So firstly an introduction to what I’m going to be doing regularly on this site for those novice players and maybe some of South Africa’s “pro” players too, as there is no limit to how much knowledge you can obtain, is to write a few articles on not basic concepts in this game, but slightly enhanced concepts. My idea is to help those who find a certain aspect of duelling challenging. And today, my first article to get things kicked-off is “When you lose that first game.”
Many players get down in the dumps when they lose that first game and they suddenly either take a quick loss or they manage to grind-out a few more minutes, but still lose the match by two games to nothing. Now why does that happen? There are 3 very simple answers to this question: The opposing player simply opened better than you, or you opened worse than what they did or; you made one too many misplays or; their deck simply beats yours in the first game. Now why did I say first game and not include second and third? Simple: Side-decking. But we’ll get to that later-on in the article.
A few of you might ask, “Why these 3 aspects?” Let’s take a look at the first example: Your opponent opens better than what you do or you open into a bad hand. Continuing with this bad hand theory; players cannot say they opened into a bad hand if their hand was playable and they managed to make a setup – that is not a bad hand. Many players do say such is a bad hand after they lose a game or match. Don’t make this mistake. Now back onto the bad hand versus the good hand. It’s basic logic. Let’s take a scenario where you are up against a Gadget mirror match: Your opponent summons a Gadget and sets 3 cards to his/her back row and you open into no Gadget and one trap card that you could possibly set. See where this is going? There was nothing you could do to play out of the situation. You opened worse than your opponent and considering the game state, they opened better. Obviously after opening with such a hand and going-on to lose that game you feel devastated and feel as if you didn’t build your deck correctly or perhaps you feel that you can no longer win the next two matches never mind the tournament or topping the tournament. These are all of the thoughts that you ponder.
The next example was that you made a few misplays that cost you the game. Now many players don’t actually know what a misplay is and it drives me away from the game: if you don’t know what something is then don’t say it or act as if you made a misplay, because if you see your misplay during the game you could change it. Now a misplay does not mean you didn’t make the optimal play. No. it means that you played a card incorrectly or at the wrong time with substantial knowledge of the surroundings. An example would be if you summoned a Gadget over a Kycoo in your first turn. That is not a misplay. You did not know what your opponent was playing and therefore could never know what he/she was playing. However, if you know your opponent is playing Lightsworn and they set a back row and have a random field spell that is making the game difficult for you, destroying the face-down would be a misplay. It’s using your knowledge of the game state. With regards to making misplays and losing your opening game: my golden rule is that if you noticed your misplay you are on your way to becoming better and it’s crucial for the next two games, because noticing your misplays can bring you back in to contention.
The last example is when their deck simply beats yours game one and there’s nothing you can do about it. Take a look at my example from one of the tournaments I played in: He was playing a Macro deck and I was playing Dark World. He went first and activated Dimensional Fissure and set 4 back row cards. Nothing I could do, but I didn’t give-up even though I did still lose that game. It turned out that his other back-row cards were: Macro Cosmos, Dark Bribe, Solemn Warning and Bottomless Trap Hole. This means that even if I got rid of Dimensional Fissure a Macro Cosmos was awaiting. I couldn’t keep monster presence thanks to the Solemn Warning and Bottomless Trap Hole. I got beat rather badly; however I never let this get me down. I was the only person to have gone unbeaten up until this point; in fact, I hadn’t even dropped a game. I knew it couldn’t just be misplaying and it was therefore down to his deck simply beating mine combined with the fact that he opened substantially better than what I did. (Look at my “Merry Christmas” link at the bottom of the page to read more). Now take this example and notice how I won game 2 and 3 rather quickly and that’s all thanks to my side deck and him not opening as well as he did in game 1. This goes to show that your side deck is what makes you win games.
The secret to winning a match after losing the opening game is to never allow that one game to define the rest of the match-up, because if you do it will not only cost you the match, but your tournament win too. You should never be intimidated of the opposing player no matter how many local victories or how well they do at events x and events y, because when you play that match it’s just you against them and none of their credentials matter. I’ve seen many players being sad after seeing themselves being drawn to play against player x and player y and that already makes them heading into the match losing. You must constantly think of yourself as a player with an equal chance to winning the match. And for those of you out there who think you are a pro, you aren’t. There is going to come a time where you lose to random players and call it luck, sure. But if that manages to happen regularly, you aren’t a pro. And it’s vital that you don’t ever think of yourself as a pro because that could end-up being detrimental to your game: You become overconfident and think of any other player playing in the tournament as being worse than you and when you lose a game or match you don’t care about the rest of the tournament and don’t care about the game anymore. Everyone has to take losses sometime and the sooner everyone realises that, the better everyone becomes.
Until next time,
Never Give-Up!
https://saforum.darkbb.com/t152-merry-christmas#2368
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