Mark Herberholz
10/25/2004
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There is much more to Magic than simply making the right play at the right time. There is a mental aspect to the game. Part of it is keeping your head in the game after losing to a lucky draw or your own mistake, but another larger part is your tells that give away your cards, bluffing certain spells, and the "Jedi mind trick". Now I've never thought myself to be that great of a technically sound player as far as always making the right play goes (don't get me wrong I'm obviously pretty good at it since your reading my article now), but what really helped me get above other players was that I have a better mental.

I can read my opponent by the way they play the game and know what they have long before they play it. I know how to play my game to represent that I have certain cards, and I have a certain knack for convincing my opponent to do what I want them to every once in a while. In order to master this part of your game you have to be a decent actor and you have to be able to be rather charismatic as a lot of the time, as you need to sell yourself to your opponent to get them to believe your bluff and fall for your tricks. However, even if that part of the game isn't for you, this article should still be a good read to help you defend yourself from those types of players. For example Eugene Harvey is a master and he almost always makes the right play, but his downfall is that he doesn't really bluff or trick his opponent. He makes up for that by not falling for his opponent's tricks because he's been around the block once or twice and knows them all.

So what I am going to do is introduce you to some of the tricks that I've used or have been used on me and some of the simple tells that people do all the time without knowing. I've picked up these tricks mostly from playing around Pat Chapin (an old school pro who could trick Darwin Kastle into taking his pants off if he wanted to), from watching other pros, or from simply developing them myself.

Tells

First of all lets go with some simple tells.

If you draw a discard spell - don't ask your opponent how many cards they have in their hand, instead if you are playing with discard spells in your deck keep track throughout the game. Another good habit is to ask them every few turns so they think it's just normal that you ask them again. Many a time has my opponent asked me how many cards I have in my hand after he just drew and I knew that he just ripped that Discard spell, so I start holding back some land to protect my precious spells.

Ok, now I know that this is a little bit rare in this day and age, but I remember a time when players used to get decked, be it in limited or constructed. This usually happens in control mirror matches where one player plays a card drawing spell then the board is locked up, usually happens in draft in the U/W mirror when each player has multiple utility creatures making attacking impossible. Now the obvious tell of this is asking your opponent how many cards they have in their deck, this in turn will make them conscious that you are trying to deck them and will make them think twice about casting that card drawing spell. However there is a way around this; I like to casually count my opponents graveyard, cards on board and cards in hand over the course of a couple of turns then subtract that number from 40 for limited or 60 for constructed to realize how many cards they have left. This way you obtain the needed information without giving away your game plan.

Here is another more specified tell which involves a card like Second Thoughts or Soul Nova being in the format. This is when your opponent doesn't play a spell on his turn 5 for example and ships the turn leaving you an opening to bash him for a large amount with your creatures. The obvious tell to this is they still have 5 or so cards in their hand. Is it really possible they didn't have a turn 5 play with 5 cards in their hand? It is unlikely. The solution to this is don't attack. Just play another guy and pass the turn, they'll have to play a spell eventually, and if you put them on a wrath of god effect just stop playing guys entirely. Either way you have a commanding board position while they are just doing nothing. Eventually you can "test the water" with a random weenie and continue beating on them until they decide to tap out to play a spell.

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Another common tell is leaving a Green Mana or two open for your pump spell at the end of every turn and when you attack, a simple solution to this is to just tap the "wrong way" a few turns and trade your early drops for your opponents ones as those creatures are usually less important to your game plan, thus later in the game when you attack with your 4/4 into theirs they are more likely to block because you haven't represented having a pump spell this game.

Also, get in the habit of saying combat damage on the stack every attack phase regardless of if you have effects or not because the one time you do have an effect and you say that your opponent will know that he has to do something before combat damage or else you will most likely save one of your guys with either a pump spell or a damage prevention spell.

A common tell among players is that if they daze off and look disinterested it almost assuredly means that they have something that will screw you when you attack them and they are just trying to sell it. I myself have played the role of the Mana hosed player trying to bluff that Soul Nova with 5 Plains in play and a hand full of Forests and spells.

Don't ever concede. I can't stress this one enough. If you concede all the time, your opponent will learn that. When you actually make him play it out, he will put you on that trick you just drew to keep you in the game and therefore most likely play around it. However, if you play out every game and make him or her go through the motions of killing you when you eventually do have it they will play right into your trick.

Finally, observe what your opponent is doing, if he suddenly looks over your Lands he drew a Stone Rain, if he hesitates when you attack he drew a removal spell, if he thinks at your end step he most likely has an instant to play.

Bluffs

Here are some key bluffs that I myself have used or other people I know have used to varying success.

