Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #564: GP Las Vegas

Episode Date: August 17, 2018

To celebrate Magic's 25th Anniversary, we had five birthday Grand Prix around the world. I attended one of them, GP Las Vegas, and this podcast is all about my trip to the event.

I'm pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today we're going to talk all about a recent trip of mine to Grand Prix Las Vegas. Okay, so about a year ago I was approached. Whitney Williams is one of the people at work that coordinates events. I've known Whitney forever. She's been a wizard a long time. And she said, next year... Oh, so one of the things that Whitney knows, and you guys may or may not know, is when my twins were born,

I made a promise with my wife that I would travel only two times a year for work. And usually one of those trips is the San Diego Comic-Con. At least it's been for the last like 12 years or so so it really means I have one open slot for travel for magic travel so Whitney approached me about a year ago because she knew that you had to get a jump on things

and said would I be interested in going to Grand Prix Las Vegas so this year is our 25th anniversary and we are trying to make a big deal out of it to Grand Prix Las Vegas. So this year is our 25th anniversary, and we are trying to make a big deal out of it, unlike some previous anniversaries, like the 20th, where we kind of like whistled and didn't do much to do anything. So anyway, and she said there are going to be five anniversary Grand Prixs,

so if I can remember these exactly. So there's one in Las Vegas. There's one in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There is one in Barcelona, Spain, I believe. There's one in Chiba, Japan. And there's one in Beijing, China. And she said, would I like to go to one of them? And just in general, because I try to not travel too far,

and I'd always wanted to go to Las Vegas. I said, oh, I'd be interested in going to Las Vegas. Las Vegas sounds really cool. So I signed on for Las Vegas about a year ago. Then about two months ago, so my daughter Rachel, who you guys have met on this very show, Rachel's graduating high school, or was graduating high school.

And I assumed that she was graduating like end of May, maybe early June. But it turns out she was graduating mid-June. In fact, so the Grand Prix Las Vegas is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So my plan was I was going to go down Wednesday night, and I'd be there for all day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday, Saturday, Sunday. So my plan was I was going to go down Wednesday night and I'd be there for all day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday. And then I discovered, Rachel's graduation

was Thursday. Then I discovered that Adam and Sarah's graduation from middle school was Friday. So I talked with Whitney and I said, okay, all the things you're going to have me do, could we just condense them and have me do them on Saturday and Sunday?

Because while I didn't want to miss Grand Prix Las Vegas, I also needed to see my children graduate from their various schools. And Whitney was kind enough to say yes, that is fine. So on Thursday, so basically Thursday of Grand Prix Las Vegas, I was watching my eldest daughter graduate from high school, which was really cool. I've talked a little bit. She goes to a school called Big Picture,

which is a very innovative education. It's project-based. They do internships. There's no grades. It's a very different kind of forward-thinking kind of school. Anyway, she graduated. There were 23 kids in her graduating class. So it was a really personal ceremony. There's no grades. It's a very different kind of forward-thinking kind of school. Anyway, she graduated. There were 23 kids in her graduating class.

So it was a really personal ceremony. There's two teachers that they've been with for the full... I mean, Rachel joined her middle of her sophomore year, but most of the kids have been with the same teachers since their freshman year. Anyway, it was really cool. The teachers talked about each kid, and you really got a sense of who they were and what school meant to them, and it was really cool. The teachers talked about each kid and you really got a sense of who they were and what school meant to them. And it was really cool. I liked it a lot. So I went to that. Then Friday, I watched my Adam and Sarah graduate from middle school. That was a

little less personal where Rachel had 23 kids. They had over, over 230 kids. They might even had 300 kids. And so that was just like a processional for half an hour where they say your name and people are walking by fast. But anyway, it was still very nice. The kids got all dressed up. And after,

after a while, there was a party with cookies. And then Friday night, we had a party for Rachel because it was her graduation. Invited family, friends, and friends of Rachel's. And anyway, we had a lot of fun.

We had a party, including a game show about how well do you know Rachel, in which everybody got to play. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. But then Saturday morning, I got on a plane, because it was time to go to Las Vegas. So for those that are unaware, GP Las Vegas I think I'm not sure when the first one started

but where it started getting big was many years ago when the first Modern Masters came out we did a Grand Prix that was a Modern Masters we did a couple of them but very few of them and the Las Vegas just was huge

I forget the numbers exactly, but 5,000 plus or something. Some really big number of people showed up. Might have even been more than that. And then Vegas just started becoming this, this Grand Prix that when it happened, it just was huge. So for example, I get there,

I get to our hotel. In fact, so early, I couldn't even check in yet. Then I go over to, we were in the Las Vegas Convention Center, which was next door to the hotel. And they, first thing they do as they walk in, and there is just a giant hall of artists.

