Earning Your Playstyle

Why are you reading this article? It could be because you thought that I mispelt the title.  It could be that you found yourself linked to this article and jump in blind. The reason as far as I'm concerned is dual in nature: curiosity and improvement. You're reading Crits Kill People because you want to improve your game.  The stats don't lie.  Our most popular articles deal with concepts to improve how you play Batman and/or Infinity.  The thing is, you can do this by yourself, as long as you're willing to tough it out.  If you're not, well, whatever comes across my desk will get delivered to you. That's what I mean by "earning" your playstyle.

Sometimes Necessary Ingredients

I've written on ways to improve your strategy before.  I have covered specifics and broad brushstrokes. With Infinity, I've gone for more macro concepts such as list building or how I pilot the Haqqislam faction.  I think that macro concepts are more fitting for the tactical level that is Infinity.  With Batman, which allows far more strategy, there are bigger concepts such as the riskiness of guns or learning how to take a hit. On the other hand, I've gone to the micro with Silk Spectre or Emperor Penguin analysis.  Each of these articles have a hypothesis - that's the first step to finding your playstyle.

I kind of knew how to play my Infinity Ariadnans but once I put my theories to paper, my ability to play them dramatically improved.  Once you have a hypothesis, you need to test that whether that is true.  This is the hardest portion.  You can't just let one game or even a handful of games decide whether you were right or wrong.  If you're right, you'll probably notice a drastic improvement in your playing within that aspect and if you're wrong, you'll essentially be throwing the game match-after-match.  The thing is, because the human mind is just so unreliable, you need to take your testing one step further.

Stock Photo is Stock Photo

You're going to need to document your games.  A lot of Battle Reports are out there just saying what happens.  They don't discuss why they make decisions or how those ended up.  By sitting down and slowing your thoughts to be able to be put to page while allow you to make a lot connections that could be missed.  Contemplation is what is going to be required and that's why this is the second hardest step.  Your thought processes placed on paper will eventually lead to that in-game.

The final step is a bit of interaction. I know, shocking for a tabletop game but I'm sure you'll manage. You're going to need to debate what just happened.  This could be in the form of "After Action Report" that the army and Pick Up Artists use, but really could be just as easy as chatting with your opponent of why they think the game went the way it did.  They might say something you hadn't considered, something that could contribute to a core concept or keep your hypothesis safe even if you were stomped.  If you have opponents that are unable to convey the why or what of what went down, then don't despair.  That would mean join a forum:

Batman Forum

Infinity Forum

Reddit, Facebook and /tg/ are not the place to be for these things.  If you want to focus on improving your game, you need to be in the right mindset.  Facebook is used for socializing with friends, creeping on their walls and giving up your personal data to be sold to corporations who in turn will try to sell you things.  Reddit is the front page of the Internet. You're looking for more in-depth analysis than what the news brings, though hopefully that newspaper would be nice enough to link to us more often. 4chan is just immaterial, transient talk where there is no indication of whether the person is being spot on or full of shit (dear 4chan, please don't murder me in my sleep).

Create a hypothesis, test it out, document and debate.  Once you've done that, you've earned whatever you've discovered.  You can also do this in any order as well, I just find that this order is most helpful from going from zero experience to guru.