8.1 What is synergy?
Imagine that you decide to bake a cake for a dear friend’s birthday. For the cake to be tasty you use excellent ingredients: fine Belgian chocolate, French whipped cream, English biscuits. Will the quality of the ingredients guarantee that the cake will turn out fine? Of course not. Equally important is the ability to create a precise mix of the various raw materials. In MTG the player faces a similar challenge. The ability to correctly assess the quality of the cards is not enough to build a good deck. The player must know what is the right mix of cards she : which cards go together? How many creatures should she include in the deck and how many CT? What is the right amount of mana producing cards needed for the deck? A correct mix allows the player to achieve what is known as a synergistic effect.
A synergistic effect is obtained when the cards ‘contribute’ to each other so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The quality of the cards is less important for this purpose. What is important is the effect created by the interaction between them. For example, the interaction between the various components of an internal combustion engine and an energy source (fuel, coal) together creates a powerful effect that enables the movement of a large body, such as a car or airplane. In MTG, three types of synergy can be identified: functional synergy, operational synergy and mechanistic synergy. In this chapter and the following one we will deal with the different types of synergy.
8.2 Functional synergy
A day in an MTG’s player life:
Jim has been playing MTG for over a year. she defines herself as an okay player compared to his friends. Therefore, Jim has high expectations regarding his ability to do well in the upcoming national championship. she trains seriously for the constructed stage and trusts his ability to evaluate cards accurately in the draft stage. It seems that the laborious training bears fruit: Jim passes the first rounds of standard format without a loss. Happy and light-hearted, she approaches the draft table. It seems to Jim that his luck continues to shine: she is almost the only one at the table who chooses green and white cards. At the end of the draft, Jim knows that she has very high-quality cards: small and aggressive creatures, quality mana boosters and excellent, but mostly defensive, CT.
Full of confidence she anticipates a great success at this stage too. But here an unpleasant surprise awaits her: she loses the first game… and the second… and the third… Jim is very disappointed and mostly confused. she knows she played pretty well. In fact, in each of the games, victory seemed within reach. And yet, after promising openings, Jim realized that she was having trouble maintaining the momentum and achieving victory. How is this possible? After all, she has great cards…
Why did Jim fail? The answer is that the deck Jim built did not focus on a particular strategic idea but was a collection of good cards and nothing more. As I mentioned, Jim decided to build a green/white deck and for that she used small and aggressive creatures, mana boosters and defensive tricks. Note that these three components do not serve each other well. Mana boosters are designed to reduce the waiting time until we can use our more powerful spells. We give up the card balance with the opponent (putting ourselves at a card disadvantage since in most cases the mana booster cannot replace itself or trade with one of the opponent’s cards) in exchange for a quality advantage (a big creature that is played early on). However, when we do not have expensive cards in our hand, the mana boosters will usually be ‘dead cards’. A large amount of small and aggressive creatures is usually not able to overwhelm the opponent alone. At some point the momentum is lost and another means is needed to ‘finish the job’. Defensive tricks are certainly unable to fulfill this need. They are designed to take the sting out of the opponent’s attack and gain time. But Jim doesn’t need time, she needs continued pressure. Jim’s case makes it clear that high quality cards are not enough to build a good deck. she would have been better off choosing lower quality cards that work well together. Yet how can Jim know which cards work well together? Jim must adopt an analytical tool that will tell her which cards are suitable and which are not. This is the strategic idea.
8.2.1 The strategic idea
The key to building a good deck is focusing on a strategic idea that dictates which cards are more suitable and which less so. The strategic idea is actually the action plan designed to achieve victory. As described in the introduction, in constructed it is customary to divide the decks into four types: aggro-beatdown, aggro-control, control and combo. Each summarizes a strategic idea around which the deck revolves: Beatdown is built on quickly defeating the opponent by applying early pressure; Control is based on playing defensive in the early stages of the game and taking over in the later stages; Combo is based on a combination of effects that achieve victory once the necessary cards are found.
