MAGIC PSYCHOLOGY

[Soapbot]

I beleive Vintage to be the most cerebral format in magic. In vintage most every good card is at your disposal. Decks and schools of thought have been refined for years on end. Weeding out only the best cards ever made, and those to stop them (generally)
A cardboard darwinism.
Sometimes you can swing a match by making a crazy play, or topdecking your way out. Depending on your deck, and the sheer explosiveness of the format, nothing is impossible.

I wanted to get a topic going on how one win's a game using a more psychological method.

This begins with confidence in a deck, controlling nervousness, reading the opponent and so on. The cards will deal what they want, but its you who has to win over your opponent.

So i wanted to hear about the communities experiences and the way they think during a match.

an example is; If you're playing an opponent, how do you know they have Mana Drain?
for me I notice, they look at the Mana drain in thier hand, and then put 2 Blue aside
very close together, and pass the turn, creating sort of a barrier. so now I do that even if I don't have mana drain.

or when I use sensei's top, if I have nothing but blanks (3 Land) I will still rearrange them, look at my hand, and rearrange them again. Some people just look at the next three, see they are all land and put them back right away. This cues you to believe they have blanks for 3 turns. Most likely its true, but not always.

also, the mulligan. look at an opponents face the next time they mulligan, and they speed. Or how you know that stifle just ruined the entire game for your opponent

So I want to hear about your clues and cues, bluffs, fakes, mind games and intuitions
hunches and thoughts when playing. And also, how to stay in control when losing.
Do you notice your opponent arranges their mana in certain way, thus giving away their hand

*Note: That these instances are best applied to a tournament setting, where there is something at stake and stress is at it's highest
and to more control/combo/ichorid decks, as workshop and null-rod decks force the hand. but you can contibute on those decks as well*

[Suicideking]

or when I use sensei's top, if I have nothing but blanks (3 Land) I will still rearrange them, look at my hand, and rearrange them again. Some people just look at the next three, see they are all land and put them back right away. This cues you to believe they have blanks for 3 turns. Most likely its true, but not always.

I'm not judge but this is getting close to slow play.  Its similar to not having a play but playing with your lands, or when you keep looking at a card to pretend you can do something to it.

[Metman]

One thing I have noticed is that Magic players are creatures of habits and many of them have many of them.  Many players fidget with their cards in hand constantly rearranging or arranging their cards.  One thing I try to avoid is rearranging the cards in my hand in any kind of order whatsoever because I notice that many players do.  If I do rearrange my cards it is to randomize them if I suspect a competent player trying to get a read on my hand. 

With that in mind, I notice that many players will shuffle a portion of cards in their hand (for example two of the five total in their hand) for two reasons.  Either the two cards are functionally the same (or are in fact the same) or the two cards are being considered for play at this particular moment in the turn.  I also see a lot of players place their more important spells (by relevancy in the game) on the side of their hand that he/she plays spells with.  So, if your opponent holds his cards in his right hand and plays cards from his hand with his left he may be more likely to place his more important spells on the left side of his right hand. 

You can also get a good read on the value of a card drawn by the body language and specifically his posture at the time of drawing it.  This is most evident when I player feels as though he's down in the game and counting on an out to a situation.  Slouching, head down, and sitting back in his chair are all instances that your opponent doesn't have the play that he needs or wants.  Smiling, leaning forward, or readjusting his posture to something that appears more engaged/active are signs that he may have the tools he thinks will win the game. 

An opponent making strong eye contact with you is often a sign that he doesn't want you to challenge the situation.  Novice poker players do this kind of eye contact to appear strong and confident hoping their opponent will back down.  Relaxed and jovial body language are signs of confidence and that no matter what you do they have an upper hand or solution to your play. 

These are just a few of the tricks I've picked up on while playing Magic and Poker.  What's interesting is that this topic is not one that many Magic players learn about when practicing to becoming a better player. 

Knowing some of these tricks, I still find myself concentrating on my hand or the board too much after a game, round, or tournament.  Practice though, one thing I do to remind myself to practice the psychological part of the game is to watch my opponent more than you would your hand or the board even on your turn.  Take a peak at his eyes and his body language. 

[serracollector]

Just like reading tells I have "scouted" the "tells" of players at tournaments.  Just a few examples that I have encountered:

Player X always shuffles their hand when they have a counterspell in it.  Seemed they were ansy to stop something.  Lots of players do this from what I have noticed.

