I'd have to go with:

1) Bad Draws
2) Play Errors
3) Better Players

And the last one is kinda moot. If you know your deck in and out and have tested it over and over enough, then no one should play it better than you. As far as bad match-ups go, I don't believe in them. I feel that every match has the potential to go either way. I've played matches where I just couldn't get a character out until turn four or five and my opponent hit every drop and really handed my butt to me. And I've won matches that I had no business winning because I was told my deck wouldn't hang with my opponent's. But a bad draw can almost alwasy wreck you especially if your opponent gets his draws. I have made a ton of play errors but learning more about the game and playing with a more varied and diverse field of players has taught me how to minimize them. And as far as better players...well even Karl Horn and Adam Prosak have losses. But they know that eventually lady luck will hand you the thumbs down every once in awhile.

I always have bad draws. My luck is atrocious, just ask TOGORIAN25.

If lady luck has not convinced the deck stacking gods to hate me, then it comes down to:
Play error (Gah! Why does the chain have to be so confusing!)
better player

I am going to Be honest:

1 Play Errors ( I make TONS of mistakes cause When I Go to PCQs I was useally out late the day before and only have like 3-4 Hours of Sleep, When I am well Rested I make much fewer Mistakes)

2 Better Players (this rarely happens as there are not alot of PLayers in Wisconsin)

3 Bad Luck (this almost never Happens as I am a total Luck sack, this is the only reason I bother to go to PCQ cause even with Infinate Mistakes I still Manage to put up decent to Good number. I Also love to do sealed much more as Luck helps alot more there when people are most likely to miss drops without thier search Cards)

In my experience there's no such thing as luck.

You should be able to play whatever cards are given to you to the best of your ability.

But what if you mulligan into three plot twists and a 7-drop?

Then play the best you can and be a sport about it.

The better players option is pretty pointless. What makes better players better is the ability to have optimal decks and make the correct plays, which falls under play errors (Although many people wouldn't consider it one, what a badly built deck is, in fact, a play error)

Luck is very rarely a factor in VS. Sometimes you'll just get mega unlucky, but with the large number of tutors available in the game and the way the game works, usually the person blaming luck made bad mulligan/deck building decisions.

Usualy draws for me. People always complain that I take to long in making my play. :p :p :p

but usualy the others can be solved with time. either with practice, or with calculating the possibilities of what you can do. The other thing that you forgot to mention is bad match ups. like D/IG vs child lock. Child lock will generaly lose lex luthor NP.

But if I don't see it how can it be a play error to me if I play the move I think is the best? I would say that is more of a better player thing then if they see something I didn't.

If having a bad match up or a deck that is not the best a play error then that would be everyone's #1. I see what you mean though. Having called the wrong metagame is a huge play error.

I hit my entire curve when playing hobby or for fun...

Same deck in tourney play...misses a drop or two

Matchups...better players...it all happens

#1 Hate to admit it but play errors, just stupid little mistakes that you realise a second to late.

#2 Bad Draws - doesn't matter how good a player you are if all you draw is plot twist after plot twist after plot twist.

#3 Bad matchups - some games are just truly unwinnable (unless opponent suffers from #2)

But then its just a game, the main point is to have fun, even if you are losing horribly.

I also agree that bad matchup / better deck is different than better player. Especially when you're having that x-static vs underworld death match ;)

For me:

1) Bad matchup
2) Play Errors
3) Better player
4) Bad draw/luck

I don't find myself loosing too much to bad draws. 1) I usually play decks with search (wild ride, etc) 2) I think I mulligan better than my local competition.

I still have too many play errors. I don't stick to one deck very often and generally don't have a chance to practice to much before our hobby league.

I think that a lot of people here are seriously underestimating how difficult it is to catch a mistake. If we could always tell when we make mistakes, then learning would be so much easier. Alas, the thing is that a lot of the time people make errors without ever realizing it.

I know of a lot of players that think they make very few errors, but I can catch them making mistakes all the time. It's usually the choice between two seemingly correct paths that gives them trouble (as in they are faced with two choices which both give a good chance of a win, but they make the less statistically sound choice). Whether it's in deck-building or playing, mistakes are everywhere.

I think I make close to no play errors when I'm actually concentrating on winning and not just messing around casually, but I'm sure that if a better player than me were to watch me play he would catch me making errors all the time too... and I would likewise be unaware that they were errors at all.

