You know things are good when people equate you with intelligence. Not just saying you’re smart, but actually associating your name with the brute concept of hardcore cranial super-aptitude. When your name is Israel Quiroz and you build some of the most noteworthy decks in an intellectual sport’s young history, it’s pretty much inevitable: People are just going to call you IQ.
At 21, Quiroz is a gamer beyond his years. The man was a playtester for Score Entertainment, riding the Pokemon wave of 1999 to external tester status, only to find “They just kept calling me back.” Four years later, citing creative differences, Israel left Score just around the time he started delving into Vs. System.
Once the announcement that Vs. System would have a Pro Circuit came down, Quiroz started dedicating himself. He became a regular columnist on pojo.com, writing about killer decks, strategy, tournament report, and even tournament evaluations, in which he looks at how well the organizers did their jobs.
It wasn’t until the $10K event in Chicago, though, that Israel really started backing his words. Playing Psimon Says, a deck of his own design built around Shimmer, Quiroz lasted through the Swiss, making it to the semifinals before an admitted mental error cost him a shot at the big prize. Still, most observers seem to agree that this would be the first of many successes for Israel.
The real question though, is what’s IQ’s IQ? I mean, the man is obviously smart, exercising the creativity and brains needed in deckbuilding and having the presence of mind to carry a notepad at all times just in case deckbuilding inspiration hits. We decided that a definitive answer was in order. Googling up “IQ Test,” we were shocked to find iqtest.com had a few questions to put to the Texan. Having not taken an IQ test before and armed with the knowledge that any failure would become public knowledge, Israel was obviously a tad nervous, but he performed admirably, putting up a score of 116, which the site classified as “above average.” Of course, not wanting to be the lone guinea pig, Quiroz found backing in the form of my metagame.com coworkers, whose combined pressure forced me to submit to the test. Bad news folks: 147.
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