Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #983: Magic 30 Las Vegas

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

In this podcast, I talk all about my time at Magic 30 in Las Vegas.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so I just got back from Magic 30 in Las Vegas, so I thought I'd talk all about it on my podcast today. I had a great time, but we'll get into the details. Okay, so the story begins actually back during the summer, early summer, I think. Whitney Williams comes to me, who is one of the people that does our organized play. And Whitney said, we are doing this event in Las Vegas

to celebrate Magic's 30th anniversary, or early celebration. We want to announce it to the public, but we'd like you to be there, and we'd like to know whether you can come, because we'd like to announce that you're going to be there. So they asked. I said I would love to come. And so when we announced the event, they announced that I would be there. And anyway, I was looking forward to this. So one of the things they asked me, basically what they said

is we want you to do some panels. So they set me up for three panels, which I will talk about, or three panels slash talks. So I will get to all those. Also, they knew that I would do some autograph signing. And then a few other odds and ends they asked for me to do. So I knew I was going to be busy. In fact, I got a schedule ahead of time. They made a schedule for me and it was a full schedule. I did a lot of stuff. So I'm going to, let's get into talking about what actually happened at Magic 30. Okay, first let me explain the venue. So we were in Las Vegas. We were at

a convention center, I guess not the convention center, but the World Market, I think it was called. Anyway, it was, there was a bunch of different convention centers in Las Vegas because they like having conventions in Las Vegas. It's a popular place to have conventions. So, most of Magic 30 was on one main floor. So, when you walked in, right when you walked in were a lot of different vendors selling assorted magic things. Some of it were cards. Some of it were paraphernalia. There were t-shirts. There was jewelry. There was binders.

You name it. Any magic related thing or thing that people might want to wear with magic stuff on it was all there. Also there was an official, like, Wizards, or Magic 30 itself had a booth that sold stuff, that we sold, you know, special shirts and things. Oh, one of the really cool things, real quickly, is I arrived on Thursday to see everything. I had a little tour on Thursday before it opened on Friday.

And when I'm walking by, they have all the shirts for display on our merchandise area. And I see an Infinity shirt. I was very excited. Let me explain. So Unglued came out. We did the pre-release at Gen Con. We made a shirt specifically for that event.

And I have that shirt. Other than that shirt, we've never made a shirt for any unset. Unglued had only that one shirt, and that was for the pre-release. Unstable, well, Unhinged never had a shirt. Unstable never had a shirt. Even Unsanctioned, which I didn't expect to have a shirt, never had a shirt. So the fact that there was an action, in fact, not one, but two. There was one shirt that said Infinity on the front and the back had

Myra's, you know, the Myra the Magnificent's Intergalactic Afterstorm Fun poster. The thing that's on the, what's, the show in the galaxy, the greatest show in the galaxy, that poster was on the back of the shirt. And then there was a different shirt that on the front had Space Polaran.

So I got both their shirts. I was very excited to have actual on stuff. Anyway, there were many things. There were jackets and there were all sorts of cool stuff that you could get. Okay, so in the center was all the retail. To the left was a stage.

That is where all the magic stuff I was doing was showing up. The panels and talks and stuff like that. It was a big stage. I will get into all the things that went on in the stage when we get through the days. And then to the right was the stage for the World Championship.

And so the one corner was all decked out. It looked really pretty. Had a lot of cool art and stuff. Anyway, that was for the World Championship was happening at that event. And then finally in the back, the whole back of the place, stretching like,

if you walked in, it was like a giant rectangle, and you're walking, the rectangle's kind of sitting on its side. The whole back, which is like half the triangle, or a good chunk of the triangle, was for organized play. And there wasn't enough space. There was a lot, a lot of space, and still not enough space.

It was divided into five stages, the white, blue, black, red, and green stage with big banners and stuff. Anyway, I will get into I played a bunch this weekend. I was participating in play. I actually only played in one event.

So that is the hall. There was a nearby building called B Building. And on the 16th floor, we also had got that. So that was used during the day for casual play. So where the signings were, right? The signings.

Um, and at night there was a party Friday and Saturday night, which I will get to. Um, anyway, uh, that is what the venue was. Um, okay. So let's get into the actual dates. So Friday, I think the Magic 30 opened up at 1 on Friday. So it opened up a little later on Friday than it did on Saturday and Sunday.

