Patience and Practice

Playing some Transformers games with Jason last week, I could feel myself getting frustrated.

Being frustrated is a novel feeling for me, and being frustrated at my friends even stranger.

That was one of the moments when I realized: The pandemic is getting to me.

It just is. I am sure everyone is managing in their own ways: I am pretty fortunate, myself, to still be employed and have a regular schedule. I can connect with people online to play games, and most of them are willing and able to do so.

That doesn't mean the strain isn't wearing on me. It's been over a month now and I don't know about you, but I don't think we've seen the worst of it.

So I started to think about what I can do to try and keep myself calm during these times and I remembered that there are some pretty simple breathing exercises that help. I thought that maybe if I consciously took a breath between plays, that might help me slow down enough to not get irritated at anyone.

As a bonus, it might help me see plays I was overlooking and perform the best play possible.

I began by doing this while goldfishing Hunter-Killer and it's more challenging than I thought it would be! Twenty plus years of playing Magic have given me a lot of shortcuts, some good, some bad. Slowing my play down to accomplish a conscious breath is hard to remember.

Still, I'm making the practice so that I can exercise patience. Hopefully that will be something I can talk more about in the future, to see how it's impacting my experience.

Solid Commander Video

I've been playing a bit of Commander in preparation for an upcoming deck to write about when I stumbled on this neat video: Suggestions from competitive Commander that can be applied to regular Commander.

It got me thinking about manabases for certain, and if it's really worth pushing that manabase down so far, in order to ramp up the mana rock and land search functions. Clearly the competitors are on to something. Since some of those mana rocks can be translated into cards in the late game, perhaps I would be wise to follow their lead.

Some food for thought, at least.

Layer on Layer

MTGGoldfish has an interesting article up that has two parts. The first is about how to improve at Legacy and the advice presented there is solid, but not revolutionary.

The second half though involves examples about how layers apply, specifically on Oko, Thief of Crowns. That is some brain-turning stuff and I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the rules, because it isn't intuitive.

There's a ton of Legacy decklists, too, which is always cool for inspiration.

A Small Suite Of Things

Danny West has been doing an interesting series at CoolStuff and I think this article is a fine example of that.


And, I've notice I've been going 0-X in a lot of my limited formats, so I really appreciated what this article had to offer.

Heuristics

I thought this was a fantastic article about decision making and you should definitely check it out.

On Competitive Magic

There is, as you might imagine, quite a bit going on in this essay by Ari Lax about how competitive Magic is changing. (If you have an interest in competitive Magic, this other essay by Matt Sperling might also be of interest-I thought that was well done, too. An emphasis on empathy will go a long way for people no matter what). Your mileage may very about the takeaway on pro Magic but for me, this part stuck out.

Wanting to prove something gets you to beating people at the local shop to say you won, but that's it. Why does anyone play competitive Magic beyond that level?

It's about the art of self improvement.

That struck a chord.

Because I play decks until I've 'figured them out'. My current work on the Saheeli deck is a perfect example: I played that deck until I understood what it wanted to do, stripped out the cards that didn't forward that goal, put in ones that I thought did...and boom. Now that I've done that, I'm pretty much done with playing the Saheeli commander deck. I think this is one of the reasons I have so many decks (new problem excitement!) and leave them behind so quickly (the equation is solved until new cards appear). 

At some point is generally no more work to be done that isn't obvious (add in brutally strong cards!/give up on this idea for now) or helps me discover something about the game or myself that I didn't already know.

Part of that comes from having played Magic for over twenty years, reading a ton of strategy and 'making of' essays, part of it from trying to do self improvement work of my own.

I play Magic-or any game, lately the Transformers TCG and Betrayal: Legacy-for two reasons, when I drill down into the core.

First, I'm there to socialize. The socialization might be fairly light, as I'm still making friends with people who are playing Transformers, or be a bit more personal; most of the people I play Magic with I've been playing for years. Nevertheless, I am there to maintain or build connections with other people.

Second, I'm there to do better. I am not playing against other people so much as I am trying to improve my own game. The opponent provides context for me compete against, but my goal is to play better than I played before. Winning or losing isn't as relevant as whether or not I played the best game I can play, did I handle the stress properly, or my opponents respectfully.

And I take that measure against only one person: Me.

On Teaching

The Transformers TCG put out a post on their Facebook about how to teach the game. There's also a spoiler card for those interested (which I am) but that's not what I want to talk about.

When I get to teach someone how to play a game, I try to tell them everything I think they need to know.

The mistake I make that this article points out, is telling them more than they need. It's a difficult error to recognize, because as someone versed in playing the game, I can see all the moving parts. Those are important to me, so that I can play at the level I am trying to play at. New players don't need all that extra data. The trick is to pare things down to precisely what someone needs and no more.

Or: focus on what matters.

The biggest stumbling block for me might be to let 'incorrect' plays happen. With a game like Betrayal: Legacy, it's a little easier to let that go, because we're all making the mistake together. But in a competitive game, I don't want to have someone learn the wrong thing and then move forward, losing games because they didn't know the right thing.

