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Quiet Speculation is proud to welcome Daniel to the team. Look for weekly strategy articles from him on a variety of topics to help improve your game. â âQS Staff
Hello, my name is Daniel Goetschel and I will be writing strategy articles for Quiet Speculation. I started playing Magic while in middle school and quickly became interested in competing in events. I have participated in numerous tournaments over the last decade, with top finishes including second place in the 2021 Magic Online Championship Showcase (MOCS), and winning Grand Prix Niagra Falls, a Legacy GP, in 2019.
Since the beginning, I've been on a journey of continuous improvement. Today I will go over some of the things I have learned over the years that shape how I approach the game.
F*** Heuristics
One of the worst things you can do in MTG is rush through your turns without thinking through your options, and one of the easiest ways to do that is using heuristics to justify your choices.
Heuristics can be helpful, those rules of thumb such as be mana efficient, control decks donât care about damage, just survive vs aggro decks, and so on. But I think the great danger of heuristics is that it stops people from thinking intricately. Rather than analyzing the situation an individual finds themselves in, they just slot the heuristic into the decision, for example, if you have the opportunity to take an aggressive line with a controlling deck, you might think well control decks donât care about damage, Iâll find another way to win, and then not think through the pros and cons of the aggressive line. In other words, instead of probing the problem that lies in front of you, you apply the heuristic and move on to the next choice.
Heuristics make lines seem reasonable without thinking them through.
A good way to counteract this is to slow down. When you begin your turn, think through the pros and cons of various lines, try to be conscious of your thought process. When a game is finished you can ask yourself why you made all the decisions you made. Things might be a bit more clear in retrospect and one might be surprised by how many choices they made "automatically." Heuristics make lines seem reasonable without thinking them through.
The same also applies to deckbuilding. People are often afraid to try things, to stray away from group heuristics for how decks should look. I will discuss this more in the deckbuilding section.
Technical Play
Some videos illustrate what I am about to discuss quite nicely. I recommend going on YouTube and searching Channel Huey and looking for Pro Tour Hall of Famer Huey Jensen drafting Born of the Gods, Khans of Tarkir, Vintage Masters, and playing Theros Standard. There are also videos of Reid Duke doing the same.
Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa also made a good video in a similar vein here:
What you can take away here is how they play turn by turn. From the moment each turn starts they think through the pros and cons of various lines. It doesnât seem that difficult, but wow does it help them avoid taking bad lines. Usually, they take reasonable to good lines. This process takes patience and diligence, not abstract raw intelligence or skill.
These can guide people on how one should compose oneself during a match. The general attitude. Sitting back and surveying the scene rather than rushing in and jamming through turns as quickly as possible.
It isnât as easy as it looks. if it was, everyone could win as much as Paulo. Having the mental fortitude to be able to play an entire event, turn by turn, patiently thinking through many of your options can be tiring. Separating good from bad lines can also be difficult due to the abstract nature of Magic theory.
I recall Paulo saying he thinks if he just avoids bad lines it can make it seem easier than trying to hunt down the âbestâ line, since the value of a good line is still high, and the difference between the best and second-best play isnât that much. It's much higher than a bad line in comparison.
Here's an example of me playing through a game: I was playing Sultai vs Winota last night in the Standard Challenge. My god this is painful, I remember feeling sickly after losing this game. Seeing now that they mulled to five this game made me feel such a mixture of shame and pain I almost wanted to stop writing this article.
It is turn one. I have the option of which land to play, either Ketria Triome, or Fabled Passage. Fabled Passage allows us to cast Heartless Act on turn two, but we have four lands already, so we could also save Fabled Passage for turn four and have it then enter untapped. Further surveying the options, we have three two-drops we could potentially cast on turn two, [/card]Wolfwillow Haven[/card] or the two blue instants which are reasonable plays, meaning we wonât have a dead turn two if we donât cast Heartless Act. Additionally casting the Act on turn two will cause us to play our one untapped land, setting us up for potentially three turns of playing tapped lands. Though the combination of Wolfwillow Haven plus two-drop can make it not too awful and there is a reasonable chance we cast Jwari Disruption at an Esika's Chariot .
