Throughout the last year I’ve consistently been doing well in most
events. My success can be attributed to a number of different things including: a strong test group, a supportive girlfriend, and the time to prepare for
these events.
At the StarCityGames.com Open in Boston this weekend, I did a lot worse
than I had expected. It was the worst I’ve done at an event this year. Contrary to my performance this weekend, I learned a lot about playing Magic in
regards to winning and losing. I’ve read a hundred articles about preparing decks for a tournament; however this article is about how I prepare
myself for an event — before it starts and while I’m playing.
Before the event
Generally speaking, I try to play a deck that beats the “best deck”; I
have an affinity towards rogue decks. Playing rogue decks has its pros and cons. The bad part about playing rogue decks is that — well, you’re generally
playing an inferior deck; the best deck is the best deck for a reason. The good part about playing rogue is that people generally spend a lot of the
match trying to figure out your deck is attempting to do. It’s also a bonus to be playing a deck that people haven’t tested against.
When testing a rogue deck, I make it a point to test against the top-tier
decks; this insures that either
A.) My deck can win against these decks, or
B.) I’ve had significant time with a Tier 1 deck, thus allowing me the
option to audible to it if my rogue deck isn’t where I want it to be.
Also, you can’t shut out ideas about cards that you don’t like or have
been labeled as “bad.” I’ll test almost anything. You can usually figure out if a card has potential or not just by playing a few games with it. I’ll
normally put three or four of a card in my deck just to make sure I see it while testing. I might only end up playing it as a one-of, but it allows me to
get some play with the card while playing less games.
The most important part about testing is that you have to remember to
have fun and set
achievable
goals. When play testing becomes work, I feel like you stop gaining as much value.
Enough with the boring deck talk! Now to the fun stuff.
Keep in mind that this part is from my own personal experience. It might
not hold true for everyone.
Through my testing I’ve come to realize that despite my tournament
results, my testing partners are around the same play skill as me. This begs the question — “why am I winning more?” Am I the luckiest player in the
world? That could be it; however, I think it’s the way I approach tournaments and the mindset I maintain throughout the course of an event. I never give
up; I try my hardest to never let myself get tilted.
Being in a winning position in tournaments requires a certain level of
comfort that’s only acquired by firsthand experience.
One of my first Top 8s was a StarCityGames.com cruise qualifier. I was
pretty nervous going into it. I feel like that hindered my performance a lot. Everyone is nervous the first time they’re doing well. In the
StarCityGames.com Legacy Open at Charlotte, Adam Cai and Nick Spagnolo (man on
fire) were in the finals. Adam made the comment, “Every time I Top 8, I do a little
bit better. I Top 8ed the first time, Top 4ed the next time, and I’ll probably have to wait till the next one to win.” While this was considered a joke
at the time, I feel like it’s an amazing representation of a Magic player’s typical thought process.
My friend David Wise made Top 8 at that same Legacy event. This was his
first StarCityGames.com Open Series Top 8, and I figured it’d be a good idea to talk to him about his recent finish and see if my theory applied in his
case.
Ali:
What was going through your mind before you started Top 8?
David:
Well, I was nervous; I’ve Top 8ed PTQs before, but I felt like this was
the biggest event so far. I’ve bubbled a handful of these events. I wouldn’t say I punted because I was nervous, but there was a lot more on my mind
than the match at the time. I guess I got sort of giddy that I was doing well and lost focus. However, in the Legacy event, I was pretty tired, and I
made myself not get too excited; I kind of stopped caring and was ready to go.
Ali:
What was going through your mind when playing your Top 8 match?
David:
I got the feature match. I actually dislike feature matches. The last
feature match I had was at the SCG Legacy Open in Atlanta. I was playing 43 Lands, and my opponent put an Emrakul, The Aeons Torn into play on turn 1
with a Show and Tell. When I was watching the coverage later, I felt the commentators were just saying ridiculous things. They were calling me out
for not playing a land and passing the turn instead of playing a land so that Emrakul could annihilate it. I was going to be left with no permanents
and drawing to a one-outer Karakas, at which point I probably still would’ve lost. Â
In the Charlotte feature match, I mulliganed to four game 1 and five game
2. Aside from being a bit tilted by that, I was also wondering if I was getting a verbal beating on GGsLive. I probably sideboarded wrong, but
I’m not too upset. I told myself that my mulligans were correct, and GGsLive couldn’t give me crap about that.
Ali:
What did you learn from that Top 8?
