Magic The Gathering Tips – Get Good Sleeves

Posted on December 7, 2012 at 2:45 pm by landboy

This isn’t a subject that I find is talked about a lot, but it should be. See, I just recently discovered that having good sleeves on my cards saved me from having to replace my cards. A quick story and then some additional thoughts.

I’ve been playing since 1994 and can count the number of sleeves I’ve busted in all this time on one hand. Of course I treat my cards with kid gloves. Some of them I paid a lot of money for and don’t want to see them ruined.

Well, just recently, at a Friday Night Magic, I was playing an opponent who took my deck and shuffled it quite vigorously. When he handed it back to me, he had busted more sleeves than I’d busted in a lifetime of Magic.

Fortunately, I had a sideboard with me so I was able to remove the sleeves from the sideboard and replace the ones that were busted. But what if I wasn’t playing a sideboard or the sideboard wasn’t in sleeves? I would have had to go upstairs, get new sleeves and sleeve up my cards. This would have taken time away from the match.

Yes, this is the first time this has ever happened to me during the course of an event. I consider myself one of the lucky ones because this sort of thing happens all the time. At least so I hear.

But it’s not so much the sleeves that bother me. I mean, after all, sleeves are only a few bucks for 50 sleeves. I’m certainly not going to go broke from buying a package of them. But what about the cards themselves? What if I wasn’t playing with sleeves or had the real cheap ones? My cards COULD have been bent or God knows what? I mean this guy was really shuffling my deck.

I can’t put a value on your cards for you. Only you can do that. Some people play with Power 9 cards without sleeves. I cringe when I hear this, but it’s true. They just don’t care and there isn’t anything you can do or say to make them care. So, if that’s YOU, then reading this article has been a complete waste of your time.

But, if you’re like me and other people like me, you’ll probably want to make sure that you play with sleeves. Forgetting about how much you value your own cards, what happens if you decide you want to trade your old cards for new cards? In the case of playing Standard Constructed, that happens a lot, especially with people who can’t afford to go out and buy new cards all the time.

If your cards are beat up because you either didn’t use sleeves or used cheap sleeves, few people are going to give you equal value for your card. Your Jace, Architect Of Thought might be worth $35 mint, but if it’s all bent up, do you think anybody is going to trade you a $35 card that IS mint in return? I know I wouldn’t. If a card is bent enough, even in sleeves, it could be considered marked and unplayable.

So do yourself a favor. Invest a few bucks and buy yourself some GOOD sleeves when you play Magic.

Your cards will thank you for it.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic the Gathering Tips – Eat Your Breakfast

Posted on December 6, 2012 at 1:53 pm by landboy

Magic the Gathering players have NO idea how important it is to eat their breakfast in the morning. And when they don’t, they wonder why they lose so much.

Take this scenario.

You’re in a Legacy tournament. You haven’t eaten and your blood sugar is low. Your eyes start to get a little blurry. You feel like you’re getting ready to pass out. You know you’re playing against combo and your opponent is just about ready to go off.

They cast their final spell in order to put the nail in your coffin.

You reach for your Force of Will and some other blue card to pitch it. But your eyes are getting more and more blurry. You can’t quite see straight. You reach for a blue card but instead pull out an Aether Vial and pitch that. Your opponent calls you on it. You take it back. You can’t find the blue card.

And then … you collapse in your seat.

All because you didn’t EAT YOUR BREAKFAST.

Okay, all kidding aside now. Magic the Gathering is a very intense game. The amount of concentration at the highest level is mind boggling. The slightest mistake can cost you the game and maybe even the match. You want your head to be clear at ALL times.

Well, that’s NOT going to happen if you don’t EAT YOUR BREAKFAST.

And if you’re playing an afternoon event (this Saturday is a 1 PM GP Trial in Fords, NJ) then you probably want to make sure that you have a good lunch before you go.

Why?

If you make it all the way to the end of Swiss (usually 5 rounds) you’re looking at about 5 PM. Now for me, that’s already dinner time. But what if you make it INTO the top 8? Wow, that’s at least another hour even if you lose in the quarter finals. That means you’re not leaving until about 6 PM.

