Magic, Mindset, and Keeping a One-Lander on the Play
I’M THE BEST BOROS PLAYER IN THE WORLD! You MUST buy my guide! I’ll tell you all of the secrets you need to know to win more in big tournaments!!!
-not me, thank god
I found more success this weekend than I ever have before in Magic the Gathering, but I have no illusions of my place. I didn’t invent a new deck. I didn’t shatter the meta with build decisions. And while I could tell you a thing or two about piloting the cats, my success and uplevel as a player this weekend were internal. It was about finding a flow state. It was about having a solid perspective on life just as much as Magic. And that is what I am going to distill for you as best I can.
My life has been overbearingly chaotic due to an unrelenting work schedule with a dash of family drama. I had already canceled another Magic trip, and honestly there was a part of me that knew it would be best for my health if I didn’t go to LA. But I’m a big believer in taking mental breaks (even if they’re forced), so I boarded the plane and tried to settle into a good mindset by jamming a customary Winston match with Julian. (I won in a decisive two games, which is quite abnormal, and it ended up being one of many green lights throughout the weekend).
Besides being exhausted and chronically stressed, I was overwhelmingly underpracticed compared to where I normally land for these tournaments. No card files read, no metagame knowledge, and not much confidence. Where did that leave me? At peace. Which is really the theme of the weekend.
My expectations were very low in terms of winrate or accolade. When I stood in line for a Pinkberry cup at the airport like a child, I truly felt what I had been telling myself all day: this is going to be a good weekend. I am going to travel to a house packed with way too many dudes, drink beers, open Magic packs like they’re candy, and just have fun. And so my goal with every game, every gameplay decision, every opponent that I talked to, was to enjoy myself. And so I did.
We arrived bright and early at the convention and jumped into the first sealed Swiss LCQ. I had no qual to play on Saturday, so I only had a few bullets left before accepting my fate as a bystander at the RC. I opened what I thought was a very strong pool: good top end, solid card draw, and excellent removal. I hadn’t played the set very much, but I looked at my 23 and thought, “This can win 4 matches”. I made it to the finals against Charles Wong, who is a fantastic player who also turned out to be such a good dude. We had a wild first game that swung back and forth. The board was stable when I topdecked Kwia Vigorbloom with no green source. Luckily, I had a Theoretical Necromancer and a land cycler in my yard, so before my next turn I paid 6 to get a forest and slammed the big dargon onto the board. We had traded so many resources at this point that I felt pretty solid about this being my plan. I untap, attack, and pad my life. Next turn Charles puts a Ruric Thar, Magecrusher onto the field, and I am once again in a losing position. I topdeck Vinelasher Adept, a card which can put a back-breaking 3 counters onto my Kwai and end the game. The problem? No double green. See the problem with this statement? Ever heard of a card called Black Lotus? Not only did I miss my chance to have a Lotus in play in competitive gameplay, I also stranded one of the few outs in my deck. That cost me the game and ultimately the match. (As an aside, Charles missed lethal in G2, which made me feel a little better about my own mistake. Magic is hard.)
This misplay would have absolutely destroyed me in previous weekends. But I was genuinely enjoying myself, so I chose to not let it. That was my chance, it didn’t work out, the weekend just ain’t meant to be. After a little encouragement from the gang, I fired my second and last bullet of the day at 3:30 and opened a very similar but worse pool. It had one plan: play Kiora. And I did just that almost every game. I got to the finals, was paired into a ticket hunter, and secured my spot in RC LA.
Unlike past RCs where I had scrutinized every card for every matchup and gone over and over the sideboard guide (which I would write out several times by hand), I just said fuck it — let the cats out to play. We always make plans for the meta, but there is no guarantee that you will face a single high-percentage deck in your 9+ matches. So make a list that’s reasonable and that feels good for you in the moment. 4 Bolts? Only one Charm? How many Moons? What about the graveyard?? Are you aggro or midrange? Ranger Cap is bad!! Why Haliya?! Idk man I just work here. I was going off feelings and advice from the cat goat Laurence Lo (and literally his Lightning Bolts).
