Boomslife – The QuakeCon 2019 Interview

Boomslife is a veteran Legends player who knows the game since the very early days. He has been playing across multiple accounts, has more than 10,000 wins on ladder and has finished in top 10 and in top 100 numerous times. Last year, he took a bit of a break from the game only to return strong for the 2019 Masters Series Qualifiers. MerryWallofStorms met him at QuakeCon and has done this interview Boomslife on the evening of July 27th, 2019, on the day after the Masters Series Finals.

Boomslife, thank you for taking the time to do this.

Of course man, thank you for having me.

So how has your QuakeCon experience been so far?

My QuakeCon experience has been amazing. Like absolutely amazing. Nothing like I expected it would be, much better than I anticipated, so, I’m very happy to be here.

How was your flight out to Dallas?

Okay, that was horrible. It took me 19 hours to get here, from the moment I left my door. I did have some waiting time on the airport in Schiphol, Amsterdam. But then the flight to Washington was horrible and for the flight from Washington to Dallas the customs took forever. We almost missed our flight. We made it within the last five minutes, even though we had a three our overlay. So, a lot of stress going on, but we made it. So I’m here.

How did you prepare for the tournament?

Obviously, for me going into the tournament, I knew that Frenzy was my first opponent, who is a very good player. I kind of knew a lot about Frenzy, although not about himself, but because I knew a lot about the people he was testing with. So, I kind of knew the direction that he would go with his decks, and ultimately I was 100% correct on what he would bring. So, for that, I decided to focus on that matchup specifically and bring my  decks for that matchup and test against the decks that I thought he would bring and that’s basically how I tested. I invited Wita to playtest with me, and I think we both did the most part. I had some help from other people as well, but me and Wita did the most together for this tournament.

And you came back to TESL not long before the Masters qualifiers began, right?

That’s correct, yes.

How do you feel like your break affected your perception of the game and how you play?

Honestly, you know I think I was a little bit on the back foot because of the break, because I had a couple of expansions to catch up on. I mean, there was obviously a long break between the Morrowind expansion and Isle of Madness. But I hadn’t played that much Isle of Madness until two months before the tournament and then I also had to catch up on Alliance War and then Moons of Elsweyr, as well. So I had to catch up a lot in the break but it did refresh me and it gave me a different perspective of the game. So, I do think the break was good in general.

Which one was your favorite deck in the tournament?

My favorite deck, even though it didn’t do well in the tournament, is the Ebonheart. I don’t know why it did so bad. I expected it to do better. I expected my Dagoth to do better, as well. It did it’s job, but I expected it to be insanely good. But my Ebonheart was my favorite. The strongest, I would say would have been Guildsworn, but my favorite was the Ebonheart.

Speaking of your Guildsworn and your Tribunal lists. In both of those you included three copies of Seducer Darkfire, which is a card that has not seen much play at all until this point and it put in a lot of work for you. How did you come to realize that it was that powerful?

I feel like the effect of Seducer Darkfire, to lock out a cost of your opponent is a very strong effect. However, it gets better by how good you are and how  well you understand the decklists of your opponent. So, on ladder it might not be that good as in an open decklist tounaments, because I had the option to look at my opponent’s decklists while I was playing. So it was a little bit easier to calculate which cost was in his hand, explicitly. I wasn’t always right, but at least roughly. I don’t know, I felt like it was a strong card. It did some work for me, but it’s also a card that I just really like and I wanted to bring something that nobody expected. Wita ended up bringing the same Guildsworn list as me, which also included the Seducer Darkfires, so I wasn’t the only one who brought it but it’s basically a card I just really liked to play with.

You included a few cards from of Moons of Elsweyr. Which one was your favorite?

In testing, it was the Dragonknight the four magicka 5/4 “consume: deal two damage to each player”. But it didn’t see that much play, yesterday. I think I played it once where it did alright but nothing amazing. Other than that which would be my favorite? Definitely not Alfiq. I hate that card. I’m not sure, actually. I think the card that I haven’t played at all in the tournament which is Razum-Dar, I think that’s probably my favorite. I like that card a lot to just be getting the cards from your opponent. Superthx actually played it against me in the semi-finals. It did not work out that well for him as he got two very low-end cards from it. But I do like that card the most.

Have you had the opportunity to talk with any of the Bethesda staff while you have been here?

I talked with CVH a little bit. I think he’s the only person from the staff I talked with. He’s busy, and we’ve been busy preparing and playing as well, but every now and then we we spoke to each other, yes. It was fun!

Do you have a favorite game from yesterday?

Oh, that’s a tough one. I think, I have to go with the fifth game against Frenzy. Where Thadon did so much work for me. It was a very important part in the whole series, actually, but the game five where I played my Guildsworn into his Telvanni. I have to say that’s my favorite, because I prepared so much for that specific matchup and after I won that game, it just all came together. All your prep was for just that one moment. Then from there on I just looked further, but that game just solidified everything for me. So I have to say that game.

Nice. And last of all, what are you gonna do you after this?

After this. I am not sure because I have to represent my school at a moot court, a very important moot court. I’m not sure how much time I have on the side to play, so I might have to take another  5 month break, right after this. But, if I have time to play, I’ll obviously try to catch up, stay up to date with the game, but I can’t put in too many hours with it. You won’t see me in top 10 finishes or anything like that in the next five month. But after that, if everything is working out with the game well and I’m liking where the game is heading because everything can change in five months, I will definitely be coming back again and then putting more hours into it again. I’m very happy with the game now. This event actually made me realize how much I actually love this game. But I do have to set priorities with real life and stuff like that. So those are things that are going on right now.

Well, thank you again for your time.

No problem man.