Magic Deck Vortex: The Apprentice Magician, Part Five.

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 deck construction. In this episode the discussion turns to speed and efficiency.

Dave arrived at the card shop to find Sam in a very animated mood. Sam tossed a hasty greeting in Dave’s general direction and rushed to get started. “We’ve spent the past few weeks pontificating on a number of topics including resources, lineup theory and card advantage,” he began, the words spewing out of him as though they were strung together without spaces. “Today we’re going to talk about speed!”

Dave wondered whether Sam had, in fact, taken some, but allowed him to continue while he concentrated on keeping up.

“Many people think that the opposite of card advantage is tempo. This is incorrect on a number of levels and, in fact, the two are quite distinct. The first point to note is that what many people refer to as tempo is really speed. In addition, while it’s true that one may be forced to trade speed for card advantage, or vice versa, it is possible to achieve both—or neither—and each should therefore be understood independently. The opposite of card advantage is card disadvantage, not speed or tempo. Tempo, on the other hand, is comparative by nature and does not reflect the speed of a particular deck, but rather its progress toward the goal of victory as compared to the opponent. Today we’ll take a look at different types of speed. Next time we’ll look at how speed can be achieved, and only once that is understood can we take a look at what tempo really means.”

“Deck speed is a concept that most Magic players can at least recognize intuitively. What does speed mean to you?” Sam asked Dave.

“Well, to me a fast deck is one that has a lot of cheap creatures and burn spells that can create a lot of damage quickly,” responded Dave.

“That probably matches what a lot of people think of speed,” agreed Sam. “However, this is only one aspect of speed and it is important to understand the various types of speed so that each can be evaluated appropriately during deck design.

“You’re right,” agreed Sam, “but if you think about it, it provides a decent measuring stick. Since time in Magic is measured in turns and we know from our previous discussions that our baseline for mana development is one mana source per turn, then we can see that the baseline for speed is effectively the mana cost of the ‘something’ that we want to do. This is a generalization; technically it’s not just the mana but the availability of all resources required to get the desired effect—but it’s not a bad model for thinking about it.”

“The first and most obvious thing that we can begin to measure is the speed of a card. The natural speed of a card is the first turn on which the resources required to play it can be assembled. As I’ve already mentioned, in many cases this will simply be the mana cost, but not always. So, for example, the speed of Savannah Lions is one, since it requires one mana to play and can therefore be played as early as turn one. Akroma, Angel of Wrath, however, has a natural speed of eight since its converted mana cost is eight.”

“That all seems pretty straightforward,” interjected Dave. “This could apply to pretty much every card, couldn’t it?”

“Just about,” returned Sam. “However, there will be some exceptions. Take a look at Pact of Negation. It has a converted mana cost of zero. However, since you’ll be required to pay five mana at the beginning of your next upkeep or lose the game, then presumably you’ll need five mana on the table when you play it, at least in the vast majority of situations.”

“And that naturally occurs on turn five at the earliest,” said Dave, showing that he was still following along. “What about cards with suspend?”

“That’s a good question,” responded Sam. “Cards that can be suspended also change things a bit. Take a look at Rift Bolt. If you cast it outright, then it has a natural speed of three. However, if you suspend it instead, then you can do this as early as turn one—since the converted suspend cost is one—and then it is played a turn later when the last time counter is removed, giving it a total speed of two. So, in this case, the card’s speed is its suspend cost plus the number of turns for which it is suspended.

“With this information we can start to measure the relative speed of individual cards. Once we understand how to do that, we can move onto an understanding of deck speed.”

“Deck speed is a term used to refer to the speed with which a deck as a whole can achieve various goals, as opposed to the speed of an individual card. Essentially, there are four types of deck speed to consider and they are very much interrelated.

“Offensive speed is the speed with which a deck can win a game consistently.

