Subject: UK Nationals Predictions
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 11:14:03 +0100
From: phillip.mattingly@futurenet.com (Phil Mattingly)
Newsgroups: uk.games.trading-cards.misc

Well, there does seem to be a frenzy of interest regarding the likely
winner of the Nationals this Sunday, and plenty of trash-talking too,
which should make for some nice feature grudge matches. :-) I look forward
to a Kevin Gething / Mark Wraith matchup in particular. Aside from this
though, who is really likely to make it through to the finals?

Whoever wants it the most. That might seem obvious, but its true. Many
players are successful due to a native skill and intelligence, but anyone
who wants the Championship badly enough to put in hundreds of hours of
playtesting and preparation will win. I think it is likely that the
English Champion, whoever he or she is, will be such a person and will
have done such preparation.

There will of course be a large luck element, particularly in the
pairings. That's what gives everyone who plays a chance to be champion.
Obviously, the best decks are those that pair favourably against a lot of
other Type II decks, but even a poor deck with a run of favourable
pairings will do well.

I don't think its terribly useful to try and pick individual names as
championship contenders. A person's true chances lie in the amount of
preparation they do before the championship, and this in often reflected
in the stereotype they conform to.

The Stalwart
'White weenie was good enough for ma daddy, and for his daddy before him...'

Stalwarts are those people who simply never change their deck. Becoming
fixated on a particular style at an early age, they never leave it, taking
the rough with the smooth. Metagaming is a foreign concept, when the deck
does well, so do they, when it does badly, they crash. The advantage is
that they become intimately familiar with their deck, and highly skilled
at playing it. Tweaking becomes an artform, but true Stalwarts never even
stop to think about maybe playing another deck when they reach for the
Mtenda Herders to fill deck slots.

The Butterfly
'I've narrowed it down to one of Donais, Necro, Sligh, Stompy, or Bloom'

In direct contrast, the Butterfly rarely plays the same deck from
tournament to tournament. Often found flitting around the Dojo, the
Butterfly is obsessed with the metagame and the quest for a surprise deck
to sweep the field. Butterflys are unlikely to design their own decks, and
tend to hang upon the latest creations of Jay Schneider et al. They rely
on natural playing skill and a smart choice of deck to see them through.

The Weird Scientist
'I sacrifice the Caribou token and then Necro for two...'

Weird scientists are the precise opposite of Butterflies when it comes to
deck selection. Scientists loathe 'net decks', preferring their own
bizarre concotions. Hooked on the joy of obscure combos and 'sub-optimal'
cards, their strength lies in their unpredictability and close, almost
zen-like rapport with the contents of the deck. Sadly, this doesn't always
translate into playing skill, and many scientists spend their whole lives
searching for that elusive tournament winner. Some do find it however, and
they rapidly mutate into...

The Lone Gunman
'What are the chances of all four Blooms being in the last ten cards?'

Lone Gunmen are something of an oddity. They play the same deck tournament
after tournament in true Stalwart style, but the deck they play is so
unpopular that they never make up a large enough proportion of the field
to be worth metagaming against. This gives them strength, but Gunman decks
are always demanding and often fickle and inconsistent. The archetypal
gunman plays Prosperous Bloom. :-)

The Contender
' ... '

Contenders are those players who have stuck to the straight and narrow,
not becoming obsessed with deck tech or metagaming. Nothing about them is
exceptional, but they have no serious weaknesses either. Their decks
reflect this personality, meat and potatoes affairs that never quite make
the top 8. Only playing skill and experience seperate the Pro Tour
Hopefuls from the Sunday Drivers, and many Drivers work their way along
the long, slow path to dominance over time.

So, how does all this nonsense help us predict the English Champion? Well,
its fair to say that by the half-way stage, most of the Stalwarts and
Sunday Drivers will have fallen by the wayside. So will the Butterflies
who picked a poor deck off the Dojo that morning, and the Wierd Scientists
whose ideas were simply too whacked out. Still in contention will be the
lucky/skillful Butterflies, the lucky Stalwarts, the lucky/skillful Wierd
Scientists, the Lone Gunmen, and the Pro Tour hopefuls. The second half
will eliminate most of the Wierd Scientists, Stalwarts, and Butterflies,
leaving a final eight composed mostly of well-prepared Pro Tour Hopefuls,
a Lone Gunman or two, and perhaps one Butterfly, Stalwart, and Scientist.

The eventual winner will be whoever paid attention to every aspect of
their game during playtesting, and has favourable luck on the day.

Discussion regarding what sort of deck will carry the day is left as an
exercise to the reader. Can a pure beatdown deck produce the consistency
to win 10 out of 12? Will control fall at the early mono-weenie hurdles?
Or will Necro-Caribou Range sweep the nationals in a tide of weird
science?

Comments, suggestions, cries of 'rubbish!' gratefully accepted.

Cheers,
Phil