Clutch Performers

[Ric_Flair]

I am a huge fan of baseball.  HUGE.  Awhile ago in the Journal for Baseball Research, the leading baseball publication, there was a debate about whether players had the ability to hit in the clutch.  That is, if there were certain players that excelled in clutch situations but did not do as well in non-clutch situations.  The debate was not conclusively decided, in my opinion.  They claimed that there was no such thing as a clutch performer.

I have a hunch that, unlike in baseball, there are cards like this in Magic.  That is, there are cards that perform much better in situations of player parity or near parity than they do otherwise.  That is, these cards are especially game breaking.  The problem here is threefold: first, the restricted cards, almost by definition are all game breaking, second, some cards that are not restricted work well in an artificial parity situation, that is, the beginning of the game but are awful otherwise, and third the symmetrical cards, like Wrath of God, give the illusion of being parity breaking cards, but are not.  

Before I go on, let me define parity.  Parity here has its normal English usage.  It basically means a game state of rough equivalence between two players.  However this is calculated and when this is achieved is beyond the scope of this thread.  The fact remains, regardless of what theories get you there, that there are times in Magic when the game is essentially tied.  The player that has the best cards, deck, luck, and playskill from this time until the end of the game is invariably the winner.

Here are some examples to flesh out what I am saying.  Ancestral Recall is always game breaking.  Because of its cost and power it is inherently going to affect the parity of the game, but it always does this.  Granted sometimes it draws better cards than others, but it is always good.  Most of the restricted cards are like this.  The only difference being one of degree and not kind between the most powerful and least powerful restricted card.  This is the first class of cards excluded:  restricted cards.  

But there is another problem, represented by cards like Daze and Hymn to Tourach.  They are fantastic at breaking the artificial parity that exists at the beginning of the game, but this is not what I am looking at.  They are good cards, but they do not exhibit the traits of the cards I am looking for.  They are good early and only early (barring some unusual circumstances).  Clutch cards are good any time there is parity.  In fact they are especially good when there is parity.

Finally there is the issue of symmetrical cards.  These also do not qualify because almost by definition what would seem like symmetrical effects, because of deck design, is not.  Take Wrath of God for instance.  In most decks that use Wrath, T2 decks, the deck is creature light so that, in fact, there is no relative parity as seen from the perspective of an observer without the knowledge of either player.  The Wrath player has no or few creatures while the other player has many.  The Wrath, from the unknowing observer, would seem to equalize the playing field, returning things to parity.  But in reality it, Wrath is good because one person's actual resources (creatures in play) are more susceptible to Wrath than the other player's resources (cards in hand).  So Wrath works when there is actually factors in favor of one player that the other player does not know about.  That is, Wrath is a non-parity exploiting card.  It works because it exacerbates the non-parity in the game that has been up to that point "hidden."

One of the problems that I am trying to get at in this inquiry is the practical value of cards.  Force of Will has stymied people for a while.  It doesn't, in theory, seem good, but damn if it doesn't win games.  We recognize now that the tempo boost is a big part of the power of Force of Will, but in reality I think there is still something unaccounted for in this analysis.  Force of Will is the epitome of tempo gain and clutch performance.  Looking back on a series of match notes I noticed that Force of Will was in my had 18 of 23 games that I won.  That is staggering.  Force of Will has the ability to cripple one player at a crucial moment in the game, when the parity of the situation would otherwise shift dramatically.    When the game is neck and neck and either player could win the next turn, there is no other card in the game that I would rather draw or have in my hand than Force of Will.  It is the essential clutch performer.

Other cards come to mind:  Survival of the Fittest can absolutely wreck a TnT opponent.  Similarly with Goblin Welder.  Duress and Cabal Therapy are among the best cards at any point in the game and are especially good in parity situations because they negate an opponent's best card in hand.  Counterspells are usually good, by definition, as clutch performers, but there are other cards.

Here are my questions:

1) Do you agree with this analysis?

2) Are there clutch cards?

3) Does knowing which cards are clutch cards help you build and play decks better?

4) What other cards are clutch performers?

5) How do clutch performers impact the performance of a given deck, that is, do more clutch performers make a deck better or is there a principle of diminishing returns at work providing an upper limit?

6) Is there a workable definition/formula for finding cards that are clutch performers or is it too metagame dependent?