So it opened, I think it was 1 to 7 for, the hall was open until 7 every night. The organized play on Friday and Saturday was open until midnight. So essentially what happened on Friday was it was open until one to seven, and then midnight if you were playing at events. On Saturday, it opened, I think, at 10 a.m.,

and it was open until seven, and then 12 o'clock midnight for events. And then Sunday, it was opened at 10 and it closed at 7 for everything. Because we had to get out before midnight. I mean, us, the people in the venue, had to clear it out before then. Okay, so the very first event, interestingly enough, was before the hall opened. So we sold, one of the things we sold was a virtual pass. Where you could attend and you could see all the things virtually, including all the panels and things we were doing.

But anyway, to give the virtual people something that the people at the event did not have, there were two virtual Q&As. One I did and one Richard did. So the one I did was the very first thing that opened the show, basically, for the virtual crowd. So it was 1130 on Friday. So I showed up and people asked all sorts of questions. And for an hour, I answered questions. It was a lot of fun. I like doing Q&As. Q&As are always exciting to do. And Chris Peeler, who's one of our people who does online stuff, online manager, he asked the questions. And

anyway, a lot of fun and it was definitely uh like i said i like doing q and a's it was a fun q and a okay next after that the hall opened um oh the one thing i didn't explain by the way is there was a few other areas i didn't explain um right next to the stage was what we called the green room which you had a special green band to get into. Mostly it was a place for the staff to go if we wanted to get away from things. There was food and stuff there. There was also a staff room elsewhere, but that was more out of the way.

So you could, I mean, there was a staff room you could throw your stuff in if you wanted to. But it was not the place most people were, I guess some people were working there, but if you wanted to relax. Also, the green room is where we prepped to go on stage. I'll talk about that in a second. Also, there was a quiet room and there was a VIP room, which I will get to in a second as well. Anyway, okay, so on Friday, so one of the things that I did every day is I had two allocated what I call schmoozing times. So what that meant was it was just time allocated for me to walk around and talk to people.

So each day there were two schmoozing times. so each day there were two schmoozing times one was the floor schmoozing times where I would go down the floor and find people and take pictures and sign things and talk to people and then there was black lotus room schmoozing which was the VIP room so I spent some time on the floor I spent some time in the VIP room

so for those that are unfamiliar, real quickly, the way the badges worked was you could get, there are different levels. I think there was, if I remember correctly, there was a Black Lotus level, there was a Mox Pearl level, there was a Mox Sapphire level,

there was a Mox Emerald level, there was a Mox Ruby level. Mox Jet might have been the virtual online. I didn't see Mox Jet,x Ruby level. Mox Jet might have been the virtual online. I didn't see Mox Jet, but my guess is Mox Jet might have been the virtual. But anyway, there were different passes you could get. They gave you access to different things. But anyway, so I had a chance to really get the hall and see a lot of players. Oh, in the hall, I didn't explain this.

There were five lairs. players. Oh, in the hall, I didn't explain this. There were five lairs. And what the lairs were was for each color, we had picked a planeswalker. And then we decorated what their lair would look like. So white was Elspeth and it was on New Capenna. Blue was Teferi and it was on New Capenna. Blue was Teferi, and it was on Dominaria. Black was Liliana, and it was on Shrixhaven.

It was their office at Shrixhaven. Red was Chandra, and it was on Kaladesh. And green was Garak, and it was on Zendikar. So they were all fully immersive things. You could take pictures there. In each of them, there were tables to play. So you could do free play there. And you could schmooze with the appropriate planeswalker. And we had cosplayers playing each of the planeswalkers. So you could take pictures with them. So you could take pictures at the location. You could take pictures with the

cosplayer. You could do both. I actually posted, if you follow me on social media, I actually posted pictures of me in the venues if you want to see the venues. There also was a, I don't know if life size is the right word, but a decently large weather light in the middle of the hall that you could pose with. So it was cool. And there was a thing you could stand on and grab the ropes and you could pose in front of the weather light. So I thought that was neat. Um, anyway, so mostly my Friday, like I said, from like one to six, uh, I spent probably more of it schmoozing, walking the hall and schmoozing. Uh, and then I spent a little bit in the Black Lotus room, uh, talking to all the, all the

Black Lotus folks. Um, but anyway, then at 6 o'clock on Friday, so I mentioned there were two different groups. The Mox Pearl group and the Black Lotus group both had an event hosted by me, an Infinity event. So one of them started at 6 and one started at 7. And so I was bouncing back and forth between the two of them. So they were drafting Infinity near and dear to my heart.