I mean, like normally if you ever go to Grand Prix, normally there's like, you know, three artists, four artists, maybe if it's a bigger Grand Prix, five or six artists. Grand Prix Las Vegas had, I don't know, 20-something artists. I'm just going to name the ones that I remember off the top of my head. I'm not naming them all. These are just the ones I remember. Mark Tannin was there.

Manson Addix was there. I'm sorry, Anson Maddox was there. Mark Poole was there. Steve Arga was there. Therese Nielsen was there. Who else was there? Randy Gallegos was there. I talked to some of these people. R.K. Post was there. Ken Meyer Jr. was there. Dan Frazier was there. Doug Shuler was there. A lot of these are old school artists.

Liz Danforth was there. I'm forgetting so many of the artists. There were a lot, a lot of artists there. There were 20 plus artists there. So first thing I did is walk and see all of them. And I know a lot of the old artists. So I stopped by and talked to people. Just over the years, having

obviously worked on Magic a long time. A lot of these artists have worked on Magic a long time. So it was fun to sort of see a lot of people. Some of which I hadn't seen in quite a while. And a few, like Mark Poole. I'd never met Mark Poole before. We knew of each other, but we had never met. So that was cool.

Anyway, so I got to see all the artists. And then you turn to the floor. And the floor is this giant, giant convention hall. So beside the artists, there were, I think, 25 dealers, 25 different sort of shops that sold magic cards, all various elements of it. And they sold magic cards, they bought magic cards. Anything you were looking for, somebody there probably had it. They had just cards from all 25 years worth of magic. And there were a lot of, not just cards, but you could buy play matsats or boxes or sleeves or you name it. Like, for example, if you wanted to buy a playmat, you probably had hundreds of playmats to choose from. It was amazing all the different playmats that were there.

And a lot of the artists, one of the things from the artists is playmats become very popular. The artists also, some of them make tokens. Some of them also have card sleeves and other things so between the artists and the dealers the amount of different stuff you could get was staggering and a lot of it, the artists were there you could get it and get it signed by the artists it was really cool

oh, speaking of getting things signed by the artists one of the things that happened immediately upon me getting there, and this was expected, obviously, is there were lots of Magic fans. I was stopped continually the entire weekend. I signed a lot of cards and playmats. The playmat at the event, there was a special playmat event, which was this black playmat that had a silver lotus on it that said, you know, Grand Prix Las Vegas. Actually, it was not just for Las Vegas. It was for all five of the birthday Grand Prixs, and it had all five of them listed on it. Anyway, I had to get a silver pen.

I had a black Sharpie, but I had to get a silver one so I could sign those in silver. But anyway, all weekend long, I was signing things and taking pictures and greeting people and shaking hands and answering questions. And that just went on all weekend long. I'll probably bring up a few other times, but it was really interesting. I love meeting people.

And there was just a lot of people to meet, and it was very exciting. It was very exciting. It was really cool. Okay, so the first thing that happened is, as I'm walking around, is I get approached by Liz Lemferro, who is one of our brand managers. And Liz says, here, and gives me cake ticks, which is a ticket for cake. So to celebrate the birthday, we had gotten some huge

number of cupcakes. I don't even know how many cupcakes we got. I had a lot of cupcakes during the weekend. Anyway, because we had cupcakes in the staff room. We had this giant box of cupcakes, so every time I'd visit the staff room I had a cupcake. Anyway, she gave me and I went and got my first cupcake

of the weekend. The ones in the staff room were white because they were either, some of the cupcakes were vanilla, some of the cupcakes were chocolate, and then they were iced with one of the five magic colors. So the first one I got is blue, because I'm blue-red, so I decided to get a blue cupcake. I thought red had the chance to stay more than blue did, although I got blue all over me. But anyway, so I used my cake ticks to get a cupcake. Oh, also, the other thing that would happen is I was just constantly running

into people that I knew. Obviously, like I was saying, I met some of the artists. One of the first people I saw was Maria from Magic the Amateuring. She and I did the pre-release together. And I've done a bunch of projects with her. We did the Dominar in History and a bunch of things.

So I've gotten to know Maria well. So she was one of the first people I saw. And this was a weekend of me just seeing people that I hadn't seen in a while. I saw The Professor and I saw all sorts of people. I'm blanking on names. I saw Evan Irwin. All sorts of people. I'm blanking on names.

I saw Evan Irwin. I saw just like a lot. I saw a lot of magic celebrities from various things. I saw James from Loading Ready Run because he produced the pre-release I was in. I'm just forgetting people have to write. I was wanting to see Wedge, but Wedge, for those that don't know, actually needed to go into emergency surgery.

