The Quest for Perfect Magic and My Extremely Fearful Magical Inventory

(Aside: There is a section in this blog where you, the reader, may think I’m making a humongous oversight by not going into detail more about the concept of plans and using plans to fight plans. Truthfully, I think plans go well beyond the scope of this post and deserve their own attention. Expect one of my next few articles to discuss that topic in full, from my perspective.)

I have never liked goldfishing outside of practicing mechanics of combo decks. What benefits does it really offer you when you just cast all your shit on curve and turn guys sideways against an empty board? That said, I want to propose a reason to rethink goldfishing, without even being sure whether or not the reason is even good enough.

What actually goes into playing perfect Magic? A commentator just asked Reid Duke if he had ever played a perfect game of Magic, and his response was something along the lines of “I played my tapped land and died on turn 2.” But, outside of that, what can possibly go wrong?

• Make the play that gives you the highest percentage chance of winning, based on multiple factors at the table
• Pick up on any information the opponent gives you, willingly or unwittingly.
• Sequence land drops and cantrips properly.
• Optimize facial expressions for all potential cards drawn to conceal or throw off information you would otherwise give away.
• Continue thinking when opponent is taking their turn or has priority.
• Other super obvious shit that I probably should have written here.
• All of the above, every turn of every game.

It should go without saying that Magic is literally one of the worst games for a perfectionist. And that doesn’t even cover the games you’re still going to lose even when you do things correctly. God forbid if you’re playing Modern. Obviously, the expectation of perfect play is a fool’s errand. But, if messing up anything on that list is consider an error, then YOU are the source of errors. Not tricky opponents or complex board states. You. Maybe some of those bullet points from above need to be incorporated into our goldfishing so that they are done automatically in every Magic situation. Trying to dwell on them is a waste of brainpower. Make the rote stuff automatic so you can focus on other things that matter.

Tournament Magic is actually several simultaneous two-person 1v2s, but you can help manage the mismatches by trying to bring one of the 1v2s as close to a 1v1 as possible. The first one is obvious: each player plays against an opponent and themselves. Why don’t we ever talk about improving on this axis? I’ve written previously (on FB) about how I’ve had to warp my game to minimize mistakes on my end. Here’s a brief summary of what I’ve done, for those who haven’t read about it before:

• Deck in upper left corner forces me to make awkward motion of reaching across body with right hand to draw cards. This also has the added benefit that my opponent watches me draw my cards, because clarity is good and cheating is bad. I personally avoid using my left hand for a reason that will come up later.
• KCI combo setup or graveyard splayed when playing a Snapcaster/EWit/other deck. Basically two different applications of same principle.
  • The physical mechanics of KCI require regular practice to trim down time spent going off. I usually want to spend some time goldfishing the deck on the day of tournaments, regardless of prestige, as well as one additional day per week when I have nothing to do. Twenty minutes, tops.
• Dice on top of deck for Pacts and Upkeep stuff, though I’ll often forego one for Inventors’ Fair and Inventors’ Fair only. This might be just because KCI is a fucking busted deck.
• I announce literally every game action and life total change. I’m not exaggerating when I say that literally every serious Magic player should probably be doing this already. I wish it were true.

Logically, if you reduce the number of errors you make, your first 1v2 should approach a 1v1. This brings us to the second 1v2: your cards versus your opponent and their cards (and the opposite: your opponent’s cards versus you and your cards). I could see some criticism for trying to turn what would be considered a 2v2 or even 1v1 into a 1v2, but hear me out: if you are supposed to be sequencing your own cards optimally, then why even bother considering your role in the match? Yes, your opponent can try to influence your decisions, but that should not theoretically matter in a world of close to tight play. Instead, we can focus on trying to neutralize our opponent’s cards or our opponent. And it’s a good thing that the ability to play the opponent exist, because sometimes you just get beaten up in a war of cards against cards (Modern: The Formatting). Winning a game that you were 20% or worse to win still counts as a won game. Here’s a breakdown of scenarios; reverse the roles as needed:

• Your cards in a particular game are significantly better than your opponent’s cards. Cards will naturally get traded with each other here, so your objective is to reduce your opponent’s outs to zero during the trades. This may occasionally involve taking a bad trade but as long as you choke them off outs, it should work out in your favor. Your opponent will be trying to fight you directly with their cards, though likely not very well. They need to avoid fighting your cards because they lose that fight. We need the clarity to see two different fights are going on.
• Your cards are slightly better than your opponent’s cards. You are ahead but not enough to win the game. The goal should be to use your cards against their cards to create a wide enough advantage like in the first scenario. This time, your opponent has more agency because they will probably be less forced into your desired lines. Often this means that their best winning chance is the classic low Elo chess tactic of complicating the position. If they are able to slow or completely stymie your ability to create distance, they won’t lose. If your opponent is a better player than you are, or their overall plan for the matchup is better than your plan, this can be incredibly problematic. The antidote for this poison pill is often card advantage; if you have card selection you may want to hold some of it for this phase to try and dig for card advantage. Even if you fall behind, card advantage gained from when you were ahead will help to fight against an opponent pressing their newly gained advantage.
• Your cards are even with your opponent’s cards. The most important part of this fight is figuring out when things are no longer even, OR, possibly even more importantly, figuring out when your opponent no longer believes things are even. Then it’s extremely important to assume the requisite position as quickly as possible. If your opponent is still playing like things are even, it may be theoretically advantageous to camouflage any existing imbalances when you’re behind.

