Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1105: History of Learn to Play

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

In this podcast, I talk about many of the products we've introduced to help teach people how to play and walk through how our philosophy about it has changed over time.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. Well, first off, it means I dropped my son off of college, but it also means it's my drive to work. Okay, so today I'm covering the topic of the history of learn-to-play. So I've talked at length about how one of Magic's big weaknesses is its barrier to entry. It is a hard game to learn. Currently there are like 27,000 cards and the comprehensive rule book is many, many inches thick if you print it out. So it's magic, and from its very beginning, it has always been not the easiest game to learn. And so one of the challenges of making magic has been, how do we

teach people? So today I'm going to cover sort of the history of learn to play. There's a lot going on. I'm sure I'll miss some elements of it. I'm going to hit as much as I can. But I just want to sort of walk through kind of what we've done. And even more important than that, the philosophy of what we've done. Okay, so the earliest era, go back to the beginning of the game, is what I like to call the teacher self era. So when Magic first came out in Alpha, like when I first bought Magic,

in the starter deck, there was a rule book. And the rule book explained the rules to Magic. And when Magic first came out, like that was it. That was the resources, the rulebook. And the rulebook explained the rules to magic. And when magic first came out, like, that was it. That was the resources, the rulebook. Now, when I first learned to play, there was somebody at the convention where I first bought the cards who showed me the ropes. Another person teached me

a little bit. And having other people teaching would be a big theme, you'll see. But mostly, most of the way I learned to play Magic was by reading the Elfo rulebook. And one of the things for those that have never seen the Elfo rulebook, early Magic, there are a lot of amazing things about Magic that showed up very early on. And there are some things that took time to kind of find their feet. The rules early on were very much designed sort of what I'll call card by card,

meaning each card was made to work as cool as it could in a vacuum. And there wasn't any sense of consistency between how things worked. That a lot of the way the rules worked was sort of a band-aid approach, where whenever there was a problem with a single card, they'd make a rule up for that card. But the rules weren't terribly consistent. It wasn't until the sixth edition rules that would happen many years later that we were starting to consolidate how the rules work.

In fact, Tom Wiley, who will come up during this talk, at one point in the duelist early on, made a flow chart to show how the rules work. And to sort of represent the state of the rules, he made it a rat nest, sort of making a nod at how complicated the rules were. Okay, so the very first stage of Learn to Play was kind of like, well, we'll make some resources available. Early on was the rule book. They then put out something very early on called the Pocket Player's Guide that was meant to,

it sort of explained some stuff. It went a little beyond just rules. It talked strategy and stuff. And I remember, so Tom Wiley, who was the very first rules manager, before he was the first rules manager, back when the internet was young, we had the thing called the Usenet, which was kind of like a bulletin board, where there were threads and people could post questions. Tom would come on and answer questions. In fact, it's how Tom became the first rules manager, is Tom just took it on himself to sort of understand the rules

and answer things on the Usenet. So early magic, now given, I also should explain, when magic first came out, the phenomenon that it was, it just sold out immediately. And probably about the first two years of magic, it's just wizards fighting

to print cards as fast as they can. In fact, it's not until Fallen Empires that they're able to meet demand. That's the first set where they're able to print enough that everybody who wants to buy the product can. That is its own story, but I did a podcast. I think I did a podcast on Fallen Empires. If not, I will. Anyway,

so that early era was very much about, hey, we'll throw you in the deep end, figure out how to play. Eventually, well, okay, then in 1996, the Pro Tour starts. And along with the Pro Tour, we started creating a judge network. It's the first ever judge program. And the idea was, well, okay, we're not training everybody just yet, but we'll at least train the judges. And so at your local store, you can have a judge that knows the rules and maybe the judge can help you sort of learn. Okay. So the first time we sort of say, okay, we need to make a product aimed at helping people learn how to play.

