Card Advantage
Card Advantage is the most complicated, so I'll cover that first.
Say the board is empty, then I play a creature. You immediately after play a card to destroy my creature. What just happened? Well, nothing really, the board remains empty, and we each lost one card from our hand. They sort of "cancel each other out", if you will. What if I play a card, and then you counter it with your own card? Similarly, we both lost a card, but other than that, nothing really happened.
Now, as each player (normally) draws only one card per turn, if we kept playing creatures and having our opponents immediately destroying/countering them, the game would never really get anywhere. The board would remain empty. Card advantage is what gives you an edge in this.
What is card advantage? Card advantage is getting more than one use out of one card; a "2 for 1" or "3 for 1" etc.
Say I play a creature, then another creature. On your turn, you cast wrath of god, destroying both of my creatures. Compared to the previous scenario, you gained much more out of this play. The board goes back to being clean, but the net result is that I lost two cards and you only lost one. As we continue to only draw one card a turn, you are permanently ahead.
Similarly, say I play a creature. On your turn, you play a flametongue kavu, destroying my creature via damage from his ETB ability. I spent one card, and you spent one card, but due to the kavu you not only got rid of my card but you gained a creature as well. If I proceeded to use a removal spell on your kavu, the board would be clean once again; but I would have spent two cards, and you would have only spent one. You are permanently ahead, once again.
There are ways to gain card advantage other than just board interactions. If I play one card that lets me draw two cards, I just gained a net of one card. If I play one card that makes you discard two cards, I made you loose a net of one card, which in the game is very similar to me gaining a card (-1 to your score is the same as +1 to my score). Cards that put multiple creature tokens onto the battlefield is another example of card advantage. Creatures that let you draw a card when they ETB is yet another example. There are many more as well; if any card gains you two (or more) cards, removes two (or more) of your opponents cards, or gains you one (or more) and removes one (or more) of your opponent's, you gained a little card advantage.
Note: Life-gain or life-loss is not considered card advantage. As an example, angel of mercy does not offer any card advantage.
Note: Destroying/gaining lands is also not card advantage.
Note: Some cards give Card Advantage sometimes and not others. Hymn to tourach will give no card advantage if your opponent only has one card in hand when it is cast.
Some Popular Card Advantage CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
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1x Ancestral Recall 1x Blade Splicer 1x Brainstorm 1x Dark Confidant 1x Hymn to Tourach 1x Snapcaster Mage 1x Stoneforge Mystic |
Efficiency
Some of the most powerful cards in Magic offer no card advantage (sometimes anti-card advantage, even). Take lightning bolt and tarmogoyf, for example. They are "1 for 1s" that don't gain you any positive net.
So why are they good? They are extremely efficient (powerful for a low cost). Tarmogoyf, in most cases, is a 3/4 or larger when he comes in, and you only payed two mana for him! That is a great deal. Not much more to say on this; it speaks for itself. Cards that do good things for small amounts of mana are generally good cards.
Some decks will just ignore card advantage completely and just try to win off of pure efficiency. Take burn or RDW for example. The goal of the deck is to play undercosted burn spells to kill the opponent as fast as possible; card advantage only really pays off in a long game, and burn tries to make sure a long game doesn't happen.
Note: The #1 reason a card is bad is because it is not efficient enough; it doesn't do enough for the price you payed to use it.
Some Popular Efficient CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
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1x Delver of Secrets 1x Fireblast 1x Knight of the Reliquary 1x Lightning Bolt 1x Tarmogoyf |
Acceleration/Cost Reduction
The best cards (usually) are the most expensive, right? Being expensive, you normally have to wait until later in the game to play them. But wait! You can play them sooner with acceleration cards or cost reduction cards!
Black lotus is a great example of an acceleration card. A more budgeted example would be rampant growth. Both of these cards are anti-card advantage; you gained nothing on your side of the battlefield except for maybe a land... but they are still really good because they help you to cast powerful spells sooner.
