Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #759: Sheldon Menery

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

In this podcast, I talk with Sheldon Menery about his days of judging and his role in helping to create the Commander format.

I'm not pulling out my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Well, I've been doing some fun interviews while I've been stuck at home, so today is no exception. So Sheldon Menry is here to join us. Hey, Sheldon. Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me. Okay, so I'll start with the question I've been asking everybody, which is, how did you learn to play Magic? How did you start playing Magic? which is how did you learn to play Magic? How did you start playing Magic? I was at Gen Con in 1993,

and I knew Wizards of the Coast as a small, very good role-playing game company. I was heavily involved in the RPGA back then, and I was at that Gen Con to run D&D games. Explain what the RPGA is. You and I mean, it was, they wrote the adventures and gave you the characters to play in four hour blocks when you would go to conventions. Whether it was Gen Con or your small convention or whatever. And the RPGA would, you know, it was a network. So they would send you the adventures if you wanted to run them. Okay, so you're at Gen Con 93.

93. Okay, so what is that like? Well, Gen Con back then, it was still in Milwaukee. And Gen Con was divided into four-hour time slots back then. So block one, block two, block three, so forth and so on. And I think there were 13 blocks, and I was scheduled to GM 10 games. So I only had one block open to go to the dealer's room when the dealer's room was open. So I just had one chance to get to the dealer's room.

And if you've never been to a Gen Con, the dealer's room and if you've never been to a gen con the dealer's room is the thing even in 1993 when it was comparatively small um so today uh it was a you know it was a site that that every nerd needed to see and uh my ex-wife and i were walking through the hall and uh as i said i knew i knew wizards of the Coast as a small RPG company. I think the primal order was to supplement the release. It was just like system agnostic, and it was well-written, and it was like, oh, man, I'm going to support this company. So I saw their booth, and there was a crowd around the booth. I was like, well, what's going on? So I wandered over there, and they were playing this card game.

I'm like, oh, okay. Some new game on the market. Obviously, there weren't really card games at that point. The closest thing was probably... No, there were no real card games at that point. And I was like, oh, it looks cool. The art looks cool. So we grabbed a starter and a booster. After getting the nickel tour of what the game was. Like, oh, it looks cool. The art looks cool. So we grabbed a starter and a booster.

After getting the nickel tour of what the game was. Like, oh, it seems inexpensive. We'll grab it. Got a starter and a booster. And opened the booster as we were walking away from the table. And the first magic card I ever looked at was Time Walk. Setting the bar high. was Time Walk.

No. Setting the bar high. And I said, I don't know what the game is. You know, I don't know anything about the game yet, but I'm willing to bet this is a good card. And we had driven, I was stationed at the Pentagon at the time, and we had driven out with two of our friends

from D.C. to Milwaukee. So it's like a two-day drive stop in Indiana or something on the way. And again, our schedule is already booked for Gen Con. So we put the magic cards in the loot bag and move on. And I remember Lisa and our friend Tom sitting in the back seat as we were driving back to DC trying to figure out how to play Magic. They cracked open the starters and a couple more boosters

and were trying to figure out. So it's probably not a month before I try the game because, you know, we get back, you go back to work, you got stuff to catch up on. You're doing your other nerd things and like, Oh yeah, let's, let's try to play that. And the first game of magic I ever played, I was hooked from the get go. Like veteran bodyguard got me. I'm like, wow, veteran bodyguard. How can how can you lose and then and then for prodigal

sorcerer yeah they're on a 20 turn clock so we uh um we started we had a group we had a a gaming society there in the dc area dc northern virginia and um people in that community started playing the game and we were already running conventions and organizing other things so it was just a natural it was a natural continuation from what we were already doing to start running thing you know first tournament i ever ran was in the house and then we moved to the game shop and so forth and so on. So I started getting involved relatively early in running things. But then

I was transferred to Belgium in 1994. So we took our magic cards with us and met a whole new society of magic players from there. And once again, got involved with running events, and the first

big event I went to was the first big GP in Amsterdam. Was that the first GP? Was Amsterdam the first GP? I think Amsterdam that the first GP was Amsterdam the first GP? I think Amsterdam was the first GP. Yeah. Brian David Marshall could probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was. I'm pretty sure it was because it was supposed to be in Japan and for different reasons it didn't happen and turned into something else. So I think Amsterdam was the first. And it was it a three-hour drive from where we lived in Belgium. So it was convenient.

