#12 Hate

Magic players love hate.

(yes, you read that right)

They love hate because hate often reinforces what a person actually loves. The word reinforce is important because it makes the love stronger than what it was before without any hate mixed in.

Even if a Magic player doesn't fully realize how hate isn't in opposition to the things he loves, the game itself has many aspects that naturally clue him in along the way.

For instance, there exists a scheme of ally and enemy colors, where the color Blue philosophically loves White and Black, and hates Red and Green.

Fundamentally however, the supposed hate can actually create some of the most beautiful, loved cards.

This seemingly odd duality was hinted earlier in three previous posts, notably how a player who hates a certain archetype of Magic can still "love" it, loving when he trumps and gets the last laugh.

A further extension is how the archetypes can blend together to create a reinforced, stronger hybrid. An aggro deck by its very nature hates a fast, non interactive combo deck, but might love combo when it works a combo of its own. A quick example is how Goblins, a notorious tribe for all out aggression, worked with Food Chain to add a "sudden death" element to a strategy that already had a fast clock.



Switching gears from this broader concept to a more practical one, hate is often used by Magic players with a specific meaning in mind.

Players often look at what their opponents might be playing at a given time (or merely are guessing) and select certain hate cards or hate strategies to get an edge. Hypothetically, if tons of decks center around a few important artifacts, then a Magic player might add some hate cards that destroy artifacts in his preparation.

Hate gets a lot more of the spotlight than love, because it is easier to hate. Movie reviews are more exciting and entertaining when the critic hates the movie, the gloves are off. Magic players are no different, able to instantly dismiss a hated card, a hated format, a hated color.

Upon closer inspection however, hate shares the spotlight equally with love in a healthy, reinforced view of the world. This is the same way how hate cards may keep a format healthy from degenerate strategies that ruin the game of Magic, which is why Magic players love hate.

2010 09/03 Daily Event

So with the 2nd and 4th ThNM's for September being M11 Limited, I wanted to pick up some packs to be ready without having to break out the bankroll. I decided to take an average version of Sun Titan W/U Control to a Daily Event:



I ended up 2-1, splitting the last round for 3 packs, which worked out because real life came in abruptly and I probably wouldn't have been able to play the last round anyway.

As much as I was used to playing the "tapout" style and Conscription angle, this is definitely the more consistent W/U archetype, which will very likely still be a contender in Standard for the next year.

I tried out 2 small things, which I'm not entirely sold on, Capsule and Treasure Hunt/Halimar Depths/big Jace. I can't remember doing anything amazing with these additions (Sun Titan always seemed to recur Jace or Tectonic) and I boarded out Treasure Hunt a lot. Maybe if I had more than 1 big Jace there would've been a difference, but I don't so I can't make an accurate call.

The sideboard isn't really out of the ordinary, except maybe the Mindlock Orbs. I wanted to see if it would give me more of an edge against Valakut ramping instead of walking a Flashfreeze right into a Summoning Trap.

Round 3 Game 1, Win

The raw power of Jund is still in its prime. There's not many ways to recover from Triple Blightning, turn after turn, 3 turns in a row.. but I lucked out and drew 3 consecutive counters for my turns.







Round 3 Game 2, Win

I've read various sideboarding tips against Jund, and a lot of the times it's suggested that you take out copies of big Jace because he's not going to survive at all. I wish I could try this suggestion out, but since I only have 1, it seems like shooting myself in my own foot.

Then this happened, which I think was the turning point after the Jund player got to a very aggressive start with Putrid Leech and Sprouting:



He went for the gusto, attacking me instead of Jace or splitting the attack. Maybe it was the open Plains thinking Path (I didn't have one), maybe it was because he had Duress'd earlier and didn't take my Kor Firewalker seriously, who knows.

All I know is that big Jace stuck around for awhile, I got to bounce his Leech a few times, and hold off his Sprouting with a Firewalker long enough until Sun Titan came down. From there I just regained control.



As I mentioned earlier, I split Round 4. Hopefully the next DE I end up playing I'll have the time to actually try and finish for that legit 3-1 record.

M11 draft for this week's ThNM! I'm terrible at draft but the packs were "free" so to speak and I still need a playset of the promo.

#11 Combo

Magic players love combo.

They love combo because combo transforms something as mundane as "the rules of the game" into something awesome like "this game rules."

All games have rules that players can either agree upon and/or some third party will enforce. This is because rules are important and bring legitimacy to who won or lost the game. Without rules, the majority of time spent playing a game would be spent on arguing instead.

For Magic players, combo is a very natural appeal for 2 very strong reasons.

The first, because Magic cards by themselves are mostly unimpressive pieces of cardboard, the next logical progression is combining unimpressive pieces of cardboard with others. This act alone, combining, is dictated by the game itself.

The second, is that every player at some point had to learn the rules. They had to deal with "no, you can't do that" and "it really works like this" and so on. Learning the rules doesn't make a Magic player all of a sudden a success overnight, but it's definitely one of the foundation stones. Even seasoned players still spend time on rules, as seen in many Judge articles and columns that explore all possibilities of card interaction.

Both of these reasons combine together and make combo what it is. In essence, combo players don't want to simply play according to the rules of the game, they want to rule the gameplay itself.

The rules say a player may only play 1 land a turn, so a combo player seeks a combination of cards that say otherwise. The rules say a player may only untap cards once, so a combo player seeks cards that interact in a way that gives the finger to that rule.



Just because a player may not love combo strategies, doesn't mean that they may not love throwing a monkey wrench into another combo player's pipe dream.

Combo is notorious for ignoring aggro decks and racing to find certain, so an aggro player might love attacking the ability to even find the combo. Combo has always been wary of control decks, so a control player might love disrupting that key play that leaves the combo deck nothing but a pile of unimpressive pieces of cardboard.

Because combo exists, it can be said that there is both a game of Magic and a Game of magic. One will make a player adhere to rules and terms to win, while the other will make a player win over the rules on his terms. The best part is that both games aren't mutually exclusive, it's often a one-two punch, which is why Magic players love combo.