Letting Your Proteges Go - Part 2

Last time we covered my Magic story. It lasted longer than I thought it would so I split the post into two. Here's the second part.

After I was starting to get a new handle on the game, a pair of kids showed up: Matthew and Sarah. (I won't release last names for privacy reasons). Now, these were good kids. They were eager to learn and play. They only had two flaws:

A) Matthew was very, very irritating.
B) They both sucked.

So I set out to remedy B. I decided to teach the kids to play some good Magic. (Though I never talked Sarah out of that U/B Faeries deck...(This was a casual Faeries deck, not the Cryptic Command - Bitterblossom - Mistbind Clique concoction. It had Pestermites and Faerie Harbingers)).

Ironically, Matthew seemed more receptive. I came to the conclusion that he was a lot like me: he was young, and didn't KNOW when he was driving people up the wall. I gradually moved the kids up to Limited, I helped them with decks, I built their manabases in drafts every week. I took them under my wing.

And as karmic justice, guess what happened? I became a better player. Turns out when you have to explain how to build a sealed deck, you get a bit better at it. Same with many other concepts, like card advantage, life as a resource (Or, How To Not Chump Block a 3/3 at 18 Life 101) and drafting.

They got better. Matthew especially built new decks and got better at building them. He took my advice. Five-Color? Need less colors with that manabase. Bant? A bit too top-heavy and not consistent enough. Treefolk? Not bad. (It was able to beat my aggro decks a decent amount). Then before Zendikar came out he asked me to build him Mono-Black Control. All of a sudden he could beat me. His recent deck, Naya Cascade, is tough for me to beat. (I built that too). I wouldn't want to face that kid in a tournament with stuff on the line as much as I would have before.

As for Sarah, she improved her play but didn't change her deck. This kept her skill capped. But what happened when Zendikar came out? She built, with my tutelage, a Mono-White Emeria deck, and shot up. Both of them are now only a little below me.

And then there was Max. The third kid who only showed a few months ago. He really is a mini-me. He played the same class and race as me in World of Warcraft, he built a Jund deck like I did, and he even looks like me. I'm looking forward to sculpting him into a good player, once he learns what decks are possible and which are not.

It's time for me to let Matthew and Sarah find their own paths. I'll probably help Matt with his decks now and then, but I've taught them nearly as much as I can. I've still got Max, and I hope I keep having kids to teach. It's deeply rewarding, and makes you a better player. You can learn something from everybody.

From Sarah, I learnt to stick to a strategy. She played a deck for two years, and always drafts the same deck. She's so notorious for forcing it that nobody near her drafts it since they know she'll never quit. (Mono-White in Zendikar).

From Matt I learnt adaptability. I learnt that sometimes it's not bad cards, but bad decks. I also learnt the importance of trying different archetypes.

And from Max? I'm still looking forward to the lessons he has to teach, but he's looking like he'll end up a formidable player.

And this is my story, and some of the lessons I've learnt. I hope you find it informative.

Tomorrow, the Twitter community's best worst deck concept will be featured on this blog. I'll build it, test it, and probably fail miserably, but you learn a lot from failure.

Enjoy! See you tomorrow!

Letting Your Proteges Go - Part 1

One thing I had a lot of in my old personal development blog was, well, personal things. I don't want to do too much of that with this blog, but I do have a Magic story to tell, so I figured, why not?

Have you ever taught a player to play Magic?

What about taught a bad player to become better?

This story will first cover my journey to here, and then it'll cover the journey of my proteges.

A couple of years ago, I entered Mega Games Trader for the first time. I'd heard that they had an Arena tournament there (whatever THAT was). The friend who invited me actually never showed, and I then proceeded to be told the following by the store owner:

See those guys out there? They've forgotten more about Magic than you ever knew. Listen to them. Learn from them.

Of course I thought I knew strategy. Here was my entire bevy of knowledge about strategic thinking.

• Build your decks to be 60 cards
• Have 4 of each of your key cards
• Instants should be played on your opponent's turn. I...think...

No card advantage, deck matchups, sideboarding (what's a SIDEBOARD?) or anything that I now take for granted. My first deck was a Saproling Overrun deck. Mono-green, no removal whatsoever except a single Wear Away which was part of the snake deck I started with.

It sucked. I went 2-2 at Arena though, because other people sucked just as much as me.

Then, the best thing that would ever happen to me, happened. The thing that would sculpt me into a competitive player, the thing that rocketed me into FNM and into competition.

What was it? A staggering insight? An awesome mentor?

Well, actually, I lost my deck.

