You are: Home
-> Articles -> Feature
Article | 
Editor:Staff 19th December 2007
I’m going to Disney Land
By Conor ‘Cattibrie’ Holmes The full quote starting with; ‘You’ve made the Pro-Tour, so what are you going to do now?’ This article, which you will all be happy to know is considerably shorter than my last, is inspired by a new friend of mine. It seemed relevant as so many Aussies have q’d for KL and are actually planning to go. In essence this is a survival guide aimed at those making their fabulous Debut to the international stage. As before we shall attempt to break it down into its key elements, namely; A) Deck choices A) Now for the pedantic Muppets out there I feel it necessary to point out that this is only truly relevant to constructed PT’s. However, never forget about the wonderful side event prizes to be stolen out of the clutches of the local yokels. So you’ve decimated your locality with your leet skills and immense Meta calls. The question that now confronts you is ‘will my mono blue treefolk deck be good enough to top 8 Hollywood…’ Well the answer is probably not, therefore how do you go about choosing a deck? One method is to get a few mates round for a testing ‘session,’ and play out the gauntlet of your favourite 2 or 3 decks. Then when your choice batters them senseless, choose that one because it’s obviously wonderful. Changing a few main deck cards of course to correct a bad match up here or there. Survey says; WRONG. Again you may all sceptically say ‘what a load of kithkin Conor, we don’t do this’ But unfortunately in my experience that’s exactly what the majority of players do. It creates a totally artificial idea about the Meta and you end up running a deck tech’d out against unplayed decks. Another method is to home-brew. Get your file together and pull out a large stack of cards, which seem to go just great together. Next thing you know you’ve cracked the format and are piloting the next stage in evolution for this format. Survey says; BLOODY UNLIKELY. I’d say that every player has it in them, be it due to luck, skill or divine intervention to make that master deck. But this is, at best, a once in a lifetime occurrence if you, like me, are a mere mortal. Need an example, talk to Nic Rolf about his night before solutions deck for Valencia… The moral of the story is that it’s a very rare occurrence for anyone to latch onto an idea that hasn’t been considered. And at a pro-tour where you have 400 people dedicating large parts of their time, and considerable intellect, it becomes almost unheard of. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible; just tread lightly before committing your debut to the fates. My advice would be to apply a wide variety of methods. Ideally; Net Deck; but make sure that you are in the right places to do so. I find that previous GP and PT results to be the most reliable indicators. But beware, Meta shifts very fast and results become inaccurate or irrelevant overnight. Proper sessions. Proxy up the gauntlet and play 5 games each way (i.e. play and draw) and note the results. This is time consuming and bloody boring so I suggest the inclusion of alcohol in the process. Barn; ask those few who always seem to be in the know. They may tell you nothing but it’s always worth the attempt. Again the inclusion of alcohol often helps this process. 2 other people showed up at Nats with my secret deck list, they obviously discovered my Achilles heel. B) I am sure that at least a few people dropped off at the beginning when they read this, but it’s actually meant to be vaguely serious. At my 1st PT in Kobe I was sitting in the lounge with all the other lost lambs enjoying the food and general feeling of superiority to the 8million Japanese who couldn’t partake of the free sugar. I, as is my wont, quickly engaged other individuals who appeared sans company. My 1st new friend was an American kid called Alex, and I duly noted that he was sporting a very plain maroon jumper with HARVARD written across it in massive lettering. A quick scan of the room indicated that he was not the only person wearing academic attire, and my inquisitive nature prompted me to enquire as to the cause of this phenomenon. He reasoned that regardless of the fact that he had a few wins under his belt in his own little unimportant town (Washington), he was a PT virgin. Therefore the jumper was to enforce upon his opponent that he was dealing with one smart mofo and not some noob from the sticks. And this has led me to consider each and every opponent I’ve had since at a PT or GP, for you I present some interesting examples. USA long time PT attendee Mike Woltereck is the person I’ve come to know best on the tour, we usually hang out for the duration and built our decks for Valencia together (he also did wonderfully well). He plays in an outfit for Star City Games, no great surprise as he works for them, but what is funny is that he was responsible for the design. Basically he looks like a little league player, with the BU striped pitchers top and the backwards baseball cap. His approach is one of a relaxed gamer and he wants to present his opponent with the opportunity to under value him, basically because he endeavours to look about 12. If not in SCC wear, he still shows up in a similar outfit, offering a consistent image, which the better players will begin to recall. GP London, prior to my study, but this one tends to stick in the memory. Ardent fans surrounded the top tables on day 1 as usual, but one table drew an unparallel amount of attention. One of the Italian players was dressed in a custom cut gold suit, more chains than Mr T and Armani sunglasses. He’d obviously spent about 3 grand on his hair and buffed his alligator leather shoes until they blinded passers