I recently was finishing up my basket of articles and needed to take them to Streetz for publication. As I got up from my desk, I decided to take one last bite of spaghetti before going. Unbeknownst to me, as I put the fork down, a meatball escaped the plate and made a mad dash across the room. I took the pages of articles and departed the desk only to find myself flipping backwards in the air. Upon landing on the ground, I looked up and saw all the pages of the three articles flipping and fluttering through the air.

I laid on the ground for five minutes. "What the heck am I going to tell Streetz? I am limping because I slipped on a meatball and about broke my tailbone? The articles are mixed up because I was eating on the job? What the heck am I going to do now?"

The Spaghetti Incident...

This week, as part of a deck building series, I have been asked to chat about card selection. Regardless of the format you are playing, knowing how to select the right card for the job is one of the most important skills you can hone as a player. The mana base of any deck is the normal engine that makes sure the deck runs; many more experienced players have at some point consulted the requirements of their cards to align their mana base so they can work more efficiently. There are a few different ways for a player to gain tempo. Mana acceleration is probably the simplest way. Just by playing a card that generates mana, you’ve provided yourself tempo. Mana base and tempo can be equally important to your deck building process, but let’s face it, without the right cards you simply can not win the game. Today we will walk through some of the finer points of card selection and hopefully leave the cave a bit brighter than when we stepped in. Playing a Birds of Paradise will gain you tempo as long as it stays in play. Even if it’s a one-time thing like Lotus Petal, you’re still gaining tempo. Playing a card that allows you to put extra lands into play, like Exploration which allows you to play an extra land each turn instead of the normal one, or playing Wood Elves which actually takes a Forest from your library and puts it into play; both provide effective ways of producing mana acceleration.

The mana base of any deck is the normal engine that makes sure the deck runs; many more experienced players have at some point consulted the requirements of their cards to align their mana base so they can work more efficiently. Now, a few basic tips in card selection can go a long way. Many of us probably build our casual decks by first choosing a card or cards that, whether they combo out or produce an unstoppable creature, will hopefully win us the game. But sometimes we decide to build a deck in a particular style (i.e. Control, Agrro, etc.) and go about selecting the right cards that will fit into our idea of the mana curve for our particular style deck. Either way, all decks need to have a few basic components aside from a mana base. If you play a card that decreases the cost of other spells, it is also considered mana acceleration. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and Helm of Awakening are prime examples of that. Alternate ways of playing a spell can provide mana acceleration. Madness allows you to play a spell cheaper if it were to be discarded from your hand. There are even spells that you can play for free by removing a certain number and type of card(s) in your hand from the game like Force of Will, or by returning something in play to its owner’s hand, like Gush. The general rule I was taught upon entering the game was to split your decks up 20/20/20, meaning twenty lands, twenty creatures, and twenty other spells. Though this is a good place to start, if you have been reading the articles on this site or playing for an extended time, you know that those numbers can fluctuate to a great degree. What I suggest is to start there and move those numbers around as you feel comfortable. Personally, I was able to build a successful all creature deck long before I could piece together enough "other spells" to build a competitive sorcery deck.

Although card selection and tempo are important factors in how your deck will run, the mana base worries are mostly about what the deck will run on. In most casual builds I use a very basic starting mana base, depending on the color or colors of the deck to decide its mana base. When selecting cards it may at times seem simple to know what we want, but if you are playing in a competitive environment, whether in a tournament at a local shop or in a free for all at your kitchen table, we often need to find the best card for the job in order to come out on top. There are even ways to deny your opponent mana, which is the second way to achieve tempo. Mana denial can be done in different ways, just like gaining mana acceleration. The best abilities, power and toughness, or effects for the lowest converted mana cost is what many of us seek. Cards with higher mana costs are generally judged solely on the effects they have on the table, whereas with creatures we are looking for the best package deal. What will this card do for me? This brings me to my first point (yes, all the way down here): dual-usage. Standard Basic lands are effective cards for their simplicity, but give no extra weaponry to the fight, while non-Basic lands tend to either have some type of drawback or requirement to make them work well. Then there are spells that boost your mana base. Denying an opponent mana will limit their options. A good example of this is a simple land destruction deck. Destroying lands denies your opponent the mana those lands could have produced which keeps them from playing more spells. The main goal of a land destruction deck is to in fact limit your opponent’s options while you cruise through with your win condition. This may not be a term familiar to most, in fact, I may have made it up, but cards that have more than one use can be game breakers. When you are deciding between two similar cards, the one with two uses will, in most cases, be better. Why would you run a Grizzly Bears when you could pay the same cost to have Ashcoat Bear, or even Woodland Changeling? For the same two mana you would pay for the original, you could have one of two useful abilities.

