I know I ask a lot of abstract questions here, but what is sone general advice you guys could give me (or for that matter, anyone) about becoming a better Magic player? My FNM scene is extremely competitive and I can't keep pace with the majority of the players.
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Practice as much as you can. BUT - when you're practicing with someone (preferably better than you, it's very difficult to learn from someone playing poorly) continually ask for constructive feedback. Talk through your plays, look at your options at any given time, rewind gamestates if you have to. To see what this process looks like, I highly recommend watching Hoogland's youtube videos where they test new decks - both players will continually talk through plays looking for the most optimal sequencing.
Another thing that might help is to play as many different kind of decks as possible - proxy them and play various types of decks against each other when practicing. Understanding how a deck sees it's own lines is pretty crucial to best understanding your own.
What deck are you on? It might just be that you're getting outpaced at your store because your deck is in a poor meta position.
I'm on BW Tokens, which generally has even/good matchups against most of the meta.
Firstly, being honest with yourself may be one of the most important things. BW Tokens, in my opinion, does not have even/good matchups vs. the field. I would put it more at even/less than even vs. the field. In my opinion, it is a deck that can do well if played well, but could never get consistent top 8s like a "Jund" could do.
You are getting better since you said that you play in a competitive field. You get better when you play players better than yourself. But you have to also be willing to adapt. You have to be eager to listen to others and take their suggestions. You have to be honest with yourself. Example time - yesterday I lost Round 2 to Burn when he outdrew me in the final game, although it was very close. But the final game didn't matter much since I should have also mulliganed my 6 card, 1 land hand in game 2. There was no reason for me to keep it. I decided to take a chance that Goblin Guide would get me my 2nd land and I could ramp from there (on RG Scapeshift). It turns out that he had a good hand that would have beaten me no matter what, but I didn't know that at the time. Taking responsibility for a game 2 when you should have won the match, rather than blaming poor luck in game 3, is part of improving as a player. Knowing your mistakes and acknowledging them is very important. You will notice that the players who never get better believe that their "luck" is very different from the opponents' that they play. A better player than myself would have won that round vs. Burn.
Other than that, read articles by Pros (that are trying to help, not just fun content) and play as much as you can. Playing in Comp REL tournaments is very different from FNM, although if your FNM is truly "competitive," it may actually be similar.
If you look at the many decks that I play, I realize that if I ran Jund, I would have even more success. You have to be honest with yourself and figure out exactly what goals you have. My goal is also to have fun and prove that some lesser Tier decks can do well in Modern, so for me, the fewer wins that I get end up more than worth it in the long run. From a PURELY Competitive standpoint, there is no reason for me to constantly run Tier 2 decks. It is handicapping myself from the beginning. But that is not my objective right now. My objective is to play my land, make my opponent think that I am playing Noble or Birds for about 5 seconds, and then play a Slippery Bogle and hear the groans. That's what makes my day!
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Example time - yesterday I lost Round 2 to Burn when he outdrew me in the final game, although it was very close. But the final game didn't matter much since I should have also mulliganed my 6 card, 1 land hand in game 2. There was no reason for me to keep it. I decided to take a chance that Goblin Guide would get me my 2nd land and I could ramp from there (on RG Scapeshift). It turns out that he had a good hand that would have beaten me no matter what, but I didn't know that at the time. Taking responsibility for a game 2 when you should have won the match, rather than blaming poor luck in game 3, is part of improving as a player. Knowing your mistakes and acknowledging them is very important. You will notice that the players who never get better believe that their "luck" is very different from the opponents' that they play. A better player than myself would have won that round vs. Burn.
Example time - yesterday I lost Round 2 to Burn when he outdrew me in the final game, although it was very close. But the final game didn't matter much since I should have also mulliganed my 6 card, 1 land hand in game 2. There was no reason for me to keep it. I decided to take a chance that Goblin Guide would get me my 2nd land and I could ramp from there (on RG Scapeshift). It turns out that he had a good hand that would have beaten me no matter what, but I didn't know that at the time. Taking responsibility for a game 2 when you should have won the match, rather than blaming poor luck in game 3, is part of improving as a player. Knowing your mistakes and acknowledging them is very important. You will notice that the players who never get better believe that their "luck" is very different from the opponents' that they play. A better player than myself would have won that round vs. Burn.