And we had a great time. It was a real fun event. Mostly what I did is during the draft, I would go around and give people advice on what to draft. A lot of them had never drafted before. So I was sort of looking at their hand and go, ooh, I think you want this card. Or these are the strong things that you have. And I would go this color. I was aiding people in the drafting.

Oh, and the way we drafted was you drafted the whole table drafted. It wasn't an eight-person draft. It was a giant, you know, hundred-person draft. So that was fun. And much fun was had with all the infinity shenanigans. Oh, so the thing I did for the event was I made an achievement card. On the card were 15 achievements. If you did any of the 15 achievements,

you would win a promo card signed by me. And then if you were the first person to do the achievement, you won a second promo card signed by me. So the main promo card was Water Gun Balloon Game, the promo card from Infinity. And second one it varied, but it was another promo card I got that I signed for you. Anyway, all 15 achievements

were done in all three. There was a second one, or third one the next day. I'll get to it in a sec. So anyway, all the achievements were done. Much fun was had. A lot of great stories. And like I said, I also one of the things that I tried to do this weekend, by the way, is if you came

up to me and said, would you sign my card, my binder, my playmat? I signed a shoe. I signed a shirt. Anyway, I would sign anything people asked. And anyone asked to take a picture, I took a picture with them. So anyone asked to take a picture, I took a picture with them.

So I signed my name many times. I took many pictures. I've been at Magic events before. So, like, I'm not unfamiliar with having a lot of players eager to interact with you. But this was another level. I've not... I signed my name and took my picture more times in the window that I was there than I've ever had before, percentage wise. It was exciting.

People were just very happy to be there and very excited. So anyway, I interacted with lots of fans. And the other thing that happened, by the way, that was really touching was so many of the fans, when I was signing their thing, or I was taking a picture, or just answering questions or whatever, really stopped to tell me how much Magic meant to them. And I'm not talking about a couple people, or tens of people, hundreds of people. And it varied what they said, but it boils down to, I've been playing Magic for this amount of time,

here's how it really impacted me in a really personal way I just want to thank you for making the game and it really has been a very positive thing for me and I got that speech again and again and again and it was really, I mean the one thing that's interesting is because I'm online and I deal with people now that there's not positivity online, there is but there's a decent amount of

negativity and I just deal with a lot of negativity every day. And so it was nice to have unadulterated, pure positivity for three days. That was really nice. And it's nice also, I think in the anonymity of the internet

people sort of get really into the wanting to complain about random this or that. But meeting someone face-to-face when, like, hey, they have one chance to say something to you, and the one thing they really want to say is how much magic is meant to them and how impactful it's been. Anyway, that was really nice. So that filled my gas tank, if you will. Okay, so that was Friday. So Saturday, let's see.

The first thing I did on Saturday was I went to the Black Lotus room, the VIP room. I spent some time in there. Then I saw the tail end. So there were a bunch of, oh, I didn't mention this on Friday. On Friday on the main stage, there was a five-hour Game Nights live show where there was a whole bunch of Magic being played, a lot of Commander games being played. They were showing off a lot of cards from the Brothers War. One of the themes of the weekend was that this was the, I mean,

we had reserved the vast, vast majority of the preview cards for this weekend. So most of the Brothers War preview cards were from this weekend. And we were showing stuff off continually through all the things we were doing. Anyway, the Friday show was the one time that I think there were no seats available. It was very popular. You could hear them screaming. Josh and Jimmy and all their guests got really into it and really played with the crowd. And I was told by everybody I talked to that it was a really, really fun show and they had a great time.

