Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #740: Meghan and Maria

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

In this podcast, I talk to Meghan Wolf and Maria Bartholdi of Good Luck, High Five.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition! So, I've been using this chance to interview people, since it's hard to do that in my car. Or at least interview people that I can't have in my car. So today I have a special guest. I have two guests. This is my first ever multiple guest podcast. Never done that before. So it is Megan Wolfe and Maria Bartholdi of Good Luck High Five. So say hi, guys. Hi. Thank you so much for having us in your not car. Can you identify by your voices so the audience knows who's who? Yes, this is Megan. And I am Maria, or so I've been told.

So you guys are my first ever two-person podcast. I've never done this before. Ooh, exciting. I was just going to say, I have, in fact, accidentally introduced myself as Maria before when we're both in the same space. That has happened on multiple occasions. Okay. We're going to start going all the way back to the very beginning which is how do you guys first

interact with magic how do you first come to play magic uh maria go for it okay so uh the story goes like this megan and i had a game night um with with a mutual friend and we played a bunch of board games and then one night they were like hey do you want to learn the best game? And then we got taught magic. And it was almost immediate that we were completely obsessed with it. There's literally a time we went to a party, like a really cool party, and we were sitting on the floor playing magic with each other, ignoring everybody else. We just fell in love. We love games.

And if you're a gamer who loves games, you obviously love magic. I think that just follows. And so that's kind of how it happened for us. I remember we like at the previous board gaming night, previous to the time that we learned to play magic, he was like, he pointed the boxes on top of his fridge and was like, oh, next time we can learn the best game.

And I still like have a memory of just being like, what's in these? Because they were just the long white cardboard boxes for storing lots of cards. And just being like, but what on earth could it be? So when was that? What was your first set that you guys played with? It was during, so we played with old,

it was Mirrodin, the decks that we were playing with okay but that's because the friend that taught us that's back when he had played we were learning to play when return to ravnica came out which was our first set okay okay so um you started playing magic you obviously fell in love with magic because it's an amazing game. So how did you go from playing Magic to podcasting, doing videos about Magic? Well, we were all hanging out playing Magic one day. And, you know, we were like, hey, what if we did a podcast about this? That's the short version of it. The slightly longer version is that because maria has a background in radio and tv she had the equipment and the skills available to produce

a podcast and we kind of found that there was a niche we were still very very early in our magic journey this was maybe we were learning to play in september it was about october when we first sat down and recorded the first episode. And there was kind of a missing niche of players who are just at the very beginning of their magic journey. So yeah, talk a little bit. I happen to know this, but the audience might not. When you first started, what was your podcast about specifically? So the original name of our podcast was actually Magic the Amateuring, which is just like a terrible name, right? Because nobody, literally nobody in the history of time has ever been able to spell it. It's a fake word. No, it's a fake word.

at the game either people who are also learning themselves and they could learn along with us or people who are seasoned and had been in the game for a long time and maybe were eager to listen to some people who just had that new shining bright magic light in their eyes right just so excited about being new players to the game and that was the original conceit and that's how it lasted for a number of years and then what was it it, like two years ago yet, Megan, that we changed the name to Good Luck High Five? Yeah. We'll get there. I'm trying to go chronologically. We'll get there, I promise.

Okay, okay. So I now want to go, you start making stuff. When did it go from we made random podcasts to we're making a podcast? How did that happen? Wow, that's a good question.

I think we were pretty serious about it from the start yeah I'm a I'm a producer kind of by nature so I'm usually pretty um business-like in my decisions yeah um and I know that we didn't release um on a set schedule for a little while I want to say at the beginning but pretty fairly early pretty early on we decided that we wanted to be a weekly podcast yeah very swiftly maria's producer brain like put us on track and was like we can't just you know we can't release this willy-nilly um on you know like the the second tuesday of every third month so like how long before you had a cadence how long for like every week you were producing it?