by. There was only one word for this guy, bling. Unsurprisingly he was drawing some looks of amusement by many of his opponents, and many of them were actively discussing him at the table with nearby friends (Europeans aren’t renowned for politeness). However, as was clear to even my inexpert eye (this was at the very start of my playing days), this guy was good. He played technically perfectly, with a good deck choice and made a clean break into day 2 where, alas, I lost him. How much of this was strategy and how much was sheer insanity? At GP Copenhagen a women threatened to sue Hasbro after she was given an environmental warning by the head judge. She was wearing a Very skimpy outfit which hid Very little of her voluptuous figure (i.e. she was a little on the larger side). Distraction tactic or Attention Deficit Disorder? A French pro (Ruel bother?) wore a T-shirt to the pro tour saying ‘ I always draft blue.’ He went on to do very well, and unsurprisingly drafted a fair amount of blue. There were discussions surrounding the rules implications of this outfit. These are obviously based on the extreme end of the scale, but there are things to be taken away from such situations. If I showed up in NY dressed from head to toe in Red and Black clothing, including painting my face, hands and hair would it be safe to assume what colours I intended to draft? Would at least some people take the hint? Now most players would attest that they don’t really put a lot of thought into the ‘bling’i.e. the outfit, deck box, sleeves, tokens etc. I think that this is either very foolish or a blatant lie. If you, like me, rely heavily on the psychology of the game to make up for you abysmal play skills then you need every weapon at your disposal. Plus, for me, it constitutes a large part of the experience. You are a PRO for the 1st time, maybe for the last time, make the most of it. I wear an Irish rugby top (one of several), have an anime girl deck box (one of the stupidly over priced limited addition ones) and always carry my backpack with the watchmen smiley face on it. Every photo of me will have me wearing my home colours even if the outside temperature is 45 in the shade, and the top was made with snow in mind. . . What does it convey to my opponent? Probably very little. BUT people do start to recognise the distinct jumper, bag and slightly perverted box, even if they don’t recognise the face. This in itself is an advantage (although the last x people who have recognised me have asked ‘aren’t you that Australian bloke?), as people will automatically raise you in their threat assessment if you’ve been PT’ing before. It’s particularly handy when you're playing a PT virgin and a guy shouts hello from a neighbouring table in a distinctly German accent. Take what you like from this section. But consider it when you make your debut, your there to shine not to blend. C) Attitude I have a confession to make; I lied about this article being shorter than the last. This is the section where I intend to spend the most time, you have been warned. So you’ve finally got there, you're no longer playing with those poor amateur mortals, you’ve ascended the echelons and are on your way to greatness… But what if you scrub, sleep in, talk crap and embarrass yourself, spill coffee all over Quentin Martin??? (10 bucks to the 1st Aussie to accomplish this). Attitude is the first and most dangerous pitfall of the Pro-Tour. A sentiment I have relayed to many Australians is not to feel down hearted if you get mashed in your 1st one because it’s more than likely going to happen. But does it have to? To answer this question I am going to analyse a few players. As with my last article I have not got permission (:-)) but everything I say is designed to be constructive. Ed Lim – My new friend :-) Of everyone I have met playing magic in Aus and abroad, this guy is the most naturally pleasant. Going out of his way to be nice, helpful and friendly seemed to come as natural to him as a nudist colony in Amsterdam. This guy had a stressful debut, and as I’m sure he’d be the 1st to admit was the victim of the dreaded, phantom tilt. Specifics aren’t really relevant, but suffice to say he went in to the run with trepidation, a lack of confidence in his own abilities and a reactive attitude towards his deck. Therefore whenever the deck fluffed him, or he made a game-breaking mistake, his day was over. The curse of the PT virgin at it’s fullest. Rhys Gould – I tried for about 40 minutes to find another example, I prop Rhys too many times and his head will explode. But one accolade he undisputedly deserves is a top finishing place at his 1st PT (23rd at Honolulu). Now forgetting play skill, deck preparation, loved by the gods.. Etc, there is one factor which gives Rhys the edge. His unshakeable foundation of superiority to pretty much everyone. I would bet my eye teeth that he went into that room, weighed, measured and found wanting all round him. Therefore he entered every match as an equal (at least) to every opponent, remained unfazed by any big names and totally failed to tilt. The result was a victorious return to Sydney with justification of his opinion. Justin Cheung – Have just been informed that Juzza pulled a 17th place finish in Prague and this definitely deserves a mention. I honestly believe I can attest any success I’ve had to this man, my unicorn for my first 4 months in Sydney. I could not beat him, full stop, and every time I played him it was as a monkey with flapping arms. He is the most professional and educational drafter I’ve ever seen and my respect for him is garnered at least in part by his purely unshakeable attitude to the game. He’s good, he knows he’s good and he doesn’t need you to tell him he’s good. I honestly don’t believe anyone else’s opinion matters to Juzza and it certainly doesn’t shake him. I can see this Lone Wolf approaching the PT just like any other event, and accordingly being rewarded for his quiet self-confidence. (He also seems to be immune to the affects of alcohol…) My primary mantra, which I tell everyone back in sunny NI (the rain hasn’t
