I was playing Arena tonight. A mono-white deck B01 Standard deck. Noah pops in and watches me play for a few minutes. Needless to say, he also provides his input and suggests a play. Whereas I would have chump-blocked and taken 8, leaving me with 4, he suggests a double block that leaves me with 8 but also loses me my Blade Historian. My opponent holds one card in hand and has 3 open mana. Definitely room for a combat trick of some kind.

I decide to go with Noah’s advice. Down to 8, I win on my next turn. We chat about the play he suggested and I tell him that keeping my Blade Historian would have led to the same outcome.

“Well, if you want to play sub-optimally,” he says.

Everyone’s a critic!