‘Ello ladles and jellyspoons! It’s raining outside and I’m on a writing rampage. I have a stack of chicken scratch scribbled down notes I’ve made in the past on game notes, lessons learned, and theoretical concepts for my articles. Today’s conglomeration focuses on something as simple as 1 life point.
Before I get into my main topic I have a little story to tell. If you follow me on Facebook you already know that I also play tournament paintball. A few years ago some friends and I were playing in a 5-man open event near Portland, Oregon and well our round 3 opponents were a bunch of 12-year-olds. Going into game 1 we underestimated their skill level and took it easy on them. Mistake. They rolled us. Dazed and confused we decided to stop messing around and step it up a notch. They rolled us again! We didn’t make it into finals that day. Moral of the story: Never underestimate your opponent(s).
Magic is no different. I don’t care if it’s an 80-year-old man pushing one of those walker things with the tennis balls on the end of the legs you see scooting around the grocery store or if it’s some 9-year-old little kid with greasy Cheeto® licking little fingers: Never underestimate your opponent. Show no mercy. And be ruthless. At a competitive level you learn nothing and you teach nothing by taking it easy on someone.
*Now obviously if you’re trying to teach someone how to play Magic for the first time you need to let the game last long enough for them to familiarize themselves with the phases and mechanics…*
I started taking note of how many times something so simple could determine the outcome of a game. A few months ago while I was at GP Madison I played in a Modern Madness side event. I was in the top eight playing pre-ren6 Jund and my opponent was playing GDS. We were 1-1 playing game 3 and they announced time in round. I can’t recall every intimate detail leading up to this pivotal moment but it boiled down to: I had a Rakdos Charm in hand, my opponent was at 3 life, and he had two dudes on board. At this point a small crowd had gathered to watch our grindy game play out. Something happens and my opponent plays a third dude that would have been lethal if he were to alpha strike me the following turn. I slam Rakdos Charm announcing the “Each creature deals 1 damage to its controller.” mode in response to his third dude’s ETB (not that it mattered…) expecting it to eat a Stubborn Denial. My opponent looks at my card, looks at his board state, counts his dudes, looks back at my card, checks his life total, realizes what’s going on, and extends his hand in defeat. That 1 life point determined the winner of that game. I later got 2-0’ed by Whir Prison and the Karn + Lattice combo the following round 😢 lol.
The other night at Chaos Draft I made note of a hella clutch play against my round 1 opponent. It was game 2 and I had won game 1. I had my opponent at 8 life and they started to stabilize by playing big butt fliers and stymieing my attack. My opponent casts a Windfall (pulled from an Iconic Masters pack 👍) causing me to discard my three cards drawing a land, Become Immense, and Ghor-Clan Wrecker. I slam the Wrecker choosing to give it haste, it goes unblocked, and I delve 5 casting Become Immense for lethal. 8 damage exactsies 👌. I would have died to fliers the next turn had the stars not aligned.
And lastly, I’m reminded by an empty premium promo pack wrapper that, “winning’s winning,” after I went 3-0 at a M20 draft a few weeks ago. I drafted RW Aggro going 2-0 round 1, 1-0-1 round 2, and 2-1 round 3. Round 2 is what I want to talk about. I beat some kid’s mom. Yep. You read that right. This kid plays Commander all the time and brought his mom to draft. *To be fair she too plays Commander every weekend and plays Arena on a daily basis so she is no slouch by any means.* (Goes back to what I said previously, never underestimate your opponent!) I won game 1 and we went to game 2. It looked like I had her against the ropes but before I could put the nail in the coffin she was able to stabilize by casting Soul Salvage getting back Bishop of Wings and Dawning Angel. She probably would have won game 2 had we not gone to time and started the 5 turn count down. I already had game 1 in the bag and there was no reason for me to throw game 2 by attacking with my 1/1s into her bigger dudes. At that point she had already gained 8 life twice and I had to break out a second note pad to keep track of her life total. I was still at 17 life and there was no way she could kill me in 3 turns. So all I had to do was take my foot off the gas, play passive, pass the turn twice, and I’d win. It’s not the glorious 2-0 victory that I wanted from my blazing fast RW aggro deck that I drafted but it’s a win none the less. At the end of the night I got 1st place because the person who got 2nd went 1-1-1 in their round 2. That 1 match point (I think it’s 2 points technically but still…) determined who took 1st and who didn’t.
Welp, thanks for tuning in for another installment in my Magic theory collection. By now I hope you all don’t think that I’m some cold hard emotionless tournament grinding robot hellbent on just winning. I know it has been the subject of many of my recent theory articles and I’ve talked about it a lot but I assure you I will be focusing on other aspects of the game in the future. I’m excited to do a follow up on my “arsenal” piece I first did as well as a couple of fun deck primers.
Thanks for reading! 🤗
And as always, if you’re in the market for some snazzy new sleeves be sure to cruise on over to the shop and use my discount code MADMAGIC for 15% off on your next purchase.
