Think outside the box; it is definitely a cliché in the modern business world. Managers can't quantify how much they are willing to pay for a brilliant, environment-changing, revolutionary idea. Scientists spend their whole careers (and lives) trying to get a better understanding of the creative process that leads to innovation. Self-help gurus churn out voluminous texts and develop loyal followings, based largely on their writings about unlocking creativity.

So how does this apply to Magic?

Nate Heiss wrote an article called "Index.cfm?ArticleID=1466&SectionID=1&Show=All">Why I Play Bad Cards," but I think the subject of the article was creativity and the creative process in Magic. Nate has his own personal reasons for wanting to be creative and play bad cards. He mentions the psychological aspect and laments how conformist thinking misses the boat on so many occasions. I also want to have fun; but I play Magic with the purpose of winning. Fortunately, creative thinking, deckbuilding, sideboarding, and decision-making are fun in their own right, and are even sweeter when they lead you to victory.

What does creativity have to do with Magic deckbuilding? The answer is everything. Look at dominant decks of various eras. Classic Necro. Land Tax/Scroll Rack. Necro/Illusions/Donate. High Tide. Mono-red beatdown. At one time, all of these decks were considered rogue, and all of them contained cards that up until then had been scoffed at. Nate makes some very good points in his article about how long it took for certain cards and concepts to be recognized as powerful; Land Tax, Ophidian, Necropotence, Morphling, Obliterate, Ball Lightning, Cadaverous Bloom, Rishadan Port, Attunement, Recurring Nightmare, and Mana Vault were all cards that were considered weak or unplayable for months or years until they were ‘discovered' and suddenly became environment defining. In every case it took an individual or group with some courage to question the established idea of what was "good" and put a killer deck together.

Block Constructed season is coming up, and it is a particularly good time for a creative deckbuilder to break the format. The third set of the block will be legal, and that usually means a wide-open field waiting to be defined. Block is also particularly challenging because without the basic set, the overall power level is lower and conventions can be defied. Try to outthink the R&D team who came up with the cards. I mentioned Fires of Yavimaya in a previous article, but another compelling example is Cursed Scroll. It was supposed to be a versatile card that you could use to bluff; instead, it quickly started getting broken as reusable creature and player kill in a tight one-casting cost package.

With Apocalypse coming out soon, deckbuilders should read every card very carefully and explore card interactions. Pay special attention to ANY card that lets you draw cards or search. Some of these look plain dumb, but don't just dismiss a card out of hand like that. Come up with a good reason why the card is bad, then try it out anyway. That is how cards get discovered and subsequently broken. (You can bet that I will be taking a very close look at Wild Research.) Also pay special attention to cards with low casting costs; these cards are most likely to have an impact in the speedy constructed environment. Also consider cards and strategies that are already powerful. Say that you already know that Yawgmoth's Agenda-based control decks and ‘Domain' Collective Restraint/Global Ruin decks are money. Look for something that can add power, efficiency, or stability to these designs. The flip side is that often R&D will print hosers to a dominant strategy, with varying degrees of effectiveness. For instance, Rebels were very powerful in Mercadian Masques and Nemesis brought Lin Sivvi, so Massacre was included as a hoser... Only it didn't work. Massacre still left Lin alive, and a Rebel player could rebuild their army in no time. So in Prophecy they printed Rebel Informer, Brutal Suppression, and Overburden. Informer turned out to be fairly effective, but his most frequent use was in Rebels itself where he could be searched up with ease. He was also fairly slow. Suppression and Overburden turned out to be weak. Finally in Invasion, they came up with the charm known as Tsabo's Decree. The rebel threat was somewhat pacified — although a rebel deck still won Pro Tour Chicago, and rebels had a good showing and continue to be strong. It took three sets worth of rebel dominance before they came up with a proper foil to the rebel strategy. (Technically speaking, they create the sets about an expansion out in advance, so it's somewhat of a misnomer to claim that R&D was trying to halt the Rebel expansion in Nemesis and Prophecy; at the time they were building the sets they obviously didn't realize how dominant Rebels would be – The Ferrett)

On the other hand, consider the printing of Perish in Tempest and 6^th edition. In that case, I think most people can agree that a too-powerful hoser was available immediately and it made Green too vulnerable for a long time because people could easily splash for the hated 2B sorcery. Urza's Saga's Hibernation was a more balanced answer. The lesson is that R&D doesn't always accurately predict when sideboard hosers will be necessary and rarely balances them perfectly. So when a card like Mask of Intolerance comes out, pay close attention. It shows that the researchers who design the sets thought a strategy was too powerful and needed a check. But remember, the cards they print as answers can range from either too weak to make an impact, or go all the way up to kill-a-strategy-dead powerful. You'll want to identify where in the spectrum a card falls.

It's tricky and time consuming, but it is worth looking at and testing all the cards closely. EVERY set "experts" will list which cards they think are good and inevitably they miss something killer. One of my favorite stories is Randy Buehler, at the time a pro and now a member of R&D, describing how Exodus contained very few cards that would have an impact on tournament magic. This is not to trash his judgement; it is simply to say that if you only take a cursory glance at such complicated interactions, you are bound to miss things. Good luck and have fun.

Patrick