WR: Last time, seen here, Michael_Zeora and I discussed various teaching styles to help make it easier to bring your padawan up to speed. In this offering, we’ll look at the different playing styles that are common among players. The styles are given as a reference to give you some ideas on how to match a newer player with a deck, and give them options for what to play and what they’ll be playing against.

This isn’t a definitive list, and I’m sure that we’ve missed a couple of playstyles.

MZ: Hopefully not, but you never know, the game is evolving. These are also not meant to be taken as strict definitions of the styles, but more of a guideline.

In general, experienced players have tried out a number of styles before they found the ones that fit them. Give your padawan a few different types of decks, and see how they do with the different strategies and ways to play. Let them find the decks that they are most comfortable with, and while they’re learning the game (before they’re ready to take the leap and build decks of their own) build a couple of decks that are suited to them and the playstyle that they enjoy.

Putting a Blue Control deck in the hands of someone who likes Big Green probably won’t do much. People tend to learn more when they’re enjoying the experience. Likewise, giving a Total Offensive deck to someone who is drawn to the power of denial won’t give them the same experience. Given time, the players will likely branch into other styles on their own. Finding the initial style will give them something to work from.

For example, a beginning player who starts in Aggro-Beatdown will use that style for quite awhile as they learn the more complicated aspects of the game. As they grow into a better player, they might add in some removal because they want their big creatures to survive the block or push through more damage. Their decks start to change, while their level of play gets better. Eventually, they might start to lean toward Control, even though they’re still Beatdown at the core. I’m not one to tease, so let’s dive right in.

Aggro
WR: This is, dare I say, the simplest play style. It is also the one that most newer players are drawn to. Aggro can be an easy way to learn the basics of the game, such as how to play spells, how to attack and block, and so on. It’s also a style that can be built on with experience, when combat tricks are added, or more complex combos can be used. When it’s in its extremes, this is a haphazard style that likes nothing more than seeing the opponent’s life total run down closer and closer to zero, which I’ll explain later. Aggro, in my opinion, has three major subtypes which are called Beatdown, Defensive, and T.O. (Total Offensive). In multiplayer there’s another subtype added to Beatdown, called Passive.

Beatdown
MZ: I say to my friend whose GW Wake abuses this style when he’s on a roll, “Quit hitting me, I’m already on the ground, jeez, would you really hit a person with glasses on?” Beatdown is about speed and keeping your opponent’s life total constantly dropping though any means. The bigger the drop, the happier your deck is. Quick Drain decks aren’t really known for Beatdown Style, neither is Burn for that matter. Beatdown tends to be creature-only with evasion abilities working like a horse.

WR: Green is often the first color that comes to mind with Beatdown. Big, beefy creatures that come into play quickly through acceleration and trample over the other creatures on the board make this an attractive archetype for newer players. There aren’t many tricks to keep track of and it’s straightforward: drop mana, drop creatures, and hit your opponent hard.

There are elements of this in the other colors, as well. White has vigilance, Black has fear, Red has haste, and Blue has fliers. The abilities aren’t always unique to the colors; these are just the ones that show up most often.

Defensive
MZ: Because of my friend’s Wake deck, I’ve become a really defensive player, and the color choice has been Green for that matter. Fog and Wellwisher are my two best friends when I’m getting hit for 8. Defensive can take a hit or two, but it is mainly building a big ol’ wall from the enemy and then going all out in a couple of swings. White-Threshold styles used to use this a lot until they pulled the Silver Seraph onto the field after getting Threshold, and then their little 1/1s became not bad 3/3s; due to Silver Seraph's Threshold ability of giving +2/+2 to all other creatures, and then dropped a Glorious Anthem next turn making really nice 4/4s.

WR: Fog, Spore Frog, and other typically Green effects have been moving into White lately, with cards like Ethereal Haze and Kami of False Hope. White is the color that springs to mind when I think of defense, because of the combat tricks it uses (such as Fog effects and tap effects). Blue has tapping and bounce to avoid damage, while Black and Red tend to be more aggressive in defending themselves. Spot removal, such as Terror or Seal of Doom, help to take away threats from the board. Red has direct damage and global damage to stop the attackers.

