Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #699: Maria & Meghan

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

This is my first podcast of a new series where I talk about various members of the Magic community that produce content. I'm going to start by talking about Maria and Meghan of the "Good Luck, High Five" podcast.

I'm pulling away from the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. And I dropped my kids off at school today. Okay, so today I'm going to do something a little different. I decided that I would like to do some episodes talking about other magic celebrities, people external to Wizards. I've talked a little bit about people who work at Wizards. So for the first one, I picked not one but two people. I'm going to talk about Maria and Megan. So Maria Bartholdi and Megan Wolfe.

So they are well-known, probably best well-known. They do a podcast that was originally called Magic the Amateuring that is now called Good Luck High Five. And also, I know Maria does commentary at the Mythic Championships, and Megan works behind the scenes doing coverage. I'll talk about all that. But anyway, I want to start, this is something I'll do from time to time, just talking about different people out there, that there's a lot of people that dedicate a lot of time and energy to making magic an awesome community. And so I wanted to do the occasional show where I talk

about them. And I'm going to pick some people that are a little more well-known and that I've interacted with. And so I decided to start with Maria and Megan. Okay, so let's go back to the very beginning, or beginning of their magic interaction. So their background, I believe, is in, I think, in theater. I think both of them did a bunch of theater. They did improv together. I know that Maria also is an editor. Anyway, I don't know. I do not believe Magic was the first podcast. I think they had done a bunch of other podcast things together. But they started playing Magic and so they decided it would be fun to do a podcast from the point of view

of brand new players and so they started doing a podcast called Magic the Amateuring and the idea was, the whole point of it was they were sort of experiencing Magic as a beginner and the whole podcast was what Magic was like as someone who was starting out

and so they recorded a bunch of episodes. They're from Minneapolis. And so I think they originally did some episodes and they didn't get, you know, I mean, as with any podcast, you know, early on, not a lot of people necessarily are paying attention. But then they did one episode, I believe, they were talking about things they would improve with magic,

I think was the episode. And they got into a talk about how the Pro Tour, the Mythic Championship at the time, I think it was the Pro Tour, didn't have enough female representation both on the player side and, even more importantly, they were saying, on the commentator side. And so they had an episode and and they were talking about it, and they went into detail why they thought this was important. Anyway, I think that was the first episode

that got a little bit of notice, that they did a very eloquent job of explaining it, and it sort of got passed around. There was some buzz, and for the first time, people started noticing their podcast, on a larger scale. And one of the most important things is a guy named Hugh.

So Hugh, at the time, was the vice president of, not vice president, sorry, the director of communications. And Hugh, I think from this, first noticed them. I'm not sure whether Hugh noticed them first or Trink noticed them first, but whatever. This got them on Wizards, made Wizards aware of them. And one of the things that I know is a big deal for Hugh, which Hugh was one of the people that was very much at the time saying, look, we need to get better with our messaging. We need to have more

diversity in the kinds of people you're seeing. And he really was pushing to try to get just more different kinds of voices involved in the community. And he really felt that one of the things that Wizards can do is we can highlight people. We can draw attention to people. And that what he was looking for is finding people that he thought were really good voices,

that had interesting things to say that might not be some that people had heard. And among the ones that he championed was Maria and Megan. And so that is how they first got noticed. So the funny thing is I was, part of today's podcast is I went through and I talked about all the different times I've interacted with them. Because I'm going to talk about sort of how I met them and everything. Um, so I just recently shot, uh, one of their, um, podcasts, which I'll talk about later on.

Um, and we were talking a little bit about how we met. And so I said, uh, do you remember where we met? And so I told the story of the Kaladesh pre-release. And Maria was like, well, maybe that's where you first remember meeting us, but that is not where we first met you. So I'll get to Kaladesh in a second. So the first place they met me, I mean, I also met them. One of the side effects of sort of celebrity is that when they met me, I was at Designer Magic. They knew who I was.

When I met them, it was not yet at a point where I was aware of their podcast. I think Wizards must have been aware. Oh, so the place I met them, sorry, was at the Community Cup. So the Community Cup was a thing. We haven't run it for a while. But the idea is we invite community members from across the Magic community. You know, pro players, bloggers, people doing video podcasts, normal podcasts. Just different sort of magic community members. And we would bring them to Wizards for a multi-day tournament.

