Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #441: Prereleases

Episode Date: June 2, 2017

This is a history podcast where I talk all about the history of Prereleases, from the first one for Ice Age to modern day.

I'm pulling up a driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today is a history day. We're going to talk all about the history of the pre-release. Okay, really quickly, I believe that most of my listeners, because you guys are diehard Magic players, probably know what a pre-release is, but just in case for the few they don't. So we have a tournament. The very first chance you have to play with Magic cards is what's an event called the pre-release. It's usually a week before the release of the event. And it gives you a chance to play with the cards for the very first time. And I'm going to talk today about sort of how this event came to be and different things

that had to do with it. And I'll walk you talk today about sort of how this event came to be and different things that had to do with it. And I'll walk you through all sorts of different facts about the history of the pre-release. Okay, so where did the pre-release start? Okay, so we have to go all the way back to 1995. So they were trying to figure out a way to promote Ice Age. So Ice Age was the second ever large expansion. So it was, you know, the company, so I'll give you a little history of where the company was at. So 1993, the game comes out. And remember, the game is just exploding when it first comes out.

And they're just expanding as fast as they can. And just like everything they print gets sold out. So eventually, you get to the point of Ice Age, which is a couple years in, so 93 is the game. It's 95, the summer of 95, and it's not that Magic's not doing really well. It is, but they're starting to get to the point

where, like, it's not just word of mouth that they should start doing some advertising. You know, it's time to start actually advertising the product. And so they were trying to figure out a way to promote Ice Age. And they came up with the idea of having a special tournament. A special tournament where people would play with Ice Age for the very first time. Now remember, at the time, the idea of a pre-release didn't exist. This is just like, what's a cool way to promote Ice Age?

So what they did is, there was this comic convention in Toronto. They ended up having the event there. So the comic on the bottom floor was the comics. And on the top floor, which there was like a balcony, you could see it, was the event, was the thing in Toronto. And anybody who wanted could come and play in it. And it was a special tournament. I actually got flown there by Wizards. I covered the event for the Duelists, which was our magazine.

And I played it. They asked me to play in the event because the point of view they wanted was from a participant. So I actually played in it. Interestingly, the way the event worked is that there was, it was a two-day event. And the top 32 from the first day advanced to the second day. And I made it to the top 32, but because they had flown me there,

I dropped out, and so number 33 got to go. Because no one felt it was correct for the person they flew there to to do well in the event. I had my experience playing in it. And it was a fun event, by the way. It was the only event I could ever remember that was played

for ante. So early Magic, you would, the way early Magic was played is you would put a card, you draw seven cards and flip up your eighth card, and then the winner of the game would get the loser's card. Magic, this is how Magic was played in the early days. Ante quickly, quickly went away. It was not particularly

popular. In fact, one of the most unpopular things the game ever did. But anyway, this event was played for Anti. And so what happened during the course of the time is you would go up and down cards, which would sort of change what you were playing. Sometimes, for example, you'd win something that was really amazing in another color, and you'd go, oh, I should be in that color now. Or maybe you'd lose something and go, oh, I don't have enough for this color. Maybe I have to change.

And so my combo was I had Xurn Orb, which was a broken card where you sack a land to get two life, and a card called Vixing Arcanics, where you made the opponent guess the top card of a library, and they lost two life if they guessed incorrectly. And so it was at a tournament where people didn't know the name of the cards. They were playing the cards for the first time. So anyway. So the cool thing about the event was because it was at a tournament where people didn't know the name of the cards. You know, they were playing the cards for the first time. So, anyway. So the cool thing about the event was, because it was a spectacle, what they did was they made a big production out of it.

And so armed guards carried in the boxes, like, chained up in boxes. And, you know, they unlocked the boxes. And, meanwhile, the audience is chanting, Ice Age! Ice Age! Ice Age! Anyway, it's a very cool event. It was a fun event. If you want to hear more about it, I've had podcasts where I go more and more in detail. So if you want to hear all about how I met Caleb, Caitlin, and all the weird things like that, you can listen to that podcast.

But anyway, we did it. It was a huge success. Dave Humphries, by the way. Dave Humphries now, he's a Hall of Fame member. You know, long-term Time Pro player. He now works with me. He's a developer. He won that event.

So, you know, that's the first place I ever actually learned of Dave Humphries was that event. Anyway, so, okay, we did that event. It was very successful. People liked it. It was kind of cool. So the next set we put out was Homelands.

