Magical Cards part 2
How did I do?
Sorry that I didn't get back ont his before after getting so exicted about it two weeks ago and so many people replying with their own magic experience. I have been away for the last week visiting a lot of people I hadn;t seen in a long time. (but that had nothing to do with the cards)
Anyway, how did I do?
Not good.
Worse than that..
Real Bad actually
I placed 100somethingth out of............... 100something people...
How could that happen? well, basically two things.. bad luck and bad preparation.. The first is part of the game, it happens to everybody. You just have to do your best and keep on, and if you play on top of your game you will overcome bad luck, as the good players proove time and time again. It's basic math.. There are SO many random events in a game of magic, that on the bigger scale luck will even out, so the good player will win more. Same as in the casino.. It can be Black 7 times in a row, which is really unlucky if you bet Red all the time, but bet 10,000 times and appr. 5,000 red and 5,000 black numbers will have been drawn (if we ignore the green 0 for the bank)
So how did I become unlucky? Well I had to play against my worst 'matchup' 3 times in a row.. you see every deck has strengths and weaknesses. therefore every deck has favourable matchups.. Some formats are like Rock, Paper, Scissors (Deck A beats Deck B, Deck B beats Deck C, and Deck C beats Deck A. And almost all players playing one of these decks) Then you can say: "Deck A is a bad matchup for Deck B."
Some years you have a lot more dominant decks maybe 10 or even more. (so all players are playing different decks. Some decks will be good against 5 of those... mediocre against 3, and REALLY REALLY bad against 1 or 2... It can still be a very wise decision to play that deck, if those bad decks are not played a lot, (maybe only 10% of the field) chances are slim that you have to play against them.... giving you good mathcups against the rest of the field....
I got paired 3 times in a row against such nightmare deck.. out of 100+ players maybe 6 or so played that deck, yet I encountered half of them. That's just bad luck.
Then the next round when I was finally winning I made a stupid mistake and lost again. And dropped out of the tournament because I lost all motivation.
Well I didn't prepare at all, so I got what I deserved, and I don't mind at all. I have been playing for more than a decade now and I have seen only a handfull of people who can play and win without preparation. And even they only play on 80-90% of their potential then, but they are so much better than all the others that 80% for them is better than 100% for any other pro. Think Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Michael Shumacher.
But I'll be back. I had a good time the rest of the day , good enough to show up again in a month or two when there will be another 2 day tournament.
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Comments
You still did good, Qwertius. You were there - while a lot of other Magic players only sit with libraries of cards at home, wondering why they don't take part. We're cheering for you for the next tournament!
tournament play is only a small part of magic. Wizard of the coast claims they sell the big majority of cards to players that have never 9or only once) entered an organized tournament ever. They only play at the kitchen table.
I liked the old days when every card was actually used by somebody. Decks had themes. people tried to make some wacky card work, even if it was a bad card.
Once one became a tournament player like me, one lost that innocence. I can't play a casual game of magic anymore.... not when I would think at half of the cards, at almost every play..... "This card sux, why is this card in the deck, That! card would be better, Why isn't this.. where is that...? " etc etc. Once you Know what is most efficient you cannot ignore it. Not in card games.
Hard to explain and not entirely correct. I can still make a so called 'fun deck' based on some wacky theme and have a good time for a few games.... But the case is I just don't enjoy doing that anymore.. on a regular basis... 10 years or so ago we used to do that, a weekly (or monthly for people with less time) magic night with the guys, everybody showing up with his latest creation and playing on with beer at hand.
most of the players world wide still play that way. But I can't anymore I could only make decks that try to crush everybody in the fastest way possible even when I try not to....
Holy cow - people still play ?
I've got a bunch of cards lying at home still.
Stopped cos I didn't have the cards for a Type 1 (basically, all cards allowed including too damn rare n too damn rare expensive ones) and didn't want to keep buying for Type 2 (last couple expansions + last basic set).
Made a few -very- nasty decks, one of which I don't think ever has been tried by other people. Noone I played liked coming up against it... Should perhaps go n see if it's even possible to build that one anymore.
It was one of those "Man ? Why'd you put THAT in your deck... it sucks!"-decks. Until you saw that the rest of the cards were essentially the same crap and that crappy deck was completely shutting you down.
Wow. That's some seriously lousy pairings there. I'm glad to hear you still had a good tme, though.
I went to my local magic shop last saturday for what has to be the first time in 1.5 years. To my surprise a lot of the players I hung out with before I stopped were still playing and we did a six person Timesift block draft. Despite not knowing anything about the cards, I managed to win the first two mathches I played with it and losing in the finals. I got a lot of the cards from the draft, because everyone besides me already had all the commons and uncommons. All in all, it was great and I might even make it a regular saturday activity from now on =)
Reading all of these makes me want to drive back to my hometown and spend a week of evenings at Brainstorm Comics, my local comic book/fantasy shop. I used to go there all the time after school while I waited for my mom to come and pick me up. It was right next door to a Little Ceasers (Pizza shop) and we would order from there. They had a huge back table that was reserved each day for a different game. One day a week it was Warhammer 40k, another AD&D, Magic was on 2 days, comic book freebies on another, etc. etc. It was awesomely fun.
Its ashame you didn't place better, but you can't do much against bad draws like you had. Glad to hear youwill be trying again in a few months, and my offer still stands if you ever make it over to the US for a tourney!
Our local one was called Wizards' Den. Ryan, the owner was this tall, long haired chap who listened to too much White Zombie. Now around that time, I had a friend called "Fred". Fred was a dwarf, the usual rowdy sort who would quaff copious amounts of ale, oggle women inappropriately and just generally live the life of a good old Dwarf. One day we'd gone to Wizards' to pick up some new cards and I forgot Fred there. Phone Ryan when I got back to the office and he had a look around, but no Fred. So, his response: "Two Elves and a dragon in the parking lot. You don't want to know about it. But no Dwarf, sorry". He was funny. And I miss Fred now.
This reminds me of a Jack handy story! El oh el, mexico!
You might have told me before, but I left my brain in my other handbag. Who is Jack Handy again and what did he do in El oh el, Mexico?
http://www.knightly-slumber.com/worldofwarcraft/node/214
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