Today, I wanna start by talking to you a bit about luck.
You'll often see that, specially in Limited games (except when the game is a total blowout either due to manascrew, colorscrew or a great discrepancy in play skill), a player wins the game 1-2 turns before he would otherwise lose, USUALLY 1. Did that player get lucky? Sometimes yes, after all, luck IS a factor involved in basically all card games. However, let me be honest with you, luck isn't NEARLY as big a factor as people think - or like to say - it is in Magic. Skill is. Planning is. Testing is. Experience is. "Luck" is the excuse bad players will use (be either bad in skill or just in attitude) to justify their losses, either because they're bitter about it or because they're much worse players than they like to think they are, but won't recognize it. So instead of stopping and thinking how they can improve, they blindfold themselves into believing that whenever they DON'T win, it's because the other player got lucky. Chances are, even you, my loyal readers, may have done it once or twice. But next time it happens, instead of doing this, try thinking thoroughly about HOW that player won. What do I mean? Let me show you.
Let's talk about Limited first.
Maybe he ripped a Blaze off the top of his library with 11 lands out (and only a single mountain!) and did the final 10 points. Gee, gosh, now that's luck! Or is it? How many life points does a Magic player starts the duel with, again? 10? Nope. 20. So in order to win, he had to first knock you down to 10 life, that's half your starting life total! Then again, he also had the insight of playing Blaze, probably realizing how awesome it is in Limited and maybe even stretching his manabase to accomodate a few mountains for it, in his black and blue deck full of evasion creatures. Now how lucky do you think THAT is? That, my friend, requires skill. Even if you did those points of damage to yourself (through painlands and such), he still had the insight of playing the card in the first place, now didn't he?
I once won a game of Triple 10th Limited on the back of a Severed Legion I cast in the third turn. It simply went in 10 times and that was game. I remember my opponent complaining to every force there is, because I just got so lucky I won on the back on a single creature, since he slaughtered all of my other ones and I won at a merely 3 life, staring at a board full of attackers the next turn. However, he fails to see that I not only played 3 copies of Severed Legion, because any form of evasion is awesome in Limited (thus having it in my opening hand in a 40-card deck was not that surprising, it happened a lot that day), but I also played other small, evasive creatures to get my opponent in range for the single Blaze I was playing in my BWR deck. It had a strategy going. Now once I started plucking away at his life total, from 4th turn on, I saw the expression on his face and read "he has no means to get rid of it". Turned out, I was right. So when I sent in my Severed Legion for the 5th time, I had already developed a whole gameplan in my head. He had bigger creatures than me, so I just gang-blocked to trade for his bigger ones, and wasted my removal on the medium-size ones, earning a huge tempo over him. He desperatly dropped threat after threat, and I'd just chump, waste the occasional Essence Drain (packed 2 of these, and played both during this game, so technically, I actually won at -3 life), I even remember casting Blaze at his enchanted Hill Giant that was, at that point, a 5/5 that I couldn't handle otherwise. So was I REALLY lucky? I don't think so.
In constructed, games are a lot more skill-intensive, due to the increase in power level. Decks are just plain better, more consistent and faster.
Everyone who follows up tournament coverages remeber Ruel flipping a winning Lightning Helix on the table from the top, having an empty hand and being dead the next turn if he didn't. Was that luck? Of course not! He knocked down his opponent to 3 life! He already did most of the work. He also made his opponent spend so many resources trying to stop the bleeding that he was out of answers to that topdecked Helix. He didn't waste his cards, Ruel made sure he HAD to spend them earlier. Last, but not least, Ruel was playing a full set of Lightning Helix in his deck, thus his chance of ripping one from the top mid-to-late game was pretty good, actually, since more than 1/3 os his deck was already out of the way.
And there's a lot of other things that are commonly mistaken for luck, when they're clearly not. How often do you see players open with Land, Birds of Paradise; Land, Doran, the Siege Tower? Is that luck? No, that's planning. Playing 4 copies of Birds, playing 4 Dorans and playing a good manabase that allows the color stretch.
"Wow, how lucky was he to have that counterspell ready for my big creature?" That depends. How many counters is he playing? How many turns did he make small plays, only at the end of turn, in order to keep his mana open, waiting for a big threat so he could stop it? "I can't believe he had a Terror for killing my Mistbind Clique!" Why can't you? Terror is a cheap removal, and one that works greatly against most bigger threats in Standard right now, a lot of decks, from control to aggro, play it.
