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By: Paul Leicht, Paul Emerson Leicht
Jan 06 2012 11:36am
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Logo by Paul Emerson Leicht

 

Introduction:
When I was looking around for another vic-- er interviewee, Kumagoro42 (who is Genoese himself) mentioned I should talk to some more foreign players and get the scoop on them for a change. After all, since the inception of this series, only the first Legendary Personality I interviewed (AJ_Impy) is not an American. This had not even occurred to me, previously, but sure why not spread some love around the world?

To that end I thought of all the great non-American players I know of, and Lord Erman stood out like a star amongst the night sky. He has never hesitated to give good advice and has always been available except when he is amidst a game, working or with his family.

Such an unstinting devotion in itself was enough to pique my interest in learning more about him but then I also realized he is an understated hero of the Player Run Events, having won or top 8ed many times and been a consistent champion promoter of these events. In addition, many of you know him for his high standard of excellence as a writer on this very site. Lord Erman is, I dare say a primary reason many of you guys (and gals) keep coming back for more.

He is also humble, joking for instance, that he thought the entrance requirement for these articles was a prior invite to the Community Cup Challenge. Just so happens this has been true but my intent with this series is to illuminate deserving players, not merely those Wizards has already acclaimed. So without further ado I give you Nafiz Erman aka Lord Erman on Magic Online.

Nafiz and his daughter, Nil

Background info:
Nafiz is a 38 year old man (almost 39 he says) from Istanbul, Turkey. His wife Tuna and he have been married for 9 years and they have a daughter, Nil (meaning "Nile") who is 7. He became an accomplished polyglot in high school continuing in university. Learning German, Italian, and English. He initially used those skills as a tourist guide. He then outgrew the need to give tours and became a customer representative in the textile industry. He now works for a big accessory manufacturer (wallets, bags, belts, etc) covering the German market. In his own words " ... I also have some Dutch customers as well. I travel a lot due to my job and I also visit Italy twice a year because of some fairs held in Milan. So I'm not a tourist guide but I use all those languages I learned in the past every day!"

His hobbies include movies, reading, traveling and being a football fan(aka 'soccer' to us Americans). Nafiz doesn't play football himself but he does enjoy the singing and entertainment that comes with being a fan. Of enjoyment of traveling he says the following: "... I already travel a lot due to my job but all my business trips are the same: airport, their office, the hotel, their office again, and the airport again... After seven long years, I think we will once again start traveling in 2012 again. And guess what? Seeing New York is our primary target!"

(side note from Winter.Wolf: Hope so, look forward to meeting you in person!)

He continues:  "Hopefully we can do that this year. If not, then we would like to visit my sister in Dublin and see Ireland a bit. And if that also fails, our Plan C is to visit Saloniki in Greece which is like 6 hours or so by car from Istanbul. My grand grand parents are from Saloniki and I would love to see their homeland."

 


And now the Interview:

On Magic:

Winter.Wolf: Where/when did you start playing magic?
Lord Erman: I started playing Magic back in 1996 when I was a university student. I had a friend and we were looking for some good comic books one day. We learned where we could find them and went to the store. There we saw people playing that "geeky" game called Magic. It immediately caught our attention and we totally forgot about the comic books. We sat and watched people play. And I've been playing ever since.

Winter.Wolf: And Magic Online?
Lord Erman:  I started playing MTGO right after Champions of Kamigawa was released. (October 25th 2004 for those who want to know -W.W) I didn't play Magic between Invasion and Kamigawa by the way. I was very busy with Starwars CCG and then Lord of the Rings TCG back then. Starwars CCG died shortly after I joined it (Decipher lost the license to Wizards! (Oh and then Wizards screwed up the game totally but that's another story)).

I then joined LotR TCG but after almost 5 years, that game also started losing popularity. So I realized that it was time to return to Magic after so many years. I told a friend of mine that I was going to quit LotR and join Magic once again, and he told me that he heard from others that it was possible to play Magic online. So I searched for it, downloaded the client and I've been here since then!

(Winter.Wolf: Fun fact - Lord Erman was the 2nd highest ranked player in the Stargate TCG. As well as an ongoing contributor there.)

