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In the rush to become a Pro player a lot of people overlook the intermediate steps involved in getting to just “okay.” And Magic’s a complex enough game that really, just getting to “not sucking completely” is a significant accomplishment. When you’re a mediocre player, you can’t afford to rely on your play skills; you need to hone every edge you have, because the good players will outplay you.

Here are the tricks I’ve learned to improve my game significantly. These are the things that separate me from the truly bad; they’re the reasons I usually finish at the top of my prerelease pool. And if you integrate these into your play, you too can be at least mediocre.

It’s Monday… and that means it’s time for some Magic Puzzles! Each week, Jeff brings us the most fiendish Magical conundrums he can, each one brewed in his fevered brainpan. Do you have the skills to solve the problems? Be sure to leave your answers in the forums!

This week, I could try to be one of the “cool kids” and tell you how 1337 my Extended deck is, and that Scepter-Chant is one of highest-quality decks to play in the current Extended field. After all, PJ talked about how Boros is great (again), and Flores will tell you that his Green/White deck must be great because it won someone some PTQ somewhere… but not him. Instead of following the trend, we’re going to look at progress in motion and the herd mentality.

While my flight down was comped by the fine people at Sony, bringing the significant other down was not, and last-minute flights from the middle of nowhere are not cheap. However, I was coming into some money soon (one hoped), and when was she ever going to get to see me on a game show again?

Let’s play the assumption game. Let’s assume this cool new job opportunity / promotion comes up, giving you a chance at a company position with people you genuinely like and respect. That’s cool, but let’s assume that you’re kind of involved with the company already, at least peripherally. Can you even compete? Can we assume your presence won’t smack of favoritism? Who cares what people think, do a good job and they’ll know you deserve to be there? Okay, that make sense, but what if after all that you get eliminated? What then?