From here on out, Shonen Jump Championships are going to cut to Top 16. This is exciting and welcome news for a lot of players—but even though there are technically 16 chances to win on Day 2, there will still be only one Shonen Jump Champion. Obviously, everyone else is going to have to lose.
Losing is a part of the game, but unfortunately, it’s not something that a lot of players have learned to do properly. Instead of analyzing what really went wrong in the game, they instantly blame the loss on bad luck for them, or “lucksacking” on behalf of their opponent. Most of the really good players, though, are more focused on what they might have done to create that loss. They analyze the matchup and their play, and try to avoid making the same mistakes. That’s how you improve at this game.
While you need to be able to recognize when your losses weren’t your fault (because sometimes they won’t be), oftentimes they are—and hiding from that isn’t going to earn you any benefit from the experience. Why make the game an absolute waste? You can gain wisdom from a loss if you approach it the right way.
First off, you should accept the nature of the game that you’re playing. Some of the cards or combinations of cards are really strong, creating an undeniable element of luck. Also, the format for Advanced Tournaments will change every six months, taking away some cards and adding others. Every three months at a minimum, new cards will be introduced to the pool. All of this does affect how you win and lose—if you want to play the game, you need to accept it on its own terms.
Barring bad luck for you or good luck for your opponent, there are some fairly common reasons for losing a game. As I started listing them all out, I realized the list was rather long. So, I think I will spare your attention span by dividing this up into two articles—it’s a lot easier to mull over and profit from two shorter lists than it is one very long one. Now you have something to look forward to next week!
Anyways, nearly all of your losses will fall into one of the categories below. Let’s get started, shall we?
Misplays!
Sometimes you just blow it. I’ve done it. I’ve seen other people do it. I’ve looked at the table and watched the cards being played (or not played) and inside my head I’ve heard a slow-motion “Noooooooooooooooo!” as the fatal action occurred, unable to prevent it. Perhaps you activated a card at the wrong time. You might have played too conservatively, giving your opponent the chance to wear you down, or you might have pushed forward too aggressively, without anything to back you up. Maybe you were using a new deck, and weren’t totally clear on what your cards actually did, and made a bad choice because of that. Sometimes you’ll know when you’ve cost yourself the game and exactly what you did wrong—those are the times you want to just smack yourself—but other times it might not be so obvious. When you lose a game, look back and try to pin down the moments that the game turned in your opponent’s favor. Analyze what you did leading up to that, and how you responded afterward. It won’t hurt to jot down a few notes when the game is done, and look them over—are you spotting a trend? If you’re consistently making the same fundamental errors that let the duel slip from your grasp, then you need to make some adjustments to how you’re playing.
Playing With the Wrong Goals in Mind
Decks have different goals. Some are designed to stall the game while you set up a combo or build up an onslaught, while others are designed to come out of the gate running and overwhelm your opponent—and there are myriad decks that strike a balance between the two. You need to play appropriately to your deck type—trying to play a stall deck as a beatdown, or going slow and conservative with a fast aggro deck because you want to keep five cards in your hand at all times is most likely going to end in a loss. What’s appropriate for one kind of deck isn’t going to work for every deck, so you need to adapt your style, tempo, and decisions to the kind of deck you’re using.
When you understand what a deck is designed to do, you need to practice with it and learn how that design can best be served. This is easier said than done—while some players can switch between drastically different deck types with relative ease, many cannot . . . at least not without a lot of practice. Most players shouldn’t pick up a deck that’s very different from what they normally play and head to a tournament without practicing it, no matter how popular it is. You have to be able to adapt your pace and play style to the deck you are using; otherwise you should stick to the decks that best suit you. For instance, I never seem to do well with stall decks. If I practiced more, perhaps I would be able to play them successfully, but alas, I don’t practice. So, when I actually care about winning, I won’t play stall. It isn’t going to end happily if I do.
Being Unprepared to Duel
Sometimes you’ll be at an event feeling tired, hungry, or preoccupied with home, work, or school issues—you aren’t really able to keep your mind on the game. Maybe you’ll enter a tournament right after a new format is announced or a new set is legal for play, with no idea what cards you’ll be seeing, what they do, or how they interact with your own deck. If you haven’t spent much time reading the rulebook, advanced play mechanics, or card rulings, you might not really grasp the complexities of some plays. Whatever the reason, if you’re not adequately prepared, the chance of making mistakes that cost you the game increases dramatically.
Eat before you go, get a good night’s sleep, and bring some water. Playtest a new format, read about the new cards, and pick up a rulebook now and then. Do your part to be ready!
Bad Matchups
Some decks are just going to go down hard to certain other decks. Occasionally you’ll pull through, but if you are up against a competent opponent with a deck designed to ruin yours, the outlook is usually rather bleak. It might be an entire deck, and it might be just a few pieces of tech or a devastating series of side deck cards, but when the matchup is against you, a loss can seem inevitable.
If your deck has a fundamental weakness, playtesting will help you do what you can to compensate—perhaps a few well-chosen tech cards of your own, or a side deck that can either alter your deck sufficiently to make it immune, or come down hard on the deck that threatens you. You don’t have to assume that you’re doomed; if you lose against certain strategies, don’t whine about it. Analyze the situation and see what you can do to help better your odds.
Wrong Side Decking Choices
Side decking often seems to turn into an elaborate game of Spy vs. Spy, as each player smokescreens fifteen cards into his or her deck, then takes them out a few at a time. Who is changing his or her entire deck type? Who is siding in some cards just to foil the opponent’s predicted plans? Who is just putting in fifteen cards and then taking the same fifteen out again? What happens if you don’t call it correctly? If you think your opponent is going to do one thing, then he or she does something else entirely and your strategy falls flat, it’s going to hurt. I hear this a lot from players in the Top 8—“I should have sided differently; I thought my opponent was going to do one thing and he did something else instead.” Making the wrong decision when side decking can cost you games.
You should put as much care into building your side deck as you put into building your main deck. Anticipate what you might be facing, and come up with a plan to cover your weaknesses. Don’t overlook the importance of knowing what to take out of your deck, not just what to side in.
That’ll do it for this week—next week, I’m going to continue on with this, and discuss playing an unfamiliar deck, underestimating the competition, poor openings, and distraction at the event. Your assignment, until then, is to think about the games that you lose. If you can move past the knee-jerk reaction of blaming all your losses on bad luck, and instead focus on trying to learn why they happened, you just might find that you have fewer losses to analyze. I think you can all live with that.