Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1019: Magic Story with Harless and Natalie

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

In this podcast, I sit down with Harless Snyder and Natalie Kreider to talk about the role of Magic story in the game and the revival of The Magic Story Podcast.

I'm not pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work at Home Edition. So I like using my time at home to do interviews. So today I have Harless Snyder and Natalie Kreider to talk all about their brand new podcast and about Magic Story. Hey guys. Hey Mark. Hey Mark. Thanks for having us on. So first, just to give a little so the audience gets to know you a little bit. You guys work at Wizards. What do you do at Wizards? Oh, also, could you identify yourself so people know who's talking?

So just like say your name and so they know which of you is which one. Yeah. Hey, y'all. This is Natalie Kreider, and I am a game producer at Wizards of the Coast. I work on Magic the Gathering on the business team. And hey, y'all. I'm Harlless Snyder, and I'm a product marketing manager. I also work on Magic the Gathering. Okay, so we all work on Magic the Gathering. And we are all fans of Magic Story. So let's,

I want to start with what was your introduction to Magic Story? Like, what's the earliest you remember interacting with Magic Story? to Magic Story? Like, what's the earliest you remember interacting with Magic Story? For me, it was right when I, to be honest, it was right before I started working here. I first went to look for story

to figure out what was going on with the entire multiverse that is Magic. You know, there's so much to Magic, and the first piece that was just really accessible to me was story. And I came in right around, I think Zendikar was just coming out. So really like Midnight Hunt and Crimson Bough were my first real moment of being able to dig into the story. And I just fell in love with it it. Yeah I have a similar-ish story. I got involved with magic shortly before I joined Wizards and this must have been 2018 and so I think Corset

2019 had just come out and I saw a card with Tezzeret on it and I was so intrigued by this character as to why Tezzeret looked that way and this was like rewind this was my very first introduction to magic this is my very first time seeing a magic card period and I was so intrigued that I went down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out all of the lore and I fell in love with the characters and I fell in love with all of these planes that I was discovering for the first time and I have been addicted ever since to know the story of magic it's just so compelling so my first time reading story see I'm a little older than you guys um when you bought the alpha starter deck there was a rule book and in it Richard Garfield had written a very tiny short story

about two wizards fighting each other. And that was, like, that's the first time that, like, there was any, like, Alpha was really interesting in that it hinted at story, but there wasn't much story and it wasn't until Antiquities,

and even Antiquities, like, didn't tell the story as much as the flavor texture hinted at this larger brother's war. So it is fun. And I remember before this began, I was talking with Harliss, and I mentioned that I used to do story,

and Harliss didn't even know that I did that. So the Weatherlight Saga. Yeah, that was cool to find out. Yes. That was so cool to find out. Michael Ryan and I. It's so fascinating. Yeah, Michael Ryan and I did the start

of the Weatherlight Saga. So anyway, I'm a big fan of story. So as we talk about story, I'm definitely a big fan. So let's talk a little bit about what you guys are doing on your podcast. So what exactly, how are you guys handling the story? What are you doing? So the podcast, by the way, it's called the Magic Story Podcast, to be found wherever you find your Wizards podcasts.

Wherever you find my podcast, you will find their podcast, I'm pretty sure. podcasts uh where do you find my podcast you will find their podcast i'm pretty sure yeah so when harliss and i set out to set up the magic story podcast we wanted a podcast that brought story first that told the plot lines and these amazing fiction stories that you can find on web and we wanted to deliver that street to you all and we wanted a way for you to be able to explore the setting and get involved with magic for whether you were just starting yesterday or have been playing and been involved with magic for 20 plus years and we wanted a podcast that was centered on the story and you got the little tidbits of lore along the way but we really focused on what was happening right now and for you to just like have that center point to get

caught up if you are if you're getting back into magic for for the first time in a while whether you needed context as like i opened up dominar united for the first time and i have no idea who johnny is i want to find that out. And that was, and we wanted that avenue. And we also wanted an avenue for if you just wanted to hear web fiction and you're so invested into the web fiction, but you just wanted to hear it be told in a different way. And so we were kind of setting out to do those three things. And that was kind of the vision where we set out with doing the Magic story podcast yeah i'll add that we just really wanted to make story a little bit more accessible you know not everybody has time to sit down and read all the web fiction um but it's very easy to sit down and listen to a podcast as

