{"id":82,"date":"2012-12-10T13:33:49","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T18:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/?p=82"},"modified":"2012-12-10T13:35:33","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T18:35:33","slug":"magic-the-gathering-news-scrubbing-out-at-gpt-ac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/2012\/12\/magic-the-gathering-news-scrubbing-out-at-gpt-ac\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic The Gathering News &#8211; Scrubbing Out At GPT AC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, I went to the Grand Prix Trial for Atlantic City, NJ and I went a spectacular 1-3 drop.<\/p>\n<p>That could very well be the end of this entry but then there wouldn&#8217;t be very much to read, would there. And the truth is, as badly as I did, this probably wasn&#8217;t even worth writing about except for the fact that I learned some very important things about this game and myself.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with the game.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody has good and bad days. I think I just read that Brian Kibler went 0-3 drop at GP Toronto. Wow, he did even worse than I did.<\/p>\n<div style=\"float: left;margin: 3px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-4025562143158908\";\ngoogle_alternate_color = \"FFFFFF\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 125;\ngoogle_ad_height = 125;\ngoogle_ad_format = \"125x125_as\";\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text\";\ngoogle_ad_channel =\"\";\ngoogle_color_border = \"\";\ngoogle_color_link = \"\";\ngoogle_color_bg = \"\";\ngoogle_color_text = \"\";\ngoogle_color_url = \"\";\ngoogle_ui_features = \"rc:0\";\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/div><p>Truth is, this game can be very unpredictable. As much as so many players want to believe that when they win it is all skill, it&#8217;s not. There is a degree of variance in this game that can&#8217;t be ignored and can turn anybody&#8217;s day into an 0-3 nightmare. Just ask Brian.<\/p>\n<p>Something else I learned about the game is this. It exists beyond the small little world of your LGS or wherever it is you play. You&#8217;re going to run into people who you&#8217;ve never seen before, play against decks that you&#8217;ve never seen before and play in conditions that you could have never imagined before &#8230; good AND bad.<\/p>\n<p>Now let&#8217;s move on to what I learned about myself and what I need to change or at least improve on if I&#8217;m going to get to the next level in this game; that next level being doing better than just winning a few FNMs.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t play well in large crowds in cramped spaces. I mean it felt like I was playing in a sardine can the other day. My play mat was too big for the table with five other people playing at it. I had to roll the edge of it up slightly in order to be able to use it at all. It&#8217;s a good thing I don&#8217;t have claustrophobia or I would have been toast.<\/p>\n<p>Added to the cramped space was the noise. Do you have any idea how loud a small room of 35 people gets? It&#8217;s really hard to hear the person next to you speaking to you let alone concentrate on the game. I&#8217;ve been told to bring an MP3 player or something to listen to in order to block out the noise. I just might do that.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, I discovered I don&#8217;t play well in this type of environment. I made play mistakes that I&#8217;d never make at FNM. It didn&#8217;t help that I couldn&#8217;t concentrate, but some of these errors were just downright stupid.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, I need to start getting used to actually playing in these cramped conditions. I need to focus on the cards in front of me, the ones in my hand, the ones on the battlefield, what my opponent is doing and what I&#8217;m going to do in response.<\/p>\n<p>In short, I need to block out EVERYTHING else.<\/p>\n<p>Easier said than done? Yes, it is.<\/p>\n<p>As I more than found out the other day when I did just slightly better than Brian Kibler.<\/p>\n<p>To YOUR Magic the Gathering Enjoyment,<\/p>\n<p>Steven &#8220;Land Boy&#8221; Wagenheim<\/p>\n<p>Get my FREE report\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevewagenheim.com\/mtg\/mtg1\/index.html\">\u201c7 Steps To Magic Success\u201d<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and become a better Magic player<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, I went to the Grand Prix Trial for Atlantic City, NJ and I went a spectacular 1-3 drop. That could very well be the end of this entry but then there wouldn&#8217;t be very much to read, would there. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/2012\/12\/magic-the-gathering-news-scrubbing-out-at-gpt-ac\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16,5],"tags":[4,19,13,6],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-magic-the-gathering-general","category-magic-the-gathering-news","category-magic-the-gathering-tips","tag-magic-the-gathering","tag-magic-the-gathering-articles","tag-magic-the-gathering-competitive","tag-magic-the-gathering-tips-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevewagenheim.com\/mtgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}