One of the funnest but also hardest parts of playing the Yu-Gi-Oh! (YGO) Official/Trading Card Game for me is deck building, the part where you put together a selection of 40-60 cards to form your deck in order to play the game.
It's fun because the near infinite card-pool gives you a ton of options with unlimited potential.
It's hard because having infinite possibilities means you won't know if you've built the best version of the deck until you actually play games with it and see how the results fare out.
Or at least this is how I perceive it.
The period of time between when I first put my deck together and when I actually try it out is a bit nerve wracking as I end up questioning my choices. Were the last few cards I put in really the best cards I could've picked? Is my strategy fundamentally flawed from the get-go? Maybe I should spend more time watching how every other card in existence works just so I can best know how to counter them?
Then I sit down and actually play the game.
It's funny how the moment theorizing ends and taking action starts I can feel my brain just instinctively flip the switch. "You've got resources and options at your disposal in the form of your opening hand and whatever play(s) those cards can potentially enable you to make. Make the most of it. Just go!" is what I have to believe in the moment, if I don't then I've already lost right then and there.
After a few games a few things become clear. Cards that probably aren't the best fit or virtually do nothing that should be cut later can be identified. Flaws and disadvantages also become clear and provide an opportunity to look into other cards that weren't previously considered that might provide a solution. There's also a bunch of insight I now have into my own plays/misplays.
Back to the deck building stage again then repeat with the trial-and-error process with more games using the newer versions of my deck. Hopefully with less waiting time between revising the deck and actually playing it.
This may sound dumb but this series of just letting things play out is a lesson I learned probably a little later than I would've liked to admit, at age 31 (I'm in my 30's now folks!).
My childhood wasn't exactly one filled with me trying out new experiences. I was deathly afraid of failure or just generally being told "no". Either by my parent or teacher telling me I can't do something or me perceiving the universe sending a message to me by making me think I look bad for trying. So I almost never tried anything. Something that I carried with me for all of my 20's too.
But the thing about YGO is that the whole game is, in essence, both players saying "no" to each other and whatever the opponent is trying to do. It's a game where you have to adapt on the fly once one "no" happens and you need to look at your potential follow-up plays.
Unlearning my previous notion that if I get told "no" once it means I should just give up and die so I should never ask in the first place, and relearning that I need to consider alternatives on the fly has been pretty positive for me.
I've described all of this in the context of a card game but these were things I didn't do for a lot for other things in my life. Lots of school and work assignments come to mind where I just did not put up results because I had a tendency to overthink and make my overall output worse. Mostly by virtue of a ton of things being left unsaid or never getting off the ground because I just wasn't willing to commit to taking action out of fear of being rejected by the universe again. Only to half-ass it at the last minute out of sheer necessity.
There's only so much I can control and do. Like how there's only so much the cards in my deck can actually do. Perfection isn't realistic, "good enough" is. Though as my Colorado Rockies-esque win-loss record on Master Duel will show, even getting there is hard but in the long term probably worth doing.
One other frustrating but ultimately good lesson YGO has offered is that the format and meta is constantly changing as new cards are released pretty frequently. Strategies and skillsets in one format do not always see the same success in the next. This is more or less in tune with how the actual world works given how its undergoing constant change, especially since we're in an age where disruption is marketed as innovation. I'm tired all of the time because I'm trying to make sense of it and by the time I've sort've gotten some sort of understanding on it it's changed again.
But I still adjust. I do my best, examine the results and adjust again. The only constant is the struggle for consistent self-improvement.
That said if I overdo it I run the risk of burning myself out so I'm also making sure I learn the art of pacing myself too. Change does occur but it's actually not as fast as it feels if I'm actually paying the bare minimum amount of attention. Learning this balance is also crucial and hopefully something that can better prepare me for when I re-enter the workforce and deal with the same reality where I was suffering from burn-out just last year. It won't be easy, but it will be worth doing.
No time like the present to learn new (to me) things I suppose. I haven't gotten anywhere worthwhile by pretending I'm in control while a thick fog of self-doubt and imposter syndrome blinds me all the time. Time to actually make an effort and let the results tell me more about what I should do next than my insecurities ever could.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care.