A mana base will reflect the curve of the deck placed on it. Remember how I said playing a Birds of Paradise is a simple way of gaining mana acceleration? In casual play your card pool is generally large, so sifting through and determining which of your cards are simply better than others can help you when building a deck. Let’s look at Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise. Both cost one Green mana, have an acceleration ability, and are pathetically small creatures. The Birds can tap for one mana of any color while the Elves tap for Green. Normally when I build a deck I start with the cards I want to use, then start cutting it down, and finally select the mana base. The reason is once I know what cards I am using I can adjust my base based on several factors in the cards. The Birds can block a flying attacker, whereas the Elves cannot. The Birds are the better card for the job, right? Well let’s say your opponent plays a Birds of Paradise and after it resolves you Shock it. You’ve just denied them mana they could have had and created tempo for yourself! Even if you don’t plan to destroy lands to gain tempo, countering opponent's spells that add mana also works. Right… unless you are running a theme-based deck with something like Winnower Patrol. Always read your cards, every little bit, because things like color, type, and mana cost will make all the difference in many of your selections. Say your opponent plays a Dark Ritual and you counter it; you’ve denied them that mana, providing you tempo. Anyway that prevents or hinders an opponent to gain mana, and that is the definition of mana denial. If you are playing a Tarmogoyf then it pays to diversify your spell types. Likewise, if you are running Spellweaver Volute, you will need the right types of cards in your graveyard. When deck building, your deck should be able to stand on its own and not necessarily depend on what your opponent is playing, even if it’s based on control magic.

So back to some basic tips. Make sure to contrast your selected cards with your mana curve. Remove the cards that do not fit, and when choosing what to remove, keep the card that gives you “more for your money.” This next way to gain tempo may seem a bit odd, because it feels similar to mana acceleration in a sense. Efficiency. Yes, by playing better cards you have better tempo. Ben Bleiweiss has often spoke about “not being a slave to your theme.” Don’t choose a card just because it fits into your theme. First while thinking about the mana base, consider the colors you’re playing. No one will care how cool your deck is if it doesn’t work, so use the cards that work better. The simplest example is instead of playing an Eager Cadet, you play Savannah Lions. They both cost the same amount of mana, but the Lion has two power instead of the Eager Cadet’s one. Normally one or two color decks are very easy to build, while three, four, and five color decks will require a long bit of thought while building. Playing more efficient cards will gain you tempo if the better card renders your opponent's weaker cards irrelevant, restricting their options. Let's create a hypothetical situation to explain this further. Make sure you have something to play on just about every turn, and try to use cheaper creatures that aren’t dead draws in the late game. A 2/2 on turn two is well balanced, but a 2/2 with no abilities on turn eight can spell your demise. Turn one your opponent plays a Mountain and a Rite of Flame, effectively giving them two red mana on turn one. They play a Slith Firewalker and attack you for one because of haste. Once you have the colors for your base, consider the casting costs of each card. Organize them if need be and look at the curve you have given your mana base (go by converted mana cost). This curve is directly related to the level of speed in your deck (i.e. the tempo). They have a 2/2 now. So, your turn you play your Plains and instead of your Eager Cadet, you chose to use Savannah Lions. Now you have a 2/1 which can block their 2/2 Firewalker, effectively placing both creatures in the graveyard and saving you the trouble of it growing bigger later. This is just one of many situations that help gain you tempo.

