The Competitive Mindset, A Tristan Case Study, and Uncertainty

Hi friends! 

This is probably going to be a longer post as it could have been three different entries, but I've had many thoughts that I wanted to get out there. This is going to be separated into three different parts: one motivational, one informational, and one about my personal journey. I realize some people don't need anything to already be a competitive player, I realize that many players are at a level where there is not much to learn from a player at my level, and I realize that some people aren't as interested in what I've been up to since last time. I appreciate you being here reading no matter what the reason. If you want to skip to certain parts, use CTRL + F on these:

*Competitive

**Informational

^Player Improvement^

!Back to Tristan!

***Personal

*Competitive

The Competitive Mindset

Many of us are either TCG or video game veterans, so the idea of being competitive isn't new to us. However, there are many who have just entered the TCG space with GA as their first game and I think they can inherently sense that some of the players are a bit different in the way they conduct themselves. They might notice that this player is always winning, another player feels very intense to be around, or maybe their aura just feels different. So, I want to pose the question: what does it mean to be competitive? 

For some, it may mean going to Store Championships, Regionals, and Ascents. For others, it may simply mean continually improving yourself so that you keep getting better results. What does it mean to me? For me, I want to compete at the highest level. I want to be able to go to any tournament and feel like I'm one of the best players in the room and that I have a good chance of winning it all. I want to be able to play against the best of the best while they're on top of their game and compete to defeat them. I want people to want to watch my games because they think they'll see some great play and think they'll be able to learn alot. 

TCGs are inherently about competition. You sit across from an opponent and the goal is to win. So winning is also my goal. I'll do whatever it takes to get that victory. This means I will bring the deck I feel is most powerful or that I have mastered enough to give me the highest chance of winning. I'd like for my opponent to have fun as well, but my goal is to have them hit the dirt as soon as possible and notch another tally in my win column. You'll pretty much never catch me playing a "pet deck" because every deck I play is usually a deck that I think might have a chance to be part of the meta. Most people don't know that meta is also an acronym for "most efficient tactics available" and finding the most consistent and efficient avenues to victory is part of my competitive philosophy in anything I do in life, honestly. 

If you're a more casual player, some of this mentality might seem a bit toxic or too intense for you, but I implore you to keep going and meet me halfway to understand the mindset of players like myself. I've said it in a previous post, but within the desire to reach the top of a hobby like this, I believe there is a deep-seated love for the game. This is why many of the players trying to be competitive take things in the game so seriously and it seriously affects their mood and mental state. I also want to highlight that the competitive nature is driven by passion. For me, I am a very passionate person. I give it my all and treat it like my life's work. GA is my hobby, but it almost feels like the second job I chose at times. I 100% devote more time, energy and effort to GA than my actual career. This is why I take losses so hard sometimes. I have spent so much time thinking about the game, practicing to refine my play, chatting to improve deck theory and understanding and sometimes I still lose even though I should know better. 

A bit into my personal mindset: I hate half-assing and mediocrity. I strongly believe that being mediocre is a choice. I believe that everyone has the potential within themselves to do something great. I'm not saying that it has to be GA, but I feel like even just once in their life, people should know what it feels like to devote your very being into doing something great. If any of you watch anime and Oshi no Ko, there's a character who is a very mediocre actor and is surrounded by the greatest actors of his generation in his cast. Even though he knows he can't compare, he devotes everything to one scene and leaves everyone speechless and in tears. In that moment, he suddenly sees stars in his eyes and sort of transcends into the galaxy. I related to that scene because a few times in life, I also felt like I totally locked in and did something great. 

I've never been a great artist, but in 4th grade, there was an art competition to draw a pueblo (Mexican town/village). I don't know how or why, but somehow I had a vision of what it should look like and I felt possessed as I kept drawing and drawing and making it so intricate. I must have spent 30 hours on it which was impressive considering I was only 10 years old at the time. I ended up winning the art competition which was a shock because I had never really won anything before. My teacher was so impressed that she submitted it to a children's art museum and it was featured there for a while. 

