I don’t know about you, but I make a lot of mistakes. I frequently forget family birthdays, arrive late to meetings at work, say the one thing that will annoy my girlfriend, and forget to pay bills on time. My excuses to get out of things are usually implausible at best, and it’s a wonder I manage to cook dinner without seriously injuring myself.
My games of Magic aren’t any different.
That being said, there are a few mistakes even I manage to avoid (most of the time), but others still don’t. Here are some cautionary tales, that some of you out there may still need to take a lesson from…
Be in a fit state to play
If you want to have a chance of doing well in a Magic tournament with prizes worth winning on the line, you’re going to need all your mental faculties. Which you’re obviously not going to have if you’re say… ill, hungover, drunk, or out of your tree on substances of dubious legality.
However, some players out there seem to think they can get away with turning up to an event still reeling from the night before, or having had a few cheeky drinks or tokes beforehand. I’ve even heard a player claim he “played at an optimal level” after two spliffs, particularly if piloting a slow, grinding control deck.
But let’s be honest, that’s a lie.
Take for example the following unknown American, playing in the LCQ for PT Amsterdam. He’d taken the time to put a deck together, paid his thirty Euros entry fee, and was ready to play a gruelling number of rounds well into the night, all to try to earn a place on the Pro Tour. He’d also eaten several marijuana-laced “space cakes.” Which, as all the Amsterdam travel guidebooks warn, are much stronger than you might anticipate and are to be treated with respect, which this joker certainly did not.
It will come as no surprise then that about twenty minutes into a tournament of probably 10-11 hours, this blundering idiot wasn’t feeling quite as good as he’d expected to. In fact, he’d gone past the pleasant euphoria he was shooting for, and into a scary, confusing, and deeply nauseating place, which he was desperate to escape from. I was sitting and playing cube with a friend next to the LCQ, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him in quick succession:
- Stand bolt upright from his game.
- Drop his hand of cards.
- Lurch a few steps to the end of that row of tables.
- Throw up in the vague direction of a bin, in a wide arc all over the floor.
- Collapse into a heap.
Loud cries of “Ewww!” and “Aww gross!” came from everyone present, and then a judge escorted him and his belongings out of the venue before the event continued.
A few minutes later, the world’s saddest looking cleaner trudged over with a mop and bucket, and started pawing at the mess. And when I say saddest, I really mean it here – the guy looked distraught as he cleaned up and was muttering something (presumably “I hate this job”) under his breath the whole time. Even his mustache was crying.
Finally, at the end of that round, one of the British judges I’m friends with came over to me for a word (well, a whine, really) and explained the cause of the incident: “Bloody Yank kids. Soon as they go abroad and can drink, smoke, whatever, they go completely overboard. Don’t know how to handle anything. What a muppet.”
Muppet indeed. Make sure you’re physically fit to play a tournament, or it just isn’t worth your time and money. You wouldn’t turn up to work totally out of it, why should a PTQ be any different? If you’re not feeling up to the main event, why not lie-in, arrive late, then draft/railbird*?
(* or as I call it, “watch games of Magic”)
Turn up before, I don’t know… round 2?
Even more important to tournament success than being in a fit enough state to play games of Magic, is actually bothering to turn up in the first place, preferably with a deck. Sometimes you might be unexpectedly delayed, sure, and in these cases it’s useful to have your friendly local TO’s phone number, as they’ll often wait a few minutes if they know you’re en-route. Likewise, if you’re short a few cards, these can often be borrowed from friends on-site.
But how about this example, a series of phone calls I had with Rob Stanjer (legendary scrounger*, lazy good-for-nothing, recluse, and undiscovered genius), while I was at a recent London PTQ:
(* Shortly after Matteo Orsini-Jones‘ Top 8 finish at PT Kyoto 2009, there was a three-day Magic event in Gravesend, for which you could camp out in a field behind the venue. Rob said he’d come for the weekend, on the condition that Matteo bought him a tent. In his questionable generosity and love for Rob, Matteo did so, spending about fifty quid of his hard-earned prize money. I think there was a sleeping bag included in the deal to boot. Of course, Rob decided the tent was too difficult to put up after about twenty seconds on the first morning and slept one night in my tent, and the other on the floor of the venue instead)
Me (answering phone): Hello?
Rob: Dan, is there a PTQ today?
Me: Uhh, yea, I’m at it now. You said you were coming and asked to borrow cards – I have them with me; where are you?
Rob: At home?
Me: Oh, so you’re not planning playing then?
Rob: Of course I’m playing; it’s a PTQ in London.
Me: Then why are you still at home? It starts in ten minutes!
Rob (muffled): Well, I’m not at home anymore; I’m running to get the train; call me back in five!
