Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #784: It's All Magic

Episode Date: October 16, 2020

I talk about an issue that's near and dear to my heart: how to make the Magic community even better.

I'm not pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Coronavirus edition. Okay, so today's topic is an interesting one. I've dubbed this, It's All Magic. So I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart. Something that I hope will speak to people and maybe make you guys think about things a little differently. we'll speak to people and maybe make you guys think about things a little differently. Okay, so I'm going to start my story. I'm going to tell a few little stories and I promise this will all link together. So first I want to talk a little bit about being a gamer when I was a kid. So I am 53. So I grew up in the 70s when I was a kid, 70s and 80s. I was born in 67. So my dad was a gamer and he got me into gaming.

My dad was like a gamer gamer. My mom, my whole family played like social games and stuff. And so on holidays and things or sometimes we would play games we we were a family that played games and my dad is specifically really introduced me to even some more hardcore games if you will um but one of the things about gaming back in the 70s and 80s was it was not cool uh it was seen as kind of geeky or nerdy um and so what that meant was, if you were a gamer, you would find your gamer friends, you'd find people to game with, but you didn't advertise really loudly that you were a gamer. That it was something that came with a little

bit of, I don't know, shame? I'm not sure what to call it. But it wasn't, it was something where, oh, this wasn't something that you were supposed to be proud of. And one of the things that I really like about sort of where the world has gone is, there's many aspects of the world, this part I like, is that gaming has become something that not only kind of is highlighted, I mean, it's something that's just, it's a cool thing now. People openly play games and no one, no one has to hide their gamerness. That is something that is something I really enjoy. I mean, like, there's a, as a kid, if I looked forward to the future and saw where the future was at,

A, I would love the fact of how much we've embraced comic books, because I loved comic books as a kid, still do. But B, I think the idea that the things I loved, just in general, geeky things, like I said, comic books or science fiction or all the things that I loved as a kid that were like, I had to sort of keep to myself because it was a little geeky, now is embraced.

The world embraces geekdom in a way that it did not. Okay. Another concept that I learned, one of the things that I did is my oldest daughter, Rachel, took a class and I helped her with that class. And in it, there was an interesting concept,

something called otherism. And the idea of otherism is the idea of purposely creating a separation between groups based on a single characteristic and the idea is where you say okay we're going to say we're

better than this group because they're different from us in some way that they are not like us and otherism I mean it can be applied in a lot of different ways. But it's the source of a lot of discrimination. You know, we're like this and they're not like that because of, pick the characteristic. The characteristic, almost any characteristic can be used in otherisms. But it's a means and way by which people separate.

by which people separate. So my third story is, I'm going to talk a little bit about my tunnel deck. I promise this will all tie together. When I, before I came to Wizards, I was a magic player. For those that don't know the story, the real short version of it is

I was working in a game store at the time, part-time. People came in asking for magic. That's how I first learned about it. We didn't have it at the time. But I then tracked it down, managed to buy it. I got Alpha. I started playing it. I really enjoyed it. And the thing that I really

embraced at the time, look back to my pre-Wizards days, back when I was just a player, I was a Johnny through and through. I loved making decks where I was just creating some weird constraint for myself. So, for example, one of the decks that I made was called the Tunnel Deck. And the Tunnel Deck, the idea was, my goal with the deck was that I would cast the card tunnel. So for those who don't know the card tunnel, it's an alpha. It says destroy target wall.

I was going to cast the card tunnel and win the game. And the cool thing about that was, okay, well, what does one have to do to win the game by casting the card tunnel? That's not an easy task. So first off, I had to make sure that there was a wall to destroy, right? Because that's all Tunnel does, destroy walls. Second, I had to figure out some way to make that destruction of that wall win me the game. So how do I do that? And anyway, there was a long circuitous path I got to.

You would play walls, and then you would put a creature bond, a card from Alpha, that when the creature dies, its controller loses life. For some reason in blue. It shouldn't be in blue, but it was in blue in alpha. Anyway, so I would make a wall, and I would make it bigger. Well, I'd make a wall. Usually I'd give it to my opponent, creature bond it, and then make it big, big, big, big, big,

so that when I destroyed it, it would do 20 damage to the map. I'd get the creature bond carried by the toughness. So I would get the toughness up to... And some walls had high toughnesses, so anyway, there's some synergy. But anyway, my whole point was that I really enjoyed making a deck where I was...

