Lessons Learned

I've previously blogged about Magic: Arena, the free* online PC version of the Magic. It's a great platform to introduce the game, to play without physically amassing huge collections, for fully experiencing standard, and for participating in all sorts of limited and constructed events in the comfort of your own home (especially important during a pandemic).  It's also taught me an awful lot; today I look at 7 things I've learned to improve my Magic skills through playing Arena.

1. The importance of bluffing
• Untapped lands and unplayed cards in your hand are a weapon. Consider this scenario:
• It's late in the game; your hand is empty. On your turn, you draw . . . ugh, a land. Or all your held cards are irrelevant to the situation.  What should you do? 
• There are times when you don't want to play a card because it would reveal to your opponent your (lack of) options. Similarly, there may be times you want to hold back a card to keep some untapped lands. Your opponent may hold back if they think you have a spell to counter their plans . . . but if you lay your options on the table (literally), you make life much easier for your opponent. Learn to hold back. Don't play unneeded cards. Keep untapped lands in reserve. Keep your opponent on their toes.
2. The importance of the second main phase
• The basic phase structure of a Magic turn is begin, main phase, combat, second main phase, end.  On both main phases, you can play one land card (total) and creatures, enchantments, sorceries, artifacts, and planeswalkers.
• Generally, it's wise to play your land on the first main phase (see point one on bluffing- having untapped lands is powerful). But all those other cards? Do it after combat. Because if your opponent plays a spell that (for example) wipes the board during the combat phase, you have that second main phase to recover.
3. The importance of removal
• If you have no removal cards in your deck, you will almost definitely lose.
4. The power of instants and 'flash'
• This ties into removal and bluffing. Keeping lands untapped, and then playing cards on your opponent's turn, can give you the opportunity to see your opponent's strategy, then execute your own on her turn, and follow it up on your turn. It can be a powerful 1-2 punch. But, of course, the only cards you can play on your opponent's turn are instants and cards with 'flash.' I'll do a post on 'instant speed' later and its importance.
5. Tempo matters (card advantage)
• You need a way to win fast (like an aggro deck) or find some way to gain card advantage- which means having a hand of cards late in the game when your opponent won't. Almost all colors have ways to draw cards; use those to your advantage. I can't tell you how many times I've had my opponent down to 1 or 2 life, only to concede because I have no cards (and thus, no options) left.
6. Each deck type has key cards
• If you play Arena consistently, you will see a wide variety of competitive decks- but each will feature key cards of a given color or related to a general deck type (aggro, control, midrange, tribal, etc.). You'll learn the general deck types and what to expect of them ("oh, he's playing a red aggro deck. I bet shock is in there."), and any time you can predict your opponent's cards, you have an advantage.
• It also helps you as you build your own decks- observing which cards see frequent play helps you plan your own approach.
• Related to this, you'll often see very similar decks. It makes sense; players hone in on the most successful decks in a given type or color, and others copy them. But make it your own; make sure there's at least a little home brew in there.
7. Reading Board State
• I cover the concept here; learning to read the board is a necessary skill. And it helps knowing when to concede; no sense prolonging the inevitable.

There are other things I've learned that aren't true of the game in general, but personal preferences:

• I don't like planeswalkers. I think they're often overpowered. So War of the Spark was a big downer for me.
• I like creature-heavy midrange decks with lots of card draw. It's fun to see an array of creatures on the battlefield and how they interact.
• I find control decks annoying. Even when I use them. Knowing an opponent is just sitting there on tons of counterspells is boring and annoying.
• I love or hate sets based on how they affect the metagame. Any set that tilts towards aggro or midrange decks is a winner in my book.

Playing Arena has made me a much better player- I highly recommend it as a training platform.

*there are optional in-game purchases

The Rookie Class

Core 2021 is out!  Well, digitally at least. It came out on Arena a few days ago- the paper version released in a week.

New set releases are like a rookie class in sports:

• through previews, you know what you'll get before it comes
• some look extremely promising but don't pan out
• some are overlooked and end up dominating

One amusing thing about Magic is that even the experts get it wrong. I remember when Questing Beast was previewed- and widely panned. It remains a force to this day.

