Good cards and bad Magic

In 1998, I was living in Rolla, MO, home of the University of Missouri: Rolla.  At the time, UMR was host to the dwindling remains of a historic Magic community.  The first world champion of Magic, Zak Dolan, was an alumnus.  Many of the world's best players once resided or played regularly in TJ Hall.   Unfortunately, I arrived about 3 years too late to ever get to meet that group.  Fortunately, Zak and his peers left a legacy in Rolla that continued for quite some time.  One of my coworkers, Sean, learned the game from grandmaster Zak.  

Once he found out I played magic, he offered to teach me how to play.  I laughed and told him to have a deck with him on our next shift.

"Whatcha playing?" I asked as I walked into work.

"The Deck, " he replied, shuffling up a deck that had sleeves.  (Why does he have sleeves on his deck?)

"No, what's the name of the deck?" I asked.

"The.  Deck."

That time I heard the capitalization inherent in the title.  I laughed nervously.

"Well, I'm running white green beat down.  Prepare your butt for a spanking," I taunted.

We set up.  I won the roll to go first.  (Why is he using dice?  We just cut and high mana goes first!)

My opening hand consisted of  2 Plains, a Llanowar Elf, a Fyndhorn Elder, my prized Crash of Rhinos, the Robin Hood like Land Tax, and Swords to Plowshares.  I didn't like the lack of a forest, but I knew my Tax would fix that problem.

I play:  Plains, Land Tax, "go". 

My skill in Magic before I met Sean.

"Wait... wait... I have a response."

I was dumbfounded.  (What's a response?)  (How can he do anything when he has no land in play?)

"Force of Will, pitching Counterspell.  I go to nineteen." Sean smirked mirthlessly as he said this.

I lost a few minutes later.  

Sean made good on his offer to teach me to how to play. He introduced me to Power.  (Capital "P".)  The 9 most powerful cards ever printed.  (Or so I thought at the time.)  Cards so game breaking that they're still referred to as the Power 9.

I was introduced to "card advantage", "investment cost", and "the stack".  Sean spent countless hours over many months' worth of shifts, drilling into my head the importance of card advantage, tempo, utility, and knowing "why", "how",  and "when"--not just "what" . 

It was like training with Bruce Lee.  I never stood a chance of winning a contest, but I learned alot during every conversation.

#1:  If you only put good cards in a deck, you'll only draw good cards.

This is so obvious a statement that it shouldn't need to be said.  It's axiomatic.  It requires no verbalization. 

Except it does.  It needs to be said.  Because I didn't come up with the idea.  Sean never said it either.   Nobody in Rolla ever uttered that idea in my presence.

Billy did.  2 years after I returned to Louisiana.  After we had argued the whys and "why nots" of playing Crimson Hellkite. 

Let's step back for a moment. Billy is one of the best men I have ever known.  (I was honored to serve as best man in his wedding.)  Billy is the kind of friend who always has your back.  Give me a million Billy's, and we would rule the world.

For all of his awesomeness,  Billy was not the same kind of player as the rest of our playgroup.  He was a Timmy in a room full of Spikes.  He was playing a different game than we were, even though the cards and mechanics looked very similar.  The next night as we sat down to play, he uttered these words, "You know, Eric, I got to thinking what you were saying while I was playing with my World Championship Deck.  If I only put good cards in my deck, I'm only gonna draw good cards.  That's why Cursed Scroll is better than Crimson Hellkite.  Because why would I ever get to 9 mana if all my cards are good? "

The whole room went quiet.  

I don't know what what anyone else was thinking, but I was in awe.  

Here was the quintessential piece of Magic wisdom, uttered by a player who had preferred Crimson Hellkite over Cursed Scroll.

Application:
Deckbuilding is the second most important practice for an aspiring player.  The available card pool in any environment dictates what constitutes "good". Identifying what is actually good takes an understanding of all the elements of that environment including the interactions, variations on a common premise, ramp, flexibility of mana bases, under or over costed abilities, and the metagame. 

Today's exercise is to pick up a random stack of about 300 cards.  Build 2 decks.  Or have a friend build a deck while you build one.  The 300 random cards are your environment.  Playtest a few matches, no sideboards, either alone or with your friend.  (It doesn't matter if there's 1, 2, or 4 of you.  Seeing the cards interact is key.)

Now, go and using the same pool of random cards, tune your decks.  Figure out what is underpowered in your environment.  Figure out what's winning you games.  Adjust accordingly.

Once you've played a few more matches, cut out all the cards in the 300 that you know have no place in any possible deck due to the low quality of the cards.  Replace those cards with an equal number of random cards. 

Feel free to post your results below.  I'm running this drill tonight and tomorrow with a coworker named Jason.  He started Magic 3 days ago.  He doesn't quite know how the stack operates, but he quickly learned that trading 2 for 1 is bad, but trading 1 for 2 is good.  (Although, he hasn't yet figured out why Crimson Hellkite isn't better than Cursed Scroll.)  I'll post our original decklists, results, and revisions as time allows.

Happy Shuffling!