How to Play Magic The Gathering | Card Evaluation

How to Play Magic The Gathering | A Beginner’s Guide to Card Evaluation
by Orion Wilson

When I first started playing serious magic, not at all very long ago, I was immediately drawn to drafting.  It reminded me of when I first started playing as a little kid and my entire collection couldn’t have been too much more than 45 cards.  It felt natural, not “whoever spends the most money on chase-rares wins” but instead “whoever cracks this puzzle wins.”

I quickly learned that it was not quite that simple, and simply put, I was bad!  I never knew which colors to be, which cards in those colors to take, or what the people next to me were doing.  Then once I started playing I’d make stupid mistakes, most of which I didn’t even notice until someone else pointed them out to me. Reminds me of the old joke:

A: “How many Magic: The Gathering players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
B: “I don’t know, how many?”
A: “Two, one to turn the bulb, and one to tell him how he could have done it three turns earlier.”

Anyhow, to tune my playskill I quickly turned to Magic’s best friend: The Internet. Capital T, Capital I.  This is where the goods are, right?  The information superhighway!  But after a few hours of poking around I felt lost. Most of the articles I found were about constructed, and most of the ones about limited already assumed I knew a lot of information I didn’t.  I’d hear phrases like “Tempo”, “Card Advantage”, or “Format” being batted around not having any idea what they meant.  What was a poor boy to do?

Anyway, the point of this tear-jerking yarn is not to garner sympathy, but to point out a void I see in the market.  I haven’t found an article or series of articles that breaks down basic magic terms in easy-to-understand ways that someone who knows very little about the game can understand.  I am not saying that there aren’t great limited strategy articles out there, I’m only pointing out that they may be hard for very new players to understand. So I’m going to embark on this series of articles topic by topic, and if there’s anything anyone has questions about feel free to post it in the comments and I’ll do my best to go over it.

And one further disclaimer: I make mistakes.  I’m not Jon Finkel, and thusly I’ll disclaim most of the information I put in here as being partially subjective.  There’s never one right way to do things, but I’m going to share the things I’ve learned in the couple years I’ve been playing Magic.

So without further ado………..

WEEK 1: Card Selection

It’s hard to know exactly what cards are “good” when you first start playing Magic.  As a very new player a lot of people are drawn towards big creatures and lifegain spells.  “I’ll just stay alive until I drop down a big thing and beat them to death” is the thinking (at least it was for me at one point).  Most people know that removal spells are good, but just how good are they?  And how do your priorities change as the draft goes on?  These are all important questions and ones I will attempt to answer.

There’s an acronym people use to teach newer players the order in which they should pick cards: B.R.E.A.D., which stands for:

Bombs

Removal

Evasion

Aggression

Don’t pick this crap

There’s some dispute about what A and D stand for, but the first three are really the important ones.

BOMBS

The bee’s knees, the crème-de-la-crème, the cat’s pajamas… in short, the best cards you could hope to open. These are the cards you open and go “Hell Yeah! I just opened a ____”.  These are usually rare or mythic, although not always; cards like Mind Control in M11, Pelakka Wurm in Rise of the Eldrazi or Trusty Machete in Zendikar are all bombs in their own right.

Some examples of Rare and Mythic bombs in Magic 2011 are Baneslayer Angel, Sword of Vengeance, Platinum Angel, Overwhelming Stampede, Garruk Wildspeaker, Chandra Nalaar, and any of the Titans.  All of these cards have a few things in common:

1) They all immediately affect the state of the board.

2) If they are not dealt with they have the potential to dominate and, either immediately or shortly after that, win the game for their caster.

3) Their mana cost can be paid without jumping through too many hoops.

