Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #795: Matt Cavotta

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

In this podcast, I interview Matt Cavotta, a man who has worn many Magic hats over the years.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work, Coronavirus Edition. So, as you guys know, every week I try to do a fun interview. So, I'm going back to the past. To somebody who's probably been on this podcast more than anybody else, other than maybe my daughter, Rachel, Matt Cavada, who has had many, many hats. He's waving, but you can't see him wave because this is an audio interview,

but let's just so you know he's waving. Okay, so Matt, hello. Hello. Okay, Matt. So we're going to start with a question I've been starting with everybody, which is, how did you get into magic? Well, we have to go way back to 1994, and some friends of mine and I would frequent a comic book shop. And while we were there, the guy behind the counter saw a few potential rubes that he could rope into playing this game with him that at the time not a lot of people were playing. And he showed us some cards and I can say that for the three of us, um, you know, we absolutely bit the, uh, the lure, but I in particular was

immediately captivated by, um, the artwork and the, the variation variation there there were so many different things at play on the cards and i was like sign me up we bought a bunch of uh there we didn't buy any packs this is what was weird we just flipped through his binder and picked out individual cards in piles and went back to our house and fudged together decks and played breaking every rule you could imagine. We played wrong for months before we realized that there was a real way to do it. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter.

Is it the red pill or the blue pill that you take when you accept the reality? I forget. Red or blue. One of them. Well, we took the red pill or the blue pill that you take when you accept the reality? I forget. Red or blue. One of them. We took the brown pill. We were deep in right from the start. So what was the first set? What were the cards from?

What set was it? It was mostly revised. It was being flung around at that time. revised that was being flung around at that time. So I think that was the contemporary most recent set. Okay, so the first sort of interaction you had sort of working on magic was as an illustrator. Yes. So how did you go from fan playing magic to someone making magic illustrations?

Well, at the time that I was getting hooked on playing magic, I was already working on D&D art. I started working on projects that will remain unnamed because they look horrible while I was still in college for D&D, which was my first gaming passion. So while I was playing the cards and enjoying the art, of course there was a little voice in the back of my head saying, you can do this, come on. do this? Come on. And going from, you know, being inspired to try to work on magic and actually getting a job working on magic, that was probably at least a couple of years of trying, failing,

trying and failing and trying and failing until finally, I mean, I must have submitted four or five separate portfolios before Dana Knutson gave me a call. We actually used phones back then to communicate. And he called me and told me he had some work for me, and I was beyond ecstatic. I was so stoked. And I tried harder on those first three cards than I had on anything I'd ever worked on before. What were they? What were the first three cards? Subterranean Hanger, Muzzle, and Ramosian Sky Marshal.

Three, you know, tournament staples, I'm sure. And what set were those from? Mercadian Masks. Yeah, so I found out years later that when the art director called me and we had talked that I had like instantaneously become one of his favorites because apparently my voice sounds just like his best friend's voice and it made it so he couldn't help but like me. So you never know.

Okay, so how long so okay that's mccainian mask so you you were an illustrator for a while a bunch of years um okay so let's jump to the next sort of evolution here is um well before we get there what was it like being a freelance illustrator? Talk about that for a second. What was it like? I loved it. I really enjoyed how the world of magic was bigger than just drawing pictures for artists. Of course, it was super fun to be given a really wide open playground for imagination in making art, that's awesome. But then once the art is made, there are forums for actually interfacing with the people who love the art. And as someone who has been an artist and a musician, I've always preferred the instant connection to the audience that being a musician

does because you do your, you perform, you work your art, but the audience is in it with you at the time. And that's not true of being an illustrator. So at least it was super cool that Magic gives artists an opportunity to go to pre-releases or to tournaments or to conventions and meet the people who love their art and sort of recharge their batteries that way. Okay, so speaking of you got a chance to sort of travel the world and meet people, you and I, I believe, met for the first time. Do you remember where we met for the... Here's my memory of the first time. Where did we meet for the first time? We remember where we met for the or here's my memory the first time where did we meet for the first time we were in the lobby of the hotel in sydney australia which i love telling the story it's kind of it's kind of funny that um you and i met for the first

time i think like six thousand miles from where we grew, and we just so happened to grow up within, like, three miles of each other. So crazy. Yeah, we went, so the audience, Matt and I know this, but Matt and I went to the same high school, not the same time, or I guess when I was a senior, you were in eighth grade? Yeah. So the eighth graders had just started coming to the high school because they were condensing things.