We need to make a product aimed at helping people learn how to play. So the first idea we came up with was, well, what if we just make a simpler version of magic? Magic's complicated. What if we make a simpler version? So the very first step of that was called the Arc System. I have a podcast on this if you want to hear more details on it. The Arc System had three colors, red, blue, and green. And it was like a very simple,

a simpler version of magic. There was lands, there were creatures, there were spells, sorceries, I think. But it was a very, very simple version of it. There were three different sets, if you will. So we got some other properties. We got Hercules, which was a syndicated TV show at the time. Xena, Princess Warrior, which was a spin-off of Hercules. And then we did our own story called X-23. Jim Lee made a comic book,

which was Wizards IP. Anyway, those C-23, I'm sorry, the ARC system came out in one of those three things, Hercules, Xena, C23. Not a huge success. We then, the next stab at this product was called Portal. So Portal said, okay, well, let's, we'll do five colors. Maybe, like, the problem with the Arc system was you couldn't even play the Arc system with magic. If you learn to play on the Arc system and were excited to go to magic, you had to throw away all your Arc cards, right? They didn't even play the arc system with magic. If you learned to play on the arc system and were excited to go to magic, you had to throw away all your arc cards, right?

They didn't even work. So the idea of Portal was, well, at least, if you play Portal cards with your magic cards, they work. They're the five colors of magic. We use the mana symbols. Like, you know, we... It is... Portal was still a simplified magic, but a lot closer to being magic.

Now, we did make the mistake of not making it tournament legal. So if you just say you made a deck, and then you made a deck with Portal, and then took it to your Friday Night Magic, you have an illegal deck, even if you had one card. It's an illegal deck.

We would later make the Portal stuff legal. We should have done that at the time. Now, Portal was a lot like Ark in that it was simplified. It had land, it had creatures, it had sorceries. There were a few sorceries that kind of acted like instants, although technically were instants, but there was like a pseudo-counterspell and stuff. Okay, portal, there were three versions of portal.

There was the main portal, there was portal second age, and then there was portal three kingdoms. The Portal. There was the main Portal, there was Portal Second Age, and then there was Portal Three Kingdoms. The Portal Three Kingdoms was the one meant for the Asian market that used the Three Kingdoms as a story very well known in China and a lot of the areas, I guess, of Asia.

Trying to make some of this a little more approachable. Anyway, so the idea of it, so early on it's like, so, early on, it's like fend for yourself. Then it's like, we'll make judges. Maybe judges can help you. Then the next sort of thought was, okay, we'll make a simpler version of the

game. The next thing we tried is we said, okay, one of the challenges of playing Magic is building a deck is hard. Here are random cards. There's like, there's not a lot of games that say, we'll sell you random pieces. You, you make a game like that's, that's intimidating. So, uh, back in, um, 98, we decided, um, okay, what if we made decks that were already built? Pre-constructed decks.

And the idea was that, hey, that's a lot easier. You know, like, I can make you a deck that's already made and you can buy it. Now, we still, even in those days, the pre-constructed decks weren't geared necessarily toward beginners per se. They were also, like, one of the larger themes I will get into is one of the challenges of learn to play products is it's, there's no value to it if it's not on the shelf, right? If the beginner can't find it, well, it doesn't do any good to them. But what we've learned over the years is that the beginner audience is not enough of an audience. You won't sell enough things that the stores will keep it on the shelves.

That in order for beginning products to mean something, you need to have more, more people need to be interested in it. This lesson is not lesson, right now I'm back in like 98. We haven't learned this lesson yet, but just sort of, when we make pre-productive decks, we did make them such that not only would beginners maybe want them,

but also, you know, more enfranchised players would want them. So when we started making pre-constructed decks, we didn't start with them as a learn-to-play thing, but we did recognize that there was a desire to have them. As you will see, we do eventually get to the point where pre-constructed decks are designed for beginners, but we're not there yet. Okay, so the next product we try is we said, okay, instead of having, instead of making a simplified version of Magic,

what if we just sell you Magic cards, but we make a product where we sort of hold your hand and we walk you through how the first game. So we're now getting to what we call scripted tutorials. So the idea is we sell you a set. So we made a product called Starter. This is back in 1999. So Starter was So starter was kind of like a core set, except even simpler. Once again, it had creatures and lands and sorcerers. I think it also had some instants. Didn't have enchantments, didn't have artifacts, didn't have, I mean, Planeswalkers weren't even a thing yet. And the idea is you would get a starter kit, and then there were starter boosters you could buy.

But the starter kit said, okay, here are two decks, don't shuffle them, and we're going to walk you through step-by-step how to play. And we tried a different number of versions of this. We tried a video version that came with a tape. We

tried a version where there was like a comic book. And so there were and if we needed a card that didn't exist, we just made it up. There's some cards in starter that only exist in starter, although they're very simplified cards, vanilla cards mostly.

