Mistakes You Are Making When Playing Magic and 5 Ways You Can Fix Them 

Click here for an inspiring example in old-school magic of how to think outside the box to win a game: bit.ly/497sZsF

#1 is also known as "play to your outs," and it's the most useful piece of Magic advice I've ever gotten.

I can't get over how you flash Frank's face every time you say his name.

I'm really surprised that you never mentioned one of the most important skills in Magic. Do nothing is always an option, and in some situations it's a right one.

These are legitimately good beginner mistakes to cover. I've seen a bunch of these kind of videos, but usually they're mistakes no one makes after literally their second game, or they're so obscure that people know how to fix them by the time they encounter them. These mistakes are actually realistic!

In standard my removal is reserved for Sheoldred

after watching your channel for some time I'm proud to see you guys learning how to play Magic

i got another one for the newbies Stop playing at sorcery speed use your interaction reactively, for example if you have a Slippery Bogbonder in your hand: You could cast it on your main phase to protect a creature proactively, but your opponent may respond by casting removal to prevent you from protecting it or may save the removal for something else or You save Slippery Bogbonder to cast it in reaction to your opponent's removal since it has Flash, this way you reactively protect your creature, and your opponent will waste that removal spell

Aww, now people are going to stop playing Cut Down on my Spirited Companion because they know not to play removal too early! Jokes aside, these are very good beginner tips.

I think the Removal thing is the hardest thing to master out of these cuz at the same time ive seen people not remove a creautre for 3 turns wiating for something more threatening to come n then when they have to remove it the opponent then plays thr creature they were scared of but now their life total is too low to survive til they draw another removal spell. So threat assessment is a huge part of that n knowing the possibilities in the opponent's deck by having a decent grasp of the meta u play in is key. My brain kinda goes to a moment from a game yrs ago. It wasn't about removal spells but was about threat assessment. Was playing a 3 way game with 1 of my brothers n my old roommate. The game previous my brother had finished me with his massivily buffed snakes but he only had combat damage as a win condition n as soon as I was eliminated my roommate realized that the change from 4 copies of Silence for 2 copies of Orim's Chant had opened up a loop with Archeomancer n Venser, the Sojourner where he can lock a single player out of attacking or casting spells. That wasn't the mistake; the mistake was when the next game ended the exact same way.

The thing most people who start to get good start to make is the forced instant speed . People wanna play stuff always as late as possible as they learned it's good and refuse to play it in their turn. Ignoring stuff like tapped mana can ensure it gets not countered

i feel like the kenku on turn 4 might be a good play, especially with an untapped artifact land and if archeomander cant get anything too good, with kenku u r making a 3/3 indistructible flying "haster", archeomander is just a 1/2 that gets 1 card back and not a great one on that spot

Frank Karsten *nods sagely* Ah yes, of course. Edit: Forgot to mention about number 2. I feel like this is much harder to do nowadays because creatures are so insanely strong. You remove the Orcish Bowmasters cause its very strong against your current hand... then they drop Sheoldred and you are screwed but you were ultimately between a rock and a hard place. This rings out truer in limited cause even a lowly 3 drop scales so hard now...

One thing that I find so fascinating, about the mana-curve, is that there is this interesting proficiency curve as we learn MTG. First, we make the same mistakes as discussed here. But, at least for me, I then got fixated on *always* spending my mana on curve - even if it wasn't optimal (i.e. playing a body into removal or dropping a bomb instead of holding up interaction). Such a wonderfully complex game!

I appreciate this channel so much. Always a bright light 💡 The accompanying article was great as well. Keep up the great work, always happy to see when you post.

Love Carl reping Montréal with the St Viateur tshirt

Frank's Article have guided my deck building since i read it leading to many of my decks running efficiently!

The biggest thing I learned being a causal player of magic is the only way to learn how to play good is to: Play the game continuously Mess up horribly playing the game Then learn from all your horrible mistakes. I won’t outright say this overlooked but so much of this game and making strategies and plans is situational.

Yeah, these were all things I learned from experience and talking with other players back when I was a pretty active competitive player in my local area. I played draft and standard weekly for a few years and so many of these lessons made me a much better player.

