Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1191: MagicCon: Las Vegas 2024

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

I went to MagicCon: Las Vegas and have many stories to tell. This podcast tells those stories.

I'm pulling away from the curb because I dropped my son off at school. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so I just got back from Las Vegas. So today is all about Magicon Las Vegas. Okay, so first, Magicon Las Vegas 2024 because there's been a bunch of them. So real quickly, a little recap of Magicons. The idea of a convention dedicated to just magic is something we've talked about. I mean for decades The previous incarnation was what we call Grand Prix's

Grand Prix's were built around a singular tournament and there would be events also there and so it was kind of the Death of the precursor, but finally two two years ago, what we called Magic 30, we did our first Magic Con in Las Vegas. We didn't quite have the venue we wanted. It was a little small or had some issues. But then following next year, we then had four Magic Cons, one in Philadelphia, one in Minneapolis, one in Barcelona, and one in Las Vegas.

And then this year we have had one in Minneapolis, one in Barcelona, and one in Las Vegas. And then this year, we have had one in Chicago, one in Amsterdam, and then one in Las Vegas. Every year we've been to Las Vegas. It's just a good spot, and people like it. So if you wanna hear more, Magic 30, I was there, I did a podcast. Magicon Philadelphia, I was there, did a podcast. Magicon Barcelona, I was there, did a podcast. Magicon Philadelphia, I was there, did a podcast. Magicon Barcelona, I was there, did a podcast.

Magicon Chicago, I was there, did a podcast. And then right now I'm doing Las Vegas. So I've been to five of the eight Magicons. So everyone I went to, I did a podcast. You wanna hear about me talking about other ones, I can. Or you can listen to them. Okay, so Magicon Las Vegas, 2024. Okay, so this one was a little special for me.

I participated in Game Nights Live. Now, I will stress, I'm doing a whole separate podcast on Game Nights Live. I'm having special guests on and it'll be super fun. I don't know whether I'm gonna post it before or after this one. So either you've already listened to it or you will soon listen to it, but it'll be posted somewhere around this one. I want to mention

game nights a little tiny bit, but not get into the details of it since I'm doing the whole podcast on it. The importance though is I showed up on Tuesday. The event is Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And that is because all day Wednesday and all day Thursday, I was doing practices rehearsals for game nights live on Live. On Wednesday, we practiced playing, just making sure everyone's comfortable with everybody else's deck. Then Thursday was blocking, we had to go through all, you know, all the tech rehearsal, if you will,

and try out my costume and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, let's get to the actual convention, which started on Friday. Oh, but before I tell you what happened at the convention, let me lay out what the convention's like. So we are at the Las Vegas Convention Center in what I think is called South Building. We took up two whole floors. So let's imagine you came in through the player entrance.

Here's what you would see. First off, there's registration. You would get your badge. Then off to the left is open playing area that you could play. And then if you go straight in through the doors, first thing you come into is a place with lots of dealers selling magic cards, magic paraphernalia like sleeves and boxes, play mats, t-shirts, figurines, anything you can imagine. Any magic related paraphernalia. There were 30, 40 different people selling stuff,

lots of different things, and you can get whatever you want. Then past that, oh, sorry, to the left of that were a whole bunch of rooms. One of the rooms was what we call the Black Lotus Room, which is for the VIPs. I spent some time in there. There was a room for the meet and greets, which I'll talk about later.

There was the press room where I had to do interviews. There was a room for the cosplayers. So there's a bunch of rooms also left for that. Straight ahead was the World Championship play area. It's where they were playing the World Championship. There were feature match areas so people can come watch the best of the best play. But anyway, so that was being run there. And then off to the left of that was Open Play, I believe.

Then once you got in the back part of it, we got into the tournament area. So the tournament area is divided into five areas based on color. There's the white stage, the blue stage, the black stage, the red stage, the green stage. And then in that area is where they ran infinite tournaments, limited tournaments, including sealed and draft, and all sorts of constructed turns using all sorts of different formats and there's just infinite there's things running constantly all the time and you could sign up for them. There were some on demand like enough people want to play a certain format they could play it but anyway lots and lots of play going on there.

