I wanted to talk a little bit more about velocity, but I think I’m going to take a little break this week and talk about a concept closely related to velocity: time. Understanding time is fundamental to understanding velocity, and as a whole, while you can draw parallels to other games, time functions in a unique manner in Magic.

Magic is a game of resource management, and many Magic players will tell you time is a resource. To some extent, I agree with them, but in the end, I feel that time isn’t a primary resource as are life, mana, and cards. If you do consider time a resource, I believe that it is proper to consider it a secondary resource.

Time is actually very important to the way that Magic and other strategy games work, which is why so many players stress the importance of time. However, time in Magic operates in a slightly different way than in most other games, and this means we have to use different methods to think about it. Let’s start with the familiar aspects of time.

Familiar Aspects of Time

Time Is Measured in Discrete Units (Turns)

The major thing about time in turn-based games is that it is measured in discrete units (generally turns). This is nice because it provides players with a way of quantifying time as a resource, and it thus gives people a way of understanding how much time they are gaining or losing with any particular strategy. Chess is a great example of this. Let’s take a look at a very simple version of this: the Scandinavian Defense.

This is the position that results after 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5. White’s most common response is 3. Nf3 because it attacks the queen and thus gains tempo. Why does this gain a move? The answer is that White has effectively made two moves (trading off his pawn and developing his knight), whereas Black, after he moves his queen, will have only made one (moving the queen from its starting square to wherever it happens to end up). Considering White lost a move by taking on d5 (it’s White to move right now, and he has no developed pieces, whereas Black has one), this recovers his lost tempo. Now, let’s take a look at a common mistake for beginning chess players in this position.

The classical response, and a solid one, is 3. … Qa5, resulting in the following position:

Some beginners, however, will mistakenly play 3. …Qe5+. This is a terrible move. This is the resulting position:

In reality, this will cause Black the loss of two more moves in addition to the one he just lost after moving his queen away from the knight attacking d5. White can respond with 4. Be2, and Black has no way of stopping either 5. d4 or 5. Nf3 chasing off his queen again. Two diagrams below showcase the resulting positions after White attacks the queen again, assuming Black plays, for example, 4. … Bg4 or 4. … Nf6.

After Black moves his queen away, White will have developed four pieces (the three that are out plus whatever piece White chooses to develop on his sixth move), whereas Black will have developed two. This clearly shows a discrete gain of time (moves/turn) for White. While this might not be completely optimal play for White, it does demonstrate a very simple way for White to gain a rather large advantage in time against this line.

The advantage of being able to quantify time in discrete units allows chess players to talk about time as a resource that can be managed, especially in the opening. This results in two major properties regarding the gaining of time, or tempo:

1. Because chess occurs with each player making one move in response to the other player, a player must not expend time in order to gain time.
2. Time is generally gained by threatening a gain in some other area, almost always material.

Let’s look at each of these in the specific situation of the Scandinavian Defense. The critical thing to realize is that White is playing moves that are otherwise reasonable even if they didn’t gain time. Developing his knights to c3 and f3, his bishop to e2, and a pawn to d4 are all perfectly reasonable moves because White puts his pieces out into the fight, giving them access to the rest of the board. In this respect, White isn’t actually investing any time in his moves. If Black played completely neutral moves that didn’t affect White’s plans in any way, shape, or form, he could play these moves and still be giving himself a fighting chance.

Second, it is important to note that White is gaining time by threatening to gain an advantage in material. By using a lesser piece (pawn or knight) to attack a more valuable piece (queen), Black is forced to move his queen away or lose material. This is a very important property of time in almost every game where time is a resource—time is gained by threatening to gain an advantage in other areas.

Time Is Fluid and Temporary and Thus Can Be Squandered

Another important aspect of time is its fluidity. When you have a time advantage, you have to use it; otherwise, it will dissipate naturally over the course of the game. Because of this fluid and temporary nature, time advantages need to be taken advantage of in short order. In other words, time advantages must be converted into long-term advantages. Let’s take a look at a possible position, once again resulting from our Scandinavian Defense position in which Black plays 4. … Nf6 and 5. … Qd6.

If White plays passively, he could find himself in a position that looks like this:

This really isn’t a bad position for White, but even just looking at it, you can see that it is much more even. White has squandered the vast majority of his time advantage by sitting back and not applying pressure. He hasn’t maximized his time advantage and tried to convert it into a more permanent, lasting advantage (either spatial or material). This means that White is not that far ahead going into the midgame, despite gaining a substantial early advantage.

Both of these properties of time are present in Magic as well. In Magic, time, in the form of turns, can be purchased as well as lost, and it is also a fluid advantage. The effectiveness of time purchased early diminishes as the game goes on because the value of the individual turn decreases. This means that unless you capitalize on your purchased time, your advantage will naturally ebb.

