Breaking Through:The Traps of Magic Online

September 9, 2009 |

Breaking Through:The Traps of Magic Online
by Conley Woods

Magic Online has revolutionized the game of Magic in a way that was probably not expected originally. Even if you have never played a single game of Magic Online, you have undoubtedly been affected by it in some indirect way. Now while MTGO has brought plenty of good to the table, it is my opinion that it also has brought plenty of bad habits along with it. This is not an inherrent flaw in MTGO, but in the way people use it. A few weeks ago, our very own Zaiem Beg and I had a long discussion on Facebook about how MTGO can be used as a tool but also a breeding ground for bad habits. In an ideal world, MTGO could and would be used solely as a beneficial tool, but unfortunately, I feel as though it also has provided a false crutch for some players.

I guess I should preface any of the following pros or cons by stating that I do play Magic Online (although Limited exclusively) and I do enjoy it. I do differentiate between MTGO and live play though, and make sure to consciously process important differences as I play online. My stance is that when used properly, MTGO is a valuable tool, but when used improperly, the bad habits developed online translate to live play which is much harder to recover from.

Magic Online offers plenty of perks that live play cannot live up to and we are all aware of them: the ability to play at all times of the day or night; the ability to play your choice of formats; and the ability to play in your own comfort zone (Ex: Your house in your boxers). The greatest perceived perk, of course, is the ability to improve your game through pure quantity of games. Granted, quality can also improve, as opposed to your average FNM crowd, but the quantity is something that no other sanctioned outlet can support.

Players will often find that their game improves as a result of pure trial and error. Basically, the more games you are able to play, the more mistakes you witness yourself making, thus the more chances you have to correct those mistakes. This is assuming that player is in a mindset to willingly acknowledge and correct mistakes, but that is a topic for another time. But what happens when a player is making a mistake and fails to realize this? We have our first official trap.

When you are at your local store or playtesting with a friend, the chances of catching a crucial mistake are much higher due simply to the fact that there are more eyes focusing on the match. Online however, you are often playing alone, and your opponent will generally be silent (or rude) which means fewer eyes on your match, so a mistake is much more likely to go unnoticed. Then, due simply to the volume of games you are playing, you are likely to make this mistake again and again, ingraining it to memory. This normally would seem like a small hurdle, but as humans we have a very constant desire to develop habits as a means of freeing up working memory.

Without habits, we would become overloaded by even the simplest of tasks, such as riding a bike, because we would need to constantly be thinking about all of the methods involved in riding that bike properly. Once an action has been encoded as a habit, the ability to change that action becomes much more difficult. Even if another player points out that mistake at your next session of live play, and even if you make a conscious effort to avoid that mistake while with those friends, it is still way more likely that the mistake will resurface during a less convenient time, such as a Grand Prix. This is because your brain is now having to devote working memory to unknown variables as well as variables unique to a Grand Prix, things that were absent during your Magic Online all-nighter. These new variables can take precedent and then the mistake comes out. Granted it is entirely likely that you will spot the mistake after the fact, as you have also learned to recognize it at this point, but very few "take backs" are allowed at a Grand Prix.

Granted in this scenario, it is not Magic Online’s fault that the mistake path was taken but that path was enabled by Magic Online. As will be true with almost every trap we discuss today, when used properly, Magic Online offers very few actual negatives. In this instance for example, had some better players been watching over your shoulder during the first occurrence of the mistake, it could have been avoided entirely. This is where the line of using Magic Online as a tool, as opposed to entertainment, comes in. Late night Drafts by yourself, cuddling a beer, are often going to be set aside as pure entertainment value. Sure, you may learn the value of some rare you had never drafted previously, but in general, you are not in a mindset of actively learning.

When using MTGO, take your time and focus on your match. The habits formed during even entertainment time can very well translate over to tournament play, as your brain does not distinguish between the two. It is your job to actively learn from every Magic-related thing you become involved in, Magic Online could care less about this.

Similar in fashion to habitualizing mistakes comes the issue with triggered abilities on Magic Online. Players who tend to focus more on their online play get used to the constant reminder of triggered abilities, and then when they switch to live play, they will often be caught missing a trigger or two or worse, a Pact of some sort.

This is not such a bad thing so long as the player has time to adjust to live play. That is, so long as you do not go straight from online to a PTQ or Grand Prix, missing a few triggers can easily be avoided at the higher level events. The reason this is different than mistakes, is missed triggers are going to be much more apparent to your opponent, judges, and yourself when they occur in live play. Therefore, while mistake habitualization and missed trigger habitualization (just a different form of a mistake) originate from the same thing, triggers can be corrected much more easily. The key here is simply to ween yourself to live play rather than jumping in head first.

Another trap players fall into is the mistiming of metagame predictions through the use of Magic Online. Brad Nelson and I talked about this and I believe he is going to be writing an article to go over it in greater detail, so I will keep this brief. The basic flaw here, is that an online player shows up at a live tournament with a teched out deck designed to topple the expected metagame. Sounds great, right? The issue comes when he realizes that the metagame he prepared for was exclusive to online play and the live metagame before him is completely different.

