Losing Sucks…
This week I want to touch on Magic and what you can learn from losing. This past FNM I went 1-3 on the night. It was my worst tournament outing ever. When you lose you can do a couple of things: whine about how you got unlucky with your card draws (which I did), or look at the night and find out where things went south (I casted a Gideon Jura with a Vampire Hexmage on the battlefield). This single misplay ruined my whole night. The game would have likely ended much differently had I not botched up that single play. When all is said and done, you can step back and ask yourself, “What have I learned?”
In all honesty, the night mostly was just bad draws from a deck that has very little drawing power. I found myself behind early on in most of my games due to decks featuring some kind of early removal. Initially, I decided to sleeve up my own version of Mythic Conscription featuring Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Gideon Jura maindeck. Other than those two cards it was a pretty stock deck. Throughout all of my play testing during the week, the deck dominated most of the match-ups. I beat Jund handily; I mopped the floor with Vampires and handled Polymorph pretty easily. The one deck I forgot to test against was Naya. I honestly wasn’t concerned with it based on the fact that I could beat Jund, and shut down Naya’s Basilisk Collar, Cunning Sparkmage combination with Linvala. I was so confident that Jesse, my team member, was really torn on what to play knowing that my deck was so dominant. In the end he sleeved up a version of Jund that we came up with that gave it a good chance against everything in the meta- with my deck being the exception for the most part.
My night started off with Vampires. I learned a lot about my deck right off the bat in the first game after having my Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch removed without a problem. Mythic has NOTHING if you remove its early threats. After that, I battled through to drop a Baneslayer Angel and took the game. It was game two that I discovered a HUGE flaw with my deck. I had absolutely no removal outside of Celestial Purge in my SB. The purge served me well until my opponent dropped a Malakir Bloodwitch. It then occurred to me that this card was going to be the end of my night when it got played unless I could draw an Eldrazi Conscription. It didn’t happen, and just like that, I was 0-1 on the night. This was also the game where I played my Gideon with a Hexmage on the board in a game where I had complete control.
Match two was against Jund. With confidence I beat my opponent down (with a little luck) in the first game with the Sovereigns of Lost Alara Eldrazi Conscription combo. The second game post SB, my challenger still had no gas. This Jund deck ran very little removal and I was able to run it over pretty easily even after mulliganing down to four during the second game. What did I learn from this win? Honestly, not a whole lot. I had expected to beat Jund in the fashion that I did. If I had to guess, this was a budget Jund deck- there were no Maelstrom Pulses and I didn’t see Sarkhan the Mad. At this point, I was 1-1 and feeling better about myself.
Match three was against my teammate who was 1-1 on the night as well. He wasn’t thrilled at the challenge he was going to face in trying to overcome my deck. It was this match that honestly got me the most upset with myself and really turned everything for the worse. This was the worst luck in a match I had ever had. During game one I managed to pull 1 mana after mulliganing down to five- my hand was Forest, Birds, Heiarach, Baneslayer and Lotus Cobra. I figured I could work with this and that I’d draw some gas along with lands. Boy was I wrong. I didn’t pull a single land, and all of my acceleration was removed early and fast. This game was over by turn six. Game two rolled around and I had to mulligan down to six, but I had a sick draw. I was feeling pretty good about myself. I managed to stick a turn three Gideon, and felt like I had the board locked up. It was then that I had three consecutive Maelstrom Pulses played on me to end my night. Good game, but talk about luck not on my side. Luck is part of Magic, but this loss was hard to swallow. I was now 1-2 on the night, and out of contention for the top four. The good news was that my teammate was primed to make his way in!
Match four was against Naya, and this is where things really took a turn downhill. I won the first game when my opponent got mana screwed. Game two post SB, I got hit with removal and once again, (surprise, surprise), crappy hands. I had to go down to five and was run over by Vengevine. Game three was almost a carbon copy of game two, and my night was over.
