GWx, Principles

I've been thinking about how I've been making card decisions using particular metrics, and I thought I'd try to elaborate on what those particular metrics are, since this metagame seems to be developing rather strangely.

1) Be pro-active.

We need to be able to play threats.  We need to take advantage of our opponent stumbling, take advantage of our opponents drawing the wrong cards, or being mana screwed.  We need to interact strongly with our opponent early and late, and not just sit back and "have the answer", which is dependent on us actually having the answer, and our opponent not asking us too many questions.

1a) Play (Threatening) Creatures
Creatures can block (an aggro deck's threats, to protect planeswalkers)
Creatures can attack (your opponent's life total, your opponent's planeswalkers)
Creatures have spell-like abilities these days. (Play those)
Creatures can be cast off Cavern of Souls (making them uncounterable, fixing mana)
Creatures can be bounced with Restoration Angel (creating surprise blockers, allowing attacks, reusing ETB/LTB triggers)

It is easy to get caught up with the cool spells, and having an abundance of removal, but that just gets you to a point where you can win the game (with creatures).  We need to remember that creatures are removal spells of a sort, and can help win the game.

I mean, just look at this creature.  How can you not be excited about playing this guy, and all the possibilities it presents you?  Doesn't this guy make you want to play a few cheap creatures, to blink, and use it to kill off your opponents guys?  Why would you play a Doom Blade over this Doom Blade?

1b) Play Planeswalkers (that actively win the game.)
It is not hard to convince people to play planeswalkers, but note that I did not say "play planeswalkers".

Planeswalkers are awesome because they give you something every turn.  What I want to be sure of is that what we're getting every turn actively helps us win the game.

Garruk is useful on offense and defense, and on "special teams".  It has a powerful plus ability, that kills off Thragtusk (without losing your Garruk), kills your control opponent, and draws cards in an emergency.  Garruk is an amazingly good, pro-active planeswalker.

2) Counterspells.

People are playing them, for whatever reason, so our game plan has to work around them.

2a) Play Cavern of Souls
There really seems to be no excuse for not playing this card these days.  There are entire deck groups that are entirely dead to this card.

We need 4 copies between main and side. (This is a great sideboard card, and doesn't hurt to main)

2b) Don't over rely on counterspells as a way to deal with creatures.
We don't want to have to have mana up.
We don't want to be dead to cavern of souls.
We want to deal with the board as it exists. (pro-active)
We want good top-decks late in the game.

Counterspells work well when you're ahead or even, they don't catch you up very well.  We don't need cards that help us win when we're already winning, we need cards that are independant threats.

This doesn't apply to cards like Negate or Dispel, since they by definition don't counter creatures anyway.  These are relatively good ways to deal with an opponent's "come back" play, like Sphynx's Revelation, Unburial Rites, and so on.  We just can't have too much of this kind of effect either, for the reasons above.  Negate is just as bad a draw as Essense Scatter late game, where a Thragtusk, Angel, or somesuch will help us claw our way back into the game.  (And there are plenty of spells that can't be countered, like Supreme Verdict)

3) Have ways to interact with your opponent's plan directly.

If your opponent plays a Sublime Archangel, Silverblade Paladin, or Falkenrath Aristocrat, you could easily be killed from almost any life total that turn, or the following turn.  The same can be said about planeswalkers, or other permanents.  Our opponent can make plays that trump our game plan, or threaten to kill us on the spot, we need to be able to interact with that, and not just hope playing more dudes will get us there.

3a) Have removal for permanents.
Our opponent will play permanents (planeswalkers, creatures, enchantments, artifacts, lands), we need to be able to interact at least the most common of these, creatures and planeswalkers.

There are quite a few ways to approach this problem, and none of them cover all the angles here.  Discard doesn't protect you from the top of their deck.  Counterspells are unreliable against creatures.  Creature removal tends to not hit planeswalkers or other non-creature permanents .  And a lot of this is sorcery speed.

The two best answers are probably Dreadbore, and Detention Sphere, but you probably won't see these out of the same deck (at least pre-gatecrash!)

As Bant, we'll need to lean a bit on Detention Sphere, and I am very likely to advocate this as a 4-of, since it is what we are counting on for interaction of this type.

3b) Be able to interact at instant speed.
If our opponent plays Silverblade Paladin and Rancor on turn 4, we may not live to untap and cast a Detention Sphere or Dreadbore on our turn 4.  We need to be able to interact with that threat at that time, or we may just be dead.

We need some instants that give us play in these situations.  I wonder what we could use here...  There are actually a fair number of options, despite us being in three of the worst removal colors.

We can't go overboard on this (which makes Rift and S. Charm particularly good), or we fall into the "not enough creatures" trap)

4) Have great mana. (Be able to cast your spells)

It may go without saying that we have to be able to cast our spells if they are going to be useful, but so often I see decks playing spells they can't cast, so clearly we need to spend at least a little time thinking about it.

4a) Play spells that are powerful, but easy to cast.
Thragtusk, and Restoration Angel are prime candidates here.

Creatures in general will be easier to cast, because cavern fixes for them.  Since we have Beasts and Angels, Beast and Angel creatures with triple casting costs (Angel of Serenity, Craterhoof Behemoth) will be easier to cast than they might normally be.

Non-creatures will be a bit harder to cast than "normal", so compensating for that in your mana base will be important.  Garruk, Primal Hunter, Sphinx's Revelation, and Dissipate are hard to cast, so we'll need to minimize the impact of not being able to cast them, or increase our ability to cast these spells, if we want to count on them to solve our problems.

4b) Have a solid mana base to begin with.
Farseek, Shocklands, M10/Inn duals, work well to give you lands that come into play untapped, and give you the colors you need.  We've talked about this a lot, so I won't belabor the point.

5) Have a solid end-game.

The cards in our deck are designed to kill our opponent if they do nothing, and drag the game out if they do something.  We need to be able to finish them off once we get to the late game, if it lasts that long.

We need to be able to play our haymaker, and win the game in the next two turns, whatever that is.  There's no one right answer to this, but Craterhoof, Collective Blessing, and Angel of Serenity are good starting points.  We can draw alot of cards, but so can our opponent, and we don't want to be too reliant on spells our opponents can counter.