KrazyCaley's Top 10 Gameplay Tips for Intermediate Players

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KrazyCaley

16 November 2009

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10 - Shuffle well.

I cannot stress this enough. After EVERY game, you should pile shuffle (preferably into a prime number of piles, like 7 or 11) at least once, and maybe throw in a couple side shuffles. I know it's tempting to sweep up all your permanents, side shuffle them in to the library along with your graveyard, and call it a day, but DO NOT DO THAT. If you do that, you are dramatically increasing your chances of getting mana screwed or mana flooded. You want to avoid clumping too many lands together or too many spells together, and the "once-over" side-shuffle after a game is basically guaranteed to clump. Pile shuffle. At least once. Probably twice if you really care about the result of the game. This will allow your deck to conform to the statistics you expect of it.

9 - Mulligan effectively.

We've all been in this situation: We draw six spells, all of which are EXCELLENT and exactly what we wanted to draw, and one land. Four or five of the spells are cheap, and the really awesome ones that will get us going probably cost two mana. "I will be SO GOOD," we think to ourselves, "if I just draw that second land." So we keep, and lo and behold, our next three draws are CMC 6 (or whatever) spells. Good game.

Do NOT be afraid to mulligan, especially down to six. If your deck is well-constructed, it is LIKELY to give you a good starting hand, even with six cards. If your current hand is less than what you'd expect your starting hand to be, on average, then mulligan. ESPECIALLY be willing to mulligan if your deck is, for instance, a combo deck that needs certain pieces to operate, and you don't have enough of those pieces in your opener.

On the flip side, don't do what I call "panic mulligans." Here's an opening hand I kept recently in a standard tournament. My deck was Grixis Control, his was mono-white soldiers.

My hand was:

Crumbling Necropolis/Swamp/Mountain/Countersquall/Wretched Banquet/Cruel Ultimatum/Cruel Ultimatum

I can practically hear the gasps. TWO cruel ultimatums? Shock and horror! But the mere presence of certain cards alone shouldn't dictate whether you mull. Consider- If I took a mulligan here and my new six-card hand was the same, only minus one Cruel Ult., would I keep THAT hand? You bet. The rest of the hand is excellent, especially against soldiers, where I can kill whatever one-drop he has with Banquet and be ready to Countersquall his Honor of the Pure on turn 2 (I was on the play).

8 - Know the rules.

I don't mean things like "You can play one land per turn" and "instants can be cast at more or less any time." Hopefully if you play Magic, you know these things. And alternatively, I don't mean "Layer 7e effects and layer 7c effects take place in the given order regardless of the chronological order in which they were activated" and so forth. Not all Magic players need to know the depths of the Comprehensive Rules.

What I mean is a good practical knowledge of the "intermediate" rules, and especially knowledge of the rules that apply to popular cards and cards you use. I saw a lot of duels lost early this year because people thought you could get a bunch of 2/2s by Mirrorweave-ing an activated Mutavault.

Good magic players know what the stack is, and how it works. They know the difference between activated, triggered, and static abilities. They know what current and past keywords mean, and what their interactions are. (For instance, if I unearth a creature, then cast Trickbind on its triggered exile-at-end-of-turn ability, resolving, and then my opponent Unsummons it, what happens?)

It's tough to learn the BASICS of the game, much less its intermediate rules arcana. But eventually it becomes second-nature, and it's well worth it to know the right answer to a rules question BEFORE you make a key play. (Answer to above- the creature is exiled).

7 - Conceal your hand.

For some of you, yes, this literally means "hold your cards so your opponent(s) can't see them." Duh.

But for most people, this means that you should not disclose through other means what your hand contains. Remember that Magic is, like poker, a card game of imperfect information, and that like poker, it is necessary to keep your opponent from knowing what you hold.

There is a gentleman at my local card shop that more or less everyone can read like an open book. For instance, one day, he had two cards in hand, four lands out, and was running his favorite extended red-blue deck, and he told us "I hope you're enjoying your creatures, man, 'cause next turn they're miiiiiiiine." Well gee, "next turn" means he has a land or expects to draw one, otherwise he would have cast his devastating spell last turn. So it's a five-mana red-blue thing that steals stuff. As soon as he made his comment, I cast Thought Hemorrhage naming Dominus of Fealty. And he discarded it.