And the community would play against Wizards of the Coast employees. And usually they would beat the Wizards of the Coast employees. So it would be a multi-day event, and they'd play on Magic Online, and there'd be a bunch of different formats. Usually the formats were more quirky. It was kind of reminiscent a little bit of the Magic Invitational where the formats were a little more offbeat. Anyway, the very last one we had done so far, Megan Maria got invited, I assume by human trick. And so I had gone

down to say hi because we shooted in the office. So I was like, oh, I'll go say hi to everybody. So I went down to say hi. And I ended up taking a picture, I think, with Maria and Megan. So what is funny, when I said to them, when's the first time we met?

And I said, Kaladesh. Maria was like, well, I have a picture of you at the Community Cup. So the first time I actually met them was at the Community Cup. But, okay, that's the first time I actually met them. The first time I remember meeting them was, okay, so one year at PAX. So PAX is Penny Arcade Expo. I've done a couple of them. One of the themes of today will be

a lot of the things I'm talking about, at one point I've done a couple. One of the themes of today will be a lot of the things I'm talking about at one point I've done a podcast on. So PAX, for example, I've done, I think, numerous podcasts on PAX. I specifically did a podcast about the Kaladesh weekend. So for those who don't remember, what happened was Kaladesh was coming out. So to do this big promotional thing, we rented, there's a theater right next door to the convention center called the Pantages Theater. It's a big theater here in Seattle. We rented out the theater,

and then we ran, the World Championship was run there. We did a big, giant announcement for Kaladesh. That actually, I think you can go still watch this. So what happened was I was there to do the mechanics part of it. So Jimmy Wong was the host. And then different people would come out to talk about like I talked about the mechanics and I think Jeremy talked about the art. And so we sort of came out and he talked to various people

and we were sort of for the very first time saying, here's Kaladesh and really showing up Kaladesh. I was showing off the mechanics. So the audience had never seen the mechanics before. And this wasn't just live.

There was a big audience in the theater, but also we were streaming. All the stuff we were doing was being streamed that weekend so people around the world could watch, not just literally people

who were at in Seattle. And so I actually, by the way people who were at, um, in Seattle. Um, and so I actually, by the way, uh, when we did the presentation, they really wanted me to wear a blazer. So it's one of the few times where I'm, I have a blazer. I don't really wear blazers. I would say it's a little bit off brand for me, but, uh, they really wanted me to wear a blazer. So I wore a blazer. I wore a t-shirt underneath. So, and jeans. So it was not too far away from my normal look, but I did have a blazer rather than a flannel. Although I think they picked a blazer that had a flannel-like element.

Anyway, you can go watch that. Okay, anyway, so we did this big thing where we, and so as part of doing that event, one of the ideas we had, which I thought was pretty cool, was we invited a whole bunch of magic influencers from around the world. So just people who had a lot to do with magic from all sorts of different countries. And one of the people we brought in was Maria. Now, Megan was also there because she was doing coverage at the event. So Maria and Megan were both at the event. I think I met Maria first because Megan was busy working. And the way it worked was we said to everybody invited, all the influencers,

here's a list of Wizards employees. You can interview anybody you like. And they gave them a big list of people. Surprise, surprise, 100% of them, and there were like 20, said that they want to interview me. So my Saturday at that event was I came in, I brought a whole bunch of different shirts and a company flannels so that every interview I would look different. And then I just started in the morning doing interviews and I did interviews continually all day long. So I believe that on that day

was my first interview with Maria. The first time I, or Megan was busy working the thing. So I believe that on that day was my first interview with Maria. The first time I, or, uh, cause I, Megan was busy working the thing. So I think I just had an interview with Maria. That's the first time I shot anything with them. Um, and so, uh, that was my first sort of professional thing with them. Uh, and then later that day, that night, there was some sort of a party or something that was at a nearby restaurant. And there was like a buffet. Anyway, I went there and that's when I first ran into them together. Before that, I'd only, well, I'd met them at the community camp.

