Paul MacKinnon, a Canadian Magic player who is second only to Doug Potter in Top 8 quarterfinal losses, is the latest addition to the Broken City School of Magic Faculty. With his debut article, he touches upon myriad limited topics including hate drafting, reviewing draft picks and making optimal plays.
Hello, my name is Paul MacKinnon, and I’m here to talk about limited Magic theory. A quick introduction about myself, I’ve been playing Magic for a few years now, since Ravnica. I’ve had decent success, played Nationals a couple times, and top 8’d PTQs in every format possible. Until I met (The) Doug Potter I thought I was creating a record for PTQ quarterfinal losses, but now I see that I probably will never touch that record. Of all the areas of Magic, however, I excel the most at limited, and so that is the area that I will mainly focus on.
With this article, and subsequent ones, I plan to talk about random topics of limited strategy that I think many players could benefit from. This won’t be a comprehensive guide to limited, but more of a random collection of thoughts I’ve had about the game. There isn’t going to be any structure or order to my articles, I’m just going to write about whatever subjects I feel like writing about.
So, in no particular order, let’s get to it.
TOPIC 1: STOP THE HATE
One of the most common mistakes I see players make in a draft is hate-drafting. Newer players are very susceptible to falling into this trap, but I sometimes see good players think they are justified for some reason or another in hating a card.
Magic strategy is very complex and there is often no definitive correct strategy, but in this case I feel confident enough to say that the following rule should always be followed:
If instead of hate-drafting you could take a card that would be played in your main deck, you should always take the card you would play.
I’ve all too often heard hate-drafters’ (lack of) logic:
“Card A is the best card in the set! I can’t pass it.”
“Card B is really good! I couldn’t let someone get one 5th pick.”
“Card C completely owns my deck! I have no way to beat it.”
“The card I was going to take I would have played, but it wasn’t that good anyways.”
Etc. Etc.
If you’ve ever thought along these same lines, it’s time to rethink hate-drafting.
A quick aside about Expected Value:
You should think of every move you make in Magic in terms of Expected Value (EV). When faced with multiple options, you should take the option that has the highest expected value, i.e. the option that will most likely (but might not be guaranteed to) yield the most benefits in the long run. I say in the long run, because you have to think of these choices over many occurrences. If faced with a choice repeatedly (e.g. every time you draft), you should try to determine what will benefit you the most over all of these occasions. Whatever that answer is, that’s the choice you should make each individual time, as that will give you the greatest overall success in Magic.
People often think that because a certain action worked out one time, it was the right thing to do, but this is a logical trap to avoid. The option with the highest EV doesn’t mean it’s the option that will work out best every time. In some instances, a lower EV play will work out better than the higher EV play would have. In the long run however, players who make the highest EV plays will end up having the greatest overall success.
A quick example of expected value:
Let’s say I gave you two options, one of which you have to choose:
A) You flip a coin. If it’s heads, I owe you 4$. If it’s tails, you owe me 3$.
B) You roll a six sided die. If it’s 1-5, I owe you 5$. If it’s 6, you owe me 20$.
Which option should you choose? To decide, you should calculate the expected value of each option.
A) (1/2)x(+4$) + (1/2)x(-3$) = $0.5. Your expected value for each coin toss is $0.5.
B) (5/6)x(+5$) + (1/6)x(-20$) = $0.83. Your expected value for each die roll is $0.83.
Based on expected value, you should choose option B. Even though in a single instance it has the chance to be the worst choice (-20$), when faced with this choice repeatedly, you will be better off in the long run if you always choose B.
Back to Hate-Drafting
So why this talk about expected value? Simply put, hate-drafting over a pick that will go in your deck has a worse expected value than not hate-drafting.
First of all, let’s look at what hate drafting does. When you hate a card instead of taking a card for your deck, you make one other player’s deck worse, you make your deck worse, and you have no effect at all on the remaining six decks at the table. By hate drafting you have essentially done a favour for six of your opponents. Relative to your deck, you have made one opponent’s deck weaker, and six opponents’ decks stronger. This is a net negative for you.
