Always 2 Cards Down

Your Card Advantage is Burning

Disclaimer: This article is about a rule for understanding card advantage in multiplayer. This rule has many detractors. And yes, in a multiplayer game no single broad-stroke rule will be 100% accurate for every situation. But knowing multiple of these rules and trying to figure out when to apply them or how they interact will help you be a better player and builder.

Parity

This idea basically boils down to what sort of board states we view as having parity, so first let’s define parity:

Parity

/noun/

: the quality or state of being equal or equivalent

(definitions provided by mirriam-webster)

Ok. That definition was uneventful. But “being at parity” is a common way to describe your position in the game state: it’s when you haven’t pulled ahead, but you haven’t fallen behind… you’re not winning or losing… you’re just even-stevens. That’s parity.

So let’s take a standard 2-player magic game. It’s Turn 3 and both players have drawn their normal draws for their turns. Player A uses a Doom Blade on Player B’s Scornful Egotist. Both players have drawn and used the same number of cards, both players have the same number of lands, and both players have the same life. That’s parity.

But a real situation in Magic: The Gathering™ is way more complex. If Player A has way more life and an extra card in hand, but player B has a few more cards on board… is that parity? It could be, it could not be, every situation is complete and I’m not here to write an essay on every individual possible board state that you could encounter.

Parity in EDH

I haven’t taken 1v1 magic that seriously (just occasional Arena and prerelease draft) since the world was young, so let’s talk about our glorious format for Elder Dragons.

You’re playing an EDH game. It’s Turn 1 and each player has drawn their 7-card opening hand. Are you at parity?

This simple boolean question has just two possible answers: “yes” or “no.” (Ok, three if you include “null” but that’s not really helping). Both answers are correct.

Most people’s immediate instinct is to answer “yes.” After all, everyone’s on the same footing. No one has fallen behind. No one’s pulled ahead. If you compare yourself to any single one of your opponents, you are even - at parity - with them. This is easy to understand and useful in some contexts, and it’s certainly not wrong… but it’s not the answer I’m here to talk about today.

My answer of choice is “no.” The answer above is about comparing resources with another player. There’s another way you can look at parity: having an even 50% chance of winning. Your chances of winning and losing are equal. 50/50. Evens-stevens. You’re neither winning (51% or more) nor losing (49% or less) at that point… but that’s not your expected chance of winning at the start of an EDH game. All else being equal, your expected chance to win should be about 25%, which is pretty close to “losing” compared to 50%. So what gives? Let’s look at the resources you have compared to the resources your opponents collectively have: sure, individually your opponents each have just 7 cards, but together they’re sporting an impressive 21 cards. If you have 7 cards, and your opponents have 21 cards… you’re actually kind of behind, aren’t you? Indeed, you only have 25% of cards at play (and only 25% chance to win - coincidence? I think not) As the game progresses, in one turn round you draw 1 card, and your opponents draw 3… doesn’t that mean you’re Always 2 Cards Down? (title drop air horns)

Always 2 Cards Down

(title drop air horns, but like… again… and less funny)

To summarize this article so far: “there are two simple ways, broadly speaking, to look at parity: you can compare yourself to individual opponents, or to collective opponents.” But why should I care? And why should I consider comparing myself to collective opponents in some contexts? What functional utility is gained by looking at parity in this way?

One of the biggest functional utilities that it has, like a scientific theory, is explanatory power. There are things that are “true” about our format that are not “true” about other formats that are easily explained by this way of looking at card advantage. Like our “25% expected win rate instead of 50%” from earlier. It also explains why becoming the archenemy is such a dangerous hot seat to be in - 3 players means that if you have three times the resources you do. It also explains why trading 1 for 1 can feel so much worse in commander than it does in other formats.

So if winning a game of commander is such an uphill battle, let’s look at some of the ways we can mitigate this and lead ourselves to nabbing slightly more wins.

Drawing Cards

The secret is out: This is yet another article about why you should run more card-draw spells in your deck. This is the most simple solution: opponents have 3x more cards than you do? Draw 3x as many cards as they do. If we’re always 2 cards behind, then just draw 2 extra cards every turn. If they don’t match, now you’re at parity with the whole table for that turn. If they do try to match, congratulations you’ve now properly entered the race toward controlling the game through card advantage.

Knowledge demands sacrifice.

When was the last time you saw someone win a dominant archenemy position without drawing a ton of cards? It happens, but it’s more often that such a state without accompanying card advantage results in them getting blown out and left high and dry. Or, on the flip side, when’s the last time you saw someone resolve an Enter the Infinite and not pretty much immediately win?

But card draw can be a double-edged sword as well (and no, I don’t mean how a group hug card like Howling Mine just leaves you 2 cards behind all over again - though that’s definitely true). Card draw sets you up to have more resources, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you can use all of those resources! Oftentimes, there’s another Rate-Limiting Factor involved because in magic we have limited mana, and most players aren’t building decks full of free spells.

A Rate-Limiting Factor is the factor that limits the rate a task can be completed. Imagine trying to get a building built and the builders told you they needed 100 tons of wood and 30 days. Even if you show up tomorrow with 400 tons of wood, the builders can’t get the building built faster because the rate is limited by the number of builders and the amount of time it takes them to physically, you know, build the building.

This is why taking 1000000000mg of Vitamin C doesn’t instantly cure your cold - your immune system’s speed is usually limited by a factor other than the supply you have (unless you have a deficiency). Similarly, the amount of mana you have can bottleneck the effect you get out of the cards in your hand. Unfortunately, since “Casual” EDH stereotypically precludes denying someone resources to cast spells via Stax effects, we are limited in the ways we can combat an opponent who draws too many cards. We can combat them with punishing effects (Glory to Phyrexia), even use some hatebears (the softer, cuddlier version of Stax), or even by turning the 3v1 dynamic against them and putting them in the hot seat before they pass that envious 50% win chance threshold and break into the lead. Either way, some battles are certainly won or lost by cut-and-dry card advantage.

