Audio Version (in case you want me to lie directly to you, to save you the trouble of doing so yourself):

It had been a while since I had actively sworn at the screen.

Rassin' frassin'... Grrr...

"I told you not to play during the day," my wife calls across the couch. "You built that rating mostly in the middle of the night!"

I mean first of all; LOL. Factually she was correct. I'd nested at Mythic #332 in Limited first thing the previous morning but strung together all of two wins the rest of the day, crushing the once high rating.

"I'm playing something completely different!" I call back. You know, across the three feet of couch between us or whatever. Not that she understands the difference between Mythic Limited ladder and a Constructed gold event.

Quite correctly, she doesn't care enough to continue the point. I hate getting salty over games of Arena, but this one kind of hurt.

Two turns earlier I had caught my Izzet Epiphany opponent with a big Inscription of Ruin; sniped one of his defensive Bird tokens and even bought back an Eyetwitch. He didn't have anything - any cards in hand in a second - but I was planning to chump that Hall of Storm Giants if it came down to it.

Quite correctly, the opponent played Unexpected Windfall in response. He would lose everything (just as I had planned) but at least this way he was going to profit a little Treasure.

No cards and two copies of Alrund's Epiphany down, I was getting ready to hunker down for the end game. I even had a couple of Spiders back to blunt a topdecked double Epiphany. If we danced down that particular hallway, I wouldn't have a win on table or anything, but a five card advantage to nil and Professor Onyx with six loyalty did feel pretty good.

Two Galvanic Iterations in his graveyard didn't feel good, though. And I was acutely aware of... Yep, there it was.

Part of me was like, "He could easily have milled that with the desperation Windfall," but the possibility of a bad mill versus the certainty of the Treasure bonus was pretty - as Finn the Human says - mathematical. His previous play was right and, the profitable topdeck was just justice. Gladly, I wasn't salty... Yet.

Everyone in. Hall of Storm Giants went at Liliana on the first extra turn. I tanked a sec. "He isn't playing for the win." I had a Blood on the Snow in hand, which gave me a second of pause. Yes, it's still right to trade against the Birds. I have too much advantage in hand. Eyetwitch defended Prof. But the attack left me defenseless... Unless you counted the high loyalty Planeswalker I still had (for now) and huge advantage in grips. For what it was worth I had the edge in creature lands as well.

Okay, second turn.

Hall of Storm Giants is coming at... Me?

What changed?

No blocks (obviously). Not that I had the option to block. After the remaining Birds that left me at four. What could he have?

Yep. With the Hall of Storm Giants, that would be four; you know, exactly my life total.

Rassin' frassin'...

In case you were wondering, I caught another annoying loss the next round, to a good matchup; but eventually rallied for my seventh win. But the loss to Epiphany stuck with me. I've learned to wallop Blue decks - both and even based with Devastating Mastery - in the last few weeks, using the power of The Meathook Massacre for 0; but I'm never really confident when it's some kind of Island on turn one. But I love winning the matchup. It usually takes a ton of concentration and angling some technology the opponent doesn't know well, but it feels so good because when you win, it's almost always from behind. I'd played so well until that Hall of Storm Giants switcheroo. He just had to topdeck Epiphany... And then what? His one-of Prismari Command the next turn?

How lucky!

And you know what, it was lucky.

In hindsight, I had the option of not blocking the first Hall of Storm Giants attack on Professor Onyx, though, didn't I? It didn't feel like an error at the time... And if I weren't already working on an article about how we lie to ourselves, I might never have come around to a big one I'm guilty of:

1. When I'm winning - but they topdeck - I tell myself they won because they drew the nuts.

I think a lot of us kind of throw up our arms and say "If he draws Epiphany into Epiphany I'm going to lose." We accept the nuts without considering other possible sequences of outs the opponent might have to catch up, take the lead, or otherwise go over the top.

The reality is that people don't always have to windmill slam the Mega Millions jackpot to get out of it when we're winning. Hitting a couple of consecutive silver scratch-offs might just be able to do it, and I think we would all do better to consider how they might do so.

