Making the Jump

Good morning kiddies! Today I'd like to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart because i'm currently trying to accomplish the feat, and that is making the jump from small local tournaments to large national "semi-pro or even pro" level events.

If you're like me, you've spent most of your time at local FNM's grinding away and winning packs, or not winning packs for that matter. The biggest tournament you've probably ever been to is more than likely a large regional pre-release. Not a lot of pressure there. Recently, and if you read this blog you know, I attended the Star City Games Open in Washington D.C. This was a huge jump for me in a lot of ways and I'll detail why.

1) At local FNM's you will find good players, but more often than not 90% of the field is going to be made up of new players or casual players. You find a lot of rogue decks at these events, a lot of decks that really don't do anything, and occasionally you'll find some Tier 1 and Tier 1.5 decks to play against. For example at my shop (Collector's Corner, Harford Rd. in beautiful Parkville, MD...end shameless plug) often we find maybe 3 or 4 really good players. Everyone else is a mish mash of casual and new. At these events it's not uncommon for me to Top 8 and typically Top 4. I don't feel i get the even spread of players that I will see at a big event. This SEVERELY impacted me at the Open because a large majority of the field are really good players all playing competitive Magic. This brings me to my second point...

2) Playtesting! It is absolutely imperative that you playtest regularly. Have all the top decks sleeved up and play games and figure out what you're going to come up against. I luckily have a group that I playtest with (TEAM BIG SEXY in DA HOUSE) and although we get together fairly regularly, I don't feel we do enough playtesting and I certainly was not prepared for the Open. I feel this will get better as we move along, but if you're not playtesting you're not ready. Even if you don't have all the cards (although playing with a team gives you access to a rather large card pool) proxy out the top decks, even play sideboard games. It's important to know the ins and outs of every deck you anticipate seeing.

3) TILT. This is something I really harp on and especially recently because of the type of player I am. I'm a passionate player and I HATE to lose, just like i'm sure everyone else. However traditionally I'm a little more vocal about it. I have recently begun curbing this in an effort to become a better player. Getting upset at misplays, the game itself, etc is a good way to continue playing bad for the rest of the tournament. It's important to keep a level head and understand the lessons that you can learn from every game you play. It doesn't matter if you lose or win, there is information to be garnered from the time spent playing that game and you need to mentally document it and save it for future match ups. Playing Caw Blade is perfect example of this. In playtesting before the tourney, i expected aggro to be very heavy (Vampires, Boros, K Red, etc) and so I thought Arc Trail a better burn spell to have in the deck. It turns out Lightning Bolt and instant speed is the way to go to keep them from equipping their Hawks. Had we done a better job of playtesting we may have discovered this. As it stands I garnered that from my first match and sideboarded accordingly. The point is, don't get upset and don't go on tilt. If you do you are going to make play mistakes and you are more than likely going to lose. We must all keep level heads when playing the game.

4) Reading Articles and Understanding the National Meta. This is huge. I have my premium subscription to Star City Games. I read the mothership. I read the forums. It's so important to do this. It's important to understand what is currently dominating and looking at the future as well. Who would have expected Red Deck Wins to win the Open in Edison? No one! But by reading the tells in the meta, we can sometimes sneak one in. Magic is constantly evolving and we need to evolve too. We can't just sit on a deck for months and be lazy with deck building. We should constantly be trying to improve ourselves and we should want to take advantage of shifts in the game. It's how tournaments are won. Listen we all net deck, but good players should be able to make changes on the fly to account for these shifts. It's so important.

I hope you learned something from this, or maybe you hated it. Feel free to send me feedback or just shoot the breeze at kierandraven@gmail.com or on Twitter @draven_corvinus. Till next time!