When I saw Lair of the Hydra, I thought my opponent might be playing an adventures deck. They were reasonably more popular than Winota, I thought off the top of my head. I was kind of scared of an early Edgewall Innkeeper or Magda, Brazen Outlaw. Looking back though, if they had an Innkeeper they would have cast it turn one. Edgewall Innkeeper drawing cards also isnât the end of the world, as the opponent drawing extra cards isnât that threatening. I just want to comfortably hit my land drops, and save my removal spells for creatures like Lovestruck Beast that they need to dedicate full turns to casting. Killing threats which actually pressure me is more appealing than hitting Innkeeper or Magda. Additionally, casting a potential Heartless Act on turn two can trip up all my mana, Anyways, obviously, I went for the awful play and played Fabled Passage.
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Turn two, I remember I was tilting around here,. I didnât realize they only had three cards somehow, because of their mulligan to five. I chose to pass with Jwari Disruption up so they couldn't resolve Esika's Chariot. It would take a while to cast Wolfwillow Haven, but them resolving a Chariot seemed bad. Despite this, there was a big chance they wonât use their treasure yet, and I still have the option to cast Heartless Act or Omen of the Sea. If I tapped out, and they resolved Chariot that would be pretty bad for me.
Instead of Esika's Chariot though, the opponent cast Elite Spellbinder. Now I had the option to Jwari Disruption it, but that seems awful because they could just pay for it, so I dismissed that idea quickly. My other options became to Heartless Act the Edgewall Innkeeper or the Spellbinder with the trigger on the stack, or to cast Omen of the Sea. Looking back, I think I should have just killed the Innkeeper so they couldn't Winota, Joiner of Forces me next turn by taking Act. In the moment though, I waited. The opponent took Omen of the Sea, and I cast nothing, figuring to wait for Winota. Next turn they cast Chariot into another Spellbinder into Winota and I lost.
I donât think I played awfully. I thought through my options, I just came to bad conclusions. Those poor decisions snowballed and made me lose a game where I had tons of spells to cast, but barely cast any. Maybe it was a case of tricking myself by playing around everything but I ended up playing around nothing. Thinking through the pros and cons of the various lines cogently should help alleviate this.
Play Poorly, Lose, Feel Bad: Coping with Infinite Losses
Playing poorly, losing, and then feeling bad, is my typical Magic event routine. Zoom out for a moment though, and it couldnât be any other way. Failure is programmed in.
Allow me to explain what I mean. If you define playing well as playing in the way Paulo or Huey play, as I described earlier, you wonât reach those standards until you win literally as much as them over the long run. If that's the case, you will never be satisfied unless you are literally the best player in the world.
Let me elaborate further, I donât see many people holding themselves accountable for their shortcomings. Many blame mulligans, bad matchups, and so on for their losses. Hereâs the thing though, do you think they played perfectly every turn? No, I know they didnât because if they did they would be the best player in the world. So what are people complaining about? They don't play optimally but want to win?
In the play optimally mindset, every event you go to, you will play, make mistakes, lose, and feel bad after. It can feel crushing to prepare for an event, make what seems like boneheaded errors, and scrub out. A total blow to your ego. Now, I am aware of why feeling like a failure is programmed into competition. This isnât because I suck, but because making infinite mistakes is programmed in. Again, if you didnât make mistakes youâd be the best player in the world. Even though each mistake seems so obvious in retrospect, it isnât in the moment. Try to live never making any mistakes, itâs just hindsight.
Deck Selection
Deck selection is incredibly overrated. There are so many things to pay attention to in Magic, mulligans, sequencing, sideboarding, and more. I think mastering all of those things is what leads to the highest win rates overall. You can see it in action with players like Shouta Yasooka, playing what many deem suboptimal decks but still crushing. There are other examples as well, like Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, or Logan Nettles (aka Jaberwocki) with Jund (2nd place at the Omnath MOCS!?). Generally, any good player will have a high win rate with whatever deck you throw at them.
To me, it seems if you play well, you will win a lot, so you should focus on that and not deck selection. After playing an event I've never said "man I wish I could get that last sideboard card down." I usually regretted playing suboptimally. That said, I recently realized why deck selection can be quite relevant still.
