By Cameron Veigel
So here I am, back from Yokohama with an underwhelming 2-4 record and an inclination to put on paper what I discovered at the Pro Tour. What went wrong? Did I test too much? Not enough? Did I use the wrong deck/sideboard? Did I play awfully? One or more of these things is probably correct, and there are probably dozens of other reasons I haven’t mentioned.
In an attempt to understand and help others who aim for similar goals, I will go into depth of why I lost each round and performed so poorly at this level.
From the outside eye, or the player at the top of their game, this is how my resume may look.
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Round 1 – Lose to bad matchup + Savage Topdeck.
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Round 2 – Win through superior play and psychology
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Round 3 – Win awesome matchup
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Round 4 – Lose to Savage Topdeck
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Round 5 – Lose awesome matchup from bad mulligan
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Round 6 – Lose to unfavorable matchup/ opponent being a sack
Looking at your results in this way wont teach you anything, nor does it encourage you to improve at the next big event, nor does it provide the inclination to even bother attending. This is what really happened…
Round 1 – Lose to unfavorable matchup
My opponent was playing Teferi, which is arguably an even matchup, but it comes down to specific builds. If their list includes Shadowmage Infiltrator, Phyrexian Totem AND Haunting Hymn, it probably isn’t too exciting for my style of deck. His did, and although I won game one, I crippled myself by sideboarding awfully and affecting my ability to complete the match. I used the usual 11-card swap for the matchup, but completely forgot about the presence of his infiltrators and (probably) plague slivers from the board. Of course, he played Plague Sliver turn three on the play, and I couldn’t beat the guy. Next game he randomly drew his one Haunting Hymn and hit my whole hand. Not much I could do about it, but if I had sideboarded properly, or had not been so overly confident, this game may have never mattered and I may have already been drinking free coke in the lounge. (best part of the Pro Tour. -ed.)
Round 2 – Win through superior play and psychology
This one is pretty accurate, though I’m fairly sure my opponent was an average player with an average deck, and I had him beat on both those areas already. I also psyched him out game two, and he scooped when I had literally no way to win. Arguably would have won game three being on the play with matchup/play advantage, but that is irrelevant. I won through his mistake, not through my awesome ability.
Round 3 – Win awesome matchup
The matchup for RBu against White Weenie is basically a landslide. All my spells bar one (Psychotic Episode) are awesome against the deck, and after a couple of Wraths you just kill them out of nowhere. That said, I probably didn’t deserve to win. I won the first game legitimately, but in the second he mulled to five on the play and I kept an awesome seven with three land, lens, totem, void and dead/gone. Then proceeded to ‘forget’ my second land drop and put myself in serious danger of losing. If he had a single tithe for my Void I would have been crushed, but fortunately all he had was three two drops and land in hand. Lucky. No matter how bad the matchup is, you shouldn’t get careless. Winning or losing, you always have to pay attention to what is happening on the table. Making misplays can cost you a lot of money if you have been doing well.
Round 4 – Lose to Savage Topdeck
This round actually annoyed me a lot more than it probably should have, which may have aided me in the future round losses. We split the first two games, and in the third I was racing my Totem against his random blue guys (Spiketail Drakeling and Voidmage). I had been behind, but suspended a Chronicler for two, and ripped another to suspend for one to sync them up and bash in hard. He ripped Teferi and it was pretty much game over. How Savage. Or was it? I knew he had a Dismal Failure in hand, so he could ‘kill’ one Chronicler and make the other worse anyway, plus he had Voidmage to randomly counter a spell. I was still not close enough to threaten lethal damage, but he would kill me in one swing if he had Psionic Blast (which I knew was in his deck). It’s possible that I could’ve still beaten him, but to say it was a certainty wouldn’t be fair at all. Looking at this round as a loss to $@V@gS topdeckery isn’t going to make me play better magic or make better judgement calls. It’s only going to make me bitter.
