I’ve had this article sitting and going through various permutations over the past weeks while I worked to launch articles on ManaNation. As you read this, it will echo back to what Lee said last week and I swear that we both independently came to these articles though we agree on multiple points.

As the Editor for articles on ManaNation it was an interesting exercise to compare the tone and style between Lee’s writing and my own. Quite different!

1. Make every play to gain an advantage over your opponent. One thing I’ve learned is that in Magic, like in Chess, when you break it all down the bottom line is that you must gain advantage. Often I ask players what they’re playing to do, and they’ll say “kill the creature” or “win the game.” The first being infinitely short sighted and the latter being infinitely too broad. Killing his creature is gaining an advantage or taking away a disadvantage. But you must look for the better play. Thomas Edison said, “There’s always a better way, find it.” Never stop looking for the better play.

Every move, every action, every thought, must be to gain an advantage, remove a disadvantage, or at the least, maintain your position. Every attack or block you make, every spell you play or counter, all must be considered in this way. It’s alien and in truth can be exhausting, but you must focus and examine the game in this way.

2. Learn your deck. An immediate sign of a novice player is someone who doesn’t know their deck inside and out. Trying to remember how many of a card your deck has is a clear sign that you’re not that comfortable with your deck. How well should you know it? You should be able to write out your entire decklist and sideboard from memory.

This includes, not only studying your decklist and such but also playtesting it a great deal. Too many times have I watched novice players buy a deck they saw online and head directly to the tournament. You MUST playtest.

You’ll come to points in games where you need to know what it is possible to draw, or what to tutor for, or what is left. If you can’t remember, then you’ve already lost the game. If you happen to win it, it is by luck, not by skill.

3. Play thoughtfully. It seems like these days people are slinging spells as quick as possible eager for the next step in the game or being terrified of going to time for a round. Shuffling through your hand is a nervous tick that players pick up in competitive play, but you must think much slower than you move the cards.

For the love of god people, slow down. Chess can be played fast but the brilliance comes out of slow, thought out, calculation. Magic is no different, there are more unknowns than in chess but the game is still dominated by strategy and tactics. If you rush into a play, you’re going to miss something, and that something could cost you the game.

4. Be confident. It is better to be confidently wrong than hesitantly right. This also means, trust your instincts and don’t second guess yourself.

I met a kid at a tournament a few months ago who was 3-0 but was sure he was going to lose out. I did everything I could to bolster him, encourage him, trying to change his attitude. His deck was good and he seemed to know what he was doing, but sure enough his lack of confidence killed him and he went 3-3 and dropped out.

Confidence is a very hard attribute to gain, it comes with experience and recognized success. I qualify success as “recognized” because so often people see any tournament that they didn’t Top 8 as a failure, when in fact they must actively look for their successes. Did you win one game following the exact plan you laid out? Did you accurately predict an opponent’s hand? Did you squeak out a win with a brilliant attack? Did you beat a higher ranked opponent? You must look for the wins and in turn you’ll find your confidence.

5. Know Magic. Understand the rules and know how the mechanics of the game move and act. You don’t need to memorize the rules such that you can quote rules sections, but you should read the comprehensive rules. There is simply no excuse for misplays due to mistakes in how the rules work. When it comes to competitive play, card interactions and ability timings are all the more important.

I like keeping the comprehensive rules in the bathroom as reading material while I do my business. No seriously I do. Or keep it in your backpack for when you’re on the bus or train.

6. Play Magic to win. The greats of any sport or game have a killer instinct. They might smile and be the nicest of people, but once they’re sitting across from you they’re still going to go for your jugular and not let up until your cold corpse stops twitching. Too graphic? Maybe. But quotes from Bobby Fischer, Vince Lombardi, and Tiger Woods are all great examples of competitive and cutthroat players. Don’t be nice, win the game.

You simply can’t allow takebacks when the game is on the line. That being said, you can’t expect others to allow you to correct mistakes.

7. Network with other players. Yes, you have to be social. Zvi Mowshovitz, in his recounting of his preperation for last years’ Worlds, discusses his choice of playtesting and networking. This is a major part to making it to the Pros and staying on the tour and that is, finding a group of people to build, playtest and investigate formats with.

Magic Online makes this easier than ever. Play on there, build a group of friends, and begin exploring the metagame. Or, maybe use our forums, we’re building a strong community and spinning ideas among each other trying to find the next big “Tech.”