I was watching some old modern coverage, from around the time Splinter Twin was legal. Watching people play Merfolk, Zoo, Affinity, BGx, wacky combo, and control decks, and then facing off vs Twin, it didnât even seem close to close. The Twin strategy was just miles better than every other deck. Not playing Twin seemed like SUCH a massive disadvantage. It opened my eyes to why deck selection is actually relevant. There is a huge amount of asymmetry in the metagame at times. Giving yourself the short end of the stick by not playing the obviously best deck can really screw you. So I try to be aware of my process for deck selection. I donât want to be that guy not playing the Twin deck when Twin is legal.
Trying to be scrupulous on deck selection is quite an interesting process. It isnât always as easy as just play Twin. It can be difficult to know which decks are the good ones, and which are not. Itâs an ongoing, adaptive, evolving process. The Twin example helps to frame this.
Recently, Iâve been playing Pioneer, where I can really practice my deck selection. At first, I thought I wanted to cast Treasure Cruise because I think if you cast Treasure Cruise you are likely to win, and itâs easy to cast. I also thought it was asymmetrically powerful compared to the other cards in the format. I liked Izzet Phoenix, but couldnât solve the Burn matchup, and Burn is just way too popular in the format. I was also sometimes losing to combo decks, though with more time could have maybe found better fixes. I could have kept improving the deck but got bored.
Jeskai Ascendancy is another Cruise deck, which I found a bit clunky, though I would put it down as maybe a tier-one deck in the format now. I tried to brew Cruise decks but failed and got lazy. I then moved on to trying the Jund Sac decks after the deck did well in the showcase. I didnât like the Bolas's Citadel deck as I felt like you couldnât win unless you cast Citadel, and your opponent could interact with it. Again, I think the deck is quite good. I experimented with food versions, and they were pretty good. I might work on them more but I found getting the last few slots down really difficult (I even brewed a Fires of Invention wish version at one point). I thought of a delirium one too that could fetch [cardCauldron Familiar[/card] or Korvold, Fae-Cursed King but turning on delirium seems kinda difficult.
When I play Pioneer again, I will probably try Vampires. I think it has a reasonable plan in every matchup and going Thoughtseize into Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is quite nice, though it has lower power than some of the crazy multicolor decks I feel a lot of decks line up very poorly vs other decks in the format, which Vampires could help fix in theory I could also see trying Jeskai. Though that deck looks kinda awful, it's also kinda cool. If you're interested in Pioneer, stay tuned for my article introducing the format.
Last thought with deck selection, donât be afraid to try stuff. This goes back to heuristics. Usually, when I prepare for an event, I play my games and try to pay attention to why Iâm winning or losing, and try to solve my issues. This means I am down to try whatever card or strategy if I feel it can solve my issues. A lot of times this will involve playing cards or plans people will think are really bad, but it doesnât matter. I just ignore it. Not that these people are wrong per se, but that is useless for us. We canât approach magic just mimicking others' opinions especially since almost everyone else's opinions are also awful. Remember again, everyone is basically worse at winning than Paulo, and Paulo isnât even that good, heâs just the best.
Imagine, for example, being a new player going to a local game store, and hearing everyoneâs opinions on Magic, and taking it to heart. This will likely make you a worse player than if you stayed at home just playing Magic Online, and coming to your own conclusions. Itâs unfocused out-of-context language you are encountering. The same is true even when hearing opinions from more experienced players. You must learn how to extract useful information from what they say, not just mimic it and turn off your brain heuristic-style.
Extracurricular Activities: Journaling, Watching Your Own Games, & Watching Coverage.
Here are a few more ideas to help you improve:
Journaling
When playing events, try keeping a diary/journal, and writing down mistakes you made. This way, after playing a few events you can see recurring mistakes you make, so you can isolate them and try to work on them. For example, one of my biggest mistakes currently is not sleeping enough. I tend to go to sleep around 12-1 am, and many Magic Online events start at 7 am I always say Iâm going to go to sleep early, but itâs hard to go to sleep early on the weekends. I always end up feeling tired in the morning, this mistake is pretty obvious so I am aware of it, but you never know which subtle ones you might catch and then try and squash out.
Watching Coverage
I have found watching coverage to be tremendously useful, and I'm not alone. Allen Wu wrote an excellent article on watching coverage. In the article, he goes turn-by-turn through the games of the first Modern Pro Tour Quarterfinals between Sam Black and Josh Utter-Leyton, discussing the various options the players had, and sharing his own thought processes as if he were in their places.
