Roy Tang

Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.

Blog Notes Photos Links Archives About

We All Fall Short

I haven’t been posting tournament reports lately, because frankly I haven’t been performing very well lately. Here are my last month and a half’s worth of results:

  • May 23/GPT Bangkok #1 (SCR sealed): 0-2 drop
  • May 31/GPT Bangkok #2 (SCR sealed): 2-3 drop
  • June 6/GPT Bangkok #3 (SCR sealed): 4-2
  • June 7/Standard (Bant Finest Hour): 2-3 drop
  • June 13/Standard-Nats Qualifier (Bant Finest Hour) 1-2 drop
  • June 20/Standard-Nats Qualifier (Bant Finest Hour) 1-2 drop
  • June 28/Standard-Nats Qualifier (BG Elves) 0-2 drop

As you can see, I decided to switch to BG Elves after a few more tournaments with Bant. Despite the very good regionals performance Bant gave me, the deck always felt far too draw-dependent and I was tired of taking like 7 damage a game from painlands. The last loss on June 20 was particularly painful as I had answers to the opponent’s threats but was a at one life with 5 painlands and a basic as my mana sources. =/

To be honest after the frustrating series of bad performances I was getting a bit tired of Magic ; I felt myself falling into a pattern of blaming the bad pairings and poor draws and I thought I needed a new perspective with a new deck.

BG Elves is almost as explosive and a lot more consistent than Bant, so it’s a fine choice, despite my poor showing last Sunday. My 2 losses then were very close and lost only due to the pilot’s poor playing skills.

Despite the setback, I felt a fresh new perspective, as I was humbly reminded that despite the bad draws, despite the bad pairings, it still ultimately comes down to how well you play, and that’s a factor that’s well within my control (or any other Magic player’s!)

I quote from Zac Hill/Pchapin: “Tight technical play decides more games of Magic than all other factors combined."

We all fall short, but that shouldn’t stop us from striving for the perfect technical play.

PS

Another reason I haven’t been posting much recently is that I tend to just give short opinions on Magic stuff such as M10 spoilers over on Twitter or Facebook. Follow/add me there!

Posted by under post at #mtg
/ 0 / 362 words

See Also