But as far as me remembering, it was the first time I met them together. And we chatted quite a bit, um, I, I had known of them, you know, I, I had heard about them, I don't know if I've even seen the podcast at that point, but I had heard of them, I knew of them, and they, you know, Hugh and others had spoke very highly about them, and so, it was the first chance that I had to sort of actually chat with them, uh, and they were super nice super nice. They were both, like I said, we overlap in that we all, the two of them and I all used to do improv

and acting. And so, you know, we definitely had some similarities. And they have also a lot of geeky, they are, have a lot of geeky tastes. So there's a lot of overlap. We had a lot of fun chatting with them. That was my first time really getting a chance to know them sort of, um, I don't know, off,

offline or whatever. Um, so anyway, uh, and so that was my, my, well, not my first, my first was the community cup, but first time I remember sort of interacting with them. Okay. So the next thing that happened was they pitched an idea to Trick, I think, that they wanted to do. So it was called The Completely and Unquestionably Accurate History of

Dominaria. Chapter 1 was Urza. Chapter 2 was the Weatherlight Saga. Chapter 3 was the Phyrexian Invasion. So the idea was, I think we were maybe that we were about to go back to Dominaria? I can't remember exactly.

So it was before we went to Dominaria. But anyway, they decided to do just, Magic has a lot of stories and a lot of people are unaware of the stories. So they brought us in. So the idea was, they interviewed a whole bunch of R&D members. It was me and Kelly Diggs and Ethan Fleischer, and I think Doug Byer, maybe Jenna. It was a bunch of people that just knew the old-time story. And so each one of us sort of went through.

And the idea was we were sort of telling it as if you were just sort of telling it, you know, sitting in a restaurant just sort of sharing a story or something. And so what happened was, the day we, so they shot it, but the day they shot it, I forget what was going on. Somehow I

wasn't, I wasn't in that day. I had some conflict and I couldn't come in. But Maria wanted me in the video, so they came back the next day. So I was the very last person to shoot for this thing. And I remember what they said to me is, here's what we need. We need you to be animated and do a lot of voices. Do a lot of talk for the characters.

Because the way it worked is, we would describe things, and then while we were describing it, you would see actors acting out what we were describing. And whatever we said is what they would act out. So the idea, as we were sort of shorthanding things and telling it sort of fast and loose, that's how they were acting it out. And then the actors didn't talk, just we would say things, and when we say things, the actors would move their mouths as if they were saying the things, although we were the ones saying it. So anyway, I had a blast shooting that thing. That was a lot of fun.

Oh, one of my goals of today, by the way, is that I'm telling you a lot of very—one of the things that Meg and Maria have done is they produce a lot of content. And so one of the reasons I am trying to do more of these podcasts about the various influencers and stuff is I want to expose you guys. Like, I remember when I was talking to them about their podcast. And their podcast gets, I don't know, somewhere around 10,000 viewers. So this podcast, I don't know exactly, but it gets somewhere around 50,000. So at least 80% of you have never listened to Good Luck High Five. So my goal is to change that. So part of the reason I'm doing this is to expose you guys to other community members

that you might have fun. And Megan and Maria, they are a lot of fun. Both of them have a lot of training in comedy. So one of the things that's happened over time is when they started, the whole shtick of the show was we're beginners, it's Magic the Amateur, because we're amateurs. Over time, they've actually become very good at magic, and like I said, Maria, for example, now does commentary at the Pro Tour. Well, I mean, she sits at the desk, but she's one of the commentators, and they've become very knowledgeable at magic. They do a lot of stuff

now with the Magic Professional League, and they are well-versed. So, when you listen to their show now, the reason they changed the name... Oh, real quickly, for those that are wondering. So, they were called Magic the Amateur for quite a while. The problem was, at some point, they were getting good enough, they weren't amateurs anymore. And the name was a little non-reflective of what they were doing. enough, they weren't amateurs anymore, and the name was a little non-reflective of what they were doing. So, I guess when you play online, often people will say GLHF, which I believe stands for Good Luck, Have Fun. But Megan thought it stood for Good Luck,

High Five, and Maria thought that was very funny. So, when they went to rename their podcast, they ended up naming Good Luck High Five. So that's the name. That's now the name of the podcast. Anyway. Okay. Sorry. Back.

Back to the show. Back to the. So, okay. So we shot the completely unquestionably accurate history of Dominaria. Please go watch it. It's much, much fun. Okay. Okay.

The next time I interact with them would be at the pre-pre-release. Okay. So there's a group called Loading Ready Run, which one day we'll get their own, their own podcast. They are out of Victoria, Canada, and they are a troupe that does online comedy and gaming material. And most, even online comedy and gaming material. And most, even their comedy is gaming inspired. They do, I think it's called Friday Nights.

