Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #506: Game Knights

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

I had the opportunity to appear on Game Knights with Jimmy Wong and Josh Lee Kwai. The three of us and Gavin Verhey drafted Unstable before its release so we could show off how fun it was. This podcast is all about my trip down to Los Angeles to shoot the episode.

I'm pulling out my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk all about game nights. So for those that have no idea what I'm talking about, so there are two men, Jimmy Wong and Josh Lee Kwai, who make, well, they started by doing a, they have the Command Zone podcast, which you can see on YouTube. And they're all about Commander and doing all sorts of Commander stuff. But anyway, they started doing a show called Game Nights, where usually four people play. It's usually Commander. But they made a special exception for Unstable.

So I got a chance. I was invited down. I'll tell the story of how this all happened. But I was invited down to do an episode and we did an Unstable episode. Now some of you

might have seen this already. For those that haven't seen it, go look it up. Game Nights. I don't know the title, but Game Nights Unstable. I'm sure it'll show up. And you can see a really fun,

I'm not quite sure how long. I just recorded it last week. So I don't know. I haven't seen the finished version because it's not done yet. My guess is about an hour, my guess. We play two sets

of games, but concurrently. So four games get played. I'm not quite sure how long that'll take to show. Anyway, it's a real fun thing. I'm going to talk all about it today. If you haven't seen it after you listen to this podcast, go watch it. It was a lot of fun to shoot, and I believe it's going to be a lot of fun to watch. So anyway, tonight, today, tonight, it's in the morning.

Today is all about game nights. Okay, so first let me talk a little bit about Jimmy Wong. So I first met Jimmy when I was doing something called Access Magic. I think it was for Eldritch Moon, we do different promotional things with different sets. And so we had this idea of, this thing called Access Magic was kind of a sit-down show, kind of inspired by other sort of sit-down stuff.

And the idea was we'd have a host, and then there's different segments. And in my segment, I talked all about ironically, I talked about the story. I didn't really talk about mechanics, which is an odd one. But anyway, I talked a lot about the story and Jimmy was the host. I had heard of

Jimmy. I knew of Jimmy, but I had not met him. And so that's the first time I met Jimmy. If you haven't seen the little, you can put Access Magic, Eldritch Moon, there's a couple of them, but the one with me in it is the one that I'm talking about, although all of them are fun to watch. And then we also, Jimmy

and I shot a little promo for it, which is the only time I think in my magic career I've been bleeped. So anyway, I met Jimmy there, and Jimmy was awesome. Like I said, Jimmy's background is, he's kind of an internet celebrity.

He played, I went to TED on video game high school. And I know he did a bunch of other things. So he is somebody that is on YouTube and does stuff like that. He also has done some stuff, I don't know,

Disney XD. Anyway, he is a performer and a Magic that. He also has done some stuff, I don't know, Disney XD. Anyway, he is a performer and a Magic fan. So he loves Magic and he and Jimmy, he's Jimmy, he and Josh, Josh Lequai, both play Commander together and have a lot of fun. They work

together and they started making the Command Zone, the podcast, as a thing they do. And then recently they started making the Command Zone, the podcast, as a thing they do. And then recently they started making Game Nights, which I think the way the format works is there's always four people. I think normally they're playing one big game. I'll explain that we did a little bit different. And anyway, there's lots of special effects,

and Josh is an editor extraordinaire, so he does all his magic on magic and makes it extra fun to watch. Okay so I got to know Jimmy, I first met Jimmy when I did the Eldritch Moon Access Magic. I then met Jimmy a couple other times. He and I met up at VidCon and we met up at San Diego Comic-Con and then the next time I worked with him was for Kaladesh at PAX, at Penny Arcade Expo.

We took over the Paramount Theater and we had a bunch of things that we did, but we had one big show where we were introducing all the cool new things about Kaladesh. And the way it worked was Jimmy was the host and different people would come out and talk.

This time I actually got to talk about mechanics. So I got to introduce energy to the world and vehicles, all the mechanical goodness in Kaladesh. Anyway, that went really well as well. And so Jimmy is definitely somebody who we had a really good working relationship with. And he knows magic. He's a good performer. And so we use him from time to time. So anyway, this last summer,

remember I did a podcast about my daughter, Rachel and I went down to California. We drove around, looked at colleges and we went to VidCon for the second year.

So we went out to dinner one night with Jimmy, Rachel, Jimmy and I went out to dinner and Jimmy said, I have an idea for you. You know,

we started doing the show called Game Nights. We would like to do an episode about Unstable. Would you like to do that? So for those that don't know, when my twins were, Adam and Sarah are the twins, back in 2004,

I used to travel. So basically what happened was, before I met my wife, back in the early days, I used to travel a lot. I mean, everywhere, all the time. The first summer I was at Wizards, I think I was in the office three weeks of the whole summer. I used to go to everything, go everywhere. It's like, go to Dragon Con, sure. Gen Con, sure. Origins, sure. Korean Nationals, sure.

Japanese Grand Prix, absolutely. I was just going all over the place. And then Laura and I started dating. And so I still traveled a decent amount, but I stopped traveling quite as much. And then when my first baby was born, when Rachel was born, I cut back my travel to just the pro tours.

So there were like four or five pro tours a year. So basically, I think I did the pro tours and the Invitational. That was the thing I went to. Invitational still existed back then. And then, when Adam and Sarah were born, I quit going to the Pro Tour, and the deal I struck with Laura, I mean,

this was the right thing to do, wasn't it? Was it like, was we decided that I would only travel twice a year. Because I wanted to be around for my family, and so I still travel a little tiny bit, but I only do twice a year. Normally I go to be around for my family, and so I still travel a little tiny bit, but I only do twice a year. Normally I go to Xandia Comic Con, and then the other one will float sometimes to Pro Tour,

or World Championship, or this year I went to HazCon, different things. But, one of the things that Laura is well aware of is how much the unsets mean to me. And so, I sort of said, just for this,

you know, could I do a little bit of extra traveling? So, this was basically an extended day trip. I was gone for a day. So, basically what happened is I woke up early in the morning, early, like 4.30. So, Gavin Verhey and I went down together. Gavin was on the show with me.

