1. Be Humble.
Being humble means acknowledging mistakes, and being open-minded about the idea that you make mistakes. We all do. To improve your game, you need to correct mistakes. To correct mistakes, you need to see mistakes. To see mistakes, you need to be open to the possibility that you make mistakes. To be open to the possibility that you make mistakes, you need to be humble. So, to improve your game, be humble.

2. Let go of the myth of luck.
Does luck happen? No. Most things that a player perceives as luck are in fact the results of decisions that the player has made. Did you check a 1 on the first foundation of the game and you needed a 3? Well, was that luck? Or did you play the wrong foundation knowing the risk your deck that your deck may check a one? If there is something you could have done about it, it isn't luck.

3. Practice.
 UFS, like most other human activities, can be improved by the application of practice. So, playtest. Test until you know how your deck does against various matchups. Test the mirror match. Test the good match ups. Test the bad matchups.

When I 1^st started playing UFS with Team Foxhound, I was playing Keith Drake a lot, and I would get my ass handed to me, A LOT.  It got so bad that Keith didn’t want to play me because he felt sorry for me and asked me, why I didn’t mind losing so much.  My answer at the time was, if I don’t practice and learn what I’m doing wrong… then I’ll never get better and keep on losing.  At that point and time, I would rather lose to Keith for a month straight, then lose to him for a year straight.  And as weird as this sounds, I have to thank my fellow Foxhounders and other people in my playgroup for kicking my ass so often, and teaching me all the tricks of the trade.

4. Learn how Probability works.
We're playing a card game, and numbers permeate the entire process. They can help you and they can hinder you; but knowing how they work can allow you to make better decisions about deck building and playing. You don't need to have a high-level understanding of statistics; but a basic understanding of how probability works will be quite useful.  As the game has evolved, I have noticed that the best decks tend to run under 14 “bad checks”.  The only deck that I have seen recently to go against this rule was Ben Shoemakers World’s Evil Ukyo Deck witch ran a whooping 17 bad checks, but you can’t fight with the results.  The reason for this is that those decks seldomly fail their checks and can hard check almost all their hands no problem, and the math was finely tuned for the decks to run as smoothly as possible.

5. Learn the difference between a Pet Deck and a Best Deck.
There may be reasons to enter a UFS tournament other than winning or making t8, but those reasons are well outside the scope of this discussion. If you are going to enter a UFS event and invest money in the entry fee, then you ought to select a deck which maximizes yours odds of success. Now, that means two things. First, just because you love a particular deck does not mean that you should play that deck. If you really like Miser, but know that you'd do better playing Ibuki, then play Ibuki.

That's one thing to consider. The other thing to consider, however, is that you may in fact have a better chance of winning an event with a deck that is slightly weaker in power than the current best deck, but is a deck with which you are more familiar. So, in the previous example, suppose that you're much more experienced with Miser than you are with Ibuki, even though you think Ibuki is the better objective deck; in that case, you might actually be better off with Miser, even if Ibuki is the objective better deck. The difference between these scenarios is that in the prior selecting Miser is simply a matter of personal preference while in the later the decision takes into account one's perceived ability to win or top eight a tournament with the deck. Obviously there are exceptions, like Danny Fung and his RYU deck that (to the shock of his team members and himself) took him to top 8 at Worlds 2008 while playing his favourite character.

6. Learn to execute a paradigm-changing Strategies.
The setting is the 2008 Toronto AOP. Bryan cast final confrontation leaving me with only 2 foundations left, I was playing mill Yun-Seong vs his Seong-mina.  His mill is much stronger then mine, because as I feed him cards, I get my discard pile removed from the game.  What did I do? I stopped playing cards, and used contemplations form once a turn because of Bryan’s experienced combatant and just ran through his deck hoping he wouldn’t draw into military rank fast enough so that he could start looping seal of cessation on me.  The more I played cards, the more I played into Bryan’s game, sometimes you have to just think outside of the box to win. Or you have to force a change in play style to put the ball in your court.  In general, it is better not to play into your opponent’s strategy, try to do what they don’t want you to do. 

7. How to Conquer "The Fear"

Using Information and Logic  "I think there are two kinds of people who win major tournaments: Those who know they are the best in the room, and good players who really don't care about winning. What those two kinds of players have in common is a lack of fear."  

Playing a lot against the main decks in a format teaches you their capabilities. Subtly, it also teaches you what opposing decks can’t do most of the time. Go back and look at our #6 example with the mill mirror match scenario. It can be really easy to fold under the pressure when you are terrified of the unknown. However, when you know, by practical play and practice, what to do and how everything should play out cleanly, you become free rather than a slave to your fear of the unknown and the wild, often unpredictable, plays that result in an environment devoid of logic or strategy. 

An example of this is Jon Herr in Canadian Nationals of 2008.  I’ve never played a more aggressive player in my life, and I learned a lot from my matches against him.  He literally tried to kill me from the word go, by playing a turn 1 Kasumi Suzaku, quite unheard of at that time by my playgroup and I.  Most of us, would have feared failing that Kasumi Suzaku right off the bat and losing that 10 damage potention, but not Mr. Herr.  He didn’t care what was in my hand, he didn’t care if I had a high block, he was going to set the tone and tempo of the game, and he knew the more cards he played the more cards he was going to see later on. He was able to do that quite well that day, earning himself a character card and getting a character banned!   

8. Cheating 

Don't cheat. If you cheat and get away with it, then you've cheated yourself out of the chance to improve your play.  If you cheat and fail, then people will label you as a cheater.  In any case, the bottom line is that cheating, even in the most casual of all matches, hurts you in the long run.  If you succeed, you may have won the game, but at what cost?  An example of this was when I was playing against Simon Tang (7 hand size Bison) in the semi-finals for a play set of Penny Arcades.  He ninja’s me on my first attack of my 3^rd turn with his ability to make me play a random card, the card he reveals is bird of prey as my 1^st attack (an illegal play) I can tell by his slump posture (I’ll get to that another day) that he didn’t realize that it was an illegal play and thought he lost the game because of his very low vitality, instead of claiming the victory, I gave him the win as it was his last semi-major event in Canada and I was at 2 vitality.  That day, I won his respect and along with the respect of Kin Tong Chan and the rest of team Pacific as being an honourable player. 

Secondly, always be aware of the game state, your surroundings, and your opponent's actions.  In other words, watch out for opponents trying to cheat you. I've played plenty of casual, playtesting, and even competitive games where I've caught my opponent with one extra control on their control check which would allow him/her to win the game.  Or perhaps, more commonly, I've caught my opponent with an extra card in hand (example, 1 guy at gencon swiss had 8 cards in hand instead of 7 cards that Lien rightfully gets).  Everything from extra foundations in play to mysterious shuffle tricks have been attempted against me.  The disturbing part is that I know that I haven't caught every attempt at cheating. Unfortunately, I'm sure that in most tournament settings, cheating is a reality.  It may not be as blatant as stacking one's deck, but more subtle forms of cheating exist.  I would suggest to everyone that plays competitively to follow these countermeasures: Shuffle your opponent's deck before each game.  (Preferably pile shuffle)Keep track of your opponent's life total and sources of his/her loss of life. Keep track of your opponent's foundation drops. Keep track of your opponent's hand size and cards in hand.Ask your opponent questions regarding the game state. (show that you are paying attention)

Call the Judge if you suspect foul play.

All in All, I hope you guys find this article useful and may the force be with you. 

Your fellow UFS player

The Canadian Cat in Da Hat

Sir_Shajir