We had friends there already. So what's that? That was 1996 or so? Around. 95, 96? So we drove up, and I didn't make day two. And I was wandering around looking for something to do. Because it's a Magic GP.

It's not Gen Con. It's not a giant dealer's hall or anything. There's pickup games going on and stuff. But I walk past the Wizards of the Coast booth, and whoever was behind the booth was like, hey, do you know the rules of magic? And I said,

why, I think I do. He said, would you like to be a judge? I said, what does that entail? And he explained and said, well, I'm kind of already doing that. Like, well, then let's just, why don't you take the test and see? And back then, your judge level was set by how well you scored on the test. Yes, well, I mean, right. The judge structural changed over the years.

I mean, there were a couple of different ways. Yeah. Yeah. So I tested into level two. I missed level three by two points. And I tested into level two. So I actually never spent any time as a level one judge. Yeah.

And then, of course, I got involved in the judge program. And that became a thing. So when, one of the first time I remember interacting with you was at a pro tour because you started judging. How'd you start judging pro tours? The, I started judging the major events in,

in Western Europe. So in Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the Netherlands was kind of the, the hotspot of the Netherlands was kind of the hotspot of the earliest days of European magic.

Yeah, in fact, France and Belgium, I believe in the early days, France and Belgium were the two real hotspots. And if you look at the very first world championship, there were two, I think, two Belgians and a Frenchman in the top four. Yeah, Dominic Cucuna was one of them because he won the Belgian Nationals twice.

Yeah, but Belgium was really an early adopter and they were very, very good. So I was doing events there and I got to know the folks that were the organizers from the WOTC Europe office. Ken Bontnick and Misha Donders.

And then they were like, so you've been doing events and we'd like to recommend you for level three, but you have to go to a pro tour to test for level three.

Okay, sure. And there was a pro tour in Mainz, was like, okay, sure. And there was a pro tour in Mainz, in Germany. Okay, yeah, yes. I met Place on the show earlier, and so we talked all about him winning in Mainz. That's the castle one for those that are, that's the, it was in a castle. Right, yeah.

It was in a castle during a transportation strike. And the hotel, the staff hotel had been over, had been double booked. There was airline something, something airline thing happened. And anyway, so they invited me to Mines to test for level three at the Pro Tour. And, you know, the process was not as, as structured as it is today. Very polite. They took me, Ken, Misha, Carl Crook and fourth person who I don't remember took me into a room at

midnight the day after my first full day on a pro tour and that was you know you work from 8 a.m until you're done so 16 hours in I I tested for level three the first time yeah um and they stood on me on my head and told me everything that I didn't know about um running high level magic so they're like you're not quite ready yet but you will be uh and it was a little while later that was 97 so the next big event i went to was gp antwerp and tested and passed level three, which was a bellwether day for the Magic Judge program because that day, not only me, but Jaap Brouwer and Gies Hogendijk also made level three.

And of course, all of us eventually made level five. Yeah. Okay, so how do you go from being like a level three judge to at some point you're actually the head judge of Pro Tours. What's that transition? Well, it was a pretty bloodless coup. I mean, I didn't have to bump anybody off. we were really, at that point, I started regularly judging Pro Tours. So while I was still in Europe, I was

doing the European ones and the big European championships and then I came back to the States in 2000. I came back to the States in April of 2000 then turned around and went back to Belgium where I was living previously, just months earlier, to do Worlds. Oh, the World Championship.

