Pojo.com's Magic News
03.02.09

Interview with Jacob van Lunen
Competing at Pro Tour Kyoto

Question

How did you start out playing Magic professionally?

 

Answer

I won a PTQ and then won Pro Tour San Diego.  I had played PTQs in the past, during high school, and then when I was a senior in college I started to go to more of them.  I went to 4 in a row and got 4 second places.   When I was at home for Spring Break, I went to a party where my friend Chris (Lachmann) was as well…we used to play MTG together…and he told me that there was a PTQ only about 40 miles away the next morning so we decided to drive out there and play.  The format was 2 headed giant and we made top-8.  We won every game on turn 5 or 6.  For Pro Tour San Diego we tested a lot which seemed like most people didn’t…because of the format…We were pretty sure that we had figured out what we needed to do to win at Pro Tour San Diego…We ended up 6-0 on day 1; 3-3 on day 2 and then ended up winning the event.

 

Question

If/when you do play casually, do you play the same kind of decks?

 

Answer

I play a lot of Pouper…but it’s not really a professional format…sometimes I play Prismatic…I probably play MTG about 40 hours a week or so…I usually come home from work, my girlfriend and I make dinner and hang out and then go to bed.  I then wake up around 2am to play MOL and then go to work in the morning

 

Question

What inspires your deck designs?

 

Answers

Normally just drafting inspires my deck designs…it’s probably what I do most…You could probably say that I draft once a day…occasionally I’ll get stuff together that really excites me which is one of the reasons why I do it.

 

Question

How do you think of new deck ideas, and decide on which ones to play?

 

Answer

I play quite a bit of White Weenie and I also tend to play what I think will beat what’s expected to be played at the event. 

 

Question

What are some of the most common play mistakes you see at this level of the game making?

 

Answers

In Limited, players are used to playing against others whom will play around cards too often…because they’re PTQ players…good PTQ players play around every trick…they hold multiple lands in their hands and their opponent plays.  People get flustered and start doing things like making bad blocks or trumping too early…when a more aggressive deck is played, sometimes opponents will block too early.  Sideboarding is another one.  People sometimes play against a deck they’re not too familiar with so they sideboard…which dilutes their deck…because it doesn’t do much and therefore they can’t actually win.  I sometimes makes mistakes too.