The magic video we put on our website that they do. So they produce a lot of content. One of the things they produce is something called the pre-pre-release. So the way the pre-pre-release works is they invite four, well, three magic celebrity people, influencers, and one magic wizards employee. And then those four people play with four loading ready to run people. And so, and the way it works is there's eight rounds. Uh, each person plays two different matches and then they spend one match being kind of the referee. I'm not sure what to call that position, but so there's always three people on camera, two people playing each

other and one person that's kind of there guiding the game and just being funny and, and, and, you know, talking. So, I had not done a pre-pre-release. But, so one of the, the deal I struck with my wife, Laura, is when my twins were born, we struck a deal that I would only travel twice a year to be around with my family. So once a year I go to

San Diego Comic-Con and then once a year I will go to some other event. The one caveat I got when we made this deal was that when I made unsets I could do a little bit of extra traveling to promote the unset because I don't do unsets all that often. So that year not only did I do my normal travel but I went down to Los Angeles for Jimmy and Josh to do game nights. Jimmy and Josh will be another podcast I will do at some point.

I did game nights with them, and then I went up to do the pre-pre-release for Loading Ready Runs. We did the pre-pre-release. It turns out that Maria and Megan had also volunteered for Unstable. I had told them I would do Unstable. I hadn't done one yet. And they had also volunteered. The other person volunteer was a guy named Wedge. Yet another person I will need to do a podcast on. There's a lot of magic, a lot of magic celebrities out there. Anyway, so that was the next time I got a chance to see them. And it's the first time I really got to spend a lot of time with them.

I mean, I obviously had, I mean, met them and forgot about the Community Cup briefly. And then I saw them again. We had done the video, but that was all we had done to shot the video. Then I'd seen them, or sorry, I saw them first at the Coward Ash pre-release. But I mean, other than the party, even the party, I had a little bit of time to talk to them. I didn't have a lot of time to spend with them. Then they did the video. But, okay, now the way the pre-release works is you get there on a Thursday night.

And, once again, the ongoing theme of this episode, I did a podcast on this. So, you can go hear the podcast all about the pre-release. We got there on Thursday. We drafted. Then we woke up early Friday. We got there on Thursday, we drafted, then we woke up early Friday, we went out to a nice big breakfast, and then we played all day long, and then after we were done, we went out to dinner.

So one of the things that happens as you're playing is it's a long day. There's eight different matches, and three of the matches you are either playing or refereeing, but the other five you're just in the green room. And so, it just gave me a lot of chance to interact with them, and get a chance to know them. One of the things that's

a lot of fun for me is, I like hanging out with me and Maria. They're a lot of fun. And, and, so what happened was, in the event, I ended up playing against, I think I refereed for Megan, and I played against Maria, as I believe would happen,

as far as on camera. I did beat Maria on camera. I think I went undefeated that day. I think I won all four of my matches. I won every match I played, which was two matches. And then I think the way it worked was the four

guests, like not the L.A. Red people, so me and Maria and Megan and Wedge, went undefeated with the exception of when we played each other, obviously one of us won and one of us lost. So we went six and two. But that's the best we can do since I played Maria and Wedge played Megan. So, like, we had to go. There's no way to do better than going six and two. So we did very well.

But at the end of that, so Friday we shot all day. Saturday I was scheduled to go back home. But Maria and Megan said, please, please, please, can you do an episode of, I don't know whether it was Magic the Amateur at the time or Good Luck High Five. Let's say it was Magic the Amateur. I'm not 100% sure which it was. But anyway, they said, would you mind waking up early before you go to the airport and doing a podcast? And I said, I would love to do podcasts. So that was my first time up here. That was the episode I was dedicated to Unstable. So I was a special guest. We talked all about

Unstable because we were there for Unstable. And I walked through, I just, we talked a lot about how the set got made and different cards. and we joked around quite a bit. The other thing we had done for the first time, I've done this on both my episodes, is we played movie pitch. So the way movie pitch works is that you get

from whatever set is the current set usually, so for the first time I appeared it was unstable, second time I appeared it would be Throne of Eldraine, you pick cards from that set, and then you have to pitch a movie that's the name of the card you've chosen. And one of the fun things is, A, try to just make a fun pitch, but also, then everybody else is trying to figure out, oh, what card do they have? What's the name of this movie? And I always like to pitch things that are fun and make sense with the name,

but that, you know, when you hear the name, you're like, of course that's the name. But, you know, it's a little harder to figure out because, where is he going? What is he trying to do? So, anyway. So, I had an absolute blast doing that podcast. I laughed very hard. So, one of the things, real quickly, just behind the scenes, is when you do improv, one of the skills that you, one of the things you learn doing improv is there's a certain sort of rhythm to comedy.