I don’t know about you but if I haven’t eaten since 8 in the morning, I’m going to be darn good and hungry by 6 PM.

And shudder the thought if you ever make it to top 4 or top 2. Now you’re looking at 7 PM or even 8 PM finish. That is already getting too late for me even if I DID eat my lunch. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I want to MAKE the top 8.

People minimize the importance of a good meal, especially when they’re young. Hey, I remember what it was like to be a kid. Funny thing is, unlike today, I was ALWAYS hungry. So I don’t know HOW you kids do it. I could NEVER go a whole day without eating, especially if I was playing in some event.

Make no mistake about it. Magic is an event. It can really stress your brain, especially if you’re playing a control deck. In fact, that is one deck I am NOT bringing with me this Saturday. No need to make things harder for myself than they have to be.

Anyway, please take my advice and eat something before you go to play.

You’ll play a lot better and your results will be a lot better.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Rhymes With Orange

Posted on December 5, 2012 at 2:27 pm by landboy

Okay, you got me. Nothing rhymes with orange. So Land Boy, where on EARTH are you going with this one? Ah, there is a method to my madness. So hang in there and you’ll discover what it is very shortly. Ready? Good, let’s get rhyming.

Just like nothing rhymes with orange, there are Magic cards that don’t seem to be good for anything. You look at them and look at them and the only thing you can come up with is, “What the heck were they smoking when they made this card?”

Let’s take this card as an example.

Kaervek’s Spite

If you check out the card, you pay 3 black,  sacrifice all your permanents, discard your whole hand and target player loses 5 life.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I can think of better ways to inflict 5 life’s worth of pain on my opponent. I mean this card is just flat out BAD.

But then a funny thing happened.

WotC came out with something called Barren Glory and suddenly, between that card and Oblivion Ring, tossing in old Kaervek, you had a pretty cool combo where, on your upkeep, you had no permanents except for Barren Glory and you won the game.

How neat is that?

Okay, what’s my point? Well, for starters, things aren’t always as they appear. Something may look absolutely HORRIBLE at first glance but then, combined with other things or looking at other factors, that absolutely horrible thing isn’t so bad and may even be quite good.

In addition to that, you can’t judge anything in a vacuum, especially not when it comes to Magic. I have seen cards that were never played for years and years and then suddenly, because of the creation of another card, became a Vintage or Legacy staple.

See, WotC, when they make new cards, they really don’t check to see how they’re going to interact with old cards. They just don’t have the time or the manpower to do so. Think about all the thousands of cards that have been printed and you’ll understand why this is an impossible task. So what they do is JUST test for the current environment, mainly Standard constructed, limited and block. Everything else is fair game to be busted to hell and back. And it has been. In fact, just recently, Griselbrand has been banned in Commander.

Personally, I always look for the next “new” card that’s going to make some old unplayable jank a busted combo. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s SO much fun to watch as players start complaining about what eternal format just got wrecked by yet another 1 drop. I’m looking at you Mental Misstep. Heck, 1 drop? You can cast the darn thing for 2 lousy life in ANY color deck. Yeah, that wasn’t too much of a mistake in eternal formats where there are a ton of viable 1 CMC cards that are staples of the format.

Thank goodness for the ban hammer.

Anyway, the next time you look at your favorite “worthless piece of crap” card and think that it’ll NEVER see play ANYWHERE, just remember that right around the corner is a card developing team that’s just chomping at the bit to throw that reality right out the window.

Nothing might rhyme with orange, but Kaervek’s Spite is absolutely playable.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering News – Urza Is Turning Over In His Grave

Posted on December 4, 2012 at 1:41 pm by landboy

Okay, so we all know that Urza died while fighting Gerrard, who was fighting for his love Hanna. Now none of this would have happened had it not been for Yawgmoth pitting the two against each other. But whatever. In the end, Urza’s spirit ending up living within the body of Karn. Not a bad end, even if Urza DID end up decapitated.

