Tournament Preparation

It can be stressful to prepare for tournaments—you have to worry about deck construction, learning the meta, and what what makes you look the most like a main character. Here are some tips to help you prepare for your next tournament.

Deck Construction

Arguably the most important part of prep—you need to have the best cardboard available. Always make sure to go to whatever deck editor website is the most popular for the game your’e playing, search by “Most expensive”, and take the top result. Sure you might end up with 50 money cards and no cohesion at all but they should have thought of that before the prices were so good. You get what you pay for in this world, so more = better.

The Meta

Now you need to study the meta. By study it, I mean take that deck to locals. You know Craig, the guy who won’t shut up about the new “meta-killer” he constructed? Yeah, play 2 games against him and you should be good to go.

Tournament Day

Now you have extensive meta-research and the best deck under your belt (or in your comfy cargo shorts pocket). It’s time to get ready for tournament day! Here is a brief list of what you should bring.

DO Bring:

• Your deck (the best)
• Rubber-band to hold your deck together
• Your lucky fedora
• Finger-less gloves. Preferably leather, or branded. If nether are easy to obtain, buying some gloves and cutting the fingers off yourself also works
• Cheetos

DON’T Bring:

• Card sleeves; go commando. They can split during a tournament and are expensive
• Deck boxes don’t fit well in pockets and crunch up weird, hard pass.
• Play-mats are the hardest to carry around without a bag. Don’t use one unless Craig let you barrow his “anime girl” one. (check for white stains first) It’ll be sure to distract your opponents with boobies!
• Deodorant

Proper tournament etiquette is as follows:

1. Eat a handful of Cheetos before any handshake or handling of cards, always. You need to keep your strength up
2. Solely Domino shuffle or Corgi your deck. This is the most superior shuffling method
3. Exclusively Pile shuffle your deck if you get a judge called on you
4. Hindu cut your deck if you still get a judge called on you
5. Ask to read every card they play. They might be trying to trick you even if you think you know the card. Or they might be using proxies! Your expensive deck can’t be allowed to lose to unofficial cards
6. Flick/Shuffle your hand all the time, people really like that and find it easier to concentrate
7. Play cards upside-down in Magic the Gathering so your opponent can see them more easily
8. Declare every individual action in a chain/stack, even if your opponent can’t reasonably respond to it
9. Remember to always be ready to call a judge at the first sign of red face, or show of anger

Now you’re all set for the tournament. You’ll be sitting at the top table in no time!