Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #967: Rise & Fall of Blocks, Part 2

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

This is part two of a two-part series talking about the history of blocks.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's another drive from work. Okay, well this morning I started doing a podcast and I realized it was larger than one drive. So I decided that I would finish it on the way home. So I'm talking about the rise and fall of the blocks. So if you haven't heard the first part, go listen to the first part. I'm just going to jump in assuming you've listened to the first part. So if you haven't heard the first part, go listen to the first part. I'm just going to jump in assuming you've listened to the first part. Okay, when we left off our story, we had gotten up to Lorwyn block. So as I was explaining last time, at the end of Ravnica block,

we were asked to make an extra summer set. We made a set called Cold Snap that was flavored as the Missing Ice Age set. But it didn't quite go the way we wanted. And I said to Bill, I go, the next time you want to do a fourth set, you know, the brand team wants a fourth set, talk to me. I'll integrate it. I'll make it feel way more integrated than I cold snapped it. So right before Lorwyn started, Bill came to me and said, okay, we want to do a fourth set. So the,

the thing that, so this is the first time we had a block that wasn't a large, small, small block. By definition, it was four sets. And so the idea that I came up with was what if we broke this into two mini blocks? So what if there was large, small, large, small? Now, Magic had never done anything like this. There had never been a large set on anything but the fall. But it really was a cool way, I thought, to make sense and give a reason why there were four sets. And then the idea that I had was each mini block would have its own theme but the themes of the two mini blocks would overlap each other

so that they would be synergistic with each other. And we kind of knew going into it that we wanted it to be... Oh, sorry, the first set we wanted to be creature type because Onslaught had gone really well, and so we wanted to do another creature type block. And then we decided the second thing, we ended up making color be the matter of it. And we really leaned into hybrid because I was very excited with hybrid.

So this introduced something a little bit different than we had done before with blocks. And the idea was that the block structure sort of divvied up what was going on. And instead of having a single block, multiple multiple pieces to the block and so Lorwyn had there was Lorwyn and Morning Tide and that was playing around in the space with creature types the way it ended up playing up is Lorwyn was about races and Morning Tide was about classes a little complicated looking back and then when we got to Shadowmoor and Eventide, we played around with hybrid. We did allied hybrid in the first set,

and then enemy hybrid in the second set. And that really opened up our eyes to the idea that, you know, we're not quite as locked in. Like, we had spent so many years in the large, small, small format that it sort of said, hey, you know what? We have some freedom and some flexibility. And that was the first thing that really said, you know, we can do things a little differently.

Okay, so the set after Lorwyn was Shards of Alara. So Shards of Alara sort of went back to the previous system, large, small, small. And so that was a little bit more like old school

making. But the set after Shards of Alara was Zendikar. And so Bill came back to me and said, okay, I would like to try something a little different for Zendikar. What if we have a large

and small and then end with large and have that large set be different? Essentially, what he wanted to do was try the Lorwyn block without eventide. So, okay, it'd be large, small, large, and that the first two sets would kind of go together, and the third set would be something different. Now, the original plan was Zendikar was going to be in one world, and what ended up being Raizi-Odrazi was going to be a different world. But what we realized when we started... Oh, I'm sorry. Did I...

I'm sorry. Zendikar, Zendikar. I think I confused myself with... Oh, no, I'm sorry. So Zendikar was going to be Zendikar, Zendikar. I think I confused myself with... Oh, no, I'm sorry. So Zendikar was going to be Zendikar Worldwake, and then Rise of the Odrazi was going to be its own separate place. That set was going to be its own world. Sorry, I... Okay, so what happened was the creative team came back and said,

okay, we're not equipped to build two worlds in one year. We're not staffed up for that. So what they said is, what if we come up with a reason, something grandiose enough that the world has changed enough that we with a straight face can say, it's now a different place and we can have different mechanics and that would make some sense. And so the whole idea of the Eldrazi was born, the idea that there's these creatures trapped inside the world, and when we come to the world, it's this dangerous world,

but you learn that the reason for that is these creatures are trapped inside it. And, at the end of the second set, they get released. So the third set is about the Eldrazi, the rise of the Eldrazi. They've come out and they reshape things. And so the way we built that block was we built Zendikar and Worldwake as kind of its own thing. And then Rise of the Eldrazi was really built as it was a different set. It had the same setting because the creative team didn't feel they could completely redo the work of a new world. So it was Zendikar and it was not...