People tend to make excuses for why they can't be great, but they tend to just be excuses in the end. If you want something, you truly need to go for it and it shouldn't be stifled by fickleness and excuses made to just discourage yourself.  Life is much too short and I hope everyone can experience that feeling of the pursuit of greatness someday. Whether it's GA, art, music, or whatever your craft is. 

So what was the point of me sharing all that? This is the mentality of a competitive player. One who has devoted everything in order to be great. There's often the accusation of competitive players being very toxic or dismissive of casual players and their ideas. I don't dismiss those accusations because sometimes they are true, but in many cases for GA, the competitive players have actually been very open to everyone. The difference in mindset is what causes many disagreements and hurt feelings in my opinion. More casual players will be testing suboptimal cards in their decks and a more competitive player is likely to say the card is bad. The casual player could get upset, but on the competitive player's side, they probably tested it out already. Competitive players can probably go about it in a more gentle manner, but they've tested things backwards, forwards, inside and out. Chances are, they wanted to make that sweet card work too, but it just wasn't good enough to be part of the meta. The results we work towards in GA are backed by logic, data, and extensive hours of testing. Might is right and it's hard to believe farfetched ideas until you prove it on the biggest stages and consistently afterwards.

I do want to say: it's perfectly fine, wonderful, and awesome if you just want to be a casual player. The road to being a competitive player is full of struggle, agony, and self-torture. It's definitely not for everyone. It is, however, also filled with effort, achievement, and the experience of seeing what lies at the top of the mountain. I do hope this gives some insight on the competitive mindset through my own mindset. 

**Informational

A Tristan Case Study

It's kind of funny to be writing this after the Corhazi Outlook ban. Unfortunately, the deck probably ceases to exist as a contender in the top tournament landscape because of it. This deck has a special place in my heart for many reasons. For one, pretty much all of my inner circle friends played the deck. I also had the privilege of foiling out the deck because I loved it so much. I was also part of the group that help test and pilot it in the early days, so I feel honored that maybe even a few of the minor suggestions or opinions I had about the card choices, playstyle or theory may have had an impact on how strong the deck became or how much success other players had with the deck. This case study is a bit of a love letter and send-off.

People call the deck many different things: Wind Umbra Tristan, Shadowstrike Tristan...but the deck is always just Tristan to me. This was the best style of the deck so it just gets the honor of the single name. Tristan is a midrange deck that aims to kill using Shadowstrike after resolving Mastermind Scheme for 14+ damage in a single hit. Wait, did he say midrange deck? Yup, I heard it from the man Shawn himself. He even went one further and told me that the deck is super similar to Wind Allies. I gave him a puzzled look when he first told me that, but Shawn doesn't often say things like that without basis. I didn't dismiss it, gave it some deep thought, and concluded he was absolutely right. 

People improperly classify Wind Allies as an aggro deck all the time. At its skill floor, sure, Wind Allies is a deck that just runs out its Allies and sends it all face. At its skill ceiling, it is a deck that controls the board and grinds advantage with the best, most-efficient Allies available and threatens kills if a reasonable board sticks. So how is Tristan, a deck that aims to essentially one shot you, similar to that? Simply put, Tristan also grinds advantage until it swings at you for a bunch of damage. Wind Allies does it in the form of 3 Allies on board and sticking an Attune, Tristan will do it with a Shadowstrike. 

I will go on the record and say Tristan is the greatest deck that has existed in GA so far, in my opinion. Many people feel the same way and said it was the most fun deck they've played in GA. In all my years of playing TCGs, I have never played a deck that just felt so smooth to play once mastered and granted me such a high level of skill agency. 

