Power 9 Pro – Magic The Gathering Accessories – Tournament Discussion – Deck Analysis

As Lauren Lee (@Mulldrifting) said recently in her article over at Mananation (@Mananation), there are two ways of improving your Magic playing skills. You can practice playing, or you can learn by parsing related knowledge and information from others. Her article focuses on how to parse the information and why you should do so. I will show you one valuable channel for locating that information and how to get considerable mileage out of it. That information channel is the Magic community on Twitter.

Twitter is a hot social media tool that should be grabbing your attention as a Magic player. If you seek innovation in deck building, Twitter has it. If you seek to read articles before anyone else, Twitter has them. If you want to have access to the thoughts of the Magic Community’s best and brightest, you need to get on Twitter.

The Twitter Magic community is very diverse and you will find all manner of personalities and perspectives amongst them. Wizards of the Coast employees, Pro Tour Champions, deck building innovators, PTQ grinders, community content producers, site managers, and folks interested in every niche format in a long running continuous chat about the game we all love. At the end of this article and throughout I will list some of the folks I follow and why you should follow them as well. The username for a Twitter account is denoted with ‘@’ followed by the username, and each will link to that user’s timeline. First, an overview of how Twitter works from a Magic player’s perspective.

Twitter is really a tool of discovery for the Magic player. Part of the point behind Twitter is that in revealing small quips about what is on one’s mind, those around that one will learn new things about the one and start discussion about things that may never have come up otherwise. In the Magic community, each person you’ll want to follow will usually have magic on the mind more often than anything else.  This is one of the reasons it is so good at spreading spoilers, new decks and deck tech, articles, and announcements from the Magic community. Yes, occasionally Mike Flores (@fivewithflores) and Conley Woods(@Conley81) or Brian David-Marshall (@Top8Games) will have a debate over the merits of a particular basketball team’s performance, and occasionally someone will mention that their pancakes didn’t turn out very well this morning, but these types of things come up in the conversation of a crowded game store as well, so if you aren’t particularly interested, just glaze over it to the next Magic related topic.

Twitter serves as a kind of news aggregate for the Magic community, as many magic related websites post links to their articles in tweets and many players at various levels will report any interesting developments at the various tournaments that they attend. Professional oriented sites and various entities from WotC also post Twitter updates direct from the floor of major tournaments, providing you with the benefits of boots on the ground without driving or flying to wherever the hotspot is at the moment.

Managing your Twitter account is a fairly simple affair as you can use your Twitter homepage quite directly and easily. If you are more tech savvy and on the go, you can use on of any number of mobile applications to keep tabs from SMS text to the more popular TweetDeck. I have a iGoogle homepage customized with a Twitter gadget built into it, and use Echofon on my Ipod Touch. My point is that it is easy to use both simply and with multiple access points and features.

Now that we have the overview out of the way, let’s get down to specifics. First, if you like spoiler season, Twitter is a delight because not only will you have WotC employees like Mark Rosewater (@maro254), Kenneth Nagle (@NorrYtt), Mike Turian (@mturian) Tom LaPille (@tomlapille) and Aaron Forsythe (@mtgaaron) dropping hints and spoiling cards at any given moment, and not only because all the spoiler tracking sites and bloggers will post any new spoilers they come across, but also because you can get instant evaluations from players at all different levels of play. In fact, not only do these various players give feedback on new cards, rotated or new formats and new sets in their entirety, but also on new tech as it comes up.

What this means is that when something is on the bleeding edge of Magic tech, you’ll be amongst the first to know about it. To give an example, I was following Pro Tour Austin on Twitter when Evan Erwin (@misterorange) mentioned that he was witnessing a breakout performance by a deck running the new card, at the time, Punishing Fire. Quickly a discussion broke out on Twitter evaluating this new tech that seemed to come out of nowhere. That’s when Kelly Reid (@kellyreid) of Quiet Speculation made the call to ‘Buy Grove of the Burnwillows‘. After a quick analysis of his logic and the situation, I followed his advice. Within an hour or two a Grove of the Burnwillows could not be found for less than five dollars, and within a day after Brian Kibler (@bmkibler) won Pro Tour Austin, the price for Groves had reached strange new heights. I had my playset, which I did not have previously, and sold two additional playsets I had ordered on Ebay for twenty-four dollars each. That’s a three-fold increase over the under two dollars a card price I bought them for, and I had the latest tech to play with myself.