Was it right away? Jeez. Like maybe only like a month, month, month and a half or two. Yeah, it was pretty quick. Okay. I'm going to say that by like, like I said, we started in October and by January for sure. Yeah. Okay. So now take me from, okay, you're making a weekly podcast to you're aware that people are listening to the podcast my i distinctly remember when we went to i don't remember where the event was but there was an event where we met a couple of people from wizards of the coast one of them being Trick. And he was like, oh, hey, we really like y'all's podcast. And I was just like, I'm sorry. What? Yeah, Megan, do you remember that tournament we went to?

It was in California. It was our first GP. And that was the first time we were sitting down building our seal pools because it was a team sealed. And somebody two chairs down from us like looked over and they're like are you guys magic the amateuring we recognize your voices you know and that was just when it hit me and we we actually went out to dinner with some of our very first fans of the show at that tournament which was just the coolest slash weirdest experience

that i've had in my life when When you started, you were just audio? Were you video in the beginning or no, just audio? No, we were just audio for years. Yeah, we really resisted the change to video because we loved recording it in our pajamas in Megan's attic. Oh, I still think about the days when we could just sit on a couch in our pajamas recording to be to be real it is very very nice to be able to record a podcast that way and video is just just a huge

pain but you know what we we do it for you everybody we do it for you so there's no pajama episodes or anything you know i mean these days during these days uh maria you might not know it but i certainly know that here in my own home, I'm mostly wearing pajamas when we're recording right now. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Okay, so take me now from, okay, you recognize people are listening. It was getting on Wizards radar. What was the next sort of step up for you guys? off for you guys i would say that was it yeah like that was that was a big part of it of just being like oh there's there are other people out there yeah listening to this so i remember um hugh from wizards of the coast also was a big fan of ours uh early on back in the day

and tried to get us more involved with stuff going on over there which was what which was really awesome you know because um because we really love we really love the game and it was cool to be interacting with people who were so close to its creation so what was the first thing you did with wizards like what was the first sort of do you remember uh i remember the first event that i worked was gp houston in february of 2016 yeah that's right i remember that tournament worked was GP Houston in February of 2016. Yeah, that's right. I remember that tournament. I was doing life totals or I was supposed to be. It was my birthday weekend. Yes, it was your birthday. And I got so, so, so sick. My body was not yet used to traveling so much and I got horribly ill and I couldn't do the job and so I had to just stay

locked in my hotel room the whole weekend being sick while this awesome tournament was going on I was like no this is supposed to be my first big job and it was my birthday luckily like Megan and Marshall Sutcliffe who worked the tournament too brought me presents to my room that they bought at the GP for me because it's my birthday. I just remember walking to the hotel room there and there was like a tray like like you'd order just like crackers. It was like just crackers on the tray. What happened is the hotel staff I called them and I was like hey I don't know if this is allowed can you bring me up some like Tylenol or something and they're like no we can't but they heard that I was so ill that they had somebody just bring me up soup and crackers without asking okay so my first memory meeting you guys i'm not

sure how early this is in your wizards interactions would be at the what do we call the event for kaladesh it had a name oh yeah it was a kaladesh event so we i mean it was the world championship right the world championships we rented out the paramount theater we took over this whole theater Oh, yeah. It was a Kaladesh event. I mean, it was the World Championship. Right, it was the World Championship. We rented out the Paramount Theater. We took over this whole theater. It was tied to PAX. Yes. And we did this...

Big heckin' Kaladesh event. Right, we did this giant Kaladesh event. And as part of it, we brought in a bunch of influencers. And I think... Megan, you were working the you were working the world championship yeah i was doing social media for worlds that year right and then maria maria was there as like doing interviews and stuff like that how early was that uh that was pretty late actually i want to say okay um i I have no idea what time means.

But here's the thing, Mark. That is not the first time we met you. Oh, yeah, this comes up a lot. This comes up a lot. I had another interview where I said that, and they go, oh, it was with Chris Mooney, right? I told them the first time I met him. He goes, well, first time you met me is not the first time I met you.