Tristan has a few factors to consider when executing the gameplan. We have to get to 4 Preparation Counters so that we are able to draw 2 of Tristan 2, we have to control the board with Blackmarket Broker and Sadi, and we have to usually find Shadowstrike and Mastermind Scheme along the way in order to kill. Of course we also have to do this as efficiently as possible, meaning maintaining a large influence. Tristan is a great deck because it is also filled with answers. We have some of the best in the game in: Incapacitate, Stifling Trap, Dream Fairy, Veiling Breeze, and we used to have Corhazi Outlook. The way you managed these answers in reaction to your opponent basically determined whether you won games and if you were actually a good pilot of the deck.

I've told a few people I think the true style of this deck is like being a counter-puncher. If you are able to recognize when your opponent makes a mistake and then you are properly able to punish it, you set yourself up to get an advantage. One example is if my opponent has a Baby Gray Slime on field. I swing into it with my Sadi to threaten getting Agility 3. They attempt to Escape the Wreckage, but I Stifling Trap them on top of that. A newer player might ask, "Why didn't you just Stifle the Baby Gray initially?" The answer is that is essentially just a one-for-one, you trading your Stifling for a Baby Gray. Perhaps even worse considering the card they already drew from Baby Gray.  In my line, if they let Sadi get Agility 3, that's great! You get the Slime off the board and you get to pick up your hand. If they try to Escape, and you Stifle, you trade your one Stifle for: Baby Gray, Escape the Wreckage, and denying them the extra cards they would draw from both. I value denying the Slime player extra digs into their deck and the possibility of Escape the Wreckage plays later on. In the grand scheme of the Slime matchup, there's not much else you really want to Stifle anyways besides maybe Dungeon Guide. You usually don't on Storm Slime unless it will be lethal because they will just draw more cards off it anyways. I think this type of thinking was critical on piloting Tristan and knowing what on and when you're supposed to use your answers was the difference in winning or losing games. 

^Player Improvement^

I want to go on a bit of a tangent here and talk about player improvement. A few people have come up to me and asked me what they can do to get better. First of all, it's a great honor that people think I'm qualified to advise on that, but it's also a very difficult thing to do. The easiest way would be for me to sit behind, watch your games and we could go over lines and gameplans, but I think I've come up with a good regiment that could help many players.

This all started when I was observing some games of one of our new players, Brandon. He's a good Tristan player, but he struggles quite a bit when piloting Slimes or Allies. I thought to myself, "How could this be? Tristan theoretically is much harder to pilot! He must have definitely skipped over the Krim Blog!" All jokes aside, I realized that some players didn't know how to fight for the board and that I, myself, had to think long and hard and write a whole blog post on the basics of Allies. Knowing how to play board-centric decks like Allies definitely isn't a requirement to be successful at decks like Tristan, but I do think the fundamentals help and with a midrange deck like Tristan, it can unlock new levels of play and understanding. 

So if I had to come up with a regiment for a blank slate, new-to-TCG player, I would make them go through a few decks so that they could understand the basics of each one. The decks are: Wind Allies, Water Allies, Fire Merlin, and Fire Rai. After they have mastered those, I would recommend them to try a Fire Prismatic Merlin build, and it would have been Wind Umbra Tristan, but not anymore without Corhazi Outlook. Many of the things I wrote about back then I feel are still great concepts to keep whenever you play. Things such as: If you could custom pick your dream hand, what would it be? And rank every card in your deck based on how valuable it is in Early, Mid, and Late game. These sorts of concepts will both help you understand your own deck and how you should execute your gameplan. Once you can master that with your own deck and these decks I'm recommending you to try, you'll have a great idea on what are favorable trades. 

Wind Allies

You could refer to my old blog post with this one, but this is a great deck to learn the basics with. You play an Ally, you go face or you take favorable trades. It's important to play this kind of style where you play the Allies and you work to protect them with interaction such as Deflecting Edge or Favorable Winds. You'll learn when it's better to push damage or if you're facing another Ally-centric deck, you'll have to decide if you can safely clear their board. 3 is the magic number of Allies to have on board to resolve a game-winning Attune with the Winds and if you play more beyond that, you'll learn what overextending means if your opponent clears them all. 

