Magic the Gathering

Strategy

Magic for Money

By Lee Steht ⋅ May 8, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Mer­riam and Webster’s def­i­n­i­tion of gam­bling is “to bet on an uncer­tain out­come”. I believe that play­ing Magic for money is more about hard work and con­sis­tency than it is about randomness.

You hear them all the time cry­ing out “any­one wanna draft?” They look at you with that cock­i­ness and say “grab a part­ner, let’s draft.” In your stom­ach, a fire begins to burn. Your mind is telling you, “you love to draft. They don’t seem that good.” Then, you hear the word “money” and your body is hit by a chill that could make the devil him­self shud­der. Money draft­ing, is for a select few.

For those who have been around Magic for a while, you should be able to recall that Magic was actu­ally a game played for “Ante”, and many peo­ple used to really get angry when the ante pit­ted their crappy mana pro­duc­ing Mox up against your “world beater” Serra Angel. It was in the rules! Which, for some, made this game lots of fun. I remem­ber my first time play­ing the game in a mul­ti­player for­mat. We would all shuf­fle, cut, and then flip the top card until it was a Non-land. That card would be put into the Ante pool, where the per­son who had the most kills would select his loot first, and the sec­ond most would choose next, etc. I would often times be the owner of a crappy Time Walk or Mana Drain and be so upset because I didn’t win the Sea Ser­pent or Shivan Dragon.

Shortly after that, before there was MTGO or Fri­day Night Magic, I would be test­ing for an upcom­ing event and would chal­lenge any­one in the room to play for a “friendly” wager. Not from our decks, but per­haps some hot rare or ran­dom card from the old trade binder, this is how I could test with some pres­sure to win and hope­fully get­ting the best my oppo­nent could throw at me. It got to a point where I had to offer 5x the amount the poor “fish” would put up just to make the pot “right”. This is how I did my “playtest­ing”. I’ve never really enjoyed play­ing Magic for “fun”. It just never seemed like a “fun game” could keep me inter­ested enough to put forth my best game.

Times have changed, and the game is a lot more “friendly” than it used to be. You can always find a game online in the “tour­na­ment prac­tice” room or per­haps at FNM at your local store. Our spon­sor at Cool Stuff Inc has a FNM scene that has a reg­u­lar atten­dance of 30 — 40 peo­ple! That’s more than some GP Tri­als I’ve attended! Any­way, back to my point, most com­pet­i­tive peo­ple find a way to make “casual” play or prac­tice more excit­ing by adding ele­ments that are “nor­mally” not found in tour­na­ment play, specif­i­cally money.

As you can tell, I tend to bounce around a lot, so try to keep up with me. Let’s start with, I believe in a few facts (or facts to me):

1. The ele­ment of money in Magic has noth­ing to do with Magic at all.
2. That the ele­ment of ran­dom­iza­tion (luck) in ANY game that is depen­dent on a “skill” or tal­ent, is not a game of “Luck”.
3. Any out­come that was effected or influ­enced by human inter­ven­tion has noth­ing to do with “Luck” at all.

Whether that be Foot­ball, the Foos­ball, or Magic the Gath­er­ing, I believe that the ele­ment of “luck” is min­i­mal. There­fore, wager­ing your money on these games (when you’re play­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing) is NOT gambling.

Now let’s talk about Money Drafting.

Most peo­ple who play Magic enjoy draft­ing. It’s a great way to get some cards and per­haps let your money work for you by obtain­ing more than what you started with (packs). I’m sure there are hun­dreds of rea­sons why a per­son does or doesn’t draft for money. I draft because I’m very seri­ous about draft­ing and tend to find that 8 man store drafts have peo­ple who take bad picks. You might say “well that’s bet­ter for you to build your deck and win the draft.” How­ever, any­one who knows what draft­ing is like at a Pro event knows that peo­ple tend to NOT make bad picks in draft. Major­ity of the time, you can ask 25 of the world’s top play­ers and they’ll agree on most of the picks in any given pack. So, you really do have to ask your­self, whether or not, you want to take your gam­ing seri­ously. I’m not say­ing that putting up money against “good” play­ers will make you bet­ter. What I am say­ing is that those who play for money tend to have the con­fi­dence it takes to play at that “next” level.

When you’re play­ing in a PTQ or a local gam­ing store, you’re usu­ally play­ing for some sort of prize and let’s say you’re in the finals of that event. Are you feel­ing any pres­sure? Does the price of vic­tory make your stom­ach turn? Per­haps you’re in the last round of Swiss and you’re look­ing for one more vic­tory to make the cut to top 8. How you’ve prac­ticed up to that point is what will define your very next win or loss. Draft­ing for money is the only for­mat left where “casual” peo­ple will read­ily play for an ante and give you the next best thing to play­ing in “real” play­off pressure.

In clos­ing, I wanted to warn you of a few things before you step into the ring:

1. Don’t play with bor­rowed money. The fact is, some­times you lose, no mat­ter how good your skills are or how good your deck is, and I would feel guilty if I took your gas money for your 7 hour return home. How­ever, I will still take your money, if I win. Make sure it’s some­thing you can lose. Some­times, mem­bers of your draft won’t mind that you just play for a share of the cards.
2. Make sure you match up. What I mean by this, is that nor­mally one of the play­ers draft­ing against you feels that their part­ners or their skill exceeds that of you or your part­ners. If you don’t know your oppo­nents, then just hope your skills are solid enough to compete.
3. Keep in mind, that some­times you have to lose before you can win. Regard­less of your wager, there will be pres­sure to win. THAT’s why I play for some­thing as much or as often as I can. Some peo­ple are just born chok­ers and oth­ers are grace­ful under pres­sure. Do you know how you’ll per­form? I’d say find out. Major­ity of the time, peo­ple lose their first few drafts. Look at it as you pay­ing for some lessons :)
4. If you are good, and your rep­u­ta­tion grows, some­times it’s nec­es­sary to pro­vide some sort of advan­tage to your oppo­nents to even get a game. There are times where I’ll ask a ran­dom guy I’ve never seen play before or even play with my 11 year old son (not dis­count­ing 11 year olds) just to get a 2 vs 2 draft. When peo­ple per­ceive you as being good at the game, some­times you have to lessen your chances to get a game.

I’m sure there are philoso­phies to why or why shouldn’t one play for money. I truly believe it makes a seri­ous player, play bet­ter. I hope this con­vinces you to con­sider the ben­e­fits of money draft­ing. Then, when you’re con­vinced, give me a call!

– Lee