So one of the things actually I did early on was we recorded some videos urging people because he had, there was a GoFundMe to help him with his surgery. And we shot some videos early on to help that. Sorry, Wedge and I, I got a chance to meet Wedge at the pre-release. Um, that's the one where he and I did a two-headed Scheherazade sub game together. Um, and, uh, I was sad I didn't get a chance to see Wedge again. Um, but anyway, I'm wishing him well, and I heard his surgery went well. Um, I think he posted a video of him walking after the surgery, so that's, that's awesome. Um, anyway, um, uh I saw lots of, I'm forgetting people that I saw. I saw tons and tons of people.

And not just, not just like YouTube people. I saw a lot of pro players. You know, a lot of people that I hadn't seen before. I saw Brian Kibler. I saw Brian Weisman. Just a lot of old school. Dave Williams. Eric Froelichich I saw a lot of just old school magic players that I hadn't seen in a while and anyway so it's just a lot of fun

just getting a chance so the first thing I do is I walk up and there's a panel of magic people talking of people that produce magic content I mean that's where I saw Evan and James,

and a lot of people I'm talking about I saw on the panel. And so I was standing by the side so that I could just watch the panel. And then somehow I ended up in a line to ask a question, which, interestingly, wasn't my original intent. I was just standing there to watch them. But somehow a line formed around me, and so I ended up asking a question.

They were talking about producing magic content, so my question was, while the magic fans tend to be very supportive, there is a negative element, and that there are people that can be very critical. How do you deal with a negative element? And they had some really good answers. And then, after that, I had the chance to walk around the floor a little bit.

I like looking and seeing, you know, seeing all the stuff that got set up. And I also checked in. There was a Grand Prix going on, by the way. I think multiple Grand Prix's going on. One was, I think one was modern and one was a draft, I way. I think multiple Grand Prix's going on. One was, I think one was Modern, and one was a Draft, I think. I think. And, oh, the other exciting thing that I found out about, that I actually, I think I knew about before I got there, but I'd forgotten until I got there, was they were doing something called a Beta Booster Draft, where they, there were eight different tournaments you could play in.

And the winner of each tournament qualified for this. Actually, even though it's called a beta booster draft, it's not a booster draft. It's a Rochester draft. And the idea was it was a Rochester draft using 24 packs of beta. We're talking Black Border Early Magic. And that was going to happen Sunday night. So I was quite excited to hear about that. And I think the first

three people that qualified were all Pro Tour Hall of Famers. Like Louis Vargas, I think, won the first one. And Martin Juzo won one of the early ones. And Ben Stark. I think they won the first three. Anyway,

so it was exciting. That was a good Sunday night. We'll get there. So then the next thing that happened was after I sort of scoped out, it was time for me to do my first panel. So we had a panel called the Magic 25th Birthday Panel. And so it was me

and Aaron Forsythe and Ethan Fleischer and Cynthia Shepard and Matt Tabak. Um, and, um, Chris was the moderator and we, um, we talked all about magic.

I mean, mostly about half of it was questions that our moderator was asking us answering. And then half of it was the audience asking questions a lot of our stuff was sharing like hey what's the first set I worked on and what's the memories of magic and where do I see magic going and stuff like that and then the audience asked some fun questions one of the coolest was that weekend we were doing a lot of what we call surprise and delight and so one of the things we did was, anybody who asked a question, we gave, I think we gave them tickets to the

prize wall. So those have never been in a Grand Prix. The way a Grand Prix works is when you play an event, you earn tickets. And those tickets are allowed to be turned in for prizes. But the idea is the prize wall has lots of prizes at lots of different costs. So instead of just having one prize for one event, you can earn, over the course of the weekend, you can earn tickets and then you can buy something that's cool and fun. And there's everything there from, you know,

you can buy different magic cards and different magic products to sleeves and t-shirts and all sorts of magic paraphernalia. It's actually really cool. Anyway, I think we were giving away some tickets, like, to the prize wall, but one lucky fan, I don't remember her name, but she asked a question and we gave her a special deck box, a special deck box that was made for the event. And inside it was an unlimited booster. And so she was quite surprised. It was very exciting.

She chose not to open it. I actually, during the course of the weekend, I gave away three unlimited boosters. And I'm not even counting that one. I didn't, Matt Tavek gave that one away. I personally gave away three boosters. I'll talk even counting that one. I didn't, Matt Tavek gave that one away. I personally gave away three boosters. I'll talk about that a little later. Only one of them got opened. So we were giving away to random people that weekend, not just unlimited boosters, but we had Arabian Nights. We had some Antiquities. I think we had a bunch of Urza Saga. So we were giving away some old school magic packs. They definitely had some sauce in it, if you will. Anyway,

the, um, so after my panel on Saturday, I'm trying to remember the order here. After my panel on Saturday, um, then I did, did I do the gun slinging next? The spell slinging? Um, I can't remember the order I did things.