Then you could take an escalator upstairs to the second floor. First was the immersive area. So we sort of build sets that are flavored after recent magic sets and you could pose there. There was a set, a Dusk Mourn set with the creepy house. And there was a Bloomboro set, which is one of the rabbit's homes. But anyway, there's that. Then behind that is Artist Alley. So there's a whole bunch of artists. If you want to visit artists and get things signed stuff like that There's artists alley then there was free play area where if you wanted to play but not in a tournament a lot of commander play

Stuff went on around there then off to the in the back in the left was the merchandise area One of the things we do in magicons is we make all sorts of unique merchandise that is only sold at magicon And there's shirts and sweatshirts and jackets and hats and all sorts of stuff. Really really cool stuff. And then on the back right is what we call the mana stage. That is where more game nights live happen. I did panels, I did a talk. There was a cosplay contest there. On Sunday they watched the world championship there.

Anyways, just a stage and there's somewhere between 800 and 1000 seats. We keep making it bigger because we keep having more people. Oh, the other thing about MagicCon Las Vegas 2024 is it was the largest MagicCon we had ever done. Over 15,000 players were there. So you're very exciting. So anyway, Giant Hall, for some reason, the two main places I needed to be were the Black Lotus Room and the Manistage were about as far apart as humanly possible. Okay, so let's walk through my day. So the first thing I did, and I did this all three days, is there's a breakfast in the VIP room

and I'm supposed to do what they call schmooze. Part of the VIP experience is getting to meet R&D folk like myself. And so I would show up every day, I'd say hi to people, I would talk with them, I would sign stuff, I would take a picture. Oh, by the way, if you were ever at a Magicon and you see me I will never be upset if you say hey Mark

I would like to take a picture with you or I would like you have to sign my card or I have a question for you The only thing to be aware of is you can catch me. I might be the middle of going somewhere So I you know I don't always have all the time in the world because if I'm have to be on stage or something But I will always sign sign things, I will always take pictures. So if you see me in a Magicon you don't have to be a Black Lotus member to have a chance to interact with me. The Black Lotus people just have a set time where they know where I'll be. So anyway the other thing that we did in the Black Lotus room this time, Aaron Forsythe made a game that we called Time Walk and the way it worked is it has magic events.

The front lists the event and the back lists what year, what quarter of the year in year. So like quarter two of 1997. And so there are all sorts of questions. One of them was like when I started working there, you know, when did premium cards first start? When did we start marking rarities? When did Haste get keyworded? cards first start when did we start marking rarities when did uh haste get uh um keyword stuff like that and so you have to so the way it works is um we start by putting one date on the

board and then the first person has to take their thing and say is it earlier than the date on the board or later uh and then if they get it correct, they stay. If they get it wrong, they get a strike. Two strikes in this game, you get out. And then in the VIP room, you got a prize when you get knocked out, and then you got a bigger prize if you won. And the idea is you keep going, but it gets harder.

Because the more items there are, the more spots there are to put it. I think the record was 31 items, which is pretty impressive. Very impressive, actually. Okay, so I did some shmoos in, we played some time walk. Then I had a meet and greet. So what a meet and greet is, let's say you're not a VIP member, let's say you don't happen to run across me walking on the hall, or you're not at one of the events that I ran.

A meet and greet says, hey, at this time, if you want to meet me and get autographs or pictures or talk to me, this is your opportunity to come and meet and greet, meet and greet me. Or I think I'm doing the meeting. Well, we're both meeting, but I'm greeting. But anyways, it's called the meet and greet. And there's times. Normally I do my multiple meeting greets. It can vary show to show. But usually I have two meeting greets.

Anyway, and this meeting greet, the professor was also there. So it's fine. I know I've known Brian forever. So it was it was it was nice seeing him. OK. Then after that, I had to go on stage to do a panel. So a lot of the, it varies magic on a magic gun. I usually do a bunch of different panels and stuff. This particular one was a low ebb for me. I had one panel, one talk, and then I was in Game Night Live, although Game Night Live

was quite, that was a long event. Normally I do some other stuff, but as I will get to, I had another responsibility that took me away from doing more, having more stage time. In Chicago, for example, I think I was in five different panels, so I try to do a lot of panels, it's fun, and you know, the audience likes hearing me talk about stuff, so I like doing that.