There was some work required. They did have to work on the Eldrazi. So it was kind of like one and a half worlds rather than being two worlds. But it really introduced the idea or reinforced the idea that we could change things along the way. That the block had some ability flexibility.

Okay, so the set after Zendikar was Scars of Mirrodin. So Scars of Mirrodin, we went back to the normal system, but Scars of Mirrodin did something a little bit different in that the way Scars played out was we went back to Mirrodin and we we learned that the Phyrexians have been invading Mirrodin. And then the middle set was a war, and then the final set, which was a little bit bigger, more a medium set than a small set, we told the audience, what's going to happen? We don't know. There's going to be a giant war,

and then if one side wins, if Mirrodin's win, it's going to be Mirrodin pure. But if the Phyrexians win, it's going to be New Phyrexia. And we sort of made that a big push of the year. Like at the pre-release for Meriden Besiege, which was the middle set, you got to pick the side you wanted to fight for.

And the set was split in half. So that set was, once again, it was a large, small, small structure, but we were really playing around with the idea of, once again, it was a large, small, small structure, but we were really playing around with the idea of, you know, new Phyrexia really had a different feel to it, and there were mechanics

in it that weren't mechanics that, I mean, some mechanics carried over, you know, we introduced Infect in the first set, Infect went all the way through, but stuff like Phyrexian Mana, and there were some Phyrexian things that showed up in the third set that weren't in the first two sets. Okay, so after Scars of Mirrodin was Innistrad.

And I think what Bill really was interested in is, what if there was a second large set every other year, was what we tried for a while. But we've gotten information from Rise of the Eldrazi that the audience was a little bit upset that there wasn't any continuity, mechanically speaking. For example, Indestrata introduced double-faced cards

and Dark Ascension had had double-faced cards. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no. That's the wrong thing. The, I have to say the wrong thing.

We had done Zendikar and there had been like Landfall and there had been, there's stuff that we had done in the first two sets, mechanics that we, you know, kicker and stuff, and the third set had none of the same mechanics.

So when we were doing this set, we were like, okay, well let's see if we can carry over something, not everything, but something. So we were going to do large, small, large again, but this time the large would be a little more connected. It was on the same world. So in this world,

what we decided was, things were really bad, but Avacyn gets broken out of the Hellvault, and things get better for the third set. So the monsters are on the run for the third set. So the monsters are kind of, the humans are on the run for the first two sets, and then kind of the monsters are on the run for the third set.

And like I said, we carried a little bit more over, but, as I was explaining, I realized I jumped ahead of myself, we were worried with the double-faced cards, not we, I had confidence in them, but there was some concern with double-faced cards that maybe the audience wouldn't like them. So we hedged our bet a little bit, and we did them

in, um, we did them in, uh, Innistrad and Dark Ascension, but we didn't do them in Rise of the Odrazi and that by the way would be one of the big complaints about Rise of the Odrazi, people wanted to see them but Rise of the Odrazi did something, not Rise of the Odrazi Avacyn Restored

did something similar that Rise of the Odrazi had done in that most of what was going on in the set was different it was different mechanics. But there was a little bit of carryover. Now, we did away with the double-faced cards. So in the story, like, the werewolves got trapped in their werewolf form and it's becoming the wolfier. But we did have, like, some of the creature types carried over.

So there still was, you know, you still could play a vampire deck or a zombie deck. You know, there was a little bit more human, I mean, humans had shown up as a creature type, but we for the first time really did more to bring humans together with things that cared about humans as a creature type, a little bit more so.

Innistrad had done, like, equipment that humans were better at using and stuff. But it really let you sort of build more human decks that had been easy to do in just Innistrad had done, like, equipment that humans were better at using and stuff. But it really let you sort of build more human decks that had been easy to do in just Innistrad. Okay, so after Innistrad was returned, sorry, was, yeah, returned to Ravnica. So returned to Ravnica said, okay, we've now experimented with large, small, large. What if we try something a little different? And so this time we went large, large, small. So the idea was, instead of going 4, 3, 3 like we did last time with the guilds,

what if we broke it up into two sets? We did 5 and 5. And then, because we had an extra small set at the end, we tried something crazy with a dragon's maze. We did 10. So 5 and 5. And then the last set we tried something crazy with a dragon's maze. We did 10. So five and five. And then the last set sort of gave you a little bit of everything. And the interesting thing here was this was the first time we did a large set as the second

set. We had done large sets as the first set for years. We'd done large sets as the third set a couple times. But now we were trying it as the second set. And what we found was, as they were more connected, you know, as Return to Ravnica did, the two large sets were very, felt a lot like one really giant set. Players were more excited. And like, one of the trends that we always had to watch with the old block system was the way it tended to work was, let's say people played the first set at 100%. The second set was never at 100%.