Uh, yes. I think I then did the spell slinging? I can't remember the order I did things. Yes, I think I then did the spell slinging. So the way spell slinging works is, or what we did there is you could bring a deck and we had some decks to play, so if you wanted to play stand or something. Like I think I played one standard match. But most of the time, we were doing

what we call pack wars. So the way it worked is I would give you a dominaria pack. I give you and me a dominaria pack. We would open it. We'd take out the token and the land, but not looking at the pack, and then blindly shuffle in land. So there were three of each basic lands.

So essentially it was a 30-card deck, half of which was land. And then we would play a game of magic. And no matter what, they got to keep the pack that I gave them. But if they beat me, they also got my pack. And the way I would do it is, if I won and kept my pack,

then the next person, if they beat me, they would only not get my pack, but the previous pack. So like, you know, when I won, it would just sort of build up the prize. Kind of like, you know, anyway. When I won, it would just sort of build up the prize. Anyway. And I had a chance to play a whole bunch of people. It was a lot of fun.

Pack Wars are a lot of fun also. It's funny. Pack Wars are basically based on mini-mafters, which is a format that Henry Stern and I created many, many years ago. The only difference in a mini-mafter is normally you play in a tournament. It's the same basic thing. You take a deck, you mix in 15 lands and play. And then in Mini Mafter, if it's a tournament,

you get your opponent's deck and then you get to rebuild your deck. Actually, sorry, Mini Mamatchers is slightly different. Mini-matchers is for the first match, you just play with all your cards. You mix and land and play with all your cards. But for each later match, you got to build a deck out of 40 cards, a 40-card deck.

So in the first round, you must play all your cards. But in later rounds, you select crafting your deck as you win your opponent's cards. But anyway, so a pack of wards is kind of an evolution of mini-matchers, so it's always fun. So anyway, I would play people, and so one of the things that was fun during the course of the weekend is we were giving away these packs. So the first pack I gave away, did I give it away? Oh, no, it wasn't me.

It was Mark Purvis. Mark Purvis gave away that we, he was playing, there was a man he was playing who had come with his kids. And the story he had told was how he had been playing magic for forever for a long long time and in fact he had sold a lot of his power 9 and stuff to help send his kids to school and now that as kids are older you know magic has really become a bonding thing between him and his kids. And anyway, and Mark gave him, I think it was an unlimited pack. Mark gave him a pack. It was very cool.

And he was very touched by it. My first pack, I did not give away until Sunday. Now that I'm thinking, oh, did I? Did I give away on Saturday? I think I gave it away on Sunday. I think I gave it away on Sunday. Okay, and then after Spell Slinging, so also, by the way, in between all of this,

I would walk around the floor, and I would get stopped a lot by people, and I would pose, I'd take pictures, some selfies, some not selfies, and then sign things. I had all my pens, so I could sign all various things. And I answered a lot of questions. People had a lot of very interesting questions about things. I had all my pens so I could sign all various things. And I answered a lot of questions. People had a lot of very interesting questions about things.

I had a bunch of philosophical questions about the color pie. All sorts of fun questions. Oh, and one of the things I did, normally when I'm at an event, I'll let my blog target readers, what I call the question marks, that's their name, and I'll say to them, I'll give them some way to let me know that they're a question mark, that they're someone who reads my blog. So I ask them to sneak in the name of one of the seven dwarves. So I definitely got people sort of like, hey Mark, happy to see you. You know, stuff like that. And anyway, the other things that were in the hall,

there was a giant Sarah Angel statue that will come in Portland for Sunday. And it was a giant Sarah Angel statue. It's something we had built many years ago, but we hadn't actually had an event for a while. And it's really cool. She has a cape which secretly hides the bar, but she's flying in the air. And then we put giant

Sarah Angel cars all around her. Because obviously we've made a lot of different Sarah Angels. So it's like various versions of Sarah Angel were in giant cars all around her. So, because obviously we've made a lot of different Sarah Angel. So it's like various versions of Sarah Angel were in giant cars all around her. And then there were lots of side events. And you could play all sorts of different side events. I think any other cool things there. I took a bunch of pictures. Oh, there were a lot of cosplayers, by the way.

People dressed up. So one of my favorites is someone, I think we had brought in, somebody who did a Karn cosplay. If you've never seen this. He's been in a bunch of Grand Prix's and we've shown a lot of pictures. But it is like it is a life size Karn because he's using stilts and stuff. Like the guy in the costume is like my height. Like 5'5", 5'6". But in the Karn costume he's 8 feet tall. It is an amazing costume.

I took a picture with it. And there were a whole bunch of cosplayers. I met, I actually posed with Hannah, who I like to pose with Weatherlight characters, so I made the Weatherlight, or co-made the Weatherlight characters. I saw, let's see, a female Jace. I saw a couple of Nissas.

I saw a couple Nysas. I saw a couple Lilianas. I saw at least one Chandra. And various, like, I saw two different Urzas. There's a whole, I'm just there was a wide, wide variety of cosplayers. It was awesome.

