Who is the beatdown mtg

Planeswalkers and creatures are the most common way of achieving this type of advantage, but enchantments and artifacts can give them to you as well. In essence, if you are ahead on the board your permanents are accomplishing more than your opponent's , you have an advantage in board initiative. There are two ways of accomplishing this. The first way is "critical mass," which is a number or combination of permanents that can't be ignored.

The second is to have a single, dominant permanent which changes the playing field of the entire game, making the game revolve around that permanent Prismatic Omen , Luminarch Ascension , Jace, the Mind Sculptor , Primeval Titan.

The person with the advantage on the board dictates the terms of play on the board. If I'm ahead, I dictate whether you should be attacking me or my planeswalkers, and I dictate when combat is practical, since I hold back if you have to attack and use my defensive advantage , or I can attack you and put pressure on you. Mana advantage is also a part of board initiative, but it is less important. The reason a significant mana advantage is important is because mana is what allows you to cast spells.

If Player A is constrained on mana while Player B isn't, Player A's ability to utilize his spells to full effect activating abilities or playing multiple spells per turn , is a definitive advantage. Assuming he is even on the board Player A gets to dictate the terms of the game, because he has a much fuller range of utilization of his spells, so he can push various angles of attack which Player B has to react to.

Mana advantage can even compensate for some board disadvantages, but at some point it becomes irrelevant. You can have more lands, but if you are too far behind on the board when you reach the point of interacting, you will lose the game anyway limited demonstrates this very well. Thus, the first component of situational advantage is board advantage, but the second is mana advantage. The issue is that stack advantage is also part of situational advantage. This is because controlling the stack allows you to affect the board, in the sense that it allows you to prevent spells from hitting the table.

Since blue is the only color that can create stack advantage, blue is always advantaged over other colors in this respect, making it easier for blue to seize a situational advantage, since it always has a component of situational advantage locked down. So initiative advantage breaks down into two parts. Match-up initiative is dealt with by Flores, but what are the Flores-ian questions for situational advantage? Does one player have an overwhelming mana advantage?

If so, he can have board advantage. Does one player have a dominant permanent? Almost certainly, he has the board advantage. The important thing about situational advantage to remember is that it is transient. It can be lost and regained through play, but also through luck. Thus, situational advantage must be used when you have it, it must be taken advantage of. All other printings of the card, as well as its Oracle text, use only.

Survive the early game with removal spells, then take to the skies! Your Drakes , Djinns , and Elementals will have your opponent diving for cover. The deck's foil face card is Sengir Vampire. It contains "some of the biggest, baddest creatures ever to stalk the planes of Dominaria ". It is designed to get you to the stage of the game where you can drop these creatures onto the table and toll them right into your poor opponent. The deck's foil face card is Erhnam Djinn. Fourth Edition version of Clockwork Avian left , Beatdown version of the newly-templated card right.

MTG Wiki Explore. Main Page All Pages. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? It is important to note that roles can sometimes shift over the course of a game and the role that a deck plays at the beginning of a match is not the role it should play indefinitely. For example, let us consider the Thresh Nasus versus Draven Ezreal matchup.

However, these decks often swap roles in the mid-game around turn 5. This is because Thresh Nasus can run out of steam after its aggressive starts and its early game plays often do not scale very well into the mid to late game. These threats either deal enough damage to end the game on their own or pave the way for a lethal Captain Farron.

As a result, Thresh Nasus now assumes the role of the control by attempting to stabilize against this aggression, digging for combo pieces with Spirit Leech and reactive Glimpse Beyond s, looking for an opportunity to safely launch a Nasus at the opposing Nexus. Meanwhile, the Draven Ezreal assumes the role of the beatdown as it is trying to kill the Thresh Nasus player before it reaches this state of inevitability.

Role shifts are especially prominent in mirror matches , where the role that a player plays can change on a turn-by-turn basis or even action-by-action basis , and the role that they begin with ultimately depends on the strength of their opening hand. In order to reduce the likelihood of Player A topdecking their way into a win, Player B is incentivized to kill Player A as quickly as possible.

Thus, Player B is now the beatdown, while Player A is the control and is attempting to reduce the amount of damage they take in order to see more topdecks. The roles have shifted once again. The existence of role shifts is why I believe it is important to constantly ask yourself which role you should be playing and whether or not your role has changed as a result of a given play.

As a writer for RuneterraCCG, Morpp aims to share his knowledge and passion of card games with the rest of the world and help players of all skill levels step up their game. When he's not competing in LoR tournaments, Morpp can usually be seen behind the analyst desk, working towards his Media Production degree, or rooting for his hometown Toronto Raptors.