Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1075: 2018

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

This is another in my "Years in Review" series where I walk through an entire year and talk about many of the Magic events that happened that year. This podcast is about the year 2018.

I'm not pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work at Home Edition. Okay, so one of the series I do from time to time is I do a Year of Magic series where I go through every year in Magic and I talk about what happened that year. Last time I did one, it was 2017. So today, I'm going to talk all about 2018. Okay, so we start January 13th of 2018. Rivals of Ixalan comes out. So it's 196 cards, 5 basic lands, 70 commons, 60 uncommons, 48 rares, 13 mythic rares. Codename of eggs. It was ham and eggs.

Ixalan was ham. Designed, developed by, or led by Ben Hayes. So the brand new mechanic in the set was called Ascend. And the idea of Ascend is if you had 10 or more permanents you permanently gain the city's blessing. And then there were cards that got upgraded if you had the city's blessing. It had returning mechanics.

So it had transforming double-faced cards. All of them had lands on the back like Ixalan. It had enrage that was tied with the dinosaurs. It had explore. It had raidrage that was tied with the dinosaurs. It had explore. It had raid that was mostly tied to the pirates. And it also, the returning mechanical theme was typo. Dinosaurs and merfolk and pirates and vampires,

those creature types all mattered. January 16th was start of The Great Designer Search 3. So basically, The Great Designer Search, for those who don't know what it is, I've done podcasts on this. Kind of like a reality show where we find the next new designer. And a lot of our designers have come through the Great Designer Search. It's actually been probably the best tool we've ever made to find designers. So it started on January 16th. made to find designers.

So it started in January 16th. Okay, February 2nd through the 4th was Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan in Bilbao, Spain. So the formats for it were Modern and Ixalan slash Rivals of Ixalan Booster Draft. Modern had not been a format in the Pro Tour for two years,

so this was sort of Modern coming back. I'm going to say a lot of names in this podcast, and I apologize ahead of time for the names that I mess up. I will do the best I can. So the winner was Luis Salvato from Argentina, who defeated Jerry Thompson of the USA 3-0. The rest of the top eight in order was Pascal Vierin from Belgium, Ken Yukihiro from Japan, Javier Dominguez from Spain, Reed Duke from the United States, Jean-Emmanuel from France, and Andrea Mangucci from Italy. Okay, March 16th, we released a set called Masters 25.

So one of the things about 2018 that will pop up a couple times is it's the 25th anniversary of Magic. Magic came out in 1993, so it's the 25th anniversary of magic magic came out in 1993 so this was the 25th anniversary uh we didn't do nearly as much for the 20th anniversary as then we as we did for the 30th anniversary but we did a few things one of which was this product so it was uh 249 cards 101 commons 80 uncommons 53 rares 15 mythic rares uh the gimmick of master 25 was similar to a gimmick we had done in 8th edition, where there was at least one card reprinted from every product.

The exceptions were unset, since they weren't legal in tournaments, and no reserved list cards were used. But other than those constraints, every set had a card represented. It was designed to be drafted. The design was led by Adam Prosak. And it was kind of this cool thing to experience all of magic all 25 years at the time.

Okay, next up. On April 6th, Duel Decks, Elves vs. Inventors. This was the 21st Duel Deck and the last Duel Deck, sadly. We ended up not doing any more Duel Decks after this one. So for those that don't remember, because this was, I guess, five years ago, dual decks were two 60-card themed decks

that were pre-constructed. This particular series of decks had a theme of nature versus artifice, which is sort of a core green-blue conflict. So the elves were the nature side of it.

The inventors were the artifice side of it. This was also led by Adam Prosek. You'll hear Adam's name. He did a lot of the supplementary stuff at the time. So a lot of, there's a lot of individual products

that Adam worked on. Okay, also on April 6th, we released the Challenger decks. So this was four 75-card decks, although 60 were main, 15 were sideboard cards, using 81 unique cards between them. The idea of the Challenger decks

were they were standard legal, so the cards were almost exclusively from Kaladesh blocks and Amonkhet blocks. And they came with a spin-down counter, a reference guide, and a box for the deck that fit 75 cards sleeved. The idea here was we wanted to help people get into standard, so we made some decks that you could take to your Friday Night Magic. They were designed to be competitive at a Friday Night Magic scene. They weren't top-tier decks, but they were something that if you took to your Friday Night Magic, you could play with and do okay.

