Article by: One Who Gets Crits, Commander Jaime

Hey amigos, long time no see! This article is a bit different from the usual. Today I will be explaining my personal tips on what helps a player OR a team get to Top 8 in a big event.

What is Top 8? In a big tournament, there are a certain amount of rounds, typically 5-10. Once those rounds finish, the top 8 players OR top 8 teams (Team League) with the best records and tie breakers, will face off in a small elimination tournament of 3 rounds. Typically the bigger prizes fall unto the top 3/4 players OR teams (Team League).

Top 8 is quite the achievement and many players have come so close onto placing in it. For achieving Top 8, depending on the host such as Bushiroad, ARG, etc, you are awarded with prizes. They range from mats, pins, national invites, Top 8 pictures, etc. It’s a great experience and is a way of proving your skills as a player. And consistently topping event to event validates it every time.

So how can I get skilled enough to achieve Top 8? It’s a common question that all players, that haven’t achieved it yet, ask themselves. I’ll share my personal experience and what has helped me as a player finally achieve Top 8 and as well as consistently doing from one event to another. I will include my personal experience from a Team League perspective as well.

As A Player

The Mental Barrier

For some players it can be a mental barrier. Which has happened to me in the past. For example, before I was playing Vanguard competitively, I was playing Yu-Gi-Oh! competitively. For 2 years, I was always short on making it to Top 32 in a big event. At the time I placed 35th as the closest. Yu-Gi-Oh! at the time had much bigger events that the top 32 players get prizes too.

So what broke the mental barrier? Learning from my mistakes from each event which included plays, card choices, etc. You will fail your way to success. It’s being honest with yourself on where you are currently are as a skilled player and learning from the mistakes you WILL make along the way.

Sometimes players when they see other players start topping events out of nowhere, it’s almost like they had an epiphany, eureka moment, or an overnight success hit them. The truth is, it’s from practicing, learning, improving, making mistakes, etc over a period of time. I’m sure there are plenty of players that have gone through this.

Top 8 As A Goal

What is the goal for you playing at the big event? Achieving Top 8 as a goal for yourself is a great goal! But, are you WILLING to do what it takes to actually earn your spot in Top 8?

So what does it take? You can break it down logically. Typically to earn a spot in Top 8, depending on the size of the event, you MUST have a great win record and sometimes with good tie breakers. Typically, win records of X-0, X-1, and sometimes X-2 are sufficient to get into Top 8. Those records mean that you MUST win all of your rounds with maybe 1 to 2 losses in the process at the worst. Tie breakers become important when you have a win record of X-1 or X-2. Ideally, you would want your losses be against the players that also have great win records to help improve your chances.

Win One Game At A Time

When you see those win records, it almost feels like it’s an impossible goal to achieve. But the key is to break it down into smaller goals for you to achieve along the way. Let’s break it down.

Let’s say a big event has 10 rounds. So what do the win records of X-1 and X-2 look like? You MUST win 8-9 rounds overall. You can lose 1-2 rounds. That’s it.

Now, what does a round look like? Depending on the event, a round can be the best of 2 out of 3 games OR 1 game. Regardless of how many games in a round, focus on winning ONE game at a time.

If you focus on winning one game at a time, those add up to winning the round. If you keep focusing the same way each round, those rounds will add up to your win record. That’s it.

Disclaimer for the 2 out of 3 games per round. If you won the 1st game and in the 2nd game you’re in a position where you will lose, it may be wise to surrender that 2nd game asap. So that you have plenty of time left in the round to win the 3rd game. But only do this, if you know for sure you cannot win that 2nd game. Otherwise go on and win that 2nd game.

“You Can Only Control What You Can Control. You Can’t Control What You Can’t Control.”

Sounds really simple doesn’t it? Yet A LOT of players don’t use this success principle. Let me explain.

What can I control?

Your attitude

Your preparation

Your expectation

Your emotions

Your plays

Your deck and card choices

What can’t I control?

Luck factor in any card game (drive checks, 6th damage healing, etc)

The hand you’re dealt with

Your opponent’s plays and skill level

Unfair deck match-ups

What I Can Control

Myself

Your attitude, preparation, expectation, and emotions are tied together. You must prepare for an event via practicing with better or equivalent players, consistently, and learn from your practicing. With that and tied with a positive attitude, then you can have a great expectation and feel confident in performing to the BEST of YOUR ability in the event. I repeat, being able to perform to the BEST of YOUR ability.