you know mark um and so we thought this would be a really fantastic format for people to get caught up and you know we spend so much time reading the story it just felt like a natural next step to recap it for our audiences so let me ask the the phyrexian story which is what you guys are doing right now is tricky in that there's a like the i mentioned antiquities earlier in this podcast the phyrexian showed up back in 1994, so a long time ago, and they're the main villains of the Weatherlight Saga. They played a big role in Scars of Mirrodin and the fall of Phyrexia. How do you tell a story when there's so much background story to it? Oh, yeah. It's definitely a challenge, but so much fun, because we'll be reading through the story and there'll be moments where we realize there might be somebody out there who doesn't know what a Phyrexian is.

So we actually, Harlis and I have to take pauses sometimes during the podcast where we're going through the story and then we're like, all right, we need to pause really quick and explain very briefly what a Phyrexian is, and then we just keep going. And it kind of, we give these little tidbits of explanation if you need to get caught up, but we let the story give you the extra context around what a Phyrexian does, how it acts, because it's right there in the story with you. So we do that for everything. And it's kind of meeting that middle ground between there are 30 years worth of interactions with the phyrexians that we don't fully dive into but we do give you just enough context to understand why the phyrexians are a big deal if you're getting involved with dominaria for the first time and what do you guys have favorite characters oh yeah absolutely especially at this point you know we feel like we've spent so much time with these characters um for me i think really with it

depends on on which set we're talking about tells you which which favorite character i have at the moment because with dominaria united i was such a Karn fan just from the beginning. Just so heroic. And I was not a Karn fan. I struggled with Karn. If you listen to the podcast, Harless and I go back and forth on whether Karn's a good guy or a bad guy. Are you aware that I created Karn?

What? Yes. So Michael Ryan and I, we made the Weatherlight Saga. He's one of the Weatherlight Saga characters. So real quickly, I'm going to talk about the origin of Karn, because I don't get to tell the origin of Karn all that often. Yes, please.

So what happened was, when Michael and I were telling the story, we were trying to do archetypes. We were trying very much. We were following Joseph Campbell's myth of the epic hero. And one of the archetypes we were really interested in was called a gentle giant. And what a gentle giant is, is somebody who's very,

looks very scary. Usually they're very big. They're very strong. But at heart, they're a very sweet person. They're not, once you get to know them, you know,

they have the heart of a teddy bear. They're not at all, you know. And we wanted him, and also, we wanted every color and artifact to have a representative on the crew. And we had done all the colors, but we hadn't done an artifact yet.

And so I said, well, why don't we combine the gentle giant with the artifact and make it one and the same? And then once we made Karn, in order to time into the story, we made him the keeper of the legacy, which was in a little bit of a story here. Gerard was supposed to oversee the legacy

as kind of his destiny and a big part of the story and Karn sort of oversaw the legacy and was with him and then part of Karn's backstory is he accidentally killed somebody didn't mean to

and it traumatized him and he's a very soft soul, you know. And what happened was, back then, Urza put a thing on him so that his memory only lasted so long. So that he wouldn't forever be, you know, that this wouldn't harm him. But then he forgets things because his memory only goes so far.

But when we met him originally, he was still in the throes of being sad about actually killing somebody. So he was a pacifist. And he's like, I will not harm anybody. And the very first Karn card we ever made, in combat, he gets zero power. He's like a 4-4. But he gets minus 4, plus 4 if he ever gets in combat. Because he will not kill anybody.

Because he's a pacifist. And that's where that came from. That sounds so Karn. Yeah, that really tracks with who i believe karn to be you know i spent we spent so much time with him and he just like to this day and the story feels so heroic all of the time he feels he feels like so human that's one of the things that we remarked about so much was that he is a machine but he feels so human and he has to make so many human decisions and you know because Urza gave him like human humanish emotions, he really struggles a lot.

