In case you haven't noticed, MTGO is quite the wasteland now that DE's and PE's aren't around, but that will change soon because they'll be coming back after the downtime on December 11th! Huzzah!! So in 2-3 weeks I'll be back to doing Daily Events hoping to get that elusive 4-0 that has been quite difficult to get.

With that said, today I want to talk reflect upon my playing ability, and what I can do to make it better. First off, I hate to mulligan. I'm more inclined to do so on the draw, but on the play I hate to mulligan. This mostly happens in Limited, where the individual cards are more important since the disparity between your best card and worst card is much greater than your best card and worst card in Constructed. I believe that Constructed decks mulligan better, since a lot of your cards are inherently powerful/replaceable, whereas in Limited this is not the case. I also just don't like being down cards, especially in a format where card advantage is hardly existent. Most of this is easily solved by being on the draw, but there are some matchups where giving your opponent initiative can spell defeat on the spot. I will try to be on the draw more often and ship back loose keeps, but it's a tough habit to break once you're used to doing it often. More so than mulligans, I think what is holding me back is poor execution during gameplay. I've definitely made my share of punts/misplays even though I have a good grasp of the format. I think Theros is far less forgiving to misplays than M14, simply because M14 was a slow format and Theros can punish you with small fast Heroic creatures. The way to fix my execution is to think through all my options and not commit to any one choice too quickly. That said, let's open some packs!

Deckbuilding

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Draft

Round 1

Deckbuilding

Round 1

Round 2

Conclusion

I definitely think I wasn't playing well/making optimal decisions in the Theros Sealed and Draft, but I turned that around in the Two Ticket Tuesday event. I did the Sealed and Draft and I was pretty disgusted at how both turned out. I felt like I was playing bad Magic but didn't exactly know why. I took some time to think about it and I played an IRL draft where I won pretty easily and it forced me to think about what I was doing differently. Other than drafting black, I was making the best possible plays every turn and playing around the cards that I knew were in the format. Before, I was kinda on autopilot and just playing cards rather than looking at the turns ahead and trying to make the best plays every turn. Not to mention there are hands that I kept online that I just auto shipped in real life. I'm not entirely sure why I'm playing better IRL than online, they should be about the same really. In any case, I hope to correct that quickly and play consistently no matter where I am. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below.

Thanks for reading/watching!