And so we were tasked with trying to come up with a cool way to do Homelands. So there was an event called The Gathering. I also did a podcast on The Gathering if you want to hear the full-blown version of The Gathering, which was a crazy event. But as part of that event, we once again did a pre-release. So it was a chance to, for the very first time, ever play with the cards. And so we had a pre-release. So it was a chance to, for the very first time, ever play with the cards. And so we had a pre-release.

That one had a little less fanfare. We spent a lot more energy in other aspects to promote it. Like, at Ice Age, the event was the pre-release. But at the Gathering, there's many things going on. And, like, even, for example, the reporters, I don't even think, like, we had the pre-release on a different floor. But the reporters were on, like, the top floor on that the reporters, I don't even think, like, we had the pre-release on a different floor. But the reporters were on, like, the top floor on that.

I was actually on the top floor. I have no idea where the pre-release was. I know it wasn't on the top floor. But once again, we had a, it was a big deal. We had a pre-release. I mean, a singular pre-release. Like, hey, the one place to play this before it comes out is be in New York for the gathering. Okay, so the next event after that was Alliances.

I think for Alliances what we did is we had more than one pre-release. I think we had two. The one I remember was it was Pro Tour Los Angeles on the boat on Queen Mary. We were on the Queen Mary a bunch of times. And I think on Sunday was the pre-release. Saturday or Sunday. But anyway, during the Pro Tour, the pre-release happened I think on Sunday was the pre-release? Saturday or Sunday. But anyway, during the Pro Tour, the pre-release happened.

You could play in the pre-release. That was a special thing. I think there might have been one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast, if my memory's correct. So we sort of branched out a little bit and said, oh, okay, we'll make it a little easier for people to come to this. But we still had a special one of,

or two of, event that you came to. Then the next set was Mirage. So Mirage, we did another big spectacle thing. We started the Pro Tour earlier that year, in 1995. And, oh, I'm sorry, Ice Age came out not in 95. Was it right? Ice Age came out... No, no, Ice Age came out in 95. 96. The Pro Tour started in 96.

So it's now the fall of 1996, and we decide to have a pre-release Pro Tour. So Pro Tour Atlanta was... So the players came, they opened up their packs, they'd never seen the cards before, but the difference is now it was a Pro Tour with money on the line and prestige on the line.

And it was funny because the previous set, Ice Age, was not the strongest limited format. I've talked about this before. It really, really was not made for limited, even though obviously the pre-release was a limited event. So we had spent a lot more time and energy in Mirage, making it friendlier for limited play. In fact, Mirage was the first set we really, really, it was designed with limited play somewhat, but it was heavily developed with limited play. And so it was fun watching people open up their cards and sort of discover for the first time, like,

it seemed like you had, the thing about, if you played a lot of Ice Age, when you played Mirage, you just felt like, oh my god, I got an amazing set of packs, because in Ice Age, that would have been an amazing set of packs, but in Mirage, it was normal. But anyway, so the event, the event had the reputation of being a little luck-based, because the winner of the event, a guy named Frank Adler from Germany, really, that was his one claim to fame, he won that event. But it turns out, if you actually look a little deeper than that, at a top eight, six of the top eight went on to make another top eight.

Darwin Castle came in second, obviously, pro to Hall of Fame. Mike Long, Chris Bakula, Matt Vianu, Terry Boer. These were names of people that would go on to do other cool things. These were pros that, when you talk about top eights that like, oh, one of the metrics we look at top eights is if you kind of, all the top eights of people who are in that top eight, like, okay, the people who have been in the top eight, the number of top eights they were in, that's, I mean, it's not near the top. There's a few that are crazy, but that is impressive.

The fact that six of the eight would go on to make yet another Pro Tour. And some of them, you know, Darwin had five Pro Tour top eights. Bakula had three, Long had four. You know, we're talking about people that had mini Pro Tour top eights. That event also, by the way, is the one where Terry Boer, while playing Darwin Castle, do you know that? Well, real quickly. by the way, is the one where Terry Boer, while playing Darwin Castle, do you know that?