It wasn't that I was... I mean, I was trying to win. My goal was, could I win with the Tunnel deck? But obviously, I lost a lot of games. I lost a lot of games with the Tunnel deck because I was trying to beat someone with the Tunnel? But obviously I lost a lot of games. I lost a lot of games with the tunnel deck because I was trying to beat someone with the tunnel. But when I did it, and I did it multiple times, I was able to say,

I did it. I achieved my goal. Okay, so what does all this have to do with my topic of today? And my topic of today is, I want to talk about something that I, something that bugs me a little bit about the Magic community.

In general, I really like the Magic community. I think the Magic community is an awesome community. But I've noticed this one quality that I want to bring up and sort of talk through a little bit, which is... Like, I often exclaim, or I often claim, I say, I often say that Magic is not one game.

In fact, it's many games, right? It is, there are multiple games that share a rule system and a card pool. So if you want to take the Magic cards, you can play Sealed, or Booster Draft, or Rochester Draft, or Standard, or Pioneer or Modern or Pauper or Emperor or – I mean there's infinite ways to play Magic. And each one of those is a different animal. Each one of those – the dynamics of playing Commander is very different than dynamics of playing booster draft. And there are other vectors that you can look at. That is like a format vector.

There also is what I would call the competitiveness vector. Like our – is the goal to win at all costs? Is it all about sort of challenging yourself and seeing what you are and testing yourself? Do I want to go someplace where, hey, the tiniest of rules that I break will be punished severely because I'm not supposed to break any rules? Or is it something where you enjoy playing where you like it more relaxed and it's like, oh, I made a mistake. Oh, can I take that back? Sure, you can take that back. You know, where it's very casual in the nature of what's going on. There's vectors of socialness, of how much am I enjoying who I'm playing with

and how much is it about just having fun? You know, there's like, I talked about my story of building my tunnel deck. There's a lot of self-expression. In fact, one of the things when I first got to Wizards that I made is the psychic graphics. So real quickly, for those who don't know the psychic graphics, this is Timmy slash Tammy, Johnny slash Jenny, and Spike.

And I was trying to explain one of the things that I really believe a lot in is that psychology really matters. In that, hey, if you're going to be a game designer, it's not just a matter, like if I want to make people enjoy the game, I have to know why they play. And so I came up with the psychographics,

borrowing something I learned in advertising in school, as a means to explain, well, why do people play? What's the psychological reason they enjoy magic? And from it, we got the idea of, is it self-expression? Is it experiencing something? Is it proving something? That there's a lot of different things. And so there's all sorts of vectors in why you play and how you play.

And once again, there's also, you could take enfranchiseness, meaning how much of magic, like for some people, magic is literally playing the game. That's what magic is to them, is playing the game. For other people, it's all the stuff around it,

of watching videos and discussing things and thinking about decks. And there's a whole sort of, uh, Richard used to call it the metagame, although ironically metagame means something else now, but the idea that the game is bigger than just the game itself. Um, and so anyway, the reason I bring all this up, the reason I'm talking about sort of all the different vectors here is, um, one of the things that I think is really important is

I think that magic is at its strongest as a community when we the community respect the fact that there are a lot of different ways to play and that magic is magic. It's all magic.

That there's no nothing is more magic than something else. It is not like, well, competitive magic is real magic and casual magic is not. And that part of one of the things that I see is people very much get into their corner and the way they like to play. And that's great. My whole issue today is not that you can't and shouldn't find how magic is special for you. One of the things I enjoy about magic, one of the strengths of magic, is that it's so adaptable.

That magic really is, on some level, it's this series of tools that let you be a game designer and make your own game. Or let somebody else make a game that you enjoy and play that game. But it's super adaptable. And I love the fact that all these communities can exist. important is, um, I want, I would love to see the, um, the different community, like, it's important to me as one of the guys that makes magic, um, I, I really would love to see the community embrace the whole community. That, um, you know, that part of being a magic player is, or not even a magic player, but part of being part of the magic experience is recognizing that there's a lot of different ways to experience magic.

