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Main » Articles » How (not) to Play Once Upon a Time

How (not) to Play Once Upon a Time

Michael Flores
Posted on October 29, 2019
 Reddit

Once Upon a Time is the strongest card in Standard. According to this article by quantitatively inclined Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Famer Frank Karsten, it was the most registered card at Mythic Championship V... And doubtless, that first big event will be just the beginning. While you can make arguments for "payoffs" like Oko, Thief of Crowns (or the now-banned Field of the Dead), it is the enabler Once Upon a Time that is truly game-changing.

This may be difficult for some players to process. They see the vitriolic Twitter threads about Oko, or the size enabled by Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Hydroid Krasis... But it is Once Upon a Time that is well and truly different from everything else, and most offers the peerless ability to change a player's fortunes. This article will attempt to communicate why all of that is, and some common errors being committed with (and against) this singular card, so you can avoid them in the future.

Upon a Time is All About Turn One

In 2011 Dave Shiels won what I would consider the most high-skill Top 8 in the history of Magic: The Gathering premier events, at Grand Prix Dallas-Fort Worth. That Top 8 featured a whopping 32 copies of Mana Leak and 32 copies of Jace, the Mind Sculptor... But perhaps the most telling card would be the 1 mana sorcery that would be banned in multiple formats soon after.

The Top 8 included former US National Champion Michael Jacob, future Player of the Year Owen Turtenwald, Hall of Famer Joshua Utter-Leyton... And the ever controversial Alex Bertoncini. Shiels won the Grand Prix in April; but like a future-Alex, Preordain would be banned from Modern and Extended tournaments by September.

Preordain

Preordain did three important things for tournament Magicians.

First, it made more seven-card hands keep-able. Though Preordain master Nick Spagnolo cautioned against this (keeping a one land hand with a blind first-turn Preordain might not be a great idea if you intended to hit your first six land drops), it did in fact reduce the number of mulligans Blue mages declared, on average and over time.

Secondly, and seminal for the Shiels victory in Texas, Preordain could set up a very specific turn two if you were in the market for that. Every deck in that 2011 Top 8 had either a Lotus Cobra or Stoneforge Mystic that could be deployed to great advantage as early as turn two (if you wanted to). Between this and the reduced number of mulligans, the cheap cantrip created tremendous value.

Third, and subtly, it won the game late. Spagnolo argued the card got better the longer you held it, and that a late-game Preordain typically won it all. This is important not due to its parallel to Once Upon a Time (which is almost the opposite) but more that secret information led the particularly knowledgeable Preordain mages to untold win rates, even if the mediocre ones were winning more anyway.

Lastly - and not in the game but around the game - Preordain, even more than Jace, the Mind Sculptor, took luck out of Magic: The Gathering. Manascrew is the great equalizer, and everyone reading this knows that anyone can beat anyone. But in the age of Preordain, the better (or better prepared) player won an overwhelming amount of the time, resulting in dramatically reduced tournament attendance. As I've said, Preordain was quickly banned in large formats Modern and Extended, though was allowed to ride out its stay in Standard.

Fast-forward to 2019. Consider for a moment this hand:

This was from my first paper match playing with Once Upon a Time at FNM. My hot take was that in no reasonable format should this be a keep-able hand. It was so extreme I knew I had to take a pic and write about it.

It has two 4-drops and a 5-drop among six total Green spells... And a single land that can't cast any of them.

But it also has Once Upon a Time.

I knew immediately that it would be a great hand and I was right. Once Upon a Time gave me land for Gilded Goose and Paradise Druid. My poor Knights opponent had no shot against the combination of acceleration, loose food, and a Wicked Wolf. It wasn't just a win from a one-lander... It was a rout.

This is because of the first and most important principle of Once Upon a Time: It's All About Turn One.

You see, unlike Preordain and every other powerhouse card drawing spell ever printed, Once Upon a Time generates outsized leverage, but on turn one... It is a little below average any time after. Therefore, you have to plan you want to make Once Upon a Time work hard on the first turn and extract the maximum from it.

I didn't quite craft the perfect opening hand with that one, but I was inspired to, and switched from the Pantheon Simic Food to Stanislav Cifka's Bant Ramp for Saturday Showdown the next day. If Once Upon a Time is all about turn one, we had best make turn one sing.

