Mental Mana - Mastering The Mental Game Of Magic: The Gathering

by Will Jonathan

The Gathering is a mental sport. It's a game of the mind. To perform to your maximum and achieve success as a player, you need more than just talent, skill, and ability. You need a strong mental game in order to break through to the next level. Mental Mana is the first book in the history of Magic to focus exclusively on the mental side of the game and give you, the player, the methodologies needed to master the mental game of Magic and help you fulfill your potential as a player. In this book, you'll learn the following

-Mindset Means Everything
-A Better Way To Win
-Developing Confidence
-The Importance Of Having Fun
-Playing With Focus
-Avoiding Mental Burnout
-Coping With Results
-Eliminating Tilt
-Implementing Habits & Routines
-The Psychology Of Deck Choice
-Motivation In Magic
-Dispelling False Beliefs
-Practicing Self-Compassion
-A Passion For The Game
-Defining Your Own Success

Pick up a copy and starting mastering your mental game today. It will make all the difference.

217 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 2, 2018

Reviews

[Athanasius · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Will Jonathan does an excellent job of synthesising many of the key facets of sports psychology into a Magic: The Gathering focus. I've read numerous sports, gambling, and trading psychology books, so many of the concepts in this book were familiar to me, but for somebody without any sports psychology background, this book is a great starting point.

The author tackles many areas of the game, from mindset, to developing confidence, dealing with tilt, implementing habits and regimes, playing with focus, motivation, and many others. He breaks these down into digestible, stand-alone chapters so you can read the book piecemeal and still gain many benefits. This is a reference manual that will appeal to people at any level of the game, from rank amateur to professional. In fact you don't even need to play Magic to gain the benefits of this book, as much of the information contained is easily transferable to other hobbies, sports, and life in general.

I give this book 4 stars and not 5, purely due to some gripes I have with the physical quality of the book itself as well as some editing errors. The book is a nice A4 size and the cover looks great, but the print and paper quality is inferior. I bought my copy from Amazon and was forced to contact them due to the fact that there were ink streaks throughout the book (primarily on the right hand pages) and many of the pages were blurry and difficult to read as a result. Amazon sent me another copy, and the second copy had exactly the same problem as the first, which makes me think the author has decided on a cheap printing option? Basically the book has the quality of something that has been self-published or self-produced, so given the price tag and the fact that it was sold through Amazon I was somewhat disappointed.

The editing errors range from minor (such as when the author says that he: "returned in 2007 and played for a couple more years before I took a long, 6 year break from the game. I returned in 2013..." which clearly doesn't make mathematical sense), to the more significant issues in the 'Implementing Habits and Routines' chapter. In this chapter, the author details a 'Pre-match' and 'Mid-Match' routine, which if followed by an unknowing player, would lead to a judge call and a warning. The author recommends the steps:

1) mash shuffle + breathing exercise
2) Pile shuffle + affirmation
3) Present deck to opponent

This is in violation of the rules as pile shuffling isn't 'shuffling' at all , but merely used to count the cards in the deck and can be viewed as a means to order the cards, so if you follow the recommended steps you would be presenting a non-randomised deck to your opponent and be in violation of the rules. This mistake is repeated in the Mid-Match Routine section which makes me believe that the author is unaware of the rules in this instance. The correct sequence is to reverse steps 1 and 2, so that you pile shuffle first, then mash shuffle, then present to your opponent.
(It's also worth pointing out that the rules regarding pile shuffling were updated in 2016. The author's disclaimer at the start of the book says that the information contained was correct as far as he knew as of December 2017).

In summary, this is a great book for gaining a mental edge in Magic: The Gathering, and contains exercises and practises that are applicable not only to magic but to other sports as well. It's a shame that the print quality of the book wasn't better, and that the book contains editing errors. Sans these problems, this book would be a clear 5 stars, and would be the definitive guide to the mental game of magic without any requirement for addendum or updating. Don't let those minor negatives hold you back however, if you are interested in winning more, and more importantly, ENJOYING the game more and becoming happier in the process, this book is a must read.

[Adam Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an aspiring Magic player, I work very hard reading the articles, studying game play, and testing decks. The one thing I was severely lacking in was the mental aspect of Magic and playing competitively. Talking with people in the community leads to relatively generic responses and what works for them. That advice may not always translate to what will work for you.
Will Jonathan’s book Mental Mana, was the step in the direction that I needed. Since I started reading it, I was noticing my play being much better. It was easier to focus on the game at hand, I was seeing more success more often, and I was able to take some of the techniques to heart in an effort to make me a more well-rounded player. He has a mountain of references in this book which provide additional resources from articles written by pro players to scientific journals to books about topics that have nothing to do with Magic per se, but will help you hone the skills and techniques within yourself to be a better person.
Although I have this book a 5 star rating, it has a few issues. The book appears to me, to be self-published. I am in no way knocking this, but the size of the book is pretty large and was often awkward to read especially if reading in bed. He has a LOT of typos and grammatical mistakes throughout the book. I have a hard time looking past these as they should have all been caught by a simple spell-check program. Lastly, Will has a seriously bad habit of doing two things, that frankly drive me pretty crazy. The first is that he is consistently mentioning how he works with professional athletes. It’s as if he’s boasting about it without actually boasting. It just bothers me, every time I would read him write it in this book, I would roll my eyes and be irritated. He also does this in his podcast too.
The second thing is how repetitive he can be. For example, paraphrasing of course, “If you can cope with you’re feelings, you’ll have better success, calmness, and enjoyment. The more calm you can be, the better you can cope with experiences that don’t bring you enjoyment.” And he does this several times in every chapter. Maybe I’m over-inflating that a smidge, but it sure seems that way.
All in all, I really like what Will Jonathan brings to the Magic community, he genuinely cares, he wants everyone to be the best they can be, he knows his stuff, and provides his readers and listeners with the tools they can use. This book could have just easily been edited into a smaller size and at least 1/6 shorter with all of the repetitive void filler having been removed.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

The lessons in this book are just as beneficial for living a happy, balanced life as they are about improving the mental aspects Magic: the Gathering

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of typos and the print quality is very low. The content is really good thou. I hope that future versions of the book will have at least less typos.