Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #568: Throwing Parties

Episode Date: August 31, 2018

My wife and I love throwing parties, so in this podcast, I talk about the numerous lessons we've learned over the years and how I've been able to apply those lessons to designing Magic sets.

I'm pulling away driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about one of my hobbies and how I've applied a lot of lessons I've learned from that hobby to magic design. So the hobby is party throwing. So my wife and I, Laura, my wife, we have been together since since 96. So we've been together a long time and one of the things we learned very early on is that both of us enjoyed throwing parties. I, for example, have a lot of training in game making and puzzle making. Laura really enjoys cooking. And anyway, we discovered that the overlap of our skills was we are well skilled, if you will, to throw parties.

And so one of the things we do is there's a number of parties we throw every year. So the biggest party we throw every year is called the Holiday Cookie Party. It is something we do always in December. So the biggest party we throw every year is called the Holiday Cookie Party. It is something we do always in December. At the core of it is there's cookie decorating. So we make, there's these sugar cookies that I really like that we make. And then people can come and decorate them. And there's always a contest at the end to see who wins for the thing.

And also we do a live game show at the Holiday Cookie Party. And as I will explain, there are also a lot of other games and stuff we do. Anyway, the Holiday Cookie Party, I think this year is our 23rd annual Holiday Cookie Party. So we don't goof around. And then the next biggest party we throw is on 4th of July,

which when I record this is tomorrow. I'm recording this the day before 4th of July. And the 4th of July is a barbecue, a potluck barbecue. And like always, we have some games. When I get to the, I'll talk about the games when we get there. And I also always do a live board game. Not like a game show like the holiday party, but like I pick a game that I like. Usually it's a new game. Sometimes I'll pick an old classic that people haven't played in a while.

And we always play a game, but it's always a large group game that the entire group is playing. So there's a subset of games that work really well with a large group. Then we also always throw a Super Bowl party. That's a little bit of a smaller party. The cookie party is our biggest party where we invite almost everybody. And Fourth of July is also pretty big. The Super Bowl party is a little bit smaller

because we have to fit people in our room. And there's a game we play with the Super Bowl party. I'll get to some of the stuff as we talk about the things. But we watch the Super Bowl, eat a lot of food. One of the signatures of a Rosewater party is there's always a crazy amount of food. My favorite story there is I had somebody come to our party. It was the first time they'd ever come to the party.

And he said, oh, I didn't know there'd be food, so we ate ahead of time. And Aaron looked at me and goes, rookie mistake. Anyway, a lot of food at our party. And we have various other parties. Obviously, we throw birthday parties for the kids. Lords of Mexican descent, so sometimes we throw a Cinco de Mayo party. In the past, when the kids were younger, we used to throw Easter parties with acorns and stuff. We have thrown, we used to throw, we don't throw the Halloween party anymore.

But for years, we did a Halloween party. But anyway, a wide variety of parties. We like throwing parties. So I'm going to talk today about the lessons I learned about throwing parties for years on end. So A, this will help you throw parties if you want to throw parties. And B, I will talk about how the lessons I learned from throwing parties, I think I've also applied to magic design. For those that listen to me, obviously, I'm very holistic in how I think of things. What you learn in one area gets applied

to another. Okay, so the number one lesson I've learned about having parties is you want to have a theme. So there's a period of time where all our friends were having babies, and we were throwing a lot of baby showers. Usually whenever someone would have the first baby, we would throw them a baby shower. And one of the things we always did is we said to them, Okay, all we need from you is a theme. And one of our friends wanted a carnival. One of them wanted baseball. One of them wanted

the movies. And so we were able to take each of that and that the thing about wanting to have a theme is, and I talk about this all the time in Magic Design, that as soon as you have a bullseye, a focal point, something that you want, it just drives your sort of creative energies to go, oh, I know what I'm looking for. That when you're kind of open up and it could be anything, it just doesn't quite have that. And the thing that really helps a party is when you have a theme, it just puts everything,

your decorations, your food, your games, like everything starts to crystallize because you have a theme and a focus. Now, some parties are super clear and liketh of July has a very clear theme. It's a holiday, so we get to do stuff revolving around America and stuff like that. Other things are a little fuzzier, like the baby shower. Now, obviously, babies can be a theme, but what we found is that we got a little more narrow and not just themed to babies, but themed specifically towards something. We just got a much more memorable baby shower. And in Magic Design, having a theme just makes it, like,

