I remember almost ten years ago in tropical Taipei when I managed to top 4 a two-headed giant PTQ with my best buddy, an American, Trevor, also an English teacher in Taiwan. At that time, I had never been on the mysterious and heroic Pro Tour and the thought of getting there with my best bro was extremely enticing. We had been meeting pretty much every day, playtesting the Time Spiral format, discussing until late at night on card interactions and unexpected combos and just generally getting psyched about being proper spikes, i.e. properly successful players.

What started as a hobby, a game amongst others, became our private obsession. For sure, we were still hanging out with the cool expat crew, going to exclusive pool parties, insane all-night beach electronic events or select afterhours, after all, we had few responsibilities and plenty of disposable income.

The Taipei expat party scene was unlike any others, almost entirely composed of ESL teachers, meaning that the dregs of society, if I can express myself in a way that is not corrupted by the politically correct paradigm, was filtered out. Sure, you got the occasional imbecile, but at least they were at least half-educated and world-savvy enough to make it alive to this part of the world. Trevor and I started skipping these debaucheries where partygoers were living like there is no tomorrow for a more noble pursuit, an ambition towards accomplishing a colossal mental feat, the dream of Pro Tour glory.

So here we were, in the top 4 of a two-headed PTQ, side by side, ready to take over the event after a long day were we played as tight as we could, often saving the team in extremis reminding each other of certain particularities of the current board state. Now we had our chance. We were paired against some of the strongest Taiwanese players and their national pride was such that they did not enjoy foreigners winning their events. They were very solid, having access to Japanese tech on Japanese websites at a time where the Japanese were dominating the Magic scene.

We almost got there; I probably decided to pull the trigger on our [card]Magus of the Disk[/card] a bit early, in a very complicated board state, trying to capitalize on the fact that one of our opponents was slightly mana screwed. Trevor and I replayed the sequence of events afterwards a few times, asking the painful question “what if?”, trying to determine if we actually had a real chance to win the game, and move to the final. I had vetoed my friend’s objection on the Magus activation, thinking we could get there, and as a result we packed our stuff and left, our dream of being at the Pro Tour together, in the same team, shattered. And we had missed a wicked party the night before.

Let’s fast-forward to today, the beginning of January 2016, after this somewhat nostalgic contemplation of my Magic past. I am still a teacher, but now philosophy and French as a second language are my fields of expertise. More importantly, a new MTG set is coming; Oath of the Gatewatch and a special emphasis will be put on the Two-Headed Giant format. I have a new teammate, Martin, as Trevor stayed in Taiwan. We are going to play in the prerelease, so no possibilities to get qualified for the big league. Still, like before, I get excited at the prospect of becoming the local king of the hill with my partner in crime.

Besides winning, nowadays, I love giving back to the community, and this article will be the occasion to share some of my strategic insights about what it takes to be a glorious winner for your next Two-Headed Giant event. This format is wicked fun: Victories are shared, emotional and mental support is at hand, a slow start can be redeemed by your best buddy and crushing is more enjoyable when it is a team effort. As I have played tons of Two-Headed Giant events in the past and feel very confident about the format, I am ready now to spread my knowledge to the younger generations now that my beard is showing the telltale wisdom signs of becoming salt and pepper. If you need to know the basic rules, please consult this link. This article will concentrate on three major areas: Deck building, gameplay and communication.

Deck Building

50 minutes is usually how long you have to create your weapons of choice. Sideboarding is out of the question, so make sure you get it right. During prereleases, because the rule enforcement level is low and you do not have to provide decklists, you can change your deck between matches, which is sometimes called the “continuous build” rule. Still, you had better use the deck building time efficiently, and to do that you need a good team synergy, which can be achieved through prolonged frequentation and team-building exercises.