And we left, like, our plane boarded at like 6.45 a.m. or something crazy early. So anyway, and then we stayed the whole day. I spent all night at a hotel and then came back on Saturday. So I was only gone, I was gone like 24 hours. It wasn't gone very long. Also, I'm planning to, as a recording of this, I haven't done it yet, but by the time you hear this, I should have done it. I'm going to do a live cast on Loading Ready Run.

Unstable, obviously, is a very personal project to me. I care a great deal about it. I really want it to do well. And I love making unsets, but I cannot make unsets if people don't want unsets. So in order for me to make a fourth one, I have to have the third one be successful. So I am pulling out all the stuff I can to try to help it. And so part of that was doing a lot of extra stuff. So I'm actually traveling two extra times this year specifically. I mean, they're both short trips, but specifically to help promote Unstable.

So my goal going into this was that I really, I mean, I want people to see what Unstable is and see that it's fun. One of the things I learned about reading is it's been 13 years since we made an unset. Most players have never played with an unset. And there's a lot of sort of beliefs of what it is that some are true, but some are not. And one of them is that it just is more fun to read than to play. And I really wanted to disprove that. I want to show this is a fun experience. It's fun to read than to play. And I really wanted to disprove that. I wanted to show this is a fun experience.

It's fun to do it and it's neat to just care about things a little differently than you normally do and just have things be a little bit more chaotic but in a fun way and just have more involvement. And one of the things that I like to talk about is there's a spectrum to magic. And on one end of the spectrum is sort of seriousness. You know, and magic can be a very serious game. You want to be competitive in magic and treat it super seriously. We have a pro tour every year that goes to millions of dollars.

We run millions of events all around the world, tournament events. And most of those are pretty serious. If you want to go play in a PPTQ or a Grand Prix, or if you're lucky enough to earn a slot, or skilled enough to earn a slot to get to the Pro Tour, the Pro Tour, we want, there's a place in Magic for serious play, and we want that, and we spend a lot of time and energy on that.

But the other end of the spectrum, it's fun. For some people, Magic is, it's a release. It's something to do that's just enjoyable. And winning or losing, yeah, you want to win, but winning's not the point on the fun end of the spectrum. It's just, did I have a good time? Did I laugh at my friends? Were I able to forget my worries for a while? Did I just enjoy myself? Did I have a fun time? And the point of Unsets is to sort of push in that direction,

saying, you know what? It's fun. It's fun. You can do wacky, crazy things. And you can, you know, we push to try to make things that are just more, that have a fun interplay to them. So one of my goals to go to game night was I really wanted people to see Unstable for what it is. And so I really wanted it. And so I came with the mission of, I really wanted people to see Unstable for what it is. And so I really wanted it. And so I came with the mission of, I really wanted to show off Unstable. Okay, so Gavin, oh, by the way, I didn't talk about Josh.

Josh, by the way, is a professional editor. He works for a company called Rocket Jump. Might be his company. I'm not 100% sure. I think it is. I'm not 100% sure about I think it is. I'm not 100% sure about that. But anyway, he is an amazing editor

and so a lot of the success of their podcast and of Game Nights has been Josh is just amazing at editing and special effects and all that stuff.

And so, if you've never seen it, it's a lot of fun to watch. So I cannot recommend it enough. Go watch some Game N, especially the unstable one. So anyway, we get there. Josh picks us up, and we go to Rocket Jump, which is the other company. And they have made a room in there where they decorate it to be the sort of room for playing game nights.

And it's all decked out. It has shelves with magic products. And in the back, there's these windows. And when they did, they put in TVs behind them so they could put up scenery through the windows. So what they did for us was they took the swamp,

the full-land swamp, and had an artist illustrate it so that it moved. So you looked outside, it was the swamp, and things were moving. It was really cool. So anyway, we sat down. So what we had done is we had sent them a whole bunch of unstable product, and we sent them a god book, a collection of all the cards,

so they could see what the cards were. But they were confused. The unset is a little more complicated than the average. So I walked them through. The first thing we did is I walked them through all the mechanics. I explained what contraptions were and how contraptions worked and the dynamic of that. I explained host and augment. I explained

dice rolling and outside assistance and watermark matters. There's a billion little themes in the set. I explained all the things and how they worked. We walked through everything and And then, the plan was we were going to draft.

Now, a normal draft is eight person, but four person, you can draft with four people. And so what we did is we figured out who was going to play who. So I guess I ended up,

I was going to play Josh in the first round and Gavin was going to play Jimmy in the first round. So we started the draft. So one of the things that you guys don't get to see, I'll give some behind-the-scenes stuff since that's the kind of stuff I do here on the podcast. So one of the things we needed to do is,

Josh recreates a lot of what happens. We physically play on camera and they record us. There's a bunch of cameras. They record us, but also there's an overhead camera. They had like a GoPro that was hanging, that was recording the game area. And the reason for that is they will use a lot of, for special effects, they have all the card images, so they'll pull the card images in so they can do effects with them. And so, one of the things

that happens is they document everything that happens in the game because, as I'll explain later on, we go back and we do commentary, they interview us and stuff. And so part of what happens as we play is... Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't even got to play it. As we draft is they want to be able to reference what we're drafting.

