What is the "Critical Turn"?
In most games of Magic the Gathering, there is a particular turn of events which essentially decide the outcome of the game. More often than not, this occurs quite early, between turn 2 and 5. We call this turn where the game is usually decided the 'Critical Turn'. It represents a few things:
1. The turn in which the fastest deck(s) in the format can reach critical mass and become unstoppable
2. The turn in which slower decks must absolutely disrupt the faster decks by or they will lose
3. The turn after which the game is mathematically decided based on board position and potential threats the majority of the time. (Aggro has landed its threats and sealed the game with disruption, or Control has begun to stabilize, etc.)
Play enough games in a particular format and it becomes apparent how far into games they are usually decided. The critical turn varies format to format, due to differences in card power and deckbuilding restrictions. In Vintage, the critical turn is about 2-2.5. In Legacy: 3-3.5. Standard fluctuates wildly due to the varying size of the cardpool, but typically hovers between 3 and 5. Extended will likely fall about a half-turn faster than standard most of the time.
What does this mean for cubes?
Lets look at an example from a cube game I played the other night. Below is the board position at the end of the my third turn. (I'm the red player)
The blue player is at 14 life (4 from the Jackal Pup, and 2 from the Blood Knight), and is facing down a bad situation; 5 power worth of enemy creatures and he can only untap one land a turn because of Winter Orb. The Blue player's growth is shut down and my threats are in place. And if he cannot remove Magus of the Scroll, it has the potential to do some serious long term damage even if the blue player finds and plays some blockers. But this game is not yet decided.
In my cube, the critical turn is right about 3-3.5 (The .5 means that many games are decided by the end of the 4th turn taken by the player who went first (or the 7th turn overall). The situation we just took a look at (If the gamestate at hand were on the critical turn) would be turn 2.5. Lets see what happens next. The blue player untaps one of his islands, draws, lays a mountain, and plays
Turns out this blue player is red-blue, and he managed to dig for his Pyroclasm. This wipes all my creatures off the board, leaving us back at equal board position. Now on my turn we are at turn 3.5, and I have to play something good here or the control deck across from me will likely stabilize. Luckily all is not lost. What I didn't tell you was that I was holding a Sulfuric Vortex and a Swamp in my hand. On this turn, I drew Mox Ruby and played the Vortex. The combination of Vortex + Winter Orb was too much for the blue-red player to handle, and it won me the game. This is a pretty typical game for my cube, and represents the idea of the critical turn quite well.
Both decks had to make critical plays to determine the outcome of that game. If the blue-red player didn't have the pyroclasm to answer my threats right when he did, the game would have likely been over for him. On the flip side of that is the fact that I played Sulfuric Vortex on my 4th turn to seal the game, and without that play, I would likely lose, having expended nearly all my resources for a measly 6 damage.
Generally, I would expect most aggro-supporting powered cubes to play with critical turns right around 3.5-4.5, and unpowered cubes to land in the 4-5.5 range. Many of the cards that enable both control and aggro cost 4 mana, including Armageddon, Nether Void, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Wrath of God
So how do we apply this knowledge to Cube Design?
Cube designers are the architects of how their cubes play out. We choose what cards are in and out, and subsequently, we determine exactly where the critical turn lands by our card choices. The leaner the mana curve is, the faster the cube will be, lowering the critical turn. Powered cubes tend to be a bit faster due to the impact of fast mana like Black Lotus, Mana Vault, the Moxes, and cards that facilitate enormous card advantage such as Library of Alexandria or Ancestral Recall.
What cards have the biggest impact on the critical turn?
Cards that can cause huge tempo swings or create lots of card advantage. Including many of the most efficient cards of both types will lower the critical turn. Wrath of God is a full turn faster than something like Hallowed Burial.
The critical turn is often marked by the turn in which both players have managed to play match relevant spells on each of their previous turns, and often the turn before that as well. What I mean by this is that if the critical turn is turn 3, then you would expect both players to have important 2 drops in nearly every game. If it is difficult for both players to land relevant spells until turn 3, then the critical turn will likely be right around turn 4. This is a product of mana curves. Every cube has a particular mana curve, which drives how easily it is for players to play spells at various stages of the game (obviously players can influence this by which spells they draft, but were are speaking in general, so on-average we can analyze the whole cube for this).
The exact implications of mana curves are different from cube to cube, but a couple general rules can help you 'tune' your cube to make the critical turn land where you want it to. Additionally, you may find some colors to be more powerful than others, and often this can be corrected (at least in part) by adjusting the mana curve to make the less powerful color a bit faster.
1) If you want your cube to be faster, decrease the number of 5+ drops and increase the number of 2 drops. This is especially important for powered cubes that wish to enable aggro sufficiently.
2) Keep your 4 drops in check. There is a plethora of excellent cards that cost 4 mana which are are game-changing. It is easy to let the number of 4 drops get too high due to how much better they tend to be than the 3 drops in almost every color. If too many of the game-changing effects are 4-drops, you can expect the critical turn to depend on those cards resolving, which can lead to many games where nothing really happens until turn 4-5 when players start slinging the 4 drops back and forth.
