About this time last year, I recall reading an excellent article by Scott Johns about reading your opponent. He discussed some techniques one could use to figure out what cards he/she is holding and how to put that information to good use. Recently, I read a very good piece here on StarCityGames.com that delved into some similar thoughts and it got me thinking about ways to refine these techniques and subsequently improve my game. Wouldn't it be good to know what cards are in my opponent's hand? How about knowing how many lands they are holding? Are they bluffing? This is valuable information, and the more adept I can get at gathering it (that"G" in MTG is more important that you think!), the more likely I might be to win more matches.

I believe that Professional Magic players are typically much better at this than the rest of us, but it is my opinion that nearly everyone has room to improve in this department. Especially those of us in the more middle-of-the-road level of competition from Friday Night Magic on up to the PTQ circuit.

What I have for you today is an exercise designed to help you improve your ability to decipher what cards your opponent has in hand and, more importantly, to help you develop an ability to focus on your opponent's resources in addition to your own. Most Magic players get so caught up in their own plans that they don't take the time to think about what Dick Dastardly across the table has in store for them.

Most of us have some fundamental understanding of this concept. We see a couple of Plains and Islands on the board and we know to ride one or two threats until our opponent casts Wrath of God instead of overextending. But at the game's highest level, the best players in the world are extremely tuned in to exactly what their opponent might be representing based on their board position, cards in hand, and their observable behavior. That is where today's exercise can help you out.

Flipping the Board
I have an ongoing chess game with my friend Jason. We play by phone, with me calling in a move every morning and him calling me with a move that night. We're going on three years of perpetual chess play, and I love having my board set up in the corner of the bedroom, always there to satisfy my gaming bug. Sometimes I find myself playing too selfishly. I can only seem to visualize my own plans, my own board position. I usually lose those games, because Jason will hit me with a devastating move out of the blue that I should have seen coming. My solution has been to simply flip the board around and play the game from his side. I might be moving the black pieces, but I'm looking at the board from the white side of things. Everything looks different when you are sitting in your opponent's shoes. The angles change. The lines of attack shift. This same idea can, and should, be applied to Magic. The following exercise is designed to do just that.

Psychic Goldfish
You will need one deck from a given metagame. For the purposes of this article, I will refer to decks in the current Standard format (pre-Darksteel). Sit down across from your partner and give him/ her the deck. Try not to use crazy, roguish decks or"solitaire" style combo decks. Our purpose is to test our ability to predict cards in hand so it's best to use established decks at first.

The person playing the deck is going to"goldfish" against an invisible opponent. This essentially means they will shuffle their deck, draw seven cards, and take turn after turn playing lands and spells as though they were involved in an actual game of Magic. Typically this method is used to see how fast your beatdown deck can deal twenty points of damage in a world without blockers or removal of any kind, or to give a player practice with a combo deck. But in this exercise, the goldfishing player is there to provide something for you to observe.

There are a couple of simple rules for you to follow while playing Psychic Goldfish.

1) The goldfishing player should take as many free mulligans as they need, drawing new seven card hands each time, until they have what they feel is a"reasonably playable hand."

2- The goldfishing player must always, always, always arrange the cards in their hand in the following order from left to right- spells first, starting with the highest converted mana cost to the lowest, then lands in any order on the far right. For example, let's say you draw the following hand.

Mountain, Goblin Warchief, Goblin Piledriver, Mountain, Goblin Goon, Mountain, Siege-Gang Commander.

You must arrange the cards in the following order, from left to right in your hand: Siege-Gang, Goon, Warchief, Piledriver, Mountain, Mountain, Mountain.

Period. You put them in order and hold them in a fanned out manner that clearly shows all seven cards.

3) As you draw cards, you continue to put them in this order. The lands can be in whatever order you want, as long as they remain on the far right side of your hand. When you play a card from your hand, do it slowly and clearly so that it is obvious where you took the card from your hand.

4) Go ahead and play out a game of Magic against an imaginary opponent. Try to make realistic decisions and play with some sense of strategy. If you are playing Blue/White Control, tap out to Wrath of God on turn 4 to clear the board of whatever imaginary creatures you think might be after you. If you are playing an aggressive deck, see how much damage you can do as quickly as possible. Just try to play as consistently as possible and play as close to a"real" game as you can. Don't play too quickly at first. Give your opponent a chance to really watch each move you make.

So what does the other player do while this is going on? They will put your every play under a microscope! They will watch every little move, every little card arrangement, every single thing the goldfishing player is doing. If the player with a deck in his hand is The Goldfish, you are The Psychic. After each turn your goldfishing opponent takes, you will attempt to answer the following 3 questions;

How many lands are they holding?

How many spells are they holding?

What are those spells?

That's it. You know the rules The Goldfish is playing by. You know where he puts his lands. You know how he arranges his spells in his hand. You know everything he/she is doing. You just have to figure out what it is and say it out loud. It should sound something like this:

The Goldfish -"Okay, I'm done for this turn."

The Psychic -"You have two lands and three spells. The spells are Wrath of God, Exalted Angel, and, um, Wing Shards."

(Instants that The Goldfish would play on an opponents turn like Wing Shards or Thirst for Knowledge should then be played on the imaginary opponents"end step." Just extrapolate the rules to encompass the circumstances of your deck and this exercise).

The final duty of The Goldfish is some simple scorekeeping. Each turn you will give The Psychic points for correct guesses. Give +1 point if The Player correctly says the number of lands in your hand. Give +1 point if The Player correctly says the number of Spells in your hand. Give +1 point for each spell The Player can correctly name that turn. Do not reveal the points given until after the game is over. Your list should look like this;

1: 0
2: +2
3: +1
4: +3

And so on. The number on the left is the turn. The number on the right is the points. Easy, easy, easy, easy!

Go ahead and play until Goldfisher King has"defeated" his imaginary opponent (who loses when goldfishing?). After the game, quickly review the numbers jotted down and discuss what happened. When did you guess right? When did you guess wrong? Why?"Play" against the same deck a few times. Did your score go up? It should. As you become familiar with the deck you are playing against and the rules which the goldfisher must follow, you will slowly become more adept at determining what he/ she is holding. Obviously you can't always guess the actual cards based on the"highest to lowest casting cost" position in The Goldfish's hands, but you will be surprised at how well you can figure out the lands vs. spells ratio if you pay attention.

Even better than Psychic Goldfish is to apply the same rules to a real duel. Ask both players to follow the hand content rules and watch one of them throughout the game. Let them keep score for you. This way you get real board and game positions to consider in your"guessing," but as in the previous version of the exercise, you aren't burdened with the need to play your own game. You just watch carefully and learn.

So what is the point? Obviously most Magic players aren't exactly mindless automatons that play by such strict rules of hand arrangement. But you would be surprised at how many players come pretty darn close to these"rules." What this exercise is designed to do is to get you to practice the art of observation. Even if your opponents in real Magic don't follow these rules to the letter, by carefully watching how they hold their cards, you can learn an awful lot about the contents of their hand. In Magic, knowledge is power, and information gathering is a severely underutilized part of the game.

Don't worry so much about the"scores" when trying this out. They help you focus and give you something to shoot for. What is important is getting used to the idea of watching your opponent's behavior as a very important part of the game of Magic. As you improve, you will be able to play your game but always keep one eye open for every move being made across the table from you.

Best of luck flipping the board,

Steve Giles