Duel Commander at the Collector's Tavern in St-Hyacinthe

Hello everyone!

New weekend, new tournament! This time, I'm heading to the Collectionneur Tavern in St-Hyacinthe to play Duel Commander. I decided to go with Aragorn, King of Gondor as my commander, one of the best decks in the format. My version relies on a lot of interaction and several flash creatures to keep my counters available during my opponent's turns and play a creature if they decide to play nothing.
There were 36 players present, and I faced the following commanders during the Swiss rounds:
R1 Satya, Aetherflux Genius (Jeskai Midrange)
R2 Satya, Aetherflux Genius (Jeskai Midrange)
R3 Cloud, Midgar Mercenary (Mono White Equipment)
R4 Roxanne, Starfall Savant (Gruul Stompy)
R5 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (Mono Black Control)

After the first four rounds, I was down 4-0. Most of the games were close, and the variance was treating me well for once. Sheoldred's deck, unfortunately, was a very good deck against mine. Let's just say the Monarch mechanic isn't very good against a Sheoldred. Furthermore, I made the mistake of letting a tutor spell resolve, thinking I'd counter the card it was going to fetch. Sadly, a land like Cabal Coffers can't be countered and is excellent in a mono-black deck. So I lost the fifth round and finished third.

In the top 8, I faced Aminatou, the Fateshifter, a reanimator control deck. My deck isn't very well-suited to this type of strategy unless I draw the right counterspells at the right time. Unfortunately, the variance caught up with me, and I lost quickly in two games.

A somewhat disappointing result considering how it all started, but those are the ups and downs of Magic. You have to accept them, otherwise you quickly become frustrated. It's good to analyze your losses and see what you can improve, as are your wins. However, you must always remember that variance is part of the game. And you, how do you react to your losses?