Magic Arena – Losing and LOSING!

I’m not a bad loser. The only people I ever get mad at when I lose are myself and cheats. Cheats could be the subject of a whole other post but getting mad at myself, well, that’s probably because I should have done better!

I know when I’ve made mistakes – I’m quite honest with myself – and if it’s an error I should have seen coming, that’s when I’m tough on myself, and rightly so.

Losing when I’ve been outplayed or simply beaten by the luck of the draw, I can take on the chin, it is what it is, but it’s learning from these losses, from the mistakes I may have made, that’s the important thing, and that’s what this post is all about – learning from my loses and mistakes made when playing Magic The Gathering: Arena, basically, when to make the most of losing!

Recently, I’ve been struggling to reach Diamond rank, something I was constantly achieving this time last year when I even managed to climb to the dizzy ranks of Mythic a couple of times. But just lately, I’ve been floundering mid-Platinum and unable to string a meaningful number of victories together.

I thought it was time to figure out why this may be and the obvious place to start was by asking the question, ‘Why am I losing?’.

I play almost exclusively in the Explorer Format, or Pioneer as it is now known, and have a number of decks I use repeatedly. Of these, three have proven to be Mythic worthy in the past and it’s these I tend to use in the ranked matches, whilst the rest of my decks I tend to play because they’re fun or do something a bit different from the rest.

So, I concentrated on playing just the proven decks, one a month, to see where they got me and why.

Interestingly, each of the three decks paced me Platinum Tier-2 at the end of their respective month. I did start to wonder if this is actually where I belong; the level at which my ability plateaus out at, the limit of my Magic prowess. Fortunately, a deeper dive into why I wasn’t progressing further helped ease the despair I was on the brink of falling into.

Once I hit Mid-Platinum and lost a game, I asked myself the following questions…

1. Did I do something silly?
2. Was it down to pure luck?
3. With hindsight, was there a better way of playing the cards I drew?
4. If I had drawn the right card at the right time, could that have changed the result?

Asking these four questions gave me an insight into both the issues with how I was playing and those of my decks. Here’s a look at each question in turn and what I could learn from the answers.

Did I do something silly?

Also known as, ‘My own stupid fault!’. I do tend to play on the quick side and have been known to make the odd blunder or two. Playing lands in the wrong order is a common error I make, leading to me not being able to do what I’d intended. This often comes from thinking a couple of turns ahead and not concentrating on the one that matters, i.e. the current turn.

If I’m constantly answering yes to this one, then I know I need to start concentrating more and slowing down the pace. This is especially true when I’m playing with a deck I’m not fully conversant with or haven’t played in a while. Making stupid mistake after stupid mistake really makes me frustrated, as it’s something I can control, but sometimes it’s to do with the frame of mind I’m in at the time, in which case it’s time to stop and do something else.

More often than not, though, I answer no to this question and move on…

Was it down to pure luck?

Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do about the lot you’ve been given. A Mulligan full of lands. Several draws that give no lands at all. Your opponent drawing just the right card at the right time and turning your certain win into a dismal, head-shaking loss.

It’s no use blaming yourself on this one… Or is it?

Is it really down to luck if I’m constantly drawing too many/no lands? What about if I’m always been beaten by a ‘lucky’ draw from my opponent?

If this is happening consistently, then the chances are there’s something else amiss, probably with my deck. Have I got an imbalance in lands for how I expect my deck to work? Is there a weakness that can easily be exploited by a what seems like a lucky draw?

This takes some thought and analysis on my behalf. I may have to consider the number of lands I have in my deck and how they are used. For example, a fast red deck may have a reduced number of lands, say 20, which is accepted when playing such a deck. But, I may be taking a Mulligan when I don’t draw a hand I like, even though it contains two lands, and I may then draw into a hand that has no lands, a far worse situation. In such a case I would do better to keep the original and should expect to at least put up a fight – a fast red deck should be able to hold the opening with just two lands.

