Tournament Prep – Mana Tutors

“I am not a savant.”

-me, just now.

As someone who has been spellslinging for a quarter of a century, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that length of time and gameplay expertise are not directly proportional. This is not to say that there will not be some relevant correlation of any kind, but merely to say that Magic the Gathering is a versatile game that serves many functions for the people that play it. The collective “we” play Magic to fulfill various roles in our existence on this planet. Some enjoy the rich fantasy back-drop, immersing themselves in a world filled with heroes and villains. Some enjoy gathering with family and friends, sharing laughter, food and drink, and creating fond memories. Then there are some that have the Fires of Yavimaya in their soul, pushing them to perform at the highest levels of competitive Magic. Naturally, these are not mutually exclusive, but for the purpose of this musing, I will be focusing on the latter.

So, I have been playing Magic for over 25 years. Why haven’t I made the Pro Tour, the Players Tour, or ever played in a Mythic Championship? Is it bad luck? Am I a bad player? Do I play bad decks(mayyyyybe)? Though it is true, I haven’t always had that “fire,” I have always considered myself to be a competitive player. The hardest step and most important step in becoming successful is correctly assessing your ability. This is easier said than done.

“If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent…The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.”

-David Dunning

Some of you may be familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect. I was once again reminded of its existence and applicability while reading a fantastic article by 2019 GP Vegas champion Allen Wu. In his article he states “people who cling to toxic mindsets and faulty frameworks invariably wind up stuck at the MCQ and GP level.” TRUTH.

Essentially, this phenomenon occurs when an individual mistakenly assesses their own cognitive ability as greater than it is. Be wary of those that are overly certain(I’m certain of this by the way). Okay, but how does this fit into the greater scheme, how does this help me get better at Magic? For most of my 25 plus years of playing, I decided I was great at Magic. I didn’t need to “study.” I was that person that is in every class who boasts about their grade when they “didn’t even read the material.” I would show up to tournaments and expect to crush it on my ability alone. I reveled in a couple top 8 pins but never won an event. I was convinced that the players that won were luckier than I was. They opened a better pool than I did. They had easier matchups, all the excuses. Here is the most difficult part: There ARE players who can win these types of events with little to no preparation. I am not one of those players. This last sentence is difficult to accept. To change the way you think about yourself, and how you fit into the rest of the world is never easy. Self-perception and self realization are not the same thing. Once I was able to readjust my world view to fit with something closer to the “truth,” only then was I able to move beyond some of those cognitive biases I had about myself and others.

I am not the best Magic player in the world. In fact, there are many, many players who are better. So, if I accept that I am not naturally the best, I must also accept that to be competitive I will have to work harder to see the results that I want. The best way to get results? Play a lot of Magic of course! Okay, but here I’m going to go a little further. Is there a way to improve your game outside of playing or reading about Magic (which you should absolutely still do)? For me, I found that there was.

In addition to playing MTG, I am also an avid poker player, and play Texas Holdem as my game of choice. In the poker world, you have strengths in your poker game, and then there are your holes. These are the areas in which you are weakest. It is the same for Magic. Some of the most common holes in a player’s game may be card knowledge, card interactions, or advanced rulings (like layering for instance). The good news is, these can be remedied by studying the format, the cards and doing independent research. What about the holes in your game that can’t be fixed by a book, an article, or repetitions? The first step is to identify what those holes are. For me, I have the same hole in Magic and poker… impulse control. I can play great poker for 3-4 hours, but almost invariably there will come a point when I will make a call or raise that I know to be incorrect, but choose to make that play anyway. Magic and poker are both games of discipline. You need to keep your temperament and urges in check, and make decisions based on the game state. A GP is a marathon, not a sprint. The top performers are the ones that can play very high level Magic over a prolonged period of time. Over the last year I have made several changes to my “game” outside the game that have helped a great deal. These three things are rest, diet and exercise.