Cost reduction is similar but not the same. Show and tell is a good example; it reduces the amount of mana to bring in Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn to only three. However, show and tell is also anti-card advantage. As another example, stoneforge mystic is a cost reducer for the batterskull it searches up (but note that stoneforge mystic does offer card advantage, too).
Some Popular Acceleration/Cost Reduction CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
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1x Aether Vial 1x Ancient Tomb 1x Black Lotus 1x Mox Diamond 1x Natural Order 1x Rampant Growth 1x Show and Tell 1x Solemn Simulacrum 1x Stoneforge Mystic 1x Time Walk 1x Tinker |
Disruption/Protection
Hate it when your opponent ruins your plan by making you discard a certain card or destroying a land or two of yours? Well, clearly, your opponent just did something very good for himself; he disrupted you. Disruption usually comes in the form of discard or land destruction (and usually discard is better because you don't lose card advantage). "Hate cards" commonly found in sideboards are also forms of disruption.
Protection is similar, and can be viewed as a type of disruption. Protection is really just counterspells and removal spells. One of the most famous counters is force of will. FoW is a card that gives anti-card advantage... you "2 for 1" yourself whenever you use it's alternate cost. However, it is still really powerful because it stops opposing disruption / combos.
Some Popular Disruption/Protection CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
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1x Circle of Protection: Red 1x Counterspell 1x Daze 1x Force of Will 1x Hymn to Tourach 1x Surgical Extraction 1x Swords to Plowshares 1x Thoughtseize 1x Wasteland |
Consistency
Beating the odds is a good thing. You always want to get what you want when you want it, right? Consistency helps with this.
Most consistency cards come in the form of search or draw. Ponder helps you find land in the early part of the game or shuffle it away if you have enough. Later in the game it'll help you find more powerful spells. Demonic tutor will put anything you want from your deck directly into your hand. Both of these cards help you be more consistent from game to game.
"Toolbox cards" also fall under the consistency category. Survival of the fittest, green sun's zenith, and birthing pod all help you get certain creatures when you need them.
Manabases can have different levels of consistency as well. Using fetches/duals instead of just basic lands will get you the colors you need when you need them.
Some Popular Consistency CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
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1x Ancestral Recall 1x Arid Mesa 1x Badlands 1x Birthing Pod 1x Brainstorm 1x Demonic Tutor 1x Green Sun's Zenith 1x Ponder 1x Survival of the Fittest |
Options
You always want to keep your options open in a game of Magic. This allows you to be able to make more choices depending on how the game plays out.
Some cards will give you many options, and are thus much more powerful. If cryptic command didn't give you any options and just did the same two things every time, it wouldn't be a very good card.
"Toolbox cards" also fall under this category, but because I mentioned them last category I will not go over them again.
Note: Giving your opponent options is one thing that can make a card bad. Both the options on browbeat are really good; but since your opponent gets to choose which happens, it makes the card pretty much unplayable in tournament matches.
Some Popular Option CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
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1x Birthing Pod 1x Cryptic Command 1x Demonic Tutor 1x Knight of the Reliquary 1x Mishra's Factory | 1x Snapcaster Mage 1x Umezawa's Jitte |
Uniqueness
This is the last category, and also the catch-all. Some cards are not good for any of the above reasons; they are just good because they do something special / are part of a combo. You can probably get a good idea of what I mean from the following list.
Some Popular Unique CardsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
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1x Crucible of Worlds 1x Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn 1x Golgari Grave Troll 1x Hive Mind 1x Life from the Loam 1x Painter's Servant 1x Splinter Twin |
Well, that'll about do it for this entry. I've gone over all of the different reasons I can think of that can make a card good.
Have I missed something? Am I incorrect on one or more aspects? Do you have any questions/comments/concerns applying to this entry? Leave a comment below and I'll do my best to get back to you.