But why am I saying all this? Just so you will stop whining when you lose? NO (or, maybe, as well)! NOW we're gonna start talking business! Now that you know that luck is not a big factor, I'm gonna give a few pointers so you can make it as small a factor as possible, so that you can end up chalking less and less matches lost due to either bad luck on your side or good luck on the other. Those will still happen, of course, but you'll see that, as you increase your play skill and deckbuilding skill, they'll happen on a less and less regular basis.
1 – Play the best cardsDuh. That's a no-brainer, right? Well, it is, but some people are reluctant, either because the best cards are usually more expensive, or because they're afraid they'll "stop having fun" if they go for the throat every time they play a deck. I'll revisit this topic on a future article, but let's just say there is a point to be made, although not as big as those players that refuse to netdeck or play staple rares like to say it is.
For now, let's take into consideration the Standard deck I'm playing the most lately, BG Elves:
4 Treetop Village
4 Mutavault
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
2 Twilight Mire
3 Swamp
3 Forest
4 Thoughtseize
2 Nameless Inversion
3 Terror
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 Imperious Perfect
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Chameleon Colossus
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Profane Command
Now let's take a look at this one:
10 Forest
10 Swamp
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 Imperious Perfect
3 Safehold Elite
3 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Distress
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Terror
Could the second deck win? Surely, it could. Could it win often? Perhaps. But let's face it, the first deck is gonna win its fair share of matches more often than the second one, considering both being played by the same player. You need a burn, do you play Shock or Incinerate? This kind of stuff is what draws the line between a good deck and an average one.
2 – Play a full set of cards you needNow, check again those lists above. They both play full sets of almost every card, except for the finishers, since we don't need to draw as many of them. If you need/want to see a particular card as often as possible in a match-up, play 4 copies. It doesn't matter if it's legendary, if you need it, play a set. Don't be afraid. Brion Stoutarm? Playset. Ajani Vengeant? Set. Gaddock Teeg? 4-of. Doran, the Siege Tower? Four! Always start from a full set, and THEN work your way down the quantities. Gets that much easier to build a deck doing this.
3 – Work on your manabaseCheck again the decks above. What are the odds of the second deck opening with a turn-two Distress, followed by Kitchen Finks? None. It's impossible. Now what would be the odds of the first deck pulling that off? Pretty good, actually. I'm always looking for rare lands, and I never trade away a land unless I've got more than 4 copies of it.
Never. Even after said lands rotate out. This is why I can build basically any deck I want and not lose to colorscrew. Not because I'm the best deckbuilder in the world (which I'm "probably" not), but because I have the lands to support it. Take a look at Quick'n'Toast variants, or Cruel Control, ou UBw Faeries. The reason those decks are even viable is their carefully built manabase. That's how you get a deck to play Cryptic Command, Cloudthresher, Mind Shatter and Empyrial Archangel together, and still work, and win quite often, while at that..
4 – Learn about curveThis is the follow-up to understanding manabase issues. A lot of old-school players are reluctant to play more than 20 lands in their decks. Most players nowadays will stick with 22 and call it a day. Then there are also those "formulas": 21-22 for aggro, 24 for control, 20-24 for combo. That is soooooo wrong. We see decks with as much as 26 lands nowadays, even aggro ones (Kithkin, anyone?)! What you need to figure out is: what is the highest-cost spell I need to cast if I want to win? Turns out, Kithkin needs Cloudgoat Ranger, so it needs a 5-drop. In order to actually cast a 5-drop reliably on the 5th turn (or maybe 6th, tops), you need to hit land drops. You also need to remeber that you can't cast your FIRST spell at the 5th turn, so you need to do something with that mana that you're wasting by letting it sit there each and every turn on unused lands! Maximize your effectiveness. Surely, playing a deck that start dropping threats at 4th turn that are all in league with Brion Stoutarm or Chameleon Colossus seems good, but by the time you drop your first, you might be so down on lifepoints that you won't even get to swing with that Brion. Ever. And then, you'll say what? "#$&*@!, how lucky he is, that he actually casts stuff during the first 4 turns of the game!"... ¬¬
5 – Look for card advantage and avoid card disadvantageCard advantage is a simple, yet extremely complicated concept (nice, huh?). I'll cover it in a different article, so here goes the basics: card advantage means getting more out of a single card. So, simply put, which is better, Counsel of the Soratami or Ancestral Recall? Yeah, blunt example, I know, I said I'm revisiting the topic later. But when building a deck, another thing to look for is card advantage TO YOUR OPPONENT.