[cssamerican]

Clutch cards by definition are control cards. Not necessarily counterspells, but always controlling in nature. One example of this would be Swords to Plowshare. The reason this is true is because for a card to have an effect in a "clutch situation" it must be stopping something bad from happening. Now gamebreaking cards are different from clutch cards. Gamebreaking cards are cards that break the game open and are responsible for you being able to win, because of the nature of Magic most of these are draw cards. Example of this would be Yawgmoth’s Will or Yawgmoth’ Bargain. And as you alluded to Ancestral Recall would probably be in this category, it is just not as obvious in most case as the two most ganebreaking cards in Magic.
I do not think there can be a workable definition, but in general it is common sense. And I think every good player takes this into account already, but we really do not put into those terms. An example of this is, I need to put Force of Will into my deck so I can stop some retarded play that can make me lose in a turn. Or I need card drawing power so I can have an (Gamebreaking) engine in my deck.

[Dr. Sylvan]

1) Do you agree with this analysis?

I think I see what you're aiming at, but I don't think there is such a thing as parity outside the mirror match, and even then infrequently. To me, parity indicates (1) very close mana development, (2) similar board position, (3) similar hand size. If any of those has a significant difference, it can't be parity. Probably a notion that few would agree with is that the mana development is only close if it is a similar color and land/artifact mix--not just similar quantity. If it's not a similar color mix or card type mix, then that means that giving each player the same solution card would be dramatically different (e.g., Wasteland wouldn't matter to one player against a board of Islands, but Gorilla Shaman would be The Bomb against a slate of Moxen). So I see this essentially only happening in mirror matches when things are proceeding very evenly.

I didn't agree with the bit about Cabal Therapy and Duress being good at any time in the game; that ignores tempo considerations. A situation-breaker varies in potency with how efficiently it uses your mana, so these are extremely broken earlier compared to later in the course of a game.

2) Are there clutch cards?

I think, since parity is sort of a red herring, that "clutch" cards are really "come from behind" cards. Since you clearly don't mean cards like Balance, we'll call "clutches" a subset of "recovery" cards that are specifically asymmetrical. Force of Will and Duress are certainly examples of this category, whereas something like a Draw-7 is not.

3) Does knowing which cards are clutch cards help you build and play decks better?

Yes. Picking asymmetrical or symmetrical cards allows you to specifically abuse certain symmetries as much as possible.

4) What other cards are clutch performers?

Tutors and major one-sided drawing. Card advantage breaks parity in your favor. Spot removal is analogous to counters, and also falls in this category. Taking out a specific problem opens the situation for you to win, particularly when your solutions gain you tempo.

5) How do clutch performers impact the performance of a given deck, that is, do more clutch performers make a deck better or is there a principle of diminishing returns at work providing an upper limit?

Keeper is a case study in this. Basically any thread on the balance of different sections of Keeper lists will add something to this question.

6) Is there a workable definition/formula for finding cards that are clutch performers or is it too metagame dependent?

I think cards are objectively classifiable as "asymmetrical" and "solutions", so that's what I'm thinking of as "clutch" cards.

[Ric_Flair]

Clutch cards by definition are control cards. Not necessarily counterspells, but always controlling in nature.

I am not sure if I communicated what I was trying to say properly.  While hard counterspells can certainly be clutch performers, this is not the the entire class of cards I was looking for, nor were simple control cards, like STP, as you alluded to.  Countering a Sinkhole in the late game rarely is a winning play.

Two of the primary cards I was thinking of were Survival and Welder.  In a close game with a Workshop deck, Welder is such a pivotal card.  Mostly likely, resolving and successfully using a Welder in a close game will make sure that you win.  Survival is much the same way, though it is a control tool in some respects.  

I hope that clarifies what I am looking for.  Thanks for the input.

[Jhaggs]

Cool topic Ric_Flair.  I'm a huge baseball fan as well.  Huge.  During the season I actually keep score for FOX sports at PacBell Park for natioanlly televised games.    If you are interested in additional information about calculating "clutch-ness" do yourself a favor and by the book "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis.  Outside of David Halberstam, it is the greatest book on baseball ever written.  Plus its great for people who enjoy numbers in general.

Here is a link to a great review of the book:  

http://www.langsamstevens.com/moneyball_review.htm

The review touches on how a small group of gm's and assistants revolutionized the economics of baseball as well as how the game should be played.  They COMPLETELY debunked 100 years of tradition through a mathmatical and statistical breakdown of how the game is really won.  They used math/logic/"real stats" to supersede "gut" feelings.  

In relation to your post, Billy Beane (main charater in the book) disproves the notion of "clutch".  He sites numerous equations and analysis to prove the clutch is non-exsistant.  However, when asked about post-season play and why Oakland has lost in the past, Beane chalks it up to luck and says that his job is only  to get the team into the playoffs and that anything can happen in a 5 game serious.  Beane's track record is amazing.  The Giants, Redsox, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Padres, and many others are virtual blue prints of each other.  [/end rant]

Moneyball changed how I looked at baseball BUT I still buy into the notion of clutch performers.  Certain players perform better under intense situations just like certain cards can perform better under "intense situations".  For magic, I think a clutch card must be able to perfrom a variety of functions to match the multitude of senarios that this game can throw at you.  My clutch card is Brainstorm.