Winter.Wolf: Johnny, Spike, Timmy, Vorthos, etc? 
Lord Erman: I'm clearly a Spike/Johnny and I say that frequently in my articles as well. A true Spike only cares about winning and a true Johnny is all about the style. And we, the Spike/Johnny hybrids, have the best of both sides! Meaning we like to win but we like to win with a style. "Translate" that to Magic and you have rogue deck builders. And hence Rogue Play.

Winter.Wolf: Favorite color (s)?
Lord Erman: If I have to choose one single color of Magic, then I can say that Blue is my favorite one. It always been since the day I started and nothing has changed in time. Ertai, Wizard Adept was my hero once, then Morphling became my hero and these days it's Snapcaster Mage. 

But my true love is multicolored decks. My favorite color combinations are and/or . And as you can see, I like playing Control. But not only draw-go style of decks. I also like Aggro/Control a lot. You know, play a threat and protect it with counter magic while clearing its path with removal. I also very much like Control/Combo decks. Basically anything that doesn't win before turn five.
Counterspell
Tribal Wars:

Winter.Wolf: Back a few years ago you and AJ_Impy introduced puremtgo readers to the question of changes to Tribal Wars (Classic at the time, now Legacy), recommending among other things: sideboards. What got you interested in Tribal Wars?
Lord Erman: I started playing it after I read a few articles by AJ back in 2007. Back then the only non-Standard format I was playing was Vanguard. Tribal Wars looked good, so I tried it. I'm playing the format once in a while since then.

Winter.Wolf: What prompted your dual-article with AJ?
Lord Erman: The dual articles were AJ's idea. One day he PM'ed me and said that it would be great to write two articles. I was going to write one and I was going to defend that Tribal Wars should be a tournament format full with Spikes. AJ's article went public the next day and he defended that Tribal Wars should stay as a casual-only format. I know that those two articles created a lot of discussion and gathered a lot of attention to the format. The Tribal Apocalypse player run event was for example a result of those articles. 

There is actually only one problem and that is the lack of a sideboard. So basically you have to answer everything with your main deck. Which is, as we all know, almost impossible considering the card pool of Legacy. I still don't know for sure why the format doesn't have sideboards though. If you think of it as a paper format, it would make sense. Because I may easily side out five creatures and side in five non-creature spells and no one would understand what I did. But this isn't a paper format! Tribal Wars is an online-only format, so the program could easily check if I have at least twenty creatures with the same creature type in my deck or not, after the sideboarding.
 

 

Winter.Wolf:  What would you see banned/unbanned?
Lord Erman: Regarding the banned list, I think that it's too late now. Either you will ban like 100 or so cards (or maybe even more), or leave the format be. Because no matter what Wizards would do, people will always find "holes to fill" if you know what I'm saying. As long as the format continues not having sideboards, it will remain broken beyond repair. If the format doesn't allow sideboards then it shouldn't be a tournament format. 

Standard Tribal Wars on the other hand, should at least be tried as a specialty format. Standard is very balanced and I don't think that any deck will be undefeated just because there are no sideboards. Standard surely lacks some variety in terms of tribes and possible tribal decks, but it's healthy and that's what I personally care about the most.
 
Snapcaster MageJace, the Mind Sculptor
 

BYOS:
Winter.Wolf: For a long while, you were an exemplar for the format "Build Your Own Standard" (aka BYOS). Care to explain it for us?
Lord Erman: It is my nature to try new things. Some of us don't like change. These people are fine with the way they are. But I'm not like that. I always look for new things, changes, new tastes etc... As a result, in Magic I always try new formats. BYOS was one of those. I played it for three seasons (each season = 16 weeks) and twice became  the champion.  

Now that I think of it, what I did was incredible. Because every week I brought a new deck to the tournament. Every week! So during weekdays I was testing my deck non-stop and playing it during the weekend tournament. Then instead of making it a better deck and fine-tuning it even more, I was simply starting from the scratch and I was building something completely new for next week.
 
This was of course hard, but this format became the most important thing of my Magical life for some time. I simply liked it because there was no way one could netdeck. You had to be a good deck builder and I was counting on my deck building skills. But deck building wasn't enough on its own. You also had to be a good player. I think that this was the real reason why I loved the format  so much. I simply built good decks and played well. Basically a reflection of a true Spike/Johnny. The "good decks" part is Johnny and the "played well" part is Spike. So the format was custom tailored for me.