Well, here we are umpteen years later and Urza’s body, what’s left of it, is turning over in his grave, wherever it is. Why? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he’s taken a look at where Magic the Gathering has gone and isn’t all too happy with its direction.

See, back in the good old days, spells reigned supreme. Creatures were pretty much, um, pathetic? No, pathetic is too kind. Let’s call them virtually unplayable by today’s standards. Except we DID have to play them. There really weren’t a lot of ways to win with just spells. Oh sure, you had the old Illusions of Grandeur/Donate combo.

What’s that you say? Never heard of it? My, you ARE new to this game. The combo was simple. You cast Illusions, which had a pretty steep upkeep cost, and then gave it to your opponent with Donate. When he was no longer able to pay the upkeep, he lost 20 life, which was usually enough to kill him. This was a pretty nasty deck back in its day.

But still, for the most part, you DID need a creature to eventually win the game, even if it was just a lone Morphling. Still, spells dominated the game. They allowed a lone Morphling to emerge victorious.

Today, it’s a whole new ball park Magic geeks. Spells have been nerfed to hell and back. Yeah, you still have a few good ones, but nothing like what we had back in the day when men were men and women were glad. Wait, that’s another subject. Never mind.

Point is, the stuff that Urza wielded like a true sorcerer is now a shell of its former self. Card draw, which used to be a healthy 3 for 1 blue is now 2 for a blue and 3 colorless. I mean I can understand inflation, but THIS is ridiculous. Urza would NOT approve.

And enchantments? Most of them aren’t even playable anymore. What happened to the days of Land Tax and Necropotence? What happened to Oath of Druids? Hell, we can’t even get a decent anthem anymore. Intangible Virtue is great for tokens but what about the rest of the critters?

Don’t even get me started on burn spells. Lightning Bolt is now too powerful? I remember the first time they removed that card from the core set. Everybody was up in arms. How do you remove a staple like that? And even Incinerate is gone. Now we have some piece of crap called Searing Spear.

I want my money back!

Okay, I’ll admit … Bonfire of the Damned is pretty cool. But it’s also very inconsistent. If you don’t miracle it, it’s pretty lackluster. But as burn spells go, it’s decent.

Of course we didn’t have Planeswalker cards back then. Maybe if we did, Urza wouldn’t have died in the first place.

But he did. And right now, looking at where Magic has gone, he is turning over in his grave.

Can Jace and Tamiyo be too far behind?

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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What’s Your Magic The Gathering IQ?

Posted on November 29, 2012 at 2:06 pm by landboy

So, what’s your Magic the Gathering IQ? No, I’m not talking about intelligence. I’m talking about intolerance. Some of us are less tolerant of things than others. In this case, the lower the IQ the better. I honestly think mine is close to zero, though there are a few things that bother me. Let me touch on those first.

I pay a lot of money for my cards. All I ask is that you respect them. So when somebody takes my deck at a GPT or PTQ, and shuffles it like a madman, splitting sleeves and darn near bending cards, I tend to get a little irked.

Another thing that I don’t like is cheating. For crying out loud, it’s a game. Do you REALLY have to resort to cheating in order to win? I’m not even just talking about major events. I’m talking about people who cheat at Friday Night Magic or even, gasp, casual play. Really?

I’m also a bit annoyed by trading practices. I can understand now wanting to trade me your Jace, Architect of Thought ($35) for my Cavern of Souls ($20) but not wanting to trade your Blood Tribute ($0.41) for my Battle of Wits ($0.34) is bordering on the absurd. I have no trouble trading a card that is a buck more than the card I want if I really want it. But some people are so, um, cheap.

You can also get me a bit hot under the collar if you take 3 minutes during your turn to decide that you’re going to play a land and then pass the turn. Really? It took you 3 minutes to decide to play a land and pass? Some people, I get, are naturally slow players. But then you got those who just love to drag the match to time, usually after they’ve won game 1. Not cool.

