Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #498: The Move

Episode Date: January 5, 2018

The entire third floor was recently remodeled, which resulted in R&D being moved to a different section of the floor. This podcast is all about the move and the many pieces of Magic history I discovered while moving.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. And I dropped my daughter off at her college class. Okay, so today's topic is an interesting one. Today is all about the move. So R&D recently did a move. And we, so we're in the same building, same floor. So we're in the same building, same floor. We just moved from... Basically, we've had these sets of desks for a long, long, long time.

And so we moved, and not only did we move locations, but we got brand new desks. In fact, we redid the whole third floor, got redone. The kitchen got redone, new carpet, they're painting the walls, we got all new furniture. So like a total redo of the third floor. So I'm going to talk about the move today, and part of the cool things about the move as you'll learn is, in some ways this was an archaeological dig of magic, as I had to clean up my desk and work for the move. I found a lot of things of the past. So we'll talk about that.

But first, let me talk about exactly what, let me sort of set up how this move worked. So when I first got hired by Wizards of the Coast back in 1995, we were not in our current building. We were not in our last building. We were in the building before that. In fact, the way Wizards has worked, it started, it was just in Peter's basement at the time, Peter Atkinson's basement, one of the founders. Then we actually physically got a building

or a bunch of buildings were all connected. Then we moved to what's across the street from where we are now, and then we moved to where we are now. So when I first got to Wizards, we were in the old, old building, the initial building. I had come up, they brought me up to freelance a bunch of times, so I'd come up to the office.

Every time I'd come into the office, that was the office that I would visit. And when I first got hired at Wizards, they were in the process of moving, or they were about to move, but they hadn't moved yet. And so what they said to me was, well, Mark, we're about to move any day now. So we're not going to give you a desk. But, you know, here's your login. You can use anybody else's desk when they're not there. So you can log in and see your email and stuff. So I was a desk nomad, me and William Jockish. We were both desk nomads.

We didn't have a desk. Bill Rose, who started three weeks before me, got a desk because Joel had saved him a desk. I think he got the last desk. So I never officially had a desk, because Joel had saved him a desk. I think he got the last desk. So I never officially had a desk in the old, old building. And what happened was the move that was going to happen any day got pushed back a little bit.

So we were there, I don't know, six to eight weeks. It was about a month and a half to two months that I had no desk. And then eventually we moved to the new digs, which was across the streets from where we are now. And the funny thing is I got a desk, but I had no chair, no computer. I should have been more specific. I asked for a desk.

I also wanted the accoutrements that went with the desk. But anyway, I sat in that desk for many, many years. Oh, and that desk had a set of drawers and some cabinets that went under the desk. And so I had a lot of, and the desk itself was decently big. I had a lot of drawers and some cabinets that went under the desk. And so I had a lot of, and the desk itself was decently big. I had a lot of storage room. And I think the way it worked is we were in that building for 10 years. I technically moved once. What happened was they were redoing the pit. And so they had everybody get out but even though I had to get out, when we were done, my desk I think was a foot from where my desk had been. In fact, I had stuff hanging from the ceiling

and I didn't even move the stuff hanging from the ceiling because it was basically where my desk was. So like I moved but I moved like a foot. That was my only move in the old building and the desks themselves didn't change. And the cabinets didn't change. So even though I packed a few things up, I didn't pack everything up. So then, about 10 plus years ago, we moved to the, or over 10 years ago, we moved to the new building, the building we're currently in. And we had to move everything across the street. But as we were using the same furniture,

I kept my drawers and my cabinet. So all the stuff that's in there, I just locked it up and I kept it in there. They just moved the cabinet. So I didn't really have to clean those out. I had to clean my desk up, obviously. And then in the new building, I'd moved a couple times. I had three different desks, all of which were against the windows.

So I essentially had three desks kind of in a row against the windows as we sort of moved around. The way the pit normally works is you try to sit with the people that you work the most with. And as different things happen, we would move around a little bit and where the design people were would shift. But I'd always stay kind of, you know, with the designers. But anyway, so about four years ago, we were informed that we were going to have a move. We knew furniture and we were going to move.

