Motivated By ..

When trying to motivate myself for an upcoming VtES season, I always try to set some goals for myself for the next year. I must admit when it comes to VtES tournament games (or any other form of organized game like a VtES league), I am a competitive type of player. Sure, meeting and talking to other players is important to me as well, but regarding deck building and preparation as well as in the tournament I am really trying to win the game(s). Maybe not Ayrton Senna-intensive, but still..

So setting goals helps me and motivates me building reasonable decks, going to tournaments and being competitive in the games. One important thing is that these goals must be (realistically) achievable. Winning a tournament is a reasonable goal, winning the Last Chance Qualifier, Day 1 and Day 2 tournament in a Continental Championship is not.

Some of the goals I set myself in the past included the following:

• getting a game win in a (local) league game.
• getting a game win in a tournament.
• reaching a final in a tournament.
• qualifying for the continental championship (I failed to do this for four consecutive years (2004-2008))
• winning a tournament.
• winning the local league.

After achieving these goals, of course, not all in a single year, of course, but over the past 4-5 years, the two goals for the next year are:

• winning a major tournament (national championship or qualifier) -- this is a tough one
• making it to the VtES Hall of Fame (one tournament only missing here)

Preferably this can be done within a single tournament, but we'll see how things turn out. ;)