Total Offensive {Be Aggressive B-E Aggressive}
MZ: Where Beatdown has speed and defense has that wall thing going for them, Total Offensive (T.O.) has the bad habit in my opinion of being the most haphazard of Aggro; just tossing everything at your opponent and not caring about the next turn. These guys were what made Magic Magic for the longest time: drop every creature you can, and swing with what you can, and then swing with something bigger next turn. Beatdown was about speed and getting it done safely thus having some defensive measures, but Total Offensive is a very straight forward attack force. Some would consider sucide Black decks for being like this.

WR: This is Aggro at its purest. The philosophy is very Red, in that it wants to see something happen now. It doesn’t matter what happens, as long as somebody ends up hurt at the end of the turn. White and Blue are the two colors that don’t use this style often, and it usually ends badly when they do. Those colors are built more for defense. Green can get away with it more, simply because the creatures are bigger, and they’re expendable in a T.O. deck. Black can use this style to its advantage, since it can recur creatures from the graveyard, or use sacrifice mechanics to push through damage when its creatures hit the graveyard. Red has hasty creatures that tend not to live long anyway, so it can throw creatures at an opponent and either wear down the defenses, or put a lot of damage on the stack in one shot.

Passive (Multiplayer)
MZ: I’ve seen passive from the angle of the opponent several times, and I’m not a fan of it one bit. Most Passive Aggro players now tend to have a White-Blue-and a little Red defensive deck and drop a creature or two, like a Boros Recruit or a Beacon Hawk, and make themselves look like they are mana flooded (having more lands than spells in their hand/on their side of the table) and keep a HUGE hand of six nearly every turn until they pinch a Sunscour or play a Stitch in Time. These are the Giant Trap Door Spiders of the group and they excel in playing the right card at the right time. They easily have about 4 to 8 counterspells in the deck including Rune Snag, and now Cancel. They even joke around and play Odds/Ends when faced with a situation where it would be something they don’t quite like. At least that’s what I’ve seen. Be warned Passive players, I’ll get you and get you good. Magic isn’t just sitting at a table making conversation. (Oh was that a rant?) "I enjoyed that rant, as you would hate to play me then, as I am that Passive Player. You want to declare an attack, well I have Propaganda in play, and before you leave your First Main phase, I would like to cast this here Sunder!" ~ Tynion

WR: I’ve known a number of players who will sit back in multiplayer and not do anything except play lands and a small creature or two. They’ll hold back and watch everyone else beat the snot out of each other until they’re comfortable dropping a small army on the table, just to clean up the wreckage left by everyone else. Every color has the capacity to play a passive role in the game. These players are dangerous, because they don’t appear to be threatening until it’s far too late.

Control
MZ: Another big playstyle, Everyone has to have a Control player in the group or at least a Control deck thrown in there every so often. Why? To keep the playgroup well rounded. I enjoy a Control deck every once in a while, and like Aggro it can be taken to its extremes or be somewhere in the middle. Control means to, well, have control over a situation in the game, to allow/disallow the opponents’ options that they normally would have, like attacking or blocking. There are subtypes to control and it’s not how they do it, it’s what do they want to have.

Hand Control
MZ: Hand Control is a mean style to play, and it’s one that Black and Blue do very well together. Hand Control’s biggest friend is the card known as Megrim. It makes Hand Control in Black worthwhile. It allows the Control player to deal damage by simply making his opponents discard. Underworld Dreams is another form of hand control, but it’s a different flavor, making your opponent not want to draw a card, but it’s all good. The Rack and Black Vise were the first cards in this setup, and they are abused whenever possible. Discard is a form of Hand Control, but so is Lobotomy, which is the more official version of Hand Control: not allowing the opponent to play spells in his hand and wasting valuable space. Remember they can only hold onto seven cards until the end of their turn, the more cards they can't play the more space wasted in their hand to find an answer to your threats.

WR: Bounce and discard are the most common forms of Hand Control. Putting cards back in an opponent’s hand and disrupting combos help to set the pace of the game. Persecute, Distress, Conjuror’s Ban, and classics like Hymn to Tourach are all examples of ensuring that your opponent can’t play the cards in hand. Disruption, as it’s usually called, can keep players from getting the important pieces of a big combo, or even hit an important mana drop. Creatures like Relentless Rats or the various Specters fuel damage plus disruption. Hand Control is about pacing the game, making your opponent move slower than you in the game.

