Tilting

Tilt

Definition: When card players let their emotions cloud their judgment, it's called going "on tilt." Often, when a player suffers a bad beat or a losing streak, they will go "on tilt."

I am a competitive card player. I have been playing the card game called Magic: The Gathering (magic or mtg for short) for about a year and a half. I only played casually for a few weeks before instantly becoming hooked and venturing into the world of competitive play at a local shop that hosts it.

I was your classic newbie, showing up with no experience and a limited knowledge of the game. I was in awe of the regular players decks and was amazed at the plays they made casually that I wouldn't have thought of in a million years. I quickly started forming friendships with the players at the shop and was helped out by the veterans to make my deck better and play tighter. I was having a complete blast.

I have your classic addictive personality features. When I like something, I go all in and attempt to learn everything I possibly can about whatever it is, and if its something I can utilize my own skills with, I also attempt to become the best I can possibly be at it. Magic was no exception to this rule.

I started reading various website articles and watching professional players play. Their ability to automatically know what to do in any given situation was incredible to me. I watched video after video, read article after article. A lot of the time I didn't even know what I was reading, but it was fun for me regardless. I got to see new and unique decks that simply never crossed my mind before, and using this information I quickly applied them to my own decks and made them better and better.


Down Goes Frasier!

Before I knew it I was sitting across from the best player in the shop in one of the regular Tuesday night tournaments, Charles. Charles was well known and feared by the other newbies in the shop, and for good reason. He was a ruthless player piloting a fearsome deck that made short work of all but the most powerful of decks. Charles also has your classic "sore loser" personality who cannot accept defeat without first spouting out a stream of excuses as to why it happened.

I was playing a deck of my own creation that I had been having some recent success with. It was a mono-white "weenie" deck that consisted of a ton of cheap, fast, weak creatures that attempted to win via sheer numbers. I had recently spent a couple dollars on the deck to upgrade it with a powerful spell called "Path to Exile" that removes any creature from the game for almost no investment. Little did I know how much that couple dollar investment would matter.

I sit down across from Charles and he offers me the standard "good luck!" line and we shuffle up. Some of my fellow newbies offer some highly usable advice "try not to lose too fast!" and I start to focus. The rest of the room becomes a dull hum in my ears as my eyes start darting around the playing field. The first game goes by in the expected blur, and I get crushed so fast hes already reaching for the results slip. But then something interesting happens in game 2, I won. He is just as confused as I am and he starts rambling off his usual excuses "I got screwed that game and you ripped so ridiculously."

Game 3 starts and i have an interesting hand. Its very high risk high reward. It has a mix of my usual cheap creatures plus 2 of my only expensive card in the entire deck. The card known as "Captain of the Watch" is staring at me in my hand. The card is an instant army maker, but it is very slow to play, and Charles's deck is very fast. It was at this point in time my mind started thinking not as a newbie, but as someone who's inner fire was starting to light a path to the next level.

As I evaluated keeping my hand my mind went back and replayed the last game. I could tell that his deck had a hard time dealing with swarms of creatures but could easily knock out my strongest creatures, and his creatures were most definitely bigger than mine.

So, I keep the hand. The game progresses and I start trying to clog up the board so I can cast my Captain of the Watch and try to take over. My deck was fast, but his was faster. I realized racing him was not an option. As the game progresses the board is eventually emptied as we end up wiping each others creatures out. On my turn I finally get to drop my Captain of the Watch and an inner beacon of hope starts to shine through in my thoughts. Am I really going to beat THE Charles? A turn goes by and I drop yet another Captain of the Watch, and look up expecting his temper tantrum to kick in, but he is completely unmoved. I am very curious as to what is going on in his mind. Is he bluffing or does he have something to somehow clear this up? I swing in for a huge amount of damage and pass the turn. On his turn he casually wipes the board with a sweeping spell and passes back.

