Gameplans

I really like pro football, so I enjoyed this dive into coach Dan Quinn's recent tenure in Washington. I've been a fan of Quinn since his Seattle days, and was bummed that his time in Atlanta didn't work out-though I understood why.  

Since football is one of, if not the most popular sport in America, for me there's always a fun microcosm of America in football. 

Teams are owned by billionaires, 99% of whom are unfeeling dickbags who fell into their lot in life, pursuing wins as a measure of status, who think they know how to do it all and don't want to spend money to improve things or listen to qualified folks in order to achieve their goals. Especially if they somehow went on a massive winning streak--those owners feel as though they are responsible for those wins, and not just the money managers. 

In most cases, that attitude trickles down and you get mediocre at best teams. Coaches who are yes-men, players who are squandered, all because the owners don't really care about winning; they care about the money. The Cowboys are pretty much the poster child for this form of disfunction, but you can see it recently in the Patriots, the Jets, and the Jaguars. It's all over, honestly: billionaires fucking over people because money and their ego matters more than results. 

Then you get the opposite story: New ownership in Washington, displacing someone widely reviled in the league for his awful treatment of people and skinflint attitude enables the hiring a person who lead the team that suffered the biggest comeback loss in the Superbowl and maybe one of the greatest chokes of all time. 

That person-Quinn-proceeded to hire someone to do interviews with his former team to find out what went wrong  when they lost that Superbowl. The aftermath of that loss, as well as the mistakes made leading to it. He did this while keeping up his chops, working for (ironically) the Dallas Cowboys. 

And now Quinn is getting another chance at a head coaching position, one where he emphasizes getting to know players as human beings, creating a team, and building trust. One where the players themselves are invested and have a voice in things. 

And it reminds me of another profile of the current Lion's head coach, Dan Campbell, when he took over the team. 

Hired, again, by someone who was new enough to football that she didn't know what she didn't know-and understood that. Having dumped her previous hire after a disastrous season and a half, went for someone who, again, brought in a culture of caring about the players as people, helping wherever he could. 

Which reminds me of a book: Turn this Ship Around; an insight about how one submarine captain's leadership style-one that empowered the people beneath him, instead of dominating them-took the worst performing ship in the fleet into one of the consistently top performing ships that sailors now vied to get on and prove their mettle. 

The Lions are en route to going to the Superbowl for the first time in the modern era. 

And they're going to play Washington this weekend. 

Maybe the moneyrunners should just be regarded as the moneyrunners and not bestowed by gods to be our superiors. Maybe. 

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Gamer

The source for my 'clever' play on words can be found here. What can I tell you? It seemed like a fun title when I woke up this morning...

This is a boardstate of 7th Continent, a boardgame I recently picked up. I backed this on Kickstarter last year because it came highly recommended from a friend and it had a solo mode. I don't have a regular board gaming group so it was important that I be able to just play this game. Otherwise, I'd've just blown $250 on...nothing.

So here I am, playing the game alone. Actually, I want to be clear about this: I am teaching myself to play. This picture is from my very first game!

And on the upside, learning how to play by myself means that I can make teaching this game an easier experience for other people. Someone has to be the first person to grind through and as a player of Magic, I should just admit that I can appreciate dense rulesets and looking into those rules by myself to figure out how something works.

The downside is that it can feel really lonely. I've realized that I don't mind doing new things if I can do them with someone. It was the upside of learning how to partner dance: even if I screwed up, I didn't have to do it all by myself. The upper upside was that when it went well, there was someone to share it with.

If I wanted to play games all by myself, then I'd just become a championship solitaire player.

So it's challenging for me to do anything by myself-I have plenty of activities that allow me this privilege-and that's in no small part because of the lonely quality. The shame spotlight that comes if/when I find out I've been doing it wrong, well, that's just a bonus.

Ain't brains weird? Even if nobody is around to see me make the mistake, it still feels bad. Instead of 'oh, well that's no big deal because it's easy to fix!'.

As a final note: I lost my first game of 7th Continent. Which was OK! Next time I'll do better. I hope to be able to teach someone else soon!

Every Time

As someone who grew into the game with a lot of these adages, I found this article to be particularly helpful.

Bolt the Bird is the one that has stuck with me but I haven't had to externalize the meaning of it in a long, long time. That is to say; one destroys the acceleration of the opponent's deck in order to force them to play on your terms.

But if destroying the acceleration doesn't do that, then there isn't any point is wasting resources there, as that forces you to play on theirs.

However, that second sentence rarely goes said.

On the other hand, I recently played a game against Lauriel where she had me down to one life while she was at sixteen-all she needed to do was draw a spell and the game was over. I didn't see a way out of it and was about to concede but she insisted I play on.

