My first two daily articles thus far have addressed my judgment call/misplay (probably misplay) in some depth. That play has really been bothering me for some time, since it's the kind of misplay I hate the most. It's not something stupid like forgetting to tap your mana in the correct way, or missing a point of damage early in the game because you're rushing through your turns, or anything of that nature. I looked at a situation, weighed the pros and cons of the various options that I had available to me, and came to the incorrect conclusion. I find the latter to sting a lot more than the former.

Of course, that wasn't the only error that I made in London, not by a long shot. I missed a point of damage early on in the game by just rushing through my turn (I had Dreamcatcher, was going to cast an arcane that I intended to sac the Dreamcatcher to, and neglected to attack first by just going about my turn too quickly) which changed the entire dynamic of a game I barely lost, which our editor Ted Knutson was privy to live and uncut. I made a pick in a draft that turned out to be just horrible, and I should have known it was at the time, but I wasn't paying 100% attention to the draft. This pick, the third one of the entire draft, ended up effectively flushing my entire draft down the table en route to a 1-2 of the pod. However, as embarrassing as plays of this nature are, I can stomach a dozen of them easier than I can an error where I simply reasoned out all the available information and came to the incorrect conclusion.

There is a third nature of mistakes, which happen quite often at PTQ and Pro Tour level competition. I refer to them as "The Finkel Effect", but I'm certainly not the first person to refer to them as such. What it amounts to, in essence, is making the incorrect play against a superior (or someone you view as superior) opponent because you just know that this player has to have the perfect card in their hand, or the perfect card on top of their deck, or whatever else. It is so named, obviously, because many opponents (some of them very good) threw matches against Finkel because they made these sorts of assumptions. This happened all the time with Kai during his heyday, and I'm sure it happens to Oiso all the time now. I actually got to watch a variation of this yesterday, as I witnessed former StarCityGames.com daily columnist Geordie Tait play a game in a MODO draft.

Situation amounts to this: Geordie has a Patron of the Nezumi (tapped) and a Gibbering Kami (untapped) in play with nothing of note in his graveyard. He is on eleven life, and has a Devouring Greed under his Moonring Mirror. His opponent is on six, meaning that the Devouring Greed is lethal if he gets to untap with his two spirits. His opponent, who is R/W, attacks with a Mothrider Samurai and some random 1/1. His opponent has four lands in play, and a couple of cards in his hand. Geordie turns to me and says, "Do I need to chump block here?"

This might not be the best example, as his opponent was short of Charge Across the Araba mana, meaning there isn't really any card (or sequence of cards that I can think of, for that matter) that can kill Geordie in this situation. However, even if the guy had five lands in play, a chump here is still incorrect. You are conceding an almost guaranteed kill because the possibility exists that there your opponent has the one card in the format capable of killing you from this point. Of course, the more realistic possibility exists that your opponent can play down some guys, chump your Patron for a while, you won't draw a spirit, and lose the unloseable game. The fear of the better player having the perfect card causes players who are normally quite capable of playing well to make illogical, incorrect, or confusing plays under the assumption that the superior players has all of the perfect tools at their disposal.

Of course, this isn't limited to just individual matches of Magic, although that's where it's most common and most obvious. This also comes in deck selections, draft selections, and almost any other aspect of the game. It happened to me in London as well.

I had a strategy for London. Don't Draft Green. I hated Green in CCC, hated it even more in CCB, and hated it the most in CBS (since it means you would actually be fighting people for Green). The other side of the coin was "If at all possible, Draft Black". Usually in Limited, I just prefer to draft the "best" color in the block, regardless of how over-drafted it is. I made the top 8 of GP: Detroit drafting Black downstream of other Black drafters. I felt very comfortable drafting Black, and knew which cards should be my 21^st, 22^nd, or 23^rd cards. In contrast, with Green my deck always felt underpowered, I wasn't comfortable making the picks that were close, and I was sure I was messing up my builds of my Green decks.

Fast forward to the PT itself. I'm 8-4 heading into the last table. With the exception of my unfortunate foray into R/U, the aforementioned 1-2, I was Black in all three drafts and had a combined record of 7-2. My last table was by far my toughest, however. I get to my seat and find Itaru Ishida, Jelger Weigersma, Jon Sonne, Rogier Maaten, and two other players who I recognized. It was the first table where I felt I was in the bottom half of the player quality, and for the first time the entire weekend I felt a bit nervous. I open up my first pack, and it's bone dry. I thumb around the three playable cards for a long time.

Mystic Restrains
Pull Under
Moss Kami

I quickly push the Blue card to the back, as I think it's just weaker than the other two and not even in my preferred color. So, there they are, Mossy and Pull Under. Of course, in an abstraction, Moss Kami is a much more powerful card. But then there are the rules. Draft Black, Don't Draft Green. Take the Pull Under, ship the Moss Kami.

I take a look up at the players at the table, and select the Moss Kami.

The next pack I am offered the exact same selection. Pull Under or Moss Kami. The draft begins to feel like a nightmare. I feel that, even though I can't win with Green, and I've done very well with Black, that I need to take the better cards to beat the better players. And this Moss Kami here, that's Itaru sending me a signal, and I can't fight someone that good for their colors and maybe Green will be underdrafted and maybe maybe maybe...

So, basically the draft is over at this point, I've locked myself into my least favorite color, I am not comfortable making any pick that even seems close, and I make several terrible picks, locking myself into G/W, a deck that easily makes my Top 5 list of Worse Decks I've Ever Drafted On Any Level. I'm talking about FNM five years ago when I was terrible beyond words. I'm talking about drunken drafts, bottom right drafts, drunken bottom right drafts, you name it. This deck is up there. Going into this draft, a 3-0 would have finished me in the Top 16, and put me on the train for a while. A 2-1 would have meant a Top 32, an invite to Los Angeles, and a probably worlds invite. A 1-2 would have finished me in the Top 48, which is at least a respectable finish, and might give me a ratings invite to the next Limited PT. An 0-3, no cash, basically no points, back to PTQing.

So, after my third blowout loss of the draft, I try to figure out what went wrong. I try justifying it to myself at first that I took the better cards, that there was never a clean window out of G/W, that Itaru was U/B and the dude to my right was Red so I was at least in a good position color wise. Eventually I came to the answer. I just psyched myself out. Got too tricky, figured I needed to switch things up against the tougher table, whatever. What I should have done, obviously, was just stick to the plan that got me to where I was at, regardless of player level.

I thought I had developed as a player to the point where I wouldn't do that to myself. However, it was a wake-up call that I am still miles and miles away from where I want to be as a player. Wish it wasn't such an expensive lesson, but it is what it is.

I'm not entirely sure how helpful this will be to the people reading this. It's very possible that this isn't something that translates very well into a lesson other people can learn, or even something where a player can identify it when it happens to them. But the basic gist of it is this: Ignore the name of the person sitting across from you, don't overthink yourself, don't second-guess your play based on the quality of your opponent, and don't take yourself out of your comfortable element as a player because of the person you are playing against. Even at the highest levels it occurs and is just as costly as any other error you can make.