Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #918: Stories from Japan

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

One of the cool perks of my job is that I've had a lot of opportunity to travel to other countries. The country I've visited the most is Japan. In this podcast, I share three stories from three different visits to the Land of the Rising Sun.

I'm pulling up my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so one of the big perks of working on Magic has been I've got to do a lot of travel over the years. More travel in my early years than later years, but I have done a lot of traveling for Magic. And so today I'm going to talk about the country. I have some stories from the country I've visited more than any other outside the U.S., which is Japan. So I worked on the Pro Tour for eight years, and every single year back then, we used to go. One of the Pro Tours was in Japan. Plus, if you add in some worlds and other events that I'll talk about. I've been to Japan.

I think I've been to Japan somewhere between eight to 10 times is my guess. But anyway, I have some fun stories from my travels to Japan. So that is today's topic, is talking about I'm going to share three stories that took place in Japan. That is my, that is what I will do today. Okay, and I guess I'll go in chronological order. So my first ever visit to Japan was in 1997 for the very first Grand Prix held in Japan, which was held in Tokyo, I believe. And I was very excited.

Japan was one of the cities that I'd always really wanted to visit. And obviously, Magic is very big in Japan, and so I had that opportunity actually pretty early. Um, I started working in 95. So, you know, two years in, I get to travel to Japan. Um, so one of the things that was really interesting about Japan was, um, I had run, you know, before I came to Wizards, I had done a lot of, run a lot of tournaments. Um, and so I was very familiar with sort of how American tournaments run,

especially sort of Southern California tournaments run. And it was a little bit of a culture shock of, like, for example, one of the things that was very true, if you get a large enough group of people in a room, at least in a U.S. event, it gets very noisy. And it's very hard to get everybody to sort of quiet down. But I remember, so they were doing the Grand Prix, and there was, this is the first, like, America had had big events before the Pro Tour, like out in New York, Gray Matter, you know, people that would later make neutral ground used to run larger events. And, you know, I mean, once we had the Pro Tour,

they were bigger events and they, you know, but Japan, I believe at the time, really hadn't had large events at all. So the Grand Prix was the first really giant magic event in Japan and everybody turned up. I don't remember the exact turnout, but it was by far, by far, by far, you know, the largest tournament Japan had ever seen by a huge magnitude. So you see a thousand plus

people all sit down for the first match and then like they say quiet and everybody's quiet. I had not been used to that. That was not, in the tournaments I had run when I said quiet, I didn't get everybody to be quiet. So, but it was really interesting in that it was very orderly and a very well-run tournament. And my story has nothing to do with the Grand Prix itself. Or at least the actual Grand Prix. My story is about a side event. Because basically

there were a few people running the Grand Prix, but I was there more as, I don't know, as a guest. So one of the things they did is they did some side events. One of the side events is eight-person booster drafts with a member of Wizards of the Coast. So the idea was, hey, you know, here's a chance for you to come meet a member of Wizards of the Coast, and we did a booster draft.

So we would, you know, we would run, you know, eight to ten booster drafts, and then, you know, there were a bunch of Wizards people there. Oh, real quickly, before I get into the story, one of my favorite memories from Japan, we had a translator, Japanese translator, who worked in the U.S. office, who came with us to help translate, and their mom, I think, lived in Tokyo. And she showed up. She had made her, there were these rice balls that had like salmon inside that were one of the best things I've ever eaten in my life. And anyway, I had them there. I remember those

rice balls. They were very good. Anyway, sorry. Okay. So they set up this side event, a draft. So I, seven players are to sit down with me and we're going to boost your draft. Now, um, I don't think anybody in my booster draft actually spoke English. Um, but we're playing Magic. You know, it's a universal English. And so, um, okay. So I think someone comes and, uh, in Japanese to the rest of the players clarifies how everything's going to work. So, okay, we get ready to go. We open our first pack.

And I think we were playing with whatever the course it was at the time. I don't remember. I mean, this is 97, so definitions, something like that. Anyway, I open a lightning bolt. And, you know, I mean, there are better things to open. But it was like, okay, you know, I like playing red. And so I take the lightning bolt. I then get past a fireball.

