The Art of the Mental Game

About Joel Calafell

Joel Calafell

Joel is a Level 6 Pro Player from Spain who helped develop well-known combo decks such as Cephalid Breakfast or the recent Cascade Swans, he loves playing almost every format and has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:

• Top 8 Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur
• Winner Grand Prix Barcelona
• Three Grand Prix Top 8
• 63 Lifetime Pro Points
• Level 6 Pro Players Club member

The Mental Game

Sometimes I see people complain about never winning, or never having enough luck to win. What they fail to realize is, that it’s not really about luck, it’s more about the mental game. I know everyone wants to win at some point, but of course some people want to win more than others…

To me, the most important step every player has to go through when trying to reach a certain game level is, the set up of a competitive mentality. That’s when someone realizes that the game is not only entertainment anymore, but rather competitive playing. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the game as you did before, but that you will care much more about winning.

Actually, this feeling is strongly supported by results, so as long as we keep winning, it becomes even stronger. That’s right, if we win more we get more competitive, and we no longer see things the same way. On the other hand we all have bad dasys, and it’s hard to keep winning all the time, even when we don’t aim for the best results. Soon, though, the “doing well” at a tournament criteria starts to change: It’s no longer about winning more than losing, or even having played well, or making nice plays. It just turns into a “I win or not” situation. So let’s assume we just can’t win.

Frustration

Frustration Relief

I think, in these cases there are two possible reactions that can happen. One I will call the “short-term frustration”, and the other is the “long-term frustration”. The first one happens when we are doing badly at any tournament, we feel deceived, we get mad at ourselves, because we didn’t win, and we feel bad during the tournament and/or just immediately after the tournament. This is probably the most usual kind of frustration, and I think a healthy one overall, since it’s ok to be a little mad at ourselves if we lost because of our mistakes, as long as that does not affect our game.

Then there are people who have an apparently more resilient mentality, hence they don’t get immediately frustrated by their mistakes, and can keep playing with a more or less positive mentality, even if they are getting a poor result. But it might very well be that they are just developing a “long-term frustration”, which is, obviously, much worse.

I personally know some friends who have had a "magical long-term frustration" , and trust me; it’s not easy to get over it. It seems like they can easily overcome the situation and don’t get demoralized. It seems like they accept the situation or the bad results. But if it turns out to be always like that, and the losing streak continues, they might end up being frustrated for a long time. If that is the case, the possible reactions can go from a mere “I need a break, I’ll stop playing for a while and do something else” to a tragic “I’ll definitely quit the game”. While most of that people never actually do any of those in the end, especially quitting the game, it’s obviously not a good situation to be in.

But anyway, taking a break might be a good decision if you are really frustrated about it. Relax, and try to do something else for one month or two, or maybe three (just don’t hit a judge or break a table and it won’t be more than six months). You will probably think different when you come back to the game, and you aren't frustrated anymore. Now, if this is the case, you know how bad long-term frustration can be, so, from now on, if you think you have to feel bad in a tournament, do so, but don’t overextend it, do not keep it with you, because it will be much worse in the long time. Get furious because you misplayed! You are probably right! I think these reactions are quite normal when you care about winning.

Mistakes

But what happens if we let the frustration affect our game too much? That’s when we go on tilt. This is obviously pretty bad, and can be fatal for our aspirations. This has already been a very discussed topic in a lot of articles and I don’t think it needs further explanation, but let me just say that most of the mistakes we make are usually the consequence of previous mistakes. We are so worried trying to figure out why we made other mistakes, that we just stop thinking about what really matters and we make new ones due to not being focused enough. This obviously makes us feel even worse and that’s when we feel we messed up everything. We feel guilty and we know it’s only our fault. It really feels bad, I know, but the first thing we have to learn is how to avoid it.

In fact, noticing that it was our fault is a sign of having the correct mentality, because some people don’t even know it was their fault at all, as they keep thinking it was only because they got unlucky. You don’t know how terrible it is to think like that, and there are actually a lot of people who can’t stop blaming luck all the time.

Indeed, the best you can do is to just omit luck completely, as it should be the same for everyone. Just eliminate it from the equation, and act as though it didn’t even exist. When you realize this, you will soon accept that you can only blame yourself and your mistakes. That’s right, I recommend you to only blame yourself if you lost, because when you think like this you try to improve your game, your mentality, you try to be more focused. You try to do something to change what happened. But when you blame luck, it’s just a useless effort.

