Strength & Synergy

Nightpack Ambusher

My sons are back into playing Magic with me. As is typical, we go through seasons in life, and they played often 1-2 years ago but fell away as other hobbies piqued their interest. In recent weeks, they've rekindled the desire to play, and I've been enjoying that. It's fun to spend time with them, of course, and it's also a joy to see this game through their eyes. They understand a lot, but one concept they definitely don't get is synergy.

When my sons build a Magic deck, they include cards they view as strong, but pay little/no attention to synergy. (And, generally, 'strength' to them means a planeswalker or huge creature. Green is a preferred color.) And ignoring synergy is always to their detriment.

As I mention on my main page about decks, 

In Magic, you can win with any number of strategies, but every strategy needs a deck with synergy- your cards need to work together well to implement your chosen strategy. Together, they must be more than the sum of their individual abilities. 

Synergy is key. Almost any card in this game can be good or bad based entirely on the deck it is in (and the format you're playing). There are certainly some 'staple' cards- cards that will show up in many flavors of decks. These are generally 'generic' removal cards that all decks should include to some extent. But removal is only part of the game- it prevents or slows your opponents, but you need other cards- with synergy between them- to win. (And, ideally, even your removal cards can be chosen to synergize with your strategy.) So, how do you build with synergy in mind?

The first (and most important) step is deciding what you want your deck to do- how you want your deck to win. (I cover some basic strategies in the aforementioned deck article.) One approach is to pick a card you like and build a deck off of it. We'll do that today as an example. I'll use one of my childrens' favorites, Nightpack Ambusher.

Nightpack Ambusher is a cool card. It makes your (were)wolves stronger, and gives you a wolf token if you didn't cast any spells on your turn. It also has flash (it can be played any time you could play an instant), giving you the option of surprising an opponent on their turn. Lots of goodness here . . . how do we build off of it?

We could simply put Ambusher in a wolf deck, as it makes them all stronger, but let's fully use its capabilities. We don't want to be casting spells on our turn, so we get that nice wolf token. That means we want a lot of instants and/or cards that have the 'flash' keyword. Blue is the color of choice for instants, so I suggest a blue/green ("Simic") flash deck. Here is an example decklist:

4 Spectral Sailor (M20) 76

10 Island (IKO) 265

4 Brineborn Cutthroat (M20) 50

2 Sea-Dasher Octopus (IKO) 66

1 Pouncing Shoreshark (IKO) 64

1 Voracious Greatshark (IKO) 70

4 Wildborn Preserver (ELD) 182

10 Forest (IKO) 274

4 Nightpack Ambusher (M20) 185

4 Frilled Mystic (RNA) 174

2 Temple of Mystery (M20) 255

2 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246

3 Hydroid Krasis (RNA) 183

3 Opt (ELD) 59

2 Brazen Borrower (ELD) 39

4 Neutralize (IKO) 59

The lands are in italics. Creatures with flash are underlined. Instants are in bold. From here, only one non-land card- Hydroid Krasis- must be played on your turn. Everything else can be cast on an opponent's turn, enabling you to maximize Ambusher's ability. The deck's removal cards- Frilled Mystic, Neutralize, Brazen Borrower, Pouncing Shoreshark, and Voracious Greatshark- all play into this synergy. There is card draw (Opt, Spectral Sailor, Hydroid Krasis, Sea-Dasher Octopus), and Brineborn Cutthroat gets bigger every time you cast a spell on an opponent's turn:

In short, this deck plays to Nightpack Ambusher's strengths. It has synergy, removal, and card draw. Though it lacks thematic consistency (important to some but irrelevant to gameplay), it is an effective deck due to its synergy.

But what about other wolves? This deck doesn't make great use of Ambusher's "Wolves get +1/+1" ability. (It does for the wolf tokens created, of course, but couldn't we do more with that?) Of course, we can. We could have included cards like Ferocious Pup, which gives us two wolves, both of whom would benefit from Ambusher's plus-up:

And for certain decks, this card would make complete sense. But synergy is also about efficient synergy- meaning getting the most out of how cards interact- and in my view, playing this card in lieu of others in the deck above doesn't provide the same cost/benefit ratio. Yes, you get two wolves, but you must play it on your turn, meaning, Ambusher's "create a wolf token" ability wouldn't trigger. So in effect, this is netting you one wolf- a 0/1. Hardly worth three mana. It would be better to play nothing, get the wolf token for free, and cast something on your opponent's turn instead- either a creature with flash or an instant that could net you cards or counter spells.

Efficient synergy can be hard. It's all about tradeoffs and cost/benefit. But when you start thinking in these terms, it will improve your deck construction. In Magic, the game frequently goes to the synergistic- not to the strong.