Interview : GalacticPresident

Nom de Code : Masters

Introduction

Une nouvelle interview en anglais. Cette fois-ci il s'agit de l'interview de GalacticPresident, ancien membre du comité. Une interview assez courte, mais pour ma défense c'est compliqué pour lui de trouver du temps libre... J'espère que cette interview vous plaira néanmoins. Bonne lecture à tous.

Zombie33 : Hello Severin, it's been a long time...

GalacticPresident : Bonjour Jérémy, it really has been ! I always enjoyed talking to you so I’m happy to do it again.

Z33 : So could you start maybe by introducing yourself and telling us how long you've been playing Magic ?

G : I live in Austria, am 35 years old and have started playing Magic in elementary school, at the age of 9. Back then we only played casually at best and didn’t understand much of the rules. It still created much excitement among us, playing and collecting was great fun.

Z33 : How did you discover the peasant format ?

G : By accident to be honest. After my bac I did military service in 2008- in Austria it is mandatory to do either military or civil service- and during that year I was browsing the Internet and came across a German website called « magic.freizeitspieler.de » where decklists, card-combos and articles were posted by the members. A sub-community posted Peasant content and I was quickly hooked.

Z33 : What were your favorite decks ? Do you have any interesting stories about them ?

G : I played Peasant for many years and had many decks that I enjoyed playing. I dearly remember my first own decklist which was a BR sac deck around Rakdos Guildmage. I kept it for a long time and continued tweaking it far longer than it was viable in a more competitive metagame. Another one from that time was a GU graveyard deck around Grizzly Fate and a UR Burning Vengeance control deck.

From later times where I actually participated in tournaments I remember various black Devotion variants, the mono blue Jace’s Erasure combo deck, UG Eternal Witness Ghostly Flicker combo, UB theRack, AetherGrid control, Heroic,… there’s so many I can’t even remember all of them anymore! That’s one thing I always enjoyed about the format, it’s accessibility. I had the most fun when I was tweaking decks and mixing things up. I rarely played the same deck for two tournaments in a row.

Z33 : Many players may not know it, but at one point you were one of the most dedicated players in the format. From 2012 you created a Blog: Peasant Magic Vienna and from 2014 you published articles in German and English on the format every month. Can you tell us more?

G : I have a lot of nice memories of that time, it was during university mostly and I had a lot of fun playing and writing about Peasant. I thought it was a great format and even though I didn’t manage to create an Austrian community, I played a lot with a great friend of mine and co-author of the blog- sinus.

Z33 : In 2015 you started participating in online tournaments on cockatrice with the French community and you even finished first in the 2016 and 2017 leagues. What memories do you have of this period?

G : It was fun playing in these tournaments, they were very well organized by you mostly and very accessible. I enjoyed playing lots of different decks, as I already mentioned that was always my thing. The league was a good idea and created a lot of excitement among the players. In the end it was a tight race both years and I was lucky enough to end up on top. I still remember the finals of the Peasant Masters tournament that was held at the end of the year where I beat you on Thopter combo with my Black Devotion deck splashing red for Melt Down and Gorilla Shaman. A very close match, I was nervous!

Ndz33 : GalacticPresident a fait notamment un report concernant ces Masters 2016 et il y décrit en détail comment il me battra lors de ce tournoi à deux reprise ! Report : BR Devotion - Masters 2016.

Une capture d'écran de la finale des Masters 2016

Z33 : Do you remember any unusual gaming anecdotes or ones that particularly struck you?

G : I participated in two of the Peasant tournaments in Ingolstadt, those were a lot of fun. Getting there was a crazy effort for an unofficial tournament, but that’s how committed the Peasant players are!

I never forgot my misplay which almost cost me my top8 place. I played BlackDevotion and the second to last round I played against Infect. Post board somewhere during the first turns I had a Fume Spitter on the Board and another one in hand. For whatever reason I targeted their Glistener Elf before playing the second one and he protected the Elf with Apostle’s Blessing, so I could target it after playing my second Fume Spitter. I did so at their upkeep, at which point they had enough pump available and killed me that turn. Luckily I won the last round and secured my top8 place. That wasn’t my best moment, but one of the more constructive ones, as you learn most from your mistakes!

Z33 : In 2017 you joined the peasant committee with Toufmade, Marien, Ragnarok, Bastian and myself. What memories do you have of your time on the committee?

G : Luckily there were so many players who wanted to contribute something to the format. Curating a banlist with such limited information is a very hard task and everyone did their very best. I didn’t stay for long unfortunately since other parts in life became more important and I wanted to play mostly paper magic with what time I had available.

Z33 : In 2018 you finally stopped participating in online tournaments. Have you completely stopped magic and the peasant format since then?

G : Since I wanted to play more paper magic, I moved to the pauper world since there was an active pauper community in Vienna (which couldn’t be convinced to switch over to Peasant before). I played regularly in the weekly tournaments for some time and some limited Magic also but not for too long. I have a lovely family by now and basically don’t play at all anymore. Once or twice per year, me and sinus grab some decks, throw in some new released cards and give it a go. I still look at new sets when they come out though, I wonder if I’ll ever stop doing that!

Z33 : Thanks you very much Severin for your time. It was pleasure.