The Learning Curve – Keep Calm and Play Heroclix – Paris Gordon

 by Paris Gordon

What’s up everyone, I’m back today to talk about keeping your composure in high stakes matches. With Worlds just around the corner, this is a pretty big deal for people who find themselves in the final day for the first time. You’ll be playing very good players, for high stakes, and possibly on stream/video. For a lot of people this causes them to stress or get nervous and lose focus of the match, often leading to game-losing mistakes. You need to be able to push all that out and just focus on the game. However, that’s obviously much easier said than done, so I’m going to give some tips and tricks I personally use to use to shake off the stress of big matches.

I think a lot of players start to get lost in everything going on outside the match. They start thinking about who they’re playing, what they get if they win, whether they feel they SHOULD win or not, who’s watching, and (if it’s on video) what people will think of them based on their play (make one mistake, everyone will call you a cheater). It’s extremely important to stay 100% on the map for the whole game no matter what. Whether you just rolled back to back Crit Misses, or made a stupid mistake, or on the other side winning handily, about to put the nail in the coffin on your opponent. If you focus on one bad thing, you’ll never be able to make a comeback, and if you get ahead of yourself you can blow a big lead (something I’m guilty of myself sometimes). Again, this is easier said than done. One thing I do to help myself stay on the map is just look at your opponent’s team and positions and think about what they could do. I feel a lot of players end their turn, and then just wait for their opponent to make a move, leaving their mind to wander. It’s sort of like counting sheep, just run through all their possible options and what they mean. Not only does this help you stay focused, if you predict correctly you in a way have more time to react to their move and keep yourself from getting surprised. You can also of course run through your own options and prepare for your next turn, it just depends on who has the ability to change the game state the most in their next turn. Another thing I like to do while waiting on my opponent is mentally click through the dials of the figures on the board. You should know yours pretty well, so you can at least go through your own, which can never hurt. And of course the better you know your opponents the better and faster decisions you can make.

It’s easy to let your mind wander while waiting, putting you in a bad mindset once it’s your turn. However, using the above tricks or whatever else may help you focus on the map, you can beat that pretty easily. What’s more difficult though is not stressing over your own decisions during your turn. When every move has so much riding on it and, if being taped, knowing those moves will later be scrutinized, it’s easy to panic and make a mistake, or second guess yourself and make a worse play. The main thing I can say about this, is don’t base any decisions off anything besides what’s going on on the map and between you and your opponent. If any outside thoughts start affecting your decisions, you have to ignore them or you’ll end up making a mistake. If need be and you don’t take too long, you can take a few seconds to calm down. Maybe you have a specific way you like to calm down; if not try running through your options, or dials, or the action token sequence (see my other articles!). Anything to get you back on the map.

The last piece of advice I have is the game is never over. As soon as you think it is, unless it’s 100% (they have no one over 1 damage and you have Invulnerability, etc), you’ve put yourself at a disadvantage. This is especially dangerous in high profile matches. If you mentally give up, not only can it get to you really bad as you start thinking about everything you could have won, but a good opponent will see this and do whatever they can to essentially kick you while you’re down. Whenever you start doubting that you can win, just think about what you have to do to turn it around. Maybe you find that one avenue to success, maybe you don’t, but you at least keep giving yourself a chance. Even if you’re at a severe disadvantage, you can try something crazy, or super risky, or maybe you have to resort to trying to trick your opponent. As I’m about to talk about, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself when you have the lead, and you can use this to your advantage. And again, thinking about these options keeps you focused on the game. On the other hand, when you’re close to winning and you start getting overconfident and thinking about what you’re going to win, or who you’re gonna play next, or how many more matches you have, you put yourself at a disadvantage. If you have a 99% chance of victory, try to think about how to make that 100%. If you need to roll a 3 to win the game, but then Crit Miss and leave yourself in a horrible position you can find the game has completely turned around. Now I’m not saying to plan for Crit Misses necessarily, but if your other option is retreat and position yourself better for next turn so that you can survive Crit Missing, and that turn doesn’t benefit your opponent in any way (ex: don’t let them Regenerate or heal), then do so. Why risk it? These little things is what makes the top players so consistent, Heroclix is a game of chance and any little tilt of the odds in your favor can save you from poor luck. You should also think about all the possible ways your opponent can come back, not only does this keep you on the map but it prepares you for the worst. Often these states (advantage and disadvantage) can switch back and forth, and if you aren’t prepared for that you’ll have a hard time staying focused.

Well, that’s my advice on how to stay focused when you find yourself in the finals of Worlds next week! I’ll see you all there, good luck and happy clixing!