Well, real quickly. There had been at that event a team event, and a guy named Mark Chalice had fooled Terry Boer with a trick where he said, do you have any fast effects to sort of test him? Terry misunderstood how the trick worked, did it against

Darwin, but did it at the wrong time. Effectively, he gave up his... He had the win in his hand, but by asking the question and Darwin saying no, Terry gave up the window by which he could do it and ended up not winning that turn and not winning that game and not winning that match. And because of that, foregoed

winning the Pro Player of the Year. Some have said that's the most costly mistake ever on the Pro Tour. There's other costly mistakes, I guess. Okay, so for Mirage, by the way, so we did a big, so the first kind of pre-release was at the Pro Tour. But we decided that we liked what the pre-release was, and we wanted to branch off a little bit and make it something that wasn't just a one-time special event, but was more open to people.

make it something that wasn't just a one-time special event, but was more open to people. So for Mirage, my memory is we had 50 pre-releases, most of which were in the... the majority of which were in North America, were in the U.S. or Canada. And what happened was they asked everybody where they wanted to go. I said that I wanted to go to Alaska. I'd been to Alaska. I thought it would be exciting.

And the last minute I got switched to Toronto. Not that Toronto isn't cool. I just had been to Toronto before. Because there was some, they were worried about the event. And I had some experience running events. So they sent me to Toronto. I had a great time in Toronto. I met Hall of Famer Gary Wise for the first time.

I had been to Toronto as a kid. But I guess it was the first time I was in Toronto for Magic, and so I got to see some stores and stuff. It was fine. I had a good time. But anyway, so Mirage was the first general pre-release in which we tried to have pre-releases. And the way the pre-releases worked back then was they were regionally based, that any one region, and usually that was a bigger city,

would have a singular pre-release. So, for example, in Seattle, you know, for a long time our pre-release was run by a guy named Tim Shields. It usually was at the Seattle Center. And it was hundreds of people. And for quite a while, I will get there.

They change over time. But so, the pre-releases early on were regional, and each time we sort of expanded a little bit. Like I said, we had about 50 pre-releases with Mirage, and then we would keep expanding upon that. Okay, so the next big sort of innovation of the pre-release happened during Tempest, which is a year later. Now that it was a thing, we decided we wanted to put a little more pomp and circumstance. So we decided to have a pre-release card. So the idea was this was something you got only if you attended the

pre-release. Now, it wasn't something we, the idea wasn't, it was, we had long ago learned the idea of a truly unique, like a mechanically unique card was a problem. So what we did was, it was a special version. Early on, I think we just stamped the date on it. That was the first version we did. We just stamped the date. And so, like, it was, the idea was if something you would find in the set, usually it was a rare at the time. And, like, the first one was D Dirt Call Worm for Tempest.

I don't know why we chose... I mean, it was rare. We thought it was exciting. It was a big, you know, Worms are Dragon-ish things. It didn't have anything to do with the set, per se. I think as time goes on, we will start getting more integrated into the set. But if you look

at the early, like, Tempest had Dirt Call Worm, Stronghold had Revenant, Exodus had Monstrous Hound. They're just pretty generic, just cool cards from the set we thought people would like. One of the things we decided early on was to make the pre-release cards creatures,

because what we learned was, or what we thought was, that we wanted something that had a little more presence, stayed on the board, that some people could get excited about, they could put it in their decks, and that they could sort of, I don't know, we thought that it had a little more presence as a creature. I think we would occasionally give away, I think it's a few examples later on, like of artifacts

and things, but we usually made it something that had more presence to it. Then, with time, what started happening was we started saying, oh, well, not only should we just give away a previous card, but we should make it a little more iconic of what the set is. And so we started sort of picking things that we thought was more symbolic of the set. Like Dirk Hall Worm has nothing particularly to do with Tempest per se. It doesn't use the mechanics of it. It doesn't have any sort of theme of it. It's pretty

generic. So we started sort of moving closer to doing things that at least thematically match. Like Urza Saga had Lightning Dragon, which I think had Echo, which at least was a mechanic in the set. And then we started trying to make them a little more fancier.

So in Invasion Raving Kabu was our card, it was a gold card because it was a gold set and we printed it in Latin so the idea was, it was something unique in that you could get Raging Kabu in the set obviously, but not in Latin

and then for a little while we did languages, Questing Feldergriff I think in Greek Fungal Shambler, I believe it was in Arabic. For Odyssey, we did Stone Tongue Basilisk in Swahili. For Torment, we did Laquatus' Champion in Russian. And for Judgment, we did Glory in Hebrew. And as you can see, we're starting to sort of use the mechanics of the set, that we're starting to get cards that are more endemic of the set, you know, try to capture what the set was about.

