Magic is Very Hard

Focus on what you can control, focus on what matters.

This is a reminder I have on my phone that recurs at 5pm every day. I've had it since the beginning of college - Most days I don't register it, because it's always there on the lock screen. It's there for the times I do.

What I register this time on my lock screen as I wake up is "3:46am". Last night I was out with my visiting parents at a Broadway show - It took me an hour or so to wind down when I got home, and I went to bed around 1. Ah well. I need to be up at 6 anyways. I've learned sometimes that rolling with the random whims of my chronic pain on high stress days is better than fighting my own body and mind.

After a few hours of intermittently trying to fall back asleep and scrolling through twitter (I recognize this is not a good strategy), it's time to get up. Bagel for breakfast, quick shower, hop on the J into manhattan towards Penn Station.

I arrive at Penn, exhausted, but waking up a bit. I'm about an hour early for the 8:11 train I'm catching with my Discord friends. Evan, who I know from college and my connection to this group, says he'll be showing up in a bit. I grab a small coffee that I intend to sip slowly throughout the day like an IV, and watch NBA playoffs highlights while I wait.

Our crew for this Regional Championship Qualifier:

• Evan (experienced grinder, great person)

• Myself (first ever RCQ, qualified for Worlds)

• Henry (first competitive level sealed tournament, plays a lot online),

• Marley (he's got a few pins on his bag from top 8-ing events. I played him at Blitz league on Thursday and barely squeaked out a win. Good player, good person.)

• Chris, also in the discord, will be at the event too, but isn't joining us on the 1.5-hr train ride.

The ride passes as quickly as can reasonably be expected through the drumbeat of typical Magic player conversation. Thoughts on the new set, advice on tournament procedures for the newer players, not-so-subtle name dropping of past successes from the experienced ones, myself included. A minute or two is dedicated to the "how's life" question - Marley's on week 10 of paternity leave and his son is healthy & easy so far! I forget to ask what he does for work.

Finally, we arrive at the game store an hour early, as planned. Marley buys some packs so he and Henry can practice opening a sealed pool, Evan and I play some of his custom 2-player format based on Dandan.

Time warps, as it typically does when you play Magic. 5 minutes later, seatings are posted for deck registration.

Building sealed decks is my favorite thing to do in Magic. I've built thousands, but my hands are still shaking a bit in anticipation.

Or maybe that's just the lack of sleep?

30 minutes in, after muscle memory has guided my shaking hands through sorting, registering, double-checking, and passing back my table-mate's pool (Pascal, who traveled here all the way from Philly!), it's time to build. Pascal & I have both gotten a quick glance at our respective pools, and agree that they both seem quite bad.

We were right. Here's my pool, if you have a minute, see what you would build!

https://sealeddeck.tech/uXWw0sLowV

Right off the bat I know I'm in trouble because of the rares. Stoic Sphinx and Caustic Bronco are solid Magic cards, but they're no Railway Brawler, Bonny Pall, Terror of the Peaks, Gisa the Hellraiser, or Dust Animus - cards I know I'll have to beat as I move up the tables in a high level sealed tournament.

Focus on what you can control, focus on what matters.

This is a quote from noted Magic boomer and (at least at one point) consensus Greatest player Of of All Time Jon Finkel, who was trying to summarize how to be good at Magic. I made it a daily reminder because I think it's brilliant, even if it's obvious. Of course you shouldn't focus on things you can't control and things that don't matter... but humans are pretty prone to doing exactly that, and we need to be snapped out of it sometimes. Not just in Magic.

So let's focus on what we can control - the cards in front of us. A good place to start would be the deck that lets us play both of our best cards, the Sphinx and the Bronco.

This deck is underwhelming. It barely meets the 23-playable threshold, and is only running 14 creatures, many of which are 4-drops. Your 2-drops are okay, but 3 of them are bad at blocking and 1 is bad at attacking. For a clunky deck that's trying to make the game go long, this is not ideal. Even if we do succeed at making the game go long, where's the power? We're not exactly going to beat our opponents' bombs with our 5/4s and 3/4s.

Let's try an entirely different direction. Our best multicolor "signpost" cards are in green-red. What does that look like?