When all of these are done, then through the event you are also more emotionally stable. Many players start making mistakes once pressure and emotions start influencing them. Especially if you’re in time or limited turns. It WILL cause you to lose the game and even the whole goal of achieving Top 8 if they overcome you.

Another example, in the last round to determine if you make it to Top 8, it can be very stressful. Not to mention that players will start coming around your game and watch you play. Which can be nerve wrecking when there’s like 5 or more players watching your every move, including mistakes.

The Deck To Pilot

The other thing as a player you can control is the deck you choose to play with at the big event. I won’t go into super detail, that can be its own separate article. So I’ll do a high level.

Factors to consider when taking a certain deck

Relevancy in the current meta game played at the event

Match-ups

Consistency

Your ability to play the deck well by the day of the event

A deck’s relevancy in the current meta game is like an umbrella of things. Is it an aggressive, control, or win condition type of deck. Does it have power plays, a draw engine, multi attack, etc. Is it a early game, mid game, or late game based? What are the other relevant decks that are being played that can affect my deck?

A concrete example is the triangle meta game years ago with Nightrose, Time Leap, & Luard. It was a meta game that favored multi attack turns and draw advantage for the Nightrose & Time Leap decks. Luard had access to recyclable Perfect Guards, strong strides, and being able to stride consistently thanks to Luard’s skill. Everything else basically struggled due to being overwhelmed by multi attack turns, aggression early on, or lose to not being able to keep up in hand advantage or consistency compared to those 3 decks.



It’s important to know your match-ups so that you have a game plan on each of those. So going into your games you already know how to win. It helps because you can now focus on the opponent’s plays. You can even take advantage if they make a mistake in order to quickly win the game. Otherwise you would just follow your game plan and win.

For example, as an Aqua Force player piloting a Thavas deck with the support of GBT13. I learned important match-ups against Overlord, Chaos, Darkface, Victor eventually, and the rest of the decks. With knowing those match-ups well, I was able to go into my games with confidence in coming out as the victor.

Consistency is KEY! If you plan to play in a big event of a lot of rounds, then you definitely want a consistent deck! You don’t want to lose games due to “bricking”. Most decks you can improve the consistency up to a certain point. Also, recognize some decks just have better consistency than others. Like decks that can easily search or draw tend to be very consistent throughout the whole game.

Learn how to play the deck very well to the point it’s muscle memory. You’ll be more confident in piloting it during the event. My personal experience, it’s usually better to take your 2nd best deck if you’re significantly much more familiar and confident with than the “best” deck you can acquire if you don’t have sufficient time to learn how to play it well. I will NEVER take a deck to a big event that I’m not confident in playing well, you’ll scrub out.

What I Can’t Control

In any game there are luck factors and yes they can mean the difference between you winning and losing. But that’s literally something you CANNOT control. Unless you manipulated your deck, you will NEVER know what your drive checks are, your draws, your starting hand, nor your opponent 6th damage healing. Focus on what you can control.

What has helped me, in testing with friends or yourself, is creating those scenarios to see how you can react to them if they do happen and still win. For example, if you put your testing friend to 6th damage, you’ve won that game. But both of you decide to consider it a 6th damage heal. From there continue on the turn to see the impact it has and learn from it. Have your testing friend start with the ideal hand for their deck and/or have a not so great starting hand for yourself and go from there.

Your opponent’s skill level is something you don’t know. It’s usually better to assume that they are in fact a skilled player. If you recognize they made a mistake, then take advantage of it. Also, if you recognize the player isn’t very skilled DO NOT get cocky or underestimate them. They can surprise you or perhaps a luck factor can turn the tables against you. Follow your game plan and win.

Unfair match-ups are unfair match-ups. There’s only so much you can do in those games. Preparing against those match-ups are important because you can in fact still win them. An opponent can get cocky and is your KEY to win the game even if you have the unfair odds. Plus you never know if the luck factor works in your favor. Do your best to win!

As A Team

How do we as a team achieve Top 8? A team must be in UNITY in order to achieve something like Top 8. Otherwise, your team will scrub out before you can get there. In Team League, 3 players can play as a team. Each player plays ONE game against another team’s player. The team as a whole must win 2 of 3 games in order to win the round.

The whole team must be in agreement in having the same goal. If 1 or 2 people want to actually achieve Top 8 while the other person or two just want to have fun, then the chances of achieving Top 8 shrink down to practically none. If each player agrees that Top 8 is the goal, then make sure each of you follow what I’ve recommended in the above section “As A Player”.

