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Chris Herbert, from Southern California, got into magic as a kid and rediscovered it in college. He enjoys the competitiveness of the game and has played other competitive games like chess and poker. He believes there is overlap in the mental preparation for these games. When preparing for tournaments, Chris adjusts his process based on the size of the tournament and whether he has a team. He suggests focusing on becoming an expert with a few decks and practicing extensively. He used to play in many tournaments but now focuses on specific ones. He has had success with a variety of archetypes, including combo decks. He considers combo decks to be a type of synergy deck and enjoys the strategic elements they offer. All right. Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, you know, your name, where you're from, maybe how you got into the magic? Yeah, absolutely. My name is Chris Herbert. I lived in Southern California. I pretty much lived in the Los Angeles area most of my life. I first started to magic when I was a young kid, elementary school, probably 8th, 9th, or 10th. Just sat the YMCA after school, noticed kids were playing with these magic cards, and kind of got interested. So started collecting a little bit, got a small collection, stole a couple decks, just kind of played casually, nothing ever that serious. And then after a couple years, I kind of moved on to other things, other interests, and then I got reintroduced to the game when I was in college. So my junior year of college, one of my friends had said like, oh, did you guys ever used to play Magic the Gathering? There's these new cards, and you said it's pretty awesome. I've been playing a little bit. Do you guys want to join? And I was like, yeah, sure. It was a fun game. I kind of remember it. So started playing a little bit, just casually with friends at that point. And then fell in love with it at that point, I'd say. And then kind of over time, started to play Constructed, build decks, and realized, oh, there's more than just FNM. There's actual tournaments out there. And I'm someone who, in anything I do, really tries to be the best and exceed, and so the competitive aspect really appealed to me. And so something I had to practice at, and get better at, and go to these tournaments, and eventually play competitively. So that's kind of the journey I've had with Magic. I hear a lot from very high-level Magic players that a big aspect of the game is the competitiveness and that sort of competitive outlet. Do you have an outlet for that growing up besides Magic, or was it always the game for you? I have a lot of competitive outlets. I like games of any kind, basically. So growing up, I played a lot of card games, board games. So, you know, nothing serious, but I played in small amounts of chess tournaments, poker, dabbled in those kind of things, and sports as well. So I played basketball, football growing up. And then in my adult years, and that was about five years ago, I started playing pickleball, which is a pretty awesome game. You can play it well into adulthood and actually, you know, just see yourself play the game. But it's another way to kind of do things competitively. So Magic is one thing that definitely fuels that for me, but I get a lot of, I have a lot of outlets for that in addition, I'd say. And then do you think that, you said you played some other games that were sort of involving the, or mental games, I guess would be a little bit, like poker and chess. Do you think there's a correlation in the preparation that goes into Magic and those sort of more brain-oriented games? Yeah, there's some overlap. So for poker, definitely, there's, you know, it's a game with a random deck of cards and you have to kind of play around, you know, for lack of a better terminology, which your opponents have, similar to Magic. There's a lot being very relevant in poker that I think translates really well into Magic, which at the high levels, you need to have an understanding for. And so there's a lot of overlap there. Chess, I would say it's more of the preparation. So, you know, I've never been the one who's super good at chess, just kind of like intermediate, I'd say. Like my peak B-level is like 1800 or so for chess. But the preparation that you need to compete at the highest level of chess is, you know, probably on par with Magic, if not more. So it's just like putting in the hours, putting in the time. That probably translates to just about anything you really want to do well. And then talking more about the time and effort you put into preparing for Magic. Do you have a sort of process you go about when preparing for tournaments or matches? Yeah, it kind of depends on the state, the tournament, you know, how big it is, how much is on the line. And then also if there's a team dynamic. So I think for, you know, I don't do this so much anymore, but when I used to play like small local tournaments, like, you know, RPTQs back in the day or one page or that kind of thing, it would just be on my own and it would just be getting the critical mass of practice, right? So if it's constructed, that was usually something like Magic Online or actually going to play like weekly events and getting reps with the deck. If it's limited, then sort of like Magic Online again