Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #649: MagicFest London

Episode Date: June 28, 2019

So, I went to England for MagicFest London and Mythic Championship II. This podcast talks all about my trip.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. I dropped my daughter off at school. Okay, I'm back from London, from Magic Fest London and the Mythic Championship number two. So today's podcast is all about that trip. I had a really good time. And I'm going to share it with all of you. Okay, so, as you guys know, I don't travel all that much because of my family. And when I do travel, I try to condense my travel time. So these days, I don't do a lot.

Like Aaron Forsythe, for example, went early, and he got there a couple days early and saw Stonehenge and London Bridge and all sorts of sites of London. I have been to London before. This is my third time being in London. I did a tour of Europe when I was in my teenage years. And in 1999, I went to the Pro Tour in London. But anyway, this was my third trip to London for the Mythic Championship 2 slash Magic Fest London. Okay, so I left on a Wednesday. Magic Fest London. Okay, so I left on a Wednesday. And the way it works is I left like, I don't know,

it's like 3.30. And with the time zone, so there's an eight hour time difference. London was eight hours ahead. I arrived in the morning at like 10.30 or something, 10.45 in the morning. So I got there and it was the next day. I tried the best I could to sleep on the flight. That wasn't all that easy to do. Just because for me, it wasn't that late. I left at 3.30. So since I got in at 10.45, that would have been like 2.45. So I did sleep a little bit on the plane, but it wasn't it's not that easy to sleep on planes. So I got a little bit of rest, but not a lot.

So my big concern, by the way, was that night Aaron Forsythe got he and I tickets to see Avengers Endgame. For those who don't know, I am a major major fan of Marvel. And so, as is Aaron. So he got his tickets. So my big worry was I didn't want to fall asleep. I didn't want to, I knew that I'd be, normally the way it works when you travel is when you get to wherever you're going, you just stay up until it's time to go to bed.

And usually you're exhausted, but then you're tired and then it gets you in the, in the timeframe. So you get up at the right time. But anyway, I was really worried that I would be, I didn't want to be too tired in the movie because the last thing I wanted to do is fall asleep in Avengers Endgame. Now it turns out the movie was really exciting and maybe I would never fall asleep anyway. But so what happened was I got in, we got to our hotel. So, um, the event was, uh, was in this place that was on the, um, I think it was on the east side of London. Um, it was a little ways away. Like when I got, I flew into Heathrow and it was like an hour and a half to two hour drive, uh, like with traffic to our hotel. Um, it was at this exhibition, the exhibition center called the Excel, I think, exhibition center. So there

were two giant rooms, one of which was for the Pro Tour itself, the Mythic Championship, and the other was for the Grand Prix slash Magic Fest. And so what happened was, I explained in my last podcast that I originally wasn't planning to go here, but my schedule opened up. I decided it would be fun to go. And so I announced to a lot of people that I was coming, although a lot of people when I arrived, when I say people right now, I mean behind the scenes, were surprised to learn that I was there. So what happened was Thursday there was supposed to be, Thursday there was a staff meeting, but I couldn't I couldn't find, I actually wandered around trying to find the staff meeting and didn't find it.

I did find the venue. Turns out that the venue was closed on Thursday, but they were setting up so there was a way to get in, but I didn't know how to get in, so I didn't realize, so anyway, I missed the staff meeting. And then I ended up taking a nap because I didn't want to fall asleep during the Avengers. I took a short meeting. And then I ended up taking a nap because I didn't want to fall asleep during the Avengers.

I took a short nap. And then I got up and Aaron and I went out and we went on. The way we got there was there's a little gondola you traveled on. I actually, there's a picture where my comics had Aaron and I traveling in the gondola. I think Aaron also posted a picture. So we got to take a gondola over the Thames. And then we walked. He and I Thames. And then we walked. He and I had dinner.

And then we saw the movie. Not very magic oriented, but it was awesome. I really, really enjoyed it. When I get back, I'm taking my son to see the movie. So I'll see it for a second time. So I'm excited to see it. That's how much I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Anyway, Friday was the start of the main event. Oh, the one thing about where, just real quickly, where the event was held. So it was held at, I think, the Excel Center, I think it's called. It is not near the main part of London, but there are a lot of things around it. So there's a lot of food around it. You know, I had a bunch of different meals, and all but one meal I walked to, and it was very good meals, and I had a great time as far as all the food and stuff. But we'll get there.

