I’m writing this article from a coffee shop in Lexington, Massachusetts, after GP: Providence. The GP was a lot of fun, despite the fact that I punted Round 1 like a fool, leading to a spectacular 0–3 drop performance. That’s the real problem with a Round 1 loss that isn’t an issue with losses past Round 3 or so. If you lose Round 1, not only is it a psychological blow, but it also tends to throw your testing out the window, because you play against a greater number of Tier 2 or 3 decks, rather than Tier 1 or 1.5. For example, I was paired against Team Italia in Round 2, playing Merfolk, which is a match that is something like 90-to-10 in their favor. For those who don’t know the deck, it is a W/B/R AEther Vial deck involving Grim Lavamancer, Dark Confidant, and Stoneforge Mystic for such gems as Umezawa's Cheater Fork and Sword of Fire and Ice. Oh, and it packs Pyroblast out of the board. The matchup is an absolute nightmare for Merfolk, potentially being even worse than the dreaded Zoo matchup. Then, Round 3, I played against one of maybe two people playing Cephalid Breakfast, and I did it in a deck without graveyard hate in the sideboard, because I was on the “metagame against creature decks” plan, intending to scoop the Dredge matchup (barring my opponent getting terrible dredges).

I tend to have this problem in large tournaments—I get tournament jitters in Round 1, and if I don’t catch myself, I play too fast and do things like blow a Force of Will on a 1/2 Tarmogoyf, only to have no counter for the Choke he plays the following turn. Awkward. What’s worse, I had tested against exactly that line of play in preparation for the tournament, and I knew the correct line against Junk was to just race the Lhurgoyf, and save the Force for a more important play like the Choke I knew he had. As Patrick Chapin is fond of saying: focus on what matters. Learning that lesson, and what it means—not only in each matchup, but also in life—is probably the most important thing one can do.

That’s what this article is really about. How do you salvage a weekend that has the potential to be a disaster, leaving you feeling absolutely miserable? You do it the same way that you maximize your outs in a matchup—focus on what matters.

Let me explain. I had come out to Boston on Tuesday to stay with a friend and grind a bunch of matchups for the tournament, so I knew what my final plan would be against the major decks in the format. Granted, I could have done that at home in Rochester, with my local playtest group, but I had an ulterior motive. My fiancé left early that Tuesday afternoon to go to Petra, Jordan, for a month on an archaeological dig—irritatingly, only two months before our wedding. Frankly, I knew if I stayed home, I would probably be lonely and miserable. So I set out for Boston a few days early, hoping to take my mind off of things.

For the first couple of days, the plan was working. I was playing a lot of Magic, meeting some new people, and hanging out with a good friend. Between the distractions and Skype, everything was going smoothly. On Friday, I went to the last-chance grinders to bulk off most of a collection I had recently purchased, and to attempt to win some byes. I even played reasonably well in the two grinders I entered. I lost in Round 2 of the first grinder to bad draws and Hymn to Tourach versus Team America. In the second grinder, I managed to beat both Dredge and Team America to make it into the third round (Top 8), losing to Dave Price playing Zoo. Heck, I almost had a shot in Game 2 of that matchup, which is more than I expect versus Zoo in any case. On the whole, I was feeling good about my chances at least for going into late Day 1, with the potential to even make Day 2.

Then, on Saturday morning, the wheels fell off. I woke up feeling a bit jittery, which only intensified once I arrived in Providence. For some reason, reasonable requests on my friend’s part to grab him some cards from the dealer tables while he was loaning out cards to others got under my skin. I tried to walk off the feeling, but it just stayed with me. So, when I sat down for Round 1, my brain was spinning and trying to analyze the entire room at once. I couldn’t calm down enough to think two to three turns ahead, and plan out alternative possibilities. Instead, I developed tunnel vision. The result was my loss in Game 3 versus Junk, a game I could have easily won.

I was on the draw, having won Game 2 by sticking a Back to Basics. I had a hand with two copies of Spell Snare, Force of Will, two Islands, a Mutavault, and a Coralhelm Commander—a snap-keep against a deck that is heavy on 2-drop threats. On my first draw I top-decked a Wasteland. I decided to play the matchup conservatively, hoping to maximize the value of my Spell Snares. The goal was to Spell Snare his first play, intending to drop the Commander on the following turn, and then Force his next play, probably pitching the other Spell Snare. From there, I should have been far enough ahead on the board to be able to defend the Commander or deploy additional lords to finish him off, particularly given the Wasteland protection for Mutavault.