So there is a downside to hate-drafting. What about the benefits? The advantage you gain is not having to play against a certain card against one of your possible opponents. Is that worth the negative effect on your deck that hate-drafting had? The answer is clearly no.
If you take a card that benefits your deck, in 100% of your matches you will have that card in your deck, making your deck stronger. In a draft there are seven potential opponents, and only three rounds to play. Assuming you will play all three rounds (I’ll mention single-elim later), there is a 3/7=43% chance that you will play against a given player. This means that 57% of drafts that you hate-draft in, you won’t end up playing the opponent who you hated from and you won’t gain any benefits whatsoever by that particular hate-draft. When given a yes or no choice that 43% of time is good for you, and 57% of the time is bad for you, a rational person would only ever choose the 43% option if the upside was significantly better than the upside of the 57% option. So is it? Once again, the answer is clearly no.
Let’s look at the case where you end up playing against the player that would have played the card that you wanted to hate-draft. In this particular draft, you will play one round against the player with the hurtful card, and two rounds against players without it. By hate-drafting, in one round you gain the advantage of your opponent not having the hurtful card, but pay the cost of not having the card that helps your deck. In the other two rounds, you gain no benefits, but pay the cost of not having the card that helps your deck. This means that in this draft you’ve hurt yourself 66.6% of the time to help yourself 33.3% of the time, and for that 33.3% of the time, you have also hurt yourself by not having the card you could have picked instead of hate-drafting.
Then there’s the matter of the actual match against the opponent that would have played the card you hate-drafted. They still have to be able to draw the card in games against you, and play it when it’s relevant to the game. Let’s say a player sees an average of 20-25 cards in their deck in a given game. That means slightly less than half the games against the opponent they won’t even draw the card, and an even smaller percentage of that is where they draw the card and it’s completely relevant.
Hate-drafting can also have a negative effect on more than just that one pick of the draft. If you hate a card instead of taking one that you would put in your deck, you are sending a bad signal. This could cause future picks to be hurt due to someone down the line ending up in your colour/archetype when you didn’t want them to.
There are even more minor factors that might be applicable. There is the possibility that someone else in the draft hate-drafts for you. You can’t guarantee that the guy beside you is the one who would use the card, and it’s a distinct possibility that your neighbour (who unfortunately for him hasn’t read this article) hates the card for you. All the upside but none of the downside. Another possibility is that someone ends up taking the card then doesn’t play it. This isn’t the most likely thing to happen, but is still a possibility. Maybe the player who takes it ends up switching colours and can no longer play it. Maybe the player who takes it is just bad and doesn’t play the card in their deck when they should. If the card is a rare/uncommon, maybe someone rare drafts the card despite not being able to play it. These scenarios aren’t the most common occurrences, but they can happen, and they too swing the expected value of hate-drafting down.
Magic is a complex system and would be difficult to reduce to a actual EV equation (though this would be an interesting exercise), but I hope I outlined the many ways that show that hate-drafting would have an overall negative expected value. You should keep in mind that the damage that a card can do to you is limited to only one match. At worst a card can make you lose 1 in 3 matches. With a one match cap on the damage a card can do, there is no way its negative effects cause more damage than the negative effects that come with hating a card.
Lastly, I know Magic Online is often played in single elimination queues, which makes the downside of the opponent’s card larger. It still doesn’t swing hate-drafting into positive expected value territory. You only have a 2 in 7 chance that your first or second opponent has the card. In the case where your third opponent has the card, it’s no different that a three round swiss, the single elimination part of the draft is no longer relevant at that point.
So what does this all mean? If instead of hate-drafting you could take a card that would be played in your main deck, you should always take the card you would play. If you are worried that a certain card will be extremely good against your deck, the solution is not to hate-draft it, but to properly play around it. This might mean not overextending into a sweeper. Or it could mean sideboarding into a slightly different build of your deck that is better equipped to deal with the card. You are be better off dealing with a threat during a game instead of during the draft, because then you only have to deal with it when you actually have to.
TOPIC 2: REVIEWING DRAFT PICKS
Since we are on the subject of drafting, there’s another issue that I feel is worth mentioning.