one of the issues about making sets is, I think we are, one of the sets that come out next year is our 100th set, and we're well past that now. So how do you differentiate? You've made over 100 different sets. Why is this set different than that set? Well, the set needs to have a theme to it. It has to be about something. You know, not only, A, we tend to have planes that give it identity,

but also there are themes built into the planes. So like, oh, it's about this thing, and there's these mechanics in it. Having a cohesive theme just ties it all together and makes it memorable. Like one of the things you're trying to do at a party or a magic set is you want people to remember it and you want it to have an identity to it. And that really has to do with your theme. So lesson number two is stay focused to your theme. Because one of the things I've noticed sometimes is you get a theme, and then you don't stick to the theme. Oh, well, it's about thing X.

And then you make a bunch of mechanics or a bunch of party elements that aren't about thing X, and then it starts drifting. It stops being about that thing. So one of the things I'm always, like, whenever we're planning for the party is when we're looking at the food and the games and everything, the decorations, everything about it, how do we focus on that thing? Now, one of the things that helps, for example, for us is a lot of our parties are built around particular holidays or events.

And because we've thrown the parties for many years, we've built up decorations. And so we definitely have had, you know, it's time to do the Fourth of July party. We have a couple, you know, boxes in the garage of Fourth of July decorations. And so we definitely have had, you know, it's time to do the 4th of July party. We have a couple, you know, boxes in the garage of 4th of July decorations, and we're able to use those. Now, we keep trying to mix in new things. The way I compare this to magic design is that within any theme, we have some tools already at our disposal. Like one of the things is, let's say we want to do a graveyard theme. Well, guess what? Magic's done graveyard before. We have a bunch of things in the boxes in the garage, if you will.

We have, you know, one of the things that we figured out, for example, I just used graveyard as my example, is when a graveyard's set, we have to make sure every color cares about the graveyard. Normally, not every color cares quite as much,

but we've slowly built up things we can go to when it's time to have a theme of the graveyard. And we have a bunch of mechanics we've made that use the graveyard. And now, when I do a new graveyard set, I don't need to bring back all the mechanics, but I could bring back maybe one. And so one of the things that happens is, by building up and staying to your themes, when you revisit your themes, you have tools available to you. building up and staying to your themes, when you revisit your themes, you have tools available to you. But it's very important when you're making your set that you understand what it is you're making and you stick to it. Sometimes what I've found in design is if I

sort of don't keep a laser focus, the set kind of drifts and then it starts losing its identity. And so it's very important to understand what your set is about. What we call your mechanical heart, which is, like, mechanically, what's the set about? Is it a graveyard set? Is it a multicolor set? Is it an artifact set? What does it mechanically care about? And then, from a flavor standpoint, what's the identity of the world you have?

What's the thing that speaks the loudest? Oh, it's blah kind of world. And those two things together give you a clean, you know, a very clean identity that you get to build around. Okay, number three, cover your basics. So one of the things we learned is there's certain things that every party needs to have. So for example, I mean, I'll get into some of these details more, but like food is important. So we kind of know, okay, there's certain kind of, and for food, there's a range of foods.

You want to start with some nibbly foods to start with, chips and things. And then you want to slowly work your way into appetizers and then work into sort of more the meal of your food. And then you want dessert. So you want to sort of make sure that every time you throw a party, even though what food you choose or how you choose it or what kind of dessert you have, that's going to change based on some of your themes. But understanding the basics, like what we've learned over throwing parties for many years is

there's certain things that every party needs to have. For example, I'll get to this in a second, but I'm really big on activities and games. Well, there's some stuff we've learned to do that every party, mostly we do, tends to do this. And magic design is the same way, which is part of building your set is knowing that there's some things that every set has. One of the things you do early on is what we call a design skeleton, where you sort of map out, okay, how many slots per color, what percentage of creatures, and then you can sort of mark out and say, oh, okay, well, in green common, I need my giant growth effect, I need my naturalized effect. You can sort of map other things

you know you need. Because part of building a party or a magic set is, look, a certain amount of it is the same. There's certain elements that just make a good party. And while you get to switch up some things, the basics kind of you don't. We're not going to throw a party and not cover our food. We're not going to throw a party and not think about our activities. We're not going to do a party without being crystal clear on the things that we're trying to do. Okay, number four, have different things to do. So one of the things about a party that is important is I like providing activities for people.

