Another great read. Keep writing these, and we'll keep reading them

Interesting read, but having examples might help, for example when to choose Card A over Card B because Card A is more flexible, eg. when to choose Hero's Downfall over Doom Blade . I personally enjoy seeing blue words in an article, they make it interesting and break the monotony of a chunk of white words on black.

I think that if I were to point to a card effect that underpins the values of flexibility, it would be tutor effects. A deck's flexibility derives from being able to change up its game plans depending on the situation, being able to field a diversity of threats and win conditions, and possessing a wide range of answers. The "Toolbox" deck strategy is the poster-child for flexibility, examples of which can be seen in the Gifts Ungiven decks of Kamigawa standard, Birthing Pod decks in modern, and the old Survival of the Fittest decks.

The issue that arises with decks aiming at flexibility is that they suffer in terms of draw probability due to frequently running less than optimal copies of whatever threats they choose to include. It's not unusual for these sorts of decks to run only one copy of a particular threat or answer so that they can make room to include a wider diversity of cards. In doing so, these decks make sacrifices in terms of consistency, cohesion, and dependable efficiency for the possible chance of having the best answers and threats for a wide range of situations.

There are ways to offset the drawbacks that come with a focus on deck flexibility. Cantrip cards give you an effect while increasing the chance of drawing into the cards you really want. Permanents with multiple abilities and spells that offer a variety of effects such as Azorius Charm allow you to run full playsets while still offering multiple possibilities to address a situation, thus improving the decks draw quality. But it is only in formats where strong tutor effects are available that strategies focused on flexibility can really shine. Tutors vastly improve a deck's draw quality, allowing fast access to the card that a deck wants without having to potentially wait multiple turns in the hope of drawing it. In essence, tutors provide crucial efficiency to a deck running a large number of one-ofs and thus compensate for the largest weakness that arises from card diversity within a deck.

I think it's more than just tutoring though. I think it's about having cards that give you a strong set of options when you play them. Snapcaster Mage is the poster child here I think.

He's a blocker/attacker/combat trick all rolled into one. He's also an asset that gives you access to a number of other spells that you've previously played.

Don't get me wrong apt142, there are cards that in and of themselves are very versatile and offer flexibility to how you approach a game. I previously mentioned Azorius Charm as an example of a flexible card because of the multiple options it provides and, as you note, Snapcaster Mage is another great example.

What I was trying to get at in my previous comment is that decks that focus primarily on flexibility by having a wide selection of threats/answers only seem to have a big impact in formats where strong tutoring cards are available. Decks that run a lot of one and two copies of cards suffer from inconsistency when it comes to drawing the cards you need, but strong tutor effects cover for that weakness by making sure that you can frequently find that one card in your deck that you want. Without tutors, decks that value flexibility risk not drawing what they need and possibly getting beaten out of the format by decks with a more streamlined strategy and a full four copies of their key cards.

Another great article, and fun to read. You're perfectly outlining the important decisions and giving good advice on how to make them. The emphasis on the danger of getting lost in covering too many threats could have been bigger, but maybe I'm just thinking so because I have a strong aversion against wasting deck space on often superfluous counters.

One thing I've been missing here is the ability of a deck to come up with a reserve plan when the basic strategy doesn't work out correctly. Let's say you're playing a ramp/Fireball deck, and someone drops an Ivory Mask , wouldn't it be great to have, well, maybe a big eldrazi in reserve? Multiple win conditions and an adaptive, reformable basic strategy are a great way to counter the biggest of all threats: Your opponent's countermeasures.

I must say that flexibility - in a counterspell sense of the word - is a hated topic for me, so I'll better apologize beforehand just in case my comment offends anyone.

I usually hate every single counterspell that I have to include into a deck, because I know that there could be a really awesome tricky card supporting the theme in there instead. Why is that reason enough for hate? My primary format is Legacy, and since most tournaments are played in standard or modern, I'm mostly playing casual games where the Sideboard doesn't have any use. At the same time, I'm facing an innumerable amount of different strategies that can be thrown at me (that part's actually not bad, I like it interesting). It's practically impossible to prepare countermeasures for everything I could encounter. If I'd manage, the deck would end up being all about countering and no fun to play at all.

