I’ve only just seen it so I haven’t gotten a chance to chat about it with my Top 8 Magic compatriot BDM, but I’m sure he thinks it’s excellent, too. A few years ago he and I collaborated on a deck called Black Thumb. The concept of Black Thumb was parallel to Miracle Grow, only instead of growing your Quirion Dryad by playing card drawing and Counterspell, we grew our Dryads by manipulating our decks, destroying creatures, and tearing up the opponent’s hand.
The downside to the Black Thumb deck was that sometimes you would draw a middle turns Quirion Dryad and it would be this pointless 1/1 Green creature.
Or you would have to play a Green spell viz. Naturalize and it would not grow.
Nyxathid is very interesting as a “Quirion Dryad” given the Black Thumb model.
You are basically given a bonus of +1/+1 (upper limit of 7/7) for beating up the opponent’s hand. It doesn’t matter if you put a card in the graveyard with Raven’s Crime, on top of the opponent’s deck with Agonizing Memories, or just pretend to take it away temporarily (you know he’s getting it back) with Tidehollow Sculler… As long as his hand is nil, you have a gigantic 7/7. Draw step or so… still Dragon-sized.
If you play this card very early on turn two or three, it is a small 1/1 or 2/2. The opponent can [try to] sandbag the grip and manage the size on this guy, but that will sometimes be pointless (you go and get ’em anyway) or embarrassing.
Shock that.
“Okay.”
It’s dead.
“Actually, it’s not. You have one less card in hand now.”
If I just go ahead and concede, you’re not going to tell everyone I just did that, are you?
“Okay.”
Okay then, concede.
…
You’re still going to tell everyone, aren’t you?
“Obv.”
Well, I probably deserved it.
Aesthetics:
I’m going to go ahead and skip this section on account of I already wrote an imaginary dialogue, which is about as “aesthetic” as it gets with five minutes to go before the Cavs game.
Where can I see this fitting in?
Frankly, lots of places. This is a superb card. It is just a good creature in a Black deck that destroys the opponent’s hand, or could probably be a good sideboard card against Red Decks for mopping up attrition fights (he spends his last Shock, you go ahead and deploy your Verdant um… Thorn… oh, it’s actually an Elemental).
IT’S ACTUALLY AN ELEMENTAL?!?
That is a whole other bag of bananas, now isn’t it?
Smokebraider, Mournwhelk, this cat (err… Elemental)…
Like I said: lots of places.
Snap Judgment Rating: Staple (low) / Role Player or sideboard Role Player (high)
I just realized I can skip typing all these card jones by just pasting an image of the card (anyone who has already read the Dragonsoul Knight post can go back… It is now adorned with an image of the aforementioned Dragonsoul Knight).
Okay… Hellkite Hatchling.
Aesthetics:
This card is pretty in-line with little baby Dragon cards of times past in terms of size versus mana cost.
Some of those cards have been pretty good in the past, mind you (Dragon Whelp in Dave Price’s “Dallas 1996”-era PTQ deck, Furnace Whelp in Pat Sullivan’s Nationals deck, overcoming the Vedalken Shackles with a fist full of Seething Songs).
So what about the new kid?
This one is interesting in that it has a pretty decent upside. If you only Devour one little guy you have a 3/3 evasive creature for four mana, which is more-or-less Constructed Unplayable (Phantom Monster, et al); but if you Devour two or more little guys, you have a 4/4-ish (or bigger) Hatchling, and that’s not complete garbage.
However with no delicious Black, Green, or Red weenies meal, the card is horrendous: a 2/2 for four mana; that is, sub-Scathe Zombies in terms of efficiency.
Where can I see this fitting in?
I decided to make up a brand new label for card reviews: Puzzle Piece.
That is, this card is pretty narrow. It is probably best played (if played at all) as a compliment to a specific strategy. Like it’s not that bad if you play a Sprouting Thrinax on turn two, get in for three, then plop this guy on top of the aforementioned Thrinax, keep three powers from that fellow and upgrade to a 3/3 flying + trample Dragon.
Not bad!
Not the best, probably, but there is some synergy there.
Outside of a scenario like I just described, Hellkite Hatchling is kind of a janky creature enchantment, right? It’s a developmentally disabled Blanchwood Armor that requires a potentially heftier down payment than usual… Not horrible in the right situation (say sideboard in Green-on-Green when you basically want to get in and can hold the floor reasonably well); but probably not the best given what is being asked of you.