Anyway, I'm excited about the following cards in Core 2021. Each excites me for one or more reasons:

• how they'll affect the current meta
• how they'll combo with other cards in standard (or other formats)
• how they'll help current decks I enjoy

We'll see how many pan out.

Scryfall

With tens of thousands of Magic cards in the world, it's easy to be overwhelmed when building a deck (especially in formats where a lot of sets are legal, like Modern or Commander). Knowing how to search for cards is important.

There are many online card search engines. The official card database, Gatherer, is clunky, but it does rely on Oracle, which is Wizards' official "reference that contains up-to-date wordings for all tournament-legal cards."  In other words, it digitally updates the wording on older cards to match current game terminology.  Thus, it's great for resolving rule disputes around older cards.  But Gatherer isn't the only search engine to do so, and as I said, it's clunky.  So I use another: Scryfall.  And when I say that name, I invariably hear the James Bond "Skyfall" theme song in my head.  But I digress; let's take a look at this useful tool.

screenshot of the scryfall homepage

Scryfall is simple and powerful, but bears some explanation.  If you search for a term in the homepage's search field without any syntax, it will return results with that term in the card name only. So, for example, searching for "goblin" will not return all goblin creature cards, but cards with goblin in the card name.  That's okay, but the advanced search is where Scryfall gets its value.  Click on the Advanced Search button and check out that page.

the first fields of the advanced page

The Advanced Search page is impressive (you should know how to read a Magic card to understand this page). As you might expect, you can search by any number of factors.   The more common ones include:

• Card name
• Card text (any card text that appears in the rules box (flying, abilities, etc.)  that's not flavor text- there's a separate field for that)
• Type line (types (like creature, enchantment, etc.) and/or subtypes (like goblin, legendary, etc.)
• Color(s)
• Commander (it will return cards that match your chosen colors, in keeping with Commander deck building restrictions)
• Formats (like Standard, Modern, Pauper, etc.)
• Set(s) [and block(s), for the older sets]
• Rarity (common, uncommon, rare, mythic rare)
• Preferences (the final field, this is where you choose how to display and sort the results- you can sort by card name, set/number, etc)

Fun!  Let's try a few.
I want to build a Standard white/blue deck that features flying creatures. On the Advanced Search page, I fill out the following:

• Text: flying
• Colors: white, blue, and select "at most these colors"
• Formats: Legal (so it omits banned/restricted cards) and Standard
• Preferences: Display as Images, Sort by Set/Number
• Press "search with these options"

This returns the following results:

Some observations:

• At the top it shows you the syntax it used in the search bar- more on this in a minute.  But note that it, like Gatherer, relies on Oracle for the latest wordings.  Good!  
• Immediately after the syntax, it shows the total number of cards returned and repeats the criteria you entered.  It's a good idea to review this to make sure you correctly captured your intent.
• Note that, in our particular search, it included cards with 'flying' in the card text, whether or not a card had the flying keyword.

This is a great start for a flying deck!  You can use these results to identify desirable cards for deck building.  But let's say you wanted only the search to return creatures with the flying keyword.  This is where knowing Scryfall's syntax comes in handy.

The syntax Scryfall uses is explained here, and is pretty intuitive.  From that page, it notes "You can also use keyword: to search for cards with a specific keyword ability." So we replace 'oracle' with 'keyword' from our original search and get:

Easy!

Once you know the syntax, you can enter that right on the front page, in the main search box, without bothering to use the advanced search page.  For example, if I want to see all cards in the Eldraine set, I could enter "set:eld" in the search box to get that result.

I think that's sufficient for an overview.  I highly recommend Scryfall for all your card searches.  As an aside, I also use it for previews of upcoming sets (the Core 2021 previews are up).

Enjoy!

Ability, Ability, Ability

I did a double take when I first read Tale's End (the above card). Activated ability?  Triggered ability?  What?

Abilities are on many Magic permanent cards (creatures, enchantments, lands, and planeswalkers), and the different categories of them can be quite confusing. This post looks as the most common types (I exclude loyalty abilities of planeswalkers). Keywords are also abilities, but I cover those elsewhere. The comprehensive rules is our starting point; Section 600 handles abilities. I list relevant portions of that section below.