Okay, so let's start on Friday. So I wake up crazy early on Friday. In general, one of the things when you are trying to do time zone is your body takes a little while to adjust. And so I'd gone to bed the previous night. Aaron and I went to the movie. We got back. It was like 11-ish. I called my family to say hi.

One of the weird things about being in such a different time zone is trying to find a time where I'm awake and they're awake at a time that I can call them. is trying to find a time where I'm awake and they're awake at a time that I can call them. It turns out right before I went to bed was about when the kids got home from school. So my kids get home like 3.30 from school. And so if I called them at 11.30, I would get them right as they're getting home. So usually before I went to bed, I would call and talk to them. There was a good gap there where I would go to bed between 11 and 3.12 and I could call them. So anyway, called my family, got in bed, fell right asleep because I was exhausted.

And then I woke up at like early. I think I woke up like 3 a.m. and I managed to go back to sleep for a while. And I ended up getting up around 6. So one of the nice things about our hotel, so we stayed next door in the Novo Hotel, was they had a free breakfast, like a breakfast buffet. It was very nice. The breakfast came with the room. And one of the things I've learned over the years

of doing a lot of shows is you really, really want to get a good breakfast. You don't always necessarily get lunch. There is catered lunch. Um, there, there is catered lunch. It's not like lunch isn't available for us, but it is, um, just cause you're doing a lot of different things. Uh, usually if you have a really good breakfast and you have a good dinner, you're fine. And you nibble a little bit around lunch. Um, but I find having a good breakfast. So we had my breakfast. Um, and then I went off to the site. Um, so the first thing I did is they set up an interview for me. Um, once again, um, well, even though I told

people about two months earlier, I was going, the UK office only found out about a week before I got there. Uh, and so they'd set up a couple interviews for me. They're like, had they known more ahead of time, they would have set up more interviews, but I had a few interviews. So we sat down, and just, one of the nice things about doing interviews, especially in foreign countries, is, I mean, I enjoy doing interviews,

and I have a lot of experience doing interviews, and it's just fun, it is fun to, one of the things I enjoy is trying to figure out the person I'm being interviewed by, what are they writing for, what is their angle on the story, what aspect are they trying to play out, and then try to sort of match my interview to the kind of article that they're writing so that I'm being as useful as I can. One of the things I learned long ago is that there are a lot of skills to being interviewed, that being a good interviewee doesn't come automatic.

There's a lot of training and a lot of stuff that comes with it. And so I've worked really hard to try to be a good interviewee, so that when I'm interviewed, that I'm really being helpful to the person who's interviewing me. And anyway, so this particular interview was a more core interview, meaning the person interviewing me knew magic. And so when I'm doing a core interview, you know, you want to get more in depth and sort of more in the weeds because the audience are magic players. So whereas a mass interview is a lot more about kind of giving context and explaining things. And so in a mass interview, I use a lot more metaphor. You know, I want to make sure the

average person who might never have heard of magic before understands the context of what we're talking about. So like one of the big things for War of the Spark, which this event was for War of the Spark, was really getting a sense of what is the essence of what we are doing. And you know, I just have a very different answer depending on whether or not, you know, you're someone who plays magic or someone who is

an outsider that, oh, what is magic? But this one was a core interview. I also had a chance to meet many of the members of the UK office. So Wizards has a branch in England. And there's

a guy named Brian who used to work at Wizards that moved to Britain and works in the British office, in the UK office. And I like every time I... He often comes to the States to, um, there's a lot of business stuff. So from time to time he'll show up at Wizards. Um, but it's nice to see him when I'm in England and, um, he got to introduce me to the whole team. So that

was really nice. Um, so let me walk you a little bit through what the site looks like. Um, okay. So one side is the mythic championship site. And so what that is, is, um, on the, on the first day of Friday and Saturday, there was just a giant area, um, for playing. Uh, and also there was a separate area, I think for drafting. Uh, and then there's a stage and there's two main parts of the stage. Um, there is what I'll call the feature match area, which is where people play. And then there is the desk where they sort of talk about the news, talk about the event. Um, and so, um, there's how many people, there's a whole bunch of people that The desk is usually three people. So Rich and Maria and Simon are usually on the desk.