So what we did is, for the first five picks of each pack, we actually laid out what our first choice was and then what our second, third, maybe fourth choice was of what did we take, but what were we looking at so that we could talk about it later. And we recorded all that. So drafting took a little bit of time.

I mean, hopefully when you guys watched it, it just went super smoothly. But for us, it took a little bit of time and we marked it all down. And then we were able to build our decks. Now, as I said, one of my goals doing this was, my goal was not to win. One of the things I've learned in life is understand what your goals are. My goal was to sell unstable.

So when I was drafting, I really, really wanted to make sure that I was showing off a fun part of the set. Now, one of the big parts of the set is contraptions. And the way contraptions work is you get two contraptions in your booster. If you get a foil, you can get a third. And so what happened was I could tell when other people were drafting contraptions. I could see it. They would draft them. And so what happened was the two big themes of the set are contraptions and host and augment. And I knew they were drafting contraptions.

So I decided to draft a host-augment deck just because I really, really wanted to show it off. The two big themes of the set are contraptions and host and augment. And I knew they were drafting contraptions. So I decided to draft a host-augment deck just because I really, really wanted to show it off. It's a lot of fun. It's one of the cool parts of the set. And I didn't know for sure that they were drafting it, so I wanted to make sure someone was drafting it. So I drafted host-augment. Interestingly, the card I opened up, actually, was Animate Library, which is a six-mana spell for Blue Blue. You enchant your library, it enters the battlefield, and then it's a star star

creature where stars equal to the number of cards in it. Now, I never ever, the entire game, drew that card. But, it was a great card, so I picked the first pick. Then second pick, where did I pick second pick? I took, um, hmm, I took one, was it half

squirrel half? I took one of the augment cards, a strong augment card. Because I knew I was going into augment. So I took a green augment card. It was either a half squirrel, half, or monkey. I'm not sure. I think it was half squirrel, half, but it might have been monkey.

Anyway, and then, so I'm like, okay, I'm thinking maybe I'm blue-green. I think I got Earl of Squirrel third, which is also a really good card, which I also never drew. The Squirrel Lord. So I started going blue-green. So I was picking up all the host augment stuff I saw in blue and green. And then when I couldn't find something in blue or green, I ended up taking white. Because I happen to know that host augment, if if you want to draft Host Augment, the strongest

colors to do that are white-green, because the support cards for Host Augment are in white and green. The stronger ones are actually in white. So I started picking up some sort of Host Augment support cards, if you will, the majority of which were in white. And then I eventually decided, as I was drafting, that I was going to do a three-color deck, and just picked up... Green has some color fixing. There's

an alligator that's a host that gets you a land. There is selfie preservation, which gets you a land, like a rampant growth-ish sort of card. And then there are also... I didn't end up drafting it.

There's an artifact that you can tap, Mad Science Fair Project, that you can tap, you roll a die, and then four, five, or six, you can choose the color. One, two, or three, it's colorless. As you will see, Josh used that card very effectively. So I ended up being blue, green, white. I actually ended up, I I think heavier in white and green with

enough blue that late game I could play the library but I had the least amount of blue I had more white and green but anyway so I ended up with a host suture deck I drafted a bunch of augment I think I ended up playing I played three for sure

I played half kitten half half squirrel, half monkey. Did I play hummingbird? I might have played hummingbird. I can't remember if I had hummingbird or not. Anyway, I had three or four augment cards and a whole bunch of hosts. I had... probably most of my creatures were hosts. A lot of my creatures were hosts. A lot of my creatures were hosts. Maybe ten hosts maybe. The trick by the way if you're ever drafting host augment is that you need to have more hosts than augment. Augments

are similar to auras in that you can't play them unless you have the creature first and not just any creature you need to have a host. So you really need to make sure to have more hosts. Now the good news about augments is that are very powerful. As you'll see, when you set up a host augment, you're making a little engine that has the potential to do very powerful stuff. I mean, there's a lot of combinations. Some are more powerful than others.

Okay, so first round, I'm playing Josh. I'm playing white, green, blue. He's playing, I think, white, green. So Josh was the other person who ended up doing some host suture. Not as heavily as I did. He sort of dabbled in a bunch of different things. But he definitely has some host suture. So what happened was... Okay, so turn one, I go first.

I think I won the roll. I play Adorable Kitten, which is a little 1-1, enters the battlefield, rolls six out of die, gets life equal to the die. And I rolled, like, three or something. Then not much happened. On turn three, though, I was equal to the die. And I rolled like three or something. Then, not much happened. On turn three, though, I was able to play half-kid and half, which costs two and a white to play. It's an augment card.

So I turned my kid into a half-kid and half-kid. So what that means is whenever I'm dealt damage... Oh, so the way augment works is augments make a new trigger. All the hosts have when it enters the battlefield, now you're overriding with a new trigger. The trigger for Half-Kitten Half is whenever you take damage. So Half-Kitten Half-Kitten is whenever you take damage, roll a six-sided die and gain that much life.

So that's a really potent defensive thing. Because what it says to my opponent is, if you do five or less damage to me, there is some chance I will go up in life rather than down. Like if you attack me and do four damage, I might roll a six and then I've go up in life rather than down. Like if you attack me and do four damage, I might roll six and then I've gone up two life for you attacking me. So it's a real disincentive from attacking. Josh then got out, what's the name of it? It's a two green, one, one, that every time you roll a four, five, or six, you put a plus one, plus one counter on it.

And then it, for six men, it can roll a die. I'm blanking on the name of the card. It is called test subject. Something test subject. And so he got that out. And he got his mad science fair project, which is the artifact he can tap. Four, five, or six, it rolls. It's any color.