And so one of the things that improv really helps you with is not everybody's rhythm is exactly the same. Each person has their own sort of comedic rhythm. And part of getting good at improv is understanding your fellow performer's comedic rhythm so that you're blending together. So that when you really work well with somebody, you understand their sense of humor and they understand your sense of humor. So you work really well with each other to maximize making something that's extra funny. Because one of the things that happens is I know if I say the things that happens is I know

if I say thing A that I kind of know where they're going to go. And so even though whatever we're doing, whatever bit we're doing, we've never done before, the fact that we just have worked before and have a good sense is we sort of see where each other's going. And that's the kind of thing that I like a lot when I do the stuff with Maria and Megan is I have a very good sense of their humor they have a good sense of my humor, we have a very fun back and forth like one of the things that's very interesting is we jump right in

and like I said I've done two of them, I'll get to the second podcast in a second they're just so, I've done a lot of podcasts and I find the ones with Marie and Megan to be kind of the funnest in that it really is, reminds me a lot of my improv days because there's a lot of, there's a lot of back and forth that's very fun. And I find it really, really enjoyable. So I heartily recommend that you go and watch both my episodes. I mean, I recommend you watch more than just my episodes, but at bare minimum, go watch my episodes.

They're fun. Okay, so we did, so I did that with them, and we shot that. So that's the first time I did their podcast. Then, then the next batch, I would see them occasionally from time to time at events I think the next time I saw them was

it was the 25th anniversary of Magic last year and we decided to have, I think we had four Grand Prix's around the world that were like big birthday Grand Prix's and one of them was Las Vegas. And normally what happens is one of my trips is to San Diego, but the other one, I'm influenced a little bit by where people want me to go.

And usually the brand team kind of gets together and goes, oh, we'd love to go to Mark. And then a bunch of them go, hey, Mark, how about you go to such and such? So I always wanted to go to the Grand Prix Las Vegas. They had just gotten bigger and bigger and were becoming like, I mean, I believe Vegas probably breaks the world record. I don't know if we have the world record technically, but it's broken the world record for largest car event ever.

Anyway, I'd wanted to go. It was a birthday celebration. I actually had gotten together. Peter Atkinson and Richard Garfield showed up one day. We shot a bunch of videos and those videos got shown at all the different events. But anyway, I did go to one event, which was Las Vegas.

I had a chance to see, I think I talked a bunch with Maria. If I saw Megan, it was very briefly there. But anyway, I had a chance to see them again. Then the next time I saw Megan, it was very briefly there. But anyway, I had a chance to see them again. Then the next time I saw them was earlier this year. I went to a Mythic Championship slash Magic Fest in London. I hadn't been out of the country for a couple of years.

And there was an event in London. And I hadn't been in London since like 1999, like Pro Tour London. The one that Kyle Rose won, which is long, long ago. In fact, it's the event, it was Randy Bueller's last event as a player before he came to work for Winters to Go.

So it was a long time ago. But anyway, I hadn't been to London in a while. I thought it would be fun to go back to London. Also, it was the Mythic Championship. I hadn't been, well, I'd been to a lot of Pro Tours. I hadn't been since it had changed over to go back to London. Also, it was the Mythic Championship. I hadn't been, well, I'd been to a lot of Pro Tours. I hadn't been since it had changed over to the Mythic Championship. So, I spent

some time, obviously, at the Magic Fest, and I did some panels and signings and some spell sleeves of. But also, Maria and Megan work the Mythic Championship. So, like I said, Maria is on camera at the desk, and Megan is doing coverage behind the scenes.

So I had a chance to interact with both of them again. Maria did an interview with me where I talked about War of the Spark. So, like I said, I've done a lot. As I run through this, I've done more things than I realized with Megan and Maria. Anyway, okay, so that gets us to last week. So Maria and Megan are sponsored by, or one of their sponsors is Card Kingdom, which is one of the people that do sell cards. And they brought in a lot of the people they sponsored for a charity event. And so Maria and Megan people they sponsored for a charity event.