And then there's a bunch of people that are doing the coverage in the booth. And so the way it works is we've set up the places to shoot. And then in the back, there's a soundproof booth that's in the back. And if you go behind the scenes, that's and then in the back, there's a soundproof booth that's in the back. And if you go behind the scenes, that's the curtain, all the staff there, there's a lot of people that have to work behind the scenes to make the event run. There's a lot of technical things going on. There's a lot of the directors back there, and he's got to talk to all his different camera people.

There's people that are doing the graphics and, you know, the CG, the chyrons, or say the names of people and stuff, and putting up words and things like that. That does go up. They're also, they film stuff. There's existing B-roll and things that you have to show that you already shot. And so there's a lot of coordination. So there's a whole bunch of people behind the scenes.

So I'm pretty friendly. Back in the day, it's funny, I used to come to the Pro Tour all the time. And so some of the people that do the production end of it have been doing it forever. And, I mean, I know them from when I used to. One of my jobs when I worked on the Pro Tour was I was in charge of the production on Sunday. when I worked on the Pro Tour, was I was in charge of the production on Sunday. So I would spend a lot of time talking with the technical side of people,

making sure, you know, that they knew all the information they needed, who are the people, how are the names spelled, what match is happening in what order, who's sitting on which side. There's a lot of coordination that goes into that that you might not even think about.

You know, like, for example, you have to know ahead of time who's on the left side of the screen time who's on the left side of the screen and who's on the right side of the screen because you're going to set all that up. And so you have to sort of, there's a lot of prep work that goes in making sure everything is figured out.

So all that was happening. Also, and then behind that, there's our food room. So there's a place where people can eat. There's catered food all the time. So they usually have breakfast and then they have lunch. Sometimes they have food after lunch, depending on how late the day goes. I think they might have dinner on days in which we run late. But anyway,

so this side is for the Mythic Championships. Essentially it's all the stuff they need to be able to run. Once upon a time, the Mythic Championship was all by its lonesome, and in some ways, the two halls, which are right next to each other, are each doing their own thing, and they're connected. We've since decided that Mythic Championship is more exciting

if you can combine it with a Magic Fest, so that it's just a bigger spectacle of an event. The other thing that was set up is there's an area for spectators so that spectators can come and watch people play. And then there's a monitor set up so that people

can watch that. Usually the first few days, the monitor is, you can't hear the commentary because they don't want the players who are playing to hear any commentary. On the final day, on Sunday, they set up a viewing area with the monitors

and you can hear the commentary. But now the players are all the way away playing in the feature match area, and so they can't hear the commentary. So one of the things that goes on there is it's everything you need to be able to run the event. So that side of the hall is the Mythic Championship is sort of self-containing. It's everything you need to be able to run the event. So that side of the hall is the Mythic Championship sort of self-containing.

It's everything that needs to run there. And then all the sort of support for staff, for the at least the Mythic Championship staff on that side. The other side is the Magic Fest. So there is its own stage with its own set

of judges with all its own tables for gameplay but that site is set up to A. run a Grand Prix and B. run lots of site events and then there's a prize wall so this was an innovation that happened a couple years ago where the way it now works

at the Magic Fest is you plan events and you win tickets the prize for winning is tickets. And the tickets can be turned in for prizes on the prize wall. And so the idea is you kind of play all day, you win as many tickets as you can win, and then at the end of it you can turn in your tickets. And the more tickets you have the more options you have because there's things from one ticket all the way up to thousands of tickets. um as you play and earn tickets then you you can essentially what you're

winning is prizes from the prize prize wall um the prize wall sort of took place over time and now that it's a thing it's just very cool and it's a very clean system it allows people to be you know have a chance to sort of, you know, you can figure out what you would like from the prize wall and try to win that so that, you know, it's specialized in that. Different people can be playing for different things. You can just pick the thing you want from the prize wall.

And usually there's a whole bunch of different things. One of the things they had now, which they normally have, is we often make giant magic cards for promotional events, um, and a giant magic card is usually about two feet by three feet, maybe, um, and it's got a magic back on it, and, and, um, normally what happens is we use them to do promotional things with, and then we give them to the people running the Grand Prix's, uh, it sees the prizes on the prize wall. So there's usually giant cards as prizes. I thought that was cool.

Oh, by the way, the Channel Fireball is a company that runs, the people that do the website, they run the Grand Prix part of it, the Magic Fence part of it. Okay, so now not only are there places to play, there also are a lot of vendors. And the majority of the vendors are selling cards. Some of them sell, you know, card boxes and sleeves and stuff. There's one booth that mostly did merchandise.