While scouting I notice another player always shifts there lands to the right/left side of there hand.  Now when playing against them, after they draw I know if its a land or not.

There are others I have noticed here and there, but I find scouting the players playing habits just as important as scouting decks/card uses.

And 2 of my favorite "psych"outs, is when a person casts duress or thougthseize, I always say "choose wisely", like I have some evil plan no matter what they get, and throws some ppl off to grab the wrong thing.
The 2nd is when a person casts a spell that has a choice, I always say "Are you sure?", which is honestly just polite, but sometimes makes the opponent question themselves.  Doubt wins games.

[MaximumCDawg]

As a quasi-casual Vintage player, I don't do much analysis of the psychological aspect of the match.  I tend to just look at the revealed zones and get a read on what might be coming down the pipe accordingly.  The only thing I do, as a nod to "tells," is I put my hand down on the table at the end of my turn and leave it there.  I know if I have a counterspell.  No reason to have the cards in your hand where it might provide the opponent with information.  It also leaves me free to chat and socially interact, which is a large part of what I'm there for anyway.

I guess results may vary though.  I have a pretty chill play group, and the sanctioned events are free and prizeless, so the fidgiters and intense people are at a minimum.  The best players in our group are among most gracious, thoughtful people there (Mr. Grewe and Mr. Ramsey, I'm lookin at you).  Even the more.. animated pros are still fun to play with.  (Sup Clown).  So, no one drives you bonkers with slow play, fake outs, card riffing, etc.  Frankly, I like it that way.

[Soapbot]

or when I use sensei's top, if I have nothing but blanks (3 Land) I will still rearrange them, look at my hand, and rearrange them again. Some people just look at the next three, see they are all land and put them back right away. This cues you to believe they have blanks for 3 turns. Most likely its true, but not always.

I'm not judge but this is getting close to slow play.  Its similar to not having a play but playing with your lands, or when you keep looking at a card to pretend you can do something to it.

@SuicideKing
In some games, psyching isn't as relevent. your opponent plays trinisphere off workshop, only thing you can do is counter it or not. I'm gearing more toward, if you know the opponent is playing remora trap, and you need to initiate a strong play, analyzing how much resistence you're going to get, via body language and "tells" and probability (4 mana drain, 4 spell pierce, 4 FOW, = 16 cards, 16/60 = 1 out of every 4 cards - graveyard)
from that analyzation deciding to bait their counters, hold out for a massive topdeck, build up countermagic of your own (and if so, how much to trump theirs since they run a plethora of c-magic) or take another approach. Some psyching doesn't
work on some players simply because they don't know about it, other's will recklessly push through anything and will win sometimes or not. This is a micro-strategy that you turn on, and when you need it, you can summon it in, but once you do have it, you will always be doing it. Or for combo players, reading the opponent/his board arrangment/ and tells can easily let him/her know that they can go off without resistence. Some people play all of the lands they have in hand, but I always keep 1 if I don't need it, or 2 in hand and 5 mana open, so it looks like a FOW. Sometimes it works, sometime the opponent will be cautious, other times they barrel right through.

Just like reading tells I have "scouted" the "tells" of players at tournaments.  Just a few examples that I have encountered

While scouting I notice another player always shifts there lands to the right/left side of there hand.  Now when playing against them, after they draw I know if its a land or not.

Yeah it's the brains way of organizing, has to do with the pictures as well, most people addjust by color as well, to make things easier to recieve.

[MaximumCDawg]

Sometimes it works, sometime the opponent will be cautious, other times they barrel right through.

So true.  I had a friend, an avid poker player, who totally refused to play the free casual poker at the local bar with me.  He explained that he hated playing there because "no one knows how to play."  When I said he would probably do well, he explained this wasn't actually true; if no one else is really aware of the relative value of cards in hand, what to watch out for, how to read the opponent, etc, then his edge is greatly diminished because he can't really get a read on anyone or communicate anything to anyone. 

For the same reason, I get the impression that "pshyching" is more of a high-level versus high-level type thing.  Sure, you might be able to intuit that Johnny has a counterspell sometimes, but just as often you're going to mis-read because Johnny doesn't actually have a plan to deal with what you're up to.  He'll just react when he has to.  Similarly, bluffing seems a bad idea against an opponent who just barrels through oblivious to threats you are communicating.

[Delha]

So true.  I had a friend, an avid poker player, who totally refused to play the free casual poker at the local bar with me.  He explained that he hated playing there because "no one knows how to play."  When I said he would probably do well, he explained this wasn't actually true; if no one else is really aware of the relative value of cards in hand, what to watch out for, how to read the opponent, etc, then his edge is greatly diminished because he can't really get a read on anyone or communicate anything to anyone.  

