Kitchen Table Magic is the storytelling podcast featuring the amazing people of the Magic: the Gathering community.
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Go watch Dev’s videos on Strictly Better MTG.
Go say hi to Dev on Twitter @SBMTGDev.
Transcript
Sam: Hello Sir can you please introduce yourself?
Dev: What’s up my wizards, it’s Dev, you know, from the SBMTG. I’m just doing my spiel at this point. I’m Devon, from SBMTG everybody, hello.
Sam: Welcome to Kitchen Table Magic the storytelling podcast featuring the amazing people of the Magic the Gathering community. I’m your host Sam Tang. Join me and my guests as we share stories about what MTG means to us, how we got started playing Magic, the ups, the downs, the hilarious stories, and everything in between. In this episode I’m talking to Dev from Strictly Better MTG. Dev is the rapping YouTuber with the deck tech, strategy, and feline co-hosts. With over sixty thousand YouTube subscribers, Dev is a major player in the MTG community, providing strategy news, and set reviews. Dev has been playing Magic from early in the game’s history and his expansive knowledge of Magic makes for thorough and in-depth videos dev enjoys teaching the community how to build a better deck and accommodates both competitive and budget conscious players. Dev’s down to earth attitude and personality makes his content easy to understand and relatable. Also, Dev has a special gift for Patreon supporters and I’ll tell you how to get a signed card from Dev later. I hope you enjoy my interview with Dev of Strictly Better MTG.
Sam: Hi everyone thanks for joining me on Kitchen Table Magic. My name is Sam Tang and today I’m here with Dev from Strictly Better MTG. Dev, how are you doing today?
Dev: Fantastic Mr Sam.
Sam: I’m so happy that you’re here with us today and where you joining us from?
Dev: I am from, coming here from Macon, Georgia, where I’ve lived more or less my entire life.
Sam: Sweet! Georgia I love it, that’s where they film The Walking Dead.
Dev: Yeah they’re starting to film a lot of stuff down here lately you can get casting calls. As a matter of fact there’s a lot of people I know the go in his extras on stuff like The Walking Dead and like Tyler Perry movies and stuff.
There’s a lot of filiming going on down there right now it’s kind of cool.
Sam: That is super sweet. Yeah right now Seattle is looking a little bit post-apocalyptic we’re having a heat wave and on top of that there’s a whole bunch of forest fires out in British Columbia so there’s and this haze and the sun is like orange and it’s really hot and everyone’s freaking out
Dev: Pretty metal. I heard on the radio today that it was I didn’t hear yet in Washington state actually supposed to be over one hundred degrees out there.
Sam: Yes it is.
Dev: Which is impossible I didn’t know that even happened in your part of the country. I’ve come from the South, I’m used to it being you know ninety nine one hundred by now but I can imagine one hundred six out there that’s that’s crazy I’m sorry you’re going through that.
Sam: It is pretty warm and it’s like our very own Hour of Devastation that’s…people are pretty scared.
Well anyways, Dev, I’m so happy that you are here and for the listening audience Dev is the founder of the very successful Magic YouTube channel Strictly Better MTG and Dev does deck techs and talks about news and talk about sets reviews and talk about like lore and talks about budget magic and all the things that just Dev loves about Magic, right?
Dev: That’s correct like literally all of those things.
Sam: And just sit on your couch and you’ve got your really adorable cats that often like a photo bomb you in the shot.
Dev: They’re internet famous now think that in some ways my cats are more famous than me. And every time I’ve only been recognised like three times around town and I want to go to a card shop it doesn’t happen often but the first thing people ask is about the cats like every time it’s never about like oh I build this deck and I really liked it and it’s always about like hey is Julie a nice at or…? It’s always about the cats.
Sam: They even know that cats names.
Dev: Yeah like right now Julie is actually sitting next to me on top of the computer desk and Ziggy is sitting next to her he’s asleep.
Sam: And where’s Igby?
Dev: He’s off somewhere he was actually sitting with me on the couch right before this but he is very much as solitary cat you know like he goes off by himself and kind of chills for a minute and rejoins the pack.
Sam: I love it that your cats are more well known than you are but you know what we will talk more about why you are so well known Dev but like all things we start at the beginning. Where did you grow up and how did you find Magic?
Dev: Well you know I’ve been in Georgia my whole life I spent some time in Tifton most of it has been here in Macon and I guess like it’s like you said let’s start the beginning. When I was growing up one of my first ever video games ever was a Final Fantasy the very first Final Fantasy like 1989 I was like six years old and my dad and I played that game all the time and we loved it so much so you know when Final Fantasy two and three came out played those. Chrono Trigger came out we played those. I just always loved as a result of that love of Final Fantasy and video games roleplaying games and such I always loved just the fantasy setting you know.
And when I was 11 and I just full disclosure the story gets sad here just I don’t want to just like hit you with a left hook of sadness like the story’s about to get sad. When I was 11 my dad passed away and it was like two years later or two years two weeks later at school I met up with this kid Kevin which is funny (my name’s Devin and his name’s Kevin) but I met up with this kid Kevin whose dad had died like a month before my father died. So I started going over his house and hanging out and stuff and he played this game you know Magic the Gathering and it was 1995 at the time and I think Revised was out at the card shop but it was still like five dollars a pack. The Fallen Empires was like 88 cents a pack so we used to go up there we would just like save up allowance money, five, ten bucks, and buy all the Fallen Empires we could. Just sit on the floor and open it and he you know he really got me into Magic and you know it’s in my blood too. Like my father for a long time was a magician and my mother was a magician’s assistant and they didn’t know each other you know they were just like they were both involved in actually you know and magicianship I guess but they didn’t know each other at the time. So it’s also I like to joke that it’s in my blood for that reason, too.