Remember that time Jon Finkel didn't block Brian Kibler's Wolf token? Even the greats can make this kind of error.

Let me give you two things to chew on to help you address this:

When I'm playing with my back against the wall, I often play my best Magic. Just yesterday I beat an Unnatural Growth that had triggered for something like five turns. My opponent had Esika's Chariot and three Old-Growth Trolls (which eventually became three Old-Growth Troll enchantments). I figured every single turn how to keep one paltry life and minimize the impact of such titanic trample. Skullport Merchant did a lot of chump blocking and I relied heavily on The Meathook Massacre just so I could get one more activation out of Lolth or Professor Onyx.

But in the end, my opponent had like eleven permanents tapped, and I realized that thanks to Massacre chip shot damage, I would be able to swing in for exactsies.

I've won multiple PTQs this way. Basically, cursing my luck but forcing myself to find the narrow path at the same time. While much more mentally exhausting than God Draws and manascrewed opponents, it can feel pretty satisfying.

The problem with the first little lie is that it kind of ignores the fact that the opponent can have the exact same superpower. How do I know that the opponent didn't say to himself, "Wow, having zero cards is sure going to suck... But if I made some Treasure I'll at least have enough resources to use the Galvanic Iterations I've lost."? Or why can the opponent not do the same kind of careful math to take down a tight game on low margins? Clearly, they can; and if they're any good, they're figuring out how they can keep playing. Maybe we should spend more effort improving our own decisions by looking for some of what they're looking for, beyond, you know the absolute nuts.

Here's another angle, based on expectation.

Many years ago, I was at the birthday dinner of a very famous Magic player. At the time FOR SURE I was the poorest guy at the table; at least effectively. Many of the other diners have kids now, but at the time I think I was alone in that department.

The credit card game came up. The bill was over $2,000. Many people bought into the credit card game. I thought about joining myself. "I'm very likely to not-lose," I thought. "That makes this a good bet." And I didn't really want to pony up my $200 share or whatever.

One of my friends, similarly in the bottom half (at the time) wouldn't let me.

"While it is true that you will not-lose the majority of the time, this is a fair bet, not a good bet. You have to remember that SOMEONE is going to lose. When it's your turn, the loss is devastating... To evaluate this bet correctly, you need to consider the magnitude of the loss, not just its likelihood of happening."

He and I were the only ones to not-play; and to this day I consider the differentiation between a fair bet and a good one, one of my life's most valuable lessons. In the Epiphany duel, I was very likely to not-lose to double Epiphany. But had I properly evaluated my opponents other outs, I might have had a different game outcome. Or, you know, 7-1 instead of 7-2. Same prize.

2. "It doesn't matter."

Thankfully I've never actually made this mistake.

However, I once almost did, and have certainly told myself this lie. In this case I immediately realized that it is probably the single most pervasive mistake - accompanied by little lie we tell ourselves - in all of Standard Constructed today.

So, I had a two-land hand with both Snow-Covered Swamp and Hive of the Eye Tyrant. I very nearly played the Snow-Covered Swamp on turn one. I caught myself and correctly laid the Hive of the Eye Tyrant before following up with my signature Shambling Ghast.

"But it wouldn't have mattered," I said to myself, not realizing I was lying to myself. After all, wouldn't I have been able to just play the Hive on turn two, still getting under its downside prohibition?

Yes, in the vast majority of cases.

But not one:

That's right!

I recognized that if my first draw / eighth card were a second copy of Hive of the Eye Tyrant, I would have put myself into quite a pickle on that particular misplay.

So, two things:

• First of all, just play the proper land on turn one. If nothing else, burn this into your mind. It's such a lazy, but such an avoidable, error.
• Think about how many times you make an error and decide that it doesn't matter.

It very well might not matter in a particular individual case, but I guarantee you that excising this from your Magic vocabulary will pay off in the future.

