"Drag"

They have the biggest thing - really the only thing(s) - in play. An Otter token with Prowess and the Stormchaser's Talent that produced it back on turn three.

Oh, and about a thousand Maps that I gave them.

I was going second, so on turn two they plotted a Slickshot Show-Off which robbed me of my ability to get value (or steal play) with my No More Lies. turn three that Show-Off came out, followed by the aforementioned Talent (+trigger).

These are the turns that mostly make or break a Control player's performance. What do you value? Card advantage or life total? There is no one always-right answer: But mine in this game was based on the fact that I didn't have a Temporary Lockdown yet. I chose life total and sprayed the Show-Off with a Get Lost; hence Maps one and two.

I let them develop the board a little bit, including buying back a Monstrous Rage with the Talent. They took a weird line where they bought back the Rage (could have stopped them with another Get Lost) but I didn't have to because all they did was stick it on a freshly-cast Monastery Swiftspear. I managed life total a little bit with a Ride's End, and then caught WAY the heck back up with Beza, the Bounding Spring.

Here fishy fishy...

So, they did 100 things to get through my Beza... But didn't actually make enough forward progress for me to deign to cast the Day of Judgment I had been sandbagging. They had next to nothing but the Otter and the Level 2 Talent, Whereas I had a ton in hand and a Beza-healthy life total (plus a Fish still!), so just figured they would Level 3 the Talent the next turn.

They didn't have enough cards in hand + mana that I imagined there would ever actually be a Level 3 trigger. So, not scary.

Anyway, I played a Jace with a little mana open and gave the Otter -3/-0 and this odd turn happened.

I'd theoretically care about a Cori-Steel Cutter... But I had Negate for that open. Instead, they just bounced Jace with Into the Flood Maw and then killed the Fish token they gave me with Abrade.

Abrade? The bonus Fish?

What kind of sequence is that?

Drag.

I don't think I've ever written about this, but this is how I like to play Control.

If you think about me and the word "Control" your head might go to Jushi Blue or Five-color Mono-Blue Dragons; depending on how you think about Control contextually, you might even think about Naya Lightsaber in the Jund Standard. A big part of what unified those was that they were tap-out Control decks.

Tap-Out Control has a couple of defining principles:

1. Once it's on the battlefield, the thing that you just put out there is better than - ideally - everything in the opponent's deck. When we innovated Tap-out Control the very first time for the New York State Championships, I saw Julian Levin (Julian would beat me in the Finals for the title that year) make Top 8 by tapping out a Keiga, the Tide Star into his opponent's Skyknight Legionnaire and Umezawa's Jitte. In order to navigate the battlefield the opponent had to give up at least three cards worth of value just to get Keiga off the board, empty his Jitte, and would still lose his best creature. This is Tap-Out Control at its most Tap-Out Control.

But the opponent kind of has to make this play! It's horrendous but they have to do it.

Because if they wait without respecting that a 5/5 Control Magic Dragon is better than everything in their g-d deck, they're going to lose to Drag interactions (rather than a Drag-on) when Julian deploys a lone Boomerang that breaks up their entire planned sequence.

2. Tap-Out Control, despite usually being full of Counterspells, used permanents to gain control of the pace of the game.

You are "safe" tapping out because the opponent can't do anything better than what you just did.

Even Naya Lightsaber had this DNA to some degree. Everything was best-in-class. In the Jund world, the world of high card quality, you could still tap out for a Baneslayer Angel and race their Broodmate Dragon because it not only defended well, but approached the game on a different axis than they might have been prepared to interact on.

Tap-Out is unique in the Control pantheon in that these decks basically play one-for-one Draw-Go in the early game, then shift the momentum of the battlefield using a single powerful permanent, then shift their interactive philosophy for however many turns it takes to win; typically from answering threats to protecting or forcing through "The Queen."

Tap-Out is about how to build Control. Drag is about how to play Control.

My opponent in this game was nominally ahead. I was behind say 8 on life total, and they had gotten their big punches in. Multiple Show-Offs and three Monstrous Rages! Three! Notably I had, a third of the way into my deck, still never drawn a Temporary Lockdown. If I had drawn Lockdown it wouldn't have been interesting at all.

But they kept doubling down and tripling down on going down. Straight down.

In life you can either move forward or dig in. People think it's about moving forward or backward; but it's often about moving forward or straight down. When you die, that's the down-est of all: Six Feet Under.

One of my best friends is going through a messy divorce. Her millionaire husband is shacked up with a woman twenty years younger in a posh New York hotel right now. Her kids are crying themselves to sleep every night. He is not acting like a married person.

She still has his ring on.

She has no illusions about saving their relationship. But I had to beat, batter, and beguile her into taking off his ring. He said goodbye to their marriage months before actually leaving. Whether she likes it or not, he is moving... Somewhere (i.e. a hotel with a twentysomething).

Leaving his ring on isn't moving her backward; but it digs into a fantasy that just isn't there any more. She's digging her heels in. Straight in and straight down. If you ask her what she wants... It's a family, to find another partner (a better partner) and to take care of her kids. But her husband's ring is like Circle of Protection: Any Man She'd Actually Consider. Because Any Man She'd Actually Consider would be mindful and respectful of another man's wedding ring.

