This set of Quick Tips is all about combat. I am a documented fan of turning creatures sideways, and these should help you turn sideways more successfully. Just remember that Quick Tips are guidelines, not rules.
- First and foremost: Learn to cast spells after combat. This
is especially true in draft. Unless your spell will affect the combat
(like Overrun), leave your mana open when you swing. Your opponent then
has less information for their blocking or removal-spell decisions, and
the spells in your hand matter more.
- Pump spells are for saving your creatures, not as burn. It's
much better to have your creature stick around in the long-term than to
waste a spell to flick someone's life total. If you time it right, you
can even get the both benefits if the opponent tries to use a burn
spell to kill your attacking creature. Of course, if the pump spell
will win you the game, that's acceptable.
- Attack before you wipe the board. If you plan to cast
something that destroys all creatures on the field, see if you can sneak
some damage at your opponent first! They're going to die anyway, so you
might as well. That being said, hold off on attacking if they have
blockers with lifelink or if you think your board wipe could get
countered.
- Deathtouch and Trample are best friends. Deathtouch means
that just one point of damage will kill any of their creatures. Trample
means that leftover damage goes right to their face. Guess what
happens when you combine the two? Every one of their blockers might has
well have a toughness of 1. It's awesome.
- Take your early hits. I often see people at 20 life
immediately throw a small creature in front of an opponent's attacker.
Your life total is a resource -- it's okay to take a couple of early
hits! That little 1/3 could stop 3 points of damage now, but if you
leave him around, he could stop 7 points of damage later. Or he could
just stop an opponent's 1-power creatures all game. Or he could smack
your opponent a couple of times after getting rid of the enemy
creatures. If your deck is well made, you should be able to deal with
an early attacker before sacrificing your guy for a couple points of
life.
- Love the block-sac. If you have a creature that can sacrifice
for some gain, get full value out of it! Wait for your opponent to
attack, then block their biggest guy. Before damage happens, sacrifice
your guy and get its ability. You just stopped a bunch of damage and
got your creature's ability. Nice!
- Beware the block-sac against your lifelink creature. If your
lifelink creature is in combat and its blocker suddenly isn't there, it
can't deal damage. If it can't deal damage, you can't gain life to
survive a counterattack. And if you can't gain life to survive a
counterattack, you're gonna have a bad time. Don't have a bad time.
- Combat math. Learn it. Love it. Don't be the person who
forgets that an all-out attack can win. Also, don't be the person who
does an all-out attack when s/he could have won by waiting for a turn.
Actually, this probably warrants a post of its own. Quick Tips can't do
it justice.
- Finally, respect your opponents. And not just for sportsmanship. Assume your opponent has read these Quick Tips. Assume your opponent knows how to do combat. Make sure s/he can't blow you out with what you've learned here. If you're wrong, you should be able to beat him/her anyway!
Happy Planeswalking.
B-Tops