The evening before the Pro Tour started, after the players meeting, two of our crew members decided to play out the final of the draft they did at the players meeting, and to get into the serious PT mood, the tried to play a perfect game of Magic and asked us to watch the game and point out the tiny mistakes. Mat and I agreed, and in order not to actively disturb the game, we came up with the idea that we would stand behind a player each, have a cup of Sake ready, and take a sip whenever the player in front of us would make even the tiniest mistake.

There’s plenty to read about this one, and I’m sure you’ll find more than enough good articles all around the web. Nowadays you even get rewarded with better Mulligan conditions compared to the old days, so I would even mulligan more aggressively than with the old rulings. Pretty obvious so far, right?

My rule of thumb is pretty simple: Add a random three drop and a colourless land (no, not something like a Mutavault, just a regular Wastes) to your hand, and figure out if this hand could do something without the help of extra cards. If it does, I usually keep. If it fails, I often ship it. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, considering the strength of your deck (I would gamble more with weak decks), the matchup (I would gamble more if I’m an underdog in the matchup) or your game plan (I would gamble more if my deck is slow and doesn’t have much card draw, since it needs more cards to function) and so on. But as I said, there’s enough articles out there that go deeper than I intend to do here.

Chris’ opponent also kept his hand, meanwhile, Chris was busy moving his lands to the right side of his hand and his spells on the left side. Then Chris played his land.

Looking at Mat across, he nodded at me, showing me five fingers for five lands. He had a perfect read on Chris’ hand already. I had to take another sip.

Also, play basic lands with the same artwork. If you play your Fountainport Bell and search for an Bloomburrow Forest but play the Modern Horizons one on the next turn, you just kind of revealed a card from your hand. Of course, you can also play with extra information – once I tried to slowroll a Wrath of God. I drew my card, frowned, directly put the freshly drawn Plains onto the battlefield and passed the turn. My opponent thought I was flooded like crazy, dumped his hand onto the battlefield, and walked right into my sweeper.

Chris played an Island and passed the turn. Mentally going over Chris’ deck, which contents I was aware of, I remembered him having Tidehollow Sculler, Deft Duelist and Vedalken Outlander in his deck. He should have played the Plains in case he would drew the Sculler. For god’s sake, Chris!

This one is as easy as it’s important to remember. Keep track of the color requirements of your cards and play your early lands accordingly. If you have Keen-Eyed Curator in your deck, don’t play this turn one Mountain unless you have a good reason to.

I also love to disguise my second color as long as I can. For example, if I have only red cards that cost a single red mana to play in my red/green deck, I don’t show my opponent that I’m playing red until I have to. Some might think you’re color screwed and play their value cards without offspring or kicker in order to apply pressure and punish your screw, and some might not guess your game plan and make strange plays. In some formats, players will also overextend into something like a Pyroclasm if you don’t show them you’re playing red. Just keep in mind, they could run Mind Rot kind of cards if they run black.

Chris played his Etherium Sculptor, his opponent played Goblin Deathraiders. After drawing Deft Duelist, Chris sent in the Sculptor and traded for the Raiders. I had to ponder a moment, but then I sipped again. Chris’ deck had two Esperzoas, and without the Sculptor, he would lack a way to keep them going.

Even if it feels ordinary, sometimes you just don’t want to trade creatures actively. If you play cards with aggressive abilities (such as the bloodthirsty Lizards in Bloomburrow), pump spells, Overrun or Anthem effects, equipment and so on, you might just want to assemble a large army instead of keeping the battlefield clean. Try to guess who benefits more from early trades and play accordingly.

Sometimes, you really do want to trade your early 2/2’s if you can follow them up with a 3/2 and continue to attack. Sometimes, you just play a 2/3 on turn three and keep your 2/2 back to double block their 4/4 in the later stages of the game. Or draw a card off your Deadly Dispute.

The game went on and both players developped their board. Deft Duelist nullified most threats on the other side of the battlefield, but a little flier kept pecking in. After drawing his Vedalken Outlander, Chris felt like the time had come to start racing, he played a land, entered combat and tapped down a creature with Angelic Benediction. But wait, why had he played his land before combat?

This falls into the same camp of not giving away free information. The rule of thumb here is to keep your land drop for your second main phase, unless you want to represent a combat trick or instant removal.

I once raced Pack Rat on the draw by playing a two drop into playing a turn three Temple Garden before combat and taking two damage off it before attacking. My opponent was worried about Common Bond which he saw in game 1 and played around it for the rest of the game.

After all, I didn’t have the Bond, but I had to play the Temple Garden anyway in order to play my three drop after combat. The effect my play had on the opponent probably won me the game, since he continued to play around the trick I didn’t have.

After some more trading, there was a strange interaction with Ethersworn Canonist which I don’t remember exactly. In the end, I think it was about reanimating the Canonist with a nonartifact spell before combat. In the end, Chris attacked and tried to play Agony Warp but his own Canonist prevented him from doing so. After asking about the attack, Chris admitted that he was unsure about the interaction.

Always ask if you’re not sure about a rule interaction, judges are here to help, so don’t let your pride prevent you from asking for explanations. If you’re still not convinced, even ask for Judge Norris (a.k.a. the head judge).

Usually, you can ask a judge in a manner where your opponent will not automatically know what you intend to play, so you won’t even give away information.

Game 1 came to an end, and even though the game state was still pretty complicated, Chris was dead on board as he failed to draw an answer. He picked up his card and reached out for his sideboard. While he removed Angelic Benediction from his deck, I removed the last sip of Sake from my cup.