This cannot possibly be overstated.
If you won game 2 in a match when you're up 1-0, then it doesn't go to game 3 (where maybe you had bad luck, maybe you didn't). Common sense is not always "common sense" in a game that is often decided by variance, but more often decided by play skill.
There is variance, but that part is something you can't control (other than just shuffling better). Skill is something you CAN control.
*Just to add to what I said earlier, when I was seeing a lot of success as a Magic player, I would focus on just playing very well. If I played a tournament well, that was more important to me than getting top 8. If I played well, but did poorly, I would analyze my deck choice and why it didn't work. If it was poor luck, it happens occasionally. Playing good consistently eventually will pay off, no matter how bad your luck is. When I was seeing success, I would estimate that a player with the worst luck would at worst get 6-3 in a 9 round tournament. You would have to play very well, but barely missing the top 8, but playing very well is somewhat satisfying because you know you'll do better next time.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I think I may have trouble identifying if I am playing well. My game win percentage has bee hovering around 50% for a while now, so I guess I'm doing something wrong. Another issue is that I don't like playing any of the tier one strategies. Jund feels awkward, Merfolk is just flat boring, and Affinity is just really linear to me. I really like fringe decks, like Tokens and Skred Red, but I can't exactly play them in my meta.
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I think I may have trouble identifying if I am playing well. My game win percentage has bee hovering around 50% for a while now, so I guess I'm doing something wrong. Another issue is that I don't like playing any of the tier one strategies. Jund feels awkward, Merfolk is just flat boring, and Affinity is just really linear to me. I really like fringe decks, like Tokens and Skred Red, but I can't exactly play them in my meta.
Honestly, 50% is a pretty solid W/L rate. There's a reason why Jund is considered the 50/50 deck - having 50/50 odds at winning at any given time is very very strong. It sounds like you're being a bit too hard on yourself and instead you should just focus on practicing and tightening up your play.
People at my shop have been telling me that 50% is garbage. Maybe my shop is just uptight? They're all great people and not elitist in any way I can think of. Higher standards perhaps?
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People at my shop have been telling me that 50% is garbage. Maybe my shop is just uptight? They're all great people and not elitist in any way I can think of. Higher standards perhaps?
Higher than 50% regularly is pretty insane - especially in a format as open and deep as modern AND with a deck that isn't really even tier 2 right now.
I found using MTGO to test is the best and fastest way to become a better player, you get information on a format that's generally better than your local scene/playgroup. As much as I don't like Modern, I found MTGO to be the best way to be a step ahead of everyone else in the paper metagame. See Death's Shadow/Dredge, if you were on these decks when this forum considered it tier 2+, you probably could have blindsided your local metagame with the deck. It's kind of like how Amulet Bloom took a while to catch on until someone in the paper metagame figured out how unreasonable the deck was. If you are able to find someone locally to lend you cards on MTGO, it's a really good testing tool to get better.
Focus on your opening hand and mulligans- its the first decision you make in the game and in modern with most games being effectively decided in the first 4 turns your opening hand is especially important.
If you want to broaden your mind play BW Lingering Death and Taxes. D&T is at least considered as a Tier 2 now and it doesn't get boring. What exactly is the reason to cling to only one deck? D&T has more interactions than most of the token decks do. Maybe you really need the change.
I just really enjoy the deck. I love "fair" decks that have synergy, something that is a weird idea but Tokens offers it. I picked up the deck just to have a new deck that wasn't a linear mono-red Goblins deck I had been playing for a long time and decided to try something new, and I was hooked. I love having interaction, and hand attack has always been one of my favorite aspects of the game because every situation is different, so you have to analyze the argument for taking a given card and weigh it against the other possible options. My father picked up the event deck for my birthday (I'm a teen who doesn't like Standard rotation, so the next accessible constructed format was Modern), and since then I have only ever wanted to spend my money on two things: FNM admission and upgrading the deck. Plus, I prefer being a master of one deck than a jack-of-all-trades. I also have never enjoyed playing the big name strategies, and I did test them. I would rather play Shamanism than Burn, Tokens over Jund/k, UW Gifts Tron over UW Control, Mardu Aristocrats over the traditional Abzan take or Anafenza's Company, you get it. Another huge factor was that I played another strategy (UW Gifts Tron, actually) for a week and decided to alternate between it and Tokens. However, every FNM I would reach into my bag and grab Tokens, thinking, "Maybe Tron next week." But next week never came. I eventually sold it to get my Bitterblossoms and other cards I needed. Is BW Tokens a cruel mistress? Yes. But I know how it works (at least, I like to think I do), but I also know I have a lot to learn about the deck. It's probably the only deck I will never sell or get rid of because I enjoy it that much. In fact, I even wrote the budget BW Tokens primer for MTGS because I love the deck and want to help newbies who came from the same environment I did: low income but a willingness to try.