Just some ideas… I think the Team Token one is better than the second.
So I’m going to mix it up for the next two weeks or thereabouts and attempt to review as many of the new Conflux cards that I can.
Up first is Dragonsoul Knight.
Dragonsoul Knight
2R
Creature – Human Knight
Uncommon
First Strike
WUBRG: Until end of turn, Dragonsoul Knight becomes a Dragon, gets +5/+3, and gains flying and trample.
2/2
Aesthetics: I like the +5/+3-ness of the boost. Very “Red” … That is, more up front than in the back. Last week I read something along the lines of “You can’t mention the Gutenberg Bible without thinking of Steve.” Well in Magic, it is difficult to see a five next to a three and not think of Juggernaut. … Which wasn’t even Red, but it fits.
The aesthetics are pretty much everything this card has going for it, in Constructed at least.
In draft it is likely to be a half-step worse than a Kitsune Blademaster (which was still pretty good), and only pretty rarely going 7/5.
In Constructed decks that can actually activate this ability probably have something better to do with their mana than make a Grey Ogre-ish battler… well… at any point.
Where can I see this fitting in?
Honestly, at present… Not a heck of a lot of places. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head (though I’m sure if you have an idea you will gladly state it in the comments below!) is as a sideboard card in one of those aforementioned decks that can actually make WUBRG. Like maybe those decks are kold to an Island (they just sit and wait to Counterspell whatever saucy Reaper King-sort of mojo the WUBRG deck was setting up to make) and they want to sneak out something kind of inoffensive — perhaps under the Counterspell wall — with the long term plan of going large when they are able.
I know this post might seem like it’s about basketball, but it’s actually about having all of your dreams come true. Like magic!
I have had a recurring fantasy since about 1992 when I fell in love with Mark Price.
The Cavs are in trouble.
It’s an important playoff game and our backs are against the wall.
I haven’t played all season.
No one knows how dangerous I am… only the coach.
I come off the bench and the opposing team is completely unaware that they should be guarding me.
It is a fantasy but there are limits to the capacity of my imagination. I know that — even though I am somehow on a professional basketball team in this dream — I am no athlete, no big muscles and springing tiger power at least. I can’t dunk through an All-Star power forward… I am a skill player.
I can come off the bench…
exploit the fact that the opposition is leaving me open around the arc…
and I can nail a thousand threes.
This has been my personal dream for over fifteen years. I think about it in quiet moments and it makes me smile. THOUGHT about it anyway…
Because dreams and fantasies cease to be dreams and fantasies when they come true.
The problem is that I never got to live those thousand threes.
On the bright side, essentially my wilded fantasy actually happened! Just not to me.
In the 2007 Eastern Conference Championships, LeBron James played the greatest game of his career in Game Five. The Cavs should have won the first game but a blatant no-call on Rasheed Wallace generated a four-point swing in the closing minutes of the game that sent the first dubya to the Detroit Pistons, NBA Champions only a couple of years back.
The Cavs lost the second game, too, before sending the series to Cleveland, where the good guys successfully defended their home court in successive contests.
With a pair of wins under their collective belts, the Cavaliers returned to the Palace at Auburn Hills, where LeBron James showed us — for the first time in a key playoff game — why he is the one true successor to Michael Jordan. LeBron single-handedly defeated the best defensive team in the NBA, producing the last 25 points for the Cavs in a double-overtime thriller. LeBron scored almost at will, finding his way to the basket with five Pistons draped across his back.
With [possibly] two games to go, the series returned to Cleveland.
Detroit, at this point considered the best team in the Eastern Conference, and the squad who had sent the Cavaliers packing out of the playoffs twelve months earlier, were a defensive powerhouse; they were not about to allow LeBron to make them look like children wrapped in toilet paper a second time.
Detroit decided they were going to make “someone else” beat them.
Daniel Gibson was that someone else.
A rookie second round draft pick who had seen minimal playing time to this point, Gibson came off the bench in Game Six and did a number on the Pistons like the second coming of… well… LeBron James from Game Five. Just as King James had played like Jordan in the previous contest, Boobie showed them a glimpse of sharpshooter Larry Bird.
Unstoppable offense from an unsung bench player.
A thousand threes.
