Update

As you can see, I haven’t posted to the blog in 2 weeks, and that’s the longest break from posting that I’ve taken since I started it. It’s not because I’m going to give up on the project or because I’m becoming discouraged. It’s also not because work ate my free time or anything. I ended up kind of unintentionally taking a break due to cool things happening in a bunch of other hobbies in my life.

I’m posting today because I’ve been playing again. Although it has been limited. I started playing limited more because I kept missing tournament start times and to get some experience with limited formats again. The reason for this is my declared intention to play in the online PTQs, and my subsequent intention to play in Zendikar sealed release events. All these, obviously, are limited formats. So, I’m taking a break from constructed, letting post Zendikar block and standard shake itself out in the real world, and by the time I’m willing to buy cards online in that format there should be an established meta. This was the last week of old standard anyway, so I’m probably not going to have the cards for a constructed legal deck (although I guess the dominant deck of the moment is based almost entirely on shards) for a bit.

My limited rating has risen a little, to 1621, over the course of I think 3 drafts. So that’s fine. It would appear I’m still a reasonable limited player, although not great. M10 isn’t really my favorite format, but at least it’s reasonably simple. Playing limited games again has been really strange after all the constructed. People say that limited play really reinforces basic playskill, but I found that the decisions are much much easier to make than they were in constructed. Decks just aren’t capable of doing much that is tricky or non-obvious. Playskill still matters a great deal, of course, but I don’t feel that it’s as important as it was in constructed, and also that it has less to teach me than constructed did. If anything, I think that what I’ve learned from constructed is helping me in limited. While I suppose it’s a pretty basic thing to do, playing around a divine verdict that I wouldn’t have considered before I started the blog made me feel good.

I expect to be pretty bad at putting together my Zendikar decks at first, so I’ll post screenshots of my builds here, and I will continue to review and post my matches for play evaluation. Hopefully, things will work out for me the way they have for many pros out there, and after the sealed events I’ll find myself with some prizes off of these ‘softer’ tournaments. We’ll see what I’ve opened and what I still have to buy in a few weeks, when I return to constructed more heavily.

As a side note, I’m leaning towards not participating in the online PTQs at this point, actually. They’re guaranteed to be tough tournaments, and honestly, we all know I’m not ready to win one of these things yet. The fact that they take forever and there are no prizes (except the big one) means that they probably aren’t the appropriate place for me to play at the moment. I don’t have any trouble finding people better than me to play in Daily events, and should that ever become an issue and I can legitimately call myself an MTGO ringer, then it’s probably time to start thinking about PTQs.

Dubious milestones….

I felt compelled to post about this.

Recently, when I haven’t been able to synch up with a daily, I’ve been playing 2 man queues. To an extent, it pads my ego, because the players aren’t as good as in the Dailies. But really, it also helps me actually get some packs out of what I’m doing.

If i spend 12 tickets on 2 dailies…with my track record I typically come out with exactly 0 packs. If I spend 12 tickets on 2 man queues…I have a tendency to come out with 3 packs. Which is kind of just like buying packs, but I get practice. It’s funny, if I were a better player, Daily and Premier events would be obviously higher EV. But because I’m mediocre, 2 man queues are actually much higher EV…for me.

Anyway, I’m not posting this to talk about how I’ve started playing in 2 man queues more, although I suppose that is interesting.

Instead I’m posting about my very dubious milestone. At the beginning of the blog I talked about how I was a very casual player. My very first day of playing magic involved losing, and I’ve never had a rating over 1600. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the rating you begin with the very first time you log onto MTGO. From there, in sanctioned play, every loss loses you points and ever win gains them.

I’ve never ever had a rating over 1600. Just too casual. Although my limited rating has hit like, 1650, I’ve consistently been terrible at constructed in every way.

I’ve actually gotten worse at limited (which I enjoy and can’t resist playing) since I started concentrating on constructed. I just don’t play enough. So, for the first time in a long time, my rating has recently slipped under 1600. But, the plot thickens as my constructed rating rises towards 1600.

This happened last night. I feel somehow that I may be the only person ever to view this particular sight. I could not possibly have planned it.

Tonight, after playing in a couple of 2 man queues, it happened. While completely meaningless to the average MTGO player, it does actually mean something to me. My composite rating is over 1600 for the first time ever. So, as much as I’m still terrible, the blog is working, at least a little bit.

Years after making my account, and after 3-4 months of blogging about trying to get better, I can finally say that at least for a moment, I am slightly better than someone who just made their account.