- Classic Magic theorist Mike Flores
- "The Innovator" Patrick Chapin
- Level Six Mage & 2007 Invitational Champion Tiago Chan
- Deckbuilder extraordinaire Adrian Sullivan
- Limited expert Nick Eisel
- Vintage expert Stephen Menendian
- Pro Tour deck designer Benjamin Peebles-Mundy
- Fan favorites Richard Feldman
& Kyle Sanchez
... and many, many more!
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[I love psulli, but after listening to his "I'll write for you very soon" assurances for almost a year, I felt I needed to commemorate his first article on our site with a special picture to show you what he's been doing instead of writing for you, our loyal readers. Enjoy the article, folks! - Knut]
I'm not an especially motivated person in nearly any facet of my life, and writing is no exception. Time after time, I have promised the excellent editor and even more excellent all-around guy Ted Knutson that I would write something for his website. Our exchanges usually go something like this.
Me: Hello Ted. (Insert insult about his alma matter, his haircut, whatever.)
Ted: Hey jerk, (insert insult about my lack of alma matter, my clothing, whatever), when are you going to write something for my site?
Me: I promise, something really awesome after this premier level event that I'm going to destroy.
Ted: Whatever, I'll believe it when I see it.
And Ted never, ever gets it. Usually this can be marked up to me crapping out of the event in question and not wanting to subject the general public to some poorly thought-out rant about land screw, how much sealed deck sucks, and so forth. I'm really not the person you want writing tournament reports for Pro Tours because, quite frankly, I'm not very good at them. After returning from the PTQ in NJ last weekend (congrats, Mike Clair), I got the idea that perhaps I could write about doing well in PTQs.
I guess a little background would be helpful for those of you out there that aren't all that familiar with me. My name is Patrick Sullivan, probably a name you would recognize if you have read any of Mike Flores's articles within the past nine months. I live in central NJ, and I have been playing on the Pro Tour for about four years now. It's important to distinguish between playing on the Pro Tour and being on the Pro Tour, as I have never had 20 or more PT points at once in my entire career. Actually, I have had somewhere between 16-19 for the last two years or so. I have one Grand Prix Top 8 about a million years ago, a team GP Top 2 last year, and a couple other money finishes scattered across a few GPs and team PTs. My main claim to fame (or infamy, more accurately) is winning seven individual PTQs over the last three and a half years. If there is something I know how to do besides do poorly at a PT, it is win a PTQ.
So that will be the major theme of the article: how to go from going x-2 at a PTQ or losing in the Top 8, to winning PTQs. I have seen many talented players (most notably until now Mike Clair), play in PTQ after PTQ and not win, and furthermore not understand why they weren't winning. It isn't a lack of talent that keeps players like Mike from winning a PTQ. Mike was probably among the top 95% of PTQ players in the area for a long time before finally taking home the envelope. Mike knew his deck, knew his matchups, knew the rules, and knew how to play Magic, yet success eluded him for a long time. So what does it take to win? Part of it has to do with catching some good breaks-to win one of these things, you have to catch a little bit of good luck over the course of the day. The much larger part of it, though, and something most quality PTQ players don't understand, is that what happens before the tournament itself influences things much more than the individual matches of Magic you play during the day. When it comes to winning at the PTQ level, the separation between the winners and the also-rans involves realizing how bad most of the players are and capitalizing on that as much as possible. With that in mind, the following are some very basic principles that a good player should take into a PTQ.
Rule #1: Stop metagaming so much.
This rule, more than anything else, is the most important factor in winning a Constructed PTQ. Players week after week bring out a completely different deck, with a completely different strategy, than the deck they brought the week before. This is bad for many reasons. First, PTQ metagames move so quickly (or more accurately, are so random and unique to an area) that correctly predicting the field at large is a nearly impossible task. Second, in a field like Extended, the types of decks people bring to PTQs vary so much (people like to home-brew in a vast field like Extended, or Invasion block Constructed for those of you who can remember that far back) that trying to compensate for every possible deck and strategy is an exercise in futility. Last, nothing - not a single solitary thing - influences your matchups more than playing your deck better than the person across from you plays his. Instead of trying to play the best deck according to the speculated field, play the deck in the format that you know how to play the best, unless the metagame becomes so warped that your deck is unplayable (or your deck is not very good to start out with).
Rule #2: If at all possible, play an interactive deck.
This is something Mike Flores touched on in a recent article on this site, and I think it's worth mentioning again. Now, there's nothing wrong with playing a deck like Desire or Aluren if you can play it well and you think the metagame is ripe for it. In fact, decks like this often sport the best numbers across the metagame at large. The problem is, decks with an isolation strategy inherently limit your ability to interact with your opponent, who will usually be vastly worse than you are.
The next time you are done early with a round at a PTQ, look around the room at the people playing at the other tables. Watch the people who are just goldfishing up draws and playing against no one. Usually, they will play the right cards in the right order, assemble their combo pieces in the most efficient manner, and so on. Most people, even the ones that are very bad, know how their decks work on this basic level. Then watch the people playing, either in a round or for fun against their friends. You will see mistake after mistake after mind-blowing mistake. This is because the people who make up the bulk of the PTQ field know how their deck plays out, but they don't know how to play Magic. I mean, they know, but they might as well not know, given how poorly they play. The basic premise here is, instead of you isolating yourself and letting your opponent goldfish his draw unmolested, force him to play a game of Magic against you. I'm sure you'll like the results.