But it would be stupid to give up on it completely, right? So, let me share on how I pick my countermeasures while using up as little deck space as possible.

Even before I go too deep into the metagame analysis, it is important to cover any threats that would aim for weaknesses in my strategy. If, for example, my deck relies much on planeswalkers, an Ivory Mask is mandatory to prevent my opponent from just bolting them off the table with burn spells. In a creature-heavy deck, I'll risk to take a few bolts in favor of backing up my combat abilities with Giant Growth or saving creatures from removal. Ask yourself: What are the weak points of my strategy? What am I practically inviting my opponent to drop on me?

Then of course, the metagame. What are the favorite shenanigans or colors of the players in my group? Also, remember that opponents are usually humans and mainly playing to have fun, so you can use simple psychology to foretell their actions. Example questions: Which new cards have been released that those players must be eager to use in one of their decks? If they appreciate art, are there cards with magnificient artwork that fit their favorite themes? Do they dislike playing old cards with outdated text? Are they able and willing to buy expensive cards?

Then, after assessing the threats, I pick the cards that cover as many threats as possible and work well with the rest of the deck. So, as you see, I'm not so much choosing counters, but rather choosing threats to prepare against. Once I know what I want to do, finding the right cards is just a few well-formulated gatherer searches away.

Dude this is great! After reading the first article i was so excited and wanted to learn more of how to apply the principles to my deck building and now to hear that you're going to begin going over in detail all of the characteristic is pretty awesome! Loved reading this and cant wait to read more.

@Triforce-Finder: why Ivory Mask when you can use Leyline of Sanctity ? It seems strictly better.

But I do agree with Triforce that having totally different ways to win is a very interesting and powerful type of flexibility. I have a mono-green Melira Pod deck that can combo off with Blasting Station if my Witherscale Wurm isn't able to get through for some reason. Sure losing to a Blasting Station combo may not be the most fun but at least it provides a way to win if the board is really clogged or there's a Blazing Archon on the other side of the table.

@DaShPrime

I just did a quick search for "you have shroud" and picked any one of the results. Wouldn't waste time on research for a mere example. Maybe a "something like" should have been in that sentence.

But I agree with you that Leyline of Sanctity is better. So good, in fact, that I put it into my buying queue right away, since I've been thinking about building a planeswalker/token/counter/proliferate/Doubling Season deck for quite some time.

Good discussion so far. It's nice to see that this article is getting some views.

In response to perhaps the biggest point that has yet been collectively raised: I disagree that a multiple win condition approach falls under flexibility. I personally categorize it under resilience (and will be talking about it in the next article).

To me, a secondary win condition is something that you use once your primary win condition has been disrupted or otherwise faces irrecoverable setbacks. Flexibility is the offensive capability of a deck to evade or outplay certain threats and resilience is the ability to reestablish and maintain momentum after disruption. A backup strategy plays to the latter: it's useful for resetting after a hit, but it isn't something that you'd use before it becomes necessary.

I also agree with SaberTech in saying that tutors are one of the more flexible effects in the game, but that discussion must quickly evolve to encompass efficiency and effectiveness. Tutors, while flexible, scale exponentially in efficiency and effectiveness as you progress through the formats. They are most useful in EDH, where they make up for the inherent inflexibility of singleton formats by allowing you to find the cards best suited to the current situation. However, tutor effects also drop off sharply as you move back toward Standard, which is focused on speed and immediate returns and which lacks solid tutor effects.

@Epochalyptik

With that definition, I guess it really fits better into the resilience article. It probably depends on how you define a threat. I, for my part, think of counters, removal, wipes etc. as threats of themselves and am tempted to include them in the topic. Of course, that leads to a horrible mix-up, what is the exact opposite of what this series is trying to do.

Tutors contribute the most to consistence, so that's the place I would put them in this series. It never happened before that I tutored for a counterspell when I could tutor for a winning card.

Btw, I'm not sure how reliable the number of interested readers can be based off the comments. The discussion is more suitable to estimate the controversy of an article. I mean, most readers probably just aren't posting.

@Triforce-Finder:

Counters, removal, and wipes are threats, but they're of a nature that they fall under both flexibility and resilience. They're good offensive tools, and you can respond to them if they are used against you, but they are more difficult to deal with than a permanent-based threat because the window of opportunity for counteracting spells is extremely small.