So, in fact, today I'm wearing my shirt that I got from them. there's one booth that mostly did merchandise. So, in fact, today I'm wearing my shirt that I got from them. I have an Academy Actillaria t-shirt. Like, it's a college shirt, but it's for the Academy. So, anyway, so there are a lot of booths set up. So, whatever magic things you might want to buy, there are many, many booths. I didn't count them, but my guess is there were

115 booths. I might be undershooting a little bit. Anyway, there are a lot of booths. If you wanted to buy some magic paraphernalia of any kind, it was there for you to do that. And it was pretty exciting. It's fun to sort of see all the different things

that are available to you. And it's a chance for me to walk around and see kind of what magic-y things there are. And then there's a section where the artists are the artists that are there. So who was there? I can't remember. I'm not going to remember everybody.

So RK Post was there. Mark Poole was there. Dan Frazier was there. There were probably about 10 artists, I would think. And the artists are there. They have prints you can buy, and they'll sign cards, and they'll draw things, you know. And so there really is, there always is a stable of artists at the event.

And then also there is, there's the main stage, and then there's the secondary stage that's also running events, running side. The main stage, I think, is running the Grand Prix. And the other stage is running all the side events. And there's lots and lots of side events. Okay. So, Friday started. I did my interview.

And then I got to walk the hall a little bit. And one of the fun things for me about going to a Magic Fest, especially one in someplace place like London where I haven't been there for 20 years. In fact, like I said, I haven't been to Europe in five years. So there's a lot of magic players there who I've never, ever, ever met before. And so it is fun kind of walking around the hall and people go, like I said, the number one question I always get when people come up to me is, you know, are you Mark Rosewater?

That's the question I always get. That's like, and usually I don't think they don't know it's me. They're sort of like, they want sort of permission to like, they want the lead in to say, hey, and by the way, if you ever see me, I'm happy to sign things or take pictures or answer questions. So anyway, I walked around to sign things or take pictures or answer questions. Um, so anyway, I, uh, I walked around the hall a little bit. Uh, I got to meet a lot of players. Um, and, uh, well, I'll get to that. I'll get to that. But anyway, I, I, I did the,

I walked around the hall, got to see the, see it. And then I, um, met a lot of people, signed a lot of things, took a lot of pictures. Oh, another new thing I've been doing recently is people who want me to record video where like, oh, my friends couldn't make it. Can you record a video saying hi to my friends? Something like that.

So I did that. So some of those were posted. It's funny if you actually, if you go on to like Twitter or something, it's just, there's lots and lots of pictures of me posting with some person

and I, because I lots and lots of pictures of me posting with some person, which I, because I take a lot of pictures, I sort of have my, my, my smile got locked, locked down. So most pictures is me looking very much the same because I, you know, it's my normal smile along with them. So you can see, it almost feels like people just keep swapping up for different people. But anyway, okay. So the first thing that I did other than the interviews, I did another interview.

Oh, also, I got to meet a lot of the cosplayers. There was some really fun cosplaying there. There was someone who dressed up as Kazmina. Her eyes lit up. It was really cool. And I think, I don't want to say the wrong person, her eyes lit up. That was really cool. And I think, I don't want to say the wrong person, but she's

a famous cosplayer. And it was funny we were joking around because Kazmina, there's not a lot known about her right now that we introduced her in war, but she's a character that we're planning to do some stuff with, but no one knows much about her yet. Other than she's an enigmatic mentor.

And so she was like, can you give me more info about my character? I'm like, well, not yet. There was someone dressed up as Tezzeret. Oh, the person who dressed up as Tezzeret, I had seen him last year at Grand Prix Las Vegas dressed as Urza. And if you've never seen his Urza, like it's a whole body suit. The Urza is amazing. It's amazing. I have a picture with me and Urza from last year. But it's, of all the cosplays I've ever seen, the one that blew me away the most. Because it's like eight foot tall. Anyway, it's very impressive. It's a very, very cool car, so it's quite exciting.

He was dressed up as Tezzeret. Abby was dressed up as Judith. Wedge's wife, Abby, was dressed up as Judith. And I met... Olivia was dressed up as... One day she was Liliana and one day she was Taysa, I think. Wait, I'm not saying that wrong. I saw someone dressed up as Vraska. I saw, there are a bunch of cosplays.

