Most Promising Up and Comer…
Article of the Year…
Sources – and by “sources” I mean Managing Editor Craig Stevenson – indicate that he also gave me a run for my money on Writer of the Year. About the meteoric Patrick Chapin I can say only five words: The balls on this guy.
However, media hog “the Innovator” seemed to have many more than five words worth of things to say about himself. Following is an interview I conducted with Patrick over the past couple of days, via telephone. These are his opinions and attitudes on everything from card design to deck construction, spanning Pat’s varied career which has touched all facets of Magic: The Gathering.
Flores Friday: In your opinion, what is the greatest Magic article of all time? Please note that I stipulated “all time” and not only 6/28/06, though I suppose “all time” would necessarily include 6/28/06.
Patrick Chapin: I suppose the most important article was “Who’s the Beatdown?”
FF: What do you mean was? I mean, if it’s the greatest of all time, it’s not really a was-appropriate question.
PC: Standards have changed.
FF: Actually, I have to concur. I know “Who’s the Beatdown?” is probably the most referenced article in the Magic canon, but as a piece of writing, I find it a bit embarrassing.
PC: It actually reminds me of one of Richard Feldman articles.
FF: I don’t know if that’s a beat or a compliment… Moving on, what is your favorite Magic format?
PC: Mental Magic, obviously.
FF: More than Vintage?
PC: Obviously.
FF: Interesting… Besides yourself, who would you consider the world’s strongest Mental Magic player? Please note that I stipulated “besides yourself” and not “present company excluded.”
PC: I’d say… probably nowadays… I’d have to see you play versus Brian Demars. Both of you are so much better than anyone else that it sort of makes the format unplayable.
FF: One of your most well known, if controversial, positions is that there is a strong correlation between skill at Mental Magic and IQ; would you care to expound?
PC: I didn’t know it was “well known.”
FF: It is now. Talk.
PC: Wait a minute! Isn’t this article about me? What’s the point of this interview anyway?
FF: I apologize. Let’s do some more specifically Chapin-focused questions. Okay. Let’s see… What kind of jackass name is “The Innovator” anyway?
PC: My publicist insisted I use it.
FF: As your publicist I can attest that this is the first time I’ve heard that one. Try again.
PC: Okay… It was my nickname while I was away.
FF: What exactly have you innovated?
PC: Let’s see… A mono-Red strategy that I named “Sligh” because I thought it was clever.
FF: As I recall, you innovated Ball Lightning. How many did you play in this “Sligh“ deck?
PC: After minutes and minutes of playtesting, I determined that one was the appropriate number.
FF: That doesn’t sound very consistent. How did you come up with that number?
PC: I always won when I drew it.
FF: Doesn’t it seem like you would have wanted, I don’t know… more?
PC: I don’t know if you get it. I always won when I drew it. I didn’t need any more.
FF: Another card that you played was Orcish Librarian. Would you like to talk about why it was so great?
PC: The real reason Orcish Librarian was so good was that he was a reusable source of card filtering that makes sure you always draw gas. However, the functional reason is that my opponents didn’t Swords to Plowshares it. They were waiting for my “good creatures.” I went undefeated in the Swiss. However, in the Top 8 I lost to Jeremy Baca. He was a total lucksack who drew Balance plus Zuran Orb in three of our four games, but he also tapped out for Wrath of God against my lone Orcish Librarian. My Swiss opponents wouldn’t use a Swords to Plowshares, but Jeremy spent Wrath as a one-for-one on the way to winning.
FF: Wait a minute. What kind of tournament were you playing in? FNM?
PC: Actually, it was Pro Tour: Dallas.
FF: LOL. Top 8 of a Pro Tour? That’s funny. No really. Was it like a store tournament?
PC: At the tournament, there was this theme. 31 of the Top 32 played Balance or Necro. I chose to run neither of those.
FF: Seriously, do you think Orcish Librarian is strong enough to play in Time Spiral? What should I tell Billy Moreno? He won’t even try the card.
PC: I would tell Billy that Orcish Librarian is one of the three strongest Orcs of all time. That said, Orcish Librarian is probably not good enough. Orcish Librarian is best when there are great spells to find. I was getting Lightning Bolt. Digging for Rift Bolt is just not the same. The biggest problem is that it is not a one-drop. Blood Knight is clearly much better. Today Red Decks are all about the beatdown, but in 1996, True Sligh was a controlling strategy. Orcish Librarian was powerful in that context… Maybe it could be better than Keldon Marauder?
FF: You came onto the writing scene pretty explosively with “Hybrid Theory and Critical Snakes” in the spring of 2006, and in less than a year became the #2 writer for StarCityGames.com, and within spitting distance of #1, even though most of the readership had never heard of you before. Have you been playing long?