Imagine I had played the Snow-Covered Swamp on turn one. And my eighth draw were something other than a Hive of the Eye Tyrant. I would have had no consequences and would never have registered how poisonous this pervasive error might be. Because it just doesn't matter most of the time. So someday in the future, I might lazily lay the wrong land, and in a game I'm "supposed" to win - against Mono-Green or Mono-White maybe, I'd have quite the rude awakening.

Those maniacs play Werewolf Pack Leader or Luminarch Aspirant on turn two! Their 3-drops are insanely high leverage! Believe you me, taking off turn three against one of those decks is not what you want to do, if you want to win. Not when it's so completely avoidable.

This is a case where it's not just the error we're trying to avoid; it's the bad habit that comes from not being caught by the error very often... Until we are.

3. I have good Limited skills

I don't.

Back when there was such a thing as the Duelist Convocation International, I was rated Top 25 in Limited more than once. Most of my money finishes on the Pro Tour are, surprisingly, on the back of forty card decks, at least in part.

But when I'm good, I'm mostly just good at memorizing pick orders, or become laser focused on a particular color combination or archetype. The biggest gap in my game - which you think might have been corrected sometime in the past twenty-seven years - is that I'm not very good at complicated creature combat.

This is not limited to Limited. However, it comes up in Limited more often than Constructed just because people in Constructed (often me, even) play sweepers like Blood on the Snow, The Meathook Massacre, or Burn Down the House to prevent extremely wide creature stand-offs that require (or reward) excellent combat skills.

In Constructed I've largely gotten around this in one of three ways:

• I play non-interactive decks that leverage creature damage but not necessarily creature combat. Check out any of a bazillion articles on Modern Burn.
• I actively discourage combat by playing large creatures that disincentivize the opponent from attacking. Check the entire school of Tap-out Control for examples. Even last month's foray into Wrenn and Seven complimenting Lolth, Spider Queen would be a good example of making combat painful for the opponent.
• I just try to trade, or trade at value, in order to minimize the number of permanents on the battlefield that I have to keep track of.

I lean into the third a lot in Limited. This is fine as long as the opponent isn't actually good / plays along. However, it can make you extremely vulnerable to combat tricks or instant speed removal. In the deepest darkest past of 2002, I once made Top 8 of an Odyssey-Torment PTQ, where I drafted not one, not two, but three copies of Psychatog! One Psychatog would generally be enough to win the World Championsips back then, but I didn't get out of the round of 8. I wasn't manascrewed or anything... I just completely failed to manage dozens of permanents on the cramped candle-lit barroom table as well as my opponent did (ironically the famous Psychatog deck designer Zev Gurwitz).

I think many players lean into this last lie, and the same shortcut I tend to take. They can get by so long as the opponent isn't actually very good, but get walloped by, you know, the thirty-seventh percentile player from Madison, WI.

This particular lie came really clearly to me while watching a CovertGoBlue video last week:

In this excerpt, CovertGoBlue is playing from behind. He has a weird brew trying to leverage Augur of Autumn, and his opponent is playing a pretty stock-y looking White Weenie. I was really impressed by how CGB slowed down to discuss how he was going to get which blocks in which sequence that he wanted in order to cement to a mid-game where he was alive, at high enough life total to execute on his ambitious plan, but also had enough creatures to keep the engine going.

My favorite part was how he declared he was going to trade his Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa with his opponent's PV + Luminarch Aspirant buffs at a discount turns before the latter had even been cast. Which happened. It was awesome to witness.

I think that a lot of streamers... um... don't play very well. They might be entertaining or popular, but I sometimes find myself actively angry watching a content creator hurl extra cards into the graveyard for no good reason. CGB is primarily an entertainer (if one of the best at that) but goes so far beyond. And maaaaan did I admire how much better he was at blocking in that game than I would have been.

So, which lies do you tell yourself? You're awful at those wide stand-offs, too, aren't you? It's okay. You're probably good at something else.

LOVE

MIKE