Better Lucky Than Good: Why That's A Load Of Crap

Why are the professionals luckier than the amateurs? Are they just inherently lucky? Hell no. They're lucky because they MAKE THEIR OWN LUCK.  And with practice and skill, you can be just as lucky as the pros.

Picture the following quotes. You've probably heard them, or something exactly like them, before.

"Shit! I almost had him! How the hell did he topdeck a Lightning Bolt when I was on 3?"

"I was going to kill him in ONE TURN, and he drew the Wrath!"

"Lucky bastard drew two sweepers in a row and beat me."

(Sorry for the language to easily offended folks. As you may notice, people can get this way when discussing their losses.)

Now, if you'll bear with me for a moment, I'd like to show you a game where I got galactically lucky. Did I? Yes. Kind of.

I was playing Five-Color Control, my opponent Elf Combo. It's Round 4 of FNM: and in fact, this very game is featured in this article on the site.

Here's the text.

Game 1: He starts off with Nettle Sentinel, and I lay a couple of lands. He plays double Elvish Archdruid and I'm worried about him going off, but instead he bashes me for 11. I pray, and crack a Hallowed Burial off the top. He fights some more, but he's in topdeck mode and I play a Broodmate that gets there.


Pretty lucky huh? Sort of, but I neglected to mention some information.

Here's a rough idea of how the game went down. He laid some cards (including an Archdruid), I laid lands, and laid an EOT Plumeveil. He didn't attack. I laid a Mulldrifter. He drew and Pathed the Plumeveil and started beating down. I drew Cryptic Command, and tapped his guys next turn. I then drew a blank and he bashed me for 11. I drew Hallowed Burial, and played it.

Can you see anything here?

A) I played a Plumeveil at EOT to completely stop his attack.
B) If I'd played it during combat, I couldn't take time off to evoke Mulldrifter.
C) If I hadn't evoked Mulldrifter, I wouldn't have drawn Cryptic Command.
D) If I hadn't tapped his guys with Cryptic Command, I wouldn't have drawn Hallowed Burial.

So this lucky event was in fact, caused by a chain of events: WHICH WERE COMPLETELY DELIBERATE. I knew I needed the Hallowed Burial. I knew I needed to evoke Mulldrifter to increase my chances. I knew I had to play Plumeveil when I did.

And people say 'what a lucksack' and congratulate me on my pull. Now, let's look through our new eyes, and answer the statements from the beginning of the article.

"Shit! I almost had him! How the hell did he topdeck a Lightning Bolt when I was on 3?"

Answer: He manipulated the attacks to get you to 3. Maybe if you'd kept back an extra blocker or saved that Path for a turn or two, you'd be at 5, not 3, in the position to win.

"I was going to kill him in ONE TURN, and he drew the Wrath!"

Answer: See the match above. Maybe he MADE it happen, and you should pay attention to that.

"Lucky bastard drew two sweepers in a row and beat me."

Answer: This also happened to me: because I knew, through hard experience, that I had to use Maelstrom Pulse on Honor of the Pure. Had I not done that, I'd have died with useless Jund Charms in hand.

What's the key here?

Luck is rarely just luck. The more luck you consciously strive for, the more you'll get. Have you ever wondered why the pros get their third land drop when they keep a two-land hand? There's probably a host of variables that went unconsidered by the other guy. Here are some possibilities:

A) He knew the odds of drawing the land when he had to. He was right. Other people were wrong.

B) His deck could survive on two lands for a bit with the right cards: which were in his opening hand. Risk? What risk?

C) He's running 26 lands, not 25, because he knows the extra land may make the difference.

D) He's just lucky. Not to mention stupid, because you can't count on luck. And we all know that pros actually suck at Magic. That's why they win thousands of dollars by beating the crap out of people a lot better than you or me.

Which one is more likely? Somebody CAN get lucky, but people are not inherently lucky. Someone who gets lucky once is one thing. But if someone's just continuously lucky: maybe there's something else going on there. And maybe you can be lucky too: if you strove to make your own.

To conclude, here are some tips for maximizing your luck:

A) If you need a card, take every opportunity to draw that card. Side it in, draw more cards, stall the game, bluff your opponent, whatever will buy you that 5% chance of drawing it. If you don't, you would have lost anyway. If you're going to lose if you don't get that card, nothing else matters.

