I lied. No report. Oh well, that’s what you get for studying for finals rather than going to the prerelease. Before you start throwing a temper tantrum, it’s time to discuss perhaps one of the most important mental aspects of the game you can learn – judging, or more importantly, not judging your opponents.

There is a term used in economics called ceteris paribus, which is Latin for “other things being equal.” In other words, action x will result in consequence y, ceteris paribus (assuming nothing else interferes). Essentially, ignore everything else that could possibly happen to screw up x leading to y and just assume that’s all will happen. In real life, you cannot possibly do that verbatim. In competitive Magic, however, you can assume certain things will or will not happen. There are five key things about your opponent that should not change your judgment, thus forcing you to use the ceteris paribus principle.

1) Your opponent’s age

In a Type 2 Boston City Championship season event, I played against a young man, maybe ten or eleven years old, named Frankie Vargas. When a more experienced player sits across from someone Frankie’s age, they might automatically think, "Thanks for the bye." Not true. I had seen Frankie play before this match, and he has play skill beyond his years. It also didn’t hurt that he brought Sonic Boom (Mono-Blue Control) to the matchup against my Doran, the Siege Tower deck. We had a good, competitive match, but Frankie took it 2-1.

Conversely, someone who appears to have played this game much longer than someone like Frankie may not be experienced at all. I know that half the time I sit down from someone I’ve never played before, they appear my age or older, and are playing in maybe their first or second tournament. This happens most often at prereleases, but nonetheless, it is important to remember that play skill and age do not correlate.

2) Your opponent’s deck

The Pro Tour commentators constantly remind us that when making a pick to win the event, you go by player and not by deck. The biggest scrub in the world could be running Tolarian Academy against a well-established player playing, well, not Tolarian Academy. Nonetheless, who would you pick? The player who knows what he’s doing or the newbie with the most powerful deck of all time? (Or is that Dredge? We’ll save that debate for another article.)

3) Your opponent’s record

Everyone has a bad day playing Magic every once in a while. Even pros will scrub out of a Pro Tour or Grand Prix once every few events. If you get paired down, you may think you’ll have an easier path to victory. If you get paired up, you may think the win may be harder to come by. In reality, in the former situation, a win is very crucial due to the impact on tiebreakers. In the latter, a win would be huge for your record the same reason. You can’t let standings in the early and middle rounds determine your mindset before the match. When there’s a spot in the top 8 on the line, however, then you really want to make sure you don’t screw up.

4) Your opponent’s gender

There may be no girls on the Internet, but there are certainly girls who play Magic, and some of them are pretty good. Take, for example, an acquaintance of mine, Melissa DeTora. Over the last year she has played in feature matches at Grand Prix-Montreal, Pro Tour-Valencia, and Pro Tour-Kuala Lumpur, against the likes of Guillame Wafo-Tapa, Quentin Martin, and Gabe Nassif. She’s no pushover, either. She is a regular in the New England PTQ scene, has won several PTQs, and finished in the money most recently at Kuala Lumpur.

Of course, Melissa is not the only female to enjoy success at big events. Names like Michelle Bush, who finished 2nd at Grand Prix-New Orleans, and Annalyn Bustamante, who finished in the top 16 at Grand Prix-Dallas, may also ring a bell to the event coverage junkies.

5) Your opponent’s name

This is perhaps the biggest one of them all, even more so than judging your opponent by the X or Y chromosomes.

Let’s say you’re playing at your first Pro Tour. You’re excited to travel, play Magic for big money, and bring back lots of great stories to your friends. Then the pairings for round one are posted, and you get to play not another PTQ entrant, but Kenji Tsumura.

Some might think, "Crap, I might as well scoop as soon as I sit down." Hey, there’s no shame in trying. If anything, playing against players of Kenji’s level can only help you learn. All you can do is play your best, and if the card gods are with you, you may pull off a big upset.

Lessons Learned

So what can ceteris paribus teach you? The only thing that matters is your opponent’s skill level, regardless of who they are or what they’re playing. Simply put, come to each match prepared for a dogfight. If it turns out to be a shellacking, more power to the winner. If it turns into a slugfest, all it can do is give you the necessary experience for your Magic career, win or lose.

-Sammy Time