First of all if you are playing a modified version of a "net deck", remember what you modified from it. For example at GP New Jersey I was playing Hakuna Matatta and I had posted in my last article that I was going to run Shrapnel Blasts in the deck, however due to the overwhelming amount of control I opted for another card drawer in the form of Night's Whisper. However, I knew that my opponents would expect me to have Shrapnel Blast so when one of my opponents had lethal with an attack with his Arcbound Ravager and Disciple of the Vault I started to tap two Mana and picked up one of my Artifacts as if to put it in the graveyard then I asked for his life total. He was at enough where if he went all-in he would die to my Shrapnel Blast if I had it due to my Disciple of the Vault, however if he gave me another turn I could draw into an Arcbound Ravager and kill him. The right play for him was to kill me rather than give me another draw step. He didn't do that because of my bluff, so I saw another card to potentially win the game. The fact that I knew he thought I played Shrapnel Blast gave me the opportunity to bluff it when it wasn't even in my deck.

Another common bluff is to attack a smaller creature into a larger one bluffing a pump spell, I think this one works best when you pick up their creature during their end step and read it then untap and immediately attack. This way your opponent knows that you know their creature can kill yours so they must assume that you have a pump spell, another is to say a remark like "you guy is a 3/3 right?" then attack into it with your 2/2, most people will be less likely to block is their creature is important to them, like a utility creature that is still summoning sick.

A common bluff that has worked well for me in the past was when I have a handful of Land I like to stare at them as if I'm reading them then I look over to my opponent's creatures. This makes my opponents think that I have a removal spell of some sort. This also works when you draw a Land to just suddenly sit up and survey the board like you just drew a game breaking spell.

Jedi Mind Tricks

The key to this is to appear to be helpful to your opponent. When he plays a Shatter pick up your "best Artifact" when he taps your creature start taping it for him at the beginning of every attack step, basically always try to help him out with the shortcuts of the game. This in turn will have your opponent second guess his target when he Shatters because now he thinks that if you assume your Myr Enforcer to be the best target then maybe it actually is, or if you just drew another bigger creature and your offering to tap that why shouldn't they, unless of course you needed the first creatures ability. Now these tricks don't work every time but its worth doing it a hundred times if it works just once; Magic is a game of advantages, board, card and mental. Sometimes the last can overcome the first two. If your opponent is thinking about casting a spell and you happen to have a Counterspell in hand, state the worst possible spell for you as a matter of fact, for example its turn 5 and they're sitting on 5 mountains, just say "Arc-Slogger?" most of the time they will play it thinking the road is clear or else you would just keep quiet leaving you the chance to Condescend the crap out of it. At worlds this year I watched Sam Gomersall goad his opponent into sacrificing all of his Artifacts to Disciple him out which would in turn let Sam respond by sacrificing his to win with his Disciple by simply saying "So I'm Dead?". His opponent obviously thought he had the game and sacrificed everything prompting Sams response and his opponents loss. Basically you want to suggest a play to your opponent once every couple of turns that usually happens to be the right play which will either make them rethink it and choose another play or set them up for you to later suggest the wrong play for them.

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Another common trick is if you have some sort of Instant speed monster or a monster that can block Flyers and they have a Flyer out, when they are about to attack say something like "I'm taking two?" then motion to write it down on your notepad, they will think the coast is clear and suicide their creature.

This is the hardest part of the mental game to master and it's tough to explain, all I can say is too observe the greats and try and use some of the tips above. Every now and then just prompt your opponent by saying something like "attack phase?" when you have no effects, they will think that you have something and play around it. Obviously it won't work every turn so try it once a game or once a match.

Finally these bluffs, tells, and tricks obviously won't always work, they are not meant to. These are meant to help you get that extra turn to live so you can maybe top deck the win once or twice a tournament. Does it usually happen? No. However, when it does happen you are quite frankly turning a loss into a win, which makes it more than worth trying it every now and then. I am going to be perfectly honest when I say that I gain on average 1-2 extra turns per tournament from bluffing or tricking my opponent. Now let's do the math on that for a second. Well be generous and say that out of a tournament I play 9 or so matches with 2.5 games which comes out to about 23 games. Of those 23 games I have 2 extra turns. Out of those 2 games we'll be generous and say that I have approximately 4 outs in my deck, which we'll say is about 40 cards left, to draw to keep me in the game not even win it. So that's like a 1% chance [ (2/23) * (4/40) = .008 = 1% ] of even mattering in every tournament I play in, given I always try to trick my opponent or bluff them.

Is it really worth it?

Well let's just put it this way, I try to do it in every match I play; casual 3 on 3 draft with my friends or a Pro Tour. So to me it is. I can't even begin to explain how huge a free win is in any sort of tournament let alone a Pro Tour. For example, had I tricked Mike Turian into losing a game at Pro Tour San Diego I might have won the match by forcing him to five games and that would have only been worth approximately 5,500 dollars US and the extra pro points meant about 2,000 more dollars in the end of the year payout for me…so it's safe to say that it's probably worth it for you to give it a go too.

Lastly, even if none of these little tricks ever work for you, it's worth knowing them so they can't be used on you as easily and so you can make sure you don't give away the same tells to your opponent. Well, I hope you all found this article insightful to the other aspect of Magic aside from the spell slinging and hopefully it will help your game improve.

- Mark Herberholz