Rinku of the AQZ competitive team picked up first place in the World Championship Qualifier in Dallas, Texas, becoming the first North American representative headed to the Finals in Paris Oct. 17-19. After his win, he took a moment with the Blog to talk about the experience.

What was the atmosphere like at Dallas?

It had a good mix of feeling competitive while still being inclusive to the casual crowd. A lot of people were very happy meeting each other in person for the first time, as a lot of people formed connections via Board Game Arena and Discord. Everyone who was there really likes Altered, and it was wonderful to have that atmosphere.

How did you decide which deck to bring? Did you make any last-minute changes?

I brought Kojo, a deck that I’ve been known to play. I play it because I truly believe it is the best deck for me, but I hope to one day be known more as a generalist or general good player. I spent a lot of prep time trying wild ideas with other heroes and Kojo, but once I buckled down, I knew I wanted to play a list with a lot of discard removal to permanently remove my opponent’s uniques. Kojo is one of the best decks if both players don’t have access to uniques. The fairly last-minute change I made was playing zero Skadi and zero Talarian Skater and playing the third Issun-boshi and one common Mana Eruption. I really wanted to be able to push in Water, maximize 1-drops in my opener, and be able to After You with more one-drops in the late game to make my discard more effective. It was still a gamble, as my list lacks a bit of stats, but it seemed to have paid off.

Did you run into other AQZ players? How did you all support each other playing?

I got to meet some of the American members of AQZ and people who run the AWOL, both groups of which I have good relationships with. Idyllic, Chile, Cohlrabi, Blue and Simon were specifically the people I met associated with these groups.

On AQZ, we support each other in the way that person wants to be supported. Besides trying to share cards and general strategy, people have a lot of different perspectives. A good example is Fre3loder, who I believe is one of the best Kojo players in the world, if not the best. We both approach Kojo differently but also sincerely try to understand the point the other person is trying to make. Fre3loder and I had a lot of conversations leading up to the event, even on submission day. We also had some people that would try guessing what uniques or decks some top players would play. Other people like to focus on content creation, or do a mix of the two. It’s not necessarily the type of team where we are grinding games against each other 24/7. It is more like a community of people who truly care about each other, want to have a good time, and might want to compete, create content, or both. Honestly, the biggest support was just knowing that I had a community of people I care about who wanted me to win likely more than I wanted to win.

I ran into Chile in Round 2 on Sigismar, and we had a really close game that involved me winning in the Arena by 1 stat point, which was a true nail biter.

The top cut had a lot of Bravos, as well as the mirror in your final. Was that what you expected to run into? Did you change your play style at all?

I only wanted to prepare for 4 decks, and I figured I could maneuver the rest in the moment. Those decks were (in no particular order): Afanas, Kojo, Treyst and Sigismar. One thing I’ve tried to do in any card game I play is to have a positive win rate in the mirror. Part of why I played so many 1-drops is for the mirror, and things played out more or less how I expected. However, I got destroyed by AJT’s Meltdown in a mirror match in a BGA event earlier in the week. I rewatched that probably 10 times and changed my list and how I played in that mirror because of how badly I got decimated. It was a major learning opportunity. The ability to use footage and replays to pause and rewind and reevaluate is such a good tool for getting better.

How does it feel to be the first U.S. representative at finals?

It feels really cool! I have a reasonable following in other trading card games, and I hope I can leverage this to get more of those people to dip their toes into this game. I’m also glad that I can try to move into a commentary role for the rest of the season, if the opportunity presents itself.

What are you looking forward to most at the World Championships in Paris?

Quite a few things!! I’ve never been to France, and I’ll bring my girlfriend with me, who has never left the country before. I’m hoping I can convince some French Altered people to be our tour guide and show us around to some nice spots. On the Altered side, I’m really hoping for a neat exclusive swag bag when we show up. I know we already got a metal and trophy for winning the WCQ but getting any special souvenir would feel fantastic, even if I come in last. Finally, I’m just excited to battle. It has been a while since I have played an event for this high stakes! I hope to make more European friends. Oh! I’m super stoked to meet the European AQZ team members, too!

Any message to other players preparing for their regional Qualifier events?

1) Outside of uniques, if you don’t have Day 1 or 2 scripted and are taking minutes to play those days, spend more time enumerating all of the possible board states with a pen and paper instead of playing more full games for practice. These are like the openings in Chess, and you should be saving your brain power for the messier situations starting Day 3 onward.

2) Get out there and play some BGA tournaments! There are so many community-run events. The competition is so fierce, you can make friends online, and you can potentially get poached to join a team (at least that’s what happened to me 😉). Your local community is also important, too. However, for improving, the opportunity to play against the best in the world on BGA is one that helped me get better. When I see the results of these WCQs, such a high percentage of top performers played in BGA events regularly.

3) Watch replays! In fact, I would say if you watched 5 replays for every 1 game that you play and really tried dissecting the decisions, you will get better at a startling fast rate. I spent the first month that I discovered Altered on BGA just watching replays of every tournament of everyone who went x-0 or x-1. I just understood so many matchups and so many common situations that would come up without playing a single game. Rewatching your own replays is also fantastic.