However, on the play, you get to take your turns and play your lands before your opponent, perhaps getting one more total turn than him or her. On the draw, you have more resources and are more easily able to hit your land drops. One interesting question is that of mana on the play and the draw. Quantity of Mana on the Play and the Draw In a format like Sealed Deck, however, where a shaky mana base and a low power level might lead players to be slower out of the gates, these advantages could prove helpful. In formats where the decks are faster and more consistent, the advantages of being on the draw are not likely to be important. This fits with the issue of speed and power, mentioned above. The trouble, of course, is that you don't know what each player's hand is going to look like until after you've chosen either to play first or to draw first. If your draw is slow and you need to hit lots of land drops before you can do anything relevant, you prefer to be on the draw. If you keep a one-land hand, you prefer to be on the draw. If you mulligan to four, you prefer to be on the draw. It's also better to be on the draw if you have a bad hand. In other words, if you have a slow deck, being on the draw might be helpful. If you need to draw a certain card or combination of cards before your deck really gets moving, being on the draw might be helpful. If you need to hit a lot of land drops but don't have a lot of card advantage, being on the draw might be helpful. If your deck is prone to such issues, you can take some advantages from being on the draw. In such a case, you'll draw what you need a half turn sooner if you were on the draw than if you were on the play. A good example is a creature standoff where each player is waiting to draw something to break the stall. The second arises when the game boils down to waiting for one player to draw a certain card or type of card. (More cards simply means more chances to have a land.) The first is that it's easier to make your land drops. Two consequences of this deserve special attention. However, getting to draw a card on your first turn does mean having more total resources to work with on each of your turns.
Always remember, you're drawing first, not necessarily drawing extra. Relatively speaking, the advantages of being on the draw are smaller and more subtle. Consider that, as the number of total turns played becomes smaller, getting one extra turn is more important (the ratio of four turns to three turns is larger than the ratio of eleven turns to ten turns, for example).īeing on the play or the draw is sometimes fairly unimportant in Limited, but can mean life or death in fast formats like Modern and Legacy. As a game goes long, the advantages of going first begin to dissipate, but if the game ends quickly they're rather massive. The advantages of going first are magnified based on the speed and power level of the format. Looking at a game where one player gets six turns and the other only gets five, it's easy to see the advantage in being on the play. The fact that the player going first has a substantial advantage more often than not means that the game will end on his or her turn (in his or her favor). Moreover, there's nothing in Magic to guarantee that both players get the same number of turns in a game. The player who goes second will need to do something quite special in order to take back the initiative. The player who goes first is much more able to take the initiative, taking the game where he or she wants it to go, and forcing the opponent to react. For refreshers on tempo and its many important consequences, see " Tempo" and " Tempo & Card Advantage: A Delicate Balance." Being on the play offers a substantial tempo advantage that's typically well worth skipping your first draw step. The advantages of going first are often quite large, resulting in a much higher than 50/50 chance to win the game, if all other factors are equal. Even more, it's important to understand how whether you're on the play or on the draw can change the dynamics of the rest of the game. So I'll save us some time and headache: you want to play first.īut don't stop reading just yet! It's important to understand the reasons behind the decision. In the corner cases where you might be making a mistake, you're making a very, very small one. If you choose to play first 100% of the time, you'll rarely be making a mistake. To play first is to make the popular choice. So, would you like to play first or draw first?
The player who goes first skips his or her first draw step, but the player who goes second does not. So it makes sense that each and every player ought to be able to give an educated answer for it.
The same question begins each and every game of Magic.
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