Jedi Mind Tricks

[frogboy]

This was back when it was still U/r dragonstorm, it was at dreamwizards like 3 years ago, I don't remember the exact date.

There were no individual Standard PTQs between Time Spiral's release and this season. New Jersey Regionals 07 does not contain a Dragonstorm list in the finals. 06/07 data on States isn't available for Maryland, but I am pretty doubtful.

[rockout]

First:
Just shuffled my library. Had cb out with no hand. I tell my opponent there is a 3 drop on top and he shouldn't do it. He casts maelstrom pulse on cb. I reveal Rhox Warmonk. Get There!

Second:
Playing against combo with landstill. He goes off and asks me whats the right play: warrens or dimishing returns? I say diminishing returns so you can kill me this turn. He goes for warrens and puts 18 dudes into play with me being at 19 with a mage naming tendrils. He duresses an ee out of my hand and I proceed to rip ee off the top and kill all his guys.

[Manhattan]

First:
Just shuffled my library. Had cb out with no hand. I tell my opponent there is a 3 drop on top and he shouldn't do it. He casts maelstrom pulse on cb. I reveal Rhox Warmonk. Get There!

Second:
Playing against combo with landstill. He goes off and asks me whats the right play: warrens or dimishing returns? I say diminishing returns so you can kill me this turn. He goes for warrens and puts 18 dudes into play with me being at 19 with a mage naming tendrils. He duresses an ee out of my hand and I proceed to rip ee off the top and kill all his guys.

Let me restate what a Jedi Mind Trick is. It is an action you take that missleads your opponent into doing something favourable for you he wouldn't have normally done. It's not a topdeck.

[DrJones]

I think he was playing Sensei's Divining Top. But I might be wrong there.

[Bryant Cook]

Second:
Playing against combo with landstill. He goes off and asks me whats the right play: warrens or dimishing returns? I say diminishing returns so you can kill me this turn. He goes for warrens and puts 18 dudes into play with me being at 19 with a mage naming tendrils. He duresses an ee out of my hand and I proceed to rip ee off the top and kill all his guys.

First off, fuck you.

Secondly, it's not a mindtrick you bastard. You didn't know it was there.

Lastly, I still made top 8. :)

[Zork]

Playing kiki-combo flash at GP flash, I was playing round 1 against a Deadguy deck with at least 400 pieces of flash hate in the board. G2 he gets two leyline in play, but I draw a Rushing River. The turn before I can play it and win, he drops a pithing needle, so I mutter something about cutting off my token guy. Taking the bait, he names kiki-jiki and I instead just beat his face with a 5/5 Carrion Feeder and Protean Hulk.

[on1y0ne]

Playing a game of Standard using Red/Black Aggro vs. Faeries, my opponent played a Mistbind Clique on my turn. I tell him that it comes into play but with the Champion trigger on the stack, I kill it. He thinks for a second then says it is OK. I then ask if he is going to champion anything and he says yes. I ask what and he chooses his Puppeteer Clique, which had beaten me down to five. He tried to take it back, but to no avail.

I am OK with a terror killing two flyers in a single shot. I cost him the game, forcing a game three, which I won.

[Jade]

From a SCG article:

He goes for Early Harvest, and with a great show of triumph I slam up Remand. Understand that I know this does nothing. If he allows my Remand to resolve, he can simply recast the Early Harvest at his leisure and go on to win. Having made a big show of my Remand, I allow my face to fall. "Ah," I say. "Ah." And now I look positively crestfallen. And I start muttering aloud as if I’m working out the possibilities, and then, with a look of disgust, say, "but you just tutor for your own Remand, use the Top and win." [...] I decide it’s time for the haymaker. "Remand Remand Remand, why’d they print such a stupid card? Get Remand, cast Remand, I win, great. Yeah, never mind, Rich, at least you’re playing Remand too." Yes, I squeezed six uses of the word Remand into that little diatribe.

He gets the Remand, casts it, and I of course Spell Snare it.

[Rood]

I played a Dreadnought once against a Faerie player a while back. I go for Dreadnought which resolve then a Stifle. It was really my only chance to win and all I had was Daze backup. So he had like 3 untapped lands and goes for the Spellstutter sprite on my Stifle. I am just staring at my Daze in hand knowing he has an untapped land. Noticing it was farther back from the rest of his lands I confidently play the Daze acting like he just got owned. He sighs and lets the Dreadnought resolve...then dies shortly after.