So what happens if you build your deck around the Exalted theme, and your main plan is to have 1 Exalted creature with 5 mean auras attached to it? Simple, they play Unmake on it, and you've just lost 6 cards to a single one. "Wow, someone who MAINDECKS removal? That's just my bad luck!" Most decks will play removal, this is a fact. The ones that don't, either have to be obscenely fast or will die horribly most of the time. Am I saying auras should not be played? Not at all. BW decks have been having success playing auras, and I even play a GW one with a full set of Shield of the Oversoul. However, you have to learn HOW to play with auras, and believe me, they're tricky (but for starters, do not build your whole deck around them, and do not depend entirely on them to win)!
On a related note to card disadvantage, there is another mistake new players often make. They start out with aggro decks (at least it's the usual), and they simply dump they're entire hand as fast as they can. You're already down to 4 life and they have 6 creatures against your 1, but they still tap out, and play the last 2 they were holding. You untap, play Wrath of God, and now they hate that card like there's no tomorrow "because it's not fair" (another great excuse made up by bad players, that certain cards are "not fair" or "no fun to play with/against"). Evaluate your position and do not over-extend. Same goes for control players that keep playing land after land, all the way up to, let's say, 15. Why? You'll only need 6-8 anyway. Keep some in hand, bluff some tricks! Play retrace cards, I don't care, but FIND SOMETHING TO DO WITH THOSE EXTRA LANDS! Do not over-extend just for the sake of it, it WILL come back to bite you.
6 – Try to winAnother "duh!", right? Well, let's see.. I've seen (and, in a distant past, even PLAYED) decks that simply have no way of winning rather than waiting for the opponent to deck himself out while protecting themselves from doing so due to recurring cards like Darksteel Colossus (sometimes, they don't even have THIS kind of strategy!), stalling the game as much as possible; and even ones that have no way to win at all and just hope to win the die roll and go first, so they will draw 1 less card, making the opponent lose after 54 agonizing turns! These are, of course, stretches, but the concept applies. For instance, I know it's awesome to have Essence Warden out and play Crypt Champion, making a loop with Saffi Eriksdotter for having arbitrarely large life (there is no "infinite" in Magic). But then, what next? How are you planning to win? Channel out some of that life for a Fireball? Or simply sit on it while activating Millstone? You see, having 1,000,000,000 life is amazing, but you STILL have to win the game in order to advance in a tournament, for instance! A lot of Reveillark players would sit on an active Reveillark waiting for a Mirror Entity so they could combo off bouncing every permanent from their opponent's side of the table with Venser and Body Double, while they ended up losing the game, failing to realize Reveillark is a 4/3 flyer! That's a 5-turn clock, for God's sake! Swing in! Same goes for Swans of Bryn Argol and players wanting to deal 20 with Dakmor Salvage, swing in! Deal the REST with the Salvage! Who knows, you might not even need the Salvage combo, if you can't draw it!, just discarding regular lands might be enough if you knocked them down to 12 already, and that's only 2 swings!
You see, even though some "combos" are awesome when they kick in, people tend to start "playing to combo" instead of "playing to win". Do not lose your focus, EVER.
If your opponent suddenly played so big a threat (Empyrial Archangel, maybe?) that your mind drifted away from your strategy to thinking: "how the #$&*@! will I deal with THAT?", get back on your feet and try to grasp the game state. Do you NEED to get rid of it to win? Is it REALLY threatening you right now? Perhaps your opponent is down to single digits and you have some burn spells in your deck, so you can leave your creatures back to chump-block instead of mindlessly sending them in to try to kill the Angel right now, waiting for a shot at losing only 1 creature in doing so? Stop blaming luck because they drew the Angel (they are playing it for that exact reason, after all, you can't expect all opponents to always draw only lands!) and start thinking! For instance, your life points are there for a reason, USE THEM! Make them a cushion, a safety net! As a great player from Brazil often says: "You don't need to protect every single life point you have, you just need to protect the last one".