 
On Rogue Play:

Winter.Wolf: In your column, 'Rogue Play', practically every week it seems you pull out another set of decks (not just one but a couple that relate to each other and build in strength). What is it that fuels your creative drive to provide us with so many options?
Lord ErmanDeck building is a challenge. And it is one of the most important parts of any trading card game.  And the key of it is something that sounds very simple and yet is very hard to accomplish: Focus!  Every deck starts with an idea and as long as you stick to that idea and don't lose your focus, it will most definitely be something good (considering the idea was good in the first place of course!). Good ideas can turn into trash if they are executed badly. And that's the reason why I'm saying it again and again: Focus!

Mycosynth WellspringIchor WellspringPhyrexia's Core
My column is another story and if you look at it in general, it lacks the one thing I said above over and over again; focus! One week I show the readers what I played in the block 2man queues, then I show them my latest Commander deck, then I come up with a Legacy tournament report, and the next week they read about a fun and casual Standard deck. So as you see, I'm clearly all over the place! People don't know what to expect from me. Will I be writing about a cutthroat tournament deck or will I be showing them a casual deck? No one, including me, knows that for sure.
 
Oh and I know that this lack of focus will get me nowhere. To be completely honest, I think of myself as one of the best second class writers of Puremtgo. And I know this is true. So it all depends on how I look at it. If I look at the "one of the best" part, then I feel fine. If I look at the "second class" part, it hurts a bit.  But do I want to change? I think I don't. Unfocused I may be, but this gives me the freedom to write about anything I want to and no one judges me for that. Because people got used to me in time.

(Winter.Wolf: Please allow me to disagree slightly with this last statement and omit the second class part. I respectfully submit that Lord Erman is one of the, if not THE most influential writers on Puremtgo and in fact all of MTGO. Not for the pros of course. Certainly not for the limited only players. And not necessarily for the die-hard fans of specific niches. But for most of the rest of us who struggle to build, win and enjoy, Lord Erman makes MTGO that much more interesting.)
 
Endless Ranks of the DeadEssence of the Wild
 
I also believe that my column is a reflection of my desire to taste as many different things and formats as possible. If I concentrate on one single format, I may be a master of it and people may respect me when I say something about that format. But that will mean that I will have to completely ignore almost all the other formats. And exactly THAT is the thing I don't want to. I like Tribal Wars as much as I like Legacy. I like Commander as much as I like Modern. Every format is special and they all are unique and I want to taste as much as possible.
 

Winter.Wolf: Is there any advice you would give to budding deck builders? Any rules of thumb you'd care to lay down for us that help sort out the huge task of narrowing down card choices? Deck sizes? Distinguishing mediocre cards from good ones to great ones, to the rogue inclusions that can win tourneys?
Lord ErmanMost new players. for example, make one common mistake: They build a mono Red deck with fast creatures and then they add Dragon's Claw to their deck. This is a sign that they don't know how to focus. If one aims to finish the opponent as fast as possible, then gaining a few points of life in the meantime is the last thing they should be thinking of. So once again I will repeat the same thing: The key to successful decks is focus.  
 

Casual Extractor
A Standard format deck by Nafiz Erman
Creatures
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Moltensteel Dragon
4 Trinket Mage
12 cards

Other Spells
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
2 Gut Shot
3 Slagstorm
4 Rage Extractor
4 Elixir of Immortality
4 Dismember
3 Black Sun's Zenith
24 cards
Lands
3 Swamp
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
6 Mountain
2 Darkslick Shores
3 Drowned Catacomb
2 Sulfur Falls
3 Dragonskull Summit
3 Island
24 cards
 
Rage Extractor

 

On Competitive Play vs Casual:
Winter.Wolf:  How do you make the leap from just playing with admittedly inferior cards for the sheer joy of seeing some wacky combo pull itself off? I ask this because a lot of the time I see you playing in the TP or Juff and your decks vary greatly in strength and type with only the super aggro decks being something you don't typically bring. What is the progress from the low end to the tourney practice room? How about Dailies? (Now called SEs) (Do you play in those?) 2-mans? 8-mans?
Lord Erman: As I repeatedly say over and over again, I like different things and I like change. Which means that I want to enjoy as many cards from my collection as possible. I want to enjoy Magic thoroughly. Every card can be useful. Some of them will be useful in a tournament and some are perfect for some quick fun games. I don't want to play 1/5 of my entire collection only. That's not my aim. I frequently browse my binder aimlessly for hours and always come across some absurd cards. Which later turn into some fun decks. This is how I enjoy Magic. This is the reason why you see me running some mediocre cards sometimes. Because I want to see those cards in action as much as I want to see my Titans in action. To some, Magic is only those mediocre cards. To some, Magic is only Titans. To me, it's both.