8. Play more Magic. You can never play enough. A teacher once told me, in relation to greatness, “Practice, practice, practice. If you’re not practicing every day, somewhere someone is, and when they meet you, they will beat you.” That is a major point for Magic too. You can’t be casual and make it on the Pro Tour.

At the same time, Magic shouldn’t interfere with life. Don’t do it during classes or instead of being social with friends. However, you can’t expect to win tournaments regularly without making it a priority.

9. Take breaks from Magic. And as a counter to point 8, you also need to take breaks. Burnout is killer and unfortunately it will hit when you are going through the most stress, either leading up to a major event or during one. So be sure to take nights and just go out with friends and watch movies, dance, be social – let your brain escape the rat maze for a while.

The brain is a muscle. And the more you work it the stronger it gets. But like any muscle, it can be overworked and it will begin to become counter productive to work it, this is when the times of rest become extremely important. Let it rest. Let your subconscious take over for a while and let your conscious rest.

10. Never stop learning. We’re blessed to have this game during the age of the Internet. When knowledge is just a few clicks away. The moment you stop thinking you can learn, or begin to believe that you are too good, you’ll come crashing down. “Pride goeth before the fall,” or something equally deep and insightful. Right?

Jon Finkel said in our interview with him that the best advice he could give to new players was to always learn from others. Listen to their input, whether they’re better than you or not. Different perspectives, different experiences, and an open mind can bring together a powerful force. And that is, by far, the best advice on this list.

See you all next week when I write about understanding the machine that is magic.
– Trick

To start we need to look at a few factors of the current Standard environment. One of the first factors I see is that we have a set rotating out this means that we will want to have a general idea of what the new set will be like before we go and build our deck. So my plan is to look over any spoilers I can find including the ManaNation spoilers on the site and see what we can find out. I will not talk about the specific cards in the spoilers but this will give us a general idea of what we are going to see in the new set and allow us to start looking into the basic design of our deck. Other things that we need are the current decks being used. Most new decks are variations on the current decks in standard so we need to know what is being used and how it is being used, this way we can use old ideas for our new deck and know what weaknesses the other decks will or may currently have.

After looking at the various spoiler cards (67 officially spoiled cards, including land at the time this article was written) we can see some very strong cards coming to the forefront of magic. We know that with the change we lose a lot of competitive decks but the new cards coming out seem rather high in casting cost, so it’s hard to say if there will be a major change to how the game is played. The major things I am seeing that will probably go into a deck are Landfall, Allies, and Quests. We see kicker and traps as well but I don’t think this will change the format much as kicker never seemed to live up to its full potential, and I think traps are costed too high to play as you don’t want to have to wait for a “Magical” moment to play them. So judging by what I see I would say the next big thing for me will be Landfall. And Landfall seems like it would go great in a Red/Green Ramp deck.

Now you may wonder why I say this. Let’s start with the obvious: We have an abundance of land search in the format which is why ramp decks always stick around in one way or another. With Landfall the deck automatically gets a bonus for finding lands. So it’s an auto include to have Landfall in any ramp deck. I chose red for a specific reason, we need creature control and on top of that it has a nice landfall ability that gives us just that. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is a great landfall card that you can have multiple in play can wipe out a creature board or kill the opponent quickly. To use this it requires a lot of red land but with land search we can accomplish just that. Green was chosen for its ability to search for lands not to mention green has the best blockers to build up defense while you search for your lands. The rest is just filler for a basic red/green deck.

This doesn’t mean that we will use red and green, this just means that the way Zendikar is unfolding we are seeing lots of strong red and green that make me want to move this way. If fairies manage to stick around after the change (miracle needed here) this deck idea would work as landfall is harder to counter and lands are almost impossible to stop from coming into play (Right now I believe it is impossible to stop them but new cards come out all the time). So this means that all counterspell decks will have a tough time dealing with this deck and it should be fast enough to hold back white weenie in whatever form it will take.

Will this idea work? I don’t know. No one will know until we have more information on the new set and we can play test. This means that the ideas we take away will change constantly as new cards come out. Everything evolves and so should our thought pattern. So that being said we need to decide what direction to take our new standard deck. Do we combo (Three to four cards to create a game winning situation), Overrun (amass a huge army and Attack), control (Keep the opponent on the defensive while we slowly win) or clear a path (Burn everything needed to attack straight on)? These are some of the different styles we can choose from, these are all very effective. The chatter online seems to be saying creature heavy is the way to go so I would say ‘clearing a path’ or ‘overrunning’ would be our best bet.