If you are playing a multicolor that includes blue, when leaving lands untapped always leave blue mana open, and openly so. Even if you dont have a counter or an answer in hand.

The last tip is unofficially known as the "Char you... Oh it's Lightning Helix! OMG!"

Superb advice. I think not only using removal too early, doing _anything_ you don't need to do too early is a pitfall.

thanks cardmarket! very helpful!

This was a really great video. If I saw this 5 years ago when I started playing it would've been exceptionally useful.

Great video of course. I remember back in my days where we had mostly vanilla, pain or shock lands it was really hard to mana fix and basics were really sweat (well I couldnt afford mana base or the really cool stuff, not like it chagned) . Today is great how even mono or bicolor can slap so many lands. Having ability to decide between land and something cool is great same for low/high costs split? cards. One thing about the example for top 1 mistake. I really like it. Not only it showed that you could win if you waited, but also playing that lighting bolt could backfire since green have a lot of buffs. Even the old good Giant Growth would lose the game there, instead of taking 6 you want to take 3, but ended up taking lethal damage. It warries, but agains green you can reasonably expect combat trick for lethal. Keeping that bolt is much better for avoiding that and potentionally lethal next turn. Also overprotecting is an issue (depending on matchup) in many card games I ve played where you can actually block. Magic? Unless its reasonable that its burn range yeah you have advantage if you ultilize your lifepoints. Vanguard? Early damage allows to set up future turns, it can be pretty good (and good math for triggers!). Dragonball? Awakening is great.(I only played beta waiting for digital) and so on. Its different of course in games like gwent(though that was linked ot hand, havnet played in a long while), hearthstone (cant block), pokemons (non-interactive really) and so on.Yu-Gi-Oh? Ehm yeah not like life really matters there nowadays :D, but some of the strongest cards costs a lot of LP and still are very worth it. Speaking of overprotecting and life point as resources thats also why Phyrexian mana was so broken. You trade HP for different advantage, Probe? Absolutly amazing sure you might end up playing on 12 hp, but you get info and you play 56 cards. Misstep? You can stop opponent from getting tempo on you even if you go second. Dismember? Insane. Pod? Yeah that needs no explaining. Its just amazing how life can be used.

I’ve had that exact Lightning Bolt scenario happen to me a few times on Arena before I learned my lesson.

I think I do pretty well at avoiding those mistakes. I have made the mistake of using removal too early, but it was because there was something I really needed to play the next turn. It depends a lot on the deck matchup.

Nice video, thanks!

A top 5 sideboard strategies video would be quite helpful. I picked up one trick from the previous best of series talking about when you are on the play vs on the draw.

Love these hot take!

it's always a good day when cardmarket posts :)

1:28 This is why I love Thoralf.

This taught me alot, thank you oh wise ones 🙏

Something i see alot of new players doing is not playing around open mana. If your opponent attack with a crature that will just die if you block then they will most likely have a instant.

Everyone, good news! Ive found one of the song names they use in the background. One of them is "Howling at the Moon" by D Fine Us.

Frank Karsten's articles are great when calculating how much mana you need for multicolor decks, but for a one color manabase I would recommend going all the way back to Geeba/Sligh mana curve for midrange, or you could use these numbers I arrived at through hypergeometric distribution. For a super aggressive 60-card deck, where you want the best chance at an opening hand with exactly 2 lands, play 17 land, and for a control deck where you really want exactly 3 lands in your opening hand, play 26 land. If you are comfortable missing your 3rd land drop half the time, play somewhere between 17 and 26 land. It's important that you have strong 1-drops in an aggro deck, strong 2-drops in a midrange (23-land) monocolor deck, and strong 3 and 4 drops in a control 26 land deck. I advise against playing that 27th land unless you are playing something like Amulet Titan that needs sooooo many lands. For Amulet Titan, you want FOUR land in your starting hand and I recommend playing 34 land. A few pro players have cut a few land and their decklists might be stronger than a 34 land build, but 34 land does give you the best chance at a 4-land opener, so if you're brewing, use my numbers for mono-color decks. For Multicolor decks, Frank Karsten is your guy.

Carl with the bagel St-Viateur shirt !!