Okay, so Saturday night, I basically stayed late just talking to people. Oh, and also, I had to go to... One of the other things we were doing to do Surprise and Delight was we had made a bunch of goodie bags that we were kind of randomly giving away. And one of the items in the goodie bag was that black mat, the special mat for the event, signed by all of the Wizards employees and I think some of the artists. So anyway, I had to go and sign some crazy number of mats. The staff room was off a ways.

So the nice thing about the staff room was they had all the mats that I could sign in and they had this giant box of cupcakes. Every time I'd visit the staff room I had a cupcake. So I had a few cupcakes. They were very good. I think, by the way, we made something like 6,000 cupcakes and gave them all away. I think they were given away on Friday and Saturday. We didn't give anywhere on Sunday. Oh, the other thing I found on Friday, by the way, is there's a VIP area. One of the things you could do at the event is you could pay extra money. And if you were VIP,

you got certain things, certain products and stuff, and you got entry into certain tournaments, and there was a VIP area that had snacks and various accoutrement and stuff. And so I would try to visit the VIP area and just say hi. Normally, we did a VIP area at HasCon. I also did the same thing where I'd come in and sort of schmooze a little bit. In fact, there were two areas for the VIP. One was down low and one was up high. The up high one was cool. You could see the whole. One was down low and one was up high. The up high one was cool.

You could see the whole tournament. Anyway, I also did that on Saturday. Probably as I'm going along, I'll remember things I did and go, oh, yeah, I forgot I did this. Okay, so Sunday I got up. I mean, I got to sleep in. I don't get to sleep in all that often. Although even for me, I'm used to getting up at 6 a.m. for the kids so I think I got up at like 7.30

which for me was sleeping in. So maybe to you guys I wasn't sleeping in but to me I was. And then I went over to the tournament hall. I had a chance

to sort of, I walked, I talked, I got a chance to meet some more artists. Early is really nice to the artists because they're setting up

so they're not super busy yet. That's when I had a chance to talk with Mark Poole. Anyway, I just got to say hi to a lot of people. Like I said, some of them I've actually worked with before, like Mark Tadine and Anson Maddox and RK Post,

and a bunch of them at one point in time were employees at Wizard. So they were actually former co-workers. Anyway, it was good seeing everybody, and I chatted around. Then once again, I popped in again on the... I just said it. chatted around. Then once again, I popped in again on the the I just said it. The I love when I'm blanking on words. The area with the people

I just talked about. The one that's upstairs and down below. The VIP area, sorry. And then it was time for me to shoot a video. So the previous day, I had shot something for Wedge, but this time, so Sean and Nate, the people that do Walking the Plains,

or did Walking the Plains, that do, what's their new one, Enter the Battlefield, they were doing a thing on the 25th anniversary, and so they'd ask people to bring something with them to Grand Prix Vegas that meant something to them that was some souvenir of magic. So I brought my very first magic t-shirt. Now, I have a lot of magic t-shirts. A lot of magic.

I mean, when I say I have like 200 magic t-shirts, you might think I'm exaggerating or using a bit of hyperbole, but I do not think I am. I have a lot of magic t-shirts. Not all of them do I wear all the time. Some of them are packed away. I just can't, I can't seem to give them away.

But I have some that are in storage that if I ever go, oh, I need this one, I can go find it. But anyway, I have lots and lots of them. You know, from old Pro Tours

and old, like every set that came out we used to make a shirt for, we don't do that quite as much anymore. So all the early sets, I have shirts for all the early sets and all the Pro Tours, I have shirts for all the early sets and all the pro tours. I have the early pro tour shirts and the world

shirts and just various events that we did. Grand Prix's and stuff like that. And then just also we make a lot of magic shirts that aren't even tied to events. So I have lots of magic shirts. Anyway, the very first magic shirt was when Wizards first started making magic shirts

I did actually a podcast. I did an article on, and I think a podcast on my t-shirts, um, if you want to know more about t-shirts. But, um, the very first t-shirts wizards ever made were these black shirts. They had the logo on front, but we're talking the old school, like the back of the magic, magic logo, back of the magic, you know, magic back logo, um, in blue, uh, in medieval gaudy, I think it's called and on the back

there were they made four different shirts one of which was for Jihad which later we called Vampire the Eternal Struggle the other three were magic shirts

with magic logo and the three shirts were Vesuvian Doppelganger Nightmare and Armageddon Clock and then there's a special fourth one that was only for employees

at Herlund Minotaur I would later get that one so the first one I ever got was V Zubin Doppelganger. I later bought the other two just because I liked having magic shirts. And then what wasn't, this, like, obviously magic would go on to make lots and lots and lots of shirts. At the time, that was not true. And so I ended up buying all of them. But the first one I ever bought was the Zubin Doppelganger.