B) If you win unless your opponent has a card, play around it. If your opponent might have Plumeveil, don't swing with your 2/2 utility creature, just in case.

C) Deckbuilding. If you're unlucky, maybe your deck's flawed. Tweak it to get more of the cards you need, and less of the cards you don't. Tweak the manabase for optimal efficiency.

In conclusion, you have two choices. Either insist that people keep getting lucky against you, or accept that there may be something else at work, and make that part of your skillset. When you're open to being able to do more things with Magic, you improve. When you close your mind, you stagnate. And if I want to be a better player, I know which one I'll do.

Until next time, may you smile and nod when people exclaim how lucky you are.

How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 4

Part 4 - Sideboarding for the Event Metagame

Sorry for the delay between parts: Zendikar spoilers will do that. I've learnt my lesson. I will aim to finish this series, Zendikar or no, within the next week, and then I'll only do series' that I stick with once a day until it's done. I'm also going to aim to finish the Last Look At Lorwyn series.

Now, on to the actual advice.

At a PTQ, your metagame will probably be subtly different to the ones in another country or even another city. Perhaps a lot of good players in your area play Faeries: so you shouldn't, facing the double threat of being outplayed in the mirror and outhated by the lesser players who can only win through excessive sideboard hate.

Instead you'd want to play a deck that has a good match against Faeries and against anti-Faeries. An anti-Faeries deck would work, if you were confident in beating the lesser players in the mirror.

Either way, if you bring a specific sideboard and turn out to be wrong, you're in trouble. That's why you should bring about 30 cards, and construct your sideboard at the event.

Note: you should not construct your sideboard piecemeal unless you have to. Make plans. For example, with GSS Jund, I might bring in my 30:

Kitchen Finks
Volcanic Fallout
Firespout
Maelstrom Pulse
Vithian Renegades
Guttural Response
Cruel Ultimatum
Mulldrifter
Doom Blade
Broodmate Dragon
Glen Elendra Archmage
Stillmoon Cavalier

This would leave me free to have several sideboard plans. For example:

Heavy 5CC metagame:

4 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Firespout
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Volcanic Fallout

This is a fairly balanced sideboard, but with 4 slots dedicated to Glen Elendra Archmage, an excellent foil to Five-Color. The deck also features light anti-Time Sieve (Maelstrom Pulse and Archmage) with some anti-aggro and Elf Combo, and a good plan against Blightning, which often beats Five-Color Control. With Great Sable Stag and Fallout, the deck is strong vs. Faeries, and the GSS / Anathemancer combo gives you a good chance in the Jund mirror.

Heavy Fae metagame:

4 Volcanic Fallout
3 Deathmark
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Kitchen Finks

Here, the Volcanic Fallouts cede to Fae, but mostly the sideboard relies on the maindeck Stags and the Stags  in other sideboards to beat Fae. Kithkin, B/R Blightning, Elf Combo and the mirror are all handled here: the main decks expected to survive the first few rounds. The hope is that most of the Fae will die in the middle rounds, since there's a lot of hate ready for it.

Heavy Elf Combo metagame:

4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Firespout
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Glen Elendra Archmage

This deck is aimed at Elf Combo with the 8 sweepers, and the decks likely to beat it, with Volcanic Fallout hitting Faeries, Kitchen Finks hitting burn, and Archmages hitting Five-Color Control and Time Sieve.


I could go on with specific examples, but that isn't worth the space. These are merely examples. A fourth option is a transformational sideboard, against say, a heavy Jund mirror which won't be expecting it. The point is, you want to have multiple sideboard plans, and the cards to handle all of them. I wouldn't do this for say, FNM, but for a PTQ, every edge is important, and this is certainly a formidable one.

Until next time, may you outplan your opponents.

How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 3

Hello, and welcome back to my series of How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 3. Last week we covered analysing the metagame, and this week, we'll be covering the nuts and bolts of bringing two decks to a tournament. The list which inspired this series can be found here. 


Why Two Decks?


