![]() “My goal for the year is definitely qualifying for the Players’ Championship,” Hoogland said. His current ranking of fifteenth on the Season Three leaderboard represents his work on the Open Series, and his yearly points total puts him in thirteenth for Season Four, a spot he’d like to improve on with the final eight at-large berths to the Players’ Championship coming from the eight yearly point leaders that aren’t already qualified. His results started piling up, and as the Open Series heads to Worcester, MA this weekend Hoogland is among the Top 35 players with the most Open Top 8s, tied with ten other players with seven, along with an Invitational Top 8 from Somerset in 2013. With his schooling coming to an end, Hoogland invested in Legacy and began testing for events, both of which quickly began yielding results. He began traveling to Opens near the end of 2011 and was able to shift his focus more to Magic when he was wrapping up his final year in graduate school at Illinois State University in Bloomington, Ill. He started playing in Apocalypse and didn’t get his DCI number for the better part of a decade. Hoogland’s rise to Open Series regular started like many, playing casually and drafting with friends at local game stores. “I like throwing off my opponent with unexpected cards and hearing them explain how they don’t know how to sideboard while they look over their piece of paper with sideboard plans.” In a game as open and complex as Magic, there is always something interesting to do and some sweet card to build around… like Yeva, Nature’s Herald, Life from the Loam, and Glissa, the Traitor,” Hoogland said. “When I first started playing tournaments I never found the popular decks that interesting or saw them utilizing intricate lines of play. Jeff Hoogland battles Josh Ravitz on Day 1 of the Season Two Invitational in Columbus, OH. ![]() He prefers swinging in with flying 20/20s or ultimating Planeswalkers. Attacking for two really isn’t his thing. His Standard card advantage strategy involves Courser of Kruphix and Underworld Connections instead of Sphinx’s Revelation. Where some play Brainstorm and Force of Will in Legacy, Hoogland sleeves up Life from the Loam and Chalice of the Void. Open Series commentator Patrick Sullivan playfully compares his decklists to trade binder fodder. His success comes from decks often requiring more than four words to label, often three or four colors. His first Legacy Top 8 came with a Deadguy Ale build including Lingering Souls alongside Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Tombstalker beside Dark Confidant. His first Open Series Top 8 came with a BUG Control deck featuring four copies of the legendary Zombie Elf Glissa, the Traitor in a time where Delver of Secrets and Huntmaster of the Fells ran rampant on the metagame. Some creatures were obvious, others basically forgotten.įor Hoogland, a Chord of Calling toolbox shell would be considered tame. Hoogland had more than a dozen creatures at the ready to be tutored up with Chord of Calling a day after the card was spoiled for Magic 2015. The notable brewer and deckbuilder scours the card-searching database each time an idea for a deck strikes him. Few players on the Open Series know Gatherer as well as Jeff Hoogland.
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