Magic Deck Vortex: The Apprentice Magician, Part Four.

At some point in the life of many spell slingers there comes a realization that building decks that are flashy and fun to play is not always the same as building decks that are good. For some this spawns a desire to advance to an intermediate skill level of deck construction. Whether acquired intuitively through experience or by a deliberate effort to study the game, or often a little of both, this advance is characterized by an understanding of some of the foundational theoretical concepts of Magic: the Gathering.

In this series we follow such a player as his eyes are opened to the world of Magic theory and its application to constructed decks built for a “competitive casual” environment. In the previous installments we looked at resources and lineup theory and began a discussion of card advantage. In this episode the discussion of card advantage is completed along with a brief discussion of card quality.

Saturday mornings were becoming a ritual for Dave. He’d wake up, have a shower, and head downstairs to the kitchen. His parents made him sit through a family breakfast and he could barely contain himself through the ordeal. Fortunately, his mother’s famous blueberry pancakes were enough to keep him from asking to skip the event entirely. He had barely finished scraping the plates as he shot out the door.

Once down at the shop, Sam picked up with a summary of what they had discussed the previous week. “Last time we discussed card advantage and its relationship to resources,” began Sam. “We stated that for the purposes of determining card advantage, we’re really interested in active resources. We also identified the four primary categories for gaining card advantage as follows:

“We also stated that the first two, taken together, are often referred to as Pure Card Advantage, or PCA, and can be contrasted with VCA and ECA in terms of how they function.

“Finally, we talked about net card draw as one way in which additional cards can be gained. Net card draw – drawing more cards than the game normally allows – is generally non-interactive by nature. You only gain card advantage over your opponent if you draw more cards than your opponent does, but the actions are generally independent. The remaining three, however, are much more interactive in nature and generally involve gaining advantage at your opponents’ expense.”

Sam continued. “Our discussion of lineup theory taught us that one way to gain lineup advantage in deck construction is by including some cards that answer more than one threat. When we get into an actual game, we find that this theoretical lineup advantage manifests itself as actual card advantage, so long as you play your cards right.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it,” continued Sam with a grin. “Casting Terror to remove a creature your opponent controls does not gain you card advantage; rather, it provides a single answer to a single threat. The net result is zero in terms of card advantage. It may have prevented you from losing the game right now, but you and your opponent still have access to the same number of cards from which you will both play threats and answers. However, the classic example of removal as a form of card advantage is Wrath of God. Assuming that each of your opponents has two or more creatures in play at the time that Wrath of God resolves and you have none it will eliminate several cards controlled by your opponents for the price of a single card. That is card advantage in its purest form.

“Removal is a term that generally refers to the elimination of permanents in play. However, if we extend our thinking to include disruption of all active resources, then we see that we can target permanents in play, cards in your opponents’ hands and even spells on the stack. Now we can see that any card that can answer two or more active threats will gain us card advantage. To be fair, there are not many cards that target multiple spells on the stack, but if you were able to counter two or more of your opponents’ spells on the stack with one card then you would gain card advantage. Similarly, causing your opponent to discard more cards than you spent to do it will gain you card advantage.

“The extent of card advantage gained will depend upon the numbers involved. If you play Duress to force your opponent to discard a particular card of your choice, you are exchanging one card – your Duress – for one card in your opponent’s hand. Duress does not provide card advantage but rather is a tool to give you an advantage in the area of card quality – in this case by lowering the quality of your opponent’s cards. In contrast is a card like Stupor which eliminates two cards for the price of one. Since you do not get the opportunity to choose the particular cards eliminated, this card is much more about card advantage than card quality.

“What about Dismal Failure?” Sam asked Dave, pointing to the card in his binder.

“Let’s see,” said Dave, reading the card’s text. “Assuming your opponent has at least one card in hand and a spell on the stack, then Dismal Failure will net you one card of advantage. It costs one card for you and costs your opponent one card on the stack and one card in hand.”

“Together, the concepts of Mass Disruption and Net Card Draw, which we discussed last week, are known as Pure Card Advantage, or PCA. The reason is because you can physically count the number of cards that you gained on your opponent.”

Moving on, Sam introduced the concept of Virtual Card Advantage, or VCA. “Sometimes referred to as blanking, VCA is a term used to describe the situation in which more than one of your opponents’ cards are rendered ineffective given the current game state rather than physically answered. Therefore, these cards are not placed in the graveyard or removed from the game but are nevertheless rendered ineffective. Any card effectively answered is as good as a blank card as it cannot affect the outcome of the game. If cards cannot affect the outcome of the game then they do not count as active resources.

“The classic example is that of the enchantment, Moat, which allows you to prevent creatures that your opponents control that do not have the flying ability from attacking you – all for the cost of one card and some mana, of course. The Moat card acts as an answer to more than one threat. If your opponents have three non-flying creatures in play then the Moat has effectively answered three threats for the cost of one card. If your opponents have non-flying creature cards in hand as well then they are also effectively answered before they are even played! A word of caution, though. If your opponent does not have any creatures without flying in his or her deck, then Moat is the card that is effectively blank, giving the card advantage to your opponent!

“An important point about virtual card advantage is that your opponent may have an answer for your virtual card advantage engine. An example might be Disenchant which can answer your Moat. Such a play would result in the loss of all of the card advantage that you had gained from it all at once. As a result VCA is effective, but potentially less effective than pure card advantage, depending upon the situation.”