There's some fun cosplay. Anyway, so I did a few other interviews. I did a recording for someone who does a video show. I did an interview with him. And then in the afternoon, I had three hours of spell slinging. So spell slinging basically is when you sit down, people can come play you. You bring a bunch of decks and you sit down, people can come play you. You bring a bunch of decks and you play whatever decks people want to play.

So on the first day, it was just me. Aaron Forsythe and Brian Hawley. Aaron's my boss who oversees Magic R&D, and, or the, oversees the card design, um, and then, um, Brian is one of the managers that oversees the play design team, or the manager that oversees the play design team, um, anyway, they had both made decks, and so I borrowed their decks, and so I had standard decks, I had modern decks, uh, and then I had, um, I had brought a pre-release,

um, War of the Spark, everyone had their pre-release deck. Um, so I ended up mostly playing standard and modern. Um, I did a little bit of, we did what we call Pack Wars,

um, or Mini Masters, where you open up a pack, and you put in, um, three basic lands of every type, and you just play. Um, and I actually played three basic lands of every type, and you just play. And I actually played, there's a game called Pai Gao,

where you divide up 15 cards into three piles of, sorry, five piles of three, and then you play each match, and the way it works is you have infinite mana, you start at 20 life, you don't die from not drawing, you start by having all three cards in your hand. And then whoever wins, best three out of five wins. And so I went three, one, and one. So I won. I was very lucky, I opened up a pack that had five removal spells, so each one of my packs had a removal spell.

So I did removal spells, so every, every, each one of my, um, packs had a removal spell, so, um, so I did the, I did the spell slinging, uh, it was a lot of fun, um, what happened was I was supposed to be spell slinging from two to five, but, um, they cut the line off late, uh, and then it was clear when, when five rolled around that I had people who had been waiting that were still in line so I ended up playing to like 35, 45 so I stayed and everybody who was in line when they cut off a line

I stayed and played them all and it was interesting because I didn't build any of the decks the standard decks and the modern decks were made by Aaron and Brian and so as I played them, the more that I played them the standard decks and the modern decks were made by Aaron and Brian. And so as I played them, the more that I played them, the better I got. Because I, like, once someone was noting that, like, Aaron had made a monocolor Tron deck that I was playing in modern,

which was probably the better of the, I had this black-blue milling deck, and I had one other deck. Anyway, the Tron deck was the most powerful of them. But I was playing Tron, and people watching were like, oh, he missed this trigger, and he didn't do that. I'm like, okay, I don't play this deck all the time, so I'm unfamiliar with the deck. But anyway, I had fun meeting people.

And one of the nice things about Spalseling in general is the fact that you get to interact with people. And it's not only you're playing magic, which is fun, but you get to sort of one-on-one sort of deal with people and talk to people. And it gives you, it's a little more personal. Normally when I meet somebody, I talk to them briefly. But when you're playing, I get to sort of chat with them over time. So that was very nice.

So then I did some more walking around. But when you're playing, I get to sort of chat with them over time. So that was very nice. So then I did some more walking around. Oh, so then I went and one of the reasons I was there was we were trying to make some decisions. One decision was about something called the London Mulligan. So when Magic first started, the original mulligan was just, if you had no land or originally it was no land or all land, you got to reshuffle. And then it changed to if you had 0, 1, 6, or 7, I think. Eventually we made what we called the Paris mulligan

that premiered not in Paris, I think. Eventually, we made what we called the Paris Mulligan that premiered, not in Paris, I think in Los Angeles. And the Paris Mulligan was the one where you can draw, you can change your hand, but then you draw one less card. So I can draw seven cards, I can get a new hand, but instead of drawing seven cards, I draw six cards. And that lasted for a long time. And then at one point we added in a rule that said you can scry. You were able to scry when you did this.

So not only did you, if you traded in your hand, not only did you get less cards, but you got to scry. So the new version we were trying, which is being dubbed the London Mulligan because it premiered in London, were trying, which is being dubbed the London Mulligan because it premiered in London, was you draw a hand, if you draw a new hand of cards, you draw a hand of seven, and then depending on how many mulligans you've taken, you put the cards on the bottom of the library. So instead of draw seven, then draw six, then draw five, it's draw seven, then second time draw seven, put one on the bottom, then second time draw seven, put one on the bottom,

then it's draw seven, put two on the bottom, and such. So you do end up with the same number of cards, but because you get a pick from your hand, you just have a much better sort of clean system. You have more options, so the chance of your opening hand being better, it just goes up.

