April 10, 1912: RMS Titanic, the greatest ocean liner the world had seen, departed on her maiden voyage with 2,240 people onboard. 883 feet long and 46,329 gross tons she was the ship of dreams, built to rule the oceans. From her state of the art swimming pool and gymnasium to Turkish baths and lavish restaurants, passengers could cross the sea in comfort. Equipped with the finest safety features of her era (16 watertight compartments, Marconi machine, and flares) she was deemed unsinkable.

April 14, 1912: at 11:40pm, her mighty hull scraped against a cold iceberg after First Officer Murdoch attempted a bold port around. Thomas Andrews assessed the damage – sinking was a mathematical certainty. The ship that was supposed to conquer the Atlantic now rests in an ice cold grave deep beneath the waves she once pierced. Yet Poisoden’s victory was not complete. In her final moments, Titanic triumphed as 705 souls survived the Atlantic’s icy wrath.

The Titanic is the ultimate true story of hubris and heroism. Lessons learned from her sinking have greatly improved maritime safety. Yet her legacy spans beyond the sea. All aspects of our lives can benefit from learning Titanic’s story (even something as trivial as Magic: the Gathering).

Before going further, I want to be clear that this article is not comparing The Titanic disaster to Magic: the Gathering. The sinking of The Titanic was a tragedy where 1,503 people lost their lives. This article is actually about learning. Magic: the Gathering is just context. By starting with something familiar to readers (Magic), we’ll see how to apply Titanic’s lessons to anything.

Lifeboats: Resource Management

Titanic’s most commonly cited design flaw was the lack of lifeboats. She had 20 lifeboats: 16 wooden and 4 “collapsable” Engelhardt lifeboats with canvas sides (see above). The combined capacity was just 1,178. Lead designer Thomas Andrews argued for additional lifeboats but was overruled.

However, more lifeboats would not have mattered. Titanic sank in 2 hours and 40 minutes, not even enough time to properly launch Collapsible Boats A & B. Evacuation isn’t a function of total lifeboats, it’s a function of launched lifeboats (total lifeboats is an upper limit/constraint). Furthermore, not all lifeboats were filled to capacity.

Nowadays, ships carry enough lifeboats+rubber rafts for everyone. Lifeboat drills are mandatory (Captain Edward Smith cancelled a drill on the morning of April 14th). Countless people are alive today because of The Titanic. Outside of Maritime law, there are still things to learn. The nuance between launched boats and total boats pertains to resource management.

A familiar example is card advantage in Magic: the Gathering. A common misconception is that whoever draws the most cards wins. In reality, whoever plays the most cards (usually) wins. Aggro decks are built around this principle. By deploying resources faster, aggro decks win while opponents have cards in hand. When transitioning from deckbuilding to gameplay, knowing your role is key.

Most gameplay decisions with aggro are based on mana efficiency. Particularly with aggro, you need to sequence ahead to ensure all mana is used every turn. With the below hand, what’s the play?

Casting Lava Spike + Skewer the Critics looks fine, but creates future inefficiency. If you top deck a third land it won’t do anything. Casting Boros Charm is more efficient (third land = 2nd Boros Charm + Skewer, no land = 2nd Boros Charm or Spike + Skewer).

The underlying concept is that resource management isn’t just about the total resources available. It’s about the deployment of resources under constraints (commonly time). As The Titanic’s situation became more desperate, her officers came up with creative ways to work around constraints.

Second Officer Charles Lightoller launched lifeboats loaded below capacity, planning on finishing filling from the waterline as he moved to the next lifeboat (parallel processing). Unfortunately the gangway doors were never opened but it was a brilliant idea. Lightoller later participated in the Dunkirk evacuation, fitting 130 men into a ship built for 21.

A common misconception is that Titanic’s victims drowned. Hypothermia was the main killer. Most hypothermia victims die within 15-30 minutes. Lifeboats 4 and 14 (under the command of heroic 5th officer Harold Lowe) returned to pick up swimmers. In essence, using the 15-30 minutes that hypothermia takes to extend the initial 160 minute evacuation window.