Oh, very, very much so. The other big thing about him and this was this story was done way after I was involved with it is he is like the formation of Mirrodin. And that like he was the reason both he he both made Mirrodin and accidentally introduced Phyrexia to Mirrodin. And so it weighs heavy on his soul. Like, he'd feel bad about killing one person. How about wiping out another world? Oh, no. Yeah, and it feels like that trauma

is still, like, resonant in his character to this day, like, even in the story. Yes. I feel like he's always, like, trying to make up for something, and he to this day, like, even in the story. Yes. I feel like he's always, like, trying to make up for something, and he still struggles with, like, his human relationships a little bit because he's that, like,

balance of machine and humanity, which I just find so fascinating. I really enjoyed Karn the entire season of Dominaria. But Brothers War, my favorite character is Saheeli okay so here me telling behind the scenes stories

do you know where Saheeli came from? here's an interesting story so originally when we were doing Kaladesh the poster we have what we call the face of the set and so the face of the set was going to be Chandra because she's from Kaladesh but then we realized that the second set was all about rebellion,

and I'm like, well, if you're going to have a face of rebellion, you want Chandra. You know, Chandra is rebellion. So we're like, oh, we need a different face. And so we're like, well, we don't really have a good choice. And what we wanted, because it was, the theme of Kaladesh was sort of a little more upbeat. We had a lot of sets that were very sort of

downbeat. How about we have an upbeat set that's all about a fair and exploration and creativity? And so we wanted something that represented kind of that upbeat sense of creativity. So we made a character specifically. Like, Saheeli got made because we wanted somebody on the box

that represented what Kaladesh was. And then we came up with this cool idea and we made Saheeli. And so, like, Saheeli got made because we wanted somebody on the box that represented what Kaladesh was. And then we came up with this cool idea. We made Saheeli. And so, like, that's where Saheeli came from, which, like, we just wanted the embodiment of, like, creative expression. Saheeli's such a fantastic character. And you really get to see her shine, I think, in the Brothers War story. She just, she kind of turned, for me at least least she turned from this character who i knew of to this character that i loved and i i really got to see her become a become a hero and someone really

strong um in in helping to ferry and all the planeswalkers try and try and solve the mystery of the past and the brothers were i really enjoyed celie too but for me, I always have loved Elspeth. I think I see so much of myself in Elspeth and she has been through, I think what draws me to her is that she's been through so much. There's so much past, complicated past in regards to Elspeth and what she's been through that I just, I relate and my heart goes out to her over how she still remains so good, even in the face of impossible trauma, of what must be impossible trauma for her. And she's so introverted, and I just love that.

Kudos to all the introverts out there. She's so heroic, too. Elza, it's the origin of characters. Elza came about... We were doing Shards of Alara, and we wanted to... We liked the idea of a planeswalker that was a knight

that represented kind of the goodness of a knight, like someone who's pledged to, you know, do good and do right by things. And the character that we thought... A chivalrous kind of knight. Right, a chivalrous... I mean, she's like... The embodiment of what you think of

as kind of like a white knight like someone who's who's in it for the right reasons and wants to do best for people absolutely that's Elspeth yeah and then the element

of the character that's very interesting is that like wherever she goes like tragedy follows it's like all she wants is just live her life and have some peace

but wherever she goes poor Elspeth yeah goes she can't not the cool thing about her character is she can't not help people like she can't just go that's not my problem I'm just not going to get involved it's like oh you know and she's been through a lot her and Karn both have been through

a lot let's talk about characters with lots of trauma but it's interesting I mean we can't give away any spoilers but through a lot. It's a little, let's talk about, uh, characters with lots of trauma. But it's interesting. I mean, I, I, we can't give away any spoilers, but,

uh, uh, Elizabeth does have some cool stuff going on in the Merchant of the Machine story. So. Ooh, spoilers. Exciting.

So what, okay. So what, so any other characters that you, that you guys really fell in love with? Well, I mean, if we're talking about who we relate to, for me, it's Chandra all the way. Not only am I a redhead, so obviously I relate to Chandra, but just her fiery spirit and her unwillingness to ever give up. I actually have a big version of Oath of Chandra on my office wall because it has her flavor text.

