There was a time-circa 2003-2005-when pro Magic the Gathering players wrote articles that actually helped the average Magic player significantly improve. In particular, I’m referring to the “matchup series” published by Brainburst.com. These articles were the absolute gold standard of strategy: two pro players would test a particular matchup for 20 games (including game ones and sideboarded games), and then both players would write their own article summarizing the experience. Pro players that participated in this series over the years include-in no real order-Kai Budde, Brian Kibler, Jeff Cunningham, Eric Froehlich, Justin Gary, Gabe Walls, Zvi Mowshowitz, Marco Blume, and many others.
Before I explain why these articles were light-years beyond where we are today, I must first explore today’s strategy article.
In today’s world, we focus on quantity and frequency of articles and much less on the quality of the content, the helpfulness of the content to the reader so desperately seeking to improve, and even less on there being enough content per article to actually call it an “article.” Today, we see articles that basically post seven different decklists and merely explain why there are four different cards in this list than there were in the last one, and so on. We summarize matchups as 55/45 and pretend that this is helpful information; we do very little to actually hone in on the important cards, the key turns, and the overall strategy involved in achieving the slight 55/45 matchup advantage. Other articles might provide a “sideboarding guide” for a few matchups. These guides give you some literal information but rarely help you to understand exactly what you are trying to do or what key interaction will decide the game. This is a “Magical” example of the old “give a man a fish” versus “teach a man to fish” concept.
I will attempt to explain what I mean using a dated example. Years ago, in Onslaught Block Constructed, just after the release of Scourge, the field was basically two decks: [card]Goblin[/card]s and RW Control. [card]Goblin[/card]s was so aggressive that it beat back most of the other options in the field; however, RW Control was very good against [card]Goblin[/card]s. [card]Goblin[/card]s certainly had a chance to beat RW with a nut draw, but fundamentally, its cards didn’t match up well against 4 [card]Starstorm[/card], 4 [card]Wing Shards[/card], 4 [card]Akroma’s Vengeance[/card], 4 [card]Lightning Rift[/card], 4 [card]Silver Knight[/card], etc.
My testing showed such a fundamental advantage for RW against [card]Goblin[/card]s that I even shaved some numbers (like the fourth [card]Wing Shards[/card], a [card]Renewed Faith[/card] or two, etc.) to bias my RW deck against the mirror, which I expected to face several times each tournament. I added two [card]Temple of the False God[/card] and a [card]Decree of Annihilation[/card] to the maindeck. Twenty-nine maindeck lands (including the eight cycling lands) gave me a strong advantage in the control mirror, ensuring I rarely had to play a cycling land as my land drop. This decision was the result of extensive mirror testing with a talented friend of mine. We realized the game-one mirror matches were taking so long to finish that we were rarely able to finish two games in time. Therefore, if we wanted to win the mirror, we had to win the first game; enter the trump card: [card]Decree of Annihilation[/card].
We could now play game one at whatever pace we needed to, working the board state to a spot where we had a marked advantage, and then cycle the Decree, basically ending the game on the spot. On the other hand, if we got too far behind, we could let them over-commit and then hardcast Decree, wiping out the opponent’s advantage and hopefully recovering faster, thanks to having two or three more land in our list. On our way to five PTQ top eights between the two of us that season, we won numerous Slide mirrors 1-0 by simply understanding the fulcrum of that mirror match: we had [card]Decree of Annihilation[/card] and they didn’t. They’d never see it coming in game one and basically had no chance to win because of it.
In a similar way, these Brainburst matchup articles would present the user with invaluable information learned by running the matchup over and over again. They-like Jon Finkel has always said-were able to focus on what mattered in each matchup. And when you are in the middle of a tournament match fighting against the clock, and you’ve completely forgotten the complicated 11-card sideboard swap that someone recommended in an article somewhere, you can remember a simple phrase that summarizes the matchup. That is useful. That is focusing on what matters and not getting bogged down in less relevant details.
For example, around 2003, the standard environment was dominated for some time by an aggressive UG Madness deck, made famous by its champion, Jeff Cunningham. I loved to run Mono-Black Control at the time but always had trouble with the UG matchup and similar matchups where the occasional well-timed counterspell (plus the nightmarish [card]Compost[/card]) seemed to get me every time. I haven’t been able to locate the exact article (I think it was by Justin Gary), but I received this simple advice: save your [card]Duress[/card], get to seven mana (not that tough with [card]Cabal Coffers[/card]), and then lead with [card]Duress[/card] followed by Visara, the Dreadful. This would invalidate their whole deck, including any number of [card]Compost[/card]s since they basically can’t beat Visara.
I had been casting my [card]Duress[/card] on turn one because they cost one mana, but this gives them a chance to draw another [card]Circular Logic[/card] between then and turn six when you cast Visara. I had never considered holding my discard, but that advice suddenly gave me inevitability in the matchup (and let me know which kinds of opening hands could actually win the matchup). I had to assume that, after boarding, the Madness player would be keeping an opener containing one or more [card]Compost[/card], so I would have to be able to beat that card. The only cards that actually mattered were [card]Circular Logic[/card] (and to a lesser extent, [card]Unsummon[/card]). I needed to resolve Visara and perhaps a key [card]Corrupt[/card] or two to put it away.
