In a normal Magic tournament, you play the best two-out-of-three games. Whoever wins two games first wins the match, and advances on towards a possible better finish.

Sometimes, these games are completely one- sided, often with one of those players getting an extremely low or high land count, interfering with their ability to win the game. Another possibility is that one deck is able to handle the other's strategy easily, which is called a good matchup. This makes for fairily unbalanced games. The speculated percentage of games won due to one deck not functioning properly against the other is fifty percent.

With those set aside as exceptions, the majority of games are won because one player is better than the other. They make better plays, are more intuitive, and are just plain sharper. As well as those characteristics of a good player, there's one thing that makes a huge difference.

Attitude.

Let me elaborate. The player's attitude greatly effects the outcome of the game. If one player goes into the match thinking:

"I'm going to win this game, I definitely have a shot at this"

While the other player goes into the match thinking:

"Oh crap, this guy's really good, I have no chance of winning this"

If both players have equally good decks, are equally good players, who do you think is going to win? Obviously, the positive player has a much better chance.

Let's say during a game, you're faced with a difficult decision. You know you can win this game, but it all depends on your choice.

Your opponent has a two Shadowmage Infiltrators in play, and is at four life with no cards in hand. You are at four life as well, and have no creatures in play. You have an Urza's Rage in your hand, your only card. He declares an attack and sends both of his creatures in. You're faced with the choice.

Do you take the two and give him two cards in the hopes that you'll draw another burn spell to go with the Rage finish him off?

Do you Rage one of the Infiltrators, buying you more time to draw into a way to kill him?

That's a very complex situation, one that can be better thought through if you examine your graveyard and see how many burn spells you've used in ratio to how many you have left in your library, compared to the number of total cards in your library. Of course, if you have a bad attitude, you may be subconsciously pushing yourself in the wrong direction.

"I know this is the wrong choice, but what the hell..."

We've all heard that before, right? You look at your opening hand of six cards and one land. If you draw that one land, you'll be able to overwhelm your opponent easily. Of course, you don't draw that land and you get slaughtered. You know you should have taken a mulligan, but you didn't. Your underlying negative attitude, or as Starcity's John Rizzo would call it, your "Bruce" cost you a game that you could easily have had a better chance in.

Now, don't get me wrong. If you into a match with a positive attitude, that's no guarantee that you're going to win the game. Like I said earlier, up to fifty percent of all Magic games turn out the way they did because one deck didn't function properly. Don't expect to win or lose based on your attitude. It simply effects the outcome, not determines it.

So the next time you enter a Magic tournament, try to think positively - it really does help, and makes the match a better one for both you and your opponent.

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MOTL Moderator for:

Excellent point, and nice explanation of that point!

My recent tourny success supports Ted's thought, in a way. At a recent competitive tournament I was feeling a little too tired and ill to play seriously. I chose to relax and have fun. Naturally, I still wanted to win, but my relaxed attitude took the pressure off. I didn't exactly have the positive attitude Ted described, but my attitude was positive in the sense that no one could get me down. Sure I could lose a game (and did), but no one could stop me from having fun with the game. This positive feeling and lack of pressure felt exactly like confidence. Confidence is the attitude Ted is referring to, and confidence is what sets winners apart.

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Wow, how generations are different.
When I heard the song on that commercial Ted referred to, the song title, Lyrics, video, etc, popped into mind instantly. I was in highschool during the 80's, so most popular songs of that era are etched into my brain much like mana symbols. The flip side of that ofcourse, is that I rarely recognize any of the songs referred to in posts on the General Discussion boards.

At least we have Magic in common :o)

Anyway, i find that the first game tends to set the tone for all the rest - if you crush your opponent, you will finish high - if it's a close match, you will have difficult matches the rest of the tournament.

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I am the flood, the tide that will not be stemmed

There are many ways to psychologically throw your opponent offtrack... Like acting as if you've never played Magic before... asking him newbie questions such as Can I play spells in the phase between declaring "Mulligan" and drawing the new cards?

Anyway make him believe you've never played magic before, throw him offguard and surprise him by winning at 5th turn... Might not work in tournies but sure does well in casual play