“Get Your Head in the Game!” Benefits of Being in the Right Mindset and Proper Preparation

Hello PokeBeach readers! I hope you’re having an excellent break so far. Christmas time is certainly a time of year I cherish as it allows me to step back from the grind of school and relax a little with friends and family. I don’t have the chance to see my family as often as I’d like, but the holidays give me the excuse (and the time) I need to be away from college. This year, I am proud to say I’ve completed my Christmas shopping early, garnering some unique presents for my family and saving me the stress of running around last minute, while simultaneously giving me the time I need to focus on attending a few more City Championships!

[cardimg name=”Lucario-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”54″ align=”right” height=”250″ c=”custom”]Best Card in Format[/cardimg]

A major positive during the holidays is the amount of tournaments during this time. In years prior, I enjoyed heading to Canada for their Toronto Marathon. Since they weren’t having a marathon this year, I had to find some other tournaments to attend. I am so thankful that there were two tournaments within two hours of me over the weekend. I was able to attend both City Championships that weekend, located in Windsor and Tecumseh. In Windsor I was even able to take home a first place finish! In this article, I’d like to go over that tournament and talk about the bizarre and brilliant deck Andrew Mahone showcased in his last article. His recent creation is a true powerhouse in our metagame and the tournament in Windsor is a great example of the deck’s abilities.

I don’t want to spend the entirety of this article discussing my tournament finishes, however. Instead, I wanted to bring you a unique article that gives you a look into how I prepare for Pokemon tournaments as well as musical auditions. As you may know, I’m currently studying to become a professional bassoonist. I’ve briefly discussed this aspect of my life in other articles, but I’d like to devote this article to showing just how much these two seemingly unrelated subjects overlap. I’ll discuss how things I’ve learned from Pokemon apply to preparing for musical auditions and vice versa. Not only will this article give you a look into a relatively unknown profession, but it will also give you some of my best advice on taking your game up a level. Whether you’re a beginning trainer or an advanced master, this article has something for you. Let’s go!

Windsor City Championship Recap

Windsor was one of the most fun City tournaments I’ve ever played. It helps that I easily ran through the competition! I played Andrew Mahone’s [card name=”Lucario-EX” set=”Furious Fists” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card] / Hammers list with my own addition of a [card name=”Startling Megaphone” set=”Flashfire” no=”97″ c=”name”][/card] to give myself a better matchup against the up-and-coming Entei decks. I know that many of you are excited to hear about this rogue Fighting deck that has been performing extremely well this last few weeks. If you’d like to see how it works, head on over to Andrew’s article for a complete list and breakdown of the deck!

Many of my friends who drove with me to Canada played [card name=”Yveltal-EX” set=”XY” no=”79″ c=”name”][/card] / Zoroark / Gallade and I was tempted to play that, but, after a little more urging by Andrew, I decided to go with Lucario / Hammers. Though I had tested the deck before the tournament, I was worried about its Entei matchup as I didn’t have any time to test that. I knew many Canadian players would play the intriguing new deck, so I decided the minutes before registration ended to include a Startling Megaphone in my list.

Thankfully, the tournament was only five rounds. I was so happy to have a slight reprieve from the six round Cities that have become the standard in Michigan.

Round one I played against a Pokemom who admitted she was just here to have fun. That didn’t stop me from playing my best against her. We got set up and started playing and I quickly figured out that she was playing a Tyrantrum-EX deck when she flipped over a [card name=”Bronzor” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”60″ c=”name”][/card] and Tyrantrum-EX. All of a sudden, a judge comes over and asks me to hand in my deck. I was shocked and embarrassed as I thought I might be getting a severe punishment for a deck list error. Turns out the issue was that I forgot to take out a card in my written list to accommodate my last minute inclusion of Startling Megaphone. The judges gave me a warning and allowed my opponent to take a free Prize. Fortunately, that would be the only Prize she took as I soundly beat her with my army of [card name=”Hawlucha” set=”Furious Fists” no=”63″ c=”name”][/card]. 1-0.