If it means that people can live in freedom, yeah, I'll keep watch. And I just love that so much. Like she just is another one of those representations of just someone who can't say no when she's needed. And I just, I really love everything about her character is just so interesting. And also she, you know, she's kind of, she's the one to bring about, she like kind of can bring attention to the conflict in this way that is like, we're going to get through this. We're just going to. Yeah. Let me tell you the history of Chandra, because Chandra has a very cool history.

So way back when, and this is back in the early days, there's a character named Jaya B Ballard which hopefully people know who that is and Jaya she first showed up in Flavor Text and she was a lot of fun because she was this pyromancer that just had a sense of humor and we had a blast

sort of you know writing Flavor Text for her and stuff and I think in Time Spiral we finally got to make a card for her and everything but when we were making the new Planeswalkers,

it's like we wanted, we loved the idea of a pyromancer with some sort of attitude, you know. And we decided that it wasn't, it wasn't so much we wanted her making jokes as we loved the idea of somebody whose main power set is destroying things, but that fundamentally she's someone

who wanted to help people and there's a nice dichotomy in that like what Shonda wants to do more than anything else is help people but like her power set just destroys things and for a red character it's fun to play around with impulse control of like you know

like she lets her emotions get the better of her some of the time and she has a power set where her getting angry causes problems. That's been a lot of fun. I, too, am a huge Shondra fan. She's so great. She is fun to write. So one of the things I do online is I do this comic every day.

Five times a week I do a comic. And there's this little sub-brand I do called Sparks where I took the Funko figures and I do this little sitcom with them the little word balloons and stuff and writing comedy for Chandra has been so fun I mean

she is a great like her and Jace as a contrast to each other is like comedy gold it is so great so oh yeah like two exact opposites right there

yes yes yes one highly logical and one incredibly impulsive yeah and anyway i imagine if you're jace i imagine if you're jace it must be so frustrating to have like telepathic powers around chandra because her mind just seems like pure chaos i feel like he would just be so frustrated by you you know, if he were to read her mind. Yeah, the way I always play them for comedy is the fact that each one of them are just like the other one drives them insane. Like, what are you doing? Well, one of the other characters that we talk about a lot in this season in Dominaria and that was, you know, so huge was Johnny.

And we kind of mentioned that earlier, but it was so, I have to say it was just so heartbreaking reading through the story of Dominaria and reading what happens to Ajani in that story. And I was actually curious, I had a question for you, Rosewater. I was actually curious if, if it was challenging to, you know, like write cards of a, of a Phyrexianized Ajani. Yeah, so one of the things that happened early on was we knew we were going to Phyrexianize Planeswalkers, right?

And we knew we were going to do that before we chose who any of the Planeswalkers were. And there was a lot of discussion and there was no character more than Ajani that just set people off. Oh yeah, Phyrexianized Paranormal. Ajani, no, no, you can't do Ajani. And it got such a strong reaction.

I think that's kind of what pushed the creative team to do it, was Ajani is so beloved, you know. Although, here's a really cool backstory on Ajani real quick. So Ajani was part of the Lorwyn Five, the original five characters. And I think when Brady Donovan first made him, they liked the idea of one of the characters wasn't human, because the rest of the world is all human.

So we made this cat person, and in the early market research, he tested below all the other planeswalkers. He was the lowest scoring planeswalker. And there's a debate of should we keep him? But we all liked him.

Like, no, no, we should keep him. And we kept him around. And then over time, as people got to know him, we just kept going up and up and up in the market research. So it was very funny for how off some of, I mean, I guess he wasn't human. I don't know what it was,

but it's very funny to look at. We all love a kiddie planeswalker. Yeah. We actually, on the podcast, we talk about how, you know, Natalie talks about she has a Johnny in her cat deck, and how many people have cat decks in Magic. And so we know a lot of people were very sad about their decks that now potentially had a Phyrexianized Johnny coming their way. I will be perfectly honest in that I have not put Phyrexianized Ajani in my cat deck. I just, I can't do it.