Don’t let mistakes snowball; Magic is too hard a game to play perfectly.
-Alexander Kans
One common theme of the weekend was keeping cool. Almost all of the opponents that I faced, regardless of skill level, made a mistake at some point in the match and visibly showed it, whether through body language, compounding follow-up misplays, or voicing it to me by muttering or cursing or even trying to get my sympathy. And I think it had a pretty large impact on their gameplay. I was able to use this to my advantage by playing a little faster to keep them off balance, or maybe even by dropping a well-timed comment that I knew would fuck with their psyche. Was I making mistakes? Probably. But I for sure wasn’t showing it.
My philosophy truly came to light in my round 2 match against burn. Do I think this deck is good? No. Can it kill you out of nowhere? Absolutely. So I’m on high alert, knowing that every sequence affecting my life total could be the difference between a win or loss. He domes me game 1, and game 2 is an overwhelming force of cats. Game 3 forces a ton of trading resources and life, and we end up in topdeck mode when I have an overwhelming board, including a Ragavan to his one Eidolon of the Great Revel. I am looking at 3-turn lethal. I attack, no blocks. The Rag connects and flips Searing Blood. If I kill the Eidolon and deal 3 to his face, I have lethal next turn. But it puts me to 2 as opposed to 4, with 3 damage being the largest breakpoint in his deck. If I don’t cast the bite, it is 2-turn lethal, giving him an extra draw step to draw Boros Charm, or even chain an assortment of damage spells. What’s the correct line? I don’t know. I thought about it for a while, and in the end, I said fuck it. Luck has to be on my side if I am going to win today. And if it’s not, that’s okay too. I was at peace when I told him to flip his top card over. And it was a land. It was a dope way to end that round, and I took that feeling of peace throughout every match the rest of the tournement.
Whenever I hear Reid Duke talk about tournaments he is always so insufferably happy, saying stuff like “I’m just really excited we get to play Magic today!” And I always think, “You’re too good and have won too much at Magic to think anything other than that.” But this weekend I really did feel that way. I was just having fun. I was enjoying this game and the strategy behind it. Looking at my fancy cats as I deployed them into a catapult to kill my stressed opponents. It’s just a game. One that I love very much, or else why am I flying all over the world to play (and lose)? I love this shit. Let that love of the game drive you to have fun.
Figure out the worst part of your game and focus on improving.
Liam Etelson
The most winning I have ever done at a tournament was earlier this year at RC Portland. It was my first day 2, and I ended 2 match wins away from the PT. I piloted Lessons, a deck where every decision mattered from the first spell you discard to the last trigger you order 15 turns later. I remember feeling a “flow state” at the time — I wasn’t truly mapping out 15 turns ahead in my mind, there is just too much variance to do that successfully (unless you’re Zev). It felt more like I was skiing down a mountain, feeling more than thinking. I find this mental state is very difficult to achieve, at least for me. But being at peace and having fun certainly allows you to access it much more easily. I was hitting a flow all weekend, which in a way DID let me predict future turns. What does that foresight look like? Two examples:
Broodscale was the big baddie of the weekend, and I certainly felt it. Almost 50% of my matches were against the deck, of which I only dropped one. I have always thought it is a good matchup for the cats, unless they land a Sowing Mycospawn while we are on the back foot, or an Emrakul, the Promised End in any board state. The secret to this match is mana count. I was aggressively blowing up spawns with Bolts and Discharges all day, always assuming they could play a land that taps for 2 mana next turn. Their deck is simple: it’s a bunch of 4-ofs and really easy to interact with since they need a bunch of sacrificial men to cast their haymakers. Predict each turn’s use of mana and disrupt, disrupt, disrupt.