We then started messing around with doing alt art, which we tried a lot of different things over the years. Alternate art was very popular. And then eventually what happened was we got to boxes. I mean, I'll get up to there. I haven't got there yet. But when I get to the boxes, I'll then talk about how that changed the pre-release cards. I'll get there.

I will get there. Okay. Next thing we did is we, what did we order? I think the next thing we did is we started doing what's called achievement cards. So I did a pre-release for Unglued. Once again, this was a one-off pre-release at Gen Con. So this is back in 1996. Um, so once again, think about it.

We had started doing regular pre-release. We started doing regular pre-releases at that point. But Unglued was a supplemental set. It wasn't a normal set. So we did one giant... I mean, it was all weekend long. So you could play... There were a bunch of tournaments.

So it wasn't a singular tournament. So it was sort of a pre-release series. There were flights to play in. And Unglued was fun. So I was trying to figure out a way to make it... Because the idea was that it wasn't just about winning. It was about having a good time. So what we did is I had a system by which if you won a match,

you got a ticket for a raffle. But also I had a whole list of things you could do to win tickets. So really to be successful, winning was a way to sort of get prizes or potential for prizes. But just plucking like a chicken or, you know, doing certain, setting up certain kinds of things would enable you to earn tickets. So the idea was everybody earned tickets because everybody was encouraged to have fun and do goofy things. And I was very, if I saw fun things happening, I would give tickets away. So years later, we were trying to figure out ways to sort of add value,

so we created what's called an achievement card, and the idea of an achievement card was, here are things you can do that are thematically rated to the tournament, to the pre-release, that are just fun. There was no prize associated with it, other than just kind of, hey, here's a task. You're a gamer, you know, opt Opt in. Do you want to do this? You can do it. I think Commander, the original Commander. We now call it Commander 2011 because Commander became a regular thing. But back in the day, it was just Commander because it was the only one. That was the

first set to have an achievement card. And it just added some other layers of things you could do. It also was us starting to think about thematically affecting the pre-release and trying to make the pre-release sort of connect into the theme of the set. Okay, so the next big thing that changed was for a long time, pre-releases were regionally based, right? Like I said, I would go to Seattle Center and there would be a giant event. We started adapting sort of how that, we started trying to make things more beginner friendly because what we learned was pre-releases became the event, the most common event for new players to come to and the most common event for a, someone who had never had never come to OP before to come to. So we

started doing things, we started adding elements where you could play with pre-constructed decks, we started adding a two-headed giant so that you could play with a friend that already knew how to play. And we started layering things like that in. But then the next big thing we did was we started doing our data. And what we realized was that the pre-releases weren't great if you happen to live in a region where you could go to one. And so we revamped what we did. This was really controversial at the time. We moved the pre-releases from being a regional thing

to being a store thing and by doing that, we allowed pre-releases to get to a lot more places. In fact, in just the, I think within one year, we had doubled the number of people attending pre-releases and I think by a year or two later, we had tripled or quadrupled it.

Going to stores allowed so many more people access to a pre-release. Because even people, by the way, who lived in the city, if you couldn't get to Seattle Center, which is downtown, you might even live in Seattle and live in a region that had one, but not be able to get there. And so by moving it to your local store, we greatly improved people's ability to get there. It changed what the event was, it made it smaller, but it made it kind of more personal, and it let the store owner really sort of jump in and have some fun with it.

And we've done a lot of things working with the store owner to try to figure out how to make the things more fun. So the next big innovation came during Meriden Besiege, which was the second set in Scars of Mirrodin. So what happened was the story in Scars of Mirrodin is we come back to Mirrodin, we're returning to Mirrodin, and we discover that the Phyrexians have gotten a toehold. There have been a few, I mean, actually in the original Mirrodin, we had dropped a few tiny hints that was true. But you come back and like 20% of the cards have a Phyrexian watermark. That the Phyrexians, although not yet discovered by the Mirrons,

have firmly taken hold. They are invading. So the middle set, Mirrodin Besiege, was a giant war. And then the final set, you didn't know the name of the final set. It was either going to be New Phyrexia or Mirrodin Pure. New Phyrexia, the Phyrexians won. Mirrodin Pure, the Mirrens won. And we didn't tell you.

