Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1014: MagicCon Philadelphia

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

I went to Philly to attend MagicCon. This podcast tells of my journey.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, today I just got back from Philadelphia because I was at Magic Con Philadelphia. So today's podcast is all about my times at Magic Con, Magic Con Philadelphia. Okay, so to start with, back in last fall, we had Magic 30, which was sort of the first MagicCon, although it's called Magic 30, in Las Vegas. And I did a podcast on that. And, well, I think a lot of things went well at it. I think there definitely was a feeling that there was room for improvement. room for improvement.

And so they were very excited to use MagicCon Philadelphia as a sign of showing all the ways that we can improve upon what we learned in Las Vegas. One of the things, interestingly, was originally I wasn't going to go to MagicCon Philadelphia. And they said that they were doing a lot to

sort of like... It was sort of going to be the first MagicCon officially. And they just asked if I could come. and I said, sure, I could come. So I got there on a Thursday. So the event is Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Most, I think, of the Wizards folks actually got there on Wednesday, but I'm trying to limit how much I'm traveling.

I promised my wife that I would limit my travel time. So I went on a Thursday. So I missed all the run-throughs. I did a few things on stage and I missed my run-throughs, but I got notes. So I was, I knew what I needed to do. So anyway, I'm going to run through all three days. And just like, for those of you that could not go to MagicCon Philadelphia, let me, let me, you know, I want you to feel it vicariously through this podcast. Okay, so the first thing I did on Friday was I went to the Pro Tour. So I guess I should mention there was a Pro Tour. So this was the first live Pro Tour post-pandemic. And it was very exciting to see everybody. A lot of the old-time pros were there.

There were a bunch of new people that had qualified, but there were definitely a lot of the old-timers. And it was a really cool thing to see. There was an entire ballroom. Oh, let me explain how the whole hall was laid out for a second. whole hall was laid out for a second. So, um, basically there were, I think, three levels to the, um, to, it was called the Pennsylvania Convention Center, um, and the first floor, there's this giant hall, which was where all the play space was. Um, so you, uh, there were five stages. It was a giant, giant was. So there were five stages.

It was a giant, giant room broken up into five areas. There was the white stage, the blue stage, the black stage, the red stage, and the green stage. And each section had tablecloths

that were color-coded to each section. And then there were judges assigned to each section. And they ran infinite events. One of the things that happened in Las Vegas was we were very pressed for space. And so there were, at least the first day,

there weren't events you could just drop into on that day. You had to sort of sign up ahead for everything. And the way that it had been run, like events all started around the same time. So this time there were more events. There were drop-in events. They were more events. There were drop-in events. They were spaced out. So

a lot of improvements went into sort of just making it easier to play. So that was on the first floor. Then on the second floor, there was an equally giant hall that was for all... It had the main stage, it had the merchandising booth, and all the other booths.

There were a lot of different places there that were selling magic cards or paraphernalia or all sorts of things. And you could go see all the different booths. That was on the second floor. And then there was a long hallway that you could go down that was on the second

floor. And there were just various rooms there. It's where the VIP room for the Black Lotus was. For the cosplayers had a room. There's a whole bunch of different areas where people could go. There's a quiet room. And then at the end of the hall, you had to go up to the third floor to get to the ballroom that was where the Pro Tour was. So I started my day each day going to the Pro Tour. And I got to watch them draft so in the morning they would draft Frexia All Will Be Won and they would play three rounds

and then they would play I forget, four or five rounds, maybe five rounds of Pioneer they were playing Pioneer so anyway, that event went really well once again, it was, as somebody who, for those that don't know, I've recorded podcasts on this, but the first eight years

of the Pro Tour, I was a Pro Tour regular and I worked the Pro Tour and I went to almost every, barring, I think, the one I skipped because my daughter was born, Rachel was born.