Control was another nuisance all weekend; no matter how much I’m winning, I always feel like I am one turn away from completely eating it. Playing around Spell Snare and forcing their board clears is how you win. I am always trying to set up a good next turn if they wrath. And if they are holding up mana, two 1-drops or a 3-drop is preferred. I saw lots of frustrated opponents waiting for that Ajani and not seeing it until they were tapped out.
If you haven’t tried it, I would highly recommend the vibeboard. When we stare at a list, our match becomes statistics on a piece of paper. This will get you to a certain level, but not all the way. How aggressively was your Broodscale opponent playing to the board? Does that mean they won’t shave some of their combo, so you need to leave in more Bolts? Was your control opponent fetching basics to play around the Blood Moon you brought in? Sometimes I would grab my entire sideboard, shuffle it into my deck, and then take out the entire board after coming to the conclusion that the deck was strong as is, with the upside of my opponent wondering what I sided in the entire game.
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I once held a debate about keeping one-landers — can you do it being a midrange deck, even in Modern? Theory mostly says no, but there is always a possibility that your 6 will be worse and also have 1 land. Admittedly, I think about this a lot with Boros, and probably keep more than I should. I was streaming a challenge a few months back, on the play with one land, and pondering 1-drop vs. surveil to guarantee the second land. Lots of back and forth until Phil said very forcefully “Just draw your second land.” Like all of us were idiots for not coming to that conclusion. So I played the 1-drop, ripped the land, and the rest is history. Obviously not all one-landers are keeps, but when you are feeling good and the “vibes” are high, maybe just consider drawing the land on turn 2.
We thought you misplayed. Then we realized you were on another level.
-Laurence Lo, Master of Cats
“Vibes” is this generation’s way of describing intuition, or feelings of knowledge rather than science or fact. When you enter a flow state, you start acting off of this information even when you’re not clocking it in real time. Like when your opponent snap keeps on 7 vs. a rough 6. Or which land they play first, or how they react to their first draw. Sometimes you do this consciously, like analyzing weird sequencing that you roll back and forth in your mind until you come to the card that makes their play make sense. Other times you just feel something. Trust your gut and make whatever play feels right, as it is likely informed by an input that you may not have consciously clocked.
When you “flow” you can focus more brainpower on the entirety of the game, which ends up being very human. You can even sprinkle in a little showmanship along the way. G3 against Broodscale on the play. Your hand is 2 fetches, an arena, 2 Charmaws, a Ragavan, and a Bolt. You better believe I was putting the hand down, furrowing my brow, shaking my head, and landing an “I guess I’ll try it.”
You’re just a beast.
-Andy Garcia-Romo
I was proud walking into day 2 with only one loss. The PT was closer than ever, but my job now was keeping my cool, keeping my flow while walking into more nerves, harder matches, and the bright lights of coverage. I had declined coverage the day before because I had never won a match on camera and I didn’t want it affecting my mindset, but they told me I would need to play under the bright lights if I kept winning. And I did plan to continue the winning.
My secret to this was music. I’ve been a drummer my whole life — and it’s the one thing that I never get nervous about. It’s just groove and the beat and me and a great fucking time. So I listened to songs I used to cover in my high school bands — Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, My Chemical Romance — and I closed my eyes and imagined I was on stage just jamming. I wanted each match to feel that way, and they did. I broke into a quick 2-game winning streak, and sat down across from Esper Blink for my win-and-in to the PT, which was poetic because it was a matchup I played the most against Julian years ago when I first learned Modern and Boros. I kept solid control over the entire match, and when he said, “If you have it you have it,” before Ephemerating his warped Riddler, I looked lovingly at my Discharge in hand and 3 banked energy and knew I had made it.
After eating another Broodscale opponent like a nice dish of steamed tuna, I was one ID away from top 8. Unfortunately, I was paired down into Jacob, who was by far my most formidable opponent of the weekend (and a really good dude). We were playing on the main stage now, but I managed to keep my lighthearted nature with the judges and commentators (they were shook at the different prints of the cats in my deck). That being said, I was tired; the weekend was catching up to me, the adrenaline rush was ebbing, and the reality of my immense amount of work the following day was starting to break through. I played well but not perfectly. This came to a head in game 3.