You know, if you enjoy crafting decks, that's great. If you enjoy cosplaying, that's great. great. If you enjoy making your own homemade cards at home or drawing pictures of planeswalkers or whatever it is about it, whether you're a Vorthos that loves reading the stories or you know, whatever

it is, whatever it is that floats your boat, whatever it is that makes magic exciting to you, that is wonderful. And I know we work really hard to make sure that everybody has the ability. Like, we try to make magic as adaptable as possible to let people have that ability to craft their own thing. But, but, here's the important thing.

This is my thing today. Part of doing that is I think it's important for the Magic community to accept everybody who's part of the Magic community. That there's no one right way to play. There's no format that's better than other formats. I mean, there's formats that are more appropriate for you, for example. You know, maybe this format is better for you. That is fine. But the idea that

this format might not be the best thing for somebody else and that's, and that's okay. But I think the thing that's really important is I really want people, and in general, this may be a life lesson thing, but I'm applying it to magic, in that I think if you can find similarities and not differences, that it makes, if you can look at the world around you and look at the people around you and say, oh, how am I like that person rather than how am I different than that person? I brought up otherism to begin this whole thing, in that rather than looking at why they're not like you,

I want you to look at why they are like you. I want you to think about how they're connected. So for magic players, if someone's playing magic and enjoying magic, they're a magic player. They're having fun with magic. And even if what they enjoy isn't the playing of the game, even if they enjoy, like I said, cosplaying or some other aspect that's

an element that's not even the game itself, that is fine. And that one of the things that I, sort of my goal of today, is I want Magic players to be able to step back and say, look, we are stronger as a group if we embrace everybody,

if we let everybody who enjoys Magic, no matter how they want to enjoy Magic, what format they want to play, how serious they want to be, you know, accepting everybody who is a magic player, or even a magic participant, since like I said, not all of them is even

playing the game, everybody who experiences magic, accepting that they are not of some lesser thing. So for example, what that means is if you see someone playing Magic,

and it's not the format you play, but it's something they play and they enjoy, I want people to try to think of putting yourselves in other people's shoes, of sort of seeing how – well, here's a better way. I'll give a more concrete example. example um one of the things that i've noticed is um for example that um people a lot of people not all people but a lot of magic players will look at a black border card and say that is real magic and look at a silver border card and say well that that's not real magic and i'm like why why is black border real magic and silver Border not real magic? Like, why? That is otherism right there.

That is otherism. It's one thing to say that I like playing with Black Border cards. That's fine. I want to play a format that only uses Black Border cards. That's fine. No one is saying that you can't define, like, you can't choose your own scope. But people who want to play with silver border cards, they're no less of a magic player.

You know what I'm saying? Yes, the unsets, for example, definitely are tapping into a certain end of the spectrum. You're not playing at the Pro Tour for lots of money on the line. But it is a way to experience and play Magic. And why is that experience any less than any other experience? Why is playing this format, oh, that's real Magic, but playing that format, that's not. Or playing this way, oh, that's Magic, and playing that way is not.

And that when, the thing that I don't think people think about this is when you sort of make those lines, when you commit to otherism, when you're saying, well, we're the real thing and you're not, it's just hurting people. This trend also happens a lot, for example. any kind of core hobby, something where people are very dedicated and it becomes a big part of who they are and there's big communities, that there is some desire sometimes to like, well, I'm the real, fill in the blank, I'm the real fan of this or I'm the real and that somehow by making,

there's this desire sometimes to sort of justify yourself by pushing others or downplaying others. And that isn't necessary. Like there's no reason why you can't – like enjoy what you enjoy and lift it up. But find the common connection with other people and then say, hey, this is something that we both enjoy. Maybe we enjoy it differently. Maybe there are different aspects. But for example, if I go online and I see cosplayers, I can enjoy that. I'm not a cosplayer.

It's not something I do. But I really love that there are people that really enjoy that, that that's a really big thing to them and that really makes magic fun for them. There's other people that – magic is all about collecting cards or meeting artists or – there's infinite ways to do there. when you sort of say and segregate and say, well, this is what magic is supposed to be and that's lesser magic, you're doing a disservice. You're doing a disservice to, I would argue you're doing a disservice to yourself

and you're doing a disservice to other people. That part of what magic strength should be is that all of us recognize and understand that, hey, we're – it's all magic. No matter what you do. No matter how you interact with the game. No matter – you know what I'm saying? And that – well, I'll bring a good example. I don't play a lot of Commander.

