Magic As A Game of Negotiations

Yesterday I said the following:

"Magic is, in a sense, a game of negotiation, where resources are traded depending on the skill of each of the players."

And I thought I'd elaborate on that a little today.

In Magic both players start with a set of resources built under a particular set of rules. Throughout the game resources are built up, lost, re-gained, until a win condition is met (ie. a life total is zero, a card cannot be drawn, a 'I win' card is played).

The resource trading process is, in a way, a series of negotiations, where resources are won or lost on the back of your trading position. For instance, you may choose to trade your Terminate for your opponent's Baneslayer Angel. Your opponent, as part of that negotiating process, may want to change the terms of that negotiation and play a Flashfreeze in response, and so-forth.

Unlike negotations in the real world, where most often the wisest thing to do is seek the "win-win" outcome where both parties walk away happy with the contract, the Magic the goal is to seek the "win-lose" negotiation, where one party comes out definitively worse.

However, in order to be successful in any negotiation you need to prepare properly. In order to do this you need to understand what 'currency' you have.

The concept of 'currency' in negotiation theory is, simply put, all the things you have to trade away. In Magic these are known as resources. However, there is a scale of resources not immediately apparent from the game rules. Here's a list of resource tiers you may find interesting:

Tier 1: Starting Resources

* Life total
* Cards in Hand
* Cards in Library
* Cards outside of game

Tier 2: Battlefield Resources

* Permanents in play
* Creatures in play
* Basic land types in play
* Enchantments in play
* Artifacts in play (Affinity)
* Tokens in play

Tier 3: Gameplay Resources

* Creature types in play (Tribal)
* Mana symbols in play (Chroma)
* Mana symbols in graveyard (Chroma)
* Mana symbols in hand (Chroma)
* Card types in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Lands in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Nonbasic lands in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Instants in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Sorceries in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Creatures in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Enchantments in graveyard (Lhurgoyf)
* Power of creatures in play
* Toughness of creatures in play
* Mana Generators in play
* Counters on permanents in play
* Cards in Graveyard (Threshold, Dredge)
* Top card of your deck

Tier 4: Meta Resources

* Mulligans
* Time / Turns left
* Deck 'power'
* Deck tempo
* Deck consistency
* Deck threat diversity
* Deck threat response
* Deck card interactions
* Knowledge of own deck
* Knowledge of opponent’s deck
* Knowledge of opponent’s hand
* Knowledge of top card of opponent’s deck
* Knowledge of top card of your deck

Yesterday's story of cracking a Terramorphic Expanse to fetch a Swamp on Turn 1 when I was playing a White/Blue deck, was an example of trading a Meta Resource (Knowledge of own deck) in order to mislead my opponent in future negotiations.

Another example from the same draft was in a game where I had led with a Turn 1 Elite Vanguard, and my opponent had responded with a Turn 2 Runeclaw Bear. Knowing that my deck would do better the more time (a Meta Resource) it had to negotiate, I was happy to swing into the bear with my Elite Vanguard. My opponent had the opportunity to either agree to a trade or reject a trade. He agreed, we traded creatures, and the negotiation went better for me: I came out one mana spent ahead and was given more time to find my Baneslayer Angel.

Yesterday's post also included an example where I was happy to trade card after card so long as I could maintain a positive trade advantage in terms of time, knowing that time was fast becoming my opponent's most valuable resource. My opponent did not realise this series of negotiations was going on until far too late, by which time he could not extract himself from a negative trading position and lost the match.

Understanding all the resources available to you, how to access them, how and when to maximise your resource expenditure, and how to ensure a series of 'win-lose' negotiations throughout the game is critical to winning in Magic. Over the next few weeks I'll explore these topics in terms of deckbuilding, gameplay and negotiation strategy. I'd also be very interested in your feedback in regards to this, especially around and resources that I may have missed, or holes in the philosophical approach. Feel free to comment, hit me up on wrongwaygoback@yahoo.com or on Twitter.

Labels: analysis, magic, theory