So when did you meet me? When's the meeting Mark story? We met you at the very last iteration of the community cup at Wizards of the Coast, which was still one of my favorite things I've ever done in my magical life where we were battling against Wizards of the Coast employees, members of the community. I remember it was Megan and I. Jimmy Wong was there. Wedge was there playing on behalf of the community and uh yeah we got to take i remember i still have a selfie that i took with you and i was so excited uh yeah that's right i forgot about the community cup but yeah i would say that like did i i played in very few community

cups did i play in that community cup no okay i think i played in two of Community Cups. Did I play in that Community Cup? No. Okay. I think I played in two of them. Yeah. Well, long story short, we crushed Wizards. Wizards won once. Wizards won once, I believe, of all the Community Cups. We're like the generals of the... Yeah. Like, the Community Cup, I would say, was also, like, a big event in our magic trajectory.

Yeah. Of being able to go to that and meet so many great people. Yeah. It was a ton of fun. So when did you get involved with like pro tours and stuff? When did that happen? What is that in this timeline? My very first pro tour I ever worked, I did life totals at, once again, cards on hand.

The people who are standing with the iPads behind the players in the feature match area, which is a very tough job, very stressful, but also really fun to be able to be close to the players making those, you know, big decisions. And the first one I worked there was in Milwaukee. It was Milwaukee and there was lots of cool Eldrazi decks running around. I remember it was modern. Yeah, that was, that was my first taste of it. And I was just like, wow, this is awesome. But I still have my full time job in television production at that point, you know.

So for me, it was just kind of like a cool like vacation, like thing to do. It wasn't anything I had like seriously considered as a career at that point. So my first one was in Dublin in spring of 2017. Okay. I remember it was so gray. It's so gray and rainy in Ireland in February. I really loved it, but it was very gray. When did you segue from it being a hobby

or a part-time thing to more being what you do? For me, it was an unanticipated transition when in fall of 2017, fall of 2016, actually. So like all through 20, I get at the start of 2016, I had started picking up some coverage writing jobs, like starting with Houston and then working a few more. And then in August, I got laid off from my job very unexpectedly. And so I spent about a month like panicking, applying to jobs everywhere. And just sort of, again, it was like, completely out of the blue that I got laid off. And so I was frantic about it. And then one day, I was talking with my mom about it. And she was just like, what if you

what if you just like like stopped looking for a job right now because you're actually you're doing a job you know you're like you're traveling and working these events and you're working at the podcast so what if you just saw how that went for a little while

and you know I haven't looked back since then and I think that I've been doing it as a full time job now for four years or something like that. Yeah, I it was it was like it was tough because I really liked my job. I worked for PBS, which, you know, has always been a really great passion of mine ever since I've been little. But I had a boss that I didn't really love. And so things weren't going great over there. And I was like, you know what? Sometimes you just got to take the leap and do something and take the

opportunity when it presents itself and say, this might be a little bit scary or I'm jumping into the unknown. I'm not going to get a weekly, you know, a weekly paycheck. I'm not going to have health insurance, all of these things that, you know, practically have been drilled into my Minnesotan brain. Like you've got to think about those things, Maria, you know, uh, what happens, what happens, how are you going to eat? How are you going to make that hot dish? Um, but I just had to quiet those thoughts and, and move forward and say, you know what, sometimes you got to take a chance. And honestly, it's been one of the coolest rides I've been on in my life so long.

And I'm so happy that we did it. Okay, so, oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just saying, you're like, yeah, same. I didn't see it coming ever in any way, shape or form, but I'm, yeah, I'm very thankful for it all the time. Okay, so at some point you guys aren't, you're not amateurs anymore. So talk about, now with the right timeline, let's talk about the changeover from Magic the Amateuring to Good Luck High Five.

Yeah, well, I can't believe, it's sort of strange talking about the changeover because we talked about it for so long that sometimes it seems like it happened farther back than it did. It's only been about two years. But in my mind, it's like, we've been good luck high five for like five years. The reason for that is because, like you said, we wanted to change the name about a year after we started the show because we realized that it's just not very searchable. The web address is a nightmare.