Rule number 3 is why I don’t include things like Vengeful Archon or Stormtide Leviathan on that list.  While these are extremely powerful cards and are very playable in many decks, they are frequently bad first-picks.  First of all, they are all heavy color-commitments, that is, they are not at all splashable, and if you end up cut out of that particular color you won’t be playing these fatties anytime soon. Additionally, if you take a Vengeful Archon over something like a Pacifism, you’ll be in pretty rough shape when you get cut out of White, and wishing you’d taken the more easily splashable removal spell. The best bombs are ones like Baneslayer Angel, where are powerful enough that most decks would be better off grabbing some Terramorphic Expanse or other fixing and splashing for such a beastly creature.

The other thing that can be detrimental about cards like the Archon and the Leviathan is that, regardless of color, they are so darn expensive.  Very expensive cards are only good in a few styles of decks, and quite bad in most others.  Say I first picked a Stormtide Leviathan, but the cards that ended up being passed to me led me to take a blue-white deck full of aggressive flyers like Stormfront Pegasus, Cloud Elemental, and Assault Griffin.  They way that deck would win is to try to overwhelm the opponent with aggressive, evasive threats before they could gain traction to fight back.  If I kill the opponent (or more likely lose) with a Stormtide Leviathan in my hand and six lands on the board, it’d be like if I mulliganed my hand once more than I actually had. Having big expensive cards in decks that focus on quick beaters is a good way to fill up your hand with things you can’t cast while your opponents use their small, efficient cards to eat you up before you get even close to having 8 lands on the table. Conversely if you have a deck that’s full of removal with the plan of getting to the late-game and then dropping one big threat and backing it up with a Counterspell, then you’ve got a great card in Stormtide Leviathan. Basically though, the real bombs are often those that are useful regardless of your deck’s plan. Any red deck is made instantly better by adding a Fireball, and there isn’t a black deck around that wouldn’t find room for Grave Titan in the build. But hard to cast creatures like Cyclops Gladiator and Demon of Deaths Gate, are obviously powerful but a bit too wonky to get picked over the next best type of card…

REMOVAL

This is your bread-and-butter.  Limited magic is almost entirely about creature combat, so cards that remove creatures from your opponents side of the board can only be good for you, right?  Right.  But not all removal is created equal.  So how do you decide when you’re given the choice?  I will go into my soon-to-be-familiar numbered list. The six important criteria for valuing removal is:

1) Mana Cost

2) Finality with which its target is removed.

3) Range of targets it can hit.

4) Instant or Sorcery speed?

5) Any other applications?

6) How much support does it get?

I will not go down these one by one, but instead attempt to explain multiple at the same time by offering a classic comparison: Pacifism vs. Doom Blade.  Also know that category six is by far the most important and nuanced.

Now Pacifism and Doom Blade both have the same converted mana cost, and neither have any other applications besides removing creatures, so we can cross those two off the list.  Obviously Doom Blade actually kills the creature so it wins in the second category, both because Pacifism can be dealt with by things such as enchantment removal, and because fails to turn off activated abilities. Pacifism loses again in the speed comparison, coming down at Sorcery speed while Doom Blade is an instant. However, Pacifism wins category #3 because it be stuck to any creature, while Doom Blade can’t kill black creatures.

From my experience, and based on the first five categories, it’s pretty much a wash, although in a vacuum Doom Blade is probably slightly better.  I’ve lost games because I couldn’t blow up my opponents black creature, likely as many times as I’ve lost because my Pacifism was removed or the only creature I cared to deal with was one with a solid activated ability.