You know it’s because it’s because I’ve always enjoyed the fantasy element and then when my dad passed and I met this guy who was a friend of mine for a really long time that got me into Magic and when I discovered Magic I was like oh my dad would probably really like this game because he loved the I mean he got me into Tolkien he got me into obviously any and all things fantasy. You know always had that sort of connection with it like if my dad were still around I would probably play Magic with my dad, he’d probably love that. Ever since then it’s just been 23 years or so of playing this game.
Sam: That’s incredible, Dev thank you so much for sharing that. Do you still have some of those Fallen Empires cards?
Dev: Yes, scattered aboot. I’ve got you know random for thrulls. Like Ebon Praetor the one with the bunny on it that’s still one of my favorite cards and like Breeding Pit is still like a really good card. There’s actually good cards from Fallen Empires like Hymn to Tourach is like one of the best black cards of all time. That’s from Fallen Empires. Probably deserves more credit than it gets. Like Thallid? Thallid is such a cool creature you know you had Hamarids or whatever like those are some of the best creature types ever. I don’t know I liked Fallen Empires but that’s probably because I have a bias towards it, it’s where I started.
Sam: Yeah yeah did you ever play with that card Mind Stab thrull?
Dev: Occasionally. I think I remember I think it was the Professor’s appearance on your podcast you said something about how like back in the day you were just like throw random Mindstab Thrulls and stuff into decks like you know…that was us. I heavily identified with that. The art on this thing is really cool and like we don’t even know what it really does. Like once a card got to more than like four lines of text we don’t care you know just make stuff up. That was my first year of playing the game like what do? I don’t know but it’s art is awesome.
Sam: Yeah, Mindstab Thrull for me is one of those cards that’s like I hate it so much but I also love it from a nostalgic standpoint because the art is kind of gross if you’re like a little kid you’re looking at this melted zombie gross thing and then it’s not particularly powerful because it’s got really terrible card stats and so I would never be able to connect with it like I’d be like attacking it like oh it’s a 2/1 or a 2/2 and it dies and you’re like fuck like I’m never going to get to use the ability because it has to connect and then you sack it or something. Like back in the day had like a weird sack after you’ve attacked but before declares blockers have been declared like stuff like that you know and then they discard half a card ha ha ha Fallen Empires.
And so they’ve got these terrible abilities right and so the whole time I’m just like this card’s already kind of goofy looking I don’t have any other cards I need to try to use it somehow and whenever I play it it just I never I didn’t win very much as a kid…it was pretty bad.
Dev: Throw that invisibility on a dog. Get it through unblocked and by the time you’ve done that it’s like turn four and they only have like two cards left in their hand so you don’t you get all three cards. Even back then you know you always have these fantasy scenarios you know I’ll Dark Ritual on the play on turn one and then I’ll just like Mind Twist them on turn two—it’s not going to happen that way.
Sam: Yeah it’s more it’s more like play a land and double Dark Ritual and play Drudge Skeletons something terrible…I’ll regenerated for no reason it’s just like so bad right? Gosh that’s so crazy. OK, so you played a lot of like old fashioned kitchen table magic from really you know dinky packs and then did you just I mean how did you level up? Like how did you learn more about the game? Just kept playing and just time passed?
Dev: Well, back in the day we had a couple of magazines, Inquest magazine and the Duelist magazine. Inquest lasted longer than the Duelist. And you could make an argument that some of Inquest’s competitive content was questionable but I still think that was sort of the foundation for me wanting to become a better Magic player and really understand the game. And then when I was probably 15 or 16 at this time, I had just taught my cousin William how to play Magic and he was quickly becoming a better Magic player than me and I was like how’s this you know I’ve been playing for seven years whatever it was at the time as I was like how is this possible? You’ve been playing for three months on you’re better than me and he’s like well I know this guy lives down the street from me he plays tournament Magic you know. And this was back in the day when like there were there was barely FNM, like a Sunday tournament at your local card shop and that’s what we call competitive Magic because we didn’t have like Opens and stuff like that. When I was still in high school and I’m an old man is before the turn of the centuries like ‘99, 2000. And so I was like OK well I’ll go over to this dude’s house with you and see what’s up you know and I’m still thinking you know I’ve been playing Magic for seven years, I’m going to crush this kid you know I mean. So I go over there and he just like hands me my butt. Immediately.
And I started you know hanging out of there more and we got a play team together and he started these are the decks that are popular in type two and here’s how you beat them and you know they have these match ups you know this deck may be awesome against that deck, this deck is terrible against this deck, but it beats everything else. I started sort of learning what metagaming meant you know and he handed me a deck it was Yawgmoth’s Bargain combo. Yeah this is the first competitive deck I ever played with and now when I explain this deck to people who’ve been playing Magic for a while there I was like oh it’s not so complicated but to my brain never having played competitive Magic comes play and you know Savannah Lions turn one, Unholy Strength turned two.