David:
I can only really test more and be more prepared for events. Next time I
won’t try to think about the commentary; we all make play mistakes — being nervous only adds to them. The commentators have to say what their
audience wants to hear. Â
The conversation I had with David played a huge part for me writing this
article. It helped me understand where myself and a lot of other magic players are. As simple as it sounds, being comfortable with your surroundings and
having the will to win are huge factors whether we realize it or not.
Losing can be a good thing!
Like everyone else, I hate losing. I used to get kind of mad when I lost.
Getting mad is the worst thing you can do. It tilts you for later rounds, could make you look like a jerk, and oftentimes you forget to reflect on
the match and try to figure out what you could’ve done differently to win the match. This is huge for an event. The odds of you playing the same deck
are pretty good, and you need to be in a healthy mindset so that you can reflect and ideally alter your play so that you don’t make the same
mistakes twice.
Another “bonus” about losing is that you can learn more about your deck
and changes you need to make for later events. You just have to make sure you actually do that. It’s a bit absurd to lose a match and not take away
knowledge from that loss.
Just like winning, losing requires a certain level of comfort that can
only be acquired from losing. I’m not suggesting that you just accept your losses and start to enjoy losing — that’d be stupid. But you have to
remember that you can’t win every match and even though you lost the match/rating/prize, you still gained valuable knowledge that can only be
gained from a loss. After all, it’s a lot easier to force yourself to reflect on a match after losing than it is after winning.
Why do I play Magic?
Geordie Tait recently wrote an article about how expensive Magic is. He’s
right; it’s ridiculous. So why do we, as Magic players, spend absurd amounts of money buying cards, taking road trips, and spending vacation time from
work? I believe it’s more about the good times and the people we share them with than the game itself. Don’t get me wrong. Magic is a great game, but
there’s a reason Magic: The Gathering is harder to quit than drugs. How many people do you know that have sold out, only to start playing again in
less than a year? When you quit Magic, it’s kind of like quitting friendships.
Let me tell you a little story about my weekend trip to the SCG Open in
Boston.
The Monday that they announced the changes to the 2011 SCG Open Series
schedule, I received a text from David to see if I wanted to go to Boston. We all needed a few more points to hit our next level, and I figured it’d be
fun so I told him I’d be down.
We were planning on leaving Friday morning to start our fifteen-hour
drive to Boston. David told me to meet him at his house no later than 7:00 am. I decided 3:30 am was a good time to get to the house. He wasn’t too
appreciative of my decision. Anyways, Stephan, David, and I were on the road by 4 am. I hadn’t slept yet; David and Stephan had about two hours of sleep.
About three hours into our trip, we realized that we were probably too tired to make the full fifteen-hour drive. We decided to stop in Washington D.C.
and figure out how much a plane ticket would cost. With the help of our friend Puddles, by noon, we’d booked a flight, rented a car, and found ourselves
on the Washington Dulles airport floor playing Ascension and waiting for our flight.
Actually, let’s back up. I made a reference in a text to David about
Ratchet Bomb being “Israeli Bombs.” So while we were in the line waiting to get through security, for some reason I asked David if he liked my “Ratchet …
(whisper) b.o.m.b.” reference. So he said, in an almost screaming voice, in the middle of the airport, in the security line, both of us being of
Middle Eastern decent… “OH, YOU MEAN THE ISRAELI BOMBS THING?” I’m honestly surprised we didn’t get tackled by five guys wearing black suits.
When we got to the hotel, I began to unpack my bag only to realize that I
had a box of Pop-Its in my bag. Yeah, me, the Middle Eastern guy, brought firecrackers on an airplane and got them through security… Mission
accomplished!
By writing this, I realize that the majority of fun from a Magic event
doesn’t actually take place at the venue. Sure, it’s great to see old friends and play an awesome game, but it’s not the only reasons I paid for a
plane ticket and rental car — it’s the adventures that being a tournament player brings with it. These events are what help shape us into our own unique
being.
In closing, the main thing I want my readers to remember is that when
you’re playing Magic, you’re doing a lot more than playing a game; you’re embarking on a learning process. There is always something to be learned
from winning and losing. Just because you won a match doesn’t mean you played perfectly. In addition to this, losing doesn’t mean you played poorly
either. Magic is a never-ending learning experience that we shouldn’t overlook. Playing a lot of Magic has done more than make me better at a game. Magic
has altered the way I view many things. It has taught me that there’s always something to be learned from any situation. It has also taught me that
keeping a level head is the best way to absorb, reflect, and learn from all experience — both good and bad. It’s this lesson that I hope to pass on
to you, my readers.
Thanks for reading,
Ali, the Aeons Torn