Now despite the fact that I consider both to be equal, in Magic 2011 I will pick Doom Blade over Pacifism 100% of the time Pick 1 Pack 1.  This is because it fits in with the sort of decks I like to draft.  Drafting archetypes is going to be a lesson for a later day, but I prefer black decks with a lot of removal paired with blue for counterspells and card-draw.  Doom Blade fits into this perfectly.  Another important consideration is that the black creatures in M11 not named Grave Titan aren’t that great, meaning Doom Blade’s drawback isn’t too terrible.  The common and uncommon creatures you really care about stopping in M11 are things like Spined Wurm, Yavimaya Wurm, and Duskdale Wurm in green, Serra Angel and Assault Griffin in White, Air Servant and Harbor Serpent (if you’re blue too) in blue, and Fire Servant in red (one of those cards to which Pacifism isn’t a great answer). Compared to those heavy hitters, you’ll probably find other ways to deal with stuff like Barony Vampire and Rotting Legion.  In contrast, if the decks you like to draft are aggressive white-blue or white-red builds that rely on incapacitating blockers to push damage through, Pacifism would certainly be the right pick.  Obviously it’s impossible to plan your deck out 100% based on your first pick, but as you get a feel for drafting each set you’ll soon develop your own preferences about what’s good and what isn’t, as well as an opinion on things like Pacifism vs. Doom Blade.

Both are top tier removal spells, the best in the set. So what about the lower tiered removal? Cards like Assassinate are obviously attractive at first, as it can kill just about any creature regardless of color or abilities. But the truth is any seasoned player knows Assassinate is terrible compared to something like Doom Blade. It;s slow and clunky, and based on its design often requires you to suffer through at least one attack from the creature you want to kill. Additionally, it’s an easy card to play around, that is, if your opponent knows you have an assassinate or two in your deck, he or she will be careful about attacking into you with key creatures if it can be helped. That being said, Assassinate is removal, and should be treated as such by being picked early on in a pack’s lifespan. The rule with removal then is to take it when you see it, but to know which spells are better than others.  Efficient, instant speed removal with few limitations is always tops, but still take tier 2 removal very highly. Removal is an integral part of any deck, and if you hope to win your deck should not be without at least a few removal spells.

EVASION

Evasion in Magic: The Gathering is a term that refers to creatures that get to ignore other creatures in one way or another when they attack.  Evasive creatures are much better than comparable non-evasive creatures, as a rule. For instance, compare Air Servant to Stone Golem, ignoring Air Servant’s activated ability.

They have the same power, though while Stone Golem has four toughness, while Air Servant has only three. By this comparison alone, Air Servant is the worse creature. It dies to the common removal spell Lightning Bolt, and trades (a term meaning that a creature blocks another creature and then they both die) with things like Assault Griffin and other three power creatures. And for that loss of a point of toughness all it gains is flying!?

A joke, really.

This is ABSOLUTELY not a fair trade-off for the Stone Golem.  Once you cast a 4 power creature your opponent has five turns (assuming they’re still at 20 life) to kill it, chump block it (a term meaning to just block with a smaller expendable creature in order to prevent damage), or die.  For a Stone Golem, your opponent has plenty of outs against your assault in the form of simple ground creatures, able to block and likely kill your Stone Golem with relative ease. Blocking is an important part of Magic, and usually the way that most creatures meet their end. Meanwhile, the only creatures that can block an Air Servant and force a trade are either another Air Servant, a Serra Angel, or an Assault Griffin. This gives your opponent a narrow window of opportunity to block it without you removing what may be one of the few creatures in the deck that can interact with your flyer, and the more flyers you have in your deck, the easier it will be to just ignore your opponents creatures and just fly right over them. Evasion then, is the ability to avoid being blocked. Cards with keywords like Flying, Shadow, Horsemanship, or even abilities like “Cannot be blocked except by two or more creatures” are highly desirable, and often the key to victory.

A simpler comparison here is Stormfront Pegasus vs. Silvercoat Lion.  Stormfront Pegasus comes down early and can push through quite a bit of damage, especially when followed up by other flyers like Wild or Assault Griffin.  It also trades profitably (meaning with something that costs more than it does) with things like the two Griffins I just mentioned. On the other hand, Silvercoat Lion comes down turn two, and is frequently invalidated quickly by larger ground bodies and can sometimes sit quietly on a board almost as if it were never cast.

