[Strategy]: “No Uncertain Terms” – Archetypal Aggro-Control
August 10, 2016
By Eric, AKA Grandpa Growth
For the last few weeks “No Uncertain Terms” has focused on deck archetypes. We continue and conclude the series today by examining Aggro-Control. If you need to catch up on the previous entries in the series, you can read up about Aggro, Control, and Combo, which I’ve covered already.
[Strategy]: “No Uncertain Terms” – Archetypal Combo
August 3, 2016
By Eric, AKA Grandpa Growth
Last week on “No Uncertain Terms“ we talked about the Control archetype. That’s cool and all, but Control is boring. Now we can get to the fun stuff: Combo.
[Strategy]: “No Uncertain Terms” – Archetypal Control
July 27, 2016
By Eric, AKA Grandpa Growth
Welcome back to another “No Uncertain Terms,” or N.U.T. (the scientific term for a language pedant). It’s been quite some time since I did an entry in this series, so here’s a refresher: This series is meant to be a reference to help players communicate more effectively with each other. Each article will introduce and explain a commonly used piece of Magic slang and attempt to pare it down to its fundamental definition.
Previously, I discussed the definition of Aggro and what it means to be an Aggro deck. Today, I’m going to pick up where I left off and discuss the archetype of Control decks using that same model.
[Strategy]: “In General” – Learning to Strategize
July 20, 2016
By Eric, AKA Grandpa Growth
Strategy is a fundamental part of the human experience. The ability to analyze a situation and take advantage of it is our birthright as a species. It’s the one thing that we can do so much better than every other form of life that we have encountered, but we don’t get it for free. Strategy is a skill that you need to learn and, like all new skills, learning it can be a process. To help guide you through the pitfalls of acquiring such a crucial ability, I’ve gathered together some ideas to help you learn to strategize. Internalizing these ideas and repeating them will allow you to become great at just about anything you want. Sound a little too good to be true? If you don’t believe me, just watch.
By Eric, AKA Grandpa Growth
Your emotional state has a dramatic impact on how you perceive and respond to a situation. By increasing our emotional intelligence, we can improve our lives and our Magic game.
Emotional intelligence is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions. You aren’t born with it, and it’s a skill that must be developed. As we grow into adults, we start to gain control over how much our emotions affect us and how we express those emotions. Control is the relationship we want to have with our emotions, because control allows us to apply emotions strategically to enhance the effectiveness of our communications or our response to a situation. We can deliver a passionate speech or display genuine concern and empathy to people we connect with. When your emotions are under control, you won’t say things you don’t mean, you won’t vandalize your significant other’s car, and you won’t get into fist fights about your favorite sports team.
Today, I’m going to discuss the basics of emotional control, as well as some tips for applying emotional intelligence to improve your game.
By Eric, AKA Grandpa Growth
When your budget is restricted it’s important to think strategically to optimize the value of your limited money. Last week, I went in depth about how to create a budget for yourself and gave you some ideas on different ways to play that can help you lower costs. Today, I want to share with you my best ideas about how to apply your budget to building a collection and to overcome some of the problems you may encounter when implementing your new budget over the long term.