I was with my old crew at the time. In a bar eating french fries and chicken fingers with the original Team Discovery Channel compadres the amazing altran, Tuna Hwa, and Jeff Wu when Daniel Gibson officially became the boy of my dreams. Tuna, a sports fan’s sports fan (and on this day also the birthday boy), summed Gibson up pretty well. “Fearless… That kid has ice water in his veins.” Daniel challenged a basket defended oak trees in blue jerseys; every time he stepped behind the arc, it was a dagger to a Pistons fan’s throat.
Gibson showed the world his sweet jumper during All-Star Weekend last year, shattering the previous record with eleven three-pointers and MVP honors in the rookie game (a nice compliment to LeBron’s All-Star MVP a night later); but Cavaliers fans are waiting for the sharpshooter from Game Six to equal that performance in a big playoff game.
There are a bunch of videos on YouTube about Gibson’s big game claim to fame. I thought this one was pretty cool, and I hope you can see why and how he became the boy of my dreams.
This one is a short analysis plus five matches with a new Zoo-ish deck inspired by The Lightning Bolt Deck.
Yesterday Luis Scott-Vargas posted an interesting deck on Star City Games yesterday.
It was based on a PE Top 8 deck by Adam Prosak.
Some of the cards I don’t love (in particular Mutavault is not something I would have started with) but I didn’t change the deck over-much until playing it some.
What makes Mutavault send shivers up my spine? I don’t like it in general but this deck is three colors and sometimes it just screws you. I guess it gets in for damage sometimes but that damage doesn’t seem particularly relevant to me. Also I hate random two-ofs as you know.
This is how I played the deck:
4 Lightning Helix
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Molten Rain
4 Seal of Fire
2 Sulfuric Vortex
sb:
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Cryoclasm
2 Lash Out
2 Sulfuric Vortex
The original deck had a different three mana burn spell; I added Sulfuric Vortex in the slot (LSV made the same suggestion); you can’t avoid random two-ofs in a deck with twenty-two lands. Sulfuric Vortex is the strongest card in this deck. I mean Tarmogoyf is pretty good too but Sulfuric Vortex is the card that closes out games and makes them unwinnable for the opponent.
I left the Mutavaults because I didn’t know how to change things. Interestingly (especially for a twenty-two land deck) this one got flooded a bunch of times in the five matches I played. Small n, I guess.
The sideboard I made is very different from the ones posted.
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
This card is pretty good, you may have heard at some point. You kind of need it to zero out the opponent’s Jitte if nothing else.
4 Ancient Grudge
The original deck leaned more towards the Lightning Bolt deck than Zoo, but I think Ancient Grudge is more appropriate to this strategy than Smash to Smithereens (even though that is the sexier card in terms of you know, pure sex appeal).
4 Cryoclasm
I can’t cotton to playing Choke (even though I think I’ve won 75% of tournaments I’ve played lifetime with Choke in the sideboard). This deals three damage instead of giving them two permanents to blow up with Engineered Explosives after they’ve set you up with Venser. Random question… Do you think going to 8 Stone Rains is a strategy against real Zoo? They have a Plains, a Steam Vents, all kinds of Plains and Islands actually.
2 Lash Out
This card is great. Better than Incinerate against beatdown; comparable to Magma Jet, but does trips.
2 Sulfuric Vortex
Either they all come out or these two come in (more common) or you forgot to side them out.
I decided to play five matches with this deck because this is, you know, Five With Flores. I actually lost my notes from the first 2.5 matches on account of I was falling asleep last night and then my daughter decided to get up at like 5AM and play Lego Batman and I think she crashed the computer (dunno, I wasn’t up… but my document was gone when I got home).
1. Affinity (either that or Lightning Bolt Deck)
I think I got flooded in the first game, then drew Ancient Grudge in the second game, then drew three Ancient Grudge in the third game. So result: winner.
I dunno if the deck is even good or if Affinity is just bad. I mean I have always respected Affinity but I have never remotely come close to losing to it in Extended since the card Ancient Grudge was printed. I also don’t understand Affinity players who think they can beat Ancient Grudge. I mean I’m sure they have convinced themselves that they can (and have in testing) because they choose to play Affinity… But I’m just saying I have played against Affinity and never come close to losing since the card was invented. What does that mean?
I actuallycould have lost two or three (he drew a lot of Master of Etherium) but like I said, in the third I drew three Ancient Grudges and you can really only lose to all-in Atog. When I tested real Zoo (not this burn deck) I play / played Kataki and Ancient Grudge because that is the kind of person I am.