To do the World Championships. That's the one that, by the way, John Finkel defeats Bob Marr in the final. Like, it won the classic all-time World Championships. Yeah. Oh, man. Those were days. Anyway, so,

you know, like anything, when you get involved and you have the right skill set and the right desires to get promoted, to study, to do the things you need to do. I did. I mean, being a military NCO, I already had all the leadership skills that I needed. You know, the judge program didn the leadership skills that I needed. I didn't, you know, the judge program didn't need to teach me those. It just needed to teach me how to use them in the context of the program. And we were really, we were inventing the judge program as we went along at that point. I mean, we had been doing pro tours for, you know, by the time Worlds 2000, we'd been doing pro tours for four or five years,

but it was still, everyone was different. There, you know, there wasn't consistent structure. And I think Mike Guptill and Matt Fairbanks sort of led the charge to standardize how we ran Pro Tours from at least a judge staff perspective. So I got involved with them and that, and then got promoted to the level four a couple of years later, which is an additional set of responsibilities. By then, I was one of the level threes, because back then, like Jeff Donane

just head judged the Pro Tours. Yeah, yeah. It was just Jeff. Nobody else did. And there was a list. You had to be a level four to head judge a GP. Yeah. And there was a list of level threes that were allowed to head judge

GPs. And I think the list was me. Yeah. That was, I think the list was me. And, you know, at some point, Andy Hecht, who was running, was me and uh you know at some point andy hechtu was running it was the you know judge program manager it's like you know you probably want to interview for level four so my level four interview was i think in san diego i want to say um with andy and colin jackson uh and uh then we had the we we had the new world order after

world san francisco in 2004 where jeff was gone and we needed to we needed to do something different uh you know we need to not rely on you know there's a single single failure point and that right there you know what happens if the one person who does your thing gets sick yeah um or burns out or whatever it is so uh as part of the new world order there were six of us promoted the level five and the basically that meant there were six people that could hedge at ProTours now. So, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. One of the things that I've been trying to do with this podcast is introduce magic players

to a lot of different areas of magic. And we're talking about the Judge Program. So could you give maybe just a minute to talk about if someone out there might be interested in the Judge Program, how does one do that? How does one become a judge? Well, I'm going to tell you. Remember that I retired from the judge program in 2011. Okay.

So my retirement from the judge program is approaching being old enough to drink. Yeah. So the Judge Academy now runs things, so you would have to get in contact with them. I'm actually not sure what the process is anymore. I'm a little less concerned about the actual how do you do it, I guess, and more of why would someone want to do this? Why is judging fun? Why might someone look into judging for for me it was about it was about being a valuable member of the community it was about

giving back to the community that was giving me fun and you know um the same reason i got involved in in jamming dnd games for the rpga is somebody needs to do it you know it one out of seven people had to be a gm in order for events to happen so some people have to step up and there are there are those of us who like stepping up so i did and judging was pretty much the same that you know it becomes giving back to the community that you're involved in and And I mean, it's a pretty good job helping other people to have fun. And you get to meet more people. You get to travel. There were certainly side benefits.

But even if you're just a level one judge at your local store, you're involved in the community. And communities build and communities are better when people want to be in them. You know, you don't want hostages. You want participants. And the judge program teaches skills, gets you involved in the community, and helps you do the thing that you love. So that's the reason to get to be a judge, is that you get to do more of something that you like to do. Okay, so we're going to segue here, because we've been talking a lot about what I'll call the first half of your sort of magic life.

Let's get into the second half of your magic life. So let's talk about the origins of Commander. Well, you know, I've never talked about this on a podcast before, so I'll have to check my notes. I was stationed in Alaska at Elmendorf Air Force Base and I had a really good group

of nerd friends. And we would get together at my friend David's apartment every Monday night. The place to be, he called it. And we would do nerdcore things. We would play video games. Hot Shots Golf, I think, was on the PlayStation 1.

