The Magic - Part Two

Previously I talked about three levels of progression in terms of game play. In actuality this progression can really be applied to anything. The important part is that it is in the transition between these levels that the switch to a professional, or at least competitive, player happens. I think the best way to illustrate this is with some examples from my own progression. First though, in order to understand a lot of this a couple of quick facts about the game (this is so the non magic players can have any hope of following along).

The core mechanic of Magic is that you are casting spells and summoning creatures to attack (both represented by cards) in order to reduce your opponents life total from 20 to 0. To cast these spells (and summon creatures) you use a resource call mana (of which there are 5 different colors), which is produced from land cards. You can play one land per turn, and use (tap) each land you have to produce one mana a turn, which you spend to do things. The lands recharge or untap at the start of each turn. In addition, with the exception of these land cards (which usually make up about a third of your deck) you can only play up to four copies of each creature or spell. Since you are drawing one card off the top of your deck each turn, there is an element of luck to which cards you have access to on any given turn.

For most of my early magic playing days (middle school-high school) I had access to a fairly small amount of cards. Most of the cards I did have I only had one or two copies. So for the most part my friends and I built decks that were only loosely focused on a specific strategy. Mostly we would build a deck with our "best" cards and clash them against each other. Now, at this time our concept of "best" was more or lest equivalent to the biggest creatures or the flashiest of spells that had huge game swinging effects. So games were mostly decided by a combination of who had the most of these cards, and who drew them first. We were vaguely aware that there were strategies out there like using swarms of small easy to cast creatures, or building up lots of mana quickly to cast big spells before your opponent gets their act together, but mostly we just played cards and saw what happened and had fun.

When I went to college I stopped playing magic for a bit. Mostly, my first year atleast, I didn't know any one else who played. I had left all my high school friends back in Ohio. Sophomore year though I met some new friends and we discovered one day that we had all used to play, and so we pulled out our cards and played lots of fun multiplayer games. This time around though, we were all a little wiser, a little more puzzle minded, and, I realize now, we slowly discovered the concept of the metagame. That is to say, if one person was dominating one week, the next week some or most of us would have a deck that directly opposes the way that person was winning. We were adjusting our strategies based on what we expected to play against.

Around this same time, my friend Aaron convinced me to play in my first tournament. We took one of my usual decks and tweaked it and tuned it a bit until we felt like it was worth playing, and we took it to the local game shop. I got owned. Like totally bent over. But you know what, I learned a lot. One of the biggest revelations: cards that have drawbacks can be built around. That is to say, up until this point if I saw a card that wasn't all up side, I would write it off. Playing in the tournament, with a higher caliber of player, I saw lots of cards being played that had some sort of drawback and usually, it wasn't that bad for the one who played it. They had built their deck so that it could minimize the drawback, or even benefit from it. The revelation was like the realization that you don't need a pick to play guitar, or that grabs counter blocks in a fighting game, or working out until your muscles burn actually makes them grow! All of a sudden there was a whole new level of strategy to learn and understand!

The other major thing I learned from tournament players: how much control you really have over the luck factor. I was amazed at how consistent their decks were. They seemed to be able to execute the same strategy, with the same cards, game after game after game. The key was playing 4 copies of the key cards. Actually it gets deeper than that. Tournament players quickly learn the concept that the number of copies you play directly relates (with amazing reliability) to how often you will draw it. In an average game, if you play 4 copies you will draw 1 or 2 copies of the card very frequently. If you only need to see one copy, but drawing two is still ok, you can get away with 3. If you absolutely only need to draw one copy, and probably not until the late game, you play two. One offs are usually only played if you have some kind of effect that lets you search the deck, or if it's a sort of stalemate breaker card. The other important thing is to correctly balance your land vs spells. If you draw too many land, you don't have anything to do. But if you draw too few, you won't have the resources to play your spells. Usually the correct balance is to play about 24 land in a 60 card deck. On average you will draw about one land for every two spells as long as you shuffle well.

These are trends that you really only start to notice when you play competitively. What's the main difference between competitive play and casual play here? Records. In tournaments you keep track of your results. At the end of the night you can say that your deck won x out of y games. And you can usually recall things like "I won every game where I drew x card" or recognize when you needed multiple copies of a card. Keeping track of performance is one of the single biggest steps in transitioning to a competitive player. Why? Patterns.

This is how humans learn. By picking up on patterns. This is how we learn from our mistakes, or develop confidence in a theory. More importantly, discovering patterns feels really good. Let me stress this. For myself, and many people, when a pattern suddenly becomes clear, there is a rush of excitement. That's that "Eureka" epiphany feeling. But, if you are not looking for those, you will not get them. This is why many people can play a game and never get sucked into it. For me, if I play a game, any game, and I have a single moment of "Ah Ha! I get it now!" then I immediately want to play again so I can apply what I just learned. If that leads to more pattern discovery I get hooked.

This is the same feeling of getting into a groove that musicians will talk about when their are really progressing their ability, or when athletes have a breakthroughs in their training or techniques. And it is, I think, this questing for understanding/patterns/breakthroughs that sucks a player into the competitive mind set. It's a rush.

There's still more to come. Next time I'll talk about two of the most important keys to making progress as a competitive player (and in life): confidence and humility. They are more closely linked than you think. I'll also tie all of this back to the PCP, so stay tuned!