I am playing for the long game. I aim to play Magic for the rest of my life and will work to keep improving as time passes by. Over time I have learned to treat my losses not as failures, but as chances to learn and grow. Every mistake can teach me something and so I strive to learn from them.
I know that I will never be perfect as a player and that is part of what appeals to me about Magic. That said, I can work to hone my craft and improve my decision making to try to get ever closer to the perfection which eludes me. Even though I make less mistakes than I did before I still do make them and will continue to. I used to get painfully frustrated by my mistakes and still do at times, but by reframing them I have learned to live with and accept my fallibility. No one is perfect and so there will always be new material for me to review and learn from.
People often ask me about winning a Giant Shark and many seem to think that is my ultimate goal in Old School. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to win a Shark, but for me it is a checkpoint along my journey, not the final destination. I travel around the world to play in the biggest tournaments because they are the most challenging. That has led me to play in six Shark tournaments up to now, but this fall I passed up Winc0n which had a Shark to go to Uthden Troll Cup which doesn’t so I could experience that event for the first time. I want to keep getting better above all else and if I keep at that for long enough then it seems likely that I will someday find myself with less than fifteen cards in my sideboard, but who knows when or if that will occur.
In that vein, the only person that I try to compare myself to when it comes to Magic and life in general is past versions of myself. It can be fun to debate “who is the best player without a shark” while chatting with friends, but at the end of the day it means nothing. I know I am a strong player; I have put years of work into getting to that point. I also know that at all times I am either getting better, getting worse, or staying the same. I am constantly working to avoid the urge to compare myself to others and focus instead on continuing to get stronger because over a long enough time frame my hard work will bear out.
Over the years I have found that devoting the amount of time and effort that I do to Magic is only worthwhile if it is fun. Right now I am having a great time tweaking decks, working on sideboard plans, playing the game, and traveling to events, but who knows if that will always be the case. I have burnt myself out on Magic in the past by doing too much of it and thus know that there is a delicate balance for me between being rusty and being burnt out. The result of this is to be more selective in the events I choose to enter because I want to keep Magic enjoyable for me so that I will want to continue playing for the rest of my life.
Beyond just being an immensely deep and complex strategy game that I enjoy playing, Magic has introduced me to a world of like minded individuals, many of whom I am lucky to call friends. As I continue to play I want to keep making new friends while also maintaining relationships with the ones I already have. Times change and people drift in and out of each other’s lives. Magic has led me to make so many lifelong friends and I want to keep that train rolling for as long as possible. Life is more fun when you have other people around to enjoy it with.
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