Brainstorm can be used to grab land, protect cards from duress, help shuffle your library with a fetchland, search for a counterspell at instant speed, it is blue and 1cc, is almost always great to see it in your hand, and many others.

EDIT:  In baseball, you can have numerous clutch situations like a Clutch bunt, or clutch out, a clutch hit, a clutch sac fly.

Because if its numerous functions, Brainstorm is played for so many different reasons making it operational in many more "clutch-needed" game situations

[Eastman]

There are cards that can just come through more in the 'clutch'. They are the more powerful cards, generally. It is as a bow to this sort of logic that I cut stifle from my keeper build recently.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Two of the primary cards I was thinking of were Survival and Welder.  In a close game with a Workshop deck, Welder is such a pivotal card.  Mostly likely, resolving and successfully using a Welder in a close game will make sure that you win.  Survival is much the same way, though it is a control tool in some respects.

Both those fall under "tutors" for me. Cool! I guess I must not be totally off the mark then.

[Hi-Val]

Didn't fully RTFT, but I know at least in Limited there are gamebreakers, especially in the form of fliers. If anyone remembers playing OLS, you'll remember all the creature stalemates. Even one or two little white flyers could push the game over.

I don't know if it was in your scope to look at non-T1 formats, but I think that it is worth mentioning.

[Matt]

That is, there are cards that perform much better in situations of player parity or near parity than they do otherwise.

It seems like everyone (and to some extent even Ric_flair) is ignoring the given definition: a card that is good at parity but is not so good when you're winning, or when you're losing. Duress and Therapy are great when you're winning; they are awful when you're losing, and only mediocre when you're tied (except against control, because non-control decks will tend to not hold back cards against a control deck). Survival is always good for TNT - its good when they're losing AND when they're at parity.

There are plenty of cards that are only good when you're winning (Scroll Rack is better when you have a full hand), lots of cards that are only good when you're losing (Balance is foremost but the draw7s are similar), but I don't know of anything that meets all three qualities:

1. Bad when winning (Don't turn "winning" into "more winning").
2. Bad when losing (Don't turn "losing" into "parity").
3. Good when the game is at parity (Do turn "parity" into "winning").

This rubric appears to be searching for cards that help you get ahead but DON'T help you come from behind. Would Grim Monolith suffice? It will not get you out of a bind, and if you're winning you probably have no need for it, but the mana boost (assuming it's played in the early- or midgame) could tilt the game towards you quickly.

Frankly I feel that type one is probably the WORST place to go looking for such hypothetical "clutch" cards, because it seems that the higher a format's power level is, the more true is it to say "if you're not winning, you're losing" - parity is not something easily achieved in T1. This is because the restricted cards have a tendency to not only turn "parity" into "winning" but also they are so high-powered that they turn "losing" (and sometimes "losing badly") straight into "winning".

[Ric_Flair]

@ Matt:

I don't know of anything that meets all three qualities:

1. Bad when winning (Don't turn "winning" into "more winning").
2. Bad when losing (Don't turn "losing" into "parity").
3. Good when the game is at parity (Do turn "parity" into "winning").

I am not sure if I was clear enough.  The cards don't have to be bad when winning or losing, but merely better "in the clutch" with "in the clutch" meaning when the game is at or near parity.  

Another way to think of this is to think in terms of cards that let you break from the pack.  Think of this in terms of limited, as was suggested above, where a creature stalemate can be rectified by a lone flyer.  In tight games with the deck that I am currently focusing on, GAT, Force of Will is absolutely the most clutch card in the deck.  At parity it allows me to do things without worrying about what my opponent is doing.  It is unparalleled freedom.  Force is such a powerful card that the mere threat of Forcing a spell can be potent.  I guess my conclusion is that Force, above and beyond any other counterspell (which all cost mana or a steeper ACC), or any spell for that matter, lets me break out of the pack, break the stalemate, whatever without fear of consequences.

[defector]

If Fork wasn't tossed out by the initail look at restricteds, I'd say it was the best parity breaking card by the definitions we're working under, it takes whatever your opponent is going to do and lets you do it first, or it gives you a second try against whatever is out there.  It also lets you maintain parity where you were definintely going to lose it.  It's cheap to, I like Lightning bolt for close games, as far as non-response cards go, it will win or force a counter, one or the other.  I'm of the opinion though that parity exists at the die roll and goes away quickly, maybe in the mirror, otherwise hard to say.
thanx
defector