Mistakes I've Made in Ixalan Limited

I will use this post to track every realized mistake that I make in any draft, build, or game of Ixalan Limited. I'll include all degrees of infraction, from minor, sub-1% edges missed to absentminded punts.

In doing so, I plan to increase my consciousness of the patterns of errors I make and review them periodically so that I can get improve. By sharing it publicly, I also hope that some of these will be helpful for others to learn from my mistakes, particularly on the more card- or format-dependent nuances.

This is an experiment. Is it interesting? If you have any feedback or ideas, let me know in the comments or on Twitter. And if anyone else decides to keep their own list, let me know, too. I'd like to follow it.

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1. I messed up what is likely the default Vraska, Relic Seeker play pattern in the same very minor way twice. During games where Vraska has been in play for multiple turns and completely dominated the board, I made the mistake of starting to chip in with some creatures once I had made enough 2/2s while my opponent had a high life total. However, all of these games ended via Vraska's ultimate doing double-digit damage to bring my opponent to 1, and in retrospect, this game arc was foreseeable, so trying to chip in any damage prior to that was probably incorrect even though I was still leaving back plenty of defense for the vast majority of game tree branches. (So excited to kick this off with such a narrow one!)
2. In a Game 1, I unnecessarily revealed a Wind Strider (3/3 flash flying) in a situation where I had truly no outs to win, and conceded shortly thereafter.
3. I forgot that I knew the identity of one of my opponents' cards in hand three turns after it was revealed via Explore and kept on top. I hadn't taken any notes about the known information because it was a paper Prerelease. Online, I'd always write it down. But, no excuses. Explore will mean that known cards in hand will occur pretty often, so it's a good time to get into good habits on tracking this.
4. I forgot that various Vampire tokens have Lifelink, in a way that did not impact the game.
5. In a game in which I was >95% to win and in which I was relaxed and joking around, I committed more creatures to the board than necessary, immediately realizing afterwards that there were Wrath effects in the format. My opponent had not shown any and did not go on to cast any.
6. In a game where I was >98% to win with an active Vraska, at 12 life and with no cards remaining in library with CMC > 4, I chose to send in an attacker so that I could draw a card off of Ruin Raider. I did not need to draw any specific cards to win, nor did I need more card advantage, and there are runs of cards my opponent could have drawn, including one known card in deck (Sanctum Seeker) where reducing my life total could have led to a loss.
7. Against a 3-color Pirate deck, while I was playing a deck of mostly Pirates, I committed a 2nd small non-Pirate creature to the board in a situation where it would not be immediately impactful, and I did this without considering Pirateclasm (Fiery Cannonade). Had I considered it, I would have held back the 2nd creature. My opponent went on to have the Pirateclasm.
8. At the prerelease, during deck construction, I underestimated the color-fixing value that 8 treasure cards would offer me in my U/B/g/w deck. I could have started 17 lands instead of 18.
9. Against a U/R opponent, I blocked their attacking 4/3 with my 2/3 and then cast my pump spell. If he had held a burn spell or bounce spell, the game state was such that he would have cast it before attacking, so I should have cast my pump spell first to see if he had countermagic.
10. Game 1 against a B/W deck where I was racing with U/w against his Ruin Raider and I was substantially behind, I skewed my strategy towards leaving his Ruin Raider alive, hoping he lost a few big life chunks to it, and racing with unblockable creatures and bounce. He ended up playing gaining life off of 3 different white cards. Had I considered the density of white cards with incidental life gain, I would have killed his Ruin Raider.
11. With a U/G deck containing 4 copies of River Heralds' Boon, I played my first two matches somehow forgetting that Boon could put both of its counters on a single Merfolk. I have no idea how I would temporarily lose this basic comprehension on one of the defining cards of the format, and it's embarrassing, but it's good to know that this degree of mistake is still in my range when I'm playing tired.
12. I played Slash of Talons after the first strike damage step to finish off a creature whose damage in the normal damage step had no way of mattering.
