[Free Article] Preparing and playing in vintage tournaments

[Marske]

http://www.vintage-sideboard.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9:preparing-and-playing-in-vintage-tournaments&catid=11:tournament-articles&Itemid=8

Editor's Blurb:

So you've finally taken the big step up to playing in the world of Vintage competition. Although the Vintage scene isn't as cutthroat as the PTQ scene, it's still a place where you face the most brutal combo decks, the most backbreaking control decks, lightning fast aggressive creatures crashing in on you and lots more. It's not even uncommon to face some of the game’s greatest players. Most people are woefully unprepared. I'm not going to talk about how to build the best deck or how to negate all the brutal interactions (I'll save that for another day). Today I wanted to talk about the time leading up to an event – how you get yourself mentally ready for such an ordeal, and most importantly how you stay fit during the event.

[XdeckX]

Excellent article. I guess for the regular tournament attenders it's (for the biggest part) a second nature already but it's nice that someone actually took the time to write the preparations and so on down. I enjoyed reading it.

[chrissss]

Very nice writeup dude.

[Duncan]

Well organised article, although this topic has been covered quite a bit on SCG the past 2 months already.

I disagree with this sentence:

I'll usually settle for a deck the week before an event and I never change stuff around when I'm actually at the tournament, because this could lead to deck registration errors, harder tutoring decisions and all kinds of other stuff you don't want happening.

This might be true for you maindeck ideally, but some on-site scouting might give you the last decisions for your sideboard, and even for your metagame slots in the maindeck.

It's also interesting you did not mention Magic Workstation as a testing resource for the last week. The week before an event I usually play 10+ hours on MWS to get it all wrapped up in my head.

EDIT:
Two thing I think are very important which you did not cover are:
1. to arrive early at your table (by which I mean earlier than your opponent). This way you can pick your preferred seat (ie the one from where you can see the clock if there is only 1 at the venue, or the one where you can't get a whole crowd behind you).
2. put all the stuff you do not use in you bag and put it between or under your feet. This may sound silly, but this way you are 99% sure you stuff won't get stolen. You won't be distracted by people walking across for they might steal your bag. And when your bag gets stolen, well that ruins your day whatever your result is.

[Marske]

@Duncan,
I know SCG has covered this subject a bit, that doesn't mean I don't have something to say about it as well (hence the article)

This might be true for you maindeck ideally, but some on-site scouting might give you the last decisions for your sideboard, and even for your metagame slots in the maindeck.

True, but like some other stuff I mentioned in the article this could fall under the personal preference part. I believe that you should have a good understanding of your board and what you need to make your worse matchups better. If that's not in your board initially it means you must think of solutions on the fly which may turn out to be worse then any solutions you would have picked if you thought it through and it also shows poor testing. Changing around 1-2 cards to fit the 1-2 cards you see a random guy running that could tilt the match if you got paired against him slightly in his favor is useless imo.

1. to arrive early at your table (by which I mean earlier than your opponent). This way you can pick your preferred seat (ie the one from where you can see the clock if there is only 1 at the venue, or the one where you can't get a whole crowd behind you).
2. put all the stuff you do not use in you bag and put it between or under your feet. This may sound silly, but this way you are 99% sure you stuff won't get stolen. You won't be distracted by people walking across for they might steal your bag. And when your bag gets stolen, well that ruins your day whatever your result is.

I consider this part of your pre-game routine which I did mention a bit but indeed not in depth enough.

If you have some pre-game routine you feel comfortable doing like arranging your play area in a certain way, make sure you have enough time to complete your rituals. I know it sounds silly but there's a reason why top players in all kinds of sports have rituals. It can really help get your mind ready for the task at hand.

It's also interesting you did not mention Magic Workstation as a testing resource for the last week. The week before an event I usually play 10+ hours on MWS to get it all wrapped up in my head.

As I don't have 10+ hours to spare testing on MWS I didn't mention it, obviously if you have the time and are willing to put up with the MWS masses go ahead and play... I'm also not that convinced that this really helps you a lot if you don't play decent opponents. As I think testing in person with players gives you an better understanding of the matchup and dynamics of it I recommend everybody to focus on that rather then relying on MWS results.

[Duncan]

Changing around 1-2 cards to fit the 1-2 cards you see a random guy running that could tilt the match if you got paired against him slightly in his favor is useless imo.

Obviously, you never heard me suggest such a thing. I am referring to the scenario where you walk across the hall and for example see tons of aggro decks which makes you put that Fire/Ice into your maindeck over the Tormod's Crypt, or play the Pyroclasm over the Red Elemental Blast. Adjusting your deck to 1-2 cards you see a random guy running is of course nonsense.

It's also interesting you did not mention Magic Workstation as a testing resource for the last week. The week before an event I usually play 10+ hours on MWS to get it all wrapped up in my head.

