Magic: The Gathering Pro Javier Dominguez on Deciding What Deck To Play in A Big MTG Tournament

Choosing what deck to play in a competitive Magic: The Gathering tournament can be one of the hardest things for a player to do. It's a mind game by itself and it requires great knowledge of the format's current metagame, so if you need some expert advice when it comes to deciding what decks to play, you have to listen to the wisdom of a an MTG World Champion.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Javier Dominguez, the 2018 Magic: The Gathering World Champion and Magic Pro League member with two Mythic Championship Top 8's, recently did an AMAA on Reddit to answer questions about competitive Magic and the upcoming Mythic Championship IV at Barcelona, Spain.

I decided to ask Javier how he decides what deck to play in a big Magic tournament, and here's his insightful response:

It really depends on the tournament.

The biggest factors in my opinion are:
- Raw power level. If a deck is just too good I will probably play it unless there are enough factors that well me to go on an different direction.
- Familiarity: The more I've played with a deck, the better I will be at playing it thus I should be more inclined to play it.
- Deck difficulty: If a deck is for some reason harder for me to grasp, I would be less likely to run into an event. Note that how difficult the deck actually is in terms of complexity doesn't really matter at all. The only thing that matters is how difficult it is to you

- Opponent's level compared to what I can do: In Magic, decks don't play against decks, players play against players, and I try to never forget that. There are many decks where our opponent's having a good plan or a good knowledge of what we are doing makes the whole thing way less effective. If that's the case, I'm less likely to run that deck the better the opposition is. Control decks or decks that are not very flexible often fall into this camp.

The trick is here to decide which factors are more important than others, of course. For Standard I tend to value power level over the rest, while for bigger formats like Legacy familiarity takes way more weight.

Short answer: Every tournament and every metagame are a different thing, and I find choosing a deck one of the hardest parts of high-level magic :)

That's a clear breakdown on what to consider when it comes to deciding what decks to run in a particular Magic tournament. There's a lot of factors to consider when deciding what deck to play, and that's one of the most important things you have to do as a competitive Magic player. After all, MTG is considered to be the most complex game in the world, and this is part of the reason why.

When another Redditor asked Javier how to prepare in a format as diverse as Modern, the current World Champion wrote:

I think the best way to metagame against a format like modern is try to attack the decks you expect to be more popular on the top tables but keeping in mind you can't give up too much against the rest of the decks. First priority is make you sure your deck can face almost anything - it's ok to have an unwinnable matchup or two - and then prepare your flex slots against what you expect to be the winning decks, since you are more likely to play against those if you do well on the tournament.

The way I prepare Modern is, whenever I have enough time is: I play all the decks I consider playable for the event until I consider I know the basics (a few leagues, it really depends on the deck) That way, it doesn't really matter what I end playing I will have enough knowledge of my opponent's deck even if I haven't played that specific matchup many times."

Thanks, Javier for your expert advice. I'll definitely keep these things in mind when it comes to metagaming in Modern tournaments.

The Magic: The Gathering Mythic Championship IV will take place on July 26-28 in Barcelona, Spain, and the formats are Modern Constructed and Modern Horizons Booster Draft.

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