3) Sometimes the mana curve is already quite good, but it feels like something is missing. Maybe a color is underdrafted week after week, and only ever features as a splash. This might be because too many of the cards that could be played on or before the critical turn are utility cards like removal. Sometimes there are very powerful and interesting effects in a color (Cards like Wildfire or Upheaval come to mind) that are quite expensive. If the critical turn is sufficiently below the casting cost of these interesting cards, they will get much less effective use since games will be decided before they get a chance to be played. A solution might be to replace some of the expensive 'interesting' cards with cheaper cards that are more game-changing. An example of this might be including Nature's Claim, Naturalize, Krosan Grip, and Creeping Mold in the cube, as well as Deranged Hermit. A fix might be to swap Naturalize out for an interesting and powerful CMC=2 card such as Sylvan Library and replace Deranged Hermit with Indrik Stomphowler. What this does is keep the number of "destroy an artifact or enchantment" effects the same (after all, you may have spent years tuning the ratios of these effects and don't want to change them), but you added an incentive to play green cards early because sylvan library is so strong. It is a powerful effect that will get drafted highly, see play in nearly every game it is drawn in, and draw drafters and deckbuilders into green. You kept the mana curve the same, but because the effect of Sylvan Library is so powerful, green's critical turn has decreased slightly, hopefully bringing it closer to in-line with the other colors.
Some Example Mana Curves
Here are the mana curves (overall) for the three 405 card cubes that I interact with the most. My cube is represented by the blue bars, and has critical turn around 3-3.5, our "Johnny' Cube is the Red one and has critical turn about a full turn later, 4-4.5, and our Ravnica-Time Spiral Block cube is the green bars and it plays with critical turn 5-5.5 or so.
I would take these plots with a grain of salt because every cube is different, and depends heavily on the individual card choices, but here they are for reference if anyone wants to use the numbers here as a guide.
The Average converted mana costs for the three cubes (Blue, Red, Green) are: 2.81, 3.13, and 3.35
Couldn't disagree more. Basically I'd sum that up as "keep an eye on your mana curve in the cube and in colors."
I don't buy into having a critical turn in the cube. First of all many games won't have a pivotal/critical turn. Both players will go blow for blow and one will come out slightly ahead and win. Some games you'll have one player totally blow the other out turn after turn.
Some games you slam down a planeswalker thinking you just won the game only to have your opponent casually answer it. If the game goes on another five turns was that turn critical?
If you have a turn one creature that gets in for eight damage during the game leading to your victory does that mean the critical turn was turn one?
You say you're cube's critical turn is 3-3.5. Is that true in control mirrors? In midrange mirrors? In control v midrange? It also ignores the fact that some expensive cards are so powerful they can trump everything that came before them. Every been ahead with an aggro deck only to have your opponent cast Wurmcoil Engine? Ever had two planeswalkers in play facing down a Birds of Paradise only to have your opponent cast Upheaval?
I like Magic theory but this seems to be an attempt to over-complicate and over-simplify tempo, curve, and relative power level of cards.
I think that this is a great article, but agree with ia4l that in some games this theory does not matter (specifically, the midrange mirror). And I don't think that there's a specifically numbered turn that is critical the way that the article presents, although if aggro does not drop the hammer before control can deploy bombs, their window to cast armageddon can close.
Things that I think create a critical turn:
1. Mass mana denial for Aggro
2. Mass creature removal for Control (stabilising with a comfortable life buffer)
3. Playing a 'must answer' threat that only gives your opponent a couple of turns (e.g. a Sword, Planeswalker, or some Fatties)
I really liked this post. Aside from content, I think you have a good style- clear and concise.
I think I fall somewhere in between you and iceage4life in terms of content- mostly I disagree about just how many cube games this theory applies to. I feel like many of the games I play could be won by either player. Furthermore, a decent fraction of those games fall into the category of "if you don't win on your turn I win on mine" which is a far cry from having a critical turn, in my opinion.
However, I think it is worthwhile to think about where that turn falls, in the games where it applies. That part is more general magic theory, and as usual with cube topics, the depth is that you have the ability to tweak it if you like.
As iceage suggested, I think this concept loses some value when you talk about the mirror. It's more relevant when you look at aggro, midrange, or control vs one of others. Then it makes a lot of sense to ask (as I see it) "how close is the faster deck to winning?" on the turn where the slower deck begins to stabilize. Phrased a different way, how early must the slower deck stabilize in order to win?
i enjoyed this but i'm not sure how to actually apply it to my cube building, to be honest (other than keeping mana curve down, which i'm already striving to do). i think some of it is a bit over my head, in that i can't really argue against the parts that seem incorrect to me because i lack the experience and data to really have the conversation. but very interesting, i'd enjoy reading further articles about the subject.
how did you arrive at precise "critical turns" for these cubes, exactly?
