Mtg: reflections and lessons learned

...i'm working from memory 3hrs after the games took place so details aint perfect and some big things may even be omitted or confused between gates, but I think this is near spot on now…

[n.b. in all 3 games even when hands weren't the best we both decide to stick with the initial 7 card hands cos its a good way to testa deck- see if it pulls through regardless of initial lucks]

Game 1

he starts, gets no lands for around 10 turns - it's clear that even a deck with sufficient lands statistically can suffer from poor luck or poor shuffling

i also got limited lands early on and no creatures, paniced that my strategy of going mild on the creature weighting, only 50% of nonlands, was going to prove erroneous .

the lands started appearing right as I was getting the real special spells - specifically ill gotten inheritance, a steady whittling down of his life one point at a time, turn by turn, whilst my increase of one per turn keeps undoing his hard work in removing odd life points through creature attacks

my deck finally started behaving textbook, to plan - a frenzy of white spells restoring life taken off by his creatures whilst black spells are burning life off him directly, bypassing combat.

and then... killer blow from 'revenge', an expensive [6 mana] half of a dual sourcery card - halved a life in the teens and then when he finally gets some creatures, kayas wrath sends him back to the stoneage for a cost of only one medium creature for me - the check that would leave to my checkmate

i finally get some creatures In time to deliver remaining damages as he just managing to finally get a kill artefact/enchantment card to kill ill gotten inheritance, the bane of his game

I win with 52 life remaing

notably, we have had no cretaure on cretaure combat involving both attack and block in the entire game!

Game 2

i win the start roll, then proceed to get no lands for first 10-11 turns

i lose continuous life to creature attacks that start early on and continue steadily throughout the game

he has a creature with lifelink and can start adding to his life

as the game progresses his bigger creatures come into play, doing more damage and hence either killing off any cretaures i do get into play or dealing me continuing damage

the death knell sounds and I die with mana coming in way too late to save the day

I lose soundly

still we have had very little creature on creature combat and so are slighty confused by the rules still [combat is by far the most complex part of gameplay as far as we have encountered]

Game 3

he wins the start roll but gets crappy cards

i'm awash with lands right from the start, including gates, but no spells or creatures I could afford to play - only 5 or 6 mana cost cards.

i start getting cheaper creatuers and spells so build a solid grounding of lands and attackers/blockers

the game at this point is very even creature-wise - i gain confidence that maybe I'm not too mild on the numbers after all

my more mid range [3-4 mana] creatures seem slightly overtaken by his sheer numbers, although his are mostly weaker [1-2 mana] and relying on artifacts and obscure activated abilities to be effective or are 1/1 tokens

we are finally having true creature on creature combat, repeatedly, turn after turn, generally my mid range creatures winning over his low end artifact equipped ones and weak tokens.

i get to start providing backup for my creatures, which were keeping me afloat but not progressing in damage done to him, with the spells like ill gotten inheritance - this spells his doom

I finish him off with creature attacks as he no longer has any blockers left

I win with 27 life remaining

finally we have got to grips with battle and experienced a close to full complexity game, and so seeen how our deck building strategies fare

first off, a couple of things that early on I thought were going to be issues i had discovered in my deck strategy but have proven to probably be fine after all:
- right at the beginning of the first game i thought i needed more creatures - the next two games this seemed to be a needless worry.
- likewise, i thought due to the initial seming lack of creatures that if i wanted to stick to a spell heavy deck, i'd at least need other forms of defence early on - i.e. cheap monster killing spells, but, again, later games reveal my balance of spells/creatures and the nature of them seems ok.

this goes to show you can't judge a deck until its been played a number of times to account for the statistcal variations of all the card combos that can be drawn - i.e. you gotta account for good and bad luck at all stages of the game. notably, the sole element of luck in the game is drawing cards - hence this can be mitigated in two ways;
- one, having a well designed deck that takes advantage of the odds - you need the right numbers of lands vs spells vs creatures, and of those, if you need a specific card urgently, put in the maximum 4 for example.
- two, see below for comments on shuffling:

shuffle, shuffle, shuffle - be fair to _you_ - by shuffling well after every game. by far the single most severe lesson I learned, and should partly be solved by getting enough top loaders - cards all in or not in protectors instead of a mix will ease shuffling

artifacts/enchantments don't see combat often [rare abilities or artifacts being the exception maybe?] - you need artefact and enchanment zapping spells/abilities

Put in the max 4 each of killer cards not just 1 or 2 as a selection of everything you won - although your opponent opponent can kill one or two, its not as easy to negate 4, and with 4 in a deck it is much more likely to get one early on

The life deducting cards that bypass combat with creatures are great, especially if theyre low mana cost to use for a steady early start, likewise the for the add life to me cards

failing to look what the 'lifelink' ability means ended up with me ignoring it and so not including cards with that ability in my deck - it turns out ifelink is a killer ability, giving you health for successful combat damage - always read all of the card and learn the rules

Attacking causes creatures to become tapped and both attackers and blockers do damage - attackers damage blockers and blockers do it back - this was not abundantly clear in the rules, wiki or gameplay guide

The following cards from my deck proved to be fantastic and deserve to have four of present if only possible:

- [rival]//revenge; revenge - opponent loses half their life/you double your life for 6 mana

- luminous bonds; enchanted creature cant attack or block, is a permanent so requires despelling

- ill gotten inheritance; a slow burning gem - you gain 1 life and opponent loses 1 life every upkeep permanent; again, a permanent so requires despelling

- severed strands; a 2 mana plus creature sacrifice cost to gain life = to target toughness plus destroy creature

- smothering tithe; opponent pays 2 life every time they draw or you get a tap+sacrifice for mana treasure token

- kayas wrath; destroy _all_ creatures, you get life equal to number you controlled that were destroyed

some of the above things that i think are lessons to draw from these three games or things to alter about my deck may prove to be statistical anomalies, not poor deck design or strategy - so if the deck isn't as good after making changes i will always have to be aware it maybe worth reverting back to this build...