Olivia Gobert-Hicks, Brian Kibler Go On Land-Trading Spree on Cardsphere

Flowering Field | Art by Jeff Miracola

Not too long ago, Cardsphere users Olivia Gobert-Hicks and Brian Kibler used the site to acquire some significant tracts of real estate.

Of course, we're talking about Magic: The Gathering, so that translates into lands. A lot of them. The duo, perhaps best known for their YouTube series Commander At Home, headed to Cardsphere to trade for a wide variety of land cards via the service. We sat down with Olivia to find out what brought on the trading spree.

Cardsphere: How did you first get into using Cardsphere?

Olivia Gobert-Hicks: We actually started using Cardsphere when they approached Eilidh and I for Elder Dragon Hijinks to be sponsored by them. I had Matt (Morgan) walk me through how to use it see what it was like and then we just started making requests!

Do you usually trade toward specific goals, or is it more of a vibes pursuit?

I have always in the past wanted to use Cardsphere for the cards that I either have trouble finding, you know, at a local game store, because there's some weird niche printing of something and maybe they just haven't had anyone who traded it in. I also really like having some fancy, higher-end cards that I might not feel comfortable spending the cash on, but would be happy to get via trades.

So… why lands? What made you focus your trades there?

Some are specific goals, like having certain lands or certain printings, that might be cool in a deck, but otherwise it's pretty much vibes-based for me.

Do you think one's choice in lands says something about a player’s personality or playstyle?

As you can imagine, having the two of us in the same house means that we're sharing a landbase, and when we both have upwards of 25 Commander decks built at any given time, it's kind of tough to keep a very robust landbase for all of them. So focusing exclusively on that, to make sure we had solid land bases, was the whole premise here.

I think there's a lot of different things that can be said about a landbase. You can actually scale a deck up or down just based on what kind of lands you have in it. Brian loves efficiency, so obviously he wants to make sure he's got stuff that's going to be dependable and useful every time consistently. I definitely think there's space to express yourself with your manabase, but in this sense it was really out of pragmatism.

What were some highlights among these acquisitions?

We did get a couple Expedition lands out of the trades! Brian just marked "all versions" so we had a lot of variance!

Are any of these lands destined for a specific deck?

They're for every future deck we make!

Any surprises come via these packages?

My absolute favorite thing about Cardsphere trading is every now and again when people see mine or Brian's name, they will write us a little note and say something kind, and it just brings such a smile to my face, it totally brightens my day. I always am sure to send them some little goodies to the return address from the trade.

What’s one land you think is underrated and deserves more appreciation in EDH?

Brian says Gavony Township.

If someone’s thinking about using Cardsphere to fill out their own Commander decks, what advice would you give them?

My advice is to go for it! You can find all sorts of hidden gems and maybe even printings you didn't know existed. Plus, nobody dislikes mail days where you get cards!

All these lands we got from Cardsphere are part of every project we have moving forward, because we've got to keep building decks!

Thanks to Olivia for chatting with us about the Cardsphere experience, and happy trading to her, Brian, and all Cardsphere users! Check out Commander at Home here.

Do you have an interesting or unique experience with Cardsphere that you'd like to share? Reach out in the comments or via email and perhaps you'll be featured in a future article right here on Cardsphere!