People actually purchased the product and stole it. I mean, stores purchased the product but were not knowing the name of the set. And the idea was there was a giant war. Mirrodin Besie there was a giant war. Mirrored in Procedure was a giant war. So we came up with this neat idea of what if you got to choose a side when you came to the pre-release. And so what we did is we divided the set in half. Half the set had mirrored watermarks, half had friction watermarks. The sole exception was the Planeswalkers. The Planeswalkers didn't have a watermark. But other than that, every single car had either a Mirrodin watermark or a Phyrexian watermark. And it was half

the set for each. And then we divvied up the sets and made special booster packs for the pre- release in which you could choose your side. You could choose to be on the Phyrexian side or choose to be on the Mirin side. Now, we were nervous at the time. We ended up setting a little extra to the stores just in case because we didn't want people to run out of one side. Turned out it was pretty evenly matched. I think the data was something like 52% picked Phyrexian and 48% picked Pygmyran. So anyway, and that was us really realizing that we could have more themes to our pro tours.

So then the next one that, I mean, we started doing more to add a little bit of flavor, encourage stores to do stuff. Then at Dirk Ascension, which is a year later, the second set in the Innistrad block, we had a little game we played. We gave stickers to the store owners and the way it worked was we realized that if a vampire bites somebody, they become a vampire. If a werewolf bites somebody,

they become a werewolf. If a zombie bites someone, they become a zombie. If a spirit kills you, you become a spirit. Okay, that one was a little bit, but so the idea was a certain number of people were designated as either a vampire, a were a spirit. Okay, that one was a little easier. So the idea was, a certain number of people were designated as either a vampire, a werewolf, a zombie, or a spirit. And they got a little sticker.

And then, anybody they played, if they beat them, they turned them into whatever monster they were. And then at the end of the tournament, four rounds, if you either had started as a monster, or if you had lasted as a human,

if you didn't become a monster, you got a prize. And it wasn't a giant game. It was a little game. So the next set, Avacyn Restored, we tried something a little bit bigger. So in the story,

the flavor of the story was Avacyn, this angel who had been protecting the land, had been trapped in this place called the Hell Vault, which was this weirdly shaped monument. And what we did is we made the monument out of cardboard, a big version

of it, and sent it to every store. And inside it was goodies. And so what happened was you, as you, the store, played, you as a team, as the whole store, would slowly earn and open up the Hell Vault. And then there were prizes inside. It was very interesting. Some people loved it.

Some people were... They were grumpy about what they got inside. And we had done this thing where we randomized it so some stores got special different prizes inside and people didn't like that. So anyway, it was... It was interesting. I mean, a lot of people went to it.

It had some controversy to it. So the next release was Return to Ravnica, and we were back in Ravnica, and we had guilds. So we did something new. We introduced what we called pre-release boxes. And the idea was you could choose one of five choices, the five guilds. So Return to Ravnica had five guilds, Gatecrash had five guilds, both worked the same. And then you could pick your box. The cool thing about it was it was really flavorful. It was like, oh, what's my favorite guild? I could pick it. And then what we did was one of the boosters was sort of specially pre-made.

We gave you cards to allow you to make sure you had a leg up to play the guild you wanted to play. So if you picked, let's say, you picked Izzet. Well, then one of your booster packs was a specially made card, a pack that had just Izzet cards in it and gave you an Izzet land, you know, blue red land and gave you gold cards and gave you things that help you play Izzet and it gave you a special pre-release that was an Izzet pre-release. Now previously to this, the pre-release card wasn't something you were allowed to play with because everybody got the same card, we didn't want it to warp the environment. But now that people could pick a card that's more what we wanted them to play,

we let them play it in their thing. And so the pre-release boxes were a huge hit, so much so on our side that we kept them as a thing. One of the things we're always looking for is trying to make it easier for the people running the tournament. There's a lot of value of moving it to the local store, but one of the downsides is that the people running it,

we're asking people to run tournaments that aren't necessarily, I mean, these people run Friday Night Magic, but there's a limit of expertise of how good they are at running events, and so we want to help them. We want to make sure that it's not too complex for them. And plus, a lot of times it's one or two people running an event with lots of people,

and so we want to give them a hands up. Turns out the pre-release box made things a lot easier. Just give them this box. Everybody gets a box. Now, Ravnica Return to Ravnica is a little bit more complex, so they had a choose-a-box, but people really liked it. The downside of choose-a-box, well, I'll get to the downside of choose-a-box. But people really liked it. The downside of choose-a-box... Oh, I'll get to the downside of choose-a-box. So, we did

that, and then for Dragon's Maze, we did this thing where you could see the guilds on each side of the box, so you got to pick one guild, and then you flipped it over, and then you essentially picked two guilds that connected. So, if you picked Boros on the front, it was one of the guilds from...

