Today's article is starting from a pretty odd place, but give it a chance and I promise it'll pay off.

Recently I've been investing a lot of time into Pokemon: Soul Silver on Nintendo DS. More particularly, I've been playing a little mini-game called Voltorb Flip. The game is a game of hidden information. The game is played on a 5 x 5 grid of tiles, and the object is to turn over tiles showing a number 1, 2 or 3 and avoid turning over Voltorb. Turning over numbers scores you points, while Voltorb ends the game immediately. Rather than go in blind, you're presented with information at the end of each row and column – the number of bombs on that line, and the total that the number tiles in that line add up to. The game allows you to make notes on each tile about what you think might be under it, and by a process of reasoning and elimination you can turn a game of chance into one of certainty.

The reason I bring up Voltorb Flip is because it requires a very important skill set that you can apply to any decision making process in your life - specifically, you can apply these skills to Magic: the Gathering. By gathering (pun not intended) as much information as possible and making logical deductions based on that information, we can get closer to making the perfect play every time.

Going in Blind

When you start a game of Voltorb Flip, you have very little information. All the tiles are hidden, and all you have are the points totals and the Voltorb counts for each column and row. While first time players tend to just pick tiles at random, this will almost inevitably end in a game loss when they stumble onto a Voltorb. There are much better ways to use the information you have to decide which tile to flip over. First of all, see if you have any lines with a zero Voltorb count. Any tile in this line is safe to flip over, so already you have five tiles of the 25 total that are safe to flip!

This is a similar situation to the one we find ourselves in at the beginning of a game of magic, when both players have their opening hands and an empty board and we face our first decision based on unknown information, whether or not to mulligan. It may look like you have no information in this situation as you haven't seen any of your opponent's cards and you have no idea what your draws are going to be like. Actually, you have a lot of information. For starters you know the contents of your own hand exactly, and you should know what cards are left in your deck, unless you are playing pack wars.

We can deduce even more useful information from just these things. Does your hand have a plan to win the game? Obviously 6 lands and a Putrid Leech is a weak hand, but at least "ride Leech to victory" is a plan. Similarly 5 lands and two Duress is a weak hand, but "disrupt the opponent's combo and get better topdecks" is a plan. Whether these plans are going to be good enough to win the game is unknown, but if we can get more information we can reason out some probable answers to that question.

If you know your opponent has no answer to turn 2 Leech, perhaps that hand is just fine. They should probably also get a new deck, but that is beside the point. Does my deck give me good topdecks? If you have a weak 5 land hand but you know that strong threats like Baneslayer Angel or Bloodbraid Elf make up a significant portion of your deck, the plan becomes better. Conversely if you have a lot of Llanowar Elves or Goblin Guide the topdeck plan becomes worse. Will Duress be good against my opponent? If this is game 2 or 3, you'll know whether Duress is likely to be good or not.

If you've sided it in perhaps a double Duress hand completely swings the game in your favour. In game 1 though, it once again may appear you don't have any information to go on, but you do. Now the obvious and best way to find out is to have seen him playing in an earlier round, or that this player always plays aggro decks, or know that he always plays whatever deck Luis Scott-Vargas has recommended most recently. Leaving aside this information, what round are you in? Are you in the winners bracket? Expect to be facing one of the popular and successful decks of the format, whether it is Jund in standard or black aggro in ZZW draft. In the draw bracket? Either your opponent is naturally slow, or his opponent was, or one of them was playing a slow deck. Expect more things like Martyr combo in extended. Did your opponent choose to go first or second? It's rare for people to choose to go second, are there any commonly played decks that like to draw first?

One Play

Once you have uncovered any 0 lines in your Voltorb game board, there are some more tiles that you can confidently mark off. Remember that each line has 5 tiles in it. If you have any lines where the points total and number of Voltorbs add together to make 5, every square in the tile has to be a 1 or a Voltorb. Mark all these as 1 and O, and don't flip them over! You don't gain anything by flipping over a 1 due to the game's peculiar scoring system, and if you hit Voltorb it's game over. Now you may have information on 10-15 tiles and you haven't even had to flip a tile that could possibly be Voltorb.

Putting aside eternal formats and extended storm decks, most opening turns involve a land drop and possibly a one drop. Based on just the information contained in these one or two cards we can deduce a lot about the opponent's deck and game plan. If you are assiduous about learning a format, you should be able to narrow their deck's archetype down to one or two decks based on just this first turn, and if you are really keen you will know every card they could have, barring their own innovation. If your opponent opens on Savage Lands in current standard, you can be sure they're playing Jund.

Plains is a bit iffy-er, as it could indicate White Weenie, Boros, UW control or Boss Naya. How did they react to their opening hand? Did they keep quickly, or did they umm and ahh? If they were confident with their seven and slammed down a Plains, they are probably White Weenie. Plains is a much weaker opening for Boss Naya which would rather go Forest & mana dork, so if they ummed and ahhed they are more likely to be playing that than WW. Knowing this information allows you to make better decisions about how to play your hand out. If your opponent played a Teetering Peaks turn one and you were planning to open aggressively, you may want to rethink that plan and prepare yourself for a Hellspark Elemental attacking you on turn two.

Do You See What I See?

Later in the game there is a lot more public information that you can take advantage of. After a few turns you will definitely know what their game plan is - unless it isn't working out for them. Perimeter Captain into Wall of Denial? Getting attacks through is going to be a problem. Miss their third land drop? They're mana-screwed. Aside from the obvious information they've given you from the cards they have on the board, you can also look at their graveyard at any time, and it is a good habit to flick through it every so often to remind yourself of the cards they might have, what they discarded to your Mind Rot, any unearth or flashback type cards they might have, and so on.

Another source of information is in how your opponent has played the game. Have they used spot removal aggressively on your early guys? You probably don't need to worry about Wrath effects from their side if they're trading one for one with you, as it negates a lot of the advantage they would get from wiping the board. Are they running out a bunch of cheap guys, even though you have a couple of walls they can't get through? They could be setting up a game-changing Overrun. Think about how you would play their side of the board if you were in their position – as you understand it – and see if they are doing anything you think is suboptimal. Unless you have no respect for your opponent, you must assume there is something known to them that is hidden from you that is prompting them to play that way. Armed with the knowledge that they are making a certain suboptimal play, and your prior knowledge about their deck and the format's cards in general, try to deduce what is influencing them to make the plays they are and take that into account when making your own decisions.

You can know a lot, but you can't know everything

While you can deduce a lot about most tiles on the Voltorb Flip board, it is not always possible to know everything. Sometimes you can't be sure you're making the perfect play, and you just have to make a high percentage one – for instance, the intersection of two high total lines is often a high number itself, and is unlikely to be a bomb. While flipping this tile will occasionally end your game, it is giving you a much better chance than just picking a tile completely at random.

Similarly, in Magic, you can know a lot – much more than I've covered here. There have been some great articles written on reading your opponent's body language, for instance. However, you can't know everything. Magic is many times more complicated than Voltorb Flip, with hundreds of possible cards being in any given hidden zone compared to just 4 options in the puzzle game. Sometimes you've just got to make the high percentage play, and sometimes that means getting blown out by the counterspell, or combat trick, or Wrath. As long as you strive to base your decisions on the most perfect information possible, you will go a long way towards playing perfectly.