I stopped drinking alcohol and ingesting foods with added sugars. My body is sensitive to sugar and can cause mood swings. These highs and lows are represented in a game of Magic by keeping hands that I shouldn’t, conceding too early, or just making a straight up blunder like tapping the wrong land or not noticing my opponent had not one, but two blockers. I try and go to bed early before a tournament and take extra precautions to make sure that I’m hydrated throughout the day. Going for walks, or doing cardio increases blood flow to the brain and can cause better in-game decision making. Also, in addition to cutting out items with added sugar, I’m much more conscientious of what food I am consuming and how that will impact my overall function. We all spend hours and hours agonizing over decklists, the meta, and sideboard choices- all to give us that extra perceived edge, or added EV. Should we not also do that in our day to day decisions? What should I have for breakfast? Two eggs or a pop tart? If you said pop tart, I’m sorry, that’s a misplay. Thinking about what will help me think best has now become part of my tournament routine and has greatly increased my win percentages as a Magic player. I have prized the last two GPs that I attended (Seattle and Vegas). Here is the breakdown:

Be honest with yourself about your ability
Identify holes in your game
Eat an egg
Cash a GP

All of this has left me wondering… If I can use life choices to improve my magic results, could I also use “magic choices” to improve life results?

To be continued…

This is part three of a multiple article series. The first article covered game-play improvements and suggestions. The second article covers some meta decisions about how to do well at tournaments. Part three will cover logistical and financial-ish suggestions. Buckle in kids, this one’s going to be weird.

Which tournament should I play?

The one that you find the most fun! Silly goose! Always have fun playing magic!

Alright, having gotten that out of the way, there are a lot of choices between events nowadays. You can GP or MCQ to try and qual for the MC, or there are plenty of sides that are usually slightly easier and possibly more fun events. For myself, I did rough calculations of what my probability of qualifying for the pro tour is for each type of event (with different assumed win rates) to inform myself of what I should prioritize as a player. Note that these are based on a hyper-geometric calculator with a population size of 1000 that I am drawing from (no replacement) based on my proposed win rate (for a 50% win rate I’d have a population of 500 win and 500 loss) for a number of rounds equal to tournament size and a required number of wins equal to the normal number required (13-2 for a gp for example, x-1-1 for an ptq/mcq, etc). This is not an exhaustive or precise mathematical model; these are just rough rules of thumb that I played with to see if my intuitions were correct. I’m sure someone reading this is already frothing at the mouth to tell me my math is wrong; too late, I already know it’s wrong, please give me my recommended daily serving of salt in the comments below. In the table below are event type (with assumed record required to qualify).

Win %	GP (13-2)	GP PTQ (8-0)	Local PTQ (10-1)	Local PTQ (9-1)
50%	0.35%	0.38%	0.56%	1.04%
55%	1%	0.82%	1.35%	2.3%
60%	2.6%	1.6%	3%	4.6%
66%	7%	3.5%	6.8%	9.5%

This supports what I had already kind of assumed. Small local MCQ’s give the best value. 8 rounder MCQ’s are about comparable to a GP, and the GP MCQ’s where you have to go undefeated give the lowest percentages for actually qualifying.

Come physically prepared to tournaments

Amusingly, some of the more highly respected pros I have played against have been the most flagrant violators of this rule. The biggest borrowers of dice, playmatless, without their own lands or sleeves, often seem to be the gold pros. To be fair, this is probably their third GP this month, and they’ve been travelling nonstop all year, but it still strikes me as very funny.

Limited GPs do not always have sleeves, deckbox, life pads, and lands for you. Increasingly less so than they used to in fact. Sometimes your neighbor grabs all the swamps you need during deck building. Sometimes vendors are out of extra lifepads. I have a main box with two pockets, one for dice, small pens, board guide, and life pads, the other pocket for my deck and sideboard. I always bring my own lands and sleeves in a separate box that I keep on hand for all limited events. If I forgot my own lands, I grab 15 matching lands of each basic land type out of a land box before my event starts. It’s a small edge, but having lands that match is nice, and keeps you from unintentionally giving away info. Being prepared is the polite thing to do, but more importantly it saves a lot of time and hassle later, and can manifest in small edges. For sealed pools be sure to sleeve ANY card that might come into your deck (hence why I bring my own sleeves, I might need 80+ to sleeve what I need to). Look at your pool and if there is a secondary deck you might sleeve up, make sure it is ready to go should you need it. Having your own lands also means you can get your deck sleeved up and even draw some sample hands before deck submission is done; this isn’t necessary, but I find it comforting to see a few sample hands with my newly sleeved deck.

