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I take notes in every sanctioned match using a mechanical pencil and something like this but thicker, like around 100 or so pages. I organize it from to top bottom in smallest but most legible I can write: Event, Location, Match #, Date, Name of Opponent, what kind of deck they're playing (usually can be guessed by game 2).

It is extremely useful to know the shard colors and names like Esper, Jund, Grixis, Dega, etc. It's also good to know some abbrevations like VoR for Voice of Resurgence, Mizz for Mizzium Mortars, S.Verd for Surpreme Verdict, JAoT for Jace Architect of Thought, and more recently AoG for Anger of the Gods. Because the pages are so small, I usually just keep a one page to one game ratio and keep notes on the sides of the life totals. In particular, take note of the cards they finished you off with if you lose game one or cards they happened to topdeck with. The usual suspects are S.Verd, S. Rev (Sphinx's Revelation), and AoG for blowouts that could end the game.

I hope it helps.

He may be right in the part about Magic, but he COMPLETELY misses the point in chess and it would be some of the worst chess advice you could get. He pretty much said "forget tactics, study openings", which is the opposite of what you should be doing if you are not at least a FM (some people would even argue a GM).

The first puzzle is much, much more important than knowing what to do in the opening position. Chess is not about how common a position is, but how useful are certain patterns. The patterns the puzzle is teaching: Queen Sac (yes, it is ok to lose your queen in some situations), smothered king (yes, putting pieces around your king may actually make you lose, instead of protecting him), forced moves (notice how black must play forcing moves or lose) and knight movement (knights are weird). The exact position is not going to happen, but the patterns happen again and again.

On the other hand, learning/memorizing which are the best 1-5 is close to useless if you have problems with real game patterns (like the puzzle is trying to teach). Playing a "good/best" first move give you a very, very small advantage compared to actually knowing what to do during the game (here is Miles taking down Karpov with 1... a6: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157 or Larsen taking down Petrosian with 1. f4: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106394, both "subpar" moves)

However, he is trying to make a parallel that doesnt exist. The current problem with magic puzzles is that they are not teaching you the right patterns, a lot of the time they are trying to be cute instead. There are those is chess too, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke_chess_problem).

What he is missing is that for chess you must learn game positions because most of your decisions will happen in the middle game, as chess games go in average 40+ moves. The very important ones are probably happening only in 20+. And you can only make decisions like "Should I sac my queen?" if you actually know there are positions you should be saccing your queen, which only puzzles can teach you. By not doing puzzles, not only you will be choosing the wrong moves, but you aren't even going to consider/calculate the right move. You are going to be stuck on a beginner's mind forever.

However, in MTG you should study opening positions because most magic games are fast, with around 6-7 turns and the most important decision is "should I mulligan?". So, you should be studying mulligan and early turn puzzles, but they are still puzzles.

TLDR: The author has no idea of what he is talking about when it comes to chess. He is at least right when it comes to MTG. And yes, quantity is very important when it comes to puzzles, in both chess and MTG. Number of puzzles in a chess book can easily run into the 1000s, and you should solve them all (for example: https://www.amazon.com/Chess-5334-Problems-Combinations-Games/dp/1579125549/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VDKM7BWJN2YG1TQK7G1F). Today, websites likes Chesstempo are easier tough. Patterns are not about "how common the situation happens?" but "how useful is knowing this?" (which he misses when talking about chess. By a lot.)

> I really don't want to give up on standard, as I really enjoy this game, but should I compromise my personal feelings in order to achieve better results?

Eh, if you're not into the deck you are playing, you will always put up subpar results because you will not achieve a "flow state". Flow (http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/dp/0061339202) is essential for maximum performance in any game or sport.

I'd suggest that you just scour more videos, articles and mtgtop8 results until you find something that appeals to you. Proxy/use tappedout. What appealed to you most about Jund decks of last standard? They don't play the same, but there's a number of competitive Walker builds out there, and IMO Nissa seems criminally underplayed rightnow after making a big splash before rotation.

I have also been struggling to find a deck I like until I settled on Mardu Midrange very recently and am really enjoying it.

You're making quite a few unwarranted assumptions about my behavior to fit your preconceived notions of how someone would act in that situation. I'm a student of the crucial conversations/confrontations series. I'm very calm in a situation where someone has violated my expectations, regardless of if my expectations were right in a situation.

As far as reading the rules, I read it before hand, and I've double checked this, the Star City IQ tournament page did NOT link to the DCI rules they'd be using. I'm very confused as to where you think I should have received this information from? They mentioned the DCI, why do you feel that a new player would know that DCI mean 'Official Tournament Rules that are Use in MtG Games,' and that I should have known to look that up? Their listed rules only pertained to what you could and could not do as a vendor and prohibiting players selling cards. Please try to step into the shoes of a new player that doesn't have the wealth of experience you have about tournaments. I went to this solo, my friends had went to GP OK but I couldn't go, there was no one there to give me advice, I was in blind.

Edit: As a side note, I highly recommend those books, the executive summary is that we judge other people based on their actions, filling in motives that are often negative, but we judge ourselves based only on our intentions. Really good series that made me much better at dealing with difficult people. I can accomplish a lot more with a much more varied set of people than I could before, not sure it carries over into text.

If you enjoy these sorts of things, check out this book. Kahneman is the father of behavioral economics, which is basically the study of how our brains cleverly avoid doing any actual work.

PS; great investments if this takes off. http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Snowball-Microphone-Textured/dp/B000EOPQ7E/ref=sr_1_3?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1377627678&sr=1-3

Here is the pad I use. I like it much more than a pen and paper.

https://www.amazon.com/Boogie-Board-eWriter-Blue-J32220001/dp/B010HWCEAO/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1522381909&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=boogie+board+writing+tablet&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Mana-Mastering-Magic-Gathering-ebook/dp/B078S1F4ZT

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mental-Mana-Mastering-Magic-Gathering/dp/1981488774

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