I went to every Grand, not Grand Prix, I went to every Pro Tour for eight years. I used to run the feature matches. But anyway, I have a soft spot for the Pro Tour. Like I said, I've been to many, many a Pro Tour. And it was just

neat seeing it back. And they did an amazing job. I don't know if you've watched it online. Just the feature match area was really exciting. They have all the commentary. Back when I used to go to the Pro Tour, we would film the final days for stuff like ESPN 2 and other things, but we didn't have live streaming. Live streaming wasn't a thing back then. So now everything's streamed, and you can see interviews, and there's a desk, and

anyway, it's very exciting. So my day started by going and schmoozing with a lot of the pros, and then watching them draft. watching them do the Frexia All-We-Won draft. I learned. The other thing that I did is I spent some time talking to them about what they thought of the format. Blue could be a little bit stronger, I think, was the biggest note I got. Just a lot of talks about what they did and didn't like. In general, they did like the Phyrexia draft.

The color balance was their biggest issue. It's a little on the faster side, but the pros don't mind it being on the faster side. You know, I think the big thing about drafts is understanding how you maximize what you're trying to do. And there's a lot of neat nuance and synergies that they really appreciated. Okay. So after that, I then went to the Black Lotus VIP room. So there's different levels that you can buy tickets for the event. And the top tier ticket is known as the Black Lotus ticket.

And so I don't know. You get a bunch of perks and stuff. But one of the things is you get a little VIP room, and I would visit the VIP room once a day. One of the perks of being a Black Lotus is I would visit once a day. And so it was a lot of fun going in and just chatting with people and answering questions. And I would sign things and take pictures and stuff.

Well, one of the, I guess I should mention this. So one of my general rules at being at a thing like MagicCon is anybody who asks, I mean, unless I'm constantly in the act of doing something else, I will sign any autograph, I will take any picture, I will answer questions. You know, I'm there to sort of, I get it that a lot of my point at MagicCon is just to interact with the fans, which I did. And I love it. It's a lot of fun. And it was neat seeing so many people.

And anyway, I will get to that. So in the Black Lotus room, usually I would do signings and take pictures and stuff. But also, we would sit around and just talk. So usually every day, there would be a bunch of people. We'd gather around. I would just answer questions. And they would throw questions at me and I'd answer them. And they would vary from some pretty softball questions to more hard-hitting questions. But it was fun sort of sitting around and talking.

Okay. Then I would do that. Then next, across the way, so you had to go outside, there was an art exhibit. Mike Lineman set it up, along with others, I believe. And basically, on day one, there was a lot of concept art. On day two, it was all secret lair art. And then day three, it was more finished art. And so basically, it was like a little magic art show. And so we did signings there every day from noon to 1.30, Studio X. So it was me,

Aaron Forsyth, Dave Humphries, and Mike Turian. Now, on the first day, it was mostly me and Dave. Mike showed up at the end. The second day, it was all four of us. And the third day, it was me and Mike because Aaron had to go to the airport and Dave was doing his panel for March of the Machines. We will get to that. But anyway, it was a chance for people to come

and we were just there. So anybody, you didn't have to be a Black Lotus to get my autograph. If you just show up at the signing, we were doing signing. So you could come, I signed stuff. I took pictures.

I answered questions. And anyway, it was a lot of fun. You could come meet, meet R and D. And you got to see the art show, which by the way, was really cool.

It was really neat seeing, seeing all the different art. Some of it went back quite a bit. The concept art, some of the concept art, I think all the concept art was Phyrexia related, but there's been numerous sets over the years that had Phyrexians in them. So some of it went back. I know there was stuff from Phyrexia, stuff from Scars of Myrden. I think there was stuff from some of the early stuff with Phyrexia, stuff from Scars of Myrna. I think there was stuff from some of the early stuff with Phyrexia. I don't know if it went all the way back to antiquities or not.

I don't believe it did. But there was definitely some early art. And it's neat. One of the cool things about seeing concept art is sort of seeing a lot of what happens is we do what we call world building, where artists come in and try to flesh out the world. So some of this was from the world building concept. Some of this were concepts like sketches and stuff for final paintings. But anyway, the art itself was really cool.

I made sure every day to have a little bit of time to look around and see the art. And the art was, it was super cool. So if you were there, I hope you had a chance to come and see the art. Okay. If you were there, I hope you had a chance to come and see the art. Okay. After I did the signing, on Friday, there was a Game Nights live event. So Game Nights is the show put on by Jimmy and Josh.