It was the fun game. We'd watch films. We'd play board games. By then, everybody was already deeply involved in Magic. One of our group owned a coffee shop in the mall, and that's where we played Friday Night Magic. So we'd go down to Aaron Martin's store to play Friday Night Magic because I was the organizer in Alaska. the organizer in Alaska.

So one time I went over to David's and they were playing some magic and I'm like, so what's going on? Oh, we're playing this format that Adam Staley came up with, although

Adam might have cribbed it from something else. And it's called Elder Dragon Highlander and you have one of the Elder Dragons is your general and... The Elder Dragons are the five Elder Dragons from Legends. That's all the ones that existed at the time. Yes.

Nicole Bolas being the most famous still. And they there really aren't too many rules, except you can only have cards that are in the colors of your general. So everybody was playing a wedge. Or a shard, I guess. And there was an agreement. There wasn't a rule, but there was an agreement to play no non-basic land hate.

Because everything was singleton then. Even basic lands were singleton. And this was 2002. There weren't a lot of great non-basic lands. To fill out 37, 38 lands in a deck, it was hard. So everybody just agreed, no non-basic land hate. And I looked at it once. I was like, okay, seems fun-ish.

And then the following week, they were there playing it again, and I took a deeper look. I was like, all right, let me look at this. Let me think about the possible so i i went back home i thought about the possibilities like okay here are some things that have to would have to change to make this a viable format but again these are you know my friends were pretty casual magic players for the most part right i didn't have the 10 000 foot view about how things operate and how formats work yeah they just you know

to them a format was you're allowed to play these cards so there were a couple of changes that i i insisted that we make right away and uh one was you had to let more than five people play because at the time everybody had one of the Elder Dragons, and that was it. Right. It was five people. We expanded that, but you still had to reserve your general at that point. So if I picked Martin Stromgald as mine, not only could nobody else play Martin Stromgald as their general, but nobody else could have Martin Stromgold in their deck.

So when did it go from just Elder Dragons to any legend? In theory, late 2002 or early 2003. But the real acceleration point came after I left Alaska. So I left Alaska in March 2003 to go to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. And by then I was already

a reasonably popular writer on Star City Games. And a couple of folks who had read my stuff that lived near where I was going contacted me. Said, hey, we have a gaming group. If you want to come play Magic with us, come on by.

We draft and we play Standard and so forth and so on. We play board games. And I was like, oh, I'm going to go into another group of cool people just like, I don't know. So I went and got involved with them, played with them a couple of times. And then one time I said, so next week there's this format that i brought with me from alaska and um i described it like you you want to give that a try and everybody said sure so everybody went home and built a deck that week

and came back the following sunday and we played and had fun and then you know the next week we played some other format and you know and it's a couple weeks and somebody suggested I think it was Justin Norris said hey that dragon thing can we play that again like yeah sure so we started playing it more regularly and within I'd say six weeks or months, it was all anybody wanted to play. So, then I realized, okay, this might be something more than just for us. Let me think

about bringing it to a broader audience. Okay. So, I wrote an article about it in April 2004. Okay. Which got quite some good feedback. Now, by this time, I'd changed a number of things.

The concept of actually banning cards was one. The original Elastis group had the same, basically everybody had the same strategy. Play buy over them and win. Sure.

At the time, your general was starting in your deck. Okay. Which made no sense. Okay. Oh, so this was in your deck. You didn't start it out of play? No. Okay. Just in your deck, you had to draw it. Okay. Or two to four or whatever. Right.

The only rule that, the only rule, actual rule that was in place was the color, you know, the color of your card's rule and the 21 damage. Okay. So three hits from... Right. The commander damage. Commander damage. Right. Those were basically the only rules. I realized, obviously, we need

more. The first thing is, we gotta get rid of the singleton on the basic lands. Otherwise, nobody's ever going to be able to play it. Fast forward 17 years, most commander decks are full of non-basic lands. Sure. Different argument, right? Yeah. So change the non-basic land thing, ban some cards.

changed the non-basic land thing, banned some cards. And I thought that the first thing I, you know, I'd said for a couple of years, for many years, that the first change I ever made was the non-basic land or the basic land thing. But it was really getting the commander out of the deck. Yeah. Like it makes no sense for the commander to start in the deck. Right.

