I wanted to touch this week on something related to last week's article – the difference between a deck's framework and its core. I may not have made it explicitly clear last week, and realized it too late, so we'll begin there, then move on to a new topic.

Frameworks are the cards that are crucial to a deck's ability to function whereas core cards are more like "cards I would not leave home without." The latter includes cards like Path to Exile or Mana Leak that there is very little practical reason to cut from decks due to their superb efficiency at filling important roles. This is the primary purpose of thinking about frameworks. I feel that thinking about decks in terms of frameworks allows for easier differentiation of role-players. People frequently become attached to cards and put them in decks because they were good a couple weeks ago, without fully thinking through each step.

A recent example of how I think this phenomenon affected deck construction is UW Control, specifically the card Spreading Seas. I never felt this card was necessary in UW Control, so I never played it. However, I recognized that it served a useful purpose in the early part of the year, during a Jund-infested metagame. While I disagreed with the selection, I felt it was a legitimate choice that many made, since it did in fact have a strong impact on the game, both shutting down Jund's manlands and interfering with their ability to cast spells.

However, after GP: DC, I felt like Spreading Seas became a card whose place no longer existed. The rise of Next Level Bant and Mythic made it so that there was a much larger swath of the field that Spreading Seas was mediocre against. Sure, it shut down Mythic's manlands but in my experience if Mythic was attacking with manlands, they normally had three or so, so shutting one off didn't do anything. I felt like Essence Scatter, Path to Exile, and Oblivion Ring all got better at this time. The fact that most UW mages were automatically putting 4 Spreading Seas into their lists at this time bothered me, mostly because I felt like the card had outlived its usefulness. Manlands can be handled by Tectonic Edge as well as Path to Exile, and I had no problems running more spot removal maindeck and editing my manabase to include Tectonic Edges. Removing Spreading Seas I felt gave UW control much more flexibility, and my own results sans Spreading Seas were very strong during that time period.

My main point is that I feel like it is important to think critically about card selection at every juncture and to frequently rebuild decks, even established ones, from the ground up. Metgames shift quickly, and your card choices need to shift just as quickly to adapt. You may not agree with my (or someone else's) assessment of individual cards, but that is all the more reason to think critically about your own card selection. Why are you playing that card? Is it really the best card for the job you are asking it to do? Can your deck operate without it? If so, is it worth operating without it?

Sometimes these questions are trivial; most of the time they are not. I feel like players need to question card choices more frequently, and this is the most basic first step along improving your own decks. Question every card choice, make every card justify itself. Remember, the most common number selected for a card during deck construction is ZERO.

This week I wanted to talk about the value of open mana, and by corollary, why instants are so strong. It's something that most players realize intuitively, but have most likely never thought critically about. Your mana is always either tapped or untapped. If it is tapped, you have used it, if it is untapped, you have not. Mana curves deal with how to maximize your ability to use all your mana every turn, but that is not the only way to get use out of mana. Sometimes you get good value just by leaving lands untapped. Let's look at a very basic example:

I'm sure many of you have seen this sequence play out time and time again. Player A is playing around Lightning Bolt. Player B has gained value by simply representing the card. If he has the bolt, he can use it later, if he does not, simply having an untapped red source has saved him two damage.

So why hasn't Player A gained value if Player B holds the Lightning Bolt? Hasn't Player B stopped Player A from killing his Leech by not pumping? Isn't this a value gain? In reality, the answer is no. Putrid Leech is as vulnerable to Lightning Bolt as a normal 4/4. It requires two Lightning Bolts to kill the creature. Player B should not expect to be able to kill Putrid Leech with Lightning Bolt, and should aim to use the spell for some other purpose (like killing a planeswalker or breaking a Thrinax). Of course, if Player A presents Player B with the opportunity to kill Leech with Lightning Bolt Player B should take that opportunity, but that scenario should not be expected.

In summary, Player B has gained two life simply by leaving a red source untapped. This is a relatively small gain, but it is far from unimportant. Over the course of many games, or even turns, the advantage can turn out to be a significant one. Applying this play to a more specific context, consider playing Jund against UWr control running Lightning Bolt. Assume this play repeats itself on turns 3, 4, and 5 for the Jund player (since the UWr player is on the draw). The UWr player has effectively gained a grand total of six life simply by representing Lightning Bolt; six life which most likely will prove crucial in the mid to end game. The difference between being at say 6 and 12 is rather large.

This was a very concrete example of value gained by utilizing open mana, but there are other ways of utilizing open mana. One of the biggest has been sorely lacking in the modern Standard metagame until recently – counterspells.

Counterspells represent one of the greatest ways to get "value" out of simply leaving mana untapped. By threatening to counter your opponent's spell you can often convince them not to play it. This delays your opponent's spells, and thereby retards their development. This is one of the primary strengths of counterspells that good blue mages have learned to utilize over the years.