But anyway, we overlapped, like, by one year, but they kept the eighth graders separate. So like, I didn't know Matt at the time. And then, right, we met an Australian and said, oh, we both came from the same city. Strange, strange. Yeah, that, traveling the world, normally when you get into the business of being an artist you sort of make a commitment in your soul to loneliness and poverty

you know the artist's lifestyle and magic really allowed me to to bust out of that old and dusty reputation that the life of an artist has, which I could not be more thankful for. It's been a real blessing. Okay, so let's fast forward. So there's a job opening at Wizards of the Coast for somebody on the creative team. And I, at the time, was actually in charge of, I ran the creative team for a little while when I first became head

designer. For some reason, they decided that I had to be both head designer and run the creative team, which I never understood, but they told me I needed to do that. So I did for a little while. for a little while. And I was in charge of hiring somebody for the team. And what I asked for was, I said, on an 8 1⁄2 by 11 piece of paper, be creative and tell me about yourself, I think was what I said, right?

Yeah, the rules were it had to be on the piece of paper and we couldn't add anything to it or expand the piece of paper. Right. It had to be an NF-11 piece of paper. You could do whatever you wanted on the paper, but it had to be on a piece of paper. So what did you do? Well, before I get into that,

I want to sort of set the scene. The only reason I was looking for something other than being a magic artist, because like I said, I was pleased as punch about that job, is that my wife and I were expecting our second child, and we wanted very much to have Kylie stay home with the kids for a few years. And that meant that I had to float the family boat by myself, which I know I said that artists don't necessarily live a life of poverty. Well, I couldn't exactly support a family of four with, you know, health insurance and all that just on my

my artist earnings at the time. So. So I had to look elsewhere. Like what kind of actual nine to five job could I find that would even like come close to being as cool as a magic artist? Well, enter Mark Rosewater posting a job on the creative team for magic. Like, holy, I was about to swear. Holy moly. There it is. I had no interest in leaving my hometown. But wow, what a crazy opportunity that was. So even though the job did not have anything to do with art, I was like, I got to take a shot at this because who knows? Anyway, the solution that I came up with for my eight and a half by 11 piece of paper was to, um, sort of spoof a, I don't even know what they call them. It was like a draft report. People wrote up a summary of what their draft and tournament experience was like back in the old days. And I did that, but I did it using cards that I invented that helped illustrate the story that I was trying to tell in my, quote, draft report. But really what that draft did was it tells the story of the artist breaking out of his shell,

moving out of his hometown, getting a job far away, and becoming a writer. It was sort of meta, levels on levels of magic and Matt colliding on cards. Anyway, that was what I did. Okay, so anyway, it impressed me. You were one of the people we interviewed. You did very well. We offered you the job. Okay, so talk a little bit about being on the creative team.

What was that like? Well, hold on. You offered me the job. Yes. You offered me the job. It was early in the day, on the day my daughter was born. Yeah. So that was definitely one of the more joyous and stressful days of my life. Because, you know, when a child is born, oh, my God, it's so wonderful.

But at the same time, holy crap, what I have this new responsibility. And the the the call from you was similar. I was like, oh, my God, this could this is like could be for real. But then on the other hand, oh, my God, this could be for real. Yeah, I I was already starting to lose my hair at that point, but that pushed me over the edge. Do you know where I was when this all happened, by the way? I do not. It was the World Championship in San Francisco.

I was at the World Championship in San Francisco on the phone with you, having conversations, you know. So anyway, it was a very crazy day all around. Yeah, yeah. It was a very crazy day all around. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, needless to say, I accepted't want to be hyperbolic, but it was like heaven and hell all at the same time. I loved that job. It was ridiculous. Every day I couldn't believe they

were paying me to do it. Um, it was so much fun and such an eye opening, um, like treat to meet people who were so smart and so talented and so passionate. It was, so talented and so passionate. It was probably the most fun I've had working in all of the years I've done any work. It was super cool. Real quickly for the audience, you were in charge of names and flavor text. I mean, you worked on the creative team,

but specifically you were in charge of names and flavor text and you did some card concepting, some world building. Yes, all that was super cool um that was the heaven part the hell part was um having a family with a newborn and a one-year-old 2 000 miles from any of our family and any of our support network um i mean honestly mark i don't think we would have been able to survive the two years that we did without you and Laura sort of rolling out the red carpet for us. So I super appreciate that. But ultimately, that reality got the best of us and we couldn't quite hold it together.

We couldn't quite hold it together, and I had to do something that was super hard for me to do, which was come in and tell you and Randy that I had to leave. And I remember this being so crappy because it was like a week after our performance reviews, and you guys were like you're doing so great we have such high hopes for you this is going to be awesome and in the back of my mind i was like oh god they don't know um anyway so that was that was the end of that um sort of era right so you you went back to back to cleveland where you and i are from um okay but that's not the end of that sort of era. Right, so you went back to Cleveland, where you and I are from. Okay, but that's not the end of the story. So, flash forward. How many years was it?