And I won that game. Which was the second time in as many months that this had happened.

There are a few interesting things about this for me-one of them is that when I concede in person, I am almost never incorrect to do so. The body language of my opponent often tells me I should move on. I don't have that knowledge online and I need to both play accordingly and pay attention to my own cues when playing in real space.

I am starting to wonder how often I challenge what I "know" about Magic and what baseline rules I really can keep in mind, in order to play a better game.

Player Variance

I read this article on "player variance" at Channelfireball and liked it.

It's a good reminder to find goals that aren't strictly about winning, that are about process, because the process always happens.

Playing On Tilt

Liked this video about playing and getting better after mistakes.

Sorry I don't have more: I'm playing some games with The Boys and I'm getting things lined up there but the election has got me grinding my gears. And not just mine, my friends, too so it's not always easy to line up time to play. Still, I've gotten a few games in with the current, not very tweaked newest version and so far what I've learned is...this deck doesn't do great in multiplayer.

I was out last night with Noah and Matt and the three player games were not kind to The Boys. Mana was an issue and I'm starting to think even a couple U/R or G/R lands might be helpful. I wasn't shy of Blue or Green mana but Red was rarely timely on the board.

In addition, I'm starting to see how dominant Magus of the Bazaar is. When the Magus shows up early, I have the potential to power through the snags that are inevitable to any game of Magic, should I play wisely.

Noah has suggested Key to the City to help duplicate the Magus's effect, which I like for two reasons: first, it gives me a pseudo copy of Wonder to run and second, as an artifact it's less susceptible to the most common forms of removal. I like the idea but I'm a little wary of the mana costs. In order to really get something back from the Key, I have to pay two mana and The Boys Got That Look is a stingy deck.

On the other hand, next week I'm off to Seattle and there will be many games against Jason. I'll try to work something up for Tuesday the 22nd, (Happy Thanksgiving everyone & safe travels!) but after that the next post won't be until the 29th. That said, Jason usually provides me with some very good games and good suggestions so I'm eager to see what comes of that.

Note To Self

"I just don't feel like I'm getting better," I told Fuz.  "I keep playing decks that are losing, you know?"

"You have two hundred decks, man," he replied, "your power level is really diffused, in comparison."

And this is true. Plus, I like to build decks pushing a single concept or around cards that aren't really meant to tentpole a deck. It makes for interesting questions (How can I use Ashling's Prerogative) but it often makes for weak decks.

However, as I was filing away the cards I got from Origins, I kept looking at all these solid, powerful cards I had in the binder and I realized that I wanted to be a bit more active in my use of these cards, incorporating them into my decks. I have some great cards! I should be more proactive in my use of them. Not having cards gather dust in the binder is precisely why I'm playing with cards like Spectral Bears.

Nonetheless, there's no point in spending money on awesome cards and then just letting them do nothing. It's time to bring those big guns into the light.

Making the Most of Your Time

I really dug on this article about maximizing your Magic time. The big takeaway? Pay attention. Seriously, it just comes down to that. But some tips on how to best do so, or alternate takes on the subject are always worth reading. Check it out.

Getting Meaner

After games with Noah last weekend, his first suggestion was to add Wrath of God. His view was that I am playing a more defensive game and need answers to threats and Wrath is a tried and true one. Cuts are more difficult to make at this point: the cards I have are reasonably good or better, so it's not easy to see what needs to go.

I was also lucky enough to get Fuz to look over the deck and he pulled out the bigger creatures, asking if there wasn't a way to add in more opportunities to get Extort triggers going, along with providing some early game defense. With that in mind, it was pretty easy to pull Tidal Force for Basilica Guards. Tidal Force really belongs in a Derevi deck anyway.

I pulled the Sol Ring out too: WotC, you are getting complacent, adding this card in every time in every deck of the last 3 Commander sets. The card has come down to the $2 level, I think you can retire it for a year.

And so with some more mild tweaks I played this game.

This was against Sliver Overlord (oh, dear) and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. 

I didn't do well that game and to be honest: my poor performance has a great deal to do with repeatedly missing triggers, especially Oloro's lifegain trigger. Magic takes practice and upkeep triggers, especially invisible ones, are challenging to keep track of. I started putting a die set to 2 on top of my deck so I wouldn't forget!

Missing that life meant missing card draw that I could've gotten to and missing those cards meant losing access to cards that could've helped me out. Forget win or lose: I failed to play the best game I could. That bothers me more than anything else.

I am going to have to start rethinking my approach to the game so I play a tighter one. The question is, how?