It might go down to 80% to 90%. And the third set might go down even more to like 70% to 80%. You know, it would shrink over time. And what we found was people were getting a little tired of the block. As the block went on, we had this third set block problem. So, Pharos,

which was the next set after Return to Ravnica, we tried something where we purposely withheld some stuff from the second block to put in the third block. Enchantment Matters, the set was very much about enchantments, but all the Enchantment Matters, Constellation, the things that made you want to play a lot of enchantments, we held that off into the third set. But what we found was we ended

up with, we just kind of made our second set the third set, and then the second set kind of suffered. And really what Theros drove home to us was that we started to understand that three sets just is a little bit too much. That there were, we had some successes, Ravnica was a success, but without a really compelling sort of three-part-ness to what your block was, the blocks tended to trail off. The people like were excited when we started in the world, but as the world went along, they lost interest with it, and that we were just overstaying our welcome. And so the set after Theros was Kaladesh. And so we decided to try something brand new, starting with Kaladesh. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Theros, Kaladesh, of course, not Theros.

After Theros was Khans of Tarkir. So Khans of Tarkir was our last sort of normal three-set block. And again, we were experimenting because we were trying to find different ways to do things. We were back to large, small, large. And so the idea for that set that I came up with was what if the middle set wasn't drafted with both sets? What if the first and last set were different,

but the middle set, there was some reason that you drafted the middle set with both sets. What if the first and last set were different, but the middle set, there was some reason that you drafted the middle set with both sets? We came up with our time travel story. The middle set, it was the past. So you drafted with the first set because that was the timeline. But once the timeline got changed, now you drafted with the new timeline,

which was the third set. Concept Turkey was very popular. Dragons didn't go quite as well. Once again, like, in trying to sort of stay in one place, we found that we were overstaying our welcome a little bit. And so, after Khans of Tarkir, now we get to Kaladesh. Oh, no, we don't get to Kaladesh.

I keep jumping ahead. After Khans of Tarkir, we get to Battle for Zendikar and Shadows of Reinstrad. Sorry, I was definitely jumping ahead of myself. So Battle for Zendikar, we were going back. We decided to go back to Zendikar. Originally, the plan had been it's going to be a full three-set block. But we decided that we wanted to shift from three set blocks to two set blocks.

And that three sets was just too long. We sort of looked at all the numbers and all the data and said, look, we're just sticking around too long. So let's try, instead of making our blocks so long, we had had some issues with the core set. We said, okay, what if we got rid of the core set and kind of followed the model that we'd established with Shadowmoor. What if a year of magic was two different blocks, large, small? And the idea was, originally we were going to go to Zendikar, and the following year we were going to go to Innistrad. And so we decided to do them all in one year. So Battle for Zendikar, instead of being three sets, ended up being two sets.

One large set, one small set. Same with Shadow over Innistrad. One large set, one small set. Same with Shadow over Innistrad. One large set, one small set. And the idea with these sets was we were going back to worlds, so we tried to change them up. Battle for Zendikar had a giant war, so instead

of being the adventure world you kind of had seen before, it was about the adventure world banding together to fight against these aliens that had invaded their world, basically. And then Shadow over Innistrad, instead of doing more gothic horror, we leaned into cosmic horror. We still were doing horror. It was a horror world, but we kind of shook it up a little bit. And in the story, what we had

done is we connected the stories, although we were being a little bit. And in the story, what we had done is we connected the stories, although we were being a little shy. We were being a little sneaky about it. So in Battle for Zendikar, we see the Gatewatch come together for the first time, and they fight against two of the Eldrazi Titans.

They fight against Ulamog and... Who was it? Not Emrakul. Emrakul was the third one. It was Ulamog and... I'm blanking on that. Okay.

I will come up with this next. But they fight two of the Eldrazi Titans, end up destroying them, and the third Titan was missing. So then, the next set, we go to Innistrad, and there's a mystery on Innistrad, and Jace is investigating the mystery. And what we come to learn

was that Emrakul, the third of the Eldrazi Titans, had been lured there. And the havoc that was going on on Innistrad was because of Emrakul. So we had sort of tied, and not havoc that was going on in Estrad was because of Emrakul.

