After starting playing Magic at the start of 2013, the last year has seen me improve a lot and play a lot more. I’ve tried to not let it overtake all my other nerdery (board games, computer games etc), but it does tend to dominate.
2014 saw me go to a number of events and for the next yearly period (Jun 02 2014-May 31 2015) I set myself some goals. Time to see how well I did.
Seasonal Score: 400
400 points per season was the marker to get 1 bye at a Grand Prix so I wanted to hit this each season. Wizards then decided to change the bye policy. So don’t know if I hit that or not. I’ll assume I did as my score for the year is more than 4 times that.
Yearly Score: 1300
After the bye scoring was changed I decided I would instead target 1300 points for the year to make sure I then got 1 bye all the next year. I actually hit 2250 so that reached the next target of 2 byes. So for the 2015/2016 season I will have 2 byes at every Grand Prix I attend.
Scottish Season 2014-2015 showing some local players too
Scotland Lifetime: Top 100
I ended up being 75th which was pretty cool. Seeing someone you know a few points ahead of you in the lifetime or yearly standings was a good motivation to keep going to events. I know for lots of people they never even look at these stats but I found it a good marker to keep track of progress.
Scottish Lifetime Rankings
Grand Prix: attend at least two
I ended up attending Utrecht and Liverpool. I did awful at them but that’s not the point :D. They were two different formats: Standard and Sealed.
Pro Tour Qualifier: Positive Record
4-3-0, 1-2-0, 4-3-0
Were an improvement on the previous years 4-4-0 and 2-4-0. I dropped in the second one as the World Cup Trials were happening for the World Cup Qualifier the next day – getting a bye in that seemed more important when my score meant I couldn’t top 8.
World Cup Qualifier: Attend all three
After attending only Dundee ones I wanted to travel to all three.
3-4-0, 3-4-0 and 3-4-1 would have probably been good for me at the start of the year.
When Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers were announced I decided I would try to:
Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers: Make 1 top 8 per season
I achieved this by losing a final with Red (splash white) Standard in Season 1 and losing a semi final with Goblins Modern in Season 2.
Leave Dundee for some events
The previous year I had only attended events in Dundee, and in Manchester whilst visiting for work. Over the last year I have attended 2 Grand Prixs as well as competitive events in Glasgow (Spellbound and Geek Retreat), Black Lion Edinburgh, Common Ground Stirling and Little Shop of Heroes Dunfermline.
Other changes over the year
I think the biggest downside of the year was the closure of Major Arcana. It left Highlander Games being the sole games shop in Dundee. The ownership of Highlander also changed.
Goals for next Year:
I swithered over whether to publish my goals for next year but sod it. I have set a pile of goals which try to improve on last year without needing me to dedicate the time that would make Wizard Poker take over even more of my spare time.
Grand Prix: attend at least 2, have positive record
London is one, any other UK ones (don’t think there are any) and then at least one in mainland Europe is the plan.
World Magic Cup Qualifier: attend all three, positive record in all, top 8 in one
This time last year I was barely using a proper deck, over the last year I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the meta game and trying to have a standard deck based around it. Instead of trading random bulk rares for more I’ve been trading into staples – for example getting a playset of all the fetchlands early on. Having hit top 8 at some competitive events but with a poor record (2/9?) I would hope to hit 1 out of 3 for these. This is a stretch goal and I doubt I’ll hit it.
Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier: top 8 at least once per season, win once
Having hit one top 8 per season I think I should try to sustain that, qualifying for one Regional Pro Tour Qualifier being a supplemental goal.
Regular constructed: win at least once per month
Over the last year I have improved a lot at constructed and now almost always have a positive record at the end of the night. I want to make sure this continues by winning at least one event per month.
Yearly overall: Hit 2250 points again
At the start of the last year I aimed to hit about 2/3rds of this. Hitting the same total again this year reduces need to go to Grand Prix Trials for the next year and helps give an incentive to go to more Grand Prixs.
Scotland Lifetime: Top 50
This year I hit 75, so lets see if I can hit number 50 this year. Over the last year I leapfrogged a few people I know don’t play very much any more so if the 25 players above me still play regularly this could be not possible. Right now I am at 3603 points. So if I meet the previous goal that would put me at 5853 points which would as of right now mean 38th so it seems a good midpoint to account for that.