And then nothing really came of that. And then I think like two years ago, we were informed, no, no, no, this time, this time we're really moving. And we picked seats and did all this work. And then nothing happened. And then a year ago, we said, okay, okay, this time, this time we're moving. And it didn't happen again. So this last time they told us we were moving, I was just skeptical.

You know what I'm saying? It's kind of like, you know, fool me once. I mean, it's so many times you cry wolf before I'm like, okay, there's no wolf. But at this time, it turns out that in fact we were moving. And I figured that out when they, what they did is they displaced all of Dungeon Dragons R&D and some of the people working on Duel Masters and stuff. And when they ripped out all their desks and they were displaced to the first floor for a while, we're like, oh, maybe this is... And then the kitchen, they shut down the kitchen for a while to redo the kitchen, which looks awesome now. I will take some pictures at some point so you guys can see all the new stuff. It looks really cool. But anyway,

so the new desks are brand new. They're adjustable so that you can sit at them, but you can raise them to stand at them. They're adjustable desks. Now, I'm not big on standing desks. I don't know how often I'll actually raise it and stand at it. But a lot of people like to do that. And I have the option if I ever want to,

if I ever somehow feel I'm sitting too much. So the big difference is there's a lot less storage space, a lot less storage space. For example, none of the drawers, none of the cabinets, I have, there's a little bit of space, I'm not saying there's zero space, there's a little bit of space, but it is limited. And so I'm finding that I'm taking a lot of stuff home. So part of this move really was me digging into the past and finding things, and as you will see, this was a true magic archaeological dig. I was going through, and I was going through 20

years worth of stuff. I was finding things that go all the way back to my first year working at Wizards. So, as you shall see, there's lots to be found. So that, today, the rest of today is talking about sort of all the things I found as I was moving. And just a little bit, I don't know, a little history of magic told through the lens

of Mark Cleans at his desk. Okay, so the first thing that I found, and these aren't in any particular order, I think. These are just the order I remembered that I wrote them down. Okay, first thing I found a bunch of, style guides. So one of the things that we do, and I've talked about this, I did a podcast on the creative. When we build worlds, we make a whole document that shows off that world. And I think the newer documents usually are digital. In the old, we always used to make them in paper, because we literally would make them

and ship them off to the artist. And as I ran a lot of sets, usually I was given one because usually the lead of any set, you know, if I'm designing something, they wanted me to have as much knowledge as possible. Now, the weird thing for a lot of my time is back in the old days when I was doing old school design, they would do the world building halfway through design. So I would start without, with very little material, but partway through they would do the world building halfway through design. So I would start with very little material, but partway through, they would do the world, and they'd start to make things, and like, oh, and then we'd start to get inspired by things they make

and start making cards for that and stuff. So one of the cool things was I found a lot of style guides. I found, and sometimes they were full style guides, sometimes they were partial pieces. they were full style guides. Sometimes they were partial pieces. Sometimes early on, when I'm doing early design,

I was doing early design, I would need to have material to work with. So sometimes they would put together a few sketches or they would, you know, they sometimes do a little bit of preliminary work and I'd have that. So I was going through and like, oh, the other neat thing about the style guides is they have the code name on the set on them,

not the final name. Because often when we were making the document, we didn't know the final name. So one of the fun things is to, you see it and then you're like, oh, what is it? And then you'd look through. Usually you'd quickly figure it out

by looking at the visuals. But it's always fun to look at the cover and go, oh, what is this? And then try to guess if you know exactly what it was. Now oftentimes the cover would give it away, but sometimes the cover would be a little more oblique and you're like, oh what is this? And then you open it up and you're like, oh okay it's that. Oh speaking of which, I also found a lot of playtest cards that had a similar issue. So playtest cards are things that are sticker cards. The way we playtest, or we used to playtest. We're actually changing that a little bit.

