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Half a Step Behind the Game
Mar. 18th, 2006 10:46 pmI'm decent at Magic. I'm not great, but I'm pretty good, and I know I can be better. But today I was defeated in part thanks to my Inner Ferrett. Or maybe a combination of Inner Bruce. (Both articles are about Magic, but dudes, you should read them anyway, because while they're ABOUT Magic, Magic's just the medium. Especially for Rizzo's. The rest of this is going to be about Magic, until the last little bit, so you could scroll to that if Magic bores you.)
Today, you see, was the state championship events for the Two-Headed Giant format in Magic, down in Richmond. It's a fun format, and not all that much pressure, really. Two players, build two decks from the cards you get, and then beat the stuffing out of other people. Me and the Zac(k/h)s went, and my friend Nik. We opened up cards that were okay but not really that good to register, and were glad to see the back of them when we were done. Then they came back. After looking and thinking and agonizing and bitching, we managed to assemble a pair of relatively not-bad decks. But not really that good, either. And so the tournament commenced. The first round, we got paired against Bennie Smith and a friend of his. It set things off on a poor note, because I drew all of five non-land cards, and Nik never got one of his lands, we got smashed. We didn't really expect otherwise. So winning the next two rounds was a bonus. Even if I was a bad player for part of the second match and didn't realize I could have been swinging to the face with my big dude, but we still won. And the third match, well, our decks just loved us and gave us exactly what we needed.
It was the fourth match where things came down to it. One of the opposing team was wearing a Pro Tour Hawaii competitor shirt, but I didn't worry about that. Even the pros can be beaten. Even better decks can be beaten. What beat us, really, was us. They had a Ghost Council, which is a pain in the ass. But we had a chance to get rid of it, but neither of us noticed it until after we'd already blown it. Poor communication, and playing too quickly without thinking things through. Nik had a Graven Dominator, which turns all dudes into 1/1 dudes when it comes into play, and the opponent had only the council and a flying dude. I had a Trophy Hunter, who can shoot flying dudes down, and Nik had a Viashino Fangtail, who can shoot any dude for 1. But the Trophy Hunter costs mana to use, and I'd jumped ahead and used all my mana to summon my big Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi. I could have shot the flying dude, then without the creature to sac to save the Council, Nik could have shot the Council, and we would have had a good chance of winning. Instead, we died. To the Ghost Council.
And then since we were all x-2, we dropped and drove home. Which concludes the Magic portion of this post.
The most frustrating part of the loss in round 4 was I saw the move we should have done just after we were done. If I'd spent the time to stop and think things out, instead of just going "Yay! I can play my dude!" like I'd decided to do beforehand, since I knew the dude was coming up, we probably could have won. And if I'd talked with Nik about the play and we'd taken our time, we probably would have seen it. But I wanted to go "YAY! I PLAY MY D00D!" and my mind was running behind the game. It's one of my weaknesses in other areas of life too, I always think of what I should have said or done, anywhere between ten minutes and a day after I've already screwed it up. I need to learn to think faster, and ahead. But not into the future, think ahead enough that my brain's keeping up with Now, and can guess where Now is going.
I'm not quite sure how to do that. Oh, I have ideas for Magic. For example, JamieW used to have a rule, play the game with a D4, and every time you make a mistake, crank it up 1. If you get to 4, count it as a loss, even if you win. Because you screwed up, and in a good game, any mistake can cost you the game. Practice is all there is to it. But most of life isn't as easy to practice as Magic, and if you screw it up, you don't just reshuffle and get ready for Game 2.
Today, you see, was the state championship events for the Two-Headed Giant format in Magic, down in Richmond. It's a fun format, and not all that much pressure, really. Two players, build two decks from the cards you get, and then beat the stuffing out of other people. Me and the Zac(k/h)s went, and my friend Nik. We opened up cards that were okay but not really that good to register, and were glad to see the back of them when we were done. Then they came back. After looking and thinking and agonizing and bitching, we managed to assemble a pair of relatively not-bad decks. But not really that good, either. And so the tournament commenced. The first round, we got paired against Bennie Smith and a friend of his. It set things off on a poor note, because I drew all of five non-land cards, and Nik never got one of his lands, we got smashed. We didn't really expect otherwise. So winning the next two rounds was a bonus. Even if I was a bad player for part of the second match and didn't realize I could have been swinging to the face with my big dude, but we still won. And the third match, well, our decks just loved us and gave us exactly what we needed.
It was the fourth match where things came down to it. One of the opposing team was wearing a Pro Tour Hawaii competitor shirt, but I didn't worry about that. Even the pros can be beaten. Even better decks can be beaten. What beat us, really, was us. They had a Ghost Council, which is a pain in the ass. But we had a chance to get rid of it, but neither of us noticed it until after we'd already blown it. Poor communication, and playing too quickly without thinking things through. Nik had a Graven Dominator, which turns all dudes into 1/1 dudes when it comes into play, and the opponent had only the council and a flying dude. I had a Trophy Hunter, who can shoot flying dudes down, and Nik had a Viashino Fangtail, who can shoot any dude for 1. But the Trophy Hunter costs mana to use, and I'd jumped ahead and used all my mana to summon my big Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi. I could have shot the flying dude, then without the creature to sac to save the Council, Nik could have shot the Council, and we would have had a good chance of winning. Instead, we died. To the Ghost Council.
And then since we were all x-2, we dropped and drove home. Which concludes the Magic portion of this post.
The most frustrating part of the loss in round 4 was I saw the move we should have done just after we were done. If I'd spent the time to stop and think things out, instead of just going "Yay! I can play my dude!" like I'd decided to do beforehand, since I knew the dude was coming up, we probably could have won. And if I'd talked with Nik about the play and we'd taken our time, we probably would have seen it. But I wanted to go "YAY! I PLAY MY D00D!" and my mind was running behind the game. It's one of my weaknesses in other areas of life too, I always think of what I should have said or done, anywhere between ten minutes and a day after I've already screwed it up. I need to learn to think faster, and ahead. But not into the future, think ahead enough that my brain's keeping up with Now, and can guess where Now is going.
I'm not quite sure how to do that. Oh, I have ideas for Magic. For example, JamieW used to have a rule, play the game with a D4, and every time you make a mistake, crank it up 1. If you get to 4, count it as a loss, even if you win. Because you screwed up, and in a good game, any mistake can cost you the game. Practice is all there is to it. But most of life isn't as easy to practice as Magic, and if you screw it up, you don't just reshuffle and get ready for Game 2.
