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By: The Milk Man, Michael Mulcahy
May 14 2014 12:00pm
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To make the best decisions in a given situation, the more information you have available the better informed your decisions will be. Thoughtseize is the most powerful card in standard at the moment, and a staple in all other constructed formats for a reason. Why?

Information is king. 

Slow down, read the board state

Many new players, myself included sometimes, are too focused on drawing their next card or too excited about drawing their next card or playing the spell they have in hand rather than slowing down and reading the board state. By correctly reading the board state you can garner a great deal of information in a game where information is king.

What if you could Thoughtseize your opponent for free every turn? How much would that cost? Nothing is free and a Thoughtseize is so powerful, so if there was something similar you could do for free, how powerful would it be? What about a repeatableDuress? Probably still too powerful to be free, so how about an unlimited number of Peek then? Still too powerful? What about a Glasses of Urza? Now we are getting closer. In this article I will present to you ways to collect information that will give you a pseudo Glasses of Urza and the cost is very low; instead of using the limited resources of the game it only requires one thing; your attention. There are many things that you should be keeping track of or routinely checking. Here are some things you as a new player can do to improve your game:

- Number of cards in your opponents hand.

This is the next best thing to knowing what is in your opponents hand. Short of recording their cards after a Duress style effect, or being able to see all of the cards they draw via a Courser of Kruphix effect, counting the cards in their hand can give you valuable information. If they have a stacked hand and mana open you can basically expect some form of counterspell, removal or combat trick, and you can either bait it out or play around it accordingly.

The cards in your opponents hand can also give you information about what is in their hand based on the plays they make; it may be something that they're unable to cast due to being locked out of a certain colour or not having enough mana to cast a certain spell. It may be that Hero's Downfall or Dissolve that they have been holding on to for 10 turns waiting for the best target to use it on, or more than likely, if they have plenty of mana and aren't responding to your large threats, there is a high probability that they are holding on to a land, a legendary card that is already in play, or something that they cannot cast.

By reading this information your get a pseudo peek at you opponents hand, and can make a reasonable bet whether or not the way is clear to over commit to the board, to dump your mana in to an 'x' casting cost spell or to use some pump spells to attack through for lethal.

- Watch your opponent's land

You obviously will pay more attention to your land so that you can cast your spells; slamming down that Temple of Triumph so you can hold up Boros Charm next turn, or hitting your second white source so you can Supreme Verdict away the aggro scum, but your opponent's land is important too. You can see if they're locked out of a colour, if they have missed a vital land drop, they may not have a second red source for the Searing Blood that you're expecting. The way their lands are tapped can also give you information, they could purposely leave specific colour combinations free, so as to represent certain spells. Common combinations include double colours like double blue for Dissolve, double black for Hero's Downfall, double red for Searing Blood, double green for Boon Satyr and double white for Celestial Flare. They may be leaving up two different colours, such as red and white for Boros Charm, green and black for Abrupt Decay or blue and white for Azorius Charm.

By looking at how your opponent taps their mana, they may be giving deliberate or unintentional signals as to what cards are in their hand. Now it is entirely possible that they're bluffing and they are just holding on to land, however, it presents you with different options; you can bait out the Negate, or throw a Frostburn Weird under the bus, which will free up your next play; the spell that you actually wanted to land but you suspected some sort of removal and have decided to play around it. If they do not have it, or if they choose not to use it, you are presented with the same decision next time, as well as landing the spell that you were using to bait out their removal.

- Denial

 Denying information to your opponent is also an important way to gain an edge. In the same way that you can gain an advantage from reading the board state, your opponent can garner this information from you. This is something that is most relevant in a 'Thoughtseize' environment; where hand disruption is not only competitive and playable, but format defining. The prevalence of Thoughtseize and Duress effects means that people are better off keeping bad hands instead of mulliganning and getting Thoughtseized anyway, Loxodon Smiter's intrinsic value has increased, and people are playing identical lands to deny their opponent that extra bit of information after a Duress effect. Let me explain for those who aren't aware of this simple tactic; if for example your mono white pillow fort enchantment deck has 24 plains, if all of them had different artwork, when you opponent plays a Lifebane Zombie, Brain Maggot, Sin Collector or one of the many other standard playable disruption effects they may note the different artwork on the lands. Whether the artwork is different from the other lands, some foils and some non-foils, full art or regular, these little differences can give them information about what is in your hand.

