Welcome to Incremental Growth

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I play Magic: the Gathering competitively, but I'm really really bad. I want to get better at Magic.

I've been playing competitively since winter of 2001 (since Odyssey for the many Magic players that only know time in terms of expansion sets) and would say I started figuring out Constructed in 2002 by playing good decks (read "net decks") at FNMs and practicing Constructed a lot. I would say I didn't figure out Limited until 2004, and I still think I'm terrible at it.

I have never top 8'd in the 6 Constructed PTQs I have played in, the closest I came was playing for it in Round 5 of 7, then proceeding to lose my next 3. In Limited, I think that while I can draft reasonably well enough, my play is absolutely terrible. If I draft a decent deck and I go 1-2, I feel a player on the next level with the same deck can go 2-1 or 3-0.

In general, I think my mental game is awful. I'll forget upkeep triggers like Recumbent Bliss. I'm very bad at evaluating combat scenarios, specifically when I evaluate one possibility, evaluate another one, but then forget the first thing I thought about and have to backtrack again, taking precious round time. My body language gives away way too much information about my hand. I play extremely conservatively when my opponent has untapped mana because I'll not know the tricks in a given format, or I think he always has an answer in hand instead of reading him and getting a better idea of what is in his hand.

Incremental Growth is going to be about my journey to get to the next level of competitive Magic. I want to legitimately have a shot at making the top 8 of any PTQ I play in. I want to be able to outplay people in Limited and not just blow them out with bombs. As exciting and close as many of my losses are, I want to turn them into wins, because as cheerful as I might be when I extend the hand I say "Great games", those are the losses I hate the most because there are always situations in the game where, despite possibly being very slight and subtle decisions, I make the wrong decisions. I never want to utter the phrase "I punted" ever again.

In Incremental Growth, I'll discuss the events that I play in, evaluating why things went right, why things went wrong, and more importantly, what I don't do well even when things go right. I'll also randomly write about the things I'm bad at and don't do and want to get better at. I foresee myself writing less about tech and more about my mental game, less about my bad plays and more about WHY I make bad plays.

I've recently graduated, and I've moved to Seattle. The great thing about Seattle is that there are so many places to play, and that you can play Magic nearly every day of the week. I'm currently playing 2-3 paper drafts a week. When I get my own place with reliable internet, I'll be playing more Constructed on Magic-League when I'm not drafting. When I get my first paycheck and get a car, I'll probably be playing even more real life Magic during the week.

Here is my major tournament schedule right now, and I'll focus what kinds of Magic I'll play accordingly to the tournament that's coming up.
October 18: Limited PTQ Kyoto, Seattle
November 8: Standard State Championships, Seattle
December 6: Limited PTQ Kyoto, Portland

Once Shards of Alara is released I'll try to draft more so I can learn the format and the cards, then after the PTQ I'll start really trying to tune some Standard decks, and then after States I'll start drafting more.

While the premier tournaments are what I'm working for, the process of getting there is the most time-consuming and had better be the most fun, and I hope you enjoy (and even learn from) my journey.