And also, like like we're learning like there's gonna become a point when we're not amateurs anymore i think megan had even cashed a tournament at this point i want to say that's right at some point again i want to say this was probably 2016 again but like i cashed a gp and actually had like a pro point or two to my name or something like that and you did the same like not long thereafter yeah so we were like okay what are we gonna do i i the name good luck high five comes from me mistakenly thinking that that was what glhf stood for on magic online and there is a i think we do it live on the air in an episode i'm like yeah they said glhf good luck high five and like like maria no it's good luck have fun and

i was like well that's silly why do they want me to have fun no it's good luck have fun and I was like well that's silly why do they want me to have fun don't they want to have fun and win anyway so that's the genesis of the name we googled it and found out that another podcast in Minnesota that was also about Magic the Gathering had previously been called good luck high five about three years before we started our show which is the most implausible thing I could possibly imagine. So we decided not to change it back then. By the time we made the choice to actually switch, we were like, it's been long enough.

They've been gone long enough. Like, we feel it's appropriate. At that point, that podcast hadn't existed in like a decade almost. Yeah, yeah. So what year did you guys start? I'm trying to understand the time. When did you start? 2012.

2012? Okay. Yeah. And then, time. When did you start? 2012. 2012? Okay. Yeah. And then, so, in 2018, you changed your name. Yes. Okay. So, talk a little bit. One of my favorite things you guys do is actually your little mini thing you do on Mondays.

Talk about that. Oh, yeah. So, when did we start? We started the upkeep almost a year ago now, or a little over a year ago now. We have 66 episodes. So, We started the upkeep almost a year ago now, or a little over a year ago now. We have 66 episodes. So explain what the upkeep is. It is a 10 minute magic news podcast, or as we say at the top of the show, all of the news you need in 10 minutes or less.

And we just wanted to give something to people that's super easily digestible. 10 minutes is you can, you know, fold your laundry. You can do your dishes. You don't have to be investing a lot of time in it. And it's going to give you everything that you need to know that happened in the magic world that might be relevant to your play experience or your life or your understanding of magic.

So now having done this for a while, is 10 minutes the right amount of time? I think it usually is. We sometimes will go eight minutes. I think our lowest ever has been six and a half when there's been a slow news week. But sometimes, you know, we're bad and we have to give ourselves a slap on the wrist because sometimes we go to 13. But we try not to. We try not to.

It's only happened a couple of times. But I got to tell you, Wizards is growing at such a huge rate that some weeks, Mark, some weeks there's a lot of news. Is there? There really is a lot of news. You're just talking about it. I'm making it. Wow, wow. Fair enough.

And honestly, we kind of started it as we had had it as a segment on our usual podcast on good luck, high five for a little bit. And then it was sort of like, well, it's a little bit outside the vein of what we normally do. Good luck. High five can be,

it's usually one talking about the experience of actually playing magic. What are we playing right now? Or how are we feeling about cards that are coming out right now? And it's a little bit more playful and the news was very much just like hey here are the bullet points of what you need to know so it felt right to break it out but i don't think that we expected people to enjoy it as much as they do honestly so for people that because people listening my podcast might not know your podcast. What is the elevator pitch of your podcast? Okay, so good luck, high five.

We say it at the beginning of every show is for anybody who loves playing Magic. And what we mean by that is anybody who plays Magic to have an awesome time. You know, whether that's you playing at home at your kitchen table with your friends, playing Commander, whether that's you playing at home at your kitchen table with your friends, playing commander, whether that's playing on arena and trying to up your game and climb the ladder

and get new rewards, whether that's heading to a GP when we can do that again and like chasing the dream of becoming a magic player. We do run the gamut and we have players on every at every part of the spectrum from casual to competitive listening to our show. at every part of the spectrum from casual to competitive listening to our show but the underlying the underpinning uh theme i would say for us is that you enjoy playing magic it makes you happy and you want a place to go to celebrate that in a positive way uh with your friends and we hope to be those friends for you every single week to come and have a great time and just hang out and chat about magic and hopefully have some laughs along the way too. How long is your podcast and what day

do you guys post? Every episode is about 45 minutes and we post Tuesday mornings anywhere fine podcasts are found. The Upkeep comes out on Monday. Yeah, the Upkeep is on Mondays and as we said, it is 10 minutes or less and

it is both available as a podcast and it's available on our youtube channel which is especially relevant for the upkeep because maria is really excellent about putting all of the relevant links down in the notes as well as putting up all of the relevant images during the show also yeah you can i'm just gonna quick give you a link it's a youtube.com slash good luck high five and we do post our full-length episodes there, too. And sometimes we're talking about deck lists or cards, and we put the card images up on the screen for you.