I was tempted to include a view counter, and I might as well at this point. I intend to include one in future articles as well.

@ Epochalyptik

Huh, now you have me thinking more about how you have defined Flexibility and Resilience.

At the start of the article you define Flexibility as "the ability of a deck to react to various situations and threats during games and adapt to changes in the game state," which is a definition that I agree with, but then you give it a different definition in the section where you define Resilience by saying that the difference between the two is that "Flexibility preemptively responds to threats before they can disrupt the deck." The first definition of Flexibility casts it as reactive and thus has crossover with your definition of Resilience, while your second definition is proactive and describes flexibility as dealing with problems before they get a chance to do anything.

The proactive definition describes the strategy of a deck that employs discard, counterspells, or other denial tactics. "Preemptively" dealing with problems means dealing with them before they get a chance to do anything to the board state. If I am preemptively dealing with any threats to my win condition before they can stop me then I would never need to use anything other then that one win condition. That doesn't sound like Flexibility to me. I don't see counterspells as a threat in and of themselves. They are generally a one-for-one trade that prevents the opponent from playing a significant card but they don't add to your board state and they don't put any more pressure on the opponent without the assistance of other cards. They buy you time and protect something else, but they don't don't affect anything that is already present on the battlefield. Counterpells can limit your choices by either forcing you to not use mana so that you have mana spare cast them, or they become a useless card in hand if you are always spending your mana on other spells. I fail to see how that embodies flexibility.

If we go back to your reactive definition for flexibility we once again hit the problem of differentiating it from Resilience. Being reactive means letting the opponent do something that you then respond to. This is where we hit that snag with which category do we put "alternative win conditions" under? If you are playing a burn deck and the opponent drops Leyline of Sanctity your primary win condition has been disrupted, and so I think you would say that having a few creatures in the deck to get around the leyline shows resilience because it allows the burn deck to keep dealing damage despite having its main strategy disrupted. But, that is also working around a change in the game state and falls under your definition of Flexibility.

In a basic sense, I would define Flexibility as "being able to do a variety of different things" while I would define Resilience as "the ability to cope with unfavorable conditions." Translate that over to MtG game mechanics, and I think that the difference between deck Flexibility and deck Resilience is "options."

Flexibility is giving yourself a wide variety of options to choose from to confront the problems presented by your opponent.

Resilience is the ability to continue operating and potentially win a game where you have limited options and a currently unfavorable board state.

At least, that's the conclusion I reach. I'm looking forward to reading your own views regarding Resilience in your next article.

@SaberTech: Admittedly, flexibility and resilience are similar concepts. I suppose it depends on your definition of disruption. I'm defining disruption as a development that actively denigrates your position or hinders your advance

Flexibility comes into play when you're dealing with a threat, especially a permanent-based threat, that has not yet disrupted your strategy. For example, your opponent plays an Avatar of Woe and you Go for the Throat it before it loses summoning sickness.

Resilience comes into play after a threat has already disrupted your strategy. For example, your opponent casts Supreme Verdict . In the following turn, you cast Immortal Servitude to reestablish board position.

It's somewhat difficult to properly define the concepts, but the differences between them are important. Each one serves a different function, although there is crossover in some situations.

Love the article Epochalyptik, and am looking forward to the next installment!

@SaberTech I agree with a lot of what you say with one exception. And admittedly, I've only played standard since coming out of retirement last year, but I would disagree with the statement that " it is only in formats where strong tutor effects are available that strategies focused on flexibility can really shine". The most flexible deck I've played in Standard was my American control deck AEther-Reckoner's Army and it preformed the better than any of the other decks I ran, all of which had less flexibility. Now that deck was also strong in the other characteristics listed by Epochalyptik, but it did have great flexibility in dealing with threats in standard.

In general I would say that good control decks have the greatest inherent flexibility, as they strive to neutralize a wide variety of threats to extend into the late game. In contrast, aggro tends to have the least flexibility, as the goal is to apply pressure and throw punches more then being able to deal with threats.

