Magic the Gathering

Theory

10 Tips to Playing Better Competitive Magic

By Trick Jarrett ⋅ April 2, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

I’ve had this arti­cle sit­ting and going through var­i­ous per­mu­ta­tions over the past weeks while I worked to launch arti­cles on Man­a­Na­tion. As you read this, it will echo back to what Lee said last week and I swear that we both inde­pen­dently came to these arti­cles though we agree on mul­ti­ple points.

As the Edi­tor for arti­cles on Man­a­Na­tion it was an inter­est­ing exer­cise to com­pare the tone and style between Lee’s writ­ing and my own. Quite dif­fer­ent!

1. Make every play to gain an advan­tage over your oppo­nent. One thing I’ve learned is that in Magic, like in Chess, when you break it all down the bot­tom line is that you must gain advan­tage. Often I ask play­ers what they’re play­ing to do, and they’ll say “kill the crea­ture” or “win the game.” The first being infi­nitely short sighted and the lat­ter being infi­nitely too broad. Killing his crea­ture is gain­ing an advan­tage or tak­ing away a dis­ad­van­tage. But you must look for the bet­ter play. Thomas Edi­son said, “There’s always a bet­ter way, find it.” Never stop look­ing for the bet­ter play.

Every move, every action, every thought, must be to gain an advan­tage, remove a dis­ad­van­tage, or at the least, main­tain your posi­tion. Every attack or block you make, every spell you play or counter, all must be con­sid­ered in this way. It’s alien and in truth can be exhaust­ing, but you must focus and exam­ine the game in this way.

2. Learn your deck. An imme­di­ate sign of a novice player is some­one who doesn’t know their deck inside and out. Try­ing to remem­ber how many of a card your deck has is a clear sign that you’re not that com­fort­able with your deck. How well should you know it? You should be able to write out your entire deck­list and side­board from memory.

This includes, not only study­ing your deck­list and such but also playtest­ing it a great deal. Too many times have I watched novice play­ers buy a deck they saw online and head directly to the tour­na­ment. You MUST playtest.

You’ll come to points in games where you need to know what it is pos­si­ble to draw, or what to tutor for, or what is left. If you can’t remem­ber, then you’ve already lost the game. If you hap­pen to win it, it is by luck, not by skill.

3. Play thought­fully. It seems like these days peo­ple are sling­ing spells as quick as pos­si­ble eager for the next step in the game or being ter­ri­fied of going to time for a round. Shuf­fling through your hand is a ner­vous tick that play­ers pick up in com­pet­i­tive play, but you must think much slower than you move the cards.

For the love of god peo­ple, slow down. Chess can be played fast but the bril­liance comes out of slow, thought out, cal­cu­la­tion. Magic is no dif­fer­ent, there are more unknowns than in chess but the game is still dom­i­nated by strat­egy and tac­tics. If you rush into a play, you’re going to miss some­thing, and that some­thing could cost you the game.

4. Be con­fi­dent. It is bet­ter to be con­fi­dently wrong than hes­i­tantly right. This also means, trust your instincts and don’t sec­ond guess your­self.

I met a kid at a tour­na­ment a few months ago who was 3–0 but was sure he was going to lose out. I did every­thing I could to bol­ster him, encour­age him, try­ing to change his atti­tude. His deck was good and he seemed to know what he was doing, but sure enough his lack of con­fi­dence killed him and he went 3–3 and dropped out.

Con­fi­dence is a very hard attribute to gain, it comes with expe­ri­ence and rec­og­nized suc­cess. I qual­ify suc­cess as “rec­og­nized” because so often peo­ple see any tour­na­ment that they didn’t Top 8 as a fail­ure, when in fact they must actively look for their suc­cesses. Did you win one game fol­low­ing the exact plan you laid out? Did you accu­rately pre­dict an opponent’s hand? Did you squeak out a win with a bril­liant attack? Did you beat a higher ranked oppo­nent? You must look for the wins and in turn you’ll find your con­fi­dence.