One, two, three, it's colorless. But the important thing for him was everything he tapped that he rolled a die, every time he got four, five, or six, he put a die on the test subject. So that was starting to get big. Then he played a Mother Kangaroo, which is a host creature, four and a green for a one-one, that when you play it,

you roll a die, and you get that many plus one, plus one counters. I think he rolled five. So it was a six-six. So, meanwhile, I had played a few other small things, some host creatures. I played the vacuum. I forget its whole name. But it makes a 1-1 token.

It makes a little gnome token, I think. And then I played another thing that puts a plus one, plus one counter on something. So I played a bunch of host creatures. I was trying to sort of stall. And eventually I would play Defective Detective, which is a 2-1 creature for two and a blue. It's unblockable, which is an important part for this story. When it enters the battlefield,

my opponent picks somebody not in the game to tell me a card in their hand. I picked Josh. Oh, no, no, no, that was... I'm sorry, I didn't pick Josh. I picked Gavin. And Gavin showed me... I don't even remember what card Gavin showed me. Anyway, I now had a 2-1 Unblockable creature.

Now, the problem was he had a 6-6 creature, and he had his test subject that at the time was like a 3-3, but I knew it would keep growing. And because he could roll a die every turn, I knew it was going to get big fast. So I had a card called Go to Jail. There's two cards in Unstable that reference other Hasbro properties. One is Sword of Dungeon Dragons that we had at Hascon,

but it's actually in the set. And the second one is Go to Jail, which is a Monopoly reference. So Go to Jail is kind of like an Oblivion Ring that the creature is removed, but they get to roll two dice every turn, and if they roll a six, I'm not a six, sorry,

if they roll doubles, they get free, like in jail in Monopoly. If you roll doubles, you get out. So, now the downside for me doing that was his test subject liked dice being rolled. So every time he rolled a four, five, or six, it got bigger, and I was letting him roll two dice a turn. But at the time, the six, six was the bigger threat for me, and I knew I had some time to find an answer for the test subject. Anyway, Josh, by the way, would go on to roll, I think it took him eight turns to get it out of jail. So every turn he rolled. And he actually was pretty unlucky rolling four, fives, and sixes.

He did a few times. But the number of rolling one and two or two and three, that happened a lot. Also what happened mid-game is Jimmy played a card that exiles a creature. But instead of exiling it to the exile zone, it exiled to my game and gave it to me. So I had this 3-3 flying creature that I was able to attack with and get some extra damage in.

Anyway, one of the fun things about it, the reason what we had done was we shot two concurrent games. I was playing Josh and Gavin was playing Jimmy. Because there's interactions between us, as you will see coming up, because of interactions like the, what was, I forget the name of the card,

the white card that put his creature in my game. Our games could affect each other. That's something that unstable games can do or silver-bordered games can do that black-bordered games just don't do. So anyway, I'm doing pretty well. I'm hitting him every turn with his unblockable creature, and I'm slowly building up a board. His test subject's getting bigger and bigger and bigger, but I have some chum blockers,

so I know I can... And in my deck, there's a card that when something attacks, you can get an outside person to pick one of them, and it gets sacrificed, an attacking creature. And if you attack with only one creature, that automatically would kill it. So even though I didn't have it in my hand, I left mana up to make it feel like I had it, so I held him at bay a little bit.

I bluffed him for a little while. Okay, so I have a whole bunch of creatures, including my unblockable creature. And then Josh draws and plays Slaying Mantis! So Slaying Mantis is a 6-6 creature. I don't remember how much it costs. I think it costs 5 mana. 3 green green, I think is what it costs.

I might be a little off on that one. But anyway, you stand 3 feet away from the table and you throw it. And then any creature it touches before it finishes landing, so even if it brushes across things, it fights. So let's say, for example, it brushes against a 3-3 and a 2-2 creature. It would fight the 3-3 creature. It would do six to it and take three back.

And it would do six to it and take two back. So in that case, it would kill the 3-3 and the 2-2 and not even die because there wouldn't be enough to kill it. So I got a whole bunch of creatures. They're all pretty close to each other. So I got a whole bunch of creatures. They're all pretty close to each other. But Slaying Mantis has something called Just a Second, which means you can't move things once you play it.

So, okay. So Josh had never... He had never even tried playing the card before. And so he was trying to figure out what to do. Now, the problem is, that card has the potential to wipe a whole bunch of my creatures, and even then, if he just hits the unblockable creature, it really slows down my game. So there's a lot of tension.

We go get a ruler so that we can measure, because it's got to be three feet, and remember, we measured, and Josh goes, this seems pretty far. But anyway, there's a big dramatic buildup, and he misses the table. seems pretty far. But anyway, there's a big dramatic build-up and he misses the table. Now, that meant that

the creature still comes in play, so he's still got a 6-6. But anyway, luckily I had a bunch of chump blockers. He eventually gets the kangaroo out of jail. But by then, I'd been nibbling away with the unblockable 2-1, the defective detective, and I was basically able to finish out the game.

You know, he wasn't... His test subject got really big. At one point, it was like a 13-13. But I had a number of blockers. Oh, the other thing I did, by the way, the other thing I did, so is not only did I have half-kid and half-kid, and at one point, I played a card called Merman, which is a host creature,

enter the battlefield, draw a card, the 3-3, for four and a blue, I believe, and I played half-squirrel-half. So half-squirrel-half, what it does is, it's minus one, minus zero, so change it from a 3-3 to a 2-3, but it says, whenever a creature enters, a non-token creature enters the battlefield,

trigger, and then my trigger was draw a card. So whenever I played a creature, or actually, whenever anybody played a creature, other than a token creature, whenever a creature enters the battlefield, trigger, and then my trigger was draw a card. So whenever I played a creature, or actually, whenever anybody played a creature other than a token creature, whenever a creature enters the battlefield, I would go draw a card. And so I had a card, there's a card called Ordinary Pony

that flickers a card when it comes into play, exiles and returns. So I played the pony and I got a card, and it flickered something and I got a card. Anyway, I was just drawing a lot of cards. I was getting a lot of answers. So Josh was able to sort of, he had some big threats, but nothing I couldn't block.