Many players could better use their time during the one minute review of your picks between packs in a draft. The following obviously doesn’t apply to the “spoiled” world of Magic Online, but is relevant in real life drafts where you can’t look at previous picks during the draft. It is probably because of Magic Online, and casual real life drafts where people just look at their picks throughout, that a lot of players don’t use their review time as well as they should.
Sort your picks by mana-curve
The very first thing you should do during your review period is to quickly sort your creatures by mana cost. To draft well you need to be aware of how your deck is shaping up. People often forget that they need to draft a good deck, not just good cards. Sure that Rhox Charger might be a stronger card than Knight of the Skyward Eye, but if your deck already has a bunch of 4-drops and no 2-drops, you’d be better off taking the cheaper costing card. Staring at your picks during the review is one thing, but it really helps to get a visual look at how the curve is turning out. Sort your creatures by mana cost and try and note what mana costs you are reaching capacity at, and what mana costs you’re short of.
Note that removal spells and tricks shouldn’t be included in your mana curve, as these spells (most likely) won’t be played “on curve”, you’ll end up saving them for later in the game when their cost matters less. It’s best to sort them in their own pile (if you have time). It is worth noting if you have enough cheap removal, but once again, not nearly as important as your creature mana curve.
Take the maximum amount of time reviewing your picks
I know you’re excited to draft. I know you want to see if you opened something sweet. It can wait a minute. Pick review time is valuable, and if you have the patience to use it effectively, you will be rewarded.
Practice drafting without looking at your picks as often as you can
Magic Online lets you look at your picks. Casual drafts (even low level sanctioned ones) generally don’t enforce not looking at your picks as you draft. So most people don’t get much experience with actual draft procedures. Then you end up in a PTQ Top 8, or day two of a Grand Prix, and you’re in unfamiliar territory. Obviously, the best thing you can do, is practice. So practice no-look drafting more. Even if other people are looking at their picks, don’t. It may hinder your drafts at first, but will help you in the long run. Learn to draft without the picks visible, learn to use your review time effectively, and learn to know the needs of your deck by memory.
TOPIC 3: ANYTHING BUT THE BEST PLAY IS THE WRONG PLAY
After talking about a couple draft-specific topics, I feel that it would be good to talk about a more general topic that applies to improving at magic. It’s not limited specific, but it’s still worth talking about.
To achieve maximum success in Magic, you should always strive to make the best possible play at all times. You should be disappointed with, and strive to correct, anything less than purely optimal plays.
“Ok”, you say, “Obviously I want to make correct plays instead of wrong ones. Tell me something I don’t know.” You should note however, that I am not just talking about good plays versus bad ones. I am talking about optimal plays versus anything but the optimal play.
Quite often sub-optimal plays still lead to wins. Often there is an extremely low chance that making a certain sub-optimal play will matter. However, not playing optimally can, and will, cost you games. Giving up any edge at all in a game is important, and over the course of a tournament, or many tournaments, it can add up. Winning competitive games of Magic is difficult enough as it is, and the players who succeed regularly are the ones who try to gain every edge possible, no matter how slight.
I often hear the same responses from people after I gave them advice on a match of theirs I had just observed:
“Whatever, I won anyways, it didn’t matter.”
“Please, the chances of that were so small, it didn’t matter”
“I was basically dead anyways”
“This game was unimportant anyways”
etc.
This is exactly the wrong way to think about the game. It could have mattered. It didn’t this time, but another time it could have. Sometimes an opponent has a lucky series of events happen for them. Sometimes, with optimal plays, you can manage to come back from extremely unfavourable situations. If you don’t always push yourself to play optimally at all times, you’ll miss chances. Also, if you don’t put yourself in the habit of playing optimally in games that don’t matter, chances are lower that you’ll play optimally in the games where it does end up mattering.
Often players with the mindset above are exactly the same players who at other times lose a game to an unlikely set of events, and then complain about how lucky their opponent got. Sure, the unlikely scenario occurred, but you let it happen by not playing optimally. And you will let it continue to happen in the future by blaming luck instead of striving to correct your sub-optimal play.
