When we last left off, I was getting dusted by Troll Ascetic. That guy, if you haven’t heard, is pretty good and has a quite an inspired cousin now in Standard. The problem is twofold:

• Standard is full of Infect (cousin to Wither), which deals with Trolls nicely. Neither are in Planeswalker (at least to my access).
• Mass removal is an excellent solution as well. There are only three such spells in Planeswalker, two of which cost 8 mana. All three are restricted.

So what is a Troll-hater to do? For starters, cry a little. Then, come up with a new plan.

"Mean White-Green"

• Creatures (26)
• 4 Angel of Mercy
• 2 Knight of the Skyward Eye
• 1 Voice of All
• 4 Youthful Knight
• 1 Paladin en-Vec
• 1 Reya Dawnbringer
• 1 Serra Angel
• 4 Civic Wayfinder
• 4 Farhaven Elf
• 4 Troll Ascetic

• Spells (10)
• 4 Pacifism
• 2 Glorious Anthem
• 1 Overrun
• 2 Naturalize
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer

• Lands (24)
• 12 Plains
• 12 Forest

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Flying. Mana ramping. And some Trolls of our own. Naturalize is the actual reason I went with Green: While we can't kill the Troll directly, wiping out a Loxodon Warhammer or Blanchwood Armor in the middle of combat seems reasonable.

Time to see how this worked out.

• A Red-Green deck burned me out despite multiple Angel of Mercy being played.
• A mono-Green Elf deck had every epic Elf appear and after fighting through two Overruns, an Elvish Champion dropped Forestwalk for the win.
• A mono-Black Vampire deck had infinite removal for everything non-Troll. Coat of Arms was the stomping of choice as Vampires crashed in.
• A Blue-Red artifact deck that went to twenty turns when, finally, my Trolls and Pacifisms finally got there. Wild Swings and Boomerangs were cast on my lands as I struggled for twelve turns or so to get mana going.

This . . . isn't working.

Humility and Deck Building

I know I'm not a great deck builder. Instinct, it turns out, is not the path to glory. This philosophic truth shaped Green's weakness for over a decade, and currently contributed to Red's underplayed and overlooked chaotic effects.

Instinct can be defeated by knowledge.

And, obviously, I lack knowledge.

So let's take a moment and discuss an aside: humility and being a good sport. Sometimes I'm not a good sport. I can get considerably frustrated when I feel I can win but that option is removed. What I mean is that things beyond my control that defeat me bring me down.

I make mistakes. All players make mistakes. Owning those mistakes and trying to overcome them is an integral part of becoming a more skillful player. Of course, it's a bumpy road paved with help from others, and I'm just ambling down fairly slowly. I'm not in a hurry, and I'm putting my best foot forward one step at a time.

And I take plenty of hits to the chin through my errors, and I take those in stride. It's the other hits that make me puke profanity.

Unlike a boxer, prepared for the hits unknown, when my deck's natural variance gives me junk against an opponent's awesome-whatever, it annoys me. When my deck does its normal thing but an opponent seems to have every exact card needed to completely devastate me, I get frustrated. When my deck just flails about abysmally as an opponent does absurdly silly things I can't possible deal with, I get angry.

It's not the concept of tilt I mean, but my weaker personal sportsmanship in being a fellow player.

Is it my deck a contributing factor to this? The answer is most certainly yes. What can I do about it?

Suck it up.

Losing is something few of us enjoy. Relishing the challenge of an engaged Battle of Wits is often an enticing draw. It's impossible to have the latter without repeatedly experiencing the former, and it's an experience that I'm still not familiar with.

There are a handful of ways to deal with this:

• Not lose via pure superiority (or cheating).
• Make a clean distinction between factors within control and factors without.
• Get used to being a loser.

Clearly, pure superiority isn't an option. While the Magic Online client doesn't really allow cheating, I could certainly do this in real life. (Pro Tip: Cheating is never the correct option.) I'm most definitely not skilled enough to dominate. I don't have the knowledge to metagame against an entire field.

The premise that I could "simply win" is wrong. I won't waste time here.