I remember like, was it Trained Octopus? Three and a blue for a three, three, vanilla. I think they wanted that for the comic book because it was cool to have a, like the comic book we found, the comic book was the first successful thing we did where it, so we do this thing called focus testing. Where what we'll do is we'll take a product, or this is testing, maybe it's not focus testing necessarily.

Or maybe it is, I'm not sure exactly what qualifies as focus testing. But anyway, we would get, we'd hire some people, we'd be behind two-way glass, and then these people would give products to beginners, people who don't know how to play Magic, and then we would watch them try to learn how to play with the products we had made, like with Starter. For those that have never done any kind of focus testing like this, it is painful. People will mess up in every possible way. Like I said, for example, you weren't supposed to shuffle the cards. So in large letters, we're like, don't shuffle the deck.

And they would shuffle the deck. So anyway, the idea of Starter was we're trying to walk you through the beginning turns, just kind of get you familiar enough that you get the general gist of what's going on. Now, in conjunction with the starter, we started what's called the Guru Program. So the Guru Program was we said, hey, magic players, we would like you

to be gurus. We want you to teach new magic players. And if you do, we will give you cool stuff, like the lands we made, the Guru Lands. We'll give you stuff. So, you know, if you teach enough people, we'll give you free stuff, like the lands we made, the guru lands. We'll give you stuff. So if you teach enough people, we'll give you free stuff, was the idea. And that begins, by the way, one of our realizations that one of the best tools

for teaching magic players is other magic players. We'll get more to that in a sec. Okay, the next era of learn to play was the idea behind it was, okay, maybe one of the barriers to play is it costs money. It costs money to learn how to play. Is there a way we can teach you how to play that won't cost you any money? Because's already intimidating but a lot of our learn to play products you had to buy so like okay is there a way to teach people how to play where we don't make them buy something so now we get into the era of the sample decks so the idea of a sample deck is it's pretty straightforward um the way a sample deck works is it's a free deck usually sample

decks that are 30 or 40 cards, but they're completely playable. Like, when we first made starter decks, so when Magic began, beside boosters, you could buy what's called a starter deck. A starter deck had 60 cards in it, and there was a bunch of land in it. The idea being you can kind of play out a starter,

but it wasn't really designed for an optimal play system. When I say you can play out it, I mean, like, technically you can play, but it wasn't really designed for an optimal play system when i say you can play out it i mean like technically you can play but it had all five colors and the mana what didn't always line up and so it wasn't a great experience in fact it was a bad experience um it was a playable experience which was more so than the boosters the boosters i guess had some land in them but if you like i remember early on if you wanted to play magic you kind of had to get started to learn how to play because if you got boosters, you just didn't have enough land to play with.

Anyway, so the idea of a sample deck says, okay, we make these decks and we just give them out. Like, I remember one year at PAX, we put them into every single bag at PAX. And it was really amazing to watch. We did it also at San Diego Comic Con. People all remember it. So, yeah, San Diego Comic Con. I'm waiting in line at San Diego Comic Con

in one of the lines, because there's lots of lines at San Diego Comic Con. And I remember watching people playing Magic with their starter decks because they got it in their bag. So that was the era of, let's just try to make lots of sample decks, give them away everywhere, that expose people to magic. Okay.

So the other thing that went on during all this time is we do, we like to do a lot of testing. A lot of, you know, we're a big believer in data. Like, how do you figure out whether something works or not? Well, try it out, like I said, with focus testing. We do a lot of stuff where we're sort of testing things out. So the next advance in sort of learn to play came from us doing all this testing. And what we learned was, so we would teach people how to play

and then we would, so one of the things for regular listeners, know that when you're trying to make a game, one of the best signs that your game is successful is after your players finish their first game, you ask them, would you like to play another game? If your game is successful, they're like,

absolutely, I want to play another game right now. But if they go, eh, I'm okay, you're in trouble. So we would do a lot of these learn-to-play games where we'd walk you through it, we'd teach you all the rules. And our philosophy at the time was, we want you to finish the first game. We know you're not going to you all the rules. And our philosophy at the time was, we want you to finish the first game. And we know you're not going to know all the rules, but we want you to know enough rules that you feel comfortable playing your second game. That was our philosophy at the time.