None of them were in the air, and I was able to block them, and I had a lot of chump blocking, and so I was able to deal with them. And I managed to beat Josh. Really what I realized was he was becoming the beatdown, and I was more the control, meaning I really was, if I could stay alive, I could nibble him to death. And so it was about setting up my combos. And the nice thing about that game is, like I said, I really, really wanted to show off Unstable.

And my goal of drafting the deck I did was to kind of show the cool things that you could do with Host and Augment. And so I made a half-kid and half-kid, I made a half-squirrel, half-man. There was a lot of cool things that I did that was pretty funny. And powerful, too. It was good. Okay, so after that, we broke for lunch. Oh, before that happened, though, so that Friday was the Friday before previews began for Unstable.

So we had done a really cool thing. The audience had never before seen a contraption. So what we did is we took a card called Dog Snail Engine, which is one of the contraptions, and we cut it into nine pieces. And then we mailed the pieces around the country to nine different media people, one of which was Josh and Jimmy.

So we sent it to them. So they got in the mail. In fact, while we were playing, it showed up. And so they recorded a little video sort of looking at it because all day long people were recording stuff and then people were piecing it all together to sort of understand the card. And I had a lot of fun.

During a lot of my breaks, I would check in and see what people were doing and I would tease them on social media and give little clues of what's going on with contraptions because the front and back of contraptions sort of gave you a lot of ideas how it worked, but not 100%. So people still didn't quite understand everything. My article the following Monday explained everything.

So we were sort of teasing them with something. We liked the idea that the audience was assembling the contraptions. I thought it was fun. Anyway, Josh and Jimmy did a real cute little bit that they edited and got up pretty fast. Anyway, so during lunch, we got a chance to talk about Unstable. One of the things that I was really, like, one of the things I always

hoped for is, when you make something and you play with it, what you really hope is you want other people to enjoy it. And one of the things they said was, they really, really enjoyed Unstable and they said, the sign you know it's a good set is you finish drafting and you're like, I need to draft right away.

I want to draft again. And so they really had fun and they said they're definitely going to do some drafting and they enjoyed it. And we talked a bit about some of the cards we had seen and there are so many good cards and not all of them could be in the games and even some of the cool cards we did have in our decks.

Like, I had Animate Library and Earl of Squirrel. Neither of which showed up. Okay, so what happened was... Oh, by the way, Jimmy was playing Gavin. And the game was pretty brutal in Gavin's favor. Jimmy just kept losing things. Whenever there was any variance it did not go Jimmy's way

and so Gavin smashed Jimmy Gavin played a blue-black deck, I believe he was mostly a spy deck an ancient sneak deck and then Jimmy played red and what was the second color? red and green? was the second color? Red and... Green? Was it green?

He was heavily red. I don't remember his second color. Oh, it was white. I think he was red and white. Anyway, the last... Then what happened was I was playing the finals against Gavin and Jimmy was playing the losers bracket

against Josh for 3-4. So in the end, there'd be a 1-2-3-4. So I'm playing Gavin. This game goes a little bit differently. I get Defective Detective out early. I get out my teacher's pet, which is a white creature that you can sacrifice to go get an augment to put on a host. Now Gavin is playing a deck, and he has more spot removal, which is a little tougher for host and augment. The stuff he had was a little more expensive, so I was trying to race him.

It became clear. So he got out a card called Inhumaniac, which is a cheap little creature. It's a 1-1 that every turn you roll a 6-sided die, and if you roll a 3, 4, or 5, he gets a plus one, plus one counter. But if you roll a 6, he gets two plus one, plus one counters. But if you roll a 1, all the counters go away. So the idea is

it grows and grows and grows, but it can shrink. And so during that game, it kept getting bigger and bigger. And my hope all along was hopefully that it would shrink. So the plan that I came up with was, I decided that I was going to do something similar to what I did with Josh, is maybe I'm supposed to play more defensive and then get a win condition using my host augment to win.

So the thing I set up was, I got out a Mind-Numbing Jellyfish, I believe it's called. So it is a, what is it, is it 2U? It's a 1-3, I believe it's called. So it is a... What is it? Is it a 2U? It's a 1-3, I believe. So anyway, when it enters the battlefield, you roll a six-sided die, and you mill that many cards from your opponent,

meaning they take the top X, or whatever you roll, that many cards and put it from the library into the graveyard. Milling in Limited is a stronger strategy than in Constructed, because you have a 40-card deck and not a 60-card deck.

So I decide that I'm going to use my teacher's pet. I think he kills my teacher's pet, but I can stack in response. And then I'm able to go get half squirrel. So I make half squirrel, half jellyfish. So that means every time a creature enters the battlefield, I'm able to mill him

for D6 cards. Then the combo I have set up is, I have a card in my hand called Ordinary Pony. So Ordinary Pony is a flickering card. Enter the battlefield, exile a creature, and then bring it back. Well, the way the host augment rules work is they stick together. So when

I flicker it, I flicker the whole creature. I flicker half squirrel, half jellyfish. It leaves play, and then it comes back. And then... So what happened was, I play my pony. Well, that's another creature entering the battlefield. Triggers, half squirrel, half jellyfish.

