[mtg.com Article] Forward Thinking

[Jacob Orlove]

Forward Thinking

I said in the TMD awards thread that I felt Smmenen's next article was the best of this year. This is that article.

Sun Tzu, a military strategist, once stated "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." This statement, written more than 2,000 years ago, tells us that action without planning can be fatal. Magic is a strategy game. But too often Magic players play the "game" while ignoring the importance of strategy. Attend to the strategy and your game will strengthen immeasurably.

[Outlaw]

Wow, I am the Vintage example playing SSB vs. Mono-Blue, was our matchup in Richmond.  No wonder that article is good!

[Anusien]

When I was reading the article, I thought there were valuable tidbits to be gained, but that as a whole the article jumps around a bit too much to get a lot of coherency from it.  His wording is also awkward, because in each situation he gives the "obvious play" but does not always say if that is the right play.  I think the article is good at what it's trying to accomplish, which is to help players think about their plan for a matchup.

[Smmenen]

Why do you think it jumps around?  Take a look at the organizational structure of the article and see if it makes more sense then.  I used headings to help keep things coherent.  I'm a bit surprised by the puzzlement I'm getting from lots of readers.  I tried to get people to see the difference between being a short term thinker, a forward thinker, and a strategic thinker and the differences between the three and the values of each kind of thinking. 

[Anusien]

Let me clarify.  The organizational structure of the article was fine.  The issue I had was that you introduce so many examples and go in-depth so little.  The amount of depth you gave to the Creeping Mold on Forest example was what I would have liked to see on all of them; I don't feel like you give enough time or space to Gro, for example.  You say, "You might play Island, go.  Tropical Island, Dryad."  And then you don't say whether that's right the play or not.  I understand growing the Dryad, but why is playing Sleight of Hand wrong on turn 1?

[Smmenen]

The level of explanation I gave to the illustrations was determined by the broader point I was trying to make.  If i get bogged down in the examples, then you lose sight of the forest for the trees.  I only used the examples to make my immediate point.

I think I am very dissapointed with reaction to the article overall.

Based upon what I've seen in my inbox, it seems very few of the readers that have taken the time to respond really got what it was I was trying to say.  I have to blame myself partly for that, but I would like to know why what I was saying turned out to be so oblique when it seemed so clear to me.

Anyone? 

[nataz]

I think this

To summarize, strategy is a plan or role you assume. It is often characterized broadly as "beatdown" or "control" or more precisely as aggro, aggro-control, combo, and control, among others. We have talked about how short-term thinking is important and we have talked about how long-term thinking is often about considering what is in your deck. Strategic thinking adds one additional layer: it takes into consideration what your opponent is playing. What your opponent is playing becomes a critical element in figuring out what role you should assume. The example of Illusions-Donate has made this clear.

was the first key part of the article.

Would it be fair to say that this article was a re-hash of principles in "Who's the Beatdown"?

The message I took away was this. There are 3 levels to playing a deck. On the first level, you find your deck's core strategy, and run with it (gobbo's example). Second level, add to that the idea of planing ahead multiple turns w/ a specific goal in mind (fires). Third level, be abe to change that goal with respect to the role your deck plays in any given match (donate).

This leads to the second important point,

If there is one thing that strategic thinking and "Who's the Beatdown?" should impress, it is that you should come into every match with a plan. That plan should reflect how you think you are going to win the match. You should have an idea of how the match is going to play out before you even draw a card.

I wanted to highlight what I thought were the important points first, because both of those points are excellent, and something every decent play should be thinking about, BUT the way in which they were presented was lacking.

I think your article could have used a really good hard edit. You used a lot of words, especially in the beginning, to cover fairly intuitive stuff. Even your examples could have been trimmed down to keep them on the point, with out being so long that people have to go back and re-read. I also hate the clicking for paragraphs, AND the full page width examples, it totally destroys the flow of the article. I know you don't have control over that, but it is something that made it a lot harder to read.

 I went back and re-read this thing three times after seeing your request for feedback, and without too much effort I think I could have cut out a 1/4 of article. Sure, it may not sound as pretty, and you may even creep closer to "WTBD" in language, but at least it would have been a better vehicle for your very valid points. 