This particular panel was called The Foundations of a new era And then right after us was a panel just on foundations So the way it worked is our panel started with Ken troupe who is in charge of magic He came up and talked a little bit about the philosophy of magic and you know where magic is going Then he brought up Terry who was the head writer slash the exec producer of the new Netflix series

I and he talked about how they've kind of been working in secret for a year and he said how how much he really enjoys magic as a property and how deep it is and how it's really cool that Whenever they come up with an idea like magic's done something like that and there's so many worlds and creatures and anyway he said nice things about magic. Oh we also said that there's the one picture Netflix has revealed you see Chandra and Johnny and he also said that while it wasn't in the picture of Jace, Jace is also in the show, then we had a panel. So it was Blake Rasmussen was the MC and it was Aaron Forsyth, VP of Magic Design and my boss. Jackie Jones, VP of Creative Affairs.

She's in charge of the creative team. And then Mark Hagen, who's a VP in charge of collectibles So like booster fun and secret lair and then me who not a VP but the head designer of magic So and we talked about a bunch of things We started with Jackie talking a little bit about the vision of of magic creative Then we got into foundations and we didn't talk tons about foundations because right after us was a panel on foundations. But I did explain some of the larger philosophy. The biggest one is a change and for a long time the way we did beginner products was by the end of the first game we wanted you to understand how to play. And we sort of shifted like well what we really wanted the end of the first game is you want to play

the second game. How do we do that? It's not necessarily by telling you how to play. I mean, we do try to tell you how to play, but is we want you to be excited. Meaning we want to show off all that magic has to offer and that the reason you want to keep playing is, wow, this is so exciting. Yeah, I haven't learned everything, but I want to learn more. And so Foundations really leaned into this idea of show off all the cool things that Magic adds. Show it off mechanically, show it off creatively, really sort of make it a sampler of the awesomeness that is Magic.

Okay, and we showed off a few preview cards. Then we announced some new things, four things we announced. One was I announced that we are changing when we are doing rotations. Since magic began, or since rotations began, we've always rotated them in the fall because back in the day when we did the block model, we'd have large set, small set, small set.

The large set was in the fall, we rotated with the large set. It made sense to rotate the beginning of the block. But we've moved away from the blocks and now every set's a large set and there's no sort of block to begin with. And part of the goal of what we've been doing recently, one of the themes of the panel was we were trying to simplify things. And so rather than try to remember the name of the set that it starts with, we

said well what if we just rotate by year? What if the first set of the year is when the rotation happens? And then all you have to remember is what year it came out. So we are as of 2027. So in the first set of 2027, we will rotate for the first time at the beginning of the year. We are announcing this now because it changes when Bloomberg and Duskmoor rotate. So that's why we're announcing it now. Um, and yes, we are planning ahead of time. So we're designing, knowing that's the rotation. Second, we announced manufacturers suggested retail price is returning. The funny story about this is in practice, because the day before we practiced, Mark

Hagen was the one that was announcing that. And one of the notes we got is like, why are we announcing this? Who's going to care? And I said, no, no, no, no, the players will care. The players will care. This was this. I said, no, no, no, no, the players will care, the players will care. I said, I think players are really gonna be happy that we're doing this. And then when Mark announced it,

it was like one of the largest applause that we had for the whole panel. So yay MSRP. Then Aaron talked about how another way we are simplifying things is if you look at all the products that came out in 2024, uh, it was just all over the map about where they were legal. And when Aaron said is, look, we're going to shift to a world where there's only really

two different ways. Uh, I mean, there might occasionally be exceptions, but maybe, and these are the two ways, for example, 2025, um, number one, and this is going to be all booster release sets, um, is the, uh, legal in all formats. I mean, yes, that means legal in standard, but the idea is make something that all, all, all formats can play. It's not just like, um, straight into modern, for example, a bunch of sets this year were straight to modern.