Holding your [card]Duress[/card] may seem obvious to many players, but it really isn’t. You have to know what matters in a particular matchup to decide if playing [card]Duress[/card] on turn one is better or holding it is better. If you fear a particular two-mana spell (e.g., [card]Compost[/card]), your gut tells you to [card]Duress[/card] on turn one. I had misidentified the fulcrum of the game; I assumed it was “if [card]Compost[/card] resolves, I lose,” when in fact it was “if I resolve Visara, I win.”
This is why going through each important interaction (and any steps leading up to that interaction) is vital. You really can’t gloss over this information in an article. And yes, I subsequently destroyed UG Madness decks for the rest of the season. I particularly enjoyed the overconfident smirks my opponents would exhibit while resolving 2-3 [card]Compost[/card] each game against me-just prior to my crushing them anyway.
One of my favorite things about these matchup articles is that each player writes from their own separate perspective. It’s almost more important to figure out which of your cards your opponent fears most after the match than it is for you to think about which of your own cards you liked the most in the match. The opponent can give you a better perspective concerning how tough your cards are to deal with and how well they match up. Here is just one of many, many examples of incredibly helpful information contained in these types of articles (this one is from Justin Gary):
“The [Mono-Black Control] matchup vs. Red Green starts out favorably. They are playing right into your hands playing creatures that die to your copious quantities of removal and burn that pale in comparison to the power of [card]Corrupt[/card]. When Zvi and I tested the game 1 matchup, it ended in a 6-4 result favoring MBC. We both felt, however, that this was not representative of the dominance of MBC in the matchup. Three out of four loses of MBC were due to mulliganing and missed land drops, and ALL of the losses involved [card]Elephant Guide[/card]. The key to playing this matchup game one is to protect yourself from the Guide. It is practically the only way that they can beat you before you take control of the game. If you have a [card]Smother[/card], save it for a chance to catch a Guide as it comes down. If not, use your early removal to make sure that they have no chance to drop a Guide until later in the game when you can handle it better. In fact, the game-one matchup is so good, that I think you could readily sacrifice some space from this maindeck build to shore up the match versus other tier-one decks like [card]Psychatog[/card] by adding another [card]Duress[/card] or a [card]Mind Sludge[/card] to the maindeck.”
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=2889
You are given the testers’ initial impressions of the matchup right away, along with a perspective of a key way to play the game from the control deck’s perspective. And here’s another fascinating look at testing (these are Marco Blume’s comments on his testing habits with the great Kai Budde):
“What I tried to explain is that testing is about getting a feel for a matchup; it’s about seeing why certain plays are good for each deck and why certain strategies are bad.
Most of the Magic players I know are not big fans of testing intensively. They find it rather boring to play the same matchup for three hours. So my idea is trying to get the best out of your testing session. Kai and I managed to play close to 25 matches in one hour, and that’s about one match every two to three minutes.
So, if we play a matchup for three hours, we have played around 75 games in our matchup. This gives us a good idea on how and why the matchup is like it is. It doesn’t really matter if one of us made some errors during the course of our testing that could have been avoided if we played slower. The reason is that we play so many games that the result of many games overshadows the one that was won via an error. Statistics are on our side.
Our testing setup is the same we always use: 20 games pre-sideboard with Kai and me playing 10 games each with the two decks and then 20 games after sideboard, switching decks again after 10 games.”
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=4768
This is really fascinating stuff! The goal isn’t to try to carefully outplay the other testing partner and finish only three games in an hour, rather, you’re looking for trends, plans, and strategies. You’re looking for the fulcrum of the matchup, focusing on what matters. Also, note that the two pros play 10 games from each side both pre and post-board. This familiarizes them with both decklists in a general sense, but also shows them which cards are typically held in hand at different points in the game, and which decisions each side is making turn by turn. It makes a huge difference to have played a matchup from both sides.
Probably the most talented chess player of all time, Bobby Fischer, was famous for playing chess against himself, playing both sides as hard as he could. I do a lot of Magic playtesting in this way. It’s not necessarily ideal to play yourself, but if you don’t have great local playtesting partners, it can be quite useful. It does have the advantage of allowing you to be in control of the variables in the matchup, like decklists, sideboards, trying sideboarding plans, and how aggressively you mulligan. This very efficiently gets you to the fulcrum of the matchup.
As magic writing goes forward, I really hope we’ll see fewer videos featuring slow, ponderous matchup testing, and more articles that really break down the matchup into the key turns and plays that will determine the results. And if we’re going to continue using video content for matchup strategy, perhaps we should feature a pro player operating both sides of a matchup while explaining the thought process and decisions as he goes along. This might ultimately be more instructive for our readers/viewers.
Dan Mayo
@mtgeternal
danmayo@gmail.com
