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Editor: Michael Mason. Tuesday 22 June 2004.
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 Skullclamp is banned. Why am I still losing?
Random Whiner: Skullclamp is banned, why do I still lose games?
Straight Talker: Well, because you're not very good. Did you think them banning Skullclamp would somehow increase your skill level?
RW: Umm, no. But I thought that it would mean I'd win more games.
ST: Why would you think that? The people who beat you when Skullclamp was legal will probably still beat you now, and what's more you can't cheese any more wins with your own clamps.
RW: I guess that's true. But doesn't it make things less random?
ST: Of course. That doesn't really help you though, since for 99% of all Magic players (yourself included) games are essentially random anyway. When the number of mistakes per game for both players is in the double-digits you have to expect the outcomes to be rather random.
RW: But I don't make that many mistakes. I mean I know I'm not awesome, and I sometimes miss things about the stack. But I don't forget to attack or anything. I couldn't be making more than 2 or 3 a game, if that.
ST: You're just wrong there, unless you're much better than I think you are. I've seen "good" players win games where they averaged 1 mistake per turn. And these people sometimes win tournaments. When was the last time you won a tournament?
RW: Well, I almost made top 8 at Regionals this year. Came 10th, I was playing Ravager Affinity.
ST: Great! So when none of the best players are playing, you can nearly make the elimination rounds. You must be pretty good. Cheese any wins with Skullclamp?
RW: < rolls up sleeves >
ST: Ooof!
As you might have guessed by now, this article isn't really about Skullclamp, although the ongoing discussion about the June 1st banning was what sparked the incoherent ramble that follows. This is really about how good people are, and how good they think they are. And how bad they think they're not. But first, for all of you who actually wanted an opinion on the Skullclamp banning, consider this:
Pre Darksteel viable decks:
Post Darksteel:
Post Banning, with 5th Dawn:
I don't think that needs any more explanation. Regardless of whether you think the DCI did the "right" thing on June 1st, it's hard to argue with results. Although admittedly it's early days yet. But think about what the environment would've been like post-banning if, say, they'd banned Ravager instead. Cool, no more Ravager Affinity decks. So that leaves, what? Goblins and Elf'n'Nail? Oh wait, Goblins beats Elf'n'Nail. Looks like we've got a 1-deck format, people. Awesome, that's much better than when all these Ravager decks were running around making life difficult for everyone. Reminds me of the good old days of Masques/Nemesis block constructed, pre-banning. Anyway, on to the topic of interest, to me at least. Someone (sorry, I don't have a source, you'll have to trust me) once did a study in which they asked a range of people about how they rated their abilities in a number of areas (such as language skills, numeracy, abstract reasoning etc.) and then gave them simple tests in these areas. Afterwards, they asked the subjects to estimate their scores on each of the tests. The findings were I suppose quite remarkable, but in some ways completely unsurprising: The people who were bad generally had no idea how bad they were, whereas the people who did well were able to predict their results far more accurately. Almost no one put themselves below the statistical average. What is the point of all this? Well, if you'll bear with me for a while, I'll tell you. If you'll allow me to extend the findings of this study to include people's ability to play Magic you may start to see my point. I'm sure you're aware that there are people who are worse than you (hopefully!). Have you noticed that these people, who you know to be worse, often seem to think of themselves as "unluckier" than you (or other people at you level), rather than worse? The problem lies in the fact that people stubbornly refuse to admit that they're bad at something, no matter how obvious it is. And by "bad" I don't mean terrible, I just mean below the average. After all, someone has to be below average, in fact half of all players (roughly speaking) are below average. Half of you who are reading this article are below average. The problem goes even further in Magic. Given how new the game is (compared to other "intellectual sports" such as Chess, Go, Bridge etc.) and how regularly the game changes on a large scale (every year the block and type 2 environments completely change) there are very, very few people who are actually good enough to rate themselves accurately. Maybe Kai is good enough, but then again maybe not. The point is that you are definitely not good enough, and neither am I. All we can say is that we're bad, and we've got a lot more to learn before we're not as bad anymore. "But wait!" you say, "What makes you think we're all that bad?" Well, we all make mistakes. Regularly. Even Kai. I make more than 1 per game. I have seen people average 1 per turn and still win. And what did they say afterwards? "Geez, I played that terribly, I was kinda lucky to win it"? Of course not. They congratulate themselves on a match well-played and go talk about lunch, or prizes, or Warhammer 40K, or breasts, or whatever else they're interested in. This is the fundamental problem: Because Magic has a reasonably large random element it is possible to win games that you played very badly, and to lose games that you played well, even if you opponent played badly. It's very tempting to blame a loss on manascrew, or God-drawing opponents, or a bad matchup. In reality, perhaps you could've won despite those things had you played it better. You need to learn to ignore the random element and focus on whether you played it as well as you could given the situation. If you didn't, then you lost because you played badly. Even if you were manascrewed. I went through this process of realising how bad I was about 18 months ago. I think it's an important stage in the development of every Magic player, because until you realise how bad you are there is a limit to how good you can get. Once you acknowledge and embrace your "scrubbiness" you can begin to learn from all those mistakes you make when you are manascrewed, or when your opponent topdecks a card that you could've played around, or when you play badly but still win. And if you don't believe me, try and convince a well-known "good" player to watch a couple of your games and count mistakes for you. And remember that they're only counting mistakes that they are good enough to see.
Anatoli Lightfoot |
