Better Lucky Than Good: Why That's A Load Of Crap

Why are the professionals luckier than the amateurs? Are they just inherently lucky? Hell no. They're lucky because they MAKE THEIR OWN LUCK.  And with practice and skill, you can be just as lucky as the pros.

Picture the following quotes. You've probably heard them, or something exactly like them, before.

"Shit! I almost had him! How the hell did he topdeck a Lightning Bolt when I was on 3?"

"I was going to kill him in ONE TURN, and he drew the Wrath!"

"Lucky bastard drew two sweepers in a row and beat me."

(Sorry for the language to easily offended folks. As you may notice, people can get this way when discussing their losses.)

Now, if you'll bear with me for a moment, I'd like to show you a game where I got galactically lucky. Did I? Yes. Kind of.

I was playing Five-Color Control, my opponent Elf Combo. It's Round 4 of FNM: and in fact, this very game is featured in this article on the site.

Here's the text.

Game 1: He starts off with Nettle Sentinel, and I lay a couple of lands. He plays double Elvish Archdruid and I'm worried about him going off, but instead he bashes me for 11. I pray, and crack a Hallowed Burial off the top. He fights some more, but he's in topdeck mode and I play a Broodmate that gets there.


Pretty lucky huh? Sort of, but I neglected to mention some information.

Here's a rough idea of how the game went down. He laid some cards (including an Archdruid), I laid lands, and laid an EOT Plumeveil. He didn't attack. I laid a Mulldrifter. He drew and Pathed the Plumeveil and started beating down. I drew Cryptic Command, and tapped his guys next turn. I then drew a blank and he bashed me for 11. I drew Hallowed Burial, and played it.

Can you see anything here?

A) I played a Plumeveil at EOT to completely stop his attack.
B) If I'd played it during combat, I couldn't take time off to evoke Mulldrifter.
C) If I hadn't evoked Mulldrifter, I wouldn't have drawn Cryptic Command.
D) If I hadn't tapped his guys with Cryptic Command, I wouldn't have drawn Hallowed Burial.

So this lucky event was in fact, caused by a chain of events: WHICH WERE COMPLETELY DELIBERATE. I knew I needed the Hallowed Burial. I knew I needed to evoke Mulldrifter to increase my chances. I knew I had to play Plumeveil when I did.

And people say 'what a lucksack' and congratulate me on my pull. Now, let's look through our new eyes, and answer the statements from the beginning of the article.

"Shit! I almost had him! How the hell did he topdeck a Lightning Bolt when I was on 3?"

Answer: He manipulated the attacks to get you to 3. Maybe if you'd kept back an extra blocker or saved that Path for a turn or two, you'd be at 5, not 3, in the position to win.

"I was going to kill him in ONE TURN, and he drew the Wrath!"

Answer: See the match above. Maybe he MADE it happen, and you should pay attention to that.

"Lucky bastard drew two sweepers in a row and beat me."

Answer: This also happened to me: because I knew, through hard experience, that I had to use Maelstrom Pulse on Honor of the Pure. Had I not done that, I'd have died with useless Jund Charms in hand.

What's the key here?

Luck is rarely just luck. The more luck you consciously strive for, the more you'll get. Have you ever wondered why the pros get their third land drop when they keep a two-land hand? There's probably a host of variables that went unconsidered by the other guy. Here are some possibilities:

A) He knew the odds of drawing the land when he had to. He was right. Other people were wrong.

B) His deck could survive on two lands for a bit with the right cards: which were in his opening hand. Risk? What risk?

C) He's running 26 lands, not 25, because he knows the extra land may make the difference.

D) He's just lucky. Not to mention stupid, because you can't count on luck. And we all know that pros actually suck at Magic. That's why they win thousands of dollars by beating the crap out of people a lot better than you or me.

Which one is more likely? Somebody CAN get lucky, but people are not inherently lucky. Someone who gets lucky once is one thing. But if someone's just continuously lucky: maybe there's something else going on there. And maybe you can be lucky too: if you strove to make your own.

To conclude, here are some tips for maximizing your luck:

A) If you need a card, take every opportunity to draw that card. Side it in, draw more cards, stall the game, bluff your opponent, whatever will buy you that 5% chance of drawing it. If you don't, you would have lost anyway. If you're going to lose if you don't get that card, nothing else matters.

B) If you win unless your opponent has a card, play around it. If your opponent might have Plumeveil, don't swing with your 2/2 utility creature, just in case.

C) Deckbuilding. If you're unlucky, maybe your deck's flawed. Tweak it to get more of the cards you need, and less of the cards you don't. Tweak the manabase for optimal efficiency.

In conclusion, you have two choices. Either insist that people keep getting lucky against you, or accept that there may be something else at work, and make that part of your skillset. When you're open to being able to do more things with Magic, you improve. When you close your mind, you stagnate. And if I want to be a better player, I know which one I'll do.

Until next time, may you smile and nod when people exclaim how lucky you are.

5 Ways To Get Ahead Before A Rotation

Greetings readers. The Zendikar rotation is happening in a month, and is certain to shake up Standard. Almost all of the current archetypes will be thrown out the window, and those that aren't will still change. Thus, it's a perfect time to write an article I've been holding onto for a while: how to get ahead of the competition before a rotation.

1. Practice with a resilient deck.

A lot of people, after a rotation, will suddenly have to audible into a brand new, unproved, untested deck. If you can pick a deck, for example Jund, or Time Sieve Combo, that will remain relatively untouched by the rotation, and become familiar with it, you'll be like a shark among the minnows as they try to master their new decks while you use the one you've been familiar with for a month.

This is the precise reason I'm using Jund: only six non-land cards in it will actually be affected by the rotation, so I should easily be able to adjust it to the new metagame and the new card pool.

2. Keep up on the spoilers.

If you want to get an edge, you want to know what gets spoiled basically immediately. To that end, I advise subscribing to @mtgsalvation on Twitter, and checking the spoiler sites regularly. Twitter is a great place to find breaking news: I've only recently started using it, but it's quite useful already.

If you know the cards before the rotation actually happens, you'll be able to formulate a deck for when it does happen, continuing in the spirit of point 1.

3. See what people are saying about it.

Just by reading this you're on the right track to achieving point 3: finding out information. What are people thinking about the rotation? To that end, I suggest visiting Starcitygames.com, mtgsalvation.com, this blog, and any other Magic sites that have strategy articles several times a week. With the rotation looming large, that's what everyone will talk about, so plug into the flow of information.

4. Be aware of what will be lost.

Be aware of what decks will become unworkable. For example, Faeries, Elf Combo and Five-Color Control become impossible, since the core of each deck has been nuked with Lorwyn's departure. Blightning may survive, Jund and Time Sieve Combo will survive.

You also need to be aware of the metagame shift. For example, if Jund and Time Sieve are likely to appear in large numbers, how should you adjust your deck / sideboard for it?

5. Be prepared to adapt on the fly.

Lastly, the time after a rotation is a time of great flux. New decks will appear and become invalid by the day, so be prepared to change decks after the format settles down after a few weeks. You never know: new decks may pop up to make Jund utterly impossible in the new metagame, and White Soldiers may pop up and seize power. Be prepared to adapt to anything.

Until next time, may you be calm in a sea of confusion.