We’ve already used Magic examples to apply the basics of resource management. I hope that Lightoller and Lowe’s creativity in the midst of chaos inspires readers in all aspects of their lives. When faced with adversity it’s easy to assume something can’t be done. Instead of giving up, Lowe chose to find a solution.

Carpathia: Finding Outs

Mere hours before the fateful collision, radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bridge broke protocol by fixing her Marconi machine. As Titanic slipped deeper into the Atlantic, her sole hope lay in Phillips and Bridge’s desperate call for aid:

C/O SOS SOS CQD cqd – MGY
We are sinking fast passengers being put into boats
MGY

Just 10 miles away, the SS Californian lay idle. But 58 miles to the southeast, Captain Arthur Rostron ordered RMS Carpathia into action.

Carpathia had a listed maximum speed of 14 knots. Rostron and his men pulled out all the stops. Non-essential systems were shut off, while stokers and engineers leapt to their stations. Rostron mustered lookouts, as Carpathia braved the icefield that doomed Titanic. Carpathia made 17 knots, arriving at 3:35 AM (~1 hour after Titanic submerged). Some survivors in the lifeboats already had hyperthermia. The mad dash permanently damaged Carpathia but Rostron successfully played to Titanic’s survivors only out.

We can use Magic to begin learning from Rostron. In Magic, sometimes victory hinges on a narrow set of outcomes (oh my god it’s Lightning Helix). Playing to outs often involves doing something “wrong” to open a non-zero chance of winning. Don’t be afraid of making “dumb” attacks/chump blocks. Going 17 knots through an icefield at 1:00 AM might sound “dumb”, but Rostron knew his extra lookouts gave Carpathia the edge she needed to realize the out.

The key is identifying outs early. Arthur Rostron shut off Carpathia’s heating and hot water immediately after getting Titanic’s SOS. In Magic, practice teaches you to identify losing situations. Shift from high level plans (who’s the beatdown) to asking “what exactly needs to happen for me to win?”.

For example, in the finals (best of 5) of a Legacy tournament I was playing Burn against Kitten Combo. I dropped the first two games, but won game 3. On the draw in game 4 I kept a hand with Smash to Smithereens. My opponent slammed a turn 1 Chalice of the Void.

The situation mandated lining up Smash to Smithereens against Chalice. I made some “bad” plays to bait answers (my opponent drew permission spells while I was mana screwed). I ultimately used Smash on end-step (~turn 10) into a face-up Malevolent Druid to create the out of top decking a 2nd Smash (which I did). The game depended on seeing the out and planning around it from turn 1.

The next step is applying Rostron’s example outside of Magic. When faced with a problem, you can try solving it backwards. Figure out what needs to happen and then find ways to make it possible (Apollo 13 is also great for demonstrating this).

Thomas Andrews: Planning Ahead

Titanic’s sinking is often told as a tale of hubris. That mankind’s folly in thinking that we’d mastered the sea evoked the Atlantic’s wrath. Captain Edward Smith even said

I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern ship building has gone beyond that

Yet, there were warnings. Thomas Andrews requested 64 lifeboats, a double hull, and bulkheads that extended to B deck. Longer bulkheads would have bought time to deploy additional lifeboats. A double hull may have prevented the sinking.

30 years earlier, William Thomas Stead published “How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor” warning about insufficient lifeboats. Stead died on The Titanic after helping women and children into lifeboats and giving his lifejacket away.

Similarly 1898 Morgan Robertson’s “The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility” (1898) eerily foreshadowed Titanic’s fate. Fortunately, Robertson never boarded the Titanic.

Men like Andrews, Stead, and Robertson knew the rapid advancements in shipbuilding was a disaster waiting to happen. Unfortunately, the Maritime Safety Board and White Star Line executives refused to listen. Regulations were based on tonnage, not passengers.

Magic: the Gathering can help us understand this. Magic isn’t just about gameplay. Deck construction and deck selection are crucial. Aligning your strategy to the meta puts you in a winning position. Andrews in-depth knowledge of shipbuilding allowed him to make recommendations that would’ve saved Titanic. The more you understand Magic, the easier reading the meta is.