In order to achieve the necessary synergy, each of these types of decks need specific kinds of cards. For example, a typical Beatdown deck consists of cheap creatures, some of which are not very exciting and would have scored low in the tests we presented in the previous chapter. Raging Goblin is a good example of this. A 1/1 creature for the price of 1 mana is not a profitable deal. The addition of haste is not enough alone to make it playable. This card is unattractive in a limited environment. In constructed, however, the Goblin used to find its way into red Beatdown decks. The combined effects of these unimpressive-on-their-own cards exert powerful pressure capable of overwhelming the opponent quickly if she does not have adequate defenses.
A combo deck often includes cards that individually have a completely marginal effect. Yet when combined with other cards they become deadliest. Even in a limited environment the synergistic effect is very important, except that it is not overwhelming, as it is in constructed. Therefore, in a limited environment the quality of the cards is still an important element when deciding whether to include them in a deck. However, a collection of quality cards that do not revolve around a defined strategic idea will almost certainly produce a mediocre deck at best. If so, what are the strategic ideas typical of a limited environment, around which the player should build their deck?
8.2.2 MTG colors pie and their characteristics
Before discussing strategic ideas specific to a limited environment, it is essential to provide a concise overview of the characteristics of the different colors in the game. Just as a skilled cook understands that knowing ingredients well is crucial for preparing delicious dishes, the same applies to an MTG player. To construct an effective deck, a player must have a good understanding of the traits of the various colors and how they synergize with each other. The table below displays the different colors and the types of cards commonly associated with them. It is important to note that the table only includes the primary card types played in a limited environment:
| Card type/Color | White | Blue | Black | Red | Green |
| Cheap creatures | strong | weak | med | med/strong | strong |
| Evasive creatures | strong | strong | med | weak | weak |
| Defensive creatures | med | strong | weak | weak | strong |
| Big creatures | med | weak | med | strong | strong |
| Removals | med | weak | strong | strong | weak |
| Finishers | med | weak | med | strong | weak |
| Combat tricks | med | weak | strong | med | strong |
| Mana accelerators | weak | weak | weak | med | strong |
| Card draw/manipulation | weak | strong | med | med | weak |
Chart 6: Color characteristics
8.2.3 Five strategic ideas typical of a limited environment
The characteristics of a limited environment reduce to some extent the versatility of the various decks played. In constructed, you can notice significant differences between decks. For example, decks in which creatures are the main component and then decks that include only a few creatures and sometimes even none. In a limited environment, on the other hand, creatures form the main backbone of the deck. This is not surprising: creatures are the most common group of spells in any given edition, and since the pool of cards from which the player builds the deck is limited, she must use the materials in his hand. There is also another reason for the prevalence of creatures in a limited environment: as we saw in one of the previous chapters, creatures as a group are characterized by functional versatility (they enjoy high flexibility). They are able to put pressure on the opponent, protect the player from counter pressure and often they even benefit from special abilities capable of providing additional services. Since the player has a limited pool of cards at his disposal, she naturally tends to favor cards that can serve her in a variety of ways, and this leads to multi-creature decks. Finally, there are quite a few cards whose effectiveness depends on controlling creatures: many CT and finishers and sometimes also removals.
However, even if decks tend to be more alike in a limited environment relative to constructed, it is still possible to distinguish different orientations. By orientation I mean the stage at which the deck is supposed to win the game. Some decks are based on gaining quick momentum before the opponent can create an effective defense. Such decks have an advantage in the early stages of the game, but their condition worsens as the game progresses. Other decks specifically aim at the midrange stages of the game and are based on an advantage in the quality of the cards (referring to absolute quality―one that is not related to the mana cost/effectiveness equation.)