Not just because I like making puzzles and games and things, but also what I've found is some people are just fine coming up with things to do, talking with people and such. And at our parties, look, a lot of the people we invite know each other. I invite a lot of people from work, for example. They all work together. They know each other. But we invite people that are cross-section. Not everybody we invite to our parties necessarily knows each other. We have friends we invite from the neighborhood,

or even people that used to work at Wizards but are old enough that the old people or the current people that work at Wizards, most of them don't know them. So one of the things I like to do is I like to build in sort of activities. So there's two big activities that I tend to do. And then there's some smaller stuff. So the two big things I like to do is I like to have puzzles, what I call paper games. And the way it works is when you come to our house, we will always have a couple of games to play that are, when I say paper, meaning they're written on paper. We leave them in a certain place so people who come to parties know where they are. There's always prizes. I'll get to that in a second. But anyway, it's something to do. And they're made such that they take some time and make them so that they're engrossing. It's not something you'll do for two minutes and stop.

And they're also made, one of the rules of all our puzzles is you are allowed to get help from other party guests, but you can't use your phone. You can't go on the Internet. And so it kind of encourages people to interact with each other. And the nice thing is once you, like you see somebody else working on the same game as you, now you have a ice breaking thing. You have something in common and it just, it does a good job of sort of getting people to sort of, who don't necessarily know each other to interact with each other. And my paper games are always tied to the party I'm throwing.

Um, for example, one of the things I do for the 4th of July party is I have a, I have a, I have a puzzle I do every year called red, white, and blue. And the way it works is I list 40 things, 10 of which are red, 10 of which are white, 10 of which are blue, 10 of which are not red, white, or blue. Um, and the idea, you know, it might be like the color pill that Neo took in the Matrix. Or, you know, the color of the Time Stone in Avengers Infinity

Infinity War. You know, I'll just take things that are pop-cultury type things and the idea is you have to figure out, it's a trivia-based game, and the nice thing about it is as you start eliminating things, like once you fill up your ten slots for a color, now you know, once I find my ten

red things, well, nothing else is red. I found my ten red things. And it's the kind of thing where you can start narrowing down, that even if you don't definitively know the answer, a lot of times you can go, well, it's one of these two choices, and then I can figure that out. Usually my other, usually I'll do, I usually do two or three puzzles,

depending on the party. And one of them is often trivia-based, and then the second one is not trivia-based. I always try to make it a different kind of puzzle. Like tomorrow, I have one trivia-based puzzle, which is red, red, and blue, and then I have one word-based one, I have one trivia-based puzzle, which is red, red, and blue.

And then I have one word-based one, which is I give people the 50 state capitals. And then they have to choose. The way the puzzle works is you choose three of them. And then you have to make, from the letters of those three capitals, a one-letter word, two-letter word, all the way up through a ten-letter word. And then the tiebreaker is that you have the least number of letters in the three states you chose. And so the idea is I want to sort of find all these words, but I kind of want to do it with the smallest names I can. So anyway, that is the puzzle.

And then oftentimes for the, when I'm doing puzzles for like the hot cookie party, they're usually holiday themed. I tend to often, certain parties have themes in which I can, like the red, white, and blue puzzle, while it has a red, white, and blue theme, mostly it's about generic pop culture trivia, where the holiday party, the cookie party, there's just a lot more stuff, trivia I can do on holiday-themed stuff. So I tend to do more holiday-themed trivia. The other thing I also do is I like to do activities,

which are live things. So at the cookie party, for example, we have a live game show. And the way that works is teams of two can enter and then I have different games based on different things. Some are physical, some are mental, some are verbal. There are all sorts of different things. And the idea is you go up against somebody else, and then you compete,

and it keeps going until there's a finals between two people. But it's made to be super spectator-friendly, and it's a lot of fun, and it's something we've done for a long time so people sort of come to expect it. And like at the 4th of July party, we play a live game with everybody who's there. So that is like the game show is a little more spectatory where I mean people can participate if they want to but any one moment is only two teams participating.

So most of the time you're spectating. But I build things that are fun to watch. And then like on 4th of July, that's something in which you are, everybody's participating. It's a game in which everybody's being involved. Then, for example, like on the Super Bowl, we play a game in which you fill out a bingo card in the beginning. I give you stickers, and then you fill out a bingo card. And there's three different categories. One is on the field, one is around the field, and one is the commercials.