Water Allies

The main reason I want you to play this deck is because I want you to know how to play with and against Frostbind. The reserve cost + 1 (the card itself) is the amount of cards in hand that is needed to play a counterspell like Frostbind. "Water players always have 3 in hand" is the ancient meme. As the Water player, if your opponent plays a card and has less than 2 in hand, you are free to Frostbind them for free essentially. You trade your Frostbind for whatever they were attempting to play and banish it. If they're able to pay the 2, you -1 your influence, but you force them to maybe end their turn their with 2 of their cards in hand down. Some Water players will do this on their opponent's Dungeon maybe even multiple times in order to muddle the pool of cards in memory so that key combo pieces of their opponent's hand might get banished away randomly. It will also stop any immediate power play that might happen on a level 3 turn. This is known as Taxing. So I want you to try playing Water allies; you play a 3-cost and hold 3 in hand to represent Frostbind. Try to make good Frostbind plays. You can make these decisions by knowing what cards are good in your opponent's deck and which are key pieces of their win conditions. If you were against Merlin and had a chance to stop Ghost of Pendragon or Incarnate Majesty, those would be great targets to counter. It might even be worth holding multiple counters to stop those. 

Fire Merlin

Merlin is an amazing deck. It really has it all. They have arguably the best card in the game in Ghost of Pendragon, they have great weapons and attacks, they have the best boss card in The Majestic Spirit, and they can kill you with spell damage in Fireball. The concept I want you to take away with this deck is inevitability. Merlin is pretty much one of the only decks where as turns keep going on, it just gets stronger and stronger and it isn't possible to lose anymore. Why is that? It is because of the mechanic of her gaining a level every recollection phase and on every even level, you get to draw an extra card. Merlin is a card drawing fiend. There are turns where it's: Drawn Blade draw, even level draw, Ascension reveal Water draw, draw for turn, Ghost of Pendragon returning a regalia and draw 2. I wish I could say that's the nuts, but it's a pretty standard play. With that immense card draw and level growing mechanic, the inevitability lies within Fireball and Incarnate Majesty. Fireball does LVL + 1 spell damage, so it will eventually get to be too much damage for your opponent to deal with. Incarnate Majesty also gets cheaper because of the Efficiency keyword, so you'll eventually get to a point where you can cast The Majestic Spirit for only 3 sometimes. The Deer as people call it shuts down many decks and usually forces your opponent to invest so much to kill it. Only for you to summon it again next turn even cheaper. One thing to watch out for while playing with and against Merlin is Floating Memory in the graveyard. Merlin 2 has an ability to banish cards in the grave and if it is Floating Memory, she will gain a level counter. Clever Merlins will eat a level so that when they go to 3, they will immediately get card draw for an even level because they will have 2 level counters at their first recollection of Merlin 3. If Water Allies' concept was to track cards in hand, Merlin's is to be mindful of any Floating in the graveyard. So with these concepts, it's important to know how many cards are in hand to know what defensives might be available to your opponent, and total influence so you know what plays are available to them next turn. Likewise it is important to be mindful if you are dropping anything into your grave that your opponent might be able to exploit or can you drop something that you can make use of. Checking the graveyard/banishment is also important in tracking how many copies of something your opponent has used already and how many might still be available to them. 