Okay, next up on April 27th was the release of Dominaria. So Dominaria had 269 cards, 20 basic lands, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares. By the way, 101 commons, 80 end commons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares. By the way, 101 commons, 80 end commons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares. You'll see this is the mainstay. From time to time, we tweak our sets. But at the time, this was the mainstay for what sets were. Sometimes they basic land or not, depending on reprints and what the set was. And the numbers could tweak a little bit based on other factors.

I'll get to that in another set down the road. Anyway, so Dominaria was a return to Dominaria, the place that magic had first appeared and was the home for a majority of the sets in the first ten years of magic. But we had gone away and explored the multiverse, and we hadn't been back to Dominaria I think in 13 years since Time Spiral Block was the last time we'd been in Dominaria. Anyway, so we wanted to go back to Dominaria and we wanted to sort of treat it like how we treat planes now. That most planes have sort of a theme to them and that we wanted to sort of give a theme to Dominaria, which is tricky since so much had happened in Dominaria. The theme we ended up with is sort of a theme of history, that it's a world whose present is much defined by its past, was our little line.

Anyway, I led the vision design for this. Eric Lauer and Dave Humphries led set design. It did have a buy-a-box card and 10 additional cards that were in the Planeswalker decks. So each booster had a legendary creature in it. We had done some of this in the past, but the idea of having some known quantity always show up that's thematic for the set. I wouldn't say this is where it started, but it definitely it had a really big impact and really influenced us. And so we don't do it every set now, but we do it a lot.

We like the idea that there's some known quantity that's in theme that you know you'll get. There are two new things in the set. The new mechanic was Historic. So Historic was us sort of batching things, and this really, this new

concept of taking existing things that already existed in the game, but caring about them. So Historic cares about artifacts, legendary permits, and sagas. I'll get to sagas in a second. That was also a new thing. But the idea of Historic is we were trying to care about the past, and Historic did a good job of caring about the sets around us had a graveyard theme. And so the low-hanging fruit for the past would be the graveyard. But we couldn't do that because of sets around us. So, we

ended up doing Historic, which is a mechanic that has come back. You'll see the Doctor Who decks. One of the Doctor Who decks that's coming out shortly has Historic as one of the main mechanics of the deck. We also introduced Sagas. This is where Sagas first came up. We were trying

to represent the idea of a story. So, Sagas made use of a mechanic that we'd abandoned when trying to represent the idea of a story. So sagas made use of a mechanic that we'd abandoned when trying to do planeswalkers because it felt too prescriptive. But for a story, which happens in a certain order, it actually felt correct. So we introduced sagas here.

They had a brand new frame. Still enchantments. Saga's an enchantment subtype. But it had a brand new frame. The art sort of showed the story through the lens of how they told stories. And there were a lot of really cool sort of art treatments there. Anyway, Saigas have gone on to become very popular. And so much so that they're residuous. And we use them all the time now.

Including the Doctor Who decks that I just talked about. I have Saigas for lots of different episodes. Okay, the returning mechanic in the set was Kicker. Kicker was an old... We wanted one mechanic that came back from... that had premiered in Dominaria,

so we chose Kicker. Once again, some of our other choices have been used in sets around it, so... I mean, Kicker's a fine mechanic. It didn't quite play in the history theme as well

as, like, Flashback would have worked better, but we'd use flashback somewhere else. Okay. This was the first of what we call the three-in-one model. So Magic for a long time, the way it worked was large small small. They had blocks.

Then eventually we did blocks where some of the time was large small large. Then we changed to the two-in-two system where blocks were one large one small. And Dominaria was the change to what we called the three-in-one system, where there were three sets in a row, although the sets didn't necessarily have to be all in the same world. And then there would be a core set.