Now, first off, I'm excited because clearly the person to my left is not playing red if they passed a fireball. So my first thought is, oh, awesome. But my second thought is, wow, like fireball is really splashable. Why didn't they pass the fireball. So my first thought is, oh, awesome. But my second thought is, wow, like, fireball is really splashable. Why didn't they take the fireball? Like, even if they weren't in red, maybe you get in red. You're like, what did they take in their first pack? And I'm like, maybe singer vampires, heavy black commitment, and maybe there's some archetype they like that they didn't want to play red. I'm trying to figure out why they didn't take the fireball. But I took it. I'm in red.

And then in pack three, I get a second lightning bolt. And I go, oh wow, they're really not in red. Maybe the person to my left just doesn't like red. They're clearly clearly not in red. And I'm like, okay, good for me. I want to be in red. And then one or two packs later, I get packed a second fireball. And I'm like, oh! It dawns on me what is going on, which is that nobody at this drafting table had ever drafted

before. Like, one of the things about, real quick, the history of drafting is R&D was really up on limited formats. We used to play limited at Wizards all the time, and once we started the Pro Tour, we really started pushing limited formats as a means for competitive play. In fact, the second Pro Tour ever in Los Angeles was a limited event, a draft. I think it was Rochester Draft, not Wiz. I think it was Rochester draft, not Booster draft. But anyway, every other Pro Tour was either, in the early days, we rotated between Rochester

and Booster. Eventually, Rochester is the one where you open up the whole pack, lay it out in front, and people take turns drafting it, but it's all open information. We actually thought Rochester draft was going to be the definitive draft and Booster draft a secondary draft but the reverse happened, Butcher Draft was much more fun for people anyway so what had happened was

we were playing with people and most of the competitive players were in the Grand Prix so there were people that did it wasn't like nobody in Japan did limited play there were people that did limited play but most of them were playing in the Grand Prix and so I had a lot more people that were just there, you know, were excited. And the funny thing was, I later found, I mean, I talked with them

through a translator. They were just very excited to draft with me. They were excited to play Magic with me. And so none of them knew how to draft, but they were just excited to have an opportunity. And this was the format they could play with me. So I ended up, by the way, getting the sickest minor red deck you could ever see, just because the table did not prioritize direct damage, and I did, and anyway. But it was a very interesting case,

a sort of story of, you know, in the moment trying to figure out what was going on. And so anyway, OK, story number two. So story number two takes place in 1999. And so Yokohama is like part of the larger Tokyo area. It's a city. It's sort of right next to Tokyo. But it's like it's part of like next to Tokyo, but it's part of the larger Tokyo metropolitan area, I guess. Anyway, in 1999, we did our first ever world championship outside the U.S.

The 94 world championship had been in Milwaukee at Gen Con. The 95 had been at the Red Line Inn near the airport in Seattle. 96 had been at the Red Line Inn near the airport in Seattle. 96 had been at corporate headquarters. 97 had been at the Wizards Game Center. And 98 had been at University of Washington. So like the first five years had all been in the United States. But the Pro Tour had started traveling. We'd gone to other places. So we decided we're going to finally do a World Championship somewhere else. Why not Japan? So we're in Yokohama.

And I had been to Tokyo before, obviously, because I'd been to the Grand Prix, but I'd never been to Yokohama specifically. And the other thing was, unlike the Grand Prix, where I was sort of like more of a guest, at the 99, it was the world championship. I was working. like more of a guest. At the 99, it was the World Championship. I was working. So at the time, on the Grand Prix, I'm sorry, at the World Championship, not World Championship, at the Pro Tours,

which include the World Championship, I was in charge of feature matches on the early days. And then I was in charge of video production on the later days. And at the time, my two commentators, I had Brian Weissman doing play-by-play and Chris Bakula doing color. Now over the years, I had a bunch of different commentators

by the end of my run, I would have Randy Bueller doing play-by-play and Brian David Marshall doing color. Sorry, I swapped those. Brian David Marshall doing play-by-play and Randy doing color. I believe it's correct. Anyway, there was a bunch of people. I was a big fan of Brian and Chris just as a team. They were really good together. One of my favorite all-time ever shows we ever did was at the Nationals in which

