The Asshole Effect – How an Opponent's Mood Can Affect Yours
June 1, 2006
Because of the diverse amount of people that play
Magic, it is not unlikely to see gamers who will be
nice and be an all-around bearable person in the
middle of a match. They make playing the game a ton
of fun, and make you want to come back to play
again. All the same, it's likely that you will run
into a person who you can't stand to be playing
against and want him out of the tournament as fast
as humanly possible. This is an emotional drive that
can affect how you play, whether you’re realizing it
or not.
Bombarding the opposition with different emotions is
typically a subject that many don't want to cover.
This is mainly because of two reasons. Either the
person talking about it can't go into as much detail
as he or she wants to due to him having an enjoyable
mood, or they consider it a taboo to talk about
using emotional strain as a game plan. Whether you
enjoy it or not, it's a part of the game and don’t
be surprised if your opponent is willing to use that
as a weapon to win the game, whether you like it or
not. Welcome to The Asshole Effect.
What a jerk! I hate
him!
I'll admit there are plenty of moments where I will
take a less than enjoyable mood when playing against
my opponents. I'll talk about stupid plays that
opponents have done, comment on why a strange card
is in the opposing deck, or flat out give them a
hard time for using a net deck and being unable to
use the build to the deck’s potential. While this
may seem like I am being a dick, it's usually
because I am. I do this with the knowledge in my
mind that doing that will help me win the game.
Before you send me angry letters biting my head off,
allow me to explain, and hopefully you’ll get a
better grasp of where I’m coming from.
Let's say you're talking to one of your friends in
the mall, at school, or wherever. Somebody behind
you makes a comment that hits you like a ton of
bricks, whether it's a racial comment or something
that you just can't stand hearing. Now, for the rest
of your day, you have those words stuck in your head
and you can't concentrate on anything except for
what that person said. You try your best to ignore
it, but you can’t forget about it because what that
person said made you so upset that you can't help
but think about it. That screws up your entire day.
Now imagine that while playing Magic.
You’re in the middle of a game against some person
in the tournament. Your opponent is talking smack
about your game and how you are playing a bad deck,
bad cards, or making a ton of stupid mistakes. Since
you're actually face-to-face with your opponent,
either you try to ignore it or you ask the person to
stop, the latter of which he probably won't do
unless you call a judge over. However, there is a
fatal flaw in doing those actions. If you try to
ignore what the person is saying, you set your mind
into solitary confinement where you're trying so
hard to concentrate on something besides what the
opponent is saying. That makes you unable to pay
attention to plays that the opponent may make.
Asking the opponent to stop will more than likely
make him push it more, because that tells him his
psychological attack is working. If you call a judge
over, this tells the asshole player that you are so
afraid of his deck that you need to get outside help
in order to defeat that person.
It may not seem like you're calling the judge over
for that reason, but deep down that's what's
happening. Have you ever called a judge over because
of an opponent's attitude? If you have, were you
going to win that match anyway? The answer to that
question will usually be no. If you are going to
win, you see no reason to get a judge involved
because you're about to shove those words back down
the jerk's throat. However, if you're up against the
ropes and are faced with an impossible situation
which the opponent isn't helping with because of his
talking, you would call a judge over to get him to
shut up. That way you can concentrate more on your
game to try and pull a come-from-behind victory. I
don't know about you people, but from my experiences
a person who can't concentrate because of my talking
usually won’t do much better if I stop.
"If it weren't for my
horse…"
Words stick with a person, whether they're aware of
it or not. Our brains are built to absorb tons of
information, whether you want to know that
information or not. If you've ever heard Lewis
Black's sketch "The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard in
my Life," that's exactly what’s happening in the
middle of your game. Here is a segment from that
sketch, and while it’s coming from a comedian, it's
true if you think about it:
So you turn back, to find the person who said it,
because if you can ask 'em a question like, 'what
did you mean by that?!' then it'll go away. But
they're gone. And now those words are in your head.
And those words don't go away… [Segment cut due to
irrelevance] …But every so often, something' like
that happens: 'If it weren't for my horse, I
wouldn't have spent that year in college.' So your
brain goes, 'LET'S FIGURE IT OUT!’
Before you continue on, I want you to read through
that quote a couple more times. Reading it once
isn't going to accomplish anything. I need that to
stick in your head like a post-it note before we can
continue.