How do GP payouts work?

This is a question that doesn’t really occur to anyone until they’re deep in day two and realize they don’t really know what’s going on. The ever-changing nature of this means that my advice might be out of date already, but I’ll post what I know now.

I’ll assume that the average GPS is about 1200 people. Assuming these numbers I have observed the following for payouts with the old system. Top 8 is usually X-2 or better, with some X-2’s missing out if the tournament is larger; sometimes X-2-1 sneak in for smaller tournaments. X-3s usually span 9^th-20^th or so, depending on breakers you could get top 16 or top 32 money. X-4’s usually span through the 64’s and past it, so if you have good breakers you should top 64, but with bad breakers you’ll probably be below. With the new flatter payouts as low as ~200^th’ish place I was able to cash with X-5-1 (intentionally drawing the last round in Seattle because we knew we’d be guaranteed prize), with something like 6 X-6 people prizing. Seattle was a larger tournament too, so X-6 might be the standard cutoff for prizes now. The limited portion of GP Vegas similarly put the x-5-1 bracket into the money, while the modern portion payed to x-5 (I know this because friends prized in both of these tournaments). In short, keep playing day two if that 200 bucks is worth it to you and if the tournament is paying that far down. These are mostly guesses, there are calculators out there that might help as well; just don’t rely on them to do breaker math (that’s a whole different article, and one I’m not sure I’m qualified for). Honesty, unless I have a very specific thing to get to, I always play the entirety of a GP day two, previously to collect pro points and mostly to just have fun with other high level players.

When you receive prizes as part of an event, make sure to receive the handout or any other information that you might need. Ask judges if need be; at GPs there is usually a piece of paper they hand out. Wizards pays you via an e-wallet account they make you set up the first time that you receive prize. They will need your account associated with your DCI number to be up to date, or at least have a functional email attached (this was initially an issue with me, as my original DCI had a very dead email associated with it). You will usually receive an email the ~Wednesday the week after the tournament telling you how to setup payment, it can take up to a week longer than this. They’ll want a bank account (I think there are other forms of payment, but this seems easiest) and a blank check to verify. It will usually take 1-2 days for them to verify your account, but then once you are secured you can withdraw the money basically immediately.

Check payouts before you leave

This is similar to some things I said above, but this is worth mentioning again. When I’m playing a magic tournament, I’m pretty much there from beginning to end. This is usually because I am there with friends and will have to wait for them anyway. I have a number of friends with a tendency to go 0-2 drop, or otherwise drop after a loss or two on day two of a GP. The thing about larger tournaments, especially tournaments that Wizards is specifically involved in, is that they tend to pay down further in the standings than you might expect from more local tournaments. RPTQs used to guarantee payouts for nearly every competitor. GP tournaments now pay down to somewhere in the 175-200ish range. This is basically everyone who doesn’t completely bomb on day 2. If you’re playing in side events, make sure you get your promo. In short, just because you’re feeling bad, and grumpy about magic for the day, you should probably at least make sure not to leave free money on the table. Ask a judge if payouts aren’t posted, you just never know.

