A Tribute to Åland, by Fluffy

It is my pride and pleasure to provide these scribbles from Martin "Fluffy" Lindström. His insights on the nuances of the game are, of course, masterful. I learned something here, and I'd wager you will too. Enjoy! /Mg out

Hey kids! I am not Seb from Monsters of the Week (it’s a sweet podcast mostly about premodern but also some old school) but quite often when I think about talking to other people I think “Hey kids” to myself and that is certainly his fault. It’s quite annoying!

No, my name is Martin Lindström but a lot of people know me as Fluffy. You often hear that you can’t give yourself a nickname, it has to come from others or it wont stick. But picking my own nickname exactly what I did. Roughly 25 years ago I sat in front of the family computer, and I had just downloaded mIRC. My goal was of course to read about Magic. I am not much of a poster myself, but I sure like to lurk. There was one issue though, you needed a username. I had no nickname whatsoever at this point, so I had to make one up. Part of me felt like this doesn’t matter, just pick something. But at least to me, some of the hardest choices to make are those that don’t matter. Two hours pass by and I got nothing. I step away from the computer for a while and find my little brother, the punchbag of my early Magic career. When I see him, I realize that him and I have a joint nickname, “Bröderna Fluff” from the kids tv-show with the same name. It roughly translates into “The Fluffy Brothers”.

Yes, we both had rather “fluffy” hair at the time. I didn’t know that my nick would stick for the rest of my life, but I can’t say I regret it.

But enough about me, what is this article really about? Well, Åland told me that it’s time for me to write an article about plays in old school that are not obvious. Plays where there is a right and a wrong and most players chose the wrong play.

Most of the plays aren’t super complex or anything, they are mostly about not doing the obvious play.

1. You have a Tundra and 2 factories in play. The opponent only has a single plains untaped and you have decided to attack.

A. The common play is “activate factory, attack, pump”. The opponent then responds to the pump with a Swords to Plowshares and you gain 2 life. Seen it a million times.

B. The correct play is “activate factory, pump, then attack”. If opponent responds to the pump in this scenario, you just pump with the animated factory, securing 3 life no matter what.

2. You have 3 factories and a Tundra. Your opponent only has a Mountain up.

A. The common play is “animate a factory, attack, pump, pump”. If the opponent has the Lightning Bolt and responds to a pump, you’ll deal 0 damage and a factory dies.

B. The better play is to “animate 2 factories, attack”. If the opponent has the bolt in this scenario you lose a factory but at least you deal 2 damage.

C. The best play is to “animate a factory, pump, pump, attack”. This ensures the attacking factory is a 4/4 and that there is no opportunity for the opponent to kill your factory with a bolt. Since if the opponent responds to a pump with a bolt you’ll just pump with the animated factory. Note that a bolt could prevent all damage if you chose this play.

3. You have a Phantom Monster attacking into a Serra Angel. You also have a lightning bolt in hand.

A. A common play is to bolt the Serra once it blocks. This lets the opponent cast Swords to Plowshares on your Phantom Monster before combat damage and the Serra lives.

B. The better play is to let damage happen, place your Phantom Monster in the graveyard and then bolt the Serra. This prevents a plow from saving the Serra.

4. Oldie but a goodie. You have 7 mana, a Serra Angel and a Mana Drain in hand. The opponent has 1 card in hand.

A. The common play is “play Serra, opponent counter, you Mana Drain”. You now get 2 mana in your second main phase. You have nothing to spend the mana on so you take 2 mana burn (yes, I like mana burn and this is my article). Your next turn you draw a Jayemdae Tome and play it.

B. Better play is to “move to second main phase, play Serra, opponent counters, you Mana Drain”. Your next turn you draw the book, play it and draw a card using the Mana Drain mana.

5. From the other side. Your opponent has 7 mana and 2 cards. They play a Serra holding up UU. You have a Swords to Plowshares in hand.

A. The common play is “end of turn, plow your Serra”. The opponent mana drains and then draw the book and use the mana drain mana to draw an extra card.

B. The better play is “still in your first main phase, plow your Serra”. The opponent mana drains, then mana burns for 1 and draw a book that they play but can’t activate.

6. Your opponent leads on Tundra+Mox Sapphire and pass. You have a Tundra and a Mox Ruby and plenty of disenchants, one of which you’re about to use.

A. The common play is ”tundra, mox, disenchant”. Opponent can now counter or play their own disenchant and use the mana again on their next turn.

B. The better play is ”tundra, mox, pass. On your upkeep I’ll disenchant your mox”. The opponent can now counter but won’t be able to use the mana in their turn if they do.

7. And now the play that prompted this article. You have a tapped Triskelion in play, Animate Dead in hand and the opponent is at 4 life. You’ve seen and even done this play countless of times.

A. The common play is “shot you for 2, shot trisk for 1, cast animate dead”. But what happens if the opponent casts Swords to Plowshares on your trisk in response to the last point of damage? You are stuck with an Animate Dead in hand with no trisk in the yard.

B. The better play is to “shot trisk for 1, let that resolve, shot opponent for 2, trisk now dies as a state based effect (i.e. immediately) and you can animate it”. Doing it like this leaves no room for the plow to ruin your plans.

...

I was just about to email this article to MG but thankfully I realized that that would be like giving him homework. MG could never resist an opportunity to do a little Limited Edition ranking when it is served on a plate like this. So I’ll spare him. While I don’t know how fast the different “immediately” in Limited Edition was back in 1993 I can only assume they were all really fast. Blink of an eye kind of fast. But today I know just how fast they are.

Without further ado, here is a contemporary look at...

The Limited Edition immediately speed ranking

C Tier. Here we have the kind of immediatelys that don’t really live up to the name. Today, these immediatelys are simply triggered abilities. Not impressed.

B Tier. Now this is a fast immediately! This is the speed of a modern-day state-based effect. This is the speed at which the Triskelion in example 7 dies at. This is also the speed at which the opponent dies at in the same example.

A Tier. The immediately tier above “as soon as something has happened” is of course “while something is happening”. Word of Command lets you play a card while Word of Command is resolving. Pretty fast if you ask me.

S Tier. This immediately really lives up to its name! Demonic Attorney asks you to make a choice before it starts resolving. Can there even be a faster immediately? I doubt it. This is proper S Tier material!

To save MG from the trouble of leafing through his alpha rule book in search of immediatelys, I have of course done that as well. As you would suspect, there are a couple immediatelys involved with interrupts. 

Using the word immediately sure does invite to a discussion of “how fast is immediately?”. Good thing we have stopped using the word immediately in contemporary rules! 

Kinda funny that the fastest of the Limited Edition immediatelys is just as fast today as it was over 30 years ago.

See you at Easter!