Not forward: Digging in. Down. Dragging down.

So, the Izzet sequence of Into the Flood Maw + Abrade + a card draw was just... Pathetic. I hate to put it this way but this was like having one foot in a puddle and then seeing how deeply you can get your pants soaked.

Bounce / kill / attack one time with double prowess was simply not going to be a winning strategy. They were nominally ahead, but this was going to be one of those games that you see slipping away 10 turns before the opponent turns the corner. That Flood Maw might be necessary to rescue back a Cutter from Lockdown later, maybe even open up a big double-spell turn sequence. Abrade isn't "good" in-matchup... But surely it has a better destiny than a Fish [they just gave me] and one Prowess trigger.

If you can get your opponent to make plays that force them to dig down instead of move forward, that's drag. It's a kind of cooperative Magic where the opponent takes plays that look like one-for-ones or reasonable or whatever, but actually expend finite resources to do something other than advance their own winning strategy. Do you ever find yourself tapping mana because it happens to be there to tap? Especially when you're using a one-for-one? You might be cooperating straight into your opponent's drag.

Pro Tour Hall of Famer Ben Stark talks about the skill differential in contemporary Magic versus when we were coming up. Back in the day the best cards were things like Lightning Bolt and Counterspell. They were finite. You could only use them once, so the more skilled players succeeded by choosing where a valuable one-time use would create the most leverage. For contrast the most dangerous creature was probably a Jackal Pup, which is a 2/1 for with a precarious drawback.

Whereas in 2025 you can't pay someone in three special abilities to play a 2/1 for one mana unless it draws a card.

In today's contemporary Magic the best cards are Cori-Steel Cutter; or if you can remember back that far, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. Rather than being finite, one-time use spells; they are permanents that generate literal card advantage potentially turn after turn.

The skill threshold required to gain an advantage with today's best cards is lower than historical, because they are not one-time use. If you mess up with your Cutter one turn, it will usually still be able to provide you a Monk next turn. You might have taken the wrong cards with the Stock Up Shiko just bought you, but you still did draw two extra and Shiko doesn't tap to attack. There is a lot of cushion built in to these permanents.

Speaking about Cutter specifically, it is a multi-use permanent that (at least in the cases of cards like Opt) borrow single-use cards to create its triggers. In this case my opponent in the Flood Maw-into-Abrade sequence really blew it on those finites.

I definitely didn't die; and now they were down two cards. It's not a mystery that Jace was going to came back. Otter got a little bit bigger, but not like big enough that I was scared. Not big enough - even with all those Maps - that it could actually kill Jace through a -3/-0 the next turn. So, I let them use a ton of those Maps because I was wondering what would happen next. In the best case scenario they would draw a ton of lands and I would be able to set up some future Beza trigger!

But eventually rather than expend every Map they made Stormchaser's Talent Level 3 and that Got Lost, too. So even more little tokens on their side.

Oh, did Exploring reveal a Cori-Steel Cutter on top? I didn't even Mill it with Jace (I had the Negate you might remember) and my opponent's hand was no longer any kind of a mystery. They had one card to beat my seven. Which was just a Slickshot Show-Off.

Given all the Maps the Otter did in fact get big enough to challenge Jace. To which I say: Here are even more Maps.

"My Plan A Beats Your Plan A"

Winning Magic even in 2025 is often about strategy superiority.

Literally "my plan beats your plan" or "I'll shift my plan to try to beat your plan."

One of the famous stories from "Who's the Beatdown?" was a CounterSliver opponent resolving Crystalline Sliver and then resolving Worship against me.

At the time I was a little respectful of the Sliver (I mean it did in fact put me on a clock) but was flabbergasted at tapping out for the Worship. How many copies of Force of Will must he have had for this to be a play, let alone a winning play?

After I Stroked him out I asked him how he could have made such an awful blunder.

My Plan A didn't even interact on the same axis as Worship!

He said of course he's going to make that play every time. Crystalline Sliver + Worship is what his deck is supposed to do!

At that point I just left because this was not going to be a productive conversation.

Jamie Wakefield is one of the most important figures in early Magic writing. He was also good enough to make the Pro Tour multiple times. When he qualified with his famous Secret Force deck back in 1999 I was so inspired I drove to Detroit, Michigan through a snowstorm to weather a nine-rounder on Holy Saturday. I was not going to let Jamie qualify and not qualify myself!

But as much as we can point back to Secret Force, 26/62, and that fatties are the one true path to victory, the most instructive piece of tech Jamie ever gave me was a wrong one. A dead wrong one:

Jamie's Big Green Secret Force-style decks were woefully behind their b-g cousins at the time. Either Living Death decks or Survival of the Fittest decks. Jamie's answer was Repopulate.

Opportunistically, Repopulate was kind of like a Counterspell specifically for the card Living Death. If you're getting blown out by Living Death and playing Mono-Green, there are universes where this might be a direction to go in. Might.