We have since moved on from this, because core sets went away. But this was the return of the core set. I'll talk about that in a second. One of the little gimmicks of the set that was cute was every set that had taken place on Dominaria, including stuff like Wrath that later got overlaid on Dominaria, were included somewhere in flavor text

in the set as a little Easter egg. Okay. Next up, June 1st through the 3rd was Pro Tour Dominaria in Richmond, Virginia in the United States. The formats were Standard and Dominaria Booster Draft. The winner, Wyatt Darby from the United States defeats Goncalo Pinto from Portugal, 3-2. The rest of the top eight in order.

Owen Turnwall to the United States. Marcio Cavallo from Portugal. Kazuyuki Takamura from Japan. Thomas Hendricks from the Netherlands. Ernest Lim from Singapore. And Manuel Lenz from Austria. June 8th, Ari Nii wins The Great Designer Search 3. So it started back in January.

It actually took... Sorry, let me take a sip of water here. I'm coughing. in January, it actually took Sorry, let me take a sip of water here. I'm coughing. It actually took six months. So, for those who don't know, the real quick version,

and once again, I have a podcast on this. Anybody who was qualified could apply. You needed to be 18. You needed to be able to work in the United States because that's what the job was. If you win the job, you get a six-month internship that could transition to a full-time job. I think all of them have.

Anyway, so you had to take a... First, you'd write essays, and then you had to do multiple-choice tests. And then if you passed the multiple-choice tests, you had to do a design test. And then if you passed the design test, we picked eight people. They were each given design assignments every week

that were judged by me and a panel of judges. Each week, we would kick out one of the designers who'd had the worst overall performance, not just that one test, but all of them so far. And then at the end of it, there were three people left. Those three people came to Wizards. Those three people were Ari Nee, Chris Mooney, and Jeremy Geis. Those names should be familiar

because all three of them have at some point... Ari worked and ended up leaving Wizards, but he worked at Wizards for a while. And both Chris and Jeremy still work at Wizards. Designing sets as we speak. Okay, June 8th was Commander Anthologies Volume 2. So basically what Commander Anthologies was is it took four previous Commander decks, pre-constructed decks that we had made, and combined them into a singular product. So there are four 100-card decks.

Obviously, this is Volume 2, which implies there had been a Volume 1. And anyway, we did that so people could get access to old commander decks that weren't available anymore. Okay, June 8th was Battlebond. So, 254 cards.

Basically, 5 basic land, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 raiders, 15 mythics, as normal. So this was a two-headed giant focus supplemental set. The idea was you drafted this with a partner, and then you played against... I think the way the draft

worked is you drafted together, and you drafted two cards out of each booster, I think is how it worked. Anyway, the design was led by Sean Main. The development was led by Gavin Verhey. It took place on the plane of Kylum in a stadium called Valor's Reach, which actually was the name of one of the

main meeting room right by R&D in our old building, what's called Valor's Reach. Anyway, the mechanics, it had two, well, one new mechanic, one pseudo new mechanic. It had assist. Assist was a mechanic where your teammate could help pay

for the spell. So if a spell had assist, you could tap mana for it, and your partner could tap mana for it. It also had the partner with mechanic, which was a riff off of partner. Partner had been introduced in the commander deck. And partner allowed you to choose two creatures with partner to become your commander. Partner with means you can choose creature A and creature B.

Partner with means these two specifically can be your commander, not that you can mix and match. And a lot of the flavor of the set was this competition in Valor's Reach where pairs of two would fight each other and so in the flavor the creatures that would play with each other in the legendary creatures would be paired with each other also this is the introduction

this is the introduction of Will and Rowan who are planeswalkers that are paired with each other in this product we actually had made them for Throne of Eldraine, but when we realized the whole shtick is they shared a spark,

and so we realized that we were looking for a set all about paired characters, it felt really cool to pair them since flavorfully they were paired together. The set also used the support mechanic from Oath of the Gatewatch that sort of put counters on things. And it had a warrior-type-al theme.