On a separate note, I am going to give Cockatrice a shot as a way to test other decks and try different builds of tokens.
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50% win rate kinda blows. But if youre breaking even on entry fees youre in good territory.
I think the bulk of wins come from good sideboarding and choosing the right deck, as opposed to actual good gameplay.
What you are asking, becoming a better magic player is a very big question.
I would say the three goldern rules are:
- Play magic.
- Have funn doing this.
- Do it with some friends, or other players so it becomes a social engagement.
I know that can sound quite vague, but I have seen a lot of people droping out when trying to become better and just get frustrated.
With these as fundamentals there are other things you can do:
- Learn the magic rules better.
This sounds a bit dry, but a better understanding of the magic rules can give you a huge advantage in certain situations. I would say the better you understand the rules the more options become open for you. I have seen many players missed opertunaties because they do not understand the rules propperly.
- Learn the metagame, along with sideboard cards.
I have seen a lot of tecnical good players who get twarted by a bad understanding of the metagame. Just having good technical magic undesrtanding is not enough if you do not know what you will meet in the field.
- Discuss what makes optimal plays.
Discuss with friends what is the most optimal play in certain situations. This can often help you find other kind of information and lines you do not know.
- Borrow and play other decks.
Playing other decks then your own can often give you a lot of information about how that deck works. Either what makes them thick, or how they play out against the deck you are playing in particular. You can also read 'signs' better if you know what to look for. (Tron, I am looking at you!.)
- Play a deck more suitet for your meta.
A lot of decisions are made a long time before you even draw your card hand. Perhaps your deck is very badly possitioned in the meta. For instance if all your oponents are playing storm, playing tokens in modern can be difficult. For instance, what do black white have that the attached picture do not?
- Read articles about modern and your deck.
It is unrealitstick that you need all first hand information to learn something. Firsthand information gives you a good way to judge information pressented to you. But reading magic articles is a good way to learn information you do not nessasseraly know or have akces to.
- Play other magic formats.
Playing other magic format teaches you a lot about magic understanding. Drafts in particular can be very helpfull.
- Brew your own dekcs.
Brewing your own decks can teach you a lot about understanding what you are looking for in a deck. Even if your deck ends up bad, you will start to understand why your other decks are good.
If you end up being a good brewer you can winn a lot of games based in them missplaying because they do not know how to play against that deck.
- Sleep, exercise and eat better. Etc.
a lot of people ignore this, but all of this is super important. This is true for everything in life, not just magic. If it is a bigger tournament you need to find some food that is good for you, along drinking liquid and coffe/tea.
- Bring food to larger tournaments.
Do this!
- Get a better mental game.
This category is big and includes a lot of things but mostly take a step back an analyse your mental state. If you loose it will not help to focus on the loss, although something can be helped to find out why you lost the game or did not winn the game.
Instead of saying I just lost, try to find out what you could have done different. Magic is still a lot of luck, but I would still think you can most often affect the outcome.
ATTACHMENTS
Matthew Nass GW Tokens
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I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
I certainly do respect the decision to keep with your deck. Much more I respect the care you give to others who want to try your deck. But that mistress of yours seems more cruel and demanding than others. She has gotten some more features in the last sets (Anguished Unmaking, Collective Brutality) that allow more interaction. I won't deny that. But I still want to encourage you to look further than Matyr Proc and Tokens into the land of Taxes. It is not that far.
