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by Christopher Askwith
How to Stay Ahead in the Game Well, it's been a long time since I started playing Magic, and if anything, that time has left me with some advice for anyone who is new and is reading this e-zine. The following few points are given, with the hope that someone will read them and take them to heart:
It is critical that you buy a new magazine which has complete descriptions of all available Magic Cards roughly every four months. This will keep you from being surprised by any new cards coming out. I have not bought any new magazines since last summer, so you can imagine my position. Any decks which I create for the benefit of newer players are bereft of Tempest, an expansion which has been around since December at the latest.
If you have a particular circle of Magic-playing friends, you should take the time to find out, in-depth, what cards they use in their decks on a regular basis. Most players, when playing for fun, have a certain style of deck and set of colors which they use almost all the time. So if they change their deck, you can at least hope they will use the basic format and colors you have seen them use in the past. If you play in tournaments, you're out of luck in this regard.
Any new deck you create will not be perfect. Thus, you must test it thoroughly by playing it again and again, and so on and so forth. This will enable you to iron out the wrinkles in the deck, and make it more sure of winning. Naturally, you will never make an unbeatable deck, as I have stated before in a previous article. So you can still expect to lose occasionally, when your foe has a deck specifically tailored against yours, or when you have a stroke of bad luck.
This will keep you on top of what many Magic pros are passing along in the form of tidbits of wisdom. In this way, you can use good ideas to win games, or, use them to beat opponents who are using ideas taken from other magazine articles.
Tourney officials may not allow certain cards to be used if they are heavily degraded, and cards in a collection should be kept without spot, crease or mark. Enough said. Those are some basic tips for you, and even me, to follow as we all engage in our money-chewing habit of Magic: The Gathering.
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