Matt Lindy beat Mike Long in the finals. And Chris and Brian had done the commentary for that. It's one of my favorite ever moments in Magic. Anyway, I'm deviating. Not a Japanese story. But anyway, neither Brian nor... I'm sorry. Brian did not qualify

for the Pro Tour, I believe, but Chris Pakula did. But because of work, he couldn't take time off to compete in the World Championship. So we flew in Chris for the commentary. So literally, he took a red eye, showed up, did commentary, and then went home right after. And so Chris was exhausted. Brian, I think, had come early just because he wanted to see the World Championship. And so we brought him, and he helped out in the early part. But then he did commentary.

By the way, I don't think he played in that world. Maybe he played in that world. I don't think he played in that world. But anyway. Okay. Okay. So the real story of this is, at the time, we had a show on ESPN2. Magic had a show.

And I worked with we had a producer, a guy named Brian, who was our producer at Wizards. And Brian and I would work to make sure at the show, we had to make sure that we had enough material. I think it was a half hour show.

So the World Championship was going to be a half hour show. So anyway, oh, sorry, sorry. There's two little stories here. so the world championship is going to be a half hour show so anyway oh sorry there's two little stories here before I get to that story let me first get to there's two stories here

I just want to bring up something that happened from a historical standpoint which is interesting so one of the things that is there's good and there's bad about being a pro player one of the challenging things is you have to make a lot of decisions over a lot of time, right? You have to play at your top level game after game after game after

game for day after day after day, event after event after event. And what happens sometimes is for any one player there's a moment that just becomes the moment that people remember you for and maybe it's a crazy play that happened or you got the card at the exact right moment or all sorts of funny things happen. The story here is about a guy named Marco Bloom. So Marco Bloom is a very good player, probably one of the best German players. Now, Kaibuda and...

So Marco Blum was in a team later on, after 999, but later, would be in a German... We had many team pro tours. team Pro Tours. And Kai Buda and Marco Bloom and Dirk Baberowski were a team. And they won two of the team events. So Marco Bloom actually had two Pro Tour wins under his belt. Kai, as we will talk about a bit later in the story, has seven wins. And Dirk Baberowski has three wins, the two team wins and an individual win.

Anyway, Kai and Dirk are maybe, I mean, are two of the best all-time Magic players ever to play. Top ten all-time. So Marco Bloom was, you know, on that team team the weakest of the three players, but by himself a very strong and good Magic player who has his own record. In this particular year, in the 1990 World Championship, he was the German National Champion. So along with Patrick Mello, David Bruecker,

and Rosario Meij, I hope I didn't mispronounce any of those, that was the German team. And they, in the finals, were playing against the Americans. Kyle Rose was the U.S. National Champion, John Hunka, Zvi Maksiewicz, and Charles Kornblum. And Marco Blum will sadly go down in history. Like the most famous play of Marco Bloom's pro tour career sadly is this thing I'm

going to explain. I just wanted to, the contextual of this is he's an awesome player he had two pro tour wins, he did a lot of great things, but this is the story he's going to be remembered by sadly. So I believe both Kai and I think a lot of the Germans were playing this red deck,

which was a mono red deck that was just very fast. And it had a bunch of artifacts in it, and it just really quickly just, I mean, it could win very fast. So one of the cards in it was a card called Covetous Dragon. I actually had made the card in Urza's Legacy. There were three cards in that set that were cheaper creatures, but they would go away if you didn't have a certain thing. I think the green one required you

having another creature, the white one required you having an enchantment, and the red one required you having an artifact. It was a dragon. The Covetous Dragon. The idea being that the dragons, they like their treasure, and so he would only stick around if you had treasure for him. But anyway,

the way the deck played, there were all these, a lot of the mana was artifact mana, and there were other artifacts in the deck, and so you always had an artifact. So the fact that Covetous Dragon has restriction never mattered. You always had an artifact. But anyway, Marco is playing,