Fire Rai

You could also probably substitute this with Luxem Zander, but I feel like Rai teaches you important concepts of making use of all of your options and how to filter through your deck at certain stages of the game. The skill barrier to entry for Rai is a bit tougher than other decks and it's very daunting because cards that force you to glimpse inherently take more skill because making decisions heavily impacts your results. A bad glimpse is the difference of winning or losing. Rai can be intimidating, but once you understand the basics, it actually becomes very easy to know what you want to do. I actually had written a blog post about Rai around the time of Worlds, but never published it. If you're interested, feel free to message me if you'd like to read it. So, I want you to play Rai because I want you to also be able to play a deck like this that doesn't have Allies and where you are always on the defensive until you combo off and kill your opponent in one turn. Rai requires a bit of forward thinking of: "I can't kill this turn, but I can combo off Arcane Disposition, until I have enough to Peaceful Reunion, then I can kill next turn with a huge hand". Another takeaway from Rai is controlled banishment. Rai seeks to banish Arcane cards because he gains a level for each one. If you put 3 Arcane cards down turn 1 and then level to 1, you're guaranteed to banish an Arcane. If you have Tome of Knowledge under your Quicksilver Grail, you can play Scry the Skies for 1, putting an Arcane down, then crack the Grail and pay the one you put down as cost to do a guaranteed banish on the Arcane, then resolve the Scry. The last takeaway from Rai is to find every option available to draw cards. Every 3 Enlightenment counters is a card draw, if you can Gloamspire Black Market to put a card into memory, you can eat it with Tome of Sacred Lightning to draw a card, you can also banish the Tome to draw a card. A deck like Rai can help you see every available option because often times you are one card off.

Fire Prismatic Merlin/Hybrid

If you've gone through the above four decks, I challenge you to also try a build of Merlin that makes full use of Prismatic Edge and Spirit Blade: Ascension. The key concept here is to be able to reveal all 3 elements to get each effect of Prismatic Edge multiple times when your opponent has cards in memory. You can continue to loop it over and over through the use of Crux Sight. See how many times you are able to do it pre-recollection. The takeaway here is to try and have the situational awareness of when is a good time to loop. You usually want to do things on your opponent's turn and end phase and before your recollection so that you have the full flexibility of your whole hand at your disposal on your turn. Hybrid builds are interesting because it requires you to make a call on whether you should level into Merlin or Lorraine Blademaster on level 2. Usually you want to go Merlin for midrange/control matches like the mirror, Tristan, Rai, etc and you would go Lorraine when you could get a big Flame Sweep to draw a bunch of cards and essentially win the game from there. The only downside is that you must level into Lorraine Spirit Ruler so you lose the Class Bonus effects for Incarnate Majesty and Fireball, so you must close out the game with attacks and Ghost of Pendragon. 

Wind Allies Mirrors

This is one of the most skill intensive and fun things in GA. I made my name off the back of Wind Allies with a staggering 90% win rate in the ALC season. The only 2 losses I had in the Bo3 format were to our reigning National Champ Christian. I strongly believe the more skilled player who knows more theory and takes the correct trades will win. It requires knowing the lists inside and out and leveraging defensives and seeing if you can protect your stealth units while taking your opponent's away. 

!Back to Tristan! 

That was quite the tangent, so thanks for humoring me. I hope it helps someone. I've played all of these decks and it all helped me to become a great Tristan player because all of these concepts are used in the deck. How you manage and protect your Allies like: Broker, Sadi, Outlook with Reclaim is something I picked up from Wind Allies. Knowing what is important to counter and answer with Stifling and Incapacitate I got from Water Allies. The decision making on glimpses and executing kill turns I got from Rai. Learning how to play effectively on your opponent's turn and before your recollection I got from Merlin. I also learned how to use my defensives properly from Rai and Merlin's use of Resolute Stand and Spellshield: Arcane. Controlling the board, knowing what to Dream Fairy, and when to trade vs. push damage are things I got when I was a more advanced Wind Allies player. In the Wind Allies Mirrors I learned how to poke around for defensives to see when it was safe to go for big damage or trades that are suddenly free. 

I had quite the tumultuous relationship with Tristan. She's like the high school girlfriend who you make up and break up with multiple times over the course of a couple years. I started the season with her and it was great. I didn't know at the time, but I wasn't playing it optimally and was winning off highrolls and the power level of the deck. It started to average out for me and I started to lose more games as the meta defined itself. I went off the deck because of low confidence into Chicago. I came back to the deck after recovering my mental state with a clear mind and after studying Shawn and Christian's Tristan play at Chicago. It was such a difference than how I was playing which filled me with alot of frustration, but at the same time, it excited me. I was frustrated that I had been going about it the wrong way, but I was super excited that it meant I could improve. 