And so anyway, it definitely was probably the largest event that we did there as far as just number of people and amount of time and stuff. So on Saturday and Sunday, we planned a whole bunch of panels slash talks. For example, the one I saw the tail end of, I didn't see all of it, was Aaron Forsyth and various R&D members, Ken Troop, Melissa DeTora, Billy Jensen, Mark Hagen. Anyway, they talked about the future of magic. More so as a brand, I guess, than just a game. They hit a bottom of the game a little bit. But just talking about all the opportunities and things we're doing

and talked about universes beyond and organized play and just a lot of different things that are up and coming. There also was an interview with Richard Garfield. Richard was not at the event, but he beamed in with video, and there was an interview with him. He also, like I said, did a Q&A, virtual Q&A at some other point. Anyway, once again, I saw part of that. Richard said some very nice things about me that I was very honored to hear.

Richard said some very nice things about me that I was very honored to hear. Also, there was... What else was on Saturday? During the weekend, there was a Brothers War panel where they talked about the making of the Brothers War. There was a Phyrexian panel to talk about making Phyrexia. There was a Commander panel talking about the making of Commander. I'm missing a few.

But anyway, there were two things that I did. So on Saturday was the Unfinity panel. So we had talked about wanting to do something fun for the Unfinity panel and somehow whenever I mention dressing up in a chicken suit that seems to win the day.

So what happened was the people live at the event were Annie Sardalis and Arnie Zerilnik. Chris Mooney was supposed to be there, but they got sick. So they said they weren't able to be there. And Dawn Murin had pre-taped her stuff. So she wasn't live at the event, but we were able to roll her video. So, I mean, she was able to talk

about, Dawn's the art director. Annie did the card concepting. Ari was in charge of the name and flavor text. Obviously, I was in charge of design. So when we came out, they came out first, and then I came out dressed as a chicken in a very cute chicken outfit. It's funny.

I previously dressed as a chicken, and I talked about that in my talk. And then when I, last time I wore a chicken outfit, it was very dusty, and I got sick from it. This time, it was not dusty. It was very nice. It was very cute. And anyway, I came out in a chicken outfit. For most of the thing, though, I took my head off,

so the chicken head was sitting in front of me. Anyway, so what we did for the Infinity Panel was we picked four cards. So bar entry, concession stand, cool fluffy loxodon, one of the sticker sheets, and nocturnal of Myra's marvels. And for each of the four cards, what we did is we talked through the whole life of the card.

So I would talk about how it got designed and then Dawn talked about how it got illustrated and Annie talked about the concepting of the card. And Ari talked about how it got named and how it got flavor text. And on some of them, Annie had concept art and Ari had here are names and flavor texts we didn't use but we considered. So we really went through each of the four cards in detail and talked about, part of it was talking about

the origin of how attractions came to be and how stickers came to be and just talked through all those four cards. And then each one of us had picked an individual card to talk about. Chris had picked Goblin, Goblin, Chris the Verbalist, so I ended up talking about that. Dawn talked about Space Balern and the lands,

the four lands. Annie talked about Animate Object. Ari talked about Done for the Day, and I talked about Greatest Show. Ari talked about Done for the Day. And I talked about Greatest Show in the Multiverse. So if we have time today, let's see if I get through all the things.

If we have time today, I'll tell the story of the Greatest Story in the Multiverse. If not, oh, by the way, all the stuff we did, including the panel,

my talk, all of that got recorded and it's going to be put up on YouTube. I don't know whether it'll be up by the time this gets posted. Sometime in November it's going up. I don't know the exact date. So if you were not there, even if you're not there virtually, you will have a chance to see it, just a little bit delayed.

So you'll have a chance to see all the panels and talks we've talked about. You'll have a chance to see them. And a lot of fun stuff, so I definitely recommend watching them. Anyway, then after that, I did some hall schmoozing, walked around, met a lot of people. Then I had an autograph session up in floor 16,

so people could come and get stuff signed and take pictures and stuff. And then Saturday night, I had another Infinity event. So this one was open to the public. The previous two were for the people who had Pearl Pass and people who had a Black Lotus Pass. But Saturday, anybody could have signed up. And there was like 480 slots. So it was the biggest Infinity event I believe ever done.