One of these days I'll talk about playtest technology, and I'll do a podcast on that. But anyway, for many, many years we would sticker cards. We'd print on stickers and sticker cards. And what I used to do is whenever I would run a set, I would save a sleeve of playtest cards. And usually they playtest cards from all over, all over the time period, like from the early playtest to the later playtest. The early playtests are the fun ones because, I mean, not only do they have a design name on them, but they're also like the Ross form of it. And sometimes there are cards that didn't make it. Sometimes there are cards that didn't make it. Sometimes there are cards that evolved. You know, sometimes

like, you might recognize the idea that it was, but it evolved along the way. But anyway, I have sleeves upon sleeves upon sleeves of playtest cards. Just remember, you know, sets gone by. That's one of the interesting things, by the way.

Anyway, not only do I have playtest cards, oh wait, let me finish this thought. Sorry, and now we have playtest cards. Oh, wait. Well, let me finish this thought. Sorry. Jumping around. The playtest cards would also have the code name on them, but it would have the three-letter code name. So the way we work is the cards have a spot for saying what set they are, and eventually it gets a real three-letter code name,

like Exelon's XLN, for example. But when we're working in design, we have the code name, like Exelon's XLN, for example. But when we're working in design, we have the code name, and so we make a three-letter code. Usually the rule is it's the first three letters of the code name unless somebody else has used that. For example, on Archery, we would use ARC, but Arch Enemy used ARC, so we couldn't use this. We had to be ARY, I think is our design

code name letters. But anyway, I would find a card and then, so for example, I find a card that says BAC on it. So I got to figure out what code name is BAC, which is bacon, and then figure out what set was bacon. Oh, bacon was original Mirrodin. Oh, this is original Mirrodin. Sometimes I can backward figure it out from the cards. Like, oh, oh, it has affinity. Oh, this is original Mirrodin. Sometimes I can backward figure it out from the cards. Like, oh, oh, oh, it has affinity. Okay, this must be Bacon. Or it must be, this must be Bacon, which must be Mirrodin. I also found old card files.

And the neat thing about old card files is that a lot of times there'd be notes on them. Because we'd go to meetings, we'd take notes. And a lot of times the stuff I would save is stuff where there were just there'd be notes on them, because we'd go to meetings, we'd take notes, and a lot of times the stuff I would save is stuff where there were just interesting notes and things on them. I mean, sometimes I saved them because I was just working on something and never got rid of it, and sometimes I saved them because I was purposely trying to save it. A lot of what I uncovered was stuff that kind of, like, I didn't throw away.

We recycle a lot of, I mean, we use a lot of paper, although over the time we've used less and less paper, but we, I mean, we use a lot of paper. Over the time, we've used less and less paper. But we have a shredder we use and it gets recycled. But anyway, I find a lot of different files. It's interesting going back

and looking at them. The other thing that, not only do I find files, also, I have to give a, this has changed too, but there's a long period of time where I would give a presentation

to Bill that people running the set would, okay, here's my set and here's what's going on. And you'd have a one sheet that would explain your set. And usually on the back, you'd have some cards mocked up to sort of show what the cards would look like. And I found some of those. And one of the fun things about some of the presentations is it's me kind of like selling the set at the point it was at. And so it's me sort of, you know, doing the sizzle version of trying to make the set sound, you know, like you're selling the set, right? So you're trying to make it sound as sexy as you can.

And it's fun seeing those. Once again, things change through design. Things change in development. And so it's interesting to see some of the sheets and watch them. Oh, the other thing I found is I found a lot of notepads, a lot of notepads, like 20 notepads. I would use the notepads to design cards. Nowadays, I do more designing at my desk on the computer, but back in the day, I used to wander around and I'd carry a little like pad with me and I'd write things down.