“In our previous discussions we stated that, based on lineup theory, card advantage is the ability to generate one of the following:

“If you think about it, a deck built on card advantage is hoping to survive long enough to draw enough cards to answer all of your threats – essentially realizing lineup advantage in a concrete fashion in-game. It is the ‘survive long enough’ area in which deck speed comes into play. An alternative strategy is to simply deal enough damage to win the game before card advantage and inevitability can be realized.”

“So, you want to deal lethal damage to your opponents so quickly that they can’t react,” interjected Dave.

“Exactly,” confirmed Sam. “More formally, then, the goal of offensive deck speed can be defined as the ability to:

“By using spells with low casting costs, you hope to be able to use the cards that you do have to full advantage and count on your opponent not being able to match your speed. For example, if your deck is designed to win in four turns, then it must be able to do so using only 11-12 cards (depending on whether you go first). Thus, those 11-12 cards must provide enough mana and efficient spells—spells that you can cast with the mana that you have available—to deliver the win condition.

“Keep in mind that our definition stated that offensive speed is the speed with which a deck can win consistently. This doesn’t mean ‘how fast can you win if you get a perfect opening hand?’ Rather, it measures how fast your deck wins on average.

“One obvious approach to achieving offensive deck speed is to play a lot of spells with low mana costs that do a fair amount of damage. It is for this reason, for example, that repeating threats such as creatures are desirable, as they represent cards that can produce damage repeatedly rather than one-shot effects like instants and sorceries. Creatures with haste can generate damage even more quickly.

“Some decks use a mixture of creatures and direct damage—or burn—in order to achieve the critical level of damage. In the Goblin Bidding deck, you can see that the emphasis has been placed on the ability to create an overwhelming number of creatures. There are eleven one-mana creatures, another eight two-mana creatures, and so on. These creatures can be played quickly to begin generating damage early. In addition, several of the cards have additional abilities that help to maximize the amount of damage delivered, including combat tricks and effects that depend on the number of Goblins in play. The net effect is a deck that can generate a massive amount of damage very quickly. This is the very epitome of the Aggro strategy.

“One point worth noting is that decks which use this strategy exclusively can run out of steam if the opponent does manage to survive the initial onslaught. For this reason, it pays to have some kind of backup strategy. In the case of the Goblin Bidding deck, the backup plan is Patriarch’s Bidding, which allows you to return all of your ‘answered’ Goblins from your graveyard to play. The combination is very effective, but the primary strategy is offensive deck speed.

“Defensive speed is the speed with which a deck can defend itself. While offensive speed generally refers to the ability to generate lethal damage, defensive speed simply has to prevent lethal damage, though the less damage sustained the better. If a deck built around offensive speed can put a threat in play on turn one, then how quickly can the opponent answer that threat?

“The goal of defensive deck speed, then, can be defined as the ability to:

“A turn one Mana Tithe, Condemn or Shock to remove a creature; a turn two Rune Snag or Disenchant; a turn four Wrath of God or even the ability to simply absorb early damage (after all you have 20 life points to play with) all represent defensive approaches. Alternatively, playing a creature of your own that at least offsets the opponent’s threat also represents a defensive approach. If your opponent plays a creature with a power and toughness of 1/1 on his turn one, and you do the same on your turn one, then you’ve effectively defended yourself. While this does come very close to the discussion of tempo, the point is that one should be able to measure how quickly a deck can produce answers to an opponent’s threats.

“The Counter-Post deck uses several of the cards that I mentioned. In addition, Counterspell is a very effective defensive tactic from turn two, and Force of Will is the classic turn zero counter—it doesn’t get any faster than that!”

“You mentioned Wrath of God,” said Dave thoughtfully. “With a casting cost of four, how is that a fast defensive card?”

“It’s the effect that makes it fast,” returned Sam. “Destroying all creatures without the chance of regeneration is a board-clearing play that can change the state of the game dramatically. The ability to do this on turn four means that the opponent must deal lethal damage in three turns—something that is difficult to do in most formats.”