So I wore that on Sunday. That was the shirt I was wearing. Actually, it's funny that my t-shirts tend to be in somewhat decent shape because I don't tend to wear any one t-shirt all that often because I have a lot of t-shirts. But this one was definitely showing a little bit of wear because it's 25 years old.

So I don't, I actually don't wear it much anymore because it's got like a hole in it. But I wore it for this because it was like, I wanted to show, you know, my pride of Magic's past. So I did that stuff with them and I answered a bunch of questions. It was funny.

There were all these questions about what Magic means to you. And obviously, Magic means a lot to me. So, you know, not only is it a game I love, but, you know, it's given me my dream job. And it got me to move to Seattle.

And I met my wife there. And anyway, imagine that small impact on my life. Anyway, so I did the videos. And then it was time for me to do Blogatog Live. So Blogatog Live, for those that have never seen me do it, is basically a question and answer. Is I go, sometimes I have stuff to announce. I've done them at San Diego Comic-Con for many years. And I do them at events that I go to.

It's just me on stage answering questions. Matt Tabak was my, the guy with the mic walking around talking to people. So Matt's always fun adding some extra schtick to the thing. And so I answered questions. I answered a whole bunch of questions. It was videotaped, and hopefully by the time you're hearing this, the videotape is up and it's something you guys can see.

I answered a bunch of interesting questions. They did not hold back. There was a bunch of very blunt questions. We talked about the Buy a Box promo. We talked about diversity. We talked about slivers. We talked about all sorts of things. And I always try to do,

I mean, I try to do this on my blog too, but the one thing I explain is on my blog, I get lots and lots and lots of questions. And so I get to pick which questions I answer. I don't even see all the questions because of the number of questions I get. But if I see a question, I go, oh, I don't have a clean, easy answer to this.

I can just not answer it on my blog. But here at Blog Talk Live, if you raise your hand and we come and you ask a question, well, you're asking a question, then I'm going to answer your question. So, Blog Talk Live definitely, I have a little less control of the questions I answer. It's a little more drama for you all.

But it went really well. And, once again, one of the answers everybody who answered got I think I was giving away Dominaria packs for Blackjack Live

and then one special a guy who asked a question about the color pie actually his question wasn't about the color pie

well I answered about the color pie his question was what have I learned what life lesson have I learned doing magic that I apply to my life? And the answer I gave was that I think before I started working in magic, my take on things was very black and white of there was a right and a wrong and that either you were on the right side of the answer or the wrong side of the answer.

And really my embracing of magic and the color pie got me to understand that, look, different people care about things in different ways for different reasons. And it's not necessarily that you're right and they're wrong or they're right and you're wrong, but that you just, you have a different vantage point and understanding what's the vantage point people see and how one person can dislike something and somebody can like it. It just has to do with what their vantage point is. Much of the same way when I design, magic isn't the same game for every people.

And I have to make cards to make other people happy. Like, I'm not a big commander player, but I need to make cards that make commander players happy because that's a part of our audience. And so I have to learn how to sort of see through other people's eyes to understand what they enjoy about the format that you know, so I have to understand why people like Commander so I can make cards that they'll enjoy in Commander.

And that's true of all the different formats, but like, it's sort of like Magic Designs really made me kind of understand the idea of perspective and anyway, I mean, the color pie also done that. And for that question, which was an awesome question,

I gave him an unlimited booster. He also did not open his unlimited. So we'll get to somebody soon that did open their unlimited booster. He did not. Afterwards, I was going to stay and sign mats and things. But then there was a wedding, a magic wedding coming up, and I was pulled to go prepare for the magic wedding. I thought

I had more time, so I apologize. Anybody who was there who wanted me to sign something and didn't catch me later in the weekend, I apologize. I felt very bad. I wanted to stay and sign things and take pictures and stuff. Now, all weekend long I was doing that, so hopefully I was all day Saturday and all day Sunday, I was

in the hall the whole day, both days. So hopefully if you wanted a chance to come, get me to sign something or take a picture, hopefully you did. I signed a lot of things, took a lot of pictures, so I'm hoping everybody who wanted the chance had the chance. If not, I will be in San Diego

in July, come to San Diego Comic Con. Or I will be at other events at other times. So there was a magic wedding. There's people getting married with a magic theme at a magic event. And they had asked for

our involvement. So the wedding was really cool. What we had done is we had set up around the statue to the Sarah Angel. We'd put what we call pipe and drape. We mapped it and put down an area to walk on and

made a nice area. Put up chairs and everything. Made kind of a nice area around it. So what happened was Aaron Forsythe and Matt Tabak were the flower girls. Except instead of throwing flower petals, they were throwing foil full art amonkhet basic lands. And then Ethan Fleischer was the ring bearer.

And both Matt and I were asked to read something. And also, not only did we have Eric Kerndoff, but we had all the cosplayers come. There's many of them. So, I think there were like 15 cosplayers. So, behind them all were all these cosplayers. They had gotten somebody who marries people. I forget what, I'm not sure if it was a minister or not.