It’s also not too cool if you’re supposed to be starting a match but you’re outside smoking or  hanging out at the bar between rounds. For one thing, it gives us less time to play the match. No, the T.O. isn’t going to give us more time. And while I’m within my rights to declare a forfeit if you’re not there within a certain amount of time, I’m too nice to do that. So please, the least you can do is be on time for our scheduled match.

One thing I have no problem with is the deck you decide to play as long as it’s legal for the format we’re playing. A lot of players hate playing against combo, control, land destruction, reanimator or whatever. In fact, that’s probably one of my pet peeves … players who do nothing but complain about all the decks and cards that they don’t like playing against. I don’t know but back in my day (a LONG time ago) we didn’t complain about those things. We just played the cards we were given to play with. So if you want to combo out against me turn 2, go for it. I’m cool.

So what about you? What’s YOUR Magic IQ? Are you cool with most things are do you get hot under the color with even the littlest thing?

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Competing On A Budget

Posted on November 28, 2012 at 4:13 pm by landboy

Let me start off by saying that competing and winning on a budget is NOT easy. But it CAN be done. I remember one FNM where I went 5-1-1 and finished 3rd with … are you ready for this?

A $30 Goblin deck.

This was when everybody else was pretty much playing Delver and running up tabs of at least $300 for ONE deck. So third place with a $30 deck isn’t too shabby.

Okay, so how exactly do you go about putting together a competitive deck on a tight budget?

Before I get there, let me preface what I’m about to share with a disclaimer. The term “tight budget” means different things to different people. For one person, the term is anything under $100. For somebody else, $100 is like asking them to spend $10,000. They’re lucky to be able to put together 20 bucks.

Having said that, there is only so much you’re going to get out of $20 worth of cards, so please don’t expect miracles. They rarely happen. Of course there are other options which I will get to at the end of this article.

Let’s get down to the good stuff.

To put together a competitive deck that doesn’t cost too much, you first have to understand card evaluation. Contrary to popular belief, not every powerful card in Magic is a rare. Delver himself was a common. Ponder and Mana Leak, two cards that players were begging to be banned, are commons.

Okay, got it? Rarity does NOT equal power. Yes, there are rare cards that are powerful. But there are plenty of common and uncommon cards that are powerful too.

The trick is to be able to spot the common and uncommon cards, as well as the “cheap” rares, that are actually GOOD cards.

In the current standard, these cards are all commons and excellent cards to play.

  • Arbor Elf
  • Cloudshift
  • Delver of Secrets
  • Doomed Traveler
  • Faithless Looting
  • Naturalize
  • Negate

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Uncommon cards, which you can pick up for 25 cents a piece, are just as numerous and even more powerful in some cases. In fact, you could build a budget deck with mostly common and uncommon cards and only need a handful of rare cards to fill it out.

If you’re playing a deck with 24 lands and 36 spells and 28 of those spells are anything other than rare cards, those 28 spells will cost you about $7. In many cases, even less. And, if you’re playing a mono colored deck (certainly doable) your lands will cost you a penny each. That’s about a quarter for 24 lands.

So you’re really looking at about 8 cards that are going to cost you some money. Well, there are top flight rares that go for as little as $7. If you needed 8 such cards, you’re looking at about $56 worth of rares. Add that to the $7 in common and uncommon cards and you’re looking at a deck that’s going to run you about $63.

Again, my Goblins deck cost me about 30 bucks. The only rares I had in it were my Goblin Chieftains which went for about $3 at the time. Yes, some great rares are dirt cheap.

The key to that deck was the synergy between the other Goblins and each other and the Chieftain. The deck was also very fast and had lots of cheap burn spells, all commons.

In fact, in the history of Magic, Goblins may be just about the cheapest deck you can put together and not only be competitive, but actually win with.

But like I said, “budget” is a relative term. If $20 for a deck is too much money for you, it’s unlikely you’re going to play this game competitively. But like I also said, there are other options.

