"Midweek Magic 2017 #12 - Standard learnings and Mental fatigue sets in"

"Bringing peace to your opponents"

"Midweek Magic 2017 #12 - Standard learnings and Mental fatigue sets in"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

I guess it is possible to have too much of a good thing and I was feeling that a bit from last week and this week too. I have to admit that I am feeling a bit mental fatigued from playing the game that I love and I know that it does come with the territory. In my line of work I have to make rapid clinical assessments and decide on management choices in both my day and night clinics , filtering through hundreds of diseases and drugs in my mind at a fast pace to be able to respond to my patients needs. 

So what do I choose as my form of leisure? I chose a game where I also have to make threat assessments and manage my life totals and think of ways to win all the while making alliances or at times managing other players decks when we are in cooperative mode. "Way to go", my brain told me. "Make yourself more tired." Of course if you know me I never listen to my brain when it comes to resting when I want to play so bad.

"Guess where I am sticking this?"

Last week I began playtesting what I believe would be my deck for this years GP Manila(2017).And my first real standard test was against my brother , Aj who has been playing more of standard than I have at this point. FNM and tournament level style of play he has more experience than I do even if I was the one who got him hooked in this game.That night he was running a Boros vehicles deck that could take care of creatures and furnish wins via Peacewalker Activation of other vehicles or Siege Modification activations. 

I know that the whole point of the play test was to check the weaknesses of my deck , learn  how to react to certain situations , decide which lands to drop first or when to choose to play certain spells or creatures. Should I remove this potential threat or take in damage in the early rounds first. In essence it was to make sure that I play with the best possible outcomes based on the material that I had. 

My brother and I did this in Neutral Grounds Eton Centris and after a few rounds of almost even wins and losses I had to say that I had to use a lot of brain power on concentrating to win and react properly. Pros can do this instantaneously I know and could easily smooth out their decks easily as well. I had fun no doubt about it but I suddenly remembered those Grueling rounds of Game Days and past GP's. I sincerely have to do something about my brain stamina. Maybe enter into once of those trances where I shut off everything that is not vital. Tough luck with that.

So far I have encountered Boros Vehicles(AJ) ,  B/R Vampires(Ram) , R/G Energy (Janry) and Jund Energy(Raphael) ,even Temur Tower (Carlos). I look forward to battling Mardu Vehicles and the Saheeli cat's soon.I am thankful for the play testing guys and I maybe tired but there is so much more to learn. I hope I can survive these decks when the GP comes. Time to play test some more.