Look at recent tournaments—If a strategy is dominant, play it or beat it. If control has dominated recent top 8s, you could play a control deck with mirror tilting sideboard cards. Alternatively, you could build an aggro deck designed to prey on control (creature-lands, uncounterable spells, direct damage, etc…).

See which cards are played most—Sometimes metas revolved around specific cards (evoke elements in Modern prior to bans). The next step is explaining it. Are players falling into groupthink (exploitable) or are those cards really that busted (copyable)?

Other players will do the same thing—Sometimes players will overcompensate to the latest spice. Reading other players’ reads of the meta lets you build an “anti-meta” deck.

Groupthink is incredibly prevalent in the internet era. To avoid it, ask why instead of what. If Thomas Andrews had his way, Titanic would’ve likely never sunk. Don’t be afraid to have different ideas both in Magic and in life.

Murdoch’s Port Around: Process vs Result

April 14th 1912 was a calm, dark, and moonless night. In a cruel twist, the calm prevented Titanic’s lookouts, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee, from spotting the danger earlier. Normally waves breaking against the iceberg would make it visible. Normally moonlight would illuminate the iceberg. Normally spotters have binoculars, but they were locked away (whether this mattered is debatable). Normally an optical illusion wouldn’t be clouding their view.

Normally Titanic would avoid the iceberg all together. Accordingly, First Officer Murdoch ordered Titanic hard a-starboard to port around the iceberg:

Murdoch actually gave the order immediately, possibly either spotting the iceberg personally or hearing the distinct rings of the warning bell. She almost made it, but her Starboard side hit – it was a lethal breach.

For the past hundred years, Murdoch’s decision has been questioned. Titanic experts have long debated the merits of a head-on collision. However, even if we assume hitting head-on would have avoided the sinking, that doesn’t mean Murdoch made the wrong decision.

The distinction lies in process vs results. We need to look at the information Murdoch had at the time. He didn’t know about the optical illusion. He didn’t know that the calm sea and moonless sky meant the iceberg was spotted just 500 meters away. If he had known that, then we could debate a heads-on collision. With the available information, his heroic port around was right.

We can learn a lot from Murdoch. In Magic: the Gathering process based reasoning is the best way to improve. Winning doesn’t mean you played perfectly. Losing doesn’t mean you misplayed. Magic: the Gathering is so intricate that win or lose there is almost always something you could’ve done better. When reviewing games, focus on decision points over outcomes.

Suppose you have a 70-30 decision. The wrong decision still wins 30% of the time! But in the long run, making the right decision wins more than twice as often. This is why you should ignore outcomes. Getting got by a spicy tech hurts, but if you had no realistic way of anticipating it, then you should eat the loss. Conversely, failing to play around a card you could’ve deduced is worth fixing.

To improve at process based thinking, make a list. With the benefit of hindsight, you may know your opponent’s hand. Highlight any cards you could’ve deduced. Be sure to note the tells leading to that deduction. Next, write down your outs—you can even add probabilities. Then write out the possible decisions and do an analysis. Ignore the outcome of the game or what you actually did draw. Process-based reasoning isn’t limited to Magic!

Conclusion: Titanic’s Greatest Lesson

Despite his suggestions going unheeded, Thomas Andrews still fought to save lives. Many refused to believe the “unsinkable” ship would founder—Lifeboat No. 1 held just 12 souls despite capacity for 40. Andrews went door to door, urging women and children towards the lifeboats. But Thomas never went into a lifeboat himself. Heroic to the bitter end, Andrews was last seen throwing deck chairs to people in the water. His body was never found:

INTERVIEW TITANIC’S OFFICERS. ALL UNANIMOUS THAT ANDREWS HEROIC UNTO DEATH, THINKING ONLY SAFETY OTHERS. EXTEND HEARTFELT SYMPATHY TO ALL.

Giving up is easy. But when faced with the mathematical certainty of his own creation sinking, Andrews refused to quit. Instead of saving himself, he saved countless others. We should all aspire towards acting like Mr. Andrews in everything we do:

At Magic events, be kind to your opponent. Don’t hesitate to help new players out. If someone is sitting by themselves between games, sit down with them. Invite new people to lunch. The way you treat people matters infinitely more than winning.