I will certainly look into Taxes. I looked into Proc and decided it wasn't what I was looking for. I have strayed into Skred Red because the local meta seems weak to Blood Moon. I also had access to a lot of the pieces so it wasn't a huge investment. As for what black has over green, hand attack is huge to deal with combo. Bitterblossom insures that you don't need to constantly draw token generators, and Sorin Solemn Visitor can swing games around out of no where. However, green does give Gavony Township, which is very useful at pushing damage through.
This isn't easy to answer. It's basically all tier 1 strategies. A lot of Jund, a lot of Dredge, and then a few scattered decks. Burn, Merfolk, Nahiri decks, Infect, Company. There are a lot of players so I don't have exact numbers, but it's all top tier decks. What do you think of Wilted/Little Kid Abzan? I can get ahold of a lot of those pieces and own a good amount of them, too.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that very few players play the same deck for an extended period of time. One week aggro will be super dominant. Within a few weeks midrange will reign supreme. It's super volatile.
This isn't easy to answer. It's basically all tier 1 strategies. A lot of Jund, a lot of Dredge, and then a few scattered decks. Burn, Merfolk, Nahiri decks, Infect, Company. There are a lot of players so I don't have exact numbers, but it's all top tier decks. What do you think of Wilted/Little Kid Abzan? I can get ahold of a lot of those pieces and own a good amount of them, too.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that very few players play the same deck for an extended period of time. One week aggro will be super dominant. Within a few weeks midrange will reign supreme. It's super volatile.
If the metagame is constantly changing, you have to be prepared for ups and downs. Still, you hold yourself to a certain win/loss standard, but realize that certain weeks, you're going to do better. You could have multiple decks and try to guess the metagame week to week and although that's going to be much tougher, it will behoove you in the long run.
Most good players know how to metagame and are damn good at it. It is often tough to make up for metagaming simply by playing at a superior level, but you can do it to a point. Little Kid Abzan is pretty solid in my opinion. I haven't tried it in the recent metagame, but it seems like it should be solid - since I remember the worst matchups being Combo decks like Scapeshift or Bloom Titan. I think you can build a list to beat Aggro.
Although I do agree that a 50% win rate is not the best, I do believe that it is all relative. If I am play testing with Team Pantheon at CFB and win 20% of my matches, I'm probably doing much better than 80% at my semi-competitive FNM. Even at your own FNM, the skill level can change from week to week. It changes from matchup to matchup. You may face a guy in round 5 that usually 3-3s FNM, but happens to be 4-0 at this time. It all depends on where you want to go, but if you put in the work and are willing to improve, you definitely can.
*I used to play at a store of 10-22 players (fluctuated a lot) where I won around 90% of my matches. When I went to a few PTQs, I got lucky and had some success. So I had a BIG HEAD. I thought I was darn good. Now I can reflect on that and realize that I was very below average as a player. I did however, do some things right. I played the best deck and those decks happened to be decks that I knew how to play and enjoyed. Not to mention, I play tested a good amount of time.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Whoever says 50% win rate is garbage has no idea what they are talking about. Only a couple decks manage more than that (Infect and Affinity are at 51-52ish). Even Eldrazi, which were totally oppressive only managed 55ish.
Jund is not "50/50" against the Field. An abysmal Tron matchup among others lead to an actual win rate of about 48%.
My mtgo win rate with Merfolk is about 65%. But that doesn't mean much since probably 20% of the matches are against T3+ decks like BW tokens and so on. To see actual win rates you need to study massive amounts of data from published tournaments results.
Deliberate practice. Much like learning an instrument, you need to play well slowly before you can play well fast.
Play face up magic and dissect each line of play, talk through the levels, and take notes.
I find that in general people focus too much on playing lots of games and not enough on the mental aspect of the game.
Playing lots of games is like picking up the guitar and playing the same song over and over again at full speed and expecting to get better. Yeah, you might get better, but you're not going to improve as quickly and you'll reinforce lots of sloppy habits.
1. If you want to win a tournament, choose a tier 1 or 2 deck and stick to it (read guides help a lot), have the mindset of want to "win more" instead of "having more fun"
2. Just grind many tournament and practice, so you gain more experience of how to deal with certain decks and etc.
3. Know your opponent deck's weakness and combat against it, choose a good sideboard to fight your meta.
1. If you want to win a tournament, choose a tier 1 or 2 deck and stick to it (read guides help a lot), have the mindset of want to "win more" instead of "having more fun"
This is something I've always been confused by. In my mind, Magic is a game, and if you're having fun I presume you're doing it right. At a GP I would focus on winning, but I'm strictly an FNM player. Isn't FNM more about fun?
