Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #533: Editor-in-Chief

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

In this podcast, I talk about my time as editor-in-chief of Duelist, the Magic-themed magazine Wizards used to produce.

I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I have had a lot of different roles in my time at Wizards. So today I'm going to talk about a job I had that I don't think I've done a podcast on yet, specifically. And that is being editor-in-chief of The Duelist magazine. Now I did do a podcast on the history of The Duelist magazine, and so there'll be a little overlap between today and that one. But I want to talk a little bit about how exactly I became the Editor-in-Chief of a magazine

as a part-time job, while still having a full-time job in R&D. Okay, so real quickly, a little for those that don't know what I'm talking about and what The Duelist is, let me do a little bit of background. If you want more info about The Duelist, I did a whole podcast on The Duelist. So I'm going to do a little bit explaining the history of The Duelist, but if you want even more, you could just go listen in to that podcast. Okay, so back in 1994, in early 1994, like in January, I think, of 1994, Wizards of the Coast put out a magazine about magic called The Duelist. And the thought was in the name, by the way. It's The Duelist, not just Duelist, but The Duelist. And the thought was in the name, by the way. The Duelist. Not just Duelist, but The Duelist.

Anyway, and it was, the idea was, you know, magic was becoming a thing. And they wanted a magazine dedicated for people that enjoyed magic. And I ended up reading the very first one. I was actually quite excited. You have to understand that back in the day, if you go back to when Magic first came out, there was really little written about it. Like right now, there's this content every day on lots of different websites. There's just lots and lots of Magic content. Back in the day, that wasn't so. You know, the very first magazine that ever wrote anything about Magic was a magazine called Shadeth,

You know, the very first magazine that ever wrote anything about Magic was a magazine called Shadis, which was a role-playing game magazine that was, I think, in the local to the West Coast. That was the first magazine that ever even tried to do rarities on cards. There was the, occasionally there was an article about Magic, but normally it was more about what the game was, not about for people who played the game. And so actually like in-depth articles for Magic players, at the time there was next to nothing. And so when I discovered there was a magazine about Magic, I was beside myself. I was quite excited. I remember, in fact, there's a game store that I used to go to where I used to buy my Magic stuff. And he had said that there was a magazine coming out. And so I knew about this ahead of time. And I was really excited. I said, okay, I want to buy it. I think I pre-p my magic stuff. And he had said that there was a magazine coming out. And so I knew about this ahead of time.

And I was really excited. I said, okay, I want to buy it. I pre-purchased it. I remember it came out and I read the whole thing in one day. In fact, I think I told the story. I had a date that night. And I ended up getting early to where my date was. And I was just reading the magazine, waiting for my date. I put it away before my date got there.

And anyway, I was fascinated. Now, at the time, I felt like there wasn't enough advanced content in it. It was really, really beginner-oriented. Now, it was the first issue, and most people playing Magic hadn't been playing very long. But I really felt like I wanted to see a little more advanced content in it, so I ended up coming up with the idea of the puzzle column, Magic the Puzzling, which is like, as if you were playing a game of Magic, and it's like, win this turn. You usually, you had some goal, normally the goal was win this turn, and you could see

your hand, and you could see what was on the battlefield. And then you had to, you know, it was a puzzle. You had to solve it to try to win it. And usually there were some complications going on. It wasn't always necessarily the easiest thing to figure out. I made different levels of difficulty from easy to super difficult. But anyway, that was my first interaction with the duelist, was sending in this puzzle idea.

And then that summer, the summer of 1994, I flew myself out to Gen Con, which was, by the way, where the first world championship happened. If you've ever seen my picture at the finals, I was covering it for the duelist, interestingly enough. But anyway, what happened was, flew myself to I flew myself to where was it? Minneapolis, I think. Or no, Milwaukee. It was Milwaukee. Because my aunt. I stayed with my aunt.

Anyway, I flew to Milwaukee. I went to the event and I convinced Catherine Haynes, who was the editor-in-chief of the Duelist at the time, that I wanted to do more. I wanted to write. And pretty much she was looking for writers. Like I said, I had the trifecta. I understood magic.