Of course, sometimes it is pure luck, but recognising the difference between luck and poor deck balance takes experience and a little self-analysis. If I’m answering yes to this question, which shouldn’t happen very often, because if it does then I need to consider my deck make-up.

With hindsight, was there a better way of playing the cards I drew?

This is where it really starts to get interesting.

If I’d played ‘X’ instead of ‘Y’, would that have changed the course of the game?

I tend to only consider this in terms of what actual cards my opponent has played, though with experience I can often guess at what other options they could have to play around with based on what I’ve already seen.

At a basic level, I consider what would have happened if I’d played cards in a different order and my opponent had reacted as I would have done with the cards they had. I consider if this would have made any difference to the outcome. Maybe, if I’d played my creatures out in a different order I could have gained an advantage with one of their innate abilities? Or, if I’d played my enchantment earlier it could have won the game for me in combination with the last card I drew?

It’s all a bit circumstantial, but if I believe I could have altered the result by playing the cards differently then it goes someway to showing that the deck does work, either I played it poorly, it was just down to the way the cards came out, or the deck needs a little tinkering with to improve its consistency.

Of course, if I don’t think there was anything I could have done to change the result, then I need to move on and ask the final question…

If I had drawn the right card at the right time, could that have changed the result?

Anyone who plays Magic has been here. You’re on the brink of losing but, if your next draw is a specific card, then you know you’ll walk away with the win and a smug look on your face!

Something I’m always thinking about when playing is, what card(s) do I need to draw to significantly swing the game in my favour? Some card combinations, played at the right time, are unstoppable, and so you’re looking to set these up. But what if you can’t?

This is the most important question I ask myself. If, throughout the game, there was no point in which a different card draw would have swung the game, then I have to admit I’ve been soundly beaten. My opponents deck was just better against mine in this instance.

However, If I think a specific card, played at the right time, could have won me the game, then I need to consider was it just luck that I didn’t get the draw in time or do I need to look at my deck to see if I can increase the chances of playing my game winning cards.

Just a single ‘Yes!’

Just a single ‘Yes’ to any of the above four questions gives me some hope that the deck I’m using is viable. Of course, taking a single game in isolation isn’t going to give an accurate picture and that’s why I played a month’s worth of games with each of the three decks.

I found that, when I hit mid-Platinum, more often than not I was unable to answer ‘yes’ to any of the questions. I was been beaten in 50% of the games I was playing (hence I was marking-time) and in the majority of those it was all ‘Nos’ to my questions.

So, what did that mean?

I knew the decks I were using were, at one point, capable of getting me up to Mythic level, so what had changed? Obviously, it was the decks that others were competing with. The Meta had moved on and I hadn’t moved with it!

Time to move on

What to do about it? First up, I looked at what cards were about, especially from newer releases, that could help improve my decks. The three decks I used were quite specific in how they operated. One was a fast, white/green deck that created a lot of tokens with the outlook of playing Dollmaker’s Shop to suddenly boost them up.

My Black/Blue deck had no creatures at all and relied on removing those of my opponent whilst giving them lots of poison counters.

Finally, my all Black deck centred around a more common theme of forcing discards and sacrifices with the look at winning the game with either Tergrid, God of Fright, or Sheoldred.

After much tinkering and deliberation, I decided that there was nothing that I could add to make any significant improvement on these decks. It was time to move on.

And so, I created a whole new deck from scratch, which is a story in itself for another time, and I’ve been playing with it now for two months, during which it has much changed from what it was at the beginning.

So far, I’m answering ‘Yes’ to lot of my questions and have made it comfortably to Diamond Tier in both months – I believe that with more time to play it would be a Mythic worthy deck, which I hope to prove in the near future.

Losing and Losing!

There we have it. Losing isn’t all bad. If you take the time to look at why you’re losing and use it as a learning tool, then you might just find an answer. It could be you’re just the unluckiest person on the planet, however, it’s more likely to be some facet of your gameplay and if you can recognise that, then hopefully you can improve on it.