13. In the lategame, I forgot to reattach an equipment that fell off of a creature that died after I attacked and F6'd after blocks.
14. I missed an attack with my 3/2 into their 2/3 that I should have made in a ground vs. sky race.
15. In the final turns of a race, I paid 2 life to jump my Glorifier of Dusk to team up with my 2/3 flier to essentially trade a Vampire's Zeal for my opponent's 4/4 Sky Terror. My opponent was also attacking with a vigilant Glorifier of Dusk of their own, and I should have considered the other option of blocking their Glorifier with my 2/3 flier and trading the Zeal for that, as that would remove their Glorifier as a blocker (and my 2/3 flier was Kinjalli's Sunwing, so they'd have guaranteed no blockers) to allow me to get a better attack in next turn. Not cut and dry, but I think this would have put me in better shape to win even though it left their 4/4 flying menace alive, and I was too fixated on killing it, possibly because it was a "2 for 1" because the Sky Terror had Swashbuckling on it, which is clearly a bad heuristic here.
16. After my opponent cast River's Rebuke, I unthinkingly replayed two small creatures instead of one big creature, which was immediately wrong after I considered the board state.
17. Against an opponent with a known River's Rebuke, I held two lands in my hand in the midgame. Known River's Rebuke is actually a reason to leave zero lands in hand in situations where you'd be able to play an extra creature post-Rebuke if the top card of your library turns out to be a land. Read the board and play out your last land from hand accordingly.
18. I had a Colossal Dreadmaw and two 3/3s against a 4/4 vigilance and a 3/4 flier. Both of us were at 10 life. I attacked with everything, my opponent double-blocked the Dreadmaw, and I chose to kill the 3/4 flier instead of the 4/4 vigilance without really thinking about it. This was immediately clear as wrong given that I was light on topdecks to let my 3/3s break through the vigilance creature and that my opponent's 3/4 flier would almost certainly have to be on defense.
19. I put my extra River Heralds' Boon counter on a smaller creature instead of my Colossal Dreadmaw against a deck with known Looming Altisaur, and my Dreadmaw went on to get brickwalled.
20. I was at 5 life against a blue deck with Raiders' Wake and 3 power of creatures in play. I made an attack that emptied my hand and would let me win next turn, leaving back just a 1/1 blocker and a freshly-cast Bonded Horncrest. Since I emptied my hand, I thought my opponent would need both a removal spell and a pump spell to kill me, but I failed to realize that a bounce spell for my 1/1 would kill me... and I knew they had one from prior Explores.
21. Nothing card-specific at all, just clicked through a block without taking a safe, free block of a small creature with my big creature.
22. I played the last land out of my hand to get an extra theoretical pump on a Fathom Fleet Firebrand, but there's no way that would have mattered in any way combat would play out. This left the last card in my hand as a Pious Interdiction that I could cast on the following turn to swing the race. Combat allowed my opponent to trade off a Deadeye Tormentor when he had a face-up March of the Drowned in his hand, so I should have held the land.
23. In a race, I sent in a Headstrong Brute unnecessarily under two fuzzy simultaneous heuristics that (1) Headstrong Brute cannot block anyway (2) I'm attacking with my vehicle, too. But my vehicle was a Dusk Legion Dreadnought that would not die during this combat, and I didn't consider that it would have been better to hold the Brute back to add an additional blocker next turn.
24. When my opponent had 6 lands and had chosen to keep a two-drop Dire Fleet Hoarder on top from an Explore, which was an unusual choice at this point in the midgame, I didn't properly consider the increased likelihood of Fathom Fleet Cutthroat (4 drop + 2 drop).
25. When I hit my fifth land, I cast Wind Strider (on my opponent's end step) instead of Air Elemental when there was no realistic ambush potential for the Strider.

Timeline Legend

(1-8) 2017.09.23 - Prerelease Sealed Deck, 3-1
(9) 2017.09.25 - Competitive Draft League, 3-0

(10) 2017.09.26 - Competitive Draft League, 1-1
(11) 2017.09.28 - Intermediate Draft League, 1-2

(12-17) 2017.09.30 - Intermediate Draft League, 3-0
(18-20) 2017.10.12 - casual paper Sealed Deck tournament, 3-0
(21) 2017.10.17 - Intermediate Draft League, 2-1
(22) 2017.11.10 - Intermediate Draft League, 2-1

(23) 2017.11.11 - Intermediate Draft League, 2-1
(24-25) 2018.01.02 - Intermediate Draft League, 3-0