The feeling had been coming on for a while, a little at a time, but I kept paying it no heed. It started at a PTQ with one of those match wins you talk about for weeks. I actually saw a play several turns in advance, against a player I had never beaten, and took home a win I needed to keep playing. I didn't make Top 8 at that PTQ, but the trap was set... I was beginning to feel pretty good about my game.
What's that you say? Confidence is a good thing. You're probably right about that, there's just one problem...
I suck at Magic.
It's true. I wasn't completely sure, but then someone wrote a whole article about how I suck. [That was Scott Johns, but it was on Mindripper and can only be found via Wayback Machine. - Knut] It's all right, no need to cheer me up in the forums; I'm okay with it. The question is... are you? Because it's really easy to recognize the "suck" in someone else's game, but when it comes to examining ourselves, well, that's often a whole other story.
Recognizing the Danger
The truth is I'm actually getting to the point where I can hang with the best players I play with regularly. I don't win all the time, but I win my share and I don't sit down thinking that I'm going to lose anymore either. They respect my opinion and my game. That's the good news. The bad news is that I sometimes take myself a little too seriously, and that's occasionally been bad for my game.
I didn't really start to see it until a match about two months ago against a very good player who plays at our store. We were playing in the third round of the Swiss draft for all the marbles... the packs, the DCI Kird Ape, the damn glory of it all. He was playing a mono-Black deck with a small splash of green, tons of removal and a couple of decent creatures. I was playing a R/W deck that sported a bunch of Striders and Bushido guys, some really nice removal (including Hanabi Blast and Yamabushi's Flame), decent flyers and a Kumano to close the deal. We played three games, I dominated game one, lost game two when I failed to find a fourth mana before I died around turn 7, and dominated the third game - never once even casting Kumano in the match.
Then it began. "How does this deck ever lose? I've got 9 removal and great creatures (Bleeders, Grave robber, etc. - he wasn't lying, his deck was good). I can't believe I didn't 3-0." Of course, from my side of the table it was easy to see that he was completely dismissing my role in this whole affair, and it was a little offensive. I tried to explain to him what should have been obvious given that he really is the superior player: my deck was better (specifically I had strategic superiority - my two-toughness Bushido guys and four-toughness Striders were the perfect way to hold off his army of three power guys, and I had burn to deal with the Cutthroats and Marauder. The White soulshift chain, in conjunction with Blessed Breaths, was the perfect way to deal with his removal) and I had played very well while he missed a couple of points of damage in game 1 that may have cost him the game and match. He dismissed me immediately.
I didn't think much of it until about two weeks later. I'm playing a match against an opponent I have never lost to in 5 matches between us, and I have a very good version of my favorite CHK Block archetype - U/W (10 flyers, including double Mirror-Guard with Deep Hours action, 6 solid ground stoppers and some good tricks). I win game one fairly easily with the Rainshaper/Mirror-Guard/walls draw, but I lose game two to a sideboarded Gale Force that takes out my whole board. I make a note to not overextend in the air, and we move on to game 3. This is when it happened. We were locked in a tight battle, both trying to find a way through the muck, when time was called. When I untapped for turn 4 of the extras and topdecked my third land in a row I heard this, "How do I not win with this deck?" Unfortunately, it was coming from my mouth, and not immediately realizing how bad it sounded, I continued to bitch and whine about my luck, how broken my deck was, how I had 3-0'd with much worse decks, etc. Here's the worst part. My opponent untaps, looks at his card, and scoops in a really gracious way, pointing out that my deck really was good and I had a much better chance of getting the 3-0. Nothing like someone responding to your jerkocity with a really gracious move to make you feel like a Grade A schmuck (Is that spelled right? - I kept falling asleep in Yiddish slang class).
The worst part of this whole thing was that I was rude, and there's just no call for that when you're playing a game you're both trying to enjoy. If you take nothing else away from this article, know that you're not only doing yourself a disservice when you act this way (we'll talk more about this in a minute), but you're doing the game, your opponent and your Magic community a disservice. There's just no excuse. But if that's not a good enough reason to not act like a clown and dismiss your opponent, dig a little deeper into where that reaction comes from, especially if you don't think of yourself as the kind of person who acts this way over a game. Look deep enough and you'll find the real danger of becoming a "player" - beginning to believe that you "deserve" to win matches.