The 2 for 1

Another lesson we learn from this version of parity is the effect is the relative advantage of 1 for 1 removal. Spot removal is great, and should exist in every deck… but unlike in Standard, we can’t hope to win with a control deck just by trading 1 for 1, Counterspell-for-Swagtusk, and then just attacking them with an animated Celestial Collonade until they die. Let’s set up the scenario:

Each player has 5 cards in hand and 2 creatures on board for a total of 7 cards each. 7 cards for you, 21 cards for collective opponents.

You cast Swords to Plowshares targeting Sun Titan.

Now, if you compare your post-swords-self with any other individual player, you’re not too far behind: each player has 6 or 7 cards. In a 1v1 format, you’d both have 6 cards. But if you compare yourself with the table as a whole, you have 6 cards and your opponents collectively have 20 cards - you’re 14 cards behind. But, compare to the same scenario but let’s change the ending a little bit:

Each player has 5 cards in hand and 2 creatures on board for a total of 7 cards each. 7 cards for you, 21 cards for collective opponents.

You cast Wrath of God.

Now you have 4 cards in hand, each opponent has five cards in hand, and no creatures remain. You have 4 cards, your opponents collectively have 15 - you’re only 11 cards behind. By using a card that hits more than one thing, even though you’ve hit your own creatures, you’ve effectively generated 3 cards worth of virtual card advantage compared to the first scenario. You’ve dug yourself 3 extra cards out of the deficit you started in when the game began.

Note that these scenarios are extremely clean. They don’t account for the random crazy stuff that can happen during a game. That’s on purpose: for ease of reading and understanding the base concept. But, rest assured, I’m not trying to say your games will be this clean - just that understanding this rule will help you understand some things that happen during your games, and also help you understand why, in casual commander, Fleshbags is so much better than Edict. I’m also not saying that 2-for-1 trades don’t happen in 1v1 magic, they certainly do… but it’s extra important in commander. Cards that say things like “each opponent” or “each player,” or that provide sweeping effects like a board wipe, are primed to generate you virtual card advantage like this in commander and are worth looking out for.

Combos

I’m not the biggest fan of combos. I like them to happen sometimes and think they need to be around in some quantity to keep a meta healthy, but they can have a problem where they centralize the game around them. Full article here. But nonetheless, they are a great way at overcoming the odds that are stacked against you. In the scenario I described at the start, I only talked about everyone having 7 cards in hand - but everyone also has 40 life. That’s… 40 life for you… 120 life for your opponents. That’s a lot of life to struggle through with normal attacks. What if you could burst through all of it with just 3 cards?

Not only do combos help you dig through the life disadvantage, but they’re also great at card disadvantage too. Even if you have fewer cards than your opponent, if you only need 3 cards to win, then 3 cards are enough. Sure they can try to interact and counter, but they can also be bottlenecked by their mana bases (as afore-described).

I often describe Vampiric Tutor as being better in high power games than it is in casual because technically when you use Vampiric Tutor, you lose a card (you go down in cards in hand). This -1 card hurts more in combo-lite games, but doesn’t hurt that much at all in combo-centric games where you just get the piece you need for the combo or the protection for it.

There’s back-and-forth play for combos, there always is. But when successful, combos are a great way to break out from the drowning card advantage your opponents have on you.

Politics

Politics are, at least to me, perhaps the most fun way to break free from these chains.

You’re in a 4 player game. Player A kills Player B. Player C kills player A.

Only you and Player C remain, and Player C used some resources to kill Player A.

If Player A, C, and B all used their cards and attacks on each other… if they ate through each other’s life totals instead of yours… well, they just did a decent amount of your work for you.

Many people who answer “yes” to the question at the start of this article will argue that you’re not starting off at a disadvantage because, over the course of a normal game, some cards and some attacks will be used on other players… and that this entire article is missing that point. But for me, that sort of is the point. Players using stuff on people other than you before you die isn’t a given, especially if you pull ahead way too fast or play something that threatens their strategy. It’s because enemies collectively have this advantage that you have to lay low for a bit, that you should fear pulling ahead too fast (or at least take it as a calculated risk and check your calculations twice), and that you should use politics to try to influence the outcome of the game. After all, you can get “lucky” and have your opponents kill each other, but there are two types of luck:

There are two ways to translate the phrase “good luck” into German:

• viel Glück is the standard, and it means something like “much luck,” when you literally need luck (e.g. winning at slots or not getting hit by a car)

• viel Erfolg means something like “much success” and is used to mean good luck when that luck is something you can achieve (e.g. winning at blackjack or acing a test)

So while we can reason that SOME of our opponents’ resources will go at other opponents, I think it’s better to make your own luck… and this concept of “being behind parity from the beginning” provides some insight as to why, exactly, we should.

Wrapup

You start the game drowning in a sea of advantages your opponents collectively have over you. If you’re not actively swimming up, you’re sinking further in. If you’re not actively getting ahead, you’re falling further behind. You don’t start out at parity with the party and you’ll never catch up if you don’t accelerate yourself past the normal value you get by playing. But don’t catch up too fast or they’ll turn the advantage back on you. Oh! And sometimes you’ll get lucky and players will just kill each other for you.

Don’t forget that game states aren’t as simple as putting your game pieces on a scale and comparing them to your opponent’s game pieces… but this is one lens that could be helpful for understanding your games.

It’s been a while since I hit you with a daily Koan (the last article with a Koan was in February 2022). Enjoy this:

"The falling leaf never hates the wind."

- From Zatoichi, the blind samurai

- David Ito

That’s a good wisdom.