An interesting an article on mental magic.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
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Thursday, July 1, 2010
5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Game @ Matteo Orsini Jones @ BlackBorder.com
5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Game
My last few articles have focused on the deeper, more abstract concepts of the game, and so I thought I’d go for something a little simpler this week. Though getting into the deeper concepts is necessary to really become “good”, it’s also good to remember the simple things that can give you an edge. Not necessarily things that will make you play better, but more things that will make better the way you play... if that makes sense. Some of them will seem obvious to you and may well be things you do out of instinct, but that’s unavoidable when my audience covers quite a range of players from those who started last week to those who expect to win most tournaments they turn up to. I’ve come up with 5 basic tips that will hopefully improve the way you approach a game of Magic. So, here they are:
1. Play spells post-combat.
This one’s been repeated to new players since the dawn of mankind, and still holds today, yet still so many of my opponents tap out for a creature then send in the team, giving me perfect information and allowing me to set up a complete car crash of a combat step without fearing pump spells or removal. Not only does it allow the opponent to do this, but it also tells them that you don’t have a pump spell / removal in hand and so allows them to play accordingly for the following turns. Leveling a creature also counts as playing spells precombat – Knight of Cliffhaven being the biggest offender in the most recent set. So often people level it up turn 3 before attacking only to have it Heat Ray’d / Staggershock’d / Vendetta’d in response and losing 2 turns. If you just attack for 2 it’s unlikely your opponent kills it because the fact you didn’t level up suggests you have a better creature to play. Even if you don’t have a follow up, you at least get 2 damage in before having your guy killed in response to a post-combat level up.2. Do things in your opponent’s end step.
This one’s pretty much the same as point 1 in terms of reasons – It doesn’t tap you out, and so leaves your opponent wondering what you could have in hand to not want to make something last turn. There aren’t so many examples of this in Rise of the Eldrazi, but if we think backwards a little bit, cards like Harrow and Think Twice fit nicely into this category. This one’s a little bit more fluid than point 1 though, because there are times when you DO want to play the Harrow during your own turn – if you fear the Spell Pierce, or if you fear the Trapmaker's Snare into Archive Trap (lol) it’s better to run with it while your opponent is tapped out. Similarly, if it’s removal on a creature that you really want dead, Staggershock it during your own turn to stop yourself getting countered or fizzled with the likes of Emerge Unscathed.Also, don’t always do this just because you should when it makes literally no difference – e.g. don’t save your Evolving Wilds until their end step on turn 1 when they already know what colors you’re playing just because you can – just do it in your turn; that way you can hit f8/f6 and sit back... (This is an online thing if you didn’t know).
3. Look at how your opponent is tapping their lands.
A lot of people try and get better by trying to “read” their opponents – getting tells through twitches, sighs and shrugs, but to be honest I’m not very good at this and I strongly doubt that anyone is as good as they might claim to be – I really don’t think you can get anything more than “that draw wasn’t great” from a competent player by observing their body language. Where you really get tells is taking note of how your opponent is tapping their mana. This set in particular is great for getting tells of this kind due to the fact that it’s full of levelers and spawn tokens. If your opponent chooses not to level up when they could then something is clearly up, but even if they do level up as much as possible you can gain something from the way they tap. If, for example they have a Kabira Vindicator and level it by tapping 3 Plains and leaving 2 Islands up, then play around Deprive. If you know they have Prey's Vengeance in their deck yet they make sure to leave a Plains up after leveling a Dauntless Escort twice then the Emerge Unscathed alarm bells should be ringing (or if nothing else it tells you they don’t have the pump spell). Similarly, if they chump with a Nest invader over an Eldrazi Spawn then you just know a boomboom is in arrival, so maybe keep that Narcolepsy you were about to cast on a Stomper Cub at the expense of slowing down your clock if it means you don’t lose to a Crusher.
4. Make plans during your opponent’s turn, not yours.
Something that really gets me is when players draw their card, then tank for ages. They then ask for permission to attack, and after I grant it they then proceed to tank for another 10 seconds. What were you thinking about the first time you thought for ages? In general you should know what your next turn will achieve at least 1 turn in advance, but working it out during your opponent’s turn is a fine place to start. This way after you draw your card you can decide how the draw will help or, very rarely, change your plan, rather than starting to devise the plan only after drawing the card. I was recently observing a friend playing Magic Online (he is, to be blunt, quite bad at Magic). One turn he untapped and drew a Pathrazer of Ulamog and excitedly started counting his available mana sources. I told him he only had 10 and to attack just like he did last turn as nothing had changed since – he was in disbelief that I had counted that quickly and asked how I did it. The thing is, I already knew we had 10 mana available because I’d counted it a few turns back when working out how to best maximize efficiency over the next few turns. Drawing the Pathrazer now meant we had to be a little more careful with keeping spawns alive but ultimately didn’t change the plan I had already in mind. This opened my eyes to the fact that there are some people who don’t even consider doing what comes quite naturally to me – like I said at the start – a lot of you will do this already, but even if I change the way just 3 people reading this play the game then I’m doing good work.
5. Do math.
This one’s similar to the previous one, but applies more to combat – Often I get people who attack with the same guy turn after turn without realizing that the guy they’re attacking with then allows me to attack back for more, and so the damage race is in my favor because I’m dealing 5 every time they deal 4. If they held their 1/4 back and just send in the 3/3 flyer then my 2/1 would have to stay back too and the race would be even – if they started first, then they’re winning first. Obviously there are a lot of factors to take into account with this kind of thing, and if you have, say, a pump spell or a removal spell with which you plan to win the game, then it becomes a lot more favorable to start sending in the men. Equally, however, the opponent might have a trick that is going to mess up your math, and so you also have to keep this in mind – even though your trick is going to speed up your clock by a turn it might be worth it to hold back with 1 of your guys in order to ensure that your opponent can’t speed up their own. Basically, do the math – don’t just send in a creature willy-nilly because it’s “dealing them 5 damage”.I’ll leave it at those 5 for now. If you already do all of these things and understand why you do them, then I guess this article wasn’t for you (but as you’re reading this, then I guess maybe it was!), but hopefully most of you will at least think about the points I made next time you’re playing a game.
Summary
To summarize:- Don’t give your opponent extra information when there’s no need to do so.
- Similarly, don’t let your opponent get away with unknowingly giving you extra information; try and take everything you can from what you’re given.
- Don’t think about what you’re doing now, but rather how what you’re doing now will affect what you plan to do with the rest of the game, and how what your opponent is doing changes this.
- When making plans do the math, go through the odds (or EV for the statisticians) of each possible plan and go with the one that turns out to give the highest profit based on the risks.
- And something I haven’t touched upon much in the article: don’t misplay!
Matteo
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