I roll a die. I think I rolled a five. I milled for five. Then it flickers something. So I flicker the half squirrel, half jellyfish. It goes away. And then when it comes back, it triggers itself, because it is a creature entering the battlefield,

and so I roll another d6, roll a 6, so I mold a total of 11 that turn, which is pretty good. Remember, you only get 40, you have a 40 card deck, and he's already drawn some cards, you know, you draw 7 to start with, so I've milled about, you know, I've milled half the deck, but about half the deck's been milled. I

milled a total of 12, because I rolled a 1 when I originally played the card. So anyway, I don't need that many more die rolls, especially if I get lucky, to be able to mill him out. Also, I end up playing a monkey augment called Monkey. So I made my ordinary pony into a monkey pony. And it's funny, because half monkey, half pony is the thing that inspired this in the first place from a song by Jonathan Coulton the song called Skull Crusher Mountain where it's about a super villain that has kidnapped this woman and he talks about how he made a half monkey half pony to please her. But anyway

I was inspired by multiple things but that's one of the things that definitely inspired me and I love the fact that you can actually make a half monkey, half pony, which I did. And so what happened was, monkey says whenever another creature dies, you trigger it. And the trigger was, I get a flick or something. So the thing that's cool was, every time I flicker the half squirrel, half jellyfish, I'm going to roll D6 again, right? So now, whenever I play a creature, I'm going to mill him. Whenever a creature dies,

I'm going to mill him first to six. So I'm all set up to do cool things. Now, he's got me down to eight life, so things aren't going so well here. But I'm starting to stabilize, and I've got a really good engine to mill him really fast. But then, he draws Finders Keepers, which is a six mana spell,

which destroys a creature and assembles a contraption. He kills my half squirrel, half jellyfish, which is my route to victory. And then his Inhumaniac, which keeps getting bigger. I mean, the funny thing about it was, every time he rolled it, I'm like, come on, roll a one, roll a one, roll a one. And he did not. He rolled a lot of sixes, no ones. So he ends up, it's an 8-8 creature he attacks.

I have to block with my Monkey Pony. And anyway, I then put out another blocker, but he gets a card called Magic Word. He uses the word Australian. And so he puts it on my creature. Every time he says Australian, it taps and he's able to attack and kill me. So I lose.

Gavin wins. So Gavin's first, I'm second. But the most interesting game of the whole thing happened when Josh and Jimmy were playing for the playoffs for the third and fourth. So I don't know what happened early game, but they're playing around. So at some point, Jimmy plays a card

called The Countdown is at One, which is a sub-game card, which means stop what you're doing, take the cards, your libraries, and you're going to play a new game, but starting at one life. And if Jimmy can win the game, because he cast the card,

the reward for winning the game is Jimmy gets double damage to Josh for the rest of the game. Whenever he damages Josh specifically, he does double damage. So what they do is they go get two other playmats, lay them on top of what they're playing, so the games that are in motion stop.

They go play the sub game, and then in the sub game, Josh plays the card better than one, which, I don't know what it's called. It's like three green-white or two green-white. It's a multicolor card. What it does is it turns you like three green-white or two green-white. It's a multicolor card. What it does is it turns you into a two-headed giant game.

And so he goes and gets Gavin. And so he and Gavin together. So the way it works is you get to divvy up all your permanents. You get to divvy up your land, which I guess are permanents. You get to divvy up your library. It doesn't say it on the card, but you can divvy up your contraptions. And then you each get a draw. So the advantage to doing it is you're getting more cards, but you have to divvy up your stuff to do it. But then your

side of the game is a two-headed giant game. They stabilize, but then Jimmy gets a haste creature and is able to sort of get... You only need to get one damage in, and so Jimmy wins. Now all his damage is doubled against Josh. And then Josh is able to make a rhino, a rhino, what was it? A rhino what? A rhino camel? I think it's a rhino. I think it was a rhino camel. Oh, sorry, sorry. Sorry. The rhino was the host. He made a humming rhino. He

has a humming bird. So he made a humming rhino. So what a humming rhino does is whenever you attack with two or more creatures, which is the humming part, all your creatures get plus one, plus one, which is the rhino part. And rhino is a rhino is a three, four.

I think humming is plus one, plus one flying. So it becomes a flying four, five that when it attacks with another creature, all your creatures get plus one, plus one flying. So it becomes a flying four five that when it attacks with another creature, all your creatures get plus one, plus one. So Jimmy's able to put that and go to jail. And then Josh, so the way it works in a sub game is all the cards in the sub game

get shuffled back in the library. So Josh again draws better than one, ends up playing it again, this time getting me into the game. And ends up playing it again, this time getting me into the game. And so what happens is he gives me some land. I'm not able to play anything for a little while because I just don't have the right cards. I draw more land. But eventually I'm able

to get a card called First Pick, which is a Naturalize plus Assemble a Contraption. Now he didn't give me any Contraption, so I wasn't able to Assemble a Contraption, eventually I'm able to get a card called First Pick which is a naturalized plus Assembler Contraption. Now he didn't give me any contraptions, so I wasn't able to Assembler Contraption, but I was able to free his Humming Rhino from jail, which means that he now can go on the offensive and he starts attacking. Now the problem is we are at

oh, I'm sorry, before that happens, I'm skipping an important part of the story. So Josh plays a card called Kind Slaver, which is a variant of Mind Slaver, except instead of you playing your opponent's turn, you get somebody else to play your opponent's turn, and you're not allowed to coach them. Now, Gavin had been part of the two-headed giant with Josh in the sub game. I was currently part of Josh, and he was playing Jimmy.

None of us were legal targets. We'd all played in that game. So he ended up going to Danny, which is one of his assistants, who normally is never on camera. Danny records all the things that happen in the game. And Danny comes in. Now, Danny is friends with both Jimmy and Josh. So what Josh wants, Josh is going to lose.

