How Magic Online (MTGO) Can Hurt Your Offline Play
September 11, 2009
Conley Woods on one of the negative effects of Magic Online on offline play:
When you are at your local store or playtesting with a friend, the chances of catching a crucial mistake are much higher due simply to the fact that there are more eyes focusing on the match. Online however, you are often playing alone, and your opponent will generally be silent (or rude) which means fewer eyes on your match, so a mistake is much more likely to go unnoticed. Then, due simply to the volume of games you are playing, you are likely to make this mistake again and again, ingraining it to memory. This normally would seem like a small hurdle, but as humans we have a very constant desire to develop habits as a means of freeing up working memory.
He continues:
Without habits, we would become overloaded by even the simplest of tasks, such as riding a bike, because we would need to constantly be thinking about all of the methods involved in riding that bike properly. Once an action has been encoded as a habit, the ability to change that action becomes much more difficult. Even if another player points out that mistake at your next session of live play, and even if you make a conscious effort to avoid that mistake while with those friends, it is still way more likely that the mistake will resurface during a less convenient time, such as a Grand Prix. This is because your brain is now having to devote working memory to unknown variables as well as variables unique to a Grand Prix, things that were absent during your Magic Online all-nighter. These new variables can take precedent and then the mistake comes out. Granted it is entirely likely that you will spot the mistake after the fact, as you have also learned to recognize it at this point, but very few “take backs” are allowed at a Grand Prix.
This is why it’s important to record your MTGO games and review them to see your mistakes. But what’s really important is finding solid players (preferably players better than you). Then, ask them to review your games and tell you the mistakes they find, so you don’t repeat them over and over.
You can record your games by using screencast software or just recording screenshots of the game.
I was able to help a fellow MTG blogger. He posted a video of him playing Lark versus Faeries. He thought he played reasonably well, but I found a good number of big misplays.
He replied:
You’ve certainly convinced me on the feedback thing. If I had just looked at this match myself, god knows what conclusions I would have come to. Certainly not anything that let me win the next time the Fae rolled into town.
Got something to say?
-
Subscription Options
-
Popular MTG Cards on eBay
-
Categories