And that one I got to play in. The previous night there were two events I was bouncing back and forth. But the last event I thought it would be fun to play in. So I actually got a chance to play a couple people. So I went two and one by the way. I drafted

a red white clown robot deck. I won my first two matches, but in my third match, I went up against somebody who had a really good sticker deck, and had I top-decked, I needed to top-deck an art appreciation. I think I could have won if I top-decked that, but I did not win, and my opponent, I think, killed me by animating object a box of candy which he attacked me with. So it was a fun loss. Anyway, again, I had a lot of fun schmoozing and talking with people and I took lots

of pictures and signed lots of cards and I signed infinite autograph books. That was the card of the weekend to get me to sign. An autograph book is a card in affinity where you sign it and then depending on how many signatures you have on it is how many cards you can draw off it.

Designed by Chris Mooney, by the way, prior to Affinity existing, Chris had made it. So the story is we were talking about, we made a list of all the things we wanted to have, top-down things, and because of the amusement park, I said, oh, we shouldn't have an autograph book. And Chris was like, got it already, I already made it. And so he, they showed it to us and we made it. It was very cool. Okay. So that was Saturday. So now we get to Sunday. So Sunday opened up at 10.

opened up at 10. I'll tell you what I did on Sunday. I think on Sunday my first thing was my talk. So I did a whole separate podcast about my talk. The premise of the talk was I wanted to, they came to me and said do whatever you want. I said

is there anything you're interested in me doing? And they're like, well, if it could tie into the 30th anniversary, that'd be nice. So I ended up doing a talk that was 30 years and 30 pictures, basically, where I picked 30 pictures from over the years. It was not one per year necessarily, but it did span a bunch of time.

The earliest picture was 1994. The latest picture was 2022. And I was in all the photos and it allowed me to tell a story. So I would show the photo and I'd tell the story of the photo because I was there for all of them. And anyway, the total talk had like

a thousand pictures in it, some of which were from the archives of Wizards, some of which were my little personal collection of pictures. There are a lot of photos in there that I don't think anyone's ever seen. Some of which from, you know, some of which were from back in the day. For example, like I, one of the pictures was me in my chicken outfit from the Unglued, the original Unglued event.

But I went and found other pictures from the event. So I had all the public's ever seen, I think it's like one blurry picture of me from the event. But I went and found other pictures from the event. So I had all the public's ever seen. I think it's like one blurry picture of me from the event. I found the original picture. So I got a not blurry version of it. And then I think there's like six different pictures of me

in the chicken outfit. So not all of them are looking great, but I posted them all. Including, by the way, I had a special chicken hat when I wasn't wearing the chicken head. So you can see my chicken hat in one of them. So anyway, I had a special chicken hat when I wasn't wearing the chicken head. So you can see my chicken hat in one of them.

So anyway, I did the talk. It went well. Behind the scenes, the only thing about the talk was I had practiced the talk, and it had gone, like, 50, anywhere from 54 to 56 minutes when I was practicing. So I thought that was enough time

for, like, the audience minutes when I was practicing. So I thought that was enough time for the audience interacting. It was not. So I was on story picture 26 or something, when they're like, you have four minutes to go. So I don't know if it was recognizable or not. I sped through the last four stories, went much faster than I had practiced. I had a lot of slides, so it wasn't...

I mean, it was slow enough that I could show all the slides off, but it was definitely faster than I had planned. And there were a few things I had planned to say. For example, one of the later stories was me showing, it was me talking about me going on lots of other, like all the, the content creators outside of Wizards. And I was making a nod to them and I had a whole bunch of them in a picture and I was was going to reference them. Like, I was going to reference the professor, for example, which I didn't, so I felt bad because I was rushing. It was the one spot I was going to reference the professor, what I really wanted to reference, and I upset that in speeding through, I wasn't able to do that. So, sorry, professor. I meant to reference you. You were in a picture, but anyway, the talk, I thought, went really well.

Oh, I didn't mention... Sorry, I skipped through by... So, Friday and Saturday, by the way, there was a party on the 16th floor hosted by Olivia... Oh, sorry. What's Olivia... I'm looking at her name.

The... It was the the wedding couple of Crimson Vow. I'm blanking on her name. But basically we was we had we had people dressed up as them. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on names right now.

Anyway, so there was a big party. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on names right now. Anyway, so there was a big party. I missed both parties. I was invited to both parties, but both my Infinity events ran to midnight each night, and so I was not able to go to the parties. I heard they were a lot of fun. I heard there was dancing and cool things, but I was not able to go to the parties. Sorry, whenever I blink on names, I feel bad. Anyway, sorry.

