Welcome back readers!
Today, I want to discuss a rather popular topic, the
topic is: The Luck Factor.
Even if you want to say things like "You can come back
from that stuff!", and "Your making to big of a deal
over it, its just a little God hand!". The luck factor,
is still there. Very much so actually. This "Luck
Factor" affects everyone. Some of the best players that
the USA Has to offer fail at major tournaments because
of, this, Luck Factor*.
In my case, the only large tournament I have honestly
performed well in was the last formats Regional
tournament. We had about 75 people, most of them, not
very good. I brought 3 of my friends, and we all did
very good. I went 7-0 in the Swiss rounds, and then won
my top 8 match to score my invitation to nationals. In
top 4, I lost to the same guy I 2-0'd in the last round
of Swiss, his deck was based around drawing Pot Of
Greed, Painful Choice, Confiscation, and The Forceful
Sentry every hand. :).
Now, besides that tournament, I went to the Orlando Sjc
in the last format, I did OK, dropping after my second
loss in round 6(Either that or round 7, I dunno) due to
a bad headache, and a lot of other things I don't want
to get into.
Enter, the NEW Advanced Format.
In the NEW Advanced format, I have failed to show an
impressive record in the following tournaments:
Houston Sjc
NJ Sjc
2 Regionals
Now, I won't get into my losses, they sucked. The
regional's happened after my first regional, where I got
my invite, which leads to, Me scooping atleast 2 times
in each regional. Although I did lose the first round of
the Houston Regional to some amazing topdecks :).
All of those events, were, very luck based. In the
Houston Sjc, I received 2 losses, where I was told to
drop by my team, to help with the side events. I lost to
Osmon Ortiz, of Comic Odyssey, and, Mario Begay, who
went 9-0 in Swiss. In the New Jersey Sjc, I played
against 2 members of the Pojo.com forums, Dan M, and
Mark W. I lost to Dan first, he got delinquent duo every
hand, all three games, and in game 1 and 2, he had Pot
Of Greed to follow it up. I can't come back from that
much luck at one time :). Mark got a very nice opening
hand of Graceful Charity, Sinister Serpent, Magician Of
Faith, and Delinquent Duo in our first game.
In the second game though, I did beat him after a long
game with him opening with Delinquent Duo, with only 7
seconds remaining on the clock. We went into Sudden
Death, where I lost because of my lack of monsters, I
had a lot of things sided, but I digress.
Just look at some of the reports in the Tournament
Report section on this site, read some of those reports.
9 times out of 10 you will see someone say "He got
Pot/Graceful/Duo in the opening hand and won".
That IS sort of dramatic, you can definitely come back
from just one of the trinity cards, and its not terribly
hard to come back from all three, if you, have these:
1. A nice hand even after the Delinquent Duo
2. Nice skills :)
If you have those, you can come back. But most of the
time, if the opponent is lucky enough to pull all of
those, then he is lucky enough to discard your Pot Of
Greed/Other momentum shifting card off of the random
discard of Delinquent Duo**.
The bottom line is, The luck factor IS there, and it is
here to stay, atleast until October, when the NEW
Advanced format is here. You can't stop people from
complaining about it, we will just have to deal until
the new format is out :).
I have to run now, Me and some of my friends have a
night of Lazer Tag planned in celebration of my recent
birthday ;oooo.
Bye for now...
-Rj
* The massacre that was, US Nationals 2005.
** Happened to me in 3 out of the 4 games I played, in
said nationals.