He hands me this deck that for my skill level at the time a very complex combo engine so I would just goldfish games you know play games against myself over and over and over turn by turn by turn trying to get down what I’m supposed to do. And then we got into games against one another and I learned how to you know when to pull back and wait on the combo when to be you know attack their their board state rather than trying to just go for it you know. And learning subtle things about how cards interacted and then you know I ended up going to Sunday tournaments and eventually FNMs and stuff like that. And all the while just getting better and better with this one deck and I think that’s important when you’re learning competitive Magic it’s get very very comfortable in a metagame with one deck because when you’re getting comfortable with one deck in a metagame in a vacuum like Standard you’re actually getting comfortable with every deck in Standard. Because once you learn how other decks play against you and how you’re supposed to play against them then you know all the ins and outs of those other decks too you know what to look out for and what their big plays are what they’re looing to do on certain turns. So all of this you know after a couple years really led to a knowledge base that made me level up to super saiyan and level up from where I was from being you know just like you know 1/1 guy on turn one, I’ll Terror your dude on turn two, play like a Scathe Zombies turn three I don’t know I like the art like being that kind of player to being someone that looks to actively attack the meta and that you know I think that’s one of the most important steps that someone can take if they’re looking to get into competitive Magic is actually you know caring about the ins and outs of not only deck building but once you’ve built that deck how it runs and how it interacts with all the other strategies in the meta. There’s a lot you have to learn when you first start getting good at magic there’s a lot that goes into it but it all tends to happen within a small timeframe at least at least the the seedling of it you know learning what’s important happens in a small timeframe but getting better at those things can take you know in my case decades.
Sorry for being a little long winded I apologize.
Sam: Dev, what about a time when you made a mistake learning how to play Magic?
Dev: This is this is one of my favorite stories to tell. Me and my playgroup, shout outs if anybody’s listening to this, it’s Sonny and Andy and Jesse Fish and me and Joe Cortez, we always we used to play Magic until the wee wee hours six or seven in the morning som time. We formed a playgroup you know and we went to I think it was an SCG Open at the Gaming Pit in Atlanta. We had been like gaming for this for three weeks at that point. Every day Magic 12 hours a day you know know your deck in and out no matter what and when we finally got there I was playing a variation on Pickles. I don’t know if you remember Pickles Sam?
Sam: Yeah I remember Pickles Yeah that’s right Adam Yurchick talked about Pickles.
Dev: I was doing the dumbest thing ever with Pickles. What I was doing was I was playing Slivers and Pickles like I was using Vesuvan Shapeshifter Brine Elemental combo to lock all you know stuff down for the rest of the game but I was also using Opposition you know tap you know tap something you control to tap down one of their guys and Slivers. And Slivers you know they all have different stuff they give all Slivers hexproof or anything like that. Different sliver stuff.
What I was doing was I was just using Opposition to tap down you know all of their guys of my Slivers and then Brine Elemental them you know every turn for the rest of the game. And this deck actually worked like stupidly well in testing so I go to the GP—I know it was an SCG Open, I know it was—go to the Open and it’s round four at this point. I have won my first three matches and I’m feeling really good right. So the way Shapeshifter worked is if I remember correctly you had to choose to either choose to like flip it back up or a flip it back down one of the other but on your upkeep right so my opponent says go, I’ve got him locked down for like four turns I’ve got him locked down he’s getting increasingly frustrated and he can’t untap anything when he says go and I draw my card and I’m like oh wait let me get let me go back man he’s like, I can’t let you do it can’t let you do it. And a lot of people would tilt in that situation you know like call a judge like please let me go back but first of all the judge is going to say no, you can’t go back, so don’t do that. At the time I just had to be like you know you got me you’re right I drew my card so he untapped and ended up just like decimating me so let that be a lesson you know just just make sure that you’re very aware of everything that you have to do during a turn and importantly get sleep because we hadn’t literally did not sleep we I think we got about an hour and a half of sleep and then drove three hours to the event, waited outside for two hours until it was open you know registered and then played for four hours so by the time I had made this mistake I had played four hours of Magic and not gotten any sleep. So get some sleep too you know.
And also just one more pro tip as far as mistakes are concerned do not change your deck that you’ve been working on for like a month don’t change you deck the night before the event don’t do that. I can’t remember what event this was in Atlanta but I was playing Fairies in Lorwyn I was playing UB Fairies and I had really learned the deck top to bottom I was very confident and because that was the best deck in that Standard. And I decided the night before the tournament that I wanted to put Momentary Blink in the deck because you know you can blink any of these fairies for their enter the battlefield effects and that seems really awesome you know. So I tried to you know mess with the mana to where I could get at least like eight white sources but that drove down my blue sources which is a huge no no in Fairies. I played three Momentary Blink saw none of them the entire tournament but saw all of my white mana and none of my blue mana. So like you just don’t don’t change things on something you’ve been like really confident for a month just because you think you have a like a bright idea to break the meta. You probably don’t. So I had to learn your lesson the hard way too.
Sam: Yeah you ain’t breaking anything. You’re breaking your own deck.
Dev: It happens once in a blue moon but like everybody wants to be that guy like I’m doing it Mill is the deck man. Mill is probably not the deck. We all make those mistakes just learn from them is all I’m saying.