So back to the Sunday. So I did my talk. I then did schmoozing. I did the floor. I went to the Black Lotus VIP room. I did more schmoozing, took a lot of pictures, talked to a lot of people. Yeah, one of the things, so on Sunday,

this was a funny event. So, Yanni Skolnick was the lead set designer for Brothers War. So he had been on the panel for the Brothers War. But because of other things I was doing,

I only got to see a tiny portion of it. So I saw Yanni on the floor and so I said to him, hey, how'd it go? And so he, I only got to see a tiny portion of it. So I saw Yanni on the floor, and so I said to him, hey, how'd it go? And so he and I were trying to talk about how it went. But we got interrupted basically about every

20 seconds with someone, you know, wanting a picture or wanting an autograph. And I always do that. So I kept stopping to give autographs and pictures. And at some point, after like 15 minutes of us trying to talk, where we just, like I said, it was almost like a comedy sketch. Yanni said, I'll talk to you back in the office.

But that was very funny. Anyway, we wrapped up at 7. I actually had dinner with some friends. It was an exhausting event. Friday and Saturday. Saturday especially, I think I had a 14-hour day. Friday and Sunday were not quite as long, but long. And it was really fun.

I saw a whole bunch of people I had not seen before. There was somebody I used to do judging with named Kathy that I hadn't seen forever. Last I saw her, she had a 14-year-old son. Her son was with her. I think he was 40. That was amazing. Glenn Goddard, who was an organizer who I used to see a lot in the early days, a good friend. I hadn't seen in ages. I saw him. I ran into just lots and lots of people that I hadn't seen in a long time. And friends I had seen, but it felt like everybody was there. In fact, there were people that I knew were there, friends that I knew were there that I never ran into.

So anyway, it was a really fun time, and it was a blast. And like I said, the outpouring of emotion from players really meant a lot to me, and like I said, the outpouring of emotion from players really meant a lot to me. And it was, um, I don't know, the whole event was great. I know, I do want to say, did everything go perfectly? It did not. Um, we didn't have enough, we didn't have enough space, I believe. And that led to a bunch of things.

Uh, there wasn't free play on the first day or not enough free play that it wasn't the first day also didn't have what do you call it when you have events that start spontaneously they were able to do that on later days anyway it was the first time we had done this

there were some organizational things I'm not trying to say that nothing went wrong or anything there were definitely things. I think the team did a great job of figuring out the problems on day one and fixing them on day two and three. And I think as we do more of these, we'll, you know. So I don't want to, I'm not trying to convey that nothing went wrong. I'm not trying to convey there weren't things that could have been improved.

But overall, all the players I talked to had a really good time. You know, they seemed really excited and happy. And it was just a lot of fun. There was neat merchandise to get. There was neat opportunities to play. Anyway, it was a really fun event. I'm almost

to work, but I promised you a story if I had time. So I'm going to tell you the story of the greatest show in the multiverse. So this is a funny story I told on the Infinity Panel. So I will tell it now. So a lot of people are like, why is this an artifact? So it's a saga, but it's an artifact enchantment.

And it's an artifact for a very weird reason. And it is a set design story. I don't often lead set design, but I did this time. And so what happens is I made the card, Greatest Show in the Multiverse. It was called Choose Your Own Saga, originally. And I made it coalesce because the whole idea was you could kind of craft your own saga, which I thought was cool. You went and got...

So for those who don't know the card, you can go get five instances of sorceries, all illustrated by the same artist. And then each turn for three turns, you randomly get one of the five. So the idea was that you've got to sort of craft your saga, but you don't control exactly what happens. Anyway, we made a colorless. Dawn got art for it. It came back.