One of the best ones is, instead of buying cards, get packs from time to time, keep the rares that other people are playing but that you have no use for, and trade them for the rares that you need in order to put together the deck that YOU want to play.

Yes, it takes some time. But in the long run, it’s going to be very cheap for you to do as you won’t have to shell out a load of money all at once. The downside, unfortunately, is that if it takes you too long to get the cards you need, they may not be standard legal (assuming that’s the format you want to play) by the time you’ve got your whole deck put together. But, it is an option.

The bigger point is, yes, you CAN build a deck on a budget that CAN do very well.

Even if you’re a scrub like me.

To YOUR Magic The Gathering Enjoyment,

Steve “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Tips – Are You In The Zone?

Posted on November 27, 2012 at 1:53 pm by landboy

We hear about being in “the zone” when it comes to just about every competitive sport. Magic the Gathering is no different. The questions I’m going to ask and try to answer in this article are these. What IS the zone? How do you know if you’re in it? And if you’re not, how do you GET in it? Hopefully, by the time you’re done reading this, you’ll have all the answers that you need.

Let’s start with what the zone is. The zone is this happy place where nothing else in the world exists at that moment. It’s a place where you see nothing but the cards in front of you, on the battlefield, in the graveyards and know EXACTLY what you’re going to do next without even having to think about it. It just happens.

Okay, why is it even important to be in the zone? Well, unless you’re made out of steel, it’s natural to become nervous or anxious during a match. After all, we’re not robots. And sometimes that nervousness can cause us to make mistakes that we wouldn’t have normally made if we weren’t nervous. By being in the zone, you greatly reduce the chance of such nervousness and thus reduce the chance of making a play mistake. If you’re playing for prizes, this can greatly increase your chances of winning those prizes. That’s why it’s important to be in the zone.

Great, but how do you get into this happy little place where nothing else exists and you can do no wrong? Well, if you practiced any form of meditation, that would probably have helped you a lot. Barring that, what you want to do is talk to yourself as much as you can BEFORE you go to play.

Tell yourself over and over that you’re going to make all the right plays, that you know your deck inside and out (you better) and that you’ve got a set play for every contingency. You can do no wrong. And even if you make a mistake, you will look past it. It’s done. You won’t make another mistake. You will only concentrate on the turn at hand. You will NOT think about the game’s outcome or what will happen if you lose. You will not think about the next game. Only the turn you’re playing.

Does this require a lot of discipline? Sure does, especially when things aren’t going so well and you’re looking at a possible elimination from an event with just ONE more loss. It’s hard not to have those things in the back of your mind. But in order to get into the zone, you MUST get those things out of your mind. Your focus should be on one thing ONLY … the turn you’re playing.

In fact, if you’re really in the zone, your mind should only be on each phase of each turn.

When you untap your permanents, make sure you untap all of them or at least the ones that CAN be untapped. That means knowing at all times what permanents can’t untap. You don’t want to think about this. It should just happen.

When you get to your upkeep, you should automatically know what triggers there are during your upkeep, which ones you have to do manually and in what order you plan to do them. This should all be done without having to think.

When you draw your card, even before you do so, you should know each play for each card in your library that you’re drawing so you can make the RIGHT play without hesitation. You shouldn’t draw a card and have to say to yourself, “Oh my, what do I do with THIS?”

When you get to your main phase, you should automatically know spells you’re going to cast, if any, and if and with what creatures you will attack. You should already know what all the possible outcomes are given the deck your opponent is playing.

When you end your turn, you should know EXACTLY how you’re going to end it without having to give it any thought.

And you will KNOW you are in this zone when you realize, after playing, that you weren’t thinking about your dog that you forgot to take for a walk, or your girlfriend who’s ticked off at you because you forgot her birthday, or your homework that you were supposed to have done for tomorrow but forgot about because you’ve been in the zone for your Magic event.

Okay, yeah. Sometimes being in the zone isn’t a GOOD thing as far as the rest of the world is concerned. But if that rest of the world doesn’t exist, at least for a few hours, then you are that much closer to being in the zone.