I’m on the draw. Mull to 6, hand is Pride, Discharge, Bolt, Spyro, Charmaw, fetch — putting back a Bomba which is a little too slow for this hand on the draw. If you switch Spyro for a land, this hand is close to perfect, so for me it’s an easy keep. Turn one I draw my second land, which means I can play the Pride to get some pressure going. But my plan is simple: cast Charmaw and win, which will likely demand 3 lands, so I decide to surveil to maximize the likelihood of drawing another land. Jacob Mumbles (off of a sexy stamped forest). I miss drawing land 3. Now you have decisions to make. Two options were the clear path forward in my mind. Either play the Pride and hold up a Bolt, or play nothing and hold up a Bolt plus surveil (remember, our plan is Charmaw and we need land 3).
I go with the kitty plan, hoping I can surveil as most good Broodscale players will shave the Broodscale combo a bit, which slows the match down. But there is a third line which I had not considered. What if you bolt the spawn? I don’t think I gave this line much thought in the moment, but throughout the tournament I had bolted lots of spawn, thinking about the next two turns and what plays it would turn off for my opponent. Through the haze of exhaustion I failed to predict what Jacob could do with 6 mana next turn: a kicked Mycospawn which would literally end the game. I asked him and several others about this play after the game, and everyone agreed that it was a losing line to take — we have to start applying pressure. But sometimes it is correct to take the losing, safer line to ultimately ensure we can get to a favorable position. Hindsight is always 20/20. And I missed my next land drop anyway, so technically none of this mattered. But I do think that bolting that spawn would have given me the best chance of victory over the game.
The loss was humbling, and defeat took some of the wind out of my sails. The day was coming to a close, I was exhausted, and I knew I didn’t have the mental capacity to truly play my best after that game. Obviously, with a Worlds invite two matches away, I wanted the winning to persevere, but when I sat down against Prowess and saw the cards come out of my opponent’s hand, I knew my run was at an end. Yet still, and for the last time that weekend, I was at peace.
Over the past two years, I had slowly grown resentful while playing a game I loved. If I wasn’t winning, I wasn’t having fun. I would outplay my opponent just to lose to a timely topdeck or unbeatable bomb and leave the match feeling miserable, robbed of victory. I would be so hard on myself for every little piece of equity I punted away, and wallow in sob stories of “If he didn’t have the perfect blah blah blah.” Yes, I improved as a player, but my mindset, my perspective, became too focused on the letter W. If you feel this way, I would challenge you to refocus, recalibrate. Remember why you love this game. Have goals — yes of course — and trust me when I say the most painful lessons are also the ones that make you a better player. But don’t let this game that you love so much eat you alive. Life is too short to let the things that bring us joy start to deplete us.
It wasn’t that long ago that I went to Kennedy’s for the first time. Ever since that first fateful draft, I have grown as a player and a person. The true beauty of Magic is the people that I have had the pleasure of sharing this journey with. All of the Wednesday nights, all of the prereleases, the Seedcore leagues, the photo ops, all of the testing and talking and streaming and cheering and consoling all over the world have given me this opportunity, and for that, I am eternally thankful to each and every one of you.
They say that when you achieve a goal you have been working towards for a long time, you often feel depressed, which I have been struggling with this week. So much of life is what drives us; we find identity in that drive, and once the goal is achieved, we lose a part of ourselves. I don’t have aspirations of streaming or being a professional Magic player (whatever that means), so I don’t really know what’s next for me. For now, I will enjoy the victory as much as I can as I reflect on what new peak lies in wait for me. I appreciate you riding the high and reading this far. Until Detroit, and maybe Tokyo…
Results from the Kennedy’s house: 4 RC quals, 3 RC D2s, 6 LCQ T8s, 1 LC invite, 1 PT invite, 1 RC T8, 5 FRA collector booster boxes. Not a bad weekend.
