How to not be a scrub - Part 4: Knowing your outs - Never give up, never concede.

"Never give up! Never surrender!". Ahh Galaxy Quest. An excellent 1999 parody film. But we aren't here to talk about old, awesome Tim Allen movies today. We're here to talk about not giving up a game you still have a chance to win. The movie's tag line however embodies today's lesson perfectly.

All to many times I've seen my opponents, both new and old just give up a game in a tournament setting. They think its hopeless. Sure they may have to draw perfectly the next three turns to get out of the situation, but they still give up. I, for the life of me cannot figure out why. There is always that chance it happens. The game isn't over until you sign the match slip.

Let me first start off by saying this. There are situations where it is perfectly acceptable to give up early. Your opponent's combo deck is solid and is going off and you have zero counters for it. You know this deck is consistent to military time, and your opponent has never (okay rarely) makes a mistake going off. Time in the round is short and you just want to get to game three to have a chance. This is acceptable. Another situation that comes to mind is practicing. A good practice group knows when the chance to win is 1 in a million. Once that situation has established, it is acceptable to enter your scoop phase and go on to another game. More games means more practice. These situations are the exception, not the rule. If you're in a tournament, don't give your opponent a win unnecessarily.

Gather around, its story time.

I'm going to paint a picture of a tournament I played a few years back. Jund was the new faeries and everyone played it, including myself. It was the night before a large SuperStars 5k invitational event, and I played the last chance qualifiers (For byes) to get in. I played, you guessed it, Jund. It was horrible. My technique sucked, I casted Blightning first in the mirror several times, I always cascaded into Goblin Ruinblaster without kicker mana. Hell, I even lightning bolted one guys Putrid Leech prior to him pumping it. I was off my game.

I went home that night defeated. I knew my pet deck (1) Grixis Control just wouldn't cut it in a field of Nissa's Elves and Boros. Both pretty weak matchups for me. I had a few options at my disposal for the tournament in 12 hours. I could play Jund again and hope for the best. I could play Elves which had been pretty good to me. I could just hope for good matchups with Grixis, or, I could build a new deck no ones seen. I took the last option and build a very solid Mono-Green ramp, big dudes, Eldrazi Monument deck. Sleeved it up, typed my decklist, printed and got some sleep.

The tournament was a breeze. I went 9-0 before cut to top 32 without dropping a single game. My super sideboard tech against Open the Vaults (the one that uses creatures, not my precious Time Sieve deck) worked 3 times to insane results. Nothing could get in my way. Until the top 32 came.

Round 10, I was matched up against Shahar Shenhar. This was prior to his rise to fame and was still a kid. He was playing Naya. I knew this matchup would be easy for me. All I needed was to throw guys in his way, drop monument and bash face. Easy right? Well, game 1 was easy. I crushed him. No mercy was shown. Noble into Leatherback Baloth, into Noble + Huntsmaster into Monument. Boom. Headshot.

Game 2 is the lesson. Shahar allowed me to make a mistake, and I did. He started off strong as did I. He got me down to 1 life (he was at 19 or so) and I finally was able to drop a monument and stabilize. The turn after the monument was the critical one. I had 14 damage exactly, except I had sacrificed a Wolf (2/2) token instead of a Snake (1/1) token leaving me at exactly 13 damage. I knew what I did exactly when I did it. I had already done the math. I was so use to sacrificing a wolf token to the monument that I had forgotten about the snake from my Cone of Dudes.

Suddenly I was on the back foot. Shahar had a gigantic Knight of the Reliquary with a Behemoth sledge attached. I had just enough creature toughness to not die on the board if I blocked with everything. I couldn't attack, I couldn't slowly chip away at his life total. All he had to do was top deck a lightning bolt, or another sledge, or a knight of the reliquary, or any number of things for the win. The crowd started gathering.

The game went on. Every turn I either top decked another creature to counteract the increasing size of Knight of the Reliquary, and Shahar top decked more fetch lands and was slowly thinning his deck trying to get one of three lightning bolts left in it. Eventually he started to attack with extra Knights, gaining more and more life, putting my large in number but small in power army ever so slightly behind every turn. Every end of turn, one of us had the upper hand and would win, and the following turn reverse those fortunes. Every turn we had to count up the combat damage to confirm the standstill. Neither one of us would give up, we both had outs.

Luckily for me, I eventually got another Eldrazi Monument, plopped it down and went sideways for the win. Dealing something like 50+ damage in that turn. Lightning bolt was the top card of his deck. Neither one of us gave up on this game. Every turn we had to draw either the final answer, or something to counteract an alpha strike, anything else would of resulted in a loss.

I'm using this example for one reason. (Not because it has a now big name in MTG) But because it was one of my most memorable games. Both of us were losing, both of us had outs, both of us could of just given up at any time. I heard the comments from the very large group of spectators that I should concede, or Shahar should concede based on the board situation all the time during that match. Things like, "Well hes losing and its not getting better, I would concede if I were him referring to both of us at various times. In the end, we both played to our outs. His Lightning bolts, or my Monuments.

In closing just remember this. If you're playing for money, don't just give up. Even if your opponent restarts the game with Karn and has a Platinum Empirion + 4 lands on turn 0. Just don't do it. If there is a glimmer of hope, or a lightning bolt of a chance, go for it. Its money. You don't have to be the good guy, and no one with a brain will fault you for doing it.


(1): Remember what I said about Pet decks? (or will say, if forget ;) I built this puppy, and it was a tier 1 deck for quite some time. I cannot take all the credit, but I can safely say my build was the foundation for all other Grixis Control decks to come that season. I played it because one thing, after 500+ matches, I had a 56% chance of beating Jund. Also, Cruel Ultimatum is the best spell in Magic: The Gathering to cast.