I don't remember what game it was, but it's the finals of the championship, you know, the world championships, the finals, US versus Germany. And obviously, so the national champions play each other. So he is playing against

Kyle Rhodes, the US national champ. And he plays as Covetous Dragon. Like he always does. It's one of his big win conditions. And the judge stops the game, one of the judges. They're like, what's going on? And they realize that Kyle, not Kyle, that Marco had played a Covetous Dragon

without there being an artifact to play, which never, never happened, but it happened. And for whatever reason, and then, so his covetous dragon died. And that caused him to lose the game, which I think made him

lose the match, which made the U.S. beat Germany. So the U.S. won that year. But anyway, it's just, it's very memorable. I remember that

just because it was one of those shocking moments where you're like, what? You know, and I feel I remember that just because it was one of those shocking moments. You're like, what? And I feel bad for Marco just because it's the kind of thing that people remember. But it's not typical. I mean, Marco was a very, very good player. So that happened in that event. That was a big story.

Anyway, okay. The other story, the one that was more personally I was involved in, is, okay, we're shooting this ESPN show. We need to go to 30 minutes. Kai Buda is playing this Mono Red deck. He's playing against Mark Lapine, who I think is also playing a Mono Red deck.

They're slightly different decks. I think, I'm trying to remember. Anyway, the decks were both Mono Red. Anyway, Kai wins so fast. Remember, I think it's best of five. He manages to win three games that between each of the three

games, and then he wins Frio. He wins so fast that we don't have enough video between showing everything we could possibly show between all three games and even like a little bit of pregame. Like we can't fill up a half hour.

That's how fast. It's like the, one of the, I don't know if it's the fastest Pro Tour finals ever. I think it's the fastest World Championship finals ever. Might be the fastest Pro Tour. It was blindingly fast. But anyway, this is all set up for my favorite part of the story. So I

was the feature match guy. It was my job to be aware of players. And that meant I needed to know up-and-coming players. So I had been that year at the Magic Invitational, the all-star game we used to run. It was in Barcelona. And Kai, I don't remember if Kai had won. I think he won that event. I know that Kai in one year did something

like second, first, first, first at Grand Prix's. At the time, there were only so many Grand Prix's in Europe, and I think he made the finals of every Grand Prix in Europe. So I knew who he was. Like, being the feature match guy,

I needed to know, like, who the up-and-comers were because I wanted to feature them. But he, I don't know if this was his first Pro Tour, but at least it was his first season, if not his actual first Pro Tour. But nobody else really knew him. And so one of the things that was going on at Wizards at the time was a lot of the early world championships

sort of never went on to do anything else. You know, Zach Dolan, and then Alexander Blumke, and then Tom Champagne, and then, who's 97? Oh, Jakob Schlemmer won 97. Jakob Schlemmer did go on to have a decent career. And then was

Brian Seldon was in 98. So Jakob Schlemmer was the only one who had won a world championship that then like had top eights at a pro tour. Everybody else, I take that back. Brian Seldon would later have won top 8 he didn't have it yet at this time

but anyway, there's a little bit of a worry within Wizards that somehow in nature of world championships we got winners that weren't the best of the world we were getting people that were good but people that sort of, this was the best they ever did and they wouldn't show up again

and really what they wanted is they wanted the world champion to be like, this is the epitome of magic play and this is the best player ever did, and they wouldn't show up again. And really what they wanted is they wanted the world champion to be like, this is the epitome of magic play, and this is the best player in the world. And so there's the worry. So when Kai Buda won, that was the worry. No one had heard of him. Like I said, maybe it was his first Pro Tour,

and I had to go convince people that no, no, no, Kai Buda was the real deal. And I literally had arguments with multiple people about how we shouldn't worry about Kai. Kai is going to live up, you know,

he is somebody that's going to make Pro Tour Top 8s. He is somebody that's going to be a name people know and he's not a flash in the pan that just won the World Championship once and you never hear from him again. And so,

it is very funny. So for those that don't know, Kai would go on to win seven Pro Tours. More Pro Tour wins than any other player on Earth. You know, I mean, there's a big argument of whether John Finkel or Kai Buda, there's a few other names, I guess, who the best matchup of all time is. But he, Kai's in the mix, and many people would argue he is the best of all time. So it is very, very funny that I was like trying to, I had to defend Kai Buda when he won, saying, no, no, no, I have faith that he's going to do well.