This is a really good core - We've got some solid creatures (a little lacking on cheap ones), but unfortunately it's only 20 cards. We're playing literally every single mono-red card in the pool, and every green card besides Map the Frontier and Rise of the Varmints, and it's still only 20 cards.

Here's a spot where we look to our lands to bail us out. Luckily, we've got some good white fixing, and a couple of very solid removal spells to splash:

So with those factored in (plus a Silver Deputy for more smoothing, we end up here:

This is getting somewhere. I count this as the first viable deck our pool has produced - It's got 15 creatures, plenty of removal, and a medium curve. It's a little 3-drop heavy and the lategame power is going to be lacking, but this is a deck that works. Mentally filing it away as an option.

30 minutes left in deckbuilding. Where to next?

Those white removal spells are quite appealing. How's the white creature base? I'm noticing that this deck is mostly supported by its red cards, so let's try to build this as base-RW instead:

Now that's a creature curve I can get behind. 6 2-drops actually gives us a chance to get on board early in a consistent way and start pressuring our opponent. Sure, one of them is an Outlaw Medic, but we don't exactly have many options (Grand Abolisher is a no-go as a 2-drop that's tough to cast on turn 2, but doesn't impact the game enough to be relevant on turn 4).

Is it worth splashing the powerful green cards in this build? Here's where some Sealed theory comes in. Sure, adding in Jolene, Cactusfolk Sureshot, and Congregation Gryff would increase our deck's power level, at the cost of only a small amount of consistency -- After all, we have the requisite 3 lands needed to add 3-4 green sources while keeping our white and red counts above the recommended 8. By traditional limited theory, we're checking the boxes and should be adding these cards to our deck.

Hmm... I'm not sure this deck actually looks better than streamlined RW. Yes, we're playing more powerful cards, but without the green cards, we're not really taking much advantage of the RG "4-power matters" payoffs. To fit these cards in, we cut the two 1-mana tricks, since they were our weakest spells, but that does take away a dimension of our deck (being able to interact on 1 mana).

It's also important to remember that even if you're able to fit in an appropriate number of sources, you always lose some consistency when you splash in limited. The idea is that you're taking a hit to the rate at which your deck develops its gameplan smoothly in exchange for more inevitability in the lategame and ways to power through your opponent's deck when both of you are firing on all cylinders.

Can this RWg deck win when both players are firing on all cylinders? Maybe, but probably not. It's got removal and decent creatures, but it doesn't really have many synergies, bombs, or lategame value engines. It kinda just plays creatures to the board and hopes that's good enough. That plan is designed to win games where opponents are stumbling, and you can win by doing average, boring things.

The boring RW deck is better at this. Sure, its creatures are slightly worse and it will get absolutely run over by opponents who manage to build out a solid board while waiting to draw their more powerful cards. But this deck consistently:

• Puts out multiple creatures in the first few turns

• Leverages removal and tricks to make sure those creatures beat your opponent's "small" boards

• Removes the first big threat, which is hopefully enough to close out the game before the opponent can stabilize.

Sure, the version splashing green also does these things -- But it does them about 70% of the time, while the RW deck does them about 80% of the time. The RW deck will almost never have dead cards in hand or spells it can't deploy to have an impact in the game. Is it a sweet sealed deck that I'm confident going into battle with knowing I'll have a chance in every game? Nah. But will it competently win games where I get luckier than my opponent by doing just enough every time that happens? Yeah, it's pretty good at doing that.

Alright, enough of that theory deep dive. 18 minutes left in deckbuilding. Is RW really the best we can do?

Our blue was pretty good, and I like our white core. Let's take a look at that.

This deck is... fine? It's got a good curve, seems consistent, has one very powerful card, and enough removal to at least have a chance against opposing bombs. It's not as fast as RW, but it's got a few more card advantage engines and a bit more overall board presence.

Do we have anything to splash? Not really. We only have 1 land each for splashing G, B, or R, and more importantly, there isn't really all that much WORTH splashing. Caustic Bronco is great, but most of its power comes from being a 2-drop that can come down early and draw a couple cards before the opponent manages to get their shields up.

12 minutes left in deckbuilding.