PC: Thirteen years.
FF: How lucky. Corollary question… If you’re so great, that is, the #2 guy at this site, how come you don’t even have a weekly column?
PC: Blah blah blah. Excuses excuses. I may get a weekly some time in the future.
FF: I’d like to come back to that whole “three Pro Tour Top 8s” if I might. Do you think that the fact that your most recent Pro Tour Top 8 was longer ago in history than, say, Raphael Levy [before this past weekend in Yokahama — man, that guy is gas] would indicate that you are a has-been?
PC: I’ve taken a few years off to do some soul searching. I had some obligations I was shackled to. I was really caged into a certain path that I had to walk, but I’m back with a vengeance.
FF: Oh, so you’re alluding to your time working at R&D at Wizards.
PC: I did make an appearance at R&D, though not as long of one as I would have liked. I was consulting there even after I was located in Washington… I’ve been going over a variety of life experiences over the past five years.
FF: Boring. Who is the greatest deck designer of all time?
PC: Erik Lauer.
FF: Most people “in the know” say either Erik Lauer or Brian Schneider.
PC: Brian Schneider is #2, Alan Comer #3.
FF: Zvi has a theory that Brian Schneider is #1, and never ceased being #1 for all his years in Washington. He was so good, we never saw any of his decks.
PC: Erik is the Babe Ruth of deck design and Brian is the Ted Williams. You’re Barry Bonds.
FF: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you think it’s significant that Erik is now with R&D, Alan came back to Wizards, and Brian was Lead Developer for so long, that Wizards locked in your #1, #2, and #3 deck designers?
PC: Don’t forget they also hired me!
FF: Okay. Three-part question: Your biography here on StarCityGames indicates you are the super secret deck design advisor to Eric Taylor, Mark Herberholz, and Michael J. Flores. 1) What does it mean to be a super secret deck design advisor? 2) Do you have to go to some kind of special or, dare I say, super school? 3) Furthermore, does Tsuyoshi Fujita need a “super secret deck design advisor,” and do you know how I could get hooked up with that gig?
PC: 1) You do all the work and get none of the credit. 2) You don’t have to go to a special school. It’s kind of like having a high Midi-chlorian count. You just have it. 3) As far as Fujita goes, I’m sure you have a good enough resume that you can just make the phone call.
FF: Well I didn’t know about (1). I like the opposite much better, thank you. Anyway, I don’t speak Japanese. Moving on… Does that mean you invented Heezy Street?
PC: I invented Mark Herberholz. Isn’t that enough? Besides, Heezy Street is just a derivative of every mana curve deck I ever built and beat him with!
FF: Oh. Oh! I get it! What you’re saying is you invented Napster!
PC: No, Adrian Sullivan did. You can read about it here.
FF: Zvi Mowshowitz says there is a rule about deck designers, that if a deck designer does well with a deck — certainly wins a Pro Tour — that deck is his automatically (he cited specifically his own winning PT: Tokyo with The Solution and it being credited to him despite being the product of a team effort, primarily in that case the British branch of Godzilla). Doesn’t it annoy you that Americans say “Godzilla” when in the 1998 Matthew Broderick vehicle Godzilla, Maria Pitillo informs us “It’s ‘Gojira’ you idiot[s]!”?
PC: No, it’s not in reference to the pop culture phenomenon.
FF: What, then, is the most annoying thing about being a deck designer?
PC: When you’re wrong and can’t see it because you have the second best idea.
FF: I know that feeling well. What’s the last good book you read?
PC: The last book or the best book?
FF: Let’s say last book.
PC: Atlas Shrugged. For the third time.
FF: What about best book?
PC: Still Atlas Shrugged.
FF: The summer after my freshman year of college I reconnected with a girl I was kind of interested in, but she had been going out with a friend of mine. She went to Northwestern and I went to Penn but we were friendly and she tried to get me into Ayn Rand objectivism. Anyway, that summer she tried to convince me to go join some kind of hippie commune with her. One of the selling points was that everyone on the commune gets to have sex with everyone else, which seemed like it might be advantageous in its way. Then I was like “Even the dudes?” and she was like “That’s kind of the point.”
PC: Whoa there! That’s not how Ayn Rand rolls.
FF: No?
PC: It’s capitalism that turns her on.
FF: Who is the best deck designer in the world right now?
PC: Mark Herberholz. Definitely.
FF: He’s my pick, too.
PC: Self-aggrandizing statements aside, Heezy thinks about Magic in a way that can only be compared to Jonny or Kai, or some of the Japanese. He’s not as good a player as they are (even though he is a great player), but the scary thing is, he’s still on the way up.
FF: You weren’t there when he put away Kai on the way to the Top 8 in Philadelphia… Are you planning to drag him down in San Diego?