Um, so there's a bunch of reasons we are doing this. One is, Universes Beyond has proven to be a really valuable tool in getting new players. And the idea that when you're a new player, we didn't throw you into modern was not what we call a soft landing. And we really wanted to make it easier to transition newer players. Also, we've gotten a lot of feedback that straight to modern sets were making the modern format evolve faster than people were happy with and so we were that's another factor another thing is we have the most expertise in designing for a standard power level and

so we have years and years years 30 years over 28 29 years of designing for standard and so the idea there is that power level that we're just playing to our strength of what we know best how to do one of the challenges of designing straight to modern was we had less experience with it it was easier for us to slightly miss the the power levels a bit higher so anyway we also like the idea here is we're simplifying things we're making more sets work the same and it just plays into our expertise and it keeps the older formats from rotating as fast oh the other thing I said two things there will be commander products and like

that go straight into into eternal formats stuff that's kind of aimed at commander doesn't go to standard because it's aimed at commander so all the booster sets in for example in 2025 are going into all formats and then like the commander decks and a few products will be eternal eagle but the things that aren't the booster products and mostly it's mostly commander decks okay then we got into talking about 2025 this was a section i spent a lot of time on okay we introduced aether drift That is the set we've previously called Tennis, codamed Tennis, the death race that as we talked about, the ideas we're leaning into trying to do new things, now that we have the open path. This is what I called the Travelog set. It's a set that takes

place on not one world, not two worlds, but three worlds. It is playing into the theme of a race, the actions, the thrills, the danger. and the idea is there's this wild race going from across three different worlds we have not officially said what the worlds are but we did show pictures of the worlds we did show some preview cards there are gear hulks there's some dinosaurs so we gave a lot of hints and if you look online people are people are guessing what it is. It's not I Think if you if you want if you want and all the stuff I'm talking about the panels all the stuff It's online so you can go watch the videos

Anyway, that is definitely. Oh, I did talk about that some of the story behind it Chandra's racing in the race and the prize is the aether sparks. She's trying to win it for Nyssa who lost her spark Anyway, okay, that is a third spark then is Tarkir Dragonstorm After our ten years we were going back to Tarkir One of the big questions was There's two timelines to Tarkir. So we're still in the dragon timeline But the all the people are tired of being ruled by the dragons and they're reclaiming the clans of old so this set will have the clans

it is a faction set it is a wedge set you'll still have dragons though so like I said the best of both worlds clans and dragons there'll be new dragons new clan mechanics all sorts of fun stuff and really the creative team knocked it out you know it's it's everything you love about Turkey here, but even better, even more cool stuff. The art is amazing. Okay, next up was Final Fantasy. So instead of me talking, there was a video, we made a video, which was very cool. The video, if you go and watch the video on the panel, you'll see the video of Final Fantasy.

They talked about all 16 games being in it. They talked about a lot of different things that were in the game. I'm not a Final Fantasy person, so go watch the video. They showed a lot of pictures. They talked a lot about it. And there was a member of the Final Fantasy staff who's really into Magic, and Zakil, who works on Wizards, is one of our producers, who really into Final Fantasy and anyway it's go it's very fun obviously Final Fantasy is one of the best video games of all time that people

love and so it was of the applause along with Manuscript suggestive real-time price Final Fantasy is one of the biggest applause we got okay and then after that was Edge of Eternities. Magic goes to space. So it's an area of the blind eternities we've never seen before and it is us doing space, what we call space fantasy. So taking the joy of space adventure of planets and spaceships and aliens and all the trappings that you get from space. But melding it with a magic sensibility and the five colors and anyway we're doing a really cool thing and it's kind of neat to see what we're doing. Also we mentioned that Tesseret will be there. We showed a picture of Tesseret.

Next we had Spiderman. So last week at New York Comic Con we premiered that Spider-Man is coming next year. It's the first, not the last, the first of the Marvel sets. And then I talked a little bit about how when I was a kid, I remember I was seven or eight, I woke up one day and there was a comic book on the counter my dad had bought for me at the local market. It was a Spider-Man comic. And it began my lifelong love of comics. I'm a huge Marvel fan. And I talked a little bit about, I didn't really completely understand

Universes Beyond, like the true, the true joy that it creates until I found the license that was, like it's not that I did, I like Lord of the Rings, I watched Doctor Who, I mean, it's not that I didn't know other properties, but They did not sing in my heart like Marvel. I'm a huge Marvel fan And so that the very first time I was able to play Marvel, you know play magic Which is a game I obviously love and Marvel which I also love and play them together was just transcendent joy And really made realize the power of universe is beyond anyway There's not a lot we said about spider-man because other than it's spider-man does not much we announced but isn't that cool enough?