Breaking down what I cannot control and what I can is a healthy start. I can control my deck through construction. I can control my opening hand through mulligans. I can choose which options and lines of playing cards out are better or more correct.

I cannot control what my deck will give me. I cannot control every opponent's deck. I cannot play around every trick every opponent plays. I cannot control where I fall into the breakdown of percentages over multiple games.

It's a difficult concept: accepting what cannot be controlled. While certain cards, conditions, and environments can allow normally uncontrollable things to be controlled, the Planeswalker format is not one of them. Limited Resources with limited cards. Random players with some expected decks, but many very random and disparate deck choices. A long restricted list of cards that can only one copy of can be included.

Controlling what can be normally controlled will have to do.

And, finally, getting used to losing is a great idea. There's a careful distinction to be made here: Being okay with losing is not the same as expecting and accepting all losses. In any given game, someone will lose. Every game will have a winner and a loser, excepting those crazy tie situations.

Games will be lost. Due to factors that we cannot control, we will fall. It happens.

Now, accepting every loss is another matter. What could be have done differently? What plays were suspect? What plays weren't? Why? How? When? Are we 100 percent sure?

It's okay to lose. It's okay to feel that losing isn't always good. Refusing to accept a fate of "I'm just going to lose every time" leaves open that window of opportunity. Playing the games out, searching for that right sequence to take back the game, is the right call.

Anecdotally, I've noticed that many of the compliments that float my way relate to my not conceding games. I fight to the last card. I force you to burn me out. I force the lethal attack. I force the last removal spell to appear. I play as though things will go my ways. Often they don't; percentages work that way.

But the few times they do, it's because I stuck it out and fought back against the wall of "give up" that appears. And fighting even when things look bleak is good practice. While there's more to this than simply "play every game," as time and information management in tournaments can be critical, Planewalker isn't one of them.

Which means there was just one more thing to do: time to take some more beats.

• A mono-Green Elf deck put me to -18 life on turn seven. I had gained 9 life that game.
• A mono-White deck that I brutally punished when the tap-out came as I had Overrun with a ton of dudes. He showed me two Holy Day in hand. Ouch.
• A probably mono-Green deck that conceded during blocking on turn four. I guess trading one creature is bad?
• A mono-White deck that sat on one Plains . . . and dropped five creatures. Flying beat-down got there, but I don't like where my "wins" are coming from.
• A Blue-White deck that also sat on low mana (two Plains) for a while. Then played Wrath of God. Then Voice of All set to White. Then Excommunicate for my one creature after that. Yeah.
• A Red-Blue-Green deck. Sounds spicy? Nah. Just the Elf deck splashing for Thieving Magpie and some burn spells. The best color also has the best mana-fixing. Totally forgot that.
• A Green-White deck I ground out with Troll Ascetic. The opposing deck was over a hundred cards, indicating that perhaps my opponent wasn't building decks optimally.

The end result is brutally clear: My deck isn't doing it except in suspect cases. I need more.

Rock Climbing

Last week, Nick recommended building a Green-Black rock deck. I get to keep Troll Ascetic, add in some additional removal, and generally continue to play the same way. Let's see what this looks like:

"Rock It"

• Creatures (19)
• 4 Troll Ascetic
• 4 Civic Wayfinder
• 1 Nekrataal
• 2 Gravedigger
• 2 Moonglove Winnower
• 1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Nightmare
• 1 Vigor
• 1 Sengir Vampire
• 1 Hollowborn Barghest

• Spells (16)
• 4 Rampant Growth
• 3 Terror
• 2 Consume Spirit
• 1 Plague Wind
• 2 Raise Dead
• 1 Mind Shatter
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 2 Naturalize

• Lands (25)
• 12 Forest
• 13 Swamp

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Now here is where I’d normally play some games and show off how it did or didn’t work. You know, that whole trial-and-error thing. Except my deck went Poof! and vanished. Along with all of my other decks.

How and why is certainly an annoying mystery, and I know I’m not alone.

We’ll give this deck a shot, then consider some options for moving on beyond Planeswalker. Join in next week when we fling this boulder and see what we hit!