Furthermore, a decent fraction of those games fall into the category of "if you don't win on your turn I win on mine" which is a far cry from having a critical turn, in my opinion.
but even if it feels like it was a close match, if they consistently "just barely" win, it's not as "barely" as it seems. or, "the last life point is the only one that matters." especially for an aggressive or combo deck (like tinker or reanimator). if i have 2 life at the end of every game, as long as my opponent has 0 i've succeeded. it looks close, but it's not.
i agree about the mirror to a certain extent, but most mirror matches won't actually be even. aggro vs aggro will often go to whoever is the midrangiestTM and there will be a crucial turn where the slower (however slightly) deck stabilizes against the more aggressive deck by getting more mid sized threats out than the other deck can deal with. control vs control would lean toward the more pure control deck most of the time, right?
in control vs control the crucial turn can be a lot later than turn 5, though. even midrange vs midrange can go on quite a long time before the game is decided. how does that factor into this theory?
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Interesting read, but i don't think there is a critical turn in cube you can design around. In a true constructed metagame there is a critical turn to think about. But in cube there is a semi-random metagame with singleton decks. Only the One Drop-Two Drop-Three Drop-Win decks really care about critical turn. There are plenty of midrange v midrange and control vs whatever matches that are more about developing a board over a dozen turns, building card advantage, removing key threats, and waiting for the right time to go for the win. Or there are games where two decks just play bombs until one side runs out. For those matchups its more about specific cards than being in a certain position by turn X. Too much random crap happens in cube to really be able to engineer a cube/draft decks around a critical turn.
but even if it feels like it was a close match, if they consistently "just barely" win, it's not as "barely" as it seems. or, "the last life point is the only one that matters." especially for an aggressive or combo deck (like tinker or reanimator). if i have 2 life at the end of every game, as long as my opponent has 0 i've succeeded. it looks close, but it's not.
I'm talking about games that literally come down to you winning the turn before your opponent can kill you. For example, if you had Banefire for one less, your opponent could attack you for lethal, and you couldn't stop it. I think you are talking about decks that stabilize at low life or use their life as a resource, which is a different thing.
For instance, your reanimator deck could be dead on board, but you might be able to set up a win where even if it fizzles, you have removal or tricks to ensure you get another turn. Those games indeed are less close than they look. But I find there are plenty of games that are actually very close until the end of the game, even after accounting for what each player has in hand.
Turn one brainstorm is quite possibly one of the worst plays a player can make. It is often done and it IS incorrect. It is better to hold a brainstorm until you absolutely need to cast it to dig for further cards. I do not like this screenshot.
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You always hear about the games armageddon wins 100% of the time. You never hear about the game that it rots in your hand and you get beatdown.
I agree more with Laika_ on this. Particularly on the turn to win or lose front. I've seen a lot of swingy cube matches, but I consider that to mean that the cube is relatively evenly balanced. I consider a match where one player (importantly, a player of skill level equal to his or her opponent) gets blown out each game to eithet represent great luck or an unbalanced cube. If the winning player wins all of their, or even most of thier, matches this way, something is wrong.
As far as the when the turn happens, I don't think it matters overly much, so long as the cube also contains a balanced curve. Having a good curve balance should mean all players (again assuming relatively equal skill) are able to either hit this turn or defend against it, at similar times.
Turn one brainstorm is quite possibly one of the worst plays a player can make. It is often done and it IS incorrect. It is better to hold a brainstorm until you absolutely need to cast it to dig for further cards. I do not like this screenshot.
This just seems untrue.:-/ Brainstorming the first turn often helps you get the lands you need or might find you the Mana Drain or Tinker you need to get your deck rolling.
The advantage of doing it later is that you have more info about what you need in a probably more critical phase of the game. The advantage of doing it turn one is that you get a better idea of what your tools are and thus make less errors in the following turns.
Brainstorming T1 is sometimes needed. It's a card that is better late, in general, sure. But if this guy was digging for a red source or for an answer to the wave of dudes (which is absolutely necessary against a deck like that) then it was totally the right play in my opinion.
I liked the article, but do think that it didn't really cover the fact that the critical turn is not nearly as defined in some matchups, or the time is completely different, or it is of minimal relevance in comparison to other aspects of gameplay. In midrange vs midrange and control vs aggro, it's really important. Otherwise, I don't think it really is.
Note that BK says "usually" or similar things alot. It's obviously not meant to say that "every deck possible in the cube will have it's critical turn on turn x", it's just an average of all the cards and so it will only be the average 'critical turn', I guess.
To improve the results, you could always make a large database of what decks are played in your cube, take their average cmcs and work from there for more specific results. Then you could know the critical turn of different archetypes and play after that.
I think this is good information about important playskills that you should have in all formats, but it's rather complex for such a short article in my opinion.
I think the problem is matchups and decks are too varied to have critical turns every game and when they are will vary. The best example of a critical turn is playing against a combo deck. When they suspend Lotus Bloom or get a good dredge you can put an expiration date on you living that game.
I actually saw this in combo cube. When your opponent gets half of their combo into play (or the graveyard) or gets 2-3 elves down you know that you have to act soon to ether win or stop them.