You know, Jimmy's going to win in the next turn. That's why he played the kind flavor. Now, Danny, what Josh wants Danny to do is do nothing. Just say, I'm done to do is do nothing. Just say, I'm done, and not do anything. What Jimmy wants is to have him attack for the win. So Danny splits the difference.

He attacks with one creature, does two damage, knocking us from four down to two, I believe, and then drawing a card for Jimmy, because when the creature did damage, it drew a card. So Jimmy got a card and did two damage.

Then it comes back. I'm able to get rid of the go to jail, which frees the rhino, and Jimmy has two creatures. Meanwhile, on my turn, I played a test subject. So I have a creature to block with. So Josh attacks with the humming rhino and another creature.

I don't remember what the creature was. But anyway, we get Jimmy down to one, and we force him to block with one of his two creatures. So he's down to one creature, a 2-2 creature. But the creature that he has to block with, he can sack to get a contraption. And that contraption ends up giving him plus two, plus

oh, and trample. Now, interestingly, oh, we must have been, yeah, we were at two life, and I had a two-two creature. Did it get bigger by one? Anyway, he could do exactly with that, he could do exactly with the,

with that he could do exactly enough damage to kill us. Now the funny thing is, had Danny not done damage to us, we would have been at two more life. So had Danny not damaged us, then we wouldn't have lost there. Now it turns out Jimmy drew a card that it's a direct damage spell with trample

called, what's it called? Super duper disintegrator ray or something. Anyway, he had a second card that could kill us, but he had just drawn that card. The reason he had drawn that card is because Danny drew him an extra card. So had Danny not done anything and not caused

the two life damage or drawn the card, ironically, the two life damage or drawn the card, ironically, the two bits of damage losses the game and the card draws. Each individually losses the game. So Danny kind of in two different ways losses the game. But had he not done anything, that's where kind slavery can turn on you.

But one of the fun things about the outside assistant cards is you don't always know. I was trying to find different ways to do randomness, and it was kind of neat to just do randomness in a different way, which is human beings, they're kind of random. You don't know what they're going to do all the time. So anyway, we finished the game.

It was a fun game. There was a lot going on. You know, there were two betterers than one, so there were two-headed giants, there was a sub game, and there was a mind slaver, and anyway, a lot of fun stuff. I was really, really happy. Not everything, for example,

in his deck, Gavin had a what's it called? It went by so many names. Is it Beaster Pack? No, not Beaster Pack. It's a card where when you play it, it's like a Booster Tutor, but you get to open a pack and get all the creatures on your side. I'm blinking on the name of it. For a long time

it was called Undead Legions, because Legions is the card you probably want to open. And then it was called Beaster Tutor for a while. Summon the Pack. I think it's. Summon the Pack. I think it's called Summon the Pack. Anyway, he had that card. He never got to play it.

Jimmy had a fun card called something monstrosity. It's an artifact creature that costs seven that every upkeep you get a name and ability that has preexisted in magic that you haven't named that day. But you have five seconds to do that. So you keep making it a more and more powerful creature.

And it's fun because you keep thinking of what ability can I give it? And there's a lot of fun stuff to do there. But Jimmy never drew it. So anyway, there were, I mean, a lot of fun cards to get drawn and to get played. And I was really, really happy. You know, you got to see host augment.

I didn't mention there was a whole bunch of contraption stuff that went on. I didn't. In my games, the contraptions weren't as important. It was very, very important in both the other games. I wasn't playing contraptions, and Josh was playing just a few. The game against Gavin, he did get a few contraptions, and they helped him, but they weren't a major part of the game, so I didn't bring them up. But anyway, so contraptions had a chance to shine. Host Augment got a chance to shine. Outside Assistance got a chance to shine.

Dice Rolling got a chance to shine. We had a little bit of Watermark Matters. Gavin had an agent of Sneak One that actually he was able to get a card off of. So anyway, much fun was had. But we weren't done yet. Next thing we had to do is we had to shoot some pictures. For example, when they put it up on YouTube, there's everybody facing off against each other.

So we had to pose and get that. And then we took some pictures with us in front of the set in the unstable box. So they had some pictures they could put up on social media. I actually didn't take any pictures. Normally when I go places, I take all sorts of pictures. I don't know why. I just had a long day. I should have taken some pictures.

I should bug Jimmy or Josh for pictures. Anyway, so the next part was there's interviews. So what happens is, Danny, the person who had got pulled in, Danny does extensive notes of everything that happens. So what happens afterward, Danny, the person who had got pulled in, Danny does extensive notes of everything that happens. So what happens afterward is you sit down one by one, and they do an interview with you, where they talk about everything that happened, like each game in order.

You did this, and then you did this, and you played this. And you talk about it in sort of the present tense. So they can cut between you playing things and you talking about doing it. It's a good technique, and it makes for a very compelling, it makes it more fun to watch when you're explaining what you're doing. So Gavin went first, took about an hour. Well, Gavin did his interview. I went online and had fun talking with people about contraptions, what are they, and I teased people. It was fun.

Then I got to my part. And so the fun part of it is I like talking, if you haven't figured that one out yet. So the interview was fun. I think it was, they said it was an hour long. It felt like it was 10 minutes long. It was fun. It went really fast. And I got to do a death scene.

I got to do two death scenes. Because when you die in the game, you do a death scene. scene. I got to do two death scenes because when you die in the game, you do a death scene. But now I die in my game against Gavin, but I died as a two-headed giant in my game with Josh against Jimmy. And so I got to

do a couple death scenes. I got to talk about stuff. I got to complain about how I always rolled ones and Gavin always rolled sixes. But anyway, I got to do a lot of fun stuff. And the neat thing about it also was I was able to do a little explaining about Unstable.

