Own your mistakes (1-minute)

[Jexik]

This originally aired in Podcast #19, where you heard from the illustrator for Dungeon Run, Sergei Marcet, and one of the two Summoner Wars illustrators, John Ariosa.

Today's lesson:

Own your mistakes.

Don't complain about the dice.

Don't complain about the card draw.

Don't complain about perceived faction imbalance.

Take a long look at what happened in the game and see what you could have done differently.

Learn from your mistakes by not making them again.

If things don't go your way and your opponent got lucky despite all your best efforts, tip your cap and move on with your life, because it happens, even to the best of us.

Then demand a rematch.

If you lose again, look in the mirror.

My martial arts instructor long ago taught me what he called the first rule of self defense:

Don't be there.

You don't roll to move or decide how many cards to build as magic. If you prepare for the worst- your attacks missing and your opponent hitting on all dice but still keeping yourself in a safe spot, you won't regret it.

[Sauam]

Oh man, this lesson is the best of all. Especially:

Don't complain about the dice.

Don't complain about the card draw.

Don't complain about perceived faction imbalance.

I feel it's the worst when players complain about die roll in this game, knowing you will miss 1/3 of the time, why push recklessly and hope to get a clean hit out of 5 dice? and dies because of that risk?... then complain about how you missed.

[Phoenixio]

I really like this advice too. It's what gave me so much success early on when I began playing, and even now against top notch players. Even though I'm a common spammer, careful placements, safe moves and good zoning really saved my day more than once, even against nasty champions. And I never expected more than the average on my dice rolls.


However, there are situations when complaining against the dice, the cards and pretty much everything else on Earth must correct. If the dice doesn't work in an extended period of time, even safe placements will eventually make you lose. I've lost something like 30 games in a row (stopped counting there) during a certain period, whichever faction I used, whatever the positions, and by always being careful. I've been a real bitch to the team during that time (complaining ingame mostly), but I was more than cursed, and a lot of people saw how true that was. Maybe I shouldn't talk about it loudly though, it might come back to haunt me for another bunch...

But yeah, expect the average at most, place yourself so you can potentially overkill important targets (and good for you if you kill it earlier and use your extra attacks elsewhere), and be positive. And for the draw, at worst you can build magic more aggressively to go fetch what you need.

[joepinion]

What bugs me is when people stop having fun because of perceived bad luck. Especially when their bad luck is only marginal and their strategy is the bigger problem. Even if I roll really badly, the whole drama of it is still fun to me.

[esper88]

This reminds me of a game I had with KCU on vassal in which I surrounded his ~4 life Hydrake with Miti, a JE Archer, and an unmoved Maikenda Ru. I ended up not killing it and the next turn I got ripped a new butt hole.

That game I learned the definition of getting greedy.

[Jexik]

Yeah, sometimes stuff happens.

Was playing against a kid not too long ago with my SO v. his GD.

His Gror had 2 wounds on it.

I recall 11 dice. I think it was Mugglug and Glarg + ambush, and a Savager not on a wall. I hit on 4/11, when I just needed 5/11.

He played Heroic Feat on Gror the following turn, destroying all of my vine walls and doing 4 damage to everything else.

But he was pretty darn excited, and will remember that moment for some time to come.

[KCU Master 2007]

This reminds me of a game I had with KCU on vassal in which I surrounded his ~4 life Hydrake with Miti, a JE Archer, and an unmoved Maikenda Ru. I ended up not killing it and the next turn I got ripped a new butt hole.

That game I learned the definition of getting greedy.

That was a fun turn of events. You so should have killed Hydrake though and I acknowledge I got lucky there.