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1. If you want to win a tournament, choose a tier 1 or 2 deck and stick to it (read guides help a lot), have the mindset of want to "win more" instead of "having more fun"
This is something I've always been confused by. In my mind, Magic is a game, and if you're having fun I presume you're doing it right. At a GP I would focus on winning, but I'm strictly an FNM player. Isn't FNM more about fun?
I think what he's saying is two-fold. Firstly, a deck may be really fun for you, like Modern Humans or Modern Cheerios for example. But these decks are never going to really give you the results that you want if you're looking to win a bulk of matches. Also it means not playing a few "fun-ofs" in your SB. The player who was 9th place at the GP Los Angeles plays at my shop. He played a Tamiyo in his SB of Jeskai Nahiri. It is not the "best" card, but more of a fun card that is good in just a few situations. While he could be okay with a fun-of in the SB, someone aspiring to win a lot of matches probably should chill on that for a while.
Secondly, I think he's talking about this. The game of Magic is fun when you don't know what's coming. When you have play tested for hundreds of hours or more, you know almost exactly what the opponent could possibly play. This could make the game boring, but it is the essential way to win. Now sometimes a player plays an odd card that you didn't expect, but many people know what's the most common 75 of the archetype that you're playing. This is also why you see some Pros or Grinders looking somewhat bored. It's because they know what the possibilities are and that makes the game too predictable. Conversely, when you play Magic and you don't have much of an idea of what's coming, the game is less predictable and more fun. While it actually is somewhat good to be able to think on the fly, you don't want to do it for most of the time. You want to know what is in the decks, how to SB for every matchup, and just in general know what's important in the matchup (for example, who's the beatdown?).
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
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Another thing that might help is to play as many different kind of decks as possible - proxy them and play various types of decks against each other when practicing. Understanding how a deck sees it's own lines is pretty crucial to best understanding your own.
What deck are you on? It might just be that you're getting outpaced at your store because your deck is in a poor meta position.
Firstly, being honest with yourself may be one of the most important things. BW Tokens, in my opinion, does not have even/good matchups vs. the field. I would put it more at even/less than even vs. the field. In my opinion, it is a deck that can do well if played well, but could never get consistent top 8s like a "Jund" could do.
You are getting better since you said that you play in a competitive field. You get better when you play players better than yourself. But you have to also be willing to adapt. You have to be eager to listen to others and take their suggestions. You have to be honest with yourself. Example time - yesterday I lost Round 2 to Burn when he outdrew me in the final game, although it was very close. But the final game didn't matter much since I should have also mulliganed my 6 card, 1 land hand in game 2. There was no reason for me to keep it. I decided to take a chance that Goblin Guide would get me my 2nd land and I could ramp from there (on RG Scapeshift). It turns out that he had a good hand that would have beaten me no matter what, but I didn't know that at the time. Taking responsibility for a game 2 when you should have won the match, rather than blaming poor luck in game 3, is part of improving as a player. Knowing your mistakes and acknowledging them is very important. You will notice that the players who never get better believe that their "luck" is very different from the opponents' that they play. A better player than myself would have won that round vs. Burn.
Other than that, read articles by Pros (that are trying to help, not just fun content) and play as much as you can. Playing in Comp REL tournaments is very different from FNM, although if your FNM is truly "competitive," it may actually be similar.
If you look at the many decks that I play, I realize that if I ran Jund, I would have even more success. You have to be honest with yourself and figure out exactly what goals you have. My goal is also to have fun and prove that some lesser Tier decks can do well in Modern, so for me, the fewer wins that I get end up more than worth it in the long run. From a PURELY Competitive standpoint, there is no reason for me to constantly run Tier 2 decks. It is handicapping myself from the beginning. But that is not my objective right now. My objective is to play my land, make my opponent think that I am playing Noble or Birds for about 5 seconds, and then play a Slippery Bogle and hear the groans. That's what makes my day!