It's spider-man. Okay, then we amongst Last thing we announced was you you be an unannounced universes beyond set. There are three magic sets in multiverse magic sets There are three universe beyond sets and the last one is not announced because UUB stands for unannounced universes beyond set. It is not Marvel. It's a IP, you know, it's a property we haven't done yet. I think people are very excited.

I played it numerous times, but we haven't announced it yet. So anyway, that was the panel panel went really well after the panel was game nights. I once again, I'm going to have a whole podcast and game nights nights I will say the following facts just to make you go listen to it fact number one I was dressed like a clown fact number two I cast gimme five which is you get a you get a life for every high five you do and fact number three I won so little it was really super super fun like it gave so fun. I'm doing my own podcast on it So but anyway, that was that we get to Saturday So Saturday morning more more schmoozing in the in the black lotus room

Oh something I didn't mention from Friday one things I had to do on Friday and Saturday and Sunday is there interviews I have to do I do a lot of press. I'm say one of the faces of magic. So I did some video interviews and some audio interviews. And so anyway, I had to go to the press room a couple of times. Sometimes the press room came to me or the reporter came to me. Anyway, it was super fun and I like doing interviews. Like I said, I did a lot more time. I did some more time in the Black Lotus room, then and did some signing stuff and then, oh and then I had my solo panel

which was on the 20 worst mechanics of all time. So in Chicago I've done the 20 best mechanics of all time, so sort of a companion piece. Once again one of the things about my talks for those that have not seen my talks is it's just a chance to me to talk design. Really what I wanted to do is I picked 20 mechanics, all of which were bad. Are they the worst mechanics? I'm not sure. I picked them because they were interesting and I could talk about them and each one of them had a different mistake that they made. So I was really explaining different design mistakes that we had made as the idea. And I use real mechanics to talk about it. And not that these aren't bad mechanics, mechanics They are but are they the 20 worst of all time? I don't know they were the 20 ones that best let me illustrate my point

This is also on video. So if you'd like to see me talk, I had a 720 slides So no lack of images lots of images And I talked and anyway every magic hunt I've been to I did a talk and so if it's fun to do it's just me and the people and I talk about stuff and it's just it's kind of like me doing a podcast or doing an article but with visuals so and longer anyway so once again online you can watch that after that I then had to go so Gavin Verhe runs an event called the unknown event. The way the unknown event works is you show up you have no idea

what will happen is unknown. It's limited you know that and then you'll play some limited format and it'll vary from time to time and what cards you have and what will happen and then Gavin always adds extra cards into that are sticker cards that are made just for the event you've never played before. This particular event used Mystery Booster 2 cards, so all your cards were from Mystery Booster 2, which is a huge variety of cards, and every pack had a playtest card in it. Then on top of that, he gave you a pack of 10 cards made just for this event. And I helped with this one. Both Matt Tabak and I who were, I'll tell you about a second we worked these events, also made some cards. Anyway Gavin did it

on Friday but Gavin had a wedding he had to go to. So on Saturday and on Sunday Matt Tabak and I were the hosts and so we answered some rules questions but mostly we signed a lot of cards and took a lot of pictures and watched players have a lot of fun. I think both of them were like 600 person tournaments. Saturdays was you played by yourself. Sundays was two-headed giant. But the rules other than that, the card pool was the same. But anyway, it was a lot of fun watching the unknown event.

If you've never played the unknown event, they are super fun. High on chaos though, I will say. So one of the cards I made, my favorite card that I made for this event, is I made a seven card cycle, sort of. It was called the seven stages of Magic Design, based on the article I recently wrote. And so for each stage, I made a card. So the first stage of Magic Design is white, blue, black, red, green, gain three life, draw three cards, add three black mana to your manapal deal three damage any target and target creature gets plus three plus three

It's the moons from alpha ha ha you know I thought there's a cute card um okay, so I did infinite I signed my name many many times. I took many many pictures and there's lots of fun Okay, then Sunday Sunday was more time in the Black Lotus room. I did hit the floor for a little bit and met a lot of people and signed a lot of stuff on the floor, talked to people on the floor. I got a chance to do a little bit of shopping for myself.