Which side? Which one was Boros? Boros was in Gatecrash. So you got one of the Return to Ravnica guilds that also had either white or red in it. Then for Theros, we continued to do Choose a Box. We did Pick Your Path. There was Monocower. It was one of each Monocower. And each one represented something. You could pick that. And we did a giant sort of Journey of the Hero thing where all year long you had a card and you could go to events and get it all stamped off and you finished it, then you

earned something. And we also did a thing at the event where there was a special side thing. I think it was fight the Minotaurs at Theros. Fight the Hydra at Theros. Fight the Horde of Minotaurs at... Born of the Gods. And then fight the... Was it fight Xenagos? I think it was fight Xenagos or fight a god at Journey into Nyx.

And we learned a bunch of things from that. Later that year, 2015 in the summer, we had a thing where it was all about Garruk. So we gave you a of things from that. Later that year, 2015, in the summer, we had a thing where it was all about Garak, so we gave you a special Garak card, and you could fight Garak. And then Khan's Atark here, we let you choose your Khan, and then I know in Dragon's Atark here,

there's a special dragon game where we gave you dice, and you threw dice, representing dragon's breath, and it knocked down things. And then we started getting feedback. We experimented with kind of doing more things at pre-releases. And we started experimenting with extra games.

So we got a bunch of feedback both on the deck box, choose your own deck boxes, and the extra games. Players liked the choose your own decks box when it came to something like Khan'sa Tarqiyr or Ravnica where it made sense that you were choosing something. You know, because, hey, I do want to play this clan or that guild. It was kind of weird at Theros and it was a little bit pushed and players didn't like that. The other problem we had with Choose Your Own was because they were different pre-release cards, people would try to figure out what was the best thing,

and they would look at the cards from the set, and players who were good at this would write articles about, if you want to win, this is the guild to choose or the clan to choose. So what started happening is people would run out of certain boxes at pre-release events, and people were becoming unhappy. And so we decided to move back to a singular box. We are open to the idea of choose your own

on a set where it really makes sense. It's not that we've written that off, but that's no longer the default. Default is the singular box. And what we found about the side games is we got a lot of feedback from the tournament organizers, from the people,

sorry, from the store owners, that it was just proving to be too hard to both run a pre-release, which is pretty complex, and run these side things. And although there were players that adored the little side games, we decided to pull back a little bit. Part of what we're trying to do is make an awesome experience, and so we want to work with the store owners that are running events to do so.

What we have done is we've tried to weave in the sort of activities more into what's going on. Sometimes it'll involve either the pre-release itself or it'll be things that can be self-run. For example, in Shadows over Innistrad, there's a little puzzle inside your box. In Kaladesh, we gave you a little thopter that you could build in your own time. So their idea were things that were a little enhanced and gave you something to do, but wasn't something the store owner had to run because that was proving problematic.

The pre-release card, by the way, so what we started to do was we went from having a singular pre-release card to having a group of pre-release cards. So if you picked a certain clan at cons, you weren't guaranteed a specific card, but you were guaranteed a card that fell within your clan.

Then what we realized, once we did singular boxes, and we didn't have the themes to pick, we ended up going with a system now where any rare mythic rare, you can get any rare mythic rare, it's premium, it's stamped, it's a special privilege card, but now we've opened up, there's lots of pre-release cards.

And we've made it for people who collect pre-release cards, we created a new collecting challenge for you. But now, you can still play with the pre-release card because people like playing with the pre-release card. But it has now opened up. We went through a lot

of iterations of how to do pre-release cards. One of the themes you'll see that runs through this whole thing is that we will try something, the audience will say what they think, and we keep adapting and keep playing. And like I said, we're not done with pre-releases.

