Synergy vs Power

I've been playing Magic for three years now. I've built a lot of decks during this time and I almost always valued synergy over individual card power. This is a mistake.

"Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable" (Wikipedia).

I'm going to define power as the effect a card has on the game. Powerful cards have a large effect on the game in your favor.

I have to bring up metamorph's article again. Reading this really was a turning point for me. In it he says:

The power level of a deck is directly related to the power level of the individual cards that the deck is composed of. Synergy enhances this further, but at the most fundamental level the standalone power of each card in the deck is extremely important. While it is possible to build decks where the Synergy of card interactions allows for otherwise weak cards to become powerful this is an exceptional case and must be justified independently. The most common case is that independently powerful cards are the best choice for building a deck.

He goes on to talk about consistency and dependency. These are all releated. In this article I'm going to focus on the relationship between synergy, power, consistency, and dependency.

Let's start with a simple example of synergy. Consider Thran Golem and Oakenform. By itself Thran Golem is a 3/3 creature for five. Not too exciting. Oakenform by itself actually does nothing, you can't even cast it. Put them together however and you get an 8/8 with flying, first strike, and trample.

Another example of synergy is Grand Architect. To get the most of him you need other blue creatures and you need big expensive artifacts. I built many different decks around this guy but I was never really happy with them. It always seemed like it should work (so much synergy!) but never really did. Sure, sometimes I got a turn four steel hellkite and won, but most the time the hellkite got blown up, or I didn't draw it, or I'd be stuck with a hand of four six drops and no way cast them, or my turn three and turn four architect got blown up. The deck has a lot of potential power, but I was losing a lot more than I wanted to. I very slowly began to realize my problem was dependency.

With synergy comes dependency, and the problem with dependency is we play a randomized game. We build a deck of 60 cards, shuffle it up, and draw seven. Then we draw one per turn. What's the average number of cards you see in a Magic game? Seven in opening hand, say the game goes ten turns, thats ten more, say you draw three extra. Twenty? Is that average? I don't know, but it's probably a decent guess. You play with a random one third of your deck. Not only do you only see a third of your deck, but you get a third of you deck in random order. Your seven drop could be in your opening hand, you could draw your Llanowar Elves on turn ten. It's chaos out there. Not only that, this is a two player game, and your opponent is trying to screw you up. You think he's going to sit around and let your Grand Architect continually grant you huge amounts of mana? No. He's going to Incinerate / Doom Blade / Dismember / Oblivion Ring it. Chaos. This is why dependency is bad.

High dependency means low consistency. There is a very high hidden cost when playing with cards that are only powerful in combinations. If your deck relies on card combinations and you don't draw the right cards at the right time, or your opponent disrupts your plan, then you are going to be in trouble, and since the game is random and good opponents will try to disrupt you, this is generally not a good plan.

This is a good time to briefly mention why we play magic. Well, everyone is different of course. If your goal is to build new synergies that other people haven't thought of, then by all means go for it. There is something attractive about valuing synergy. Perhps it's the inner Johnny. It's fun to see a combo or theme and build an entire deck around it. It's exciting to see your synergy work, to see your plan come together. It's a creative process to put together new synergies that other people aren't using. If, however, you goal is to build decks that win more over time then these dependecies can get in your way. I try to build decks that win. That isn't my only criteria, but it's much more important to me than building unique synergies. Once I realize this I can move on towards reaching my goal.

I'm changing the way I build decks. Away from focusing first on synergy and towards focusing on individual card power, towards focusing on effciency, resilience, disruption, and a solid mana base. I will aim to reduce dependency and maximize consistency. I like the term disruption instead of metamorph's "interactivity", but it's the same thing: screwing up your opponent: removal, discard, bounce, counters, etc. Resilience is how difficult a deck or card is to disrupt.

Synergy brings dependency and dependency is bad, but you can't ignore power that synergy can bring. Many top decks use heavy synergy: The entire combo deck type, Merfolk, Fairies, Tempered Steel, etc, etc. Synergy can be very powerful; I think this is another reason why it is so tempting to go down that path. Maybe it's like this: Power (using good cards) is your deck building foundation. Synergy is a layer of additional power on top. Focus first on power. I imagine it's like learning the fundamentals of a sport before learning the the flashy stuff, or mastering the basics of your instrument before trying to play really fast. Also, for each good deck you see using heavy synergy there is one (or more) that doesn't. All kinds of decks whether aggro, mid-range, or control simply use the best cards in the format.

I've spent so much time focused on synergy that I'm banning anything but the lowest grade synergy and dependency in my decks. I need to spend some time mastering the basics. Instead of building my deck around a card, a group of cards, a mechanic, or even a theme, I'm going to decide on colors and speed (aggro, mid, or control) then cram it with the best cards I can find (afford). I imagine now I have an old and cranky deck-building coach. He constantly is muttering about power, consistency, manabase, resilence, and disruption and views all this new-fangled synergy and combo as garbage. "Bah! More like dependency! Who needs it? Not anybody that wants to win! I've been building decks for 32 years and let me tell you what you need to win: power, consistency, manabase, resilience, disruption..."

I'm sure I'm overcompensating a bit, but that's ok. I want to master the basics and unlearn what I have learned. Only then will I be ready to return to the deceptive power of synergy.