I think the brainstorm comment is just a tad off-topic guys. Take it to the card discussion thread perhaps?
Anyways, I guess I don't really "get" what you're talking about when it comes to this turn. It seems that this really only applies in aggro v control? And the critical turn is when control stabilizes or aggro seals the deal? I honestly cannot come up with any scenarios on my own where this is true.
There are more things wrong with brainstorming on T1 vs. not.
It can be better to hold it sometimes. But using it to secure land drops, and smooth out your curve is a perfectly fine play. There's a lot of factors involved. Simply saying that it's never right to T1 Brainstorm is false.
Yea, but it's almost never correct to Brainstorm T1.
Specifically if you don't have a shuffle effect. If you're Brainstorming on T1 and need a card, you're basically saying that you kept a mediocre hand in hops of drawing out of it. Because within three turns, you're going to draw those cards anyway. And the only way Brainstorm is relevant is if you're going to be using those cards before you would have drawn them.
ANYWAY.
I'm actually not a fan of the Critical Turn theory because I think it changes too much on matchup and deck. I think it's good to be aware of how aggressive your Cube's curve is, but I don't think you have to be... that aware of it.
Not to be demeaning of your friend or opponent but the reason i brought up the topic of the brainstorm is your opponent may have made a set of non optimal plays. People can say he was digging for cards but, we dont have enough information about this game to see if they could have played better. The game could have turned out completely different, not based on "the critical turn" but based on a series of play that restricted the amount flexibility your opponent had with his plays.
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You always hear about the games armageddon wins 100% of the time. You never hear about the game that it rots in your hand and you get beatdown.
from reading this article, i had always called it the fundamental turn, though if you read some of Zvi's articles on wizards/dailymtg years later he revists the concept of fundamental turn, and takes back some of his original concepts, mainly due to he was a younger player when first discussing fundamental turns, and the fires of yavimaya deck.
maybe im biased, but Zvi is pretty much cannon for me.
I let this sit for a bit, so hopefully I can answer follow up on everything reasonably completely.
I will start by pointing out that this assessment is best done when describing high-level play (That is, all decks are competitive with each other - or at least that is the goal). I don't mean that any pile of cards is going to be competitive, but that well-built decks in the hands of good players are going to play well with each other.
That said;
In many limited (and by extension cube) games of Magic, both players basically 'sit around' waiting for a bomb to win the game for them. If a deck like that wins in my cube, I feel as though I have done it wrong. We have answers and more answers, and everything is fast and efficient. Quite frankly, I think the only way to win via a huge bomb is usually to have enough control of either tempo or card advantage to make it to the point in the game where any threat of significant quality will be enough to win.
The critical turn is easiest to spot in the Control vs. Aggro matchup, which is why I used it as the example in the article. But it applies to almost every matchup, including mirrors. The critical turn isn't always the same turn either, sometimes it is turn 2, sometimes turn 5, depending on the draws, the matchup, etc. I say 'critical turn for the cube' to represent the average critical turn across all games played by all quality decks against all other quality decks in the cube, and I am not so brazen as to say that I have nailed it down to be an exact number. My best guess for my powered cube is 3-3.5, based on hundreds of games and our impressions of them as a playgroup. What I'm really trying to elucidate here is not what 'always happens' but what 'usually happens'.
The most important turn in the control vs. control mirror is often the turn in which an important land drop is missed. Or it could be the turn that scroll rack was disenchanted by the opponent. Or when that disenchant was countered. Or Jace was played. Or EoTFoF occured. It is usually difficult to truly determine the critical turn of a long game where decks struggle to reach critical mass the fastest because what actually sent the game along its course was a tiny play.
"Blow-for-Blow" situations are usually the result of both players having multiple quality threats/answers for several turns running, which is often the case in midrange decks, just due to card quality. When these occur, usually the first turn of exchanges is going to be the critical turn. That first creature/removal spell in the chain is often the first move in a larger plan, put into action on the critical turn. Like a gambit in chess, where one player makes a move to prompt the other player into a move, and follows through with a sequence of action/reaction/re-reaction/etc. until the 'knockout punch' can be delivered. However, in a game of magic, the pieces are hidden and it is much harder to clearly divine what exactly is happening. Not to mention that the opponent is also busy enacting his own secret plan at the same time.
If you disagree with the concept of a critical turn, go ahead and ignore it. You're cube has been working just fine without it. But I maintain that it is an important aspect of the design of the cube, and an intrinsic property of the cards put in it, and shouldn't be overlooked.
I consider Zvi to be magic theory canon, along with Oscar Tan. If you haven't read their stuff, you probably should try and track it down (Most of it will be tragically out of date though).
As for the brainstorm play;
He was sitting on Jace 2.0, Disk, and some other quality cards that he wanted to ramp into and knew he could fix his mana with brainstorm and impulse if he had to. Impulse would let him put a card or two he didn't want on the bottom, and he knew he had 3 fetchlands left in the deck which brainstorm could draw into and allow for a 'shuffle away' of an unwanted card. When winter orb hit, he had only a few outs, and wouldn't be able to get any of his in-hand effects online fast enough to stabilize, so he used impulse to dig, and nearly stole the game because of it.
