If you keep playing and keep enjoying the game, you shouldn't be too worried about what happens to your ranking ; it often goes on extended jaunts into territory it doesn't really belong in. Beating 30s happens frequently, even when you're not playing particularly well...So does losing to 0s.
I charted my leaderboard stats for the first 3-4 months i played - the longest dip i had lasted 9 days*. You're on this forum, so you're doing all you need to improve. Think, read, play. Repeat.
*unless you count my current state of "33-35 for the last 6 weeks, when i had been 36-37 for 10 consecutive days"
Absolutely a good point : it is far from being an obsession of mine to get a good level, and I kinda dislike people who will go and think of only that and play without having fun. That being said, it is also in that spirit that I strive to become a better player, and the ranking is the closest clue I have as to how well I am doing. And for it to go back a few points, it does indicate I might be "peaking" or reaching some kind of plateau with my game style.
...and that peak/plateau has been ongoing for at least 2 weeks now, so it's not just an overnight drop.
As long as my ranking was climbing, I knew I was on the right track, now I just need to figure out what is next to come back on track.
I think that most of us who play regularly have experienced this wax and wane effect. I believe some of it is caused by trying to repeat earlier successes in environments that really don't support or replicate the same strategies. Or maybe it is that we lose sight of the game clock while we are building better and more elaborate engines. I don't really know. I get frustrated when my roll is disturbed by luckier opponents that obviously mirror me, or by a string of horrible games ruled by terrible shuffle luck.
Isotropic's setup can be annoying when it gets to the point where a player must win a clear majority of games just to tread water, and one bad day can set you back. This is complicated by the fact that by winning the player has a higher chance to play in seat two. But I honestly do not fret about it. One of these days I will go 25-5 and get that level back.
It does shed
some light on my issue. The "repeat earlier successes in environments that really don't support it" is my biggest flaw indeed. I got over the noob mistake "I got screwed by a witch so next game I'll buy 10" everybody makes at one point, but I guess now I must move on to "reinterpret every board because your nifty combo might be the second best to something else here"... and I'm not quite there yet. I guess you spend some time building your heuristics about this game, and then once you plateau with them, it is about deconstructing them to reach new heights...
Still, I find that playing games with higher leveled players like Mr.Mustard and others really help my game WAY more than playing with new people who are still learning the ropes or getting lucky. Even if I beat a high level player, I still see their strategy building and draw inspiration from it.