I went from playing the strongest deck in the format no doubt everyone knew that it was either Revilark or Fairies and that format and I end up on Fairies and changed it the night before and completely just got dominated. I think I went two and three in that tournament. It was just awful it was just so awful before I dropped it was bad so I learned that as well.
Sam: Well that’s really cool, Dev. And when did you sit down and say to yourself you know what I want to start a YouTube channel.
Dev: I had at the time been playing Magic for like I said you know twenty years I felt like I had a good knowledge base as far as the game at that point and this was when YouTubers who are big at this point had had just started to become popular you know. Professor had just started releasing his product reviews. Wedge was doing deck techs. This was when a guy name Absolute MTG was really big. He used to do nothing but deck techs. He was a big inspiration. And also Evan Erwin and Brad Nelson they used to do set reviews for Star City Games and that was you know a big genesis for me I really wanted to to do something like that just sort of review cards on YouTube. Some of it’s cool I watched a lot of YouTube at the time it was we didn’t have cable we didn’t have Netflix at the time so YouTube was our cable we watched a lot of it.
So I was really interested in just you know in YouTuvbe as a whole. So I figured you know I know a good bit about this game of I’m doing it for a long time I feel like I can do what these guys are doing but from sort of a more thorough angle you know I’d see deck techs that were ten minutes long and I’m like you know you covered the bases here but I want some more in-depth. You know and that’s why my videos are usually like 20 plus minutes long because I want to cover as much as we possibly can. I felt like there was that sort of void for that on YouTube. So I wanted to get into deck techs and it’s really you know talk about every up and down of the deck that I could in a precise manner. And I also wanted to do set reviews that was a big part of it was set reviews so it’s something I still enjoy doing to this day is like spoiler reviews and stuff. So one of my favorite parts like spoiler season is like having Christmas like four times a year. It’s really taxing on sort of the body economy you know. By the end of spoiler season I’m literally delirious you know I’m like man this is three mana 1/1 is incredible you know. Who knows what I’m thinking at that point.
Sam: Your lands don’t untap I wish they didn’t untap for the rest of the game that’s awesome!
Dev: This card is broken.
But but it’s something I do enjoy doing. I’m used to since I was very young I’m a night owl. I barely get any sleep and can run off of it somehow get three four hours sleep and fine. Spoiler season is just more of the norm for me you know. It’s not really big deal I know but I can’t be doing that forever you know but still still spoiler season is exciting enough that I can get three hours sleep and I’m fine. I just want to wake up the next morning and see the next batch of stuff.
Sam: And then when it’s not spoiler season you’re just like I’m going to release three deck techs in a week.
Dev: Yeah more or less that’s what I try to do is two or three. Sometimes I’ll throw a video in there like an opinion or a top ten or something like that but I’m trying to like work the kinks out of a deck but three deck techs a week is what I try to get out and you know I think we’ve hit the mark so far and you know. I just try to make sure it doesn’t feel like I’m ever rushing anything out like I do I do a lot of work on these decks and for the actually get out like just you know when you see a deck get released on the channel know that it’s been in the works for at least two weeks at that point. Everything’s everything’s sort of not necessarily planned out to do the degree that I want it to be. I’m famously disorganized you know. I was that kid that did the science project on the day before it was due. I think I’ve carried over that attitude into the way I do my YouTube channel.
Like I said, I wing it but these decks do they have a lot of work to go into them so there’s always one or two weeks at least of production that goes into a video before you actually see the finished product.
Sam: Wow that is so cool. Well even though you are self professed very disorganized your content is still comes off as very organized and like you said earlier you really want to make sure that you are thorough and complete. Dev, can you tell us a little bit more about your production or process or creative process when it comes to coming up with content?
Dev: There’s there’s a lot that is into that. It’s really just…OK put it this way. When I first started the channel we had an iPhone that was that was pretty much it as far as far as our production quality you know we had a free editing software that we used and we had an iPhone But actually I love that about it for the first maybe year and a half of the channel we had literally a cellphone and free editing software. I liked to use that as an example that literally anyone can do this if they want to you know. If you if you want to start a YouTube channel you can it’s still I’m living proof of that and you can do it at almost no budget to start up the channel and as long as you’re engaging or people like the content you produce then you can do it. Even with subpar equipment. And at this point I’ve got you know a 1080p web cam that I record with and a blue snowball microphone that I record audio with and I use WonderShare video editor which does cost a little bit but it’s not much. I just got a new editing software Corel VideoStudio which I think cost $100 and I’m learning how to use. You know as as far as the production value of it not enough to do it at this point but at that point it’s all sweat equity you know I mean it’s just what you put into it from there. And the process is yes you know come up with a deck idea and then you know get notebook and paper you know I do everything old school I’m rarely you know writing things and into a word processing software anythings everything’s pen and paper. Write out your deck idea cobble it together usually I use proxies when I make a deck because I’m not rich. It costs some mome to play Magic. So I just you know I proxy up decks and play out games against other decks or play out scenarios I think it’s something a lot of people don’t do enough of it’s playing out specific scenarios you’re likely to encounter in a format. Do a good bit of that and I go back to the drawing board write out the deck list again what did work what didn’t work. Now I usually do rewrites anywhere between five and six times you know when I’m doing deck tech. And it’s all again his pen and paper and usually when I record it’s just I’ve got my notebook next to me I script nothing you know I’ve got like certain things planned out that I want to say. Covering Grasp of Darkness kills Hazoret you know you want you know you want to say that in this current format. So you know you’ve always got stuff that you know you’re going to say but as far as how I’m going to say it I don’t script anything and more or less wing everything to make sure that it’s sort of natural you know. I don’t want to sound scripted so I don’t script.