And then also there was a lot of caring about twos of things. There's this ongoing theme of partnership and pairing and caring about having two of something. Okay. June 15th was the signature spell book. So it was eight cards all flavored around Jace. So basically, it was all reprints. One of them was randomly

a foil. It had all new art. And this was the spiritual successor to From the Vault. It was something that people could collect. So it's all reprint, but it had brand new art that put Jace onto famous cards from the past. And anyway, I think this was

the first one. There were later ones. There were later Cinder spellbooks. This was the first one. Okay, June 22nd, we had the Global Series. Zhang Gengu versus Mu Yanling. Yanling? So this was two 60-card decks primarily for the Chinese market.

I think it was mono green. No, no, no. They were two color. Zhang Yingyu, he's green and Yanling is blue. But they each had a second color. So basically they were two 60-card decks. It was basically made for the Chinese market. We were trying to make a product that

would be a better starter product for people in China. So the cards were illustrated by Chinese artists. They were concepted to play into Chinese themes. Each deck was led by a planeswalker that were Chinese planeswalkers. The

product was released only in Chinese, simplified in English. And even the basic lands, there are no swamps because there's no black in either deck. But they were represented with actual Chinese locations. The set was designed and developed by Adam Prosek. I said you'll hear his name a bunch. So this is the only Global Series ever made. We called it the Global Series, but we haven't made it anymore.

Like I said, this product really was made to be a starter deck for the Chinese market. Okay, June 13th, Core Set 2019 comes out. So again, this is 280 cards, 20 Basic Lands, 111 Commons, 80 Uncommons, 53 Rares, 16 Mythic Rares. 16? What's going on? I'll explain that in a second. There's an additional Buy a Box card and 25 additional new cards and Planeswalker decks. This was the 18th core set. But what happened basically was this wasn't going to be a core set. Originally, Dominaria was codenamed Soup.

It was going to be Soup and Salad. And this was supposed to be Salad, which was the small set that went with Dominaria. The last minute, we changed it over to a core set. So it got made into a bigger set than it was going to be although of course that's how a lot of reprints the vision and set design was led by Ethan Fleischer

and the set had a Bolas, a Nicole Bolas theme so that 16th Mythic Rare was a double faced card so in Magic Origins we had done five cards introducing the five original members of the Gatewatch that had a legendary version of the creature, and they

sparked and transformed, or pseudo-transformed, into a Planeswalker version of themselves. This was the same thing, except with Nicole Bolas, which was a special thing to do. In fact, in order to do this, we had to make a single sheet of nothing but

Nicole Bolas, but he was the focus and the theme of the deck. That was the theme. And so, you got a Bolas. And then in the set, by the way, there were a single sheet of nothing but Nicole Bolas. But he was the focus and the theme of the deck. That was the theme. And so you got a Bolas. And then in the set, by the way, there are a whole bunch of characters and legendary creatures and things tied to Bolas in the set. Okay, August 3rd to the 5th was Pro Tour 25 anniversary in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States.

So the format was team trios constructed. So what that meant was you made a team of three, and then one of you played standard, one of you played modern, and one of you played legacy. And then when you played, your team had to win two out of your three matches to win the whole match.

So the winners were Alan Wu of the United States, Ben Hull of Canada, and Gregory Orange of the United States. And they defeated Josh Utterladen of the United States, Ben Stark of the United States, and Martin Juzza of the Czech Republic. They defeated them 2-1. The rest of the top four, because it's cut to a top four,

was Marcelo Cavallo from Portugal, Thiago Sabarito from Brazil, and Carlos Romão from Brazil. And then the last team was Christoph Gregoire from Belgium, Brinko Nijernick from Belgium. I apologize for these names. Thomas van der Pelt from Belgium.

So that was a Belgian team. Okay. September 27th, Magic the Gathering Arena opens for beta. So this was the first time that people could play Magic the Gathering Arena. Obviously, it went on to do great things. Okay. October 5th was the release of Guilds of Ravnica.

So this is 259 cards. The same normal. 111 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares. It, by the way, technically only had 254 unique cards because each gate was on the commons slot twice. So the way this worked was, there

was no basic land in the boosters. You can get them in the Planeswalker decks, or in the bundle. But the idea was that you would get, instead of that, you would get gates. There were gates, there were five gates doubled, because there were two on the

cheap. So there were ten total gates, two for each of the five guilds here. And you got that in place of the basic land. I led the vision design for this set, and Eric Lauer led the set design. So each, because this is a Ravnica set, each guild had its own mechanic.