Creature Control
MZ: Blue, and more recently Red, have been playing with Creature Control lately. These are deckstyles that allow the opponent to play creatures, but their creatures are stolen and used against them either in little amounts or in big swarms. Sometimes Blue/Black decks will use Creature Control and sacrifice abilities to get themselves running in an obscure version of Creature Destruction.

WR: Creature theft has been around for awhile, but it hasn’t been explored in design as much as it has lately. I’d argue that spot removal and targeted burn are part of Creature Control, as one player is dictating what stays on the board and what gets sent to the graveyard.

MZ: I'd agree with that statement, Burn and spot removal can be a big part of creature control, but in some meta (like my creature heavy one) I'd have to run a deck full of burn / removal just to make ends meet.

Land Control
MZ: This is a rarity. This style takes your lands away from you and keeps them close, keeping them close as in taking control of them. It also is known to be a White-Blue or Green-Blue deck style using Annex and Land fetch, or even Limited Resources. (I didn’t mention it, but I’ve written an article on that, you can read that later.)

WR: I miss Armageddon. It’s the most fair land destruction in the game, but they say it’s too powerful… But, land theft and land destruction can be effective, particularly when they’re used to set the pace of the game. If your opponents have no land, they can play no spells.

Update: Gult-Leaf Archdruid gives the Green-Blue land Control theory of deck building a bit more stability since it would be the card to use to get the job done.

Field Control
MZ: Unlike Creature Control this is more of Propaganda’s and Ghostly Prison’s style by putting a hold on the combat phases for the enemy. I don’t see a lot of this subset, but I’ve seen enough to call it one of its own.

WR: Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are powerful cards because they force an opponent to spend mana to attack. This slows their game down, and it might keep them from dropping the finisher one or two turns earlier, or keep them from attacking at a critical moment. Master Warcraft and other cards that allow one player to take over another player’s turn or a phase of the turn are brutal. Like the Prison, these stop, or at least slow, the damage that your opponents are sending your way.

MZ: I almost forgot, in a sense... Mindslaver works here as well, more on that later... Mindslaver takes over a turn, so like Master Warcraft it takes over combat, thus combat control, but Mindslaver’s ability takes over the entire turn.

Library (Deck) Control (A.K.A – Mill)
MZ: This style is purest of evils in the game of Magic. To me this even beats Land Destruction. This style is primed now by the card Glimpse the Unthinkable and takes your deck away from you very, very quickly, and every card you do draw had better count in killing this beast. Most recently I’ve been playing this with Hand control (Lobotomy/Megrim) to make sure what hand they do have ends up in the graveyard with the rest of their deck. Another staple in this subset is Traumatize followed up with Haunting Echoes.

WR: Mill is a cruel way to keep control over the game, but it’s also risky. If their finishers and answers don’t end up in the graveyard early, they’re that much closer to the cards they’ll need. Using Hand Control to back up the Mill is a good strategy.

Game Control
MZ: Mindslaver + Bringer of the White Dawn, it's the only known combo that I'll qualify as Game Control. Although there are several good game ending combos, this one I call a Control Combo. Another way to achieve Game Control is to create or use a preexisting infinite turn combo, or something to that effect. This is another extremely rare style, but when it's found, it's targeted badly by others.
UPDATE: there is now Academy Ruins to make it White-Blue or just mono-blue.
WR: This is where the other types of Control come in handy. When playing against this type of deck, the best way to stop it is to not let it start.

Denial
WR: The Denial player does everything possible to keep the board clear and damage off of the Stack. Blue and White are often the first colors that leap to mind, with Wrath of God, Armageddon, Condemn, Mana Leak, Boomerang, Hinder, and the most elegant denial card ever printed, Counterspell. However, the other colors have heavy elements of Denial as well. Black uses sacrifice, spot removal (such as Terror, Last Gasp, and Seal of Doom) to ensure opponents don’t keep creatures on the board. Red has direct damage and board hosers like Jokulhaups. Green has artifact and enchantment removal to break up combos, and Fog effects to stop damage. When used to stall for a huge spell, Fog and Ethereal Haze work as Denial on a more limited scale.

Control Freak
MZ: Control Freak Style is really a combination of several other Control Styles. I'm more of a Lobotomy/Megrim/Mill style when I go all Control Freak on someone. I really like to see an opponent just say, "That's it I'm coming over this table and slapping you for five. With my fist!"