And so you're picking things you think will happen, and then whenever you get a bingo, you then get a pull, for each bingo you get, you get a pull, a slip, and there's a giant football field, and you're scoring yardage, and so you're getting a score as the game goes on. So there's like this meta game. So while you're watching the Super Bowl, we have this game going on. And it's something you get to do while you're watching. And it also, it makes you, while you're watching, you're looking out for certain things.

And it just adds a little element to the game. And the big thing from a magic design standpoint is that you want to make sure there's a lot going on in your set. I don't want the set to be about one singular thing. Like, well, if you don't like that one singular thing, you're out of luck. You want to have a mix of things

that you can do. Okay, number five. Help different parts commingle. So I covered this a little bit in the last section, but one of the things I try to do is make sure that no matter what you're doing at the party,

whether you're enjoying the food or you're playing the games or you're... Oftentimes, for example, I'll put up slideshows of things. Like for that cookie party, we often put up previous... Because we've had 23 previous cookie parties. We'll show up slides so people can watch that and see, oh, look, this is somebody I know from work, but they're 15 years younger and stuff like that. And in general, one of the things you're trying to do in a party is you want to make sure

the different components, you get people to commingle with the other components. And that's why we're very conscious about sort of getting people to be in certain rooms together so that we can sort of have the commingling. And in magic design, kind of what you want is you want to make sure that if you're playing one theme, that occasionally other themes hook in. Like the idea is, oh, well, here's a theme you might draft. But then while you're drafting that one theme, you'll pick up drabs of another theme. And then when you're playing, you'll get to sample that other theme.

And then maybe a different time, you're like, oh, I'm going to go all in on that theme. But getting your themes to commingle just allows when people are playing to sort of get a chance to experience the whole set. Number six, know when to end. So one of the things we've learned with our parties is we give a start time and an end time that the party has a natural closing point. Usually because we do events, one of the things we tend to do, like the way the cookie party ends is we run the game show, we grade all the puzzles, we pick a winner for the cookie contest, and we're done. And one of the things that helps is to sort of give a, you know, sometimes parties can just kind of linger, and this sort of gives a definitive end. And then design is the same thing of, I mean, Magic kind of has this built in, which is I only get so many cards. So one of the things that keeps you from lingering design is, look, I only get so many cards. Is this

upholding it? Is this theme working? If not, I will pull it and then spend more time on the themes that I want to spend time on. But one of the things that I find is very effective when you're planning a party is letting the audience know the full deal. It's going to start at this time, and it's going to end at that time. Okay, number seven, get the audience involved. So one of the things we do in our parties is we usually ask the audience, the party goers, to bring something. So, for example, our Fourth of July party is a potluck. And it's like, okay, well, we're going to make,

normally the way our Fourth of July works is we make hamburgers and hot dogs, and we have all the fixings. And then we say to people, hey, and normally we provide drinks. And we say to people, hey, it's a potluck, bring something, bring a salad, bring chips, bring a dessert. And so for the Fourth of July, people will bring food. For the cookie party, we started this tradition from the very beginning where Laura and I got together. I'm Jewish, obviously. Laura did not have any ornaments and I didn't have any ornaments. And so when we first started, we didn't have any ornaments for

the tree, for the Christmas tree. And so for the cookie party, what we said is, hey, bring us an ornament, something you think we'd like. And our tree, I would say 95% of our tree are ornaments people brought us from the cookie party. And it is an eclectic pop culture explosion of a tree. It's very fun. And people really go out of their way to find cool ornaments that we might not have found for ourselves. And so I have all sorts of lots of geeky, lots of magic ones, homemade magic ones usually, and lots of all sorts of, some of them are homemade, some are bought from stores, some are, I don't even know where they get them, but there's a lot of really cool things. There's ones that play music and there's ones

that do, anyway, all sorts of neat things. But the reason that this is important is I like the audience having the ability to sort of bring something to the party. Not a lot, not something that's a lot of work, because we're going to do most of the work throwing the party, but I like them being invested and bringing stuff in. And I think in magic design, it's kind of similar in that you want to get the person invested. So you want them to sort of, one of the things that's cool is,

here are themes, maybe you have cards external to this that you would like to bring into this. You know, that you sort of, it's nice to have things that throw back and make people go, ooh, I might already have cards that I can contribute to this theme. And it makes people more invested in your new set. Number

eight, build around traditions. So one of the things you'll see is when I talk about how, you know, it's our 23rd annual cookie party and our 21st annual 4th of July party, and I'm sure what Super Bowl party, but like 15th or something. And there's just things we do that people come to expect. They know about the games or the live game show.