Now I know there are cards some people do not like in this deck but, I decided to build the deck this way so that it was well rounded and it accomplished its goal the best way it could. So after a few more preview cards and searching the current standard cards we should start seeing this deck evolve. So for next time we will quickly review this info and start choosing cards.

So before my next article take on one of the below tasks and post your thoughts in the comments!

The 1st choice – Criticize: Don’t like the deck idea or don’t think it will work? Tell me and why and give ideas as to how to change it or what deck idea you think will work.

The 2nd choice – Homework: Look through the spoiler’s and see potential cards we can use. As well as, go through current card lists and come up with cards that will work well for this deck.

As my experienced readers already know September is a rather interesting month for the Magic playing community. Here we sit on the edge of possible major change. How major? We don’t know. With the joy of the release of Zendikar we also have the loss of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor from Standard and the loss of Onslaught from Extended. With that loss of cards we will find some shifts in the metagame. Some blocks radically change an environment, such as Mirrodin. Or they may cause little to no shifts like Kamigawa. In the back of everyone’s mind is “What Now?”

Because of this state of flux, many players avoid focusing on decks. It’s like running a business where a good percentage of your employees are about to retire or leave. For some companies like TEPS Inc. it’s time for bankruptcy. For others like the FAE conglomerate it’s time for you to focus your portfolio into just the Extended market. Hopefully your deck of choice is like TSC (Time Sieve Combo) with many young and energetic employees just waiting to see what rivals will try to push their way into the picture. Whether your deck is decimated by lose or still intact it’s still nearly impossible to test or prepare for any possible match-ups.

What I always find myself doing this time of year is drafting and scouring the net for spoilers. As of the writing of this piece there are a total of 8 cards beyond the basic lands spoiled with 4 of them being published right here on Mananation before anywhere else. In previous summers the drafting has been sort of stale but this year M10 has really made me happy. I really can’t think of a time I’ve enjoyed drafting more. I thought this was the case for my students as well. That is until last Tuesday. I had reshuffled our rarity piles and was starting to “rebuild” packs but no one was lending a hand. Turns out everyone was jazzed about Extended and debating which deck would prevail at Austin.

While I will not claim that my guys are great prognosticators of the metagame I was surprised by the depth of their conversation.

It all started with the Cascade/Suspend decks. If you haven’t seen a list for these I’ll provide a few shortly. The idea is pretty linear and not hard to understand. I actually find it humorous how many different people claim to have “designed” this broken deck. Basically each deck uses one of the Suspend cards that had no way to hard cast them. Ancestral Vision or Lotus Bloom are prime examples that have seen play so far. The rest haven’t really seen much play because they either take to much time to cast and wait or their effect doesn’t mesh well with enough cards to warrant a deck. Now the mechanic of Cascade can bypass the cast and wait cost. If the rest of the deck is tailored correctly then you can be assured of hitting the target suspend spell once you cast the Cascade spell. The main question is how to abuse that interaction.

The first step in all the decks is to stock up on the 3 casting cost Cascade Spells; Ardent Plea, Demonic Dread, and Violent Outburst. The number varies from deck to deck but it’s always enough to assure having a least one or two in hand when you have enough mana to cast them. From there the decks differ in significant fashion.

The most popular form of the deck idea uses Hypergenesis as its bomb spell. The idea is to have some uber awesome permanent on the field and hope that your opponent doesn’t have one himself. What Uber-coolness you use is up to you. Some go for the Magister Sphinx and Wound Reflection combo. Others go for comes into play effects like Bogarden Hellkite, Angel of Despair, or Woodfall Primus. You can also go hasty with Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, or Hellkite Overlord. I’ve even seen Darksteel Colossus[card] and [card]Empyrial Archangel thrown in. There is plenty of room in the deck for any mix you want. Most decks run 20 lands, 10 cascade spells, 3 Hypergenesis’s and the rest is open. I personally recommend using 4 Simian Sprit Guide and 4 Serum Powders as well.

An example list would look like this. This one was piloted by Johannes Reding

One of the bonuses about using the cyclers is the fact that you scour through your deck much faster than other decks so you do not need as many Cascade Spells but you do need to have a full set of Living End since you increase your chance of drawing it during the early stages of the game. A major drawback of Living End is the fact that it’s a one shot deal. If your opponent can reestablish your second Living End only puts them back to the point where the first one resolved.