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)This cannot possibly be overstated.
If you won game 2 in a match when you're up 1-0, then it doesn't go to game 3 (where maybe you had bad luck, maybe you didn't). Common sense is not always "common sense" in a game that is often decided by variance, but more often decided by play skill.
There is variance, but that part is something you can't control (other than just shuffling better). Skill is something you CAN control.
*Just to add to what I said earlier, when I was seeing a lot of success as a Magic player, I would focus on just playing very well. If I played a tournament well, that was more important to me than getting top 8. If I played well, but did poorly, I would analyze my deck choice and why it didn't work. If it was poor luck, it happens occasionally. Playing good consistently eventually will pay off, no matter how bad your luck is. When I was seeing success, I would estimate that a player with the worst luck would at worst get 6-3 in a 9 round tournament. You would have to play very well, but barely missing the top 8, but playing very well is somewhat satisfying because you know you'll do better next time.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Honestly, 50% is a pretty solid W/L rate. There's a reason why Jund is considered the 50/50 deck - having 50/50 odds at winning at any given time is very very strong. It sounds like you're being a bit too hard on yourself and instead you should just focus on practicing and tightening up your play.
Higher than 50% regularly is pretty insane - especially in a format as open and deep as modern AND with a deck that isn't really even tier 2 right now.
4c Gifts Deck Stats: https://bit.ly/2XMPrlY
https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/120495
On a separate note, I am going to give Cockatrice a shot as a way to test other decks and try different builds of tokens.
I think the bulk of wins come from good sideboarding and choosing the right deck, as opposed to actual good gameplay.
I would say the three goldern rules are:
- Play magic.
- Have funn doing this.
- Do it with some friends, or other players so it becomes a social engagement.
I know that can sound quite vague, but I have seen a lot of people droping out when trying to become better and just get frustrated.
With these as fundamentals there are other things you can do:
- Learn the magic rules better.
This sounds a bit dry, but a better understanding of the magic rules can give you a huge advantage in certain situations. I would say the better you understand the rules the more options become open for you. I have seen many players missed opertunaties because they do not understand the rules propperly.
- Learn the metagame, along with sideboard cards.
I have seen a lot of tecnical good players who get twarted by a bad understanding of the metagame. Just having good technical magic undesrtanding is not enough if you do not know what you will meet in the field.
- Discuss what makes optimal plays.
Discuss with friends what is the most optimal play in certain situations. This can often help you find other kind of information and lines you do not know.
- Borrow and play other decks.
Playing other decks then your own can often give you a lot of information about how that deck works. Either what makes them thick, or how they play out against the deck you are playing in particular. You can also read 'signs' better if you know what to look for. (Tron, I am looking at you!.)
- Play a deck more suitet for your meta.
A lot of decisions are made a long time before you even draw your card hand. Perhaps your deck is very badly possitioned in the meta. For instance if all your oponents are playing storm, playing tokens in modern can be difficult. For instance, what do black white have that the attached picture do not?
- Read articles about modern and your deck.
It is unrealitstick that you need all first hand information to learn something. Firsthand information gives you a good way to judge information pressented to you. But reading magic articles is a good way to learn information you do not nessasseraly know or have akces to.
- Play other magic formats.
Playing other magic format teaches you a lot about magic understanding. Drafts in particular can be very helpfull.
- Brew your own dekcs.
Brewing your own decks can teach you a lot about understanding what you are looking for in a deck. Even if your deck ends up bad, you will start to understand why your other decks are good.
If you end up being a good brewer you can winn a lot of games based in them missplaying because they do not know how to play against that deck.
- Sleep, exercise and eat better. Etc.
a lot of people ignore this, but all of this is super important. This is true for everything in life, not just magic. If it is a bigger tournament you need to find some food that is good for you, along drinking liquid and coffe/tea.
- Bring food to larger tournaments.
Do this!
- Get a better mental game.
This category is big and includes a lot of things but mostly take a step back an analyse your mental state. If you loose it will not help to focus on the loss, although something can be helped to find out why you lost the game or did not winn the game.
Instead of saying I just lost, try to find out what you could have done different. Magic is still a lot of luck, but I would still think you can most often affect the outcome.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that very few players play the same deck for an extended period of time. One week aggro will be super dominant. Within a few weeks midrange will reign supreme. It's super volatile.