6:49 The way I’ve always phrased this is: “If you have a plan to not lose the game, but you don’t have a plan to *win* the game, you will lose the game”

We have a saying in our group and it's "Your life total is also a resource". I often see newer players go to blocks with damage that could just be taken and doubled on the crackback, so in order to double down on not always blocking we always refer to life as a resource.

Yes, use your removal later, but ALWAYS bolt the bird!

3:06 I was really hoping for Dark Depths to come up third and for Thoralf to finish this bit off with "...lands that make opponents die".

I used to always play my creatures before combat, but now I will always play them after unless they have "At the start of combat" because it could allow an opponent to let damage though thinking they are going to attack next turn.

I adore your videos, I'll try to be more careful in my next games ahah 😂

One that's related to the last point (how not to lose the game) is to not overthink and put your opponent on an edge that they probabilistically don't have. Especially if their deck is the stronger in the longer game. If you're ahead in the game and you play too conservatively a deck with the better go-long plan will most likely win. If that's your deck, great, you've won. If that's their deck then it's likely that you lose if you play too conservatively. This is related to, but not exactly the same as, the age-old question of "who is the beat-down?".

Nice t-shirt Carl !

Rule of thumb: Have 24 lands you wanna play as lands, then add any supplementary you may wanna channel, animate via man-land abilities, or tap to do whatever. So yeah, you would go up to probably 27-28 for control as the man lands are kind of win cons. At least that’s how I do it.

Another really big one is second main phase. You know you have it, so use it. I see way to many people casting creatures in their first main phase that dont have haste for no real reason. Attack first to potentially bluff that you have a combat trick or some kind of interaction and then cast things in second main. Leave your opponents with as little information as possible.

I love your St-Viateur Bagel shirt 🥯! I have a sweater with the same logo.

This was very informative not just to MTG but any game. Great points and examples for each. #3 especially. The first thing I teach players after they learn the basics is using your life as a resource. You have 20 life, use it to your advantage. You don't need it all at the end of the game. The second thing is what you mentioned as #5. Play to your outs. Know what your deck is capable of and play in a way that you can set up to win. Playing not to lose will sometimes win you games but not nearly as often.

I will argue for being inefficient with mana if the pace of the game or what you believe your opponent might do would allow you to take the advantage. Try to consider if you need to bluff at having a removal/counter/something that's a piece of interaction and you're holding it up. Follow up remember it is also worth considering to do the math if deciding to go above 60 cards. As you will be adjusting your ratio of what you might draw. This is very important for the control and midrange style of decks because depending on game plan.

I think that last point is usually called "playing to your out/win condition" rather than 'just' surviving.

I've shared this advice before, but I'll share it again here. It goes along with some of the tips you mentioned in the video. Don't play anything until the last available opportunity before you need it. For example, you could play a creature during your first main phase, but if that creature doesn't have haste or any other abilities that will be relevant during the combat phase, it will be better to just hold onto the card and play it during the second main phase. This leaves your mana available to play a combat trick or other instant during combat, and even if you don't have any interactive cards, leaving your mana open still might make your opponent think that you have something, and could trick them into making a worse defensive play. Likewise, if you do have a combat trick, wait until the opportune time to cast that too. Often it's better to wait until the opponent has already declared blockers in a combat they thought was a good trade for them, and then you turn it in your favor at the last second. Don't reveal anything until the latest possible moment. This gives your opponent fewer opportunities to play around your cards. Honestly, I even apply this rule to land drops. If you're going into the mid to late game and you top deck a land, don't play it unless you can foresee yourself needing it in the immediate future. I've won games by tricking my opponent into thinking that the land I'd been holding onto the last few turns was a big removal or other interactive spell, causing them to make some slower sub-optimal plays. Sometimes the threat of interaction is more beneficial than having an extra land on the field.

i like the boggle example because i made the mistike with that deck to focus all cards on one boggle to make that one huge but then somehow they do get rid of it and i if played 2 monsters and made both of them a treath they would be harder to deal with.

That Australian guy in the example video used to teach me to play at the local gamestore. Learned a lot from him

Carl, those Panda socks are FIRE!