Primeval TitanPsychosis Crawler
To some, Magic is only those mediocre cards. To some, Magic is only Titans. To me, it's both. 

Having said that, I also like to play a lot of 2mans. Recently I'm playing lots of Modern 2mans for example. Dailies take a lot of time and I don't always have that time. Weekends seem to be good but then I'm writing my articles during weekends, so I'm busy normally.


Winter.Wolf
: One thing I know about you is you aren't into the MOCs and I always wondered why. You are clearly a superior player to many and yet you mainly frequent the Player Run Events and the free to play rooms. You have an excellent collection, at least from what I've seen. Why not MOCs? PTQs?
Lord Erman: That is a good question. Surely I can tell you many different things here. Like time is a problem, I have a family and things like that. But do you want to know the "naked" truth? Here it is then: I lack the ambition. That's hard for me to confess but that's the truth. I lack the ambition to be a grinder. Sometimes I join a DE (Daily Event, known now as SE) and see the same names. Every day they are there. Almost every time they are there. They are ambitious people. They have a clear goal and they do not care about anything else. Enter a tournament, win it, win packs, cash them, enter the next tournament etc...  

But sadly I'm not someone like that. Yes, I have the cards. And yes, I'm an okay player and with a little bit of training I would get good results in those high level tournaments as well. But as I said I lack the ambition. Am I a power that is wasted? Most probably I am. Sad but true. But I like competition very much and I do play competitive Magic, so don't get me wrong. But that is not my life style, that's all I'm trying to say.


Winter.Wolf: Do you have any recommendations for those trying to break into more competitive play?
Lord Erman: Just look into the mirror and ask yourself this: "Do I have what it takes?" Forget decks and cards and everything. You have no excuse. Just ask yourself that question. If you're totally honest answer is a "Yes!", then there is always a deck you can start playing. There is always a cheap option that can win packs. The only thing that matters is whether or not you have the ambition. I looked into the mirror and didn't see that spark in me. If you have it, well, then good luck! Hopefully in time you will be the next LSV (Louis-Scott Vargas). I myself will never be, simply because I will never even try to be.

Winter.Wolf: Do you draft? Play Prerelease or Release Events? If not, why not?
Lord Erman: Do I draft? Of course I do! And very frequently even. The last time I played in one of those was... uhm... let me think... ah yes, it was just "recently" during the release events of M10. And no, that's not a typo. I said M10.  

Joking aside, drafting and other limited formats are not my cup of tea. That's also the reason why I never wrote an article about a draft or a sealed tournament. I'm a constructed player and I sadly don't enjoy limited formats. I simply don't like games where I play a Pacifism onto my opponent's Warpath Ghoul and then beat him with my Fiery Hellhound. I just don't like playing those kind of games. I like playing less powerful cards but there's a fine line between "less powerful" and "garbage". I have the utmost respect to all who like to draft and play sealed, but that's not me.
 
Having said that, I heard that cube draft is tons of fun. If we'll have that feature on MTGO sometime in the future, I might try it with friends to see what happens.
 
Birthing PodVenser, The SojournerStonehorn Dignitary
Something Lord Erman introduced me to Pre-Innistrad
 
On Rogue Writing:

Winter.Wolf: As noted above you are from Turkey which means English is not your first language. How do you manage (aside from a few goofs here or there) to bring such polished work week after week?
Lord Erman: I have respect to those who stop doing whatever they are doing and start reading my articles. That is a fantastic thing if you think for a second. There are dozens of things people can do but they choose to read what you wrote. That is a privilege and I'm very grateful that people read what I write every week. And that's the reason why I try to bring them as "clean" articles as possible. Because they deserve it. If they take the time to read my stuff, then I should be bringing them something worthy to read. That means good and satisfying content above else, but also a good presentation. 

Nobody wants to read a thick wall of text no matter how good the content may be. And sometimes a good presentation may make people read an article which they wouldn't read otherwise. This is also something I do every day in my business life. People don't need the stuff I'm selling. But it is my duty to make them believe that they do. The same is true for my articles. The readers don't need to read my stuff. But a good presentation may make them believe otherwise.