[cardimg name=”Red Card” set=”XY” no=”124″ align=”left” height=”250″ c=”custom”]Or is this the Best Card in Format?[/cardimg]

In the second round, I played Chris Vernier who was playing the dreaded Entei deck. As I remember, I was able to go first and get a [card name=”Red Card” set=”XY” no=”124″ c=”name”][/card] with my [card name=”Korrina” set=”Furious Fists” no=”95″ c=”name”][/card] to drop him to four cards in his hand. He dead draws from there and I go on to roll him easily with a fully charged Lucario-EX. 2-0.

My next matchup was against Yveltal-EX / Gallade. I unfortunately don’t remember much about this game except for the fact that I won. 3-0.

I was happy that at 3-0 I could intentionally draw my way into cut with a 3-0-2 record. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned as I find out I got down-paired to a 2-1. The Canadian I played was very nice (shocker!) and actually worked at the card store that was hosting the tournament. He played M Mewtwo-EX Y. The game started off pretty slow for both of us, but I was able to Red Card him into an unplayable hand. He manages to eventually draw out of it with a [card name=”Professor Sycamore” set=”XY” no=”122″ c=”name”][/card], but he has to discard a ton of resources in the process including a Mewtwo Spirit Link, a Mega Mewtwo, and a [card name=”Mega Turbo” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”86″ c=”name”][/card]. By that point it was too late as I was already smacking his Pokemon for repeated high damage with Lucario and Hawlucha.

So, now I’m 4-0 and guaranteed a place in cut. I sit down across from my opponent and he asks if I want to ID. I know he’s playing [card name=”Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”23″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Crobat” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”33″ c=”name”][/card] which is an amazing matchup for Lucario / Hammers. Normally, I’d intentionally draw in this situation to save me the trouble of playing it out, but I know it’s a fantastic matchup and I also want to avoid a matchup against [card name=”M Rayquaza-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”76″ c=”name”][/card] in cut. I know that the Mega Rayquaza player will end up 3-0-2 as he had just finished ID’ing with his opponent, so I figure that I’ll take my chances and play it out. If I ID with my opponent, that will put me at 4-0-1 and leave three 3-0-2s. That meant that, instead of facing Rayquaza in the finals, I would play it in the Top 4 match. I decide not to take that chance and I play it out.

I start decently enough with a Lucario. I load Energy onto it and get a Red Card. I Knock Out a couple of [card name=”Zubat” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”31″ c=”name”][/card] while he tries to stall, then I [card name=”Lysandre” set=”Flashfire” no=”90″ c=”name”][/card] his Manectric-EX and put him in a difficult position. With my Lucario-EX fully charged, there’s nothing that he can do to slow me down. I take the game easily and he doesn’t take a Prize. 5-0.

With such a dominant run in Swiss, I was expecting much of the same in cut. My first opponent in cut was one of the friends I drove to Canada with, Dmitri. He was playing Yveltal / Gallade and I knew that, while the matchup was favorable for me, I couldn’t go on autopilot. In this matchup, I tried to build up a Lucario to take down his [card name=”Yveltal” set=”XY” no=”78″ c=”name”][/card] while simultaneously saving my [card name=”Crushing Hammer” set=”Emerging Powers” no=”92″ c=”name”][/card]s for any time an Energy found its way to an Yveltal-EX. This strategy worked out extremely well in the first game and I’m able to win convincingly with the help of [card name=”Super Scoop Up” set=”Furious Fists” no=”100″ c=”name”][/card]. In game two, I play it down to having win in hand. I know that next turn I can play my one [card name=”Shaymin-EX” set=”Roaring Skies” no=”77″ c=”name”][/card] to draw one of two [card name=”Strong Energy” set=”Furious Fists” no=”104″ c=”name”][/card] in my deck which will allow me to OHKO his Active Pokemon to take my last Prize. However, I didn’t see the possibility for Dmitri to play a Hex Maniac so I held onto my Shaymin-EX instead of playing it and immediately drawing into the necessary cards to win on the following turn. Dmitri plays the clutchest Hex Maniac ever and locks me from the win. He then takes his last Prize on the next turn. Unfortunately, game three wasn’t nearly as close as Dmitri drew horribly dead. I seal the series and move onto Top 4.