So just that for it. Also, you guys release your stuff both in podcast form, audio only, and video form. Yeah. Yeah, everything is both. Just in case there's a preferred method you have to consume media, we want to make sure that you have it. Yeah.

In case you want to see our great offices or these days, our homes, which we are never leaving. Okay, so I'm going to ask you guys, each give me a story. What is your favorite fan interaction story that each of you have? I can think of one. Do you have one, Megan? Yeah, definitely. Go ahead. I can think of one. Do you have one, Megan?

Yeah, definitely. Go ahead. So this kind of references some stuff that happened years ago now, but a long while back we had an episode called Psy, which was sort of about the experience of being women in competitive magic. And again, that came out maybe 2016, 2015, 2016, like somewhere in there. It's pretty old. And at Vegas last year, I talked to two people. There was one guy who told me that he's teaching his kids to play magic. And he had

his two sons read the article that came out with that about being women in magic. So like to help them better understand that experience. And then there was a woman who came up to me and was just like, I love the podcast. And that episode, Psy, meant so much to me. And she hugged me. And then she was like, I'm going to cry and ran away. And I still like, I honestly, I can't even say in words like what it means to me to have like something that we made have that much of an impact on someone even um this far down the line yeah I think I think that's so awesome I will always have just the warmest memories of our first fan getting get together like we mentioned

uh in California at that first GP because realizing that what you're doing and putting it out into the world is actually, you know, being enjoyed by other people, right, is a little bit wild, because we're having a great time every week recording this, you know, we kind of joke sometimes, we'd be like, oh, yeah, we do this for ourselves in our basement, you know, but thank, thank goodness you're all listening, you know, so that's really cool to know that you, you know, getting joy out of what you do is bringing joy to other people. And somebody who has been real special to us over the years, one of our fans, Ray, and she came and saw us at a tournament. And once again, this was my I was working on my birthday and she brought me a birthday present with like a card and a gift and a little gift bag and brought it to the pro tour.

It was just so thoughtful. And the fact that we have fans that would do that is just absolutely incredible so by the way the writer in me says if i ever made a play about your life maria it would take place just on your birthday i mean yes right because maria has only been talking about her birthday i do also want to mention like we um in the last like for the for the first couple years this wasn't like we um in the last like for the for the first couple years this wasn't the case but in the last like five years at least our podcast has been clean just like in the most basic way of just like we just we don't swear and so we end up getting a lot of people who listen with their kids and then we also end up having a lot of kids who listen

and they are some of my favorite fan interactions because i've just had like a kid just be like running past me at a gp and then turn around and yell at me back when we were still matching the amateuring amateuring and then just like keep running it's just like great kid cool Okay, so now I want a story from each one of you. What is your favorite magic moment? It could be anything magic related. The one that just stands out. Wow, this was a very memorable thing. Yeah.

So, Maria, I'll help you. It was during your birthday. Yeah, right? Oh, my gosh. I can think of one that's kind of like, it's like a tough one. It's like not a happy one, but I think it's kind of an interesting one. Okay. I'll take it.

Okay. So, the thing that just jumped to my mind when you said this, I'm sure after we hang up, I'll think of one that's great and happy. Which is like most times working on magic stuff because all of our coworkers are so amazing who do coverage. But my very first time working a pro tour was in Nashville and it was really cool pro tour. They're like, they're trying stuff with the lighting and it was really dramatic and cool looking. I was super excited to be there. And I was like, okay, you've got to prove yourself. You've got to do a great job. You job you know be like they hired you for a reason and you've got to deliver right I get to the tournament once again this might remind you my birthday in Houston because I got terribly terribly

ill once again I was not used to traveling you get so sick if your body's not used to it um and I did my first day of work and I was like oh boy this is not good I cannot come back tomorrow I had to go to the ER and they're like oh yeah you have strep throat and I was like oh boy this is not good I cannot come back tomorrow I had to go to the ER and they're like oh yeah you have strep throat and I was like no I'm supposed to do a show it's a pro tour it's my first one I can't not do it and the doctor's like okay all right I can give you some shots I'm gonna give you two shots normally we Boom, boom. I get like just crank full of strep throat drugs and he's like, get out of here. You'll be better. Just go take a rest for a day. I go back to my hotel. I had to watch the first day of the tournament, but the next day, you know what, Mark, the next day