I consider Zvi to be magic theory canon, along with Oscar Tan. If you haven't read their stuff, you probably should try and track it down (Most of it will be tragically out of date though).
i never consider what Zvi says out of date, i just find it is out of context.
he approaches his philosophy very mathematicaly, and i find that the subject matter though the cards may have changed, often the context is still relevant.
also i like his writting style, which i guess is some bias also.
thank you for recommending Oscar Tan, though i could not find any articles he has written or calabarated with on the WotC website, tho i was able to find some of his articls on SSG.
also nearly 100% was on type1 constructed, it would be nice to know if or when he cubes?
i never consider what Zvi says out of date, i just find it is out of context.
he approaches his philosophy very mathematicaly, and i find that the subject matter though the cards may have changed, often the context is still relevant.
also i like his writting style, which i guess is some bias also.
thank you for recommending Oscar Tan, though i could not find any articles he has written or calabarated with on the WotC website, tho i was able to find some of his articls on SSG.
also nearly 100% was on type1 constructed, it would be nice to know if or when he cubes?
I don't know if Oscar Tan has ever cubed. But I learned much of what I know about magic theory from reading all his "You can play type I" articles.
I don't know if Oscar Tan has ever cubed. But I learned much of what I know about magic theory from reading all his "You can play type I" articles.
yes its a very good name for his article, i did read the one that seemed to not be specificaly about type1. he seems to convey a lot of the complex terms, and stratagies of magic in a consise format.
i dont play constructed, though ill pilot someones spare deck on the constructed nights i attend. its never a Koth or JtMS deck tho.
i really only draft once or twice a month the last year or so, and turned up to the last two pre-re to get my Wurmcoil Engine and Hero of Blade Hold. though i sold cards from my pool so i didnt have to pay that much for them, as there is really good prize support, and i think i only dropped one match each pre-re.
but i really like articles on Cubing, duh, and i read the Daily MtG site, i think that WotC has written some great articles on set design, which are 100% applicable to cube design. as were trying to build a draft set, amrite?
and its Role in Cube Design
By TakeABow
What is the "Critical Turn"?
In most games of Magic the Gathering, there is a particular turn of events which essentially decide the outcome of the game. More often than not, this occurs quite early, between turn 2 and 5. We call this turn where the game is usually decided the 'Critical Turn'. It represents a few things:
1. The turn in which the fastest deck(s) in the format can reach critical mass and become unstoppable
2. The turn in which slower decks must absolutely disrupt the faster decks by or they will lose
3. The turn after which the game is mathematically decided based on board position and potential threats the majority of the time. (Aggro has landed its threats and sealed the game with disruption, or Control has begun to stabilize, etc.)
Play enough games in a particular format and it becomes apparent how far into games they are usually decided. The critical turn varies format to format, due to differences in card power and deckbuilding restrictions. In Vintage, the critical turn is about 2-2.5. In Legacy: 3-3.5. Standard fluctuates wildly due to the varying size of the cardpool, but typically hovers between 3 and 5. Extended will likely fall about a half-turn faster than standard most of the time.
What does this mean for cubes?
Lets look at an example from a cube game I played the other night. Below is the board position at the end of the my third turn. (I'm the red player)
The blue player is at 14 life (4 from the Jackal Pup, and 2 from the Blood Knight), and is facing down a bad situation; 5 power worth of enemy creatures and he can only untap one land a turn because of Winter Orb. The Blue player's growth is shut down and my threats are in place. And if he cannot remove Magus of the Scroll, it has the potential to do some serious long term damage even if the blue player finds and plays some blockers. But this game is not yet decided.
In my cube, the critical turn is right about 3-3.5 (The .5 means that many games are decided by the end of the 4th turn taken by the player who went first (or the 7th turn overall). The situation we just took a look at (If the gamestate at hand were on the critical turn) would be turn 2.5. Lets see what happens next. The blue player untaps one of his islands, draws, lays a mountain, and plays Turns out this blue player is red-blue, and he managed to dig for his Pyroclasm. This wipes all my creatures off the board, leaving us back at equal board position. Now on my turn we are at turn 3.5, and I have to play something good here or the control deck across from me will likely stabilize. Luckily all is not lost. What I didn't tell you was that I was holding a Sulfuric Vortex and a Swamp in my hand. On this turn, I drew Mox Ruby and played the Vortex. The combination of Vortex + Winter Orb was too much for the blue-red player to handle, and it won me the game. This is a pretty typical game for my cube, and represents the idea of the critical turn quite well.
Both decks had to make critical plays to determine the outcome of that game. If the blue-red player didn't have the pyroclasm to answer my threats right when he did, the game would have likely been over for him. On the flip side of that is the fact that I played Sulfuric Vortex on my 4th turn to seal the game, and without that play, I would likely lose, having expended nearly all my resources for a measly 6 damage.
