Next Level Magic Paperback Coming March 22!

Before I read NLM, I was, at best, an average player (3-3 at a PTQ was a good day, going 2-1 at a draft was fantastic). I won’t go into detail, but the I will say that my game has improved beyond recognition since reading your book, I’ve finished third at a $1k event from a field of 120, finished 16th at a PTQ of 128, and won our states championship last month. I know I’ve got a long way to go, but I’ve also been winning/splitting enough 8-4 modo draft cues that I’ve only ever had to pay for about 4, out of 20-30.

I’m sure you get tons of these emails, but I still feel that I need to throw in my personal thanks. I had been on a huge break between Mirrodin and Shadowmoor, coming back into a world run by Fae and Demigods. I was lost up until I started listening to your advice and tactics. It soon became a world of Fae and Demigods that were crying while I resolved a certain nine-mana storm sorcery. Now, with added help through your Next Level book excerpts, you continue to be the force that helps me to understand the enigma that is Standard. Thank you for all your devotion to this game we so deeply enjoy, and thank you for all the help you’ve given others just like me. You truly are an innovator.

Sir, you are a true inspiration to all Magic players. Thank you for taking your time out to make a Guide for Magic players to help them reach that next level.

From Mono-Red ten years ago to Five-Color Control today, Patrick Chapin has been instrumental in deck and theory development for years. After a mediocre finish at Pro Tour: Hollywood, Patrick helped me rethink my approach to the Pro Tour, influencing my deck choice for Pro Tour: Berlin. In this strategy guide, he shares his years of accumulated knowledge and expertise. Anyone interested in improving their game would do well to check it out!

When I browse on StarCityGames.com, I never miss a chance to check out Patrick’s articles. As the great deckbuilder he is, he always has some insightful comment or some new tech to delight me, making him a much enjoyable read.

Patrick is more than a good deck-builder… His writing and teachings help people at every level of the game, and he cracks me up.

In the game of Magic, the player is presented with infinite different plays depending on not only the cards in play, but the cards in your opponent’s hand and deck. To decipher this information, you must use a series of deductive reasoning garnered from your opponent’s play and body language. There are maybe 25 people in the world who currently play the game that can do this at the highest level… Patrick Chapin is one of those people.

Patrick is a great deck builder, he is also great player and writer. He knows everything about Magic, so you can learn something worthy from him. I promise his articles must be nice for us!

I’ve been in the game longer than most, and since day 1, Patrick Chapin has been one of the most innovative and creative Magic players I have ever known. Not only is he one of the best deck-builders out there, he is also a fantastic player, and offering a strategy guide with insights into his brain will raise the bar for all competitive players.

I’ve met a lot of people in these 14 years since I started playing Magic. I’ve had the luck to meet great people, to face very good players, and to meet many people who were animated by the passion of the game. Patrick is one of the very few people I’ve met that could respond to any of these three descriptions. I’m glad I met him, and I’ll be glad to read his book when it’s out!

Patrick Chapin is one of Magic’s brightest minds, and one of the most fun people to hang out with at events. Patrick’s clever innovations for Five-Color Control helped me win Grand Prix: Denver.

Patrick Chapin is a rare Magic player. There are a few Magic the Gathering players that have a strong grasp of Magic theory. These are the players that are able to build the decks we all play. And there are only a few of the very elite, the very top players in Magic. They are the ones you will find making money playing tournaments. And there are only a very few that can explain how to play the game, to explain it so that it is easy to understand. These are the ones that write books. Chapin is able to do all three.

In the history of the game, few players have had both a complex theoretical understanding of the game and also the practical chops to play the game at the top level; Patrick is one of the best.

(The Segment on Tempo) is the best explanation of tempo I have ever read.

Great Player. Great Writer.

Patrick Chapin is without question one of most devoted Magic players in the game today. From his endless hours of playtesting, to his thoughtful hours of strategy article writing, to his constant connection to the Magic community, I believe he is one of the most knowledgeable players in the game today and there is a lot that one can learn from him.

Patrick is one of the greatest minds to ever play the game. His passion, strategic insights, and technical understanding are one of the reasons that Patrick is one of the most sought-after teachers around. Unlike many other Masters, Patrick’s love of Magic extends beyond the professional circuit and deep into the heart of the game itself. You can find him enjoying a 128 multi-player game at Gencon with the same enthusiasm as the Pro Tour. Patrick is always worth reading.

