Competative Attitude and Sportsmanship

This will be a difficult topic for both me and you, dear reader. Today I will be writing about how to think competitively, but also how to be respectful of your opponents and rivals. Trading card games have reached the point where they can be considered a mental sport, much like video games are turning into full blown events. Magic the gathering has massive events streamed to the world with high production values, amazing commentators and high level prize pools. Buddyfight seems to be trying to take Vanguards trail and rush its way into a competitive scene, evident with the buddy challenge giving away plane tickets to even bigger events when the game is not even at its 3rd biggest set. This is a risky move by Busiroad, and I'm really excited for it. As I write this I am preparing for Australia's buddy challenge in Melbourne, and I've been training and reefing both my skills and deck for the big day, and I feel both confident and anxious, which honestly is a weird feeling. I feel incredibly confident of actually wining this tournament, being one of the first to take this game seriously and competitively, but also anxious about fighting those I have never had before, and at the chance of me not even making the finals, despite me consistently winning against a variety of foes. This could be because I haven't faced nearly enough magic world decks, but I still feel confident. And I wondered why, and fortunately a podcast was able to provide the answer. Limited resources is a Magic the gathering podcast focused on limited formats for the game, but recently they had one of the biggest commentators of the game, Rich Hagon, interviewed on the podcast, and I got valuable information from it. They talked about many things on the podcast, in-fact I recommend listening to it even if you are not a Magic fan (Heck I only have one deck I have actually paid for and its a commander pre-built deck), but the biggest things I got from it was how to think competitively and how to be a good sportsman even in a game that the majority of society doesn't consider a sport. As such, that is why I am talking about it today.

So what makes the average casual player of any game or sport different from the competitive, hard-core player. Its state of mind and how they think. Its also many other things such as how much they play but these are the factors I will go into today. If you look at DOTA2/LOL players and high level Magic players, they don't care about the qualifiers, no they care about the finals. They don't care about going to the next round, they care about that last game. They look at the future as if its the present, and the present as the past, an aspect of their journey that helped them get there, but not worth noting if they were to write a book of their battles. They are confident they will win, they know they will win. Yes it took them time to get there, but I feel like I can reach this stage in buddyfight as soon as I get the time to do so, and that's this week. Don't think you will lose, keep that out of your mind. Yes it always a possibility, but don't think you will. You must feel like a winner to be a winner. How you get to this stage, I have no idea. At the moment for me it's because of the lack of enthusiasm for the game in my area, making me feel like I'm the best player around, the only one that cares about winning in this game at all. In fact, at my last tournament when I was talking to someone about the event, she said the only reason people were going to the buddy challenge was to get the free goodies for entering, and instantly I said a defiant "no, not me, I am going to win it." Your goal is to be that one player that someone looks at and says, "He is the guy to beat," that player that is so good at the game, the rare mortal that defeats them has a long winded story of the match they won in. For the longest time in my area, for vanguard, that has been a man called Ben. He is a nice guy that simply likes the game and is the stores' resident gimmick player, the guy that tries to find decks that do something a little more crazy to win such as mega-colony and tachikaze. Give him one of those decks and he will win consistently enough to make you think he is unbeatable, but give him a proper competitive deck, and he wont lose. I am not sure how he or anyone else like him are like that, they have seemed to work out the long secret of the games skill and fused it with an immense amount of luck (At least that's the theory) but if you are that guy, you will tend to be the person who goes into a tournament not caring about matches till the final round. At the moment, I only know one other person in my area who could take the spot of 'guy to beat' in buddyfight, and that is the one player I fear for this tournament as I have never fought him. As such I have a strange feeling of my mind being the most confident it has ever been in my life, but my body being a nervous wreck shivering where ever I go and the cold doesn't help.