Now with that in mind, there is in fact another dimension that players must understand playing as a team. With my personal experience, it took a few times playing as a team to really learn the important factors.

The Team Coming Together & Team Morale

Before The Event

It’s important to figure out who’s playing in the team. DO NOT leave it last minute otherwise the chances of the team working well throughout the event are slim. Once a team is figured out, it’s best to figure out which decks are going to be played and by whom.

I will emphasize on this, have a GOOD, OPEN MINDED, and SMART conversation of who is playing what deck and potential seating. Sometimes it’s not as simple as, “Just play the best 3 decks of the meta game.“. Some players are very skilled in certain clans or decks, take that into consideration. As well as consider my statement from earlier, “it’s usually better to take your 2nd best deck if you’re significantly much more familiar and confident with than the ‘best’ deck you can acquire if you don’t have sufficient time to learn how to play it well.“.

A concrete example would be our last team league that I participated in. I played Thavas, Miguel played Overlord, and Eduardo play Victor. At the time, people didn’t really consider Thavas to be a top deck in that current meta game. But I demonstrated to my teammates that I was very confident and skilled in playing Thavas. We made it all the way to 4th place overall as a result.

Also, help the newbie up to speed. There are some situations where all 3 players are seasoned players or not. So it’s important to help that newer person catch up to the level of the teammates. I recommend practicing together and talking out turns, plays, scenarios, results, etc. It’ll help tremendously speed up on closing that gap.

During The Event

It is very important that your team morale is always high and positive. We as players will make mistakes and it’s IMPORTANT for the other two players to encourage each other. A LOT of people will get caught up with their mistakes from a prior game that will influence their performance for the REST of the event! So it’s IMPORTANT to help each other on avoiding getting into a RUT or getting out of one quickly! Believe me, you want the next rounds to be a 3 vs 3, NOT a 2 vs 3 or worse.

It goes back to what we CAN control which are our attitude, preparation, expectation, and emotions. Keep each other calm, confident, and have a positive attitude going into the next rounds. The KEY is UNITY.

We as players have to have a high level of maturity and being supportive. Most people believe that when they make mistakes they see it as like a huge failure and sulk in it. It’s okay and it’s in the past, you CANNOT change it. So LEARN from it and focus on your next game.

By being supportive I mean be encouraging all the time when appropriate. When people are doing well compliment them, just make sure they don’t build a level of cockiness or arrogance. It will become their downfall if that happens. When a teammate does do a mistake or lose a game, let them know it’s okay. Next round y’all will do better and win.

After The Event

I recommend going out to have some food with your teammates and reflect from the event. Be OPEN MINDED and HUMBLE about discussing mistakes, game losses, or even some instances of impossible wins. Also, it’s also important to point out game wins, great plays, etc as well. Learn from both the negatives and positives from the event.

If discussing about a teammate’s mistake(s), BE GRACEFUL. You can say something along the lines of, “I’ve made those mistakes before,….“. That signifies that everyone can make the same mistake beforehand and have learned from it. Your teammate will be more open to hear constructive criticism if you talk with grace.

If you guys accomplished your goal, definitely celebrate it! If not, then just learn from it and decide to further improve for the next event and reach your goal.

Closing Thoughts

Always Give Credit

It’s always important to give credit where it’s due. In person or in a YouTube video. Every deck profile I’ve done on my channel since the beginning, I’ve always gave credit to the people who have helped me. My good friend and mentor, David Adipratama; for my group of friends that I play and practice with; and even sometimes family and loved ones. Because of them, you’ve gone as far as you could thanks to them. Even if you don’t achieve the goal you had for Top 8, you couldn’t have gone as far as you could without their help and/or contribution.

I Followed Your Advice But Did Not Achieve Top 8

It’s a learning process, it took me 2 years of competitive playing in Yu-Gi-Oh! to finally achieve some level of success. Luckily, card games are very similar where you can transfer success in one to the next fairly quickly. That’s what happened with me in Vanguard. I played both card games but I was focused more on Yu-Gi-Oh!. But literally when it came time to be competitive in Vanguard, I used what I learned from my experiences from Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Again, “You will fail your way to success.“. Have a positive attitude from each defeat or failure so that you will learn from it. Build your confidence and your expectation, then you WILL achieve the level of success you are seeking. Go out there and improve my amigo!