We're still trying to do different stuff. For example, Amonkhet is out now. The Trials. We're definitely trying to... Now, that isn't just a pre-release. The Trials extend more than just that. Kind of like with Theros. We're experimenting with themes that run

not just for the pre-release, but through the entire campaign of something. But there was a puzzle at the pre-release. There was things to do at the pre-release that were tied to it. Our big thing right now is just we want to make sure that whatever's happening at the pre-release,

that the focus is on the pre-release. One of the notes we definitely got as we were drawing focus away was people wanted to focus on the pre-release. And so that is what we're doing. And when we get extra value and do extra cool things. You'll notice that the boxes we've really had a lot of fun trying to customize the boxes and make them really flavor to what the set is. You just need to look at the boxes at the some of the recent pre-releases to say wow we really you

know the boxes are taking on a whole new life and having a really enriching the flavor. The other thing we did Return to Ravnig to start of this is when you got Return to Ravnig you open up your box and we gave you like a sticker and I think a die and there's a letter from your guild leader. We are also looking for chances in the box to put cool things in there that are flavorful, that sort of help reinforce things. You know, that we're always trying to make,

to improve upon the experience. Are there more things to do? Well, let me admit this. I'm not too far from Rachel. One of the things that I want is I always want to create open dialogue. So I'm trying to tell you the history of things we have done. But part of that comes with it.

Where are we going? What can we continue to do? We are always talking about ways to improve pre-releases. In fact, we've had some conversations recently about some very radical things that we might to improve pre-releases. In fact, we've had some conversations recently about some very radical things that we might do with pre-releases because we always want to kind of up our game and do cool and new things. And so we are always talking.

We're always pushing the envelope. And that, you know, I think back. I've been to a lot of pre-releases. I've been to a lot of pre-releases. Both, we always have employee pre-releases that are usually a day or two before you guys have your pre-release. And we always, whatever you guys are doing, we try to recreate it. And then I always make, I've been doing this a long year, so I don't have every pre-release, but I try to do a lot of pre-releases.

I like to go and watch people play in pre-releases. I love to talk to people. I love first impressions of the set. So I love to see people play. I love first impressions of the set. So I love to see people play. I love to see their experience building sets. I mean, building their deck. I love watching them play and then talking to them. There's a lot of just really good information you

get off people when they play for the first time. I read online a lot of first impressions when you see it, but that's just a different animal than first impressions when you play it. It's also the reason why I ask questions on social media all the time. I want to know what you think when you actually got it in your hands and played it. But anyway, I've gone to a lot of pre-releases.

You know, I've gone from the, you know, I was at the very first pre-release ever in Ice Age. I was at The Gathering. I was at Alliances. I was at the Pro Tour. I, you know, and I visited a lot of pre-releases. Somewhere around the country, a lot of times we, of pre-releases, um, somewhere around the country. I've, I've, a lot of times we will tie pre-releases into different events. So I've, I've been to pre-releases, not just here in Seattle. I've obviously been to a lot in Seattle.

Uh, but I've been in, you know, around the country. I've even been, I think, in pre-releases too in other countries. So, um, it is, it is a cool thing. And as it has become something really big in magic. Um, it's funny that when we started it has become something really big in Magic. It's funny that when we started, like, it really was this gimmicky promotional thing. And it's now become, like, kind of a,

like, the staple of organized play. Like, Magic, organized play is a huge part about a Magic. And it has become the cornerstone. Like, things are built around it. You know, we learn. We've learned how much it means to people. So, my one plea before we end today is if you've never been

to a pre-release, please, please, please go to a pre-release. They're a lot of fun. If you have been to a pre-release, which is the majority of people listening to me,

if you've never taken someone to a pre-release that's never been before, that is my, I'm giving you homework. See, you listen to my podcast, you get homework. Next pre-release,

or a pre-release, find someone that's never been to a pre-release. The play's magic. Find someone, you get homework. Next pre-release, or a pre-release, find someone that's never been to a pre-release. It plays magic. Find someone that's never been to a pre-release and take them to a pre-release. It is a lot of fun. I love watching people experience pre-releases for the first time. It's a really cool experience. And if they need to, there's ways to play with pre-constructed decks or a two-headed

giant. There's formats that we do to make it a little easier if they're a little newer to it. If building a sealed deck, for example, is intimidating to them. But what I say is take them. Take them to a pre-release. Pre-releases are a whole lot of fun. And anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed. I hope you guys I like doing this history podcast

from time to time so you guys could get a glimpse into some aspect of magic. So today was all about the pre-release. So anyway, I'm now driving into Rachel's school. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.