But anyway, they had somebody who could come to marry them. And then, I mean, they were dressed up nice with tux and wedding dress, looked very pretty. And then her bouquet was a Mrs. Staff with some flowers woven into it.

So Matt was asked to read the Comprehensive Rules for Soul Bond, which was very fun. And then I was asked to more seriously read, I was asked to read The Love Song of Night and Day. So for those that are unaware, The Love Song of Night and Day is a poem that a woman named Jenny Scott wrote, and then pieces of the poem were in flavor text on Mirage cards. So she had written a whole poem all about kind of day and night falling in love with each other, but a forbidden love because they're separated because one is day and one is night. And anyway, it was a very love poem, a love poem.

And so I read that, and then they got married. And afterwards, we took some pictures. Some of these I posted. In fact, the day after, my Tales from the Pit comic was about the wedding. Basically, it shows them right before they were about to take their vows. And I have the minister saying, do you take Target Bride? And he goes, I do. And he goes, do you take Target Bride?

Do you take Target Groom? I do. And he goes, it resolves. Anyway, afterwards, we took a bunch of pictures and then I did an interview. The New Yorker was there that weekend. Hopefully by the time you hear this, there was a really cool article by the New Yorker

about the whole weekend. But I sat and talked with him for quite a while. One of the things about the 25th anniversary is I've been doing a lot of interviews. So it's been fun of just talking to people and sharing stories. This is what we call a mainstream interview where it's people who...

A core interview is core presses, people who are in the magic scene, people who regularly talk about magic. And when they interview me, it's very specific and very exacting kind of questions because their readers are magic players. Math Media, Math Press is more like most of the readers aren't magic players. So you've got to talk about the game and stuff in terms that someone who might not know magic would understand.

So no lingo and talking a little broader term. Anyway, that was fun. And then it was time for me to do another spell slinging. So one of the things this time was I was given another unlimited pack to give away, and I

decided I was going to give it away during my spell slinging. So I ended up playing a guy named Bill who had been playing magic since December of 1993. I started in August, obviously, uh, I ended up playing a guy named Bill who had been playing Magic since December of 1993. I started in August, obviously, of 1993. Uh, and so, and he talked a lot about how Magic had meant a lot to him over the years and how he really was, you know, Magic had really had a big impact on his life.

Obviously, he's been playing for 25 years. So, um, and so at the end of it, we had a match. I managed to beat him. But at the end of the match, I said to him, I go, here's a trivia question for you. I said, what set came out in December of 1993? And the answer was, well, actually, there's two answers, because Arabian Nights also came out. But most of Arabian Nights actually shipped in January. But the other answer is Unlimited.

And I gave him an Unlimited pack. And he opened it. So he was the one person that opened it in front of me. Like I said, I gave away three during the weekend. I'll get to the third one in a second. So anyway, he opened up in front of me. And we drew a big crowd because you want to draw a big crowd when you open an Unlimited pack. So what I did is I looked at it and ordered it.

So it was all the commons and the uncommons and the rare. Um, so his rare ended up being Elvish Archers. Um, but not the most exciting card in the pack. One of the cool things about the old packs is you can get some pretty exciting stuff that's in common and uncommon. So he got Berserk and he got Stinkhole. I think were two probably best cards from the pack. Sinkhole's a common, Berserk's an uncommon. But those are hard cards to get.

We haven't made those in a long time. Berserk, obviously, is a warm place in my heart. If you've ever heard me talk about my little blue-green weenie deck, Berserk played a big role in that. So anyway, I had a chance to spell sling a bunch of people. Then after spell slinging, I did a little impromptu signing. So I signed a bunch of maps, talked to people, took pictures, and did all that. And then, after that, oh, then I needed to check in on the beta draft.

So Sunday night was the beta draft. They were gathering people together. It turned out there was a little bit of waiting time because they were doing the top, they were still doing the draft for the top eight, the limited, the limited, uh, Grand Prix top eight. Um, so I went back to the room and I found out that we had some goodie bags and some more packs to give away. So I got given another unlimited pack and I got given some goodie bags. Um, and so I gave it around and found random people and gave them goodie bags and everyone

was all excited for these goodie bags because who wouldn't like to get a goodie bag? And the goodie bags had a variety of different things in it. I think all of them had the signed play mats in it. And some of them had the deck box and some of them had various magic products and

all sorts of different things. A lot of them were like special things from that weekend that were magic birthday party things. Although there was a bunch of magic cards. We had some full sets and we had some cool stuff. And then I had one last thing to give away which is an unlimited pack. So when

I had been meeting people one of the people that I met was this little girl ran up to me. A seven year old girl. now some people might know Dana who is a really good player that plays in the Grand Prix and she recently was on a pre-release and anyway, I've met Dana before and Dana's awesome but this was a different seven year old girl that ran up to me

and there's not a lot of seven year old girls that play Magic and her father said that she really wanted to get a picture with me because she had seen me on, I think, the pre-release. Oh, no, she had seen me on game nights. She had seen me on game nights. Anyway, and she was excited to get a picture with me. And then so I took a picture with her. And then I signed something for them, I think.