I still have to register what I decide on, double check the sheet to make sure I don't get a match loss, sleeve, and take a breather before round 1 starts.

I take a long look at UW, decide RW is better, and register that.

Here's what I text Mora after submitting:

(along with pictures of the relevant cards in the colors I left out, in case they have thoughts)

Time to play Magic!

Round 1

My opponent is sitting next to his friend & discussing the prize support. It sounds like they agree it's pretty good for an RCQ. I know there's a "travel stipend" of $500 to first place, since the RC is in Washington DC. I have no idea about the rest.

Game 1, I keep a 2-lander, and on turn 5, I'm still operating on 2 lands. I make a seemingly bizarre attack (I'm at 14, opponent is at 20) into a couple creatures with my Sterling Keykeeper to set up a Skewer the Critics + Steer Clear  turn -- the 1-drops are coming in handy in a game where I'm stumbling. My opponent also missed their third land drop but has hit every one since, and I'm falling steadily behind, assuming I'll be dead any minute.

This feels like it's just not my day. It happens!

I do eventually draw the third land, and a fourth two turns later. My opponent can't seem to get through and chip away at my 7 life points with all these lands they're drawing, and I'm able to deploy the rest of my hand and start applying pressure to them. My opponent keeps picking up my cards to read them, and say it's their first time playing the new set. They continue to draw more lands, and I've won.

I scan through my sideboard and realize I have essentially zero options, unless I want to switch over into UW (which I had sleeved up at the end of deckbuilding). I want to collect more data on this RW deck, so I present with no changes for game 2.

Game 2 goes similarly, except I'm hitting my land drops this time. I end up drawing roughly 2 more relevant spells than my opponent, and use those to reduce their life total to 0 points.

1-0.

After the match, opponent explains that he opened Bonny Pall and Assimilation Aegis, but didn't feel like he could support them, and a streamlined BR aggro deck was better. I'm skeptical at first, but after looking at his pool, I think I agree. There's a very mediocre UW deck in there that gets to play those bombs, and maybe it was correct to play it for that reason alone, but it's really not very impressive otherwise. His BR build looks solid, and even has a Hellspur Posse-Boss, a bomb in its own right. It's nice to chat about sealed builds with a very nice person. I love sealed!

Focus on what you can control, focus on what matters.

It's 1pm. I need to get food! I'm in suburban New Jersey and there are zero bodegas in sight. What's a city girl like me to do? Luckily, the pub next door is used to Magic players in a time crunch, and I manage to get a burger to go and sneak back into the game store just 3 minutes past the round timer running out. I don't have time to eat it though, as all the matches are done and pairings for next round have been posted!

Round 2

I'm paired against Evan! Of course it's fun to play against a teammate, but it also means someone has to lose, which is usually a bad thing if you have an edge over the rest of the field (if you don't, that's a different problem).

Before we can get started, we're hit with a Deck Check. A fun mix of nerve-wracking and boring -- Any tiny mistake in registering our pools will probably lead to a game loss, and more importantly, we have to sit around doing nothing before we get to play Magic.

At least I have time to eat my burger!

Conversation finally turns to the "how's life?" question. Evan's back at his old company after a job he hated, and it sounds like they wanted him back pretty badly. He's got a lot of freedom to work on side projects and is building Blackjack in python (I did the same recently!). I tell him about my goals to take some coding classes during this Magic hiatus, and we both agree on our love for NYC.

Deck tech is done, and the judge calls me over. Hooooh boy. I checked and double-checked my pool, but this is never a good sign. Any misregistered card will likely result in a game loss, as this is a very easy way to cheat and, while it sucks that players have to be ultra careful to not make mistakes, it's a necessary part of the system. I brace myself.

It turns out there was a small smudge next to one card in my colors I didn't end up playing. It doesn't look like a number, but there's really not supposed to be anything there, and if I had had that card in my deck, I could have argued that I meant to write a "1" and just have poor handwriting. I had noticed this smudge (presumably caused by my table-mate starting to write in the "played" column instead of the "total" column while registering the card), but hadn't thought much of it. I was supposed to call a judge when I saw this and make sure it was clearly marked that this card was NOT being played. I'm rusty in paper tournament procedures and almost lose a game because of it -- But this judge is kind and lets me off with a warning.