Generally, I would expect most aggro-supporting powered cubes to play with critical turns right around 3.5-4.5, and unpowered cubes to land in the 4-5.5 range. Many of the cards that enable both control and aggro cost 4 mana, including Armageddon, Nether Void, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Wrath of God
So how do we apply this knowledge to Cube Design?
Cube designers are the architects of how their cubes play out. We choose what cards are in and out, and subsequently, we determine exactly where the critical turn lands by our card choices. The leaner the mana curve is, the faster the cube will be, lowering the critical turn. Powered cubes tend to be a bit faster due to the impact of fast mana like Black Lotus, Mana Vault, the Moxes, and cards that facilitate enormous card advantage such as Library of Alexandria or Ancestral Recall.
What cards have the biggest impact on the critical turn?
Cards that can cause huge tempo swings or create lots of card advantage. Including many of the most efficient cards of both types will lower the critical turn. Wrath of God is a full turn faster than something like Hallowed Burial.
The critical turn is often marked by the turn in which both players have managed to play match relevant spells on each of their previous turns, and often the turn before that as well. What I mean by this is that if the critical turn is turn 3, then you would expect both players to have important 2 drops in nearly every game. If it is difficult for both players to land relevant spells until turn 3, then the critical turn will likely be right around turn 4. This is a product of mana curves. Every cube has a particular mana curve, which drives how easily it is for players to play spells at various stages of the game (obviously players can influence this by which spells they draft, but were are speaking in general, so on-average we can analyze the whole cube for this).
The exact implications of mana curves are different from cube to cube, but a couple general rules can help you 'tune' your cube to make the critical turn land where you want it to. Additionally, you may find some colors to be more powerful than others, and often this can be corrected (at least in part) by adjusting the mana curve to make the less powerful color a bit faster.
1) If you want your cube to be faster, decrease the number of 5+ drops and increase the number of 2 drops. This is especially important for powered cubes that wish to enable aggro sufficiently.
2) Keep your 4 drops in check. There is a plethora of excellent cards that cost 4 mana which are are game-changing. It is easy to let the number of 4 drops get too high due to how much better they tend to be than the 3 drops in almost every color. If too many of the game-changing effects are 4-drops, you can expect the critical turn to depend on those cards resolving, which can lead to many games where nothing really happens until turn 4-5 when players start slinging the 4 drops back and forth.
3) Sometimes the mana curve is already quite good, but it feels like something is missing. Maybe a color is underdrafted week after week, and only ever features as a splash. This might be because too many of the cards that could be played on or before the critical turn are utility cards like removal. Sometimes there are very powerful and interesting effects in a color (Cards like Wildfire or Upheaval come to mind) that are quite expensive. If the critical turn is sufficiently below the casting cost of these interesting cards, they will get much less effective use since games will be decided before they get a chance to be played. A solution might be to replace some of the expensive 'interesting' cards with cheaper cards that are more game-changing. An example of this might be including Nature's Claim, Naturalize, Krosan Grip, and Creeping Mold in the cube, as well as Deranged Hermit. A fix might be to swap Naturalize out for an interesting and powerful CMC=2 card such as Sylvan Library and replace Deranged Hermit with Indrik Stomphowler. What this does is keep the number of "destroy an artifact or enchantment" effects the same (after all, you may have spent years tuning the ratios of these effects and don't want to change them), but you added an incentive to play green cards early because sylvan library is so strong. It is a powerful effect that will get drafted highly, see play in nearly every game it is drawn in, and draw drafters and deckbuilders into green. You kept the mana curve the same, but because the effect of Sylvan Library is so powerful, green's critical turn has decreased slightly, hopefully bringing it closer to in-line with the other colors.
Some Example Mana Curves
Here are the mana curves (overall) for the three 405 card cubes that I interact with the most. My cube is represented by the blue bars, and has critical turn around 3-3.5, our "Johnny' Cube is the Red one and has critical turn about a full turn later, 4-4.5, and our Ravnica-Time Spiral Block cube is the green bars and it plays with critical turn 5-5.5 or so.
I would take these plots with a grain of salt because every cube is different, and depends heavily on the individual card choices, but here they are for reference if anyone wants to use the numbers here as a guide.
The Average converted mana costs for the three cubes (Blue, Red, Green) are: 2.81, 3.13, and 3.35
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I don't buy into having a critical turn in the cube. First of all many games won't have a pivotal/critical turn. Both players will go blow for blow and one will come out slightly ahead and win. Some games you'll have one player totally blow the other out turn after turn.
Some games you slam down a planeswalker thinking you just won the game only to have your opponent casually answer it. If the game goes on another five turns was that turn critical?
If you have a turn one creature that gets in for eight damage during the game leading to your victory does that mean the critical turn was turn one?
You say you're cube's critical turn is 3-3.5. Is that true in control mirrors? In midrange mirrors? In control v midrange? It also ignores the fact that some expensive cards are so powerful they can trump everything that came before them. Every been ahead with an aggro deck only to have your opponent cast Wurmcoil Engine? Ever had two planeswalkers in play facing down a Birds of Paradise only to have your opponent cast Upheaval?
