Image via Wikipedia
Tempo in Magic the Gathering is what two or more players enter in while attempting to gain control of the game. It is a race that revolves around who can play better cards or more cards faster. Basically it is a race about gaining the upper hand. In other words the player who is winning the race usually sets the tempo of the game. The reality of it though is the tempo of a game can be one sided, balanced, or up and down like a roller coaster.
I’ve been talking with a lot of newer players lately. They’ve been bringing it to my attention that many of them don’t understand simple concepts or maneuvers that effect the balance of power between players. These concepts or maneuvers, as I like to think of them, are card advantage, card quality, tempo, and board control. All of these can be quite simple to explain and quite difficult to master. Part of that might be because they are often so closely related that a player might not be able to tell them apart. For example at times it isn’t that difficult to confuse card advantage with card quality. Which in turn could also be tempo. But wait a minute, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Lets talk about what each of them is before we get carried away in debates.
Card advantage is a series of plays, or a play where a player has gained an advantage in the number of cards drawn and or used from their deck. In short card advantage is staying ahead of your opponent by drawing more cards than your opponent, or making plays that force you opponent to use more cards than you.
The classic expression 2 for one can easily be applied to card advantage. It makes perfect sense to everyone, I hope, that if one player plays 2 cards for every one of the opposing players he will not have cards for long.
I have taken the time to find some examples of card advantage.