So Dimir, blue-black, had Surveil, that you might know, because now it is evergreen. So basically it's like Scry, but instead of the cards going to the top of the library, they go to the graveyard. Selesnya had Convoke. It was the one mechanic brought back.

Selesnya had done Convoke before, but we brought it back because it's such a fun mechanic. Izzet had Jumpstart. So Jumpstart is sort of a flashback variant that requires you to discard a card. Is it being blue-red, Celestine being green-white? Obviously. Golgari had Undergrowth. Golgari being black-green.

Undergrowth all had effects that scaled based on how many creatures you had in your graveyard. And then finally, Boros, red-white, had Mentor. When you attacked with a Mentor creature, it could put a plus one, plus one counter on another creature you attacked with that was smaller than it.

So, and then October 5th also released Spell Slinger Starter Kit. So it was two 60 card decks, a mono white deck versus a mono green deck. It was a learn to play product. It was led by Ethan Fleischer, did the design.

And it came out the same time as the Guilds of Ravnica because we keep experimenting with different ways to introduce people to the game. We've made a lot of different products. This was one such product. The idea was you could buy it, and it was pre-constructed decks you can play against each other, but they were a little bit simpler, and then it came with stuff to help teach you how to play.

Okay, next we get November 9th through the 11th was Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica, held in Atlanta, Georgia, here in the U.S. The format was Standard and Guilds of Ravnica Booster Draft. The winner was Andrew Ellen Bogan from the United States, who defeats Louise Scott Vargas from the United States. The rest of the top eight in order was Tae Won How from Singapore, Jeremy Desani from France, Wilson Mock from Canada, Michael Bernat

from USA, Casper Nielsen from Denmark, and Yuya Watanabe from Japan. The November 16th was the release of Magic Game Night. So this was a product we made.

We made it because we wanted an introductory product that was for casual multiplayer play. In fact, this was a product that had been pitched numerous times, and we kept putting it on the back burner. Like, one day we have to make this, and so it was talked about. The idea essentially of Magic Game Night was it functions more like a board game. It looks like a board game. It's something we could put in sort of mass market stores. So it came with five 60-card decks. I think they're five monocolor decks, I believe.

And the power was similar to Planeswalker decks. So they were... It was not super high-powered decks, but they were balanced with each other so that you could play each other... You could play them against each other. And this was... The design was led by Andrew Veen.

Anyway, we've done other... I think Magic Game Nights, we've come back to this and done other versions of this. Okay, next, on December 7th, Ultimate Mafters. So, 255 cards. Again, this is 111 commons.

80 on commons, 53 rare, 16 mythic rares. Okay, so, this was an all reprint set. So, it's a Mafter set. So, Mafter sets are all reprints. This particular one had a Graveyard Matters theme. It was led by Adam

Prosek and Jules Robbins. So, Mafters was a series that we did. I mean, we still do on occasion, I guess, but well, Mafters are all products in which all the cards in it are reprints

that are designed to be drafted, and they tend to have different themes. This one had a graveyard theme. Masters are tricky because they use up a lot of cards. And so we've been doing less of them. But you'll notice in this particular year, we did

two Masters, because not only did we do ultimate Masters, but we also did Masters 25. I talked about back in March 16th. I think at the time we've since figured out that you just can't do that many mafter sets. They just chew up sort of reprints a little faster than

we want. And so we do them on occasion. Definitely don't do them two times a year and don't even do them every year. And we've found different ways to do reprint sets. So mafters is a particular brand we use. But there's other things we do sometimes. I think we call them Masters, though.

