Metagaming

What is metagaming? A "meta"-something is that item turned in to apply to itself. For instance, metaphilosophy is the philosophy of philosophy. Metahistory would be the history of the chronicling of history. "Metagaming," in the general context, would be using information outside the game to influence elements within the game. If you know a certain player loves to play a certain way, and you play to exploit that, then you are conducting a basic form of metagaming.

In the case of Magic, metagaming takes place within the "metagame." The metagame is the current roster of decks being played in the gaming environment. It's the field you'll be competing in. Since we all play with different groups of people, our metagames are all different. Within my group of friends, for instance, almost everybody loves to play aggressive creature based decks and so the metagame is aggro heavy. Within another group, the metagame may favor control. On the tournament scene, the metagame is a national phenomenon that is composed of the entire competitive Magic community.

Decks are defined within their metagames. There is no such thing as the "perfect" deck, that is objectively the best and that can defeat every other deck. If that was the case, everybody would play the same deck and the game would die. A deck is only good insofar as how it relates to the other decks in its field. A slower, controlling deck, for instance, could be great in an environment of other control decks but would get eaten alive in a metagame filled with super aggressive decks that have made playing such a deck unthinkable. There are objectively better decks, but the environment can make it so that such a deck still is unplayable because all of its matchups against other decks in the metagame are poor.

"Metagaming," therefore, in the Magic context would be using this information of what decks are dominant and what decks are getting destroyed to influence what you play. It is a continuum that is constantly in flux, like an ecosystem. For instance, you may notice that within your metagame a certain kind of deck is constantly played and crushes the other decks. People will eventually start playing decks that take such obstacles into account and are better suited to defeat them. Eventually, the original deck will be deposed and a new deck will reign. But then decks that the previous King of the Hill kept in check will no longer have their natural predator pushing them down, and flourish again, which will throw the metagame up in the air again.

The challenge is using this information to create a deck that is ready to handle what lays in its game environment but that isn't so focused on defeating a particular strategy that it fails against everything else, and is therefore a failure. You have to assume a general metagame where any of them could come up as opponents, and therefore your deck has to be equipped to deal with the metagame at large, rather than a specific deck. Since games are generally played in sets of three, and you have a sideboard of fifteen cards, you can include preparations for what you expect to face up against in the sideboard to swap in based on what you're facing, instead of crippling your deck to face a strategy as its main focus and have it keel over and die as soon as something that doesn't consist of that strategy shows up.

It requires knowledge of the possible cards and decks in play, and their interactions and performances relative to each other, as well as the experience and foresight to see what is coming ahead. If you read the metagame correctly, and show up at a tournament with a rogue deck tuned to play the best decks off against each other, you may very well win. That is how a great many tournaments are won; taking the rest of the opponents by surprise on their weak spots while they're focused on others. On the other hand, if you read it wrong then you'll just fall apart and have a deck thats poorly suited to the field its competing in. Metagaming is a skill, and like any other skill, there are proper ways to do it and ways that will only invite defeat.