Do you look at your opponent's faces?

[Redman]

I cetainly dont' think psychology is a non-factor, simply it's less important, and I have limited resources to allocate.

I think more often than not, tournament results are as much a product of who made the fewest mistakes that particular day as who has the "best" deck.  Or more precisely, who loses the least by their mistakes and is able to capitalize the most on their opponent's mistakes, but I think that can be said for any sort of game.

Of course, psychology, when used effectively, often leads very directly to this goal of capitalizing on mistakes and forcing the opponent to make more errors.

However, speaking simply from experience, I feel that the time invested in deck design, concentrating on game state and trying to minimize my own mistakes has had a better return than time invested into staring my opponent down or trying to read into emotions, especially in the case where I don't know the oppoent well.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

However, speaking simply from experience, I feel that the time invested in deck design, concentrating on game state and trying to minimize my own mistakes has had a better return than time invested into staring my opponent down or trying to read into emotions, especially in the case where I don't know the oppoent well.

I think most people are probably better off ignoring the psychological aspects of this game altogether.  Between deck construction, metagaming, game mechanics, and all the other things involved in competitive play there are better things to spend your time on.

As I said in my previous post:

Unfortunately, no amount of ninja mind control prevents a workshop from tapping for 3 mana into a trinisphere or a crucible on the first turn.  

[Smmenen]

Heh.  Marc doesn't want you to have access to the powerful weapon he employs.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Heh.  Marc doesn't want you to have access to the powerful weapon he employs.

No, I'm serious.  If you aren't a people watcher by nature, it's going to be extremely difficult to pick up on subtle cues your opponent is sending out while you are under stress yourself.

Conversely, if you aren't a math person, it's going to be extremely difficult to pick out and use all the probability matrices that go into the decision making processes on difficult plays.  Especially if you are under stress.

Play to your strengths.


From my own experience, I doubt I could compete with most of you on a purely intellectual level.  I just don't have a background in logic, math, etc. and I'm certain that I'm at the bottom end of the IQ bell curve on this site.  If magic were simply the impersonal optimization of plays based on board puzzles, I wouldn't be competitive.  Fortunately, this game has a slightly more personal nature.

I don't plan on doing anything to improve my math skills in the near future.  I don't have the aptitude for it and with all the other things I'm involved in, trying to play catch up in that area is probably a waste of my time.  Especially when I could be doing something that is either more relevant (like deck construction), or that I naturally have an aptitude for.

Again, play to your strengths.

[TracerBullet]

Heh.  Marc doesn't want you to have access to the powerful weapon he employs.

To sum up Marc's argument-

Some of you guys can't grow chest hair like me, so don't try.  Instead, try to be squirrly sexy, which will in turn play to your (flamboyant) strengths.