My own current deck list for Living End is this.

It’s just basic Rock, Paper, Scissors in my mind. HyperCascade is the Rock aggro deck, Living Cascade is the Paper combo deck, and Restore Cascade is the Scissors control deck. I’m really not sure which is best but I do know that I would not carry any of them into Austin.

There will be just too much hate for them out there. All decks have easy access to Chalice of the Void set at 0 on turn 1. In fact I think the mass hate that will be packed for these decks may make room for other contenders to reemerge. Affinity will love it when the Sideboard artifact hate decreases. Fae will love to see a decrease in Fallout and Stage. Elfball is still an explosive deck. I even suspect there maybe a Tooth and Nail possibility since it can main the Affinity and Fae hate. Who knows?? I just wouldn’t want to invest all the resources that a Pro has to invest and carry one of the above Cascade decks.

The question to my Internet Class this week is: “Assuming you had a Blue Envelope, what would you carry to Austin?”

Ding. There’s the bell. Next class will be a Lesson that expands from the Rule of Nine we discussed earlier so refresh your mind on that if necessary.

Class Dismissed.

Luca Ravagli beat out the field with his Cruel Control deck.

2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Exotic Orchard
3 Island
2 Mystic Gate
4 Reflecting Pool
3 Sunken Ruins
2 Vivid Crag
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Marsh
2 Vivid Meadow

1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Broodmate Dragon
3 Mulldrifter
3 Plumeveil

2 Agony Warp
3 Broken Ambitions
3 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Cryptic Command
1 Doom Blade
4 Esper Charm
1 Essence Scatter
3 Hallowed Burial
4 Volcanic Fallout

Gilles Mongilardi took the top spot in France as well.

Official Event Coverage

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Order some!

Yesterday Lee Steht accepted an invitation from the DCI and Wizards of the Coast to be a member of the Magic the Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Fame selection committee. In his acceptance Lee said:

As a long time player and media spokesman, I would be honored to serve on the Magic Hall of Fame Selection Committee.

Thank you!

ManaNation, the Ultimate Magic the Gathering Podcast, is very excited to have gained enough of a following and attention from the fans to get Lee into the Selection Committee!

This week’s episode is also delayed. It will be up late Tuesday. Lee and Trick look at the top 8 decks from the first Pro Tour Austin PTQ.

Read the Magic the Gathering Patent

From the previews it looks like Shards of Alara is going to be a homerun. They did a lot of good things with this set. Also we have the coming ManaNation preview card for Shards of Alara, to be released on Sept. 19th, and it’s something I’m eager to share with you all!

Firstly, Shards is a gold set. Mark Rosewater freely admits gold is the most popular theme they do and this one makes the third block that is truly devoted to gold cards. The differences are that unlike in Ravnica, City of Guilds, this one focuses on the triples rather than every combination. Instead of ten guilds of two colors we have five planes of three colors. What does this mean for new players?

It provides some rigidity. We’re seeing cards which require three specific colors to cast. No longer is it a world of only hybrids and multicolor lands allowing great flexibility in casting. Now younger players will begin to feel some boundaries in limited format deck construction rather than the boggling flexbility which came with Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. The boundaries will chafe some but to the newer player they provide much more clear guidelines.

Secondly Planeswalkers are returning. They were a big reason for excitement over Lorwyn and we’re seeing more of them in the coming Shards! Planeswalkers are exciting for new players, they’re akin to the excitement that we older players had for Dragons in the history of Magic.

Speaking of Dragons, they’ve released theme decks called “From the Vault: Dragons” about Dragons and thanks to a tight integration with Shards of Alara it’s bleeding over into our excitement for the new set. Dragons are simply fun for the Timmy players, in fact they’re fun for everyone albeit not necessarily always competitive. Unless you’re talking about the good Dragons like Kokusho, the Evening Star.

Thirdly the game is going to see more spells again. While the creatures are extremely prevalent in Lorwyn and somewhat in Shadowmoor, from the previews it looks like the spell to creature ratio is increasing for Shards of Alara. This one could still be proven wrong but I think I’m correct.

Patrick Chapin, in our ManaNationRadio episode with him, points out the importance of creatures to a bystander as a tangible concept of the game state and thus his theory that this is part of their growing presence in Magic. However I think Wizards, with its fifteen designers from Shards of Alara, have begun to pull back on that push some. The reason being that while it is better for spectators, the chess matches slow down the game and bog it down in the minds of many players.