I like Magic theory but this seems to be an attempt to over-complicate and over-simplify tempo, curve, and relative power level of cards.
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Things that I think create a critical turn:
1. Mass mana denial for Aggro
2. Mass creature removal for Control (stabilising with a comfortable life buffer)
3. Playing a 'must answer' threat that only gives your opponent a couple of turns (e.g. a Sword, Planeswalker, or some Fatties)
I think I fall somewhere in between you and iceage4life in terms of content- mostly I disagree about just how many cube games this theory applies to. I feel like many of the games I play could be won by either player. Furthermore, a decent fraction of those games fall into the category of "if you don't win on your turn I win on mine" which is a far cry from having a critical turn, in my opinion.
However, I think it is worthwhile to think about where that turn falls, in the games where it applies. That part is more general magic theory, and as usual with cube topics, the depth is that you have the ability to tweak it if you like.
As iceage suggested, I think this concept loses some value when you talk about the mirror. It's more relevant when you look at aggro, midrange, or control vs one of others. Then it makes a lot of sense to ask (as I see it) "how close is the faster deck to winning?" on the turn where the slower deck begins to stabilize. Phrased a different way, how early must the slower deck stabilize in order to win?
how did you arrive at precise "critical turns" for these cubes, exactly?
but even if it feels like it was a close match, if they consistently "just barely" win, it's not as "barely" as it seems. or, "the last life point is the only one that matters." especially for an aggressive or combo deck (like tinker or reanimator). if i have 2 life at the end of every game, as long as my opponent has 0 i've succeeded. it looks close, but it's not.
i agree about the mirror to a certain extent, but most mirror matches won't actually be even. aggro vs aggro will often go to whoever is the midrangiestTM and there will be a crucial turn where the slower (however slightly) deck stabilizes against the more aggressive deck by getting more mid sized threats out than the other deck can deal with. control vs control would lean toward the more pure control deck most of the time, right?
in control vs control the crucial turn can be a lot later than turn 5, though. even midrange vs midrange can go on quite a long time before the game is decided. how does that factor into this theory?
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I'm talking about games that literally come down to you winning the turn before your opponent can kill you. For example, if you had Banefire for one less, your opponent could attack you for lethal, and you couldn't stop it. I think you are talking about decks that stabilize at low life or use their life as a resource, which is a different thing.
For instance, your reanimator deck could be dead on board, but you might be able to set up a win where even if it fizzles, you have removal or tricks to ensure you get another turn. Those games indeed are less close than they look. But I find there are plenty of games that are actually very close until the end of the game, even after accounting for what each player has in hand.
As far as the when the turn happens, I don't think it matters overly much, so long as the cube also contains a balanced curve. Having a good curve balance should mean all players (again assuming relatively equal skill) are able to either hit this turn or defend against it, at similar times.
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This just seems untrue.:-/ Brainstorming the first turn often helps you get the lands you need or might find you the Mana Drain or Tinker you need to get your deck rolling.
The advantage of doing it later is that you have more info about what you need in a probably more critical phase of the game. The advantage of doing it turn one is that you get a better idea of what your tools are and thus make less errors in the following turns.
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I liked the article, but do think that it didn't really cover the fact that the critical turn is not nearly as defined in some matchups, or the time is completely different, or it is of minimal relevance in comparison to other aspects of gameplay. In midrange vs midrange and control vs aggro, it's really important. Otherwise, I don't think it really is.
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To improve the results, you could always make a large database of what decks are played in your cube, take their average cmcs and work from there for more specific results. Then you could know the critical turn of different archetypes and play after that.
I think this is good information about important playskills that you should have in all formats, but it's rather complex for such a short article in my opinion.
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I actually saw this in combo cube. When your opponent gets half of their combo into play (or the graveyard) or gets 2-3 elves down you know that you have to act soon to ether win or stop them.
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There are more things wrong with brainstorming on T1 vs. not.
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Anyways, I guess I don't really "get" what you're talking about when it comes to this turn. It seems that this really only applies in aggro v control? And the critical turn is when control stabilizes or aggro seals the deal? I honestly cannot come up with any scenarios on my own where this is true.
Very well-written article though.
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It can be better to hold it sometimes. But using it to secure land drops, and smooth out your curve is a perfectly fine play. There's a lot of factors involved. Simply saying that it's never right to T1 Brainstorm is false.
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Specifically if you don't have a shuffle effect. If you're Brainstorming on T1 and need a card, you're basically saying that you kept a mediocre hand in hops of drawing out of it. Because within three turns, you're going to draw those cards anyway. And the only way Brainstorm is relevant is if you're going to be using those cards before you would have drawn them.
ANYWAY.