Are there any Phyrexian cats in your cat deck? No, only good kitties in my cat deck. Do you have zombie cats in your cat deck? I don't. It's a white-green commander deck, so no zombies. I think there is a white zombie, by the way. There's a white cat in Amonkhet that you can entomb it to make it into a white zombie.

Oh, cute. That's so clever. Well, there's white in Amonkhet. The zombies are black and white. So the ones that serve the people are white, and the wild ones out of the sands are black. So, I do think, I do think there's a white zombie cat,

I believe. Maybe I might make an exception and have one white zombie cat in my cat tech. I will say in regards, in regards. Okay, go ahead. Oh,

sorry. I was just going to say, I will say like in regards to cards, one of the cool things about making this podcast and becoming like so familiar with the story is opening packs now has kind of a new a new rush for me where i i feel like every time i get to see these you know i'll get a comment that's like a card of a character that i know from the story and i'll get so excited about it because it's just so fun to read the story and then get to see the characters come to life on the cards. And that's just been such a joy for how I'm starting the podcast. Yeah, it's always a challenge to make sure that

the character on the page and the character on the card read the same. The trickiest thing for us, I've mentioned this before for the audience, is we tend to make the cards, if they're brand new characters, before the stories get written. So the cards come first. So it's not that we have to match the story as much as the story has to match the cards, because the cards predate. The timeline

of how we have to do it is we have to finish the cards long before it gets written. So it gets written, I mean, the outline is written ahead of time. So when we make the cards, we know the rough outline of things. And a lot of times we're using characters that already exist, so then we can design to the characters. But when they're brand new, it's a little bit trickier because the stories haven't been written yet. I actually love that because I think my favorite part, by far and away, my favorite part about Magic Story are the characters themselves.

The characters that just seem to pop out at you on the page and as you're reading these stories they have personality and quirks and they just seem so real like even though they can cast immensely powerful otherworldly spells they still seem like they could be your best friend and i think that is partially in tribute to the fact that these do exist as cards and then we're writing a story about them as as they evolve on these cards with these abilities and i think it's a it's like kind of a a perfect mash-up over how we do it it just makes the characters so vibrant i think because of the way we do it that way okay so my next question is we talked about the characters you love

what are the character you love to hate who's the character that you most enjoy not liking love what are the characters you love to hate who's the character that you most enjoy not liking do you have an answer not i would so i mentioned it before where i struggled with karn in in dominaria united and it's not that i don't like karn it's just that i got so frustrated with him through the through reading the story because he was, in my opinion, he was being very proud and not telling his friends over what he was doing. And he got himself into trouble with it time and time and again. So I think if I had to choose a character who I love to hate, like if we're going to use that that phrase i think karn is the perfect example because i i love karn i really do it's not that i hate karn but i am so frustrated with him through the story you know he goes off on his own uh to go find the phyrexian threat he doesn't leave a note

for anybody he then uses you know kind of manipulation to tell his friends to trick his friend he has to like oh he's tricking his friends the whole way yeah you'll see you'll hear on the podcast like Natalie and I really go back and forth on like me saying this is necessary and her saying this is cruel and I think we're both right um he went about it in this very logical machine kind of way but it was for a very good reason so um it it was very, you'll hear us definitely talk about that if you listen to season one of Magic Story Podcast. Okay, Alice, who do you love to hate? I think, honestly, it's probably like Urza and Mishra both, because I didn't get to, I didn't read the original Brothers Were, right? Because I came in

on Midnight Hunt Crimson Bell. And I didn't want to read it before we did this podcast because I wanted to be fresh and only taking the perspective of what we're talking about right now. The podcast, or sorry, the story, we go back into what happened with Urza and Mishra. And it just seems like Urza and Mishra made such cruel decisions over and over and over again. And it's so interesting, you know, when we, at the end of the Brothers' War, when we find out more information about kind of what happened there.