And I found all these pads of just different card ideas, just different notes for sets. Now, unlike the playtest cards or the style guides, there is nothing listing what set it was from. So I'd have to look at it and kind of go, oh, what am I talking about here? What is it I'm messing around with? And so sometimes I can figure it out real quickly. And sometimes, there's a few ones I still don't know what they are. I'm like, what is this? What was I playing with? And it might be a theme I was playing with that we didn't do. And so one of the problems I have is having worked for so long. At this point, as you guys are hearing this, I've already passed my 22nd anniversary. I've worked on

I mean, I've run over 20 sets and I've been passed my 22nd anniversary I've worked on I mean I've run over 20 sets and I've been on over probably 50 sets it blurs it's hard sometimes to remember like I remember things we did that ended up in the set but like we experimented with something and tried it for three weeks and didn't do it

which set was that? which set did we play around? now a lot of times I remember mechanics in my head. There's a lot of mechanics we tried that I liked that didn't work out for that set that I sort of keep track of, but I don't, like, where's the first time, you know, this mechanic happened? Now, if the mechanic was crucial

like energy, which was very fundamental to the set that got knocked out, I remember where it came from. But there's some other mechanics that I like a lot that I have no idea where it originally came from. I don't know, like, what set we first did it on. So it is, anyway, one of the interesting things was, as I'm digging through, I'm finding a lot of work of my work from old sets. Oh, and not just playtest cards, I'm also finding token cards. So one of the things we do in R&D is we have blink magic cards, which are magic cards, magic back, blink front. And we use those for making cards to playtest with. Sometimes we sticker. We often sticker for making whole decks. But sometimes you just kind of mock up a card or two.

You just write it on that. And so I have a bunch of playtest cards where I just wrote them. And then I have a bunch of playtest cards that are tokens. Usually for tokens, I'll draw a little picture on them. I mean, by draw, I'm drawing air quotes. Stick figures and things. And then I'll draw something. And, draw in air quotes, stick figures and things, and I'll draw something. And one of the fun things is

we experiment with tokens a lot, and so I find a lot of, like, oh, here's an Interstripe token that we didn't end up doing. I mean, some of them are just, it's another zombie or something, you know, Interstripe is my zombie token. But sometimes, there's some neat stuff. Like, I discovered

for milk, for example, there was a creature type, a creature token. We ended up not going that route, but I made a unique creature token that we didn't end up using. But I found that one, for example. Oh, the other thing I found, by the way. Hopefully I've shown this to you by now. When we were making Unstable,

when we were making the host and augment cards, that at the time was, I don't know if it was Suture or an add-on or something, we were making Host and Augment, we kind of got what we were going for, but we tried to describe them to people, and they're like, well, this is the front half, and this is a full creature, and people got confused. So Dan Emmons mocked up our very first version, which was Ninja Shark. So it was a shark card.

I think it was called Card Shark. I think it drew you a card when it entered the battlefield. And then there was a ninja that was an augment. And then we showed the augment card, we showed the host card, and then we showed them joined together. And it's the first time we'd ever done something. And the finished card is not that far away from how the cards essentially sort of looked once we were done.

I mean, a little different, but in the ballpark. So anyway, I'm hoping when I did my... I'm hoping when I do my unstable stuff that you guys should have seen by now, that you've seen Ninja Shark. That turns out, by the way, that Ninja and Shark are on the left side, so you can't actually make a Ninja Shark, but you can make Ninja things and Shark things. Just Ninja Shark didn't end up

being a host, it ended up being an augment. Okay, other things that I found. I found a lot of stuff of me making sets and, you know, a lot of a trip down memory lane. Oh, I remember making this set, you know, a lot of... I mean, a trip down memory lane. Oh, I remember making this set. I remember that set.

It's kind of like I have a lot of children, and I remember raising them all. Okay, next cool thing I found was I found Michael Locanto's deck list from the very first Pro Tour. So for those that don't know your Pro Tour history, Michael Locanto won the very first Pro Tour. So for those that don't know your Pro Tour history, Michael Acanto won the very first Pro Tour with a white-blue... I think it was a milling deck, I think?