If the metagame is constantly changing, you have to be prepared for ups and downs. Still, you hold yourself to a certain win/loss standard, but realize that certain weeks, you're going to do better. You could have multiple decks and try to guess the metagame week to week and although that's going to be much tougher, it will behoove you in the long run.
Most good players know how to metagame and are damn good at it. It is often tough to make up for metagaming simply by playing at a superior level, but you can do it to a point. Little Kid Abzan is pretty solid in my opinion. I haven't tried it in the recent metagame, but it seems like it should be solid - since I remember the worst matchups being Combo decks like Scapeshift or Bloom Titan. I think you can build a list to beat Aggro.
Although I do agree that a 50% win rate is not the best, I do believe that it is all relative. If I am play testing with Team Pantheon at CFB and win 20% of my matches, I'm probably doing much better than 80% at my semi-competitive FNM. Even at your own FNM, the skill level can change from week to week. It changes from matchup to matchup. You may face a guy in round 5 that usually 3-3s FNM, but happens to be 4-0 at this time. It all depends on where you want to go, but if you put in the work and are willing to improve, you definitely can.
*I used to play at a store of 10-22 players (fluctuated a lot) where I won around 90% of my matches. When I went to a few PTQs, I got lucky and had some success. So I had a BIG HEAD. I thought I was darn good. Now I can reflect on that and realize that I was very below average as a player. I did however, do some things right. I played the best deck and those decks happened to be decks that I knew how to play and enjoyed. Not to mention, I play tested a good amount of time.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Jund is not "50/50" against the Field. An abysmal Tron matchup among others lead to an actual win rate of about 48%.
My mtgo win rate with Merfolk is about 65%. But that doesn't mean much since probably 20% of the matches are against T3+ decks like BW tokens and so on. To see actual win rates you need to study massive amounts of data from published tournaments results.
You don't have to agree, but if someone is teaching you, just listen for a minute and consider.
When I try and talk to players who quickly dismiss advice, i feel like they will never learn.
Play face up magic and dissect each line of play, talk through the levels, and take notes.
I find that in general people focus too much on playing lots of games and not enough on the mental aspect of the game.
Playing lots of games is like picking up the guitar and playing the same song over and over again at full speed and expecting to get better. Yeah, you might get better, but you're not going to improve as quickly and you'll reinforce lots of sloppy habits.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
2. Just grind many tournament and practice, so you gain more experience of how to deal with certain decks and etc.
3. Know your opponent deck's weakness and combat against it, choose a good sideboard to fight your meta.
Yeah I think that's it.
EDH: Xenagos, God of Revels.
This is something I've always been confused by. In my mind, Magic is a game, and if you're having fun I presume you're doing it right. At a GP I would focus on winning, but I'm strictly an FNM player. Isn't FNM more about fun?
I think what he's saying is two-fold. Firstly, a deck may be really fun for you, like Modern Humans or Modern Cheerios for example. But these decks are never going to really give you the results that you want if you're looking to win a bulk of matches. Also it means not playing a few "fun-ofs" in your SB. The player who was 9th place at the GP Los Angeles plays at my shop. He played a Tamiyo in his SB of Jeskai Nahiri. It is not the "best" card, but more of a fun card that is good in just a few situations. While he could be okay with a fun-of in the SB, someone aspiring to win a lot of matches probably should chill on that for a while.
Secondly, I think he's talking about this. The game of Magic is fun when you don't know what's coming. When you have play tested for hundreds of hours or more, you know almost exactly what the opponent could possibly play. This could make the game boring, but it is the essential way to win. Now sometimes a player plays an odd card that you didn't expect, but many people know what's the most common 75 of the archetype that you're playing. This is also why you see some Pros or Grinders looking somewhat bored. It's because they know what the possibilities are and that makes the game too predictable. Conversely, when you play Magic and you don't have much of an idea of what's coming, the game is less predictable and more fun. While it actually is somewhat good to be able to think on the fly, you don't want to do it for most of the time. You want to know what is in the decks, how to SB for every matchup, and just in general know what's important in the matchup (for example, who's the beatdown?).
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)