In addition to being a Magic player, I am also a Level 1 in the Judge program. I don’t judge often because I would rather play, but I do run most of the events for my local game shop including Friday Night Magic, Prereleases, and Game Days. Because of this, a lot of the newer players will ask me questions about their deck or game play or if I think a particular card is good. As a result, I have decided to start a series of articles here on the Arena that are focused on newer players and helping them improve their gameplay. For those of you who are more experienced, you may want to skip these posts. Then again, you may find some useful information in seeing another player’s perspective.



For the first in this series, we are going to look at something very important to the game of Magic, and something that a lot of new players do not grasp at first: Card Advantage. In order to understand card advantage, its important to realize that Magic is a game about resources. Managing your resources bettter is what leads you to victory. When you start to analyze the resources available to you, you look at your lands, your creatures, your spells, etc. However, if you step back and look at the big picture, these are all just cards. Whoever has the most cards, has access to the most resources.

You begin the game with seven cards in hand (generally) and you draw one card during each of your turns. This is the same for your opponent as well, making this one of the most consistent aspects of Magic. The idea of card advantage is to take what should be a symmetrical system and adjust it in your favor. There are several ways to do this, and we will look at some of them below.

Drawing Cards

This is card advantage at its most basic. As I mentioned above, each player draws one card per turn. Once you draw an extra card, that puts you ahead of your opponent. It lets you see more cards, thus giving you more options.

However, you also have to be able to use those options. If you spend the whole game doing nothing but drawing cards, your opponent is eventually going to win. You have to mix the card draw with the business spells so the card advantage actually means something.

An excellent example of this is Divination. The only thing this card does is draw 2 cards. I’ve talked to several new players under the impression that this will put them two cards ahead of their opponent, but this isn’t entirely accurate. Casting Divinations costs you a card in the process: the Divination itself. So -1 card giving you +2 cards will put you +1 card ahead.

This doesn’t mean you should be playing all Divinations though. There is an additional cost that must be considered when playing a card like Divination. The mana and time you spend playing Divination could be used to play another card. So while you are +1 on cards, you may be behind on tempo. I will discuss tempo at length in a future article. This type of trade off is what makes Magic such as complex and strategic game.

Removal

Removal can also function as card advantage. Typically removal spells work on a one-for-one basis. You play your one removal spell to kill their one creature, making you both -1 on cards. However, if your removal spell is cheaper than their creature, it can put you ahead on tempo. It will also prevent that creature from interacting with the board any more.

When removal becomes true card advantage is when it starts to affect more than one of your opponents cards. Then it becomes something we call a “2-for-1”. This means you were able to handle two of your opponents cards with only one of yours. Now you see where the card advantage starts to come into play. There are a couple of different ways this can happen.

Scenario 1: Your opponent has a creature with an aura on it. When you kill the creature, the aura will be removed as well. This puts your opponent down 2 cards to your 1 card. This is what makes Rancor such an excellent card. It comes back to you when the creature dies, meaning you don’t lose the card advantage, just a slight tempo advantage.

Scenario 2: Your opponent attempts to play Giant Growth on a creature, and you respond with a removal spell. In this case, the creature will die and the Giant Growth will be wasted.

Scenario 3: A removal spell that removes multiple creatures at once. Sever the Bloodline is the perfect example of this. If your opponent has two or more copies of the same creature in play, this card is going to net you card advantage. A card like Supreme Verdict can accomplish this as well. Just keep in mind, if you are killing any of your own creatures when you play Supreme Verdict, you may not actually be gaining card advantage.

There are a plethora of other examples, but I hope you see the idea.

Enter the Battlefied Triggers

Whenever you have a creature that has triggered ability when it enters the battlefield, this can allow you to gain a form of card advantage. Take a card like Centaur Healer for instance. When you cast Centaur Healer, its like you are casting the following card along with it.

Healing Trigger – 0
Instant
Gain 3 life.

It’s a lot harder to judge the concrete advantage that this type of situation gives you, but it’s still something that needs to be taken into consideration. Sometimes, the trigger may not be as good as whole card. However, if you add enough of these small advantages together, it can lead to a pretty large advantage.

Multi-Use Cards

This is a situation you see a lot of right now. Flashback is an excellent way to gain card advantage, allowing you to get twice the use from your cards. Think Twice is great way to see this. Without Flashback, Think Twice doesn’t net you any cards. It just allows you to dig a little deeper in your deck. However, when you flash it back, you get to draw another card. At this point, it didn’t cost you any more cards, so it does generate advantage.

Planeswalkers are another good way to see this. The Planeswalker only costs you a single card, but most of their abilities are almost as good as a card themselves. So every time you activate a Planewalker, you are gaining card advantage.

Once you start combining some of the aspects above, things get even better. This is why Snapcaster Mage is such an incredible card. It has an ETB ability that allows you to flashback a spell in your graveyard. For one card, you get a creature on the battlefield and get to recast one of the cards in your graveyard. This guy is almost always a “2-for-1” in card advantage.

Lingering Souls is another advantage of excellect card advantage. It puts 2 creatures in to play when you cast, so that alone is a form of card advantage. On top of that, it has Flashback. When you flash it back, you have essentially gotten 4 cards for 1.

And, of course, there is Thragtusk. Not only do you get the Thragtusk itself, but it also gains you 5 live. That’s a substantial amount of life. On top of that, it leaves behind another creature. This card is practically a 3-for-1.

It’s important when you look at new cards to look for these types of opportunities. Anything that can generate you card advantage like this is going to go a long way toward helping your gameplan. It’s also important to pay attention in game, and look for situations that allow you to generate card advantage. The more you are able to recognize when you are gaining card advantage, the better you will become at this game.