First, open and sort the cards by color, keeping rares separated. Keep in mind what you have for manafixing and what colors are your best gold cards, they could indicate the deck archetypes you should build. Each player can then go through each color, classifying them in three piles: great, playable and unplayable, with the very best cards on top. When your friend goes through your already sorted piles, he or she can re-sort them according to their evaluation. Keep also in mind that some cards are usually bad, but in certain archetypes the synergy makes them great as you want a critical mass for a certain type of cards. For BFZ/Oath, be on the lookout for allies (red, white or green), BW lifegain cards or Eldrazi scions makers. Surge, the new mechanic (You may cast this spell for its surge cost if you or a teammate has cast another spell this turn) is easier to trigger in 2HG, so these cards have a higher value than usual.

Check if there are obvious decks and look at different possibilities before settling on something. Putting the best piles of two colors together in order of mana cost gives you a rough idea of what the deck would look like, and then you can tune it according to some intrinsic synergy or splash consideration. Hopefully you can play all your strongest cards, a deck could have two colors and the other three, including green. However, if a color card pool is really weak, just go two colors. If you have enough mana fixing, a converge deck can also be interesting, so check what it would look like. If you are efficient and driven enough, you can look through a dozen possibilities, allowing you to choose after having really explored your options. In general I tend to avoid aggro as the games can be longer with 30 life and you can run out of steam quite quickly. I prefer slower decks with control elements, tons of spot removals, strong rares and evasion creatures. Conditional spot removals, like [card]Plummet[/card], have more potential targets and can come in, as well as artifact and enchantment removals, as these are bound to destroy something annoying.

Everything that can be a source of card advantage, of two for one, is tremendous. Mass removal, card draw, mass discard, all these must be played. [card]Transgress the Mind[/card] is excellent, as people play in general slower decks and one of your opponents is bound to have more cards so your odds of hitting something are greater. Also, the information gained here will greatly help your team. [card]Mire’s Malice[/card] and [card]Mind Raker[/card] are other great discard spells that can provide card advantage, the latter being twice as strong as it says each opponent. Other cards with that mention are enhanced too, we can think of these cards dealing twice as much damage: [card]Kalastria Healer[/card], [card]Zulaport Cutthroat[/card], [card]Dominator Drone[/card], [card]Nettle Drone[/card], [card]Tunneling Geopede[/card] and [card]Drana’s Emissary[/card]. [card]Dampening Pulse[/card] and [card]Roilmage’s Trick[/card] affect both opponents’ creatures, so we can consider them a lot more potent. [card]Ondu Rising[/card] is improved as well, giving lifelink to your partner’s creatures too and providing your team with enough life that it could be a turning point in a race.

On the contrary, [card]Encircling Fissure[/card] gets worse and becomes half the fog it used to be. If you like card advantage, [card]Sire of Stagnation[/card] can give a beating and opponents need to remove it before playing any more lands. Also please note that combat tricks are much riskier in 2HG and could be a source of card disadvantage, as your opponents could get you with a two for one and you may not be able to afford to wait for both of your opponent’s lands to be tapped.

As I am writing this article, very few cards have been spoiled, but three appear very strong for 2HG: [card]Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet[/card], [card]Kozilek’s Return[/card] and [card]Crush of Tentacles[/card]. With Kalitas, you can get almost instant value if you play it and your partner kills something right after. If it stays on board, it makes combat very complicated and zombies should soon populate your board. Sweepers like [card]Kozilek’s Return[/card] are great and knowing it is coming allows you can to play accordingly in a way that your opponents get blown out and not you. If you later play a 7 mana cost Eldrazi, you may sweep the board again if needed, and it could be difficult for your opponent to play around as it would imply keeping creatures in their hand and then giving you all the time in the world to get to 7 mana. [card]Crush of Tentacles[/card], for 5 mana, can allow you to reset the board with an 8/8 Octopus, which is as scary as certain animated TV programs may make you believe.