And so Maria and Megan were in town for a charity event. So they did that. And then I think they went up to Victoria to see the Loading Ready Run folks. But anyway, they contacted me and they said, we're going to be in Seattle on October 30th, which interestingly was my 24th anniversary of Wizards. Two things. One is

we'd love to have you on our show. And second thing is, could you get us some studio time in your studio? So I talked to our studio people. They were happy to have them come in. So we set up a time, and then Megan Maria showed up on the morning, and we shot. We've got an hour episode, so we shot

Good Luck High Five. This one, the theme of this one was Throne of Eldraine. So we talked a bit about Throne of Eldraine. I tried to tell a few news stories. There's a few old ones, but I tried to tell a few news stories with Throne of Eldraine. They had people right ahead with some questions, so I answered a bunch of questions, and then Megan Maria had some questions for me. Um, and, oh, and then we did another episode of movie pitches, um, which I was very happy

with. I thought, I thought I did some fine movie pitches. Um, and anyway, so, um, I shot. That was fun. That was... So far, by the way, I've yet to shoot a Good Luck High Five in Minneapolis, which is where they normally shoot it. I shot one in Victoria, and I shot one in Seattle.

So, they tend to come to me rather than I go to them. But one day, if I'm ever in Minneapolis, I promise I will swing by, and I will do one there. Although, we tried... We figure out ways to... I'm happy that I've been on the show twice. Oh, by the way, so, like I said early on,

one of the goals of me doing this is to try to get all of you to sample. If you aren't already familiar with Marie and Megan, I would love for you to sample what they do. So let me walk through a little bit what they do. Okay, so on Monday, they record their podcast. They record it both on audio and on video. And they also do something they call the upkeep. So the upkeep is a 10-minute clip they do that goes through all the news, the magic news of the last week. So sometimes, I mean, magic news can ebb and flow how much there is.

Some weeks it's just wall-to-wall pack, because it's always 10 minutes or less. So some weeks they're struggling to get into 10 minutes, and some some weeks like, eh, they have some time to talk through things. Um, and they will cover everything from the high end like tournament stuff to the more casual things. And so anyway, it's the one thing I get to listen to cause I don't, I don't have time every week. I don't have the, by the fact that I'm doing my podcast in my car as I'm driving, I don't have a lot of time every week to listen to the whole podcast, even though the ones I've listened to have been very good. But I do have time for the 10 minutes to listen to the upkeep.

So I listen to the upkeep every week. So anyway, on Monday, they released the upkeep. I believe on Tuesday, I think they released the audio version of their podcast. So the audio and the video version are the same podcast, just the audio version the video version takes a little bit longer because I think Marie will edit it a little bit

and if we talk about cards she'll put cards in I think anyway I think Tuesday is when the audio version comes out and Thursday is when the video version comes out I think every week there's a Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. There's things

that you can see. So, and, as I said earlier, there are a lot of fun things that we've done together that you can dig out. I cannot recommend enough. Go watch it. The completely unquestionably

accurate history of Dominaria. I hope we get to do more of those at some point. I know Meg and Maria are up for doing more. It's just a matter of wizards, you know, fitting in their budget. But it was a fun thing and if you've never seen it,

it is... We had a lot of fun making it and the audience response has been really, really well. So if you've never seen it, you're in for a treat. And then please go watch Good Luck High Five and go... The other things that you could watch

if you want to get more oblique. I know that Maria did an interview with me at the Cowardice pre-release and didn't interview me about War of the Spark and Modern... Mythic Championships 2. So there's a few more obscure things if you want to be a completist and track down every interaction on screen that I've had. Oh, the other thing, obviously, is watch the Mythic Championship.

Like I said, you can see Maria do the front desk. You can see Megan's behind the scenes. I don't know if she ever appears on camera. I know she writes stuff, so maybe if you're reading some of the coverage, obviously Megan's writing some of the stuff. The other thing, by the way, for those that have never seen them, is one of the things that is a real treat, and one of the things that has been a joy for me,

and one of the things that the reason I decided to start this whole series is I've had a lot of fun getting to know, like, one of the well, I don't travel a lot, I travel enough that I've had enough interaction and so my plan is I would like to do an episode on Jimmy and Josh, I would like to do an episode on The Professor, I'd like to do an episode on Wedge, I'd like to do an episode on Loading Ready Run so I definitely would like to get some feedback, the idea, I mean, I'm not saying they're not ugly in a row, um, but I would like to have the occasional series where I

just talk about magic community members, I mean, ones that I've interacted with, um, so that I can sort of share some stories, um, what are we doing here, I'm almost to work um okay so uh to wrap up um I I really believe that the community like one of the things about magic that makes magic special is

that there's so much content out there about magic like one of the things that we always talk about is that when you open up your first booster pack, how much is inside, sort of a thing, which is that, yeah, there's a game, and the game is awesome, but there's so much more than just the game.