WR: This goes farther than Denial or other Control styles. This player wants to make a game one-sided using every available resource. Stasis could fall into this category, because when it hits the board (and stays in play), only one person is really playing the game.

THEIF!
MZ: This almost qualifies as a Control but it's just a little different, Thieves well steal everything, resources, spells, lands, and creatures. Their deck and play style is one of the rares and most rogue-like. Thieves are hard to deal with, and they mainly stay in the realm of Blue and Red.

WR: Blue-Red Theft is almost too single-minded to add as a playstyle, but the ideas will often show up in the decks a Theft player builds, and in the way that they play. It’s a form of Denial that lets everyone else play what they want—for the sole purpose of giving the Theft player a variety of options.

BURN!
MZ: Burn, oh, this style really burns me up, it's a little offshoot of Aggro, but its resources tend to stay in hand and tend to BBQ everything on the field with an extreme spell like Wildfire or Inferno; and after they’ve cleared the board, their only creature, Jaya Ballard, Task Mage is the last woman standing in this case. They live on the speed; they want you dead by turn four if they can help it.

WR: Burn is one of the styles that only appears in one color. (I take that back—Blue now has Psionic Blast again, thanks to Time Spiral.) It’s aggressive with elements of Control, but it is tricky to shoehorn into one specific category. The Burn player’s philosophy is pretty straightforward: if I can deal enough direct damage to you, I control the game.

Alt-Win
MZ: I normally won't even qualify these people. They use "other" means of winning though a card like Epic Struggle and Battle of Wits. It takes a special person to play this style and deck.

WR: I’d put other win conditions here, as well as the prominent “Alt-Win” cards. Milling, forcing the opponent to concede, and even playing to a draw could be seen as Alt-Wins.

Combo, or Johnny, the Combo Player
MZ: Johnnys are a normal bunch of Magic players (myself being 1/2 Johnny, 1/2 Timmy) who like to find combos in the game, others strive to build powerful decks that utilize this work of art. Combo decks become known by a few cards, like Heartbeat, Necro, Stasis.

WR: In casual play, Combo decks are often recognized by the big effects that they create. Combo players love the big explosion, even if it blows up in their faces. (I admire the player who burned me out of a game with Desperate Ritual, Lava Spike, and an Illuminatus Djinn. Getting burned for 15 points in one shot, even though I was at 5 life, was one of the coolest things I’d seen.) For dedicated Combo players, losing 99 games because the complicated combo didn’t go off is worth the 1 game where it did.

LockDown
WR: Getting a lock is tricky. Lockdown players are similar to Denial and Control Freaks, in that they want to take control of the game early and keep the opponent from playing at all. Keeping an opponent’s permanents tapped, and trying to ensure that they don’t untap, are the Lockdown player’s forte. Stasis is a prime example of Lockdown. Once it hits the board (and stays there), it’s difficult at best to play around or do anything about. In its prime, Stasis set the standard for all Lockdown decks.

By helping your padawan understand the basics of each style, you’re giving them tools to work with throughout their Magic careers. Understanding how to play different styles will help them find the one that fits them, and what their options are when they’re ready to move into something else. When they play against certain archetypes, they should have a better understanding of what to look for, and where the threats might be. For instance, if they’re playing against a heavy Control deck, they can anticipate the finisher and prepare to deal with it.

Don’t judge the way that they play, or the style that they’re drawn to if it’s different than your own. (Judgment comes later, when they’re locked into one style and refuse to try anything else.) It’s a matter of opinion, and finding the right fit. Many players start off in Big Green Beatdown, but find other styles that they enjoy more as their knowledge of the game progresses. (Some find Big Green after playing other styles. It’s not necessarily a “new player” style.) The most important lesson to give newer players is to have fun, and play the game the way that they want to.

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author(WR) here.
Find other articles by this author(MZ) here.
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Articles Spotlights from 2008:
How to Win with Milling: A Guide to a Slow Painful Death
Memories of an Old Magic Player 10: The Outsiders Journal #3.
The Apprentice Magician, Part Three.
Class-Wars Deckbuilding Contest Results!
Tribal Coffee: The Smaller Tribes.
[Mini-Article] Controlling the Game: Without Blue.
Raiding the Dollar Bins: Return of the Vault Ninja.
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
More Evil Than Evil.
Memories of a Jarhead.