Why would you bring two decks to a metagame? Simple: The local metagame at the PTQ you're attending is likely to be a bit different to the world's metagame. So by bringing two decks each designed to oppose certain metagames, e.g, W/U Reveillark for Anathemancer-heavy metagames and Five-Color Control for Elf Combo / Time Sieve Combo heavy metagames, you can be sure of attacking the metagame from the right angle. 


Make sure you bring decks with different weaknesses. Elf Combo and Jund seem quite different, but they're both vulnerable to the same thing: sweepers.Whereas Elf Combo and Five-Color Control on the other hand operate on totally different realms, and both require totally different sideboard plans. So you could pick one of these decks based on which one the event was less hostile towards in sideboard choices.


Testing Two Decks


Most people would advise testing two decks equally, but I think that you should become equally competent at both. Becoming competent at Elf Combo requires less matches than Five-Color Control, so if you were to run 100 matches, I'd suggest 30-40 Elf Combo matches and 60-70 Five-Color Control matches in your testing. That way you're confident with both of them, and ready no matter what deck you pick.


More complex decks require more matches to master, so take the time to learn them well.


This has been a very short post, but the concept doesn't require too many words to explain. Join me next week as I talk about doing the same anti-metagame move for your sideboard before the event.


Until next time, may you say only what needs to be said (yes I know this is a short post!)

How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 2

Hello, and welcome back to my series of How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ. We've covered testing your deck here, so now it's time to move on to analysing the metagame. The list which inspired this series can be found here.

The Three Types of Metagame

There are generally three different types of metagame that you'll face in a particular format in a particular year. These modes are about more than decks: they're about how the whole metagame interacts, and understanding it is crucial to victory.

The Deck vs. The Anti-Deck

This type of metagame is when there is one particular 'best' deck that makes up about a third of the field, and generally beats most of the minor decks. The second most popular deck is the anti-deck, which beats the best deck, and generally has passable matchups against the minor decks.

An example here would be Affinity. Affinity was THE deck, and anti-affinity was THE anti-deck. This is a greatly exaggerated example of how it usually is, but it's ideal for our purposes. If you couldn't beat Affinity, you basically couldn't show up.

How this matters: In this case, you need to make a choice: The Deck, which is strong but everyone will pack hate for, the Anti-Deck, which beats The Deck but can lose to minor decks, or a minor deck with a good matchup vs. The Deck and the Anti-Deck. I would generally recommend playing a minor deck if it's strong enough to get a 55-60% win chance against The Deck and the Anti-Deck, because people are less likely to sideboard against and test against it. The Deck, unless ridiculously powerful, is often not a good place to be at if the players have figured out how to beat it.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Metagame

Generally the most common, the rock-paper-scissors metagame features three major decks with favourable matches vs. one, and unfavourable vs. the other. The three major decks all perform well against the minor decks almot all of the time.

An example of this would be last year's metagame, where Faeries beat Five-Color Control, Five-Color Control beat Kithkin, and Kithkin beat Faeries. All three decks performed well against random decks (except Faeries vs. Mono-Red) and all of them were good vs. one deck and bad vs. another.

How this matters: Generally, one deck will be the most popular. The deck it beats will be second, and the deck that the second deck beats will be third. Thus, we need to examine the pros and cons of Deck 1, Deck 2 and Deck 3.

Deck 1: Playing Deck 1 is often a good choice, especially if you're good with it. Most players won't play Deck 3, and plenty of them play Deck 2. Of course the problem with Deck 1 is that minor decks can do well against it if they sideboard heavily.

Deck 2: Playing Deck 2 is generally a bad choice. Losing to Deck 1 is never a good thing. I personally would not recommend it. People will sideboard against Deck 2 as well. Deck 2 = bad idea.

Deck 3: Playing Deck 3 is a good idea. If you can survive the first few rounds of a PTQ, Deck 2 will be mostly eliminated by Deck 1, and you're designed to prey on Deck 1. Most decks will only devote 3-4 sideboard slots to Deck 3 as well. Personally, this is the one I would pick unless I was quite skilled with Deck 1.

Minor deck: I wouldn't recommend it. It's basically impossible to build a minor deck with decent matchups against Deck 1, 2 and 3. In this case, the best move is to go with Deck 1 or Deck 3.