There's things that they've learned about. And even with our food, like for example, at our 4 Fourth of July party, we always make homemade ice cream cookies. Cookies with ice cream, like ice cream sandwich cookies. And we make those every year. Not everybody has them every year, but they know that we make them. Or at our holiday party, during the game show, we make a thing called meat wrapped in meat. And basically, it is this thing, the way I always explain it is, what's better than meat, meat wrapped in meat, what's better than meat wrapped in meat,

meat wrapped in meat dipped in sugar. So they're little smokies, little sausages, wrapped in bacon, dipped in brown sugar. They're very good. Not healthy, but very good, very tasty. Very tasty. Not good and good for you. Good because they taste good.

And people have come to expect that. It's like, you know, we have the cookie contest. Our parties have a very defined element to them. And people who know that, like, for example, one of the things I always do at the cookie party is I always make my homemade latkes, my dad's recipe, latkes or potato pancakes. And I always do that at the beginning of the party. You have to come early to the party to get them because I make them and they're done. But people who sort of know that and like them have learned to come a little early because they want to make sure they get the latkes. And it's something that people

learn about. And I think the same thing is within magic sets. There's certain things we like to do and so for example, when we go back to a world, there's some expectations of things people expect and we meet those expectations. We're going to Zendikar? Well guess what? There's going to be some land mechanics

involved. Allies are going to be there. You know, We're going to Zendikar? Well, guess what? There's going to be some land mechanics involved. Allies are going to be there. You know, we're going back to Innistrad. You're going to have double-faced cards and you're going to have a lot of top-down horror tropes. You know, we're going to Ravnica where you're getting guilds. You're getting multicolor cards. You know, that there's certain expectations of people and that way when we sort of return to something, people bring expectations that we can meet and they're happy. Number nine, provide direction. So one of the things that I learned, part of this is why I do things like the puzzles and things like that, is I want to make sure people know what they can do. Because a lot of times what I find in parties is people come and there's, okay, do things,

and it's just people sort of sit around not sure what to do. I like it when our parties can sort of say, look, not that you can't sit around and talk to people. You can, but we want to make sure that there's things to do. For example, the Fourth of July party, we always have water activities for the kids. It's just like, okay, kids, there's things you do, and that also means for the parents is they know their kids could have fun, and the kids aren't bugging them every two seconds because they're off doing something that's fun and so you know we sort of built that in and you know we like making sure that you know when you come to our party what what the options are we're very clear on what you can do I often will make announcements during the party to make sure

that people are aware of for example we're always bringing in new food because food's always rotating in to make sure people are like, okay, this food just came available, and stuff like that. And I'm always making sure people are aware of all the options and what's going on. Sometimes, for example, with my kids' parties,

we even make a schedule. For example, for Adam's birthday parties, we often do a video game party where we set up video games around the house, and then we make a schedule of when different video games are being played on which systems. Oh, you want to play Super Smash Brothers? Oh, we're going to play that in the family room from two to three. And we sometimes literally make schedules so people are aware of what we want to do. The similar thing in magic design

is making sure that people know what you're trying to do. And a lot of times this is common, is making sure that people know what you're trying to do. And a lot of times this is common, is designing commons that are directional, that say, hey, as I'm opening packs, either in sealed or limited, you know, sealed or in draft, or just in casual construction, as I open packs, it's kind of telling me what the set's going to be doing.

And there's a lot of directional stuff we try to do. We want to make sure when you open up a booster pack, that booster pack tells you what it is you're trying to do. It's not like, oh, well, just do whatever you want to do. It's like, oh, no, no, we're going to give you direction. Not that you can't do your own direction. Not that you can't find your own things to do. But we want to make sure that you have some idea of what's going to happen.

Okay. The final thing, number 10, is providing a goal. One of the things that you want to do is you want to have people know what it is they're trying to do and have some sort of goal for that. So direction tends to show up at lower rarities and the goals usually show up at higher rarities. Meaning you don't need a lot of goals. I mean you need a lot of direction to help you show you're going in that direction but you don't need a lot of goals. Usually your deck's going to have a couple things that are like, oh, if I can make this happen, that's going to be good. At our parties, for example, we like to have prizes.