We actually diverged a lot farther from where I wanted to be, so let’s get back on track. I originally wanted to write this post after several super cringe camera feature matches at my LGS. I even avoided watching one of them afterwards because I was so embarrassed by the whole charade. As a whole, I think some of my fears are dictating my Magic performance, so the least I can do for myself is name and shame them in a public forum. This allows me to present a riff on a classic, ten years in the making: my extremely fearful Magical Inventory of Fears.¹

• Presence, or at least how I think I’m projecting myself: I think I am probably one of the wooooooooooorst people to play against, just in terms of general frustration, and that stammer I made worse from my car accident several years ago is CERTAINLY not helping the situation.
  • Related, as weird, slightly aggro, and seemingly out of place as this sounds, I need to provide some character development here. I don’t really enjoy playing against people similar to me. I know I’m kinda spergy and need someone else to bounce off of in conversation, even if strictly about our gameplay. I guess it’s also just a reflection of me seeing how undesirable I am for my Magic commentary dream job.²
• I’m afraid I’m going to stop thinking on my opponent’s turn. This usually results in spending energy that results in errors somewhere else, or, god forbid, actually forgetting to think on my opponent’s turn.
• I am usually shaking under the table at every Competitive REL event I’m playing in. I also generate so much sweat that deodorant clearly begins to lose its luster for me. These are things I generally cannot ignore.
• I’m afraid I won’t be able to truly pick up the pieces from my car accident. The biggest setback I’ve noticed is that it greatly inhibits my ability to play Amulet without making tons of mistakes. It turns out that a deck that requires playing several turns ahead with multiple exact, unique effects needing to be in exact, specific zones at all times, with no room for errors anymore, is not in my best interest at this juncture. Before the Summer Bloom ban, you actually had this secretly insane safety net where a post-Titan Summer Bloom could help get the requisite lands back onto the table after being picked up by bouncelands.³
• I’m afraid of physically dropping cards during play. This sounds really, really shallow of me, but hear me out. As a Magic commentary wannabe, I care about the presentation of the game. Therefore, it shouldn’t really be a stretch for me to prioritize crisp, efficient game actions. I also do not want to convey inexperience or incompetence to spectators. You look sharp, you play sharp.⁴ This is the reason why I don’t use my left hand for drawing cards.
• I have a really bad case of MTGO anxiety. I didn’t play a lot of MTGO during my college years. I was broke and my computer could barely handle the client. Let the record show that Pauper 8-post mirrors are extremely unfun when your computer lags ten seconds on nearly every game action. Similarly, I had an awful bout of ranked anxiety when it came to League of Legends. But ranked anxiety went away with time and gameplay and MTGO anxiety… never did. Even when I was renting cards, I hated logging on. I’m going to need to do something about this if I need to start aggressively playtesting Modern again.
• I still can’t seem to escape the thought that my previous good results were in soft fields where I was probably the most prepared player in the room. Even during my 17-2-2 run with Splinter Twin, I had the best 75 out there⁵ and probably the most experience in both rooms with boarding out the entire Twin combo. But the PTQ Top 4 from that run was during the weekend of an Eastern US Modern GP and there were some important names not in attendance at that PTQ (Wescoe, notably). The States win was a stacked Top 8, though. My quarterfinals and finals opponents each have a GP Top 8 now, my PTQ top 4 opponent made the cut as well, and so did Joe Bernal. Shout-out to having to play in the last round of Swiss and getting that crucial first seed.
• I’m still worried about my own pace of play. I am supposed to play reasonably fast to mitigate the massive downsides of my awful short-term memory, but sometimes I get tied up and then I just tank forever. On top of that, I know that opponents could try to take advantage of me by playing slowly themselves. There was a period where I was playing extremely quickly, but I think I lost some confidence that I never regained. My goal would be to get back to how quickly I could play the old standard UW Cycling deck, where I was probably playing slightly slower than Shouta Yasooka’s speed at my peak.

I’m seriously considering busting out a mirror and playing decks out in front of it. I want to see what others see. I need to be unashamed of how I play Magic. I mean, why should I be ashamed? I can play decks well without a lick of playtesting, my winrate is usually above average, and I’m not a dirty fucking cheater. And I’m actually good, some percentage of the time! Maybe I need a little “MTG body positivity” in my life.

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1. This post is sponsored by the Department of Redundancy Department.

2. One of my favorite things to do is half-seriously, half-performatively dagger myself for my opponent. This was basically my GP Richmond trip in a nutshell. In my last round of the event, I lost a game because I put 3 cards back with a Brainstorm and couldn’t combo off as a result. Upon further review, this was actually just a massive sequencing error and I lost an absurd amount of dagger equity by not being able to tell my first seven opponents about it.

3. Turn 2 kills were also a safety net, because sometimes the big brain genius deck needed to cough up a freebie.

4. I’m suiting up for the next Comp REL event I play. Who’s in?

5. In hindsight, that 75 was at least one card off because it only played 3 Snapcasters. But it was Lukas Blohon’s list, and I wasn’t going to be the one to change any of his cards.