Informed Decisions: Math + Magic

There are many things that cost players games like blocking a Master of Etherium with a 5/6 Tarmogoyf and not doing the math on 6 artifact lands and 3 other artifacts. You could also make a mistake of sacrificing 3 different types of cards to an Arcbound Ravager thinking this would allow him to overrun the 1/2 Tarmogoyf that suddenly blossomed to a 4/5. What you rarely see are the small decisions that allow payers to gather information from their opponent, or their deck, that will allow them to win the game.

Today I wanted to talk about the choices you make at a tournament and how those choices allow you to win or possibly lose a game. I will leave all of the fun choices to you, like what deck to play, or how to sideboard. What I want to go over is how to put you in the best possible situation to win a game. You could also look at this as a chance to learn what not to do in a game. That being said, there are times where you can make the right choice and still lose the game. More often than you would think though, players make bad choices that cost them games. We are going to take look back at some of the mistakes that myself, and my opponents made during the Star City Games Legacy event that cost one of us a game. Hopefully you don’t make these mistakes the next time you play.

Round one against Goblins my opponent casts Aether Vial on turn one. He runs the counters on the Vial up a few turns until he leaves it with three counters on it. He is now aware I am playing counter-top as I have both in play. He uses the Aether Vial to force into play goblins like Goblin Warchief, Goblin Matron and a Goblin Chieftain. All of these creatures are staring at a 5/6 Tarmogoyf. The Goblin Matron searched out a Goblin Ringleader and before the game has ended he cast two other Ringleaders, all of which were countered by the triggered ability of Counterbalance. The correct play would have been to go ahead and run the Aether Vial up to four after he searched out the first Ringleader so he could guarantee it getting into play, and give him the best chance to get the powerful effect from the Ringleader. He could have also left the Aether Vial on two counters allowing him to make sure the Goblin Piledriver would enter play unscathed. Either way the three drops in his deck, while important, don’t generate card advantage or attack for more than a couple of points in damage.

In round two I find myself and my opponent are trying to play at a quick pace because time for game three is going to be very close. I realize pretty early in game three I should be able to win, as I have double Jace, the Mindsculptor in hand with a Tarmogoyf on the field attacking. I also am lucky enough to have the fabled Counter-Top set up by turn two. So the game is on lockdown, I just need to keep attacking and either bouncing or countering his creatures. I know I will not be able to counter any three drops with Counterbalance as I have sided out all three drops in my deck. Still, each time my opponent casts a three drop, I use Sensei’s Divining Top to look at the top three cards in hopes of countering the spell with Counterbalance. I can easily dispose of the three drops by a variety of ways as I soon have a Jace, the Mind Sculptor active. The problem was this, each time I tried to counter the spell with Counterbalance I was wasting precious time that let the game end earlier than it should have. After time has been called and the five additional turns have ended my opponent is at seven and dead to my next attack of two 5/6 Tarmogoyfs. I can now clear the path with either Engineered Explosives or the Jace, but my opponent didn’t want to concede the match, even though he had only lands and a Terravore in play. If at any point I just allow one of the three drops to enter play without wasting time using Sensei’s Divining Top I could have gained the few seconds I would have needed to end the game with me having the last turn not my opponent.

Goblin Piledriver is one of the most explosive creatures ever made, and in round three I got to relive the past, realizing you have to take this creature into account every time you play against goblins. I am in an aggressive match against the goblins attacking with two Tarmogoyfs. My opponent is set on chump blocking being at only 5 life, but has three cards in hand. My opponent casts Goblin Ringleader and hit Goblin Warchief and Goblin Piledriver off of the effect. I again send my two creatures into the red zone on a mission to clear the remaining two goblins from the board. On my opponents next turn he cast Goblin Warchief which allowed him to power out the Piledriver and another Piledriver, knocking out my remaining life total when they attacked. There are those that may say, you can’t play a game like you would know every card in your opponent’s hand, but if you do the math you can see that attacking with both Tarmogoyfs was the incorrect play. While I was at 11 life, I know he can play Warchief and Piledriver which will deal me five damage. Now if either of his other two cards in hand are basic 1/1 goblins I am taking eight damage. This would leave me at the perilously low life of three. My opponent had enough mana to cast two more three cost goblins, since they have a reduced cost, so he had plenty of possibilities. The correct play was to attack with one Tarmogoyf and leave the other back to defend. This would have allowed me to block if he went all in with an alpha strike and attack back for the win.

In round six I was able to counter two spells with blind flips from Counterbalance. My opponent was furious, but if he knew the math, he may not have been so upset. In game one I have 25 cards left in my deck, of which eleven of them are one casting cost spells. My opponent has me at three life and floats a mana then sacrifices two lands to cast Fireblast, in response I tap out to play Force of Will. My opponent responds with Lightning Bolt to finish me off. I sacrifice my Flooded Strand to fetch one of the 3 remaining lands in my deck, this leaves me with a 46% chance of hitting a 1 cost spell off of the Counterbalance, which I did. In game three a similar scenario occurs where he is going to overrun me with a Goblin Piledriver if it resolves. If I can counter this spell he is dead on the board to a Vendilion Clique on my next attack. In response to the Counterbalance trigger, I randomize my deck with a Sac land and reveal a Tarmogoyf. As before doing so raised the odds of the correct card on top to about a 50% chance, basically a coin flip. When you have a scenario such as this, you should always take the chance to raise the odds in your favor, as each time you are increasing your odds to win the coin flip.

In the last round I was faced with a choice that a few people asked me about. It is late in game two and we are already close to time. I need a win and a quick win in game three to ensure a top 8 spot. My opponent casts Tarmogoyf, with two other cards he has been sitting on all game, or so it seems. I let my Counterbalance trigger and reveal a Brainstorm. My hand consisted of two copies of Force of Will, and thought about using them to counter the Tarmogoyf after the trigger resolved, but I know I need to quickly draw one of my six creatures and protect it for a couple of turns. Four of my creatures are Tarmogoyfs, which will create a stalemate, the other two are Vendilion Clique and would allow a faster finish, though they are much more vulnerable. Knowing Brainstorm is on top, I know I will see three of the last 23 cards in my deck, again pretty good odds of seeing a creature. I ended up casting two copies of Brainstorm that turn, but I didn’t find a creature and died to my opponent’s creature three turns later. My thought was that by not countering the Tarmogoyf with Force of Will, that I was saving my counter to protect my win condition, but I should have been more worried about living through the incoming attack. I didn’t do the math if I would have I would have known that my odds of finding a way out of this game were better if I would have countered my opponent’s Tarmogoyf.

During each game you play you will probably have made hundreds of complicated decisions. Each of those will be affected by which order you may have played your lands or what hand you kept. Throughout the course of a match that number is compounded even more. Through skillful decision making and simple math you can use the odds to make the best informed choices, hopefully allowing you to pull out a game that in the past you may have lost.

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About this article

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• author: Donnie
• date: 10/18/10
• time: 5:22pm
• comments: 1

General, Magic The Gathering, Legacy