Focus on what you can control, focus on what matters.

Could I have controlled that better? Well, it doesn't matter now.

Time for Magic!

Game 1, Evan stumbles a bit. I took a look at his deck earlier (and showed him mine) -- It's a bit greedy, but the power is undeniable. Bruse Tarl, Marchesa, Stingerback Terror, and multiple pieces of recursion mean that I have very little chance to compete in a long game. I try and pounce on the opportunity with a Boom Box blowing up his 4th land after he's already missed land drops, but he draws out of it and I end up buried under the card quality.

Game 2, I luck into one of the best draws my deck can have -- Omenport vigilante into Prickly Pair  to pump it into multiple removal spells, on the play. I get Evan down to 4 early on, and while he makes multiple decent attempts to stabilize, I keep drawing gas and am able to close it out. My deck is able to do that... once in a blue moon. When I'm on the play.

Game 3. Since we got an 18-minute time extension, most of the rounds are done already and a crowd is starting to form. We've got to play fast, so the talking and the tanking is mostly over with, and we settle into what turns out to be the grindiest game of the 3 so far. I deal with an early Bruse Tarl and am behind on board, but I'm able to leverage my blockers into a board stall where Evan is ahead, but the natural advantage of blocking means he can't actually attack.

Still, the clock is ticking before he draws more bombs - And he does. A Stingerback Terror hits the board and starts pressuring me. A Blood Hustler is pinging me once a turn, then twice a turn once Evan hits 7 mana and quickly identifies his ability to double up on it thanks to HardBristle Bandit. While I can tap it to avoid it getting into combat, my life total is dwindling, and so is the round clock (well the actual round clock is well past zero, but with our extension we're closing in on that -18:00 mark). I'm dutifully remembering to tap my Deadeye Duelist  at the end of each turn to bring Evan down from 24 to 23, then 25 to 24, then 26 to 25. Swimming upstream.

Suddenly, a flash of hope -- A topdecked removal spell. This allows me to get rid of the blood hustler and start tapping the Stingerback, and suddenly we're stable again, albeit at 3 life -- No, more than stable. Can I afford to attack with my double striker now that I've committed a crime? I can - I'm proud of myself for seeing that line, a tiny opening that might let me close the game out before a draw if Evan essentially draws nothing for multiple turns. I take the opening because you play to win the game, not to lose or draw.

Unfortunately, Evan does draw enough to comfortably stabilize, and before I'm prepared it's turn 3 of 5 - There's no way I can end this game in time. Maybe I'm slightly advantaged on board, but it would take multiple turns of that not changing to complete the comeback.

A draw would be disastrous for both of us, essentially a loss at this stage of the tournament. I don't think my deck has more than a very outside shot at winning 3 rounds in a row after this, and Evan's deck is quite strong.

It's time to scoop.

After I concede, we notice that Evan still had a Skewer the Critics left in his deck, which could have killed me at any point if the game had been allowed to play out.

What a match!!!!!

1-1.

Round 3

No time for breathing. Evan and I had been the last game playing (of course), and standings for the next round were already posted. A quick hello, a "sorry I'm just getting off an intense match, need a minute to settle down", and I'm back into the Magic. I'm playing against a controlling UB deck which was splashing green for what I assume was at least one of the many green bombs in the set.

I get off to a strong start in game 1, leveraging tricks to deal with my opponent's board and having a Mystical Tether to clear out the one big blocker my opponent produced. The one scary moment comes when my opponent bounces the tether with a Failed Fording after I've already declared attackers, threatening to eat one of my creatures for free. I'm kicking myself for not having played my 6th land pre-combat to have my Boom Box active before I realize I could recast the tether with flash and essentially negate their play. I catch it at the last minute, but a second later and I might not have won that game.

Game 2 follows a similar pattern - I have a strong creature curve and my opponent can only produce one meaningful blocker over the first few turns of the game. This game they have a Lost Jitte active, which is definitely a scary card, but much less scary when you're putting them under pressure. I'm slightly worried when they make an attack with their 5/5 that seemed wrong, because it indicates they want to have at least 1 counter on the Jitte to untap their land and cast a 7-drop the next turn. They seemed annoyed at my Boom Box blowing up their only forest last game, and I'm wondering if they're splashing a Vaultborn Tyrant. No matter how advantaged I am so far, I won't be able to beat that card coming down. Luckily it's just a Dance of the Tumbleweeds, and I have just enough action to hit them for exactsies before they can untap and access the rest of their hand.