Needless to say, the game didn’t go according to plan, and I failed to adapt accordingly. He didn’t play a spell on either turn one or turn two, despite having two lands and Mox Diamond in play on turn two to my single island. If I had been thinking properly, I would have read his pass as one of two things: either a decision to play around Daze and play a 3-drop on turn four, in order to bait a Force of Will and stick a powerful turn-five play (probably Choke or Pernicious Deed), or an attempt to set up a turn four with two 2-drops through a Spell Snare, probably attempting to stick either a Bob or Hymn.

Now, on my second draw step, I had drawn a Silvergill Adept, and I played out my second Island, making my hand Spell Snare, Spell Snare, Force of Will, Mutavault, Wasteland, Coralhelm Commander, Silvergill Adept. As I saw it, I had two options:

Play the Adept, revealing Coralhelm Commander, leading to a turn-three Wasteland, followed by the Commander or a Lord of Atlantis if I draw it.

Don’t play anything, hoping to blow him out with double Spell Snare, and play the Adept and Wasteland on turn three, setting up Mutavault + Commander (level once) on turn four, and then making a 4/4 Commander and attacking for 7 on turn five, with any luck swinging for near-lethal on turn six (Vault + Adept + Commander = 10, and with luck I have drawn a Blue card to pitch to Force versus a defensive play).

The problem with choice #2 is that it’s actually a fantasy scenario, and I would have seen that if I had told myself to focus on the match, rather than enabling the jitters to take over. The reason is, if he had a 2-drop in his opener, he would have played it either on turn one to get way ahead or bait the Force, or he would have played it on turn two around Daze protection, since he hadn’t seen Spell Snare from me, and the card wasn’t that popular in the weeks leading up to Providence. Basically, he would have needed to top-deck two 2-drops in the same turn. Realistically, the only option given his holding back was that he had a devastating sideboard card, and wanted to bait a Force.

Thus, the correct line is to play the Adept, and ignore the bait spell if it is a creature, abandoning one of the Spell Snares, and relying on a tempo advantage and my five sideboard removal spells (two Submerge + three Dismember). Instead, I completely punted, passing turn, and then panicking when he played Green Sun's Zenith for 2. Instead of letting the Goyf resolve, racing it, and Forcing the follow-up spell, I punted like a champ—and I knew it the instant I countered the spell, only to be punished by Choke on the following turn. Then I went flat-out on tilt, effectively giving up when I saw turn-one Badlands ? Grim Lavamancer from my Round 2 opponent (I didn’t have a counter).

After losing Round 3, I dropped, and decided to go for a walk out to my car to cool off. I took some deep breaths on the way and thought about what I was trying to get out of the weekend. I had a few goals coming into the weekend. In general, they were:

1. Play well at Providence, I hope making Day 2, and maybe getting lucky and ending up in the money (I have modest goals at tournaments, since I’m still fairly new to large tournament play).
2. Distract myself with friends and Magic to take my mind off of the fact that the fiancé is in Jordan.
3. Unload the bulk I recently picked up from buying a collection, in order to pay for the cards I need to complete my deck.
4. Hit the trade tables, looking to unload dead weight from my binder, and trade into some dual lands. This included:

• Unload seven Standstills I picked up from the local store at $9 each for a substantial profit—at least a 30% margin.
• Unload a set of Sinkholes that have rotted in my binder for above what I would get from a dealer in trade value, preferably on an up-trade into a dual land, or at least an even trade for Mox Diamonds or Lion's Eye Diamonds (SCG is $20 on Revised, and $32.50 on Beta; I had two of each).
• Break at least one of the Grim Tutors I had picked up back home, for at least $225 in retail trade value, given their minty fresh condition, and I hope for a bit more.
• Look to pick up some of the cards I said to watch in last week’s article for a decent value—in particular Grindstone and Exploration.
• Finish my new Elesh Norn EDH deck.

Going for that walk really helped me to clear my head. As I ran through the list in my head, I realized that while Objective #1 was a wash, I had at least played well in the last-chance grinders the day before. More important, the fact that I had failed in that respect was over and done with, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. To quote the great and wise baboon sage: “It doesn’t matter; it’s in the past!” I needed to focus on what matters, and if I did so, I could still have an enjoyable time. After all, this is a hobby to me, a hobby that I use to try to pay for itself through trading, and one at which I like to be competitive, but a hobby nonetheless. Magic is, after all, just a game—no matter how much some pros and grinders will protest—and it just isn’t a matter of life or death, or something to get upset about.