I could write, and I turned in on deadline. So basically what she said is, I could write for every issue, just pitch your ideas. Essentially what she said is, if you want to write something, you have to pitch me an idea. If I like it, I'll let you write it. And I'm good with coming up with ideas. So the idea that I pitched her right on the spot was two ideas. One was I wanted to cover Gen Con from the point of view of a Magic player, which is like an MTG-er at Gen Con. MTG-er

was my attempt to come up with a name for Magic players. That didn't stick, nor should it. And then I also pitched the idea of me covering the World Championship. And so, like I said, there's a famous picture of Zach Dolan playing Bertrand Lestray in the finals of Steve Bishop is, I think Steve Bishop's the head judge. Or Steve Bishop's the judge at the table, I think. the judge at the table, I think. And anyway, they're playing on like raw wood tables without sleeves and without a table

cloth. Anyway, it's very primitive. But anyway, there's me wearing my underdog t-shirt keeping track of everything that's going on. I ended up writing an article in the Duelist about it and then a detailed article, a transcribe of what happened in the game for the Duelist about it, and then a detailed article, a transcribe of what happened in the game

for the Duelist Convocation. The DCI stands for Duelist Convocation International. Before it was International, just the Duelist Convocation. And it was, if you belonged to it, they sent you a newsletter back in the day. And anyway, I wrote a coverage of the finals

where I actually went through the game. We weren't allowed to give the deck lists at the time because that was a hush-hush secret. But I did show everything that was in their hands and everything that they played so you could literally watch the game being played. And from it, a lot of early people trying to figure out what the decks were used all that

material as sort of the data to have a rough idea of what the decks were. I kept lists of the decks and I later posted them in the Duelist many years later. Back when once we, it was no longer, once we Wizards didn't decide that deck tech

should be secret. So anyway, I started with the Duelist as a freelancer. So I did a lot of freelancing for the Duelist. I wrote a lot of articles. I think my record was there was one issue where I wrote 20% of the magazine, where one fifth of the magazine was written by me. So in the early days, this was before I worked for Wizards and I was just

freelancing, I would write as many articles as I could convince Catherine to let me write. So I did a lot of articles. Also, Catherine came to me with the idea of starting a column, which was called Insider Trading. Although that didn't happen until I started working at Wizards. The first column I did was Magic the Puzzling. And then I had an answer column called Magic Tricks that was sort of me giving the answers that I goofed around a lot. There's a little silly story I wove into my answers but anyway um once I started to work for

oh so the story is that um when I would come up to do projects so what happened was once I worked for the duelist and it became known that I understood magic and I could write and I would turn things on deadline, other people would come to me from other sections of the company. And I wrote a lot of copy for a lot. I wrote stuff for international and stuff for the brand team and stuff for R&D and stuff, all different sections of the company. At one point, I was doing projects for all different sections of the company. At one point, I was doing projects for seven different sections of the company. All of it writing. Basically, most of it was beginner stuff.

Most of it was intro to magic. In the early days, there was a lot of kind of introducing people to magic. So I wrote a lot of intro text and a lot of here's what magic is. There were books and stuff I wrote for. Obviously, I wrote for The Duelist and I wrote articles for the magazine.

So at some point, I said that I'd be willing to work for Wizards. And once they found out, there were actually three different parts of the company that were interested in hiring me. So once I sort of said I'd be willing to work for Wizards. So the three sections were R&D, obviously. That's kind of the ones I said I'd be willing to work for Wizards. So the three sections were R&D, obviously. That's kind of the ones I said I'd be willing to

come for. Magic Brand and The Duelist. So all three were interested in hiring me. So in the end, the deal struck was that R&D would hire me. I would be working mostly on Magic and that I would be working mostly on magic

and that I would be the liaison with the duelist. That I would continue my relationship with the duelist and I would be the R&D liaison to the duelist. So once I started at Wizards, Catherine came to me. She had the idea for a column that she really liked, which I called Insider Trading. And the premise was,

it was kind of a gossipy behind-the-scenes. The flavor of it was that I was one of you, a player, but I got hired, and now I'm inside, and I'll share the inside scoop with all of you. And really, it was a chance for me to just do a lot of kind of behind-the-scenes type content. If you've ever seen me do the, where I give clues of the upcoming set,

but they're, I'm just giving partial information, that's where that thing started. But anyway, I did a lot of kind of behind-the-scenes info. It was the flavor of it.

