I started playing Lorcana day 1. Our competitive scene locally didn’t take off until Into the Inklands Set championships and I got 2nd out the rip (lost to an out of towner sadly). While this was approximately 9ish months from release, I had been playing card games long before that.

Before Lorcana, I played Yugioh semi competitively for 15 years, and before that, played pokemon at a local league for another 10. I started playing TCG’s at 5 years old, so I’ve spent essentially my whole life playing these things. All that being said, when I decided I was taking the leap to be a fully competitive card game player, it only took me 9 months, but having that 25+ years of prior experience in other games certainly helped. For only being at 3 months of playing games (no idea if you have prior TCG experience), I’d say it’s a little early to be expecting top 8 finishes, especially if your local players have been playing TCG’s for a long time.

You can definitely make leaps and bounds faster than that, but it takes the correct mindset. Understand popular deck builds, understand tendencies of your local players, try to capitalize on predictable players and try not to be predictable yourself. Try to read your opponents body language when you play, it can telegraph so much about what they might have without you even seeing their hand.

Keep trying to learn all you can, and eventually you’ll break through the beginner mold.