Watching both players play, seeing both hands at once, opened my eyes. They say when you watch coverage it seems so easy to play well, that all the mistakes seem so obvious. Over the years, Iâve even received advice to "play as if you arenât playing" or "play like you are watching yourself play." When I feel burned out on Magic, like I canât make any good decisions, and I'm too stressed and tired to play my own games, watching coverage lets me practice the problem-solving part of my brain in a nice environment and also makes me feel smart (to recover the badly bruised post-event ego) without having any skin in the matches.
Watching Your Own Games
Much like watching coverage, watching your own matches can be incredibly useful. Honestly, this is something Iâve avoided for a long time, as it feels incredibly incestuous and painful to watch my own games. Bringing up that Winota game from last night actually made me feel nauseous. But bringing yourself to watch your own games the way you watch coverage is something good to try and work through to try and improve. It seems like an incredibly fruitful zone to extract value from if you so desire.
Specifically, Cathar Commando and Outland Liberator fill well-known holes for several decks and will be adopted by at least some sideboards. See, the biggest hole in Humans has always been its weakness against Torpor Orb. The deck is built around creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers, and Champion of the Parish is unplayably bad under the Orb. This weakness is compounded by Humans lacking Qasali Pridemage in-tribe. Humans can go outside the tribe for some answers, but Pridemage's cost was prohibitive due to its creature types. All the other options were similarly answered by Orb. Humans finally has two options to defeat the Orb or any other prison piece it needs to.
Liberator's front face is worse than Commando's mainly because flash is so powerful (an extra point of power never hurts, though). However, the potential of flipping Liberator into Frenzied Trapbreaker makes up for that weakness to the point that I'd expect Humans to adopt Liberator over Commando. True, Trapbreaker doesn't synergize with Humans, but it doesn't need to itself. Liberator has that covered and any +1/+1 counters will carry over when flipped. It's one thing to Pridemage 
away a threat; it's another to be able to swing into Urza's Saga constructs with confidence. Also worth noting: Saga itself is a target. Liberator even makes Gavony Dawnguard more playable by getting Day/Night tracking started.
The next two are far more speculative, but I can definitely see their niche. Typically, control mirrors devolve into staring competitions followed by a frenzy of activity as one deck goes for it. Malevolent Hermit offers a pretty solid way to reposition and possibly steal games 2 and 3. A 2/1 beater isn't anything special, but Hermit's front face does provide a better Spell Pierce which stays active under Teferi, Time Raveler. And also can't be countered by Force of Negation. That's a pretty great way to pressure opponents/planeswalkers and keep up the shields.
However, it's the back side that can run away with games. Having a creature that can return from the graveyard is solid as it's card advantage. A flying creature that moots opposing counterspells is better. The only problem with Benevolent Geist is actually getting it into play. Casting it is no different than going for Teferi, but Geist can only be cast from the graveyard. This means that Hermit has to be cashed in first, which is no bad thing, or killed. The problem with the later option: most control removal exiles. However, that does leave the door open for looting effects if rushing to Geist is a thing. In either case, control players should be aware of the Hermit's power.
This has led a lot of players to point to Curse as the answer to Crashing Footfalls and Living End. And they're not wrong; delaying either deck's main gameplan until turn 5 is quite strong. However, the catch is that both decks have ways to answer the enchantment and still go off turn 3, with Brazen Borrower being the most common. This does not disqualify Curse as a sideboard card, but it does mean that it needs support to be effective. I'd argue that since Curse only delays the named card, it's not a general answer, but a taxing card, and that would limit play to tempo and aggro decks that actually put the delay to good use.
The final card is tricky to evaluate. It has one clear home, but that home is already occupied. Sunset Revelry is a cheaper Timely Reinforcements with a bonus. For one less mana it makes one less token and gains two less life. There's also a third clause that's unlikely to be relevant for a control deck against Burn, which is where Timely sees play. Being cheaper is usually the best way to see play and that's led to speculation that Revelry has made Timely obsolete. I'd be more cautious.