For the same reason, I get the impression that "pshyching" is more of a high-level versus high-level type thing.  Sure, you might be able to intuit that Johnny has a counterspell sometimes, but just as often you're going to mis-read because Johnny doesn't actually have a plan to deal with what you're up to.  He'll just react when he has to.  Similarly, bluffing seems a bad idea against an opponent who just barrels through oblivious to threats you are communicating.

I've found this to be both true and untrue in most games I play. People that are top end are the most likely to be aware of tricky play, thus beginning the "I know you know" layering. In contrast, the playstyle of someone new to the game is often too chaotic to really read properly. Also, correctly reading your opponent's interpretation of the gamestate doesn't help if said opponent can't properly read the gamestate in the first place.

The flip side to this is that a real pro can often fall back on basics and crush the scrub with traps too basic for use in competitive play. Among my personal experiences, this expresses itself best in fighting games. Here, new players tend to fall into very simple patterns which can be punished repeatedly, and can easily be pushed into traps for which they lack the skill or knowledge to escape. It is entirely unsuprising to me that games where winning and losing is determined almost exclusively by accumulated player error, the mechanics of a skilled vs unskilled player are most readily visible. It's really the variance and asymmetry of Magic that prevent it from being equally true here.

At the end of the day, my point is that a skilled player can almost always clean up against rookies, even if it's going to be a very very boring set of wins. If you've ever seen the movie Rounders, that's pretty much a perfect example of what I'm getting at here.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Experienced players will always beat rookies on the back of better play choices, less mistakes, and probably knowing the decks and nuances therein much better that scrubs.  Psych has nothing to  do with that.

[Soapbot]

well said Dehla

Experienced players will always beat rookies on the back of better play choices, less mistakes, and probably knowing the decks and nuances therein much better that scrubs.  Psych has nothing to  do with that.

I've been beaten by a deck with 4 goyfs, 4 pridemage, ethersworns, lightning bolts, and path to exiles.... That person was a rookie but geared his
entire deck to beating vintage decks, kinda lame but it happens, no amount of experience can get you out of some situations or reading the opponent either.

but lets not change the topic, we all know experience USUALLY trumps the opponent, but you will fall\rise to chaos theory from time to time.
I wasn't talking about more, lines of play and reads form the opponent, its not to hard to understand, is it? You have to have good knowledge of your deck and not make any mistakes (not hindsight mistakes) just the best play. but sometimes, your opponent is telling you what you should go for without verballizing it though

[Delha]

Experienced players will always beat rookies on the back of better play choices, less mistakes, and probably knowing the decks and nuances therein much better that scrubs.  Psych has nothing to  do with that.

The more you play a game, the more you develop certain habits in that game. Highly skilled Magic players will have naturally developed certain behavioral patterns related to opponent psychology in the course of playing against other highly skilled Magic players. At least some of these patterns will be detrimental when playing against novice players, but I believe that their skill and experience lead them to victory in spite of this. From that perspective, psych is certainly still relevant to the game, if only because the skilled player is now in a situation where intuition may now point towards suboptimal choices.


To use a simplified example from Marvel vs Capcom 2:

When your character is knocked off their feet, opponents can use OTG (Off The Ground) followups to continue their combos. To avoid this, you can input a command which causes your character to roll to the opposite of the screen instead of landing flat on the ground. The character Jill has the ability to call a zombie which is unavoidable to rolling opponents, but easily dealt with otherwise. In short, rolling when tripped is almost always right. The zombie beats rolling opponents, OTG beats non-rolling opponents.

Skilled players reflexively roll when tripped, so an experienced Jill player will quite likely default to calling the zombie. This forces Jill's opponent to resist their muscle memory, with failure leading to further damage. When fighting an opponent who does not know how to roll, it is the Jill player who must now work against muscle memory and OTG instead.

The big difference here is that in Magic, the tournament rules allow you at least a few seconds to consider your decision. In contrast, the window to roll is under half a second. The need for immediate response goes a long way towards explaining why such decisions tend to be governed by reflex. By extension, it also shows why it's so much more difficult to resist initial instinct.

[desolutionist]

A good trick is Merchant Scrolling for Force of Will when you don't have a second blue card.

[honestabe]

Caleb Durwald wrote an article on this on Channelfireball.com

Definitely worth a read