In Top 4 I played against a difficult opponent whom I’ve played a couple of times before. He was also playing Yveltal / Gallade. In game one, I was able to continue my strategy from Top 8 of keeping Energy off of his Yveltal-EX while 2HKO’ing his Yveltal with Lucario-EX. Megaphone comes in handy as I am able to prevent him from getting a [card name=”Float Stone” set=”Plasma Freeze” no=”99″ c=”name”][/card] to stick on his Zoroark, thus making the attackers in his deck less mobile. I take game one easily and he doesn’t draw the best in game two. Onto the finals!

[cardimg name=”Startling Megaphone” set=”Flashfire” no=”97″ align=”right” height=”250″ c=”custom”]Can you hear me now? Good![/cardimg]

In the final round, I played Zac Parmetier who was piloting the Mega Rayquaza-EX deck I desperately tried to avoid in cut. I made sure to conserve my resources in my games against Zac, even going so far as to avoid playing Professor Sycamore if it meant discarding a Super Scoop Up. I had no idea if he played a Megaphone or a [card name=”Xerosic” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”110″ c=”name”][/card] to discard my [card name=”Focus Sash” set=”Furious Fists” no=”91″ c=”name”][/card]es and I spent a good deal of the first game being wary about that. My general strategy of hammering all his Energy away worked very well in both games. He had some tough breaks where he was only able to play Shaymin-EX for two or three which hindered what could have been an explosive setup. In game two, he’s forced to Sky Return multiple times with his Shaymin to try to draw into a Supporter to keep attackers going. In the end, Focus Sash, Hammers, and Super Scoop Ups proved to be too much to handle and I won the series 2-0.

And with that, I had won the tournament! With an 11-1 total record, I was stoked to take the same list to the tournament the next day in Tecumseh, Michigan. Boy, what a turnaround. I don’t even want to give you a rundown of the matches individually because they were so heartbreaking, but I ended up dropping at 2-3 with two losses to Mega Rayquaza-EX decks that specifically teched Xerosic to have a chance against Lucario / Hammers, as well as a loss to Houndoom-EX mill which is arguably unbeatable. It is pretty amazing how one can go from the highest highs to the lowest lows!

Now we come to the portion of the article I’m most excited to share with you guys. Mindset and preparation are topics I haven’t seen many people discuss when thinking about ways to improve. But now, I plan to show you just how important these things are. The best players know how to apply these to their game and it gives them a significant advantage. You don’t want to miss out on this information to put yourself ahead of other players! Also, comparing Pokemon and music — two of my life’s passions — sounds like a dream come true for any article I could possibly write. So what are we waiting for? Time to dive right in!

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What is an audition?

In the classical music industry, auditions are the sole way to gain long-term employment. While a musician might be able to play with a group by subbing for a player who can’t make a particular concert, long-term employment is achieved by winning an audition.

An audition is a day or set of days by which a musician demonstrates their musical abilities to a panel of judges. The auditionee has a short period of time to prove musically that he or she belongs in the orchestra. Should the committee decide the candidate is worthy to be heard more, they will “advance” the musician into a final round. The final round is comprised of all the musicians the committee judged to be hirable and they then hear this group play more music one at a time until they’ve decided on one winner. Thus, the preliminary round in an audition is akin to the Swiss rounds of a Pokemon tournament whereas advancing in an audition is like making the top cut of a tournament.

The committee gives the potential auditionees short snippets of larger works that highlight different aspects of playing. These are called excerpts. Some excerpts are included to highlight technical proficiency while others are chosen because the extreme range of the instrument is challenged.

[cardimg name=”Meloetta” set=”Legendary Treasures” no=”86″ align=”left” height=”250″ c=”custom”]Can Meloetta even play an instrument?[/cardimg]

One of the most unique aspects of the preliminary rounds of a musical audition is that the committee is prevented from seeing the candidate. In fact, carpeting is used to dull the sounds of footsteps as the musician enters the audition room — high heels and regular dress shoes sound very different — thus the committee may be able to distinguish whether the current player is male or female. These precautions are to prevent bias from the committee and, in a way, the unbiased nature of auditions is similar to playing the Trading Card Game competitively. Whether you’re white, black, hispanic, asian, overweight, underweight, Christian, Protestant, male, female, etc. you are not held back from succeeding based on your physical features or beliefs.