Sam: Yeah absolutely. OK Well that’s really great because I always whenever I watch your videos I’m just like wow you like Dev is such a great speaker and you’ve got this great energy and you connect and I’m like wow that’s that’s something that’s one hell of a script. And now it makes a lot of sense so it’s like no no script needed I just connect.
Dev: Well it’s just like I think that it’s it’s important to be positive you know it’s important to bring energy and optimism to it I’m not saying that something that’s lacking I think that most content creators are actually really energetic and really positive and I love that actually about being I guess in the community because we as content creators have by and large this unwritten agreement that we are supposed to be a force for good. And I know that sounds melodramatic but I think that that is a good way to put things you know. I think it’s very important to be positive.
Sam: Absolutely. And Dev, when you started you had two other co- hosts you had a guy named Random and you also had a guy named Tony after the first video random disappeared. Whatever happened to Random we don’t know and then after a year or so then Tony left the channel and now it’s just you.
Dev: Right. Random that’s my buddy John. These are both great guys by the way. Random just kind of after a couple of videos decided like yeah you know yes this isn’t for me. And then Tony he stuck with the channel for a little while and he did a lot of our deck testing for us. Great guy you know that we did a lot of our testing and did some videos of his own before he just was kind of like you know I don’t feel like going on camera anymore you know I don’t feel like being sort of a voice for it anymore and after a while he just he just sort of you know stop producing content for the channel so you know we we sort of went our separate ways as far as channel business goes. So I just I don’t know the Tony I mean I don’t be you know careful just because I like I love Tony he’s a good guy you know he’s been a friend of mine for a while but I just think that mostly he just felt like I’m not he didn’t want to be a face or voice he won’t be on camera and I can respect that I can respect. I was always a little bit more comfortable with it than him.
Sam: Yeah, I totally understand yeah it’s not for everyone not everyone wants to be right in front of a camera all the time yeah that’s understandable.
Dev: But he still he still did a lot of work for us and you know those months that he wasn’t on camera he tested decks for a while and we bounced ideas back and forth and I would take lists of his and make deck techs out of those you know that happened a few times. You know we had a working relationship for a while but then after you know my life became very much about the channel and I you know I didn’t have so much of a focus on work or friends sadly but still when you do this and it starts getting big then your life becomes very much about it you have to spend 60-70 hours a week on content producing you know if you want to keep going. After a while we just you know it’s not just he but a lot of my friends and I just sort of parted ways without really saying like all right I’ll see you later. My life became about like my marriage and my channel you know I want to spend 60-70 hours a week on my channel and hey I’ve got this person that loves me so much that they married me they want to spend all their time with me so I you know I mostly focus on her because she’s awesome and the channel that’s all I need I guess.
Sam: Yeah yeah absolutely yeah I mean you’ve the format of your videos really is just going to use it in front of the camera you know earlier dev when you were just like you know how we started off was just basically free editing software and an iPhone. What’s awesome is that you’ve really kept that from zero subscribers on day one to over 60,000 subscribers now in the middle of 2017 you still have that basically straight on look you’re sitting on the couch and the camera’s pointed at you and there’s not a lot of you know special effects or crazy things going on you have a little bit of text up on the screen. Occasionally the feline walks across your lap or whatever but yeah that’s basically kind of kind of how you roll.
Dev: Yeah you know I like it to be stripped down you know and there’s been times I do skits and stuff but I am technically limited in my ability to produce skits that look good you know I think that I don’t want to see my horn but I like I like the script of my skits sometimes but as far as the production quality you know I’m one guy with like one camera so it’s really hard to set things up like you go back and you look at the the rapsan music video the rap video that we did perhaps and yeah like that it’s literally like the worst looking thing in the world. It looks so bad.
That’s because we’re really limited and so after a while I just started to focus more on this not necessarily I guess I don’t want to say like stripped down content or anything but just content that really cuts to the quick and you know people are interested in what the deck is and what it does. And I can always sprinkle in you know the odd joke here and there when talking about a card you know give a card a nickname which is always fun and still you know achieve like and the kind of engagement that I’m looking for. I think and I would get feedback on the skits like some people be like all the skit was hilarious I’m crying and then like other people of course you know it’s YouTube other people be like the skit was the dumbest thing I’ve literally ever seen in my life so you know. So after a while it’s like man is the three hours of writing and then production I’m doing on the skits like worth it I’m just going to do the decks.
Sam: That is so funny you know like all things grow and all things evolve you know Dev you at one point you hit a thousand subscribers and you did a video kind of talking about that. What was it like to hit your first milestone goal?
