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Editor: Sharon Van Der Werk. Monday 18th April 2005

Feature Article

Paper Scissors Rock. Nothing Beats Rock. by Enchante Chang

“If you are going to throw paper but you know they know you are going to throw paper… then you should throw rock.”

Expanding a bit on Alex Brown's fantastic article about Luck, I want to talk to you about educated luck aka metagaming. For those of you that don't know what metagaming is; metagaming is making options with the cards/decks so that those cards will be the best cards/deck at that tournament. It might not be the best card/deck in the overall sense but at the tournament it is pure gold.

Quoting Alex's article “ The first is that luck plays a significant role in any tournament success. Secondly, you still have to put yourself in as best a prepared position as you can to make the most of the Luck you get. Sometimes you will just have one of those days, and nothing you do will work out properly. However, over time the cream rises to the top, and the better, more consistently prepared players will post the best results .”

Now luck plays a big role, metagaming is also about luck but not so much; it is as we say an educated guess. When preparing to metagame for a tournament players research around the recent tournaments, finding out what was the most popular deck and what won the recent tournaments. By using this information people playtest different cards and later decide on the deck that they guess would be the best metagame call for that tournament. Some people just pick up what people/the internet say is the best deck and run with it, the scenario is average Joe picks up Curve Sentinels to play at the upcoming tournament because it has won so many $10k tournaments around the world. Joe comes back home from the tournament having not much success and blames it on luck because he faced too many TNB decks and they were rampant at the tournament.

Now again quoting Alex's article “ Never listen to losers about luck. It takes a considerably clear mind to correctly identify what was Lucky and what was not.

Now was Joe unlucky? Or was he not using the available knowledge to his advantage? Most likely Joe did not research what was played at his LOCAL tournament scene, he should have noticed that TNB was already popular in his area and with the recent Curve Sentinel wins; TNB should increase even more in popularity. If Joe did research he should have realized that the metagame was mostly TNB and to metagame against this was to play Fatman aka Cosmic Cops.

Disclaimer : Sometimes things are random and metagaming won't always work out; this is why metagaming is still part of luck, but what you are doing is

“Basically, I was as prepared as I could be, and put myself in a position for Lady Luck to choose me . . . and she did.” - Ben Kalman

Tips for metagaming:

Search around the net, see what is being played around the world

Search around YOUR local area, this is even more important than the first

Research what decks are good against what

What cards are good against what decks?

Playtest, what good is making the right choice and then not know how to play it?

So hopefully next time you have an upcoming tournament you want to win, you will be more the wiser and make the best possible options. Remember “ Options will cost you, but a lack of options will cost you even more. ”

Last but not least thanks goes out to Alex Brown for a fantastic article, otherwise how was I able to leech ideas off him?

Until next time VS Fans, Same VS Time, Same VS Channel.

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