Patrick is one of the most successful creative deck-builders and players in the history of Magic. Many people can tell you how to find the best decks on the net, and make routine strong plays. Many other players can tell you how to make different plays or unique decks. He is one of the few to explain how to make the strong but innovative deck or play. His imaginative plays not only make one better at the game, but they are also highly enjoyable.

People with experience are the best you can learn from, and Patrick has been around for quite some time, so you can safely say he knows what he’s talking about. When Patrick talks, people listen.

What puts Patrick Chapin in his own league, when it comes to most Magic strategists, is his totally unparalleled success both as a theoretician AND as a player. His ability to consistently convert his Magic knowledge into tournament results manifests itself in the clarity and accessibility of his writing style – the reader seems to experience what Patrick thinks as he thinks it!

Yet, even more impressively, Patrick’s consistency isn’t the consistency of comfort, of security, of resting on his laurels. Despite a professional career that spans almost a decade and a half, making him one of the ‘oldest-school’ Pros currently active, he continues to pioneer new strategies, ideas, decks, and pieces of technology almost every week – and his love of the game is such that many of his best pieces were scrawled out laboriously by hand! So his nickname, “The Innovator,” isn’t so much a title as it is a simple fact. Patrick Chapin will go down in history alongside names like Hahn, Flores, Taylor, Hacker, and Mowshowitz as one of the game’s all-time greatest minds.

Patrick’s love of learning, and his willingness to learn from anyone, is one of the keys to his success, and something everyone should try to emulate. Ideas don’t remember who thought of them — whether the player is good, bad or indifferent. A good idea is a good idea is a good idea. Sometimes someone will have a “bad” idea and it will still help you to approach the problem the right way. Looking at everyone as someone to learn from (and also teach) is really the best way to approach the game.

I’ve also had the pleasure of playing with many good players in my time, and pretty much all of the best decks I played (excluding Prison at 97 Chicago) were someone else’s design. Deadguy Red at Worlds 98, I can thank Dave Price for making me embrace the Jackal Pup; Mono Black at Nats 2000 (thank you Mike Flores); Tinker at Worlds 2000 (Dan OMS, who got the idea from someone at Canadian Nationals); and even Dragonstorm recently at Worlds 2007 (thank you Patrick Chapin).

While Patrick was probably better than me when I played his deck, no one was going to mistake Mike Flores for a PT champion. He might have only had 3 Vampiric Tutors in his Vampiric Tutor deck, but it was a great idea and a great deck, and I was happy to play it. Patrick says it perfectly — listening to and learning from everyone is the single most important thing you can do.

On a related note, listening to Patrick talk about meeting edt reminded me of another thing I love about Magic: how it brings together people in a peer environment from all age groups. Even now I regularly play Magic with teenagers, through to people in their forties. I can be on a draft team and turn to Brian David-Marshall for deck construction advice, and then turn to Steve Sadin (who’s half Brian’s age) and get his take on things (Note: I’d probably take Steve’s advice here).

The mental game of Magic is something that other people have often referred to as one of my biggest strengths, but it’s something I don’t even notice — which might be the key. I don’t get phased or rattled easily, I don’t dwell on past mistakes, or mana screw, or bad luck. There are things outside of all of our control, and they can lose you games, matches, or tournaments but there’s no point in focusing on them instead of the things you can control.

It’s easy to blame mana screw for a loss, but did you still play your best? Did you lose your focus and only have a 5% win rate instead of a 10% win rate? I always play at my best when I’m losing, and I think that’s important. Not having excuses also helps after the fact, when examining your play and your decision-making.

Nobody ever learned anything by saying, ‘I got mana screwed’ (except maybe to play more land), or ‘he topdecked.’ Sometimes when he topdecked you could have won one turn earlier, if you’d made a slightly more optimal play earlier. Be self critical, but divorce your sense of self from your play. You can’t let things affect you emotionally, but at the same time you have to really examine your choices, question them, and see what you could have done better.

Patrick is absolutely right when he says that sometimes you win but gave them an extra turn to kill you, or draw their out. Sometimes you wasted a card. Just because you won doesn’t mean you played optimally, so you have to be equally critical even when you win. Only by objectively observing your choices and decisions, win or lose, lucky or unlucky, will you improve, and only by not letting your mistakes rattle you will you win the next game or the next round.