And then there was another unknown event. And that unknown event was the Two-Headed Giant unknown event. It was fun, I unknown event was the Two-Headed Giant unknown event. It was fun. I got a lot of Two-Headed Giant questions. I do not run a lot of Two-Headed Giant events. So that definitely, I had to look a few things up.

I just remember exactly how Two-Headed Giant works. I knew most of it, but a few things I'd look up. I also got asked a lot of questions about play test cards, both the ones from Modern Horizons 2 and the ones that the sticker cards that Gavin had made They are wacky and they do weird things and some of them Some of them work in the rules some of the playtest cards and some of Gavin's cards work in the rules But a lot of them are some of them are far from working in the rules. There is one called like magic eraser

Where you could cross off words on cards and as long as it made sense the effect would happen which is bunkers weird but I admit I had to make a lot of magic eraser calls like is this legal? Can I do this? And so that was super fun. Anyway I had a really good time at Magic Con. I was exhausted after five days going full force for five days. At the end of it I was tired, but a good tired. I will say this, if you've never been to a Magic

Con and a Magic Con comes anywhere remotely close to you, next year there's a Magic Con in Chicago, in February, in June in Las Vegas, and then I think in October in Atlanta. So next year happens to all be in the US. But anyway, they're super fun. And there's all sorts of like, I just talked about the things I did. There were game shows that happen. Um, Actually, the online, they had a live Um, Actually show.

We do a Clash of the Creators show, which is a game show live, which I've been in before, but I had to do the, I was doing the unknown events. I couldn't be in that one. There's many panels. We had panels on the creative of Dusk Mourn and on Marvel and on all sorts of fun stuff. There was a, there was a show for all the cosplayers, and there's amazing, amazing cosplay,

so that's super fun. Somebody came as the cheese from the cheese stands alone, and it was all like knitted, I think. I'm always amazed when I see the cosplayers. They blow me away. But anyway, there was just so much stuff that went on it was so much fun So if you've never had a chance, I urge you strongly to come to magic on and if I'm there once again Please don't be afraid. Everyone. It's really funny when people approach me I mean some people just say please sign something some people like I It's always like that. It's such an imposition for them to talk to me. I'm like no, I'm here. I'm here so you can talk to me And I won't bite. I'm very friendly. I will always sign stuff and take pictures and whatever. But anyway, that my friends is Magic Con 2024 in Las Vegas, all in a nutshell. It was great.

I had fun in all the things I did. Game Nights Live is literally one of my top 10 magic moments ever. It was super fun. So much so like I'm saying, I'm doing a whole other podcast on it. I really enjoyed how my talk went. I thought the panel went well. The unknown event went great. All my interviews hopefully turned out well. It was just fun meeting everybody. Oh, the one last thing that I enjoy, I didn't mention this before, one of my favorite things, one of my absolute positive favorite things about about Magic Cons is meeting the fans. I interact with the fans a lot online, but the nature of online media, I'm not saying there's not positivity, there's some, but there's a lot of negativity. But when you come to Magic Con, it's just almost pure positivity, just the number of

people that I got to meet that got to share with me why magic is special to them. What it's meant to them. Why it has changed their lives and helped them meet people or learn things. The stories vary from person to person, but it is just a fire hose of positivity. And as somebody who has to deal with a lot of negativity online, it is refreshing. My tanks get filled. And so that's why I make sure I go to, every year I go to two Magicons. I, I, I promised my wife I'd limit how much I would travel, but I go to two Magicons every year. And so, and then part of that is I really do enjoy meeting the fans and doing all the stuff. And it's a lot of fun. So with that said, I want to thank every single person I interacted with in Magic Con. You all made it an amazing time. I love talking to

everybody and interacting and that was super fun. So anyway, with that said, I am now at work. So you all know what that means. This is 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 next time. Bye-bye.