The Sinking Ship Theory: Knowing When to Quit in PTCG
Description
Hi everyone!
Because style is my favorite subject, today I want to share a theory I have regarding how to make decisions in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
In general, something I’ve noticed from my first year of playing competitive PTCG is that knowing when to quit is a very valuable skill.
There have been a lot of situations where I’m forced to choose between staying with a plan that will fail or taking the risk on something that could fail.
With this, I’ve developed the Sinking Ship Theory to illustrate how I make this decision.
I believe that it’s important to know when to abandon a sinking ship in favor of a ship that could sink, but, despite this simplicity, it’s a lot harder to do this under pressure.
So, in today’s video, I want to talk about the Sinking Ship Theory, the importance of knowing when to quit in PTCG, why quitting can feel impossible, and why you should try to do it anyway when necessary.
As always, make sure to let me know in the comments what you think about this video, and I will see you in the next one!
But until then, make sure to have a wonderful day, and thank you so much for watching!
: )))
Outline:
0:00 – Initial Thoughts on Quitting
0:27 – Decision Making in PTCG
0:55 – In This Video
1:23 – Hi Everyone!
1:46 – The Sinking Ship Theory
3:04 – Quitting Under Pressure
3:16 – Navigating Uncertainty
3:45 – Social Pressure in Competitive Pokemon
4:30 – Quitting & Improvement
4:57 – Opponent Disruption
5:38 – Conclusion
6:12 - Outro
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Tags: #Pokemon #PlayPokemon #PokemonCards #PokemonTradingCardGame #PTCG #PokemonTrainer #PokemonCommunity #Gaming #GamingVlog #GamingYoutube #Style #Confidence #Enthusiasm #JoshuaMillerStyle
Video Transcript
My senior year of college, I read a book on quitting that changed the way that I think about decision-making. Prior to reading this book, I had always thought of quitting as something that was for cowards or just something that was a signal of you as a person not being hardworking.
And specifically, I think this overall theme of quitting and the importance of knowing when to quit is really, really relevant to the Pokemon trading card game. In the Pokemon trading card game, you are constantly making decisions on who to attack, what attacker to use, what items to use, what supporter to play, what deck to play, or how to allocate your specific resources or in what order to use them in.
And I found that's something that really great players are able to consistently do is know when to quit their original plan in favor of a different one. And I really enjoy using a metaphor of sinking ships or a theory that I like to call the sinking ship theory of decisionmaking to help illustrate this concept. And I'd love to present it to you guys today.
So, in this video, I'm going to talk about the sinking ship theory of decisionmaking and how specifically it applies to the Pokémon trading card game. We'll then touch on why players often avoid quitting or staying on a sinking ship. We'll then talk about why I think that players need to improve on knowing when to quit. And then we'll conclude by reflecting on the importance of staying focused on the real goal.
But first, hi everyone, I'm Joshua Miller and welcome to my YouTube channel. I create videos on fashion, pop music, and Pokémon so that way you can live with style, confidence, and enthusiasm.
And because style is my favorite subject, today we're going to talk about the methodology that people often use when approaching a goal and specifically how this applies to quitting and how quitting can often be a good thing. So without further ado, let's get to it.
In order to introduce this theory, I think it's important to start with the image of being on a sinking ship. Imagine that you are on a ship in the middle of a storm that you are planning on taking to shore where it is safe. But during the middle of your travels, you find out that the ship that you are on has a 100% chance of sinking. And when this also happens, you are also presented with the opportunity to get on another ship that has the potential to also sink.
And given these two options, staying on a ship that's going to sink or go getting on a ship that could sink, I think that the right solution and the right path forward is really, really obvious. Unless you really love swimming in a storm, it makes complete sense to pick the path or pick the option that might have a chance of success instead of staying with the one that you had originally intended that has a 100% chance of failure.
And when you apply this specifically to the Pokémon trading card game, the same phenomenon is true. When you're playing in a competitive game with a lot of people looking at you and a lot of external noise and a time clock that is just continuously moving toward the end of the game, it can be really easy to establish your plan at the beginning of the game to victory and just only want to stick with that. Even if you realize during the middle of the game that you have a 100% chance of losing.
And I just find it funny in my personal experience how often when we're under pressure, we feel this urge to stick with our original plan instead of choosing a different plan that might have a positive outcome. And I want to touch on two reasons why I think this might be.
The first is that abandoning your original plan in favor of another one requires going along with a set of actions in a high pressure environment that are less familiar or completely unfamiliar to you. In my experience with a Pokemon training card game, you usually always have a standard path to victory depending on the matchup. But whenever you choose a different path, it can feel very scary because you're going to have to stretch your capacity as a player and take a risk and figure out something that requires you to trust your instincts under pressure.
And the second reason too is really fascinating to me because it relates to the social and performative element of competitive Pokémon. And as you climb higher in rankings, more and more people and judges and audiences and other players are going to be watching you and commentating on what it is that you are doing.
And while this can be really exciting in the moment, I think that it can also have a negative effect if it creates this external pressure to only choose the path that you originally chose. And in my experience playing Pokemon on stream, I know that it can be really, really hard to change your intended path to victory in front of an audience because it requires you admitting that what you initially thought was wrong.
But regardless of the outcome, I ultimately think that doing this will help you succeed as a player for two reasons. And the first is that it'll increase your confidence in your own ability to make hard decisions under pressure.
And the second is that even if you make the decision to switch to a different plan and you mess it up along the way, you're going to have more data and more evidence that'll just increase your understanding of the game and will just give you more experience to draw from if you encounter this situation again in the future, which overall just makes you a better player and will increase your understanding of your own deck and this specific deck once it's applied in this matchup.
And the other reason too that I think in this situation, it's important to pursue the ship that could sink over the one that's going to sink is that it gives the opportunity to potentially disrupt your opponent's comfort or just their line of thinking. And this is because when you change your intended path to victory in front of your opponent, it forces them to re-evaluate whether their plan is going to work.
And because your attention is such a valuable resource, forcing your opponent to have to think and re-evaluate their own strategy takes away from time that they could be thinking about something else, which not only helps you by disabling your opponent, but it also just increases the likelihood that they'll make a mistake if you're bringing them into a situation that they've less commonly experienced.
So, to conclude, while making decisions under pressure in the Pokemon trading card game can be really, really scary and difficult, I ultimately think that employing a strategy that builds room and just creates a precedent for you to be allowed to change your intended path to victory is really, really important to growing as a player.
No one wants to stay on a sinking ship if there's an opportunity for safety, because the goal isn't just to stay on the ship that we initially intended. The goal is to make it to shore. And I really just hope that thinking this way and having this framework will lead you toward more victories on whatever journey it is that you are on.
So there you guys have this week's video. Make sure to let me know in the comments what you specifically think about decision-m and decision-m under pressure, especially in a competitive environment. I just find performative psychology and decision-m and operational strategy just to be so so fascinating. And I'm definitely really really interested to hear what all of you guys have to think in the comments section down below.
And if you like this video, make sure to give it a like and hit the subscribe button down below for new videos like this one every single week.
But until then, make sure to have a wonderful day and thank you so much for watching.
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