Welcome back for another installment of Magic: The Budgeting. I’ve been getting quite a bit of feedback from you on what you would like to see in the future and I’m excited about the weekly posts we have coming up in the next few weeks. It’s great to see this kind of interest in playing on a budget and people wanting to learn this great game. Thanks for all the comments and messages you have given me to improve and support this blog.

We all know the story of David and Goliath. Today’s post is about that moment when you feel like your budget deck is ready to take on the big boys and move from the kitchen table to the tournament table. You may even just want to see if a deck has any sort of potential. We all have those moments where we want to extend and feel out the real competition. This adventurous feeling will usually result in one of three things. You surprise everyone and win or nearly win the whole thing, you do just as you expected you would do and leave feeling you accomplished something or you go home dejected and heartbroken. Let’s look at some key points to make sure you don’t do the latter.

Set Realistic Goals

We all know the story of David and Goliath but don’t walk in expecting to floor the field with some profound deck nobody has seen before. Let’s face it, if your deck was so overpowered and dominating, it would be a well known winning deck played by all the top players. Before you sit down set your goals. Do you want to make the playoffs in a small Friday Night Magic tournament? Do you want to win 50% of your games? Do you want to win one match? If you set realistic goals for your evening then all you have to do is achieve them.

Learn the Big Four Decks

When building any deck that you may wind up taking to a tournament ask yourself, “How to I beat the top four decks in the game?” If you don’t have an answer, you may have a bad time. For any serious game of Magic you MUST have an answer for your competition or you just won’t be able to come out of the corner swinging. This is why the mainstream decks do well, because they answer the bell.

You are both Predator and Prey

When you sit down to face an opponent with a budget deck you need to realize two things, your deck is likely weaker and your opponent is scared to death of it. Nobody wants to be the guy that loses two games to the budget brew and chances are they have never seen your deck in action. Use this to your advantage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to totally mind game your opponent. I’m just saying, I’ve been on both sides of this. Both sides are a bit nervous in these kinds of match-ups and if you know that and are comfortable, you have the advantage. The worst thing that can happen to you is you lose a match-up you aren’t favored in and there is no shame in that.

Not Everyone Likes the Underdog

You are playing a deck more serious players would consider “trash”, “garbage” or a “glorified per-construct theme deck”. More vocal players will talk badly about your deck with friends using these terms, some may even tell you to your face, especially after a frustrating loss where they were favored. I’ve been on the receiving end of this. Don’t expect fanfare after you beat someone you shouldn’t had and please don’t brag. Just shake your opponent’s hand, tell them you had a fun game (“Good game” doesn’t usually sit well with opponents on the receiving end of an upset) and smile to yourself later. Rubbing it in does nobody any good, especially if you dashed the hopes of someone expecting to make the finals. If you are on the receiving end of verbal abuse you can do one of two things: Take it on the chin and move on to the next opponent or report it to a judge or tournament director.

My experience with playing the dark horse has been both good and bad. On one occasion I stepped into a new store I’ve never been to for a small Modern tournament. I brought along a Mono-Black Discard Infect deck. I could tell from the dejected faces from the defeated that I wasn’t winning any popularity contests. Things got tense as I made it to the finals against a very poor match-up for myself and I was beaten only to receive a minor tongue lashing from the winner about my deck and play style. I chalked it up to the tension of playing against a discarding infect deck and let it go. The following week I came back to the store and won, making chit chat with the patrons to ease any tensions in between rounds.

On the better side of things I once brought a jank filled deck filled to the brim with flicker spells and creatures with come into play abilities. I gave myself the goal of winning half my matches and I achieved it, making some good friends during the evening. Some of the people I played even recommended some cards I had initially overlooked to make my deck run even better.

I hope this guide on playing David in the land of Goliaths helps you step thru the emotional minefield of Magic: The Gathering can be. Not all the battles you face in Magic will be settled on the table.

As many of you readers know, the Planeswalker’s Apprentice articles each week feature two characters and follow their stories as they learn about Magic. Currently each of these characters are a blank slate and both need names. This is where you come in. I would like you, the reader to name each of the characters. I could do it myself but I’d like to involve all of you in this blog’s growth. Take just a few moments either on Twitter https://twitter.com/TheAiokii, my new Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thepaperchampionblog, or in the comments below and name these two main characters in my future blogs.

Apprentice 1: A frustrated fellow that is being trained by his mentor, an actual Planeswalker.

Apprentice 2: A young street urchin given spells by a mysterious benefactor.