Hello folks, and welcome back to the column that investigates the casual. My name is Abe, and I am dedicated to bringing you the corners of casual world. Everyone has a casual itch that needs to be scratched. Whether it’s slinging Vintage decks at the local PTQ between rounds, or bringing out your Five-Color deck at the prerelease, we all have that inner casual fire that needs to be stoked.
None of us began our Magic career as tournament players. (Well, probably not.) We began as people playing during recess or after school in someone’s house, or at a friend’s kitchen table. Maybe you saw some product in a store and asked about it. Maybe you read about it online and thought “That looks nice.” Who knows?
We all have casual roots. Whether your current obsession is over than 15th card for your sideboard or what kind of chips to buy for the multiplayer group coming over tonight, we all have those roots.
We also all have our quirks. My quirk is I like casual formats. I like deckbuilding formats that represent a fun way to see the game. What I am not as keen about are variants. A variant is a different way of playing Magic that does not require a new deck. Attack to the Left is a variant of multiplayer. Peasant Magic is a format.
Not too long ago, in Kitchen Table #255, I espoused an online combination of three formats — Pauper, Prismatic, and Singleton, collectively referred to as PPS. You can catch that article here.
My name for the offline variant, which I called it in humor, is Acid Magic, because the abbreviation in 5PH, which is acidic on the pH scale. However, I’ve seen other sites pick up on that name, so apparently it has moved past my own funny name and become something more real.
Since I discussed it then, I have been mentioning from time to time in other articles. I might point out the value of a card in PPS in a Set Review, or I might mention it in an article about deckbuilding.
That’s because PPS is probably my favorite format right now. It melds a lot of my favorite things into one format, and playing it is a blast. I have also become a better player in my casual games because of playing in PPS.
See, in PPS there is little actual raw card drawing. We don’t have Fact or Fiction, Harmonize, Tidings, Braingeyser and so forth. The best we have is Deep Analysis, and perhaps Rush of Knowledge. Plus, you have 250 cards in your deck and can only play one copy of each, so it’s not like you can find them easily.
Therefore, the format is very sensitive to any card advantage that is available to it. Let me give you an example from regular multiplayer Magic.
Suppose that one of your opponents has just played a Black Big Nasty Creature. If you are attacked by said creature, you will take the damage and die. You have no creatures out. You have ten mana of any color available to you, and one card in hand. You have a nicely stocked graveyard, since it is late in the day.
The card in hand is Dimir Infiltrator. In your deck is a Terminate.
What do you do?
In normal multiplayer, you would transmute the Infiltrator to get the Terminate, then Terminate the BBNC, or have it in your hand in case of an attack. I would have done this too. It’s not a bad play. You are not losing card advantage or anything.
Here is what was done to me just last night by an opponent in PPS.
He got Pit Keeper. He played the Keeper, returned the Infiltrator, then transmuted it for the Terminate and killed my guy.
I think there is a tendency to become lazy about card advantage by casual players, especially at the multiplayer table. Sure, we all know card theory and can cite the basic principles of card advantage, chapter and verse.
However, when it comes to putting them into practice, how often do we just transmute for Terminate without getting the 2/1 Pit Keeper?
I have done this myself. Often I’ve built a deck with just 4 or 6 cards dedicated to actual card drawing. Here’s my four Browbeats! Here’s my four Harmonizes! Here’s my four Fact or Fictions!
Sure, one expensive spell can bury an opponent under an avalanche of card advantage. But, the slow and steady card advantage machine is more powerful over time.
Draw ten cards off a Braingeyser and you are +9 in card advantage. If that is it, and you are done, then you end the game at +9. Your opponent, however, may gain one or two cards at a time, from Nekrataal, from Shelter, from Dismiss, from Deep Analysis, etc. It’s just a bit in the bucket, but over the course of an entire game, you bury your opponent in card advantage.
The problem in multiplayer is that you are often not punished for your laziness. If you did not transmute for the Pit Keeper and just got the Terminate, you likely would not win or lose based on it. Multiplayer often does not punish lazy play.
That Wrath of God that gets cast in two turns by an opponent doesn’t care if you have out an extra 2/1 or not. Akroma is swinging at you for 6 in the air whether or not you have a 2/1 Black creature on the ground. Someone’s combo kill doesn’t care about your 2/1 in play.