If it's your thing so that's when we started working on okay how do we how do we make that work work yeah uh so so once the the good good response came from the star city article then i was like, I'm taking this to ProTour. I'm taking it to my judge friends at ProTour. And, you know, because some of them were the respondents. Yeah. So I took it to ProTour and it was touching Tinder to, touching a message right Tinder. And the judge community adopted it really really quickly and by that

worlds in san francisco in 2004 we did a 11 or 12 player free for all which also taught me a thing or two about cards that needed to get rid we needed to get rid of in the format. The Power 9 being one of them. Sure. So, by the end of that year, by the end of that same year, it's already starting to catch fire across the Judge program.

So this is 2004, right? 2004, yeah. Judges being the primary evangelists of Magic, Yeah. Not just Commander, but magic in general they're they're infusing things into their communities um and then i think the next significant event is probably again at a pro tour. And after, after the day we're rearranging some tables to play some, to play some EDH and Scott,

Scott Larrabee, dear friend of mine and now fellow RC member. Yeah. Long time, long time wizards employee who, who isn't he like, he's like fourth or fifth on the tenure list at the company now?

He's high up. I'm not sure of the number. He's behind me, Bill, and Charlie. I know that. And, you know, yeah. I mean, he's the pro tour manager. And he comes by. He's like, let's go get something to eat.

And I'm like, we're just about to start a game. Game of what? So I explain. He's like let's go get something to eat and i'm like oh we're we're just about to start a game a game of what so i explain he's like oh okay and then the next show i think was pro tour atlanta and it's basically the same thing happening hey let's go get something to eat he's like let's put we're starting to play a game he's's like, okay, give me a deck. So I handed him my Lord of Tressorhorn deck. And he sat down and played with us. He's like, oh, you can play this card? Oh, you can play that card? Oh, you can play that card? And he got hooked.

And he then brought it back to the offices and infected a few notable people. I think the primary one being Aaron Forsythe. And it started spreading inside the company like it was spreading outside the company. Yeah. So 2005, I think, is when we made the first Commander. Is that right? When did we release the first Commander? No, the product?

Yeah. The Commander RC didn't form until 2000 2008 when was the first when did we first do it when wizards first make 10 2010 i think started making it in 2009 i think it was released 2011 okay okay okay um it went on for a while before we we we started making a product. Yeah, well, I remember being at an event and Scott taking me and Gavin aside and saying, so I think they want to make products. And like for us, yes. Well, I mean, originally, so for the audience, we have what's called an innovation slot.

You know, conspiracy, battle bond, the unsets. It's just like we're trying something new and different. And one year we said, let's try Commander as our innovation product. Yep. And the idea was it was a one of, you know, we just do different things. And it was so popular that we just said, why don't we just make one of these every year? I mean, we, it took, we were two years ahead, so we had a gap year where we made a quick

reprint thing. Uh, but two years after that product, we just started doing it every year. Yep. Um, so what is that like? So we'll talk a little bit about the transition from, you know, Elder Dragon Highlander to Commander. Um, we had to, we had to give it another name for a bunch of reasons but um yeah for a bunch of reasons uh so the i mean the the point that certainly the idea of producing the product is a is another acceleration point um we had formed gavin duggan

had come to me in it was a level three judge and a net rep uh canadian um uh regional coordinator came came to me uh and said well you know we we should probably formalize this you know you're we're doing a lot of things and events why don don't we make a rules committee and blah, blah, blah, you know, and publish things officially. So it was actually Gavin's idea to form the RC. And the RC is the, the commander of the rules committee is the, is the administrative body for the format.

We're the ones who decide what cards to get banned and unbanned and manage the format outside of any internal influence. So, we remain an independent body. I mean, we were just a group of fans back then. Now, we're just a group of big fans.

