Some thoughts on blocking

In this particular draft, this was my deck:

I thought this deck was pretty good. Certainly not elite, but it had enough good cards to win.





My round 1 opponent had a R/G deck.

I won game 1 very easily. My opening hand had Phalanx Leader and Scholar of Athreos, and I somehow managed to have the discipline to wait on deploying Phalanx Leader until turn 4, when I had the mana to defend it with Boon of Erebos in the event of my opponent trying to remove it. I was rewarded in the best possible way when my opponent tapped out to try and cast Time to Feed on it, targeting it and his Deathbellow Raider. I got two of his cards with one of mine, and my army started to grow. It got worse for him from there with Hopeful Eidolon, Cavern Lampad, etc.

I lost game 2 just as easily. On the draw I kept a hand that needed a second black to get going, and even then the only thing I could do before turn 5 was cast a Pharika's Cure. I was punished by a turn 2 Deathbellow Raiders, turn 3 Nessian Courser draw from my opponent, and I was dead before I could even draw a second swamp.

Game 3 is the game of interest.

One approach to combat in limited that is more or less a part of my intuition, thanks to many many drafts with the local Maryland players at Dream Wizards, is to err on the side of blocking. My good friend Brad Taulbee in particular, had the mantra of "always block." His defense of it wasn't unreasonable by any means - if you always block, you are generally immune to bluffs, and you always force them to use their trick, which gets it out of their hand and lets you play the rest of the game on the board. Of course as you play more and more limited, and more Magic in general (hopefully improving at both along the way), you realize that having a rule that says to always do something without exception is probably too inflexible to be truly correct, but for the most part I have enjoyed playing "always block" Magic.

The main lesson I've learned from it is that in almost every game of limited Magic, your opponents are attacking with purpose - if they're attacking their 2/2 into your 3/3, they have a trick a very large percentage of the time. Most players are unwilling to risk losing a creature (as well as looking and feeling silly about their bluff being called) just to sneak in a couple points of damage. This trains your mind to think in a certain way whenever an otherwise unfavorable attack from an opponent pops up - you ask yourself, "what could he have?" and then start to run through all of the cards he could reasonably have/cast such that his attack makes sense. When you play enough of a limited format, it can start to feel like a superpower. You begin to attach certain patterns of play to certain combat tricks, and you let other pieces of information (such as which cards you passed in the draft, or which spells make the most sense given the cards your opponent has in play) weight your decisions. You begin to instinctively play around some tricks without even having seen your opponent cast them yet, and you feel like a master when he eventually does. You condition yourself to play around the worst possible card he could have to the best of your ability, and you wind up pleasantly surprised in a lot of situations where he has something much less effective (or occasionally, nothing at all). I imagine this is nothing more than the normal growth process for someone who is seriously studying and practicing limited.

At any rate, back to game 3.

My draw for this game was something like lands, a Scholar of Athreos, a Baleful Eidolon and a Heliod's Emissary. My opponent had an Akroan Crusader on his turn 1. I deployed my Scholar on 3. Then, on my opponent's turn 3, he attacked his 1/1 Crusader into my Scholar. Right away, my Titan's Strength alarm went off. I was almost certain he had it. I decided to block anyway, because I had more gas in the tank and I'd rather just get it out of his hand, right? Sure enough, he had it.

The next turn I played the Opaline Unicorn I drew and passed. My opponent, stuck on 3 lands, made a strange attack. Having a board of Akroan Crusader plus the token he made from Titan's Strength, he attacked with just the token. What does this attack mean? It means that he definitely has a card that can remove my Unicorn, but only if I block, and he'll lose his 1/1 in the exchange. The only card I could think of that produces this result is Spark Jolt. I blocked with my Unicorn anyway, and after that it was Spark Jolted.

What happened after that was basically more of the same. I would play a creature, my opponent would charge into it with one or more 1/1s, I would deduce why he's doing it and block anyway, and my opponent would play the card I predicted he'd have.

Titan's Strength. Spark Jolt. Destructive Revelry. Savage Surge. Magma Jet.

My opponent cast seven instants that game (including a second Spark Jolt, and it feels absolutely horrible to lose to the double Spark Jolt people). With the help of a lowly turn 1 Akroan Crusader, he dismantled my entire defense with seven instants. Eventually I started drawing lands, and he drew a second creature and cut my survival time in half. Half became next turn, and then a third creature came out to reduce my outs to zero. I died right after that.

After cursing the fact that he drew seven (!!!) instants, or that I didn't draw any of my three Keepsake Gorgons when a single one would probably have won that game 3 all by itself, I started to reflect on that game a bit more. I became aware enough of the fact that I basically correctly predicted almost all of the cards my opponent played, and that I still lost the game. I never really had a gameplan. I lost sight of the big picture. For those first eight or so turns, the only creatures my opponent had in play were Akroan Crusader, and the dumb loser tokens created by it. What would have happened if I just didn't block on 3, and cracked back with my Scholar? I would have been at 19 life, and I could easily have just activated the Scholar to get that life back, all with a handy mental note that says, "this clown has a Titan's Strength in his hand." I could have had a nicely developed board full of all the creatures that I traded for his dumb instants and a chip from a 1/1, and I would have been at like 16 life. I probably would have won the game.

As much as I learned from the "always block" philosophy in the many years I was applying it, I feel like I learned just as much about the dangers of it from this one game. In a way, I'm glad that I lost, because I doubt that I'd have given it this much thought if I won.

"Why is he attacking here?"
"Probably because he has <x> or <y>."
"Why am I blocking?"
"To force him to use it."
"How come?"
"Aha, good question..."

Whenever an opponent makes a suspicious attack, he is almost certainly attacking with purpose. If you have the option to block, don't block just for the sake of blocking. Block with purpose.