One Deck Many Decks Metagame

The rarest of the three, a one deck many deck metagame is when one deck or subset of decks makes up about 20-25% of the metagame, and the rest of it is spread among minor decks.

A perfect example of this is Legacy. CounterTop decks make up the One Deck, and the other decks (notably Dreadstill and Thresh) are mostly fairly minor, with a couple of 10-15% players. This metagame is hard to predict. It depends on how much hate is brought against the One Deck.

How this matters: In this scenario, it all depends on how new the One Deck is. If the One Deck has recently surfaced, play it. If it's been winning for a few weeks, I suggest playing a minor deck with a good matchup against the One Deck and passable matchups against most minor decks. It's hard to know how this kind of metagame will turn out, but a solid plan against the One Deck is never a bad thing.

The Role of Minor Decks

Minor decks, the ones that make up a small but appreciable segment of the metagame, generally 5-10% are an excellent, valuable addition to the metagame. For one, it keeps the major decks honest. They need to be able to defend against a wide variety of angles of attack to remain in their catbird seats. For another, it provides variety. Sometimes you don't want to play a major deck, and then you can always move to the Merfolks or Blightings of the world and try to strike from an unexpected angle.

I could include some information about how to collect statistics for the metagame, but I'm fairly sure that if you're at the level of seriously analysing it, you already know how to do that. My only tip I will give you is to check out the latest tournaments: StarCityGames.com is good for this. Other than that, it's up to you to ascertain what pattern of metagame you're in.

The best part about this advice is that it will still be applicable 5 or 10 years from now. I'm sure I'll write many articles about the metagame that will go out of date in mere months, but this content is timeless. Enjoy it, and use it wisely.

Until next time, may you see the pattern you've seen before.

How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 1

Hello and welcome to my series of How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ. Each week for 6 weeks, I'll be taking a point from the list of 10 Ways To Do Better At Your Next PTQ and expanding on it, and going into much further detail. I shall release this series biweekly, and over the next three weeks will cover the following parts:

Part 1 - Testing Your Deck

Part 2 - Analysing the Metagame

Part 3 - Bringing Two Different Decks

Part 4 - Sideboarding for the Event Metagame

Part 5 - DCI Penalties

Part 6 - Understanding Tiebreakers

Not all the points on the list are worthy of a part in the series. However, now that you know what's in store, let's move on!

Part 1 - Testing Your Deck

Practice, practice, practice is the mantra of athletes, and for you it should be no different. You should know your deck inside and out. You should know why every card is in there, and how they interact. You should know how to fight all the common decks, how to sideboard against them, whether you are aggro or control, etc. But rather than tell you the different things you need to know, I'll give you a step-by-step guide.

Step 1 - Pick Your Deck (4 weeks before the PTQ)

Note: these durations are minimum. I suggest picking a stable deck: one that's been part of the metagame for a long time, e.g Faeries, Five-Color Control, especially if a new set is coming out in the next four weeks. Check out the decks that have been solidly winning for months or a year, and choose one you feel is powerful and you can play. It doesn't matter if Five-Color Control is best in the meta if you've played Faeries for 8 months. Your advantage will surpass meta choices unless Fae is absolutely hosed (which it has been, but not so badly it's unplayable).

However, if you're like me, and your deck of choice has been cut out of the meta (Kithkin) go through the decks and pick what you think is the strongest. Test each deck you think is good on Magic Workstation for 5-10 matches, and see which one works best for you.

Step 2 - Research (3.5 weeks before the PTQ)

The next step is to research your chosen deck. How to play it, how to board, how to fight different decks. The more you read up on it, the better. Read tournament reports where the reporter played that deck to get a feel for how these theories are put into practice. Read primers, strategy guides, testing reports, etc. Assimilate the Magic community's knowledge about the deck.

I will add, if you want to play GSS Jund, you've got a great head start:)

Step 3 - Test online (3 weeks before the PTQ)

Here, you'll want to use Magic Workstation again. What decks you play doesn't matter, as long as you play the Tier 1 decks. You want quantity here: A good total to shoot for is 30 matches in the week. You're in the early stages now where every match teaches you something new about the deck. Hopefully you're winning most of them. I mean, I'm 7-1 with Jund so far and I'm not exactly a great player. Good, but not great.