So we had sort of tied, and not only that, the Gatewatch, which had shown up and formed in the first set, show up in the second set because Jace goes there first and then he calls the team. And then not only does the mystery get solved, Liliana joins the team. So there definitely was a more, the story was more continuation. And so, and this is the start of, sort of,

the Gatewatch story, if you will. We decided we wanted to, sort of, bring some of our main planeswalkers together, like, to give a reason why they're interacting with each other. Because what we had found was, they kept kind of running into each other, and we wanted a reason to more, like, build bonds between them

and relationships, and so they're together not because they keep running into each other, but because there's some larger thing at hand. And so we made the Gatewatch, which was a banding together of planeswalkers. Originally, it was Gideon and Jace and Chandra and Nyssa, and then

when they come to Innistrad, Liliana joins them. So there's not one for each monocolor. And then along the way other people would join. So anyway, we set up this model of the two-step block. And then we introduced in Kaladesh this idea of instead of rotating once a year, we would rotate twice a year. So instead of rotating, so each, basically we'd rotate with each block.

So every large set that started off its block, we would rotate. So we did that for Zendikar. When did we start the rotation? Did we start it with Battle for Zendikar or we started with Kaladesh? I forget where we started it. We started it around this time. So Kaladesh and Amonkhet followed the model of Battle for Zendikar and Shadows of Innistrad, which was, there was a large set to introduce stuff, and there was a small set.

So we go to Kaladesh, and there's a fair, but then we find out that the people are cracking down on the inventors, and so there's a rebellion, and the second set is the rebellion. And then in Amonkhet, the Gatewatch is trying to, they realize Nicol Bolas is up to no good. They figure out that he's in Amonkhet, and so they go there, and they find this creepy city that these people pray to Nicol Bolas as a god, and they do these trials where they die, and, you know, what is going on?

And then you come to realize that they fell for a trap. Nicol Bolas had trapped them and they get the butts handed to them and Nicol Bolas ends up sort of fleeing and we realize that there's a larger plan at play here. That he has his zombie army. What is he doing with his zombie army? And we don't quite know. But it ended up...

We didn't tell the audience at the time that we were doing a three-act structure. Once again, kind of like we did with the Weatherlight Saga. We were telling the story in three parts over three years. We didn't quite tell the audience. Like, when they showed up to defeat Nicole Bolas, the previous year, they had solved everything

in a year. So we're like, okay, you're going to assume they show up and they defeat Nicole Bolas. But they didn't. They lost. And we set up the larger story.

So the year after that was Ixalan. Ixalan followed the same model, large set with a small set. Jace, ramifications of what happened in Amonkhet, ends up jumping but losing his memory, and he ends up in a place that he can't jump away from,

and he doesn't know what's going on. So we get to Ixalan. Ixalan is sort of our Mesoamerican-inspired world with pirates and dinosaurs and such. But what we realized along the way as we were sort of making this was the plan had been for Dominaria to have a large set and a small

set. And we realized that we, that the system wasn't quite working the way we wanted it to. That the two set blocks, we were having the same problem. People getting very excited for the large set and then just, it was petering off for the small set. And that's when we decided,

okay, let's stop doing small sets. Small sets seem to be part of our problem. What players really like is large sets that are thematically their own thing and that you draft by itself. That seems to be what players were the happiest with. So what we did is we audibled back. We made Dominaria just a single set,

and then the extra slot, we brought back the core set. And so we then said, okay, so the new model we said is, okay, we're going to make large sets and only large sets, but we're going to allow ourselves to stay places as long as we want to stay. So the next year was three large sets. They all happened to be taking place in Ravnica, so it's kind of ironic that we sort of go to the single-set system, happened to be when we stayed on the world for three years.

Basically what happened was we wanted the finale of the story to be in Ravnica. We wanted Nicole Bolas to thread in a place that mattered to people. Ravnica was probably the most popular plane. And so we wanted to end it there. But we also knew if we went back to Ravnica but kind of didn't offer up what Ravnica was known for that we thought the audience might be upset. So what we did was we did a third trip to Ravnica. Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiances.

And so those were large sets. They were drafted by themselves, kind of much like Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash had been. And then the third set, which was War of the Spark, which ended our big storyline, was its own large set. It did take place on Ravnica,

but it was its own storyline set. It did take place on Ravnica, but it was its own storyline. It was not, you know, Ravnica was more of a backdrop for the story than it was the mechanical heart of the story, if you will. It wasn't about the guilds. The previous two sets had been. It was about an event, a story.