As I don't have 10+ hours to spare testing on MWS I didn't mention it, obviously if you have the time and are willing to put up with the MWS masses go ahead and play... I'm also not that convinced that this really helps you a lot if you don't play decent opponents. As I think testing in person with players gives you an better understanding of the matchup and dynamics of it I recommend everybody to focus on that rather then relying on MWS results.

The funny thing is, everybody says a lot of MWS opponents are bad, but with a bit of understanding of the game, you can quite easily sift out the good opponents, which dramatically increases your testing value. And who doesn't have an MSN/AIM list full of potential opponents of decent quality? I find MWS to be far less time consuming than real life testing. Third, not everyone on a tournament plays like a champ, so testing against all kinds of levels of players might benefit you as well. Also, at the very least, you can play your own deck optimally and get more pattern-recognition.

[Marske]

@Duncan,
I think it's very rare to see such huge shifts in meta games... usually you're going to have a good idea of what decks are usually played (look at past events) and what you expect to show up before you even arrive at an event.  So the suggestion you said could at times be true, but I think it's pretty rare.

The funny thing is, everybody says a lot of MWS opponents are bad, but with a bit of understanding of the game, you can quite easily sift out the good opponents, which dramatically increases your testing value. And who doesn't have an MSN/AIM list full of potential opponents of decent quality? I find MWS to be far less time consuming than real life testing. Third, not everyone on a tournament plays like a champ, so testing against all kinds of levels of players might benefit you as well. Also, at the very least, you can play your own deck optimally and get more pattern-recognition.

Although I agree with you for the most part, it's also a huge trap I see loads of players fall into, it's the "my decks totally frigging awesome because I beat everybody online" syndrome followed by the "omg I scrubz" syndrome in real life events. This could lead to unhappy tournament experiences... Unless you have a solid testing partner who actually knows what he / she's doing, testing and winning against random people running jank on MWS isn't worth your time imho.

[Tobi]

Very nice roundup of what to be aware of when going to a tournament. A lot of things I do myself, like going to the table early to get the better seat (like Duncan mentioned), ritualized preparation of the table (playmat, pen&paper, shuffling, checking sideboard) and going to the toilet in between rounds, even if you don't need to. 

Additionally I always bring to a tournament:
- pills against headache
- cigarettes (personal thing - I always smoke when playing magic)
- chewing gums (very good during a match, helps your brain by stimulating blood circulation)
- talisman (what is the plural of talisman? talismen? )
- dice

[Beralt]

Curious if there will be any followup to:

Studying at Alexandria's Library: The Vintage List

I like the idea of the list, but it it lacking some staples.

[Marske]

@Beralt,
It's going to be part of a returning colum by Erich, in which he's going to be talking about his journey into vintage and how to break into Vintage. In other words, yes there's going to be a followup.

Ps.
Everybody looking to give the writers feedback and more check out: http://forum.vintage-sideboard.com
these boards have been created just for that purpose.

[Adan]

You forgot to tell everyone to take a shower and use deodorant in the morning before attending to a tournament.

There are 2 scenarios during big tournaments which I hate the most:

a) Playing against people that smell awful
b) Having such a person standing beside you because he's curious of what or how you are playing

It can make you want to kill people, seriously.

But nice article whatsoever! Thumbs up!

[Tobi]

You forgot to tell everyone to take a shower and use deodorant in the morning before attending to a tournament.

QFT
During a 9 round tournament in a hot italian city however, I guess you would need to shower after every round... 

[Marske]

@Tobi, Adan,
I think showering is a basic necessity for every activity that includes being in a room with other people.... Hence I didn't really see a need to go into that entire process during my article. If it's needed I can go a bit more in depth about that process in a next article.....

PS @everybody
Thank you very much for all the kind words about the article. Keep your eye out for more to come soon !!

[XdeckX]

Additionally I always bring to a tournament:
- pills against headache
[..]

I must agree with you on this. Most of the times I leave a tournament with a splitting headache. The headache thing is (in my opinion) caused by 2 things. 1) concentrating for an extensive period of time tends to wear you down and is really tiring. Apart from having a good nights rest there isnt much you can do about this. 2) It's also caused by dehydration. Thats why its so important to keep yourself hydrated during a tournament. I've personally noticed the difference between having drunk enough fluids and not having done that. I still end up with a headache but it's much less severe when I drank enough.

So maken sure you drink enough!

[Explosion]

You forgot to tell everyone to take a shower and use deodorant in the morning before attending to a tournament.

There are 2 scenarios during big tournaments which I hate the most:

a) Playing against people that smell awful
b) Having such a person standing beside you because he's curious of what or how you are playing

It can make you want to kill people, seriously.

But nice article whatsoever! Thumbs up!

If someone is saying obscene things in your presence and won't stop, call a judge.
If someone is making obscene gestures in your presence and won't stop, call a judge.
If someone is making obscene smells in your presence...