The Politics of Dancing

The Challenges of Assembling a Three Man Magic Team
 

by Jeff Zandi

The Pro Tour Seattle season begins tomorrow. This season's format is the
very popular Team Limited format. In order to play at the Team PTQ,
obviously enough, you are going to need more than your regular Sealed Deck
and Rochester Draft skills. You're going to need a team. This can be no easy
task. If you're the best player in your local Magic world, then you're
probably getting too many offers from too many people to be on too many
teams. If you're NOT one of the better players in your local milieu, there
may be no one asking you to be on their team. The process of getting a team
together can be maddening. The real game doesn't even begin until your three
person squad manages to get to the event in one piece, manages to
successfully register cards for another team to use, then manages to build
three worthwhile decks out of an amount of sealed product that would
normally build only two decks in a singles sealed deck tournament before
FINALLY playing some matches with these decks. Someone brilliant once said
that "getting there is half the fun". Well, I said that, but before me, some
other REALLY brilliant person said it. I don't know who said it. It's not in
my edition of Bartlett's. It's funny, to me, that in a so-called
Intellectual Sport that relies so highly on individual play skills, the
first step to winning in the Team Limited format is to put together a good
team of people. You have to do a kind of dance in order to line up just the
right team for yourself without selling yourself short or hurting anyone's
feelings. The ability to perform this little trick successfully while
creating the greatest possible opportunity for victory is what this Politics
of Dancing is all about. If there's any time at the end of the article,
MAYBE I'll talk about what you actually do at the tournament.

A LOT CAN GO WRONG

A lot of obstacles can get in the way of you having a satisfying Team
Limited experience. The first thing is getting three people together. A week
ago, I thought I might just have a team lined up for the first of the only
two team qualifiers that are held in Texas each year. It's vitally important
to have your team put together before the last minute. Failing that, it's
vitally important to have your team put together before you travel to the
PTQ. Plan B is where I found myself earlier this week. On Tuesday, a
teammate let me know that he wouldn't be available to play tomorrow.
Something about doing his taxes or washing his hair or some such. Anyhoo,
for me and the other member of my three man team, it was back to the lab
again. In school, I was the fat kid that always got picked last for dodge
ball or for basketball or for whatever game we were playing with a ball on
that particular day. I'm used to it. Still, it's a beating. Of course, I'm
really like anyone else looking for teammates. At the very time, I'm a
terrible Magic player and a great Magic player. I'm such a terrible Magic
player that all kinds of people I ask would never say YES to being on my
three man team, at the same time, I recognize that there are lots of players
that I would rather not have on my team. If you plan to win the PTQ, you
need a team that you can believe in. The best scenario is very simple to
define, hypothetically. I would always like to be the weakest player on the
team. If your goal is competitive, you want to be the lowest ranked player
on your team. If you goal is to mentor some players and help them get
better, maybe you would like to be on a team where you are the best player.
If you're just going to the Team Limited PTQ because you like to have fun,
then you just want to be a on team with two good friends. All three
scenarios are completely acceptable and none of them needs to be defended.
There should be no argument, however, that assembling a competitive team is
the hardest possible option.

TIME TO HIT THE ROAD

Once you have a team, you have to get all three of you to the tournament.
The best way to do this, of course, is to travel to the tournament together.
Sometimes this just isn't possible. If your three man team is not able to
travel together, make sure you have the DCI numbers for all three people
with you. You may arrive at the tournament site and find that the rest of
your team has not arrived yet. In this case, having all three players' DCI
numbers with you will allow you to register your team even before the
missing teammate arrives. If your missing teammates fail to show up at all,
you have a serious problem. While there will certainly be plenty of players
at the tournament in the same boat you are in, it is far from optimal to
slap together a team randomly on the morning of the tournament if you indeed
have hopes of winning the qualifier and actually playing in the Seattle Pro
Tour. By the way, PTQs are a serious thing, and if someone stands you up at
the tournament, you have the right to be quite angry if you feel it's
necessary. You won't put up with this kind of behavior from anyone more than
once, if you're smart.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

Everyone who has ever played in a regular Sealed Deck PTQ knows how
important it is to make sure you fill out the deck registration sheet
accurately. In a team event, the magnitude of this important task is
tripled. In most tournaments, your team will first receive a set of Team
Sealed product (two Mirrodin tournament packs and four Darksteel booster
packs) for your team to register the contents of and then to return. In most
tournaments, the cards your team will actually build decks from and play
with will be a set of cards that another team looked at first and
registered. When your team registers the first set of cards that you
receive, make sure you sort the cards in alphabetical order by color. Do
this separately for Mirrodin and Darksteel. Sorting the cards, besides being
a required step by many tournament organizers, is a good way to keep from
making mistakes when you register the cards on the decklists that will be
provided to you. In many cases, the slightest mistake made on your team's
deck registration sheets can cause your team to receive a game loss penalty
in the tournament. When you receive the set of cards that your team will
actually be playing with, the first thing that your team should do is to
verify that the registration sheets you receive matches exactly the pile of
cards that you receive. After your team has built three decks and assigned
them to the individuals that will be playing them, each player will fill out
a separate Mirrodin and Darksteel Sealed Deck deck registration form
including all the cards in that players deck and sideboard in the TOTAL
COLUMN on the sheets and noting the basic land and cards in the main deck in
the PLAYED COLUMN. It is important to note that every card provided to your
team MUST be registered on someone's decklist, even if it is a sideboard
card that will most likely never be used during the tournament. When your
team's decklists are complete, each teammate should double check his own
deck registration forms, and then check each of the other two deck
registration lists. The reason is simple. Any mistake on any of your team's
deck registration sheets could result in a game or match loss penalty.

