[Article] Deck Construction: Synergy

I was reading some thread the other day in which somebody mentioned that they could only find articles about strategy. They said, essentially, that not enough articles exist about deck construction. These types of articles are much harder to write, for a few obvious reasons that I'll state anyway:
1) Strategy begets deck construction. In other words, deck construction should be based around knowledge of the proper strategic theory, so, hypothetically, if one reads all the articles about strategy, one will learn proper deck construction anyway.
2) Deck construction is so different from deck to deck that it is difficult to write a general article. No blanket statements, such as "use X land," can be made about deck construction.

At the time I thought, "Okay, John (that's not actually my name, so I'm not sure exactly why I thought that), but certainly there are some principles of deck making that can be made into blanket statements." So I thought of one. Then I typed something for a while, and came up with what follows. I wouldn't really call it an article; it's more like a rambling sequence of ideas that happen to make sense (thus this topic deserves only the lower-case 'a' in the topic title). Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Vintage adepts (I’m using this as a description of your abilities, not your member level), I will not be telling you anything new in this article. It’s geared more towards newer players. Feel free to read it and give me comments, but if you don’t want to, then don’t waste your time.

   One of the most fundamental theories in Vintage is synergy. I don’t mean in Magic as a whole, but in Vintage, and here’s why: there are so many damn cards to choose from. That may not seem like a prophetic statement, but the implications of that sentence make Vintage by far the most interesting format with regards to the theory and the logic of deck construction. We have reached the point where cards are equally powerful. By this I do not mean that Healing Salve should be put on the same pedestal as Ancestral Recall. What I mean is that, with so many cards, the most powerful cards of each color are approximately equally powerful. The same is true for the most powerful cards of each type, the most powerful cards performing each function, or the most powerful cards of each casting cost. The point I’m trying to make is that, regardless of how you choose to sub-divide Magic cards into factions, the strengths and weaknesses of each faction are approximately equal to any other faction. This becomes less true the more you limit your card pool. Thus there is a cascade in equally divided power levels from Vintage to Type 1.5 to Extended to Standard to Limited.

   So why does this make Vintage the most interesting format for theorists? And why is synergy so much more important in Vintage than anywhere else? If we assume, as I am, that the largest possible card pool has its strongest cards spread fairly evenly, then the only thing that makes any one deck better than the next is synergy. As an example, fetch lands are not that good. They really just make one land take up the space of two cards in a deck, and they cost you a life to do so. Why did they fundamentally change Type 1? Because fetch lands get along really well with dual lands and with Brainstorm. The synergy of fetch lands put them in just about every deck existing in Type 1. (To be fair, fetch lands are an imperfect example. They are very good even without the synergy. However, they are amazing for their mana-stabilizing abilities and for their shuffling effects, not for their deck thinning, which would be their only benefit without that added synergy.)

   Now, don’t get the wrong impression here. I’m not saying that every card in a deck needs to be synergetic. Ancestral Recall certainly doesn’t need anything to add to its effects to make it better. It just is good. But I am saying that any deck with anti-synergetic cards is less than optimal. For an example, I once saw a little kid playing Oath. I thought he had net-decked it, until I saw him play a Yavimaya Elder. Rather than just blurt out some random insult to his intelligence, I asked him why he put it in the deck. He said he was having trouble with his mana and he couldn’t afford Tropical Islands or Moxen, so he figured he would use Elders to get the mana to play the Oath itself, then the Oath would turn up his fat, etc. I told him to take them out of the deck, pointing out the obvious anti-synergy. He told me it hadn’t happened yet, and he’d probably be fine. I saw him play about six or seven more games, and you can guess what happened in five of them.

   On that same night (this was at an open play thing the card store does; it’s not a tournament, it’s just a good time to trade and play a bunch of pickup games) I saw another guy playing a blue and black hand denial deck, using Arcane Denial instead of Counterspell because it was more splashable. That night, I saw poor deck construction lose so many more games than play mistakes. Or, to clarify, poor deck construction causes many play mistakes, and leads to situations in which it is possible to make more play mistakes. People, too often, quasi-net-deck. This is when you take a list from the internet that has been tested and perfected by people who have the time to do so, and then you change a few cards to suit your play style or your metagame. Interestingly enough, I have heard this advice so often given to newer players. The problem with simply changing an internet list is that, too often, the person changing the list doesn’t do enough of their own testing. Perhaps they don’t have the time or the resources, but for whatever reason they do not as fully understand the mechanics of how the deck’s cards work together as the creator of the deck does. It should be obvious why this leads to problems. If it’s not, look at the Oath example above, because that’s exactly what that kid did.

   Now, of course I’m not saying every card must be absolutely synergetic. Timetwister is played to good effect in some Welder decks, for example, without harming them. But which anti-synergetic cards are kosher is a decision that must be made carefully. Timetwister, for example, has an effect both so powerful and so irreplaceable that its anti-synergy can be forgiven. As a point of reference, this is analogous to the theory of risk vs. utility in products liability law, although it would be slightly modified. In Magic, anti-synergy vs. utility would state that a useful card’s lack of synergy can be forgiven if it is very powerful, but with the proviso that only the lack of synergy of the most powerful card that performs the needed task can be forgiven, and only if that card cannot be replaced with a more synergetic, equally powerful card. Thus replacing Lightning Bolt with Shock is unforgivable, while using Timetwister in Welder decks is forgivable.

   Thus far I have spent my time explaining the importance of synergy to those who don’t pay enough attention to it. But there are people who, knowing too well the importance of synergy, overdo it. For example, the first time I saw an Enchantress deck, I asked the guy on the other side of the table why there was only one Pursuit of Knowledge. Surely he would rather have more draw-7s (especially since he lacked power, as does just about everybody in my immediate area), and the synergy with Sylvan Library fascinated me. I had never seen Sylvan tricks before, and here was a guy not capitalizing on them as much as he could. His rebuttal was simple: “what would they accomplish?” He was right, of course. In the end, synergy does not supercede necessity. He needed other space in the deck for other cards more important, and he had a solid draw engine with Enchantresses, so why bother with added synergy? In the end, had he used up spots in such a tight deck for extra Pursuits, he would miss the opportunity to use something more productive. This is an idea slightly different than synergy. This is the idea of utility. The card drawing in Enchantress, for the most part, is part of a card drawing engine. That means that to make space for more Pursuits would mean to cut cards whose function in the deck is not drawing cards. This exchange of utility for the sake of synergy would weaken the deck overall. I see people doing this quite often, usually in the form of theme decks. People struggle to make a deck fit a theme, and in doing so weaken the deck, because they were too focused on the absoluteness of their card interactions. Synergy is important, but it cannot dictate the deck. The deck’s overall strategy must be its most important aspect. This further supports the anti-synergy vs. utility theory.

So, to recap for those of you who like to not read the whole thing:

1) In Type 1, synergy is G-d.
2) In taking a closer look, synergy is more like Captain Planet, while the highest utility to anti-synergy ratio is Gaea, and the highest utility to anti-synergy ratio while being irreplaceable by anything better is G-d; and my childhood was traumatized by the Captain Planet cartoon.
2) If this guy could count, he wouldn’t put (2) twice.
4) Don’t let the desire for synergy cloud your judgment while making deck construction decisions.