for drafts, but Friday Night Magic kind of thing. As the levels of tournament increased, as I kind of a graph, so doing things like RCs, Regional Championship, you know, I think it would be very hard to do it alone, especially in this day and age where there's so much information. And online, you could just go find, you know, multiple tournaments every weekend about decks that did well and what archetypes are performing well. But as one person, you can't possibly cover all the ground you would need to like, for example, solve a certain format. So the process changes definitely with a team. I think trying to figure out how many team members you have, how to cover the most ground and what's going to be most beneficial for your time. So, and then we get to the kind of pro tour level, then I think you really need a team to compete because the people that are performing the best are usually preparing with more than one person, not just them doing it alone. They're having support and again, covering more bases by having more manpower. But ultimately, kind of the process I use is just like wrapped experience and certainly with more people, you can get more experience. And as long as you have a good way to transfer that information, communicate among each other, and hopefully it's shared and everybody can kind of use that and do well. And then what would you suggest for people that maybe don't have any ability to test with a team that are kind of a vulnerable, per se, in Magic community? Yeah, I mean, I think at that point, you kind of have to be realistic about the time you have and what you can accomplish. So if it's constructed, which most big tournaments are constructed, becoming an expert with whatever decks that you are planning to play. And again, if it's just you, maybe a lot of your practices come from utilizing Magic Online or I guess Arena too, if it's something like standard, but the cards are there. But just getting a lot of time, making sure that you have a defined understanding of your deck in the metagame, how it compares to the other choices, plans for each of those matchups. And then making sure that you're piloting the deck at, you know, 95% or above the capacity for it. If you spread yourself too thin, if you say, hey, I'm going to try every single deck that's doing well at the top 10 metagame decks, you're probably not going to have enough time to take into one to reach that level of competence. So I would probably maybe focus on a couple of hard types, like two or three decks that you enjoy, or decks, shard of use that you gravitate towards, figure out which one is probably the best position and then just jam with it. Lots of practice, lots of reps, make sure that the deck, the card choices for your main deck, the sideboard that you choose, have a distinct plan for the meta you expect. So wouldn't you describe yourself as a big sort of a nickel grinder? Or like, is that where you're getting a lot of your practice? I used to be for sure. You know, my relationship with Magic has changed over the years. When I was in college and then to a lesser extent, but when I was still in training, so in med school and residency, depending on rotations, I would have more time to devote. Nowadays, you know, I have a wife, I have a daughter, it's harder to just sit online and play Magic. But for sure, I used to be, I would play in like challenges. Every weekend, I'm not playing in the actual, in real life of tournament, or I tried to, and I would just in my spare time be jamming, you know, leagues, draft leagues, or moto cubes, or arena drafts, or what have you. So I think that's definitely part of how I progressed in the game, but it's not as big a part as, doesn't look like a bigger part of my life now. You know, pretty much the only Magic I really play is if there's a tournament coming up that I'm specifically preparing for. I'm not really doing it as much in my free time. And then talking about some of the tournaments that you specifically prepared for, were like great segways there. You have a history of playing a diverse range of archetypes when playing in these big tournaments that you pull by board, like Trove Board, World Championship, ROCs. However, one of the confetti results was on Williamsfield Combo, which, you know, you don't really play a lot of combo decks, or at least it doesn't look like you play a lot of combo decks. And so I found it kind of interesting that, you know, that's where you found success, especially considering the difficulty of the deck. So can you walk us through just a bit of like, what went into that, I guess, and what went into mastering that deck? Yeah, definitely. One thing I will start off by saying is, you know, I think it kind of depends how you define a combo deck, whether you think I play a lot of combo decks or not. You know, if I'm thinking about the archetypes in Magic, I think like broadly, there's aggressive deck, midrange deck, controlling decks. And then I would choose synergy decks as kind of another category. And combo decks are certainly going to all be synergy decks. But I think there's definitely different takes of aggressive deck, midrange deck, and control deck that are synergy decks also. And I feel like I gravitate more towards synergy deck than the other just macro archetype. And so Woe to Silver is definitely a very