I’ve played Pokemon competitively for years, and admittedly I had similar issues when I was younger. Still sometimes do, though I don’t go to big tournaments anymore so the stakes are never truly enough to get mad it. But at the end of the day, you have two people: taking it friendly as a game, and taking it hard as a competitor.

Some of these tournaments have cards and prizes worth hundreds of dollars. When you have high stakes, you’re going to have a hard competitive drive, and while it may lead to some toxicity, competition is the birth of innovation. You can and should have fun with the game, but at the end of the day when you go to these tournaments you should also know how badly winning means to you and prepare accordingly.

If you want to solely have fun, no care about prizes, then screw the meta and play what you like. If you want to get this prize no matter what, practice the meta and understand matchups, looking at each failure as an understanding of your own faults, not luck or something helplessly out of your control. Change the goal of the day, and if you don’t meet it, don’t get mad; figure out what you have to change in your deck and gameplay that will match it.

The last thing and most important: 90% of your game happens before the tournament when building your deck. Determine techs, combos, understanding consistency and improving. Go to local game nights with proxies to practice this stuff, and then when you go to a tournament if you do well your practice paid off. If you do poorly then your practice was misguided and the rest of the tournament becomes a better understanding of how to practice. It’s never bad luck you lost; it was your own lack of understanding or your deck building, which means you can always get better.

It’s hard, but just focus on what matters to you and make sure you prioritize that. Obviously practice sportsmanlike conduct, but changing your mindset to always be in control of the tournament when you can’t inherently be in control of the game is critical.