How Time in Magic Is Different

Time Is Often an Investment

Remember one of the two principles I stated earlier about time: “Because chess occurs with each player making one move in response to the other player, a player must not expend time in order to gain time.” The key here is to note that the player gaining time is not actually investing any time in return. In chess, you can gain time if you make an otherwise reasonable move that also happens to gain you time.

So, why is the investment of a turn in Magic so different than the investment of a turn in chess? This is the case because Magic is different in that it has very few moves that are “otherwise completely fine.” This is among the things that actually make the game so interesting. Because the game is so incredibly interactive, very few “moves” can not only leave you completely defended but also put your opponent in a position in which he has to respond.

Many times when you choose to play a spell, you are doing so at the expense of being able to play some other spell. Because the timing of your spells is important, this can come back to hurt you. For example, playing a Day of Judgment on turn four means you won’t have the opportunity to play Mana Leak on a Shrine of Burning Rage, Primeval Titan, Unburial Rites, or Huntmaster of the Fells from your opponent. While you might not always want to Mana Leak these spells, this is a real cost of playing Day of Judgment on turn four.

The implication of this is actually rather severe. This means that as far as Magic is concerned, there are quite a few situations in which you are trying to buy time that require an investment of time. The reason for this is that playing your time-buying spell represents you delaying other spells that advance your game plan. Thus, in order to gain time, whatever spell you play to buy time must do one of two things:

1. Generate important value even if you find yourself in immediately the same position. Sometimes, this is as simple as a land drop. Other times, you need far more (actual card advantage or multiple turns of time).
2. Be advantageous in some other respect (often generating card advantage).

This actually showcases one of the inherent game-design points that make instants so powerful. When you have a bunch of instants to play, you more frequently find yourself in a position to make a “completely fine move” because you have the option of spending all your mana on your opponent’s turn. You can decide what you need to do after seeing what he has done. This added information is very powerful. In essence, when you are playing with a bunch of instants, you are never required to invest time, and thus, it becomes much easier to buy time. Because it is easier to buy time, you can purchase more of it and convert it into concrete resources more efficiently. This cascade effect increases exponentially with the number of instants in your deck. Faeries was a great example of a deck that exploited this hugely. It’s ability to respond to you with a number of different avenues of attack as well as purchase additional turns with Mistbind Clique meant that Faeries was very good at purchasing time—probably too good.

Time Purchase Is Unpredictable

Another important aspect of Magic is that the time value of any individual card is not constant. Thus, effectively, you have very little control over how much time your time-purchasing spell actually purchases. In chess, if you perform a move that gains you tempo, you will always gain 1 tempo. Period. Every single time you make this move or a similar move, you will gain a single move on your opponent. This makes planning around that advantage easier because you can predict the advantage you will gain.

This unpredictable nature of time purchase, however, means that it is difficult to plan what a situation will look like in a few turns. You can make educated guesses, but that is about all you can do in most cases. You have no guarantee that your Timely Reinforcements or your Day of Judgment is going to buy you sufficient time to make it worth it to play them.

If you combine this with the fact that purchasing time often requires an investment of time, you see how time can be a problematic way to look at things. Sure, you can talk about the importance of time, but if you don’t know the end effect of a spell like Day of Judgment or Timely Reinforcements (because you don’t know how much time it will purchase), it becomes more difficult to plan around these spells and this potential gain in time.

This is why only the most powerful and efficient of time-purchasing spells are played. In essence, you need to be extremely sure that your spell is going to purchase sufficient time for it to be worth the time you invest in it. This means that you have to have a hyper-efficient spell because you have to guarantee that a worst case scenario is one in which your spell at least breaks even in the time front, if not gains you something.

Conclusion

For example, if you play Concentrate, you know you are netting two cards. This is something you can plan for. However, when you do similar transactions with time, the outcome is frequently unpredictable. This unpredictability means that any plans you make for the future are based on educated guesses and or hopes. If you are trying to use time as a resource, this is a huge downside.

In Magic, it is important to consider how time impacts the game, but unlike in many other games, time has a much more fluid impact on how the game plays out. Time is actually a very important component to most Magic games, but due to the nature of its fluidity, it tends to impact the game in little bits here and there as opposed to in discrete, measurable units (as in chess). In essence, when you look at controlling time in Magic it is less profitable to attempt to quantify what you are gaining—much of the gain will be positional in nature.

Time in Magic is both a resource that can and cannot be taken advantage of. It is one that you can and can’t plan for. This is why I think it’s dangerous to consider time to be the same type of resource as cards or life—not because it isn’t a resource, but because, due to the nature of time, you have to take advantage of it differently.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5 at gmail dot com