Sam: You have no idea man. Well actually you do as a matter fact. But it’s just unbelievable you know we just decided to throw videos up just talking about I think it was Fate Reforged was our first set review and you know the first few days it got to like one hundred views and back then we were like oh my God we have a hundred views. You know honestly unbelievable the people were even the most a small amount of people were actually watching it. You know it just it I guess it snowballed faster than I thought it would you know like we went from a thousand well really like five hundred subscribers which was a milestone for us at the time to a thousand subscribers which was just like we had a plan to hit a thousand subscribers within a year right. We started in February 2015. And we wanted to hit a thousand subscribers by the next year you know February 2016. We hit a thousand subscribers in like half that time I think it was and it just blew us away like we had no idea we didn’t feel like we were deserving of it at all. And then like a few months later it was literally literally like six months later we hit five thousand subscribers. We quintupled our first year goal it’s just like unbelievable for us and ever since then it’s just been a steady snowball of survivorship—subscribership. If you’ve been with the channel for like two and a half years now then you have survived some really awful videos.
There’s been a very steep learning curve when you you know you start learning how to produce an edit videos. Editing was and still is occasionally a bugaboo you know but you teach yourself as you go and teach yourself as you go.
Sam: Yeah and Dev then like a year later you hit 40K subscribers.
Dev: I don’t I don’t get it.
I don’t get it like you know I see the professor’s videos and I see Wedge’s videos they just you know they do stuff with green screens and they’re just their production looks so perfect in their card images are like the highest possible resolution. Professor’s got all these cool transition effects and stuff and like sometimes got these pyro effects for some reason I don’t know where he’s getting those.
Sam: He likes to make things explode he said.
Dev: I know what I want to do that.
But like I just don’t you know I see us getting to 100,000 subscribers and still not understanding how exactly that happened you know what I mean? It’s all surreal it really is surreal when like for instance right probably six or eight months ago at this point not quite a year ago I went to the baptism of my cousin’s daughter right at my tiny little church 60 member church that I haven’t been to in 15 years or whatever and it turns out that a random like cousin once removed of mine , this kid’s like 14, Spencer shout out if you have to be a listener. He watches my videos I’ve never met this kid my life and he watches my videos like he was in the pew in front of me for the entire time and at the end you know we turn to leave and he turns around and he looks at me and his face like, he’s like you’re that guy that’s how everybody recognizes you know that guy.
And I’m like, yeah what’s up my wizard and he just lead breaks out his big smile a give me a hug and stuff and like that’s that’s always like I’m some guy you know what I mean I don’t I just don’t understand it you know. Like I went to a card shop a little over a year ago now that I was talking to the girl behind the counter about Standard you know and after like three minutes she looked up at me and I really saw me for the first time I was like oh my God I’ve been playing your deck for like three months been playing your blue red you know Izzet deck for a couple of months now and I’m like awesome how has been doing for his you know we just launch into a whole conversation about Izzet. But that’s always so weird like well like it’s awesome don’t get me wrong I’m really flattered but like I am a just some guy I’m just some guy man. It’s so weird when it starts happening.
Sam: I love you you’re like oh hey my wizard.
Dev: Like it’s like it’s not uncomfortable or anything but it is always like how? I don’t I don’t get it.
Sam: That’ll be the day when you get a lot off for a speeding ticket because the cop is like what’s up Dev.
Dev: I have actually fantasized about that I’ve had a cop behind me and I’ve been like hey man maybe this guy plays Magic.
Sam: Get off with a warning.
Dev: …another day when I’m going to the line at Kroger or something in the cashier’s like oh you play Magic? That hasn’t quite happened.
It’s so weird man like it happened at Wal-Mart one time it’s you always forget who you are you know and I’m not anybody that’s a thing is are nobody I don’t understand.
Sam: Well you are clearly somebody Dev you’re Dev from Strictly Better MTG where you know lots of people get a lot of enjoyment from the game and that’s that’s really important. You know what’s also really interesting to the listening audience is that not only is Dev known for his videos Dev also known for his music. Can you tell us a little bit more about that I mean you’ve really got some skills in that.
Dev: Well I’ve been doing music for almost as long as I’ve been doing Magic you know. I learned to play Magic when I was 11 I learned to play guitar when I was 11 that’s something.
Music is also something connected to my father you know. I inherited his guitars they’re like the only thing that he specifically left me with his guitar and the will to have me learn to play it. I did that I learned a little bit of violin, some piano, some drums you know I learned music editing software when I was like 15 you know started off with Magic Must Maker, FruityLoops, Acid Music and all that and it just sort of became you know one of those part time garage passions of mine. And interspersed with that you know I always loved hip hop I started listening to hip hop I was like eight. We used to have I don’t know if you guys ever had a channel like this but we used to have a channel that you called in and you’d press a series of numbers to request a music video on that channel and whichever music video got the most requests got you know got played next. And I would always call and request Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day” and Sir Mix-A Lot’s “I Like Big Butts.” Those were the two songs I always requested and my sister my sister listened to you know Dr Dre and Snoop Dog you know when G. phone was a thing you know.
And I was always really into that and grew up with hip hop getting really interested in it from a young age and sort of wanting to know everything about it I don’t know why it spoke to me the way it did you know I was always from the suburbs just I don’t know why it was so interesting but like it’s just always been my ear immediately gravitated towards it and it’s always been you know a passion of mine. And when I get passionate about stuff I get really passionate about stuff so just music and hip hop in general is all I have always been passions of mine you know it was it was probably around 2004 when I started doing more of the rap stuff you know I was I was always around town doing you know random gigs and stuff as just like you know white guy with acoustic guitar you that guy.