Winter.Wolf: Any tips you'd care to give your readers and aspiring writers?
Lord Erman: There are things I see frequently and dislike a lot. One thing I truly hate is this for example: "Well yeah, this was the deck, I didn't like it but maybe you will". Why do you write about something if you don't like it yourself in the first place?! You tried to convince me the WHOLE article that the deck is good (good as in competitive or good as in fun), but at the end you say that you actually didn't like it?! That's nonsense. Why did you then waste your time writing the article and then wasted mine as well by making me read it? 

Or this: "Well yeah, this is the deck but sadly I didn't do an intense testing other than those three TP Room matches I showed you in the article. So maybe you test it and tell me how it plays." This is outrageous! This is being disrespectful. So I will do all the dirty work for you and then will report back to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.
 
One other thing new writers do is to introduce themselves in long paragraphs. But you know what? We just don't care! Nobody cares! Just cut to the chase for crying out loud! In time, after several good articles, we MIGHT be interested in who you actually are. But first prove yourself as a writer. Then we will get to know each other.
(Winter.Wolf: I mostly agree but a short paragraph or two can be good to get us warmed up. As long as it isn't all about boasting and self-congratulations.)
 
So basically my advice is this: Have respect to those who read your article. Write about something you really know about. Cover the story from many different angles, show us games, tell us about your sideboarding plans, tell us about the match ups against meta contenders. And while doing that, never forget that the layout is important. Do NOT forget to hit 'Enter' once in a while. No one will read a wall of text; do not forget that. Insert a few pictures here and there. As I said above, presentation is important. "Sell" your stuff to your readers. Make them come back for more  next week.
 

On Local Play:

Winter.Wolf: Do you play out of a shop? How is the magic community in your area?
Lord Erman: We have two big gaming shops in Istanbul and one of them is actually near me (near = half an hour by car). I visited the shop a few times and I saw that the players were all fine people. I was somehow expecting to see some teenagers playing Magic but I saw some young guys between the age of 20-28 and there were also some others who were older than 30. So the "ambiance" was good. The shop is also a nice place and I had good time talking to the store owner every time I visited the place.  

But that's exactly the reason why I stopped going there! Because I realized that if I go there frequently, I was going to like it. Those people were going to be my gaming friends in a short time. Meaning they were going to ask me to play. And meaning I was going to need the cards! Since years I'm investing heavily in the digital cards but sadly I don't have the budget to buy the same cards for paper Magic. That's a too bad but that's also the reality. I can only play one form of Magic; paper or online. And long ago I decided to play the online version.
 
So there is no chance that I can play competitive (or casual for that matter) paper Magic. So I stopped going to the local shop. Because as I said, I knew that if I continued going there, I was going to "open a few holes" in my wallet which I'm not allowed to. I still do have a few paper decks (simply because there is nothing like having the cards in your hand and feeling them) and I do like to play against my daughter and my wife, but that's sadly all my paper activity regarding Magic.

 

On Online Play:
Winter.Wolf: Aside from the obvious attraction of being able to play pantsless and thus in true freedom mode what is it you like about playing Online?
Lord Erman: To be honest, there are only two things I like about the online play. One is the fact that I can play anytime I want to. That is truly priceless. And the second is that I don't have to be a rules guru to be able to play. I don't need to keep track of counters, life points, power and toughness of creatures, loyalty counters of planeswalkers etc... Other than those, there is not much I like about this whole "anonymous play".

Winter.Wolf: What is it you dislike about the client? Is there anything you would like to see implemented or taken away?
Lord Erman: You know what; I think I got used to it in time. The only thing I still don't like is the buddy list. You have to be able to divide it into different sub-lists. I would especially love to see the bots and real people separated. (Winter.Wolf: Or segregated even so that one could tell which was which at a glance.)

Winter.Wolf: Of the players you know and play with regularly is there anyone who stands out to you?
Lord ErmanI don't chat too much because most of the time I'm either in a training session or having fun playing Magic or in a serious tournament. And that means that my buddy list is very short. A few years ago I left a few messages on some Turkish Magic forums and new players still do find me to ask for advice. I like to help them as much as I can. Most of them are coming from the "paper world" so to speak, and they don't know exactly what to do. No one helped me when I first started playing the online game, so I don't want those new players from my area go through all the same things I did.

