The Unlock is one of the most useful strategic concepts you can add to your Magic: The Gathering toolkit. The Unlock is not present for all matchups; and in fact may not be available to every deck. However, when you can identify it, the Unlock will allow you to transform challenging matchups into downhill cruises, or simply multiply your options given the same number of resources. And really, what in Magic do we want more than more options (especially without more resource expenditure)?

Zero: Waylay at end of turn

It's been twenty-four years but I assume Adrian Sullivan is still salty toward me about Waylay.

He taught me the Waylay ruling prior to the 1999 US National Championships, and damn if I didn't use it.

The Oracle text on Waylay now references the cleanup step, but look at the printed version:

It references at end of turn.

The flavorful intent of Waylay was to be used during combat. You'd make three 2/2 creatures that would waylay oncoming attackers and mess them up in combat. It was a good Limited trick... Could proxy as removal for even a gigantic Green common, and would sometimes glow up to a three-for-one.

The tokens, in the unlikely case they survived, would disappear at end of turn.

The problem was that a 1999 rules change meant that if you cast Waylay after "at end of turn" effects had already been put on the stack, then the 2/2s would start play on your turn. You could attack with them! Waylay could operate as a White Ball Lightning!

Anyway, Adrian and Brian Kowal gave Waylay to me as something to brainstorm over for Constructed, but I lapped one up for the draft portion, winning my table over Tongo Nation superstar Pete Leiher to start Nationals 3-0...

... And in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

Most of them had no concept of how Waylay now worked - or at least could work. But everyone who saw quickly spread the word like wildfire. Waylay had been Unlocked for the whole Pro Tour.

Come Day Two I repeatedly faced players who had written out instructions of how they would cast Waylay, for they had not internalized the wording necessary to start the next turn with tokens in play. To the surprise of no one after that particular 3-0 start, Waylay won Nationals in the hands of the still-mighty Kyle Rose.

Waylay White Weenie | Kyle Rose, US National Championship 1999

• Creatures (26)
• 2 Masticore
• 4 Longbow Archer
• 4 Mother of Runes
• 4 Soltari Foot Soldier
• 4 Soltari Priest
• 4 Soul Warden
• 4 Warrior en-Kor

• Instants (8)
• 4 Disenchant
• 4 Waylay

• Enchantments (6)
• 2 Glorious Anthem
• 4 Crusade

• Lands (20)
• 20 Plains

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Allay
• 1 Armageddon
• 1 Erase
• 3 Field Surgeon
• 3 Humility
• 1 Plains
• 2 Worship
• 2 Wrath of God

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Had Waylay not been Unlocked, first for me, and then for onlookers, and then for everyone else, the Top 8 of US Nationals would likely looked a lot different.

WotC, for their part, ended up having to issue errata for cards like Waylay and this resurgent Staple:

Thawing Glaciers had been an All-Star in every format it had ever been legal... Great in Block, great in Standard, and eventually unbeatable in Extended alongside Turnabout and Time Spiral.

But the same rules glitch that made Waylay into a Ball Lightning could potentially double the card advantage of Thawing Glaciers, at least in grindy matchups. The world changed again just prior to Bob Maher's Chicago... But it all started with the Waylay Unlock and a very handsome New Yorker winning his first draft table of the day.

One: Izzet Signet

The best Tron deck of Pro Tour Honolulu was a team effort, but I had done a lot of the heavy lifting in isolation. Osyp would generally credit about half to YT and half Andrew Cuneo, but if memory serves, Joe Black himself was responsible for the Giant Solifuge sideboard swap that made the deck so special:

Izzetron | Osyp Lebedowicz, Pro Tour Honolulu 2006

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Keiga, the Tide Star
• 4 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

• Instants (14)
• 2 Telling Time
• 4 Electrolyze
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Remand

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Blaze
• 1 Invoke the Firemind
• 1 Tidings
• 2 Pyroclasm
• 4 Compulsive Research

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Confiscate

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Izzet Signet

• Lands (23)
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 2 Tendo Ice Bridge
• 4 Shivan Reef
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Urza's Mine
• 4 Urza's Power Plant
• 4 Urza's Tower

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Pyroclasm
• 4 Annex
• 4 Giant Solifuge
• 2 Repeal
• 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
• 2 Smash

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Osyp would be the only undefeated player after Day One on the way to making Top 8 with this smooth masterpiece. It incorporated a lot of my favorite cards and strategies from the era - from the Tendo Ice Bridges we used in Kuroda-style Red and Critical Mass variants, to the tap-out philosophy that whatever the opponent was going to do just probably wasn't better than Keiga, the Tide Star.

But I had worked in isolation.

Believe it or not, my process at the time was loading up two instances of Apprentice and playing against myself for hours on end (this was a technique I learned from Kai Budde... and it produced a lot of high performing decks).

So, the first time I had ever seen anyone else play the Izzet deck was Osyp in Honolulu. He played a Steam Vents and passed; then played an Urza's Tower and passed again.

What was that Izzet Signet still doing in his hand?

I talked to him after the game.

Never one time in the dozens of hours I had put into playing the Izzet deck against the gauntlet did I ever pass up a turn two Izzet Signet. Not once!

But Osyp just shook his head.

Like he should!

"I left up Mana Leak or Remand," he clarified. "Next turn I can make a land drop, play the Signet, and still leave up Mana Leak or Remand."

Duh!

The deck now Unlocked for me in a way it never had before.

I thought Izzet was the best deck to play going into Honolulu but I didn't even understand one of its most basic early play patterns! How much better did the deck become?