But let’s go back to that bad feeling. We know it’s our fault; we messed up our tournament and we lost because we weren’t mentally predisposed to win. We weren’t focused, and we were thinking about things that wouldn’t help us at all.

Motivation

Sometimes, losing a simple matchup can already affect our feelings, even if there is nothing we could have done, as there’s a huge psychological factor in this game. For example, there’s a big difference between starting 3-0 in a Grand Prix, than starting 1-2, or even 2-1, even if there are still 6 rounds to go. Yes, all those records can make it to the second day, and even get to the Top 8! But the motivation is not even close between the different players. For the player who started with two losses, playing correctly will be probably much more difficult than for the one who is X-0. This is because when we win all the time we pay more attention to what we do, we feel mentally better and we actually make fewer mistakes! Trying to think like that, even when we have lost once or twice already, needs such an extraordinary mentality, that not everyone can develop.

Of course, how bad we feel when we have lost depends basically on what kind of tournament we screwed up. If it’s a casual tournament, maybe we will get over it fast enough. If it’s a PTQ or a Grand Prix and we travelled far to get to it, the feeling will be obviously worse and let’s not talk about a Pro Tour.

One of my worst frustrations came precisely just after my first Pro Tour: Columbus, back in 2004. In that PT, I had what I thought was the best deck, and almost everyone else who played it (six persons) made money, and yet I failed to even make day 2. It was obviously my fault, since I made some terrible mistakes of my own, which cost me most of my games. And that was probably enough to make me play suboptimal for the rest of the day. But in that case, I think my frustration overextended since I felt so miserable for my result after the Pro Tour, despite having such a good deck. Maybe, had I played a worse deck, or hadn’t my expectations been so high for my first Pro Tour, I wouldn’t have felt so bad, but let’s face it, it’s sad when you realize you are back from the Pro Tour for the first time and you are not even sure you will ever get to play on the tour again.

By the way, I’ll give you another advice concerning this: Whenever you go to an important tournament, like a Grand Prix or even a Pro Tour, try to enjoy the place you are going to, do something else, travel with friends and try to have a good time even after the tournament. That’s why I think it’s highly recommendable to spend at least one day after your tournament is over, if you have the chance (staying one more day after the weekend might be a good idea if you have time, for instance), and try to visit the city, relax and go have some fun. This will probably clear up your mind and make you forget about the bad feelings, the bad plays, and you won’t feel too depressed when you get home, if it wasn’t really your tournament, thus being an incredibly good way to prevent “long-term frustrations”.

Mind Over Matter

As you can see, being in a good mental shape is as important as being in a good physic shape for any other sport. So, the first thing you need to do, is to be sure to have a healthy tournament preparation, if you really want to do well, especially if the tournament has many rounds or if you are playing a complex deck. This obviously includes sleeping well, eating well and feeling comfortable overall, but sometimes it might not be that easy.

If your mind is focused on something that has happened to you, or if you have had hard times recently, you will probably be in very bad mental shape. I know sometimes it’s just hard to forget things that have happened to us, and sometimes it’s just impossible, and you won’t play your best Magic in those situations.

Sometimes, this game is so complicated that even with a fully-focused attitude there are some things that we won’t think about. If you have any real problem before a big tournament, try to solve it before the tournaments starts. If you need to do something, do it before the tournament, if you need to think on something important, try to do so before the tournament, and so on.

Indeed, knowing how your mind works, and knowing how to control it to maximize its power, is one of the keys to success. 

I hope you liked the article, and don't forget to not only work on your technical play, but also your mind! See you next week and feel free to share your experiences with the topic or what you think about it overall!

Joel Calafell.

TOP 5 Best flavor texts that you should trust

#5 Mental Note (Odyssey) “Some minds are more open than others”

#4 Words of Wind (Onslaught): “Be logical in all things. Do not allow instinct or passion to cloud your mind”

#3 Mind Control (M10) “Why fight the body when you can dominate the mind that rules it?”

#2 Ponder (M10): “Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”

#1 Kamahl, Pit Fighter (Odyssey): “I didn’t come to play. I came to win”