polarized, straight up combo deck. It does its thing, and that's how it wins. But I play a lot of synergy decks, I'd say. So at the first regional championship in Atlanta, I top 8ed with Enigmatic, Incarnation, and Pioneer. And, you know, that's just a combo deck. That's a control deck, but it's certainly a synergy deck. And then a couple of my other choices, like I play Red, Black, Anvil, Black Worlds, which is kind of an aggressive deck, but definitely has that synergy element. And yeah, so I don't know. I think if I were thinking about the tournaments I've been very well at, they're usually some kind of synergy deck. Occasionally, it'll be like if you're aggro midrange or control deck, but I think that's the minority. To answer your question about Woe to Silver specifically, so I basically, I chose that deck because I think it's still probably one of the most powerful things you can be doing in Pioneer. So Pioneer is a quote-unquote eternal farm lab, right? It doesn't rotate, but it's certainly nowhere near the power level of Modar or Lighting State. But Lonest Fields, you know, it's a deck capable of turn two wins if you're actually not drawing, but more realistically, you know, turn four wins, very pretty consistent turn four wins, and then a reasonable amount of turn three wins. And so that was kind of what got me interested in the deck in the first place. And basically just jamming, hitting rep, figuring out how other people were doing their lifts, I would watch other people pilot decks, or streamers were playing Lotus Field. Sometimes it's really informative to see the decisions other people make and how they're approaching it. Maybe there's a whole line or aspect that it's hard to just glean from a deck lift and even your own reps unless it specifically comes up. So because it's such a linear combo deck and you have to make a lot of choices with two verse, I think it is definitely helpful to see what other people do, shift certain spots and learn from that. And then for Lotus Field specifically, I think it requires to be very disciplined with your mulligan decisioning was something I found because you really can't keep a hand that doesn't have a very fast Lotus Field. The deck doesn't function if you don't buy your Lotus Field. And so one thing I was doing for that tournament in particular was I would basically mulligan every seven card hand that didn't have a turn three Lotus Field or faster. And even hands that look functional. So let's say you have a Forest, Greedy Pool, Arboreal Grazer, Impulse, and then maybe like, I don't know, a Pigeon Shrink Spore with the Pages and a Payout like an Ultimatum. That hand might seem okay to the average person, but I think you're relying way too much on that Impulse priming you that Lotus Field because if it doesn't, your hand doesn't stand up. And that was a mistake that I had made time and time again when first piloting the deck before kind of like honing in, realizing that these games really boil down to having that quick Lotus Field and then getting that... You win the game by calm, very much, or horrified usually. You don't usually win the game on third time. And trying to maximize that with mulligan decisions was kind of a pivotal lesson I learned that I think really helped me in that tournament. But all in all, because it's such a ringier deck, getting the reps, getting the practice, making sure you're aware of all the possible lines by practicing yourself, but also seeing what other people do. Would you classify that strategy of hard committing to your way that you're winning the game, right? Like you're objectively looking at your hand as like, okay, this hand, I don't lose, but I don't win, you know? Would that... Would you classify that sort of mulligan strategy as playing to win instead of playing to lose? Because I know that's like a very popular term when it comes to mulligan decisions, right? It's like, well, this hand, you know, doesn't lose, but I don't take a win, so I actually shouldn't bet. Well, I think that makes sense. I think it's just kind of an awareness of what your deck is doing and how your deck wins. And certainly the more practice you have with it, the more clear that becomes. So one example that I could think of that kind of goes with that question is during Pro Tour 1, that ended up being one of my losses of the Swifts was to Nathan Sawyer in the mirror match. It was a feature match, so I don't think it ended up getting on camera. But this was like round 13, I think? Yeah, it was round 13 under Revolt X3. So it was certainly like honing in on that final 8 to like a couple wins away, basically. And in both games, like he 2-0'd me, just for the record, so this was one of my losses, he 2-0'd me. But in both games, you know, I didn't have a 7 that I thought was good, but in both games, I kept a 6-card hand that had a Grazer, a Lower's Shield, an untapped Green Source, maybe it was a tapped Green Source, but no other land. But then like combo elements, right? Some hidden strings plus whatever else. And in my mind, you know, the way that the mirror match goes, is it all about feet. There's still a little bit of disruption, but it's mostly just about gold fishing. And while these hands were not functional as they currently existed, right? You'd need to draw at least two other lands before the Lotus Shield can