We always have games, and our games have prizes. And normally what we do is we get more prizes than there are things to get prizes for, so that people have a choice to pick what their prize is. And what we've found is that those people sort of look, they can pick something maybe they want to win, and then it gives them focus to play the game. And it gives them a little goal, and that sometimes is like,

it's easier to say, oh, here's a game to play, when I say, well, but you can win this. And you're like, oh. Another thing we often do at our parties is we normally have a little game where you get to guess how many things are in the container. And we find a cute container that's themed to the party with candy usually that's if possible themed to the party and then it's something that is something people can sort of it's a very low epic well you can win this candy if you guess how much is in it that's a very simple game that we found people like to play but

one of the things that's really the key to it is that you want your party goer to sort of say, okay, what am I trying to do? And you give them a goal, and it just helps encourage them to want to do it. One of the things we've learned is just, for example, giving prizes to our games just makes people more willing to want to play the game. And that's just another element of it also means that some of the people get to leave your party with something from the party. And that just sort of, you know,

and it's not that, we don't have prizes for everybody. Although when we play games like on the 4th of July, we'll have small prizes when, you know, half the team wins, you know, one side wins. We'll have small prizes. But anyway, it just gives some clarity and when your player and or your

party goer knows what exactly they want, it just gives them focus to do the thing they need to do. Okay, so moment still works. Let me wrap this up. So the key to parties, if you want to throw a good party and like or design a good magic set, here's my 10 things I said.

Number one, have a theme. It is so much easier to sort of build around something than build around nothing. Two, stay focused to your theme. So having a theme is not enough. You have to take your theme and apply it to every component. Like I said, when we're doing a party, we think about it for every component. When I'm designing magic sets, I think about it for every component. Number three, cover your basics. That every party and every magic set, there's certain things that they have to do. Don't forget that, you know,

people are going to need their drinks at the party. There's certain things that they have to do. Don't forget that, you know, people are going to need their drinks at the party. There are certain things you're going to need. Make sure that while you're doing your themes and doing fun stuff, they're remembering

to do the things that are going to make the party and or set work. Number four, have different things to do. Not every party goer, every magic player wants the same things exactly.

So one of your jobs is you want to make sure that you're giving them something to do by giving them a couple options of things to do and that by doing that you just make a better overall experience for them number five help different parts co-mingle it is not always so easy for people to

pull together different component parts. And as a partygoer slash designer, it is your job to make sure that happens. So you want to make sure that there's things that crisscross your activities. Sometimes that's about, you know, putting food near my games or having games that make people have to interact with other people or doing things in which the different parts of the party are sort of forced by necessity, same with your set, to interact with one another.

Number six, know when to end. The key there is you can't stuff everything into your party and you want the audience to have expectations of what to expect. So don't overstuff your set, don't overstuff your party, and make sure that, specifically with parties, it's really good to let people know when the party ends. Number seven, get the audience involved. This is, you want to make sure that your audience is bringing something to what you're doing. I find with parties, it can be a very small

thing. Potluck is one of the easy things to do. And once again, you can stress to people they don't have to bring something, but it's something they can bring. And a lot of people feel more welcome when they're contributing something to the party in some way. And same with magic sets. You want to feel like there's things from magic's past that I get to make use of when I do this thing. And that makes people happier. Number eight, build in traditions.

So one of the reasons we go back to planes and one of the reasons that we tend to throw parties at the same time every year is it's a lot of fun to build up traditions and get expectations for people. Because that way, A, it's easier to do and people come and they know the thing and they enjoy the thing

and it's fun to do it again. Number nine, provide direction. Make sure that in your set and in your party, people know what the options are and and it's fun to do it again. Number nine, provide direction. Make sure that in your set and in your party, people know what the options are and what they're able to do. We'll often put up signs and things letting people know and that I always make sure with newer people, the older people that have been there before, I know kind of the routine, but I go out of my way to make sure with newer people that I do that. In magic sacks, it has to do with your commons. Make sure your commons are explaining what it is you want and that when you open a pack you are being given direction every single pack you open up about

what the set is about. And number 10, provide a goal. People tend to be happier when there's something at the end to reach for. And for a party we like to do prizes. For magic sets it's about having cards that do cool things to help you win the game, usually at higher rarities so that people get a few of them when they play, but they're not torn about doing too many different things. And that, my friends, is how you throw a party and or make a magic set. So I hope that was fun for you guys today. See a little insight in my life and just think about a different way about making magic sets. Anyway, I'm now at work, so we all know what that means.

This is 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.