It was a control deck. Anyway, he played Bertrand Lestray. He was playing a white-green Ermine Armageddon deck, I think. Ermine Djinn with Armageddon. Anyway, I found... Actually, I found not just hit deck lists. I found that we cut to a top 16 at PT1. And I found the 16 deck lists... I mean, actually, I found not just hit deck lists. I found that we cut to

a top 16 at PT1, and I found the 16 deck lists. And when I say the deck lists, I don't mean my copy of them. I mean literally the sheet of paper that they filled out. In fact, it's funny. On the paper, it says the Black Lotus Pro Tour, which was a name that we were thinking about, and I think we decided

not to use it, but I think we had printed the deck lists already. So we used the deckless of a deckless a black lotus on it although I that wasn't like the the New York one tape and stuff doesn't call it the black lotus pro tour but anyway I mean like I have written by them their actual physical deckless I found those and I also found the deck lists from 95 World, which actually is even earlier. So one of the funny things is when I first started working at the company freelance and then eventually full-time, there was a philosophy at the company at the time that we wanted Magic players to explore the environment. And we didn't want them just copying other people.

And so in the early days, we didn't tell you full deck lists so people couldn't copy the deck lists. So for example, when I covered 94 worlds and 95 worlds, I talked about deck lists in more abstract terms. And I would talk about certain cards when I was describing things that happened.

But I never gave a full deck list. But I saved the deck lists because I'm a pack rat. And later in the duel list, once that was no longer our policy, I actually printed both the 94 world. I printed Zach and Bertrand. Bertrand Lestrade was second in both the first Pro Tour and the first world championship. I posted both their deck lists.

And then I posted all, I think I posted, How many did I post from the... From 95 worlds, I posted at least the top two. I might have posted more than the top two. That's Alexander Blumke defeating Mark Hernandez in the finals. Alexander Blumke was from Switzerland. Mark Hernandez was from France. But anyway... So I found a lot of stuff like that,

which is just literal, like sort of remnants of the past. Um, I also found a lot of old product. Um, in fact, the most exciting thing I found is I found a sealed booster of revised. Um, uh, revised actually came out before I started working at wizards, but I don't know, somehow I got my hands on one and it went in my drawer. I mean, my drawer had a lot of old, old stuff. Um, in fact, a couple of years ago, I did a little bit of cleaning of it and I wrote an article about stuff I found in my drawer. Um, this is stuff that was like a deeper layer than that layer.

Um, and back then I found like a starter for, um, uh, Portal 3 Kingdoms. So this time, I found a booster for Revive. I found a bunch of 5th edition boosters. I found some starters for Tempest and Mirage. I found a whole bunch of booster packs. I found some alliances. Anyway, a lot of ancient stuff. I'm sure at some point I was working on something or I had boosters or they handed out boosters and I just threw them at my desk.

Oh, I also had a lot of promo cards. Because one of the things they do, one of the perks of working at Wizards is when we make promo cards, they'll leave copies of the promo cards on our desk. And usually what I did is I threw them in my drawer because my drawer would lock up. So I threw them in drawer, and when I accumulated enough cards, they would take them home, and so there were just lots of cards, and different promo cards, and

a lot of fun stuff, so and just different sometimes we do promotional things, like things that don't have a magic background or anything, but promotional things, I have copies of promotional things the starters, by the way,

I casually just mentioned starters. For a while, when you bought Magic, you could either buy 15-card boosters, like we have now, or a sealed box that we called a starter that had 60 cards in it, but had land in it. And the idea was you could just play it right out of it. It's all five colors. I mean, it wasn't,

didn't play beautifully, but you could play out of it. We called those starters. We stopped doing it. Also, what else did I find? I found, oh, so when I did Unglue 2, that's the unset that didn't get released, and I've done a couple articles about this called Unseen 1 and 2,

I had all the art at my desk because I needed to do work to sort of start putting the cards together and there back in the way we did the original unsets, the unstable works a little differently. We did a lot of individual card by card sort of creating the card sort of manually. We didn't quite do that in Unstable because we were doing a lot of other stuff in Unstable. But anyway, I had a stack of all the art from Unglue 2.