Sometimes, it's the better players who don't recognize their mistakes. This is mainly because their opponents make more mistakes so they win regardless of their own errors. They can't recognize the difference between winning in spite of a play and winning because of it. The tendency to equate mistakes to losses and correct plays to wins throws a lot of people off. Take this for example:

I'm not sure of the exact contents of the decks krazy and his opponent were playing, but this is a perfect example of the wrong way to identify mistakes. The actual contents of his opponent's hand are irrelevant to determining the correct play. The correct play is determined by the information that he had access to. What if his opponent didn't have the pump? Would the same play become correct then? Krazy didn't know what his opponent was holding, and he made a decision based on what he knew. Whether the decision was correct is a function of that same set of information. I'm not trying to single Krazy out either. I see this kind of erroneous thinking all the time, and it's seriously keeping people from improving their game and recognizing mistakes.

The play that gives the statistically highest chance of winning, given the information available to you, is the correct play. This is true regardless of whether or not that play will actually lead to a win. Every other play is a mistake, regardless of whether or not they lead to a win or a loss.

Well, that's it for my rant. As for my own list, here it is:

1. Mistakes that I don't recognize
2. Mistakes that I recognize too late
3. Luck
4. Better players

Edit: Clarified some things.

Eh.. when I first started play it was play mistakes (formation, forgetting to use effects, etc.). Now, I can hang with almost anyone. I've even beat a few with "pro" status before.

For me lately, It's usually a bad draw.

My last PCQ, I played Squadron Rush and my first draw was 3 PTs and Joystick. I mulliganed and drew 5 PTs and Joystick. Needless to say, I bombed that game. I knew I would as soon as I drew my first 6 cards. There have been times when I could not get a team-up in my hand to save my life. Back when Titans ruled, I played them in a PCQ and could never draw a TTG!

Bad matchups haven't been that much of a problem for me. Usually, I know the metagame and know what decks don't have a prayer and don't play them.

I've lost plenty of matches by 1 END.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to settle for being an engineering consultant.... :)

Synth
Founder of Team Random Pile of Cards

Exactly stated. Like i said before, this was in sealed, and he had used Plot twists to get at 19 ATK. I used Strength from the grave to get to 20, not expecting his last card in hand to be a power up. If I had used my last character in the KO pile, I would have beaten him, because even though I wouldn't have been teamed up any more, I would have had Character field advantage, and been able to attack back.

I don't really think it was erroneous thinking as much of a calculated risk gone wrong. I realized his plot twists were burned out, and after the game was over, we both acknowledged that the extra card that I didn't use from strength would have won me the game. You factor in the amount of uses of a card a person has in sealed, and go from there. I had already seen 2 elektras that game, so the possibility of a third in opening 5 packs, and him using it, and him seeing it seemed a little close to nil. So when he played a third Elektra as a power-up, I was caught off guard.

This game is a lot less bluff based than most other CCG's out there (I'll say Magic and Yugioh are definitely have more bluff options). holding a card in hand is generally the closest thing to a bluff that players have in this game. So that makes calculated risks much easier to make in this game.

But I always make them wrong. When I can go with one, I team attack to make sure the character is stunned, and find out I could have gone with one. when I go with one, he pumps out, and makes me wish I team attacked. And every time I see others do the same thing, they always catch it the right way.

Over an infinite amount of games, yes, there is no such thing as luck. However, because you only play a certain amount of games in a given tournament, there is a "luck" factor. You can increase your chances of drawing the cards you need by playing with the correct mixture of cards, but as you pointed out, there is still a chance that you will draw three plot twists and a 7-drop.

Oh, in my games, it's:
1) play errors
2) bad draw

"better player" isn't a real option imo. It just means they make less mistakes than you.

Well there you go. Assuming that you calculated the risks correctly and that the team-up from the Hypnotic Charms was giving you some effect that was worth risking the possibility of losing to an unlikely pump for (this is an important consideration, because teaming up would have to have been extremely important to risk the possibility of losing, no matter how remote), then you made the correct play.

Of course, now that I think about it, I'm wondering what could make a team-up more important than eliminating the risk of losing the game. Did you have a team-stamped plot twist that you would have needed to use in order to win? If you did, then how could you have won if you had used the last card in the KO pile to pump?