The people that do the Command Zone, they have a show called Game Nights. I've been on Game Nights. In fact, I think I was on the one Game Nights where they didn't play Commander. We played Sealed, or we drafted. We drafted Unstable, so we were on for Unstable. And then also, it wasn't Game Nights, but I did one other, I came to do Make-A-Wish with

them, and we shot, we did a Commander game. It wasn't Game Nights. They did a second one. I forgot the name of it. Anyway, I have interacted a lot with Jimmy and Josh over the years. It wasn't Game Night. They did a second one. I forgot the name of it. Anyway, I have interacted a lot with Jimmy and Josh over the years. It's been a lot of fun. And when I heard they were doing Game Night Live, they had done a Game Night Live in Las Vegas.

And I said to them, I'd be happy, you know, I would be happy to participate in every way, in any way they thought would be fun. So it turns out that they had a little trivia thing they did to determine who went first. So I came and I did the trivia fun. So it turns out that they had a little trivia thing they did to determine who went first. So I came and I did the trivia question. So I came out.

I had ten trivia questions. I think I ended up reading eight of them. And so what happened was, they divided the audience into four sections. So there are four people playing in game nights. It was Jimmy and Josh and Rachel and the Asian Avenger and Rich Weeks. And so what happened was, each one of them got their own cheering squad. Josh and Rachel and the Asian Avenger and Rich Weeks.

And so what happened was each one of them got their own cheering squad. And then one person as a representative of their squad came up. And then there was trivia. And I would ask the trivia and they would write it on their little whiteboards. And then whoever got closest would win the point. And the first person to win three points won for their team. Jimmy's team won, so Jimmy got to go first. And then I got to see their entrances, then I had to go to my next thing.

But the entrances was fun. Each one of them did something that was Philadelphia-related. So Josh was like a Frexian Rocky. And Rachel did like the sports a combination of the various sports teams. And then Agent Avenger did like the Liberty Bell, like a sort of a patriot. And then Jimmy was a cheesesteak. A giant Philly cheesesteak. So anyway, it's very fun. I heard it was a real dramatic game. Rachel won in some amazing

left turn play where she didn't think it was possible for her to win, but she did. Anyway, so after doing that, so one of the things I had done in Las Vegas was on the final day of Las Vegas, I had played in an

Infinity event. And the audience was so tickled, like the opportunity that they could play me, people were really excited by. So this time, instead of just playing in one event, each night I played in an event. So my event for Friday night was I played in a Dominaria Remastered event. Now, the interesting thing was I was told to be there at 4 because I was doing Game Night Live. And I got there a little bit early, like 3.30,

because I wasn't quite sure where I was supposed to be down in the giant hall. And it turns out, due to a mishap, the event had started at 3, not 4. So I only had half an hour to build my deck. Luckily, I had played Dominaria Remastered before and a lot of the cards I had made, so I was familiar with the cards,

so I know a lot of people. So Dominaria Remastered, for those that never played it, is a set in which all the cards come from a set that was originally, that were from a set that took place on Dominaria. So mostly that's a lot of early Magic, and then Dominaria and Dominaria United. So there were a lot,

I joked that this was a higher percentage of limited with more cards I designed than most sets these days. Just because I do vision design, so I'm not doing a lot of final design. I'm not making a lot of final cards. So fewer cards that I design end up in products these days.

Not none, but fewer. Back in the day when I was, you know, doing design and development, a lot more of my cards would end up in the final product. So it was fun just playing the set where I had a higher percentage of cards I personally had made. So I went two and one. And then after that, I got some dinner. And then on Friday and Saturday nights, there was a party.

The Friday night party was an industry party. So it was a lot of people that work with Wizards, our business partners, and different, a lot of content creators and people who we work with.

So anyway, it was fun. I got to see a bunch of people that I hadn't seen in a while. A bunch of people from Loading Ready to Run were there, including Graham, so I got to see a bunch of people that I hadn't seen in a while. A bunch of people from Loading Ready to Run were there, including Graham. So I got to see them.

There were just a lot of people that I... Over the years, I've gotten to know a lot of magic creators, content creators and stuff. Anyway, it was fun seeing everybody. And that went late into the night. So that was Friday. Okay, Saturday. So my schedule, interesting thing about this time,

in Vegas, my schedule was kind of all over the place. Each day was radically different. In Philly, I had a very similar schedule. So first thing in the morning, I went up and went to the Pro Tour, schmoozed the pros, once again watched the draft. Then I went to the VIP room again.

