by Andrew Lawrence
I have written the following guide to hopefully provide some sort of framework of good habits to get into for tournament play. Some of these suggestions are a case of monkey says rather than monkey does because unfortunately I have already developed many bad habits from the days when I did not know any better. You wouldn’t have to attend many magic tournaments to catch me taking a short cut with shuffling, using a dice to keep my life total or accidentally flashing the contents of my entire hand. While most of these rules are basic it is only ok to break them if you know why you are doing so.
Pre Tournament Preparation
Pack some way of keeping track of your life total, for big tournaments use pen and paper. If you want to save the environment and don’t consider FNM a big tournament then I would recommend using a life counter as you can fit it in your deck box and it doesn’t fall over when someone bumps the table like Dice do.
Keeping track of your opponent’s life total is also a great habit to get into; as well as reducing the likelihood of you being cheated it gives you information about your opponent without letting them know when it is important to you. It’s nice to know if your Demonfire will be lethal or not without the risk of prompting your opponent to use that discard spell they were holding.
When using paper, remember to keep your past games separate from the current i.e. rip out the old pages so you don’t get in trouble for having outside notes. It is also recommended that you note the sources of each point of damage so if there is a life total discrepancy you can recreate the game to try and figure out who is wrong. Apart from safeguarding you from misunderstandings it gives you more information that you can use later to review the tournament.
After reading an article from Mike Flores I wanted all the versions of the cards in my deck to match but prior to this years regionals I wasn’t that strict about it. The basic reasoning is that having all your versions of cards look the same prevents you accidentally giving your opponent extra information. In the first round of this years Brisbane Regional’s my opponent Thoughtseized me and saw a 10th edition Terror in my hand, within a couple of turns I had drawn a second Terror (a text less one), when it came to playing the Terror I wasted a good 5 – 10 seconds trying to remember which one he had seen with the Thoughtseize because I did not want to give him extra information about what was in my hand. If all my terrors were the same version I wouldn’t have had to worry about this.
Of course this is a simple trick that if you play your hand out correctly shouldn’t matter, but we aren’t all super computers and anything that saves your mental energy helps you concentrate on something else.
Use sleeves and avoid using old worn sleeves at big tournaments due to the concern of marked cards. Always try to avoid using the clear plastic ones, they are too slippery and either you or your opponent is likely to spill them face up at some stage.
Shuffling
There is no “perfect†way to shuffle, however it is generally accepted that a seven card pile shuffle followed by a good number of rifle shuffles does the job. Whenever I have skipped doing a pile shuffle I have regretted it, the only time I find it acceptable to skip the pile shuffle is after you have already performed it and you take a minor action like a mulligan or searching for a basic land. In that case I will just do a few rifle shuffles and present to my opponent since the deck should already be fairly randomized.
There are some people that either before a match or when searching their deck go through and remove land clots, this is naughty and if you see someone doing this at a tournament call a judge. There may not be intent behind it but it is definitely provides an unfair advantage, If it did not give an advantage they wouldn’t feel the need to do it.
Playing your hand
If you draw a land you should always pull it into your hand first and then play it, hopefully not giving away that you just drew it. Try to spend the same time reading each card you draw no matter what it is, quickly looking and putting the card in your hand indicates you have a land. If you want your opponent to think you have a land then break that rule but that type of bluff is for when you have got the basics down flat and know what you are doing.
If your opponent does use an effect like Thoughtseize to see your hand then you should favor (within reason) playing those cards over the ones you draw afterwards. It sounds like such a minor advantage but playing a deck with a bunch of counters in it like Fairies you really begin to appreciate how many opponents fear or don’t fear the unknown and how different there plays would be if they knew what cards were really in your hand. I know I feel a lot more comfortable after casting a Thoughtseize even if I see two or three Cloudthreshers.
Another bad habit is organizing the contents of your hand by land and spells or even mana cost. This gives out more information than you need too, I didn’t know how badly I did this until I played a card game called “Bohnanza†which requires you to keep the cards in the order that you drew them, most of the magic players in the group found it a really hard rule to follow.
I don’t really see anything wrong with shuffling your magic hand though other than it being annoying.
Verbally confirm when someone is taking damage from their pain lands and how much. Trying to reconstruct how someone tapped their mana a turn after the fact is incredibly hard, and if they are sloppy enough in the first place not to declare their life loss that just makes it even more unlikely that a life total discrepancy is resolved amicably.
Combat
Before turning your creatures sideways and letting your opponent know who is attacking always say “declare attackers†otherwise if you do something unexpected like attacking with a Cloudthresher they thought was going to block you give them the opportunity to say something like “before you attack I want to play Cryptic Command taping all your guysâ€. If you don’t activate your man lands such as a Treetop Village before you say declare attacks then if they pass priority back to you without doing anything it will be too late to attack with them.
After they say “ok†then turn your guys sideways, and indicate any planeswalker you are attacking and with which creatures. If you are the defender and you have a planeswalker in play you should get them to clarify what they are attacking.
I like to verbally say “no blockers†if I decide not to block., after you have got confirmation that your opponent is not blocking it’s a pretty safe short cut to confirm the damage they are taking, if you do feel they might have something you should say “damage onâ€, to bait out any possible tricks. This gets more complicated if you have a trick you want to use then declare “Before Damage†or if you are the defender ask if they are “doing anything before damageâ€.
Then it is time for “Damage on the stack†and any pre resolution tricks, usually activating abilities such as sacrificing your creature to a suspended Greater Gargadon.
“Damage Resolves†can also be indicated by marking life totals, if an opponent tries to rush you by marking down totals early don’t let them bully you, use the abilities you want to use such as activating regeneration before you let him harang you into skipping that step or you will run into trouble with judges and murky play states.
Some people then like to announce the “second main phase†and you should definitely do it if there is still mana in someone’s pool.
If you are confused as to what is going on here and it isn’t due to my haphazard writing then you should really read more about the combat step. I personally hate reading rule books and the like but understanding the combat step is the key to limited magic and is pretty important in constructed formats too, even in vintage.
If you want to read more about the combat phase then these links should help:
http://pojo.com/magic/Featured%20Writers/DragonsDen/2005/1-13.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/733.html
If something happens during the match that means that your upkeep is important you should mark the top of your library with a dice or counter so you don’t skip that step by drawing a card. Things like taking a counter of suspended cards, revealing a card for Dark Confident and paying echo or cumulative upkeep seem easy enough to remember by quickly looking at what cards you have on the board but after a flurry of spells in the previous turn, a judge call or another distraction like time being called its not hard to have a lapse and draw that card too early. For things like a Pact of Negation or Forecasting Pride of the Clouds which don’t leave an on the board reminder then missing an upkeep is even easier so you should make even more of an effort to put a counter on your library.
One of the most interesting articles rules wise that I have read was how to actually play a spell. Seems simple enough but here is link to an article by Tom Lapille that I found really informative and should help you improve http://playmagicwith.tomlapille.com/index.php/how-to-play-a-spell/
After the game make sure the match slip is filled out correctly, something I learned the hard way and I have seen a few others suffer from it too. It really is a bad feeling and once you have been the victim of a match slip error once you won’t forget it. I know it seems simple and some of what I am saying sounds obvious but everything I have mentioned has at one stage affected my results so I would not want to neglect mentioning it.
In the end you may not be the best player in the room but if you do the little things right and respect yourself and your opponent you are nearly there.