How long were you back in Cleveland? There were four years in between. Four years in between. Ah! Be gone, potential spam. Yeah, in the four years in between i continued to do some writing for the magic the gathering.com and i continued to create illustrations for the cards and also write names and flavor text as a like individual contributor.

And that kept my my sort of fingers in the pot in my head in the game, so to speak. that day in the comic book shop, there had been zero days in which magic wasn't a big part of what I was doing either for work or for fun or both. Oh, we didn't even mention in here how for a short, short period of time, I had a distributor's license to, to, like my buddy and i were going to open a magic card store oh i didn't know that yeah this is before um before i started doing art oh okay i did not know that yeah i was deeply deeply in uh meanwhile hey how about this one the guy that i was uh working on that with also went to our high school and also worked at Wizards for a time running the Magic Online team. Oh, that was Justin? Yeah.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. At one point, there were three people working on Magic full time that all went to our high school. I mean, it's a little high school in Ohio, which is kind of crazy. Okay, anyway. Okay, so you were back in Ohio, which is kind of crazy. So anyway. OK, so you were you were back in Cleveland. You were freelancing and stuff.

OK, so how did you get back? How did we pull you back? I think it was Brady who called me at one point and said. Brady Dameroth, who was the creative director. Yeah. Hey, there's a job opening up um the folks are having a hard time finding somebody who who fits the bill um i don't know are you interested and um just in my career at that point, I felt like I was hitting a bit of a plateau. And I'm always hungry for a new kind of challenge.

And at that point, our kids were six-ish years old. So things were a lot more in hand and stable. And my wife was back working. So things were a lot more in hand and stable. And my wife was back working and we talked about it, my wife and me, and we both felt like it was at least worth exploring. So I threw my hat back in the ring and I managed to trick a lot of people in my interviews. They offered me the job. It was the second time that Wizards was willing to take a flyer on me to do work that I had not done before, which has not been lost on me.

In my job over the last 10 plus years at Wizards, I've had to interview a boatload of people. And I always stop myself when reading resumes or even in interviews when it seems like somebody, well, they don't have any examples of having done this before. And rather than writing that person off, I take a pause and I think about what you guys did for me. And I try to recognize, is there raw talent here? Is there a brain in this room interviewing for this job? And if the answers are yes then um that person's probably worth considering uh anyway i don't know how i got okay so you you get back so what did you do you weren't on the creative team anymore what what was your your new job i worked on um well

a creative team but not the i'm'm sorry, when I say creative team, I mean the normal magic makes worlds, creative text stuff. Right. I was the lead creative on the team that builds the marketing facade around the card game. We designed the packaging and the branding, and in a lot of cases we produced marketing art. And at one point we started to put together the video team that has now grown and blossomed into an awesome team of its own

that makes marketing videos. It was basically the sort of creative left hand that helps bring magic to the world, aside from the right hand, which is what you and the creative team proper is making the actual game. So that was pretty cool because that gave me a chance to grow from being a person who makes stuff to a person who manages and mentors and leads people to make stuff. And I have found a lot of joy and reward in that in the last 10 years.

That's been pretty cool. Yeah, one of the things that is important for the audience to understand is, I'll go in length about designing a set or something, and all the time and energy, an equal amount of energy goes to the packaging, to the marketing, all that stuff that might seem like, oh, they just threw that together. No, no, no, no, no. There is hours upon hours upon weeks upon months of iteration and planning and redesign.

And I mean, you can talk a little bit about it. There's a lot that goes into it. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was super cool. A very different facet of, work, but important and rewarding. And the people are awesome. Just as passionate as the folks who work on the cards.

I mean, it probably bores people to hear about. But the folks who I have had the pleasure to work with on magic in any of the teams that I've worked on. And at this point it's been like five. Um, it's been awesome at, to rub elbows with people who are all so different and yet so committed and love, so different and yet so committed and love making the game as good as it can be. It's awesome. Okay, so you went from that team. What was the next team you went to?

You've done a bunch of things. After that, I moved on to the franchise team, which was new-ish at the time. that team was splintered off to try to manage Magic as a brand separate from any particular game expression to try to build up its profile for entertainment and licensing and new game expressions. and licensing and new game expressions. And I think that the people who worked on Magic for the previous five to ten years did a really good job leveling up Magic from a kitschy basement-type game, I mean, wildly successful, but in kind,

to something that could be more, where there was more built into the story, where the artwork was leveled up to a point where people could see it in the same light that they see Batman or that they see the Avengers or whatever. Batman or that they see the Avengers or whatever. And that was super exciting to work on that team, even though that was just for maybe a year or two, because it was like simultaneously being an established thing, but also the little guy in the room. an established thing, but also the little guy in the room. Um, it was like being a startup in a way because even though magic is clearly a, um, like an established player in the game industry as an entertainment brand, it was just, it was just putting its pinky toe in the pool.