stopped in 5 days, I hate you all) is often met with derision. But follow
this and your half way there; Kenji who, Richard hopeless, Quentin full of S**t. There is no match you can’t win, no player you can’t outplay and no deck you can’t stomp through the cheap wooden floor. The people you are facing are mortal, I swear it, and in the main are no better than any of their opponents. They just use every single advantage they can use, their experience, their time on the tour, psychology, their obviously insane testing groups and most importantly their ‘Let’s do this’ attitude. There is at least a couple of named ‘pro’s’ who I believe maintain their position solely on their attitude, and are without any special talent. And everyone who says ‘holy s*** look who I’m playing’ is feeding this utterly undeserved advantage. As I’ve indicated in the past, this does not mean you need to be an arrogant so and so. It means you have to have confidence in yourself and remember why you are there in the first place. Yes, these guys are all good, you can be pretty confident that utterly ridiculous mistakes are not commonplace. They are however not flawless, I could write some rather unflattering stories about some of my Valencia opponents and their rips of doom… Which brings me rather smoothly to my next point(s): Your deck just utterly died on you, you drew 420 lands in a row and your opponent’s a top decking master of the universe. Bottom line you just lost. My advice is to get over it and move on. There is always 1 loser in every match and there are a wide variety of reasons. You’re in a winning position and your heading to the finish post when you stop to smell the roses and get overtaken. Effectively, you’ve just utterly screwed up and have lost an otherwise ‘in the bag’ game. This happens, more so when under the sort of pressure the Pro Tour can inspire. My advice is two fold: 1. If you follow previous instructions and take a blasé attitude
to begin with then these situations are considerably less common. Every player screws up, pro’s just don’t do it as often. But trust me I’ve seen a lot of big names pick up the game, throw it out the window and follow it out. I overheard a fantastic philosophy from an American VS pro when his friends were enquiring how many matches he had to win in order to make top 8. He answered, one, then one more, then one more, then one more. He looked at every game as unique in itself and ignored all of the outside influences, allowing him to discard the pressures of the ‘win, win, ID’ and just get on with winning his game. I have succeeded to a small degree in adopting this approach and must say that it has served me well. And finally, a story yet again referencing Irish Nationals 2007. (It was terribly exciting :-)) The Final vs. Alan Meaney, playing UWR Blink A brief history. Alan is one of Ireland’s most prestigious players. Under his belt he has 6 PT’s, 2 worlds, 1 National Champion, a handful of states, PTQ’s and other minor majors. But… He is a notorious bad nerves player and is extremely sensitive to every swing in the game. Game 1 – I curve out and win in 7 turns. Very fast, very little back and forth, very quickly concluded. Game 2 – The same, ends quickly and is again very one sided. Therefore I am 2 up and there is no humour left on the other side of the board. I am on pint 7 or 8 and am projecting the image of complete relaxation; I could be at the beach. Alan however, is noticeably close to a complete tilt out of this final. Game 3 – I draw 6 lands, one 2 drop on the draw. Alan keeps his opening hand. For some utterly inconceivable reason I decide to keep. In retrospect I assume that I was approaching my own tilt of sorts, I had swept the semis and was 2 games up in the final. I was running on a decent dose of invulnerability. Reality very quickly asserted itself. I drew 3 more lands and no gas, whereas Alan windmill slammed his 3rd land securing his 4th mana source (signet). I therefore made a very controversial decision; I asked him whether his hand was good and then scooped. My reasoning was simple. Had I allowed the game to continue and taken the x number of turns to lose, as I was 99.9% going to, then I would have given my opponent the opportunity to beat me in his own time and on his own terms. He would have had the confidence boost he desperately needed and would know a hell of a lot more about my deck and play style. As it was I lose the game on my own terms with sufficient haste to hopefully prevent a psychological comeback. Game 4 – Well bugger. He came off tilt and got his game back, I was back on an even playing field. He out drew me, played tight across the board and lightning angel takes us to game 5. Game 5 – I drew my 1st god hand of the day and beat him turn 6 on the play, even against double lightning angel. My deck made up for my error with superb grace. Afterwards Alan explains how he made x million play mistakes in game 1 and 2, forgetting stupid triggers and making utterly insane decisions. It seems to me had I simply taken the mulligan in game 3 there would have been very little chance of ever being a game 4. There was no reason to suppose he would have randomly picked his game up. It all ends well as we are now teammates and a 3-2 loss is much better for the soul than being obliterated 3-0. Just goes to show you though doesn’t it :-) This is Australia’s adopted son, getting back to work // Conor
|
