In my long experience as a Magic player I have experienced several Oh!

moments in
which I have felt I have made leaps in my understanding of the game that have greatly progressed
me as a player. One thing I have commonly experienced with all of these moments is that other
players have been trying to teach me these concepts for a long time, but the information hasnt been
presented in a way that allows me to gain from it, without already understanding the core concepts
of it. My aim today is to repac!age advice you hear all the time from various sources so often that it
has essentially become a meaningless platitude in a way that at least ma!es sense to me and
hopefully others. My aim as a writer is to put thoughts Ive had as a player into the public domain in
the interest of public response. I want to grow as a player while also assisting others to do the same
and I feel that to truly evaluate my own ideas I need to express them to others and encourage open
conversation from other players. In repac!aging high level concepts in a way that ma!es sense to an
average player I feel I am ma!ing more information available to the hivemind for conversation and
therefore improvement.
"omething you will hear multiple times if you watch any content from high level players at
#rand $rixs or $ro %ours is to ta!e each game one at a time. %his is something that as a growing
player, who still did not fully understand how much more I had to learn, I heard over and over
again. I automatically recognised it as good advice solely because of the source and fre&uency of it.
I never really thought about what it really meant and as a result never really gained from it. I would
repeat the concept over and over to myself while playing, as a sort of mantra, without really
comprehending it. %hen I made another leap in my understanding of Magic which is to &uestion
everything you thin! you !now. I started to thin! about this concept more critically which lead me
to the the metaphor of my brain as a computer. My brain has a limited amount of '(M which is
uses to process thoughts. )y spending this '(M on thoughts such as if I win this round and then
two more I will ma!e top *, I am spending a portion of my '(M on thoughts that do not influence
my li!elihood to win the match. %his lesson is doubly important as the concept that every single
part of your thoughts and actions should be analysed in a cost+benefit analysis. %his concept is
especially important to the next lesson.
%he most important lesson about magic I have learnt is how and when to extract value from
experiences, and how whether you won or lost a match has no relation to what you have to learn
from the game. ( lot of players fall into the trap that if they won a game then theres no point
considering what they could have done differently. %his is the similar to players not learning from
mista!es in games they have lost. I feel that most players have a natural aversion to losing and this
translates into a difficulty properly considering why they lost games in a critical fashion. %heir,
possibly subconscious, embarrassment about losing influences players to lean towards blowoff
exuses about lost matches, such as pe problems or opponents getting luc!y. %his is where the
overlaying lesson from my previous point comes in. (lways consider what you can gain from any
interaction. In this case the thought that you lost a match from something outside of your own
control, while it may be true, contains absolutely no value from a persepctive of growing as a
player. %herefore there is no point coming to this conclusion in an evaluation of a match. "omething
I find common to most players I respect and strive to be li!e is an ability to analyse matches
critically and sub-ectively. .ven still a lot of these players miss the fact that the games they win
have as much value as games theyve lost, if not more. %he truth is the result of a match is
irrelevant, some games will have more value than others but the ultimate result doesnt matter.
%heres as much to learn from a game in which you bloc!ed incorrectly and lost to a combat tric!
than a game in which you bloc!ed incorrectly and won with a combat tric!. $erhaps you wouldnt
have won if your opponent had an exceptionally powerful tric!, but you could have bloc!ed in a
way that, though it didnt win immediately, would win in two turns and left your opponent with no
outs. %he fact that the games did not play out this way and you won doesnt change the fact that in
the moment your choice was incorrect. /ohn 0in!el famously &uoted that at the height of his s!ill he
made a mista!e every turn. %he difference is he !nows how to use the data he gains from these
mista!es to improve his play. %o use the computer metaphor again in gathering data nothing is
useless. %he context of the data is irrelevant, as long as you have enough data about something, you
can extrapolate any information you want.
%he last lesson I want to impart is something I have already spo!en about several times. %his
is because this lesson applies to all aspects of magic and other non1magic aspects of your life. %his
is an openness to all information no matter the source or how much you thin! you !now. (ny
information is worth something. .ven if someone is completely wrong is their assumptions their
ideas are a microcosm of prevailing opinion. If card 2 is really good in dec! 3 but everyone thin!s
its terrible !nowing this fact gives you a huge advantage. Obviously being open to all and any
information comes with the difficulty of having a lot of information to process some of it more
valuable than other. %he tric! is having the ability to &uic!ly evaluate how much value a particular
piece of data has and the understanding that no information is useless. (n understanding of how the
hivemind processes data is critical to attaining the level of play Im sure youve experienced in an
opponent, where they seem to !now what youre going to do before you do. 3oure never going to
grasp a format at this level while maintaining the position that you !now better than everyone else.
Maybe you do, probably you dont, the point is even if you do not ta!ing it in is stupid. (t the end of
the day the aim is to improve as a player, so consider every decision and impulse you have. If the
thought doesnt gain you value then &uestion why youre even thin!ing it.
%his is really only a cursory examination of the concepts Ive outlined. In writing this and
trying to pinpoint the concepts Ive found there is far too much to say for this article and feel myself
sliding down tangents. I hope at least Ive at least established a base point for discussion and am
hoping for &uestions which I will be happy to answer to the best of my ability. (ustralian Magic is
at an interesting place where we have a very solid average player s!ill level and, for our population,
&uite a few very s!illed players. 4hat I thin! we are missing is enough players ma!ing the leap
from very solid to highly competitive. I hope to establish a new wave of (ustralian Magic ta!ing
advantage of our very high average s!ill level to produce even more players competiting at the
highest level. I thin! were more than capable of achieving this and the only thing holding us bac! is
a lac! of organised collaberation between players who havent yet progressed their game to the
highest competitive levels.