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You Are Your Own Master: Tilting in Magic

Since everyone this week will be talking Modern, I figured I’d go a little off the map and address the elephant in the room: tilting in Magic.

William Blondon, a Mana Deprived member and writer, covered my top 8 and top 4 matches at this year’s nationals in Toronto. In a recent article, he mentioned that he thought I made some mistakes in my top 8 match. I think the key part of his message wasn’t about the mistakes, but the fact that I held myself together after such an awkward game and lost as the end result.

Now how does one keep himself together after losing a game with the pressure of being one loss from not qualifying for Worlds? If you’re one who gets lost in the smoke once and a while, you must realize it, then ask the ultimate question…how do I change?

“The first step toward change is AWARENESS, the second step is ACCEPTANCE.”
– Nathaniel Branden


AWARENESS

There are two forms of awareness to address. With Magic being a game, you must be aware of the rules and procedures of how to play the game properly. The other form of awareness ties more in with step 2 (acceptance), which I will address later.

The awareness I’d like to discuss first is during the game. The more aware you can make yourself, the better your chances are of winning. When you’re aware of all “perfect” information and “potential” information, all that is left for you to lose to is the luck of the draw.

Perfect information is all the information that is visible and known by both players during every step of the game. This includes hand/library/graveyard sizes, permanents on the battlefield, life totals, etc. These pieces of information are the basics of awareness during a match of Magic. This information is plainly available in aiding the development of your strategy and should be checked constantly due to new information being added as the game progresses. Some mistakes are made when you are unaware of perfect information and are mainly caused by lack of focus or inexperience with card interactions. These are mainly beginner mistakes and should be eliminated if you are hoping to succeed. Practice, practice, practice!

Potential information is where Magic takes a big leap from casual to competitive. This type of information comes from your thought process during games and not from the perfect information available. There are many different types of potential information but most deal with the odds of how the game may unfold and how you perceive it.

To play the odds, you basically take all perfect information and then start playing 2-3 turns ahead of where the game state is currently. When you start playing like this, you actually start seeing the road to victory before it happens instead of just going along for the ride, unaware of what could come. Now, I’m not telling you to see the future, but rather saying that you can play your deck mindful of the worst and best case scenarios based on your opponent’s hand, your own hand and what your deck could potentially draw. After you can determine those possibilities, you then weigh your options and take the route you think is best, one turn at a time.

The more scenarios you can put yourself through, the better prepared you will be at any given moment. This type of awareness comes with practice and is mastered over time.


ACCEPTANCE

There are a lot of players out there that do not understand the full meaning of acceptance when it comes to playing games in general. Acceptance goes hand in hand with awareness and one cannot be achieved without the other. Acceptance can only be achieved when one is calm and focused. To become calm and focused, you must first become aware of your state of being and find an acceptable state that you like. If you lose track of your state of being, you can start to think irrationally. Irrational thinking then turns play mistakes into train wrecks for thoughts and you start seeing end results as “bad.”

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly.”
– Eckhart Tolle

When you are able to detach all emotional labeling from the events during and after anything, you can then analyze your decisions based on what happened and can either learn from it and move forward or simply focus on how “bad” or even “good” the play was to you. It is a choice and it is totally up to you. If you let your emotions get the best of you, you have to work that much harder at calming yourself back down to get to that “professional” level of focus. In my opinion, tilting is a complete waste of mental energy and should be addressed if you’re one to lose it even a little. Tilting takes you out of the moment and distracts the brain with useless thought traffic which is never constructive towards your goal.

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.”
– Eckhart Tolle

Until your match is done, play calmly and focus on each play until that goal is achieved. The goal here is to make sure you are fully involved in the game and are making the best plays at all times. If you lose, you lose. All you can do is make sure that you stay true to yourself and play the best that you can. There is no wrong in believing in yourself, as confidence goes a long way.

What I do want to highlight is that while not blocking was a mistake, Noah actually took the time to think the play through and arrived at the conclusion he felt was correct. The reason for highlighting this is because many players do not think all their plays through which leads to losses or being put on tilt, but if you believe you followed the right course of action and are alright with the line of play you took, you’ll be more successful in the future.”

This is a quote from William’s article describing the general idea of thinking plays through to the fullest but also believing in plays to the fullest. Not only that, even if those plans fail, to immediately get back on the horse instead of dwelling over the defeat, wasting valuable time and energy in the process. You are only as good as your weakest thought. You can always think a better one!

After each match, I suggest talking about your decisions with your friends and ask their opinions. This is how to become a better player, by allowing yourselves to share. Sharing ideas and plays with others gives you perspective, which helps to broaden your view of alternate plays in future matches. Even if you are told you suck, you’re a noob, etc., blah blah blah, ignore that and just take whatever constructive criticism you like and apply that to your game. Nothing else matters at the end of the day. Rise and Repeat!

“Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.”
– Eckhart Tolle

You all know the feeling when you get down. It’s like a dark cloud that starts consuming your brain power. Your head becomes heavy, your body hot and you start feeling instead of thinking. If you tend to lose it at all, I suggest developing some form of breath awareness during matches. Controlled breathing promotes the time to judge situations tactically so you don’t react without thinking. This tends to happen when you address something as wrong or exciting. Oxygen is your friend – I suggest you use it to its full potential so you can too!

If controlled breathing isn’t enough to bring you back from your flat line, I suggest creating a thought that puts you in a calm state that you can repeat until not needed anymore. This can be anything and should be left up to you so you feel at one and most comfortable with it. This will become unnecessary after time due to practice taking its natural path. Just keep on top of it and you’ll be great!

Reminder: if you lose, whether it is your fault or not, you have no further control over the situation…you lost. Try to not let a misplay become a weight dragging you down in future matches. Let the weight turn into the knowledge needed so you do not perform the same mistake twice.

Also remember, when you’re losing it, your level of awareness of your state of being is altered due to how you’re feeling. You may not even know you’re tilting until it’s too late. The challenge is allowing yourself to realize that you are the one in control, not your feelings. You have that choice of always being able to think a better thought and be a better you. It’s up to you and you alone – the blue pill or the red pill? Love Morpheus!!!

Lastly, any negativity from anyone, even yourself, is all based on an opinion and I recommend not taking any of it personally. That is also a choice as taking things personally is also a form of tilting. This will make a confident new you and you will become much happier in all aspects of life, not just Magic.

On that note, I think I’ve said enough for now. If you have questions about anything, just ask away and I’ll answer as best I can. See you in Montreal players!

Noah

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