Sam and Dave decided to play a game. Dave played a White Weenie deck that he built during the week and Sam played a version of his favorite UW Control deck. Things were looking good for Dave early in the game but on turn five Sam played Teferi’s Moat, choosing White. “Unless you have an answer for Teferi’s Moat, then all of your non-flying White creatures in play, in your hand, and even those that you draw will be answered by a single card! However, if you do manage to destroy the Moat, then all of your temporarily ‘answered’ cards will suddenly become active once again.”

Dave, slightly disheartened, conceded as he had not thought to put any copies of Disenchant in his deck.

Continuing with the lesson, Sam explained that yet another form of VCA is to render cards in your opponents’ decks useless. This manifests itself as card advantage once these cards are drawn. “As an example, if your opponent has creature removal such as Wrath of God, and you have no creatures, then the creature removal cards that your opponent draws can have no effect upon the outcome of the game. This has effectively rendered them blank because they are strictly answer cards that will not have an effect on the game and are therefore dead draws for your opponent. Likewise, creatures with the shroud ability render targeted removal useless.

“Wow,” exclaimed Dave. “There really are a lot of ways to try to gain card advantage over your opponent.”

“And we’re not quite finished,” responded Sam. “There is one more type of card advantage to consider.”

Card Quality

While card advantage is, at its core, primarily about the number of cards that a player can bring to bear on the outcome of a game, card quality is about bringing better or more relevant cards to bear on the game. There are a number of ways to do this:

Rearranging the cards on the top of your library allows you to influence the card that you will draw next. Normally this involves inspecting a certain number of cards from the top of your library and putting them back on top in the order of your choice. Cards like Soothsaying and Sensei’s Divining Top allow this to be done in a recurring fashion.
Filtering the cards drawn allows you to select the cards that you need and put the others into another zone such as into your graveyard or on the bottom of your library. Some examples of card filtering include Brainstorm, which lets you put cards from your hand back on top of your library; Telling Time, which allows you to put one on the bottom of your library, one on top and one into your hand; and Careful Consideration, which requires you to draw four cards and then discard some cards.
Tutoring is a generic term for searching your library for a particular card. Some tutors allow you to search for a particular type of card and put it on top of your library, such as Enlightened Tutor; those with the transmute ability allow you to search your library for cards of a particular casting cost and put them into your hand; and still others, called Fetchlands, allow you to search your library for a particular type of land card and put it either into your hand or directly into play. Note that tutoring also has the effect of thinning your deck, meaning that since the cards fetched or tutored are no longer in your library, there is a greater chance of drawing the cards that you want.

Affecting the quality of your card draws is a valid approach to improving the relevance of your cards to a particular match, but it should not be confused with card advantage.

“Imagine that you are playing your deck of small creatures and my deck has a lot of medium sized creatures. You may have more threats in your deck than I do, but once I get my creatures on the table, your small creatures will be rendered ineffective. My threats are trump and therefore each of my cards is effectively better than your cards. This is known as effective card advantage, or ECA.”

“But it doesn’t really mean that you have more active resources,” said Dave.

“Not at first,” replied Sam. “But since my creatures can win any combat against your creatures, each one can effectively answer one of yours each time they engage in combat and mine stay on the board while yours head to the graveyard. This gives me card advantage by virtue of having superior cards.

“Consider another situation in which two players are playing the same type of deck, such as a Blue/Black Control deck with some counter magic and discard. One player is using Counterspell and Hymn to Tourach while the other is using Cancel and Stupor. Both decks are relying on similar effects but one has better cards than the other. Counterspell and Cancel have the same effect, but Cancel costs more to play. Meanwhile, Hymn to Tourach has a better effect than Stupor and costs less to play. So, while the decks may lineup almost identically, the first deck has effective card advantage.

“PCA and VCA alone can’t tell you everything about a game because they treat each card as equal by definition. However, we all know intuitively that this is not the case. Some cards are just better than others. Many theorists have suggested systems whereby a value can be assigned to each card in order to compare their relative impact on the game. I won’t get into this because it can be complex and error prone. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the difference between good and great decks lies in playing the cards that will have the greatest impact on the game. The decks that do this have Effective Card Advantage.

“That’s a lot to consider,” said Sam, wrapping up. “What we have learned here is that card advantage is about having more active resources than your opponent. It is therefore comparative by nature and can be gained either by building your own active resources, destroying your opponent’s active resources, rendering your opponent’s active resources ineffective, or some combination of the three. We also see that card advantage is really the in-game, concrete version of lineup theory. Understanding these theories of card advantage provides one of the fundamental factors to consider when evaluating cards for your decks.

“There is one more thing,” said Sam. “This week, I’m going to give you some homework.”

“What?” responded Dave incredulously. “ I get enough of that from school.”

“At least this is more fun,” returned Sam. “Take a look at this deck.”

“I’d like you to make a list of all of the cards in this deck that result in card advantage and for each one note the type of card advantage that it achieves.”

Dave pulled out his money and laid it on the table. “Treat yourself to a booster pack,” he said grinning. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Cheers,” said Sam. “And next time we’ll take a look at how to battle lineup advantage through speed and efficiency.”

Brad Lohnes, masquerading in the MDV forums as Amadeus, is a casual player from the early days of Magic. After a ten-year hiatus from the game he stumbled upon it once again. This has sparked a passion to fathom the depths of this complicated pass-time while continuing to enjoy it at its most basic level. Originally from Canada and having lived in New York City for several years, Brad now lives in New Zealand with his wife, dog and cat. He is a software engineer and enjoys traveling, hiking, and writing.

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