No One Ever Deserves To Win (okay, maybe SWK in the PT...)
I'm telling you now that you've never sat down at a match that you "deserved" to win. Matches that you held a strategic advantage in: check. Matches where you were capable of out playing your opponent on most nights: sure. But you've never "deserved" to win, and neither has anybody else (unless you/they were playing Mike Long... but that's a whole different story). All you "deserve" is the right to test your deck, skill and luck against the opponent across the table, and as soon as you let yourself believe that you should win the match simply because you're a better player than the other guy then you've already lost, even if you win the match, because you're giving up the opportunity to learn. Make no mistake, players who aren't as good as you, and matches you "deserved" to win, have lessons to teach you just as much as matches against the greats do. If you look at these matches as byes and fail to learn the lessons when you lose then you are giving up an opportunity to become a better player.
What Can You Learn From Losing To A "Scrub"?
So, you want to know what kind of lessons you can learn from these games. I'll give you a personal example. I spent a large chunk of last Extended season playing the U/W Mind's Desire deck, copied almost exactly from Osyp's early season list. I also spent a lot of time last season losing to players who I didn't expect to lose to. At first, I used all of the dismissive excuses: "I got horrible draws", "My opponent is a Luckity McLucksack", etc. But after reviewing my notes, and some soul-searching, I came to the lesson I needed to learn: I was attempting to play a deck that was beyond my skill level. Desire was a very skill intensive deck with a lot of calculations and difficult decisions to make. I was not (and am probably still not) equipped to play that deck well. It was also a deck that went to time a lot, which I absolutely hate (I need some wind down time between matches). I may have been a better player in general than several of the opponents I lost to, but I was not a better player with my deck than they were with theirs at those tournaments. The truth is, as much as I hate to admit it, that I am at my best as a beatdown player. I would much prefer to Force your Muscle Sliver and activate my Oath during upkeep, but I'm much better at knowing how to turn Jackal Pups sideways (and yes, I do believe there is skill in turning a Pup sideways).
That Thin Line (Or What Flores Calls "The Margins")
When you really break it down, most of us on the PTQ level need to realize this: The level of play between those of us who are consistently contenders and those of us who tend to ride the 3-3 bracket is actually quite thin. The difference in skill between the lower level PT regular and the top tier PTQ'er is much wider than the difference between that same top tier PTQ'er and the middle to low level PTQ player. There's a very thin line there, and if you want to continue to improve then you better learn to respect that line as oppose to letting it empower some feeling of entitlement.
Brian Greenway
StudRBTheory on AIM
brian@briangreenway.com
Bonus Section:
I've got a project I want to finish, and I need your help. Way back at Grand Prix 99 I got a couple of autographs that I carry in my bag to this day. Finkel signed Ophidian, Buehler signed Necro and Price signed a Mountain (Best. Card. Ever.). I've been meaning to complete the set ever since then, but I've just never gotten around to it. Now, to me, the obvious choice for Green is to have Wakefield sign a Verdant Force (by the way, hope all is well/best wishes to the lovely Mare). That part seems easy, and as we continue to hear good news about Mare I'll probably send Jamie a note eventually asking if I could mail him a Force to sign. The problem for me is who signs a white card, and what is it? My first reaction has always been Matt Linde and Abeyance. Because of the Nationals video that may very well have been the most seen white spell ever played. However, while I was out of Magic for a while it's my understanding that some guy named Kai might have done well with a White spell called Ramosian Sergeant. Perhaps Weismann and Serra Angel? I'm at a loss. Chime in on the boards and let me know what you think. Also, anyone think I should get an artifact signed too? If so, what and who?
Double Secret Bonus Section
With all of these asides I put in these articles I can see a problem down the line. I'm going to wake up one day with an email in my box from Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2, and all it's going to say it "Listen, bitch boy, I own the parenthesis, okay! - Knut" [Actually, I had to take the square brackets for this very reason. - Knut]
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