Preparation, or lack thereof

I have two weeks until Grand Prix Oakland, and I've been playing very little actual Extended matches. I haven't even been doing side-by-side testing, because of a lack of faith in it. When you can't figure out how Dark Depths beats Scapeshift when it's supposed to be a very good matchup according to people who actually play Magic, or similarly when you think Faeries can beat Burn, your methods may be flawed.

Also consider that there are a MILLION viable decks, unlike Standard where Jund was the big bogeyman and I was basically trying three or four decks to see if they beat Jund. I've come to the conclusion that if I pick out a top tier deck and come armed with a solid sideboard, I can do fine as long as I like my deck.

Add to the fact that Worldwake may not have added many cards to the format, except maybe the new Wasteland which only really nerfs Scapeshift, and I can just use the current metagame to figure out what the most powerful decks are.

I'm proxying four or five decks I could conceivably play:
- Steppe Lynx Zoo
- Faeries
- Aggro-Scapeshift
- Thopter Depths
- Red Burn

I'm bringing them with me to the prerelease this Saturday pretty early and battling anyone who will battle me. In fact, I'll probably be going to a lot of events just with these decks battling anyone who will battle me. I'm not interested in collecting data, but instead just finding a deck I "like", and figuring out how matchups go. I think all these decks are the most powerful decks in the format, it will just be a matter of getting comfortable with them and knowing the interactions.

I'll probably end up purchasing the cards for ALL of these decks and bringing them to Oakland and then making a metagame decision and adjusting my sideboard accordingly. Maybe in the meantime I will stumble upon a brew I like that has good matchups against most decks in the format and that people won't have a clue about, ala my Naya deck last May for the Grand Prix. (I went 16-5 with that deck that weekend. One poor match away from top 8'ing the PTQ!)

I've said it many times, but Constructed is hard...

Tracking and evaluating your performance, or lamenting over bad results

A couple times today I started to write depressing pieces about how awful I am at Magic and how frustrating Constructed is. (For your information, I went 2-2 in the PTQ and 1-3 in the subsequent GPT with Scapeshift. My commentary will only be speculative, ask someone who actually did well.) I asked myself the question "Am I actually doing well in PTQs", and decided to track my performance.

I accumulated the records in all of the PTQs and Grand Prixs that I have participated in. That would be 23 PTQs and 5 GP's. Here are my results:

PTQ Yokohama (T1.x) - 1 PTQ, 3-3-1
PTQ Valencia (TSP Block Constructed) - 2 PTQs, 1-6
2007 Total - 4-9-1

PTQ Hollywood (T1.x) - 3 PTQs and 1 GP, 17-13
PTQ Kyoto (Shards Limited) - 4 PTQs and 1 GP, 14-20
2008 Total - 7 PTQs and 2 GPs, 31-33

PTQ Honolulu (T1.x) - 5 PTQs and 1 GP, 10-12-5
PTQ Austin (T2) - 3 PTQs and 1 GP, 16-13
Grand Prix Boston (M10 Limited) - 11-4
PTQ San Diego (Zendikar Limited) - 4 PTQs, 15-10-1
2009 Total - 12 PTQs and 3 GPs, 52-41-6

Unlike the Magic meme that went around a while back, I didn't put down what Top 8's I've had or anything like that because I don't have any. If out of dumb luck I were to Top 8 a major event and they asked me my major finishes, I'd write down "I've won FNMs" and that wouldn't be facetious in any sense.

I crunched the numbers for 2009 to look for any indication if I were "due" for a PTQ Top 8. Under the very strong assumption that a 52% win percentage is valid for every round of the PTQ, and that to Top 8 a PTQ you must win the first 6 out of 8 rounds (and ID twice) or otherwise win 7 of 8, I'd top 8 a PTQ 4.9% of the time, or once every 20 PTQs. Crunching these numbers further, the probability of not making a single Top 8 in the 12 PTQs in which I participated in 2009 is 54%. (For fun, the probability under such assumptions that I could win a given PTQ is 0.7%.)

The conclusion? Yes, I am getting better. I have played in more PTQs and Grand Prixes, and I have won more every year. I am still a mile away from Top 8'ing a PTQ. I think people (at least ones I'd consider friends) think I'm a competent Magic player, but would you have considered the Seattle Mariners a competent baseball team this past season?

Another alarming conclusion is that in 2009 my record is better in Limited than in Constructed. Maybe it's because I can afford to draft for fun on paper and online because of getting to collect/sell paper cards and because I'm close to breaking even drafting online. I guess I really need to re-evaluate my Constructed preparation.

My next major tournament, besides any GPT's that pop up in the area, will be Grand Prix Oakland in six weeks. I'm not sure if it will be more beneficial to take a break from Extended and Magic for a while or if eating and breathing more Extended will help me get there. The last two Constructed events I had the benefit of Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations on the East Coast to spend sitting on my computer bashing decks together on my computer. Without those now, do I start my preparation now, or figure out how to work smarter and not harder?