Week before last I went to a TCG Player Platinum Qualifier at the Empire Game Center. I did... poorly. But since then I've been thinking about why and what I need to do to improve as a player.
1. I can't play aggro. At all.
People talk about how much they hate skill-less aggro decks. One drop two drop three drop burn spell burn spell! Fun game! Derdeeder! And when you get steamrolled by one it looks like it was the simplest thing in the world. If that's the case then why can't I buy a win with a deck that's dedicated to attacking in a tournament? Probably because I don't have the skill-set to play the deck. I don't know when to hold back my guys, I don't know when the right time to burn a removal spell or to let my guy trade. I sure as hell don't know what to do against an opposing Boros Reckoner. Its something that I need to work on.
2. I get bored with a deck easily.
I've been on junk since Ravnica came out, but I've play a donze different versions of it. I started by just trying to build a midrange deck, then i went to tokens, then I went to reanimator, then to Aristocrats, then to BG control. And those are just the decks that I can remember. And whenever I sweet brew shows up in top eights, like that Zvi Mowshowitz built GW Elf/Ramp deck I want to build it. I want to play it. Instead of thinking about how I can adapt what I'm playing against it I get infatuated. Its not good for my results in tournaments and its not good for my collection.
3. I won't play the best deck.
The only time in the last five years that I can remember playing the defualt vest deck was UB Fairies. And I didn't want to play it then, I had RG Snow Ramp built too and jammed that whenever there wasn't something extremely serious on the line. Let me tell you how good RG Snow Ramp was then. It wasn't. But I had to be different and not in a good way.
4. I don't listen to Pros
I played Naya at the TCG Player. I looked up a bunch of different decklists before I built mine. Then I ignored common threads and did what I wanted to. Some of what I did, like maindeck Domri Rade has, been adopted by most players as seen at the StarCity Invitational. Some of what I did was fucking stupid. When I'm working with an established deck like Naya I need to trust the collective instead of being convinced tat I know better.
5. I don't playtest properly.
When I playtest, which is rare enough, its an unorganized affair against my roomate where we jam untuned lists against each other. No gauntlet. No records. And never any mirror testing. They're just bad brews being slammed with most of the players involved knowing that they're not playing what they've got infront of them. This plays a big part in the next point.
6. My sideboards are normally terrible.
This is mainly an extension of the lack of playtesting. If I don't know my deck well enough how will I sideboard properly? Even when I know what cards are supposed to come in I rarely know what to take out. I need to make sure I have a plan for common matches going into the tournament.
7. I play too fast.
I missed an Obzedat trigger today. I pass turn after attacking without dropping the elf that will let me play Angel of Serenity next turn. I say OK with a counterspell in hand to something I NEED to stop. I just act without thinking. I need to slow down and make sure I do what I need to so that I don't loose games to stupid mistakes.
So I have some work to do, don't I?
#5 I agree. I don't really care until Theros, but if you want I will proxy up whatever you want me too. However, when Theros gets here I think we should proxy most of the decks the pros write about and go from there.
ReplyDelete#7 I noticed that too after Carl's. I was playing a little hurried and I wasn't fully examining the situation.