Sadly my clan (PureMTGO) is dead so there isn't much to talk about it. That's a shame because we have great people in the clan such as MTGO TRADERS, bubba0077, joekewwl and some more. Everybody hangs out alone so the clan chat window is always silent. This wasn't like that when the clan was first founded. I had at least five like-minded people with whom I was constantly testing and chatting, but sadly they're not online anymore.

Finally I can say that I've disturbed AJ in the past for advice a couple of times as well as Whiffy too. Meaning I value their opinions on specific matters.

Baneslayer AngelSword of Feast and Famine

On Mythics & Planeswalkers and Poor sports:
Winter.Wolf:  How do you feel about Mythics?
Lord ErmanMythics were simply copied from other trading cards games. I  played a lot of other card games so I know what I'm saying. In those games they go under the name of Ultra Rare (UR for short). In some games UR's don't appear in boosters but the only way to acquire them is to buy precon decks. Each precon has one copy, and if you want to obtain four, then you have to buy four precon decks. That's a nice way of selling those precon decks of course.

In some other games precons have the P rarity (Premium). P cards are our Mythics. But they only come with the precons. So imagine they have Liliana of the Veil and Garruk Relentless as P cards and they are found as one copy in their own precon decks. That would be awesome, wouldn't it? That way their prices would also be in the acceptable range (a P or UR card's value cannot exceed the value of a precon in theory).

UR's or P's or simply Mythics the way we call them, should be more accessable. I recently opened a full booster box of M12 and only got one Primordial Hydra, one Sorin Markov and one Time Reversal out of it as Mythics. If I want four Time Reversals for any reason, I really don't know how many booster boxes (not packs, boxes!) I must open. That's insane! And that isn't helping the game, believe me.
 

The idea of Mythic Rare is acceptable to me. There are powerful cards and then there are very powerful cards. I saw that in other games and it works, I know. But the way Wizards is distributing them is wrong in my opinion.


Winter.Wolf: And Planeswalkers?
Lord Erman: I don't know what people think but I love planeswalkers. In my opinion they are the best thing Wizards came up with in the recent years. They are unique and feel like a leader or a hero on a battlefield. As long as Wizards continue printing them I will be playing them, that's all I can say.

Winter.Wolf:  When you play people with a spiky deck (lots of mythics and pricy cards that are hot for their brokenness) do you feel bad for your opponent? Do you ever get that experience people talk about online: the rant that starts "Rares are bad, you are weak needing to rely on them, etc"? How about trash talkers? What's your response?
Lord Erman: I do not feel bad, why should I feel bad? I don't play Tier-1 decks in the casual room and I don't play fun decks in the TP Room, so I don't think there is anything I should be ashamed of. Still people do trash talk in both rooms and sadly there is nothing I can do against it. If they want to blame me for something, they will find an excuse one way or another. I even remember someone blocking me just for playing Ravnica shocklands in the casual room once.

 

Winter.Wolf: Tell me something about you no one on Magic Online would know.
Lord Erman:  I can tell you several things:

  1.  I still watch and enjoy Tom & Jerry.
  2.  I still believe after all these years that Starwars CCG is the best trading card game ever made. I've never seen so much depth and strategy "injected" into one single card game.
  3.  I don't drink too much alcohol but sadly I have smoked since I was 17.
  4.  I don't play computer games very often. At least not anymore. Civilization, Settlers and Heroes of Might and Magic are still my favorites.
  5. There's nothing like being in the stadium and singing songs with all those thousands of people.
  6. The Beatles is my favorite band of all times. I have all their albums and still do listen to them with great pleasure.

 

Conclusion
So as you have seen, Lord Erman aka Nafiz is not only intriguing on a personal level but he has a lot of greatness to share with us as a community member. His card sensibilities cross typical boundaries and he often thinks outside the box without letting his urges to experiment interfere with his desire to win. While he has not won any "major" events I am certain he could if he were to put some of his natural brilliance to work towards that goal.

Go ahead and contact Lord Erman in game and let him know you admire his work. Or maybe even ask him for a game. I am certain he will be pleased on both counts.