Hey everyone, this discussion has actually been really interesting. Lately i've been trying to build a toolbox-esque reanimator deck and I was wondering what you guys think about the flexibility and versatility of this deck? 5 Color Re-animator

@ Epochalyptik: I do agree with your definition of disruption, I just think that disruption factors in to both Flexibility and Resilience. If a flexible deck's plan is disrupted it tries to utilize its resources to take a different approach, so it makes sure that its card selection provides a wide variety of options. If a resilient deck is disrupted it bears through it and excels in reestablishing its board position by either recurring its resources or quickly producing new ones. If a toolbox deck typifies flexibility, then I think that a rock deck would probably be a good representation of a resilient deck.

@ Apoptosis: You're right, Flexibility isn't solely reliant on tutor effects, they just make it easier to get the cards and specific answers you want. If you don't have tutors then having strong card draw effects is the next best thing. Your deck runs Think Twice , Sphinx's Revelation , and Azorius Charm as possible draw effects so it's not overly difficult for you to draw into the card you need during a game even if you are only running two copies of it. I do think that there is a unique type of deck that comes about when a format has powerful tutors though. They are able to focus on Flexibility specifically as their main strategy, as opposed to building in increased flexibility as a support for another strategy ... assuming that there isn't an effective combo that those tutors could dig for instead.

@SaberTech: Disruption does factor into both flexibility and resilience.

Ultimately, I think either of our definition sets could work. Which one you use depends primarily on what you're classifying as disruption and at what point you consider a strategy to be disrupted. I think, perhaps if only because of my definitions, that your definition of flexibility dips into resilience a bit too much. In my opinion, resilience can encompass all forms of survivability that apply to a deck or strategy once disruption has occurred.

@ Epochalyptik: I do see what you mean. I just think that if you slot alternative strategies like multiple win conditions under Resilience and define Flexibility in comparison as proactively dealing with an opponent's threats before they do anything (such as Doom Blade ing a creature), then it seems to me like you are equating Flexibility with control / disruption. I do agree that being able to handle a diverse range of threats is part of Flexibility, but I think that it depends on how you go about it. If all you are doing is sitting back and eliminating threats with counters or removal, then you are just repeating the same type of play and not doing anything that increases the options you have available to you. Instead your focus is on limiting your opponent's options. In those cases, Flexibility feels like the wrong word to use in my opinion.

Maybe I just need to wait for your next article and see how you build more on your definition of Resilience. Regardless of whether you and I can agree or not, I love seeing these sorts of topics being discussed. Thank you for taking the time to write these articles and get the discussion going.

@ SaberTech Thanks for the clarification. But I'm still a little confused, could you link me to a deck that uses flexibility as it's primary strategy (preferably one with a summary of how it works)? I played from 1995-1997 when powerful tutors were common, but never thought of decks in the terms that we are discussing here. Since coming back a year ago, I've only played standard and am not familiar with the current complexities of modern and legacy. So, I don't quite understand how flexibility is applied as a main strategy. Unless, you mean designing a deck that limits the flexibility of your opponents deck while giving you the most options (e.g. a prison deck). Is that a good example of what you mean? I'm really interested, because at some point I'd like to consider playing modern or legacy, but there has been to big of a gap in my knowledge of the game from long ago to now. Thanks again.

Great discussions!

Hi, first things first, congrats on the article, its really good.

Now, i havent really read all the comments, but I wanted to add something to the discussion, at least one of them.

Having a 2nd winning condition would be an aspect of resiliance and not flexibility, however, the way i see it, if a deck has multiple winning conditions, it becomes both more resiliant and flexible...

If you do not have to develop a specific and unique strategy for you to achieve victory, then you will be better suited "to react to various situations and threats during games and adapt to changes in the game state".. and also, to "endure unfavorable conditions and setbacks without losing momentum".

Now, i think you should set a clear diference between these two, cause, if the decks overcomes unfavorable situations during a game, its because its able to responden and adapt to the changes in the game..

i mean, the line here is just about timming and specifics? if you overcome immediatly to a specific threat (say a particular creature or spell) or you evolve your strategy to overcome the entire situation (say 25 elves in play)?