Like I said, I really, really wanted this to be an educational thing, people learning about Unstable. So I spent a little bit of time explaining why certain things were there. And when things happened, I gave a little bit of background information on them. And so I did the full interview.

I'm trying to think. I mean, the funny thing for me is I only know what I shot. I don't know what, like, I've seen other game nights and I know the general gist

of how it works and I understand the structure and I know the games because I was there when we played them. But I have no idea exactly how it's going to work. I think he has to go

back and forth between the games concurrently because things happen between them that are relevant. Like the creature going to work. I think he has to go back and forth between the games concurrently because things happen between them that are relevant. Like the creature going to my side and stuff. There were... Oh, interestingly, so I'm the rules manager, the unrules manager, and there was a bunch of things that came

up. In fact, one thing came up during the match that I had not thought about but had never come up before. And so I actually stopped and I double-checked with Eli because I... Whenever I the match that I had not thought about but had never come up before. And so I actually stopped and I double-checked with Eli because whenever I make rulings, I always talk with Eli because I want to make sure

that I'm not contradicting a Black Border ruling. Because if Black Border does something a certain way, I want to be consistent with how Black Border rules work. So sometimes when I'm making a ruling, a lot of times making a ruling, I'll consult with Eli to make sure that I don't want to be doing something that's counterintuitive.

I mean, there are times that will be counterintuitive because the nature of silver borders are a little bit different than black borders. But what I don't want to do is take something with a clear, easy, simple answer in black border and then give a different answer. So we actually call the mid-game. Oh, one of the things I didn't really explain when we were playing the game is

for you guys, it's a seamless, the game is just zooming fast and all the down moments are cut out. But for us, every moment we do something, Josh is always saying oh, can you do that again? Can you not overlap the card? Because you want it to be clean and not, because he wants to be able to make graphics

and pull it out. And so, the games take a while because a lot of times you'll redo your thing and you'll say it again or sometimes you go, oh, can you be a little clearer? And so you're making sure every time you do something, you get clear things there. And also we do a bunch of audio recording so that he has some stuff he can loop in. I mean, Josh understands this. So he had us do a bunch of different things.

We also did some shots of us drafting and opening packs and just stuff so we can tie it all together. And anything else there? Then what happened was Gavin and I and Danny all went out to dinner. Josh and Jimmy were still working on the show. So, by the way, the reason they'd want me to stay overnight that night is we got there in the morning early in the morning started and we wrapped up i don't know 9 30-ish um i mean it was a full day you know we started at 11 and ended 9-ish so that was uh or do we start 11 maybe earlier than it was a 10 11 hour day i mean we had a break to eat obviously but um it

was a pretty long day that was a lot of fun um if you have not watched the episode go watch the episode uh game let's put game nights unstable i'm sure you'll find it it's on youtube um but it well i mean i haven't seen it yet but i know just from being there from living it it was a lot of fun we had a lot we laughed a lot and it was it was it was a lot of fun. We had a lot, we laughed a lot, and it was, it was, it was my first time getting to play Unstable with the cards, with the physical cards. And be aware, development itself ended a while ago. We, we, this was definitely a set that finished and sat around for a little while. So Gavin had drafted once or twice, I think, way, way back when. Um, Gavin had drafted once or twice, I think, way, way back when.

Josh and Jimmy had never drafted it. I had drafted it, never with real cards, and not in probably over a year. Um, I drafted the most of anybody, obviously, having worked on the design and the development team. Um, but anyway, it was, it was a blast. Um, now, there's probably no audience, no person better suited than me for this product, but I had fun, Gavin had fun, Josh and Jimmy had fun. It really, really was a great time.

I hope that's all reflected, I assume it will be, in the show. Also, by the way, I'll have to plug the Command Zone. So if you watch Game Nights and enjoy watching Jimmy and Josh banter, they do that all the time on a podcast called The Command Zone, which is also, I believe, on YouTube.

And so check that out. So I'm almost to work, so I just want to wrap up by saying that I had a blast. When Jimmy first said he wanted to do this, I was all in. I had every belief that I would enjoy myself, but it's nice now having done it. I very much did. It's nice seeing them get up there. The studio was really nice. It was really cool. It was one of the most professional magic things I've ever worked on.

It was tight. it was fun, and I have every confidence that the final product was awesome. You guys have hopefully seen it and know that it was awesome. But anyway, I just want to stop, or not stop, I want to end today by saying thank you to Jimmy and Josh for inviting me down. Thanks for everybody at Rocket Jump for making me feel so welcome and for putting together such a fine time.

Thanks to Gavin for accompanying me on a crazy early flight and meeting me in the finals of my first official unstable play. And thanks to Wizards for hosting game night. So it was fun all around. So definitely, guys, I'm pulling up to park here. hosting game nights. So, it was fun all around. So, definitely guys, I'm pulling up to my, pulling up to park here, but,

please, please, please go watch it if you haven't. It was a lot of fun and it was great to do and I guess that's probably all I got to say on it. And by the way,

if you have not played Unstable, go play Unstable. It's fun. I don't know, this is probably sometime in January. I record these way ahead of time. It's November for me,

but you guys don't hear this in December, again in January. I record these way ahead of time. It's November for me, but you guys are here this end of December, beginning of January. So hopefully if you haven't yet played Unstable, one more plug for Unstable. Hopefully me explaining all the cool things that happen in our game will make you go, that sounds like fun. I should do that. You should do that. So anyway, go play. Go play Unstable.

But I'm now at work, so we all know what that means. It means the end of my drive to work. Oh, wow. I had a lot of traffic today. Anyway, what was I saying? Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. See you guys next time. Bye-bye.