1-0, 2-1
2. Lightning Bolt Deck (or Affinity, one or the other)
I don’t remember too many details, just how one of the games ended. It was pretty cool. He played double Vortex on me with a reasonable expectation of winning before they killed him. Then I played Vortex on him. So he took six on his turn (was only banking on four). Given his hand he had more than enough to kill me with the six (and he had only planned on four) the next turn but I untapped and killed him first.
The match was really close.
I didn’t gain much if any life from Lightning Helixes or Jittes (sided out my Vortexes obviously, even though they won me the first), but I got there by having better cards. Now I guess I am remembering more (that triple Vortex affair must have been game one, logically); second I got my Tarmogoyf killed by an Incinerate due to being rusty at Tarmogoyf. I won anyway in what must have been uninteresting fashion based on the decks.
2-0, 4-1
2.5 Lightning Bolt Deck I think.
I don’t remember. I remember being down a game and falling asleep. Match 2.5: You are erased from the record!
3. Braid of Fire deck
His deck was kind of cool but had some really less-than-Tier-One cards… just had things in common that they were cool with Braid of Fire (mostly jones that pumped for Red). Nevertheless I lost the first due to mana flood.
I came back and won the next two with these Tarmogoyfs. Uninteresting.
What was interesting was Braid of Fire. I am going to try to make a Braid deck that I will update on after I, you know, make it. The card seems quite powerful due to being asymmetrical.
3-0, 6-2
4. Anti-Red White Weenie
Game One he drew two Silver Knights and I wasn’t sure how I was going to win; then I remembered I drew Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf (which I had in play and in hand, respectively). Those aren’t Red at all! Thank you LSV’s article!
Game Two he drew first turn Burrenton Forge-Tender, second turn Silver Knight obviously, and followed up later with Serra Avenger and Silver Knight. I was playing kind of loose until I realized I was on the wrong end of 8-20 or thereabouts. I eventually won with Green cards on the ground, and burn cards to face.
4-0, 8-2
5. Death Cloud Rock
In the first I didn’t realize what deck he was; he won the flip and started on Polluted Delta. He later made a Swamp and cycled Barren Moor. Then he made turn two Loam. The game was not interesting; he conceded to Vortex on turn four even though I didn’t have that much going on.
Second game I lost to my own stupid mana base. He played two copies of Thoughtseize (why is that in your deck against a Red Deck sideboarded?)… he literally played Death Cloud for three (could have been six) before I could cast the Molten Rains I had left in. No, I had three. Three on three actually… But one of them was a Temple Garden and the third was one of those pointless Mutavaults. I conceded well before it was technically over because he left two Mutavaults and it was obvious I was not going to win.
Third game I kept two spells and he Thoughtseized my Vortex. Nevertheless I played a turn two Mutavault and a keldon Marauders and started getting in there (Mutavault kind of made up for the fact that it exists, therefore offending me). I drew another Vortex and Tarmogoyf and won thanks to the best cards in my deck.
5-0, 10-3 (if you want to count the aborted 2.5, 5-0, 10-4)
My conclusion is that this deck is very good. I would consider playing it in a PTQ. It really feels like Zoo to me, so if you like Zoo… that is what it feels like; much less so than the Lightning Bolt Deck.
I would add one Tarfire, possibly cutting a Seal of Fire, just for more Tarmogoyf mizing. Most people don’t have Tarmogoyf these days so I want to maximize potential bang bang. I guess you could also cut one random Sulfuric Vortex and move it to the sideboard, maybe over the third Jitte. The deck is actually reasonably prepared for Elves with Mogg Fanatic, Seal of Fire, and potentially Tarfire on one.
And to Mutavault: You are awful. But you aren’t fired yet.
LOVE
MIKE
PS Sorry this might seem a little grumpy. I am watching the Cavs at the Bulls and the worthless Bulls dropped our starting shooting guard (Delonte West) on his head and fractured his right wrist. It was about the worst hit I have ever seen in a basketball game. Very disconcerting, especially how the season has been going, how well Delonte has been playing, and the fact that we have a back-to-back home game (risking our NBA-best 19-0 home record) against the brilliant Chris Paul tomorrow night.
A short post Bill Stark did on the Mono-White Control deck he played last weekend (unsung credit goes locally to Reece Perry for believing, kschreve for Mistveil Plains, and everyone for reading and contributing):
A few weeks ago I blogged about being nervous before giving a presentation in Florida.
