Now that we've gone over the mechanics of the trip and the swiss, lets talk about Top 8.

The Top 8

So, after a lot of practice, long car trips, and a few heartbreaking close calls, you've finally made Top 8. Now what?

The first thing to realize about Top 8 is that you will generally start to amass a crowd around your matches. Whether or not you think it will affect you, it will. There is something about having fifteen people behind you watching your every move that makes you self-conscious. "Is this the right play? Are people going to think I'm dumb if I do this? I need to make the smart play." Push these thoughts out of your head. Just keep doing what you've been doing the entire time to get here. Over thinking will cost you more games than you think.

The Top 8 for constructed events are not much different than for the swiss rounds, with the exception that you probably have a better idea of who and what your are playing against, and it's single elimination.

For limited events, it can be an entirely different monster. You have gone from a tournament that rewards you for consistency, to one that rewards you for having a 3-0 deck. This is an important distinction. 0-1, 1-1, and 2-1 offer the same reward. What you need is a 3-0 deck, and that often means changing your drafting strategy slightly.

During Lorwyn limited, for instance, the best strategy was generally to take a few safe picks, then go into whatever tribe was open. Not for PTQ Top 8s, though. Instead, you should have tried to force a tribe early, and force it hard. The reason was that a 23 tribe.dec was pretty hard to beat. You had greater odds of having your deck turn out mediocre, but you have to have a good enough draft deck to go 3-0. If you put the odds at 1/3 of having a 3-0 deck, it's better than 20% of a 3-0 deck, and 50% of a 2-1 deck. If you are going to need a good deck to win, then it

The better a player you are compared to the rest of the Top 8, the less you should risk on this strategy. If you can out play everyone else, you may not need the best deck at the table. If you are not as good as everyone else, then you may want to improve your chances of winning by going for a deck that will carry you as much as it can.

Once you've made the finals, you can try and negotiate a prize split. On the table is (generally) the product you've won, Top 8 pin, and the qualification w/ plane ticket. Back in the olden days, it was the product, the travel award ($250, or $500 for international), and the slot. This often meant that one person wanted to go, and one person couldn't afford to. It was pretty easy to chop it up, as long as you didn't mind running to an ATM. Not so much anymore. You will almost always have to play. I've seen a few people give up the slot in the finals, but generally it was people who either couldn't go, or were facing such a bad matchup that an extra box of card was worth it.

If you make Top 8 and don't qualify, don't take it too hard. It is always disappointing, but keep in mind that it's going to take on average 3 or 4 Top 8s for a person to qualify. Some will do it in their first, some will take 10 or 11. Take each Top 8 on its own, and focus on the here and now.

The Drain

This probably deserves its own article (and I plan on doing it at some point), but mental fatigue is a very real thing. Playing eight rounds of Magic plus three in Top 8 is going to wear you out. Your brain turns to mush, and mistakes you would never make in round 1 start to pile up. If you are self conscious that a group of people has seen you make the mistake, it will only be worse. You are probably tired, and have a hard time seeing all of the mistakes your opponent is making. You want to curl up and die.

The drain happens to all of us. There are limits to just how much your brain can handle in one day, and a PTQ tends to take almost anyone to the edge. You can't prevent drain entirely, but you can mitigate it as much as possible. It would be great if you are operating at full capacity in the finals of a PTQ, but sometimes all you can do is hope to be operating better than your opponent.

A few quick tips for combating the drain:

1. Try and focus only on the game, and not on your place in the tournament, or what happened before or will happen later. The more you try and mulititask your focus, the harder it will be to maintain, and the less effective it will be. I've won several PTQs after an early loss just by not paying attention to my standings, and taking each game as a single entity. All of a sudden, I look at the standings and realize that I'm playing for Top 8. I didn't expend my energy afraid that every loss from now on will knock me out.
2. Find your zen between rounds. Some people like to rail bird, some people like to listen to music, some people like to chat people up about everything or nothing at all. Whatever works for you to keep your mind as relaxed as possible is good. You want to be energized going into each round.
3. Eat and stay hydrated. Go to the bathroom. I know I'm sounding like your mother a bit right now, but it's easy to lose track of time and ignore thirst and hunger. Then all of a sudden, when game 3 starts to look grim, they hit with a vengeance. Now all you can do is think about your car trip home and all of the burger joints you could hit up. Keeping all of your other base needs at the wayside will keep you from getting distracted and losing focus on the game.
4. Have fun. Have you ever accidently worked on spreadsheets for 14 hours? How about played a game that you are obsessed with? The age old adage is true, time flies when you're having fun. If you can keep Magic fun, then you will keep your stress level low, and take every lucky break or bad beat as well as possible. You'll find yourself wanting to play more, and excited for your next round. There may be a plane ticket on the line, but that doesn't make this work. If you think it is, then quit Magic and get a minimum wage job. You'll make a lot more money in your spare time.

The first time you make it to the last round while still in contention, you'll probably notice the drain pretty hard. My first PTQ finals, I made the same misplay –attacking my creature into a larger blocker- two turns in a row I was so exhausted. It's a skill that you acquire over time, much like any other endurance activity. Keep at it. Keep playing long hours, and over time you'll figure out how to combat the drain for yourself, and learn to keep your mind more alert later and later into the tournament.

Putting it all together

So, now that I've talked about all the stages and mechanics of a PTQ, what does it all mean? How do you get from where you are now to a spot on the tour?

The first part is of course to play a lot of Magic and always work on getting better. You can read every article on the internet, watch every draft video, and play Magic Online until your hands go numb, but that's not going to guarantee anything. There is a lot that goes into a tournament that just isn't that tangible.

What's important is that you decide that you want to get to the Pro Tour, and you appreciate the journey, not focus on the end result. Have fun. If eight hours in a car going to a tournament and playing for another twelve doesn't sound fun, then you are going to hard time qualifying. The PTQ scene is a grind, and you need to have a good attitude and a good group of friends if you are going to get through it. If you hate every second of the trip and tournament, then you aren't just going to get burnt out on Magic, you're going to get burnt out of the tournament. Your mind will wander, and you won't be focusing on the game at hand. You'll be focusing on how long of a trip you have home, and everything else you could have been doing on a Saturday.

Friends are important because they have your back before, during and after the tournament. Need some cards? Ask a friend. Need a decklist or a whole deck? Need a ride? Need someone to run and get you some food when you're starving? It's always good to have someone who has your back.

You need to do the same for your PTQ cohorts. If you get knocked out early, make a food run around noon. It's a small gesture, but it helps combat the drain. See what everyone else in the room is playing. Both for limited and constructed, having someone who can tell you what's in your next opponent's deck is going to give you a huge leg up. Imagine seeing your pairing for a limited PTQ and having a friend tell you "oh, that guy has a wrath and a Baneslayer." Well, you know not to overcommit, and at least one good target for your Doom blade.

Some people will call this cheating, or think it's dishonorable, but it's a part of the game. The people with good connections win PTQs for a reason. They have a network of friends that they came with, and people in the tournament looking out for them. Even if they can't win anymore, they want to see someone they know take down the tournament. While winning a PTQ is a great feeling, so is watching your friend take down his or her first blue envelope.

Qualifying for a Pro Tour isn't easy. The vast majority of people who play at the PTQ level will never reach the Pro Tour once, let alone multiple times. Don't let the numbers scare you. If you want to get there, and you are willing to put in the time and effort, you can get there. It could be tomorrow, it could be five years from now. If you keep at it, you can reach the big game, but even if you don't, make sure that the time you spend at tournaments isn't wasted. Have fun and make every trip worth it for what it is – a good time competing in a game you love with friends. Whether you go home with the blue envelope or not, you can still have a great Saturday.

I hope you enjoyed reading this series as much as I've enjoyed writing it. We have a PTQ season coming up, and I really want to Paris. For the first time in a while, I have the time to put into a PTQ season, and I'm going to go at it full force. I hope that you can follow my journey this fall as I work to get back on the Pro Tour. I'll be sharing my travel plans, insights into the format, and my quest to get back into the big game.