The Importance of Good Pairings

So my matchups affected me more than ever yesterday. In the past it wasn't such a big deal. I had a ton of tournaments with varied matchups and it just didn't matter in the format. Extended in Berlin was a perfect example. I didn't play my best matchup until the last 3 rounds and in LA I played a plethora of decks.

Regionals was far different. I went into the tournament thinking that token based decks were going to be 20-25%~ of the field and red decks probably another 15-20%. Elves making up probably 5-10% and rest would be a smattering of Fog, 5C, Faeries, GW Kid Beatdown and random junk.

My matchups on the day, including the Mox Tournament I won, went like this:

UW Lark
Elves
Turbo Fog
Faeries

drop

GWr aggro
Grixis Control
Something that escapes me, but I know didn't have tokens
UW Lark
GB Quillspike combo

So in 9 rounds, I didn't play any of the major decks in the format, be it Boat Brew, B/W, GW tokens or Rx.

It didn't affect me poorly in the second tournament, partially because of the deck I played. Which makes me realize that in a somewhat open format, playing a specialized deck can sometimes be disastrous. Had I played against Tokens all day in Regionals, however, I probably would have X-0d.

/shrug