In your previous article, you say Resiliance "is a measure of a deck's defensive capabilities rather than its offensive ones".. but multiple winning conditions wouldnt be an offensive capability?

and then you say "A flexible deck is capable of adapting to a wide range of scenarios with little loss of momentum or position." but you define Resiliance as "the ability of a deck to endure unfavorable conditions and setbacks without losing momentum."so i dont really see the difference..

and i do not think responding to specific threats could fall into an "offensive characteristic".

unless, im not fully understanding the definitions and implications on each section, in wich case, i ask you to please clarify them for me... cause i see them fully intertwined...

pardon if my english was not really good, its not my mother language..best regards.. and please keep posting this articles...

Hi, first things first, congrats on the article, its really good.

I wanted to add something to the discussion, at least one of them.

Having a 2nd winning condition would be an aspect of resiliance and not flexibility, however, the way i see it, if a deck has multiple winning conditions, it becomes both more resiliant and flexible...

If you do not have to develop a specific and unique strategy for you to achieve victory, then you will be better suited "to react to various situations and threats during games and adapt to changes in the game state".. and also, to "endure unfavorable conditions and setbacks without losing momentum".

Now, i think you should set a clear diference between these two, cause, if the decks overcomes unfavorable situations during a game, its because its able to responden and adapt to the changes in the game..

i mean, the line here is just about timming and specifics? if you overcome immediatly to a specific threat (say a particular creature or spell) or you evolve your strategy to overcome the entire situation (say 25 elves in play)?

In your previous article, you say Resiliance "is a measure of a deck's defensive capabilities rather than its offensive ones".. but multiple winning conditions wouldnt be an offensive capability?

and then you say "A flexible deck is capable of adapting to a wide range of scenarios with little loss of momentum or position." but you define Resiliance as "the ability of a deck to endure unfavorable conditions and setbacks without losing momentum."so i dont really see the difference..

and i do not think responding to specific threats could fall into an "offensive characteristic".

unless, im not fully understanding the definitions and implications on each section, in wich case, i ask you to please clarify them for me... cause i see them fully intertwined...

pardon if my english was not really good, its not my mother language..best regards.. and please keep posting this articles...

I see resilience as being able to win after getting hit by Slaughter Games or Pithing Needle and your primary win-con just went out the window.

Flexibility is the ability to deal with threats to maintain board state, stabilize, etc.

@Apoptosis: See, it's the opposite for me. To me it feels like having multiple winning conditions is flexibility while being able to protect your wincons is resilience.

Well, i finally read all the comments in the discussion and i found that someone else had stated what i was trying to say..i have to agree with @SaberTech about the resiliance and flexibility being mixed up..i think the way he thinks about flexibility is much closer to the way i think about it.. the point is that we must not think in terms of cards. we must think in decks as a whole unit.. a decks flexibility would be having options, both for defense (responses like removal) and for offense (more than one winning condition).. and resiliance, thinking in terms of deck unit, would be being able to overcome a sort of choke situation.. depending on the decks mechanics could be life gaining, or board wipeing, or creature controling.. i see it not that much as standing up once you are on your knees, but more like being hard for your opponent to get you on your knees in the first place.. that would be more of a resiliance in a deck the way i see it...sorry for the double post in my previous comment but i got some conection issues.. best regards

@ fluffybunnypants you say Po-Taa-Toe I say, let's get a beer and play magic. ;-)

@Apoptosis: Agreed. Sounds like a damn good plan to me!

@Queima: That's almost the definition set I have, but I put "multiple win conditions" under resilience because the secondary win conditions are used when the main win condition fails. That falls under the definition of resilience, which is the ability to maintain momentum and regain position.

@Apoptosis: That's closer to my definition, so I think we're on the same page here. I wouldn't say any decks use flexibility as a strategy, but Jund is kind of close. It relies on advantage generators and strong responses to build position, and it's also quite resilient because it doesn't have one critical card upon which the deck relies.

Regardless, the names we give these concepts are less important than the acknowledgement we give them. Even if you never remember which quality falls under which definition, it's critical to think about all the qualities that influence a deck's strength.

I do think that you can build a deck with flexibility as a primary strategy, although it depends how you define flexibility. To me, they are the types of decks that actively try to make as many cards in the deck available to them as they can, as quickly as they can, so that they can continuously make the best plays the deck have available in response to whatever the opponent is attempting to do.