Plus, we hide our lack of card advantage by adding pure raw card advantage to the deck in the form of cards like Honden of Seeing Winds and Bringer of the Blue Dawn, or Staff of Domination and Necrologia.
Who cares if you get the 2/1 in play if you are playing these massive spells over and above everybody’s head? The 2/1 looks like a pretty inadequate play compared to the power of an Acquire-summoned Darksteel Colossus, or a Tooth and Nail into Iridescent Angel. It’s not going to stop a Deep-Sea Kraken or a Hellkite Overlord.
Playing less loosely is not punished, and it is even hidden behind the raw card advantage elsewhere. However, it is lazy playing.
How many missed opportunities are lost because we failed to add a little extra card advantage here or there? Who knows? However, I’ve noticed myself missing subtle opportunities for increased card advantage.
The real issue is that in multiplayer, card advantage is so important. When you are getting out-drawn 2-1, 3-1, 5-1, or what have you, card advantage becomes that much more precious. Card advantage in a duel is about getting on top. Card advantage in multiplayer is about getting closer to equilibrium.
Missed opportunities in this environment are even more tragic. Sure, that 2/1 may not account to much, but what if you draw an Unearth later in the game when it’s dead? You can turn that Unearth into a Pit Keeper and another creature, getting card advantage from a single spell. What if you are able to chump block an Indrik Stomphowler for a turn, and that keeps you alive? What if it adds just enough to your Density of Creatures that people attack elsewhere and not into you? What if it flat out wins you the game by attacking, blocking, use of its ability, or whatever?
By not getting the Pit Keeper, you are denying yourself the opportunity to have it become valuable later. When those opportunities are lost, they pile up. How many opportunities have you missed in one game by lazy play? During the course of your Magic playing career, how many cumulative games could you have won instead of lost with all of those opportunities missed?
What I have learned from Pauper-Prismatic-Singleton is to do everything you can to maximize those opportunities. Even the smallest card advantage is card advantage.
I think I already knew this subconsciously, but I just didn’t actualize it. I’ll prove it too you.
Here is one of my decks I played for a while, called Bear Beats. I wrote about it in one of my Deck a Day dailies.
Let’s take a look at that decklist
Bear Beats
4 Thornscape Battlemage
4 Thunderscape Battlemage
2 Sunscape Battlemage
2 Cackling Fiend
4 Avalanche Riders
2 Bone Shredder
4 Nekrataal
4 Man-o’-war
4 Eternal Witness
4 Uktabi Orangutan
2 Cloudchaser Eagle
2 Ravenous Baboons
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Highway Robber
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Gravedigger
4 Ghitu Slinger
3 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Yavimaya Granger
4 Throat Slitter
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Ophidian
3 Shadowmage Infiltrator
1 Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Erratic Portal
3 Living Death
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Survival of the Fittest
1 Meekstone
2 Portcullis
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
37 Basic Lands
Now, you’ll notice that the deck is much bigger than normal. Sometimes I do that, sorry. However, look at the pure card advantage built into this deck. Sure, there is the occasional Meekstone or such, but look at that.
Every single creature except for Man-o’-War and Highway Robber is a source of card advantage. There are no classic raw card drawing spells, but the deck is an avalanche of card advantage designed to bury an opponent. Once it got started, it would gain so much card advantage that I was often at a full grip when my opponent’s hand was exhausted, then I’d win with a few 2/2 bears.
I’ve always known card advantage was important. I even knew, in this deck, that it had value. I’ve played comes-into-play creatures in a ton of my decks for just that reason. I love the extra card advantage it brings.
However, I have missed getting the Pit Keeper. I have been a lazy player. I have gone for the obvious answer, without searching for a better way to do things. I find the first path that works without seeing what is better. I have transmuted the Dimir Infiltrator for a Terminate without getting the Pit Keeper.
Becoming more sensitive to card advantage can only help your game. It will make us better players. If you have asked yourself why you keep losing, despite good play and good decks, perhaps this is it.
I used to think of card advantage as a principle in order to win. Now I think of it as gospel. Don’t sacrifice it without a very good reason. Always look for it, even in the small ways. You’ll become a better player, I promise.
I already have.
Until later…