I am Mark Littlefield, I’m 17, I live in New Hampshire in the middle of nowhere significant, and I have the “Fire.”
I started playing in Magic tournaments during 2004. I was fourteen and I was going to own my first tournament. There was no way anyone here could deal with my Thorn Elementals. Oh yea, there was no way that they could deal with that seven damage coming their way. Unless, you know, they had ANY removal spell ever…
Ladies and Gentlemen: I was Timmy Incarnate
I still remember two things from that first game and the excruciating loss of all innocence:
-Opponent’s turn: “Arcbound Ravager”
-My turn: “What do you mean I’m dead?”
From this point I had a long downhill road ahead of me. For a long time I just never got better at Magic. Playing against me was essentially akin to solitairing out your deck…only somehow I put up less resistance. I never developed my game. I always had haphazard concoctions with no real objective when it came to actually playing. This trend continued until I hit the astoundingly low rating of 1490…
I’m not really sure what happened when I turned fifteen, but everything started to turn around. My theory is that one morning I woke up and said to myself, “I’m going to suck less at Magic.” My decks became more focused on my metagame. I actually accredit my improved deck building to basic math. Not the operations of numerals mind you, but with the following equation: Birds of Paradise + Stone Rain + Eternal Witness = A Tooth and Nail player with a significantly lower rating. It was a good morale boost for me. I was gaining rating points like it was nobody’s business. And at States 2005 I was able to pilot a Rock Deck to a record high enough to get me over 1600. I thought, “Yea I broke even… let’s see where I can go from here…”
Over the next couple years I would get better. I played with better players, made friends, and started to realize just how competitive Magic was. Moreover, it became apparent to me that I wanted to be good at Magic. I aimed for 1700...and I got there. And when I was in pursuit of 1800 I fell in love with the card Island (Our third anniversary is this July). While drafting also became an addiction of mine and I haven’t broken it since. I’ve tried to organize eight man support groups but they turned into drafts somehow. When all was said and done my highest constructed rating would be in the 1830’s. Then this past extended season would take its toll on me….
My choice for the format was UG Tron, which I would pilot through 2 unfortunate records of 3-4 (drop) and 1-3 (drop). I never saw it coming. I actually tested for the format when usually I rely on my natural skill. I felt defeated, like every moment I ever spent getting better was a waste, that I was still a novice just trying to feign superior play skill. However, this period of self pity was brief for me. A revelation hit me: I didn’t start getting worse, I just stopped getting better.
My level of skill had stagnated and I stopped pushing myself to reach a higher level of play. I was content with being a good player within my local area. Just being able to excel in tournaments located in one environment where my natural acuity without any testing was enough to get me by. I had settled for this.
I could have bemoaned my match ups instead of blaming myself. I still find it a bit ridiculous that I faced fully loaded double tribal flames five times. However, I realized that this didn’t explain my other losses. Looking back I realized that my preparation for the format was improper. I stuck to the same deck in testing, stubbornly determined to play Tron rather than anything else. While my testing partners essentially did the same thing. Once we found a deck that fit for our individual preferences we stuck to it and tested against each other. The problem being that we were testing against ourselves rather than preparing for the rest of the format.
I ended up talking to my friend James about my extended experience and he offered this explanation: It was my first try at the extended format and if it were standard I would have done well. This provoked the following response:
“I do not want to be a good standard player… I want to be a great player.”
From this moment I realized that I had the “Fire.” I am no longer content to just simply be good at Magic. That conviction has been replaced with a thirst to excel at it. I will test. I will improve. I will play. And I will write.
Tags: Magic