2-1.

Round 4

Okay, maybe a little time for breathing. I get paired down this round against someone who was 1-2 and dropped from the tournament without telling the judge. Somehow this gives me a free win as someone still very much in contention for top 8. Better lucky than good!

3-1.

After essentially getting a bye, I go over to watch Evan in his 3-0 match. Boy, did he have the opposite of a bye this round - when I wander over, I see an Oko, Thief of Crowns on 11 loyalty. Not only that, this player's deck is chock full of bombs, built around a solid 2-color core in the best pair in the format; GW.

Game 1 wraps up quickly after I start watching. Oko sticking around in a long game is nearly impossible to come back from.

Game 2, Evan manages to get far ahead enough on board to immediately kill Oko as soon as it hits the board on turn 5. Nothing fancy, just some efficiently-costed creatures + being on the play. Good, clean Magic fundamentals baby!

Game 3 is rough to watch. Against a deck like Evan's opponent's, you need them to stumble to have a shot. Early on, Evan is the one stumbling. He sends back a sketchy 7-carder in a smart mulligan choice, and keeps an equally sketchy 6-carder missing his 2 most important colors, green and black. Evan struggles to develop his mana early on in the game even with an Oasis Gardener and an Irascible Wolverine, and finds himself under lots of pressure in the air from a Shepherd of the Clouds and a Congregation Gryff.

Despite mounting a valiant comeback with Bruse Tarl and a Blood Hustler, Evan can't find enough removal in time or develop his board large enough to attack on the ground before dying to the fliers over a long sequence of desperate turns. His opponent drew 0 bombs this game and flooded out pretty badly by the end, but it was just one of those games where two cards ended up mattering more than all the others.

Magic is very hard.

Focus on what you can control, focus on what matters.

Round 5

Evan was luckier than me in deckbuilding, but I've been significantly luckier in terms of the opponents I've faced, and that continues into this round. Somehow at 3-1, I find myself facing off against another mediocre aggro deck.

Not only is my opponents' deck quite medium, they also seemed to be a less experienced player than most at the top tables at that point in the day.

In game 1, I distinctly remember being attacked with an Ertha Jo + Thunder Lasso that's been pumped with a Mercenary token, taking me from 20->15, while preparing to crack my opponent back from 14 down to 10 on the following turn and adding to my board to boot.

Not only that, but my good draws continue, and game 2 ends up going roughly the same way. I again draw about 2 more relevant spells than my opponent and find myself hoping to draw into top 8, with what I still think is the worst sealed pool I'd opened in a long, long time.

4-1 (not only that, but 7-1-1 in games, somehow)

Round 6

Unfortunately, the tiebreaker math is such that most folks who are X-1 will have to play it out in the final round - Myself definitely included, since my opponent match win % was in the bottom half, having gotten the pairdown. Marley, with a lot more paper tournament experience than me, thinks I have to play it out.

"Are you sure, considering the fact that my deck is really bad?"

"Nah I think you just have to play".

My opponent is Josie, who came here from Philly with my deckbuilding tablemate Pascal's crew (they're all at the top tables, unsurprising for a group that traveled so far). I know at this stage it's really unlikely I'll be facing a deck that puts out an underwhelming board or an opponent who keeps a sketchy hand - Plus, it looks like all the other X-1 tables are deciding they have to play, which might be true collectively... but could we out-game-theory them and agree to a draw?

Focus on what you can control, focus on what matters.

But what is that in this scenario? I can control my decision to offer the draw, but I can't control if Josie's also in a position where she'll accept, or how my tiebreakers will shift after this round, or whether the rest of the tables see us draw and decide to go ahead and do so themselves. I can control my play, but I can't control my opponent's deck or my own draws. Is this a place where I should try and pull another rabbit out of a hat and make a risky choice to sneak into top 8 before my pool catches up to me, or am I overthinking it? I am 7-1-1 with my deck, after all. Maybe I just don't understand the format well enough and my deck is actually fine.