My heart sunk. My glorious army was destroyed. My hand is empty. I am drawing blind and have no clue what will happen. He is sitting with precious few life points left and I don't know how to finish the job. I draw for my turn and draw dead. Land. I pass back the turn and he confidently slams down a creature called Baneslayer Angel. This card is the card of legends. Only the richest most competitive of players even have SEEN one, let alone own them. Due to its incredible power and extremely high card price, it was known to me as the "wallet-slayer." Charles has a look of satisfaction on his face as he now has essentially nothing to fear from me. His angel outclasses every creature in my deck, and will allow him to bring up his life total from the brink.

As I mentioned earlier in this article, I had recently invested a couple dollars into a powerful creature removing card. I didn't know how or when it would actually matter to a newbie playing a random deck like mine, but that time could not have been more perfect. The jumble of thoughts running through my head of how I would handle the legendary angel and if I should simply conceed clouded my mind as I prepared for the turn. My shoulders slump, my head goes in my hand, and I draw my card for the turn off the top of my deck. Looking back at me is a Path to Exile. At this point in the game everyone else in the room is done playing and eagerly watching my game commence. I confidently exclaim "Path on the Baneslayer" and hear discussion from the onlookers about the game state.

Charles at this point is very upset. "That is such a bullshit rip i cant believe that crap!" he yells as he throws his angel into his exiled zone. It is very normal for him to yell such things, but this is the first time I was in the opponents seat. It felt bad but the fact that I was still in the game utterly drowned out his harsh words. I pass back for the turn, and he throws down a useless card and passes back. The crowd of onlookers eagerly await my draw for the turn. I look around with a shit-eating grin and draw my card, hoping to find something to try and regain command with. I look at my freshly drawn card and realize it is yet another Captain of the Watch. I play my instant-army-maker and Charles screams some obscenities as he gathers up his cards angrily, knowing he has lost to the newbie. He fills out the results slip and leaves the area, unable to cope with the defeat.

I am beaming with joy as the other guys in the store congratulate me. David had defeated Goliath.

Someone at this point said "Wow Charles is tilting really hard." I had never heard this term before. "What is tilting?" I ask. I was never a poker player which is apparently where this word originated from, but I was told it is what happens when a player feels they got robbed in one way or another and were very upset about it.

As a new player I never even thought it was possible to get that upset. It was just a game after-all.... right?

The Sheep Becomes the Shark

Its been well over a year since that story took place. At this point in the story I have gone from timid newbie to veteran level status and am sitting as one of the "feared" players in the room. It is not uncommon to hear people say "ouch!" or "sucks to be you!" when the pairings are announced and I am paired up with one of the middle level players. My decks are powerful and full of expensive cards, and I am a tight player who makes next to zero mistakes. I punish mistakes and take advantage of any hole I can find. I am now what Charles was to me when I started playing. That mythical player with the incredible deck who wins far more than loses. I'm not the best player in the room but I'm up there. That title would still fall to Charles, ironically enough.

As my competitive playing evolved and I started evolving into the next level of magic, my experiences with the game started to broaden. I started playing at different venues and I bought my deck on Magic Online to test my mettle against the best of the best. And I was winning. A lot. I had built a powerful custom tuned deck designed to take down the popular decks of the time. I tested it extensively with a friend of mine who decided to run the same deck with me so we could both make it as powerful as possible. We both dominated the circuits and were crushing on a regular basis. At one point I was pitted against an actual pro who happened to be at the venue i was playing at and I crushed him as well. I was feeling really good about myself and thought I could actually play this game professionally.

Above: My magic career of wins and losses

It was at this point i discovered the world of 100+ player online tournaments known as "dailies." These cost $6 to enter and had enormous prize payout if you went at least 3-1. My immediate thought was how i could utterly dominate the online crowd and make a bundle of money from the generous prize payouts. I bought $30 worth of tournament entries and went to work.

I attend my first four online tournaments I end up 3-1 in all of them. Only in the 5th do i get my first 2-2 and no prizes to go with it. I was riding very high. I made a bundle off the prizes and had enough winnings to play a huge amount of more tournaments and clean up even more. My plan was working!