As an aside, this unbiased audition process has significantly improved the diversity of orchestras. Before blind auditions were enacted, approximately 5% of major orchestras were made up of women. Two decades after the blind audition process was used, that figure jumped to 35%. Because blind auditions only highlight what a player can do and not what they look like, fewer women were turned away simply based on their appearance. The success of the blind audition model in the classical music world is creating a more diverse working environment has given major companies the idea to implement similar systems in their hiring process. Websites like gapjumpers.me take the appearance bias out of the hiring process and instead allow managers to hire prospective workers based on interview alone. Don’t be surprised if you have to take an interview in a format like this in the future!

Dealing with Variance in Pokemon or an Audition

We all know how crushing it is to lose to a matchup or opponent we know we can beat nine times out of 10, but our deck happened to draw an unworkable opening hand. Slowly, our hopes of winning fade as their board gets too set up while we are left to top deck our sixth Energy to go along with the five others in our hand. This gloomy scenario has happened to all of us and, if you’ve played long enough, this has probably happened to you multiple times in a single tournament. However, it is important to stress that negative variance occurs just as much as positive variance and that, over the course of a year, the better player you are, the better your chances of having success.

Variance in an audition comes primarily from the selection committee. Hopefully the musician has prepared the music well enough to deliver a high quality performance at the audition. Thus, if every musician auditioning that day gives an exemplary performance, the committee must look at other qualities exhibited by music of the player to determine who they would like to invite to participate full time with the orchestra. These qualities include precision of rhythm, tone color, dynamic range, tempo, clarity of articulation, among many others. So, even if I get done with an audition feeling like I played my best, sometimes my best just isn’t good enough.

How similar this feeling is to playing in a Pokemon tournament! In both auditions and tournaments, there is only one winner. One day, you can go undefeated and win a City Championship easily, and the next day you can take essentially the same list and drop after your third loss in five rounds. One day, you can win an audition, and the next day you can’t even make it out of the preliminary rounds. However, the biggest challenge is to make sure you have the right mindset going into the event.

How to Make Yourself Competitive by Having the Right Mindset

When you’ve played the game for long enough, you start to understand where you stand in terms of how competitive you’ll be during tournaments. For some, just the fact that they get to hang with friends is why they go to tournaments. They pick out a deck a week before the tournament based on suggestions from friends and figure that cutting will be their ultimate goal, but won’t be too upset if that doesn’t happen. Others don’t test much leading up to the event and throw a list together based on what they think is good. For some, only winning signifies a successful tournament. Similarly, in music, some people show up to auditions simply to gain experience. Others prepare the music for months, fly across the country, and invest large amounts of time, energy, and money into winning.

I can assume if you are reading this article right now that you want to be great. You want to be elite. You want to win more, and give yourself a shot at being a consistent champion like many of our PokeBeach writers. We work hard to bring you great content and solid deck lists, but the fact of the matter is, if you want to be one of the better players in the game, you need to change your mentality.

In the following sections, I will discuss my mindset before, during, and after events, be it music or Pokemon. These are the mentalities I apply when approaching the game, so it may not work for everyone. However, this is a proven collection of mentalities that I have adopted and honed over a number of years of competition.

Before the Event

I’ve found that one key to winning on a consistent basis is to be confident in your knowledge. I know, this sounds cryptic, but let me explain. One of the best quotes that my undergraduate bassoon professor would repeat ad nauseum was “Power comes to those who know, and know that they know.” Restated in my own words, this quote becomes “success comes to those who have confidence in their abilities garnered through study.”

Applied to Pokemon, if you know [card name=”Yveltal-EX” set=”XY” no=”79″ c=”name”][/card] / Zoroark / Gallade has an extremely positive matchup against Night March decks as well as a decent [card name=”M Manectric-EX” set=”Phantom Forces” no=”24″ c=”name”][/card] matchup, you can safely take that deck into a metagame filled with these decks and know you will have a strong chance to win. On the flipside, if you make a deck at 3 AM the morning of the tournament without thoroughly testing all the big matchups, you can’t expect to perform well the next day.

