Too many cooks spoil the broth. Having a good opponent to mull over the possible moves with is great thing, I am usually ok with one extra person watching. But get more than that, and it slows your games way down. Everyone has their input, which may or may not be helpful. Part of testing is playing the matchup as many times as possible. I learn a lot more from 20 games with 2 people analyzing every move them than you will learn from 4 games with 6 people analyzing it.

Now, after you are done playing, then it becomes fine to sit around with 6 people or more, discussing which deck won more games and why.

I usually lose:

1. Bad draw/Matchup
2. Play Error
3. Opponent is a better player

Not to say i'm the best player, but usually the fact that my opponent is a better player doesn't matter too much. If you win games because your opponent sucks, then it means you didn't deserve the win. When I think things through, I will only usually lose to the draw or matchup.

~Tombster212

Playing Errors is what determines if there a better player or not....really there isnt just better players is more like players that make no or very little errors which make them better than the players that make the errors

vision and planning also make a differnce as well.

In baskettball they call it court vision.

Chess players should see a few moves ahead.

and VS players should be running possible scenarios at all times as well. these things actually factor into making less play errors.

I've noticed that almost all the games I lose are:

1. Bad draws
2. Bad matchups
3. Bad beats

The opponent being better than you is almost regardless, because if you're not a donkey then you should still do well. Things that I'm noticing are things like playing against titans and not hitting anarchy, flame trap or insig when running BBH. Or me running squad and then missing 1 and 2 and my 3 drop is a 1 drop. Or in a PCQ when i guess I don't need to hit a 6 drop, 7 drop, or straight to thr grave by turn 6 or 7, or in a Scholarship tournament when I'm playing for $1000 and I miss Magneto (Curve sentinels vs. Curve Sentinels) so I get 2nd and get dirt #### prizes.

The 2nd thing that I most often lose to are just bad matchups. If I'm Titans and they're Avengers with a good draw I'm pretty much wrecked. Things like I'm playing some kind of combo deck and my opponent is CE and i miss NTZ so i lose or something. Just random things like BBH vs. Titans that are almost unwinnable unless they miss infinite stuff or I miss inf stuff as well.

The 3rd and sometimes most important thing that I and most people lose to are bad beats. I guess this could include bad draws or bad matchups, but random crap that you shouldn't lose to, you lose to. Like when you're playing against Titans and they hit all 4 titans gos, while hitting a complete curve with like 2 press the attacks, tamaran and argus. You're just like ok bad beat theres nothing anybody can do about it. Or playing against Squad and turn 1 they have joystick equip surprise attack mega blast you take like 15 turn 1 and turn 2 they have shape and 0 cards in their hand, not to mention they already have lark and archer in the row; you just scoop it up son. Or if they're Glock and you swing in and they're like yeah see i have 4 cover fires and 4 helping hands while hitting 1-8 scooooop it up sonnnn.

At 10k philly I was using Tutfinite and I went 7-3, losing 3 games to not drawing a SINGLE emerald enemies character out of the 9 i could have drawn to win the game. That's just bad drawing and a bad beat so I guess I lose.