A corresponding thought though, is that your flyers still have to be good cards.  An Air Servant or Stormfront Pegasus is a strong card because it has a substantial body for its cost.  A card like Augury Owl would be very weak without its ability because it’s just too small to be relevant. Something like a Juggernaut or Garruks Companion is going to be a more relevant body even it doesn’t fly or have shadow (although trample is its own kind of evasion).

AGGRESSION

Then we get to the rest of the creatures you find.  Stuff like Barony Vampire and Fiery Hellhound and Sacred Wolf.  If you are ever in a situation in which you do not have to include cards like this in your draft deck, you are in a very good position and the people near you are likely doing something wrong.

Sadly, ground guys are generally a necessary evil, but not necessarily evil at all.  There are cards like the aforementioned Juggernaut and Garruk’s Companion that can play very well with an aggressive, ground-based strategy. The trick to fighting on the ground is to either have bigger guys faster than your opponent or to make sure you can disrupt your opponents ground guys long enough for you to punch through the damage you need to.

To illustrate let me share with you my newfound love affair with Goblin Piker.

A Goblin Piker, as most lovers are, is far from perfect. He dies to any blocker in M11 except Ornithopter and Goldenglow Moth and he can’t even fly past anything.  He can’t even use his pike to fight past a piddling little scroll thief.  Why then, do I love him so much?

I recently 3-0ed a FNM draft (admittedly not an amazing feat, but an accomplishment nonetheless) with a deck that had no less than a full playset of goblin pikers in it.  It was red-white, very aggressive and had a couple of lightning bolts, a couple of excommunicates, and a couple of Chandras Outrages to go along with my weak early beaters (I also managed to pick up an Elite Vanguard, helping to max out the count of vanilla 2/1s) and 3 or 4 Assault Griffins to finish off the opponent.  This deck was composed of much weaker cards than some of my opponents deck but it worked because I could take advantage of the fact that many of my opponents would not have meaningful plays until turn 3.  If I could play a turn one Vanguard and turn two Piker, then whatever creature they play on turn three I would either Excommunicate or Lightning Bolt or whatnot.  Then they’d be forced to use their removal (which usually cost three or four mana) on my guys who cost only two mana, and then would have none for my four-drop flyers, which would then end the game in short order.

The point of the deck was that even though Goblin Piker isn’t a good card, it’s the kind of early drop I needed to pressure my opponent into having to play my game, and so when you’re picking your vanilla creatures it’s very important to think about how they will play with the game-plan of your deck.  It doesn’t take a genius to see that if he’s mono green he should pick up a Garruks Companion over a Runeclaw Bear, but there are some nuances if you have to decide between a Garruk’s Companion or a Spined Wurm.  If you already have two Yavimaya Wurms and a Cudgel Troll and this is your 4th pick, you should probably go with the Companion, otherwise you’ll frequently be stuck with a hand full of big beaters while your opponent overwhelms you early.  Conversely, if you have a Llanowar Elves, a Sylvan Ranger, and a Cultivate, you can pick the more expensive guy because it’ll fit more into the ramp plan of your deck.

In summation, the vanilla creatures you pick are to complement the stronger cards in your deck.  Both you and they should know their place, and pick them in such a way that makes your deck run more smoothly, even if you think the card passed might be slightly more powerful than the card picked.

DON’T PICK THIS CRAP

This is a category of all the cards you always see going in the very late picks.  Some examples from M11 are Goldenglow Moth, Volcanic Strength, Blood Tithe, Maritime Guard, and Hunters Feast.

One thing you should notice about these cards are that 3 of them gain life.  As a rule of thumb, cards that only gain life are bad, because although it can keep you from not losing, it rarely helps you win.  Unless you have a deck that just needs to survive to the late-game to drop a bunch of powerful threats, there’s almost never a reason to play life gain in a draft-deck.  Life-gain as a side effect of a card that actually does something relevant, as in Obstinate Baloth or Solemn Offering, is not bad and can actually be quite good, but it should be said to shy away from cards that only gain you life.