The Taste of Defeat

And then something foreign happened. Something I hadn't experienced in almost a year. I started losing. After my galiant streak of 3-1's, I ended up going 2-2 a whopping 15 tournaments in a row. My heart was broken. My spirit was sucked out of me. I was filled with a mixed bag of emotions including sadness, fear, and worry. And then something happened to me which had never happened before. I tilted. I was upset and there was no calm on the horizon. I was livid and didn't know what to do. I thought about quitting magic. I thought about going back to casual play. My friends gave me words of encouragement and recommended I just simply take a break. I was so confused I even submitted my plight to a popular online magic tv show on channelfireball.com (which they answered, at around 5 minutes 35 seconds into the show)



They made a good point on the show. Try not to let it effect you, take a break, take a step back and regroup. So I did just that. I took a break from the dailies and calmed down. And I slowly but surely stopped fuming and started enjoying the game again.

Second Place

My competitive playing continues to this day. I continue reading articles and watching videos on a daily basis. I'm not the potential pro player I originally thought I was, and grinding tournaments is no longer part of my daily life. But I still am a shark and I play to win. I have never missed a Tuesday night tournament at my local shop. Most of the faces have changed since the year and half its been since I started playing there, but some of them are weekly warriors just like me, showing up and having fun. We get new players nearly weekly and I try to be as helpful as I can be to anyone who asks for it, as at this point I am a voice of experience. Even some of the other vets ask me for help which is a great feeling.

The players in the shop have become stronger, their decks have become better, and I am now simply one of the good players there rather than that powerful "auto-loss" that i was once considered to be.

Recently I was going through the motions of another tournament. Like usual I was 2-0 going into the final round. This is extremely common for me and nothing special. I used to be a master prize grinder at my shop. Undefeated streaks were common and I was filled to the brim with prizes. It took a rather harsh loss in my last tournament to show me a brutal realization.

I was paired up with a kid I had played against endless amounts of times before. I have never lost to him before and I figured I was on my way to 3-0 land.

I have recently had a wicked long streak of 2-1's with a couple 3-0's peppered in. This is a stark contrast of my old streaks which were mostly 3-0's with a couple 2-1's peppered in.

The kid is a regular at the shop at this point. He has acquired a handful of decent cards and is running an unruly yet competent control deck. He has yet to achieve a 3-0 but is getting better.

I am going through the motions and realizing things are fruitless as his board has a card on it my deck literally cannot answer. We move on to game 2 and the same card lands on the table. But this time I could have easily prevented the card from hitting the table, but my sloppy overconfidence ended up causing my downfall.

I pen in a depressing 0 in the wins column next to my name and sign the results slip. I am livid with myself. How could I lose to a newbie with my skill and deck? I normally heartily congratulate someone for beating me and getting their first 3-0, but i said not a word to my opponent as I packed up my cards. I text my friend about the loss and explain that I am tilting pretty severely using a carefully chosen selection of curse words. He offers kind words and reminds me about his own recent bout with tilt and how a break might be in order.

I go home and talk with him at length about my thoughts. Maybe a break is the answer, we end up agreeing on.

The Love of the Game

That night as I tilted I blamed it on everything but myself. I cursed the card in his deck that I "didn't have an answer to." And figured I couldn't have done anything about it.

After thinking long and hard about what happened and what my options are, I noticed the game has become less of a game and more of a routine for me. This realization has scared me to death. My tight playing and mistake minimizing has become second nature and no longer something I actively strive for. Can you guess what this has lead to?

I have lost my edge. I've become predictable. I've lost the inner fire. I am no longer the end-boss. I am still excellent at the game, but no longer am I achieving the level of play that I truly desire to be at. Despite being off the tournament grind I still love the game and would never dream of abandoning it. But my fire is in need of kindling.

Taking a break from something I love is the last thing I should be doing. I need to come up with a new plan of attack. I need to relight the fire and strive to get to a new level. Playing the game is fun and I should be having fun. I need to get back on my competitive path and become that mythical player again. The one everybody fears and wants to be like.

To this day I mostly lose to the earlier rival in this story, Charles. We always have intense epic battles, but he beats me more than I beat him. I always wonder afterward what he has that I do not. I always pilot strong decks and I'm a strong player, but Charles has the fire. Charles's legendary temper tantrums are not because he thinks he is the best player in the world, but because he wants to be the best player in the world. He refuses to let his fire die.

I need to be like Charles.

Without the tilt, of course.