These sorts of things happen on occasion, thanks to floor reports via twitter from the various Pros and content providers who work Magic’s big tournaments. What happens more often is that you will have good players discussing new decks and strategies, WotC policies, and Tournament experiences. You will also be amongst the first to know when a new article is posted on an number of reputable and popular sites like Power9pro (@power9pro), Mananation, Star City Games (@starcitygames), Channel Fireball (@ChannelFireball), The Starkington Post (@Starkpo), and many of the excellent independent Magic community bloggers like AffinityforIslands (@AffinityForBlue), MTG Color Pie (@mtgcolorpie), and Gathering Magic (@GatheringMagic), amongst others mentioned above.

Think you are ready for some Twitter information flow? Here is a listing of some interesting folks I follow, and I’ll break them down into groups for you so you can get started. (If you aren’t listed here and I follow you, I’m sorry but there is a need to limit the lists.)This will by no means be exhaustive, and I suggest looking for your local players as well once you are comfortable. If you don’t find them, get them to read this article and see what they are missing.

Wizards of the Coasts Employees and Official Support

Mark Rosewater (@maro254)

Kenneth Nagle (@NorrYtt)

Mike Turian (@mturian)

Tom LaPille (@tomlapille)

Aaron Forsythe (@mtgaaron)

Elaine Chase (@ElaineChase)

Magic Pro Tour Floor Reports (@MagicProTour)

Daily MTG Web Team (@DailyMTG)

DCI Judges (@DCIJudges)

Pro Tour Players

Brian Kibler (@bmkibler)

Conley Woods (@Conley81)

Patrick Chapin (@thepchapin)

Adam Styborski (@the_stybs)

Luis Scott-Vargas (@LuisScottVargas)

Zvi Mowshowitz (@TheZvi)

Sites and Bloggers

Power9Pro (@power9pro)

Star City Games (@starcitygames)

Mananation (@Mananation)

Channel Fireball (@ChannelFireball)

MTG Salvation (@mtgsalvation)

Bill Stark, The Starkington Post (@Starkpo)

Evan Erwin, The Magic Show (@misterorange)

MTG Color Pie (@mtgcolorpie)

Lauren  Lee, Mananation, Quiet Speculation, Mulldrifting (@Mulldrifting)

Kelly Reid, The Dragon’s Den, Mananation, Quiet Speculation (@kellyreid)

Johnathan Medina, MTG Metagame (@mtgmetagame)

Russell Tassicker, Gwafa’s Bazaar (@rtassicker)

Neale Wrongwaygoback (@wrongwaygoback)

EDH Central (@edhcentral)

Podcasts, Article Aggregates, Video coverage

MTGFeeds, Article Aggregate (@MTGFeeds)

MTGBattlefield, Article Aggregate (@MtgBattlefield)

Alex, Deck Construct Podcast (@DeckConstruct)

Yo! MTG Taps!, Podcast (@YoMTGTaps)

DrawGo Radio, Podcast (@drawgoradio)

MTGRadio, Podcast (@mtgradio)

MTGCast, Podcast Aggregate (@mtgcast)

Good Games Live, Live Event Coverage (@GGSLive)

Interesting Community Personalities

Rivnix Izzet, Goblin Planeswalker (@Rivnix)

Don Wiggins (@TheSundry)

Alaric Stein (@PlatypusJedi)

David Campano (@dcampa93)

Riki Hayashi, DCI Judge (@Riskypedia)

Dr. Jeebus, formerly of MTGSalvation forums fame (@dr_jeebus)

Chris McNutt (@Fatecreatr)

Jonathan Richmond, The Thieving Magpie guy (@norbert88)

Rob Davis (@ArtosKincaid)

Dylan Lerch (@dtlerch)

Greg Haenig, Urzassedatives of MTG Salvation’s Rumor Mill (@uselessend)

As you can see just by the size of this brief list that the Magic community on Twitter is alive and thriving, just waiting for you to join and gain the benefits of all the knowledge and discussion that it generates and shares. And as always, you can follow me as well, @RobJelf. If you join up to Twitter after reading this, send me a tweet and let me know.

P.S. Here is a link to a Twitter list with all the account above in one timeline.

I work a lot.  Such is life in the restaurant industry.  Managing a bar means working late at night (Friday and Saturday) and that means less time for me to enjoy my favorite hobby.  Luckily for me, my wife is always willing to flop cards with me.  Now my wife is not Pro-Tour caliber, she doesn’t get excited over the latest expansion and everyday things don’t make her think of Magic cards.  However, my wife has an EDH deck (Sliver Overlord), she has her favorite card (Avatar of Woe),  and will pilot any deck I give her so I can practice.  In short, my wife is a casual player, really casual, ranking magic with Monopoly or Clue.  She sees it as a game; something to pass the time with on a rainy afternoon.  This is easy for me to understand but hard for me to relate with (how can she read Wild Mongrel and not get excited?).