However, that cantrip potential might open up more space for Revelry. Timely never sees play outside of control vs aggro, but I could see Revelry being played by aggro against aggro. Being on the draw is quite hard for any creature deck, and getting on the back foot early can be fatal. Revelry can help a stalling aggro deck get back in against a better board. 4 life and 2 humans isn't going to do that, but those things plus a cantrip might. The latter is the most important part since it digs for more threats and may actually be valuable against midrange for that reason. That Tarmogoyf will hold off the humans perfectly fine, but I'm getting another chance to hit a real threat and you'll have to keep the 'Goyf back a turn or two. I'll certainly be testing it.
Similarly, Memory Deluge is a good card that I don't think is good enough. Picking the best two cards from the top four is decent and such digging and selection is especially important for control and combo decks. Four mana is a steep enough price that I think Deluge would be limited to control. The problem is that for less colored mana, Fact or Fiction digs five cards deep. Anyone who's played with or against Fact knows that the caster always gets what they want, so that's not a knock compared to Deluge. The big attraction is the flashback which makes Deluge Dig Through Time with minor discount and no delve. Of course, paying full price for Dig limits it to the late game, and considering that Fact isn't really seeing play, I don't think Deluge has a chance.
I want to acknowledge Willow Geist as a great build-around card. It can grow impressively large alongside Wrenn and Six, Lurrus of the Dream-Den, and to a lesser extent Murktide Regent. However, I have no idea if that's something viable in practice or what such a deck might look like, so I'm leaving Geist to Jordan if he wants it.
Meanwhile, there are a couple more enablers being suggested for graveyard decks. Phoenix primarily, again. Otherworldly Gaze is the main one, as filtering the top three cards and filling the graveyard on turn one is a decent way to set up Phoenix. However, 
Cathartic Pyre also sees 
Finally, there are two cards that would be very playable in a deck that does not and maybe cannot exist in Modern. The zombie tokens in IMH have decayed, which makes the fairly useless except as bad Shocks. As a trade-off, they can be made more efficiently than normal, reusable Zombies. Maro confirmed that Wizards wants them either to be 
In that specific circumstance, Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia becomes a keystone card. Making a decayed zombie every end step is great when said Zombie is going to be fed to something every turn. In such a deck it would be trivial to trigger Jadar every endstep. He's as fragile as they come, but that also makes him something to feed to the engine and replace. However, the real standout in that deck would be Startle. Sacrifice engine decks tend to be a bit slow and vulnerable to aggro. Startle buys time and makes more fodder for the engine without costing a card. It's priced right for Modern, but again, without a hungry sacrifice engine the effect is too weak. If one exists, then we're talking.
The best Modern card revealed from Midnight Hunt is also one of the most innocuous. I've already 
Once Consider is in Modern, expect to see more attempts to revive Arclight Phoenix. 
multiformat all-star because it draws up to two cards. The same will be true of Consider for many decks. Dredge and Reanimator would never stretch into blue for Opt. But they both might for Consider, though Reanimator is far more likely.
So as I was saying, Wizards is printing more graveyard enablers in IMH, and consequently there will be an upswing in graveyard decks soon. And they won't be in the expected colors, so stop relying on Sanctifier en-Vec. Specifically, it's a new Faithless Looting. Which is multicolor, an instant, and has lifegain tacked on so it can be white. Meaning that it's actually not very much like Looting at all beyond sharing some text. But it does explain why Careful Study wasn't in MH2, disappointing plenty of Phoenix hopefuls. And s
decks that don't normally get card velocity. A two mana UW velocity card is competing with far more than Looting did, which will limit playability.
reanimation may be their chance to win. Mending offers the deck a way to burn through the air and set up for another attempt. However, it doesn't make the deck faster. The lifegain makes being slow less problematic against aggro decks, but I don't know if that's enough.
And now for something completely different. Glimpse of Nature has been banned since 
other creature combo deck, but it might be something to build around with flash and Collected Company. It also has flashback, but that costs enough that it's a late-game desperation move. Rite also triggers off enchantments, only lightly broadening the scope of which decks can play it. Enchantress already draws all the cards, it doesn't need a temporary boost. So, again, what's the big deal? Simple. Rite is white rather than blue.
gameplans. And I'm also not certain that Storm- or Elves-style combo is viable in Modern, and if it is, that it's better than existing Company decks.
