We invited some guest writers to contribute to fabtcg.com for the Skirmish season. Matt di Marco is known for both video and written content, including interviews, articles, and most recently, broadcasting. This is the final article in his five-part Elevating Your Game series.
Elevating Your Game From Casual to Competitive
Part Five: Bad Habits To Avoid
To wrap up this article series, I wanted to map out certain snares that are easily fallen for, and hard to escape. Over the previous four installments, I detailed the way you can set yourself up to elevate your gameplay from a casual player to someone who walks into a mid-tier tournament with expectations of making a solid run at victory. Maintaining the discipline in all the habits I outlined should get you well situated, and make you an overall better-prepared player. For all the new skills you’ve developed, being able to identify and avoid bad habits is important in itself.
Bad habits are natural. They are often developed to create shortcuts or to soften the blow of bad outcomes. Knowing how to pick out what these behaviours are and purging them from your system will only enhance everything you’ve already learned. Great players can still succeed while succumbing to bad habits, but consistency is often the first casualty of letting these behaviours slide. I want to tell you about a few of the most common and detrimental habits you may develop, and how to conquer them.
Luck Doesn’t Care About You
As long as there have been card games, there has been the inclination to just take a step back and drop all accountability for your match losses. You lost because the cards you drew weren’t ideal, or because your opponent top decked the right card to beat you then and there. The hands-off approach to your own tournament results is a dangerous game to play, ultimately exonerating you from any responsibility. Blaming luck for a loss is a great way to insulate your own ego against the painful realities that you’re actively avoiding, and eliminates any room to find fault in your gameplay. This halts any opportunity to start patching the holes in your game, and stunts your progress.
The active avoidance of taking responsibility for a loss is quite funny at times. I recall playing in a ProQuest wherein my opponent blatantly blamed his loss on the fact that I went first, and he drew poorly. Taking this approach to losses is a shield for your ego, suggesting that if not for an unlikely stroke of chance, they would have won. Beyond arrogance, this mindset influences your behaviour moving forward. If luck is your enemy, why bother practicing? Why bother refining your deck, or changing game plans? Why even look to improve at all, given your only real threat out there is a dice roll?
Putting so much weight on luck being the determining factor of a game like Flesh and Blood just makes no sense. I’ve had bad beats before, playing Enlightened Strike to draw into the one dead card in my deck that lost me an important match. It happens, but it shouldn’t be your identity. If you’re comfortable blaming bad luck when things don’t go your way, you should be equally as generous giving good luck the proper credit when you win and your opponent is floundering. You can’t have it both ways.
Blaming luck for losses is an easy way to numb the sting of a loss. You just won’t learn a damn thing. Your best approach is to understand that you will in many cases draw poorly, or your opponent might fire off five consecutive Starvo fuses. It’s an awful feeling, but these situations will arise often, and are just new avenues for you to practice. A stubborn adherence to blaming luck as the be-all-end-all is a self-decree that you’ve got no room to improve, and your only threat is the cosmic force that is RNG. You’re not that important, and you’re not that good. Once you realize that luck is an equal opportunity meddler, you can get back to understanding that the most swaying determinant of your performance is you. Stop protecting your ego and get real.
Don’t Get Cocky, Take Your Time
There’s nothing wrong with a little swagger. Your first tournament win should be enjoyed. Bask in all that glory, because you deserve it. You worked hard and scored the dub. Throw that cold foil or playmat on the shelf, and feel good about yourself. Before you get a little too cocky, however, remember that it doesn’t get easier. You’re going to need to maintain your focus and discipline if you want to continue your newfound success.
I’ve often seen how success can influence gameplay. When you’ve proven you are capable of winning, you’re going to loosen up a bit. The hard part is over, and the proof of concept is there. What you cannot let happen, however, is falling into a habit of short cuts and assumptions. This is how you forget a Tunic trigger, or miss a generated Runechant. It is inevitable to make mistakes or forget triggers. I spoke about this in a previous article. It’s going to happen, but don’t let your own familiarity or excitement of an upcoming turn create clumsy behaviour.
You need to treat every game with the same focus as you would a Top 8 do-or-die. While you’re holding your cards, your brain is already connecting the dots, crafting an effective turn. When you’ve found the perfect recipe and your opponent passes over to you, it can be tough to remain poised when you know you’re holding an absolute killer of a hand. I’ve been caught up in my own hype before, forgetting a Tunic trigger because I was too excited to play a red Plunder Run from arsenal while playing Briar. The turn didn’t require me to use the Tunic, so I subconsciously blew past it to start the fireworks. I only learned my lesson when that Tunic trigger finally factored into the outcome of a turn, and ultimately shifted momentum.
These are mistakes that can be avoided by taking your time. The game clock is sufficient for you to take a second to breathe, and walk through your turn in your mind. The fervor you may feel when holding the nuts can be tough to reign in, so be vigilant of these strong, easy turns you’ve mapped out in your brain. All that practice and goldfishing you’ve done will facilitate your future turns, so be sure you’re not leaving anything behind. We all may have our own tricks to not forget any key elements to our turns, be it a giant die or custom sleeves, but ultimately it is a matter of preference and efficacy. What works for me is merely not presenting any move or play until I’ve taken a mental snapshot of the board state; how many counters are on the equipment, any debuffs like Frostbite tokens, what the life totals are, and how many cards are in hand and arsenal of both players? This, for me, is a good enough checklist to waltz through to give my brain a chance to ring the alarm bell of anything I may have forgotten. Eagerness will come back to haunt you, so keep stock of all the moving parts before you commit to playing your cards.
Success Is Relative
When setting out to achieve your goal of winning tournaments, you need to maintain a healthy and honest perspective of your progress. If your objective is to win a Skirmish or ProQuest, don’t dismiss the incremental gains along the way. Those, too, are successes you need to bank away and be proud of. You can easily get lost in absolutes, only taking pride in conquering that final boss. This mentality is harmful, and you should treat yourself to the joys of winning the smaller battles. It will keep you motivated and your soul nourished.
Be sure to revel in your improvements, and give yourself the credit you deserve. One awful habit that people will fall into is the dismissal of little victories. Going 5-1 in the swiss rounds and losing in the quarter finals may feel like a failure, but in relation to last month’s 3-3 finish, you’re already way ahead. Don’t let this success sneak past you. It isn’t the big prize you were gunning for, but it is another feather in your cap that you didn’t have previously. There is no uniform measure of success, so worry about yourself instead of those around you. It is your own quest for glory that matters, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with stopping to smell the flowers along the path. Your successes are your own, so don’t deny yourself the fruits of your hard work. You earned them.
It’s A Game
Ultimately, never lose sight of what this is: a game. You’re meant to have fun and grow through the challenges of the game and the community that supports it. When the game no longer feels like a joyful escape, or when the game feels more of a chore than a hobby, you need to take a step back. All my previous advice about commitment, hard work, and preparation should never come at the expense of your mental well-being. Never make that sacrifice, because it will never be worth it. The most detrimental habit I’ve witnessed time and time again is the reluctance to detach oneself from a damaging obsession. It consumes you, bleeding into the periphery of your life and sprinkling toxicity on other things you would otherwise enjoy. Be aware of how your mission for card game greatness is affecting your life. No trophy is worth risking your health or relationships over.
I wish you well on your unique journeys through Flesh and Blood. You’re not losing if you’re learning.
Matt di Marco is a competitive Flesh and Blood player and author of content relating to gameplay and strategy. The opinions expressed in the above article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Legend Story Studios.