Efficiency

With all this talk of speed in mind, it is a natural progression to take a look at the cost associated with a particular effect. Incinerate does three points of damage at instant speed for two mana, while Lightning Bolt does three points of damage at instant speed for one mana. The bolt costs less and is therefore more efficient. In general, efficiency is defined as paying the correct amount of resources in return for a particular effect. Sometimes two cards can be compared directly, as in the Bolt example, while at other times there is a tradeoff for a lesser cost. If this cost is acceptable, irrelevant or even beneficial, then it may pay to use the more efficient card.

Each format generally establishes a “market value” for an effect. So, while one mana may be the market value for three points of damage in an Eternal format, the market value for the same effect in a Standard format is two mana. However, cards need only be compared within a particular format. In general, the lower the cost for an effect, the earlier it can be played and therefore the greater the card’s speed.

With respect to creatures, efficiency is usually measured as a ratio of the creature’s power versus converted mana cost. The classic example is Gray Ogre versus Grizzly Bears. Both creatures have power and toughness of two and no abilities (a.k.a. “vanilla”). This means that from a game perspective the two creatures are equivalent. The difference (besides the color of mana needed) is that the Gray Ogre costs three mana total to play while the Grizzly Bears cost two mana. This means that the same effect can be achieved with a speed of two for the Grizzly Bears but only with a speed of three for the Gray Ogre, making the Grizzly Bears faster.

This is the essence of efficiency—paying less for the same effect. As a general guideline, one would usually look to achieve at least a power of two for a converted mana cost of two. The best decks, however, look for those special creatures that have a power even greater than their casting cost. These creatures are hyper-efficient. Savannah Lions; Kird Ape with a Forest in play; Isamaru, Hound of Konda; Watchwolf; etc. These are all hyper-efficient creatures and are examples of cards that have seen a lot of play in decks built for offensive speed.

However, efficiency also applies to other types of cards. Counterspell is more efficient than Cancel; Wrath of God is more efficient than Rout. Efficient cards lead to greater offensive or defensive deck speed and will generally produce the best results.

“Resource speed is the speed with which a deck can deploy its resources, including cards drawn, permanents in play, and mana available. We have discussed using the most efficient cards available in order to generate offensive or defensive deck speed. However, another approach is to generate more resources so that threats with greater costs can be played earlier than their natural speed would indicate. There are a number of ways to achieve this.

“One approach is to convert cards into mana for immediate use. A classic example is to play Dark Ritual in order to have access to three mana on turn one. This results in the loss of a card in return for additional mana. This is clearly a tradeoff of resources. That additional mana could be used to cast a Hypnotic Specter. On turn one this will be a difficult threat for many decks to deal with. Assuming the player played first and played a Swamp, followed by a Dark Ritual and finally a Hypnotic Specter, that player could be left with only four cards in hand. Clearly this represents a disadvantage in the resource of cards in hand. However, if the tradeoff is deemed to be worth it in terms of advancement toward the goal of victory, then this merely represents a different strategy. This strategy is based on instantly achieving speed in terms of mana resources.

“Contrast this with another strategy of casting Into the North in order to fetch a land card to put into play. This will result in a more consistent acceleration of mana resources since that land can be reused each turn. However, it does represent an investment since the additional mana won’t be immediately available as it comes into play tapped.

“Yet a third example of mana acceleration would be to play Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves on turn one. This approach is faster than a turn two Into the North that results in a turn three mana advantage since the turn one Bird or Elf results in a turn two mana advantage. The tradeoff is the fact that Birds and Elves are susceptible to most forms of creature removal and therefore may only result in minimal to no actual acceleration. This approach is both slower than casting a Dark Ritual and more permanent, as well as being faster than Into the North but less resilient.

“All of the examples have one thing in common, and that is access to mana resources faster than the natural development of mana resources. Having access to three mana on turn two, and potentially five or six mana on turn three clearly represents a resource advantage over an opponent that does not have access to this type of acceleration.