And so it was fun looking through it. One of the interesting things about Unglue 2 is that the set never got made. So some of the art got used later in Unhinged. Some of it got used on promo cards for Unhinged. Like, there were a bunch of cards like Mai's and Granny's Payback that were in Unglue 2 that I reused in Unhinged.

And then we ended up giving new art in Unhinged, but we used the old art for those for promo cards that we did. We made five promo cards and used art that we already had from Unglue 2 for the promo. There's a lot of really cool, fun art in there

and some of it I should figure out some place to use some of it. Some of it's really dated and some of it's kind of hard to use. Bob from Accounting and stuff. I don't know how to use stuff like that. But there is some art that's a little more I mean, not generic, but like could stand on its own

and I need to figure out maybe some place to use that. One of the fun things though is there's some art that got rejected for like different reasons. The one that I found that was interesting

was the original R&D Secret Lair. That was originally in Unglued and I put it in Unhinged. Had a picture of the five people who were working

in R&D at the time. Magic R&D was five people at the time that Unglued 2 was being made. So it was me, Bill Rose, Mike Elliott, William Jockish, and Henry Stern. And so I was showing this picture around, and the people in the pit could recognize me

and could recognize Bill, because obviously he and I both worked there. But the other three people haven't worked in R&D in ages. And so a few people were able to recognize other people for different means, but they weren't people that most people have ever met.

But it was fun seeing a lot of the old stuff and earlier versions of things and stuff. So I got to see that. Also, one of the neat things about working on Magic for a long time is there's a lot of giveaways. There's a lot of stuff we do. Like I found a couple old shirts. I exercise at work and so one of the things I do is I leave shirts at work just in case I need them.

And usually I don't need them, so I don't remember them. So I found a shirt or two that I tucked away for that. The one I remember is during Pharos, we had a t-shirt that if you like killed the Hydra, it was some promotion like I killed the Hydra shirt or something that shows shows like a hydra with x's in his eyes i have that um so that was kind of cool and then i have a lot of like weird knickknacks from the past like um for unhinge we'd made clings window clings and so the window clings uh the ad campaign was what kind of an ass are you okay unhinged was a little sophomoric. Unstable, not quite so

sophomoric. But there were window clings that showed a bit of donkey folk. One of the themes of Unhinged was donkeys, donkey folk, and it showed there's a cycle of fat ass and cheap ass and stuff. It showed them. Those are the wall clings.

I found there were magnets we gave away. We used to do something called the Junior Super Series, where we, it's like the Pro Trap for kids, and you won money for colleges. And we did that a couple years, three years in a row, I think. And we used to make these little magnets that were like magic word magnets,

that were like word poetry magnets except they were magic expressions. And so you could say magic things. I had those. I had some ceiling hangs from some sets that we did. We used to hang stuff from the ceiling. We're not allowed to hang stuff

from the ceiling anymore. So I had them. I always wanted to hang them from the ceiling. We're not allowed to hang stuff from the ceiling anymore. So, um, I had them. I was allowed to hang them from the ceiling. I also had, um, a stuffed version, a little like beanie of the dwarf of the seven dwarves, Doc of the seven dwarves. He used to be hanging from the ceiling.

And when people ask me why I was hanging from the ceiling, I go, what's up, Doc? I thought it was funny. Um, oh, oh, oh! Here's a question. You guys remember Randall? So, Randall is, stands for R&D Llama, and he lives in the ceiling because when we first moved in the building, we did something and chipped one of the ceilings, and so to sort of cover it up, we put a stuffed,

what I thought was a llama, I won't tell you in a second, and his head was sticking out. We call him Randall for R&D Llama. It turns out that Randall is not a llama. We dug him out so we can move him. It turns out there Randall is not a llama. We dug him out so we can move him. It turns out there's a new hole. This one was cut, not, like, there was an access hole or something. But anyway, we found a place to put him where his head could pop out.