It looked like the poster. In fact, the image on the back of the Infinity shirt, or one of the Infinity shirts. So it's the Meyer the Magnificent's Intergalactic Astro-Story of Fun poster. It looked really cool. One day, I get a call from one of our production people, and they're like,

we don't have the right art for Greatest Show in the Multiverse. And I'm like, what do you mean? We don't have the right art. I'm like, I've seen the art, it's really good, I'd call it the right art. And they're like, no, no, no, the art ratio. Like, what are you talking about? So it turns out when you make a colorless card,

whenever we make a colorless card, the art goes the full length of the card. So if you've ever looked at an Eldrazi card, the way we do colorless cards is the art, it's full frame. Now there's a colorless frame that goes on top of it, so you're looking through it, but it's the colorless cards fill up the entire frame. So in order to do a true colorless saga, if we follow the rules of how sagas are done,

it, because the saga, sorry, the colorless frame is see-through. So there was no way to make a colorless frame that looked like a colorless frame unless the art filled all the art box because it peeks through. But we had the art. We didn't have time to get new art. And the art ratio matched a normal saga art ratio. And so I went and said, well, what can we do? Like, well, if you put colored mana in the mana cost, we can give it a colored frame and that'll solve the problem. I'm like, no, I really want a generic mana because I want you the ability to go get whatever spells you want. So the only other answer we were able to come up with was if it was an artifact, we could give it an artifact frame. We could make an adaptive, I mean, we still would have to make

a new frame, but we know what a saga frame looks like. So adapting is not hard. So we'd have to make an artifact saga frame. But that isn't see-through. And the artifact frame is the only thing we've ever done with a generic cost that wasn't see-through. So the only way

to sort of make the artwork with the existing art we had was to turn it into an artifact enchantment. Now, the card, the art represented a poster. I feel like, okay, with a straight face, I guess we can call it an artifact enchantment. Now, the card, the art represented a poster. I feel like, okay, with a straight face,

I guess we can call it an artifact. You know, try and imply that it's both a poster of the event and representative of the event itself. But anyway, for people asking,

why is the greatest show in the multiverse an artifact? The answer, art ratios. Which most people probably would not expect that answer. Anyway, I'm almost to work. A little traffic, just a little extra. It was... I'm glad today, by the way,

I was starting to lose my voice at the very end. I luckily was a little bit arrested, got my voice back. But it was definitely quite the show. And hats off to everybody who was, all the show. And I want to hats off to everybody who was, all the people that were organizing

on our end. There was a lot going on. It's the first time we've done something of this scope. It really was, if you haven't, go look at pictures

of the events if you can. It was, it was really impressive. I've been to a lot of magic events and this was like, this was the true magic convention along the line of, of, you know, like a San Diego Comic Con. I've been to a lot of magic events and this was like, this was the true magic convention along the

line of, you know, like a San Diego Comic Con. I mean, not quite as big as San Diego Comic Con. But it really felt like the first magic convention. We've had Grand Prix's and stuff before, but this sort of had it aired a little bit beyond that. And I'm excited. There's another Magic 30 got announced

in Philadelphia in February. I do not know whether I'm going to that one yet or not. But it was quite the event. And so I had a great time. Like I said, I interacted with so many people. There were 10,000 people at the event. And I'm not kidding. Between signatures and pictures,

at the event and I'm not kidding between signatures and pictures I felt like there's a not insignificant chance I might have interacted with 2,000 people so like I feel like 20% of people there I interacted with it was it's kind of funny one of the weird things is I had this very quirky celebrity where most of the time you know I'm a normal person and no one bugs me at the supermarket when I'm trying to, you know, buy my food. But there are places and times where, hey, people recognize me and I'm, you know. This event was the most sort of like a celebrity I've ever felt.

I could not walk 10 feet. You know, if I was just standing around for a second, I'd have eight people approach me. And probably it made me get a sense of what actual celebrity is like. I don't think I would like to have that every day of my life. I think that would be problematic. But for a couple days, it was quite

fun, and I definitely had that rock star feeling. So it was for everybody who came up to me. It was a pleasure meeting everybody. I was really happy to hear about all of you and talking about magic, and it really filled me up and made me feel great. So thank you for all that. For anybody who was unable

to go to Magic 30, there will be other Magic 30s in other places. The next one is in Philadelphia. So if you're able to go there, maybe Las Vegas was far away for you, but Philadelphia is closer. One day,

try to go to a Magic 30 event or a Magic, I don't know what to call these, but now we're calling them Magic 30. Try to go to one Magic 30 event or a Magic, I don't know what to call these. Right now we're calling them Magic 30. Try to go to one. They're a lot of fun. Anyway, guys, I'm not at work. So we all know what that means.

It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I had fun sharing with you Magic 30, but it's time for me to go make some magic. I'll see you soon.