People were surprised to see me come out to locals and actually play, but I wanted to grind for SoCal regionals. With Shawn's style of Tristan play downloaded, it was amazing. Some other players asked me what was it that I learned because they had already considered me a great Tristan player. I told them "I follow the theory." So what does that mean?

Ken was learning Tristan the weekend before Outlook got banned. We happened to get matched up and he said he was excited to learn. When the difference in knowledge in the mirror is great, it becomes a blowout. We pointed out a few plays that were questionable. Ken Incap'd my Surveil and Shadow Resonance that were both pre-recollection during the match which weren't great plays. That comes from not knowing that Incap should primarily be used to fight over the Mastermind Scheme. The other tip I gave him was to "follow the theory." What this means is that you need to take a measured approach with this deck. You shouldn't overreact to anything your opponent is doing and you need to do your best to find the line that will take you to victory. Ken was following the older playstyle where you always go to Tristan 1 on the first materialization, then you go Windwalker Boots. He would also always shotgun all of his Surveil the Winds, Fairy Whispers, and Scout the Lands pre-Rec when possible. This is something we all used to do when we started the deck just because we could, but in my opinion, it's incorrect to do so. 

What does my measured approach entail? Ken has already beaten me in the Prep counter race to 4, but I don't care. In reaction to him doing that, I took the line to gather card advantage. I am still Spirit, but I have already used my Backup Charger and Grand Crusader's Ring, and I've just been recurring Sadi to keep my influence up. His plays have suddenly become limited while I still have many options due to the number of cards in our respective hands. I also don't like shotgunning your glimpse and cycling cards until after you hit level 2 because you are either doing it to: Find Dungeon Guide, find combo pieces like Outlook, Mastermind, Incap, Shadowstrike to win, or you are finding insurance like Zephyr, Dream Fairy, and Ensnaring Fumes if it's the mirror to out tokens. If I shotgun the cycles too early, there's a chance I need to bottom those important pieces early on. Ken saw me materialize a Ring, let it stick. Play a Sadi, bounce it with 3 in hand, but represent the ability to bounce it again with the Ring. Then I go to my turn, materialize Back-up, Ring, and then 3 down to resolve the backup. We both agreed it was nasty work. 

This is why I trust the theory and the deckbuilding. Set plays/book moves are around because they are built on theory that has hours of testing behind it and the influence math works out. I believe that I will find a reasonable enough start in Sadi, Corhazi/Windmill/Broker + Reclaim. The only cycle that is fine to fire off early is Surveil the Winds because it just represents cycling into the next card when you use it pre-Recollection and it gains you a Prep. Fairy Whispers is super valuable because it can bottom cards that you don't need at that stage in the game. Cards like Windmill, Broker, Sadi, and Reclaim are monsters early, but become increasingly less useful when you're already setting up for Shadowstrike. With this approach, I think I didn't miss having the Dungeon Guide in all but 2-3 games over the course of two weeks on my Tristan 2 turn. I see my first 7-8 card hand, I see 2 more from Back-up and Ring, I'll see 2 from Tristan 2, then I reasonably see any combination of 1-2 Surveil, 1-2 Fairy Whispers, 1 Scout the Land. I've seen almost 1/3 of my deck and that's assuming I haven't already found the DG along the way. This isn't even accounting if I'm able to resolve 1-2 Windmill Engineers early on as well. I'm able to sculpt my hand pretty well on what is needed to win. 

I used to lose to Nico, but following this approach it became unloseable for me. I would overreact to getting Icebound Slam'd and force myself to Tristan 1 and proceed to fall into the trap of getting counterspelled out of the game because I went down a card. Now, maybe I just take the turn off and get the Nullifying Lantern if I really need it, but I can just build up my hand so that their counters are just completely useless for the rest of the game while I keep poking at them with Sadi and amassing Prep. Don't overreact, follow your theory and gameplan, and trust your deckbuilding will get you there.