I find that decks based around Survival of the Fittest tend to take this approach. Once you have Survival of the Fittest on the battlefeld then every creature you draw becomes whatever other creature in your deck that you want for just one green mana. It vastly improves the options available to you and with a little mana investment guarantees that you are getting the creatures that you want without having to wait to draw into them.

In this sense, Flexibility is a benefit because it lessens the chance of a bad match-up and allows a deck to mainboard specific counters to multiple other strategies at once. This increases the likelihood of the deck being able to take the win in the first match of a round. Or it just makes the deck a good option to bring to the kitchen table since it will likely be playable against whatever other random decks everyone else pulls out to play with.

Toolbox decks tend to be highly flexible by design, but flexibility is, of course, only one of their aspects.

I'm probably nitpicking, but isn't flexibility something that a strategy has instead of being a strategy in itself?

Also, a good deck should be maxing out all seven virtues, not only one.

@Triforce-Finder: Yes and no. In the traditional (and most common) sense, flexibility is one characteristic of a strong deck. None of the characteristics are really strategies; they're just qualities that make a deck function well. However, there are some decks that go heavier on some characteristics. High-flexibility builds can be incidental or purposeful, and the purposeful cases usually happen when the player designs with flexibility as a primary focus.

And you are correct in saying that a strong deck should, ideally, balance the seven characteristics. They're mutually supportive. It's alright to go heavier on some characteristics, though, if you're aiming for a specific kind of deck.

In formats like Limited, Standard, and Modern I think that it's rare to see decks that can balance all the characteristics due to limited card selection. When Jund decks crop up they tend to be fairly well rounded I suppose. People have praised the Flash Hulk deck as being the best deck ever created and its core cards were banned quick.

Building decks that only develop a few of the seven characteristics is generally a necessary design choice in more limited formats. That's not a bad thing either, since it creates the whole "Rock, Paper, Scissors" dynamic in format metas. The game becomes boring for a lot of people when a meta is limited to only a couple of top tier decks.

Well, go figure why Legacy is favorite format... Loads of possibilities, but without the broken old stuff used in vintage. I guess I am a bit spoiled compared to modern or standard players. In our games, every player has at least two rocks, papers and scissors each (cue stupid scissor-sisters-rolling-joints joke). Maybe Tournaments get me to invest some time in modern, but standard will always be too short-lived for me.

Wait, I just realized that I didn't take a side on the Po-Taa-Toh thing. (Im not a native speaker, but seriously, does anyone really say po-taa-toh?) As long as the concepts are worked out well, I don't care if the names are switched. Yes they are. But that doesn't matter. You could also name it apple, jambalaya or monkey suit, fine by me. Small and harmless inconsistencies are even quite welcome to me, since they make a great opening for the discussion, and discussion is what makes a topic come alive.

So, do you think that jambalaya or monkey suit is more important in modern decks? :)

Yeah my very first decks didn't have flexibility so I lost a lot. Now I can even handle a Fleecemane Lion with ease. My brother's vampire deck (Now modern) has a lot of flexibility. Pacifism doesn't work or anything like pacifism. He handled my green big creatures deck with a nighthawk with first strike. Now he wins all the time.

I wonder if looking at the Flexibility and Resilience as dimensions of the decks Adaptability would have value.

From what I understand of the discussion; it seems like the primary difference is that one is Proactive and one is Reactive. A deck that scores high on proactive adaptability would be more likely to stop what the opponent is doing before they can do it, using a bevy of counterspells, discard and removal to avoid getting on its heels.

Alternatively, a deck that scores higher on reactive adaptability would recognize that their Plan A is going to be (potentially) disrupted and develops a back-up plan to recover if/when this happens.

I guess, a deck is less resilient when it doesn't have the flexibility to interact with the opponents countermeasures. It's more difficult to do this without some idea of the metas you enter into, but that's where being aware of what your deck is weak against is so valuable.

@MindAblaze!: That's effectively the definition of flexibility and resilience, but you give a good analysis. It's hard to rate decks on a continuum with flexibility at one end and resilience at the other, though, because the properties are not mutually exclusive. They need to be balanced, but they support and interact with one another.

@ Epochalyptik You're right, I wasn't attempting to create a duality so much as asking the question whether it would be appropriate to view them as subcategories of the same concept; adaptability. There seems to be a lot of questions regarding how the two concepts are different.