“Fires decks took advantage of the card Fires of Yavimaya which gives haste to your creatures. The deck uses a lot of mana acceleration in the form of Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise to get Fires into play on turn two and then begin playing big creatures like Blastoderm on turn three. A creature like Blastoderm is hyper-efficient—costing four mana for a 5/5 creature—because it has a drawback of fading. However, with haste, this creature gets an extra turn to attack. A 5/5 creature with haste on turn three is very fast offensive speed, and it’s achieved through resource speed.

“However, resource speed does not only refer to mana resources. Our discussion of card advantage showed us that we can draw more cards than our opponent as well, and since cards are valuable resources, then generating card advantage quickly is another method of achieving resource advantage. As with any other resource advantage, the only thing left to do is to convert the resource advantage into a win condition.

“Finally, Strategy speed is the speed with which a deck can enact its strategy. Strategy speed will generally include one or more of the previously mentioned types of deck speed. For example, a Control strategy may have slow offensive speed but fast defensive speed and moderately fast resource speed due to card draw and consistent mana drops. So while the offensive strategy is slow, the strategy itself may be realized very quickly through defensive speed. A control deck might be able to counter an opponent’s spell on turn one with Mana Tithe or eliminate an attacking creature with Condemn. This means that the deck can implement its strategy very quickly, even though it may not win on average until around turn 20 or even turn 30.

“An Aggro deck might have offensive speed in terms of how quickly it can deal 20 points of damage and also resource speed in terms of how quickly it can deploy its resources—in this case permanents in play and enough mana to play those permanents. This might include a turn one Savannah Lions in order to deal two damage on turn two, or a perhaps a turn one Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves in order to be able to play a turn two Troll Ascetic. Whatever the approach, the goal is to generate offense quickly before your opponent has adequate resources to neutralize your strategy.

“Meanwhile, a Combo deck may have relatively low offensive speed and defensive speed, but still be able to assemble the lethal combination quickly enough to be effective. In order to do this it would have to have excellent resource speed in order to be able to deploy the appropriate combo pieces.

“This shows that while different decks may have vastly different strategies, each could still be considered ‘fast’ in terms of how quickly that strategy is implemented.”

“We’ve covered a lot today in terms of defining speed and efficiency and discussing a bit about how they work. Next time we’ll discuss how these concepts are put to use.”

Dave took out the [link#4]deck list[/link#4] from the previous session. “Well, of all the lands, only Urza’s Factory provides card advantage. Since it generates tokens, this is pure card advantage. Aeon Chronicler must be suspended with at least one time counter on it. Even if it only has one, you draw a card when you remove a counter and then you get a creature permanent in play, so you get at least two cards for one—even more if you suspend it for longer. This is pure card advantage as well through net card draw. Draining Whelk counters one spell plus you get a creature in play so this is again pure card advantage.”

“You’re doing well, so far,” interjected Sam. “What about Akroma?”

“Akroma is a pretty good card, but I don’t think it provides card advantage,” responded Dave.

“I suppose it depends how you look at it,” returned Sam. “It doesn’t provide pure card advantage, but due to its protection from Black and Red it can provide virtual card advantage by blanking Red and Black targeted creature removal spells that your opponent may be using and also through the fact that Red and Black creatures cannot block it. It is also a big flying creature that can create a lot of damage and because of vigilance it can both attack and stay home to block, making it effectively like two creatures. In many cases Akroma is trump—meaning that your opponent is not likely to have a creature to compare with it. So Akroma can create effective card advantage as well.”

“I see,” said Dave. “Well, as for the others, Wrath of God, Dismal Failure and Fathom Trawl can all result in pure card advantage. Teferi’s Moat and Story Circle create virtual card advantage. Last is Spell Burst, which creates pure card advantage if cast successfully with buyback,” concluded Dave.

“That’s exactly right!” said Sam happily. “It seems like you catching on. The rest of the cards act as answers but don’t result in any card advantage. Good job. I’ll let you go without homework this week. Next time we'll discuss some ways to create consistency in your deck.”

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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