So we were doing what I've dubbed an event set, which meant it was all about this giant, the culmination, there's this giant war. It's Bolas and his army of undead from Amonkhet trying to capture the sparks of all the planeswalkers, or many of the planeswalkers from across. And the set had all the planeswalkers in it,

or many of the planeswalkers in it. There were 36 planeswalker cards, plus 37 as a box stopper. Something we never, I mean, normally, the largest we had ever done before was five planeswalkers in it. There were 36 planeswalker cards plus a 37 as a box stopper. Something we'd never, I mean, normally, the largest we had ever done before was five planeswalkers. And this set had 36,

37 counting the box stopper. That is a lot more than normal. And so we had done that, and so once we had done that, the idea was, okay, well let's, I think originally the idea was we were going to do Eldraine for two sets and then

realized, you know what, let's experiment a little more. Let's see how the audience feels about single sets. So the next year was Throne of Eldraine. By year, I mean Magic Year. And then after Throne of Eldraine was Theros

Theros Beyond Death. And then after Theros Beyond Death, and then after Theros Beyond Death was Ikoria. And then after Ikoria was another core set. So, now we get into the sort of, we call it the 3-in-1 model, where the idea was, we were going to have

large sets, only large sets, the large sets were going to be on new, we could do returns. But the new sets would be their own thing, drafted by themselves. It wouldn't be drafted together. But if we wanted to stay on a world, we could. Like on Ravnica, it made sense to stay on the world for three sets.

So we did. Two sets in the traditional guild sense. Okay, so the following year from that, we went back to Zendikar with Zendikar Rising but we once again it was a single set followed by Call Time single set followed by Strixhaven which was a single set and what we found was the metrics we found

was the audience through means of watching how they act what they buy what they play the new model was very successful that through means of watching how they act, what they buy, what they play, the new model was very successful. That, you know, we would make a new set and people would get all excited, and then when the next set came out,

they acted much like they had acted for the first set of a block before. That we had sort of recreated the sense of every block felt like the fall block, rather than just the fall block feeling like the fall block. And so we did those three sets, and

each of them did very well for themselves. The following year, after Zendikar Rising, Strixhaven, oh, after Strixhaven, instead of doing a core set, we did Adventures in the Forgotten Realm, a D&D set.

And that was it was halfway between a core set and a sort of a normal premiere set. It was a little simpler than a normal premiere set, but more complicated than a core set. And so we had done that. Then following that,

we now get into Innistrad Harvest Moon and Innistrad Crimson Vow. So we decided to try again. Like, okay, you know, we've done a lot of traveling around. Let's go back to a place. And because it was a place we knew players liked, Innistrad has been very popular, we decided again to try two sets.

So we did two sets, and what we did was we did a little bit of carryover of mechanics. Um, the previous year, by the way, I did an experiment where we, we introduced, uh, modal double-faced cards, MDSEs, and we put them in all three sets. They were different each set. In Zemeckar Rising, there was land on the back. Uh, in the, uh, call time, it represented the gods. And then, uh, it represented a couple different things in Strixhaven, but the deans, and it puts some spells on creatures and stuff.

So we put two sets together to sort of get a sense, and then we also, we decided that we were going to, we weren't bringing back the core set. We sort of realized that the core set quite wasn't doing what we were hoping it would do, and we readjusted when the sets came out. So Crimson Vow, for the first time ever, we had a second set in the end of the year.

So one set came out in September. The other set came out in November. So Crimson Vow was in November. So we demonstrated that we can stay on a world if we want to stay on a world. And when we stay on a world, want to stay on a world and when we stay on a world there was a little bit more overlapping the werewolf mechanics stayed you know day and night stayed between the two

although day and night did more on the first set it was only on werewolves in the second set we evolved what the spirits had been doing and we did make mechanics that were synergistic with each other so like the zombie mechanics between the two sets we didn't overlap them, but if you played them

in standard together, they were synergistic together. That was done on purpose. And then after that, we did Kamigawa, Nian Dynasty, and then we did Streets of New Capenna,

and then for the... I'm sorry, so that was our... Right, we had moved the set back. So those were our four sets for the year, for the Magic Year. sorry. So that was our... Right. We had moved the set back. So those are our four sets for the year, for the Magic Year. Now, I know there are

people online that are really championing the return of the blocks, that we need to go back to the way... Things were better when they were blocks. I have to say

that's not the data we have. Blocks had a degradation that we do not have with the current system, that people sort of treat all sets now like they used to treat the fall set. And that wasn't true during the block system. Not the three-year block system, not the two-year block system, or not the blocks of three sets and blocks of two sets.