This is one of the reasons that I like RDW so much (and, in spite of a totally different metagame and a half a dozen new sets of cards, I have been playing the same list for about three years now). It draws up about the same opening hand every time, and all the cards do pretty much the same thing, which minimizes the number of times that you lose to your own draws. It puts your opponents under pressure in a variety of ways, with early creatures, mana denial, and the threat of burn-out. These factors cause a bad player to mess up far more than they would against a deck like Aluren, for example, which only threatens an opponent in one way that's much more up-front and tangible than the threats posed by RDW. Plus, attacking with Goblin Cadets is the sickest thing of all time.
Obligatory Poker Analogy:
If the previous explanation was a little wordy or convoluted, the following will make sense to all you poker players out there. Let's say you are playing in a No Limit ring game against nine people who are so much better than you that it's disgusting. You know that they will outplay you on every flop, so you'll be strung along on hands that you are losing and won't make very much money on that hands that you do win. In a situation like this, you should be more inclined to shove before the flop, since you are aware of all the math up front and it limits the other people's ability to outplay you. On the other hand, if you are the one awesome player at the table full of idiots, you try to get to the flop more often than you would in general, since your superior skill allows you to maximize gains and minimize losses against people who don't know odds, aren't very perceptive, or just plain old suck. To complete the analogy, PTQs are that ten-man table with nine buffoons, so you should play a deck that allows you to "get to the flop," so to speak, and outplay people who just aren't very good at the game.
Rule #3 Don't be mean to your opponents, especially those who are very bad.
First things first, being mean to your opponents is just a rude thing to do, and it makes you look like an asshole to everyone watching-including the judges. But there are actually tangible reasons to be polite and chatty. A lot of people play in PTQs with no intention of winning the slot or even making the Top 8. Many do it just to (gasp!) have fun and kill an afternoon. These people will often make mistakes because they aren't paying very much attention to what's going on, whether it's because they're watching the matches next to them, chatting with you, or paying attention to any other distraction that presents itself. Furthermore, these people aren't so much focused on winning the match at hand as they are enjoying themselves and playing a game. Just because these people are usually not very good at Magic doesn't mean they are dumb, and they can tell if you are mocking them or their decks, trying to rules lawyer them, or whatever other scumbag trick you try to pull. Suddenly, you've taken away their fun (their primary motivation to play), and now they are going to focus on beating you, as opposed to focusing on something else. Being rude often causes the bad, casual player to tighten up and focus as much as he can on beating you, which is obviously the exact opposite of the effect you want to have on your opponent. Besides the effect that it has in the short term - gaining the reputation as the asshole scumbag everyone wants to smash - isn't something you generally want to do.
There's a lot more to say (probably enough to fill a second article, although I won't get Ted's hopes up), but the basic idea is this: if you are better at Magic than the people you're playing against, you'll get the best results by playing the best Magic you can and making them play Magic against you. Don't worry about figuring out the metagame breaker, and don't get tricky and add all sorts of bizarre cards to a staple deck-just play something good, something you play well, and something that lets you play Magic. Any comments, complaints, or anything else, chat in the forums or email me at PSulli81 at yahoo dot com.
Patrick
Bonus Feature - Six Feet of Rage
There are two things have really been irking me lately that in no way relate to PTQs or even the PT.
The first is EDT for the invitational. Now, I know EDT is a pretty popular guy and I'm going to catch a lot of flack for speaking ill of him, but I can't actually believe he is being suggested for the invitational. To me, the invitational represents sixteen of the best deckbuilders, players, and personalities getting together to play magic in front of the internet public. Whenever I cast my vote for the invitational, the question I ask myself is "Who out of these people would I most like to watch play Magic?" EDT, quite frankly, isn't good enough at Magic or involved enough in the community to warrant consideration, much less get on the ballot. This doesn't make him a bad person by any stretch-in fact, I think he's a pretty solid guy-but I do think it makes him a bad vote for the invitational. As a related note, how did Antonio not get on the Road Warrior ballot? The guy is a larger-than-life personality, a noted deck builder and innovator, and someone who flew to God-Forsaken Hong Kong for a Grand Prix. When I heard that this was going to be a ballot in the first place, I assumed Antonio was a shoe-in, and his exclusion is inexcusable.
Second, the third day of PTs often involves a "Femvitational" or some other crappy girls-only standard tournament. Can we please get this to stop? Magic isn't football or driving-girls can compete at Magic on the same playing field with the guys. Trying to shelter girls in sexist competitions that are more for the guys watching them than for the girls anyway just reinforces misconceptions of both guys and girls. Think of it this way. There are usually about as many girls playing in the PT as there are black people (assuming Osyp is included). If every PT Sunday had a "Negrotational" tournament where only black people could compete, how long do you think it would take for the PT site to riot?
Let's drop the sexist tournaments, or at least replace them with a real females-only tournament, like Foxy Boxing. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm certain my wife could take on any girl in a Foxy Boxing match, so if someone wants to try to get that together, I'm all ears.
