Editorial Section:
"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."  -Nietzsche

Those who have read my work for a while now probably know that I'm a huge fan of psychology and philosophy.  Especially the work of Nietzsche, whom I don't agree with on a lot of things, but have to give him props for a lot really succinct quotes about the human condition.  The leader for this article is one of my favorites.  It sums up our progression in pretty much anything and everything we attempt, be it Magic, programming, athletics, etc.  I particularly love this quote not just because it's true, but because it includes an action that at first blush seem unnecessary: dancing.  Do you need to dance to fly?  Of course not, dancing is just something fun that you can do once you're proficient at moving.  But let's bring this back to our beloved game.

As I said last week, I'm going to merge my writing time with my MTG Improvement time in an attempt to get the most out of both worlds and to have the most efficient use of my time.  So this week, I'm going to be writing about what it takes to not only 'get better' but undo 'being bad'. 

I would consider 'flying' in our context to be the Pro Tour, or maybe just going completely infinite on MTGO.  You can't just be in that level, first you must stand, walk, run, climb and then fly.  But, notice that I neglected an analogy for dancing.  Dancing, in our context, would be playing something, anything, for actual fun.  Be it Momir or a draft, or something else besides Magic entirely, but we MUST balance that out.  I won't be covering the dancing part of analogy today as there are a lot of casual fun articles on this site, and it's not something that is part of my resolutions.  However, realize that it was included by Nietzsche for a reason and that reason is very important in the grand scheme of things.  I want to fly, MTGO-ly speaking, even if it's just for a short while.  As I mentioned last week my aim is to get my Constructed rating on MTGO to 1800.  That's much higher than it is right now, and at that level I should be able to be infinite. 

So the first thing I need to figure out is where I am in that progression.  And I'm going to be brutally honest with myself and all of you... I think I'm somewhere between Standing and Walking.  I can play the game, I know the rules, but I am not anywhere near the level that I need to be at to win with consistency.  So what do I do?  Quite simply I need to suck up my pride and accept that maybe I DON'T actually know the game like I thought I did and need to train myself on the basics again because obviously my current approach isn't getting it done.  So with that in mind I started scouring articles for new players or for ways to approach the game from those players and writers that  way beyond my level.  Luckily enough, there was a recent article about constantly using a loop while playing that would allow you to keep track of the game state and not make stupid mistakes.  The article was about OODA loops (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and how to apply them to MTG.  In it, the author proposes the following list, which I modified slightly for MTGO and I also indicated the items that are easiest to miss on MTGO:

Your life total
Your opponent’s life total
Your cards in hand
Number of cards in your opponent’s hand
Spells and effects on the stack
Time left in the round

*Known cards in your opponent’s hand
*Permanents in play and their current state
*Your graveyard
*Your opponent’s graveyard
*Exiled cards
Your opponent’s demeanor

I crossed off "opponent's demeanor" as it's unavailable online and I added the following:
Plan for the turn
Plan for next turn
Plan to win the game

Which leaves us with the following revised list for MTGO:

• Your life total
• Your opponent’s life total
• Your cards in hand
• Number of cards in your opponent’s hand
• Spells and effects on the stack
• Time left in the round
• Known cards in your opponent’s hand
• Permanents in play and their current state
• Your graveyard
• Your opponent’s graveyard
• Exiled cards
• Plan for the turn
• Plan for next turn
• Plan to win the game

Essentially, this should be done every time something happens in the game.  Yes, it's a lot of cognitive load (i.e. thinking time), but MTGO helps with a lot of these and this and also allows you a TON of test games, way more games per hour than in paper (what with the shuffling, sideboarding, etc...).  Something this set of exercises is an explanation about why decks like Thopter Foundry are so much less potent in the hands of a normal player than they are in the hands of a great player... if you can't do this constantly then you're going to miss things and the deck will be much, much worse for you. 

The article gives a lot of good reasons about why the original list was made and items were added.  I included the additional three after I was playing a few games and realized that at times, I had completely forgotten to think about the long term what's and why's of my actions.  I knew the game state, I knew the details, but I was still making decisions without the end of the game in mind.  Things like equipping Sword of Fire and Ice to random dorks, or to a wrong creature for winning the game.  I can give examples but they all make me sound like even more of a newbie than just admitting that previous sentence.  Suffice it to say that I have often found myself making a play based on the game state that is not correct when I instead think of the end game... and leave it at that.

