April 10, 2020
hamartia – noun : a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine
Every parent (at least the non-psychotic ones) wants their children to beat them at games (until a certain age, at least.) I’m included in that group.
To be fair, I root for the Dallas Cowboys and frequently eat canned soup for breakfast, so my fitness as a parent can undoubtedly be questioned. I may not be a good model of acceptable behavior.
But I have always enjoyed being stomped by my son at Magic.
And why not? He has a blast, he doesn’t experience that “I’ll never win!” feeling when playing an opponent with superior skill, and he’s more likely to stick with the game. Thankfully the kid has a wonderful attitude about winning and losing, at least thus far. He certainly likes to win, and has a respectable competitive drive. But he’s never been a bad loser, even in his younger days when I repeatedly beat him at Mario Kart. Sadly, he’s since learned to drift (I’ve never quite mastered that tactic) and he’s now virtually unbeatable. I don’t mind eating his dust repeatedly, though having to hear King Boo’s mocking laughter when I lose does grate a bit.
The kid certainly holds his own with Magic. We always duel with decks that are relatively balanced – sealed concoctions, Guild Kits, or even the despised Planeswalker decks. To say the kid has picked up the nuances of the game far faster than I did would be a massive understatement. To be fair, I helped teach him strategy when he was beginning, while I had no mentor when I started.
And the kid knows what he likes. Gruul (or red/green if you’re someone that objects to color combinations automatically being labeled with Ravnica guild names) was his go-to choice early on. I had to prod him to branch out and try other combinations, and he is far more willing to do that now. But he defaults back to Gruul when possible – big but aggressive creatures married to effective removal.
So it was with his Amonkhet sealed deck. I’ve yet to see what he opened but didn’t play, but I doubt it could have functioned better than the red/green deck he built from his 6 packs. He still made a few questionable deckbuilding choices, like including Chandra’s Defeat in his deck “in case I played red (I didn’t).” He also wasn’t sure why Cycling was good, until I explained its usefulness.
But the kid knows what makes for a solid sealed deck – a good range of creatures and lots of removal. If I’ve drilled nothing else into his brain, he knows to have ample removal, which is likely why red is a staple in most every deck he builds or chooses to play.
We played 3 games with our Amonkhet-block sealed deck, and he won all 3. Two were utter blowouts. I felt my deck was reasonably strong before we started, but am now forced to reconsider. Let’s see if I can pinpoint what went wrong.
What I played:
Simic (blue/green) critter smorgasbord. It’s startling to see how differently this color combination plays compared to current Simic Flash (or even Simic Ramp) decks that are (reasonably) strong in Standard. Granted, I’m playing from a sealed pool with mostly commons, and have no idea what Amonkhet-era Standard was like. But I doubt Simic saw play.
Lesson #1: Take My Own Damn Advice
After months stressing to my son the importance of removal, I built my deck with almost no removal. I have two copies of Illusory Wrappings and one Cartouche of Strength. So two enchantments that turn creatures into 0/2s but leave them with their abilities, and one enchantment that allows my own creature to fight one of my opponent’s creatures. That’s it. I don’t even have any bounce spells, and only a single combat trick.
I’d ask what I was thinking, trying to win with this pile ‘o drek, but I know what I was thinking…
See planeswalker, play planeswalker.
Thus my second lesson:
Lesson #2: Resist the Siren Song of Cool Mythics
Your sealed pool contains a planeswalker. Of course you want to play it! What’s wrong with that?
Nothing, if it’s in a color or colors with strong supporting cards.
Nissa, Steward of Elements looks like lots of fun, with a unique take on planeswalker loyalty. And green had, by far, the best set of creatures in my sealed pool. Taking that creature base and adding blue so I can play Nissa seems reasonable.
Except the resulting deck just isn’t good. All threats, no answers. Pushing myself into blue was ill-advised. With green as my source of creatures/threats, my secondary color needed to offer up something I didn’t have in green – namely removal, in this instance.
I decided to look at my other colors to see if they’d have paired well with my green creature base. Here’s what I had:
White: of my 13 white cards, 10 are creatures, 1 is a token doubler, and 2 are combat tricks. Nothing useful here.
Black: the color long associated with being “the removal color”, I am shocked by what I opened. Of my 12 black cards 7 are creatures (all mediocre and small), 2 combat tricks, a discard spell, an aura that can give an opponent’s creature a -1/-1 counter, and Doomfall.
Doomfall can either work as targeted hand disruption, or a removal spell that allows the opponent to choose what to exile. So it’s…fine.
Anywayhow, black clearly had little on offer. That leaves…
Red: of the 15 red cards I opened 9 are a decent range of creatures, 2 are combat tricks, 1 is card draw, 1 is a color hoser, and 2 are acceptable (if not spectacular) removal. While not impressive, red looks like the best choice to pair with my green critters.
But…but what about Nissa? Welcome to…
Lesson #3: Splash for Bombs
Why I didn’t consider playing red/green with a blue splash eludes me. Especially that not only could I have splashed for Nissa, but I could have added this beautiful monstrosity to the deck:
I’d love to say my mistakes are due to being a new player that was blinded by the desire to play a planeswalker in my sealed deck. But we all know that would not be true.
I’m an enfranchised player that was blinded by the desire to play a planeswalker in my sealed deck.
There are undoubtedly additional lessons I should have learned but failed to. I’m sure we’ll get to those in a future article.
Next time: thoughts on Ikoria: Lair of Brushwaggs and my predictions about what I’ll likely open and/or play when the set releases on Arena and in paper.
Casual Magicking 