This list was inspired by Sam Stoddard's Misetings thread and subsequent article on Star City from a year ago. I wrote this at an airport on my way back from Atlanta, because I felt semi-inspired after the PTQ because I knew I was not awful but could definitely get better. I'll just copy-paste the document I have on my computer.
Some of these might not make sense as it was just brainstorming, and isn't in any kind of particular order of importance, so feel free to ask about them or make suggestions.
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Things I Do Not Like About My Game
Most Magic players at PTQ’s make tons of mistakes. The difference with professionals is that professionals don’t make mistakes; they win the games they are supposed to win, lose the games they are supposed to lose, and don’t throw away games they are winning.
- Antonino de Rosa
“Kai Budde could have won that game.”
- Masashi Oiso
All
- I have to re-evaluate my plan every time I get the turn back, and end up playing too slow as a result.
- I'll have a particular plan playing around a card, but then I don't switch plans when it's not right to play around that card anymore.
- My mentality changes when I play against players that are a lot better than me, like Gurney, Jason, and Charles. I clearly played differently against Charles when I had no idea who he was.
- If my opponent’s play fast, I try to keep up and end up playing worse as a result.
- I don’t remember my plays well enough to re-evaluate games that I lose to find mistakes, especially if they are mistakes in planning or subtle mistakes.
- When I want to win the tournament, I put too much stress on myself during the game to think clearly. I have to just concentrate on playing correctly instead of going X-1-1.
- I bend the hell out of my lands when I play and tap them, so my shuffling is suspect. I should just lay down my cards normally.
- I don’t know how to sideboard when there aren’t obviously dead cards.
- I really don’t know how to sideboard net decks as a result.
- When I think of sideboarding, I think of specific cards instead of the strategy as a whole.
- I don’t play Control decks fast enough to be confident in taking them to a tournament because of the mirror match.
- I don’t play enough different decks in testing to be able to switch decks the day if the metagame suggests to.
- I stick to testing one deck because of card availability, so it sometimes turns out that the week of the tournament that I realize the deck I’ve been playing is not a Tier 1 deck.
- I don’t test the mirror match enough to understand how to win them.
- I don’t adjust when net decks need to be adjusted and when they don’t. They are not always the optimal lists even if they top 8 a PTQ, but they also aren’t always awful.
- I don’t know how to build my own decks, or I don’t know what strategies would be powerful or just underwhelming.
- I don’t know how to play against Control decks or to play around counterspells. I always presume they have it.
- Shards of Alara specific – I can’t stay disciplined to two colors and end up playing a bad mana base.
- I don’t know when my deck can mulligan aggressively and when I can’t; I tend to mulligan aggressively all the time and I don’t know when keeping a one-lander is appropriate, or when my deck can't do better than what I've got
- In general, I don’t know how to split my lands.
- I give away my tricks when I go into the tank or tap my mana to consider playing it.
- Shards of Alara sealed specific – I don’t know when it’s appropriate to build a greedy deck.
- I don’t remember what cards are in my deck well enough and what cards I’ve picked in the current pack, especially pack 3, to evaluate the cards that I need.
- On MODO, I don't block as tightly. I presume from their ratings that they make loose attacks, since I (correctly?) presume from their ratings whether I can bluff a trick by attacking.
- I'm not good at new formats when I don't know all the cards., and when I don't know all the cards, I don't take detailed enough notes.
2 comments:
I can say for your Shard-specific comment that if you're not at a table who's all committed to 2-color decks, you certainly have a tough time staying with 2 colors unless you play some real clunkers (shadowfeed anyone?) and the power/consistency curve leans towards having a third color.
Okay, so what I really mean is staying two mains and splashing a third. The decks where I can do that I've been winning more on MODO, and the decks where I'm spread out I can't mulligan as much.
Although I did manage to draft the five-color bomb deck, and it was quite fun, even if I lost in the final :)
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