Just make sure you buy your girlfriend flowers the next day.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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The Magic The Gathering Generation Gap

Posted on November 26, 2012 at 4:07 pm by landboy

Sadly, this isn’t one of my warm and fuzzy articles. The subject is one that has been bugging me for a while now, especially the more I go on forums and read the opinions of many of the players there. I have to keep saying to myself, “These guys have to be in the minority.” But I’m not sure. So I have to ask myself this.

Do we really have a Magic the Gathering generation gap?

When I started playing back in 1994 around Revised, the game was new and exciting. Every pack I opened was a surprise. We didn’t have the luxury of the Internet to know what cards were in a set even BEFORE the set came out. Heck, we didn’t even know what a rare was.

As for the game itself, we looked at the cards we had, tried to pick out the best ones we could and make the best decks we could. We didn’t look at a card and say “That’s busted!” We didn’t complain about power level or anything like that. If somebody played a Sinkhole on us turn 1 followed by a Black Vise (thanks to good old Dark Ritual), that was life. We dealt with it.

We didn’t start asking for cards to be banned because we didn’t like playing against them. We just dealt with the situation as best as we could. And if we ran up against a deck that we couldn’t beat, we worked on our deck to improve it until we could beat it or we picked another deck. When I first started, I had LOTS of decks in all the colors.

And it seems that we all had a lot of fun. If we got mana screwed or had our lands destroyed or had our spells countered, we just dealt with it and went on to the next game. There was no rage quitting. There was nothing but enjoyment of a great game.

What the hell happened to those days?

Today, everybody has to know EVERY card in a new set BEFORE the set is released. And then, they complain about every card in it. Either it’s crap or it’s overpowered. Ultimately, when the set is spoiled, the general consensus is that the set is bad.

Then we actually start getting our cards and putting decks together. We do this by going to Ebay and just buying what we need. The fun of opening packs, at least for a lot of people, is gone. Some players only buy a few cards because the rest are garbage. And because the majority feel this way, prices of these cards (dealers have to make their money somewhere) are insane. Back in the early days, a $20 card was the top of the heap. Today, $20 isn’t even close to the most expensive card from a new set. Currently, Jace, Architect of Thought is about $35. Thragtusk is about $25.

And then we start playing. Wow, that’s when the complaints really begin.

  • This deck is overpowered
  • This card is busted.
  • This meta is stale

And it goes on and on and on. Everybody is miserable because their pet deck isn’t winning or they’re seeing a particular deck more than they’d like.

You can blame the Internet for that folks. Because of how fast information travels these days, you can find out the top deck in a day and have the cards in your hands within a week, or sooner if you like.

Back in the old days, we had no idea what anybody was playing.

In short, not only has the game changed but players’ expectations have changed. What we used to accept years ago, we now reject with a passion. Blue used to be fine just the way it was. Now it’s busted. Go figure.

And yes, it does appear to be a generational thing. All the people I know who accepted Magic for what it was are now around my age or a little younger. It seems that those who complain about every little thing are much younger. This might have something to do with the overall general “instant gratification” thing that’s been going on for a while.

Whatever the reason, Magic has changed because the players have changed. I’m not saying that this is good or bad. But it is a lot different from the Magic that I grew up with.

Maybe that just makes me old.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering And Why We Need Rock, Paper, Scissors

Posted on November 23, 2012 at 2:34 pm by landboy

I’m probably going to lose a lot of readers with this one but that’s okay. Quite honestly, the fewer wing nuts reading my stuff, the better. Yes, a major rant is coming so hang onto your horses folks. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

I made the mistake of attending Magic the Gathering forums … something I didn’t do during my first 18 years of playing this game. I can see that it was the best thing for my sanity … something that’s all but gone now.

It amazes me at some of the misinformed nonsense that I see posted at forums. I won’t mention any names in particular. But if you’ve been attending these forums yourself, you know which ones they are. And it’s not the fault of the forum owners and administrators, though personally I would ban most of these people for life.

There just isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t read something like this.

“Counterspells are bad for the game.”