Part of the reason I was so stressed out is because I have really wanted to steer my career in a slightly different direction for a couple of months and I considered this speaking opportunity a grand step in exactly that right direction. I ended up being a big hit, but that is neither here nor there.
The more immediate reason I was stressed out, nervous, and so on before going up was Jonathan Fields.
Jonathan used to be a big time lawyer. He had one of those six figure jobs that they train you in this country you are supposed to grow up to want to have. He worked at one of the power firms in New York, handling bazillion dollar deals.
Until his body told him to stop.
Jonathan had a radical medical condition — a growth ended up having to be removed!!! — that he interprets as his body rejecting his career path.
So he decided to go from one day being a big shot lawyer to working as a personal trainer for $12 an hour.
No, he didn’t fall on his head or anything… He was learning the ropes of the fitness world. He transitioned personal training to becoming a fitness entrepreneur, had some associated adventures along the way, until finally opening his own yoga studio in the greatest city in the world.
… On September 10th, 2001.
Yikes!
So he took the biggest financial gamble of his career — his life — right as the New York economy was crumbling under the weight of the greatest tragedy ever to occur on American soil.
But Jonathan saw this as an opportunity to open his doors — for free initially — and help the New York community heal.
I’d say there was a happy ending (because he was eventually able to grow his yoga business to a great success)… but it was not an ending at all. Jonathan recently sold his stake in the yoga studio because he wants to write, blog, and Tweet full-time.
You see, he has become a kind of career chameleon.
Kind of appropriate to the turn I want to take in my own career, kind-of.
So what was the big problem?
Jonathan was up before I was.
On the one hand, he is this wonderful, earnest, and engaging speaker. A true inspiration for anyone who wants to take his own life by the horns and steer his ship to whatever beat of whatever drummer he wants… While making a fine living! Pretty great, right?
He’s an awfully tough act to follow.
Jonathan is one of those “quality human beings” who are just so honest and well-intentioned, out there to actually help you out.
Career Renegade is not just Jonathan’s story, it’s a system that anyone can use to… well… make a great living doing what they want! Jonathan has become famous for finding bloggers who make $200,000 from their kitchen tables or guys who play video games professionally. Sound fun?
Career Renegade is brand new so I haven’t read it yet, but I hope I’ve communicated one per cent of how inspiring a speaker he is. He has poured the last couple of years of his life into this effort, and I know that if you are looking to figure out how to discover the best path for yourself — “bad economy” or not — or find out how you can happily and successfully live towards your best destiny, the $11.20 is going to be a no-brainer.
Especially in this time of economic turmoil, where the news is declaring it “the worst financial situation since the Great Depression” every night, you might want a little Career Renegade in your back pocket.
I’ll write a more proper review of the book once I’ve actually read it, but Jonathan Fields? The guy, the speaker, the Renegade has my highest recommendation.
I don’t recall if I have written about this before. Probably… It’s like I often say: I have a limited number of topics.
I’d like to flatter myself that my writing has changed the lives of some of my readers (I guess that helping a reader’s strategic game or cluing him in onto a deck list that he hadn’t heard of before so that he can get a Q might count)… That’s the dream for most writers anyway (or my goal, anyway).
This post is about the article that changed my life.
The setting: A little over 10 years ago* … Closer to lucky thirteen probably.
I was in the computer lab in my sophmore year dorm. I didn’t even have my own computer yet! (How did I survive?)
We thought Elvish Archers was a pretty good card to play in G/W Armageddon in these days.
I read a PTQ report by Bill Hodack about how he won “the Central New York Pro Qualifying Tournament” in Syracuse.
Bill played a creature-light “Necropotence” deck splashing Red for Lightning Bolt.
To our modern eyes his deck looks pretty inefficient (though at this point in 1996 I seriously doubt if I could have restricted myself to 60 cards)… Lots of janky two- and three-ofs.
But in 1996 I didn’t make judgments like that. I was a sponge. The amazing altran and I would compare notes. Standard Kim plays two Elvish Archers! Individual customization was not within the realm of our power sets. For deck variations, we looked to established deck lists and compared their moments of dissonance.
Bill’s deck, then, was a refreshing departure from Mono-Black.
