I Did It, Mom!: The Dangers of Arena Mythic
What’s the fastest way to quiet a classroom? Get the teacher to ask a question to the class.
Everyone will go silent. It’s easy to give your opinion to your friend about the class, the lunch menu, or the teacher herself. But when you’re required to stand and deliver, everyone shuts down. Because at that point if you say something, you have skin in the game. You could be right, but you could be wrong also. And you’re going to be right or wrong in public. Everyone is going to know as soon as you stop talking whether you get the points or not. And this isn’t something that’s known by third graders alone. Outside of a small wrestling school in ancient Greece stood the following sign: Strip or Retire. Since you wrestled naked in ancient Greece, the message was clear. You were not allowed to simply watch. Either get in the ring or go away. You’re going to find out very quickly whether you’re worthy or not once you go through the door, so be very clear what your intentions are before entering.
I honestly don’t think about the ladder rankings often. I mean…I do to some extent: I want to be at least Platinum because that’s usually where I find that everyone is playing top-tier decks or is a good player who is playing a janky deck they can pilot well. And, for the majority of my Arena career, getting to Platinum was the sign that I could stop caring about rank and play whatever jank rang my bell on that given day. I’ve never entered an actual tournament of any quality higher than prerelease (before the world exploded, of course). I’ll play random derpy events if they have a cosmetic or if they’re free, but that covers it.
Then in February, everything changed.
I got an idea about a UW Angels deck in Standard (which I wrote about in This Very Publication), and it started going off. I climbed from Gold through Platinum to Diamond within the course of a couple of days’ worth of play. I was winning like at a 90% clip during that time, and I was…stunned, honestly. I thought it was a good idea, but I didn’t realize it was that good. I continued to play and win all the way up to Diamond 1, and at that point I pretty much thought that would be the end of it. The season was ending in a few days, and my little janky heart wanted to play a different deck. So I fired up my BW Angels deck in Historic (little did I know at that time that I’d be playing Bant Angels in Historic and it would end up as one of the better decks in the format), used a couple of games to get it tuned, and then it went on a tear. Suddenly…
I had reached the promised land. I was a Mythic player. I was very happy about it, of course, and it was a lot of fun. I even started getting comments on my ranking from non-MTG players…when I went to my weightlifting gym that weekend, I had a ten-minute conversation with multiple lifters who had seen my IG post about it and congratulated me and wanted to know about the game. And, my friends, that has NEVER happened before. For the first time I felt like I was actually playing matches at one of the highest levels available to me from my office chair. And then…the game changed. I don’t really know why it changed, or if it even changed at all and it was just my broken mind processing this development. But the game wasn’t the same.
Instead of playing a lot of different decks, the number was taunting me. Challenging me. Demanding that I play my best deck in every game. Heck, it demanded that I PLAY all the time. If you aren’t aware, the percentage ranking decays over time…your rank is dependent on the play of other people, so as they play and you don’t they surpass you. So I’d regularly go to sleep at one rank, and wake up and be at a lower rank. I found myself checking the ranking at night, and logging on earlier than normal in the morning to see how it changed overnight. Thank Oketra Arena hadn’t yet released on mobile or else I’d have been on my phone in the morning checking there too. And losses just hurt more when my percentage went down right after. It was less of a game and more of a judgment on my self-worth.
Now, there’s nothing really special about anything that I’ve described. Those at the highest levels of the game are living and breathing this reality on a daily basis. Their ranking is how they qualify for the end-of-season events that are the next step to playing Magic at the world level. And they have to do it over and over, month after month, starting well below the needed level at season reset and scrapping and clawing to at least get back to where they were. If you’ve never cared to notice before, the world of competitive Magic is a very tough business. If you can get to the top 30 or so in the world, you don’t really have to work at anything other than Magic and Magic-related products. Between sponsorships and stipends for streaming from WotC, you’re in decent shape. But if you’re not used to that grind, it can be a shock.
At least…it was a shock to me.
Soon enough, the month ended and I went back down to my usual ranking range. Now, I could finish up this story by claiming that the rush of success sparked in me a newly-found motivation to take the rankings by storm and become a fixture at the highest levels. I won’t say that because that would be a lie. I happily settled at my previous rankings and have enjoyed playing whatever deck I feel like playing whenever I want. Maybe that’s a personality fault of mine. Maybe I’m “afraid” of the cost that I’d have to pay in order to continue at the highest level. Or maybe, just for now, Magic doesn’t function that way for me in my life right now. I enjoy playing and I enjoy writing and I enjoy the little community of fellow travelers I’ve formed on Twitch. And the enjoyment is the value more than the ranking. It’s been great for me personally to know that I could achieve such a thing and now I’ll be less afraid of thinking that it’s not reachable. Breaking those “barriers” have been cherished moments in my Magic career…you can page through my clips and find my first 5-0 league finish…my random wins over some of the bigger names in professional MTG play during streamer events…and yes, the match when I achieved Mythic. And I’m sure I’ll look back on making Mythic and giggle the same way that I look at my first 3-0 draft and think I’m goofy for being so happy. But I cherish these victories and accomplishments, because when I’m slogging through yet another failed deck idea I am reminded that I can truly take my ideas and make them a success up to Mythic.
There’s a question I will never mind answering: “Are you a Mythic player?” “Yes, I was.” I’ll take it.