Be prepared to sleep in adverse conditions

This might only be something that happens to me, but I thought I might as well bring it up. Until very recently I would always fly in and out of San Francisco International, with my flight back being a late flight. My late flight would get delayed until the next morning approximately 50% of the time, resulting in me getting in very early in the morning instead. The thing about getting delayed until the next morning is the wonderful decision to have about a 4 hour period of time where you should be sleeping, but aren’t sure if you want to spring for a hotel. For these absurd overnight delays, I just always operate as if I’m going to get stuck at the airport and always have a travel pillow and blanket with me. They do not take up much space, and they’re a life saver if stranded. If you’re staying at a friend’s place or splitting a hotel, they might not have extra pillows and blankets anyway, so it always helps to have your own for backup. On a similar note: magic players have a tendency to snore. I highly recommend ear plugs to have any chance of sleeping if you are sharing a room. I am also partial to an eye mask, since there will always be a player who has to get up too early and probably make a nuisance of themselves with the windows or lights. The eye mask and earplugs are easy to just stick in a pocket of a backpack and forget about, they take up next to 0 space. In short, if you’re looking to travel on the cheap be prepared to sleep in harsh conditions.

Draft chaff is plentiful

Draft chaff at large tournaments, as well as local game stores, is often left on tables or in designated spots for scavenging. I am often building standard decks for multiple players and have a need for multiple copies of commons/uncommons for standard sets. Similarly, when I was getting back into the game ~6 years ago, I had very little in the way of the commons/uncommons needed to complete my decks. Local shops often carry only a limited supply of chaff. Especially for newer to paper players, or more casual players, where the chaff is more likely to be valuable, I highly recommend being on the lookout for cards headed to the dumpster. They can save a significant amount in tcgplayer mini-purchases and other headaches that add up over time and can be very important for newer players who may not have the resources to fill out the last few pieces of their decks. At Grand Prix these piles can usually be found near the judge stations or land stations or in random piles on tables throughout the tournament hall. Please try not to be a nuisance when going through these piles. Don’t get in the judge’s way, and don’t take cards if it looks like they are marked to be given away for charity. If you find chaff on a table, maybe take the whole pile, keep the pieces you want, and dump the rest off in the designated chaff boxes. Anything to reduce the workload on judges to pick up everyone’s junk is a net positive and I recommend making yourself a boon and not a burden to the judging/event staff.

Pros are still human beings

Famous pros are people. They are not godlike beings with all the answers. They will not automatically beat you at cards. Depending on the tournament you might even be better prepared then they are; this is especially true in specialty formats like Legacy with fewer events in a year. In short, any player is fallible. When you sit down don’t psych yourself out. Just play like anyone else at your local store. Just like anyone else in sealed, assume they don’t have it until you see it. If anything they might be more susceptible to minor bluffs (attack my 2/2 into your 1/3). Just don’t get into your own head, play like normal and you’ll be fine.

Sidenote: people need space and recuperation time. This probably goes for semi-celebrity players as well. If you would like an autograph or to chat try to keep it polite, to the point, and be willing to move along if it isn’t the right time for them. Maybe don’t glomp them while they’re trying to eat their meal between rounds. Also, the very large crowd around Dana Fischer during rounds has been becoming increasingly absurd. I’m not saying Dana isn’t awesome and doesn’t deserve accolades, I’m just saying we should give her some space to play.

What is that cool box?

I mentioned previously that I always use a two compartment box for mtg cards. This box also happens to be pretty cool because it has an alteration from one of my favorite artists in the world. I’m not receiving anything in return here, I just think Grichels does an amazing job and thought I’d mention it here. Also I get asked about this a lot and it’s kind of hard to describe what’s up or where to go without a link. So here you go: link. Also keep in mind that all of these alterations are done by hand by a single hardworking lady. Happy to support her. These are mostly found at renaissance festivals, possibly one near you. The deck boxes come up intermittently, so you might have to check her website every once in awhile. The best time for deck boxes is winter when Grichels is not at any Renaissance festivals. For reference, here is my box for the last 5+ years or so.

That more or less rounds out part 3 of my big tournament series. It primarily covered a lot of smaller talking points or things that have been covered in depth elsewhere. This third installment was dangerously close to an mtg finance article, complete with an ad at the end. Please forgive me.

Tag: Tournament Prep

Metacognition: the real Magic Meta

The Medium Guide to Big Magic Tournaments (part 3)