So, we formalized in 2006 and to make a relatively long story kind of short, one of the original third member, Duncan McGregor, went on to do other things like, okay we probably need somebody else. Eventually Scott and toby elliott one of my level five compatriots uh and uh pretty rulesy person uh joined so that's the the four of us the four of us have been together on the commander rules committee there have been some on some other folks on it and have left two other things Kevin Dupre being probably the most notable. Since, I think Scott was the last one we added in 2008. And the four of us have been together ever since managing the format

and bringing it, sort of shepherding it into the new eras, each successive new era of popularity. Like the first part was, the first part was, oh, well, they're going to make product. We must be a thing. But I'm like, come on. This is a niche format.

It's never going to be, it's never going to be, you know, like standard. Nobody's going to, you know. But there aren't that many people. And then once the product came out I think we hit a pretty serious knee in the curb

which I had kind of an epiphanous moment on doing a search on one of the engines whatever whatever Scryfall used to be. And commander color identity was one of the clickable search parameters. Yeah.

And I kind of threw up my hands. I was like, okay, we've arrived. And I mean, and again, the acceleration has continued for the last, you know, seven or eight years. Yeah. To see something that you created and shepherded and nurtured become wildly popular. I mean, I think you understand the same thing that, that, you know, that,

that I feel right. Something, something small, because magic was pretty small in the beginning, become, become so big and so beloved by so many people. It's a, it's a pretty humbling moment. It's, it's something, it's like, man, what, how cool is it that I get to help a lot of people have some enjoyment in their life? That's pretty cool. As jobs, as jobs go. So I realized I'm almost, I'm almost to work.

Oh my goodness. I know. It's my travel to my desk. So as we wrap up here, I just want to, like I said, maybe for someone who's never played Commander before, just a little final pitch of what is it? Something to give it a try. Commander, unlike any other Magic format, Commander is about making sure that you help sculpt the resident experience

for everybody at the table. Commander is the closest to an RPG that we get to when we play Magic. I think that it's not about the competition. It's about the community. Magic is about the gathering. Well, at a commander table, the gathering is always present. And it's the format where you can express yourself artistically and not have to worry about playing the best deck

or the best metagame matchup or any of the things that come along with competitive magic. It was intended from the beginning. One of my hopes and dreams was that Commander would be a respite from competitive

magic. I love competitive magic. I made my bones in competitive magic. And there was a market and a way bigger market than I ever expected, for people who want that same kind of resident experience. Who wins doesn't matter. Something awesome happening is what matters. And those are the kind of games that we encourage, that we help foster, that we try to create.

And, you know, Commander's the only format that has a philosophy. And I think that the elevator pitch is you're going to sit down and you're going to play a game that you love in a fashion with other people who love it the same way. And, you know, we're going to create memories and people don't people don't remember oh you know i played armageddon and won people remember something stupid happening uh and you know when somebody played tooth and and Nail and Entwined and somebody else mirror-weaved every creature on the battlefield into a suture priest. Those are the things that we remember.

So Commander creates memorable games, and it creates games that you're going to remember for a long time. Okay, well, I think that's a great pitch. So for everyone out there who's never had a chance, obviously there's lots of places. We sell a lot of product that are Commander products. It is not a format you've really been familiar with. It's something to check out.

And like I said, it has been growing like wildfire for years. So it is, I believe right now, according to our research, of the people we can monitor, so there's a lot we can't monitor, but of the people that we can monitor we believe right now it's the most played format I mean other than what I'll call kitchen table magic or

play with what you own magic which is kind of probably the actual most popular way to play but beyond that when you're playing an actual structured format we do believe it's the most popular way to play right now so thank you Sheldon thank you for all you've done, both in judging and in helping shepherd this

format to a large audience. But I've gotten to my desk. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So thank you for joining us so much. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Okay, guys. I will see you next time. Bye-bye.