(Five minutes pass)
Me: Where are you now?
Rob: I’m on the train; I’ll be there in half an hour.
Me (exasperated): But registration closes in five minutes!
Rob: It’ll be fine; don’t worry.
Me: It definitely won’t.
Rob: Relax. Just tell [the TO] I’ll be there soon.
Me: Ugh, whatever. Do you even have a deck?
Rob: Uhh… not exactly. What cards am I borrowing off you again?
Me (looking in folder): Umm, one sec… blue ones and white ones, for control?
Rob: Okay write this down: four Wall of Omens, four Path…
Me: Wait, what?!
Rob: My decklist, you need to fill it in for me, obv.
Me (now visibly flustered): But, but… you don’t even have a deck?!
Rob: So? I’ll borrow the rest of it from
someone.
Me: *sigh*
Rob: Well?
Me (resigned to this now): Okay, I have a pen and a sheet…
Rob: Right, four Wall of Omens, four Path… no wait, put three Path! I’m not…
Me: Rob? Rob? I can’t hear you!
Rob (crackling, breaking up): … put three… change it later… not sure… think… …tunnel.
*hangs up*
Me: Well that’s just brilliant!
TO (loudspeaker): Registration for the PTQ is now
closed.
Round 1 pairings will be up shortly folks!
Approximately 45 minutes after informing the TO Rob was intending to play today and handing him a decklist sheet with seven cards and his name listed on it, Rob finally turned up. He somehow managed to cobble together a deck and was benevolently allowed to join the tournament in round 2 with a loss (as someone else had received a bye round 1). He of course lost this round and then dropped to play Mental Magic for the rest of the day.
What a waste. If you’re planning on playing in an event, do yourself a favor and make sure to arrive in plenty of time, with your deck (and any borrows) sorted in advance. It’ll save you a lot of hassle and unnecessary stress.
Don’t give away wins
Sometimes the mistakes we make are so obvious, it makes you wonder if we really want to win at all, because we seem to avoid success at almost every possible opportunity. In the last few months alone, I’ve conceded to non-lethal damage, forgotten to make game-winning attacks, and neglected to counter spells that will kill me.
Giving away wins like that just isn’t acceptable in tournament Magic!
Especially in a really important tournament, such as, I don’t know, Nationals? In game 3 of the third round this year, I allowed my opponent , Chris Bateman (playing Runeflare Trap vs. my Mono-Red) to change how he tapped his mana after he’d cast a spell. At this point in the game, I was tapped out and just needed to untap and draw another burn spell to kill him, but he was starting to take extra turns with Twincasted Time Warps. Allowing him to change how he tapped his mana gave him access to double blue mana after his spell resolved, meaning he could Time Warp again and continue comboing me out. I felt pretty stupid when this was later pointed out to me.
I also felt pretty stupid when a week or so after the tournament, Matt Light (my second round opponent) told me we’d both forgotten to mark down a turn of double Goblin Guide damage, when later in the game he was at less than four life. Awkward.
However, the most heartbreaking example of throwing away a win comes from my friend Mills. He’s one of the better players in our area and has racked up ten or eleven PTQ Top 8’s over the last few years – but has yet to take home a blue envelope. In one of his finals appearances, he was ahead in the final game, and looked certain to finally get to the PT. A few turns away from an almost certain victory with a full grip of cards, he just needed to maintain control and find a finisher. He resolved a tutor effect, shuffled his library, presented his deck to his opponent, and then asked:
“Where’s the rest of my hand gone?”
In a moment of confused excitement, or with the most brutal choke ever, he’d shuffled all five or six cards of it into his library. Of course, a judge found this to be highly unfortunate, though not “fixable,” and ruled that the game had to proceed on from there.
Forced to topdeck for the rest of the game, Mills sadly couldn’t pull out the win.
Be it from a lack of confidence (our inner Bruce taking over), or moments of over-excitement or panic, some of us regularly manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Taking time to re-assess the game state and being deliberate in your actions can help avoid such incidents.
Get a proper night’s sleep
I know what you’re thinking. I’ve saved the most obvious point, and the one you’ve already had hammered into your brain by countless other Magic writers, for last: “Nice work, Dan, I don’t need to carry on reading your crappy article. Idiot.”
