The Effects of Tier 2 Philosophy on Skill

I am playing the match Angelfire mirror. This is a fairly common deck with a very basic level (Compulsive Research, Wrath, Lightning Angel, Lightning Helix, Court Hussar, Signets, etc..) We are both at six life. I have three cards in hands, and none of us has any creatures. My opponent thirteen manna sources and three cards in his hand. He maintained an open blue in the last four or five laps, indicating my opponent that I have some sort of blue manna two instantly. My opponent is based, for its part, plays its fourteenth source of manna, and Demonfires me for six, planning to go on my right-back and do it again. [He has two Wraths in hand, so he can not go hellbent and kill me in that way.]

Stop for a minute here. This group is commonly referred to run four of Return as its sole counterspell-at least among the "netdecker" community. Is that my opponent skill expected this manna two costs a blue card that Remand? Should have thought of each such card in the rule and tried to play each (even if he knew all)? Or is the correct play only expect the obvious choice?

I do not really know, but I know that I played alongside the Odds Odds / / Ends, copied the Demonfire and sent him back to his face for the win. Is skill in deckbuilding process that I played Odds / / Ends Over Refund? Is skill that I made it clear that I had some card in his hand that could be Refund? Are Odds / / Ends even "play", or should be considered only a lucksack that won much lower in a card?

I do not think you can argue that calculating what is in the hands of your opponent is not part of the skill inherent in this game, like Poker. The difference is that in Poker you always know what 52 cards you are looking for. I do not know if I would say it's a problem, but this area of skills development is very disturbed by Wizards' new policy of "flooding the format with Tier 2 cards."

Perhaps the ability to speak here has changed. Perhaps the ability to concentrate on is not figuring out his hand, but instead of making subtle number and card so you can make changes as these works, fooling your opponent into a false conception of what is in your own hands. But you still want to know what is in his (or her).

In the past, netdecking for better or worse this simplified process for everyone. There was better covered with a more refined list and could count the number of Ode to Tourachs in their cemetery to see if it would be likely to be sustained in its wrath of God by once again without snagged away. Now, netdecking has only grown, but the typical magical player has every reason to sit down and say, "Maybe this second Bogardan Hellkite must Numot, Devastator." And I do not think you can easily say s / he 'd be Evil.

I do not want you to think that reject the Wizards' new policy here. Undoubtedly shakes and makes things players think for themselves, on their own plates and plates of their opponents. I want us as competitive players to think about how to deal with this new challenge to light, both in construction and in the platform game.


First, when building your deck, in a slot that now there is a sea of options for the card. My challenge to you is: Think For Yourself. If you are losing until after the anger and Spectral Forces Giant Solifuges but still want countermagic against blue control, perhaps Odds / / Ends actually exceed Prison for you. If you think it is more important to create the first laps and keep his hand stocked, Remand perhaps will be better. Only you can decide. I learned that this weekend at Angelfire my deck, and Teferi Boom / / Bust excess that were unnecessary in the matchups were designed to inefficiency and matchups where I wanted Hellkites and Demonfires. I do not learn from this Frank Karsten true that the excellent article on the upgrade of this group with Planar Chaos. This seems to be the primary objective of Wizards, in my opinion, with this new strategy tier two: netdecking is no longer enough.

As far as actual game, I think the best advice I can give is to calculate the hands of your opponent is not as important as it used to be. Step one is to think about what kind of things can happen, then close down as much as you can, then go with certain cards. In the example at the beginning of the article, the best thought process here is:
1. My opponent has clearly signaled that it has a blue two manna moment although it may be bluffing.
2. [Should I try to stop the game now?] My opponent has not shown any threats in the last shift, but he is constructing its part, and could easily kill me in one shift with the aim of making X creature or spell .
3. [My Demonfire received?] My Demonfire this in turn survive a Remand as well as a Mana Leak or Rune Snag. It is not going to survive an Odds / / Ends, and, indeed, you could lose in this scenario.

However, I think this makes it clear that my opponent made the right choice, given that he was going to kill me, which in turn. You may not have even thought of Odds / / Ends, but it is much less likely than the other three letters, and even then his work would have survived three out of four of these cards. You could argue his best game may have been emitted into the Wraths or at least one, and then go for hellbent next shift. In fact, what I like about this theory is that the hellbent Demonfire takes this discussion further, and only completely ignores the side of the opponent (with the hassle Commandeer exception). That play certainly strength in my hand to kill him now or face the obvious in the way hellbent Demonfire. But, in all honesty, had no reason to expect anything so closely resembling a "hard" against.

So perhaps the answer is always playing the worst possible scenario. Or perhaps the answer is a backup of a step. Maybe we should reconsider our deck construction so that it can ignore our only covered to a greater extent what our opponent is doing, or rather on the planning done. And perhaps this is a subtle instrument Wizards to keep aggro decks near the top in a control metagame, unprinted obvious powers such as Isamaru, Hound of Konda.

The purpose of my article is not to give answers, but the question to instill in his own mind: how can I cope with the effects of too many playables? I suspect that there is no answer, and I suspect that makes people Wizards R & D very happy.

By aldaryn