One thing I have found to be difficult for the casual player is the release of new expansions every quarter.  Magic is a game that constantly evolves.  Each new card brings with it a text block of new rules which can be overwhelming for the casual player.  The casual player doesn’t tend to read spoilers or set reviews.  Living with a casual player has led me to find a great format for teaching/learning the newest set without needing to learn new cards in advance.  I am referring to Pack War (also called Booster War or MiniMaster).

Pack War is really simple:  Each player takes one booster pack and three of each basic land.  This will give a thirty card deck.  The rest is just plain old Magic; normal life totals, phases, and rules.  My wife and I keep the cards from the booster face down so we won’t know what is in our “deck” before hand, which adds an extra level of excitement.  There are many variations of the Pack War rules.  Some people do not allow Mulligans, others have a smaller starting hand size, I have even read about allowing all players access to as much mana of any color they want so there is no need to add land (Fireball = autowin).  When my wife and I were opening Shards of Alara we decided to only use two of each basic land since the color fixing was so good.  Pack War offers plenty of options for people wanting to play a quick game.

Pack War is a great way to make opening boosters a lot more fun.  It is even possible to squeeze in Pack War between rounds at a tournament.  It also gives really bad cards a chance to see some play (Feral Contest, Goblin Game).  Sure there is a bit more randomness to it, but I think that it adds to the charm.  Bojuka Brigand equipped with Kitesail ftw.

My favorite aspect of Pack War is that it is an easy way to teach the game of Magic.  I am always willing to teach people how to play and I find Pack War is simple without being overwhelming.  It allows us to focus on what the cards do and the basic mechanics of the game.  Pack War as a teaching tool is much more effective than using U/W Chapin vs. Jund.

Magic is my hobby and I devote a large amount of time towards it.  I research decks, use draft simulators, follow players on facebook, read articles and so on.  The casual player is not going to do these things.  When Wizards of the Coast decided to print less cards per year, they were addressing concerns from new/casual players.  Those players felt that the amount of cards was overwhelming.  Those players felt that they were too far behind and out of the loop.  Pack War addresses these concerns with its simplicity.  Pack War is a way to keep casual players somewhat up to date and it lets us teach the game without having to reference thousands of cards.  The next time you get some boosters, set some aside and try out Pack War.

While I was proofreading this article, I really got the itch to battle it out with some booster packs.  I went to the closest comic store and picked up their last two packs of Worldwake.  My wife and I used three of each basic land and got down to business.

My pack:

Corrupted Zendikon Dispel Wind Zendikon Voyager Drake Graypelt Hunter Snapping Creeper Rest for the Weary Lightkeeper of Emeria Skitter of Lizards Rumbling Aftershocks Kitesail Bojuka Bog Quicksand Amulet of Vigor

Bojuka Bog is not great in Pack War, but I liked the Angel and the Drake.

My wife’s pack:

Bojuka Bog Guardian Zendikon Kor Firewalker Ionas Judgment Caustic Crawler Jagwasp Swarm Brink of Disaster Akoum Battlesinger Deathforge Shaman Halimar Excavator Aether Tradewinds Pilgrims Eye Gnarlid Pack Jace, the Mind Sculptor

O.O
Well, obviously my wife opened a great pack. Removal, check. Evasion, check. Chase Rare, check. Looks good. Which card had the biggest impact? It wasn’t old Blue Eyes. It was Brink of Disaster targeting my Graypelt Hunter to stop my early aggro. Caustic Crawler came down a turn later to prevent me from getting a decent block. The Crawler and the Shaman got me into the red zone pretty quick after that. Good stuff.  Go try Pack War for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.

This is my first article written for the MTG community, and I’m pleased to be writing for the awesome folks at Power 9 Pro. Today I’m going to talk about net decks and using the power of community to create a better deck, but first I’m going to say a word about what you can expect most often from my articles.

Now, you’ve obviously turned to the internet to research Magic and maybe get some fresh perspectives on the game we all love. I can tell because that is where this post is located and you have chosen to read it. You are seeking to improve your game. For some you simply want to beat Jund, Affinity, or MUD. You may want to know what to do about Blightning, Baneslayer Angel, or Tarmagoyf. I am going to do better than tell you how to make those worries go away. I’m going to strive to develop reasoning and tools that will drive your game, my game, and the game to new levels. I deal in cognitive and practical tools. Please, step into my shop.