The one thing I realized in retrospect is normally last time when I was in Vegas I would show up in the VIP room once a day but it was sort of whenever I could fit it in my schedule so it was a lot more random turns out this time it was less random it was the same time every day so in retrospect I wish we had told them I will be here this time it was less random. It was the same time every day. So in retrospect, I wish we had told them I will be here this time

so that people who wanted to be there could be there. A lot of players had sort of heard I had been there the day before but didn't know when I was going to be there. So it was a lot more, I mean, the intention was it was random. It turned out not to be random on my schedule. The way it worked was I was told to go by there whenever I had a free spot, and I only had one major free spot on my schedule. So every day it was sort of as if I was scheduled to go there at that time.

That was the one free time I had. Anyway, I went again. Oh, one of the funny things is we partnered with Lovesack to make these giant beanbags, magic beanbags. And in the VIP room were the giant beanbags. So I had a chance to finally sit in the Lovesack beanbag.

And I know they're not cheap, but it was pretty cool. It's a pretty cool beanbag. Anyway, so I did more schmoozing there. Then I went across to do the signing at the art show. So I didn't explain. On Friday, not a lot of people knew about the art show.

And so, I mean, we had some people, but it was pretty sparse. And it was mostly me and Dave Humphries most of the time. Mike Turin showed up for the last, like, half hour. And the funny thing is people would come up and I just have a higher profile than Dave Humphries. Dave Humphries has done an amazing work.

He's a great set designer. He and I have worked together on all sorts of stuff. He and I did Dominaria together. We did Icoria together. We did Merchant of the Machines together. We did Neon Dynasty together. So Dave is...

We did quilting together. You guys haven't seen that yet. So, you know, Dave is, we did quilting together. You guys haven't seen that yet. So Dave is an amazing designer. He used, and he's a pro. He was in the Hall of Fame. But less people just know from sight than know me just because I do all the, you know, I do a lot of more stuff

in public eye and podcasts and stuff. So people would come. They'd be all excited to see me. And I would have to explain who Dave was. I think once they'd heard of Dave, because I talked about him in my columns plenty. But anyway, Dave joked that most of the time was him taking pictures of me with people. Because when people are like, do you want to take a picture? They go, yes.

And then Dave would take the picture. But anyway, it was a slow. The Friday signing was slow. Saturday signing had all four of us. Aaron had missed it because he had to do a business thing. And so Aaron was, the only day Aaron was there for signing actually was on Saturday. And Saturday was busy. I'm not quite sure, maybe we announced it better.

I'm not sure what happened. But Saturday was very busy. We were signing pretty continuously the whole time. And Mike and Aaron had brought Dominarium Afterboosters. So I think on Saturday and Sunday, if you showed up, if you came and got an autograph or just to meet us, you also got a Dominarium Booster. And sometimes people are like, I don't have anything to sign.

So we're like, well, here's a booster. And they'd rip it open. And then I would tell you all the cards that were in the booster that I'd made. So I think the smallest was there's one I only had designed three cards. But there's one that I designed nine cards. So that was sort of like a little game for me to see what I'd made. Anyway, so we did more signings

and once again, the art had changed each day. So there was different art that you could see. So we did the signings for there. Okay, after that, so the previous day I'd done game nights. On Saturday, there was a live game show that I think we just said the Magic Game Show. I think that it didn't really explain what it was exactly. But what it was was there's a game called 25 Words or Less.

It's an old-time board—not old-time, but it's a board game that I've been playing for 25-plus years. They made a TV show out of it, and we basically were doing the TV show version of it, which is similar to the main game. Basically, the way it works is you have so many words. We did 30 Words or Less to tie into Magic's 30th anniversary. But the idea is you bid how many words it's going to take. So we had two celebrity guests per team. So Nate Holtz, the guy who used to do Walking the Plains and I Were One team, and Rachel Weeks and...

