Guest Blogger:  Steve Sobon

I recently saw a news report about a girl’s basketball team winning 100-0 and thought about when I started playing competitive Magic. I wasn’t thinking about the winning team, I was thinking about being on the losing side. For my first year, I swear I lost almost every single match. This article is about losing, and gaining some insight from it. This is about getting better at a game you love, so you can receive even more enjoyment from playing it. Let’s look at a few things that can turn us all from being on the outside of the top eight to the top seed.

1)     Play Testing

This is so huge! It doesn’t matter if it’s draft, type two, or vintage, play testing is key to making fewer mistakes. It can be easy to learn how to combo out with your card interactions, but play testing teaches you what you need to do to get you there. Things like what type of opening hand you should keep. How your deck deals with different arch-types. What cards are strong or weak for your deck build. Learn to feel if the deck and your play style are compatible. Keep track of what you and your deck are strong and weak against, and write down possible fixes. When play testing, always keep score, and keep your play as tight as what you would do in a pro tour qualifier. This brings us to another topic.

2      Learn and Play by the Rules

By playing by the rules every time, you don’t set yourself up for penalties in those big matches. This counts for tapping mana of the right color, for choosing the targets of spells, and using the stack rules in the right order. Don’t ask or give take backs. You and your friends will become better players for it. For example, everyone has drawn seven cards after a mulligan at one time or another, usually in a friendly game at the kitchen table. You laugh, and put the last card on top of your deck. “You are just going to get it when you draw, right, no harm done.” I drew seven beautiful cards after a mulligan in a PTQ. I will never forget that mistake.

3)    Evaluate Yourself and Your Play Mistakes After a Match

It can be hard to be self critical after a match, to see things as only an outside observer can. Often, it’s so tempting to blame bad beats on the other guys awesome cards, luck, the stinky kid two rows down that was talking loud, rain, etc. Take a step back, and look at the critical plays. Did you attack in to the same Resounding Roar two games in a row? Were you holding back when you should have been more aggressive? Did you miss three damage triggers off of Hissing Iguanar during the game, only to have your opponent win while he was at two life? These types of self game evaluations can be hard to do, but are key to playing better, and winning more often. If you can’t do it alone, read on.

4)    Enlist the Aide of Others

Being a returning player after lapsing for almost 10 years, there were so many new cards, rule interactions, “Whadda ‘ya mean there’s no more interrupts?” and combos that I made almost every play mistake you can in the game. “And I still make a few of them.” But, each time I resolved to learn from my mistakes and become a better player for it. Even so, I still leaned on more experienced players to gain much needed insight. Casey Stoner was a huge help with my draft picks, for about three weeks sitting beside me and showing me the true value of cards, and helping me send signals to both my left and right at the table. Phil Burton showed me how to play, and play against counter-magic. Also, Phil showed me the true worth of Wrath-like affects. My wife, Kelly, deserves credit too, both for returning me to the game, and for endless play testing for my first few years. Finally, all the Utopia regulars get some credit, not for pounding me into the dirt, but on many occasions for showing me what I did wrong after the fact.

5)     When all else Fails, Lose, “And Win” with honor

I recently got beat by one of the worst ranked players in the state. I was playing a midrange Naya draft deck against an awesome Bant Aggro deck. I faced three 2/1 first strike-shroud guys, two 2/2 unblockables, two Sigil Blessings, two “TWO” Stoic Angels, and every piece of exalted you could want. By the time I hit four mana, I was backpedaling hard. Sometimes Magic is a bit like rock-paper-scissors, sometimes you are the scissors and the other guy is the rock. Smashing you to pieces. When I lost, I didn’t throw my cards at him, accuse him of cheating, and wail to the gods on high. I congratulated him, thanked him for the game and wished him luck. For his part, he didn’t shout “IN YOUR FACE!” as he dumped the second Sigil Blessing to overrun me in game three. He complemented me on being a tough opponent, and expressed hope that we would play again in the finals. Sure, it stung to be beaten, and I’m sure he was happy as heck to win against a higher ranked player, but we both kept it cool, and kept the night a lot more fun for both of us. Almost the exact opposite thing happened later that night, with me beating a higher ranked player who had gone undefeated in the top four. Both of us complimented each other, and shook hands at the end.

Losing isn’t fun, in basketball, or in Magic. The key to getting better after a loss is to do something constructive about your game after it happens, to learn from that loss. Hopefully, this article can help.

Hello,
This is the guest blog for Paddy's Game Shoppe. Paddy's is a brick and mortar game store in St. Cloud, MN. Both Gino and Dawn will have their own dedicated blogs on this site. This blog is for guests who want to share gaming related themes. It will likely not be updated quite as much as the other blogs, but will hopefully provide some other interesting and entertaining articles related to gaming.
Thank you for stopping by.