I had a little of a gossipy feel of, hey, have you heard? But mostly I was just writing about stuff that they wanted to hear about in a slightly more entertaining way. And I continue to do a lot of writing.

So, um, the idea was that I, whenever R&D had to interact with the duels, I was the one to interact with them. And, um, you know, I also would, I do a decent amount of freelancing. So anyway, like I said, Catherine Haynes was the original editor. She was, Catherine was super short. I'm like 5'5". I think Catherine was like 5'0 or 4'11".

She used to not wear shoes. She used to go barefoot everywhere. And she had long brown hair, like light brown hair. And she was just lots of energy. She wore glasses, very thoughtful. I love Catherine. Catherine was a great, great person.

I miss Catherine. Anyway, at some point, Catherine decided that she was going to move. Catherine was actually dating Dave Petty, who was one of the original playtafters of the East Coast playtafters. He, along with Scafilias, Jim Lynn, and Chris Page, made Ice Age and Alliances, made Fallen Empires, made Antiquities. And he was one of the first people to come work at Wizards as one of the early members of R&D. But he was there for a year or so, and he decided that he wanted to go back to school, I think.

So he was going back to the East Coast. He and Catherine were an item, and so Catherine decided that she, too, was going to go back, I think, so she would be with him. But anyway, the news here that's important is Catherine was going to leave. There was no longer an editor-in-chief. And so they spent some time trying to find an editor-in-chief. The problem was that it just required a lot of knowledge of magic and required, you know,

just there was a series of skills. They looked within Wizards, and they didn't really find anybody. And then they looked external, and they put out, I think, job looking for. Nobody in the magazine felt they were qualified to do it. None of the regular staff felt that they could do the job. And anyway, they were looking external, they, they interviewed some external candidates, but none of them seemed like a good fit. And then one day, um, so Shauna, Shauna Wolf Narcisco, who, um, at the time was in charge of the art.

She was the art director. Um, the original art director for the duelists had been Amy Weber, who was an original magic artist, who did, I think, like, the original Icy Manipulator, and did Stone Calendar, and a bunch of different things. Anyway, Amy was the original art director for The Duelist, but... One second. I am getting better, but my cough's not completely gone. When Amy left, we hired a new person named Shauna. And Shauna was the art director. Shauna, by the way, still works at Wizards.

She's still an art director at Wizards. Not obviously on the dual estate market. That hasn't been for a while. But Shauna actually has been there for 20 years. So one of the old timers now. Anyway, Shauna made the recommendation. One day she saw me. She goes, Mark, why don't you be the editor-in-chief? And I said, look, I'd be happy to do it. My only problem is I have a full-time job in R&D. And so Catherine got together, I'm not

Catherine, sorry. Shauna got together with Wendy, who was the publisher at the time, Wendy Nortaki, and made the pitch that I might be a good editor-in-chief. And so I came and talked to Wendy, and I said to Wendy, I go, I think I had the skill set. I mean, I obviously had a writing background. I had a communications, I studied communications. I knew magic really well, obviously. And I had a familiarity with the Duelists, ridden for the duelist for a long time. The big problem I had was I have a job, I'm in R&D.

And so what they said is part of my job was being the liaison with the duelist. And they said, well, what if, you know, what if we took the role of the editor-in-chief and, you know, there's a lot of sort of busy work the editor-in-chief does that other people could do. What if you just did sort of the core vision of being editor-in-chief, of figuring out what the articles are, you know, sort of the heavy lifting part of it, and other people could do the other part, you know, that you, we would take it from a full-time thing into something that you could do part-time. And so I said, okay. You know, I said, I've always liked the dualist.