We had tested it in R&D. We knew tested it in R&D. We knew that it was fine for limited and we thought it was fine for standard. The reason we were testing it in the Pro Tour was was it okay for moderate? So one of the reasons I was there was to talk with the pros about above a London Mulligan.

I also wanted to hear about what they thought of War of the Spark. What was their thoughts on War of the Spark? It's a very different limited environment, and I'm always curious to hear what the pros have to say. One of the things to keep in mind is we have different audiences, and the pros have things they care about,

and while, yes, we want to care about those things, you want to temper it. For example, the biggest complaint I got from the pros was that the gods, which are five mythic rares, are really hard to beat. Now, one of the things in general is, when we have cards that are really, really good and limited, but we've designed them for constructed, we put them in mythic rare because that way they'll have the least amount of impact.

We also recently have definitely upped our power level of commons to make a few more efficient answers of common. Anyway, in general, the feedback I got on War of the Spark was very, very positive. The one reoccurring negative I got was that some of the mythic rares, especially the gods, were very powerful. that some of the Mythic Rares, especially the Gods, were very powerful. And the pros in general enjoy it more when there's less kind of... The more sort of Mythic Rares that just kind of...

that is really, really hard to beat can make things a little more swingy. One of the things, though, is that we're trying to make a living environment not just for the pros, but for the average player. And there's something really fun about people of, oh, I opened a really strong card, and so now I have an extra advantage because I have this really strong card, and that, oh, I won this game that maybe normally I wouldn't, but I got my card, and I was able to come back.

And there's a lot of exciting moments that come from those, you know, really exciting Mythic Rares, and so, um, um, and the other thing that I do is I, I sort of talk through and get a lot of the nuts and bolts, and a lot of them will really go into detail about what they're enjoying and not enjoying. Um, we got really good comments back about the Uncommon Planeswalkers. Um, the one negative is that some of their static abilities are minor enough that you kind of forget about them, and that when they come up, they do come up, they can surprise you sometime.

But they also admitted that the more they played with it, the more they get used to those and that. I got a lot of kudos on the uncommon Planeswalkers. A lot of players admitted that they were a little nervous when they first heard a planeswalker in every pack, but when actually playing with the cards, and especially the uncommons, they felt well done. Also,

the comment on the London Mulligan was mostly positive. Basically, the thought was they thought it led to better games, and that while it did have an impact on the format, it wasn't any more format-warping than other things better games, and that while it did have an impact on the format, it wasn't any more format warping than other things we do,

and that, okay, the format will have to adjust to it, but that's what Magic formats do. They adjust, and that most players thought it was a thing we should keep. So as of the time you've heard this, I just talked to players, so I had a lot of anecdotal sort of data, not actual hard data. They're going to collect hard data, and the decision we made on a lot of the hard data, which I don't have access to, and by the time you're hearing this, you probably know whether we get the Legend of Malgan or not. My guess from all the info I heard is that we're leaning toward yes,

but once again, once we see the hard data, we'll know. It was also fun getting to watch a little bit of the gameplay. And I also like, there's a lot of people that do the covers and stuff that I've known for a long time. And a few people at the Magic Fest and the Championship that I've known a long time. So a lot of the pro players have been playing for a long time. So I got a chance.

The Ruel brothers were there, in fact, Olivier, uh, was the only person to 8-0 day one, he didn't make the top, top eight, but, uh, he did well, um, so there's a chance you get to see some players that I literally haven't seen in ages, you know, I used to go to every pro tour, so I, I was very, I, you know, I was definitely, um, on speaking terms with, with Ruel, most of the pros, in fact, there's a period where I was definitely, on speaking terms with most of the pros, in fact, there was a period where I was the liaison with the pros, so if you go back far enough, I knew, back in the day, I knew the pros very, very well, but I haven't been going to pro tours for a long time, and so most of the pro players know of me, obviously, and a lot of them I met, because I do go to

events from time to time, but there are a lot of old timers and so it was fun seeing a lot of old timers and there's a lot of people who are contractors or work on staff or people who just come to the event for fun that I know anyway that night Aaron and Brian and I went out to dinner it's funny one of my plans had been to have fish and chips

and I ended up never having fish and chips I did have a hamburger with chips that night chips when they go fries and it was very good in fact, all my meals, I had really good meals I'm a picky eater, get that caveat but every morning I had breakfast at the hotel, which I thought was very good

and then every night out I have different various meals, that night was, we went to, like, a grill, I got a burger, but it was very good, um, and the chips were, were excellent, excellent chips, um, for some reason, they, they, they know how to do fries Friday. Saturday, um... Saturday was more of the same. This time, Aaron and Brian asked if they could join me doing Skullsling, and I said sure.