A lot of players fresh to the tournament scene or who have gotten slightly more competitive within their casual group become frustrated at so called ‘net decks’. The internet is always going to build a better deck, and you shouldn’t begrudge that, because you can be part of the process and you can reap the benefits. Besides, odds are you already do ‘net deck’, but you’ll see what I mean a little later.

All decks begin with selecting a goal. The obvious goal of the game is to win, but there are a number of ways to do so. Commonly the goal will be to reduce the opponent’s life total to zero, so we will work with this most common objective. Combos aside, an opponent’s life total is usually reduced to zero through attacking with creatures or using direct damage sources.

There are 1,118 cards in standard as of the launch of Worldwake. There will be 1,575 cards in standard with the release of M11 in July. How many do you know? Ok, perhaps that is unfair, so lets say that only 20% of the cards in the environment are constructed playable. That brings the number down to 315 cards. Now, do you know all of them? Maybe you do, but do you remember them all at once? Of course you don’t. We can only remember 5-9 different units of information at any one time, and that is something that you need to think about when you are deck building. You do not, and can not remember all the cards, all the time. You need help.

Help comes in many different forms. Some rouge deck builders sit down and flip back and forth between the cards in their collection, or the cards legal to the format on Gatherer or Magiccards.info, an idea in mind, scribbling down notes. They are helping themselves, extending there mental capacity to deck build by using the images to store the details of the cards and the notes to store the fleeting thoughts they are having about interactions. This is good, but still limited. Let’s find more help.

Our deck builder constructs his deck and takes it over to his Magic playing friend’s house. They sit down and play a couple games and our hero asks his buddy what he thinks. Now here is where things get interesting. The buddy has played games that our hero hasn’t. The buddy has his own criteria on what cards are good and just how good they are, and they aren’t all the same as our hero’s. The buddy suggests a few changes, Our hero likes some, as a good case has been made, and he makes a few adjustments. Here we have doubled up on the brain power and experience involved in the deck’s creation, but we can do better.

Our hero and the buddy go to the card store to play a few game with friends. After each match-up, our hero surrenders his deck for inspection and comment. The deck is interesting to some, doesn’t work well enough according to others. Discussion breaks out and cases are made for more efficient card choices, different variations that can be tried, and the addition of an more obscure card to serve a special purpose in the deck. Our hero couldn’t have come up with all these different opinions by himself. He may be quite smart, but the power of, lets say five, other brains working on the same problem as he is, in addition to the variety in styles, experiences and preferences, dwarfs the effort that he could bring to bear on it.

Our hero, without ever looking at a deck list or browsing a forum has just net decked. In this case, the net was not the internet, but the network of players around him. The MTG community online is doing this same thing, but we are taking advantage of the gifts of technology to bring the raw power and vastly varied experiences of hundreds, if not thousands of minds to bear on the same problems.

Now, I believe the thing that people actually are disturbed by is when a player completely turns their brains off and simply selects the winning-est deck that they can assemble without serious consideration to improving on it or an alternative to it. Honestly, if you are simply a Magic playing computer, running iterated decision trees and card-counting probability algorithms, then this approach is probably fine. If you have been cramming for exams, or working overtime and you just need something to play in a tourney without much thought, I can understand grabbing the latest Red-Deck-Wins list and running with it. However, if you have any creative impulse or opinion about Magic, and if you love this game you must, you will be a part of the network and contribute back to the development of others’ decks.

With the processing power of the human brain at approximately 100 million computer

A network of brain power making awesome!

instructions per second, and hundreds of people playing a game with hundreds of cards, hundreds of rules and millions of possible interactions, I believe that I can make two assertions. The first assertion is that the only way to create a deck and make it an optimal winner is to bring the power of as many human brains as possible to it, using whatever network possible, including the internet. I think that most can agree to that, but my second assertion will probably be a bit more controversial. I believe that there can always be a better deck made than whatever is ‘best’ given enough brain power applied to the problem.

in our further commitment to be a force of reckoning in the magic the gathering community, we’ve formed an official tournament team.  there are currently three players who will be attending ptq’s, grand prix and anything in between that we can get to.  (we’ll be posting exact schedules as they’re established–for now we are attending the grand prix in los angeles, ca on the weekend of jan 17th).  rather than steal their thunder we’ll let them intorduce themselves over the next few days (i’m one of them but i’ll put down a blurb-bio for y’all too).

also to give back to the community which we love, our team will be posting thoughts on decks, cards, shards + conflux, and more.