Activated Abilities

• 602.1. Activated abilities have a cost and an effect. They are written as “[Cost]: [Effect.] [Activation instructions (if any).]”
• 602.1a The activation cost is everything before the colon (:). An ability’s activation cost must be paid by the player who is activating it.

Activated abilities are put on the stack, just like casting a spell (see the rules page).  As such, if an activated ability's cost includes tapping a creature, that creature cannot have summoning sickness (in other words, it can't tap the turn it enters the battlefield unless it has haste).  Here are some cards with activated abilities:

The key to identifying activated abilities is that colon separating cost and effect.

Triggered Abilities

• 603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger condition or event], [effect]. [Instructions (if any).]” 
• 603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point. 
• 603.2a Because they aren’t cast or activated, triggered abilities can trigger even when it isn’t legal to cast spells and activate abilities. Effects that preclude abilities from being activated don’t affect them. 
• 603.4. A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. 

Triggered abilities are also put on the stack. Some example cards:

The key to identifying triggered abilities is the presence of the word "when," "whenever," or "at."

Static Abilities

• 604.1. Static abilities do something all the time rather than being activated or triggered. They are written as statements, and they’re simply true.
• 604.2. Static abilities create continuous effects, some of which are prevention effects or replacement effects. These effects are active as long as the permanent with the ability remains on the battlefield and has the ability, or as long as the object with the ability remains in the appropriate zone, as described in rule 113.6.
• 604.6. Some static abilities apply while a card is in any zone that you could cast or play it from (usually your hand). These are limited to those that read, “You may [cast/play] [this card] . . . ,” “You can’t [cast/play] [this card] . . . ,” and “[Cast/Play] [this card] only . . . .”

Examples:

Static abilities are statements with no costs or conditions.  They don't go on the stack; they're true as long as the permanent is on the battlefield.

Mana Abilities

• 605.1. Some activated abilities and some triggered abilities are mana abilities, which are subject to special rules. Only abilities that meet either of the following two sets of criteria are mana abilities . . .
• 605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t require a target (see rule 115.6), it could add mana to a player’s mana pool when it resolves, and it’s not a loyalty ability. (See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”)
• 605.1b A triggered ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t require a target (see rule 115.6), it triggers from the resolution of an activated mana ability (see rule 605.1a) or from mana being added to a player’s mana pool, and it could add mana to a player’s mana pool when it resolves.
• 605.2. A mana ability remains a mana ability even if the game state doesn’t allow it to produce mana. Example: A permanent has an ability that reads “{T}: Add {G} for each creature you control.” The ability is still a mana ability even if you control no creatures or if the permanent is already tapped.

Examples:

Mana abilities are a subset of activated and triggered abilities, but they follow slightly different rules. The big one: they do NOT use the stack, so they can't be targeted/countered/etc.  Why?  I think it's because that would make any mana generation (even from basic lands) 'targetable,' 'counterable,' etc.

Combinations

Of course, many cards have triggered, static and/or activated abilities. Examples:

Concluding Thoughts

The different kinds of abilities aren't so bad once you familiarize yourself with the terminology.  How the different kinds can interact with combos can be quite amusing in the right decks.  But that's another topic for another time.

To buy or not to buy?

Inspiration card art

With the next Magic set, Core 2021, just under a month away, the preview season began a few days ago.  (The preview season is where Wizards, through their own or independent popular Magic websites, reveals a few new cards per day from an upcoming set.)  A few common preview sites for Core 2021 (which feature overlapping, but not always identical, cards):

• The official site
• MTGGoldfish
• MythicSpoiler
• ChannelFireball
• MagicSpoiler
• Scryfall

As I perused these sites, I am getting excited about the upcoming set! It isn't always so; one thing I enjoy about this game is the ability to collect or ignore sets are you see fit.  I bought a ton of Throne of Eldraine, for example, and almost no Ikoria or War of the Spark. For a given set, I use the preview season to decide, and four characteristics to guide my decision:

1. Theme
• What types of things does the set emphasize? For example, Throne of Eldraine was influenced by Grimm's Fairy Tales and Arthurian legend; Theros Beyond Death by Greek mythology. Ikoria was inspired by the Japanese genre of giant monster films. Though core sets, by design, are more generic than expansions, they still have some discernible theme.  In Core 2021, for example, they're introducing a handful of dog creatures.
2. Mechanics
• Often related to theme are the mechanics. What card types, keywords, tribes, or abilities does the set feature? Eldraine had knights, adventure spell types, food tokens, and the adamant keyword (which encouraged playing only one color). Theros BD featured enchantment cards (and the related constellation keyword), and also encouraged playing one color through the devotion keyword.  Ikoria features card cycling and mutate.
3. Impact on metagame
• I don't know how well they can plan this in advance, but I look at how upcoming cards might change the meta. Containment Priest (below) is coming, for example, and will work wonders against several powerful cards seeing a lot of play in today's meta.
4. Art
• How does the art look? It doesn't affect the gameplay, but the overall aesthetic does matter (to me). Each Magic set (or block, back in those days) has an artistic style or tone appropriate to the theme. 

Theme and art are intertwined, and can be quickly judged ("ooh, Grimm's Fairy Tales? Sweet!"). Mechanics are harder- you may need to play a few games to see if they're of interest to you, unless they're a return of a previous mechanic (like cycling in Ikoria).  And meta impact is hardest of all- even the experts can be wildly wrong about how much play a given card will see.

These characteristics enable me to determine ahead of time whether or not I'll buy a booster box of cards or just get some single cards of interest. Once I saw War of the Spark would focus on planeswalkers, for example, I knew I was out- I hate planeswalkers.  So I bought a few single cards I wanted and stayed away from the rest.  Of course, since some aspects are hard to judge in advance, there are times I initially stay away but then buy in (Theros BD is an example).

Back to Core 2021. I'm excited so far because:

• I like core sets in general; they're usually more 'generic' and basic than expansions, and take me to the heart of the game without being overly complex
• Seeing dog creature cards and tribal themes excites me; cats have had their day for a while now. Time for the dogs!
• I don't care for the current meta, and think a few cards will tilt the game in a way I enjoy.
• They're reprinting some old cards, like Baneslayer Angel (see below). Fun!

If you want to follow the previews, click on any of the links above, they're updated almost daily.

The Art in Magic

Some time ago, I came across an article from a dedicated Magic player reflecting on a piece of card art that particularly grabbed him.  It made me think of my own enjoyment of the art in Magic.

Magic is great for many reasons,and the card art is (to me) a bigger part of the game than I consciously realize.  The art is, after all, what people first notice.  Your immediate reaction to it may play a sizable role in determining whether you play the game or not.  And for me, on more than one occasion I've included a card in a deck (or even centered deck construction around a card) because of its art.  Greg Staples' Lord of Atlantis and Hypnotic Specter (below) comes to mind.

Lord of Atlantis

Hypnotic Specter

In reflecting on this subject, too many cards and artists come to mind to be comprehensive.  In general, I enjoy the art of Terese Nielsen and Rebecca Guay, both of whom have done many Magic cards over the years.  Their respective styles are distinctive and instantly recognizable.  The aforementioned Greg Staples is also fun; I could go on.  But what really gets me, more than anything, are the land cards.

Magic decks are generally 40% land cards- you'll see them more than anything else as you play.  Basic land cards (plains, island, swamp, mountain, forest) are the most plentiful and easily acquired cards in the game.  Hundreds of versions of these have been produced.  And, I confess, I will pursue specific releases based on their art.  I like lands by John Avon, Jung Park, Michael Kormack, Jonas De Ro, Raoul Vitale, Rob Alexander, James Paick, Yeong-Hao Han, Quinton Hoover, Doug Shuler, Adam Paquette . . . I could go on.  Below are my favorite versions of each of the five basic land types.

Plains

Forest

Island

Mountain

Swamp

Other Thoughts
Magic is a fantasy card game with deliberate fantasy themes.  That said, there are a few cards dear to me for the reminders they evoke of real places.  For example, Birds of Paradise, with the cathedral in the background, reminds me of Europe:

I was recently shocked to see a Magic card with terrain I had visited:

I'll prove it to you:

taken by the author

What is this?  Did Wizards know the artist had used a real-life location?  Of course they did; it was part of a series called Euro lands.  So cool . . . I had no idea.  This link has those Euro lands and many other examples of basic lands and how they've changed over the years.

This post is already too long. . . I'll conclude with this thought: art is beautiful, and matters in games as well as life.