So thinking competitively is important if you want to win, but you also can't be a jerk about winning or losing if you do so. Sportsmanship should be one of the most important aspects of any game. A toxic player can create a poisoned community full of players that are rude when winning and complain horribly about losing. The unfortunate problem with thinking like losing is never going to happen, is that if you do lose there are 3 different responses: 1. you look back on the game and see what mistakes you made, what good plays your opponent made and learn from this review of your game. 2. you sit there in shock realising you just missed out on being the best player around or possibly the world, or 3. you complain like crazy saying incredibly insensitive language to everyone around and making everyone's day worse. You should try your best to do the first option. To do that, be what I like to call a slacker. A slacker is someone who really doesn't do much and kind of just goes with the flow, and normally this is in negative context, and I wouldn't recommend doing this all the time, but the good part about being a slacker is what ever puts you down you simply shrug off and continue your day. The trick with this is turning that attitude on and off, and its not easy. If you are a slacker normally, you must learn how not to be, and if you are serious all the time, you need to learn how to relax when the time calls for it. I can tell you this right know this is difficult to learn and impossible to teach, at least for me, as I learned this without even noticing. For example, when I go into a test, I will work my but off trying to get as high of a score I can, but once I get the scores, if its high I'm happy, if its alright I simply think that was good and go on working, and if its less than 50% I'm unhappy but I also just go and realise I need to do better and continue my life. I'm probably going to be like that when exams come around. There are other ways as well, probably way better than my philosophy, but the best way of keeping calm in any game is well, simply reminding yourself its a game. Watching high level magic players, they are always calm and calculated and respectful when they are defeated, and they simply think its a game when that happens and try to work out how to be better next time. If you go watch the film "Free to Play" you will see that DOTA2 players are crazy when playing, but if they lose, well they are really disappointed, and I don't blame them that was the first massive tournament video games have ever received, but they didn't take it out on others like some people. They continued with their lives and continued to play the game, and I think its simply because they looked back and said, "its just a game", because it is, no matter how big the prize is, no matter how much time you put in, even if you are paid for it, you started playing the game because it was a game, and you should play it as a game. But enough of me ranting about how to be good at sportsman ship, I haven't actually gone and talked much about it have I, so lets do that.

Bad sportsmanship involves:

• Being a sore loser: When you lose and you start talking about the other player as if you should have one, complaining about the match overly and overall just being negative about the game.
• Being a sore winner: When you win and you start being all high and mighty about it, saying the other players suck or, if we look at some of Pokemon's current community, some of them say this, "If I lose I suck, if you lose we both suck." They say this because you tend to lose in pokemon if you have made one or two bad decisions, and if you have this means in Pokemon players eyes, you are a bad player (Note this isn't all competitive Pokemon, in-fact its mostly the online communities that do this, not real life tournaments and even then its fairly rare). This is bad for both players both on an emotional level and a competitive level, as both players don't learn anything from this and lower their own expectations.
• Cheating: Pretty self explanatory, if you need to cheat then I can go outright and say you just suck and are a jerk, but then again that would be rude of myself.
• Trying to annoy or anger your opponent: Hand in hand with cheating if you are doing this that is rude and very unjustified.
• Various other rude acts in an attempt to win or in response to the result of the game.

Good Sportsmanship involves:

• Shaking hands with the opponent before and after the game: I love that allot of players do this. shaking hands is the most simple and one of the most effective ways of showing respect to others.
• Not saying GG unless the other player says it first or you lost: It has been shown that if you are the winner and say GG, especially if it wasn't really a good game for your opponent, it can act as a rub in the face for the other player. Proper GG conduct should be practiced.
• Not bragging or being over reactive of winning or losing: you don't need to do this, but I can understand if someone asked or if it was one of the greatest games you ever had. Just be respectful of the other player.
• Giving tips to the other player if you notice if they are new or inexperienced: This is a tricky one, as you need to be careful you are not insulting the other player. and make sure its after the game, during or before the game can seem like you are high and mighty about it.
• Not being a jerk: Card games are a social kind of game. A such you need to realize that not only do you need other players to play the game, but others are playing it for fun just like you should be. Simply don't be a jerk about everything.

Ok so that that off my chest, hope this help you guys because it certainly helped me. Go listen to Limited Resources and Drive to Work if you want to think more competitively about card games, they help allot even if you have no care for Magic the gathering. Also Drive to Work will help anyone interested in game design like I am, just something in case you are interested. So that's all for today, Giraton Out!

Bonus section: A healthy player is a good player!
So i almost forgot this, but i must stress this, you biggest enemy in competitive games is when you stop playing the game. This doesn't mean you straight up stop playing literally, but your mind stops thinking about the game and you simply well, stop playing well. All card games as of this time are mentally based, so when you stop thinking properly, you will lose. So to avoid this there are a few things you need to do to make sure you are in tip top shape for playing Buddyfight.
1. Sleep
Sleep well and your mind will be clear as day. So many benefits from sleeping well its stupid not to get good sleep.
2. Eat well
If you are the kind of guy that skips breakfast, don't do it before any major event. Make sure you are well fed with healthy food and you will think much clearer.
3. Drink enough water
This is something i need to do myself. Drinking water is important for anyone and anything. Remember that. I don't remember how much you should drink, but if you tend to not go to the toilet often or you find any part of your body overly dry or if you get headaches often, drink more than you are now.
4. Exercise
I don't care how much of a nerd you are, exercise is good for you. Not only does it keep you fit, but a good quiet walk can help keep your mind clear and in top thinking condition. I also need to do more of this myself, I've been slacking off.
5. Video games and other mentally challenging tasks.
Playing other games and other mentally challenging tasks such as doing a casual math task from time to time will keep your mind ready for any problem solving. Buddyfight matches are like one on one puzzle games, and you need to solve the problem of defeating your opponent. As such any mental exercise will help your problem solving skills.