So we changed the announcement, so instead of just being me, it was come play with R&D! And so, once again, we had all the different decks. So my favorite part on, um, Saturday is somebody comes up and he has an, an un, an uncube. Uh, and the cube is all the silver border cards from all three sets, unglued, unhinged, unstable. And he had taken, um, I've written three articles talking about cards that had been unglued that we didn't end up making. And I included art and such. And so he mocked up all the cards I talked about.

So not only did we have unglued, unhinged, unstable cards, we had unglued two cards. Cards that have never been printed. And so some of those were cards that I, I mean, I had played with them back when we were making Unglu 2, but I hadn't played with them in ages. And Aaron was the first person to play against the cube. And it was funny because I was playing, Aaron was playing this very lengthy, drawn out Ungame, and I was playing all these modern games. And I was joking with Aaron, it felt like kind of backwards, that, you know, Aaron's the one who plays a lot of modern, and I obviously am the un-guy.

So Aaron had a fun game. He did Better Than One, so one of the people he had played previously became his head, and they had a very fun game, and, you know aaron was laughing having a good time um then i had a chance to play um i think he's the last guy i played i had a chance to play the guy um who had a cube um and i think i ended up losing i i i feel like i've gotten on akhan's run where you get to um name a creature and then go through your library and then you get it from the turn and it goes away. Obviously, the first turn I didn't know what was in my

deck, so I had to guess and I missed. But then I could see. And I think if I had played that card a little bit better, I think I was choosing cards that just entertained me more so than cards that would help me win. I did have a very, very good time. It was a lot of fun. I had fun playing. And I got Akon's run out, and I got to say Akon's run. It's Dr. Jumblemorph. Julius Jumblemorph.

And anyway, I had a lot of fun things. I did Hokey Pokey, so there were a lot of fun things. I had fun there. That spell slinging was a lot of fun. And spell slinging with other people is also fun just because getting to see stuff happen in the other games was cool. And then, once again, I did a lot more wandering around. I did a lot of...

Oh, the other thing I did on Saturday is I did an interview with Maria. Maria from, uh, Good Luck High Five, and we talked about the design of, um, War of the Spark. It wasn't a very long interview, but it was fun, and there's a little, what do you do, a little meme that comes out of it. We'll see if that, we'll see if that thing, uh, ends up haunting me for the rest of my day. There's a little thing where, uh, I'm talking about something, and Maria goes, what do you do? And I go, what do you do? That is a little clip they've been using, which is funny. But anyway, that night I had dinner.

So Wedge, who does a lot of content, I had met Wedge. He had been one of the people that was in the pre-pre-release for Unstable. In fact, he and I did a better than one, a two-headed giant game where we got into a Scheherazade sub-game. So that was definitely one of the quirkiest magic moments. But anyway, I've become friends with Wedge. So Wedge was at the event. So I went out with Aaron and Brian and I went out with Wedge and Eric Froelich and his wife Athena

and then a friend of which named Olivia. And so we had a very good dinner and we talked about all sorts of stuff and shared lots of stories. And that was a lot of fun. That was a great dinner. And then Sunday, the two main events on Sunday for me

was I had a two-hour Q&A, which is actually the longest Q&A I've done. I haven't done a two-hour Q&A in quite a while. And it was just me. So all sorts of questions. It was not filmed, sadly. It got set up pretty late because, once again, while I knew I was coming, it was sort of a surprise to a lot of people that I showed

up. So we got this all planned, I think, about when I got there on Friday. We got the whole thing planned up. But anyway, I did a two-hour Q&A. I answered all sorts of questions. I talked about hints a little bit about Modern Horizons. I talked very

briefly, but very vaguely, about the fall that I'm very excited about. And then I answered a lot of questions about all sorts of things. And then I did an autograph session afterwards where I signed and took pictures. I mean, a lot of questions of all sorts of things. And then I did an autograph session afterwards where I signed and took pictures. And a lot of people, the whole weekend, had stopped me along the way.