I was on that set. Um, I would say one that's always sticks out to me and always will is the first time I won PPTQ. I was just, you know, it's so difficult to tell yourself that you can do something until you've actually accomplished it. So I think up until then, you know, I had been working really, you know, I've been working hard. I don't play nearly as much competitive, like as, as competitively now as I did then. Just because our schedules have changed so much. But back then I was like playing a lot competitively. And I still, I think I still had this mentality of just like, okay, I can work this hard, but I don't think that I will ever be able to win one of these. Like, okay, I can work this hard, but I don't think that I will ever be able to win one of these. And, you know, it got into the top four.

And I beat back-to-back, like, two people who I know well and really respect as players. And I just, like, after that, I, like, went for a walk around one of the lakes in my neighborhood. And I have rarely ever been in such a good mood. and I have rarely ever been in such a good mood because I just felt so, it was just so gratifying to have accomplished something that up until that moment, I think I kind of thought was out of my reach. Oh, that's good. Good stories.

Okay, so we're almost out of time. I'm almost to my den. So let's, okay, without giving me any new cards or new mechanics since I can't hear those, if you could add one thing to magic, just something for you personally, if you could add one thing to magic, what is something you would love to see in magic? Hmm.

Well, gosh. I want to, okay, so this I've sort sort of like i've pitched you my ideas before mark and you have just calmly slapped them down into the dirt um but i would love to see magic's take on i love star trek i'm a huge uh space nerd take on space a space set and i know like we're in the fantasy realm so maybe that means some kind of, like, spaceship flying theme set. And, like, people are doing, like, dogfights in the air and they're crafting their own vehicles. I love vehicles.

And, like, fighting each other. And each color has their own kind of, like, style of designing vehicles. Like, the red ones, like, blast through mountains to get an advantage on courses. And the green ones like can whip their things around trees and like throw themselves further and so it's kind of like a cool like uh air air fight dog fighting uh set and crowds like go wild and uh yeah that's that's my idea okay maria i know your reference material was originally Star Trek, but I'm just going to tell you, sounds a lot like pod racing, man.

Yeah, it ended up pod racing. We started with space and we got to pod racing. Yeah. Do you know what? This one's boring. This is a boring answer, but it's just true. I want to see cycling all the time. I love it.

Well, I hope you're enjoying Ikoria. Huh? Hope you're enjoying Ikoria. There's cycling galore. I mean, I really am having a the time. I love it. Well, I hope you're enjoying Ikoria. Huh? I hope you're enjoying Ikoria. There's cycling galore. I mean, I really am having a great time. We are having a blast. We love Ikoria. Very regularly these days,

like one of us will log into Arena and then the other one is already there and we just send a message just being like, uh-huh. Yep. It'll be like, uh-huh. Yep. It'll be like, it's like midnight and I log in and I'm like, oh look, there's one person

on my friends list here. It's Maria. Yep, that's how it goes these days, Mark. You did it. You really nailed it. You really nailed it. Well, that's good. Okay, well guys, I'm at my den so we gotta wrap this up. So I want to thank you guys for coming. And,

it was fun talking with you. And I, I've twice been on your show. So if you, if you guys haven't seen it yet, um, I've also been on their show two times. So you can go,

uh, I don't link anything. I don't, I don't have Maria to help me, but, uh, if you go look it up, I have been,

I guess, search Google for my name in a good look high five. Uh, you can see me with them. Uh, I think, I feel like when I'm on your show, we're a lot sillier than when you're on my show. I'm asking serious questions. You were very structured. Yes.

You had an agenda. I did. I did. So thank you guys for joining. But now as I'm at my den, we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking about magic with Marie and Megan, it's time for me to be making magic.

So thanks, guys, for joining me. Thank you so much for having us. This was a delightful time. Thank you, Mark. Can I get a high five virtually? Virtual high five. Yay. So anyway, you guys, I'll see you all next time.

Bye-bye.