Scott McCord is a former professional Magic player who made the Top 4 of Pro Tour Boston as a member of Slay, Pillage, Gerard with Jon Sonne and Gerard Fabiano. He also has reached the Top 8 twice in Grand Prix competition. He sits in 80th place in Total rating and has made infrequent Pro Tour appearances on that basis. He is also a long time friend of the Top8Magic crew and one of the best Limited players I have had to good fortune to play with and against over the years.

Despite a career that involves working with words and possessing formidable Magic skills, Scott has written very rarely about the game. If you have ever watched someone better than you play a game of Magic and wondered why they made the decisions that they did, this article should provide some illumination into the higher level thinking that goes on in a game of Magic. It certainly did for me.

Material Possessions

I’m sitting around watching a draft game recently between a couple of friends.  One of them, Steve, is playing a u/b deck and has just tapped uubb for a 3/2 flier.  His opponent, Mark, is running r/w and attacking with a 2/2 flier.  Steve declines to block and falls to 16.  Mark plays a 3/3 and passes.

“Steve, why didn’t you block?” I ask.

“Pretty simple, I think; he’s got a 2/2 and my guy’s better,” he says.  “But thanks for the advice; I hear you’re the ninth-best player by rating in the world.”

“I’m not even the ninth-best player in this conversation.”

“Sad but true.”

I’m looking at Steve’s six-card hand.  He holds Living Tsunami, 2 Mysteries of the Deep, Bog Tatters, Bojunka Brigand, and Whiplash Trap.

Why should Steve have traded his 3/2 for a 2/2?  The answer comes from a concept gleaned from chess: material vs. time.

In chess, aggressive players will frequently sacrifice pieces in order to gain positional advantage for a decisive attack.  The last thing the aggressor wants to do is trade straight up without improving position, because doing so nullifies the sacrifice and gives him fewer tools with which to win the game.  Magic often works the same way.  The attacker has time; that is, positional momentum.  The defender has material resources.  Trading material decelerates the game and allows a material advantage to cancel a temporary time advantage.

In this case, Steve has a lot of potential material (the creatures and card advantage in his hand), but not a lot of time (his life total, lack of defense, a potential land shortage).  He should be looking to trade creatures so that his cards in hand can take effect; Mark should be looking to avoid trading while pushing as much damage as possible.  In other words, Steve should strive to make material advantage, and not time advantage, the game’s deciding factor.

Let’s examine some reasons and situations to consider when choosing whether or not to block: Read the rest of this entry »