An oft quoted line from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is “know thy enemy.” The full quote, though, reveals an important addendum: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Although the decks you’ll face are predominantly made by other players, your “enemy” remains constant: the built-in AI.
Let’s talk about how the AI naturally orders their hand: Creatures, Supports, then Spells. If the AI draws a duplicate Support that it already has out on the field, it will move the Support to the bottom of their hand. The tie-breaker between cards is rarity first; after that, it isn’t particularly clear if the AI has a preference based on cost, mana already committed to a card, or the order in which cards were drawn. In general, it seems that once the AI has moved a creature to the top of their hand, that creature will remain in that position unless you manipulate it otherwise (a discard, for instance). This prioritization is key to manipulating the AI. I’m going to outline a few tips that can help you win matches that might otherwise go wrong.
- Always watch their draw. The Draw phase is essential to determining what your opponent has in their hand. If they rearrange the cards in their hand to put a new card at the top, odds are that card is a Creature. Most players put somewhere between 1-4 Creatures in their decks (with the exception of “Burst” objectives, which tend to favor creatureless decks). This means that if you let that creature drop, it’ll tell you a great deal about their intended strategy. On the other hand, if you can keep that creature from dropping, you might stymie their deck entirely.
- Sometimes, a bounce is worth a thousand murders. By bounce, I’m referring to “return target creature to hand” cards. Although bouncing a creature back to its owner’s hand when their hand is full can be an effective kill technique, it can actually be more useful to cycle a creature back into their hand. Take this scenario: your opponent drops a Ghalta, Primal Hunger (12/12 Dinosaur with Berserker and Trample, 24 cost; it’s cost is decreased by the combined Strength of its controller’s creatures). Odds are, their deck will quickly drop more Ghaltas. However, if you bounce the Ghalta with a return to hand card (average cost is between 6-9 mana), it removes the creature’s reinforcements, and more than likely will force the returned card back to the top of their hand. Now you have a 24 mana buffer before you have to worry about more creatures.
- Control is the name of the game. You don’t need to play control to win every match, but it definitely can be instrumental in defeating much more difficult opponents. There are three ways to slow down the AI’s ability to play cards: 1. Drains (e.g. drain all mana from your opponent’s first card; drain X mana from their first card), 2. Cost Increases (e.g. increase the cost of your opponent’s first card by X), and 3. Bounces and Kills (e.g. return target creature to its controller’s hand; destroy target creature). What this allows you to do is set the pace for how quickly the AI can play cards.
But . . . but . . . the AI always manages to get cascades! You can be certain, all frequent players can relate to this scenario. The AI makes a simple three match that turns into cascade after cascade of mana until their entire hand is full. It happens. The AI is not cheating, nor is it operating with additional info. You, as the player, benefit from this all the time–the extra matches that sometimes fall into place. Sometimes those cascades result into an instant loss, which makes it that much more frustrating. As you make your way up the tiers, it seems that the AI’s ability to do this becomes even more frequent. In truth, the major difference is deck synergy; in higher tiers, decks naturally become more synergistic–thus an effective cascade can turn into a quick win much faster. This is part of the reason why control is such an important strategy, especially for players whose card collection isn’t particularly strong. The next time a particularly frustrating cascade quickly spirals out of control, instead of ceding the game and moving on, take a moment to appreciate the mechanics of the deck you’re facing. Try to determine what their strategy is. If the AI hadn’t gotten that perfect cascade, how would you have won the match? Do you have the necessary cards to copy their strategy, or perhaps can you pull off a similar effect?
A Final Note: the more familiar you become with the rules the AI must live by, the easier it is to see what your opponent’s strategy is from the first few turns. Although you can’t prepare for everything (and a deck made completely of control cards cannot win by itself), it can influence how you play with what you have. The original Sun Tzu quote says that it is not only important to know the enemy, but also to understand yourself. Unless you’re using a deck that you’ve used over and over, take a moment to peruse your cards before you go into a match. Make an Event Deck, carefully choosing the cards you want to field. This way, when you go into a match and watch your opponent’s strategy unfold, you know what tools you have to counter it. If you know you have the resources, the most miraculous wins are pulled off against the hardest odds. The most satisfying matches are those where you pulled off the win even when your opponent’s deck was popping off.
Planeswalking 