Power comes to those who know, and know that they know.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give if you are trying to take your game to the next level is to not play a deck without thorough testing! Creating a deck the morning of the tournament is something everyone does from time to time; however, if you want to win on a consistent basis, you can’t make this behavior a habit; it simply does not lead to productive results. Occasionally, someone will go on a big run with a deck they created at the last minute, but, for the most part, winners of large tournaments put plenty of hours into figuring out the intricacies of their decks and how their decks interact with other expected decks.

When I won Ft. Wayne Regionals in 2013, I tested my [card name=”Virizion-EX” set=”Plasma Blast” no=”9″ c=”name”][/card] / [card name=”Mewtwo-EX” set=”Next Destinies” no=”54″ c=”name”][/card] deck for a long time. In fact, when the scans came out for Plasma Blast, pairing the two Pokemon-EX was the first deck idea I had. I remember playing that deck on simulators and thinking, “Woah, this deck is strong!” I had all the matchups nailed down and knew exactly how they should play out. I knew what attacker to set up and what techs I played for each matchup. Do you think Frank Diaz created his Yveltal list the night before Regionals this year? His second- and first-place Regionals finishes were certainly due to in-game skill and many hours of testing.

When preparing for an audition, I want my preparation to get me to the point where I don’t have to think about how the excerpt should go and, instead, I’m able to make a musical gesture. I don’t want the panel judging me to have an easy time picking out weaknesses in my playing. I want them to be blown away by what they hear. In my preparation, I do not want to leave one stone unturned and focus my time on as many intricacies of the music as I can. I feel this attention to detail benefits both my music and my card playing.

Here’s a checklist of questions I unconsciously use to prepare for a tournament:

• Do I know the different scenarios that each card is good for?
• Do I know how my deck interacts with the tier-one decks?
• How should I alter my play based on the matchup?
• Do I understand how certain Abilities interact with each other?
• What is my game plan if I face my worst matchups?

The list of questions can go on for quite a while, but, if you are able to answer these, you will have power because you know that you know.

During the Event

One lesson I learned through experience is to trust your preparation. Assuming you’ve done all the necessary practice, the event should not be very stressful. For me, I feel I’ve always known my approximate result before the event started — either I was going to be competitive, or I wasn’t. Either this deck was a great choice to get me into top cut or a “we’ll-see-what-happens” deck. Either I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the music, or I was going to walk on stage and wing it.

I used to get extremely nervous before tournaments, constantly changing deck choices or tech cards as late as minutes before registration ended. I also used to get nervous before auditions and would freak out about which reeds to use or how to play certain excerpts. In Pokemon, if you are prepared well enough, you should find peace in that preparation. When I’ve prepared adequately, I know the tournament simply comes down to matchups, and, if you happen to hit a few bad ones, so be it. Likewise, if I know the musical excerpts like the back of my hand, I can feel confident that the judges will have a hard time not advancing me to the final round.

[cardimg name=”Chatot” set=”Plasma Blast” no=”77″ align=”right” height=”250″ c=”custom”]doot doot doot[/cardimg]

So, we have all the knowledge, but now we must apply it. To perform well on the big day you have to be in the right mindset. Take each round as it comes. Don’t be thinking about anything but the task at hand. One of my favorite quotes on performance comes from Bruce Lee. He says “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

During the event I cannot stress enough to keep focused only on the task at hand. Often I will find myself thinking about something totally unrelated to the game or the music and it really costs me. At auditions, this absentmindedness can be especially hazardous as the performance is expected immediately. In Pokemon, at least you have 15-30 seconds to make decisions.

To cultivate keeping yourself in the moment I am a big advocate of rituals and routines. Having a routine can instantly get you into the right mindset to perform at a high level. When I’m at an audition, I’ll prepare to play by going through a specific set of warmups. I’ll play through the excerpts, then walk outside listening to music to clear my head. During a Pokemon tournament I have a number of routines that I’ll do. I always chew a piece of mint gum and I always organize my dice in a certain way. I never use a playmat and only play using certain-colored sleeves. These seemingly meaningless rituals, along with a few others I won’t mention, give me a competitive edge in my opinion. I feel it is important to be consistent not only with in-game performance, but also with everything surrounding the game in order to maintain a winning attitude tournament after tournament or audition after audition.

