Preface: This article is based on one of the most fundamental MtG game strategy articles, titled "Who's the beatdown?", written by Mike Flores. You can read it here, and I strongly recommend doing so if you are at least a bit familiar with Magic.
Here I'll try to rewrite or rephrase the article, but with EtG terms instead. The reason is because too often I find myself wanting to refer to the theory laid down in it, but unable to, because the other person is unfamiliar with MtG. Another reason is, of course, that Elements and Magic differ in quite a few things.
I'm nowhere near as good a writer as Mike, but I'll try to be plain and easy to understand. Have a good read!
Every Elements player builds their decks with a game plan in mind. The two most basic, fundamental game plans are "to reduce the opponent's HP to 0 before they do the same to me" or "to deck the opponent out." Every deck is built with either of those plans in mind. Players will choose cards that aid them in achieving one of those goals.
Beyond that, a deck should have a more defined game plan, based on the specific cards in the deck. In a game, two decks with two game plans confront each other. Every player (be it human or computer) tries to execute its deck's gameplan before the opponent does. The time it takes to execute our deck's gameplan is referred as the speed of said deck.
Except in the case where there is no possible interaction between the two decks (because both decks play nothing but pillars and
Vanilla creatures), the two opponents will try to force their own deck's gameplan onto the other player, and usually the more succesful player wins. This is why adapting to the opponent's strategy is very important, especially in a player versus player setting, because a human opponent has a much greater capability to adapt than an AI does.
A perfect example would be the question "Should I use my firebolts to kill the opponent's creatures, or to target his HP directly?" Answering this question correctly might mean the difference between victory and defeat. The trick is that lots of factors will have an influence on the answer, but understanding the basic gameplans of the two decks (yours and the opponent's) will give a good guideline.
The correct answer to the above question (and much more questions, for example "should I play a Sanctuary now, or gather quanta for Miracle?" or "Should I burrow my Shriekers?" ; Basically, any gameplay decision) lies in estimating the two deck's speed. (or more specifically, the two deck's speed relative to each other. )
Two special cases aside (One being the total lack of any possible interaction between the two decks, and the other being the complete similarity of the two decks; both cases are rare in competitive PVP, and thus, will be excluded from the discussion for the rest of the article*), one's gameplan should be determined by the opposing deck's speed relative to our deck's speed. If our deck is faster, then we should do everything in our power to finish the game as soon as possible. (In other words, we must do what our deck is really good at.)
If, however, our deck is the slower, then we must slow down the opponent to our deck's speed, so our deck has a shot at winning before the opponent does. If we don't prevent the opponent form winning, then we will inherently lose, since our deck inherently has a slower clock than the opponent's.
Correctly determning the relative speed of our deck leads to assigning one of two roles to us: The role of the beatdown player (the one whose deck is faster) or the control player (one whose deck is slower). Correclty assigning our role is crucial, since the player who misassigns him/herself usually loses. Note that in each matchup, one player is always the beatdown, while the other is always the control player. Futhermore, the roles of control and beatdown is not to be confused with the deck types "rush" and "stall". Even in a rushdeck vs. rushdeck matchup, one deck will inherently be faster, and the same can be said about the stall vs. stall matchup.
The biggest difficulty lies in determining our role. This stems from the nature of the game: The decks consist of individual cards and thus, every deck can be different, even if they are from the same archetype. But knoweledge of the prominent deck types, and seeing the first few cards played from a deck, will enable a player to make an educated guess. Even if we know the deck archetype we are facing, sometimes it is hard to guess its speed relative to ours. Fortunately, there are some guidelines which help assigning the correct role to us, such as:
1, The bigger deck is always the control (barring Etrnity)
2, The deck with more CC is almost always the control deck
3, The deck with more healing in it is usually the control
4, The deck with more card drawing is usually the control
5, The deck with the creatures that have more average damage is usually the beatdown
6, The deck with more shield evasion (poison, momentum) is usually the beatdown.
After correctly determining the role we should play, winning is a matter of executing our gameplan. Don't forget that the opponent will do everything s/he can to force their gameplan on us. Also, these roles will only give a general, basic route we should take, but we have to reevaluate the game position every turn and act accordingly. Factors such as hand sizes, HPs relative to each other, and board positions all play significant role in determining our next course(s) of action(s) (For example, the player with more current HP and more damage output has the luxury of palying the control role), but the initial gameplan we should pursue will always depend on correclty assigning ourselves.
Note that determinig the role of beatdown or control does not equal
playing every card ASAP or
holding everything back; It means
determining the pace of the game in a way that best suits our deck. A control deck with offensive creatures and CC should be able to use CC on the opponent's creatures, but that doesn't mean the control player shouldn't use his/her creatures to attack when the opportunity arises.
Also, the guidelines mentioned above are not absolute; In a 31 cards shrieker rush vs. 30 card monoaether situation, the player piloting the shrieker rush shouldn't hold back just because s/he has the bigger deck; This only means that if the game comes to a halt, s/he will benefit more, since s/he will inherently win after 23 turns has passed. Vs. a monoaether with slow but unkillable creatures and probably a full set of dimshields, the shrieker rush should play the role of the beatdown, trying to beat the opponent before it stabilizes with shields and immortal creatures.
One last thing I want to talk about is some general gameplay decisions players should consider after determining their role, such as:
The beatdown player should:
- Keep the opponent's health lower than his/her
- Apply the correct amount of pressure with creatures (the trick is not to overcommit and play everything just to get wiped out)
- Use permanent control on shields first, then healing permanents second
- Focus on killing creatures that might hinder the deck's rushing abilities (such as Arctic Squid)
- Destroy the opponent's quanta sources that give access to healing spells.
While the control player should:
- Prioritize playing shields over anything else
- Guess the possible most dangerous creature in the opponent's deck/hand, and use CC accordingly
- Always be aware of the opponent's quanta output, current quanta and the
best possible offensive card the opponent could play based on those
- Hinder the opponent's capability to play creatures (quanta/ quanta surce alteration)
- Priorizite card drawing over playing offensive creatures.
Playing control is usually harder, since it is a reactive game plan; The control player waits for the opponents to make their move, and hopes that s/he has the means to negate it.
Finally, note that correctly assigning ourselves won't always mean winning the game; There are matchups that are just too unfavorable to our decks. But assigning our role correctly will always improve our chances to win a match, and similarly, misassigning will give us a greater chance of game loss.
It is time that I close this article; Thanks for all who read it. I hope that you found something interesting in it, and the article will help you to be a better player. If you have any comments, feel free to post them.
Hope you enjoyed it!
P.S. Go and read the
original article by Mike Flores, he phrases the theory much more eloquently.
*: What determines the outcome in a matchup where there are no interactions between the two decks, or in a true mirror match? In the former case, the outcome is based on the clock of the two decks (the "TTW"), while in the latter case, it will come down to the cointoss. This is, of course, barring luck. In reality, most of these games will depend on the RNG factor.