And so I took on the role of being editor-in-chief. And I talked with R&D. And basically the reason it worked out at the time was I, when I first moved there, I knew nobody. I mean, my friends were my fellow R&D members. I spent almost all my time in the office. Even when I, even when we were taking a break, like we'd go play games or something, but I was in Wizards of the Coast almost all the time, other than going home to sleep, or like we would go out to eat. But I mean, I was, I would hang around Wizards all the time. And so I would just work late nights anyway. So what happened was I was working crazy, you know, 80 hours a week or something.

So the idea of picking up an additional responsibility, I mean, if I was trying to do that now where I work a more normal week, that would be problematic. But at the time where I was kind of just putting in infinite hours, it really ended up not. I mean, I spent a lot of time on the duels. I probably spent 20 to 30 hours a week doing doula stuff. So I spent a good chunk of time. The saving grace, I guess, was because I was doing so many extra hours that I just, I had the time to do it. So I became the editor-in-chief. So there were a couple things that I did when I became editor-in-chief. First is I wanted to have an editorial column. So I started, Catherine had had one. So I mean, it is traditional for the editor to have a one-page column at the beginning of the magazine,

sort of just talking about what that issue was about. I ended up calling it Mark My Words. And normally the idea is sort of giving context to that issue. I liked having themed issues. So one of the things I tended to do was every issue was about something, and I would try to weave together. So the way the magazine worked, and the way most magazines work, is you essentially have three different sections of your magazine. You have what's called the features,

which are things that rotate from time to time. Like, special people are coming in to write it. It's a one-of article. It's thematic. Usually features are a bit longer. Then you have the columns, and the columns are every issue, it's the same person talking about the same general area. Not, each column can be different, but kind of like we have columns on the website now, like I do making magic. That's like a column. You know, I'm writing about magic design. Not that

I write about the same thing every week, but anyway, we wanted to put together some columns, and then there are what we call departments. So a column is written by the same person every time, and there's a voice to it. Oh, so-and-so has this column. It's this person writing this column. A department is something that is regular, that has regular content, but it is not beholden to a voice.

So for example, a department might be we used to do some reviews of magic-related things. We used to do, you know, we would talk about, we had different departments that hit different things that were more about, like I said,

they weren't personality-driven, they weren't not that there might not be a writer that wrote it regularly, but the fact that they wrote it wasn't, we didn't highlight who the writer was. They might have been credited. But normally in a column, there are pictures there,

and they write in voice, meaning they write as if they're talking to you, where in a department, it's a little more formal, and the person writing it is not trying to have a distinctive voice. Oftentimes in departments, it's not always the same person writing it. It might change from month to month. In practicality, oftentimes, somebody would be assigned a department, and they would continually write it. But anyway, we had features, we had columns, and we had departments.

And columns and departments are always continual, meaning one of the ideas of a magazine is you want familiarity. And so what you want to do is you want to make things very comfort. Like one of the things that I did when I got the doulas is I wanted to follow a lot of the principles that I had learned in school. Like I had studied communications. In fact, I had taken a class on magazines. And one of the things they talk about magazines is that there's a lot of importance of familiarity in a magazine. That what you want a magazine to be is a comfortable, known thing. And the way you do that is by having columns and departments. Even the features were always put in the same place. So the idea essentially is, usually the way a magazine works is there's an order to it.

That you will have certain sections and certain orders. I'll take Entertainment Weekly just as a magazine that I have that a lot of people might know. So like it always starts and the first thing they do is they have the letter from the editor, I believe.

Well, first they have the table of contents. Then they have a letter from the editor. Then they have what's hot or something. It's like a couple pages that's like a top ten list of things going on. Then they have what I think they call

Overheard, which are quotes from movies and TV shows. And then, then they get into the features. And then, once you get past

the features, there's the departments, which is, they have the movie section that has reviews of movies. Then they have a TV section with reviews of TVs and schedules of TV stuff. And then they have music.