Like I said, we are experimenting. No one says we can't be on a plane more than one, and we've been experimenting with that, obviously. We were on Innistrad two sets. We're going to be on Dominaria two sets. But what we are finding is we need to make sure that each set has its own identity to it and that it's something that feels like...

Like, for example, I think Dominaria United and Brothers War while both being on Dominaria have a very different feel to them and feel like their own sets even though they are overlapping on where they take place and that is something we are being conscious about meaning that the new block structure allows us some flexibility of how we want to do things but we really want every set to be to be at the exciting point we want every set to be the entry we really want every set to be the exciting point. We want every set to be the entry level.

We want every set to be the thing that people can go, ooh, this sounds exciting. I want to play. And that is... Now, one of the things that I get comments on also is, okay, occasionally you have two set blocks.

Why not you do that on new worlds? And that is a lot harder. It is... We do not have the data on new worlds. We make a world, obviously we're trying to make the best world we can. We are trying to make exciting worlds. But it's a lot harder for us to sort of plan and do something where we don't know the outcome. It's a very big risk. And one of the issues we had with the old block system was we'd get on a set where people were excited for the first set, but then attention went down. So if we're going to do a second set,

there has to be a very strong, compelling reason. I'm not saying we can't do it on a new world. Maybe one day we will do it on a new world, but it's a higher bar. The barrier we have to cross is there's a lot more to get confidence that we need. But hopefully, the point of this two-parter is to show

you that there's been a lot of evolution over years on how the blocks function and what the blocks did. I think it's been very... As someone who's... I started working right before Mirage. I was here. Alliances was the first time we even tried

to connect things. I've been here from the very first second that we tried to sort of make blocks a thing all the way to the present. And I think one of the things that's cool about magic is that magic evolves and that the technology of making sets evolves. And I think the current system allows us a lot more freedom to do things.

Now, I do know that the old system, the three-block system, hey, stories have a three-act structure to them. And when stories were told connected directly to a three-act block, that made things a little easier. I think the answer to that is I think we can still tell stories. I think you'll see this next year. Look, we're telling a story over multiple sets that you don't necessarily need to be in the same place to tell the story. Obviously, we have characters that can travel from world to world, and, you know, we want to be telling a compelling story, and I think we can do that. Part of what's happening is, you know, whenever we change something, we have to adapt to the new system. And so it took us a little while

to get our feet on what's the right way to tell stories in this new system. But I think you'll see, upcoming with the Phyrexian storyline, that we're getting a better handle on how to do that. And so I think the idea that while we'll be on different worlds, there will be a cohesive sense to what the story is. And I hope you guys will enjoy that. that will be a cohesive sense to what the story is. And I hope you guys will enjoy that. So anyway, I hope this has been... When I started today... So one of the things that's really interesting,

I'm almost to my house here, is when I start making a set, I don't always know exactly what I'm going to say. I mean, sometimes I map it out, but a lot of times it's like, ah, I know the source material. I'll just start talking and see what happens. And if it goes horribly wrong, I can record it again.

This one sort of, I was really most of my way to work when I realized no in the world was I going to finish. So I like that this podcast format allows me the freedom to adapt and my one-parter could become two-parters.

So sort of keeping in theme with today, if we have a reason to have a second part, we will have a second part. But it really will be, the set has to call for it, and that's what's going to make us want to do that. So, anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed

sort of the historical jaunt through the lives of the blocks. It is interesting. I apologize when I'm driving and doing things off the top of the blocks. It is interesting. I apologize when I'm driving and doing things off the top of my head. I do miss things a little bit. I think I caught every mistake I made and corrected it while I made it.

But thank you for joining with me. Like I said, it's funny that I now do some podcasts at home. In some ways, it's easier to do podcasts at home because, for example, I don't have to drive and I can focus a little more. But there's something really organic about the drive to work where I like actually driving to and now from work. So I have been enjoying that. But anyway, I'm now on my street. So I hope you guys have enjoyed this two-parter and I hope it was

illuminating. I really, really have fun getting into the history of things. So anyway, but now I see my house. So anyway, guys, we know what that means. This is the end of my drive to house, drive to home. And that means instead of talking magic, it's time for me to have some dinner. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I will see you all next time. Bye-bye.