But I respect Commander. I respect Commander as a format. I respect the players of Commander. Like, I get why people like it. I see why people enjoy it. You know what I'm saying? It's not my personal cup of tea, but it's not like I go, oh, Commander, that's some not real magic thing. You know what I'm saying?

Like, it's a different way to experience magic, and a lot of people enjoy enjoy it and a lot of people have a lot of fun with it. And rather than take the attitude of, oh, like, for example, one of my problems with Commander, my big problem with Commander is I'm not a big fan of politics in my magic. and what that means by that is where you're making decisions that are based on doing personal interactions with the people meaning one of the things that happens in multiplayer games is

I need to persuade you of things and sometimes that persuasion is in the game and sometimes it's external to the game now a lot of people very much enjoy Commander because of the politics. It's fun that I'm having fun with my friends and I'm trying to convince them not to kill me.

That politics is fun for them. For me, I mean, I like diplomacy. There's games that are very political that I really enjoy, but for me, I just like my political games. Magic to me is not where I enjoy my political games. But, but, but, people do. people like it

and it's not my attitude is not well I don't like this thing so this is somehow not magic no of course it's magic lots of people enjoy it obviously part of my job is making magic cards and I have to consciously I definitely think about commander players obviously

a lot of commander players out there but the point is that I... Like, there's ways that I enjoy to play magic, and the ways that I enjoy playing magic are not all the ways there are to play magic. I've never been to a pro tour. I mean, not that I ever could have, but... But both because I've worked for the company

the entire time the pro tour existed, and I'm probably not good enough to be a pro tour player. But the point is that that's not really my cup of tea. I'm not... I'm the guy that made the Tunnel deck. I'm not driven by trying to make the optimal deck and then play that same deck 14 times in a row and try

to never make a mistake. That's not where I derive my fun. Now, that doesn't mean I don't like watching Pro Tour finals, and they can be exciting to watch, even though that's not the thing that drives me as a player, I can enjoy and observe that and watch that. You know, I've – I mean I've played in some Commander games, but I've watched a lot of Commander games. And I really do enjoy watching the camaraderie between people. a lot of great things that come out of enjoying the parts of magic that aren't necessarily what your things are.

Like, I love watching other people find the thing they love. You know, that something about magic can be something that really speaks to them, that really, and there's also, I mean, I'm naming a lot of different things today. But there's infinite things that that thing can be. And the important part of making a community where everybody can find the thing that they love is also making a community where people accept that other people do their thing. that other people do their thing. And what that means is, like I said, it is fine to prioritize the thing you enjoy. If you enjoy playing magic a certain way,

please, please play that way. If you enjoy doing certain things, please do those things. Mostly what I'm saying today is, think about how you act to people that, I'll say play magic, but interact with magic because it's not always playing, that is not your thing. Like one of the things that is really interesting to me

that I like to do, and I've done a bunch of this over the years, is talk to people that really enjoy something that is not what I enjoy and try to get a sense of what they enjoy about it. And it is really fun to talk to people and see what I say is like see their joy. I've talked to somebody and find out what really drives them. And that's the attitude I would love to see in that there's so many things I like about the community.

And the community in general is very accepting. There's so many things I like about the community and the community in general is very accepting. But I definitely would like it if people were a little more conscious when they come into magic circles and magic communities or sub communities that are just appreciating something different. Don't other them. Don't don't like, well, that that's like, it drives me to no end when they talk about this is real magic. It's all real magic. Everything is real. Are you playing

with magic cards and playing the game of magic? It is magic. You know, using the magic rules, it is magic. There's no such thing as, well, this is more of a magic game than that. That's not true. There's just such thing as, well, this is more of a magic game than that. That's not true. There's just different ways to play. And that

when you start using words like this is real or that's not real, when you start sort of making judges and saying this somehow is above that in the quality of what it is, not in what you enjoy. Please, please, please. Play the thing you enjoy. Enjoy magic

the way that means something to you. What I'm asking today is think about how you act with others that also interact with magic, but it's not your thing. It's not what you do. And that I think if, I mean, this is sort of life lesson, as I say, but I'll apply it to magic.