What's her name? I'm blanking on her name. It's someone else from Command... Both of them were from Commander Zone. Okay, hopefully I'll remember as we go along. on her name. If someone else from Commander, both of them were from Commander Zone. Ah, okay. I hope they'll remember as we go along. Anyway, we would bring up people. So there were four audience members that got brought up.

Chosen ahead of time. And so the way it works is you get five words. All of them were magic related. And you have to choose how many words you think it would take to get it across. And you have 45 seconds. The thing that threw me by the way is I've played the board game forever

but in the board game you have a minute and it was 45 seconds because it's based on the game show and all my timing was a little bit off because I'm used to doing it with a minute. So like oh my god how long does it take on things? Anyway, you bid down and whoever bids the lowest gets a chance to do it.

So on the first one, I bid down, and then got stumbled on blasting this act, which is really hard. And then my teammates, I think our guests from the audience, I think we... Actually, I take it back. I think on each one of them, nobody got it in that first game. And so the other people would get the points. But it all came down to the last thing is you bid.

There are uncommon, rare, and mythic rare words that you bid on. And then depending on which ones you get, there's point values. I think uncommon was like 250 and rare was 500 and mythic rare was 1,000. So our audience member managed to get us to get two mythic rare words. So it was 2,000 words. And then we won that one.

Anyway, the real interesting stories of this is in the middle of doing the very first round we had four I think the game used three iPads and there was a backup iPad and then my iPad started malfunctioning, then the second iPad started malfunctioning, then the third started

malfunctioning, then the backup was malfunctioning and so every technological issue that could go wrong was going wrong started malfunctioning, then the backup was malfunctioning. And so every like technological issue that could go wrong was going wrong. And meanwhile, we're on stage. So we're just schmoozing and I'm talking about magic and I explained why Joven had a ferret. And anyway, we were just telling stories and explaining stuff and just schmoozing. Eventually we ended up using not the iPads at all, but there was stuff on the screens for the audience to see. So we stepped around the site so we could see them

and we used that. I had a chance again to give clues and I got stuck on color identity. But I did manage to get some good clues, but I got stuck there. And then we lost the second game.

The other team won. And so the finals was the contestant of ours from the audience that had lost the second game the other team won and so the finals was the contestant of ours from the audience that had won the first game versus the contestants of theirs that won the second game and then the finals just because we were delayed for the time we just did the bidding in the final round

and the other person had just bid higher meaning he bid what he got was worth more points if he got it all. And then he went first and then he got all his words. So we actually couldn't win. We knew that going into it.

But anyway, our guy did a good job. I think we got all but one thing. But anyway, it was a lot of fun and it was fun. So Rachel Weeks, by the way, won game nights and then her team won in the game show.

So she had a, she was very victorious all weekend long. Anyway, it was lots of fun. Then after that, I went to play an event. So at Saturday night,

I played in the unknown event. So it was events at Gavin Verhey. So each Magicon, he's putting together what's called an unknown event.

It's different each time. For this event, because we were celebrating Frexia All We Want, you were randomly selected to be on the Mirrodins or the Frexians. I was on the Frexians. And then you played three rounds. You were given three Frexia All We Want draft boosters, one Frexia All We Want set booster, two mystery boosters,

and then a collection of sticker cards, like a booster of sticker cards that Gavin and some other designers had made for this event. And they were super fun, not particularly balanced, but super fun. And so I played in that event. I played for Phyrexia.

I went two and one as my theme of the weekend. And it was a lot of fun and I thought Gavin did an amazing job and the theme was cool. I built a white, black, corrupted deck and I had a bunch of the cards,

the thicker cards in the thing. And then when you, at the end of the event, you got a special so day one, you got a legendary creature named Phil and day two, you got a legendary creature named Delphia. So it's Phil Delphia, I see. Anyway, it was... Or maybe it was Phyla the first day.

Anyway, it was lots of fun. And I know I played an event and Aaron played an event. Gavin ran the event. And there was a bunch of Wizards people playing the event. So anyway, it was lots of fun. And the wackiest card I played was, there's a card my opponent played. I had the game in hand. I had two different kill spells in my hand. Like, there was no way for me to lose. And then he draws

his card. It's a 7-mana 7-7 with Menace. When it enters the battlefield, he draws three cards, and I had a Mulligan, which means I had to shuffle my hand into my library, draw equal to my hand size. So I had four cards. So I draw four cards and then put one on the bottom of the library. But I had to shuffle away all my removal. And then I could not deal with the 7-7 menace creature and I lost. But anyway, nonetheless, it was super fun. Gavin did a great job. And then, again, I had dinner.