actually be played and not have to sacrifice it. The way that you win that game is just by being faster. I felt that that was enough of a gamble I was willing to take, so to speak, that if that top part of my library was a land and tapped or untapped because I had the Grazer, I could potentially push it up to a very fast spot. And I do think it's correct, even though both of those hands, you know, I didn't count my third land in time and, you know, he's obviously a great player, so there's no guarantee I would have won anyways if I had. But the point is, like, I knew in my mind how the matchup goes, what's important in the matchup. And even though this hand looks like it's non-functional without some help, which is true, I still hope it gave me a better shot to win than a five card hand that maybe had like a turn for a Lotus Field. Do you think there's a correlation between, you know, how synergistic a deck is and how aggressively it is supposed to mulligan? You see examples like Esper Legends in previous standards where, you know, your lands are really synergistic with your creature and, you know, you can mulligan quite aggressively because of your curve and just have them work together really well. And, you know, you're saying that Lotus Fields are synergistic and you have some of those hands where you can mulligan pretty aggressively. Do you think that is the case in Magic in general where you're more synergistic, your deck ends up more aggressively or like a mulligan? Yes and no. There are certainly combo decks that have kind of, you need a lot of patience in order to actually combo. So a good example is like wrap decks, right? So if you have a wrap deck and your goal is to play cards that ramp you and make your land drops and then cast a Pineapple Titan on turn six or, you know, back and stand your Green Sun for a Pineapple Titan on turn seven, not even turn seven, when you have that amount of mana. Every card you don't have really hurts, right? So that's a combo deck. That's a synergy-based deck. But if you have to mulligan to five, for instance, that's potentially two less land drops or two less wrap spells that you have to enact your game plan. Whereas there are some kind of synergy decks or combo decks that can operate just based off of a very few small specific pieces. So Splatter Twin needs to be a pretty premier combo deck in Modern. And theoretically, you just need four lands to Splatter Twin to see where it's at. Then you can multiply, keep the land with three lands, Splatter Twin, Exarch, and have a reasonable shot at winning the game. Of course, you're not going to find it as an interaction of any way. They're probably going to try to stop you. But at least you have a plan and you can still enact your game plan. So it depends on the deck. I think that combo decks that have a very clear linear path to victory, it does make sense in general to mulligan aggressively. If you don't think that the hand that you're having, it kind of like, dawdles around and doesn't actually do the thing that the deck is trying to do. That makes a lot of sense to me. But the kind of bigger understanding that I think you need to have with any deck, synergy-based or not, is how your deck wins, how it does in the current matchup you're playing. Can you win a long game? Do you have to win a short game? What disruption you're likely to face and how you can circumvent and navigate that. So yeah, I think it's a kind of nuanced question to answer. I'm sorry, I have a question in mind, but I'm blanking on the reading. But throughout your infusion of the Pro Tour, you seem to consistently do pretty well in draft. That seems to not be true for many, many pros. And I think it's something that a lot of people struggle with. Do you have any advice on how you approach limited as a whole? Sure, yeah. I think that most of competitive magic nowadays is constructed. And so you end up with a lot of players who, while competent, constructed players playing in RCQs, RCs, doing well in local tournaments, almost all of those are constructed, right? So the experience a lot of people have with limited is less. Whereas 10 years ago with the Grand Prix system, sealed was a big part of that. And sealed on day one, draft on day two, gave a lot of people an excuse to try and play limited competitively. Whereas in the current landscape, it's just much less common. So I think those kind of skills from back then served me well, compared to the newer crop of players. Certainly the pros that have been playing for 10, 15, 20 years have tons of draft experience too. And I'm sure they're doing well, just like I have been. My advice for draft, and I think part of what makes my approach work for me at least, is everything is context dependent and things are not black and white. But in my mind, because with draft and sealed, that you're at the mercy of the cards you see, you have to be flexible and you have to know a card's value and where it could potentially fit. If you're just drafting and you consume your resources, like lots of people talk about draft. There's some limited resources with partial setup and LSC. There's limited level up with court of calls and other sources too. They have their thoughts and opinions on cards. This card is good in this archive. This card is bad on this archival. This card is good in general. This