The challenge for deck building is to play a combination of cards that help us while we're ahead or behind. Optimally it'd be both but the more narrow the format the harder that is. This is part of why the guildcharms are so good, they provide the pilot with a lot of options.

@MindAblaze!

Actually, I think there's even space for discussion about which is proactive and which is reactive. I, for my part, would say that proactive adaption is - including, but not limited to - everything that allows you to alter your strategy when the opponent interferes, while counterspells and "can't" effects (which are usually sideboarded) that prevent interference as it occurs are reactive.

One argument for that would be that I can alter my strategy before the opponent interferes if I feel that it is or will be necessary, while a counterspell will not be of any use until the opponent actually tries to interfere and is usually cast after whatever it's supposed to counter.

tl;dr: Proactive is anything that allows me to outmaneuver the opponent before he/she even tries to interfere. Reactive is what stops interference after it's announced.

@ Triforce-Finder

I think you bring up an interesting point. I would probably argue that by viewing your deck as "the 75" your sideboard is proactive. But because you have no access to it until game 2, I would say it is primarily a reactive adaptation. The build may have not had the proper answer for the particular archetype maindecked, and thus by sideboarding you are reacting to a disruption that caused irreparable damage to your ability to win game one. If you won game one but saw a threat you could be better equipped for you are technically being proactive for the opening hand of game two but for me the major distinction is this;

Reactionary measures (resilience) are taken when you are falling behind, when an opponent plays a Rest in Peace and exiles your graveyard your reanimation strategy or graveyard combo has been disrupted and it's something you have to recover from. The reactionary solution to an aggro deck may be a Supreme Verdict , which in turn puts the aggro deck on it's heels.

Proactive adaptation (flexibility) for me is the more 1:1 answers. The old "I'm going to have to deal with this eventually so I may as well plan for it." idea. Outmaneuvering the opponent is a huge part of this; as the designer and the pilot of a particular build you become aware what sorts of cards your opponents could play to disrupt you and you build accordingly. Boros doesn't like facing Supreme Verdict ...Boros Charm is potentially maindecked so that when you inevitably run into that control deck you're prepared to 1:1 their nuke before it messes up your day.

For me, Flexibility is proactively adapting to what will mess up your game plan. Don't let Plan A fail. Resilience is reactively adapting to what has messed up your game plan; having a plan B because sometimes Plan A fails and you need to recover/get there a different way.

Interesting. I see where you are coming from, and it does make sense.

I like to see a deck like a multiple beam rocket launcher (google project sylpheed 2 if that doesn't ring a bell). All missiles are deployed at once and approach from different directions, assuming that the targeted craft can't avoid or shoot them all down and at least one beam will connect. Using plan B isn't restricted to the failure of plan A, they can also be used simultaneously to increase the pressure on the opponent, especially when his countermeasures are too specialized to handle different kinds of threats.

Hey, that might be something, right? Specialized countermeasures often need to be sideboarded to prevent running unneeded cards, what clearly makes them reactive. Proactive for Game 2 is a bit like being punktual for the second hour. You're still going to spend time in the detention room. Versatile countermeasures like Stifle or Counterspell are usually in the mainboard from game one, so they could be seen as proactive, even if they can only be used as answer to an opponent's action.

The biggest conclusion in this discussion until now is that, despite the disagreement about what is to be called flexibility and what resilience, if something is proactive or reactive, there is a clear distinction forming between breaking and avoiding a threat.

A factor that might be important is what makes an action offensive or defensive, as that is what seems to classify it under flexibility or resilience. A simple spell like a Lightning Bolt can be very ambiguous about that, depending if you target an attacker, a blocker, or a player. That applies even more to a counterspell, as it can interfere with an opponents strategy to defend you, but also prevent your strategy from being disturbed, supporting your offense.

Once the Characteristics of a Strong Deck are completed, maybe Defining the Aspects of Strategy could make a good series...

Yeah, this goes back to one of the first points in the article;

"Flexibility is a measure of a deck's offensive power - its ability to preempt and counteract unfavorable changes in the game state"

Again, another great read that stimulates some good conversation. Cant wait for the next one.

The next article is up, everyone!