By Jeremy Dezani

Welcome to “Player Focus”!

“Player Focus” is a short interview with one of the greatest MTG players in the world. The goal is to present the player and his MTG profile to Japanese and international communities. “Player Focus” will feature a different player each time.

This Time we have Travis Woo(@TravisWizard). He is an American player born in Seattle and is a really passionate person for MTG. He is mainly famous for deckbuilding, streaming and making MTG contents.

Interview

First Name: Travis

Last Name: Woo

Nationality: United-States

Current / lifetime ProPoints: 75

Pro Level 2017/2018: Gold

Occupation / Hobbies outside MTG

I don’t really play other games. I really like sports and physical activities like basketball or surfing. Magic occupies the brain so I mainly need stuff to occupy the body.

When did you start MTG? Which set? How did you discover the game?

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I was born in Seattle. Me and my brother advance to placement program and at 5 years old, and he was introduced to him and we start to play the game. The first pack I open was The Dark .

What famous player influenced you the most to become a professional player?

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Kai Budde I was watching him when he dominated Magic the Gathering.

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Another is one is Michael Flores. Seeing him become a professional MTG writer without be a professional player, inspire me a lot to make contents.

Previous Achievements

GP TOP 8: 3

If you have one, who is your favourite Japanese Player and why:

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Yuuya Watanabe, He is an incredible player with an incredible winrate. I played against Shota Yasaoka, Tomoharu Saito, Shuhei Nakamura and Kenji Tsumura. I like Shota’s deckbuilding but Yuuya just doesn’t loose.

Favourite MTG Format and why:

Mental Magic It is the most skills intensive, fun and creative format.

Favourite limited archetype in the current draft format and why:

I didn’t practice Ixalan enough to be able to answer but I am going to practice a lot this week for the next events.

Favourite MTG Deck:

I really enjoy to play Living End in Modern.

Do you prefer to play aggressive, control, midrange or combo deck? Why?

Combo or Control. I am happy when it is viable.

1) What is your favourite deck to play at the moment? Any format;

Modern No Lands deck.

That deck was super fun to play. You can watch the video of the deck tutor here:

Last season you finished the season with 40 Pro Points, and you did it with only 3 Grand Prix finishes. Do you think if you travel more, it was possible to reach platinum (52pts)? What is your plan for this new season, do you want to try to reach platinum?

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Yes. If I travelled more, it was definitely possible, but I don’t really want to do it. I was lucky that my Pro Tour finishes were so good and also got point in the few GPs I played. Anyway, joining more GP doesn’t guarantee me to get Platinum. The thing is I don’t like to travel a lot or none. I just like to do it a little bit. It is not super important for me to make gold again this season, so I am not sure to go to many GPs. But let see what happen.

What did you do before playing magic the gathering? How the game impacted your actual life?

Since I was starting to play at 5, I was not doing a lot before. It affective my life in a massive way, a big part of my life. I am not sure what I would do without Magic, maybe working in an office somewhere, hopefully not…Well probably not actually. Difficult to say.

You are now doing MTG Coaching. How many students”do you have and what goals do they have? What is the perfect process of a coaching lesson? Are you also improving during your coaching?

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We have like close to 100 people on our group now. Some of them are Pros, some of them are amateurs coming up. A lot of that is just train, teamwork and share information about Magic. We don’t have to test everything. People play PPTQ or RPTQ and we can see what is working or not. It is a big-time saver.

People goal is to achieve, be good and qualify for Pro Tour and we are trying to help them to do that. It is awesome when it happens. It depends but what is working is when a player is recording his replays on magic online, or share draft picks and we discuss step by step what they did. I guess it is good to have feedback.

You are very famous at deck building crazy decks. How difficult it is to be a casual deck builder and a professional player? Is there 2 different Travis Woo?

There is more than two I suppose, I guess there is Travis Woo the content producer and Travis Woo the tournament player.

Tournament play and casual content are 2 really different things. When I was doing content, I like to do something creasy and fun, but when I have to play a tournament the only important thing is about winning. There are not 2 different forms of me, but two different way to deckbuilding depend what the goal is. Right now, I’m not producing casual content anymore and I focus more on winning tournaments. I played Mono red at the last Pro Tour and it was my best constructed performance and I will do something similar for the next one.

You have a big passion for MTG, and you dedicate a lot of time to this game. What is your dream for MTG? What should happen to make it real?

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My dream is not necessary what I am doing. I enjoy the Pro things but is not necessary for me. My dream is more people play the game, more guys learn it. I guess part of that dream would be Junior Super Series comes back. Watching kids travel and rewards that, having them competing. It something that doesn’t exist anymore. It was really helpful at getting me into it.

Magic is a great game because it social, offline and teach you maths. I am not necessary working hard on that but my friends are and I am supporting them for that.