That magic is not just the game. That extends far beyond that. That it's almost a lifestyle, you know? And that a big part of that lifestyle is there's a whole community built around magic and that community is very tight knit and they're, they're a very awesome group of people. And so I've had the pleasure of interacting with a lot of them. And I mean, today I've talked about Maria and Megan. Maria and Megan are the sweetest people you've ever met.

They, they are, I mean, they really, like, one of the things that's funny is, when I saw Maria in London this year, I knew we were doing the Throne of Eldraine, obviously, and I knew it was right up her alley. It was the kind of thing that she would adore. I mean, she is known,

like, if you watch her show, I think she played, on Magic Arena, she wanted to level up high enough to get the cat wings for her avatar, and she really wanted the cat wings, and she was playing a lot of Magic to get those cat wings. And so, I really, really knew that, like, Throne of Eldrian would be up her alley. Turns out that she studied Arthurian, like, she was, like, an

expert on Arthurian lore. So, anyway, it was even more up her alley than I realized. But anyway, I remember saying to her when I saw her in London, I go, I can't tell you about the falsetto, but I can say, you know, if there's anybody that's going to love the falsetto, it's you. And so I was really happy when I saw her, but we did a lot of things. She's like, you were so right. This is exactly my kind of set. Anyway, the reason I really want you guys to get a chance to know Maria and Megan is A, they're very funny. I mean, just very, very funny people.

B, they're very sweet. Just the way they interact with people, the way they interact with the community. They're just, like, to their core, nice people. And they, I have fun watching them talk about just about anything. They are, I mean, they'll mostly talk about magic if you watch Good Luck High Five but I mean they do other podcasts as well by the way I know they do a board review podcast

so if you go and you enjoy them, there are other things they do beyond just magic related things but I mean today I'm more plugging the magic related things but they are also very sweet, they're very nice, you know it is every single time I've ever had interactions with them, all the videos I've talked about today, all the personal stuff, they always bring a smile to my face. Um, they're just awesome people. So I like promoting awesome people and they are awesome

people. So, um, I'm, I'm driving up to work right now. But what I wanted to say is, if you've never checked out Maria and Megan, good luck, high five. The older one was called Magic the Amateuring. They do a thing called the Upkeep Every Monday. And they're also all over the place. I think they've done more than one pre-release. I know they've done Stable. If you watch around,

you're doing charity things, they're all about. So, mostly my message of today is if you've never experienced them, please do yourself a favor and check them out. They're a lot of fun. And I think that you all

will grow to like them just as much as I do if you give them a chance. But anyway, that is my podcast today. Oh, the one thing I want to say is I'm trying something new here. We're talking about magic influencers.

A, is it something you like? Do you want to hear more on this? I hope the answer is yes. And B, I'm not quite sure. I mean, this, so the model I did for this one is I talked about them and then I sort of talked about my interaction with them since that's what I know. I did a little bit of history. I talked to them a little bit.

So a little bit, I shared a little bit of history of the show. I don't know when I do this how much, like I'm not quite sure the right balance of how much is it about what they do and how much about who they are and much about the history like I don't know the quite the right balance of that so I would like this is one of the shows where I do where I would like some little feedback in that I'm trying something and I'm experimenting with it and so um the more feedback I can get the better off I will be for doing future episodes like I said I really want to do talk about a lot of other magic influencers I think there's a lot of other magic influencers. I think there's a whole bunch of really fun people

and that one of the things I hope for people listening to this podcast is not all of you know all of them. And so I'm hoping by doing this that I, and for those that do know them, maybe I'm sharing a few fun stories behind the scenes or something that you might enjoy. But anyway, that's my idea.

So I would love to have the feedback. So any feedback you can give me, I would much appreciate it. Anyway, I'm now pulling into Wizard. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's show. I had fun talking about Megan and Maria. Or Marie and Megan. I keep reversing how I say that,

but I guess it doesn't really matter. But anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.