Or …

“Combo is dumb and shouldn’t be allowed.”

The number of times I have had to face-palm during the course of a day have made me wonder if I should just go back in my cave and ignore these idiots.

Or maybe I should try to educate them.

This is my attempt at the latter, ill advised as it probably is. Most people, when they have their minds made up, don’t change them … for anything. But what the heck, I’ll give this a shot.

Okay, so you don’t like control or combo. Great. Maybe you don’t even like aggro. I’ve seen posts on forums talking about how dumb this game has gotten because it’s all about turning creatures sideways. It’s hard to argue that when it comes to Standard, which is why I thank God for the eternal formats.

Regardless of what your stance is on control, combo or even aggro, this is why we need all three archetypes for this game to remain the quality game that it is.

You can thank rock, paper, scissors for that.

If you’re not familiar with this …

  • Rock breaks scissors
  • Scissors cuts paper
  • Paper covers rock

In the Magic the Gathering universe …

  • Aggro is rock
  • Control is scissors
  • Combo is paper

Why does this work?

Let’s take rock (aggro) and scissors (control).

Control is slow. It takes a long time to stabilize board position. It tries to do this via early counter magic and/or disruption, such as board wipes until it can drop its big win condition.  The problem is, aggro is too fast for it. By the time control stabilizes, control is almost dead and it doesn’t take too long to finish it off. So generally speaking, aggro beats control.

However, aggro is not without its nemesis, which is combo (paper).

See, as fast as aggro is, combo can be even faster. While aggro is building up its army trying to bring combo down to 0 life, combo just needs to find a few pieces to “go off” and end the game before aggro can do those last few points of damage. A very fast combo deck can easily beat an aggro deck because aggro has no real way to stop it.

Ah, but that’s where control comes in.

See, control (scissors) cuts up combo (paper) because all control has to do is play a well placed counterspell and combo’s plans go up in flames. In fact, it is extremely difficult for a combo deck to beat a control deck.

So because Magic the Gathering has this built in checks and balances, no one archetype has an advantage overall. This makes for a rich and rewarding experience.

But what happens if we, say, remove control by taking away all counterspells? Well, combo then has nothing to worry about because all that’s left is aggro. When that happens, eventually, all the aggro players stop playing aggro and all we see are combo mirror matches all day long looking to see who can “go off” first. This makes for very non interactive Magic and a bad game.

Same thing with combo. If we totally remove it from the equation, which is what has happened in current standard, all you have left is aggro and control. And aggro is seriously winning this war. You hear many players complaining that Magic has turned into “turning dudes sideways.” In many ways, that’s what it is.

Surprisingly, control is putting up some decent numbers in this current standard, but aggro decks are still the dominant ones.

If you took away aggro, all that you’d end up with is control versus control because nobody would play combo. There would be no way to win.

So you see, we need all three basic archetypes for a healthy environment. In the eternal formats, we have all archetypes represented and, because of this, we have a healthy format in Vintage (though pretty much dead because of card availability), Legacy (dying slowly because of the same problem but not as severe) and Modern, which is probably the best format of the three. All three archetypes are viable and cost to enter isn’t off the charts.

Standard is slowly becoming the format of creature combat. It has taken that turn because it appeals to the new player and that’s where the money is for WotC. But that’s another subject for another time.

For now, please understand that in order for this game to remain the rich game that it is, doing away with one archetype is a bad idea, which is why when I hear people say things like “I hate counterspells” I want to smack them over the head.

Magic the Gathering didn’t last close to 20 years because it contained aspects that the new and uninformed player thinks are “unfun.” The game has lasted this long BECAUSE of those aspects. And hopefully, WotC will come to its senses and realize that if this game is going to survive another 20 years, it can’t turn into rock/scissors, rock/paper or paper/scissors.

You need it all to make Magic what it is.

To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,

Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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Magic The Gathering Play Tips – Prep Before You Play

Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:52 pm by landboy

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

Get my FREE report “7 Steps To Magic Success” and become a better Magic player

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