I think if you could take the time when you run into people that enjoy a different aspect of magic that take the time to – two things. One, take the time – take a little bit of time to understand what it is they do and what they – like one of the things that's been really fun for me is just experiencing new things in Magic. I love learning about new formats or new ways to play or just like I love going on Tumblr or on any social media and just – like I have my blog on Tumblr. But like people will send me stuff and I get – one of the things that's a lot of fun is people that make crafts with Magic. They sew something or they bake something or they – and lot of times, one of the things that's interesting is the significant other of a player. Someone's a player and their significant other or their parent or their sibling or their child

that somebody who is not as into magic as they are sort of uses whatever they enjoy to find the cross. Like, oh, I like sewing. I will sew you a magic thing. And seeing all that it means a lot to me. And so like, mostly what I would like today, so the whole point of this podcast today is try to check yourself when you catch yourself saying somehow this magic is less than my magic.

That this magic isn't real or isn't somehow it's not of, you know, somehow I other it. Don't other other magic players. Don't do that. Don't, like I said, I'm not saying you need to do what they do. You know, let them enjoy the way they enjoy it. But embrace them. Accept them. Like I said, I'm not saying you need to do what they do. Let them enjoy the way they enjoy it. But embrace them. Accept them.

Accept the fact that anybody who plays magic, we're all the same. We're all part of the magic community. We're all people that get happiness from magic. Let's embrace that and connect to those people and say, isn't it wonderful that we're alike, that we have something in common rather than finding the way that you're different from them? And like I said, this is not really – it's not even a magic lesson. It's a life lesson, but I'm applying it to magic, that life will be better if you look at other people and literally say, how am I like this person rather than how am I different from this person? You know, when you sort of take somebody else and say, well, they're less than me because they're different than me in some way, you're not doing a service to them.

You're not doing a service to yourself. And that's one of the things as I watch in magic that I just, I would really, really like magic players to be more conscious of this, is watch language. Watch how you talk about other people. Watch how you communicate. And, like, avoid things like, this is real magic, because it implies that that isn't real magic.

Or saying where, you know, when you look at something and say, well, that's, I don't think that's fun. Well, okay, you know, when you look at something and say, well, that's – I don't think that's fun. Well, okay. It might not be something you enjoy, but just recognize that things are something that somebody enjoys. And one of the great things about magic is that it is something that has so many facets to it that so many different people can enjoy it so many different ways. That is the strength of magic and one of the great joys of magic. so many different ways. That is the strength of magic and one of the great joys of magic. And one of the cool things, one of the cool things

about that means that you can bond with people that are different from you, but that there's this link. Like one of my, I'll finish up with a story to wrap up today. One of my favorite stories is I was, I don't even know where I was. I was traveling.

And I think I was in Italy. And I go into a store and a game store, but they're playing Magic. And I sit down and I play somebody and the person I'm playing speaks Italian and no English. And I speak English and no Italian.

But we were able to play this Magic game like it didn't matter that I didn't speak English and that person, the person I was playing didn't speak I'm sorry, that he didn't speak English and I didn't speak Italian. It didn't matter that I didn't speak English and that person, the person I was playing didn't speak, I'm sorry, that he didn't speak English and I didn't speak Italian. It didn't matter because we spoke magic. And we were able to play a full game of magic with no problem. There was no language barrier.

You know, we were able to understand what each other wanted. And we played a game of magic. And, like, for that game of magic, just the fact that we didn't speak the same language melted away because we did speak the same language. We spoke magic. And that one of the things I really want of the magic community is I want the bonding of magic to bring people together. I want to see magic as a glue and not – I want it to be the part of the magnet that pulls things together and not the part that pushes things away. And so that's my talk today. I sort of just picked this in that I – it's something that I see from time to time that bugs me a little bit.

And so I decided to make a podcast of it. So as you go out in the magic world, as you interact with other people, think about that. Think about how that person who's interacting with magic in some way, you and they have a common bond with this magic. And focus on how you're alike and not how you're different. And the reason to do that is you will find life will be better. You'll be happier. And, you know, that I think othering things just leads to a lot of bad times and hurt feelings and that being accepting and looking in of how you're alike just brings people

together. And magic to me is this awesome, awesome thing because it can bring people together. Let magic bring people together. Don't use magic to drive others away from you. Don't use magic to make a wedge between people. Okay? So anyway, guys, that is my podcast.

So I'm at my desk. So we all know what that means. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So today's podcast was a little different. I hope you guys liked it. But anyway, I'd love to get some feedback on it because it's a little different. But that's all for now and I'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.