While different players will tell you different opinions on how the online metagame relates to the live metagame, the most common answer is that the online metagame is about 2 weeks faster than live play. Regardless of how the online and live metas differ though, the key here is to digest as much material as you can to decipher what the live metagame looks like. Reading articles, analyzing PTQ results, or just showing up to a tournament beforehand and birding can all help here. The big takeaway is that you actually understand there will be a difference between the two metagames. Also, with some number of PTQs now being held online, the inverse is obviously true as well. There will be a lot of live only players picking up MTGO as another chance to make the Pro Tour and they need to compensate for differences in metagames, otherwise it is possible that a large influx of stubborn live players will drastically alter the online metagame.

A huge factor that I don’t think gets enough attention when discussing the differences between live and online play is the difference in interaction. Online, you are likely to never say a word to an opponent, never look them in the eyes, and never have to be on the lookout for any sort of cheating. In many respects, this is a good thing, as it forces a player to focus on the cards, and thus the actual game play. This is most influential for up and coming players, as they tend to overemphasize the human interaction aspect of live play. There are definitely ways to manipulate and derive information from live play, but they play a much smaller role than players would like to believe. I, for example, love the psychological warfare that can occur in a live match of Magic, but also understand that this warfare will only occur in a small percentage of matches. Thus, more often than not, you are playing the cards. That said, there will be a nonzero amount of the time where the information you derive from live play will directly lead to you winning or losing.

The first thing to work on when transitioning to live play involves bring able to properly handle your own seat and cards. Learn how to properly shuffle, cut, etc, as the information you give off by handling yourself in a loose manner is infinitely more important than attempting to gather information from the opponent. To be fair, there aren’t too many players who play exclusively online, so I will assume this point has been met already.

The next trait exclusive to live play is to pay attention to what your opponent is doing. This is not in an attempt to gather information from him, although that will be a beneficial side effect, but rather, you need to reassure yourself that he is not in fact cheating. As much as we like to believe we are never cheated, almost all of us likely have been at some point, and this is most often due to a lack of attention the opponent is receiving. If you are constantly just looking at your own hand and board state, what is to stop your opponent from drawing extra cards or shuffling a card from his graveyard into his hand?

The majority of players will be clean, but there are very few ways to know this ahead of time so just stay alert. We want as many of our matches to be decided by game play, not on how many cheats we allowed our opponent to get away with. There are plenty of articles online that discuss common cheats (I would link them but they are so numerous, just Google them) but the biggest deterrent is simply to pay attention to your opponent. This is something that never has to occur online so it is simply a cognitive process that one must develop when transitioning back and forth between the two methods of play.

The last development that live interaction grants, as hinted at before, is the information you can derive from your opponent. This is not so much a trap that Magic Online creates, but a void that cannot be filled to the extent that it can live. I plan on writing about the various methods of information gathering at a future date, but for now, once again, the biggest thing you can do is simply to pay attention. Utilize your social cognitive structuring that you put to use in the everyday world.

That is, don’t try to be a mind reader, but rather rely on the body language, tone of voice, and involuntary actions (such as sweating) that you pick up on all the time to at least give you a rough idea of the position your opponent is in. It is not advisable to rely solely on this information to construct a line of play, but it will often be the case that you are wavering between two plays and the information you are receiving from your opponent will push you into one direction over the other. We analyze these behaviors all the time, on dates, at job interviews, on television etc. so it is not necessary to have a degree in psychology to feel out a situation.

Reading an opponent is part art and part science so it is not expected for you to be an expert but rather to at least acknowledge that you now have a live human sitting across from you and thus, that it is impossible for him or her to contain all information internally. There will of course be players who send inverse signals attempting to throw you off of a read, but this is why it is important to not completely rely on the information you obtain. Play it by ear, as every person is going to act different in different situations. Again, just pay attention, it really is that simple.

Magic Online and live play are like two parts of the same cow (horrible analogy alert!). Think of the taste of ground chuck and then think of a filet mignon. They may technically be the same animal, but they taste completely different. You can never mis-click in live play and you can never (or rarely) be cheated online. There are different approaches that should be taken to properly balance yourself between the two so that transitions between them are made that much more smooth. I personally use Magic Online exclusively as a Limited tool, and I understand that some things will develop differently online than they will live. Focus on the parts of Magic Online that do translate to live play, that is the technical play involved, or the draft choices made. Beyond that, discretion must be used to analyze if you are having a problem with your Magic game in general, or if it is exclusive to online.

Alright, that’s it for this week. I had planned on working through the Zendikar spoiler, but I figured another week would be more impactful. I should note that the enemy fetches being confirmed justifies some of the arguments I made regarding Extended last week, so take that for it is. Thanks for the comments of course, and as always, feel free to post any questions in the comments and I will attempt to get them all answered. Thanks for reading!

Conley Woods

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About This Author

Conley Woods

Conley is known for his love of rogue decks, and his unconventional deckbuilding technique has resulted in numerous success stories. He won GP Orlando to kick off 2012, made Top 8 at Grand Prix Oakland 2010, was the Grand Prix Tampa 2009 finalist, and made top 4 of both Pro...