There has to be a compromise or workaround, I'm just not sure what it is. Maybe a 'wrapup' moment, where I can clarify certain points, or just saying beforehand that I won't worry about details until a couple games in, and the person I'm trying to teach gets a feel for the game?

It's hard to know-but it also makes me appreciate the work of designers all the more.

Basics, Again

Today I bring you another article that wants to emphasize a strategy card game concept: the fundamental turn.

It's a good time to revisit the basics-it almost always is-but in the case of the Transformers game, I think this concept is especially relevant.

The TFTCG is, I think, far more tempo based than other games. There aren't limiting factors like mana or life as restrictions, it's all about how many characters you have and how far you can go to maximize them/their abilities.

Hell, it's only been six months but someone has figured out a pretty solid deck that takes infinite turns. They did it by maxing out what happens whenever you give players a free thing-and then using that tempo boost from I Still Function and Peace Through Tyranny.

On the upside, WotC has said they're aware and know about this and I wouldn't be surprised if the card that fuels the deck, Swap Parts, is changed. But it just goes to show; when you have a game where the players don't have meaningful input on their opponent's decisions-that is, the pace of the game is that each player does things without interference from their opponent, and the tempo of the game belongs entirely to one player so long as it is their turn, learning how to maximize that can lead to some very powerful results!

I Know I Said I Was Gone

However, this theory article by Adrian Sullivan is just too good not to pass along.

Five Simple Ways To Improve

Most of the stuff in this article by Craig Wescoe is old hat to me: playing the land at the last possible reasonable moment, thinking ahead about how the game will develop, etc.

But I had not thought much about the last point: putting the opponent in your shoes. I frequently think about what I'd do if I were them, but I rarely take the extra step to think about what information I'm providing to direct that line of thought.

This isn't to encourage some kind of mind game, in my opinion, it's to see the board from different perspectives and play a tighter game, which is what it's all about. Mind games with your opponent are, in my opinion, a waste of energy that I'd rather spend on playing a better game, personally.

Lastly: I'm headed out of town for a wedding this weekend, so I won't be able to get a new post up until Nov 15th. Have a safe weekend, everyone!

Critical Card Theory

Here's an interesting essay on the Opening Hand dilemma. I think about a riff on this whenever I'm building a deck: what cards do I need to see in order to accomplish my goal?

To take a recent example: I need Caldera Hellion and a creature to help me clear the board if I want to maintain any advantage in the Rats deck. To help accomplish this, I need a Rat Colony in hand, so hands with a Rat Colony would be better.

If Caldera Hellion was reliably castable and did what I'd hoped.

The point I'm going for here is: this essay might be helpful for evaluating those opening hands and making better mulliganing decisions. Check it out. 

Limited Quadrant Theory

This article on ChannelFireball by LSV was one I found fascinating. I'm not a big limited player but good theory is applicable to any deckbuilding process, I think. Check it out.

The Process Part XX

Someone who was pretty good at Overwatch wanted to get better so she got a coach and this is what she learned.

If you want some of the TL:DR, then OK: it's about the process. This person got to work on their fundamentals and explore characters she'd shied away from.

It's a pretty nice read but the message, once again is; do the work and things will get better. Concentrate on the outcome and the relevant stuff gets overlooked.

PV's Rules

Along with thinking about the consequence of lines of play, comes this article by Paulo Victor Damo da Rosa.

I hadn't ever thought about it but yes: forcing a choice is better than allowing the opponent options. This puts a new dimension into thinking ahead and one I'll have to work on keeping in mind.

Adding on to this, is a neat article by Jadine Klomparens on creating consistent lines of play. While I think it's important to be flexible to new information, I've noticed that a lot of decks are good because of their focus. Similarly, a lot of strategies are good because of the focus, instead of deviating from the norm. But when you pick a strategy, as she says,

"when you make that first choice, you should be thinking about all the similar choices that will be in front of you in the future, not just the next one."

That's some pretty forward thinking and it's difficult to lean into it when in the middle of a game. Which is why I need to keep practicing. It never really ends, and that's something I'm OK with...but I wouldn't mind seeing some results. So that's the goal for 2018; get better.

That's always the goal but it helps to say it aloud.

The Kinds of Mistakes

A very good article at Starcity about the general kinds of mistakes made.

The third category of mistake is the one I find myself making frequently: the one where I just don't envision the consequences completely.

I didn't really have a name for it until now, but I like the way it's framed: What kind of mistake it is. Because I have found myself visualizing more plays as of late, trying to see my way out and not including all the necessary consequences.

Funny enough, I've started trying to map things out a little further while playing Star Realms. I frequently have to play the app version of the game (I don't know enough players in realtime!) and the available information is much greater, since you can tap on an opponent's deck and see what they have in it.

Nevertheless, it's a good game to practice the consequences exercise, especially since those consequences often show up soon but not immediately. Thinking about the future state a few turns from now, as opposed to right away is a worthy mental exercise and I hope that will help improve my game in both Star Realms and Magic.

Mental Prep

Last night during a game against a B/R dragon reanimator deck, (I was paying Rize of the Fenix), I failed to understand my role.