Okay, so we're doing a bunch of testing. And at the end of it, one of the questions we asked is, do you want to play again? And what we found is a lot of players were saying no so when people said they don't want to play we ask them why so the number one reason people didn't want to play again was the game wasn't interesting enough right not enough depth that in our quest to sort of like keep it from being too complicated we simplified it to such a point that people were kind of bored by it. And we're like, oh, wow. Like, like depth is one of magic's greatest strengths. Like I said, there's 27,000 cards. I mean, you know, like chess, for example, has six pieces. There's six different pieces. We have lots and lots of pieces. And there's so many different ways to play in so many different

settings. Like depth is our, you know, there's a lot of things you can say about magic, but not having depth really isn't the thing. So it made us rethink it. So one of the things we started thinking about is, okay, the goal of the first game is not learn all the rules. That's the wrong strategy. That's not what we care about. We said, okay, the goal of the first game is to make you want to play the second game. We want to invest you. We want to excite you. We want you to want to learn. And the thought process was, look, if you don't know everything, fine.

But if you're excited to play the second game, okay. If you're excited to play, you'll eventually figure it out. but if you're excited to play the second game, okay. If you're excited to play, you'll eventually figure it out. And that's when we started realizing that while there's issues with complexity with learning how to play, we shouldn't be shy of what the game is. That we need, like, magic strength is its depth. That there's so much you can do

that when we say you can shape your game, you can shape your game. You have a lot of options. And so we wanted to start doing that. So that philosophy first sort of got involved into Magic 2010. That was a big rethinking of the core set. So the core sets had always been part of our entry-level program. I didn't really get into it before.

But we would make core sets. We were making them kind of infrequently. They would be every two or three years we'd make a corset. So Magic 2010 said, okay, okay, what if the corset is our avenue to teach people? And what if we really embrace resonance as being important? So Magic 2010 did a bunch of things. One, it allowed new content. So, hey, if there wasn't the thing we needed that we thought was a great way to

get people excited, we made it. And the second big thing, so Magic 2010 was the brainchild of Aaron Forsythe. The other thing was the idea of resonance as being really important, that we want to make cards. It doesn't matter if the cards are a little complicated, if the complication comes out of just being super flavorful. And so we did a lot of top-down designs in Magic 2010 to really sort of sell this idea of, okay, magic is exciting and fun. The other thing that Magic 2010 did for the, we might have done this in starter. One of the things we learned early on is in order to understand what the world had to offer, that we want it, when you're done learning, we want to give you a booster.

We want you to open up the booster and see that experience of getting a booster. I think we started doing that during starter. But during the starter days, we would really give you a booster that we handcrafted, so you only saw the things we wanted you to see. Magic 2010, we started doing more of, no, no, just give them a booster. It's a normal booster. Let them see what there is to see. Magic 2010, we started doing more of, no, no, just give them a booster. Don't, it's a normal booster. Let them see what there is to see. Now, the other thing that happened very close to Magic 2010 coming out is we made a product called Duels of the Planeswalker, which was a digital version of Magic. Magic Online had come out, when did Magic Online come out?

Magic Online had already come out at this point. And there was a little bit of tutorial on Magic Online. But Duels of the Planeswalkers was our first... I mean, I'm sure Magic Online did some tutorial stuff. I know that it did. Duels of the Planeswalker was where we really did a major focus on using digital as an onlining tool and making learn-to-play as a core part of the product.

And then Magic 2010 and Duels of the Planeswalker, we did a giant push to get new players, and we directed them both to Magic 2010 and to Duels of the Planeswalkers. And Duels of the Planeswalkers, it was another really interesting thing for us. It taught us the power of digital. One of the things we learned is, one of the things when you're a new player learning how to play is, it's very intimidating and it is emotionally vulnerable. Meaning, I want to learn how to play, but I don't know how to play. And being bad at something is embarrassing. You know, you want to be how to play, but I don't know how to play. And being bad at something is embarrassing.

You know, you want to be good at something. Like, learning anything, there's a lot of, like, you have to get over, like, okay, I'm going to be bad before I'm going to be good. But the thing about games is you're playing with your friends. A lot of things I can go do by myself. If I want to become good at something, most things I can kind of solo, and maybe I take lessons from a professional, but I mean, I can do things where I can practice on my own. And Magic up till now,

I mean, if you were like me trying to learn from the rule book, I mean, there was a little bit of self-teaching that could happen. But it was like learning to play from another player was just the best way to learn. But then your friend had to see that you weren't good at something. And some people were fine with that. And to be honest, some players are really, really good at teaching and they made it easy and made it comfortable. But not everybody did that.