When instants are concerned, the critical thing to remember is as follows: Frequently the THREAT is all that is needed, and in a nontrivial number of situations the threat will be as good as actually having the card.

This principle applies to other types of instants (burn in particular) to a lesser extent, but it is by far the most visible in counterspells.

Cryptic Command is an excellent example of a card that alters play situations simply by being represented. For those of you that played a lot of standard a couple years ago, you are surely familiar with how the mere threat of Cryptic Command changes play situations. The biggest example of this is how people would play cards like Wizened Cenn, Boggart Ram-Gang and Bloodbraid Elf post-combat to avoid the dreaded counter + tap blowout on Cryptic. No doubt many of you who played during that time period made or saw those decisions on a non-trivial basis. Whether or not the blue player actually had the card didn't matter, people played around it anyway.

Faeries was such a force because of the number of "instants" it could threaten. In particular, Cryptic Command, Mistbind Clique, and Scion of Oona, and Spellstutter Sprite all presented their own unique challenges and had to be dealt with in different ways. Often playing around one spell would let you walk right into another, and this is why Faeries was so good.

So why is this important to deck construction? Because it is an area rife with potential advantages to gain, if only you seek to exploit them. You can accomplish that by simply putting appropriate situational instants into your deck. This far more important in limited than in constructed, but it is applicable to both formats.

This is why drafting tricks is so important. Because a wider variety of cards are playable in limited you gain the ability to represent more spells. In ZZW draft two untapped swamps could represent either Disfigure or Urge to Feed. Does that mean your 4/4 should attack into your opponent's 2/2? If he has Disfigure you are likely okay, since it's still a two for one, but what if he has Urge to Feed? Then your 4/4 just dies. What if his 2/2 is a vampire and your creature is a 5/5? Does that change the situation?

Forcing your opponent to answer questions like these is a critical part of gaining small, marginal advantages over the course of the game. These advantages can easily add up to swing a match one way or another. A player that plays too cautiously is liable to lose a match he could have otherwise won through more aggressive play. Likewise, a player that plays too aggressively is liable to lose a match he could have won by playing more cautiously. Instants are the fundamental wheel on which these advantages turn.

Within the game of Magic it is absolutely crucial to find the proper balance between aggression and caution, and the player who balances these two opposing forces better will often come out on top. But it is important to remember that at some point, your opponent will call your bluffs. That is why it is important to actually have "it."

Sometimes your opponent will run his Jace out on turn 4, even in the face of 1U up. Then, it is important to actually have the Mana Leak or Negate to punish your opponent, so that he will think twice about doing it in the future. If you never actually have "it" your opponent will quickly learn to not play around it, and your advantage that you gain by leaving mana up is nullified. Proper placement of instants can make a hand of cards look much more threatening than it actually is, but it must still be supported by an appropriate decklist which gives the player the opportunity to make those plays.

Thus it is important to remember during deck construction what kind of tricks your opponent is likely to play around and include them in your deck, but not to overload on them. You want enough that you can gain a good advantage whenever you play the card, but also few enough so that they don't clog your hand. It's a delicate balance to strike.

As an example, let's look at a Legacy card – Daze. In this case, "open mana" simply represents having an Island in play. Daze is one of the defining cards in Legacy, but should it even be in your deck? There are three main things to think about when you decide whether or not to include Daze (sideboarding is often when this decision is made).

1. Am I on the play or on the draw?
2. How effective is Daze in this match-up?
3. Is my opponent playing around Daze?

Daze is far more effective on the play than on the draw, if only because the card is easy enough to play around and the tempo loss significant enough on the draw that using it is frequently not desirable in those situations. Thus having Daze in your 60 on the draw is a decision not to be made lightly. But there are situations where it is correct.

The next thing to consider is the effectiveness of Daze. Daze's effectiveness is directly proportional to how mana-tight a deck is. Green decks typically have less trouble with the card, if only because they run far more mana and sometimes mana acceleration like Birds or Noble Hierarch. Obviously an ineffective card should be cut.

Both of these are normal sideboarding thought processes that deal with the effectiveness of the card. The third line of thought is how you gain value by simply representing Daze.

If your opponent consistently plays around Daze, it is potentially correct to board it out, even if you would leave it in otherwise (on the play, in a match-up where Daze is effective). Why? Because you can get the effect of Daze simply by having an Island in play. You don't even need to have the card in your hand. Your opponent is doing the job for you by consistently playing around the card. On the other end of the spectrum if your opponent never plays around Daze you should probably leave it in, even if it is not very effective or you are on the draw, because you are likely to get better value out of it based on the way your opponent is playing.

In the end, the critical thing to remember about the value of open mana is that it is extremely fluid and situation specific. However, it is important to keep that in mind when building decks (or sideboarding), if only because there are many small advantages that can be gained by threatening spells. It is often viable to play a deck that does not interact on this front, but be aware that there is a legitimate sacrifice there, and thus it is important to keep this kind of situation in mind when designing decks.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5@gmail.com