A Lesson In Losing

 This is not a tale of triumph. These are not rounds filled with glory or legendary plays. No, this belongs with the stories that are whispered over fires deep in the woods, and those that are told to the echoless Caverns, where sound is swallowed, never to be heard again.  This tale is not about deck choices, sideboarding, the metagame, nor is it a rant about unjust misfortune. It is a tale of one soul’s journey through the Magic: the Gathering Abyss. This is my tournament report. 

I attended a Channel Fireball Legacy Tournament this past weekend, and Sunday morning abruptly let me know how the rest of the day was going to go when I did not wake up to my alarm, but to my ride waiting for me outside.  Scrambling to get my things together we then piled into my car and I drove the 90 minutes to the game site without so much as a breakfast bar. I recently wrote an article about things I have learned about myself when it comes to competitive tournaments, and by 9:30 a.m. I had broken nearly every rule I had set for myself.  

Already feeling flustered, I received my round one pairing and proceeded to make an egregious misplay leading  to a round one loss. I tried to shake it off, but this was not how I envisioned my tournament going. I noticed a shift in my mentality.  I went from flustered to defeated. Of course, to anyone that knew me, I would say “just gonna win out from here,” but in my head I was not going to win this tournament.

During my second round I found myself keeping hands saying to myself the famous last words, “this is probably fine if…,”, while knowing that it was not fine.  My brain had already given up, and the thought of reshuffling and drawing one less card suddenly seemed to have a “what’s the point?” attached to it. I was tumbling down the tilt rabbit hole.  Vaguely aware that something was amiss, I decided that food would help me think clearly. Since I had been thoroughly and quickly defeated I had plenty of time to find food (which normally I would’ve brought). After all, as I told my friends, “still live to prize.”

I sat down to face my third round opponent and to my dismay discovered that it was one of my worst matchups.  The food had helped but did not matter as I was again obliterated. I dropped from the tournament to ponder what had just happened and to re-evaluate my entire existence in general.      

When I think about Magic: the Gathering, and why I play competitively, winning was always the highest ranking answer.  However, as I’ve grown older, I have become conscious that I play magic, and competitive magic, for many other reasons, many more important than the result of any given game or match.

Accepting responsibility for the decisions I made (or didn’t make) has been crucial in my growth as a magic player and, more importantly, as a human being.  It is not my opponent’s fault that I kept a bad hand and it is not their fault that they drew the perfect hand against me. They are trying to win as much as I, and feeling  entitled in any match is a recipe for disaster. Although I lost 3 consecutive matches, and was not happy about it, I was careful not to let my own dissatisfaction spoil the experience of winning for my opponents. 

If you’ve played any Magic at all, you may have experienced a cold streak, or in my case, a series of self-inflicted wounds.  I’ve been asked before how I deal with losing. We all do it in our own ways, but if we quit playing when we hit a rough patch there would be barely a magic player amongst us.  I found myself thinking about this in depth as I waited for my friends to finish their respective tournaments. I found it most intriguing.

While it’s true that I dropped from or “quit” that particular tournament, I have not quit magic, not by a long shot. I spent $40, drove an hour and a half and lost three rounds of magic in a row, and I would go back and do it again.  So what keeps me coming back? These very failures are an integral part of the game. If I always won, I might find magic boring, in the same sense that the gambler would not get the same rush if they always won every hand of black-jack.  So, if not the winning what then? For me, it is the competition itself. 

Yes, competing against others, but also against myself.  How long can I last before I crack under the pressure? How many decisions until I make an incorrect one? How many losses before I am tilted beyond repair?  For me, on Sunday, that number was three. I realized, I wasn’t playing good magic, and when I’m not playing good magic, I am not enjoying the game, and if I’m not enjoying the game, I shouldn’t be doing it. 

For instance, I have done poorly at tournaments before and felt great about my play, and I have done well and not felt great about my play.  There is a sense of achievement in feeling like I did the best I could, regardless of the match results. 

So knowing these things, and approaching the question of how to deal with a losing streak, I offer an obvious piece of advice and perhaps one less obvious.  The first is take a break. Whether that is an hour, a day, a month, or longer will depend on you. When you’re not enjoying all the aspects of the game and it becomes ones and zeros and magic feels tedious, it might be time to step back.  The other is looking at your losses as opportunities to learn and improve.  

I mean this both in game and out of game.  How I react to an opponent and how they react to me under unfortunate circumstances affects both player’s perception of the game. These perceptions permeate into the larger magic community and that affects all of us.  Learning from losses is the most important part of the game. Magic and life are easy when everything goes your way, it’s how we handle the adversity that separates us. Magic is a training ground for dealing with set-backs, setting goals, and challenging yourself to be better.  

So, yeah, I went 0-3 drop, but next time, it’s a whole new day.