E · Optimization & Practice · §16Common Errors

E · Optimization & Practice · §16

Common Errors

Fourteen mistakes that decide games, each with the correction, drawn from where this deck actually loses.

1. Casting Goryo in their second main phase

The delayed trigger then fires during the very next end step. Wait until the end step has begun.

2. Passing priority after discarding to Frog

That exposes the creature to Surgical or another graveyard effect before Goryo is cast. Retain priority explicitly.

3. Mulliganing every fair hand

A natural Goryo, target and enabler opening appears in about 13.8% of raw sevens. Keep coherent Frog, Archaeologist, and Riddler hands.

4. Treating Atraxa as a draw five

The game-one deck has four card types. Expect three or four, and track how many sorceries are left.

5. Reanimating Griselbrand by default

Its ceiling is higher. is safer, replaces itself immediately, and is far better with . Choose on life, removal and the output you need.

6. Using Ephemerate only as a combo finisher

That strands a versatile protection and tempo card. Use it on , Riddler, Spider-Man, Archaeologist or Frog when the current exchange is what matters.

7. Forgetting Clarion is symmetrical

It shuts your Frog, your and your . Activate first, then deploy it.

8. Automatically paying all the Wrath energy

That can destroy your own Clarion for nothing. Cast for the X you need, then pay only up to the threshold.

9. Pitching the only functional card

A Force or can be technically castable and strategically destructive. Evaluate the hand after the pitch, not the exchange in front of you.

10. Overboarding into a mediocre control deck

Bringing every relevant answer removes the threat density that made their sideboard awkward. Keep Goryo and a path to ending the game.

11. Fetching green too early

compromises double white and Esper sequencing. Fetch it when hard-cast or the fourth Ending colour is a real requirement.

12. Exposing the target too soon

Discarding several turns before Goryo gives them time to find and deploy interaction. Compress setup and reanimation into one sequence or one end step.

13. Countering the wrong half of an Eldrazi

Countering only the spell can leave a devastating cast trigger. Use replicated Consign to cover both.

14. Bringing Surgical without a target plan

Surgical is not generic graveyard hate. Name the card, know how it reaches the graveyard, and know that extracting it collapses something real.