Interview : Lune

Nom de Code : Kird Ape

Introduction

Cette nouvelle interview est assez particulière car pour la réaliser il fallait vraiment faire appel à un zombie seul habilité à exhumer un tel joueur des tréfonds d'internet...  Je pense que peut d'entre vous connaissent Lune (alias Heiner). Et pour cause ! Il n'a jamais été sur Magicville, il n'a jamais été sur le Discord Peasant, il n'a jamais participer à la Coupe de France Peasant et pourtant c'est quelqu'un qui a fait énormément pour notre format.

Mais qui est donc ce type ?

Sans trop en dévoiler, sachez que Lune est un ancien joueur peasant de la communauté de Munich avec qui j'ai énormément échangé par le passé. C'est un gars passionnant qui a toujours eu une regard très pertinent sur notre format et son metagame. Je n'en dis pas plus, c'est parti pour l'interview et en anglais s'il vous plaît...

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

Lune : Hi Jérémy, Yes, it has been quite a while, time flies by. 

Z33 : Many of our readers don't know you, could you start by introducing yourself and telling us how long you've been playing Magic and how did you discover peasant ?

Lune : I have started my magic 'career' like so many others in our age by a friend showing me this funcky cards game with like 2000 different cards. In an age, when the Internet was still in its baby shoes, youtube didn't exist and the Dark Combo Winter of Necropotence had just passed. A new edition was on the horizon, Mercadian Masques' first supplementary set, Nemesis. Overall funny game play with a fading experience. That must have been around 1999/2000, I think. Our gaming group was never very competitive, so I traded cards like Swords to Plowshares or Cabal Therapy away for cards that fit our power level better. Oh boy, was I young and didn't know what truck was about to hit me some years down the road.

Fast forward, one of these trucks trucks came in the innocent announcement of a buddy in a gaming group with people from all around Munich, Bavaria that he recently found an alternative to Pauper, that played on a budget almost as distorted decks as the legacy community. I was a student, so buying into Duals was out of Budget. But Delver of Secrets? Daze? a couple staples like Force of Will that I acquired throughout the skipped years? Sure enough, let's give it a try. So we, our gaming group made some checks for established decks on sites like mtgdecks and surely had a while of fun, goofing around and steadily one-upping each other and home-brewing wild stuff.

We continued to grow the local peasant community, including a small tournament with I think 30ish players and establishing ties to the at that time strong community in Ingolstadt. We even lured some Eternal players into the Peasant Community.

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

Lune : From all the funny and funky stuff we did, the soon underpowered Gruul Beatz deck was probably my favorite to play, contrary to its win rate and my usually more controlling or staxx-like gaming approach to magic. I started a primer, as it - to me - was a deck that encompassed a lot of the appeal for peasant. Lots of versatile and valid card choices, so that the deck can be customized to suit it's player's playstyle better than an established standard version. Yet, it plays both calssics such as Lightning Bolt and Kird Ape, both at the top of the curve of Mana efficiency along newer cards with sometimes questionable use in a "normal" environment such as Burning-Tree Emissary; at the time of Gatecrash, still an uncommon. I still have notes on how I wanted to photoshop together a banner for the primer with cards like Kird and Rancor, but I never finished it, unfortunately

Z33 : Have you been one of the first player of the german community or did you came later ?

Lune : I think our gaming group started to hop onto the band wagon around the 3rd or 4th tournament in Ingolstadt. If my hazy memory does not betray me, that would be a couple of months before we established more ties with the french community, namely you and the other lunatics with pashion for the format.

I think the peasant Events in Ingolstadt started as a yearly event, kind of a celebration of the local community of itself, in the frame of a small convention, alongside Wargamers and Anime-afficionados. Interestingly, none of the groups seemed to bother with the other, so it kinda felt during my first visit as if there were like 3 separate events on-going at once. Maybe that was just my Tunnel Vision, dunno.

Z33 : What memories do you have of these tournaments in Ingolstadt as a player ? Was it fun ?

