Playing against combat tricks in Limited
I won’t lie. I had to think a little about what I wanted to write about this week. With Worlds around the corner, I’m keeping some of my thoughts close to the vest until decks are in and cards have been drafted. This is a lesson I’ve written about before and that I think needs some newer eyes on.
This past weekend was the Limited Arena Open. I managed to take home $2,000 in hard cash after winning five consecutive draft matches on day two.
There’s one issue I’ve seen come up a few times, including on HamTV. He’s been a top Limited player since the dawn of time and is my highest recommended Limited streamer if you want to improve.
That issue is combat tricks. I’m lower on playing with combat tricks than most players because I find strong players are much weaker than weaker opponents. Weaker opponents play against tricks incorrectly because they’re not thinking through successive turns and how they can force a trick into removal or a myriad of other things.
Combat tricks are a huge part of Limited, so learning to play against them and with them is a huge part of improving your Limited game. Here are some heuristics when playing against combat tricks that may be helpful.
It’s much better to block on early turns
Players are often unwilling to make a block with their Balmor, Battlemage Captain on turn three because a combat trick will get them. If you recognize that this type of exchange is going to be forced to happen at some point, then making it early is much better than later.
Mana on early turns is worth a lot more than mana on later turns. A creature cast on turn three that’s unblocked for several turns will deal tons of damage. By blocking your opponent’s two-drops on turn three, you make an equivalent exchange and you prevent them from casting additional creatures that creates a bigger problem a few turns later.
Games can have more potential for blowout when you’re unwilling to block combat tricks, and you also end up allowing your opponent to double spell. This is contextual if you’re going to set up another play, so keep in mind the tempo loss your opponent faces when using a trick early.
If you have instant speed removal in your hand or deck, take some damage to set up a blowout
Let’s say you know they have Giant Growth in their deck, and you have a Lightning Strike in hand, and you just tapped out to play a 2/5. They attack with two, 2/2s. In most cases, you shouldn’t be blocking here. You should be taking the hit, untapping, and leaving up Lightning Strike to punish the combat trick.
To get into spots like this, it’s important to spend mana well throughout the early game so you have a board presence and a high enough life total to be able to punish the combat trick. Occasionally your draw doesn’t allow for this and you have to block. To go one step deeper, if they have a lot of combat tricks, then you should be planning to set this up before it even comes up. Plan to sequence a 3/3 blocker and a Lightning Strike on the same turn.
Block with a lot of creatures
This is the simplest one. If you’re being attacked by a 4/4 with the potential to be 8/8 from a Colossal Growth or Gaea’s Might, don’t just block with two 3/3s if you have four of them to use for blocking. Block with all of them. This is something tons of newer players don’t do enough.
This can backfire if your opponent has combat tricks like Battle-Rage Blessing. You have to gauge how likely your opponent is to have certain tricks and be thoughtful of how you block.
Do not play slow against mass pump effects like Heroic Charge!
This is the biggest mistake I see day to day in the current Limited format. A lot of players are playing way too defensive when they expect to get swarmed by a Heroic Charge. They’re afraid of attacking because they think a Charge might kill them.
You should be figuring out what Charge looks like against the go-wide decks on each turn and consistently attack with your access power, even if it results in trades that, out of context, look bad. Trading that 3/2 for 2 1/1s makes their scariest card scarier. Heroic Charge, Overrun, or whatever card you’re afraid of gets worse when you make a trade.
Mostly, these decks plan on setting up a huge Charge turn, so you should blast away at your opponent’s life total or resources before it’s an opportune time. The more you play draw-go with them while they’re casting token makers and setting up, then the worse it’s going to get for you.
Pay close attention to the math and try to create small boards that benefit the person with larger creatures and removal. Yes, some of their best Heroic Charge draws are going to be close to unbeatable, but many times I see players losing winnable games by not pressuring the opponent’s life total early and often, which makes future attacks meaningless.
You can’t play too conservatively against these decks or you’re just asking to lose the long game. You don’t need to have five favorable blocks every turn, but leave room for one or two favorable blocks and try to get their life total low so that they’re forced to trade off creatures, thus making their game-ending card worse. It’s counterintuitive, but in many cases you want to almost assume the aggressive roll to give them less time to set up and punish the fact they’re playing lots of small creatures.
Additionally, you should be looking to trade resources early and often because their endgame requires a big board, and your endgame will likely be larger creatures, draw spells, and maybe a bomb or two.
ABB: Always be blocking
Just f’ing block. Decks that play combat tricks usually play a lot of them. Turns two through 10 just block if your creature is untapped. If you’re blocking and losing a creature that you can live without, then just block, trade your creature for the trick, and continue playing your creatures down the curve until they run out of tricks or creatures.
Decks that play lots of combat tricks are more prone to flooding out, and the combat tricks get much worse as the games progress.
If you have a traditional midrange draft deck that has a rare or two, some card advantage, and some removal, then you should be able to exhaust the aggressive decks’ resources early. You’ll also be much better at spending mana later, and eventually you can just bury them after making a few unfavorable exchanges. If you have no idea what you should be doing, the tiebreaker for me is always to block.
Hopefully some of this helps you think about how you should approach the combat tricks in DMU Limited. The newer beefed up combat tricks are a lot stronger than they’ve been in the past, but they still play out just about the same. Try and punish them with instant speed removal, and if not, just block a lot and don’t miss damage. Your creatures should almost never be idling when they can exchange for other resources in this format.
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