One of the most popular discussions in Magic is the concept of a "judgment call." I never really thought they existed, to be honest; I was always under the impression that there was The Right Play, and variations of the incorrect play. But I recently played a match at Pro Tour: London that cost me the entire tournament, and that has now caused me to re-evaluate my stance on the whole "correct play vs. judgment call" concept.

It’s game three of round 9. I’m X-2, and my opponent for this round is Antti Malin — the same guy who would go on to the semi-finals of this very tournament. It’s a Red/Black mirror match, although from what I can tell my deck is a bit better than his. In fact, when he takes a mulligan on the play, I take a quick glance at my hand and think to myself that basically, this game is already over; there's no possible way he can win.

The first couple of turns are pretty straightforward: He plays a Nezumi Graverobber on turn 2, which I kill on my turn with First Volley. On the third turn he plays a Takenuma Bleeder, which I kill on my turn with Kiku’s Shadow. Assume for arguments' sake that the plays thus far on my end have been fine.

On turn 3, he doesn’t lay a land and plays a, leaving his board as Swamp, Swamp, Mountain, Hearth Kami, with three cards in hand. After I draw my card for the fourth turn, my hand is the following:

Mountain
Mountain
Kami of Empty Graves
Fumiko the Lowblood
Jiwari, the Earth Aflame
Waking Nightmare

I have two swamps and a mountain in play. What’s the correct play?

Basically, you have three options here: One is to play Waking Nightmare, knocking him down to one card, and following up the next turns with some number of bomb legends. Option two is to run out Fumiko with the likely follow-up of Jiwari, which will likely end the game barring two removal spells. The third option is Kami of Empty Graves, which probably doesn’t make any sense as an option compared to the other two — but it can be justified, which I’ll explain in a minute.

Keep in mind that the only removal spell that I’ve seen thus far from his deck is a single Horobi’s Whisper. What I’ll try to do now is look at the pros and cons of running the various plays.

Waking Nightmare:
Basically, this play is a concession to the possibility of two removal spells lurking in the opponent's hand. While this play doesn’t impact the board, and leaves yourself possibly getting exposed to Okiba-Gang Shinobi (assuming he rips a land), it also clears out his hand — leaving him with a maximum of one removal spell, as compared to the two creatures in your hand that he likely has to kill to have any shot of winning the game.

The other problem with this play is that since he has three cards in his hand, you aren’t going to hit the best one, although what he considers to be the best card might not be what you are worried about here. (For example, he is unlikely to keep a removal spell over a good creature, since a hand of one removal spell and a Hearth Kami is unlikely to give him any shot against a four- or five-card hand…. Which means that he's likely to keep a quality creature over the removal spell. Of course, that's ideal for you because of Fumiko and Jiwari. This is all speculative, of course, but it makes sense.)

Fumiko/Jiwari:
This is the most aggressive play you have available to you. He needs to have two removal spells right away to have any realistic shot of beating you. The other advantage of this play is that it keeps the Waking Nightmare in your hand. Even if he lays a land and kills your guy (say with Befoul) or runs out a quality creature play, your Waking Nightmare removes the last two cards, leaving him with whatever his board is against your power cards.

The disadvantage of this is if he is able to kill your Fumiko without going down to two cards in hand (say by just casting a Whisper, attacking, and passing the turn), you untap and play Jiwari, and he is able to kill that threat as well. This leaves you with very little game (Kami of Empty Graves plus whatever you’ve drawn in the subsequent turns).

The upside is that if his hand is just creatures (or any non-removal spell), the Fumiko/Jiwari play will kill him very quickly, leave you under no pressure, and gives him very little time to draw out.

Kami of Empty Graves:
While not as obvious as the other two plays, running out the 4/1 has some merits. It’s basically trying to hedge your bets.

Basically, there are two things that you fear in the above situation: One is that his hand will contain two removal spells (in which case the Fumiko/Jiwari play can be a disaster); the other is Okiba-Gang Shinobi (in which case the Waking Nightmare play could allow him to claw back into the game, whereas running out a creature would have prevented this).

This play could be made with the intention of not blocking if he doesn’t play a fourth land before combat, but blocking if he does play his fourth land so as to play around Okiba-Gang. Then, depending on his play (basically, if he goes down to two cards in hand or less), you can either play your Waking Nightmare or whichever legend seems optimal on your turn.

The downside to this play is that is the least powerful of your available options, and that you give your opponent a bit more time to draw the appropriate answers, since you spent a significant turn playing your least powerful card. It also gives him the possibility of using a one-damage effect for good use, whereas that option really doesn’t exist with the other two plays.

So which play did I end up running? Probably the most obvious, which was Fumiko followed up by Jiwari. What ended up happening was the disaster scenario: He killed Fumiko without laying a land via Whisper, leaving him with three cards in hand. At this point I’m pretty much committed to my plan, and play the Jiwari, which he also kills with a second Whisper. After this, I flood out a bit, he rips a Death Denied to get back the creatures I ended up making him discard with the Waking Nightmare, and a Blood Rites is able to finish me off in a very close game.

Was my play here wrong? I don’t really know. Had I known about the two removal spells in his hand, I obviously would have played the Waking Nightmare or Kami of Empty Graves, either of which would have given me a much higher chance of winning the game. I’ve run this situation over with many people who’s opinion I respect a lot, and the opinions I’ve received have varied tremendously (Justin Gary and Eugene Harvey would have done the same thing I did, Brian Kibler would have played the Waking Nightmare on turn 4, The Ben Seck would have elected to go with Kami of Empty Graves, and was in fact the first person to point out to me that this was a reasonable option).

The fact that I haven’t been able to figure out the right play myself, nor has there been a consensus among some of the best Magic players that I know, is causing me to at least re-think the concept of there being only one right play. I’m interested to see what you guys have to say about this situation, or ones comparable to it, so please feel free to offer your opinions on the forums.