And fourthly, it’s leading into the changes aimed at making the game more accessible to the new players. While experienced players largely dislike their proposed changes it isn’t meant for them, it’s meant for the kid who’s going to start getting into the game after these changes are made. When the extra land makes a difference to them, and when the mythical rare is not something new to them.

Overall the set looks excellent and very rich in flavor, new opportunities, and possibilities! We’ll be exploring it in several episodes for the upcoming month or two.

Remember to check back on September 19th for our Shards of Alara preview card!

–Trick

Beating a world champion or “Big Time” player in a side draft or small tournament and then losing to that same person in the main event. The occurrence would happen so often that I would ponder the myriad of different scenarios and outcomes as well as everything in between for days. I’d look at the winning deck list of some random tournament and get so frustrated because it was the exact deck that had I played.

Now I’m obviously NOT a big name or a member of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame, but I have played my share of competitive Magic. I was once the 21^st overall composite player in the world and one of the top 5 players in the world for matches played. With this, I did find relative success and some $$$ here and there. On top of this bit of Magic “success”, I used to be a “professional” gambler as well as a Pool and Billiards player.

You might be wondering what the relevance of all this jibber-jabber is to you or to anyone (other than me). Here’s what I’m trying to say, “I know what it takes to make YOU a better player!” I’m not saying that everything you’re about to read pertains to you, but I would guarantee there is something.

<disclaimer> I’m writing this as if I were talking to you first person and it may sound a bit harsh. Please understand for the sake of this article that I’m merely trying to voice a point or opinion.</disclaimer>

Let’s start with the ones you probably already know:

#1 I know the cards better than YOU!

I have spent a majority of my days understanding the cards and how they work. Not only do I know every card in Magic, but I know EVERY deck in the format “card for card”. Why is this important? Because it’s important to know every weapon in an arsenal! NEVER should an opponent surprise you with a card from their deck. You may not think it should be there and you may not think it should be played against you, but it’s there and you SHOULD expect it.

#2 I know my chances of winning are better than YOURS!

If you’re playing poker (like Texas Hold ‘Em), you NEED to know every possible out with every card in the hand! This leads me to say that you should be aware of the odds during any tournament or encounter. What odds you ask?

What are the odds of losing any given encounter, Faeries vs. Elves? What are the odds of drawing a certain card from your deck to win a match, Land or Shriekmaw? What are the odds of you getting into day 2 or the Top 8 in a tournament with an X-2 record? In the end, this game is more about statistics and probabilities than anything else. Which is all FACT! Weighing the options or answers before they come is truly a gift that not many players have. Sun Tzu mentions in ‘The Art of War’ the rewards of anticipation many times. In theory, we can both be playing the same deck and the results of our 10 games would be a draw 5-5. However, the person who can anticipate the next play better than the other will often win more. If you can’t anticipate me or my moves, you can’t possibly beat me!

#3 I just play better than YOU!

Did you know, that back in the old days, activating lands for mana was once an activated ability and could be stopped or prevented by cards like Orim’s Chant and Abeyance? Do you remember when you could play instants during your opponents End Step and have their effects continue through your turn (Waylay)? Today’s Magic hasn’t really changed all that much, because though the mechanics have changed they are STILL a major factor in successful play.

Now just watching people cast ALL of their sorceries in Main Phase 1 rather than attacking first and casting during Main Phase 2, doesn’t indicate their NOOB-ness. However, most “Pros” recommend waiting to play (Non-Haste) creatures or sorceries ’til Main Phase 2. One of my favorites is the person playing a Goblin deck (with average casting cost of 3) and emptying their hand by laying land #7 down without any reason. They should hold the land until it is needed for something.

Believe it or not, many of the matches you lost could have ended in a victory and I don’t mean that you could have won IF you had drawn a random card. I mean that you may have provided too much information, played too aggressively, played too defensively or just played too damn bad.

Having bad habits or playing mechanics poorly in Magic is NO different than having a slice in your golf swing or a bad arc in your free throw. They cause you to lose, period. Some things are caused by habits others are a result of not knowing. If you are going to win, you NEED to know what can and can’t be done.

#4 I’m a winner and YOU are a loser!

Have you ever been victim to a Wrath of God just after casting your last creature and having 2 already on the table where your opponent has none? Sucks don’t it.

Have you lost because a Turn 1 or Turn 2 creature took half of your life while you waited too long to kill it?