And then they have books. And then they always, in the end, they have the bullseye on the last page, which is a humorous sort of humorous take on the week where they have a bullseye with pictures. They make jokes about the different things. And the idea there is that as somebody who reads this magazine, like there's just things that I know will be there. There are certain things that, now, what's the

top ten that thing, or what they overheard, or what's on the bullseye, those change, but there are known quantities of things that are there. And I wanted to do the same thing, so I worked hard to sort of, both I wanted to go out and find some new voices,

now, because I worked on the Pro Tour, I was familiar with most of the pros. In fact, one of the reasons this was a good match was in my other, another role I played, I was, I worked on the, in the, on the Pro Tour, I ran the feature match area and I ran, I was the producer for the video on the pro tour, I ran the feature match area and I was the producer for the video on the last day. And one of my sort of roles was I was the liaison to the pros. Meaning if somebody needed someone to talk to the pros,

I was in a good relationship with them, I knew them, they knew me, and usually when there's something to say to them, more than not something hard to say, not easy, I was the one that would sit down. If somebody needed to change their behavior or if we were worried about something, I was the one that would go sit down with them. So I, plus because one of my roles in R&D was I worked really hard to get to know the

pros because I wanted to know their thoughts and opinions on stuff. So anyway, I had a very good rapport with the pros. stuff. So anyway, I had a very good rapport with the pros. Also, as we started to get websites that wrote about magic. Remember, magic started its website a little later than a lot of the other websites. The Dojo had started. Star City had started. There were a bunch of other sites that had websites that no longer exist. But anyway, there were a bunch of different places that were writing about magic. So I got to know different people, who they were personally, what their writing styles were like. So what I would do each issue was I would figure out what the theme of the issue was. And then I would work with my columnist to sort of try to stay in theme.

I would work with the department head to sort of figure out how we could hit stuff that was roughly in theme. It's not that every section of the paper had to always be 100% on theme, but I would figure out where the theme made sense. And the themes, I mean, some of the times the themes were very straightforward. For example, the magazine came out, I think it was bi-monthly, which means it came out six times a year, every other month. We varied over, when it first started, the magazine came out four times a year. Then we upped it to six times a year. I think there was a period where we might have been 12 times a year, or maybe we were eight times a year. We varied a little bit how often we came out. Now, if we were right before

a set coming out, our theme was going to be that upcoming set. So obviously, we were a marketing part of Magic. So we always were trying to sell the latest thing. Now, back in the day that I'm talking about, if we're talking back in, you know, 95, 96, 97 type era, we only put out three expansions and then every other year put out a core set. So, we didn't have,

even when we were putting out six issues a year, only three of the issues would be tied to a particular set. That meant we had other issues we could do in other sets and I would,

I would try, I would experiment. I was very interested, interested in just getting a lot of different ideas. I also really wanted, I loved, there were a lot of people that were starting to write more serious about magic. So, for example, like Rob Han, who had written The Schools of Magic on the Dojo. He was one of the first people to really write seriously about some larger theory of magic.

I had him write a multi-part article. I went and found people who were known for deck building to have them. One of the things we have is called Deck Clinic, where people would send in their deck and we'd have somebody edit it. This was a department. I would get different famous deck builders to come in

and redo people's decks. So it was like, these are the pros you know of the Pro Tour. And this month, this well-known deck builder is changing your deck. And next month, a different person. I also would find people, whenever people would do well at tournaments, I would have them write articles about their experience. The other thing that started happening is we had The Sideboard, which was a magazine dedicated to the Pro Tour. Monty Ashley was the editor for that for quite a while.