But hold on there a minute. I don’t mean “get more than four hours sleep,” or even “just get
some
sleep before your tournament.” Here I’m talking about the savage tech of actually having a bed (or couch, or floor) to sleep in, in some kind of indoor (or hell, just covered from the elements will do) location. Sadly though, there’s at least
one
person I know who can’t figure this out for himself – my dear friend Gary. He’s well known for his desperately poor decision-making and degenerate gambling (I once watched him put an entire week’s wages into a fruit machine, only to take out £10 more than he put in with his very last coin), but this was a new low even for him…
Great British Nationals in 2009 was held in Brighton (which, for the geographically challenged, is by the sea, on the South coast of England, approximately fifty miles down from London, and with not nearly enough water between it and France). The weather at the time was naturally scorching hot and sunny, seeing as we had to spend four days straight (it was followed immediately by a Grand Prix) in a convention hall with no natural light.
After a lunchtime of final Standard testing on some picnic benches by the pebble beach (Brighton has no sand, just rocks), those of us lucky enough to be qualified already headed inside to watch the LCQ. I had a particular interest in doing so, as in addition to wanting to support all my friends, I was only 80% sure Gary wouldn’t just sell the 5-Color Control deck I’d lent him if went unattended. He’d been down on his luck recently, having spent two weeks living on the floor of my flat after being kicked out by his ex, and didn’t even have a room to stay in (knowing we’d eventually cave and just let him crash in our room).
Right on cue about round 4, Gary made a silly misplay against an opponent he felt he should’ve beaten, lost the match, then life-tilted himself out of the rest of the competition in double-quick time.
“I don’t even care about stupid Nationals anyway, I’m just going to get drunk for two days and then win the GP. Bahhhhh!”
We’d heard rumors that a local player ran a rock music club a stone’s throw away from the venue and was going to let anyone who showed a Magic card at the entrance in for free all weekend (Neil, you’re a legend). It seemed an obvious destination after dinner, so we all barreled in about 9 p.m.
“I better only have a couple!” I shouted to Gary and Mills over the loud music as we stood at the bar, in what turned out to be a surprisingly decent, small, and divey club. I left just as it was getting busy about half eleven to be well rested for the morning, but made sure to get my deck back out of Gary’s bag, “just in case you lose it or something.”
I was rudely awoken the following morning at approximately half-five, as Mills fell into our hostel room, after spending about three minutes noisily struggling to get his key in the lock.
“Oh maa god. Gary is amaaaazing!” He announced, barely able to talk through his laughter, as Stu and I rubbed our eyes and asked what time it was.
After catching his breath and calming down a little, Mills recounted how he and Gary had drunk heavily with the club’s owner and stayed until closing time, then a little longer for a lock-in, before finally leaving around 4 a.m. They then decided to go hold hands and watch the sun rise or something, and ended up sitting on the beach. At which point Gary lay down and fell asleep right there on the rocks.
“Come on, Gary, you can’t stay here. Come sleep on our floor. Dan and Stu said it was fine.”
“Pish off. Staying here. Sleeeping…”
Mills spent a further half an hour trying to get Gary to move, but he was out cold, and there was no such luck.
We didn’t see Gary the next morning.
We didn’t see him at lunchtime, either.
London players collectively began fearing for the worst.
He finally turned up at the venue, sunburnt, exhausted, and soaking wet head to foot, about 4 p.m.
“What the hell happened to you?!”
“Well… I woke up with my face being burned by the sun, and a sea gull pecking my face. So I told it ‘I’m not food!’ and to go away. Then I had a stretch, and my back really hurt from the stones I’d been laying on. But the sea was like, glistening at me or something, and looked really inviting, so I thought to myself ‘Why not have a little swim?’ I stripped down to my boxers and went in, it was… very refreshing, and not even that cold. I don’t know why people complain about English summers sometimes; it was lovely. I swam further out, and it made me ache a bit less, which was nice.
After, I don’t know, forty minutes or something, I’d swum maybe a half a mile out, and I looked back to make sure there wasn’t some pikey kid nicking my stuff. There wasn’t, but it looked like the tide was coming in quite fast, and had nearly gotten to my bag. I swum back as fast as I could, but by the time I got back to shore, all my stuff had spilled out of my bag and was bobbing around in the sea.
I managed to get it all together and walked halfway across town until I found a Laundromat to dry some of my clothes in, and then I came here. But all my cards, my phone, and my iPod were ruined. Brilliant, eh? Ohh wait… Please say I gave you your deck back; I couldn’t find it in the sea.”
“Don’t worry; I got it back off you last night. Except the two Ethersworn Canonists you still had in your folder.”
“AWW MAN THEY’RE LIKE A FIVER EACH! THIS IS THE WORST DAY EVER!”
Gary spent the next two nights sleeping on someone else’s balcony and got rained on. I think you can draw your own conclusions on this one.
None of us will ever stop making mistakes, in life or Magic, but in many cases they can be avoided, minimized, and learned from. However if you
insist
upon making mistakes, my one piece of advice would have to be – make sure you at least get a good story to tell in the process!