Although I had mostly failed at Goal #1, I had already succeeded at #3, and could still succeed at #2 and #4. With that goal in mind, I hit the trade tables, looking to grind. The result? I accomplished virtually all of the subgoals I had set for myself in #4.

On two of my earliest trades in the day, I sat down with a couple grinders looking for reasonable prices, who were willing to trade duals for my Sinkholes and Standstills. One of the core principles of my trade style is to give reasonable prices, but to look for deals where I can find them, and simply pick up a small amount of value on the margin. I’m not usually looking for anything in particular, or at least I have a broad list of cards I’m interested in, so I can simply leverage those cards for small amounts of arbitrage value between individuals, which often leads to me giving multiple individuals a deal on the cards they need. In the case of these two gentlemen, I traded two playsets of Standstills at $12 per card, my Revised Sinkholes as $25, and my Beta Sinkholes at $45. I ended up gaining a minty Bayou, a Volcanic Island, a Scrubland, a playset of Phyrexian Crusaders valued at $20 (SCG retail is $28), and some other small cards. Plus, I made a full 33% on each Standstill in a trade for high-end, Reserved List staples.

Later in the day, while I was helping a friend trade for some foils for his Cube, I found a gentleman looking to unload a playset of slightly played Volcanic Islands at $75 each. I showed him my binder, and discovered he was interested in a Grim Tutor for a friend. I told him that I wanted at least $225, given the condition of the Tutor, and offered him $290 for the playset of his duals. He flipped through the binder some more, and grabbed a Lion's Eye Diamond (valued at $45), and said he would do the playset for the LED and the Grim. Now, I already had a Volcanic Island, so some people might not want to give up the LED, since the Volcanic would be the fifth, and I was thinking of building an Ad Nauseam build without the Grims. Instead, I snap-took the trade. While Volcanic Island can be a harder dual to unload, I know someone back home who still needs one for his fortieth dual land. Plus, let’s look at the retail value of the trade following this weekend:

My: one Grim Tutor ($200) and one Lion's Eye Diamond ($50) = $250

His: four Volcanic Islands (SP = $85) = $340.

Net: +$90

On our valuation, he was trading $290 of value for my $270, looking to give me some value to lubricate the trade, since I was only really interested in three of the Volcanic Islands and wanted some additional value. However, because Grim Tutor isn’t in many of the recent builds of Ad Nauseam, in particular because of the need to overload on Duress effects to beat Mental Misstep (and the rise of Gush-Storm over Grim Long in Vintage), the Tutor has been flatlined, while the dual lands continue to rise in value. For those interested in the cash value of the trade, I make out less like a bandit, but here are the MOTL values:

My: one Grim Tutor ($161) and one Lion's Eye Diamond ($37.50) = $198.50

His: four Revised Volcanic Islands ($56 ea.) = $224

Net: +$25.50

Again, though, the dual lands are trending up, while the Tutor and LED seem to be flat. Plus, since I picked up the pair of Tutors for cash value + $10 (a steal, because I was willing to break apart my Bant deck to help someone at my local store who needed Tropical Islands and Goyfs for Team America), I still make an immediate cash profit, assuming I unload the other Tutor for similar cash value, or can leverage the spare Volcanic Island into a Tundra, Tropical Island, or similar.

As far as the final subgoals are concerned, I did manage to pick up the last few small cards I needed for my EDH deck, and I also picked up a couple Grindstones for $20 to $25 each (SCG: $30, three in stock). Since Painted Stone made the Top 8 of the SCG Open, following other strong performances in the post-NPH SCG Opens, Grindstone definitely stands to gain. Who would’ve thought—a fast combo deck with access to Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast is good against a field of Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Jace, Vendilion Clique, Brainstorm, Standstill, and a bunch of little blue fishies? Absurd!

In any case, the exact trades and metagame really aren’t the point, though I think the details are important since this is, after all, a Magic article and a financial column. The real point is that mindset is everything. If you focus on what matters, you can see the correct line of play in a match, and you can also see the correct line of play in real life. Chapin’s catchphrase isn’t a trite line; it’s meaningful advice, and it doesn’t just apply to Magic. It can also be used to save a weekend that could have been a disaster, potentially preventing an annoying fit of melancholy or depression.

In any event, I hope this article can help you when you find yourselves in similar situations, and my thanks to all for letting me explore my personal failings. Good luck to all, and until next week, don’t let the grind get you down.

Sean