the tail end of the Temur Energy days. At the end of that season, all the decks were pretty much stock. After the first couple of turns most competitive players would be able to list off 70 or more cards in their opponent’s deck, and still Temur Energy was the most winning deck. Now you could just write that off by saying the energy mechanic was busted, but I have something else for you to think about. 

Temur Energy’s biggest strength was in its ability to navigate seamlessly around key interaction points. In fact, the best way to play Temur Energy was to deploy whatever card would make the opponent’s next turns the most awkward. If they held up mana for removal spells, you could cast Rogue Refiner or Bristling Hydra. If they felt the need to tap out, you could slam a Glorybringer. Whatever it was, Temur Energy was prepared to navigate around it, weakening the opponent’s ability to efficiently react. 

More Information = More Power

Like I said earlier, decks like Infect take a major hit in perfect-information matches, while decks like Dredge benefit. And yes, I know these aren’t real Modern contenders right now. They just happen to be perfect examples for what I’m trying to talk about. Dredge is a powerful strategy that’s weak to interaction. Infect is a weak strategy that’s also weak to interaction. Dredge can use the information extremely well while Infect can not. It’s as simple as that.

When both players know what’s going on, the cards will more often play out like checkers. Each player knows what the other has access to, so they’ll both navigate in a way that allows the cards to interact with each other more often. This means that the more powerful and difficult-to-interact-with cards will often overperform. That makes sense, doesn’t it? 

For Mythic Championship VII, Seth Manfield, Javier Dominguez, and I played a unique take on Simic Flash. The deck had many of the archetype’s “greatest hits,” but also added four Nissa, Who Shakes the World and a couple of copies of Hydroid Krasis. It looked weird on paper, but overperformed our greatest expectations. 

So why did we do this? Well, it’s because open decklists would help us know how to play out our games, but the same was true for our opponents. If we didn’t play powerful cards like Nissa, then our very skilled opponents would feel less pressured in games and thus be able to navigate them much more easily. Instead, we paired weaker tempo-based cards with a hard-hitting top-end.

As you can probably tell by now, I’m in the camp of playing powerful and proactive strategies in open-decklist events. I think I’ve always been, but still, I do think this is the optimal way to approach events like this. Now that doesn’t mean I’m just talking about midrange, ramp, or whatever green nonsense I’m always playing. Combo, control, aggro, and midrange can all be good choices in open-decklist events. They just have to be powerful. 

Some combo decks are powerful and resilient, and even benefit from perfect information. Lotus Breach was a great choice for Players Tour Phoenix and one of the benefits of playing this deck was that you’d always know what hate your opponents were bringing in after sideboard. If you saw Damping Sphere, you could prepare for it. If not, then you could ignore it. This is a far cry from combo decks always having to bring in hate out of fear of an opponent having an answer for their combo. 

The same can be said about decks like Mono-Red Aggro. Seth Manfield took the strategy all the way to third place in World Championship XXVI a few weeks back, and the deck in general was the best-performing archetype. Why? It was powerful! It wasn’t trying to cheese people out with Cavalcade of Calamity. It played powerful cards like Anax, Hardened in the Forge; Torbran, Thane of Red Fell; and Embercleave! 

Honestly, if you think your deck loses too much from perfect-information events, it might be a sign that it’s generally underpowered regardless of the event’s rules. Surprise factor, transitional sideboard plans, and altogether tomfoolery is fun, but it’s rarely optimal. Winning a major event with a pet deck is the dream, but it’s one that gets beaten out of you quickly when you’re playing for as much as we are in the Magic Pro League. 

Sideboards with Quantities Versus Those Without

Sometimes I’ll play in events where all 75 cards are public information and other times players only know which cards are in the sideboard without knowledge of the quantities. Honestly, I hate the latter and just think if decklists are open the entire thing should be, but maybe it’s a transitional thing. You know, like a way to ease players competing in their first open-decklist Players Tour Finals. I don’t really know. 

Whatever the reason, you’ll want to treat these differently when tuning your lists. If you’re unsure why, the best example I have is cards like Leyline of the Void in formats where graveyard decks exist. If sideboard numbers aren’t available, simply having one copy of Leyline of the Void may cause your opponent to overreact to it, bringing in every answer they have for the card. Like I said earlier, being proactive beats being reactive and more often than not in this scenario they’ll draw a way to deal with your Leyline of the Void when you don’t even have it. 

I’m not saying this is optimal, but it is something I’ve seen many players do. Values of sideboard cards can shift depending on the format, the decks, and the tools people use to interact with hate cards. It’s important to be cognizant that the information you present will influence your opponent, yet also have the discipline to not go overboard with this puzzle. 

An easy way to go overboard is trying to put too many unique cards in your sideboard when quantities are hidden. It may seem like that will confuse your opponent, but in reality the closer you get to fifteen unique cards, the better chance your opponent can figure out your exact sideboard. I have no science to back this up, but I’ve personally thought the best sweet spot to be either eight or nine unique sideboard cards. Now this is usually in a midrange deck, but let’s be honest, that’s all I usually play. 

When sideboard numbers are available I rarely get cute at all. I just want the most powerful and efficient 75 cards I can find, and don’t get caught up in the corner cases. Sure you might lose equity here and there, but for the most part you’ll always find good plans in the moment if you’re playing good cards. It’s just too difficult to prepare for every scenario when the truth is you’re not equipped to know them all. Someone’s going to show up with spice you didn’t account for, and you’ll have to make plans on the fly. 

That’s actually the best reason for why I’ve recently given myself some overlap in how my decks can sideboard and play out. Normally I like my decks to have clean numbers of cards to bring in and out, but in perfect information matches that’s not always easy to do. You sometimes have to make small changes to your plans, and having enough cards to do that is important. 

When in Doubt, Power Them Out

The last, best lesson I can give you is one that’s won me so many matches in my life. I’m not perfect, and many times in my career I’ve been in situations where I had no idea what was going on. In these moments I’ve learned not to panic about how I should properly interact with my opponent. Instead, I try to make my deck as aggressive as possible, and given the chance I take a very aggressive line. Sometimes they’re not prepared for it or it catches them off-guard. Whatever the reason, my win rate in these games is way higher than I ever thought it should be. 

It makes sense, though, as you need to know exactly how a game is going to play out to sideboard and react properly to it. When you look at the lists and still can’t come up with a good plan, just sideboard down to four to six key removal spells and hammer them! I know this isn’t the sagest advice I’ve ever given, but it has gotten me out of a few sticky situations.