With the insane amount of abilities and cards in the game of Magic it is difficult to walk through every card selection strategy out there. High curves (where the bulk of your deck list sits on the CMC range) at any point in the deck might be a bit tough to overcome, and might have to be supplemented with additional non-land based mana. Another way to gain tempo that seems silly, is extra turns! Yes, by simply playing a card or cards that gain you an extra turn you can provide yourself tempo. One of the most important things to know is that nothing beats play testing. Early instant mana spells like Dark Ritual and Seething Song amongst others can push your deck into a good level of speed early on, but for later in the game, as experience has given me, they become less useful. Find out for yourself which cards work better than others and adjust your deck accordingly. One of the greatest aspects of this game is its 15,000 playing pieces. Spend some time getting to know your collection. Time Walk, and other cards that simply give you an extra turn are great ways to gain tempo. This allows you to play an extra land, draw a second card, and attack again! Meanwhile non-land creature mana like Birds of Paradise don’t have a lot of power until the turn after their play, but are useful as long as they don’t get destroyed. Too often do we shelve otherwise playable cards because they don’t immediately jump out at us and Let’s do another hypothetical situation; scream “Play Me!” say you’re at three life and you have a few creatures on the field. Go through your box(es) and binder(s) and READ your cards. Your opponent has a Rift Bolt suspended, next upkeep you’re dead.

While Remand was a popular uncommon a couple years ago, providing you a card and an extra turn in the early game, it is often not the best counter spell for the job. What can you do to save yourself? In my personal opinion it is better to have more low cost effective cards than bigger cards that you cannot play without mana acceleration. Why not play Walk the Aeons and take an extra turn? You finish your turn, end your turn. You get another turn! The Gatherer on the WOTC website is a great reference for card comparison and selection. Untap, upkeep triggers happen, draw a card and play more spells! Maybe you drew a counterspell for his burn, or maybe you drew something that will help you beat your opponent before your turn ends! Don’t be afraid to use it.

Either way extra turns are probably the best ways to gain tempo because you get more then just one benefit to having an extra turn. Even if you don’t have a card that simply gives you an extra turn, you can play cards that will help you get extra turns. Say your opponent doesn’t have any cards in his or her hand and your turn you play Fatigue. Low curves (where there is only one spell at that particular CMC) are not really a problem unless you have cards that matter on that converted mana cost like Krosan Drover with Oversoul of Dusk, which at a CMC of five it just makes a grown man cry. Likewise try to avoid too many low curves. They skip their draw, and having nothing else to do (if they don’t have anything in play to use) they’ve effectively had a useless turn, essentially providing you with an extra turn! Finding ways to make your opponent’s turn useless by making them skip phases will provide you tempo! Fatespinner is a great example of this.

The last way to gain tempo is called Punishing, which is when your opponent does something and you punish them for it which causes them to lose tempo which gains you tempo. Sadly, there is no set math for building a mana base; it is a lot of touch and go work. Say they pay a lot of mana to equip a creature with an equipment. In response you destroy that creature. Experience has given me a sort-of formula that does not work all the time. The disclaimer here is simply if you plan to hard cast (pay the mana cost) a card at any time The player who spent all that mana on equipping the now dead creature lost tempo. Another example:, you might as well build your deck to hard cast it even though you might have a better way.

Base = (Tc + Ms * Nc) / N#

Tc is the total converted mana cost of the deck. Let’s say your opponent taps all their lands for one huge creature. At the end of their turn you return that creature to their hand with a cheap spell like Boomerang; you’ve just effectively punished them.

Ms is the total number of colored mana symbols in the deck (count hybrids as 1, and monocolor hybrids as .5). Nc is the number of colors in said deck, and N# is the number of cards in the deck with a mana cost.

4.625 = (136 + 49 * 1) / 40

That set of numbers refers to one of my many decks; this one happens to be a mono color deck. That Base Number of 4.625 tells me that I want to get to five mana of a single color as quickly as possible to overcome the bulk problem of that deck. This is a naturally fast deck on a good hand, so the four range is not a bad place to be if you have some acceleration in a single color.