Um, so that was super fun, um, and, and, and very and very challenging. But then six months ago, there was some reorganization that happened and I was moved back home, so to speak, to the first team that I had worked on, and that is the Magic Cards creative team, sort of the creative team proper. And wow, has it changed since, what was that, 16 years ago? Yeah, it's a very different animal, but still invigorating. When you were on the team, I believe the team had four members. I'm not counting me because I oversaw it, but I wasn't doing the work. It had four or five members.

Outside of you, there were three of us as full-time. Right, and then Jarvis was. Yeah, so there were four people. I oversaw it, but a contractor. Yeah. So there were four people. So the team was, I oversaw it, but there were four people. The team was four people. Roughly how many people

are on the team now? I mean, I don't even know. Enough that I don't even know all their names. It's crazy. Yeah. Although I will admit

that I don't know all their names mostly because we are working at home. We don't intermingle uh in the office right now uh but yeah it's got to be 30 or something yeah i mean it's i mean right it's it's magnitudes larger than than last time you were there it's more than that yeah it's crazy yeah um because i remember it's funny back when you were on the team, or close to when you were on the team, I pitched something,

and Brady said to me, we can't do this concept, it's a cool concept, we can't do it, because the premise was, we'd see a world, a prehistoric world, and then like 4,000 years

would go by for the second set, and like 4,000 more years would go by for the third set. And Brady said, look, that's a neat idea, but it's three unique worlds for all intents and purposes.

We can't make three worlds in a year. Well, he was right. At the time, we couldn't. But it's funny looking back. Sometimes ideas get shot down, not because they aren't good, but because they are there before their time.

Yeah. So we don't have a lot of time left. So talk a little bit about what it's like being back now, sort of going full circle ish. I'm hesitant to say what it is like because we've all been thrown this curveball of working, you know, as sort of solo acts at home. So some of what I have always loved about Wizards is, Wizards is not quite there, and that is the direct interconnection of humans. I mean, we still get some of that. We're Zooming right now, but it's not exactly the same. Also, I am hesitant to say what things are like, partly because the things I'm working on can't be talked about. And because the things I'm working on, even in just the six months that I've been back on the team, my role has shifted significantly in the last month. So I'm in brand new territory. I'm still feeling it out. Um, and it's, uh, it's the kind of thing right now

where the, the, the challenge is, is big, but I like that. And, um, when I get something sort of thrown at my feet like that, that is, that seems too much too much to to to bite off and chew that's when it that's when my energy level like ramps up um so i'm i'm pretty excited about things right now yeah the one thing i will say having obviously been here for a long long time is i feel like like it's like magic's doing really very well right now so you say we could rest on our laurels and like you know just do things the way we've always done them and make no changes. And, like, that is not our philosophy. It's like, things are going well.

Let's keep improving. And so there is a— Well, it's never really been that way, which is pretty amazing. I guess we've continued to make some of the same kinds of products and we just continue to do it better and more efficiently. But that doesn't stop us from doing more or to aim higher. Or like you said, for, wow, it had to be 10 plus years. We were making three sets a year based in one place. Yeah. Because we thought that's all we could do.

Well, that turned out to be untrue, but it took growing from four to 30 plus to make it happen. Going from four to 30 plus, you know, to make it happen. So anyway, I can see my desk here, so we have to wrap up. I'm almost to work. So you still do keep your hand in. You do occasional illustrations, right? I mean, infrequent. Yeah, few and far between. The last one I did was for a card in archery.

What's it called? A throne of Eldraine. A throne of Eldraine. Yeah, there was a mix-up or something, and one of our art directors was in a pinch and couldn't find illustrators quick enough. So I threw my hat in the ring and um did one up and it was super fun to to shake off the rust and and paint again um yeah I've been toying with the idea of

um doing that again soon uh maybe I will maybe I will yeah I will say this one of the things I'm excited by is I have fun working with you and so in the early days we got to work a lot together and then you sort of drifted to do other things but I'm happy you're at least coming closer to my area so you and I can maybe in the not so distant future

we'll find a project where we can roll up our sleeves and dig in yeah that'd be exciting. So anyway, Matt, I'm at my desk. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. But I want to thank you for being here, Matt.

This was a lot of fun. Hey, I want to thank you for bringing me here, literally. Not just today, but 16 plus years ago. Yeah. Wow. You were the catalyst. Well, I'm glad to have brought you here because I mean, on many levels,

some of them personal, some professional, it's been awesome. So I'm glad I did. All right. Let's go to work. Okay. That's great. So guys, I will see you all next time. Bye-bye, Matt. Thanks.