Card Advantage

when it comes to card advantage, I feel like an overwhelmed apprentice

Card advantage means having access to more cards than your opponent. Wizards did a very good article on the subject, and it's important to understand.

Every (non-land) card has a mana cost- the type(s) and quantity of mana you need to play the spell. But there is another cost: every card in your 40- or 60-card deck occupies exactly one card slot. Each player starts the game by drawing seven cards, and then drawing one more at the start of each of their turns. If you have no way of obtaining more cards during a game, and the game lasts six rounds, that means you'll have only 13 cards to work with for your Magic game. If they're the 'right' 13, great!  But if not . . . what will you do?  What happens if you play all of your cards, and are close to victory but have nothing left- no options in hand? You're in a more tenuous position than you may realize; card advantage can help.  Let's look at some examples.

Card advantage can get complicated, but at its most basic, it deals with either drawing more cards than your opponent or making them draw fewer (i.e. making them discard). In the below game, I show how many more cards I pulled than my opponent- they have 47 cards left in their deck, and I have 38. I have a 9-card advantage (and, in this case, I have almost the dream scenario: more permanents, more cards in hand, and only two less life).  Having nine extra cards is tremendously powerful. If my opponent plays a 'board wipe' spell, removing all of my non-land permanents, I have enough cards in hand to recover quickly. If he doesn't, he'll be toast.

Here's another example; look how out of hand this can get. What starts as a 4-card advantage snowballs into 10, 20, and then a whopping 47:

I nearly decked myself in that one.

The examples are basic but I hope they illustrate the concept. If you can access more cards than your opponent, you're more likely to overwhelm them.

How do you gain card advantage? The above-linked Wizards article has some great examples; here are some of my favorite cards that can give tremendous card advantage. Into the Story lets you draw four cards, giving you a net gain of three (since Into the Story takes one card slot). Library Larcenist, if it attacks, grants one card per turn it does so. But some real powerhouses are Risen Reef, Setessan Champion, and Edgewall Innkeeper- in each case, playing a certain type of card (Elemental, enchantment, or adventures) allows you to draw more cards (or place them on the battlefield).  Protect these creatures and pair them with low-cost spells of the right types (like Foulmire Knight for Edgewall Innkeeper) and watch things get out of hand.

There are other ways to achieve card advantage- for example, by making your opponent discard cards.  Whichever method(s) you use, be aware of them, and use the concept of card advantage to help you judge a card's worth. You might just be surprised.