A card like Maritime Guard just doesn’t do enough to be really playable.  It’s a fine sideboard card if you play an opponent like me in the previous example who has a deck full of Goblin Pikers, but it’s only good against a narrow range of cards and therefore should be avoided in the main-deck.

Volcanic Strength is the type of card that is high-risk with when the reward isn’t really rewarding enough, although this is probably the most playable card amongst the batch.  Imagine for me two scenarios.  Scenario #1 is that you have a Sacred Wolf in play and you cast a Volcanic Strength on it when your opponent is playing mountains.  This essentially says “you have 4 turns before you die or cast a day of judgment”.  That is a very favorable situation for you.  Scenario #2 is that you have a Goblin Piker on turn two.  Turn three you play a Volcanic Strength and your opponent casts Doom Blade in response killing both the enchantment and the creature.  Since you are on the play you are now left with only four cards in hand, while your opponent is left with six.  He also gets to take his third turn after he’s stolen your second turn from you.  That is a very unfavorable situation.  So the moral of the story of creature enchantments is that they’re very high risk no matter what, so they should only be played when their reward is very high.  This is why cards like Armored Ascension or Shivs Embrace are not only playable but actually quite good, because if they kill the creature, it still sucks, but if they don’t they’ve got to deal with a threat that will end the game very quickly.  In other words, they force your opponent to have an answer.

Another category of cards that comes around very late are sideboard cards. Things like Flashfreeze, Naturalize, or Deathmark.  They’re either too narrow in their application to be put in the maindeck, only interact with certain colors, or are just not that powerful except in specific situations.  Learning cards that seem bad but can sometimes be very good is a good way to get an edge when you go into games 2 and 3 of your matches.

There are other cards that are unplayable, but you’ll get a feel for what they are.  In general, pick the cards that have the most impact on the game and help to put pressure on your opponent and have the most efficient mana costs.  And remember, the decks with the best cards in them tend to win.

CARDS NOT COVERED UNDER THESE CATEGORIES

There are plenty of cards that don’t fit into any of these categories, but I’ll run through a few other types of cards that should be picked highly.

Card Draw or Filtering:  In M11, cards like Foresee, Crystal Ball, Augury Owl, Jaces Ingenuity and Sign in Blood are all quite good.  They help you refill your hand when you’ve reached a standstill and make sure you’re the last one with a relevant spell in your hand.  A card like Crystal Ball lets you make sure you draw into action cards every turn at a very reasonable cost.

Here’s the thing to remember though, although any of those cards are fine first picks (except maybe Sign in Blood, but I’ve done it) they are only as good as the other cards in your deck.  So if you have a few Foresees in your deck already and are forced between a slightly less good creature like a Cloud Elemental and a third Foresee you should probably pick the Elemental.  Just remember these cards don’t actually do anything, they only help you do more things down the road, and it’s always a bummer to lose the game with seven cards in your hand.

Counterspells:  These are sort of like removal but different.  The more instant-speed things that are in your deck, the better counterspells become, as well as the more your deck focuses around protecting one big threat.  If you are going to be tapping out each turn for aggressive creatures, then counterspells become less good, and vice-versa.  Another kind of card that takes a little bit of familiarity to learn how to play with.

Disruption or Tempo Cards: The concept of tempo will be discussed in a later article, but just know a tempo card is a card like Unsummon, Excommunicate, or Sleep.  They don’t actually remove anything, but they can help you put additional pressure on opponents with creatures you’ve played in previous turns.  Closely related to the example I gave about the Goblin Piker deck, a card like Sleep is generally only good if you’re going to be dealing some damage along with it, and if you’ve got a couple of early drops and your opponent has 2 turns of not being able to block very well, you can likely push through quite a bit of damage.

Well that ended up being a lot longer than I intended it to be.  I understand that some of these concepts are pretty basic, and I’m sure I missed a lot of stuff, but I tried my best to write something I would have wanted to read when I was just trying to learn about drafting.

Until Next Time,
Orion.