Bant Ramp | Eldraine Standard | Stanislav Cifka, Mythic Championship V

I got it wrong initially.

I blame whoever edited "All Mythic Championship V Standard Decklists" on the mother ship for labeling the deck Bant Ramp. It's not really a Ramp deck. It's a Superfrields deck a la Mono-Green. Llanowar Elves becomes Gilded Goose; Karn becomes Oko; but the structure is quite similar... Arboreal Grazers into Nissas to play an ultimately bigger game than the opponent, whether Hydroid Krasis or Ugin, the Ineffable.

Analyzing the deck as a "Ramp" deck I kind of made fun of the deck with Zvi Mowshowitz during our Mythic Championship V Preview Show. I thought the deck lacked a payoff. Unlike the Bant Golos decks, it didn't have Field of the Dead. Unlike Simic (or Bant) Food, it lacked the heavy hitters Questing Beast and Wicked Wolf. The deck made no sense to me!

I was just ignorant.

I didn't understand that the genius was on turn one. Who cares what big thing finished the game, or how many there were, when Cifka was winning so many more on the very first turn of the game!

Cifka didn't get everything right. I quickly switched those two Growth Spirals to the last two Arboreal Grazers. But the Bant "Ramp" guys got more right with their strategy than anyone else at Mythic Championship V.

Think about all the turn one-two hands this deck can assemble.

Arboreal Grazer
Gilded Goose

Teferi, Time Raveler
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Ashiok, Dream Render

Turn two Oko is really hard for any aggressive deck to beat, especially off of a Grazer, who plays such great defense for a 1-drop... Teferi is even worse for many decks. All you have to do is stick Teferi and you're on easy mode against any deck that's trying to switch up the end game with Disdainful Stroke or Dovin's Veto.

It wins turn one.

Seriously. Should have been "Superfriends".

Force of Will
Force of Negation

Do you know what the difference between these two cards is? Force of Will is somewhere between a necessary evil and slight under-performer for many decks... But it is necessary when the format is fast enough. Defending yourself can be expensive.

Other decks, though, use Force of Will to force their strategies down the throat of a hapless opponent. The 2019 version can keep you afloat... But not murderate someone. Force of Negation is the blind turn-one Preordain that Spagnolo preached against... It's bad in terms of how good a Preordain can be, but nevertheless saved countless mulligans. The alternative is Once Upon a Time at its best... At a pedestrian level it will make sure you have your early land drops and colors. But the really good ones deploy a strategy, quickly, rather than just saving you a trip to Paris, Vancouver, or London.

Gruul Aggro | Eldraine Standard | Javier Dominguez, 1st Place Mythic Championship V

If you've played against the double-Champ's Gruul deck, you know that it only has one class of offensive 1-drop (Pelt Collector)... But that the games against first-turn Pelt Collector are far more challenging than the games that start on turn two or three. It's constantly growing and building up damage, and after a combat or two can be as big as the three or 4-drops that were buffing it.

Once Upon a Time is less coherent in Gruul Aggro because "setting up a first turn Pelt Collector" doesn't feel as combo-riffic as setting up a second-turn Oko or Teferi with enormous consistency... But it's clear the card can be bent to aggression as effectively as board position.

It's All About Turn One

... Except When It's About the Late Game

Once Upon a Time, historically, is the opposite of vaunted Preordain late. I mean if we can apply "historically" to less than one month of deck lists. I really do think that Cifka & company had the best deck of the tournament, but there was so much emphasis on turn one... There wasn't any gas left for the end of the game. The only big threat in the deck [that could be found with Once Upon a Time] was Hydroid Krasis. Sure, it's great but it's not GREAT unless you have Nissa already. Speaking of Nissa, the other big threat... You can't find her with this card.

Simic Food is better on this front. Questing Beast is certainly the finisher of choice against a room of 2/2 Zombie tokens, but neither it nor Wicked Wolf - theoretically rock stars both - explodes quite as many emotional fireworks at six mana over two cards. Great, sure; something to find, fine... Again, better than Bant in this regard.