Once you've gotten about 30 matches under your belt, you're ready to test the specific metagame.

Step 4 - Test against a gauntlet (2 weeks before the PTQ)

Now you'll want to build a gauntlet, generally consisting of 3-4 decks that you're most likely to face at the PTQ. Testing the fringe strategies will dilute your testing against the decks you'll face 2, 3, or even 4 times during the PTQ and if you make Top 8, are almost certain to face. For the current metagame, your gauntlet would probably consist of Faeries, Five-Color Control, Jund and Elf Combo. You want to get in 10-12 matches against each deck throughout the week. Preferably you'll have offline testing partners who are also going through the gauntlet, whom you can test with. If not, keep testing online as much as you can.

Step 5 - Re-evaluate (Less than one week, more than three days before the PTQ)

Now your metagame data will be 2-3 weeks old, so it's time to recalibrate. You're probably still 90% on the money, but the 10% is crucial too. Is a certain deck you haven't tested against rising in supremacy? Keep an eye out for the latest tech. Make sure you're not caught off-guard in the PTQ.

Step 6 - Test the changes (3-4 days before the PTQ)

This is twofold: offline, test the gauntlet which includes any new decks that have risen up, and online test with the 75 you've now locked in. This is the final testing: aim to get in 10 offline matches and 10 online in the 3 days.

Then rest for the day before the PTQ, maybe play 1 or 2 matches online to keep your skill up, and get a good night's rest. More than likely, you'll have outprepared your opponents, and it'll show where it counts: on the battlefield.

Until next time, may a hundred matches teach you a hundred lessons to gain you a hundred advantages.

10 Ways To Do Better At Your Next PTQ

1. Test your deck.

Any deck you take to a PTQ you want to have tested for a minimum two weeks before hand, hopefully more. Test online, test offline, play it at FNM, read about it. Test as much as you think is necessary, then double it. Then test some more. The more you test the better you'll become with the deck, and it's important to get every advantage you can get.

Yes, sometimes people can win with a brand-new deck or an audibled deck, but most PTQ's are won by someone who has mastered a particular archetype that is well-placed in the metagame. Which brings me to point 2...

2. Analyse the metagame.

And make sure it's up-to-date. For example, people who played Kithkin last week were likely to get their asses kicked, even though it was a great, PTQ-winning deck just a fortnight ago. The metagame can change very quickly.

If you don't analyse the metagame, it's like not bringing a sideboard. Why the hell would you go to a PTQ without a sideboard? Exactly.

3. Bring two different decks.

There's no rule that says you need to know your deck in advance. This is NOT contrary to Rule 1: you simply need to do more testing. Test both decks. And don't pick two similar decks, like Elf Combo and Kithkin which are both vulnerable to the same thing. A better idea might be Kithkin and Five-Color or Jund. Both are very, very different and beat different decks.

Arrive early before the tournament, and scope out the PTQ metagame, then pick which of the two decks you will use based on that information. Some call it overkill, but why would you not get every advantage you can get? More than two decks is not recommended however, because it's hard to test more adequately.

4. Get a good night's sleep beforehand.

Yes, this is obvious. Yes it's been said before. Yes, you already know it. But so many people don't DO IT. I know I would much rather be well-rested for a tournament than bleary-eyed and subsiding on caffeine. You may not feel the difference, but you'll probably have lots of 'bad luck' that day, and end up dropping. But through no fault of your own of course. *end sarcasm*

If you're serious about the PTQ, get a good night's sleep. If you have to choose between fine-tuning your deck and adequate sleep, you haven't prepared enough. Have your lists ironclad several days in advance.

5. Bring more than 15 sideboard cards.

An extension of Part 3. However, there's an art to this. Rather than tossing together 15 cards 10 minutes before registration ends, have a piece of paper with a few different sideboard plans on it. An example might go like this for GSS Jund:

Cards to bring:

Anathemancer

Jund Charm

Thought Hemorrhage

Firespout

Deathmark

Broodmate Dragon

Maelstrom Pulse

Sygg, River Cutthroat

Stillmoon Cavalier

Five-Color Control Centric Metagame:

4 Anathemancer, 4 Jund Charm, 4 Thought Hemorrhage, 3 Firespout

Jund-Centric Metagame:

4 Anathemancer, 4 Firespout, 4 Deathmark, 2 Broodmate Dragon, 1 Maelstrom Pulse

Fae-Centric Metagame:

4 Firespout, 3 Deathmark, 1 Broodmate Dragon, 2 Maelstrom Pulse, 2 Sygg, River Cutthroat, 3 Stillmoon Cavalier

Note that especially in the Fae example, where you have almost an auto-win against them, you not only aim your sideboard at the dominant deck, but also at the deck that BEATS the dominant deck. Note these sideboards are very rough, and probably not optimal for the situation. (I would run Anathemancer maindeck in a PTQ now anyway).

6. Eat healthily.

Eating highly crappy, greasy food is a norm at tournaments, and is fine for FNM, but if you've done all this extra preparation, you may as well eat well. Otherwise it's like fitting your car with the latest and greatest safety features and parts, and then feeding it garbage fuel. Treat your body with more respect than that.

It may be hard to obtain food at the event that's healthy, so a good idea might be to pack some sandwiches just in case. Still healthier than take-out, and quicker to eat, and it won't grease up your sleeves either.

7. Play precisely.

Unlike in FNM, where it's usually fine to draw then untap, or forget your Bitterblossom trigger until you're about to play a land, these things can haunt you in a PTQ. A couple of missed triggers and that's a game loss right there. And won't that make you feel stupid?

Announce when you're entering the following: upkeep, draw, main, declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage, postcombat main, end. Anything more is fairly anal, but those seven are a necessity. Also, don't play two spells at once. Allow your opponent time to reply. Give them about 3-5 seconds unless they give a verbal cue that they are considering. Such a wait time is expected and will not get you penalised for slow play.

Work out your plays in your head during your opponent's turn so you don't spend 20 seconds every turn thinking: only when your draw changes your plans. That'll make it far less likely for you to be warned for Slow Play. However, it is worth noting that some minor infractions will receive two warnings rather than one. Of course, it's best to avoid them altogether.

8. Be ruthless.

On the flip side of 7, is to penalise your opponents for their misplays. If they flip over one of your cards, or miss a trigger, or play too fast / too slow, CALL A JUDGE. Your opponents will do the same to you, and I've heard several cases where a player has committed a minor infraction, their opponent chose not to penalise it, and then that player did the same thing again later that match, and were warned. If they'd called a judge first time, it would have been a game loss, and they would have won the match.

Always call a judge if players don't play correctly. And if you make an obvious mistake, call a judge immediately rather than trying to hush it up. You're more likely to receive a lighter penalty if you call a judge after flipping an opponent's card rather than try to shrug it off and have the opponent call one instead (and they almost certainly will).

9. Know your tiebreakers.

You're 6-1, and you're offered a draw by your last-round opponent. You don't take it, and lose, and later find out you would have gone into the Top 8. Even worse, you DO take it, and wind up 10th place. Know your tiebreakers. Before the round starts you should know whether or not you can ID into the Top 8 (this only matters in rounds 7+, so is not applicable to all players, but it would suck to hit a miracle streak then not have the knowledge you need to hit the Top 8).

Knowledge is power. If you can ID into the Top 8, go ahead and try. But you need to know if you can first.

10. Maintain focus.

You're in the Top 8, but you've just fought 6-8 grueling rounds of Magic. In an ideal situation, you've ID'ed the last round and can relax and grab some food with friends before the Top 8. However, if that's not possible, at least take a few minutes to relax your mind and bolster your resources. The Top 8 will be the toughest part of the tournament. You don't want to be playing at anything less than your best.

Now sometimes you'll do everything right and still X-2 drop: this advice is not an automatic ticket to the Pro Tour. But there's only finite amounts of PTQ's in a year (This advice is even more important in Australia. The competition is only slightly less than America, and unless you're willing to fly, there's only 1-2 PTQ's you can get to in a year!) and you may as well do your best. Do not take a PTQ likely. Don't attend on a whim. Some of the area's best will be there, and the more preparation you do, the better.

Because rest assured: if you're not well-rested, prepared, tuned for the metagame and ready to play your best, you'll be competing against someone who is.

Until next time, may you prepare for a month so that people can label you an overnight success when you win.