Lune : The orgas were nice ,the event was well structured and the entry fee to prices ratio was solid. I failed miserably, getting like the 3rd to last place on my first event, as I was for the first time hit by a real meta in Peasant outside of our little Exclave in Munich. Still, I enjoyed all my games and the players, as everyone was genuinely nice and fair. As to be expected, some oddball is always playing the slow combo deck, going into overtime, so we had some players having to grind through long mill-combo-turns in overtime and some people missing the start of the next round while grabbing a bite out of boredom.

Z33 : Do you remember a memorable play? Or maybe a juicy tournament anecdote ?

Lune : Not from the first 2 events I attended in Ingolstadt. I guess the juiciest thing that comes to mind is probably our group developing, or more like teching out the Ur Cloudpost-Deck, being at that time detrimental to the entire format, with only Garry, I mean Black Devotion putting up a decent fight. We tried for several months the meanest deck lists against each other, with Jon, our deck specialist tweaking Cloudpost to answer about everything within the format, while I played versatility, means a decent level jack-of-all trades in all major deck lists and ben trying to keep up with his pet deck Black Devotion, even getting his playset of the ever more expensive becoming Oubliette. To no avail. We only could beat Cloudpost reliably with other Cloudpost decks, so I developed the Ub Combo Version (with demonic Tutor), that wins pre-board due to blanking many of Ur's creature-interaction based cards. Incidently, Jon and I went pretty much undefeated into that dreaded year's finale, only stopping the game at some point when it became apparent that it wouldn't matter who of us wins the trophy, Cloudpost would be number one.

We came to crush Ingolstadt with 4 Cloudpost decks and 2 of us made top4, while 2 went into the upper middlefield with barely any play experience on the deck itself, which pretty much proofed our point that the mana acceleration was just too retarded for the format to withstand. (Link - Top 8)

I honestly understand people who shun the idea of intentionally breaking a format, but our aim was to proof what needed to be gone to foster a more healthy environment and more archetypes to thrive. So maybe it was a just cause that went wrong?

Z33 : So then comes the years 2015-2016 where you join the peasant committee with me. And precisely in August we vote to ban Glimmerpost. What was it like to vote to define a Mtg ban list ?

Lune : I honestly understand people who shun the idea of intentionally breaking a format, but our aim was to proof what needed to be gone to foster a more healthy environment and more archetypes to thrive. So maybe it was a just cause that went wrong?

Not to mention the beefy discussions we had between the French and German commitee, leading in heated discussions on both sides, I still don't know if it was the right decision. Not in the sense that I believe the ban was wrong - the option to blink away any tempo out of aggro and burn strategies, effectively invalidating half the format is something that I still see as a correct choice. Like the French members, we all thought that peasant was - and is - a format that should be accessible to new players and let everyone player with true power on the table, whilst allowing brewers to shine with clever ideas. The ban itself felt more like the result of hard work into trying to improve what we all love. A game to come together and enjoy in good company, where we play at a competitive edge and shake hands with a smile no matter the outcome. The most difficult part at that time was stopping at only banning Glimmerpost. While in formats like Legacy, seeing Delver on the rise as a police deck that establishes a field for fair decks, it feels like in peasant, the archetype is much more prohibitive, as many of the strongest allowed cards pooled in blue. So discussions about a Mental Misstep or Delver Ban were more like the extension and unfortunate follow-up of an otherwise just decision.

I don't think it's so much "yes, I/we've banned a card" but more like "we want to foster an environment for creativity", at least for me. 

There is always 1 deck that is better than the others, one optimal play. That is not the concern. The concern is the gap between the best or best 2-3 decks and the rest of the field. and Around Innistrad and the few next editions, it felt like the scales tipped too much into one direction.

I guess most people that remember me are still from that era, as soon after that, real life caught up with me, I changed from being a student to a 40hrs slog-job in shift work and my entire life became some Head Games for a few years.

Lune voted for the E2 Ban List and as an exceptional guest for the E3 Ban List (announcement)

Z33 : These bans have indeed caused a lot of ink to flow and it is still today the most important ban that the format has known: Delver of Secrets + Glimmerpost + Treasure Cruise + Imperial Recruiter + Grapeshot. Today, 9 years later, only Delver has been unbanned but with some compensation since Gush has been added to the Ban List.

