As the dust settled from his recent victory, we caught up with PlzDonHakMe to talk about what it was like winning the Elder Scrolls: Legends tournament at QuakeCon 2018.

How do you feel $20,000 later after that gauntlet?

It was a bloodbath, only 1 could come out on top and I barely managed to make it. It was a very punishing elimination stage.

In the last match with Kara, you came up with a strong 2-0, and then he came back.

Yeah, I was very worried about getting reverse swept.

Did it shake you?

Oh definitely. At first, I was feeling kind of good, I had three tries with this last deck, and then it came down to the last try, it definitely was scary.

PlzDonHakMe thinks hard about his next move

How did you pull it together?

Obviously, every single game is new. I knew that, whether it was the third game or the fifth game, my chances aren’t going to change, so I just have to play and try and make every single game the highest chance I can at winning.

Your specialty throughout this has been control mage, yes?

Actually, I think Doomcrag has done a lot for me, nix ox telvanni was my ban, everyone banned it out from under me and then it just ended up being the other three. I think Doomcrag has been the most reliable of the three for me, so I opened with it pretty often. Mid BM was extremely consistent, I think it’s a very good deck, and mage was kind of the thing I got together a couple of days before I submitted my decks, and it just felt really good, so I ended up bringing it over the tribunal.

What kind of card combos in those last matches do you feel helped you seal the deal or helped you get into that confident position the best?

I think Sotha Sil was definitely a thing, like the last game was pretty much a game of survival until I could play Sotha Sil, so I think it did its job and was the efficient closer it needed to be. I really wanted to get the doppelganger on the Sotha Sil to get 2 8/8’s, but, you know. I think lightning bolt and javelins were very relevant this game.

Sotha Sil, the card that helped seal the deal

Out of all of this, did you see yourself coming this far?

Obviously, I like to keep my expectations low and efforts high, I think that’s the most realistic way of playing. I’m obviously not going to expect to win, I can only do my best and hope that it is enough.

How do you feel going into future Elder Scrolls Legends events coming off this win?

I think it’s definitely a big opportunity, publicity wise. I don’t think it gives me an edge, because every new event is a new game, and my chances are going to reset, it doesn’t increase my chances at winning in the future. As long as I keep doing my best I’ll be fine.

Do you have any particularly hard match-ups or opponents that you’ll be looking out for in the future?

I think there was plenty of them here, maybe some of them had rough brackets and didn’t quite make it. I don’t want to name too many names because I’ll probably forget some of them but Karakondzhul and Traitor-Joe are definitely some of the most scary ones out there.

For more Elder Scrolls: Legends action from QuakeCon 2018, check out our interview with Tomer Cory yesterday, as he spoke about the game and what it needs to do to challenge the top dogs in the CCG world.