Have you kept questionable opening hands with the wrong mana, too much or too little?

Now you could have said “yes” to any of the questions above and said, ”but this is why” and you know what? It really doesn’t matter. It’s just an example of poor judgment. Much like “fishing” the river card in poker or attempting a “bank shot” in pool, they are very low percentage options and often result in a loss. The pros don’t take chances they don’t have to and they really do think about what will happen next.

In Pro Tour Hawaii, my opponent tried to Repeal an artifact I had with X and X casting cost (which I had set to 5) by tapping 11 mana. He was at 9 life and I was at 5. Now the interesting thing about this play was it was at the end of my turn and he had untapped, but the judge allowed him to take it back. Thankfully, I still won! Two of the matches I won during that tournament were due to my opponents making technical mistakes, which propelled me to finish in the top 40 of the tournament.

Can you hear me now?

Hopefully, you’re not too tired. This next section I’d like to talk about some things that you may NOT be able to change or modify. In fact they are things that you may not consider to affect your game play:

#1 Yep, you’re too OLD!

Believe it or not, Magic is a young person’s game. I’m not saying that you can’t be too old to “play” MTG, but if you’re older than 30 it’s not in your favor to win a competitive Magic tourney. Think about it, how many 30+ MTG players do you know who have won a Tournament? As in many “athletic” sports, a person’s prime is usually 27 to 35, this sport (yes I believe it’s a sport) does NOT seem to find its rewards within the “older” generation. Whether it’s your inability to conceive new decks, strategize, or learn new tricks, you’d better think about retirement after age 30.

#2 Baggage

Do you have a significant other who argues with you before or during tournament days? Is there someone in your life who’s ill? Perhaps you’re an alcoholic or taking some form of medication. Magic is a mental game, and takes its toll out of people in many different ways. As in the aforementioned “too old” topic, baggage can weigh heavily on you and really distract from your true abilities. ALL of those higher paid athletes get paid that way to make sure they have ALL of their needs looked after so that they may “work” on what they really need to worry about, which is their game. Your mental state really does have an effect on your performance.

#3 Which leads me to…

Money! I like it and I believe most people do too. However, the odds are completely against you if you cannot afford the cards, the travel, or (in some people’s opinion) to play online. This game costs money and playing competitively is even MORE expensive. Very few people make money at playing this game, and the ones who DO win are probably not worrying about a mortgage, a car payment or kids. I know that the DCI doesn’t report a person’s current income or employment information, but I’d say majority of our Pro Tour winners have been college individuals who had/have little worries of “mature” life. This also goes back to the baggage issues I referred to in #2 above.

When I played pool, one of my favorite lines was, ”It’s not how much money we’re playing for, it’s just about playing.” Which is essentially true, it doesn’t really matter what you play for, because if you’re Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, or Jon Finkel, there’s a good chance you will win. So, why wouldn’t you bet the farm on those guys? Although, I’m not so sure I’d bet the farm on you… There’s a saying when it comes to gambling, “Do NOT play with ’scared’ money”. This means gambling with money which is supposed to be for the rent or for baby’s shoes, it can and WILL effect how you play. If you are planning on traveling to a Grand Prix because you want to win a couple thousand dollars, using your next two month’s rent that you worked 60 hours the last to months to earn, you should probably reconsider.

Grand Prix Philadelphia had almost 1000 people in it. Only 128 participants made day 2 which is barely 10% and only half of those are the ones who got prize money. That’s a little over 5% of the entire field! When you consider travel, food and lodging, I probably would have lost money had I won the entire event.

#4 No friends equal No wins!

Magic has really become a team sport. Even though it is recognized as an individual accomplishment when someone wins; I would have a hard time believing that anyone and EVERYONE that has won a major event didn’t ahve 5, 10, even 50 people supporting them in testing, finding cards, or finding cash. Especially when it comes to testing, more resources to test is a MUST. This is quite different from tournament magic ten years ago, some random guy could come in with some random deck and win. However, these days, people are smarter, they share ideas online and test it during FNM or online 8 man queues. So go make some friends!!!

I could go on and on with my theories on success in Magic. In the near future, I’d like to provide you with solutions to all of the items above. I hope you enjoyed this! The thing I enjoy most about learning all of this is that the “Richie Rich” kids can’t afford the school where they teach these things — If you would like to enroll in this school please check out the website at SchoolofHardKnocks.com. Hehe!

Lee

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