Losing sucks…but what can I really take from this? I had a lousy SB for the match-ups I faced. I think in the end if I had had a better SB, I could have taken a game or two, but everybody’s deck was so much better post SB than mine, I didn’t have much of a shot. Luck also did play a big factor throughout my night, so I can’t really learn much from that except to know that if you’re playing Mythic Conscription, you are going to have to do the best with what you’ve got in your opening hand. Luck is a huge factor with this deck because it doesn’t draw extra cards and can lose its momentum VERY fast. In the end, it was a very educational night, I met some new people, and I look forward to going 1-3 again sometime soon. I might also go 4-0, who knows! Until then, remember that losing sucks, but it’s what you can learn from your mistakes and loses that will make you a better player.
Why I Came Back
Wake up world! My name is Bob Lanza, self-proclaimed Magic: The Gathering geek, and collector of cards. I work as an IT Guru during the day, and at night I Sleep. I picked up Magic again around January 2009 and have since had success as of late on the tournament scene. I’m one of the founding members of Team Chaotic. I’ll be writing articles on the current meta, life, and possibly the occasional rant. Welcome, and enjoy!
I can’t begin to tell you how many people out there in the world today play Magic: The Gathering. Every corner I turn, I find someone else who is ready and raring to duel. Magic is a game of strategy, wits, luck, and let’s face it- money. If you don’t have the most recent cards, you don’t have what it takes to reach that next level. But seriously, who doesn’t want to play a game slated in a fantasy world where you are a Planeswalker (a superior being who has not only potent magic, but the ability to walk from one plane of existence to another). At your control are countless spells, creatures, enchantments, artifacts and other tools to show your dominance over man and beast. The trick is combining these abilities into something that will not only make you the victor, but also showcase your smarts. I digress.
I started playing Magic when I was about 13-years-old, circa 1994. Magic was young and new, and some of the kids at school started playing. I found this new card game fascinating and being the geek that I am, (seriously, if you play magic you’re a geek- embrace it) I was full on hooked from the first time I tapped a forest for this magic called “mana.” Back then there weren’t nearly as many cards as there are today, and having certain cards gave you a flat out advantage. Being only 13 at the time, it was difficult to procure money to buy booster packs, boxes, starter packs and other accessories. Every chance I got, I scraped together a few bucks here or there for some cards, never knowing what a “rare” was let alone today’s “mythic rares.” I knew what I liked and what worked for me. I thought that cards like Craw Wurm were amazing because of the sheer power. I ran the Channel Fireball combo for a bit, and then everybody stopped playing me. But for the most part back then, I kept things simple: Green Stompy and Red Burn, both of which led me to mild success. When the Ice Age block came out, I had begged and pleaded for a booster box from my family. I don’t recall how much these boxes cost back then, but I know they were not too thrilled that this was my latest obsession and it was EXPENSIVE even then! Needless to say, I got the box and with that came new cards and new ways to beat my friends.
High school rolled around shortly after, and my cards disappeared into The Abyss that is my closet. There they sat for 14 years. Jokingly in my last year of college (last of 7) I had talked about my geeky tendencies and how I used to play Magic: The Gathering. I couldn’t believe that one of my good college friends used to play when he was younger, and better yet, he still had his cards! Just like that, the addiction started all over again. However, now I’m older and smarter (I think), and more in tune with the way things work.
After trying to find new techniques to beat my friends, I decided that I needed a new edge- that’s right, cards from the new sets. I started by buying a box of Conflux. After opening them, I remembered the thrill of pulling a rare card. Shortly thereafter, I learned about the tournament scene and what was legal for each format. It was then that I decided I was going to become a Standard Legal kind of guy. Hell, I just spent 80 bucks on a box of Conflux, how much could it cost to go back to Shards of Alara and then just keep up with everything afterwards? Man it’s expensive, but oh so worth it! The game to this day still keeps me thinking, “how can I play better- no, perfectly!”
As they say, the rest is history. I currently have found many more people to duel, and I have since formed/joined a team of experienced players from both way back in the day and the present time. I have had some recent luck as a deck builder and player in some tournaments lately. Limited is something completely untapped for me, and yet I’ve won the last three Sealed events in which I’ve participated. In the end, this hobby of mine has cost me big bucks, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, except maybe a foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor.