I’ve been writing about Magic for a long time. While I’ve taken a number of breaks along the way, I’ve been contributing to written Magic culture pretty much since such a thing existed. I posted on the rec.games.trading-cards.magic Usenet forum way back before there was such a thing as a Magic strategy website, wrote for The Dojo when it was the only game in town, and went on to contribute to countless other publications as they came and went over the years. In that time, I’ve written strategy pieces about any number of decks for who knows how many formats, reports for tournaments that I’ve won and lost, and theoretical pieces discussing the fundamental underpinnings of the game. But there’s one kind of article I’ve never written until now… a mailbag article!
As one of the public faces of Magic, I certainly get a lot of questions over Twitter, Facebook, and the like. I try to respond to as many of them as best I can, but sometimes that’s just not realistic, whether because of the limitations of my time or the medium over which they’re posed. I decided that I wanted to take the time this week to try to tackle as many of those unanswered questions as I could, so I put out a request for questions via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/BrianKiblerMtG) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/bmkibler). I got quite a few responses—both legitimate and trolling questions—and picked out the ones I felt would make the best reading to answer here.
Without further ado – to the questions!
@PVDDR: What are the big differences in competitive magic when you first played and now? How about the differences in you? #kiblerQA
I first started playing in tournaments before the advent of the Pro Tour, even, so there’s that big difference. Magic now is so much bigger than it was when I started playing, and even many years into my stint as a competitive player. When I won GP Toronto in 1997, I bested a field of just over two hundred players Even ten years ago, a big Grand Prix was maybe five or six hundred, while now a GP is considered small if it’s under a thousand!
Even beyond the size of events, the number of events was drastically fewer. There’s just much more Magic being played all the time these days, with the StarCityGames.com Open Series along with Magic Online, which didn’t exist until well into my time as a competitive player. This made playtesting for tournaments drastically different. While there was Apprentice back then (the original platform to play Magic over the internet), there was basically no source of information about the metagame for upcoming tournaments. Testing for a Pro Tour was very team-based and very secretive. These days, it’s really surprising when someone shows up at a Pro Tour with deck that I haven’t tested, or at least considered, but that was the norm back then. Round one of a PT was the first time anyone would even find out how certain combos worked or cards interacted. It was rare that you could accurately predict the metagame of a tournament because there just wasn’t that much information available anywhere. It was just a different world, one that evolved at a much slower pace even in the wake of big tournaments.
Magic is also a much cleaner game nowadays. The “wild west” days weren’t quite as bad as some of the stories make them out to be, but they were far worse than today. The judge program has done a great job of training judges to know what to look for and how to handle many situations. While I don’t have any stories of getting cheated on the Pro Tour, I do remember that in my very first big tournament—a $1000 New York Magic event—I was in something like the fourth or fifth round of single elimination when my opponent asked to count my sideboard between games. It was as bizarre a request then as it would be today, and sure enough I was missing a card and only had a 14-card sideboard. I ended up getting DQ’d from the tournament in a situation in which I’m sure my opponent was the one cheating, but at the time judges had no idea to look for that kind of angle shooting.
As for how I’m different—well, I started playing in tournaments at fifteen, and now I’m thirty-one. I’ve certainly changed in any number of ways since then, but as far as Magic is concerned, I’d say that one of the biggest changes is that I’ve learned how to keep my ego out of my decisions far better than I could in the past. There was a time when I did far too many things because of how I thought people might perceive them rather than because they were the right thing to do. When I was younger, I chose my decks because they were cool and different and because I dreamed of what the headlines would be when I won. Nowadays, I still prefer to play decks that are out of the mainstream, but my reasons for doing so are practical, and I’m able to accept when it’s correct just to play the “best deck”—like Tempered Steel.
@magicgameplan: what practical steps can you take to become a better deck builder? #kiblerQA
The biggest question that any deckbuilder needs to answer when they’re building a new deck is “why am I doing this?” Not “why am I building a deck?” but “why am I building this deck?” The kind of deckbuilding that I do is very intentional. I’m not generally the kind of guy who’s going to brew up something completely different—because my goal when I’m building decks isn’t to try new cards or impress everyone with my cleverness; my goal is to build decks that win.
My process for building decks is very metagame focused. I look at the various decks I expect to be popular in the format and try to identify common weaknesses. For instance, when I originally built my U/B Infect deck earlier this year, I was anticipating a rise in the popularity of Boros and Mono Red and identified Phyrexian Crusader as a card I wanted to try to build around to combat them. From there, I found Tumble Magnet and Contagion Clasp as cards that had excellent synergy with the rest of what I was doing and helped to fight against equipment, and the rest of the deck came together around it.
Similarly, when I was working on Zoo for Philadelphia, I was constantly on the lookout for ways to gain edges across multiple matchups at once. Most people were assuming that Zoo couldn’t beat Cloudpost or Storm combo decks, but I kept playing games to figure out what the dynamics of the matchups were before realizing that Flashfreeze could serve as a powerful tool against either one.
Building decks to tackle specific metagames—which is, in my opinion, the most important kind of deckbuilding in an era when there is so much information available—is about identifying these sorts of overlaps. The key to building a deck to pick apart a system is figuring out how that system works and essentially reverse engineering it to figure out how to make it stop working.
@dgentry89: whats your advice for a newer player to make the jump to the pro level #KiblerQA
Try to play against players who are better than you are. Ask lots of questions—both of them and of yourself. Learn to lose well. I see so many players who just complain about their luck after a loss or get up from the table and storm off. The first thing I do after I lose is try to re-create the game in my head and figure out if I could have done anything differently to win. You need to always leave yourself open to losing, and as soon as you’re bemoaning your luck after a loss, you’ve closed the door on that.
It’s a toss-up between Knight of the Reliquary and Elspeth, Knight-Errant. The decks that I like the most are aggressive decks with the tools to disrupt opponents and control the game, and I find powerful permanents with lots of options to be among the best tools to do that. Plus, they’ve both featured prominently in multiple decks I played to PT Top 8’s, so there’s some sentimental attachment too.
@ThatDamnAussie: What has been your best overseas destination to play Magic? #kiblerQA
At the risk of offending the clearly Australian questioner, my favorite place I’ve visited for Magic has been Rome. Rome is just such an amazing amalgamation of new and old—very, very old. You can get off the subway, stop for a gelato, walk out, and turn the corner, and there’s THE COLISEUM! That’s like nothing I’ve seen anywhere else, and it’s awesome.
Plus the food’s pretty good too!
@itfeltsoweird: #kiblerQA what age did you start playing, what year?
I bought my first pack of Magic when I was 13 years old, in 1994. I got a Kormus Bell, a Bayou, and a Mox Jet in the first three packs I opened. I could understand why the price guide said the Kormus Bell was worth $5 (every rare was priced at $5 then), but the Bayou was just like a Forest and a Swamp, and the Mox was just a Swamp that could be Shattered! Totally lame!
Yeah, I’ve come a long way since then.
@G3RRYT: Why do you think you’d had a ton of success since your return, compared to your modest success in the past? #kiblerqa
I think a lot of my recent success has a great deal to do with maturity. When I was playing competitively before, I was still in college and had a very different perspective. I didn’t take tournament preparation as seriously as I do now (even though I probably played more back then), and I didn’t take losing as well. For a long time, I’d pretty much tilt off as soon as I was out of contention for Top 8 in a tournament; if you look at my results, I have a grand total of zero Top 32 finishes over my career. I had a Top 8 and a few Top 16s back then, but as soon as I was out of contention I’d mentally check out and make mistakes that I could easily avoid.
I also think the information availability of modern Magic is much more conducive to my skill set as a deck builder. I’m very good at breaking down metagames and figuring out how to attack them given the appropriate information, and that sort of information is just far more available these days than it was in the past. Constant data from the SCG Opens and Magic Online plays to my strengths very well, and that just didn’t exist back then.
Oh, and I get to play Constructed at every Pro Tour now, when it was only half of them before! I’m a bit better at Constructed than I am at Limited….
@LuisScottVargas: when’s the new ascension expansion app coming out? #kiblerqa
Soon!
@TheBeme: Who do you enjoying watching play magic? #kiblerQA
I always loved watching Finkel play back in his prime. He was just able to plan out sequences of plays that I hadn’t even considered so many turns in advance that I had no idea what was going on and would be amazed when everything fell into place. While there are a lot of great players today, like LSV and Paulo, who impress me with their technical play, there’s no one who I find myself just flabbergasted by like I’d sometimes find with Jon.
@OreoCorp: Have you decided how many GPs you’ll end attending during 2012’s Q1 despite PPC lack of updates? #KiblerQA
I’m planning on going to all of the North American GPs for the first part of the year, if only because I know they’ll at least count toward qualification for the new World Championships via PWP. That said, I have faith that WotC will implement a system that rewards players who do choose to travel to a lot of events. Regardless, I doubt I’ll go to any more Asian or European GPs given how much travel I’ll already be doing for events in North America.
@mtgtaikomint: what happened to all those Daybreak Rangers you bought? #KiblerQA
I still have them. They’ll be good someday—you’ll see!
@wortwelt: What’s your Top 5 items you were asked to sign? #KiblerQA
Squadron Hawk quickly eclipsed any other card I’ve signed thanks to the fact that almost everyone wanted a full set of four of them. After that, it’s definitely Rith, the Awakener and Baneslayer Angel, but after that things get murky. Armadillo Cloak, Punishing Fire, and Elspeth probably make up the bulk of the rest.
@HRRNighthawk: Bottles or Cans for your Dr. Pepper #KiblerQA
Bottled Diet Dr. Pepper was my poison of choice for a long time, but I’m currently trying (once again) to give up caffeine and soda in general. It’s hard :(
@adamnajman: How do you shuffle so fast? I want to impress my friends and scare my enemies. #KiblerQA
Lots of practice? Seriously, though, all of my hand shuffling is completely unconscious and unintentional. It began as a habit I got into in the days of Cursed Scroll to randomize my hand so my opponent couldn’t track the cards I’d revealed and just snowballed from there. I’ve had so many people ask me to show them how I do it that I’m considering making a How-To video on YouTube, though.
@MtGJason: What’s the story behind your “song of the tournament” ritual? You have unknowingly introduced me to a lot of good music! #KiblerQA
The ritual as such dates back to PT Chicago in 2000 when I made my first Top 8. I had a mix CD that I was listening to before each round of the event to help me focus on the present and keep my mind from wandering. One song on the CD—Prodigy’s “Minefields”—stood out to me as having a perfect structure as a “warm up” song with a lead in and build up to a high-energy portion. I kept listening to it for each round and after the tournament decided I liked the results. I’ve taken to choosing a single song to listen to for every event since, and I have not to my knowledge ever repeated a track.
@Kengy5: how has your work with the WoWTCG and other game development/design helped you in the later part of your #MTGcareer? #KiblerQA
Working as a designer forces you to look at games in a different context. For instance, when WotC first introduced planeswalkers, I saw the fact that they could be attacked by creatures as a way in which the game was subtly pushing players toward proactive strategies to deal with them. Sure enough, planeswalkers spent a long time dominating Standard as players kept trying to play largely reactive decks. The deck that I played in that period was Next Level Bant, which was a planeswalker deck that aimed to be as proactive as possible to fight against opposing planeswalkers—and it happened to carry me to victory at GP Sendai, beating U/R/W Planeswalkers in the finals.
@thepchapin: On a scale of ridiculously good looking to really ridiculously good looking, how good do you look on your off days? #KiblerQA
Eleventeen.
@norbert88: Would all competitive Magic players benefit from playing Cube Drafts and EDH? #kiblerqa
I think playing Magic of any kind can help a competitive player improve. Cube drafting in particular is a great way to learn to quickly identify synergies and improve your deckbuilding skills, which can come in handy both in Constructed and in Limited play when you’re in a spot where you might be able to brew an unusual deck.
@brandonbroast: best Pro Tour memory? was it Austin? #KiblerQA
It’s hard to compete with winning a Pro Tour. PT Chicago comes close, since it was my first time making Top 8, but there’s really nothing quite like hoisting a trophy.
@amartology: #KiblerQA Did you ever lie in your articles? Is it somehow possible to hide fresh techs / to promote bad decks etc?
I have never intentionally posted misleading information in an article. I have withheld information, but I’m generally straightforward about the fact that I’m doing so. The minor benefit that might be gained from posting misleading info would be massively outweighed by the loss of trust of my readership.
On a related note, we half-jokingly discussed playing in MTGO Standard Daily Events in the day or two before Worlds with red decks all playing Whipflare. We ended up not doing it but heard people asking for Whipflares the morning of the event anyway. Victory!
@EricMTGcast: #kiblerqa how did #blamekibler start & become a meme?
The whole “Blame Kibler” thing comes from Michelle Cove, the VP of GamingEtc. A few years ago at Nationals, I’d had a bad day and was out of the tournament and decided I was going to go drinking. I had a few adult beverages at the hotel bar, but they were closing, and I wasn’t done yet, so I decided to take a cab to the local nightlife district. When I walked out of the hotel, I ran into Chris from StrikeZone and Dana, who worked for GamingEtc at the time. I tried to convince them to come out with me, but they told me they had to work early in the morning. I got them to agree to roll a die against me—if I rolled higher, they’d go. I won, and off we went. We kept rolling for drinks (and to see if they’d stay longer) all night, and eventually left when the entire area closed down. The next morning, when Michelle came by the booth and found them horribly hung over and leaning against the wall and asked what the hell happened, they told her it was my fault.
But that was only the beginning. At PT Austin, it was Michelle’s birthday that weekend, and she’d made plans to go out on Saturday night. When I made Top 8, most of the people decided to stay home and sleep so they could come early in the morning and watch me play instead. On top of that, I’d borrowed cards from Michelle for a bunch of previous tournaments, but this time Chris had hit me up beforehand to ask me what I needed, so I just borrowed them from him instead. Well, I ended up winning the tournament and decided I wanted to keep the deck, so I told Chris to just tell me what I owed him so I could hold on to it. When Michelle heard that I’d bought the deck (that I would otherwise have borrowed from her, and on a weekend her booth had been having pretty bad sales), she decided that everything that was wrong in life was my fault, and she was going to make sure the world knew it.
So there you go.
@dannyoms: What is the best MTG-related pickup line you have gotten from an adoring female fan? #KiblerQA
I think my favorite MTG-flirtation came from a female player telling me that I wasn’t on her “list,” but that it would be fun if I was. I played dumb and asked her “What list?” To which she replied, “Surely you guys have lists.” I told her “I have many lists. Most of them start with 4x Llanowar Elves.”
@Jonnymagic00: What skincare and haircare products do you use to look so dreamy? #KiblerQA
Bedhead Manipulator is my go-to hair goo, but my skin is just naturally beautiful.
Royce Walter: If you were going into a Constructed event without a deck, whose decklist would you want to use?
Assuming he’d been playing lately, Ben Rubin. Ben and I have a long history of working together on decks, and we have very similar philosophies, and I respect his skills more than anyone. Hell, he’s responsible for the deck that won me the Pro Tour!
Frans Ekendahl: What was it like growing up in Hampstead NH, and where did you go to play magic when you lived there? ( i live in kingston, right next door!)
I didn’t play much live Magic when I was living in New Hampshire, but when I did play, I went to Hammer’s Comics in Manchester, home of PT LA 1 Champion Shawn “Hammer” Regnier. Sadly, the store is no longer there, and I don’t think Hammer plays anymore.
Allen Terry: What is your opinion on the existence, or lack thereof, control in modern? Do you feel it has a place in the format or is the generally aggressive nature of the current format too much for it to compete?
I think Modern needs time to evolve. Control didn’t exist in Philly because it couldn’t compete with Cloudpost. The decks at Worlds aren’t really representative of the possibilities in the format, though, since people generally don’t spend nearly as much time preparing for day three of Worlds as they do the Standard portion. We’re going to need to see some GPs and PTQs to really see the format shape up, but I think control will be viable when that happens.
Steven Fall: Do you feel your U/B Infect deck could be updated to be a contender in standard today (knowing you can’t run Lashwrithe in that version)?
4:13 PM Kibler activates ability of Viral Drake (Proliferate).4:14 PM Kibler adds poison counter to JRandle 4:14 PM Kibler adds charge counter to Tumble Magnet 4:14 PM Kibler adds loyalty counter to Liliana of the Veil
:)
Thanks to everyone for your questions. I had a lot of fun doing this—maybe I’ll try it again before another fifteen years have passed.
Until next time,
bmk