Unless you're playing specifically for Annex or Giant Solifuge in a sideboarded game, there was little incentive to tapping out for Izzet Signet on turn two. Not playing the Signet on turn two actually broadened the deck's defensive capabilities, and exploited the high leverage / high tempo permission spells at .

Two: The Last Two Points

This Unlock is widely applicable to anyone playing a Burn deck in almost any format, but particularly useful for Pioneer (or I guess Premodern) where the opponent might have Absorb.

It is often the case that a Burn player will get a Control player "low" ... But not close out the last two points; or perhaps not know how to close out the game despite a hot start. The arrogant Control player will now believe himself to be at the advantage, because after all that is everything he has ever been programmed to believe. The longer the game goes, the more opportunities he has to build the advantages that give his deck an incentive to exist.

As Burn players we know that by finding Gear Three, we can settle into a game state from which we will always win... But why is it that so many Burn players, um, just don't?

One reason is that they are always trying to jam Gear One. But the kinder, more empathetic (and mayhap more applicable) reading is just that they don't know how to resolve their spells.

The Control player has many powerful tools. One of them is that, given time, they can stop any threat. They can just say "no" with classic Counterspell, and add insult to injury with a variant like Absorb. However, the Control player is bound by Magic's two most fundamental chains:

1. They can never pass the turn with more than seven cards, and
2. Each answer probably costs two or more mana.

As a Burn player you can get in "the last two points" by understanding these two limitations, and crafting a single turn where you resolve a single spell. Best, it almost doesn't matter which one you resolve!

The details will vary from Burn deck to Burn deck, and certain variables are going to muddy the soup, depending on what the opponent is up to. For example, Geier Reach Sanitarium + Narset, Parter of Veils can put you on a de facto clock that doesn't have anything to do with the opponent's damage output.

But at its simplest, you can just make a hand of 8 lethal cards. Your opponent will never have more than seven, so if you have eight, by definition you will win.

This means having the discipline to do things like discard a non-lethal threat (e.g. most creatures that don't have haste). Ideally you'll want all eight cards to be instants, so you can always respond to Absorb... But again your format is going to impact the specific details, as are things like whether Teferi, Time Raveler is legal to play (or in play).

Do you see the Unlock?

Your opponent can never have more than seven.

Once you have eight - especially if you can lean instant - you will be able to get in the last two.

Throwing out random creatures is just going to give the opponent context for removal, or worse, a juicy target for Absorb on a turn where you can't flurry them out in a single, inevitable, burst.

Once you understand the initial Unlock, you can start building variations that are contextually appropriate. If the opponent only has five lands in play, you can probably just kill them with three instants. Do they have four or five life rather than two? You'll have to engineer a situation where you can get your last two from an un-counter-able source (say a Ramunap Ruins) or find some more specific foothold based on both players' available resources.

But if your opponent only has four cards, total, in hand? By definition, your fifth burn spell will resolve. You got it?

Three: Features, not Bugs

Very closely related to the Burn finisher Unlock is the feature on Portent: The fact that it is a slow-trip instead of a cantrip.

A few months ago I won a Premodern meetup with Sleight of Hand, and decried Portent as very bad. It isn't. In fact it is very good! I just didn't understand it.

At the time I went 4-0 / 8-0, with many of my victories being second turn combo setups. I was playing on Easy Mode, and valued speed over everything else.

I did not understand that, like my beloved Red Deck, a Premodern 12/12 deck can play an Inevitable long game against a Control opponent with a fist full of permission.

The key here is simply the card Portent.

Because Portent is a slow-trip it can actually stow an eighth card somewhere else. So, if you're at eight cards, you can cast Portent to go down to seven (so you don't have to discard). You can put a doozy on top of your deck (or sometimes two!), which will be available on your next main.

As with the Burn Unlock we just discussed, the Control opponent will only be able to face you with seven cards. That means that - even in the worst-case scenario - you can resolve the last one, so long as you did the appropriate hand sculpting along the way.

Even better, if one of your eight cards is Gush, you can actually play with 10+ action spells to the opponent's max of seven.

Getting a Dreadnought to resolve under this structure is not too tough. But if you're really fancy, you can do something like Etai Kurtzman did on the way to his 2023 LobsterCon Finals appearance:

Stiflenought | Premodern | Etai Kurtzman

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Meddling Mage
• 4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

• Instants (30)
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 2 Opt
• 3 Daze
• 4 Counterspell
• 4 Foil
• 4 Gush
• 4 Impulse
• 4 Stifle
• 4 Vision Charm

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Portent

• Lands (18)
• 1 Plains
• 9 Island
• 4 Adarkar Wastes
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Swords to Plowshares
• 2 Disenchant
• 1 Flash of Insight
• 1 Annul
• 2 Last Breath
• 1 Brain Freeze
• 2 Winter Orb
• 1 Blue Elemental Blast
• 2 Hydroblast

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See that singleton Brain Freeze?

Imagine the kind of turn you can craft when you're planning to play 10 spells yourself... and you're assuming the Control opponent can put up a fight. Brain Freeze becomes an inevitable way to win!

You can do it the old-fashioned way, too... But it all starts with the Unlock of understanding that Portent can hide an eighth card somewhere else, meaning you can, by definition, outdo the opponent's max of sevn.

The Unlock is not difficult to identify once you are looking straight at it; but it is awfully tough to define in dictionary terms... That's why I just tried to give examples in this article. Hopefully you can see that via them, and an effort to unlock the Unlock, you can approach matchups or just understand your own deck better, gaining options or drowning an opponent with seven hard counters with an eighth he could never have handled.

LOVE

MIKE