One other major thing I do to get my mind right for peak performance is visualization. During the morning of the audition, I will spend time just looking at my music, visualizing how my fingers will move as well as imagining how I think I will sound during the audition. Studies have shown that visualization can be just as helpful as actual practice!

Similarly, during Pokemon tournaments, I will imagine the best case scenarios throughout the day. For example, if I start 1-2, I will imagine myself winning out and making cut. Too often I see people get down on themselves when they lose multiple games early in a tournament. They are put on tilt by a seemingly insurmountable hill they have to climb to make the top cut, but the thing is somebody has to do it. It doesn’t matter how you get there, you just have to get there and somebody has to start 0-2 and win out to make cut. I remember in my first ever Regionals I started 2-2. To cut, I would’ve needed to win four games in a row. Instead of focusing on the past, I put all my energy into winning the game at hand and I ended up climbing all the way to Top 8. Be confident in your abilities and never allow past results to influence the present.

After the Event

Have you ever walked out of a tournament and thought, “I just did not know the metagame,” or “I had no idea how to play this deck.” I certainly have. There were tournaments where I knew I played the wrong deck. Most of the time I could follow my poor performance back to its roots: a lack of testing.

In music, I used to feel the same way. I would walk off the stage and say to myself that I never really knew the music well in the first place. I couldn’t help but feel I blew an opportunity to do something special. The only way to overcome this feeling is to make a vow to yourself to not let that happen in the future. It takes one day to make that decision. If you want to be successful in the game, you need to take it seriously. It may sound a bit hokey to suggest that you artificially create a “coming-to-Jesus” moment, but this is exactly what I had to do to perform better on my instrument. I was once told that if you’re not actively trying to get better, you’re at best staying the same if not declining in skill. Get better every day. Make sure your mind is in the right place every time you pick up the cards.

It is vitally important to reflect on a tournament and what you could’ve done better. This is one of the main reasons I love City Championships. The time frame you have to enact changes in your play can be as short as a day and the amount of data you can analyze comes at you so quickly. This can definitely be overwhelming, especially if you go to a Cities marathon where there can be 10 Cities in 10 days.

If you’re not actively trying to get better, you’re at best staying the same.

Another added benefit of City Championships are their size. One tip that applies to Cities better than larger tournaments like Regionals or Nationals is to have your friends watch your match. Many times it’s difficult for me to step back and accurately assess my in-game play, so having a group of people watching my play from a distance can give me the insight I need to make better plays in the future.

If you still find yourself coming up short after you feel like you’ve put in the necessary effort, please do not take it personally. This game, like any competitive game with winners and losers, can make anyone feel like they’re worthless and that they have no future in the game. I certainly have felt that way with my music career, and that has much higher stakes than Pokemon. I want to have a future in music, playing in symphony orchestras for a living. Because this dream is directly tied to my performance over a five minute span at an audition, it is easy to feel intense self doubt when I don’t win an audition. This is a feeling I have to overcome in Pokemon when I don’t perform to my expectations in a tournament. I can’t stress enough that your self worth is not tied to your performance in tournaments. If I take this children’s card game too seriously, I find that I put far too much pressure on myself to perform.

Conclusion

Well folks, that’s all I have for you today! This article was a big challenge for me. Providing theoretical content like this can inspire players beyond what they could achieve simply through testing. Hopefully this article provided you with useful information to motivate yourself to perform better in your next tournament.

If you’re still not getting the results you’re looking for, remember the PokeBeach writers are here for you! If there’s any more information I or the rest of the staff can provide for you, don’t hesitate to ask. Create a thread in the Subscriber’s Secret Hideout. Reach out to us on Facebook. Shoot us a PM over PokeBeach. Just know, if you want to get better at this game we all love, you are not alone in your endeavors!

Before the New Year starts, I also want to say a few things that I’ve been thankful for. I want to thank everyone I’ve met here on this website — be it subscribers, editors, or fellow writers. You guys have been great and I appreciate everything you do for me and for the game. I am so thankful to be able to write for this well known website, and I hope that I provide you with more great content in the future. Have a safe and Happy Holiday and I’ll see you after the new year!

Practice as though you’ve never won, play as though you’ve never lost — Michael Jordan

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