Also, the last item I added is going to fluctuate quite a bit and may be nearly impossible to put together at some points during the game.  However, this should be infrequent if you're comfortable with your deck. A silly example is that you have an opening hand of a Llanowar Elves, Sword of Fire and Ice and various lands.  Your plan, on turn one, is to win via the elf + the equipment.  It's a shallow plan, it's an easily changed plan.  But on turn one, that's the plan.  It means that if nothing else on your side changes then you'll want to execute that plan starting with a turn two Sword followed by equipping on turn 3 and swinging.  Maybe that plan will change by turn three, maybe it won't.  But the point of it all is that you always have a clear thought process about what you're going to do and when you're going to do it.

I realize of course that this is not new to many of my more astute readers, and it's really the same thing that has been repeated often in the recent age of Magic strategy.  The key difference is that I'm recommending adding it into the OODA loop above.  That as each game state change occurs that it gets re-evaluated which, in theory, will help keep autopilot mistakes to a minimum.  It also lets you evaluate your decisions and their outcomes in a real way.  For example, if you intentionally stick to a specific path to victory and get blown out you can actually know that the intentional actions you chose didn't work.  You can learn from that failure and try a different approach to that match-up making intentionally different decisions because you are operating determinately instead of completely on reaction.  In fact, you might want to even write down the path of victory on your notes and the outcome.

Time for a test:

How did it go?  What did I learn? What did I notice?  (and in response to Worth, I will improve the video quality for next week when I'm back at my real computer)*

First turn, I knew I wanted Root Maze game one against an unknown opponent, my first path to victory is disruption followed by beats.  If he kept a fetchland hand this buys me two turns, if not, it still buys me some time to get set up.  He drops a tapped Underground River and I figure he's on U/B faeries.  Looking at my the rest of my hand, my path to victory will be Noble Hierarch's into beatdown and drop a Trinisphere once I either hit four mana or can drop it with mana up I will play it for the disruption.

Turn two, I miss my land drop, draw a Finks, and play a Hierarch, getting ready to drop extra mana producers to gain back the missed land tempo.  My opponent playes a tapped island and passes.  My plan remains unchanged.

Turn three, I draw another mana guy and play out my two more mana producers. My plan remains unchanged.  Next turn is either Trinisphere or Kitchen Finks, depending on if my opponent plays a land or not.  My opponent plays a Chalice of the Void at 1, which is fine to me since my hand is played out of 1 drops.  He's likely expecting me to be playing some sort of Elves! combo deck and hasn't seen anything to adust that perception.  He played a land so I proceed with the plan to start the beat down with Finks, if nothing else changes.

Turn four, I draw a card and have to re-apply my OODA.  I'm against U/x and have drawn Sword of Fire and Ice, which is huge for me.  My plan for this turn, next turn, and the game has changed greatly.  Now I want to stick this on a creature and beat down.  Even though this means not using my mana to the utmost I have to take this path.  I cast it and swing for two in the air after Exalted bonuses.  He Repeals my Root Maze, and I OODA to see that it is no longer playable thanks to the Chalice. 

Turn five, I draw a Worship then I equip the Sword to my flyer on the off-chance I need to block a flyer in the near future and swing for four plus two burn and draw a card which is another dead Root Maze.  My opponent plays Sword of the Meek and I immediately change my OODA to think about Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry, and luckily my current path meshes with his actual deck (although they are different Blue Flyers, my choices were right on the money).  I also know that I want to play the trinisphere next turn to lock his mana out if he does have the second piece of the combo and doesn't hit the mana to activate it.

Turn six, I decide to stop thinking through the process and want to grab all my mana that I can.  I drop my Garden untapped... not a great idea since I don't need to play the Worship right now anyway, and it's probably not necessary in this matchup.  However, that snapped me back into the OODA loop and I take my time to think about the next move to make sure it is still the right idea.  I drop the Trinisphere (now untapped thanks to the bounced Root Maze) and attack him down to lethal if he doesn't draw a land AND have the second combo piece.  If he does draw/have both he will get an extra turn to draw out of the situation, so if I can keep that from happening I'll be happy.  My opponent doesn't draw the land but does have the Foundry, but as he has to pay three for it and use black from the painland he is tapped out.

Turn seven, I draw a Loxodon Hierarch and swing for the win.

Turns out I've been playing on Auto-Newb for a while now and it's a lot of work to get back into a structured focus on the game.  I did notice that verbalizing the steps helped me to stay focused on the game and the process.  I'll probably keep doing that.  When I stopped doing that I reverted, immediately made a mistake on turn six. Not a game changer, not a losing mistake, but by not thinking things our EXACTLY I just played a land on auto-pilot. 