Hodack only had to wade through four rounds of Swiss to make the single elimination rounds, and he had people running their Autumn Willows into teams of first striking Knights… But in the end, he got there.
Tournament reports were pretty new at this point. You automatically rooted for the narrator, even when he was a scumbag Necropotence deck. I stayed with him reading through this tournament report. There was no sad ending, no manascrew in the second-to-last round of Swiss. Bill just got there. Fulfillment of our — as readers — our wish-fulfillment.
It inspired me to want to do the same thing.
…
Five months later, I would qualify for my own first Pro Tour, also with a B/R Necropotence deck.
I’ve written a 700+ page book about Magic, headlined premium services, sat the Sunday booth in the most exotic locales the Pro Tour has ever dropped anchor, and even had the credits roll over my image hefting a trophy on ESPN, but in many ways, Hodack’s newsgroup post is the most important thing about the game I’ve ever read. It is full of strategic nuggets like “Drain Lifes become useful at about five mana” that have stuck in my mind for 13 years. In 1996, sentence fragments like that one taught me to think about the game in a different way and laid the groundwork for my ability to race in the heated give-and-take battles of the spring of 1999.
I’ve never met Bill Hodack (so I’ve never had the opportunity to tell him how important this tournament report was to me) but I recall Pikula once told me he is an all right guy. People assume I modeled much of my writing and directon on the work of Rob Hahn, but I am pretty sure I would never have attempted what I have done in Magic without reading this report.
This is the “unacceptable” discussion and “solution” (if you can call it that) to You Make the Play – enCRYPTed.
… And the first You Make the Play Video response!
To refresh everybody’s memory, it was Game Three against ‘Tron. We had two up, Spellstutter Sprite in hand, fully loaded Archmage on the table and UU up.
The opponent presented Tormod’s Crypt.
The board looked more-or-less exactly like this:
So what is the what?
The first question is, do we care about a Tormod’s Crypt?
We don’t care about graveyard recursion overmuch; what we care about is that the Tormod’s Crypt can keep up from doubling up with Archmage Persist-ence.
So the first question is whether we should be doing anything about it.
I think — and it will be obvious from my “solution” to the board position — that I thought it would be worth dealing with (I care[d] about my half of an Archmage).
So the next question is, assuming we care, what we are going to do.
I have to admit that at the time (I am sure I was watching Gossip Girl out of the corner of my eye) that I didn’t even consider using the Archmage to defend the Archmage. To me, it was Spellstutter Sprite 2-for-1 or nil.
So I went for the Sprite.
Results were disastrous.
Obviously he was the super uber miser, and had not just natural ‘Tron, Ghost Quarter, and a significant threat, but Mindslaver as well.
Ka-pow!
Mindslaver connected.
Archmage died without ever doing anything profitable for michaelj (AKA Number One).
Interestingly if I had used the Archmage, I would have been in a pretty similar position (albeit with one more Mana Leak). I would have been obligated to eat the Mindslaver anyway. That said, I think using the Archmage to stop the Tormod’s Crypt was the best play.
Pat Chapin — who called my Spellstutter Sprite / terrible read “unacceptable” when I talked to him about it — said he would have done nothing. “You realize you are talking about pulling down your pants to a potential Mindslaver in order to save half a card, right?” (He said something like that).
But what is really interesting is all the things that happened next. Check that action out here:
I’m sure you loved every minute!
Oh, and before I forget – Congratulations to Joshua Scott Honigmann who won a Kentucky PTQ with a Mono-White Control deck similar to what we have been discussing the past couple of days. You go Temple of the False God!
Recently I watched a video about negotiations. The expert negotiator (you would know his name) talked about how he went from making $38,000 per year to $1,000,000 per year in one year. This involved hunting down really successful businesspeople and convincing them to buy expensive training that would make them even more successful… A daunting task for a twenty-something with little formal education. What he said was that in these negotiations, the person who is more certain [certain of victory] will invariably come out successful. He credits his ascent to pure, unwavering certainty.
I have been thinking about this a lot.
There have been times in my life when I was playing Magic as well as anyone ever played.
I made the tightest reads, knocked off top players like tenpins, bit my lip until my mouth filled with copper in order to break myself of bad habits. The stretch of time between about Pro Tour Charleston until I won the New York State Championship, I was playing like I had never played before (or sadly, since).