But I started to get more into you know trying my hand at hip hop in the mid 200s and kept doing it until like 2013/14 a lot of the recordings that you hear before deck techs and stuff that’s all very old stuff from my 2013/14 that era. And I’ve done some new things and there’s some like channel specific stuff that I’ve done you know but mostly it was just a way to use this catalog of music that I’ve never had a way to express before.
And people really responded to it like way more than I thought they was you know I got the occasional person like stop with the rapping already but for the most part people are really receptive to have nots meant a lot to me that’s because I didn’t think that anyone would ever hear that music and just the fact that people are hearing it and actually liking it and requesting in stuff like that’s another thing that blows me away like I am you know this is just some like random garbage I recorded and people are like that’s a really good!
Sam: They’re just drunk they don’t even know they’re talking about.
Dev: It’s something I really enjoy doing but it’s never something that I really pursuedIf nothing else it is means a lot to me that people enjoy it.
Sam: Which artists are your influences?
Dev: All the ones that I named just then you know all the G. funk era All Stars Warren G. included Nate Dogg as well all of them from the 90s. I have a lot of 90s influence like Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Positive Raps really important you know I like the Roots I like Talib Kweli I like Common like Gang Starr like a Ghetto Boys just anything from that era is fantastic. Modern influence I really really like MF Doom if you haven’t heard anything from him left him go check him out. I don’t even know that I’d call him a modern rapper anymore he’s been doing stuff since well before the turn of the century but he’s somebody that not a lot of people know enough about.
And then like you know MC Chris is an obvious influence of mine if you know anything about MC Chris. So there’s you know I draw from a lot of different influence when it comes to rap just all throughout the ages.
Sam: Wow that is amazing. Yeah a lot of those early 90s rap influences are the same rap artists that I really listen to. Do you it seems to me that you really care about like the poetic lyrical side of it I really enjoy the beats and the rhythms and things like that.\
Dev: See I’m both you know I enjoy making beats you know at this what’s funny is at this point in my life I think I enjoy making beats more than I enjoyed writing lyrics. It used to be I was all about writing lyrics. What’s the best sixteen bars we can put together you know but nowadays I enjoy creating sounds is what it is. So I don’t know exactly where the switch happened but I’m more likely just sit down and make beats for a couple of hours and you know throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks and then come up with sixteen bars where it used to be you know I’ve got these you know sixteen or thirty two that I really want to try out so I’m going to put a drum loop over them and you know maybe one melodic instrument and see what happens and you can see a lot of that in the older stuff that I’ve released but the newer stuff that I have that you sometimes hear on the channel is more beat centric than it is lyric centric so I don’t know where the switch happened but it did I guess. I think I’m only just now realizing this so thanks for asking that question.
Sam: Well you had like a Drake moment because back in the day Drake was all about the rap and now Drake is all chill about this really like chill beat and he kind of like sings his rap lyrics now so you kind of you had like a change of heart all of a sudden.
Dev: I’m not going to do the Barbados club vibe thing you know I think trust me not to do the slow sort of reggaeton I might do the Drake dancing though.
Actually Drake is an artist I really respect oddly you know there’s some stuff that goes on the radio sometimes it’s not like the best but when Drake really applies himself to you know these are going to be like the firiest thirty two you ever heard in your life like Drake can do that. I really I respect him for that too. And I don’t know why I didn’t say Tupac Big Eminem earlier like I’m just I’m still coming up with people.
Sam: Jay Z Busta Rhymes, the all don’t matter, Timbaland, they’re OK.
Dev: Timbaland is one of the best beat producers of all time like hands down Timbaland is one of the best producers in hip history and Busta, yeah, good call on that
Sam: Oh my gosh you know old Busta Rhymes songs back when Napster was a thing and people were like first understanding the joys of illegally downloading music I think I think my first few songs was like something by like Sugar Ray and then it was also like a Busta Rhymes track and the more I listen the Busta Rhymes I was like wow this is amazing you know. Yeah like the song “Dangerous,” like the beat and the lyrics and yeah everything is just so good and the music video is hilarious.
Dev: Old school you know all of Busta Rhymes’ videos are hilarious. He’s really talented in that way too at least his directors are but.
I used to hang out with this guy he was originally from Barbados weird that I just said he’s originally from Barbados spent a lot of time in Queens and came down to live in Macon his name is Qasim and he’s one of the best rappers I’ve ever heard in real life and he really improved my rap game and one day I was Busta Rhymes and he’s like oh Busta Rhymes ain’t nothing man and I was like what are you talking Busta may be one of the top like 50 rappers ever. And he was like anybody can do that he just ripped off this like something I can’t keep up with all. Just off the top of his head I’m like man you made that look easy.
That’s one of the reasons I wanted to pursue Hip-Hop is I wanted to do that but I think as I get older the more and more realize I cannot do that that maybe that’s why I like making beats more now.
Sam: That’s incredible. Well you’re just definitely going to have to learn from him because if you can end up straight rhythms like Busta Rhymes that never mind this Magic game you’re going to go platinum.