I hope this journey into another player's mindset has inspired and informed you. There are more gems waiting to be discovered among our many players but I think few will outshine Lord Erman as he continues to provide us with excellence on a weekly basis while holding down a regular job and being a family man.

Forward and onwards, I have hopes to interview a lady next time I do one of these, if she is willing. Frag Doll Cadet and CCC team 2011 member Michelle Roberson is someone who seems like someone you all should know better.
 

Until next time,
Magically yours,
Paul Emerson Leicht aka Winter.Wolf on MTGO.

11 Comments

Another good job by Lythand at Fri, 01/06/2012 - 16:16
Lythand's picture
5

I really like these articles. Gives you an idea of who your opponants really are outside of Magic.

What would be interesting, an article with the wife or significant other who plays Magic. Aaron Forsythe's wife wrote a good article about Wives of Magic. Interviewing one of them would be interesting.

great stuff always loved LE's by JustSin at Fri, 01/06/2012 - 19:10
JustSin's picture
5

great stuff

always loved LE's articles and had the pleasure of some killer games against him in BYOS so it was a very interesting read imo

def appreciate the time took for laying this all out as well

I always look forward to by AJ_Impy at Fri, 01/06/2012 - 20:33
AJ_Impy's picture
5

I always look forward to these interviews: Something a bit different, an insight into our fellow players. Excellently done once again.

Thanks for comments fellows, by Paul Leicht at Fri, 01/06/2012 - 21:22
Paul Leicht's picture

Thanks for comments fellows, I appreciate that you appreciate my efforts and that you enjoy hearing about the excellent legends who inhabit our beloved game.

@Lythand I hope to have Michelle Roberson as the interviewee for the next one so that will give you some female perspective into the game at least. My significant other does not really play though she understands the game mechanically. We stopped doing that when we stopped smoking and hanging out in coffee shops. Odd right? Well that is the way of progress. Since I sold my cards and started only playing online (nearly a decade ago) she lost interest.

This wasn't an interview, it by Kumagoro42 at Sat, 01/07/2012 - 09:24
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5

This wasn't an interview, it was poetry!
Thanks for this, to both of you. And all hail the non-American players!

(Damn, I've 3 unfinished articles to submit! I have to get back in the game)

Belin Gianluca, ti te de Zena by PiDave at Tue, 01/10/2012 - 12:22
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Belin Gianluca, ti te de Zena pure tie? :D

(Transl. : Hey Gianluca, are you from Genoa too? :D )

Great article! It was a blast by themonkey at Sat, 01/07/2012 - 10:32
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Great article! It was a blast to read. I always check out Rogue Play every week and getting to pick Erman's brain (through your excellent writing) was great!

As a Timmy/Johnny the biggest thing I learned from Rogue Play was to always think of your win condition. Just tat simple idea has made me a much better deck builder.

Great series. by GrandAdmiral at Sat, 01/07/2012 - 14:50
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5

Nicely done interview! Lord Erman's articles are among my favorites at Puremtgo. I've also bought a lot of cards because I saw something fun and thought "I have to try that out".

They really are great for those of us who are rubbish at limited and like dabbling in lots of formats. :)

Appreciate the kinds words by Paul Leicht at Sat, 01/07/2012 - 22:27
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Appreciate the kinds words folks, Lord Erman is a great interviewee so plenty of material to work with. My hardest task aside from the questions was sifting through his answers because he is so prolific as a writer that he gave me essays for each question. :p

Another name for this kind of person might also be Magic Hero. LE is certainly one of mine.

I haven't yet had the time to by PiDave at Tue, 01/10/2012 - 12:27
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5

I haven't yet had the time to read this but at first glance this should deserve more than 5 fireballs. I'll expand this as soon as I can read the interview properly! :-)

Yup, this is Great. I especially second this: (Winter.Wolf: Please allow me to disagree slightly with this last statement and omit the second class part. I respectfully submit that Lord Erman is one of the, if not THE most influential writers on Puremtgo and in fact all of MTGO. Not for the pros of course. Certainly not for the limited only players. And not necessarily for the die-hard fans of specific niches. But for most of the rest of us who struggle to build, win and enjoy, Lord Erman makes MTGO that much more interesting.)

Kudos to Lord Erman for his dedication and to Winter.Wolf for making this dedication even clearer to the rest of us!

GREAT by paragonremodeling at Thu, 01/12/2012 - 06:50
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