Because I lost my crappy Saproling deck, I had to build another deck, and I figured "Why not make it Standard legal?"

At this point, all I knew of Standard and Extended was that Standard was Time Spiral, Lorwyn, and Tenth Edition, and FNM was Standard. My deck was Extended. Whatever that meant.

So from the little I'd heard about Lorwyn I decided to make a Kithkin deck, since I figured it'd be budget.

4 Goldmeadow Stalwart, 4 Wizened Cenn, 4 Knight of Meadowgrain, 4 Cloudgoat Ranger made up the core of my deck. I can't remember what else I had, but I do remember it was a deck I played for months.

It rocked. I tore through Arena. And then, next week, I showed up and there was nobody there, so Manuel said he'd put me in FNM and see how I fared.

I came 3rd. I went 3-1. Of course, the competition at my store was FAR, FAR less at this point, but I didn't know that. I was on top of the world. Two months later, I won my first FNM.

Two months later, I tanked at Regionals. In fact, I got a disqualification for insufficient randomization. See, the store owner knew I wasn't good enough at shuffling so he told me to manaweave before each round started: but then I didn't shuffle it as well as he'd hoped: I only cut the deck, albeit numerous times. The end result was that when my deck got taken away (for a random deck check or someone reported it was shady, I'll never know) it was found that my deck had a near perfect land-creature distribution. I said I understood.

It was the worst day in my Magic career. Ever. I vowed to stick to FNM from then on. The months went by. I continued to do well. I even won again. And then, OMG showed up.

Team OMG (originally standing for Omega Games) were pros. They came with netdecks. They came with tech. They creamed us all. Ben was the first to rise up, but the rest of us were slow to follow. As for me, I maintained my 'netdecks are evil' policy for quite some time. I did, however, start to study the metagame in depth. I learnt about Faeries, about Quick 'n' Toast when it first came out, about Reveillark, about Red Deck Wins.

I fell in love with Red Deck Wins. It was like Kithkin, but it had removal! And it WINS! I built it, and won once with it. OMG weren't there. Then things got really tough.

Other people started netdecking. They built good decks. I was not to win another FNM for a year.

I built a red shaman deck next. It had Rage Forger, Incandescent Soulstoke, and lots of one-drop and two-drop elementals. It was frighteningly fast, but it DIED to a Wrath of God. I remember winning a game on Turn 4...through a Pro-Red creature. The problem was it didn't even have burn. It had 32 creatures and 4 Shared Animosity. This was a 50c rare that nobody knew about til I bought it.

Creatures I controlled got +1/+0 for each other attacking creature. It was amazing. I built the deck to power out 3-4 elementals by Turn 3, then drop Rage Forgers or Shared Animosity for the win. It did pretty well. Except against OMG.

Alara Reborn came out. By now I knew about aggro and control and combo, and I had some idea of my own inadequacy as a player. So I played aggro. I built a R/G deck with Giantbaiting, Bloodbraid Elf, Hellsparks, and Boggart Ram-Gang. Essentially, every card could go to the face (which was pretty nuts with Bloodbraid Elf). Shame I couldn't cascade into Flame Javelin.

Then I opened 3 Pulses over 3 weeks. These were chase rares, and I knew this, having gone ape about the card when it was previewed. I decided then and there to build a Jund deck. Next week, I asked my teammate Jeremy if he had a Jund deck I could use. He then took a deck out of his bag, and told me it was Five-Color Blood, which was similar.

I didn't see the point of splashing UUU for one card. The world soon followed suit. I took out the Cryptics and Cruels, and added in more aggro. It did great. I loved it.

Then Jeremy lost the deck. I went back to playing R/G Aggro while I collected the cards for Jund. Shortly before M10 came out, I managed it.

I got better at Jund, learnt it, added Bolts to it...and then made this blog. I wrote a lot about Jund in my early days. Everything went great.

When Zendikar rolled out, I went with the punches. I'd finally gone full-circle. Lorwyn was gone, I'd now been around for the release of all of Standard. I won again, two weeks ago. OMG weren't there, but I triumphed over some great players.

Jund is everywhere now. As is Soldiers, Vampires, and control builds. As I look around the room every Saturday, I realise it took me 18 months to catch up to the level I used to be at: but now I'm 20 times better at the game. I owe OMG more than I ever could have fathomed. And the store owner, Manuel, was right. I had no idea of how much I had to learn. Now, as a player, I realise how far I still have to go.

But that's Magic for you: the game of a lifetime.

Next bonus post, I'll talk about three kids who I decided to mentor, and how their stories have affected me, and made me into the player, and person, I am today.