Dev: I’d still rap about Magic gotta make Magic cool. My favorite comment on any video of all time I said that probably too hastily but the one that I think about the most maybe is this one guy was like this is this guy’s on a one man mission to make Magic cool and I was like I should make that my motto I want to put that behind me on the wall. Mission to make Magic cool because Magic needs to be cool Magic is cool I’m sick of the sort of you know basement dwelling stereotype literally like seriously like most good Magic players that I’ve ever known you could not pick them out of a crowd of like you couldn’t tell someone that doesn’t play Magic hey pick the really good Magic player out of this crowd they wouldn’t be able to do it. Most Magic players I know do not fit the stereotype of you know what people you know what I mean what people view with just because I’m a fat neck bearded guy doesn’t mean that every Magic player is necessarily that. Most Magic players I’ve known have been very you know well adjusted people who are easy to talk to you know I mean.
I don’t think that it’s that Magic still needs to be in the sort of dark ages where people are like oh you played Magic that’s for nerds. C’mon man.
Sam: That is too funny. Yeah the next time you’re at like a GP and you see anyone like you really well known you just shout at them “basement dweller!”
Dev: Yeah right. Well you know the guy that just won the Pro Tour, Pualo Vitor Dama da Rosa, that dude is sexy like I’m a straight man and that dude is sexy. Like he does not look like a Magic player any way shape or form.
Sam: Yeah Paulo Vitor Dama da Rosa has got that Brazilian heat you know he’s got that Latin swagger and you know he’s a really nice guy and you know he’s like super nice and you know he’s like fit and yeah.
Dev: It’s like there’s everyone from all walks of life plays this game it’s literally I heard it was Brian David Marshall it was Brian David Marshall one time said that Magic is the best game that’s ever been made it’s the best game in existence for all time more or less. I’m paraphrasing here but I agree I agree with that as a matter of fact. I think that Magic is a very simple game at its surface rule set that anyone can understand and that you know its flavor is perfect you know red does this because red is this green does this green is this. I really like the structure of the game from a flavor standpoint and from a gameplay standpoint. I think we have literally the best game of all time and I think it’s a shame that people are like NERD! You know they’re going to play Magic but people can do that you know chess is like the other best game of all time and chess has been in existence for thousands of years I think at this point. And people are still like NERD! You know I don’t know if we’ll ever crawl out of that hole but we don’t deserve to be in it in the first place.
Sam: Dev, what’s new for you? Like what’s coming up for you on the horizon and you know personally professionally like what’s coming up new for the channel?
Dev: Well we just started a patreon a couple of months ago. It’s still a fledgling patreon content provider myself so I’m still I’m still you know working out the kinks but we’re we’ve actually been really really pleased by the response from patreon and I’ve heard a lot of people for months now tell me get a patreon so we finally did. And I was kind of blown away by the initial results of it and because of that we can now invest in the things that literally everyone in the comment section tells me to do. Now we can buy you know a real camera instead of what is essentially a web cam that claims to be 1080p but I’ve got my doubts.
And maybe you know we’ve we just got in better you know video editing software so I’m learning how to use that at a snails pace. I’m comfortable with the video editing software that I sort of grew into so that’s sort of a crutch for me but I’m learning slowly how to use its new editing software I think it’s a lot more diverse than what I’m used to so.
We have that as far as projects you know we’ve got budget deck techs for the next week or so and then we’ve got rotation-proof deck techs which is something that everyone’s been asking me for you know and then we’ve got Ixalan coming up. That’s the best thing about being an MTG content creator is that it never gets stale like there’s always something to talk about. But as far as plans for the channel at large I promise everyone the actual production quality the way the videos look will not be so booty in the near future. That’s always the one complaint that people levy that I totally understand like the videos look like they were recorded on an iPhone half.
Sam: The were actually recorded on a camcorder on VHS.
Dev: What this actually is a series of Polaroids that we’ve animated. But we use we use a webcam that again I have serious doubts as to it being advertised correctly but we’re trying to we’re trying to move up from there it shouldn’t be too long now you know but we still need to sort of shop around and figure out what the best camera for what we’re trying to do is we’re not going to go out and get whatever like a Red 15 you know. That’s probably not going to happen.
Sam: You’re not going to the Casey Neistat set up with will take all the DSLRs?
Dev: Right what I’m going to set up drones all around me with cameras on them and that will be like seven different perspectives of me while I’m just sitting there talking about a deck. I don’t know what you need that but that’s what we’re going to do.
But no very very soon the channel will get a visual upgrade I know that’s what most people want. I’m working on the audio upgrade and a lot of people say there’s a sync issue I’ve been working on that and I think the last few videos we figured that out. We’re taking steps but as far as future content goes we’re just going to more or less keep doing what we’ve been doing you know because that’s you know people enjoy deck techs people enjoy set reviews and spoiler reviews and stuff like that. We’ll keep doing that and there are some things I want to do there’s another rap deck tech coming up which I originally teased a couple of months ago I was going to do I was going to do blue red control and then Hour of Devastation came out so I was like OK let’s do Grixis. Well everybody wants Grixis now and I did Grixis like the first week the set was out. And now I’ve decided to hold off until Ixalan so I can rap about dinosaurs. Yeah because everybody wants if I can rap about pirates and dinosaurs why would I not do that. So look for a look for the next rapping deck tech sometime probably October if I had to guess.