Learning to Lose and Mythic Championship VI

This article was going to be something fun and it will be after a short message. I want these articles to be an extension of me and to cover topics I feel passionate about.

Right now as a player I’m having a real topsy turvy time. On Arena currently I’m usually Myhtic , good lord is that a fricken grind rising and falling all over the place. There are good days and bad like anything else. With Arena you can fire out a ton of games in one day. The bad about that is you can accumulate a lot of loses and they pile up. The good is the quantity of it, you can get slaughter then on to the next one and totally forget about it. Unless you lose a lot in a row usually I don’t get to down on myself the keyword here being usually.

The other half of this is paper Magic. Recently not doing too well in FNM really has taken a toll. I feel like crap that at the most entry level of magic I can’t do better than 2-2. You can argue you “But Lane why does it matter you aren’t doing too well at FNM when you are Mythic?” my answer to that would be because I feel like I have something to prove. Being at the top level of mythic most of the time I should be able to do well in Paper. The other part is I’m preparing for some qualifiers in Mythic Richmond and doing bad at the entry level doesn’t feel the best.

Mr. Brightside

Lately I have been treating Magic like playing sports. I treat going into the Magic shop or when the tournament starts like a basketball game. When the game starts a switch goes off telling you to take things seriously. Doing that helps in a couple ways. Trying to have fun outside of a tournament because hey this is still a game right. The second being when the tournament (or the basketball game) is over you leave it on the court. Not taking home all of the regrets of bad decisions you made or things you could of differently. Remembering to not make those choices again is one thing, beating yourself up after is a problem. Ok granted this is only for a certain type of players but I want to help those like me. I bottle all of this up in front of people so this is to help those who do the same or that can’t bottle it up as well.

You can do the simple things like taking a walk or even talking about something else between rounds. Counting helps me a lot to calm down on a lot of things. Let me know things you do to calm down (Twitter @lanethemain).

This is a Magic website

Alright fun time. I just got back from Mythic Championship in Richmond where a local player and a close friend of mine qualified (blame him for me not writing an article). I’m going to go in depth day by day of our events, the good and the bad.

Thursday

Check in for the Mythic was only on Thursday so we had to leave early

morning to make it to Richmond. Eating at an amazing wood fire pizza place on the way. We missed the first Mystery draft but watched it on the way (plus is was $75). We arrived to Richmond and the layout of the convention center was great, the way the separated the side events and the GP from the Mythic was a great idea. I bought a dope foil embercleave playmat and an elk t-shirt (strike while the meme is hot). Tested more for the Mythic the rest of the night.

Friday

Time for the Mythic and a PTQ for myself. My 2 goals for the weekend were simple:

1. Qualify for a Players Tour

2. Take home a giant card

One easier than the other. Spoilers I bombed out of the PTQ. First round was Rakdos cat, second was Jeskai cavaliers. Well I have 3 days left and now nothing to do. I spent the rest of the day doing Mystery drafts. Overall they were super fun and had really great pulls. Only won one round out of 5 drafts. Ending the day with a whole lot of suck wasn’t the greatest. The hardest part was my plan for the next day, do I want to draft more and maybe burn more money or try to do some side events to leave with a big card?

Saturday

After a night sleep I decided to try my luck at this not the most fun standard. Good news I freaking killed it. "Not Gruul? Then die!" —Borborygmos as the saying goes. Beating up on Oko with Gruul in the side events and with a help from a friend we were able to take home a giant Garruk. With some of the money made from winnings and cards I traded in I got a giant Temple Garden but that is beside the point. I wrote the first part of this article before I left, I was thinking about it most of the time. After Friday I really thought I really sucked at Magic and wasn’t feeling the best. Turns out I think I punted against Jeskai in the PTQ, my worst matchup in life and any deck I play is cat oven. As well as not knowing how to draft something that is a mystery. So with the results on Saturday I felt good again, like I got my groove back.

Sunday

At this point we were burnt out of most of everything our Mythic championship competitor was tired of standard at this point so we thought before we left that it would be fun to do one last Mystery draft. 3-0 ing the last draft ending the weekend on a high note. It’s easy to say after 6 Mystery drafts and 3 standard events I was pooped. Without the Mystery drafts I would have been the most boring boy in the world.

This article is different than most. Everyone loses and everyone gets salty. Oh yea I got pizza sauce thrown at me as well but that’s a different story for a different day. You can find me at https://www.twitch.tv/lanethemain and on Twitter @lanethemain. Whenever you checkout with an item on this website makes sure to use Lane5 for 5% off.

Peace out cub scout.