Level Up: Learning From Mistakes - Ep 60

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6. Ep 60 Community Spotlight:
   1. Disclaimer: Commander is a SOCIAL game, winning isn’t everything, so watch with care how far you go down the competitive path.
   2. 1. That being said, winning IS fun. And I’m sure there are lots of folks out there that would like to get better at Commander.
      2. It’s so much easier to make an episode about building better decks, it’s much harder to make an episode about how to help folks get better.
      1. Step 1: Admit that you are making mistakes.
      2. 1. It’s going to be hard to fix mistakes if you aren’t making any.
         2. It’s also MUCH harder to identify some types of mistakes in Commander vs Limited or Standard/Modern. This is because the consequences of making a mistake in a 1v1 game happen quite quickly after you make them, and often lead to the game being over.
            1. Changing the way you think about variance may also help. Think about what information you had instead of complaining about why you didn’t win.
            2. 1. My opponent had the exact spell they needed to win! (Did they tutor one or more times that game?)
               2. I just needed one more turn! (Did you fail to realize an opponent was just a card away from a combo?)
               3. I got mana screwed/flooded! (Are you playing enough lands in your deck? How about ramp? Should you have mulliganed?)
               4. Everyone ganged up on me! (Were you playing Atraxa? Did you get off to an early lead?)
         3. Your first instinct should be to avoid blaming a loss on variance. This is not to say that variance doesn’t happen, and often-times variance does lead to bad times for you, but it your first instinct is to blame variance (Blame Variance!), then you may take the easy way out, and not really take the time to think about how you played that game
         1. Think about the things you played, and how folks responded.
         2. Did you make a play that aligned the whole table against you? Could/should you have waited to play it till later?
         3. Did you misidentify the biggest threat at the table?
         4. Did you leave a problematic permanent on the table for too long, hoping someone else would take care of it?
         5. Did you fail to realize that two of your opponents were going to team up, and 1-2 punch away your pillow fort?
         6. Did you take out the wrong player, when you had your chance to kill any of your 3 opponents?
         7. Should you have mulliganed?
            1. Ask them if they noticed any misplays on your part.
            2. Ask them what cards they had in their hand at the end of the game. 
         8. It really helps if you can talk with your opponents after the game, especially if they are people you think play well!
      3. Think about your game, immediately after you play it. Reflect on how the game went.
         1. Sequencing!
         2. 1. Can be something as basic as playing your lands in the wrong order. Or tapping your lands incorrectly.
            2. Sometimes this is obvious, sometimes it’s not. Like sometimes you might not notice that there was a better way to sequence things, but sometimes you might not even think about sequencing things
            3. Honestly, this is one of harder things in Commander, because board states get so cluttered, so quickly. And you may forget you need to take out that Blind Obedience before you cast your Hasty creature.
            1. I think this is sometimes tricky for newer players, especially when playing against new opponents, or decks in an unknown meta.
            2. This can also include playing a card that is going to scare the other players into attacking you, thinking that it’s less scary than what some other opponent already has going on. An example could be playing Aura Shards, and not knowing that one of your opponents has 3 very important enchantment/artifacts in hand. You may not know this is a likely scenario, unless you’ve played against that player’s deck more than 1 time before.
         3. Incorrectly assessing threats
            1. Forgetting that your opponent played a Sylvan Safekeeper on turn 2.
            2. Not doing the math on how much damage you were going to take from 2 of your opponents having a Zulaport Cutthroat in play before you cast a board wipe
         4. Failing to notice an onboard trick
            1. These are not the droids you are looking for (or not hitting your saving throw versus a savvy political opponent
               1. So many times people make a deal, and get nothing out of it. Like someone promising not to attack you for two turns, when it’s obvious they weren’t planning on attacking you anyway
            2. Making a bad deal
            3. Making too many deals, and painting yourself into a corner
            4. Picking the wrong person to go to the final 2 with.
         5. Political
      4. Types of mistakes
         1. This can be a tricky thing. We are all getting together to have some social fun, so sometimes it’s not the greatest to be very strict with the rules. I know oftentimes I encourage my opponents to take stuff back
         2. You want to make sure you have a conversation about this before the game starts. It might be great to play with some stricter rules enforcement if the folks you are playing with are up for it. (It also could EASILY be NOT fun to do so).
         3. Maybe hold yourself to a higher standard? Essentially owning your mistakes. You don’t have to always do this, but it’s hard to learn from a mistake if there are NO consequences from making it. (If you’ve ever played with me, you KNOW I don’t often hold myself to a higher standard!) I think this is something especially hard to do if you’ve only ever been a casual player. Playing a lot of limited, and grinding at PTQs etc, really helps here, because you are often playing at a higher REL, and take backs aren’t an option.
      5. Take-backs?
   3. How to learn from your mistakes
      1. Learning from your mistakes is CRITICAL to getting better at Commander. Two of your best tools for figuring out the mistakes you are making are “Thinking critically about games immediately after playing them” and “Talking with people who you respect, and getting their feedback”
      2. Audience land: Do you look for mistakes? Do you have any great lessons you’ve learned? We’d love to hear some of them!
   4. Summary
7. Main Topic -Level Up: Learning From Mistakes
8. Keep it Social!
   1. Komiku - Battle of Pogs
   2. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
9. Zack Gets it Together Theme
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