I played so much MTGO in between those two tournaments. One of the things I am very proud of was the discovery of Skred as the best card in Standard (it would take almost two years for everyone else to figure out I was right). During this stretch I got really good at beating Solar Flare-type decks. My strategy revolved around attacking my opponent with Ohran Viper and drawing attention to Ohran Viper, manipulating with Scrying Sheets and Sensei’s Divining Top, and generally being a nuisance to my vastly more powerful opponent. I got him to worry about all these little cards and little things, devote his mana to my Viper; meanwhile I was concentrating on hitting my land drops.
A few turns later, the game would end.Â
Always the same way.
Lethal Demonfire.
At the time, I thought that I was good at deception. I thought that the keys to victory were in misdirection, “tricking” my opponent into dealing with what was “beating them” right now, managing the battle but invariably losing the war (when they would only be able to win by racing).
I carried the same mindset to the New York State Championship, but with Brian Kowal’s This Girl deck. The path was similar: incremental card advantage. I bluffed Remands that I didn’t have all day. Lethal Demonfire. Over and over, Blue deck after Blue deck: lethal Demonfire.
But now I understand (or at least can concretely contextualize) that I was winning on account of superior certainty. I was certain of victory because I knew the path to victory. My opponents, for the most part, played improvisation-ally. They saw something, assumed it was going to kill them, and utilized their cards and mana to deal with that thing, not realizing the games were always going to end the same way.Â
First of all I have to thank reader kschreve for Mistveil Plains. This card has given the MWC deck a new layer of capability it didn’t have before. For example against Faeries in a long game…
The starry eyed Faeries player might think that he is eventually going to gain inevitability with Vendilion Clique. However the addition of two Mistveil Plains (might even go to three over the second Urza’s Factory… a suggestion by Bill Stark) allows the MWC deck to push the game to the exact same position almost every game.
It is the kind of game where only unwavering certainty can lift the MWC deck… but if it is there, victory is certain.
The power of this strategy is that Faeries is also certain of victory, and invests a tremendous amount of psychic energy into a recursive long game plan… while MWC chips away at its certainty until eventually winning with damage. Consider the decline…
I’m winning! I have more cards! Plus, I’m Blue.
That was annoying.
I can use Riptide Laboratory to get out of this.
Wasn’t I winning a minute ago?
Okay, new plan: I have to use Riptide Laboratory and Academy Ruins to stay in this, eventually I am going to win with…
I didn’t care about those permanents anyway.
Okay, new plan: play for the draw. Come on Engineered Explosives!
How much time is left on the clock again?
FAIL
It is a lapse in certainty that will often cause us to err. There are matchups where we can see the light — the exact light — at the end of the tunnel; we need to get to that light. We know if we get to that light, that victory is certain… But the opponent presents us with a bump, another bump, in the road. Sometimes I say things like “Their cards only matter if you let them.” This is what I am talking about: When you start bleeding certainty, you make uncertain — often strategically ill-advised — moves.Â
Do you ever find yourself varying your plays because of something the opponent did? Suddenly you feel like something else is the right course of action. You get distracted and two LEGO pieces come un-hitched in your mind. You stray from the plan.Â
Brain fart? You made a move because you were — however momentarily — uncertain of the way to win.Â
I remember when I won 28-of-34 matches over three tournaments with The Rock (GPT win, undefeated in game wins; 6-2 GP finish; PTQ win). One of the things that I held like iron in my mind was that Trix could not win if I had Pernicious Deed in play and I had four mana untapped. Sometimes I missed a land drop and desperately wanted to play Yavimaya Elder. Sometimes I was frightened of all the cards that the opponent drew and had to dig half-moons into the palms of my hands to stop myself from casting Duress. Do you know how hard it is to ignore a Morphling on the board?
Those cards in hand…
Those missed land drops…
That Morphling…
What could he have?
Any or all were potential chinks in my certainty. I won because I never let them penetrate. Once you pass the turn with less than four mana in play… That is when you can lose to their combo.Â
Will certainty win you every game of Magic?
Obviously not.
But there are some games, some matchups that go for a long time and settle into the same card sets each and every time. They are won by the same deck every time, without variation, provided that that player holds true. When the opponent wins, it is because the other guy was mana screwed, well before Stage Three; that, or when the favored player gave up too much certainty and spent too much time and mana on things that had no bearing on the outcome of the game.
Sorry if this seems a little vague right now… I will flesh it out as the PTQ season progresses.
All Conflux
is out on Amazon now.