And then the father and I got to talking. And he talked about how he's been playing for a long, long time, and that he wanted to get his daughter into magic. And so at age two, he started playing a game with her. Not full-on magic, but he started playing sort of a super proto-version of magic with her. The early game was just about casting spells, I think, and she was teaching her how to cast spells. But anyway, from two, he started playing games with her, like, very, very proto versions of magic, um, and some were not even magic per se, were just using magic cards, but anyway, he slowly

introduced her to magic, and, um, she was now playing with, with, I mean, full-out magic, with, with pre-constructed decks and stuff, and, um, anyway, I decided when I got my last pack that I wanted to give it to him. I thought that, uh, I really liked his story and I thought that, you know, introducing a magic to the next generation and the creative way he did it, starting at two, I thought that was some great

temptation. So I gave him my final Unlimited pack. Um, he was quite excited. Whenever I would give somebody something, especially the Unlimited packs, because that's not the thing you expect to get out of the blue. But anyway, it was fun. The surprise and delight stuff is always, I mean, I know it's fun for the people who get the things, obviously, because they get the things, but it's also fun for us to give them away. So that was a lot of fun.

Then came the beta draft so I luckily was able to get a table side view I was behind the cameras but I got pretty close and Aaron and Paul Rietzel and BDM did commentary on the draft

it was a saucy there were some good pulls so there was a time walk, there were some good pulls. So there was a Time Walk opened. There was a Mox Emerald opened. There was three different dual lands opened. An Underground Sea, a Plateau, and a Scrubland. There was a Time Vault opened.

There was a Wheel of Fortune opened. There was a Fast Bond opened. There was a Neverall of Disks opened. It was just saucy. And no rare islands at all were pulled. No laces were pulled. They did get a web and a kutsu and a power surge. I mean, not all the rares were necessarily amazing rares.

But anyway, it was just exciting to watch. And what happened was the commentators were set up and they had a screen that showed the overhead view. So And what happened was the commentators were set up and they had a screen that showed the overhead view. So some people sat by the commentators so they could hear the commentators and watch the draft

on the big screen. Some people stood by watching the actual match live. And then whenever the cards got laid out, we'd yell out what the rares and uncommons were.

The way they did it is they first laid out the rare, then the uncommons, then the commons. I would have done reverse. I they first laid out the Rare, then the Uncommons, then the Commons. I would have done reverse. I would have laid the Commons, the Uncommons, the Rare.

I would have built up suspense. But it was a really electric event. It was really just there's something kind of fun. I mean, the interesting thing to me was the early Magic sets

were not made with limited mind. You know, Elf and Beta were not made with limited mind. You know, Elf and Beta were not made with limited mind. And so just getting 23 playable cards proved to be quite the challenge. The person that won managed to get two Pestilences and a Singer Vampire, and I was told actually had 23 playables.

You know, the drafters were forced to go into three, four colors. So it was... And you were playing a lot of extra land. In fact, you're not even playing... Normally, when you're playing limited, you play about 17 land. These decks had like 20, 21 land. Just because... Just getting enough playables was hard.

And you needed to spread out in colors because just... You had stuff all over the place. So, anyway... I know LSV was in the finals. I forgot the... I apologize. I forgot the person who beat him in the finals it was the guy

who was playing the black deck I'm talking about I apologize I apologize anyway and so with that that was the final event I then went out to dinner

with Brian Weissman who's a good friend of mine and we got to talk magic and anyway that was that was Vegas so the next day

I flew out, but I had a great time. It was an awesome event. I loved meeting all the people I met. All the events I did were fun. The Spellsling was a blast. Watching the Grand Prix, the Beta Draft, all of a sudden, the wedding.

I was in a wedding. I was in a magic wedding. That's never happened before, believe it or not. I mean, there have been magic weddings. I've just never been in one before. So that was really cool. So it was, I had a great time. It was a whirlwind of a trip.

Like I said, I went on Saturday morning and came back on Monday morning. So it was, you know, two days. But it was a lot of fun. So hopefully you guys, hopefully today I expressed how much fun it was. I really had a great time. And so everybody was there it was awesome seeing everybody but anyway

that my friends was my trip to Grand Prix Vegas it was a lot of fun so if you've never been to Grand Prix I urge you not that every Grand Prix isn't necessarily Grand Prix Vegas

but I urge you to go if you ever get one by you they're a lot of fun and anyway I'm now parked so we all know what that means and this is the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic

it's time for me to be making magic I'll see you guys next time