Not all tells are so overt. Pulling faces when you draw a card, showing exasperation as you play land, going to cast a burn spell by nearly laying down the card to cook their guy before thinking twice about it, all of these are caused by lack of self-control. When you come to the realization that everything you do gives information to your opponent, and that you can control that information, it becomes much easier to hide what you have, and you become a much more difficult opponent.

6 - Know thine enemy.

Here's a game sequence for you. You are playing a Jund deck. Your opponent is apparently playing some mono-white thing.

Turn 1- You play a mountain, pass, they play a plains, pass.

Turn 2- You play a forest, cast Rip Clan Clasher, attack, they cast Path to Exile on it, you get a swamp. They play a plains and pass.

Turn 3- You play a mountain, cast Bloodbraid Elf, cascade into Putrid Leech, attack with Bloodbraid Elf, they take 3. They play a plains and pass.

Turn 4- You play a forest, cast Bloodbraid Elf, cascade into Blightning, they discard Martial Coup and Arrow Volley Trap, you swing with everything, pumping the Putrid Leech. It sucks a Path to Exile and you get a forest. They play a Kabira Crossroads tapped and then pass.

So now it's turn 5. Your board is two Bloodbraid Elves, three forests, two mountains, and a swamp. Your hand is swamp, Jund Panorama, and Siege-Gang Commander. Their board is three plains and a Kabira crossroads. They have three cards in hand. You draw a Savage Lands. You swing at your opponent with everything you have (as you should basically always do before casting spells, to draw out enemy responses), and they take it. Now you must decide what to do. You have a Siege-Gang Commander, so you tap everything but a forest to cast it, and look with satisfaction upon your board of elves and goblins. Then your opponent untaps and casts Day of Judgment, and you cry.

You will probably lose this game because you weren't thinking about your opponent's possibilities. It's a Mono-White deck that was playing draw-go for four turns, and was about to untap four lands. If you've got creatures on the board, a Day of Judgment is probably about to hit you. If you had known your enemy, you would have saved that Siege-Gang for a rainy day, since you already had a winning board.

You MUST constantly be thinking about what your opponent is likely to have, and how that will affect your plays. If your opponent runs an ordinary Vampires build, and they haven't cast Gatekeeper of Malakir yet, don't throw your Baneslayer Angel out there without other creatures there first to sacrifice. If you're against Jund Cascade and you have a Swerve, you damn well better play your mountain and your island before anything else. Play to your opponent.

5 - Know thyself, or at least thine deck.

It's important to know what your opponent is running and to play appropriately. It is just as important, and much easier, to know what YOU are running and to play appropriately. You have a Lightning Bolt in hand and the only creature on the board is a Trained Armodon. If you're playing UR control, you Bolt the Armodon. If you're playing something Red Deck Wins-y, you probably send the bolt at your opponent's face.

You MUST know not only what is IN your deck, but precisely what everything in the deck does, and common rules interactions involving those cards. You must know about how likely it is that you will draw this land or that, or this spell or that, so you know what to search for if you get Path'd, and so you know what to set up in anticipation for a particular card. (For instance, in my Grixis deck, if all other things are equal, I try to have a swamp and a mountain out on turn 3 so I can play Blightning just in case I draw it, if it's not in my opening hand, and since it's my only turn 3 play). Know your deck and how it works in detail.

4 - Get all the information you can.

Information comes to the Magic player in many forms. You can see, with ease, what is on the board and what is in your hand. Make a habit of examining both. I don't care if this is the bazillionth time you've seen Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, READ the card when it comes down, otherwise you'll be the victim of the infamous "Oh, I forgot it did THAT." You can see with ease what is in the graveyard, the number of cards your opponent has, and the number of cards left in each library.

If you're careful, you can also see what your opponent PROBABLY has if you examine what he plays. If you swing with an unblockable 6/6 and it doesn't take a kill spell, your opponent probably doesn't HAVE a kill spell. If your opponent has three swamps, two islands, one mountain, then draws a card, sighs, and plays another swamp, you had better save your counterspell for that Cruel Ultimatum that's coming as soon as he gets a mountain.

