If you think playing a game of Magic starts with building a deck and ends with sitting down at the table to play, you’re probably leaving out some vital parts that are quite helpful to coming away a winner on that particular occasion. So I’m going to give you a few things to do between building the deck and actually playing that I’m sure can help you a ton.
Assuming you’ve built your deck correctly (I know, bad assumption) you’re still going to want to know how to play it when crunch time comes. So it’s probably a good idea to test it out against the more popular decks just to get some idea of how it plays. You might find that the deck isn’t as good as you thought it was.
Another thing you’re going to want to do is prep yourself emotionally. A lot of people go into a tournament a bundle of nerves. They have absolutely no confidence and, as a result, they make the worst play mistakes possible, even though their hands are actually very good. Yes, sometimes we can be our own worst enemies.
You need to keep things in perspective. It’s just a game. It isn’t life and death. If you can do this, suddenly, there isn’t as much pressure. You’re more relaxed. And when you’re more relaxed, you play better. At least I know I do.
You’re probably also going to want to make sure you make a checklist of things you’re planning to bring with you and check each item off BEFORE you leave the house. Some of these things might include dice, tokens, paper, pencil and money. Yes, money. Most places won’t let you play for free. At the very least, have a credit card that won’t get rejected by the machine. That always helps.
When you arrive at the venue, set up early. Don’t wait until the last minute when you’re rushed. Most venues will make you fill out a deck list. You don’t want to do this 5 minutes before it’s time to start playing. After you’ve done that, get your deck, play mat and whatever else you’re going to be using, ready. Stay calm.
Now, that’s all basic stuff. However, there is one thing I want to add during the deck creation process that’s a little advanced but will GREATLY help you during match play. Because this is a bit involved, I’ve saved this for last.
Knowing how your deck plays out is important. But knowing how your deck plays out is greatly influenced by your land draws. Now, each deck is different. Some decks need very little land and some decks are extremely mana intensive. Your opening hand can, in many cases, mean the difference between winning and losing IF you don’t mulligan correctly.
While I understand that the actual act of taking a mulligan is part of game play, the decision to mulligan a particular hand actually starts with this little piece of beef that I’m going to feed you right now.
Essentially, what you’re going to do is make a chart in your head that will tell you, in advance, when you’re going to keep your opening hand and when you’re going to mulligan without even having to think about it while you’re playing.
How do you do this? Glad you asked.
To understand this, you need to understand a little bit about the law of probability. And the best way to illustrate this is with an example.
Say I’m playing a control decks. Control decks by nature need a lot of land because they’re playing a lot of mana intensive spells.
Let’s say, for this particular control deck, I know that my key spells are 5 cmc and I’d ideally like to cast them no later than turn 5. That means I have to have 5 mana available to me by turn 5. I want this mana to be available, probability wise, at least 67% of the time.
Why 67%? Well, in every match you’re playing best of three games. So you can lose one game and still win the match. That’s a 67% game win rate needed to win every match. If I assume that getting my key spell cast turn 5 will win me that game, or at least give me the best chance of winning, then I want to at least give myself a 67% chance of casting that card each and every game.
So, how many lands do I need to put in my deck in order to ensure that AND how many lands do I have to have in my opening hand to give myself the best chance of hitting 5 lands by turn 5.
By doing a little hypergeometric calculating, starting with a 26 land deck, we come up with the following numbers.
1. We have about a 67% chance of getting 3 lands in our opening hand with a 26 land deck.
2. If we get those 3 lands in our opening hand, the chance of us getting 2 more lands in our next 5 draws is 73%.
This is just what we want. It’s about as good as it gets. However, if these numbers don’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy, then you might want to go up to 27 lands.
Point is, once you’ve done the math, you realize that if you get a 2 land opening hand with this deck, to give yourself the best chance of winning, you can’t keep the opening hand.
But … that means taking a mulligan and only taking 6 cards. If we do that, what are our chances of getting 3 lands our opening hand? It’s down to 52%.
That means, if we take the mulligan, on average, we’ll get the 3 lands we need a little better than half the time.
Now, to determine whether or not we actually take the mulligan, we have to look at the probability of getting our 5 lands with an opening hand of only 2 lands.
It’s about 40%. So you see, we have a better chance of hitting our 5 lands by taking the mulligan than by holding onto the 2 lands.
Of course, we can always go up to 27 lands.
Point is, by going through all these calculations BEFORE you start playing, you take a lot of the decision making time away from the actual match itself. You essentially run on autopilot.
And that is ultimately what you want to do in regard to every aspect of your game. But that’s another article for another time.
To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,
Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim
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