Jamin snap saying 5 at the start is the funniest thing I've seen all day

Listening to three really talented magic players talk like they started a week ago and read a tips and tricks article is sending me 😂

Come for Carl's St-Viateur Bagel shirt, stay for the awesome content

My Pioneer Tournament-Deck has 18 Lands and I still sometimes draw to many. The Amount of Lands is totally up to the cost of your spells.

One beginner mistake I see very often is playing creatures, when you already have a good board state. Just makes the board wipes hurt more. Though I am not sure if this is a thing in competetive magic as much as in kitchen table and/or commander games

Once upon a time (back in '13 or '14, when I was getting into the game in earnest), I built a (60-card) Rakdos deck that was all about removal and burn spells. It didn't use creatures all that much because except ones that were beneficial to that central style. In hindsight, I'm surprised it won so many games even against opponents who were about as experienced as I was.

back in my day... I'd always play 61 card decks... 41 in limited. There was the off chance that the opponent is convinced I'm playing 60 (like a sane person... big mistake assuming I'm sane...) they'd do a combo and miss by 1. Or I'd deck them another way... But I'd do my usual split (back then, what 17/23 in limited, 23/37 in constructed... something like that), and if I was playing a bit lower curve, I'd throw in 1 extra spell I just really wanted... if it was normal or slightly higher, I'd add an extra land... The math doesn't change THAT dramatically with 61, or 62 card decks... but it can give, at least that feel, of more evenness... it might all have been in my mind... but... :)

Years of lessons learned by getting my ass kicked at my LGS, condensed into a 10 minute video. Bravo!

I remember a game of commander where I had a necropotencr and dark confidant style card out, and I necro'd myself to 1 life above the highest CMC i had in my deck. An opponent said "you have necro, just go all the way" and I told them why I wasn't doing that. My turn comes, my flip was the card with the highest CMC. 1 life, and I proceeded to win. One of my all time favorite moments

There's one mistake I see often that wasn't covered here. which is hold your cards until you get max value sometimes you need to cast your wraith as a 1 for 1 instead of an x for 1.

A massive one imo, especially in paper magic, is mulligans. I feel players in general don't mulligan enough and end up struggling. Yes, the very thought of starting a game with less cards feels really bad since card advantage is always good, but five good cards is better than seven bad cards.

1:17 this was a bad example because of what the cards were, and what the board state is. Because the card in his graveyard was Ephemerate, playing the 3 drop turn 4 lets him play archaeomancer turn 5, keeping up one mana (something that makes white which he strangely doesn't have) to make use of the Ephemerate it returned, spending all 5 mana in that round - slightly less mana efficient but it might be the stronger play depending on the matchup. On top of that Kenku Artificer makes other use of that 4th mana, since it's one of the indestructible artifact lands, it becomes a 3/3 flying attacker or an indestructible blocker for that myr enforcer.

idk, playing archeomancer t5 to have 1 mana up to ephemerate seemed like a pretty good line too

I hope you can make a series out of this, how to play MtG better? Thank you gents.

Another mistake I make is attacking with creatures, when my opponent can ust not block and hit me for/close to lethal in his turn. I do this too often, mostly when i was struggling against e.g. flyers and think I can finaly get some damage in

Carl casually wearing a shirt from my workplace across the globe caught me off guard lol

Stacking your deck Got it

Back when I started in the 90s and after I'd finally learned the game well, the most common beginner mistake I ran into was people not attacking. Like, even on an open board. When I first got to college and met the local game group there I remember playing against someone who was playing some sort of mono-red Goblin deck. They dropped a goblin first turn, passed, then on their second turn they dropped another, and passed. I even asked them directly, why didn't you attack? And their reasoning was that it was 'just a 1/1'

Long ago when started playing this game back in school, I developed a notorious reputation of always having a Dark Banishing at the worse possible timing for my opponents. It became a very reliable bluff to leave 3 mana open even when I didn't have it, and then top decked into it when they felt they played too safely and start going on the hard offence. At least did figure out a well timed removal is worth so much more than removal for sake of removal, a skill I transferred over from old school YuGiOh where I was smashing everyone at school, only to get my ass beat in MTG which was more fun figuring out new stuff and how precious using limited resources per turn is.