Perhaps I should give an example where I recently observed this behaviour:
Scars limited. Player A is playing a RW Metalcraft Aggro deck, against Player B’s UW deck. Player A is at 14 life, Player B is at 4 life. Player A is way ahead, with 5 creatures on board (all tapped), one of which is a Vulshok Replica, and also has a Trigon of Rage with 2 counters still on it (also tapped). Player B only has a Sky Eel School and lands in play.
Player A basically has this game on lockdown, as neither a blocker nor a removal spell will save Player B.
Player A then taps 3 of his remaining 4 untapped lands to play his last card in hand, a Strata Scythe, and passes the turn. Player B untaps, draws, then concedes.
I pointed out to Player A after the game how it was a mistake to tap out for the Strata Scythe, as he should have kept his mana open to possibly sacrifice the Vulshok Replica. The Scythe wasn’t needed to win the game, and missing out on the opportunity to sacrifice the replica could have cost him the game. Player B needed a huge play on the next turn to not lose, namely Sunblast Angel or Contagion Engine. In the case where the opponent had the Sunblast Angel, Player A would have been left with just a Trigon and a Scythe, and be losing the game. Player A did however still have Galvanic Blast and another Vulshok Replica in his deck, and so having his opponent at 1 life as opposed to 4 mattered a great deal (especially without Metalcraft, no cards in hand, and facing a two turn clock). At that point if Player A topdecked Galvanic Blast, he wins, whereas without getting the 3 extra damage in, he would lose the game.
Subtle and unlikely misplay, I know, but a misplay nonetheless.
My advice however was completely blown off. “The chances were so low. It was such a minor mistake, who cares? Whatever, I just used up a little extra mana.” The player took his win, learned nothing from the game, and went on his way.
This is the wrong kind of thinking when it comes to getting better at Magic. Players with this attitude are the kind of players who in the same situation, if they had been blown out by Sunblast Angel, would just complain about how lucky their opponent got and how much they hate bombs. In that situation too, they wouldn’t learn anything and would not get better at Magic.
There are few points to take from this story when it comes to improving your game.
No matter how minor something seems, it can still be the difference between winning and losing.
How do some players win so much? Because they give up as few opportunities to lose as they possibly can. Every edge, no matter how slight, adds up.
You should review, analyze, and try to learn from every game of Magic you play, not just the ones where you blatantly did something wrong.
I find when players win games they just smile about their win and forget it. The games you win handily are valuable learning experiences. The games you just barely win are valuable learning experiences. The games you just barely lose are valuable learning experiences. The games where you get blown out are valuable learning experiences.
When another player offers advice, or questions a move, no matter how slight, you should be thankful for the help and use the advice to help yourself improve.
Other players are a great resource to learn from. Often you won’t notice your own mistakes, and having another player spot them is a great way to identify ways that you could improve. A better player who is willing to help you improve your game is one of the best resources you could have, and is the best way to get better at the game. Even players you might think are worse than you can notice something you didn’t, or offer a unique perspective.
When I first started to learn to play limited, I would make a lot of mistakes. I was lucky to end up with a highly skilled draft group, and soaking up their lessons and discussing plays with them had a significant effect on improving my game. One excellent way to benefit from a good player’s knowledge is to draft on Magic Online together with the good player, fully discussing picks and plays as you go along. This will help you so much more than any amount of reading articles or just watching good players play ever will.
Note that the points I talked about here apply to all games, not just Magic. A while ago I was watching a mixed martial arts fight between UFC champion Georges St. Pierre (Editor’s note: GSP! GSP! GSP!) and the challenger Dan Hardy. GSP completely dominated the fight, not even coming close to losing a round. However, GSP could not get Dan Hardy to tap out due to a submission, and so the fight went to the judges, who scored the fight in favour of GSP. In his post-fight interview, GSP was not happy. He explained how even though he had won the fight, he had made mistakes, and that he should have been able to submit Dan Hardy. Despite being the UFC Champion, and successfully defending his title yet again, GSP was looking to improve. I guarantee this mindset is one of the reasons that he is the champion.
That’s all I have for now, and hopefully everyone got at least something out of this. By making picks that will actually benefit your deck, making optimal use of time to review your picks, and by always striving to make the optimal play, you will see an improvement in your long-term results.
– Paul MacKinnon
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.