Any card with the ability Support can be used to help your friend’s creatures, so they are more useful than if you were playing solo. [card]Warping Wail[/card] is sufficiently polyvalent that in 2HG you will find an interesting target, and it is a counterspell, to which I will profess my love in the next paragraph. [card]Linvala, the Preserver[/card], a good mythic on its own, is even better if you are more likely to have a 3/3 angel with two opponents. [card]Gravity Negator[/card] and [card]Steppe Glider[/card] can give flying to your partner’s creature and as we know already, evasion is the name of the (2HG) game. At last we could mention [card]Pulse of Murasa[/card], which can bring back your partner’s creature from the dead in a format where spot removal is very present.

A last piece of advice: Play counterspells! The power to say no, the knowledge that you will not get wrecked mid-combat by a surprise spell, is well worth a spot. You can protect your best cards, you can counter theirs, you can interrupt their plans at a crucial point, counterspells are awesome, counterspells are your friends.

Gameplay

Now that your deck is built, you can pat your best buddy a few times on the back; mention a few words with positive connotations like intelligence, achievement, excellence or power. What is called in psychology ‘priming’, where you can influence a person’s self-perception through the vocabulary you use, could give your partner the confidence boost needed to start a long day feasting on the innocent.

So you sit at your seat, hopefully getting there before your next victims. You start to shuffle while doing small talk, trying to evaluate who you are facing. The way they shuffle, the information they are willing to reveal about their deckbuilding experience, the trinkets they brought with them, their level of social awkwardness, all these factors and others can help you to figure out who you are dealing with. The competitive, suspicious wolf in me will also pay attention to where they are looking when they shuffle my team’s decks, as there is a simple cheat which consists in shuffling a deck in a way where you reveal the entire content to your partner, turning the cards you are shuffling in their direction. In the past I had to call some people on it as their eyes were wandering in the wrong direction.

You roll the die, try to be on the draw if possible for card advantage and check your first hand. You have a free mulligan, so if your hand is too slow, ship it. As for every move, consult your friend, he is there for you. Slowly grind your opponents with card advantage, try to set them up for a sweeper, keep your spot removal for creatures hard to deal with and bait their removal with your lesser creatures. The board state will get complicated, combat math will become more and more of a headache as the game progresses. Creatures with activated abilities will make the board more complex, more lands potentially untapped will mean more things to play around. In the end, if you are focused enough, if you can analyze chains of reasoning far enough, if you can communicate stealthily enough with your BFF, then you could win the match.

Communication

Which takes me to my last point, c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-i-o-n. You can listen to your opponents’ conversation while looking relatively oblivious to what is happening. Some people have the gift of being able to look slightly stupid. If it is the case, use it to your advantage. When you discuss with your own partner, speak a foreign language if you can. You could even learn Esperanto if you have enough time to prepare. Otherwise, mumble, put your hand on your mouth when you speak, whisper in your friend’s ear if need be. Point to a card with your eyes, or pretend you have something while pointing at the lonely basic land left in your hand. Do not name your own cards, use numbers to refer to them.

Also, as all good BDSM practitioners know, having a little secret language for some specific keywords can be quite useful and save you a lot of trouble and pain. The same applies to Two-Headed Giant. Having a word that means stop is really useful, but you could design other codes referring to cards on the board using the name of a fruit or vegetable starting with the same letter and adding a number with it to indicate which one it is if there are many on the board, starting in order from the left side of the board. When your opponents attack, you can pause and discuss, as if you were considering killing a creature, when in fact there is nothing in your hand that can do so. If your partner is as good as you are, he will probably see the same lines of play and prolonged explanations will not be needed.

Conclusion

Channel your inner dragon, enjoy the experience, and treat your opponents with respect while doing everything within the rules to win. The stakes may be low at a prerelease but remind yourself that you are training, getting in shape, sharpening your mind and your skills, like Bruce Lee or Conor McGregor getting ready for their next fight. It could be a good idea to skip a party the day before if you are into those kinds of things so you can concentrate fully on very complex board states in a room full of friendly geeks. Once you win and become the two kings of the hill, it will be time to celebrate. Good luck guys and may you be in total harmony with your magic other half.