PC: The first time we tested Two-Headed Giant, I screamed bloody murder. I had to have two teeth pulled that day. Heezy shoved my mouth full of aspirin and I shut up enough to let him play both sides. We won, obviously. I didn’t drag him down – not enough anyway – then, did I?
FF: Who’s going to be dominant head?
PC: Mark and I have an understanding. He lets me think I am the dominant head. I get to think long enough to realize he’s always right. The truth is, I actually know how good he is, and the areas he is best. He trusts me enough to bend when I disagree with him.
FF: What do you like in Time Spiral Block?
PC: Aeon Chroniclers, obviously
FF: What do you like in Standard?
PC: Any iteration of Blue-x that does not include Green. U/W, B/U, U/R, three-color, four-color.
FF: Adrian Sullivan splashes for Gaea’s Blessing…
PC: I have been doing this for thirteen years. In that time I have come to the simple conclusion that Green sucks.
FF: What about Miracle Grow?
PC: Quirion Dryad, Sylvan Library, Gaea’s Blessing, Early Harvest, Heartbeat of Spring… These are just misprinted Blue cards.
FF: Before we decided to do these interviews I was going to write about Future Sight lands, so I’m going to make you talk about them. The assumption is that they all imply different future cycles; here is how I rank them… 1) B/R, 2) U/W, 3) B/U, 4) G/R, 5) G/W. The B/R template is really awesome. I actually missed Top 8 of a Grand Prix because my Mossfire Valley couldn’t tap for colorless.
PC: What happened?
FF: It was actually the Grand Prix you lost to edt in the finals. I got nabbed by a Disrupt.
PC: You couldn’t…?
FF: I thought about the play for a long time. There was no way I could make the right colors if I added G/R to my pool because I had a limited number of lands (obviously). So he Disrupted me out.
PC: Serves you right for having Mossfire Valley in your deck!
FF: Hey! Feldman was playing Skycloud Expanse in Extended. Anyway, I was so scared of Fire / Ice I cut Birds and Elves and added land. In testing, Birds and Elves always died to Fire / Ice… it was miserable.
PC: So you needed the extra colors? I have to admit, in my version, if I got my Llanowar Elves killed, it might as well have been a Time Walk.
FF: Exactly. Anyway, I like the U/W a lot, but I don’t think it will be that great for Standard. My U/W deck is only two colors and I have all these lands – Adarkar Wastes, Mouth of Ronom, Calciform Pools, Azorius Chancery, and more – that aren’t Islands or Plains. It will probably get better when Ravnica cycles, ironically.
PC: I like B/U better than U/W, and any Blue lands are the best because they tap for Blue.
FF: I hate the G/R. The U/W version of the G/R will obviously be really strong, but if there is one color combination that doesn’t like this template, it’s G/R!
PC: I think G/W is better than G/R actually.
FF: Yeah? I hate City of Brass with a passion.
PC: The ability to draw a card is really strong.
FF: I think we agree that all five can see play in Block, even G/R.
PC: For sure. All of them have a role to play there is no question. I think G/R will see play in Block. These decks are playing Bogardan Hellkite. Suck it up! Terramorphic Expanse is so bad. It’s so bad… and yet so necessary even the Blood Knight decks have to play it sometimes. It’s better to give the opponent life every turn of the game than have your land come into play tapped. They can actually make a land that comes into play tapped and taps for every color. It would have to be legendary or it would be too good… But it wouldn’t be great. No one would play it in Extended, for example.
FF: What about outside of Block?
PC: It’s so context-driven. All of these lands are about context. I have them at 1) B/U, 2) U/W, 3) B/R, 4) G/W, 5) G/R. The ones that tap for Blue are clearly the strongest, no matter what. The B/R one is mechanically the strongest. Really, it’s all about context. What if G/R is a controlling strategy? It doesn’t matter if you’re giving them a life.
FF: So you think it could see play in Standard?
PC: Absolutely! We already have a deck that can use it. Weird Harvest / Tarox Bladewing just wants more dual lands. This is a dual land they can play. See how it’s all about context? B/U is the best, but it’s still “bad” in a deck that has Blue one drops, or when you need to remove a creature on your opponent’s turn.
FF: You mentioned Extended a minute ago… What about Legacy? Are you planning on attending Grand Prix: Columbus?
PC: I’m considering it.
FF: Anything you want to share?
PC: There are two rules about Legacy. 1) Goblins suck. 2) Every single Legacy deck that anyone has played in any tournament has always sucked in the modern era.
FF: Even Pikula’s?
PC: Especially Pikula’s. His deck loses to Goblins, and Goblins suck.
FF: Finally, Innovator or Resident Genius?
PC: Innovator obv, n00b k tks, bye.
FF: You forgot…
LOVE
MIKE