And so, I mean, I had done a lot of interviews, I mean, let's say a lot of pictures and autographs all weekend long. But some people feel bad, like kind of stopping me. So I always like having an autograph time where, hey, clearly you can come and sign a line and I'll sign things. And so I, once again, signed a lot more stuff and took a lot of pictures.

And it was a lot of fun. I really love meeting fans. I had so many. One of the things, I said this on Twitter, but I'll just repeat it here. I wish everybody in their life could have the opportunity to walk around a room where people excitedly run up to you and share how much what you do means to them. And that happened all week long of all these people that really, you know, magic is, it means a lot to people. And it was really touching having people come up to me and you know people tell me

really really I mean to the heart stories about how magic had gotten through a rough time or it helped teach them something or help them meet their friends or their loved ones or you know that that that there was so many stories about a lot of people talked about how they'd gotten into fields that were game design because of you know that I've been one of the big influences in them. That was really sweet. So, I mean, one of the things that was just really touching is I spend a lot of time just interacting with people. And that's one of the reasons I love going to the shows is I have what I consider the right level celebrity where in the right time, the right place, I get to be a big celebrity but I can go shopping and no one's going to stop me, it's kind of nice

but it was very, and I genuinely everyone feels bad, a lot of people feel bad, they're taking up my time and I'm like hey, I'm here for this, and B, I like hearing the stories, I like hearing how magic has affected people, it is very, very nice to go, hey, this thing here for this. And B, I like hearing the stories. I like hearing how magic has affected people. It is very, very nice to go, hey, this thing that I spent a lot of time on means something and impacts people and makes people happy. That is never, ever, by the way,

if you ever have the opportunity to meet somebody who creates something that brings you joy or makes you think or whatever, affects you in some way that is positive for you, let that person know. It really does mean a lot. You know, I had all sorts of people

coming up to me and talking to me and it meant the world to me to hear that from people. So please don't feel like, oh, I don't want to bother them. You know what I'm saying? Especially if they're in a context like the event where I was there to talk to people. So anyway, Sunday night,

I went out with dinner with Wedge and a bunch of Wedge's friends again. And we went to the Pizza Bus. I don't know the actual name, but it was literally a restaurant that's a double-decker bus, one of the old London double-decker buses that had been turned into a pizza restaurant.

So on the bottom floor, they cooked the pizza, and you sat on the top floor. And we sat around for hours, joking, and one of the things that we had done was we were teasing one of the guys that does a lot of videos, and so

we made this post, and then we all retweeted it, and the goal was to get to 100 retweets and to see if we could get 100. And we did. We did. We got to 100 the next day when I was getting on the plane. We were at 99. I landed. We got our goal. Anyway, we had an awesome night, and then afterwards I went back to our town

and spent a little more time chatting with people. And then I went to bed. I had to get up insanely early. It's funny, my flight was like at 11, but I was at Heathrow and Monday morning traffic is bad and it was like a two-hour trip to Heathrow with all the traffic. So I had to get up crazy early and then come back. But anyway, that is my trip. I had to get up crazy early and then come back. But anyway,

that is my trip. I had a wonderful time. I had a really good time. I loved meeting everybody. The Mythic Championship went really well. The Magic Fest went really well. I'd gone there to learn about War of the Spark, and I

mean, I'm not saying there weren't any critical comments on War of the Spark, but the vast, vast majority of them were just, you know, War of the Spark seems to be a huge hit with the players. They really enjoyed it, and it plays well, and I just heard lots of wonderful things about it. The London Mulligan seems to have gone well. The events went well.

It just was a really nice trip. It really, you know, I don't get to travel a lot so my my my travel it's very special when i go on trips and so this was very nice and it was a really enjoyable trip and so i learned a lot and i had a lot of fun and i got a i got good food and spent time with people that was a lot of fun and great conversations i got to meet lots of players um i got to take lots of pictures and sign lots of things, lots of cards and lots of mats. Anyway, I had a blast. I really had a great

time. So that, my friends, was my trip to London for Magic Fest London and Mythic Championship 2. Anyway, I'm now back at work. I have more work to do. So we all know what that means. It means 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.