Part of what keep the article wordy was the continuous identification of strategy and tactics. For starters, I don't think you even needed to define tactics, its more simple to just look at it as an extension of your strategy. I know it fits into Sun Tzu, but it really wasn't worth it.

Anyways, those were some of the major criticism that I had. I hope you don't take this the wrong way. I think the sheer volume of literature you have put out on this game is pretty amazing, and shows a lot of dedication and insight, but if you can't communicate that clearly, whats the point.

good luck with future projects
-carter     


*edit

after reading an's comments

I think the gro example was pretty poor, and should have been cut altogether.

[Smmenen]

I do take that in the spirit in which it was meant.

I think you did get most of the major points I was making Carter.

I was working with the Whos the Beatdown idea, but I felt that I was expanding or building upon it a couple of critical ways.  One way is that whos the beatdown doesn't tell us when to shift roles midgame.

I was hoping that the article would be more effective.  I did give it lots of edits, but I think that a number of things go into making an article like this effective and they either were missing or not completely there.  I think the piece still has some valuable parts that can stand for a while, but it wasn't as overall impressive as I was hoping.  I think I am mostly dissapointed by the fact that despite repeating myself in the article, I just couldn't get people to see the disparate parts as a coherent whole.  That is also separate from being a persuasive piece or not. 

[nataz]

I was working with the Whos the Beatdown idea, but I felt that I was expanding or building upon it a couple of critical ways.  One way is that whos the beatdown doesn't tell us when to shift roles midgame.

the bolded above would make a really great focused article.

[Luiggi]

One point I'd like to make, Stephen (and this is obviously meant as constructive criticism), is that I personally found the article to be nothing new.

I thought it was well-written and everything, but I found myself not having learned anything new or particularly interesting after having read it. This isn't a personal attack or anything, and I hope you don't take it that way. I just feel like it was somehow "basic", for lack of a better word, and that the things you stated are things that most competitive Magic players already know.

What is true is that the audience on MTG.com is not the same audience that would read your article if it had been a Premium article on StarCity, for example, so perhaps you were taking that into account when choosing your target audience.

Again, I don't think there was anything wrong with the article, per se, but rather that there wasn't anything special about it.

Luiggi

[Machinus]

I wrote a whole long response and then XP went nuts and ate it. The summary:

I thought the article was great. Good magic players are already aware of the conflict between tactics and strategy, but I think developing a clear language for it is important. Classical magic theory mostly deals with tactical interaction. Focusing on strategy can go against ideas of card advantage or tempo, but can win you the game.

Getting caught up in tactical patterns is bad, because the point of the conflict is to defeat the opponent, not to execute maneuvers. Ultimately, that is what "Art of War" is about. I think Steve makes an apt comparison here by suggesting that magic players lose sight of victory, which may cause them to make mistakes in complicated situations.

I liked it.

[Bardo]

I thought it was well-written and everything, but I found myself not having learned anything new or particularly interesting after having read it.

We (TMD) are not the primary audience of mtg.com. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think Stephen is intending to enlighten any of the TMD regulars. And it is the TMD regulars that are so much more likely to respond (statistically, being negative) than some 15 year old in Tulsa, Oklahoma that had his eyes opened to one of the most important pieces of mtg theory yet conceived (Flores' beatdown/control).

But correct me if I'm wrong. Who is your intended audience Stephen?

I think the gro example was pretty poor, and should have been cut altogether.

To a beginner, understanding the aggro-control strategy is highly relevant. And Gro is the archetypal expression of this principle. But personally, I would have cast Sleight on turn 1 too. But that's besides the point.

You hit the right tone Stephen and the pacing was fine -- a superb article overall.

[Luiggi]

We (TMD) are not the primary audience of mtg.com. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think Stephen is intending to enlighten any of the TMD regulars. And it is the TMD regulars that are so much more likely to respond (statistically, being negative) than some 15 year old in Tulsa, Oklahoma that had his eyes opened to one of the most important pieces of mtg theory yet conceived (Flores' beatdown/control).

Exactly, which is why I then followed up with this: "What is true is that the audience on MTG.com is not the same audience that would read your article if it had been a Premium article on StarCity, for example, so perhaps you were taking that into account when choosing your target audience."