Visit other Scottish games shops: Competitive Events at each store once
I haven’t attended competitive events at Bus Stop Largs, due to the pain in the arse travelling there from Dundee. At least two other shops in Scotland are trying to qualify to be able to host competitive events. So right now it’s Go to a PPTQ at Largs
but that may change over the course of the year.
Goal Setting
Goals concept on blackboard
So having made all these it should be obvious that they all feed into each other creating a feedback loop. If I don’t attend many events I won’t get the points total. Without the points total I won’t climb the Scottish Lifetime rankings. Doing less events means hitting targets for wins/top 8s becomes more difficult. I’ve tried to create a list of goals which all refer to each other. If I start slipping in one it leads to failing the others so creates motivation (for me) to keep on playing in the way I am and to improve. I also tried to make them all stretches but achievable if I just do a bit better than I did last year.
How do you set goals for competitive gaming? Do you aim for the same as last year? Do you just note landmarks along the way of improvement?
Lifetime Stats
Now after writing about the last year here’s my lifetime stats (via Xamleeg) so can you see on the scale of new player to great player I’m currently at middle of road
player.
Overall record: 485 wins, 517 losses, 18 draws
Win percentage ignoring draws: 48%
So I’m still under 50% and playing catch up from when I first started.
Formats
I’ll take out the formats I’ve played 10 or less matches at.
Regular Constructed:
Standard: Overall record: 210-251-10, Wins: 46%
Still below positive although recently I have been having a positive record most nights so hopefully next year I’ll get above 50%.
Modern: Overall record: 85-82-1, Wins: 51%
So I have sneaked ahead into positive in Modern. Goblins OP
Block Constructed: Overall record: 12-20-1, Wins: 38%
Reflects how bad my deck was during Theros block. Looks unlikely to change as that format is kinda binned.
Limited Formats
Booster Draft: Overall record: 80-94-3, Wins: 46%
Still below positive in drafts.
Sealed: Overall record: 59-51-2, Wins: 54%
Above positive in Sealed. The format has always been my favourite limited format.
Trios – Limited: Overall record: 11-8-1, Wins: 58%
Positive here, although I seem to remember it mostly being down to my teammates in these matches.
Tournament type
Competitive events and their feeders
Magic Pro Tour Qualifier: Overall record: 15-16-0, Wins: 49%
This type of tournament has now been retired so looks like I will forever be negative here.
Magic Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier: Overall record: 39-27-3, Wins: 59%
Dragged up by two top 8 finishes.
World Magic Cup Qualifier Trials: Overall record: 4-3-0, Wins: 58%
Positive here although I can’t seem to remember doing well at them.
World Magic Cup Qualifier: Overall record: 11-15-1, Wins: 42%
Seems my bad first two tries in Dundee dragged me down a bit. Last year I went to all three which will have improved score somewhat.
Magic Grand Prix: Overall record: 9-13-0, Wins: 41%
Seems about right, I’ve sucked at every one I’ve attended.
Magic Grand Prix Trial: Overall record: 37-45-4, Wins: 45%
I’ve won one and lost a couple of finals so expected this to be higher, oh well.
Public Event at Grand Prix: Overall record: 15-11-0, Wins: 58%
Annoyingly a pile of public events at Grand Prixs went down as casual, like Chaos Drafts, so I never got the points boost from them.
Magic Prerelease: Overall record: 55-44-2, Wins: 56%
These tend to be sealed so that may help explain my positive record there.
Magic Game Day: Overall record: 15-21-1, Wins: 42%
The last year I have barely made any of these which hasn’t helped boost record up.
Friday Night Magic: Overall record: 51-37-2, Wins: 58%
A positive record here which is good.
Magic Tournament: Overall record: 215-275-5, Wins: 44%
The generic bucket for sanctioned events, not positive here yet.
Tags: Black Lion Games, Common Ground, Geek Retreat, Highlander Games, Little Shop of Heroes, Magic, Magic: the Gathering, MtG, Spellbound Games