Speaking of Humans, there are a number of Humans cards with potential in IMH. Which makes sense. This is the plane that spawned Champion of the Parish, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Thalia's Lieutenant, after all. The catch is that, so far, most have catches to their playability. The biggest problem is that almost all are three mana or more. They're very good three mana cards, but cost is a huge factor in playability.
quite good and I know from experience that it will be easy to make live. The problem is that I doubt it will ever save Sentinel from removal. Smart players will just kill the other creatures first. Or sweep the board. It would be very good at breaking board stalls, but those are very rare. In other words, it's a good card for a different metagame.
Chaplain of Alms is another one that might be playable in the right metagame and the right deck. A 1/1 with first strike and ward 1 isn't much, but disturb makes me want to get down with that sickness. Getting a dead creature back transformed is decent value, and protecting every creature with ward 1 is pretty good. It's very fragile and costly, but in a very grindy meta it might work out.
catch is that Dawnguard doesn't trigger on entry. Instead, the trigger is tied to the Day/Night werewolf mechanic and only triggers when night becomes day or day becomes night. Which means that Dawnguard can trigger multiple times, but unless it was already night when she entered, it will be down the line.
However, it's not too far from possible. There are a number of new Day/Nightbound werewolves that would get the ball rolling for Dawnguard. Tovolar, Dire Overlord is the most playable creature so far, but it is quite early. And there are a few non-creatures that reference day and night, so there may be enough cards to get the ball rolling for Dawnguard. In an actual werewolf deck she'd be quite strong, but such a deck is likely a bad Domain Zoo and more for Standard than Modern.
The average is my estimate for how many results a given deck âshouldâ produce on MTGO. Being a tiered deck requires being better than âgood enough;â in July the average population was 6.44, meaning a deck needed 7 results to beat the average and make Tier 3. This means that the cutoff is the same as 
But unlike June, August's total decks were more like 
Tier 2's composition is the result of the weirdness of August's metagame shift. At the end of July, Elementals was having a huge resurgence. It had just won a Challenge and had become the It Deck, getting results everywhere and surging from obscurity to upper Tier 3. This continued into August and for the first few weeks it looked like Elementals would just dominate the postings. Then it just stopped. By mid-August Elementals just stopped putting up results. It seemed inexplicable initially, but then I heard that two other (re)surging decks, Burn and Tron, had good Elementals matchups. Both decks had been low Tier 3 at best this year but were suddenly right in the hunt. If they were preying on Elementals, then it fits that they'd fall off when Elementals did, and that was the case for Tron. Both decks had strong upward trends that just flatlined mid-August.
relative strengths of each deck within the metagame. The population method gives a decks that consistently just squeaks into Top 32 the same weight as one that Top 8âs. Using a power ranking rewards good results and moves the winningest decks to the top of the pile and better reflects its metagame potential.
squeaked over the line to Tier 2. Creativity has distinguished itself from predecessor Lorehold Turns by keeping the strategy of Indomitable Creativity into big creature but ditched the turns package to just win with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and sometimes Iona, Shield of Emeria or other big finisher. Which seems like a huge upgrade to me.
BG Yawgmoth beatdown/combo was the best average deck. This is probably because of it just barely making the population Tier 3. A lot of good results not getting spread around much does that. However, I think Cascade Crashers must be declared August's Best Deck. It outperformed not only the baseline but other Tier 1 decks by quite a bit. The winner of both the Population and Power standings, Hammer Time, is pretty average here, though the baseline is really low thanks to all the singletons that only earned 1 point. And Grixis Channeler still managed to fall way under the baseline. A clear underperformer.
Consider Wild Nacatl. It was 
Consider Jace, the Mind Sculptor. When he was 
Phoenix decks. 
Consider a typical 
Start with turn 1 DRC into four Mishra's Baubles. Then on turn 2 let's chain all the Manamorphose into four Gut Shot and finish on two Lootings. That is 14 surveil triggers and 12 cards drawn. That is an opening hand, draw step, and 26 chances to see Phoenix's, for a hypergeometric probability of seeing one Phoenix of 97%, and the probability of seeing all four is now 9.5%. In this most extreme case, the opponent has taken four damage from Shots, and will be attacked for 15 leaving them at 1.