So he and I would work together. A lot of times what we would do is I would get a more broad version of something from the person that I would put in the do list and Monty would get the little more crunchy hard data one to put into the sideboard. And the sideboard was a little more newspaper than magazine and so it would report on things. I had a little more realm to have people talk about experiences and stuff. realm to have people talk about experiences and stuff. The other thing I did is I worked with my different departments and sort of figured out what people liked

and I would spend a lot of energy. Some of the departments I went out and got, I tried to up the writing of them. I went out and found people like for Deck Clinic. Originally Deck Clinic was just done internally by R&D people and I said, you know, rather than do R&D people, let's go on and get like named pros that are known

deck builders. And so I spent a lot of time sort of spiffing up a lot of things and there's a lot of structures that I put in place. There's a bunch of new departments that I started and new columns that I started. I was really, really eager to sort of just, I wanted the duels to be known as the best of the best. That if you wanted magic knowledge and you were really into it, I didn't want to just be a place that talked magic. I wanted to be the place that talked magic. And part of that was about content. You know, part of that was I tried really hard to figure out,

like for example, there was a thing called Combo Winter during Urza Saga, where we had made some mistakes developmentally in Urza Saga, and the environment got a little bit out of control, and for the first time ever, combo decks really started becoming a major thing.

And so, I think I went to Alan Comer, I think, and I had him write about sort of combo on the cusp of it first starting to happen. So, like, you know, if you wanted to know what was going on with the Magic metagame, remember, this was a point where the Internet in the early days was just slowly starting to come on.

Now, the dojo was happening at this point, so the really, really invested players were reading the dojo, and that was the most up-to-date. But I was trying to sort of be as up-to-date as I can for a magazine for the people that weren't reading the dojo. And remember, this was a point where not everybody was reading the Internet. The Internet was a thing, but it really wasn't, you know, there were the hardcore early adapters,

but most people weren't necessarily reading it. So I was trying to make sure that we were taking all the stuff that I was seeing, because I was reading the internet daily, but trying to pick up things and pull them out. And I wanted the Duelist to be the place where if you, you would be knowledgeable. I mean, maybe delayed by a few weeks, obviously, but you would be knowledgeable of what was going on in the magic world and that you would know who the names were, and you were hearing the theories, and I worked really hard to bring all that stuff out. And I also worked very hard with Shauna, of trying to get, to work with famous magic artists,

that I loved the idea of having our illustrations in the magazine be by famous magic artists that I loved the idea of having our illustrations in the magazine be by famous magic artists and where we could, we did a lot of cool things where we would have the same artists reinterpret their work. Sometimes we'd have different artists reinterpret their work and we couldn't get the original artists. We did this cool thing where we branded the duelists with gins and refreets. And so we made a series of articles and ads and some t-shirts that had famous gins and refreets reading the magazine. So like we had the Juzam gin, but instead of him holding the little guy, he's reading a little duelist magazine.

We had an Ernim gin reading a duelist magazine. We had an Ernie Jin reading a Duelist magazine. So I worked really hard with the advertising to try to sort of, you know, bring more people in. You know, the magazine did a lot. There was a period of time where we had a lot of subscribers. Anyway, one of the things that I spent a lot of time on was trying to sort of really bring my A game as the editor-in-chief.

I was really proud of my time on the Duelist. What eventually happened was that new people started working on the Duelist. There was a few of them that I mean, one of the things about me being an R and

D was I was not there 24 seven. You know, I, I was there, I did dedicate a decent amount of time to be on the duelist. Um, but I was not there all the time. And there were some people who felt that it was wrong that, that I should be moonlighting as editor in chief. Um, and so eventually, uh, they convinced the powers that be that they, one of them should be editor in chief.chief. And so eventually, they convinced the powers that be that one of them should be editor-in-chief. And so I got brought to a meeting and the group had decided that they were going to get

an internal editor-in-chief. And so I stepped down. And then the magazine turned into top deck and then disappeared. So it's kind of weird that like most of the run of the duelist, the beginning part was Catherine. Um, most of the rest of it was me. And then once I disappeared, it kind of metamorphed into a different thing and then went away. So, um, I don't know. I, I guess the spirit of what the duelist was, um, when I left a lot of my vision of what it was went away.