card is a card you should avoid in general. And I think a lot of people interpret that as kind of, oh, I should never play this card. Or, oh, I should always play this card because these pros say it's a good card. Whereas it's a lot more fluid. And certainly, once you have a little bit of information in mostly post-board games, like let's say you're playing a match of draft with a pro tour or sealed on the arena open or something and it's best in three. Okay, once you know what your opponent's deck has in its specific cards, sometimes you can really upgrade your deck to be well in better position against those cards. So a good example is Train the Errands is the premier kind of light common creature from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. And it's an argument for the best light common, maybe Mystical Tethers better, but it's hard to say. Regardless, that's a very good card because it's a free one that often has first strike on attacks and can apply a lot of pressure early. There's another card called Reckless Lackey, which people thought was probably going to be a good limited card, but that's just because one drops have been pretty good at limited recently. But in this one, it's actually pretty lackluster. You know, people are very powerful things going over the top. There's not really an aggressive red deck, but not as a home for this card. And it's a one, two first strike haste, I'm acting ability that comes up a little bit in the later game. But, you know, people look at Train the Errands and say, this is a good card. People look at Reckless Lackey and based on experience and what I would say, this is not a good card. This is not a card you want. But one thing that I think is obvious to me and maybe not to everybody is Reckless Lackey has a very favorable exchange with Train the Errands, whether it's settled or not, whether it has first strike or not. And certainly if it doesn't have first strike, it's just going to sell them all. And so looking for small things like that. So that's just an example of the patiently looking at a card that maybe it's not an ideal card for your deck. But certainly if you see certain things from your opponent or with a certain game plan that you've crafted in your deck to do, you have to find a way to make use of these cards. And it's a hard skill to master. It takes a lot of time and practice and kind of a very nuanced card evaluation. But the advice I would say is don't be so sweeping with your judgments. Don't always be like, this is a good card. I play this card. This is a bad card. I don't play this card. Really try and think critically about why a card is good, why a card is bad, and whether there are situations where the opposite would be true. And then if you're able to do that, you'll automatically just get percentage points in your games to get the points who aren't thinking like that. I think that's really interesting. Looking at sort of maybe not they are the premier cards, but they are very good against the premier cards. So that increases their drop off, I guess, is an interesting way of evaluating cards that I hadn't thought about. So when researching you a bit, I found that you are a full-time pediatrician, which is a very intensive job. How do you balance being, for lack of a better word, professional Magic the Gatherer player and your career? Yeah, it's definitely tough. The balance has had to change over time. So I talked about this a little bit before, but when I was going through school and I was in training, sometimes it would be very easy to find time for Magic, depending on what I was doing at that moment. Sometimes it would be harder and I couldn't keep up with playing Magic as much. I think it does get a little bit easier later on, or at least it did for me, with kind of regularity and kind of a predictable schedule. So yeah, I have a very fulfilling job. I'm very happy doing what I do. And thankfully, it's not something that I have to devote 80 hours a week to at this point. There were times in training where I did, but at this point, it's like a nine to five, for the most part, for lack of a better word. And so one thing that I think really, I don't remember where I heard this, but it's kind of reassured for me is if something's important to you, you'll make time. If something matters, it's worth doing, right? And for me, that was Magic for a lot of my last 10 years or so. And so when I have the off time, I'm sure I can do other things, but if there was a term that I was interested in preparing for, I would try to carve out that time. Now it's gotten more challenging the last year or so, because I have a wife and a daughter that she's eight months old. So certainly that compressed my free time even further. But I think it's all about being realistic and having reasonable expectations. And one thing that, I don't know, unfortunate, maybe not the best word, but my success at Magic, my pro tour level success at least, has really come at a challenging time for me. Whereas if I was 20 years old and in college, it'd be much easier for me to travel and play more and take time off and that kind of thing. But you have to make it work. You have to think of all the things you like to do, things that are important to you, things that are worth doing, carve out time if they're important. And if they're not, you