He is somebody, you know, and obviously, I was correct in that case. Okay, my final story took place at the 2005 World Championships back in Yokohama. So we had had it in 99, and then the Worlds had returned six years later to Yokohama. For example, that was the year of the first Hall of Fame introductions, where both Kai and John got inducted into the Hall of Fame. So, speaking of, great Magic players. Anyway,

at any one moment in time, there are different countries that have become very dominant in the game. The U.S. has been very dominant. France has been very dominant. The Netherlands at one point was very dominant. There's different countries that have just been very dominant. At this moment in time, back in 2005, the Japanese were very dominant. And I believe, for example, just the stats of this event itself. Four

of the top eight at the World Championship in Japan were Japanese players. The winner, Kasuhiro Mori, defeated Frank Karsten in the finals was a Japanese player. Japan defeated the U.S. in the team event. And at that event, the pro player of the year was Kenji Samura. So like every major thing that could happen at that event the pro player of the year was Kenji Samura. So like every major thing that could happen at that event was won by the Japanese. But there was one event that the Japanese did not win. And I'm going to tell you that story because I was involved in it. So what happened was at the 2005 event, I think I was no longer working.

As of 2004, when my twins were born, I stopped working full time at the Pro Tour. So I was no longer working. As of 2004, when my twins were born, I stopped working full-time at the Pro Tour. So I was no longer doing feature matches. So I was brought more of a guest. I did a lot of spell-slinging, playing against players. And they asked me and Aaron Forsyth and Richard Garfield. So there was a league, a team league in high schools where three-person teams, and you would play in your high school, and then you would play between high schools, and then they had this big championship between all the best high schools, and the prize for the winners was they got to come to the world championship, and they got to play a special team. So the special team was me, Aaron Forsythe, and Richard Garfield.

So I think we were the three biggest names from Wizards that had come. So the event was a unified, constructed, I think it was standard. What it means is, let's assume it's standard. If you took all the decks and put them together, you would have a standard legal deck. It would be big, but you'd have a standard legal deck it would be big but you'd have a standard legal deck and so Aaron Forsyth

who by far of the three of us between me, Richard and Aaron the only one that was on a pro tour that won a pro tour he won a he was on the US national team in 2000 a very good player

in fact the one he won on was a team event so he's very good in team events so Aaron built our decks. And I don't know what Aaron played or what Richard played. He made for me

a green-white deck built around a card called Elodomri's Call. It costs green and a white. I think it's an instant. And you go get a creature from your deck and put it into your hand. And so the deck very much had a lot, what we call sort of a tool belt deck.

There's a lot of one-ups. So you could go get the thing you specifically need in the moment. And the deck had four in Elod Army's Call. Anyway, so Aaron had made a deck for Richard and had made a deck for himself, made a deck for me. I know Aaron, not Aaron,

Richard tweaked his deck to make it a little more fun to play for Richard. Um, uh, and so anyway, during Spell Slinging, I was, whenever someone wanted to play Standard against me, I played that deck. I was practicing all weekend because I believe we were, I don't know if we were the second last day or the last day, but we were near the end. Like, Worlds was, like, five days and, like, um, you know, the, the last, leave it the last day or second last day. Anyway, so we sit down to play, uh, and each one of us is paired against one of the players. Um, I, and, so anyway, um, I'm playing, and my first game,

uh, goes a little bit long, playing, and my first game goes a little bit long. And while my first game is playing, Aaron wins his match 2-0. Richard loses his match 0-2. I'll stress again. Richard, while really, really good at game design, is not a top-tier professional Magic player. I mean, he's obviously played magic forever, but he I'm more, you know, more casual player. Neither Richard or I are particularly you know, pro tier caliber level. So anyway, I've not even

finished my first game and already it comes down to me. And then after a long stretched out game, I lose my first game. So now it's like, okay, I'm down zero to one, and it's a best of three. This is a best of three. And I have to win both the next two games

in order for our team to win. Okay, so game two, I get a great draw. This deck, I mean, like any deck, I get a perfect draw, and I manage to win pretty quickly. So it comes down to game three. And meanwhile, everybody's wild. I mean, there's a giant crowd. I mean, we're in Japan. Clearly, the crowd was not rooting for us.