And then there was another party that night. This was with various players. It was like Black Lotus. And there were a couple of layers that got to come to the party. I don't remember all the names of all the different layers. They're all named after. I think they're like different mocks levels and stuff. Anyway, I came.

I talked to a lot of players. Again, schmoozed, answered questions, took pictures, signed autographs. But I had a real chance to talk a little bit more in depth. I was there for a couple hours, so I really could talk to a whole bunch of different people and answer a lot of questions. Okay, that was Saturday. Then on Sunday, again, went over to the Pro Tour, watched them getting ready for the finals. I then went in and talked to people in the VIP room.

Uh, I went and did my signings. Um, this one, this was in the medium. It wasn't as sparse as day one, but it wasn't as busy as day two. It was just me and Mike Turian. Um, oh, the funny thing that day is on my blog, for those that follow me on Blog Talk, Oh, the funny thing that day is on my blog, for those that follow me on BlogTog, I always give a code word to the question marks, I call them, from my blog so that I would know that they were blog readers. And so what was my code word? My code word was Frexian Brushwag.

And so what happened was I knew that Mike was giving away the booster pack. So I would see them and then I would say, go up to Mike and say Frexian, um, Frexian, uh, I just said it, brushwag, say Frexian brushwag. And then he would give you the pack. Anyway, um, and I had, by the way, I think I had eight people who came up during the weekend and said Frexian brushwag. So, uh, thank you, Question marks. And then my final thing was I played in another Dominator Remastered event. By the way, originally I was supposed to play in an Infinity event on Friday, but because of game nights, the timing

didn't work out. So, originally I was going to do one Infinity event, one Dominator Remastered event, and one Unknown event. I ended up playing in two Dominator Remastered events, which was super fun. I again went 2-1. It seemed to be my theme of the weekend. But once again,

I got to see a lot of people and schmooze and take pictures and sign cards and stuff. And then after that, that was the end of, that was the end of my time. I did that night

go and see Ant-Man and Wasp Quantumania. For those that don't know, I'm really into comics. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I had a great time at the event. Like I said,

I think we learned a lot from Las Vegas. There was lots of space and there were a lot of things going on. I had a lot of fun seeing everybody. One of the things that's really touching to me is the number of people that come up to me. This happened in Vegas. It happened again in Philadelphia. Of just people that were both A, excited to see me and meet me.

And B, that just really had such profound things to say about how magic affected them and changed their lives for the better and really helped them. And it was just fun seeing people who were like, you know, you did something that had a big impact on my life. And that means a lot to me. So I will never grow tired of people telling me how stuff I've done really affected them in a positive way. So that was nice.

So it was, I think I met infinite people. One of the quick stories before I go, when I finished on, I think Saturday, we had to go to dinner. But I'm in the hall, leaving the hall and someone stops me and goes, oh, can you sign, can you sign my map? Oh, sure. And someone else, oh, can I take a picture? Sure. And what happens from time to time is because I'm taking my time signing something, other people see it. And what happens from time to time is because I'm taking my time signing something, other people see it, and so they start getting in line, and then it turns into like this, you know,

signing session, sort of impromptu. And that was funny. That happened on Saturday. Usually, it happened a couple times in Vegas. Vegas, because it was so much tighter, anywhere I went, just there were so many people around here, it was a little bit looser, so it happened a little less.

But anyway, I had a great time. For everybody else who went, I hope you also had a great time. For those that have never been to a MagicCon, if a MagicCon comes remotely close to you, I recommend going and seeing one. They're lots of fun. The next one, I think, is in Minneapolis.

And then there's one in Barcelona. And then we're back in Vegas. So those are the MagicCons of the year. Anyway, guys, I had a blast being there. And I we're back in Vegas. So those are the magic cons of the year. Anyway, guys, I had a blast being there. And I hope you guys enjoyed hearing about it. But I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you real soon.