You should ALSO not discount the power of searching libraries. Some cards let you search your opponent's hand and library, even if you're searching it "for" something. When given such opportunities, don't just look for whatever individual card you're looking for, take your time and take note of exactly what your opponent has at his disposal in its entirety. Some cards, like Thought Hemorrhage or Pithing Needle, may require you to have this information later. In any case, it certainly couldn't hurt you to know what your opponent has.

Make use of ANY opportunity to gain information about the game's variables.

3 - Employ deception.

Sometimes you will want to give a false tell to an opponent. If you know they have a spell that will kill you, but they know you're playing a control deck and are holding back, maybe you want to look worried and panicky so they think you don't have the counter. False tells are a great way to confuse and mislead lesser opponents. I remember once I was playing Two-Headed Giant, with that same gentleman described above as one of my opponents. My ally had the last, game-ending piece of his combo in his hand, but my opponent had to have a counter. So what did I do? With a triumphant look on my face, I played Kor Cartographer, and slammed it down on the board as though I had just cast Progenitus. INSTANTLY, without even looking at the card, my unfortunate opponent said "No, that gets countered." And so it did. Then my opponent played the last piece of his crazy infinite combo and we won.

Opportunities for deception are everywhere. Here's an age-old trick that especially works if you're playing blue. It's late in the game and it's a stalemate. Both of you are topdecking. You have more land out than you will ever need. So you draw, and of course, it's another land. DO. NOT. PLAY. THAT. LAND. For all your opponent knows, it's some horrifying response card that warrants caution on his part. I see very good magic players just mindlessly laying down superfluous lands when the land was actually more dangerous as an unknown card in hand. Nothing's sweeter than keeping a land as your last card in hand, then having your nervous opponent cast Duress only to see that you tricked them. Then next turn you draw something else, play the land, and the guessing game begins anew. Fun times!

2 - Don't panic/Maximize card efficiency.

Some decks more or less drive themselves. The prime example is Red Deck Wins. You have burn spells. You hit your opponent in the face with them until they are dead. Repeat.

Most decks, however, require some degree of thoughtful user input. This is especially true of control decks, blue decks, and ESPECIALLY blue control decks.

What I mean by maximizing card efficiency is this: If you use a Day of Judgment to kill a Goblin Guide, that is NOT efficient. You've traded a card one-for-one, but Day of Judgment is a good card because it's got more potential than that. If you use a Day of Judgment to kill a Goblin Guide, a Warren Instigator, a Siege Gang Commander, five goblin tokens, a Bloodbraid Elf, and a Goblin Chieftain, THAT'S a good day at the office. You've traded one card for six or so, and that'll cash out as card advantage.

You can see where the "Don't panic" part comes in especially with board-wiping effects. That Infest is pretty good right now if you use it to kill an Elvish Visionary, a Noble Hierarch, and maybe a Llanowar Elves or something. But considering that the most damage you could take next turn from this fearful army is two, you might consider calmly waiting to see if something ELSE comes down that you can also catch with Infest (after considering whether your opponent has enough mana and the right kinds of cards to pump his creatures beyond Infest range, perhaps). Don't hit that panic button too early. And don't use that counterspell on Merfolk Looter if Lorthos, the Tidemaker is right behind it.

1 - Think before you act.

Probably the most important rule for better Magic play. Thinking before you act consists of a careful consideration of all the information you have. You should carefully read what's on the board and consider how that will affect your play. Consider what your opponent has. Consider what ALL of the above rules tell you to consider, and take a moment to THINK about what will happen when you make your play. There's no rule that says you have to INSTANTLY make your plays. A good way to force yourself to analyze is to put your hand down on the table, then sit on your hands and look at stuff.

A good thoughtful consideration will not only help you out with better plays in general, but also cause some miraculous escapes and flashes of brilliance, as when you realize you can cast Pariah on their Platinum Angel, then Goblin Artillery it to kill it.

Think deeply, and you will become a much stronger Magic player.

-C