In a closed deck lists universe you might get someone with Repopulate, especially if they play straight into it. But then again you might not.

And if you don't, you never will.

Repopulate cycles!

Which is good in that it can dig you out of a slow draw, but bad because they now know you have Repopulate.

Jamie would just not accept that Repopulate was not an answer.

"They cast Living Death. I have Repopulate. My answer just beats the thing their deck does."

Except what if they don't play that way?

Repopulate was only exploitative. Only opportunistic.

What if they just use their Survival of the Fittest deck to beat you on the drag axis? All you can do is make big plays. But if they play surgically, they can just keep chipping away against your big plays. They don't have to fill their graveyard; and they can just use Living Death as Wrath of God because you actually have to play a certain way (putting threats on the battlefield).

This was Crystalline Sliver + Worship against Stroke of Genius all over again.

Jamie was convinced his Plan B beat their Plan A. But what if they also shifted to a new Plan C? Not to mention if they led on Duress or whatever they could still just Plan A him.

In pre-Final Fantasy Standard the best example of this I can think of is Control (or maybe Jeskai) against Artifacts.

The artifact deck is way Way WAY ahead of the traditional Control decks in Standard. Especially in Game 1. If one Synthesizer hits, it's not that it's impossible for Control to win; but it's awfully difficult to win via Plan A.

So, the shift you have to make is a Who's the Beatdown? One.

Azorius / Jeskai: You have the word "Control" in your deck name, but brother: YOU ARE NOW THE BEATDOWN.

Don't get me wrong: This is not a "good" plan. This is not a "plan likely to succeed" on a consistent basis. It's literally the only plan you have.

Use Temporary Lockdown to manage tokens (which might be 10/10 or bigger) and attack like crazy with creatures that aren't disappearing to the Lockdowns. Jeskai has the better likelihood because of the ability to race with Lightning Helix, fly over blockers, and actually bounce things with Marang River Regent. If those things are huge Synthesizer tokens, they're never coming back! But can also win if it has the right mindset. Which is to try to end the game, rather than build advantages over time (as with its Plan A).

"Optimizing Against Your Full Range"

... Is something I find hard to do.

A leak in my game might be that I like playing opportunistically too much.

As a player, I tended to find the most success because my decks were either "ahead" of the metagame or did something my opponents didn't anticipate very well.

In 1999 I was one of the first players to try Thawing Glaciers in High Tide combo. I made a long run at the PTQ at Pro Tour LA, and Federico Dato (who had just made Top 8 of Pro Tour Rome) was taking notes during my games. In the High Tide mirror, how was the opponent ever to try to make a move? I was never going to miss a land drop before they were. My Turnabouts would be much more powerful than theirs, because I'd have many more lands. Because of the wording on Thawing Glaciers, I'd even be able to "go off" harder mid-combo, by pulling more and more lands out of my deck while exploiting untap mechanics.

A year later, I famously started Rebel Informer to be potentially ahead in the Rebels mirror... And then started the trend of siding all your Rebels out. I realized that the card advantage of Rebel Informer was ephemeral. Was it "card advantageous"? Yes. But that only mattered if you could end the game. Successful Rebels players as the format went on shifted to cards like Mageta, the Lion and Blinding Angel long games. It didn't matter how many Rebels you could hide with an Informer if the opponent had an unchecked Mageta, or if you simply couldn't attack.

Thawing Glaciers became stock in all successful High Tide decks by the end of the Spring 1999 PTQ season; whereas understanding that your Plan A (dominating the game with Rebels card advantage) was meaningless in a long game) isn't something that every Rebels mage eventually got [the MTG online publishing universe had cratered briefly in 2000].

Today it is difficult to keep persistent advantages like these. Either people (like me) know that is the best deck or they don't. Most don't. Izzet Cutter is very powerful so they might play that; and one of the reasons that is so good is just that people play decks that it's good against (like Cutter). I'd say is the best but mostly because the average player is not running all giant Dinosaur threats and a ton of mana to outpace No More Lies and Cavern of Souls. Or if every deck (which every deck can do) ran four copies of The Stone Brain in the sideboard, that would hurt 's chances a lot, too. The Stone Brain can get under No More Lies and a single one can remove every copy of Jace that u-w was planning to use to win. It is not optimized for the full spectrum of available cards in Standard; rather more narrowly aimed at the ones people actually play.

Don't get me wrong: When I digitally sleeve up Izzet Cutter, I tend to do very well with it. But its performance in long tournaments has been marketed by the overlap of extraordinary popularity and extremely mediocre percentages. If the average player just didn't run Cutter, they would probably increase their own likelihood of winning... And remove percentage from advocates (like myself).

There is nothing "wrong" with having a lot of your win expectation tied up in strategy. Just know that you can be disproportionately punished when you're wrong, and you can look silly any time you're not proven right. I mean can you imagine flying to across the country to play a deck of all 5-7 cost Dragons in a format where Atarka's Command had just won the Pro Tour and not won? Luckily that's not what happened the last time Tarkir defined Standard :)

LOVE

MIKE