The artist formelly known as Extrala

This is the second of two interviews made by Marcus B at this years EC in Budapest. It was first published Friday October 26 at the Swedish Facebook coverage of the event. Thanks Marcus for letting us republish it here. //Ashur

I’ve gotten the opportunity to interview Extrala, the famous german Vtes blogger.

M: Hi! What’s your name, how old are you, and for how long have you been playing Vtes?
R: Hi, my name is Ralf, I’m 43 years old, and I started playing back when the game was released in 1994-95. Though I only played for a couple of years, and then quit. I picked it up again 2003 and have been playing since.

M: What was it that made you try the game back in 94-95, why did you quit, and what was it that got you back into the game again nine years ago?
R: When I first started I had it introduced to me by a friend who basically just said something like ’this is like Magic the Gathering, you should try it’. Three years after I quit the game mostly because all the friends that I played with quit, so I had no one to play with. In 2003 then, I went to Essen had the game demoed to me by Andreas Nusser. The demo was really fun and interesting and really had me thirsting for more. I went home and found a play group in Bochum, with which I’ve played ever since.

M: I guess that you’re mostly known for the Vtes blog that you’re managing: extrala.blogspot.com – or should I say used to be managing? Since just a short while back you’ve changed blog portal and are now using vtesone.wordpress.com. When did you start blogging, and why?
R: I started back in 2007 because I felt that there was a need for a blog or something that kept the community posted on big events, tournament results, and other important things that the community needed to know about. White Wolf wasn’t showing any interest in providing this, so I just figured: Why not? At first I didn’t like it so much – if White Wolf had followed suit and started their own reporting page I would probably have quit writing on the blog. But they didn’t, and as time went by I got more and more into managing the blog; expanding it from just posting tournament results to covering various trivia about the game and having many posts oriented at new players, helping them getting into the game.
    Earlier this year I decided to change portal from Blogspot to Wordpress, for many reasons that I’ve posted on the blogs. It’s fun though, because when I look at the statistics for the new blog I see that much of the traffic that comes there actually comes from a link from my old blog. I guess that might be because Extrala was a much more easy name to remember for readers, while VtesOne is note.

M: Yeah, so why did you change name on the blog when you changed platform?
R: Long story short I created a extrala.wordpress.com to test some things, but then I figured that I wanted to reset the account to start anew. So I deleted the account, and when I tried to recreate it I was informed that deleted accounts were gone for good and that there was nothing to do about that. So I was stuck with finding a new new for my new blog.

M: So what made you decide for the name VtesOne for your new blog?
R: Again, it’s a long story, but I’ll try to put it short: I work with product life cycle management, and we have a product that is named MatrixOne, and earlier while this product was in it’s testing stages it had the working name PLMOne. I always liked the naming standard. PLMOne sounds great, and then I got the idea that VtesOne actually sounds equally great, so I went with that!

M: I remember seeing you at the last EC, how did you fare then?
R: Oh, last year was pretty bad on my part. I think I scored like one game win during the whole weekend. I played a Legacy of Pander vote deck and Nosferatu Royalty Blood Hunt deck –
it’s like a Nosferatu Royalty, but with more combat in it. I think the major issue last year was that I lacked ousting power with my decks. The year before that however, 2010, was way better. Then I finished sixth during day 2!
    I think it’s interesting though. I feel that going to the EC is like going to the World Series of Poker. There are just so many great players around, and so many strong personalities. It’s such a great event, even if you don’t win all the time.

M: How have you been preparing for this years tournament? Are you qualified for day 1 or do you have to qualify through the LCQ?
R: I’ve been reading deck lists, mostly, but have also been playing in some smaller tournaments. I’m qualified for day 1, but I’m still playing in the LCQ – it’s such a good way of getting to know new players. Last year I was playing in the Legendary Vampire tournament, but I regret it as the standard of play was sooo high and it was incredibly hard to score.

M: Thank you Ralf! I’m looking forward to seeing you on the floors during the coming days!