5.842 = (114 + 54 * 2) / 38

This set refers to a Black Green deck that uses at lot of mid-range cards and a lot of gold. 5.8 isn’t bad for dual color considering if you take that 5.8 and divide it you find yourself at about 3. Which means a little color fixing (via Golgari Rot Farm and Tainted Wood) will put you in that area that you need to be, preferably to have maybe six mana, three of each color, as soon as possible with this deck.

Of course even if you have the perfect mana base for your deck you might still want to consider deck thinning cards like Street Wrath and such so you can lean the numbers a little more towards your favor. Nothing messes up your day like a bad mana flood (having too much mana and nothing else) or a mana screw (wrong colors or not enough mana to cast those cards in hand).

I hope this helped you learn just a few ways to gain tempo.

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats constant testing and tooling. Make mistakes; keep a personal log of each deck. While playing MTGO, MWS, or kitchen table Magic, keep a pen and paper nearby and when you notice your deck going haywire one way or another make a note of it and then see if you can smooth it out more. Work the math out more; let me know if you find something completely new and interesting. Well, gents, as I said, mana bases are fragile and fickle. Good luck with it.

L out. This is MZ and I’m off into the Æther. I'm hamsandwich, and you should stop reading.

After spending a few hours trying to sort the papers out, I finally came to the conclusion, "Perhaps the whole is better than the parts?" I read the mega big article a few times. A lot of debate went on inside my head as I sat there.

"Will he buy it?"

Sadly, I concluded that he would never buy it. I needed to think of something. How could I make this slide by?

That was when it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I never in a thousand years would have thought of it, had it not happened.

Across the hall, a commotion began. I peered over my desk and out the window and there was Mal, losing his mind in his office. "I told Streetz to block N Game this time around. What the hell do I know? Oh.. is that... is Streetz leaving his office?"

Indeed! Streetz had had enough and was going to look for Mal, who had seen him coming and was now creeping down the hallway, looking for a place to hide. Just then, Ryu(L) came walking my direction holding a bag of marbles in his hand and a wearing a grin on his face.

Quick goat thinking... "Oh! Ryu! Is that Mal over there heading for the coffee table? I don't think I saw any sugar packets in the bowl."

"OH! I'll let him use some of mine." He said about seven million miles per hour and darted off down the hall leaving a trail of smoke behind him. "Mal! Do you need some coffee in your cup of sugar? I took all of the... err, I brought in some extra sugar this morning... where are you going so fast? I have to sprint to keep up with you, Mal!"

"Mal!!! Get back here! We need to talk about drywall and N Game...." Streetz was in hot pursuit with his typical huge grin. Now was my chance! I could sneak into his office, drop the scrambled article in his outbox and I could blame the entire thing on Mal and his destructive temperament! This was too good to be true.

I stepped out of my office and walked in a "rushed" normal posture. Of course everyone would want to talk to me at that point. Where the heck were these guys when I needed First Impression articles done?

After beating them to the point of near death with a sharp tongue lashing and threats of Lead Writer Strikes, they departed back to their normal sleeping places (as we all know that is what they all do while on the clock, or at least that is what their out boxes indicate). I slipped into the Big Man's office and dropped the bundle in the outbox. With a sigh of relief I stepped outside.

I walked back to my desk, thinking that the worst was over, and planned myself for a near overdose of aspirin. My back was killing me, and my eyes were hurting from the frantic work of re-assembling the article. I stepped into my office and felt sheer terror creep through my body.

Ryu was sitting in my chair typing on my keyboard.

My entire world had gone awry, and it was only 9 a.m.

...And it's all because of a stupid, ice cold, left-over meatball.

 

The Spaghetti Incident.

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Articles Spotlights from 2008:
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
The Apprentice Magician - Part Six.
Design on a Dime: The Lunch Meat Edition!
Fit the Flavor 2008 - FINALE!
The Games People Play - Market & EDH.
Sarpadian Empires, Vol VII: Foreword.
More Evil Than Evil.
Pauper Chronicles: Top O' the Morningtide to You!
Words from the Streetz: Uncommon and Common Magical Treasures.
The Writers Guild: The Inside Scoop.