I realize that it's probably targetted at a different set of Magic players, but I still wanted to give my opinion as someone who doesn't belong to that "demographic".

Luiggi

[forests failed you]

Very nice article!

I didn't think that it jumped around at all, and furthermore I thought that it was very thoughtfully and skillfully written.

Good job.

[Smmenen]

Thanks!

[LotusHead]

Congrats on getting an article published on MTG.com. I know it's a big deal for vintage and you. I was quite supprised to see it on my way to get info on "the Card of the Day," normally my only source of new and usefull information on that site.

My opponent was on the play and he went:

Turn One:
Island, Lotus Petal.

He tapped the land to play Ancestral Recall. In Vintage, Ancestral Recall is not a card you want to let resolve. It lets your opponent get very far ahead and a mono-blue control deck like the one I was playing may be unable to control the flow of threats if Ancestral resolves. It is also possible that he has Red Elemental Blast in hand since it is game two and he has Lotus Petal in play to cast it.

While the "Who's the Beatdown" article was referenced, it is decisions like this that get some people to top 8 by skill due to "Forward Thinking".

I've met many a player who would blindly say that countering Ancestral Recall is a must move if you have any say so. (in fact, just about all of them). I've disagreed with that, but I've never been one to make all the right moves all the time.

For Stephan's intended audience (people who play Magic and hit up MagicTheGathering.com), it was a success.

[bebe]

Wow, I am the Vintage example playing SSB vs. Mono-Blue, was our matchup in Richmond.  No wonder that article is good!

Please explain why you played the Ancestral on your turn instead of EoT on Steve's.

[The Atog Lord]

One way is that whos the beatdown doesn't tell us when to shift roles midgame.

I agree with the sentiment that this would make an excellent article. I wrote over a year ago in the Control Slaver primer that the hardest part of playing the deck is to know when exactly you need to stop being the control player and become the beatdown. The concept of a static "beatdown" and static "control" as a function of constants -- the deck build -- is a concept which has been explored at length already and has not far advanced beyond what Flores wrote so many years ago. However, the concept of a dynamic shift from one role to the other has not had sufficient treatment, although it has become more and more important as Magic decks themselves have become more complex and wider in their objectives. There was a time when decks were much more straightforward in their roles. Yet modern decks -- such as the Extended Scepter Chant deck -- are forced to shift from control decks to combo decks at some point in the match, and that shift is one of the hardest aspects of the deck to understand.

So, there was nothing per se wrong with the article Steve, though I must admit that it wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before. However, you should realize that MTG.com articles are probably not targetted to the same audience as TMD. In fact, even if it is in many ways similar to "Who's the Beatdown," that doesn't mean it is unworthy of publication. They can't well keep reprinting "Who's the beatdown" every couple of years, but new players should be introduced to those concepts. So, publishing a new article which covers those points isn't a bad thing by any means.

[TheBrassMan]

<hijack>

Please explain why you played the Ancestral on your turn instead of EoT on Steve's.

On the play, with any artifact mana, the Ancestral won't make you discard, and you stand the chance of drawing more artifacts and sorceries (particularly against mono u, a deck known to run chalices at some points.)  By casting Ancestral before Stephen gets another card, it both makes a Force of Will less likely, and more likely to cost a key card.  In the specific example, it's pretty obvious, if Justin had waited until Stephen's EOT, Stephen would have had active Library on top of the Force, and would have had a much better shot at winning the game. 

Even without the 0-drop, the general play is to cast it during your opponent's upkeep, so you don't have to discard, and they don't get the draw step.  The only typical situations you'd wait were if you were planning on defending your Ancestral with a Reb, Brainstorm, or Mystical, but want to leave the option of Ancestral-into-Force open in case they have a turn one threat.  Obviously the typical play isn't always the right one, which is really what the article is about, but in this case, given his hand, Justin's play made perfect sense on the play.
</hijack>

About that, the article was definitely excellent, Stephen, a lot of mid-range players focus heavily on tight play and theory, and lose sight of winning games as a whole, and this article hits that point in a way most writers just skirt around.

[Smmenen]

Thanks!