5. Know Magic. Under­stand the rules and know how the mechan­ics of the game move and act. You don’t need to mem­o­rize the rules such that you can quote rules sec­tions, but you should read the com­pre­hen­sive rules. There is sim­ply no excuse for mis­plays due to mis­takes in how the rules work. When it comes to com­pet­i­tive play, card inter­ac­tions and abil­ity tim­ings are all the more impor­tant.

I like keep­ing the com­pre­hen­sive rules in the bath­room as read­ing mate­r­ial while I do my busi­ness. No seri­ously I do. Or keep it in your back­pack for when you’re on the bus or train.

6. Play Magic to win. The greats of any sport or game have a killer instinct. They might smile and be the nicest of peo­ple, but once they’re sit­ting across from you they’re still going to go for your jugu­lar and not let up until your cold corpse stops twitch­ing. Too graphic? Maybe. But quotes from Bobby Fis­cher, Vince Lom­bardi, and Tiger Woods are all great exam­ples of com­pet­i­tive and cut­throat play­ers. Don’t be nice, win the game.

You sim­ply can’t allow take­backs when the game is on the line. That being said, you can’t expect oth­ers to allow you to cor­rect mis­takes.

7. Net­work with other play­ers. Yes, you have to be social. Zvi Mow­shovitz, in his recount­ing of his preper­a­tion for last years’ Worlds, dis­cusses his choice of playtest­ing and net­work­ing. This is a major part to mak­ing it to the Pros and stay­ing on the tour and that is, find­ing a group of peo­ple to build, playtest and inves­ti­gate for­mats with.

Magic Online makes this eas­ier than ever. Play on there, build a group of friends, and begin explor­ing the metagame. Or, maybe use our forums, we’re build­ing a strong com­mu­nity and spin­ning ideas among each other try­ing to find the next big “Tech.“

8. Play more Magic. You can never play enough. A teacher once told me, in rela­tion to great­ness, “Prac­tice, prac­tice, prac­tice. If you’re not prac­tic­ing every day, some­where some­one is, and when they meet you, they will beat you.” That is a major point for Magic too. You can’t be casual and make it on the Pro Tour.

At the same time, Magic shouldn’t inter­fere with life. Don’t do it dur­ing classes or instead of being social with friends. How­ever, you can’t expect to win tour­na­ments reg­u­larly with­out mak­ing it a pri­or­ity.

9. Take breaks from Magic. And as a counter to point 8, you also need to take breaks. Burnout is killer and unfor­tu­nately it will hit when you are going through the most stress, either lead­ing up to a major event or dur­ing one. So be sure to take nights and just go out with friends and watch movies, dance, be social — let your brain escape the rat maze for a while.

The brain is a mus­cle. And the more you work it the stronger it gets. But like any mus­cle, it can be over­worked and it will begin to become counter pro­duc­tive to work it, this is when the times of rest become extremely impor­tant. Let it rest. Let your sub­con­scious take over for a while and let your con­scious rest.

10. Never stop learn­ing. We’re blessed to have this game dur­ing the age of the Inter­net. When knowl­edge is just a few clicks away. The moment you stop think­ing you can learn, or begin to believe that you are too good, you’ll come crash­ing down. “Pride goeth before the fall,” or some­thing equally deep and insight­ful. Right?

Jon Finkel said in our inter­view with him that the best advice he could give to new play­ers was to always learn from oth­ers. Lis­ten to their input, whether they’re bet­ter than you or not. Dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives, dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences, and an open mind can bring together a pow­er­ful force. And that is, by far, the best advice on this list.

See you all next week when I write about under­stand­ing the machine that is magic.
– Trick

Trick Jarrett is the host and founder of ManaNation.com, he writes, edits, covers, and spoils Magic for a living. Playing it whenever he can manage to find the time. He is engaged to a lovely woman who refuses to learn Magic, and they have a cute cocker-spaniel puppy who is all too eager to play Magic.

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