Lune : Since inventions like the Iniative mechanic, Delver feels much more at home again. I can totally relate to the change. While Gush is a strong draw Engine in a mana-efficient control engine and enables some fringe combo support, Delver is an all-time favorite of the croud and I'd rather see him roam than watching from the sideline. At the time, I stil believe the ban was justified, as the other colors have gotten new toys.

Z33 : Time fly... So now, do you still play Magic from time to time ?

Lune : Funilly enough, my latest significant other has kindled the flame again, as I stopped for 2 years entirely after Hasbros Magic 30's "Anniversary" Booster Sca- I mean mishap of reprinting boosters for 250$, when in the 90s, a pack of IE was sold for like 50$. I'm mainly focussed on building commander decks now, slowly dipping my toes closer into what is considered cEDH territory, while still adovating that even in casual commander, the game experience would be better off without Sol Ring. Bending to the pressure, I have added 1 to most of my decks within the last 8 weeks, after playing in none except 2 decks geared for higher power no Sol Ring at all for 12 years. It feels like a defeat. It probably is, but sometimes, budget wins over logic. So let's see the table burn together, when the 4 player madness turns into a Chaosphere.

I would Consider this endeavor a Barren Glory, had it been even in my own gaming group successful, but as it stands, all that's left is to curse The One Ring and hope the readers enjoyed finding some card puns within this little chat.

Funilly, the mindset of cEDH is something that I believe suits the Commander format as a whole better. Instead of refusing strategies as "unfun", embrace the entire spectrum of available cards. While I understand the hate against a Stasis Lock with no win condition and find no appeal in the ThOracle Combo, allowing such strategies into the game allows for more varied gameplay. It's maybe just the level of this kind of strategy that needs adjustment. On a casual table, enjoy the 6 card fringe combo that occassionally happens.

It's maybe not so different from Peasant in this regard. Players love the game, love their format, there are just sometimes a few aspects that are more than a notch over the top, diminishing returns for everyone involved.

What about yourself? Would you want to choose a format over the other? Wouldn't such a choice being unfair? 

Z33 : You asking me or the reader ?

Lune : Both. For me as a brewer, choosing 1 deck or 1 format is like taking away air to breath. Creativity only is fostered by Inspiration. After all, madness and genius are separated only by degrees of success

Z33 : I really like competitive magic but only when player can have access to all the card they want to play. Cheap format as peasant are quite perfect for that. I don't mind playing against totally unfair deck if the format is healthy, this is not an issue for me.

But in the other hand i can totally enjoy playing just for fun with some bad decks... As i like deckbuilding, i can't always play tier 1... 

Lune : I wholeheartily agree with that comment. Maybe that's why I tend to lean closer to cEDH community now. Proxies are viable, as the decks should be the strongest there are, not the strongest you can afford. And a good reason for WotC to not meddle in the format, as that would either ruin the player base or open a Flood Gate.

Z33 : Recently a certain SisterMorphine came back to play peasant online on Cockatrice... Do you think that one day you too will come back to peasant ?

Lune : To peasant in general? I think that's possible. Though I'm turning 40 next year and my aim is more to begin a family before I turn grey entirely. Online and tournaments? I guess that is a separate entity alltogether. My nerdy hobbies keep piling up and online time takes away from real social interaction. I still believe that Magic - like most things in life - is best done in the company of other like-minded people. While it can be quite a drag to leave the house again after work, get into a smelly basement or order that extra latte at a café, just to sit there another 20 minutes and finish the game, for me, in-person interaction beats the amount of additional games squeezed in on a computer any day. One just misses out on the bravado, cheerful laughter and mockery you'd get in real life.

I'm a dinosaur and I'll retire as I should in that regard. Probably in a smelly basement, with equally smelly buddies, shoving cards and playing RPGs like we did in school or university

Z33 : A beautiful picture in my mind

Lune : Old Fogey - that's who I could be in some years. Let's hope I still have a Blaze of Glory left before that.

Z33 : Thank you very much Heiner for sharing all this with us. It was a pleasure to chat with you again after all these years.

Lune : It was a pleasure likewise, Jeremy. Life just gets the better of me. Feel free to poke me anytime, while I'm still too much of a social media addict. Still working on every day a little better. I hope you had your fun as well, finding all the card references

Z33 : I had and our readers will have fun too, i have no doubt.

Lune : See you around

Ecrit par Zombie33