Ready? Okay, let's continue.
As the quote says, the only way for you to get
something out of your head for good is to talk it
over with somebody. Keeping it bottled up inside
your head will only make you think harder and harder
about it. Until you set your mind on a discussion
about something else, you will not forget those
words easy; and even then if you do set your mind on
something else, if you lost a match against a person
incorporating the Asshole Effect, it will be that
much harder to get the words out of your head.
Thoughts such as "Is he right," "Did I make a ton of
play mistakes," and many more will spin through your
head as you think about those comments.
The Asshole Effect incorporates this strategy during
a game. Because you're technically not allowed to
talk over something like that in a middle of a
match, those words stay in your head for the
remainder of the match, whether your opponent is
talking to you or not. Since your concentration is
now split between the game and the opponent, you
will be more likely to make play mistakes. It's all
about getting into your head, giving your mind
unwanted information in a mass quantity, and keeping
it stuck there the entire match.
I can't let this guy win!
TO WAR!!
This is another trick that an offensive opponent
will try to persuade you to do with the crap that he
throws in your face. Eventually, with all this
built-up anger and rage towards the opponent, the
hope is that you will eventually snap and make more
insane plays than you normally would if the opponent
wasn't getting on your nerves. They try and make it
so your intent changes from ''make sure I win" to
"make sure they lose," which may not seem different
but really is given the motivation behind each.
"Make sure I win" says that you are trying to defeat
your opponent and get points towards Top 8. "Make
sure they lose" says that you want to get the
opponent out of the game, points be damned. "Make
sure they lose" tells your brain that you should get
rid of the opponent, and that leads to fatal play
mistakes and stupid moves. Then the opponent
capitalizes on these and rides them into a win.
No matter what you do, don't get caught doing this.
The last thing you want to do is give your opponent
the upper hand by changing your strategy, even if it
is only is two words in a sentence. While things
will get on your nerves and make you want to
eliminate the opponent as fast as humanly possible,
if you attempt to do that, then you more than likely
will be defeated. Stick with the game plan that you
went into the match with and don't let anything that
the opponent says to you change it otherwise.
Introducing this to
your game plan
I may sound crazy when I say this, but even though
The Asshole Effect is frowned upon by most players,
you cannot deny that there are moments where it can
win you the game. Making sure the opponent locks his
mind up, forces rash decisions, making him get angry
or upset; these are all emotions that can help you
win. I don't suggest you incorporate this to your
strategy if you are a nice guy, because doing this
will not help you make friends and could help in you
losing friends. I only use The Asshole Effect in
larger tournaments such as Pro Tour Qualifiers,
where I’m not playing against anybody I talk to on a
weekly basis.
The Asshole Effect is hard to get used to. You will
almost constantly be talking during the opponent's
turn, making the opponent slow down so you can see
what he's doing even though you had no problem
before, snapping your fingers and telling them to
hurry up, and, simply put, being a jerk. However,
this is not something that can be taught. The only
way you can truly pull this off to perfection is to
be born a jerk and have no problem exploiting that
to your advantage. Trying to teach somebody how to
be a jerk is next to impossible if the person
willing to learn is a nice person at heart due to
them being taught to be nice as they grew up.
Children are taught by their parents what is good
and what isn't. They are taught that sharing is good
and that you shouldn't hit your little brother or
sister just because you can. If the children do
something wrong, they are spanked or given a time
out. This is why most people choose not to pull off
The Asshole Effect, because they were instinctively
taught not to do stuff like that. I'm not quite sure
how I got it to the level I did since my parents
were nice and didn't let me get away with any crap
like you see on any of those weird Nanny shows you
see on TV. The only thing I can tell you about
self-teaching this state of mind is to completely
blank out your other emotions and concentrate on
getting under the opponent's skin.
And knowing is half the
battle
I know many of you are going to finish reading this
article thinking "What the hell is he thinking,
doing stuff like that to his opponents? It's a
freaking game!" While that may be true, you still
have to consider that the point of a game is to win.
Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow use techniques like
this to win millions of dollars playing Poker, and
I’m sure there are countless others around the world
who act like this in their game of specialty. It’s
all about knowing what you can do to win the game.
If you have to step on a few people to get there,
that's okay. If you have to help those people who
are stepped on get back up, that's okay. As long as
you know what you need to do in order to win, that's
all that matters.