They were rooting for the Japanese kids, right? was not rooting for us. They were rooting for the Japanese kids, right? And in game three, I get a weird hand and after really thinking about it forever, I finally mulligan it. Aaron later tells me it was a very good mulligan.

But anyway, I mulliganed. So I'm starting at a deficit. I've mulliganed. So I'm playing against my opponent and so at some point now, the Eldar Mishkhal is the backbone of the deck. Usually the first person to play an Eldar Mishkhal has a giant advantage. And so, I don't remember what turn exactly

it is, but an early turn, 2, 3, he plays it and he goes and gets Marrow. So real quickly for those that don't know, Marrow is a card named after me. I designed it. We were doing hole filling in Mirage. I had a card that I had made years before. I suggested it, Bill liked it, he put it in. He wrote M-A-R-O on it because that was what he used to type into the computer to get my email, so that was like the shorthand for my name. He put it in. The creative team thought it was cute, left it, and ended up being called that. It's since

been my nickname. But anyway, it's very much, you know, my signature card. It's named after me. And so he goes to get some Marl. But I notice when he does that, he doesn't have a second forest. Morrow costs two green green. So real quickly, it's two green green. It's star, star, star equal to... Power and toughness is equal to the number of cards in your hand.

So it's a little surprising to me that he goes and gets a Morrow, only because he can't cast it yet. But I'm like, oh, maybe he has a forest in his hand. Maybe he has the ability to play it next turn or whatever. But I'm like, oh, maybe he has a forest in his hand or something. Maybe he has the ability to play it next turn or whatever. But the next turn, he doesn't. He doesn't play a forest. And so, we had

this pretty long stretch show game in which I managed to come back and I managed to win. But I always remember that Maro play, and after we finished the game, Aaron and I are talking, and Aaron points out to me, he's like,

you realize that the only reason he went and got a Maro was he wanted to beat you with a Maro. Like, he was going for style points. But, you know, Aaron knew the deck really well. He had built a deck. He goes, but he could have got A, B, C, D, E. There's all these cards he could have gotten

that had he gotten, your chance of winning that game was really low. But because he was going for style points, he got a morrow, and it gave you some breathing room to go and come back. So Aaron says, I'm not sure if you realize this, but it's quite possible you are the only person on earth who would have won that third game, because the only reason he earth who would have won that third game. Because the only reason he didn't get the card that would have won was style points to beat me. And the only, you only get Amaro if you're playing me. And so Aaron pointed out that like, in some level, I had the one quality I needed to win that game.

I was Mark Rosewater. So anyway, we did win. I won that game. We won the championship. We were the only non-Japanese victory, I believe, of the entire weekend, or long weekend. But anyway, that

is... I'm now at work. I just drove into the parking lot. Those are my three stories from Japan. So I hope you guys enjoyed hearing them. It was fun. Like I said, I've loved Japan. It's one of my favorite places I've ever visited. The people are amazing. It's so beautiful.

It's just... I've enjoyed every trip I've ever had. I hope again to go back to Japan one day. I assume once the pandemic is finally over, I will. But anyway, I really, really enjoyed all my trips. Like I said, I had lots and lots of trips. I just had my three stories for today. But I hope you guys enjoyed it and hearing about sort of different stories from the past.

If you guys like this, early on, I did a lot more early stories of like my travels and stuff. And I've done less of them in recent years. But if you guys want to hear more of that stuff, I'm happy to do things like that. It's fun to tell. But anyway, nonetheless, I'm here at work. 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.

See you guys next time. Bye-bye.