I'd submit this as a potential trend:

Sultai Food | Eldraine Standard | dav3m, MCVII Qualifier Day 2

This was the top performing deck from the Mythic Championship VII Qualifier over the weekend.

Massacre Girl is only a 4/4 for five... Smaller than the Questing Beast it replaced, for its size. But I think the important thing here is how much impact it has on the battlefield. Can you get the party started with any 1 toughness Paradise Druids? Because if the battlefield is rife with 3/3 animated lands from Nissa and Elk from Oko... It'll be a Massacre.

I think that the trend will move towards these kinds of late-game threats; at least above and in addition to Hydroid Krasis. Players who've been playing Once Upon a Time already know how good it is on turn one. They're going to play it. By constructing their decks with it in mind - big creatures instead of just Planeswalkers, to begin with - mages can get a little of that late-game Preordain to go with the better-than-first-turn-Preordain cardboard that came in the box.

How (not) to Play Once Upon a Time

Have I convinced you how good Once Upon a Time is?

At this point there are a lot of aphorisms we can apply to it, and its context. One theory about Jon Finkel and Kai Budde is just that they played with [more] library manipulation before everyone else. Jon with the Vampiric Tutors of Napster or Tinkers of... Tinker; Kai with his Ramosian Sergeants searching up the perfect Rebel; or Brainstorms searching up the next combo piece. They got better draws than the average player because they played with cards that let them sculpt such draws, and were able to nudge their genius a little bit more every time one of them got to touch his library.

Or there is the chess quote. When you see a good play... Look for a better one. This has come up over and over on turn one for me. Even having played in four tournaments with Once Upon a Time already, I'm still impressed by how it slows me down to think Think THINK on turn one... Even when I had a plan in mind.

That said, there are good, better, and flat-out bad ways to play Once Upon a Time. I'm equally surprised at how much value folks are leaking by playing it in a sub-optimal manner.

Did you go first?

If you went first, Once Upon a Time is somewhat straightforward to play. Generally you will cast it before playing your first land. Again, even when you see a good play, there might be a better one lurking in the top five cards. As far as the decks I know of, the best thing you can do with Once Upon a Time in the abstract is to set up Oko or Teferi on turn two. Redundancy around Arboreal Grazer and Gilded Goose is the way to do this the most. But beating down with Pelt Collector (or ensuring ensuing action) also seems acceptable.

If you were planning for Gilded Goose (or you have the choice), you may realize you want Arboreal Grazer more. All other things held equal, an 0/3 is better than a 0/2 on the second turn, with any Food in play equally a result of the work of the Thief of Crowns. Take a breath. Wait a second. Is your hand low action after the second turn Planeswalker? You may find you want Gilded Goose; for instance what if you played Teferi on the second turn, leaving you with two lands, the Goose, and no Food? But then on the following turn you played a land, tapped the Goose main phase, bounced it with Teferi to draw a card, and re-played your 1-drop, all on three? You'd be up a card, have two Food, and still be able to stave off a Spectral Sailor beatdown. The beauty of Once Upon a Time is that in that one action on turn one, you can plot out so much.

Did you go second?

If you went second, you should wait until your own turn, ideally after you've drawn your eighth card, before playing the freebie instant. People cast Once Upon a Time at the end of my turn all the time. Do they just think it's cool to steal a little initiative? Imagine for a second all you wanted was a Forest (like in my FNM hand)? Imagine Forest is the top card. If you just waited until after your draw step, you would have gotten the Forest anyway, and been able to use Once Upon a Time to dig for something more interesting. Imagine you had an Arboreal Grazer hand, but only an Island in your opener. You know not to use Once Upon a Time during the opponent's turn, or your own before you draw. You were hunting for a Forest but you found one with that eighth card. What's your optimal Once Upon a Time this time? Temple of Mystery might be good! Your Arboreal Grazer land is entering the battlefield tapped anyway, and the extra scry can help you figure out what to do with the hand you kept; specifically.

When you see a good play, look for a better one. If there is one in the next five cards, this one will find it for you.

LOVE

MIKE

TAGS articles, standard, theory, constructed, analysis, decklist, michael flores, eldraine standard, mythic championship v, 10292019, once upon a time

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