Corhazi Outlook

Let's talk about Corhazi Outlook. I want to go over why this was a key piece of the deck and why I don't believe the deck can be as good without it. I'll also go over how you can evaluate cards. 

This is a 2-cost 1/3 and it gains you a Prep counter. So this is a great statline because if you know anything about Allies, 3 health usually means it takes 2 attacks to clear it. The part everyone hates is: preventing your opponent from activating cards for the rest of the turn. The glimpse can come up if you have an absurd amount of Prep from multiple Masterminds, but I maybe only won 1-2 games in my Tristan career off that. It requires you to keep your Windwalker Boots or Ring that late in order to draw the card you glimpsed, which I think was an older style of play. I found just getting the card draw early is more important now. 

So, one of the reasons Outlook is so powerful is because it is strong in every stage of the game in almost any situation. In the early game, it is a low-cost 1/3 that gets you a Prep. It's a great Reclaim target because you would love to play it again, because you need to get to 4 Prep in order to draw 2 off of Tristan 2. It can also keep chipping away at your opponent and if you manage to find Slice and Dice, you can level up, pull out the Assassin's Ripper, and kill your opponent if they are within lethal with 15 damage. 

Outlook is also very good in the Middle game. In my final match with Tristan, I lost because I didn't do this play. I could basically play my Outlook, use its effect to shut my opponent down, and then guarantee my Dungeon Guide goes off unopposed. You're happy you got your Dungeon Guide off, you're happy for the Prep and body, and you have established your Outlook already for next turn to threaten lethal. 

Outlook in the Late game is probably what got it banned. People truly hate the idea that their opponent can just one-shot them with no responses or bait them with the activation. Outlook is basically the guarantee that you can go for lethal. She also represents 2 damage on your lethal turn because of her own attack and the Prep she will generate if you don't need her effect. (Shoutout to Weilun <3). 

I'll go on the record and say that Tristan probably doesn't have a place at the top anymore with the ban. It might be able to post some results, but it simply doesn't have the consistency anymore. Losing the Prep generator means you don't really have the option to Slice and Dice early which can win a lot of matchups like Slimes and Allies or cheese out the victory early against Merlin or Nico. Tristan is also a lot more fragile than Slimes or Merlin. If you mess with their DG turn, losing an extra card is pretty devastating considering they somehow have to find time to Mastermind, Shadowstrike, and now hold Incap. If you need to do all that on your kill turn, that is 10 cards in hand. Your opponent simply needs 6 total influence (even less with Song of Frost live, even less with Fractals) to represent two counters to make you automatically lose the game if they are Water. If they are Merlin, Resolute or Under Fire will break you and Merlin usually has a huge hand as well, so you are likely dead the next turn. Defensives in GA are incredibly powerful and the world did not end when the Tristan deck came out and even when Shawn won Chicago, because the deck takes a lot of skill to reach that optimal point. There were so many responses like Resolute, Slime Shield, multiple Diffusive Block, Grail Covenant, that always occurred during the Outlook turn that the onus was on the Tristan player to also have an answer to it, otherwise they lost the game. 

I would like you to think about how Merlin and Tristan are different. If Merlin botches up their turn, they are able to recover because she inherently keeps drawing more cards for you. Casting Deer or playing Ghosts of Pendragon also are good for covering your mistakes. Crux Sight and Ascension are great ways for you to cycle, draw, do damage, and strip cards away from your opponent. Merlin also has the luxury of running all the defensives such as Resolute Stand, Blanche, Under Fire and having Deer and Shieldmate at times. For Tristan, all that damage is loaded into one shot. We can't just say, "I'll play another Ghost of Pendragon" or "I can win off Deer or Fireballs" or "I can loop you to make the influence gap too large." Tristan has no safety net when they go down on influence. The only way they go up is with Back-up and Ring early on. The only defensive Tristan was able to run was really Veiling Breeze. We are also not awarded with inevitability. Tristan has a very specific window that they need to kill. Merlin can keep building up and the game favors them as time goes on. Tristan would only have inevitability over a deck like Allies if Tristan somehow managed to resolve 3-4 Mastermind Schemes. 