BUILDING AND ASSIGNING THE DECKS

Congratulations, you successfully got your team to the tournament, you
managed to register a set of cards without messing up, and it looks like the
cards your team has received to build with matches its registration sheets.
Now all you have to do is build three really good decks and match them with
the players that will use them in the tournament. This is the first time
that your trio's teamwork will truly be tested. Chances are one of the
people on your team is a stronger Limited player than the other two. You
need to trust this player and let him take the lead to a certain extent
during the deck building process. First things first, lay out all the
PLAYABLE cards by color so that you can see the names of each playable card.
If two out of three of your team thinks a card is playable, then it is. If
two members of the team think a card is not playable, then put that card in
the non playable pile. There are lots of different ways to decide what goes
in each deck. Some people like to build one deck with nothing but the best
possible cards, then try to build the two other decks out of the leftovers.
Similarly, some teams like to build three decks of three different power
levels and assign them to the team members inversely with respect to their
play skills. Best player receiving the weakest deck, worst player receiving
the best deck and the middle child receiving the middle deck. This approach
was once popular among the pros, but I don't think this is true any longer.
Now days, I believe the best approach is to create THREE GOOD DECKS to the
ability that the three of you are able. The time limits for building these
decks is very short, so it pays for your team to be bold and get three basic
decks put together as quickly as possible. Don't constrain yourselves to a
belief that the initial build of these decks is the final word, because you
will spend the rest of your time tweaking these decks right up to the time
that you are required to turn in your decklists. Make sure that the three of
you are NOT building three independent decks with the thought of playing the
deck that you are initially building. This approach leads to very mediocre
deck designs and often hurt feelings when one player thinks a teammate is
hogging all the good cards. It is far better to work together to build three
good decks. Only when your team is happy with the decks you have built is it
time to decide who will play which deck. At this point, I like to let the
least confident player to pick the deck they feel the most comfortable
playing. After the first deck is chosen, it is usually easy for the two
remaining players to work out which of the remaining two decks they should
play. When a player and a deck are united, it is fine for the player to make
one or two card changes to the deck if they feel strongly about the matter.
However, if you have worked together well as a team during the deck building
process, you should expect that the three decks will be played primarily in
the form that the three of you agreed on together.

JUST WIN BABY

Now that you have your team AND your decks, all that's left is winning some
matches against your opponents. There's no time here to discuss much about
the three on three team Rochester draft that awaits the two best teams in
the PTQ, but I would advise the best Limited player on your team to take the
leadership role in the Rochester draft. Allow your best Limited player to
STRONGLY ADVISE you on each of your picks (non verbally of course) during
the Rochester draft. Your chances of coming up with the winning decks is
much better if you do. When you draft in a Team Rochester, remember that you
will have only one opponent with the deck you are drafting, so try to
remember what your opponent is taking during the draft. You don't care
NEARLY as much about what the other players on the opposing team is
drafting.



AND NOW, A WORD ABOUT STANDING UP TO THE MAN

By way of a post script, I'd like to mention a cause that means something to
me. The recent problems with Magic Online have been very serious. There is a
sentiment among many that nothing can be done about Magic Online's
choke-hold on our emotions and our wallets. Something to do with how Magic
is a monopoly run by WOTC that we players have no say in. I ordinarily agree
with this sentiment. Today, after several crashed drafts during the week, I
find Magic Online running the real server but with no tournaments available
to play in and without the Online Store operating. While I realize that WOTC
wants Magic Online up and running as much as any of us do, I think it might
be time to show the leadership at Magic Online that the consumers have their
futures in our hands. Beginning today, I am pledging to stay off of Magic
Online for one week. I will not attempt to log on to Magic Online until
Saturday, April 17th. While sending a message, I believe those of you that
go with me on this little sit-out will also reduce the traffic on the
servers in order to HELP WOTC get their game working better. They obviously
want to get things fixed as quickly as possible. What is NOT obvious is
their recognition of their responsibilities to we consumers. I'm out. I want
to play online, but I won't try, not for one week. You may want to email
techsupport@wizards.com and let them know that you're doing YOUR part to
help the software get better by staying away from their game for a week. 
One week later, you may decide you don't need the online game at all.

As always, I'd love to hear what YOU think!

Jeff Zandi
Texas Guildmages
Level II DCI Judge
jeffzandi@thoughtcastle.com
Zanman on Magic Online