I want to apologize to my readers as I have not been active the past few weeks.  I have had some issues with writer's block.  I have had to put that article away until I can overcome it.

Greetings to the attendees of the Colosseum and viewers of The Phyrexian Arena!  You have joined us here, in the grand arena, because you want to get better at Magic.  There is a question that you can train yourself to ask constantly that will help you become a better Magic.




You probably annoyed your parents to death with this question as a kid.

Why?

You should ask yourself that for every decision you make during a match.  Take this for an example:

Calling Experiment Jund...

You are playing a Gruul Aggro deck running 23 lands and tons of 2 drops.  You shuffle up and draw this as your opening hand:

Stomping Ground
Rakdos Cackler
Experiment One
Burning Tree-Emissary
Gyre Sage
Flinthoof Boar
Mogg Flunkies

You decide to keep this hand on the play.  Ask yourself the following question:

Why are you keeping this hand?

There could be many answers to the question:
You only need 2 mana to operate most of your deck and you have a ton of 2 drops in hand.
You have 2 one drops so you can still miss a land drop and still have a turn 2 play.

You crazy boar...

Here is another:

Your opponent has a Sunpetal Grove, a Temple Garden and a Clifftop Retreat all tapped and a untapped Loxodon Smiter in play.

You have a Stomping Ground, a Woodland Cemetery, and a Blood Crypt in play all currently untapped and a Flinthoof Boar.

You decided to attack with the Flinthoof Boar.

Why are attacking with a 3/3 Flinthoof Boar into a 4/4 Loxodon Smiter?

From your side of the table, there is one of two things happening here.  You are either trying to get your opponent to block with the Loxodon Smiter so you can kill it with a combat trick (Searing Spear, Ghor-Clan Rampager) or you are hoping that your opponent doesn't block because he thinks you have the trick and you sneak through 3 damage.

From your opponents side of the table, since you didn't play a Abrupt Decay, a Dreadbore, or a Mizzium Mortars precombat and you have 3 mana open (one of each color), he would have to think that you didn't have any of those cards in hand.  That just leaves him to think you have either Searing Spear or Ghor-Clan Rampager.  Now his decision, does he block and risk losing his Smiter to an 8-outer or does he take 3?

I smell a rat...

Last one:

Your opponent is playing RWU Flash.  He is on the draw and his turn 1 play is a Hallowed Fountain untapped dropping him to 18 then passes the turn.

Why did my opponent pay 2 life to put a Hallowed Fountain into play untapped?

For this one, you'll need a bit more information like what format are we playing.  In this case, you are playing Modern.  Now what is my opponent planning?  This will be your turn 2.  There are 102 instants in White and Blue in Modern.  Path to Exile, Spell Snare, or Spell Pierce would be the most likely choices here.  There are others but those would be my bets if I were playing against that deck in Modern.

Even players who are mainstay pros go through this process of learning to ask this question to themselves.  2010 World Championship Top 8 competitor and former Tennessee resident Craig Wescoe went through this very process when transitioning from PTQ winner to the Pro Tour.  Quoted from his article on TCGplayer.com, Living the Magic Life:

Overhearing my discouragement concerning my inability to compete on the pro tour, a pro player named Tom Guevin sat down with me and showed me a demonstration. He shuffled the deck he used in the event and drew a random hand of seven cards. I don't remember the exact hand, but it was something like: Absorb, Counterspell, Fact or Fiction, Opt, Adarkar Wastes, Island, Plains. He then asked me, “Ok, what's your play with this hand?”  I told him, “Well, you play the Island and pass.” He then said, “Ok, your opponent plays Forest and Llanowar Elves. Now what do you do?” I then replied, “You obviously play Opt at the end of their turn,” to which he asked, “Really? Why would you want to do that?”  His response caught me off guard since the play seemed so obvious to me. So I said, “Well, you have a blue mana open and Opt in hand, why wouldn't you?” He then asked, “Well, what are you trying to find with the Opt?” I then looked at the rest of the hand and said, “Well, I guess I want the fourth land so I can cast Fact or Fiction.” He responded: “You have three more draw phases (it was a phase back then, not a step) to find that fourth land. If you draw a land in one of the next few turns, wouldn't you rather be holding Opt than another land?” My mind was blown. It was as if a whole new dimension of the game had been opened up to me. Many of the decisions I had been mechanically making were incorrect, and that's why I was losing more than the world's greatest players. I wasn't just getting unlucky; rather, I was not understanding the game as deeply as they were.

Bradley Reeves
@YawgmothsWill
Infecting Magic One Grinder At A Time