I hope this puts into perspective on how crucial Outlook was to the deck. I agree that it did have to go, but I will miss what this deck represented in the meta. I loved the idea of poking around my opponent with Sadi to illicit responses and then sort of map out what they had in hand. I loved the confused looks on my opponent's faces when I would Slice and Dice at their face on a random turn Prep 0. They would give me a puzzled look and then realize later they should have blocked it. The micro-decisions and heads up plays you could do with the deck gave it alot of skill agency and creativity. I loved studying and learning the matchups in order to know what was best to Stifle, Incap, Dream Fairy, and when to Veiling Breeze. This deck truly rewarded me from knowing all aspects of the game and required me knowing what my opponent's deck was capable of. I lost to many rogue decks along the way because I didn't know what type of defensives they had. Merlin always destroys rogue decks because all of her cards are inherently powerful by themselves. Again, I will miss the deck terribly, and I hope that a deck like it can pop up again.

***Personal

First of all, I want to thank everyone in the community for their kind messages of support and encouragement. It really meant a lot to me that people wrote and spoke to me, wishing me well and trying to reaffirm confidence in me that I could still play well.

The last time I posted it was pretty bleak. I didn't really want to share at the time, but a bit before Chicago I started getting anxiety and panic attacks every time I played games. I think my friends started noticing me getting that glazed look in my eyes every time it started happening. I did some online therapy to try and help. Some people noticed I started using a pen and paper to track life and poked a bit of fun that I was tryharding like an MTG player. It's meant to sort of help me focus on something else and keep my mind and hands more engaged when I play so that it can lessen the nerves. 

I said I didn't want to go to locals, but I did want to go to SoCal and I wanted to try to top both regionals. So I needed to practice. I came in with a clear mind and everything I learned above with Tristan and in my opinion, I was killing it. I went 2-1 at every locals and I was playing great. I would have a few miscues where my misplay would cost me the match, but I think I was very well along my way. It may sound arrogant, but I think I was reaching the level that Shawn was at during Chicago. A few more locals to practice and I felt like if you dropped me in my current state back in time, I would also be able to win. I feel like many within my friend group were also at that level, so it was super exciting and I thought we would all do well because our efforts were finally at the peak.

Then the ban happened. 

It's been discussed many times, but I knew the card needed to be banned. I wish we didn't get caught in the crossfire with our regionals coming up. I wish it would have just happened next set when the meta landscape would change anyways. 

As a competitive player, it's my job to find a new deck and master it to a reasonable level in time for the event. I tried out Slimes, Merlin, and Arisanna with the new Proxia card, but none of it really clicked with me. It just didn't have the type of skill agency I was looking for. I feel like I just played out the best lines and hoped for the best. I got good results, but I just wasn't having fun. At the end of the day, it is a hobby and a game, so if I'm not having fun, why bother? So, I decided to drop out of competitive for the season. It really sucks that I had to flake on my friends for the SoCal trip, but it's probably better for me in the long run. Aside from me not having fun, it also sucks to see my friends not having much fun either. Regardless, I still wish them and anyone else competing the best of luck. I might show up to locals, SC, or the regional just to hang out or get some judge exp, but I think I will sit out of it until the next set. 

I'm hoping things get better next set. If it doesn't look much better, I think I will seriously consider quitting the game. I've been waffling back and forth on whether to sell all my foils. I'm the clown who got his Tristan deck near max rarity, but I still love the deck and it's hard to give up because of what it symbolized to me and my friends and honestly to NorCal. 

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading and sincerely thank you if you enjoy it. It makes me pretty happy if people find my thoughts interesting or informative. I love talking about the game and my DMs are always open if you want to chat.

Until next time!