Some of you have been complaining that I don't put up enough "Articles" and that my posts are generally thoughts or opinions on new developments in the game, as opposed to tips and tricks for tournament play. As such I decided to start doing an occasional segment on things I've learned from playing in high level events. I'm not as good of a writer as my two blogmates, but I hope that those of you who wanted more from me enjoy this.

"Always be aware of the game state"- Every writer in every article for every game

The above quote is probably something most of you have heard a number of times, and it's an important thing to remember, because nothing hurts more than to lose the match because you didn't pay attention to, or forgot about what's going on in the game. I know it sounds ridiculous, and you might be asking yourself "How could someone forget what's going on in the game they are playing?" Well, I assure you that not only does it happen, but it happens often.

To give you guys an example of what I'm talking about, lets look back to the Mist Kage '09, where my team mate and I introduced Fellow and Loneliness, a card most people called trash, to the competitive circuit. Many games that day would end in me playing Gaara IP, F&L, and then using Sand tombs and Double sand blades to reduce their board to teams of two or less so that they would pretty much die to F&L. At the same time, more games were won because those same players would spend the following game(s) playing around a potential F&L blow out, instead of paying attention to how aggressively I was playing.

The reality was that after almost every game I played them, I sided out the F&Ls and put more aggressive cards in their place. I won games off of the fact that my opponent was so busy thinking about what he might get wrecked by, that he didn't notice the way he was organizing his teams allowed me to win. I'm not saying it was wrong of them to be aware of a potential threat in my deck, but losing because they made poor choices in organizing their teams is entirely on them.

I've also witnessed games where cards like Unexpected Attack, Shuriken, or an ambushed in Kisame FM win the game for someone, simply because the other player didn't check their opponents discard pile when they milled for a card effect, or what they used as a hand cost for a mission. I find this crazy, because unlike my previous example of my opponents making poor choices due to his lack of attention to how aggressively I was playing, this is just simply not looking at what cards your opponent is using. I don't think there is any legitimate excuse for that.

This is the part of the article where I'm supposed to tell you some secret trick to not falling into these situations, but really there is no trick. Just pay attention to the field, the cards in your opponent's chakra area, and discard pile. As a player participating in a high level event, you should be utilizing any information available to you, including the face up cards in every zone. There's just no reason not to.

I hope you guys enjoyed the article, and if you have any more suggestions for me and the other writers, please don't hesitate to post them in the comments bellow. Until next time guys!

-Andrew

Labels: AMCP, articles, Zero