But, oh my gosh, it was just such a struggle to watch two adults just cause so much wreckage and destruction and damage. And for me, it was just such a struggle to watch two adults just cause so much wreckage and destruction and damage. And for me, that was just really hard to read through about, you know, over and over again. So have you since read the novel? Do you have any plans to read the novel? I do have plans to read the novel. We are planning to, my plan is to read the novel after we finish this arc on the podcast so that again because i like to have that fresh take but yeah i absolutely am interested in reading it yeah it's a jeff grubb wrote it it's a really good book it's it's it's one of the best

magic stories hands down it really is i mean one of the reasons i think the brothers war has gotten such sort of a claim as a story it had a a lot to do with Jeff and the novel. So. Yeah, I've heard, I've heard that. I've heard, I've heard that it's definitely worth a read. So what, okay. So let's talk a little bit about Frexy All Will Be One since we, you guys talked about Domino United and you talked about Brothers War. So what was most exciting to you of the story of Frexy All Will Be One?

Oh gosh. It's so action-packed. Yeah. You know, like it's just like moment after moment after moment of just hard hitting, like some of it's gut punching, some of it's gut wrenching,

some of it is like a super high, some of it's a super low. And, but it's just one thing after the other. And it like a super high some of it's a super low and but it's just one thing after the other and it was actually um i try like when we write the podcast we read the story and write the episode and then we read the next story so that we're not like predicting the future and telling like what's going to happen in the next story and so it was so hard for me not to read ahead um because the action was so intense and i just wanted to turn the page and i uh i print them off when i when i read them and like mark them up and I kept having to like shove my binder into the

other room so that I wouldn't read ahead because it was just so captivating. Yeah the tone like the tone difference between The Brothers War and Phyrexia All Will Be One is just it's so different and The Brothers War was just this the way that we described it on the podcast was that it felt like this gritty gothic fantasy reading through the brothers war and then all of a sudden we're in phyrexia all will be one and it it kind of feels like this cross between like action-packed like you said uh harliss with like some sci-fi elements because we're fighting against the phyrexians on new phyrexia and it's just the the excitement it is a it is a page

turner i have also struggled with not reading ahead i have to discipline myself not to read ahead too much um so that we can so that we can focus on the present moment but like i we're we're in the heart of we're about to wrap up phyrexia all will be one in season three and just because it's so vivid in my memory over the fact that we just did this one we were just in in the in the moment with frasca and jace and the the epic end to what is frasca and jace and it just it was so I think Carlos you said it was like heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching and just like I there were moments where I was literally speechless and that can't possibly be what happens that can't possibly be you know the end of Jace that can't

possibly be the end of Vraska you know and and it it was just, it feels like such high stakes in Phyrexia All will be one. It's so exciting. And I can't wait for season three to come out. If you like high stakes, I got a set for you. So you guys don't know, you don't know the story of March on the Machine, right? You haven't read it yet? That's correct.

I haven't read it yet. Oh, wow. Okay. It's like publishing right now. And we are, it yet. Oh, wow. Okay. It's like, it's publishing right now. And we are, so we're about to start recording those. But yeah, like I said, like in order to keep it, you know, up about that episode, we don't read ahead, which is so hard. It's so hard, especially I'm staying off the internet right now. Yeah, yeah.

No spoilers. Yeah. I mean, the funny thing for me is we know the high end. We don't know all the details of the story, but we know the high end, we don't know all the details of the story but we know the high end part of the story because we have to make the set especially, this is what we call an event set so like it's built around the story so I'm much more familiar with

exactly the, at least the beats of the story than anything else so you guys are in for quite a treat, if you like high stakes big things to happen it doesn't get much bigger than March of the Machine so, but anyway guys I'm excited, I realized I'm about to get to my desk here. So we're almost out of time. So two things.

One, I want to thank you guys both for being here. So thanks for joining me today. Thanks so much for letting us be on your podcast, Mark. It's an honor to be here. And number two, I want to remind our audience, the Magic Story podcast. I believe wherever my podcast is, they are because the same people put it out.

So wherever you find Drive to Work, you should be able to find the Magic Story podcast and give it a listen. And it is fun to sort of dive in deep on the story. So thanks, guys. And I hope people can come and listen to you and hear all you guys talking about the story. Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks, guys. And I hope people can come and listen to you and hear all you guys talking about the story. Thank you so much, Mark.

Thanks, everyone. But to everybody else, I'm now at my desk. 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 all next time. And thanks to Harliss and Natalie. Bye-bye, everyone.