You know, there's a lot of people that weren't the best at teaching their friends. Just because your friend teaches you doesn't mean they're good at teaching you. And so what we learned was there's something about digital. Digital does a couple things great. One is it goes at your speed.

It's totally non-judgmental. And it lets you like it really lets you advance at the need. And we can design it such that it lets you know things as you need to know them. Like you can program things. Like for example in the starter I didn't talk about this, but in the starter game,

in the starter 20, it started in 1999. I think in the starter 2000, there was a CD-ROM that came with it, which is, I don't know how to describe CD-ROM. It's a program. Think of a digital program, but at the time we had to put it on a disc. I actually designed this one. So what it was, was it was a game had to put it on a disc. I actually designed this one. So what it was, was it was a game that you could play against the computer. But the way we did it is they had a

deck, you had a deck. You didn't choose your deck, they didn't choose their deck. And so the way I made it is for every single card, I would write up for the programmers, here's what to do for the computer. You know, if, for example, if they play Terror, here, in order, here's what you kill. And if none of these things are on the board, don't use the Terror. And I would, for every card, because we knew exactly what each deck had, I would script every card what to do so that the programmer could program it. Now, flash forward to Duels of the Planeswalkers. Okay, it's a lot farther along. We have actual programmers that are me. And we could, for the first time, really start programming games

in which you could play against the computer. The next thing we also did at that time was we did what's called a Deck Builder's Toolkit. So another big complaint we got from beginners was, wow, I just need enough cards to build a deck. So deck builder's toolkit was a product where we just gave you a whole bunch of cards. It's relatively cheap versus how many cards you're getting. A lot of the cards are commons and uncommons.

But the idea also is that there's themes, like the deck builder's toolkit will have some themes built into it. So you have enough cards and a theme to build something. The other thing that we did at this time was, or it was a little after

2010, I think, was we started doing video tutorials on YouTube. So we started making smaller videos. Instead of trying to teach you everything all at once, like early on. Also, back in the day, the videos were all on like a VHS tape or maybe a CD.

But at some point, we started doing stuff. YouTube existed and we could do short-term videos. So we started doing like, okay, here's how to learn how to cast a spell. And we broke it up and did it in smaller bites so that you could pick and choose. And then you could sort of see what you needed to learn. And also we started in some of the rule books making links to video tutorials and stuff. So we started, like I said, early on we embraced video a little bit. We started embracing it more.

And we started understanding that we needed to chop it down and make it in smaller amounts. So in 2019 in 2019 Arena would come out. Arena Arena made another big

push toward a tutorial. Once again learning to play on digital like Duels of the Planeswalkers slowly sort of went away and Arena kind of, like, um, Duels of the Planeswalkers slowly sort of went away and Arena kind of picked up the ball of Duels of the Planeswalkers of, okay, we want to direct people somewhere that's, you know, Arena really was trying to make magic, but in a digital way, in a way that made, like, we wanted the play to be a little bit faster and have digital carry some of the weight of stuff. And then Arena also built into a tutorial program. And so what we learned is, so we get to modern day,

the two most effective ways we've learned now that we're at is either the computer teaches you, Arena is where we sort of guide you, or another player teaches you. And for that, a lot of what happened there is commanders become the number one format. Commander is a double-edged sword as a learn-to-play tool. On the positive side, it's multiplayer. You have multiple people teaching you and also

it's a political game so like your friends can kind of keep you around longer because A. you're a lot less threat, you're a beginner and B. you know, hey it's not fun to just beat you, like on a two player game hey your partner might just beat you right away and that's not fun, but in a multiplayer

game the other players can sort of let you grow and evolve a little bit. And there's just people there to teach you. Normally, most commander games are a little more casual-friendly than the average two-player game, which is a little more like, I'm trying

to beat you. And so, those have been the two ways that really have been the biggest. Oh, when I say it's a double-edged sword, well, sorry. The other good thing about Commander, before I get to the downside, is you want to see depth? Well, Commander has depth. Commander has access to lots of things.