In the end, I settle on the opportunity to play Magic against someone who seems like a quality opponent.

"Hey, I'm Ryan, I think we have to play. If it's any condolences, I think my deck is awful."

Honest mindgames. Maybe it throws her off, more likely it's just a funny thing to say and it happens to be true. After some chat about local Magic communities and PT testing teams, we're off to the races. I'm keeping my eyes on the matches around us in case our games go long and there's the chance to offer a draw before it's completely hopeless.

What follows is a quick dismembering. My cards finally catch up to me, and don't really stand a chance against a player who knows how to engineer power & consistency out of a sealed pool.

Game 1 involves some cheeky attacks with my Outlaw Medic, but I get stuck on only white mana for a couple of turns, and Josie manages to stick a Sword of Wealth and Power and a Hollow Marauder, -- The sword doesn't copy any spells, but they've just got too much card quality for lil old me.

Game 2 is better, but it's still clear I really don't have the lategame power to compete with even a decent draw from Josie. There's another fun spot on turn 5 where my Irascible Wolverine flips over a Boom Box that I get to cast, threatening an activation next turn if the last card in my hand is a land (it is).

Josie tanks a bit on her turn. "That's actually really annoying," she jokes. "I like this card in sealed!" I proclaim "Not so sure about slamming your sword now, huh?".

(Mora and I will look boom box up later and it has a below 50% game-in-hand winrate in draft, the classic indicator of an unplayable card. Magic is very hard.)

Now, I don't remember what exactly was in Josie's hand, but I do remember that it wasn't a sword and it wasn't another artifact that Boom Box could kill. Could it have been something else that Boom Box makes awkward? Sure, and I think she did end up getting the box off the board before deploying more threats. But I suspect Josie here was taking an easy opportunity to plant some false information, given that the sword was probably on my mind since it played such a large role in game 1. It wasn't "well now I don't want to play my sword!" -- That would've been way too obvious. But a simple "This is awkward" immediately made my mind go to what could be in their hand, and anchor on the one permanent I knew was in Josie's deck but not on her board. Maybe it was totally unintentional, but maybe I got incepted. At the very least, you can't put that kind of thing past a good player, and it's worth noting in case I get the chance to do something similar or realize it's happening to me in the future.

Now THAT shit's fun.

What's not super fun is losing your win-and-in at record speed while thinking the whole time you probbbbbably could have drawn in. Ah well, we'll get 'em next time!

Chris even made top 8, so our "squad" got one in there! Can never call it a failed tournament when you achieve that.

Aftermath

After a long ride on the train where my body is telling me I shouldn't have done that and I'm in danger (it does this all the time, it's loud and usually wrong, so I'm used to ignoring it. Chronic pain is weird.) -- I'm back home.

I say hi to my cats, throw my backpack in the corner and collapse into bed. 15 minutes pass on Twitter. I guess I should get up and unpack.

Deckbox goes on the table, water bottle goes on the counter, playmat on the bookshelf, backpack gets thrown on the couch.

"Unpacking".

... I'd better get out my pool and separate out the rares.

... Am I sure I built right?

Josie liked the black cards in my pool after taking a quick scan through, and Mora texted me during round 1 that "BW seems promising". Did I ever look at that?

These (exhausted and in pain from a long day) are the thoughts of a sicko.

10 minutes later, I have this:

(https://sealeddeck.tech/MyqqwIZubg)

Fuck. This is better. It lets me play my Caustic Bronco and the black cards are otherwise comparable to the red cards. Why didn't I see this during deckbuilding?? I never misbuild sealed pools to the point where I'm not even playing the right colors. I've been playing high-level Sealed for over a decade.

Magic is very hard.

Impossibly hard.

Beautifully hard.

I'm very good at a lot of things. I've never been as good at anything as I am at Magic.

If that changes one day, it won't be an accident. It will require years and years of love and choices, voluntary and involuntary. It will require spending my time obsessed and enraptured and confused and curious and excited and thrilled and unsure.

I've got to get a lot better at Magic if I want to win the World Championship.

I want to win the World Championship.

I hope you'll come with me.