I'm actually not a fan of the Critical Turn theory because I think it changes too much on matchup and deck. I think it's good to be aware of how aggressive your Cube's curve is, but I don't think you have to be... that aware of it.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3688.html
from reading this article, i had always called it the fundamental turn, though if you read some of Zvi's articles on wizards/dailymtg years later he revists the concept of fundamental turn, and takes back some of his original concepts, mainly due to he was a younger player when first discussing fundamental turns, and the fires of yavimaya deck.
maybe im biased, but Zvi is pretty much cannon for me.
Magic Work Station Winston-180 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=315755
I will start by pointing out that this assessment is best done when describing high-level play (That is, all decks are competitive with each other - or at least that is the goal). I don't mean that any pile of cards is going to be competitive, but that well-built decks in the hands of good players are going to play well with each other.
That said;
In many limited (and by extension cube) games of Magic, both players basically 'sit around' waiting for a bomb to win the game for them. If a deck like that wins in my cube, I feel as though I have done it wrong. We have answers and more answers, and everything is fast and efficient. Quite frankly, I think the only way to win via a huge bomb is usually to have enough control of either tempo or card advantage to make it to the point in the game where any threat of significant quality will be enough to win.
The critical turn is easiest to spot in the Control vs. Aggro matchup, which is why I used it as the example in the article. But it applies to almost every matchup, including mirrors. The critical turn isn't always the same turn either, sometimes it is turn 2, sometimes turn 5, depending on the draws, the matchup, etc. I say 'critical turn for the cube' to represent the average critical turn across all games played by all quality decks against all other quality decks in the cube, and I am not so brazen as to say that I have nailed it down to be an exact number. My best guess for my powered cube is 3-3.5, based on hundreds of games and our impressions of them as a playgroup. What I'm really trying to elucidate here is not what 'always happens' but what 'usually happens'.
The most important turn in the control vs. control mirror is often the turn in which an important land drop is missed. Or it could be the turn that scroll rack was disenchanted by the opponent. Or when that disenchant was countered. Or Jace was played. Or EoTFoF occured. It is usually difficult to truly determine the critical turn of a long game where decks struggle to reach critical mass the fastest because what actually sent the game along its course was a tiny play.
"Blow-for-Blow" situations are usually the result of both players having multiple quality threats/answers for several turns running, which is often the case in midrange decks, just due to card quality. When these occur, usually the first turn of exchanges is going to be the critical turn. That first creature/removal spell in the chain is often the first move in a larger plan, put into action on the critical turn. Like a gambit in chess, where one player makes a move to prompt the other player into a move, and follows through with a sequence of action/reaction/re-reaction/etc. until the 'knockout punch' can be delivered. However, in a game of magic, the pieces are hidden and it is much harder to clearly divine what exactly is happening. Not to mention that the opponent is also busy enacting his own secret plan at the same time.
If you disagree with the concept of a critical turn, go ahead and ignore it. You're cube has been working just fine without it. But I maintain that it is an important aspect of the design of the cube, and an intrinsic property of the cards put in it, and shouldn't be overlooked.
I consider Zvi to be magic theory canon, along with Oscar Tan. If you haven't read their stuff, you probably should try and track it down (Most of it will be tragically out of date though).
As for the brainstorm play;
He was sitting on Jace 2.0, Disk, and some other quality cards that he wanted to ramp into and knew he could fix his mana with brainstorm and impulse if he had to. Impulse would let him put a card or two he didn't want on the bottom, and he knew he had 3 fetchlands left in the deck which brainstorm could draw into and allow for a 'shuffle away' of an unwanted card. When winter orb hit, he had only a few outs, and wouldn't be able to get any of his in-hand effects online fast enough to stabilize, so he used impulse to dig, and nearly stole the game because of it.
Hopefully I'm not just spinning my wheels here.
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i never consider what Zvi says out of date, i just find it is out of context.
he approaches his philosophy very mathematicaly, and i find that the subject matter though the cards may have changed, often the context is still relevant.
also i like his writting style, which i guess is some bias also.
thank you for recommending Oscar Tan, though i could not find any articles he has written or calabarated with on the WotC website, tho i was able to find some of his articls on SSG.
also nearly 100% was on type1 constructed, it would be nice to know if or when he cubes?
Magic Work Station Winston-180 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=315755
I don't know if Oscar Tan has ever cubed. But I learned much of what I know about magic theory from reading all his "You can play type I" articles.
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yes its a very good name for his article, i did read the one that seemed to not be specificaly about type1. he seems to convey a lot of the complex terms, and stratagies of magic in a consise format.
i dont play constructed, though ill pilot someones spare deck on the constructed nights i attend. its never a Koth or JtMS deck tho.
i really only draft once or twice a month the last year or so, and turned up to the last two pre-re to get my Wurmcoil Engine and Hero of Blade Hold. though i sold cards from my pool so i didnt have to pay that much for them, as there is really good prize support, and i think i only dropped one match each pre-re.
but i really like articles on Cubing, duh, and i read the Daily MtG site, i think that WotC has written some great articles on set design, which are 100% applicable to cube design. as were trying to build a draft set, amrite?
Magic Work Station Winston-180 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=315755