So now Randall moved over to the new area. In fact, he now has his little paws sticking out. Turns out that Randall, I didn't know this, so we freed him, is not a llama. He's a camel. I didn't know this so we freed him is not a llama he's a camel he's a stuffed camel

I think from Luxor the hotel in in Las Vegas that has an Egyptian theme so it was it's a camel we just made an Egyptian set and didn't know he was a camel

so anyway we're not I mean he's still Randall he's always Randall to us he doesn't become like Randack or something he's Randall but he's not a llama

so that's one probably the big discovery of our move is that Randall, the R&D llama, is not a llama. I also found a lot of old playtest decks. One of the fun things about... So back in the day, if you go back, I used to be a developer before I became a designer. And even when I was a designer in the early days, R&D was small enough that I used to be a developer before I became a designer. And even when I was a designer in the early days, Arnie was small enough that I

used to do a lot of playtesting in the FFL just because there weren't enough people to do playtesting. As we got bigger, and I mean, playtesting was never my forte exactly, I moved away from that. I mean, I still do design playtests, but I don't do FFL stuff anymore. But I found some old decks from old

playtests, and the funny thing was they were decks mixed in with cards that were either stickers or cards written on stuff. And you can see old decks, and a lot of times there were decks in which, oh, the cards changed because I had played something and found something to be broken. But it was neat just finding

old, weird decks of stuff. And also, I have a whole stash of sideboards that I found. I guess I knew where they were, but I had a... I found a bunch of old books. I found a lot of magic encyclopedias. You guys remember those things? We used to put them in book form. And eventually we made...

Now we make the little things we put in the... What were the fat bags? The bundle we call now. And I have a lot of those. In fact, I have we used to make these bigger ones and then we ended up making them smaller. And I had all the bigger ones and the smaller ones and I had the books when they were the books.

So I have 8,000 different ways to show magic cards. I even have a book that I got in Germany that is like alpha through Onslaught or Mirrodin maybe it's like it was like 15 years of magic in a book a thick book uh you know I found it when I was in Essen it was really cool um I found a lot of old signs I found with some giant magic cards um I found the R&D sign. Oh, I found... When I was in... At the last Worlds held in Japan

was when Scars of Mirrodin was going on. And Richard Garfield and I did a giant magic where we played with giant magic cards. And he was... I was Phyrexian. He was Mirrodin. And even though there was much cheating going on on the other side,

not just by Richard, but by the judge team, there was just a lot of I managed to pull it out and win Frexium won the day and so as a memoir of that I kept a giant it's a Japanese poison token that was from that and I kept that as a little souvenir and they say giant the giant cards we have are like three feet tall by like two feet, two and a half feet. Anyway, I had that. So anyway, it was neat. There was so much. I mean, one of these days, maybe I'll take pictures and do an article.

There was so much sort of cool stuff just discovered there. I didn't even get through all of it. At some point, I found some stacks that I moved some of it that I still have to go through. So when I find some spare time, whenever that happens, I have to go through some of my stuff and start figuring out what all I have. But anyway, it was fun. The move was cool. I'm getting used to our new digs. I mean, other than the storage space, which is that the new desks are really nice. And we have these new areas. Because the desks are a little bit smaller, we have spaces. We have couches and tables to play in. We have more of a living space area that we can sort of spend.

And it's really nice. So I believe that part I will like a lot. But anyway, that, my friends, this is an odd topic, I know. But I'm coming up on 500 episodes. So I'm constantly trying to find new things to talk about. So if something happens to me, you guys get to hear about it. So we move, you get to hear about it. So, we move, you get to hear about it. So, anyway, that, my friends, is

R&D's move. I'm sure we'll have other moves, but this was a pretty dramatic move, and it's not often I dig out stuff from 20 years of magic. So, anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed today's tale. But, I'm now at work. So, we all know what that means. It 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 guys next time.