- Blitzkrieg
Components: cheap and aggressive creatures/removals/finishers
Typical color combinations: red/black, white/red
The strategic idea of the deck is to cast cheap and aggressive creatures in the first turns and use removals to disrupt the opponent’s defenses. Momentum is very important in this kind of deck: the player must inflict enough damage in the early stages of the game to keep victory within reach. The problem is that only rarely will the player have enough good removals capable of disabling the opponent’s efforts of stabilization. CT can fit here as an alternative source of removal. The momentum will almost always stop at some point and from here on the advantage will probably move to the opponent who has bigger creatures. That’s why finishers play a crucial role in such a deck: they allow you to achieve victory by inflicting the extra damage needed.
- By land and by air
Components: cheap and aggressive creatures/evasive creatures
Typical color combinations: blue/black, white/black
As in the previous case, this deck is based on gaining momentum in the early stages of the game. Here, too, cheap and aggressive creatures are an important component of the deck, and their role is to eat away the opponent’s life points in the early stages of the game. However, this deck does not have a sufficient number of removals to disrupt the stabilization of the opponent’s defense. This leads to a rapid loss of momentum on the ground. The factor that allows the continuation of the pressure are creatures with evasion (usually flying), which can continue penetrating the opponent’s defense after establishing an effective counter-defense on the ground. The ability of the evasive creatures to continue to exert pressure on the opponent is of critical importance. For this purpose, the removals should be reserved for dealing with creatures capable of blocking your creatures with evasion. The grounded creatures, which have lost their offensive value at this stage, are supposed to contain the counter pressure exerted by the opponent on the ground until victory is reached.
III. Hammer and anvil
Components: defensive creatures/evasive creatures
Typical color combinations: white/blue, blue/green
This deck consists of two elements: creatures with evasion, the hammer that hits the opponent, and defensive creatures that absorb the opponent’s attack and buy the essential time needed to defeat her. The order in which the player casts these two components depends on their mana cost and the strategy played by the opponent. Unlike the previous strategy, the evasive creatures are not a supplementary shock factor but the only win condition. That’s why the deck must be based on a significant number of such creatures, otherwise it will be too slow and finally succumb to the pressure exerted by the opponent. The need for a significant number of evasive creatures also stems from the fact that the deck usually has very few removals, so it must gain a significant advantage in the air. The creatures designed to hold the opponent on the ground are fewer than in the previous deck, so they must be defensive by nature: those able to block without sacrificing themselves and more resistant to the opponent’s removals (high toughness serves both purposes).
- Green likes it big
Components: big creatures/mana accelerators/combat tricks
Typical color combinations: white/green, red/green
This deck is designed to achieve a win by casting more powerful creatures than the opponent. Its advantage manifests at an advanced stage of the game. As mentioned earlier, as we progress in the game, the cost of the spells as a factor becomes marginal, and their sheer power is the determining element. When the player is able to produce a large amount of mana, she will prefer to draw an expensive creature over a cheap and weaker one. Therefore, a deck with a higher number of big creatures will give the player an advantage in advanced stages of the game, provided she manages to survive until then. The color green itself provides the various means that make this strategy effective: fat creatures, mana accelerators designed to shorten the casting time of these creatures and combat tricks to disturb the opponent’s defenses. The weak point of the green color is its low ability to deal with evasive creatures, so it is desirable that the additional color provide the necessary means to deal with this problem (blue and white―flying creatures; black and red―removals.)
- Strength in numbers
Ingredients: card advantage
Typical color combinations: blue/X
Casting spells is a good thing. Casting lots of spells is even better. Obtaining more resources than the opponent may be the deciding factor in the game. A blue deck is the key to gaining a card advantage because this color specializes in card drawing. Whoever chooses this strategy must of course deal with the tempo problem. Drawing cards does not affect the state on the battlefield until it is possible to cast them. Therefore, there the player needs delayed means such as removals and defensive creatures or creatures capable of trading with those of the opponent. Such a classic combination is blue/green or blue/red, but any combination involving blue is possible.