Now, the double-edged sword part of that is it is also intimidating. One of the weird things about Commander is that building a Commander deck is even more intimidating. I mean, it's not just 60 cards. It's 100 cards. It's not four of. It's one of. And it's not just the last two years worth of cards or three years worth of cards.

It's all cards from 30 years. There's 27,000 cards. You know, it's intimidating. Now, one of the things about that is, for a while, like I said, we did pre-constructed decks. One of the things we started doing is, with products, we would make, for a while, we did what we called planeswalker decks, which were meant to be the intro deck that we've already made it, that's meant to be more introductory. That has transitioned into commander decks. So now, with new products, or now with products, we will make commander decks.

The idea of the pre-constructed commander deck is, hey, are you new to the game? Are you new to commander? We'll just make a deck for you. That's a lot less stress. Like pre-constructed decks are even more important in commander because just the barrier to making commander deck is even higher. Now, the other thing that happens sometimes in Commander is people will make a lot of different Commander decks. Sometimes if you're teaching a friend,

you loan them a Commander deck. That's what happens quite a bit. But the other big advancement we made in 2020 was Jumpstart. Doug Byer made this product.

It's his brainchild. The idea was, is there a way to play Limited that cuts out the problem some having to build a Limited deck? Much like I said, pre-constructions took out the part. But because it's Limited, we wanted to have some choice to do something. So the idea of Doug's, which was very cool, was, well, what if we made deck components, and then you just had to pick one or two deck components, or two deck components. So the idea

of Jumpstart is, you open up a Jumpstart pack, open up a second Jumpstart pack, and then you just put them together. And the idea is, if you want, like, a little bit, you could open more than two, and then choose which ones you play with, you know, I can open three and choose two. Like there's a little ways to customize. And the other thing, like I said earlier, is one of the challenges of beginner products is if nobody else wants to buy the product, but the beginners, that's, there won't be enough sales. It won't sit on the shelf. And then when beginners go there to buy it, it's not there. The core set. So for many, many years, It's not there. The core set, so for many, many years we tried,

the core set was very, our entry-level product. The problem with the core set was a couple things. One, it only came out once a year. And so like, oh, you want to play during the summer? Great, beginners, we have a product for you. Oh, you want to play during fall or winter or spring? Oh, I'm sorry, the product for you, you know. It was harder to guide people to the product. oh, I'm sorry, the product for you, you know, it was harder to guide people to the product.

And the other thing was that it was hard to get enough enfranchised players to want to buy the core set. Now, we did a bunch of different things. We made new cards. I mean, we did do things to try to do it, but it was a challenge. And I mean, right now, the core set's not there. I mean, the idea of having products aimed at beginners is something we'll constantly evolve with. I mean, right now, the core set's not there. I mean, the idea of having products aimed at beginners is something we'll constantly evolve with. I mean, I'm just telling you where we're at right now. But anyway, core sets went away. We wanted something that could be something that beginners could have that would be good for them,

but that the enfranchised players could really enjoy. And one of the fun things about Jumpstart is we could really build in themes, and there are common, uncommon, and rare themes. And the rarer themes, for example, get a little more advanced. All the commons are monocolored. Some of the rares are more advanced themes

or multicolored, stuff like that. But Jumpstart has proven to be a fun product where hey, the beginner can play it and it's good for them, but the higher level player also can enjoy it, which is important for them, but the higher level player also can enjoy it, which is important for a learn-to-play player. Anyway, guys, that was a lot packed into half an hour. Like I said, I'm sure I forgot a few things.

In my research, there was just so much. And one of the things that's tricky when I'm talking about it, it's not as if everything changed at once. You know, we were working on different vectors. And so while we're trying to figure out how to do learn to play, we're figuring out pre-constructed and we're figuring out like there's all these different elements we're figuring out along the way. And so learn to play has been this ongoing evolution that has happened over time. And hey, even 30 years in, I think we still have ways to improve learn to play. I think teaching people to play Magic is one of the great challenges of the game.

And it's funny, when I first freelanced for the company, before I got my full-time job, one of the very first freelance things I did after the Duelist was writing entry-level product, teaching people how to play. And so that was crucial way, way back when, at the start of Magic, and it's crucial to now. So anyway, I hope you liked this,

this sort of jaunt through and thought of philosophy and stuff. Anyway, it's interesting to walk through. Anyway, guys, 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 make it magic. Hope you enjoyed today's podcast, and I'll see you next time.