Okay, the final thing of the year was on December 14th through the 16th, the 2018 Magic World Cup in Barcelona, Spain. Okay, so what happened was the very first, or not very first, the second ever Magic Worlds in 1995, the first was in 94 at Gen Con. So the second ever was in the Seattle in 1995. And in it, we did a team championship. Now in the early days,

the team championship, all it did was it looked at how you did in the tournament and just the team that did the, in the early days, the team championship, all it did was it looked at how you did in the tournament, and just the team that did the best in the tournament would win the team event. Later, as Worlds would evolve, we'd start having actual team events where the teams would compete against each other.

Eventually, we broke out the team part of the competition, and so instead of being part of Worlds, it became its own thing, which was called the Magic World Cup. And so instead of being part of Worlds, it became its own thing, which was called the Magic World Cup. And so the formats, normally there are teams of three, I believe. I think it was teams of three. These are either three or four.

I'm not blinking. I did not write this down. But it's either teams three or four. So this particular one, the formats were Team Sealed and Team United Standard. Team Unified Standard. So what Unified Standard means is your team has to make decks that if you combine all your decks into one deck, it's a standard legal set. This makes me think these are teams of three because Unified usually do in teams of three versus teams of four. So you played Sealed as a team.

fight usually we do in teams of three versus teams of four. So you played sealed as a team, and the way team sealed works is you get product enough for all three players, and then you get to build your decks, but because you get more cards, the decks are more powered than they normally are. Anyway,

Team France went on to win this, defeating Team Israel 2-0. The rest of the top eight was Team Hong Kong, Team Italy, Team Japan, Team China, Team Australia, and Team Slovakia. The player of the year,

so at the end of the year, there's a player of the year, the person who has the most sort of pro points from the year, Luis Salvato from Argentina. He had won one of the pro tours earlier in the year. The rookie of the year was Samuel Illinfett from the United States. I hope I didn't mispronounce that too badly. Also, at this – at the end – at this Magic Cup, they also did the Hall of Fame induction.

So Seth Manfield of the United States and Lee Shee Tan from Hong Kong were both inducted into the Magic Hall of Fame. Anyway, this was a pretty full year. There was a lot going on. One of the things you can see, if you listen to all these all my year ones, is you can definitely see how if you go way back

to early Magic, maybe we make three or four sets in a year. So just to recap, here's all the things that came out in this year. Rivals of Ixalan, Mafters 25, Dual Decks, Elves vs. Adventurers, the Challenger Decks, Dominaria, Commander of Mythologies Vol. 2,

Battle Bond, Sinjur Spellbook Jace, Global Series, Yangu vs. Yanling, Corset 2019, Guilds of Ravnica, the Spellslinger Starter Deck, Magic Game Night, and Ultimate Mafters. Some of these

would be things that would continue on. Some of them would be things that we didn't continue on with. Anyway, I hope you guys liked looking back at 2018. There was a lot that went on there. There was a lot of fun stuff. My personal pick for my favorite of that year is The Great Designer Search. It was a lot of fun to do.

And, uh, I got some really great designers out of it. So that was awesome. Um, oh, quick behind the, uh, I'll tell a quick behind the scenes story. I have a minute before I end today. Uh, Great Designer Search 3, one of the weird things behind the scenes was that, um, because this is technically, we're hiring people, HR has to get involved and there's legal requirements and stuff. And so there was a lot of debate back and forth over what we needed to do

before we could put it up for the audience to see it. Because the idea for each of the challenges is that the audience gets to see it. The original plan was that the audience would see the challenges at the same rate that people were doing them. So I think the challenges were two weeks apart

from each other. Or as I said, I think they were three weeks apart from each other. We were trying to get enough time for them to work on them and us to grade them and stuff. So anyway, the plan was, as we started doing it, we would put them out when they did them. But because there was some debate of behind-the-scenes

issues, we ended up doing it much, much condensed. And so I think the whole thing, from a public perspective, not from the players doing it, but from the public perspective, was, I think it was all done in like three weeks or something. It was really, really fast,

which I'm sad because I think it's a fun thing to play along with and it got a little too accelerated. Anyway, guys, that is 2018 in a nutshell. At some point, I will do 2019. Probably not right away, but this is a series I've heard a lot of people enjoy. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed the look at 2018. But I'm now at home.

So we all know what that means. It means instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So I'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.