[DrJones]

Heh, that reminds me of the good ol' times when I just pointed with Diabolic Edict the card I wanted to destroy and the opponent just followed my words.

[Ectoplasm]

Heh, that reminds me of the good ol' times when I just pointed with Diabolic Edict the card I wanted to destroy and the opponent just followed my words.

Hahaha that's great :D Gotta try that one.

[freakish777]

I think my favorite bluff can be found at the end of this article. There's also a link in there to the actually T8 match footage.

I mean how bad ass do you have to be to run "I'm just a newb who plays MTGO and can't remember my own life total" as a bluff and get Frank Karsten to eat it up.

Bluffs are far more important in limited than Legacy, and at that far more important in Poker than Magic, as a result I tend not to focus too much on running bluffs in Magic (also many people have pointed out I "get excited").

[Manhattan]

Heh, that reminds me of the good ol' times when I just pointed with Diabolic Edict the card I wanted to destroy and the opponent just followed my words.

Or when you cast Cabal Therapy you explain the card starting with "I get to look at your hand and I need to name a card first ..." sometimes players don't wait for you to finish the sentence then you can take a good look before yelling "hang on!".
Not that I've actually done that in a tournament, but would this be legal?

[jthanatos]

Or when you cast Cabal Therapy you explain the card starting with "I get to look at your hand and I need to name a card first ..." sometimes players don't wait for you to finish the sentence then you can take a good look before yelling "hang on!".
Not that I've actually done that in a tournament, but would this be legal?

3.11 Hidden Information
Throughout the match, a draft, and pregame procedures, players are responsible for keeping their cards above the level of the playing surface and for making reasonable efforts to prevent hidden information from being revealed. However, players may choose to reveal their hands or any other hidden information available only to them, unless specifically prohibited by the rules. Players must not actively attempt to gain information hidden from them.

As long as you don't intentionally try to mislead them, once your opponent dumps his or her hand on the table, you are fine to look at it. Happens more than you think with Vendillion Clique when your opponent will reveal his or her hand to you before you have declared the target for the ability.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

I think my favorite bluff can be found at the end of this article. There's also a link in there to the actually T8 match footage.

I mean how bad ass do you have to be to run "I'm just a newb who plays MTGO and can't remember my own life total" as a bluff and get Frank Karsten to eat it up.

Bluffs are far more important in limited than Legacy, and at that far more important in Poker than Magic, as a result I tend not to focus too much on running bluffs in Magic (also many people have pointed out I "get excited").

Just watched that coverage. The article makes the bluff sound more dramatic but it was still a really savage mind game.

[TrialByFire]

Happens more than you think with Vendillion Clique when your opponent will reveal his or her hand to you before you have declared the target for the ability.

I watched a guy do this in Top 8 of Vintage Tourney. He played Clique, the kid layed his hand on the table without giving him a chance to say who he's targeting. He proceeded to write every card down, then told him he was targeting himself. Judge watched the whole thing.

[Kuma]

I was playing with Faerie Stompy against Enchantress. It was game two; I had lost the first one and things were looking bleak. The Enchantress player was at six, but he had two Argothian Enchantresses, a boatload of enchantments, and a handful of cards. The game would likely be out of my reach if he got another turn. I had two Trinket Mages and a Pestermite. I think for a moment, and realize my only way to win this game is if he forgets about his Enchantresses. I move to combat and tap all three of my creatures saying, "Swing for lethal?"

He scoops up his cards and we go to game three.

I win the match too.

[dahcmai]

We have a ton of these from our area.


1. My favorite has to be taunting people with a card they fear. I'd say things like "ok, which creature needs to get swords'd first?" or "chancy going down that far playing against a deck with Lightning bolts" (Ad Nauseam vs Canadian Thresh). I have a habit of holding one card apart from the others just to make people wonder. Especially works well against a combo deck.

2. A friend of mine did this one to me recently and I still have to laugh. I was playing Fetchland tendrils. He was playing some sort of control deck similar to faeries. Anyway, I punch through the first batch of counters to ramp up to 10 storm and he drops a card and quickly picks it up. Of course, it's a FOW. He has 2 cards in hand in a virtually mono-U deck and I have to take a chance on casting Infernal while cracking an LED. Crap. I'm not dumping my hand and staying open. So I pass.

Eventually, I build up enough to push again and have Chant back up, but he mentioned afterwards that he had nothing and knew I was just about to win. He dropped the Force on purpose to show it to me since he knew I wouldn't miss it. It bought him time. I agree, yes it did. and laughed.