If the choice to play the cards in your hand that have already been revealed is inconsequential compared to the cards you have drawn, it is far better to do this, denying your opponent the knowledge of the cards you have drawn. Playing the Zendikar mountain that your opponent has already seen is a better play than playing the foil one you just picked up, as it denies your opponent the information about the card you have just played.

- Free information

There are times when your opponent reveals their cards for you, you don't need to Duress them. Courser of Kruphix, Pain Seer, Domri Rade, (Commune of the Gods) and many other standard competitive cards require you to reveal the cards you have drawn, giving your opponent free information and your opponent's give you the same information. On magic online, these are automatically displayed and recorded for you. An astute paper magic player may record these to learn what is in the opponents hand

- Counting Cards

In most card games counting cards is frowned upon to say the least. In magic there are different zones that have different levels of information; the battlefield is public information, the graveyards and exile zones are public information and your opponent's hand is private information. You are free at any time to question public information or to view it for yourself; how many cards in graveyard, number of lands tapped etc.

If your opponent has just played their 4th copy of Bile Blight, then you know the way is clearer, free from being 'two for one'-ed. Counting cards is something that has an increasingly important value, for both you and your opponent as the game drags out in to a grind. It may give you the opportunity to change your strategy, such as if your opponent is about to deck themselves, you can cast Opportunity targeting your opponent, rather than using it to give yourself a card advantage. 

Counting cards also gives you information for making informed decisions, and educated guesses. This can be shown by using probability of card draw, for example if there are 37 cards remaining in your library, and you have 12 removal spells, and have had the misfortune of only seeing 1 so far, then there is approximately a 1 in 3 chance that your next draw will be the removal that you need. The same goes for your opponents draws. Using the probabilities of card draw you can make educated guesses as to what the correct lines of play are.

- Know the decks

Keeping up to date with the top decks in the format, as well as new fringe strategies will help your collection of information. The most powerful and successful builds are often tested, displayed and broken down to show other players how it works and why it works well. Many people outright copy these net decks, or use them for inspiration in their own deck building. As a result there are many deck archetypes, whose 'core' is made up of the same shell of cards; Mono Blue Devotion for example has 4 of; Cloudfin Raptor, Judge's Familiar, Tidebinder Mage, Frostburn Weird, Nightveil Specter, Thassa, God of the Sea, Mutavault and Master of Waves. The number of Jace, Architect of Thought, Bident of Thassa, Rapid Hybridization, Cyclonic Rift as well as other cards are up for debate, depending on play styles of individual players, local meta composition etc.                                                                                                                                   

By knowing the common decks, the core cards and the possible inclusions in the deck you can expect to see these cards during the match, and to play around them accordingly. This may be done by holding on to a Hero's Downfall for the Polukranos, World Eater or Stormbreath Dragon rather than wasting it on an Elvish Mystic. This can also be done by holding back an Ash Zealot when your opponent untaps with the right number and colour combination for a Supreme Verdict so you can continue to apply pressure when they're tapped out post Supreme Verdict.

 If you are able to watch this information that is free you will be able to play better by knowing what is in your opponents hand or by making educated guesses as to what is in their hand. This allows you to play around removal or counterspells or to hold up your own reactive spells for your opponents threats to get the job done.

2 Comments

(Y) by SEANlol at Thu, 05/15/2014 - 04:12
SEANlol's picture
5

Solid information, definitely worth the read!

great job by Adam_the_Mentat at Thu, 05/15/2014 - 22:23
Adam_the_Mentat's picture
5

we old magic farts often forget about those just starting out and usually craft our articles toward the over-immersed-in-magic-knowledge community of players. I knew everything in this article for oh so many years but it's great to see it expertly delivered from a player coming off one year of learning the game who is now sharing what he learned with the new padowans.