So it kind of transformed. There were a lot of other factors going on at the time. Wizards was making Pokemon, and there was a lot of other factors. But I kind of felt like the duelist as I envisioned it. Like, I did a lot to sort of follow on Catherine and match what she did. I added some of my own stuff to it. There was a lot of more advanced theory and stuff that I brought in. There was

a little more advanced magic stuff that I brought in. But in general, I really try to get the spirit that Catherine had originally brought to the magazine. I feel after me that they sort of just went and did something else and I don't know. I always felt that the people that followed me

didn't quite understand what I was doing and that as a result it didn't I don't know. I always felt that the people that followed me didn't quite understand what I was doing, and that as a result, it didn't... I don't know. The magazine quickly sort of became not the Duel set as people knew it. Like I said, part of that was they were bringing in other games into it because of stuff like Pokemon,

and it literally changed names to Top Deck. Top Deck did this thing where one... Sort of half of it was about Pokemon, and half of it was about Magic, and so one cover was one way and one cover was the other way. And I continued to write my puzzle column during that time period,

but once I stopped being Editor's Sheep, I really was involved in the day-to-day of all the articles and stuff. But anyway, it was a really fun experience, and it was a neat experience running a magazine, you know, of sort of being the visionary for a magazine. I was really proud of a lot of the stuff we had done. I don't know.

One of the things I always wanted us to do, and I know we've never done it, there are a lot of articles that are online. Over the years, Magic the Gathering, Daily MTG, has copied over and brought a lot of stuff from there. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that was once in the Duelist that is online, but all of it's not. One of the projects I would love to do,

I just haven't convinced anyone to do this, is I'd love to scan in the Duelist and turn them into digital things so people could access them. I think it'd be really cool. Here's all the Duelists digitally arch them into digital things so people can access them. I think it'd be really cool. Here's all the Duelists digitally archived so that people can see it. There's a lot of really fun stuff in there.

I wrote an article probably a couple years before Duel Decks started where I talked about the concept of making paired decks with each other. There's a solitaire variant that I created that I was real proud of. Rob Hahn's series of articles, that series I thought was

really good. There were a lot of top pros wrote a lot of cool articles. Some of which have been on daily, but a lot of haven't. I don't know. There's just a lot of fun stuff in there. I don't know. There's just a lot of fun stuff in there. I don't know.

I don't even know if it's tagged online. Finding individual articles. There's a bunch of stuff there. Some of my early articles about an MTG-er at Gen Con, I think, is online. And my article about the early world stuff is online.

You can see some early writings by me. And there's a bunch of stuff that is there, but it's not full-blown imagination. Also, it's fun to go back and look at the ads and some of the coverage of games and stuff we did at the time. Duelist used to do a little bit of coverage of other games. But anyway, it was definitely an interesting experience. It's kind of fun.

One of the interesting things about working at Wizards is how many different opportunities I've had. I've been in the same job for 20-some years, yet I was a producer on a pro tour. I was a video producer, and I helped with editing, and I was editor-in-chief of a magazine, and I created a video producer and I helped with editing and I was editor-in-chief of a magazine and I created a storyline. And there's a lot of different things that I've got to do over the years all while working in R&D, which is not necessarily what a lot of people do. A lot of people get a job and that's all they do. And I always feel blessed that Wizards has really allowed me to stretch my wings a little bit and do a lot of different things. So anyway, today was

all about my time as editor-in-chief. Hopefully this is interesting to you. On some levels, also a story of sort of some early magic. I don't know how many people. Like I said, there's a whole podcast on the Duelist. If you want to learn about the history of the Duelist and stuff, I go a little more into how it got made and some of it.

Today was a little bit more about how I ran the Duel and stuff. I go a little more into how it got made and some of it. Today was a little bit more about how I ran the duelists back when I did. But anyway, I'm now pulling into the parking lot. So I hope today, I tried to mix things up. So this is a little more reminiscing and a little more about the past. I know some people really enjoy

these and some can go, eh. So I try to keep them mixed up. I have some more cool stuff coming that required a little bit of prep. Today was one of my non-prep things where it was a topic that I knew because I lived it. I have some cool stuff doing that I need to do a little more prep for.

So hopefully, hopefully the next podcast will be one that I've done some prep for. But I'm now parked. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

See you guys next time.