3. One of my freinds is notorious for tapping mana to show a particular pattern for the deck he's playing. Such as in standard tapping 3 blue and then one colorless, then untapping them as if changing his mind. Shows a Cryptic Command in that format defined easily by that mana. So in Legacy he'll tap out for whatever card might be useful for the time such as Krosan Grip mana, untap, then wait. Stalls people horrendously.

4. Asking "Good Game" in mid combo is always a hilarious one. I've removed all win conditions before and managed to pull out of it.

5. Had a deck that actually had no win conditions, but could shoot up in life so far it was past most deck's ability to do that much damage. I won a whole tournament just by getting concessions when I was at over 300 or so life.

6. 43 Lands is a great deck to get auto concessions out of. When you can do the first turn Manabond and dump your hand on the table.

Lastly, we had one guy noted for being an extremely good player go into a Chaos multiplayer tournament. He plays a land each turn and nothing else keeping a hand full of seven cards. People just look over and see that massive pile of mana, the stern look, and the possibility of getting the wrath of whatever he's packing so they leave him alone for the whole tournament.

Eventually, it's down to the last person. Then our resident pro tosses down his hand and says "you win". As everyone is slightly puzzled, he flips over the deck and shows it's nothing more than 60 basic lands. Not a bad way to get 2nd place.

[Pulp_Fiction]

A long ass time ago during a draft, I believe it was 3 packs of Torment but not sure. I was playing against this kid who was a decent player named Kevin and he was very easy to rattle. We used to always say "Kevin, your mom is here" and he looked everytime. It was fuckin pro! Anyway, I destroyed him game 1 but my deck decided it hated me on the second game and Kevin was drawing all of his bombs. I had a small army on my side and he had me dead on the board after he drew some other flyer. But I just drew Ambassador Laquatus, the guy who mills for 3 when you pay 3 colorless and I noticed I had enough mana to deck him in 3 more turns. So, after I drop Laquatus and tell Kevin to go I start talking to him about the car his mom drives, which is a Touareg (VW SUV) and then I keep asking "are you done yet Kevin, can I go, can I go?" And amazingly to my suprise he passed the turn with lethal damage on the board, so I say EOT mill you for 9 (this was fucking late in the game). I draw another pointless land and say go. On his turn I do the same thing except I got a little louder and I started saying "is it my turn yet Kevin, you are taking forever, can I go, can I go??" Still expecting him to swing and kill me dead he passes the turn!!!! I say EOT mill you for 12 and he has like 6 cards left in his library. On my turn I mill the rest of his library away and pass it back for the win!!!! And then I went on to split in the finals! This was certainly the closest thing I have done to a Jedi Mind Trick!

[The Grim Reaper]

A long ass time ago during a draft, I believe it was 3 packs of Torment but not sure. I was playing against this kid who was a decent player named Kevin and he was very easy to rattle. We used to always say "Kevin, your mom is here" and he looked everytime. It was fuckin pro! Anyway, I destroyed him game 1 but my deck decided it hated me on the second game and Kevin was drawing all of his bombs. I had a small army on my side and he had me dead on the board after he drew some other flyer. But I just drew Ambassador Laquatus, the guy who mills for 3 when you pay 3 colorless and I noticed I had enough mana to deck him in 3 more turns. So, after I drop Laquatus and tell Kevin to go I start talking to him about the car his mom drives, which is a Touareg (VW SUV) and then I keep asking "are you done yet Kevin, can I go, can I go?" And amazingly to my suprise he passed the turn with lethal damage on the board, so I say EOT mill you for 9 (this was fucking late in the game). I draw another pointless land and say go. On his turn I do the same thing except I got a little louder and I started saying "is it my turn yet Kevin, you are taking forever, can I go, can I go??" Still expecting him to swing and kill me dead he passes the turn!!!! I say EOT mill you for 12 and he has like 6 cards left in his library. On my turn I mill the rest of his library away and pass it back for the win!!!! And then I went on to split in the finals! This was certainly the closest thing I have done to a Jedi Mind Trick!

This is not a Jedi Mind Trick. It is just plain unkind and unsportsmanlike. You see in order for it to be a trick you have to actually trick them, not exploit some poor kid's ADD or whatever.

To contribute: You'd be surprised how long you can stall your opponent while keeping 2 blue mana open and telling them to "hold on a sec" or you "need to think" after each spell they play. Most players will hold back their bombs.