As for the deck for my play time, I'm tipping between a couple thoughts.  The first, and most pressing, is that a lot of decks are relying on fetchlands.  That makes them ripe for some haterade and my favorite flavor is G/W.  Another frequent deck is Hypergenesis, which uses cascade and free spells.  Also, based on price movements, Affinity will be popular for a little while...  As I was previously playing Affinity I suspect that the amount of Affinity decks being played will go up after the PTQ win, and of course, so too will the hate.  I can try to fight that hate and continue on or accept the meta change and avoid the damage.  If I try to avoid the damage I'll need to avoid the splash damage of another artifact heavy deck.  My two thoughts are G/W haterator or possibly Dragonstorm as two potential decks that have the raw power needed while not being hit by the same hate.

Above is a sample with a haterade deck I've been tweaking on for a bit since seeing Affinity win last weekend.

*For those curious about the lackluster Podcast and video content this week I'll sum up my week as follows: Electrical Issue + 40 below weather = ruined house pipes in my weekday house.  So I'm Hotel'ing it with my netbook instead of using my quad-core home machine.  Which means that my processing power and video editing is completely dwarfed.  But all should be back to normal by next week when I can get more videos with actual, you know, editing behind them. 

Discussion Items:
Poor Croatia -
Yes, these guys are in fact a country according to most places.  Mayhaps it's time to update a list...

From the Director's Chair -
Some juicy tidbits about the future of Magic and MTGO, the pertinent ones are:

• "We'll be making a change to Intro Packs based on your feedback that will begin with Worldwake on Magic Online and the 2011 core set in paper. The intro decks will now be 60 cards rather than 41, the Intro Packs will still include a booster and a foil rare, and the MSRP of Intro Packs will go up less than a dollar, to $12.99. Enjoy!"
• Duel Decks: Phyrexia vs. The Coalition brings one of Magic's most famous conflicts to life this spring, and there's another classic "planeswalker vs. planeswalker" Duel Decks coming up this fall.
• The Legacy format will debut on Magic Online (albeit a few cards short, for the time being, of the paper format).
• And we'll be making sets, too! Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, the 2011 core set, Masters Edition IV (for Magic Online), and the large fall set codenamed "Lights" will build on all that is right with Magic.
• One of the rules changes we made for Magic 2010 will be tweaked ever-so-slightly for the next core set.

Card price discussion:
Some more HUGE improvements for the Classic and Extended cards and some minor downward trends in Standard yet again.  Dual lands stay hot, and in their wake follows Blood Moon to keep them in check.  As Affinity just won a PTQ last weekend Ravager and Nexus have both popped up as well.  From the sound of things, Classic events have been firing recently, likely due to the recently released Tempest and the hype that that always creates for the old Classic format. 

Card price charts:

Card price graphs:
survival of the fittest chart
blinkmoth nexus chart
breeding pool chart
bitterblossom chart
city of traitors chart
watery grave chart
blood moon chart
godless shrine chart
steam vents chart
arcbound ravager chart
pact of the titan chart
magma jet chart
blinkmoth nexus chart
cranial extraction chart
countryside crusher chart
everlasting torment chart
reveillark chart
blood moon chart
sundering titan chart
bitterblossom chart
chalice of the void chart
garruk wildspeaker chart
master of the wild hunt chart
maelstrom pulse chart
oath of druids chart
ajani vengeant chart
font of mythos chart
ajani goldmane chart
lotus cobra chart
verdant catacombs chart
sphinx of lost truths chart
oracle of mul daya chart
scute mob chart
devout lightcaster chart
savage lands chart
aven mimeomancer chart
chalice of the void chart
mycoid shepherd chart
moment's peace chart
bituminous blast chart

Tournament Discussion:
We have wrapped up the week of half price Extended events, hopefully you were all able to hop into those for the week.  There are three PTQ's on MTGO between this week and next Friday, on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday and you can see them on the MTGO PTQ schedule here.

Another thing of note, is that there are some big changes to the promo card awards.  It used to be that each event gave promos but now they are limited to the MOPR awards.  Nothing has been said as to why but my guess is that it's to put more focus on MOPR and to reduce confusion about what, where, why and how certain promos are handed out.  Details can be found here.

Conclusion:
Besides my insanely bad weather issues (hamtastic 2; Minnesota 2), I've had a pretty good week.  The deck I thought would be good turned out to be good enough for a PTQ win (at the hands of a better player, of course) but that bodes well for my thoughts about the format and my approach to the decks. See you next week when I actually edit a video!