Round 5 – Lose awesome matchup from bad mulligan
This one is pretty accurate as well, but its possible that my bad mulligan excuse exists because I DIDN’T mulligan to five. My hand was 2 swamps, 2 damnations, a Sudden Death and a red spell. The hand is OK (I was pretty sure my opponent was playing White Weenie) but with a red spell in the mix it’s already a five-card hand. In addition I have to rip two land to not auto lose, and if he has Tithe (worst case he has two) I am dead without three land. Sudden Death doesn’t deal with Calciderm, who will bash my face in if he sees me without 2BB available. I drew my first land turn four and had to death a random two-drop just in case I wouldn’t be able to Damnation the following turn. I drew land (of course) and he had Tithe (of course) so I took another hit, but then wasn’t really in it because I had no relevant spells left and was on such a low total. The other game he had a ridiculous god draw and I didn’t have a chance. By ridiculous god draw, I mean he ran out two Calciderms and I didn’t have any of my seven wraths. In fact, after killing his first two guys, I only drew land and prismatic lenses, even off the Chronicler I suspended for five. That’s magic.
Round 6 – Lose to unfavorable matchup/ opponent being a sack
I only say this is an unfavourable matchup because my opponent claimed it so strongly. He was playing BGu, with teachings, Chronicler, Shapeshifter and a Dragon as his blue spells. I discarded his hand one game and he ripped Chronicler for a billion. The other game he randomly drew Haunting Hymn of the top to wreck me, but to be fair he stalled on five land game one when he tutored up the same spell. I won the first, but not the rest. Arguably sideboarded incorrectly, but didn’t know the matchup extremely well because I thought his deck was a poor choice (can’t beat Teferi). At the end of the day, he was luckier than I was, but I had to 3-0 to make the day 2 cut, so I was probably feeling a little pressure. Again, that’s magic.
So I’m not extremely bitter about what happened, which is important for my game. Packing it in now just because I have ‘failed’ twice at the pro level would be pointless. How can I possibly get better if I quit? At least I came away feeling that I learnt a lot about how to succeed in such events, and it doesn’t come down to only my playskill. I am not trying to say that I am the most awesome thing to happen to magic since Kai, but I am confident enough in my ability that whenever I play a local tournament I don’t flip out easily just because I lose a game or make a minor mistake.
A large portion of success comes down to choosing the right deck and having the right build of that deck, which is something hard for someone like myself, with virtually no contacts. Playtesting a lot with said deck and learning all about the matchups and how to improve your percentages in games two and three is also pretty important, as well as knowing which cards make the difference in the matchups, affecting your mulligan decisions (Land and spells is not an acceptable reason to keep outside of FNM).
Of course, for this to work, you again need to know the other decks in the format and test against the best builds of those, otherwise you’ll end up doing what I did, show up, see a card in their list you’ve never seen before, think you’re being really clever, and walk right into a trap.
But the most important thing is about your attitude. Remaining positive in the face of defeat (or the 0-1 bracket) is a huge thing. Walking around telling yourself how bad you are at magic, how much of a sack your opponent was, etc will not aid in improving your performance. I fought back from 0-1 to get to 2-1, and was feeling pretty happy with myself because I felt like I was actually playing decent magic after my stuff up round one. Then I thought about the hideous round 4 Teferi topdeck and jumped right into a huge hole that I couldn’t climb out of, losing three rounds straight while feeling worse and worse about my performance on the tour.
Looking at the standings every round and seeing what you need to make the top 16 isn’t important. Just focus on each round as it comes, and play your best game. Don’t stress about why you lose, but if it had anything to do with you, learn from it. Australians need to become more confident in their l33t skillzors on the world stage (it was a feeling we mostly shared) and crush some pros.
I was saying ‘its all about the attitude’ all weekend after I started beating myself up, and even that didn’t change my tune. The only person who should be able to affect the way you play is you; don’t let anyone else’s luck, trickery, or divine power change your game.