Though my opponent had nothing on the board and I was at 8, I decided it would be a good idea to cast Demigod of Revenge, keeping one in my hand, and attack with it and a Flamewake Phoenix.

My opponent took 7, untapped, cast a Zombify to get a bunch of creatures out and killed me with a hasted Dragon Tyrant. The data was all there: the cards in graveyard, the equipment that would give haste. I just didn't think things through.

Same night: Caitlin beat me because I rushed my plays, this time while playing Hope Is A Passenger, thinking I had to do the thing instead of assessing the situation and making a plan. A plan that, the turn after she beat me, I saw, would have given me a little more time, maybe just enough to win.

Reading this, then was a reminder about how to improve my game.

Staying focused, and choosing not to hurry are both good things and I really want to get better at that. How? By making a plan.

So often I rush headlong into plays and I don't take into consideration changing data like the boardstate or even the card I just drew! I've got to start taking my time and really examining what's going on, otherwise I'll continue to drop games for no good reason.

I'm not sure exactly how to do this, but being aware of what the problem is has got to be a start.

No Such Thing

 I've been playing some Magic at the Tonic lounge when I get the chance, but the format is frequently Commander. Which means I haven't had much of an opportunity to test I Hate It When That Happens To Me, sadly.

What I am happy to say, though, is that the people at the Tonic have been pretty friendly and fairly decent players. I've been having a good time playing with strangers and sometimes that's really tricky.

In the meantime, I've come across this article at Channelfireball, which has me pondering how to play my best game.

If there is no such thing as a perfect game, then striving for a mindset where I evaluate my options for the highest risk/reward might help me see the game from other player's points of view.

That is an especially useful skill in Commander where the boardstate can look very different to me as it might to someone else. Measuring out my play in Commander has been a frequent challenge, where I find myself or my permanents targeted without understanding why-because to me, there is clearly a much bigger problem at the table. It's only later in the game as more information is revealed that I understand.

Although not always. Sometimes people just boggle me.

Foolproof Magic

Shortly after asking how I could tighten up my play so I would remember Oloro's triggers, along comes this series from Gathering Magic about how to do just that.

I don't know that I want to incorporate everything into my play or that I can: I group my lands differently than the author, for example, (non-basics are separate for me) so that doesn't really work. Also, there are, for my liking, too many dice being used as reminders for every trigger, making a cluttered board even more difficult to read.

However, what the article did do was remind me to do was to look ahead and visualize what mana I may need, so I can keep my options open. I did start placing a single die, set to 2, on top of my library with Oloro, so I would get used to looking for upkeep triggers before blindly drawing.

I'm also trying to slow down when I play, questioning my knowledge of everything on the board. There are too many cards that get changed in context of the game state for me to accelerate through complex turns. It's all well and good to have the general outline of my turn planned out, especially in multiplayer but sketching in the specific details in case I have to change my plan is the next thing to work on.

Two Mana

There seems to be a magic mana number in the game and I'm starting to think that number is 2. Anything that is one or zero mana is clearly a) underpowered (Healing Salve) or b) crazy (Force of Will) or c) crazy in the right deck but otherwise meh (Invigorate in infect decks). Very, very few cards hit the 1 mana 'playable and solid' line-Duress comes to mind with Lightning Bolt being at the high end of the power spectrum.

At two mana though, this is where the rubber starts to meet the road. Nearly every deck gets to two mana in nearly every game so what you can do with it matters and Magic is packed with cards that are truly useful at that converted mana cost. You can even see it in Standard, where at the last Born of the Gods event, the highest concentration of cards was at the 2 CMC slot. One of the most powerful spells, Counterspell, is at two mana and it choked so much design space out of the game WotC had to push hard counters back to three mana-although it took them years to do so.

I think it's also why so many limited environments are designed with cards to hit 2.x on the curve. A deck that can reliably do something on turn two, every time, means fast, demanding games that are more luck oriented but if you push the curve to three, deckbuilding skill and card evaluation start to come into play and as you see more of your deck, variance is decreased.

In constructed this is a different animal, of course because you can develop decks that can turn things around on turns 3 or 4 to give you a chance to win. Nevertheless, after my experience against the Painter's Servant deck where I would have had an opening to win, if I had kept Pyroclasm in, I've been thinking about it more.

This motif repeats: The Prismatic Prism in My Curse, Black Sun's Zenith in Slave to the Grind and Wall of Omens in Perpetual Motion.

All these decks had problems with solutions coming at the 2 CMC slot. I discovered these solutions after I was finished talking about them on the blog; that frequently happens. Decks I write about stay in playing rotation for a little while to work out any kinks, longer if I have an identifiable problem or question that I can work on. If it's just a 'blarh, this isn't working and I don't get it' then I let it rest. Eventually, a solution comes to mind or a new card is printed to solve problems. 

None of these solutions are what I'd call gamebreakers; they don't have the power of something like Snapcaster Mage or Tarmogoyf but they end up being the glue that helps hold the decks together. This is a good thing to keep in mind when looking at where to go with a deck that has hit a stumbling block.