know, if the lack of a better word, let them go. Congratulations on the newborn. That's very exciting. Have you ever had a patient that played Magic? Yeah, I have. And it's kind of, I don't know, I am hesitant to bring it up with my patients. Just because I, you know, you have to maintain that professional demeanor, right? They're there, they're seeing you for medical reasons. And sometimes there's a floor building where you can talk about things that are a little bit more personal and not to do with whatever you're seeing the patients for. But I don't know, I'm hesitant to bring it up. But I've had a couple of patients who were like, hey, you know, we Googled you before coming in. I didn't know you play Magic together and play Pokemon or we play Magic or something. And then, you know, we talk about it a little bit. And it's a fun way to kind of build rapport, but I don't ever bring it up. It's only if the patient somehow know or somehow, you know, I guess I had one patient where the dad was wearing a Magic together shirt. And so I did ask because clearly more of a connection to the two and, you know, talk about it a little bit. So, you know, I'm from time to time, but I try not to ask or get into it or say that I play it specifically. So I'm sure there's tons of patients that seem to play or have some connection to the game that I'm unaware of. So, yeah, it would be a little embarrassing if your dog deer just destroys you in a game you love. What advice do you have for newer players in Magic? Yeah, I think it takes time. So Magic is a super complex game. There was an article, I think it was in Forbes a couple of years ago that was saying Magic the Gathering is the most complex game in existence. And certainly, if you've ever tried to teach someone who's never played Magic or something similar the rules of Magic and explain how it works. It's so daunting. It's so hard for people to grasp and pick up if they don't have something to base it on. You know, a good example is, yeah, I've taught my wife to play. We've played a handful of times, but she had bet she's like, yep, every time we play again, I have to rewrite everything because it's just you can't keep track of it. It's very complicated. So I guess one thing I would say is it definitely takes time for players that are just picking it up. If you are someone who wants to improve and maybe play competitively, it's going to take time and that's okay. The best way to kind of learn is to see what people that are having success are doing and replicate that, learn from that, right? So thankfully in this day and age, there's a ton of content out there. You can watch draft videos from LSV or, you know, they stream the RCs and the Pro Tours and constructed events and you can see, okay, these are the decks people are playing. These are how are playing the decks. These are what they're doing to have success. I think it's kind of invaluable. And then one thing that I think really helped me as well, kind of different aspect, is the mentality you need for Magic. So I would say it's a deck where you shuffle up a random pile of card, you know, you draw seven, you draw one every turn. So there's a lot of area, right? I'm sure everybody who plays Magic knows and that's part of the game but that also is what makes the game so good, right? I can sit down across from LSV and I could beat him in a game of Magic because of this variance. If it was a game like chess where it's 100% skill, I would have no chance of beating Magnus Carlsen if anyone knows who that is. But the mentality that you have is really important because you're going to have period and moment and game where you're just unlucky. You have the bad side of variance and you have to be able to have a good mentality about that, shake it off, be ready for the next one because it's also going to happen to you. You're going to have this moment of, oh, I drew the exact card I needed to win for, you know, this is a very bad matchup. I'm not going to be able to tie both games and somehow I won this matchup, right? Like that's going to happen. And I think from a psychology perspective, we tend to focus on the failures and really like ruminate on them and think, oh, how did this happen? Why did this happen to me? I'm so unlucky but kind of rush away in times where it happens the opposite and we have that success. And that makes it hard to learn from too. So like if you have a tournament where you do particularly well, you know, I'm sure you had some good side of variance show up for you and you have to be realistic about that if you're looking ahead and planning for the future, being like, oh, did I outplay everybody or did my deck just flop rate a lot? And it's usually some combination, right? But in order to kind of keep learning and growing, I think you have to recognize the relationship of variance, be able to take it in stride when it doesn't go your way. Knowing that sometimes it will and still try to make the best individual in-game decisions you can. I think that's a really good note to end it off though. That's all the questions I have for you. Perfect, yeah. I appreciate having me on, having an interest in me and my relationship with Magic. It's been fun. No, no, no. Thank you for coming. It was a really, really interesting talking to you.
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