Most players end up losing because they do not act, they react. They are not playing to win, they're playing to get rid of that creature, or to cast that spell, or to pull off that combo, or to see how big they can make their guy, or to make that play, or to dump their entire hand and see if the opponent concedes, etc.
7 – Focus on your strategyOk, so now that you're actually playing to win rather than, say, having an arbitrarely large Quillspike with no
trample against an horde of 1/1 chumpblockers, what would be the next step?
Focus on your strategy. You want to make a 100/100 Quillspike? Ok, but have a way to ensure it will get through and ways to protect it before it can! You can't say "OMG, they're so lucky, they're playing with CREATURES THAT CAN BLOCK!" and expect it to actually be true, right?
Want to beat them down with monored Demigod? Then stop playing Mutavaults and complaining about colorscrews, you need 5 red mana by 5th turn, for Christ's sake, stick with Ghitu Encampment! Want to play a lot of counter spells AND keep the board clean? Sure, but then you need to pack something better than Severed Legion to go the distance and finish the game!
Another way to focus on your strategy is to go for redundance. Surely, 4 Flame Javelins and 2 Shocks are enough to seal a match, but if you want to play a monored burn deck in Standard, packing exactly 20 damage won't cut it! Play Shock and Tarfire, play Incinerate and Shard Volley, play Flame Javelin, heck, play Jaws of Stone! Redundancy increases consistency, and consistency nets more victories in the long run.
8 – Plan aheadI covered this before, but your main goal, usually, is to deal 20 to your opponent, not to kill his freshly cast Chameleon Colossus, so make your plays with THAT in mind, not this. Sneak in every point of damage you can. Have creatures in hand and a Figure of Destiny on the table? Buff the Figure first, save your creatures for later, make it so big that the opponent HAS to deal with it, and then you drop the bomb, playing the ones you held in hand. Try to figure out your opponent's plays, then outsmart and outplay them!
9 – Prepare yourselfStudy the meta you're about to face. Check the most popular decks, playtest against them, heck, even build your own deck having them in mind. Let's say you have a sideboard card that's gonna come in every single match against Faeries and Cruel Control. Are those the most popular decks in your area? Perhaps you should maindeck it, then. These minor tweaks that may seem irrelevant for the outsider that simply gleans over decklists are the difference between going 6-1 and making Top 8 or going 5-2 and missing the bracket on the back of tiebreakers! You can't say "I'm so unlucky, I faced 3 Faerie decks!" when Faeries is CLEARLY the most popular archetype in your meta! That's not bad luck, that's poor planning!
Another part of being prepared is: playtest your deck. Play it to exhaustion! A lot of people claim to having switched decks the day of the tournament and still going great. To this, I say: they're either very good players (and should probably be in the Pro Tour) or very good liars. Even in a rather easy meta, you'll still have some good players and some rogue decks show up. THIS is where knowing your deck comes in most handy! You don't know his deck, so how can you be sure of what he's going to do next? You can't be prepared for everything, but if you know your deck, you'll know all the small tricks and interactions that, although not coming online too often due to being irrelevant in the top match-ups, might save you in THIS match-up that you need to win right now!
10 – Have a backupMagic allows for a 75-card deck, since you can have a 15-card sideboard. MAKE USE of this sideboard. Do not use it to cram cards you want to TEST, use it to pack cards you NEED in certain match-ups! Also, recognize that you can't be ready for everything. If your deck has a match-up so poor against a certain archetype that you need to devote 6 slots of its sideboard to fighting that archetype, ask yourself: will this make my win ratio skyrocket enough that I'll almost ALWAYS win against it? How many of those decks do I expect to see? What other match-ups will go poorly because of lack in sideboard space? How many of THOSE decks, combined, do I expect to see? Can I maindeck any of this stuff and still make it good enough against the rest of the field? Sometimes, if changing decks is not an option, you might want to consider sucking it up and simply scrapping the match-up against a certain archetype altogether, ir order to survive against the others, but you can't simply say it's bad luck you have 15 cards against Faeries and ended up playing against Reveillark, Cruel Control and Quick'n'Toast and being roasted!
Well, this is it for now, my loyal readers! Thank you for sticking around until the end of this article, and I hope the pointers here serve you well on your road to improving your skills and making you a better player (and not having to blame Lady Luck so often for your mistakes)! Feedback and criticism are always welcome, so fire away!
Topic: ARTICLE: Improving deckbuilding and fighting Lady Luck! (Read 6484 times)