Kenku wasn't the best example (you want the land untapped because it will become a creature), but overall good video!

Okay, here is my issue with removal: I had games, were my opponent would play a Llanowar Elf, and I think ofc, I should keep my removal for something worse. But 1 turn later, that Llanowar Elf is suddenly a 6/6 with indestructable - So how do I go about that?

There are 2 more mistakes I would like to mention. 1. Stop playing your instants at sorcery speed. Even if you are planning on using them either way holding them for a bit is better because then your opponent has to expect and play around more things, BUT don't take this too far, if you absolutely have to do something then waiting for their turn when they will have untapped their lands and potentially have a protection spell/counter spell is wrong, in that case just use it on your turn. 2. Stop keeping bad hands, often times players just see 3-4 lands and instantly keep but before you do that think about what that hand accomplices, even if its a good hand if its slow and your opponent is playing aggro for example then you are bassicaly throwing away the game.

One mistake I see people make, related to the first one of mana efficiency, it doesn't matter how many cards you draw if you can't play them all. So for example when someone has Elder Gargoth they usually draw a card with it, but I don't want to draw another card I can't play, I want a 0 mana 3/3

With the not blocking there is an issue though. First of all, I already invested mana, and it's already gone either way. The danger is, falling into sunk cost fallacy: I already invested mana into getting this thing on the board, if I block now I lose it, rather lose 4 life so the mana wasn't wasted - regardless of if that one creature is actually important or not. Not because mana would be more important (which btw isn't an argument there - unless that creature GENERATES mana for you, you'll have the same amount of mana available your next turn regardless of blocking or not blocking) than life, but because you already invested ressources so you now wanna invest even more ressources to make sure the initial cost wasn't "wasted", and suddenly that 2 mana creature actually did cost you 4 mana and 5 life over 2 turns instead but hey, the initial 2 mana weren't wasted... right?

Glad to see Carl was having a good hair day during this shoot

The subliminal Frank Karsten messaging is perfect

Frank Carsten feels present even when he isn't. You should hire him asap

Even now after literaly decades of playing I sometimes bolt a creature when I should have bolted face.. my excuse however is, I play a lot of high-powered formats so when I would go down to

34 lands in commander is my sweet spot

Shout out to Carl’s St-Viateur t-shirt. Montréal represents !

Real beginner mistake: playing all your stuff on the first main phase, then attacking all tapped out. If it isn't necessary for the attack, just wait for the second main phase!

People always meme on the "Oh this is how I could've won in a turn or 2" people when they lose (and to be fair, there's plenty of people that do this just to be salty) but it was honestly a great way in my community for us to learn lines of play, learn more about interactions, rethink strategies, etc. To this day, when I play roommate's, we always look a card or 2 ahead to see what was coming up and have a 2 minute talk about the hypotheticals. It's helped a lot and been a good bonding method.

Tips apply to majority but it depends what your deck do.

6. Don't just jump into spending a lot of money into MtG. State your motivations of you going into this hobby when there are so many other gaming options out there. Do you aspire to be a tournament grinder, want to express your personality or just want a fun night with friends? It is perfectly okay to play with just the cards you own when there are no stakes. Maybe you'll move on from MtG one day or maybe you won't. Either way, make sure you do it in your terms and not some greedy company's call.

I wasn't able to catch what it was they were trying to show in that clip for number 2, can anyone explain it to me?

Always leave up two blue mana, just for the mind games

Video good

I think the kenku example wasn't the best because having a 3/3 flying haste Indestructible beater in pauper might be the better play

Imo the first example wasn't good, the Kenku would have still "used" the mana that turn to make a 3/3 indestructible flyer (As you'd be attacking with the land most of the time) and just playing the archaeomancer just leaves it open to removal and doesn't put nearly as much board presence onto the field. It could have been used to show exceptions in the rule but alas.

I've seen 3 different thumbnail for this video so far ^^

half of my decks are lands and I'm always mana stuck!!

If you're playing monored in arena, just disregard the land thing and play 13 lands instead.

Legend says they’re still repeating Frank’s name to this day.

the Frank Face Flash (trademark) needs to b in any veedeo he is brought up in from now on

number 3 is super revelant in edh