As many of you know this weekend was SCG Worcester. As a Worcester local I was lucky to be in attendance, along with about 800 other people. I ended up going 5-3 (and then dropping when I realized I was unlikely to make day two) running G/W post. I’m really happy with how I did—my losses were to decks that are hard to beat (Storm and Burn) and then my last loss was to Miracles and it was 100% variance. While I might not have made day two or prized I’m extremely happy with how I did, which is something I want to talk about today.
I am the queen of being hard on myself—if I don’t play perfectly I’ll be pretty disappointed in myself. And I see this happening a lot to other people. They’ll either get rude and salty with their opponent or even just with themselves. I’ve written before about being salty and having fun but when you’re playing at a competitive level it’s so much more than that. You are not going to win every game, every match, every tournament. It’s just never going to happen. I’m sure if there was a way to do that someone would have figured it out by now. So when you’re playing competitively you have to take every game as a learning opportunity.
This weekend when I lost a game instead of being hard I thought about what I did right, what I may have done wrong and what I could have maybe done differently. I thought about ways I could approach the matchup in the future, adjustments I could make to my sideboard to make the deck stronger, or adjustments I could make to the main to make it more consistent to decrease variance. Every single moment is a learning opportunity: every game, every play, every match up. Being hard on yourself doesn’t improve your game or your chances. I think that is the most important lesson I’ve learned in Magic: how to stay calm and only look forward.
