Tip of the Day #6: Play More Lands

I've had a bit of a break-through lately when it comes to DII drafts.  For whatever reason, I had gotten into the bad habit of playing fewer and fewer lands as I tried to lower my decks' curve enough that I was making enough plays to keep up with the ridiculously fast Limited environment.

On a lark, I played an aggressive U/W Skies deck and jammed the eighteenth land instead of the Moment of Heroism I really wanted to play.  I went 6-0 in games and swept the draft.  I noticed that I was making every land drop when it counted, and playing a stream of threats that I could never have managed with only three or four lands in play.

So, for this tip, I turn to Gavin Verhey:

Tip of the Day #5: "Why Delver is a Banana Deck"

For those of you living under a muggle rock these days, there is a bit of a debate growing about deck classification.  If you are trying to improve your game, knowing your plan is ridiculously important, for those of you who question why deck classification even matters.

Over the whole argument, one thing that stands out to me is that everyone seems to be ignoring one of Adrian Sullivan's most important points.  In their haste to mark their own stamp on Magic theory, several writers are forgetting the point of theory in the first place.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find Adrian's tweet to quote directly, but he said, approximately, "What you are doing when you choose to classify Delver as Aggro is not theory, it's empiricism."  In the writer's mind, Delver is Aggro, because what he calls Aggro, is actually something else entirely.  That's empirical thought, and the danger is that empiricism cannot be taught.  Theory succeeds only because it is codified terms with defined parameters that can be passed on.

When you have a public platform such as a webpage or article series, it is crucial that you do not fall into the trap of attempting to communicate your empirical thoughts.  While your strategy may be sound, it will fail for someone who does not properly integrate your "theory" with existing theory.  And they have practically no way of knowing whether or not they need to do so.

Magic continues to evolve, and there is a need to update the fundamental theories we use to operate our strategies.  But that update needs to come in terms of logical interpretations that expand or extend the current model, not reconfigure it completely.  

That is the tip of the day.

Tip of the Day #4: "Playing Around 'It'"

Players serious about developing their game eventually become obsessed with "Jedi mind tricks", bluffs, and representation on both their side of the table and their opponent's.  What I want to address is the minor fact that for every Mike Long combo-ing off without a win condition, or Zach Hall foiling Mike Flores' dastardly plans with a well-timed "#showme", there are hundreds of thousands of examples of completely ineffective angle shots.

Being able to rationally determine the likelihood of a specific card in your opponent's hand is a valuable tool.  But I prefer the golf bag analogy.  When it comes to our game, you have many different skills and abilities that you need to develop.  Understanding card advantage, proper role identification, card evaluation, and careful attention are all clubs in your golf bag.  The point of the game of golf, though, is not to use every club on every hole.  You want to get there in as few strokes as possible, which isn't going to happen if you spend time trying to convince yourself a flop shot over a towering pine tree with your new lob wedge is the right play.

In Magic, you will encounter many situations where your opponent could ostensibly have something in their hand which will affect your board position or plays.  In fact, those situations come about literally every turn.  


I used to enormously enjoy the old Magic Academy and The Play's the Thing series and other articles that focused on the same sorts of things.  When someone whose opinion I respect very highly is explaining that playing a Razorverge Thicket instead of a Forest before casting Llanowar Elves is just like taking a baby cat outside and kicking it against an electric fence because you want them to believe you do not have access to white, I try very hard to pay attention, but, ultimately, not every play on every turn is as crucial as you want to believe it is.

To summarize my occasionally incoherent thoughts on this subject, I'll say that I very rarely play around Rebuke in DII drafts.  If my opponent has it, it isn't going any where.  Whether I attack this turn or six turns from now, I'm going to lose a guy to it.  If it's early in the game, I can be fairly certain that whatever I'm attacking with is going to be worth less than the better cards I'll have access to later.

In conclusion, the pro tip of the day that I'm referring to is "In the early game, play as though they don't have it, and in the late game, play as though they do."  I'm merely adding that in most actual situations, it doesn't matter either way.

Tip of the Day #3

Quick note: For fans disappointed in the lack of longer form content, I hear you, and I have a few things in the works that I think you will really enjoy.  In the meantime, I will be posting another edition of The Road this week, and a writing article should appear on Sunday or Monday.


In the last TotD, I focused on your gameplan when it comes to selecting a deck and executing that plan when it comes time to game at a major tournament (or even FNM, for that matter).  One step I mostly left out was practice, and it's critical that you don't do the same.  Practice is important the way that having air to breathe is important.

If you're still alive then you appreciate what I'm saying.  One thing, I consider practice to be different from playesting.  You do practice while you playtest, but playtesting should also incorporate metagame considerations and developing strategies against specific decks.  When I practice, I'm generating sample hands and figuring out how the starting seven fits into my gameplan.  I even like to think out games in my head, visualizing the action and simulating cards drawn.  If you are thinking about how stupid that sounds, think about how you would imagine a game playing out with your deck.  You'd probably draw a pretty good hand, right?  And more than likely you'd be mise-ing like Budde in his prime, true?

Well, the reason this wish-fulfillment is useful is that it helps you recognize what the best hands for your deck are, which should lead to better mulligan decisions, and help you identify the optimal lines of play for your particular 75.

Speaking of mulligans...

In My Day

Quick, how much did you spend on Magic when you first started playing?  Did you buy tons of packs, or singles?  How old were you when you learned how to draft?  How old when you stopped casting Craw Wurm?*

The most terrifying thing about Craw Wurm is that I once traded a Bird of Paradise for one.

Nostalgia in Magic is powerful.  I still get the same shiver cracking packs of the newest set as I did when my cousin first took me down into my grandparents' basement because he had something to show me.  Recently, I was at a tournament when I found myself sprawled headfirst on the sentimental plane where everyone listens to late Beatles music, owns a piece of power, and people trade Savannah Lions for Tundra Wolves because of first strike.

Huh.

History Lesson #1: AA-Gun from Minnesota Champs 2005

Let’s take a walk down memory lane with the first in a blog/column where I’ll be talking about successful decks I’ve designed in the past, the lessons I learned from those designs, and how you can incorporate my strategies into your own tinkering and brewing sessions. 

Here is the decklist:

AA-Gun

4 Molder Slug

4 Eternal Witness

4 Viridian Shaman

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

4 Viridian Zealot

4 Magma Jet

4 Oxidize

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

4 Tel-Jilad Justice

2 Deconstruct

1 Echoing Ruin

1 Creeping Mold

1Tendo Ice Bridge

4 Shivan Oasis

9 Forest

6 Mountain

Sideboard:

3 Plow Under

3 Arc-Slogger

1 Rude Awakening

1 Kodama of the North Tree

3 Kodama’s Reach

4 Pyroclasm