Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #123 - Who's Who in R&D, Wave 1

Episode Date: May 16, 2014

Mark talks about different people who were instrumental in the making of Magic.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so one of the things about doing a podcast for a while, you slowly figure things out. And one of the things that's important to me that I've been doing with this podcast is trying to show the history of magic. And part of the history of magic is the people who made it. And so one of the things I've been trying to do is definitely let people know about all the different people that went into making magic. And what I've discovered is two things. One is some people are fascinated by who the people are, and it's an interesting history lesson. Some people could care less. The second thing is I've been trying to do a lot of this during my design talks, and they've been getting longer.

And so I've decided that here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start a new series that I'm calling Who's Who. And I'm going to use this series, which will be every once in a while, it won't be consecutive, but every once in a while I will do a story about the people of Magic. And I'll talk about different sections. Today I'm going to start with R&D, but I'll talk

not just about R&D, but other people that were involved in the game. And the idea is, when we're all done, hopefully I've had a chance to talk about a lot of the people that have worked on Magic. So there's a long, varied history. Anyway, I really think if you want to know Magic, it's important to know the people behind the Magic. The people behind the Magic. If I didn't use who's who, I would have to use behind the Magic. Anyway, okay, so what we'll do today is I would have to use behind the magic anyway

okay so what we'll do today is I'm going to start with R&D the way I've decided to divide up R&D because R&D is way more than one podcast is I've talked before on how R&D came in waves if you look at kind of how R&D happened especially in the early days a bunch of people got hired and there was a little bit of a pause

and a bunch more people got hired and so I'm going to talk about the first wave today. And in the future podcasts, I'll talk about second wave, third wave, and such. And like I said, this is not just going to be R&D. I'm going to try to look at other sections and talk about other people. One of the things that's important to me is

I'm going to try as much as I can to capture the history of the people that made the game. That's really important to me. And if we're trying to capture history, like, who did it? It's pretty important. Okay, so let's start with R&D, Wave 1. So the first wave of R&D, pretty much the first wave of R&D

are all people that were connected to Richard Garfield and pretty much were the original playtesters of the game. So I've talked about a little of this, so I'll go over it real quickly. So Richard Garfield, the story, for those who don't know, is Richard was a math professor living in Walla Walla, I think,

at the time. And he came to pitch a game. He and his friend Mike Davis, who I will talk about today, another first waver, came to pitch a game to Peter Ackeson, who was the CEO of Wizards at the time, one of the founders and the CEO. And they were trying to sell him on a game called Robo Rally. So for those that have never played Robo Rally, it's a game in which you play a robot,

and each person's a robot, and you're racing on the floor of the factory, the robot factory. And there's all sorts of conveyor belts and flame jets and pits and laser beams. I'm not sure what kind of factory this is. But anyway, there's all these things that are causing problems, and you are racing.

And the unique thing about the game is that you have a bunch of cards that you program, whether you go straight or left or forward, and you pre-program your five moves. And the cool thing about it is you sort of predict what you think is going to happen, but because you interact with other people and there's other components you have to interact with, sometimes things go a little haywire. Anyway, it's a very, very fun game. Wizards of the Coast did later make it,

so I think it's in our backlog. If you go to your store, I believe you can still buy RoboRally. Awesome game. Anyway, so Richard and Mike came to pitch RoboRally to Peter. Peter's response was, oh, this is a really nice game.

I like this game a lot. The problem is, I'm a small company. This is expensive. Just the components to make a board game is very expensive. But Peter said, here's what I can do. I made a contact with someone at a printer, Cartamundi, and I also know a local art store,

a place where I can get artists that I can do some work. And so I know I can make pretty cards with pictures on them. Do you have a game that we could put on cards? And then he said, what Peter really wanted was, he wanted a game that had short play time that was portable that you could play in between role-playing sessions. That was Peter's original vision.

So Richard, let me explain Richard a little bit. Part of today is explaining people. So Richard, I've never met a person, and I've known a lot of gamers in my life, I've never met a person, and I've known a lot of gamers in my life, I've never met a person that loves games more than Richard Garfield. He loves, loves, loves games.

In fact, he is constantly trying to play different games. Richard's the kind of person that, he's not looking for a game that he likes and then plays it a lot. He's looking to play every possible game he can. I mean, he replays games he likes, but he is constantly on the move, looking for new games and new things. He will try games in languages that are not even in, that he knows. In fact, when I first got to Wizards, I explained this in one of my podcasts

that, like, Richard had bought a lot of German games, which at the time weren't translated, and he would get translations for them and teach people how to play. He, Richard, and Scaffold, the work Scaffold later, taught a class on the history of games. Richard studied sort of where games came from. Richard is fascinated on literally every aspect of games.

And Richard loved game design. In fact, Richard, one, people often ask me how you know you're a writer, and the answer is you write games. Well, how do you know you're a game designer? Because you design games. And I think most of the people I know before they came to, all the game designers before they came to Wizards designed their own games

because they're game designers. On my blog, I've been talking recently about a bunch of games that I designed that you obviously have never seen in the light of day. But like, game designers game. I'm sorry, they do game, but they also design. And Richard loved making games. So Richard had just made a lot of designs.

So when Peter said, I need a portable game on cards, two things popped in Richard's mind as I know the story. One is, Richard had been fascinated by the concept of a trading card game. And second, Richard had made a card game many years before called Five Magics.

And so, now that, I believe Five Magics wasn't a trading card game. It just was a lock game. But Richard thought of taking the basic essence of Five Magics, putting a trading, you know, blending it with the idea of a trading card game. And that is where Richard got the idea of magic. And so Peter said this. Richard goes, I think I got something. And so Richard, I think he must have been going to Penn.

So Richard went to University of Pennsylvania for his graduate degree, I believe, to get his master's. Richard is a mathematician in combinatorics, which, if I understand correctly, is a fancy word to say, big counting. It has to do with numbers. I'm not a math guy. word to say, big counting. It has to do with numbers. I'm not a math guy. So, in the math department at the University of Pennsylvania, Richard

met four guys. Scafalias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, and Chris Page. Those four people are now kind of known affectionately as the East Coast Playtesters. They're the ones... So, Richard had a couple different groups

that he ended up playtesting. This was the first group, his mathematician friends. So I believe all four of them were also studying math. I know for sure that Jim and Scaf were studying math. I believe Dave and Chris were studying math. It's possible one of them was friends. So, okay. I'll explain those guys in a second.

So Richard, anyway, went back. He got some playtest groups. He tried magic, brought it back to Peter. Peter loved it, said, we're making this, and boom, the game is off. So Richard, by the way, growing up, has a decently large family. I think he has two sisters and a brother, a mother and father, obviously. And they moved around a lot when he was a kid.

He has stories of, like, being in Nepal as a kid, and, you know, a lot of fascinating stories. And his father, I think his father's an architect. Anyway, so Richard, very close to his family, his family played games growing up, always loved games, got into math, because I think to him that he saw a lot of math in games, and it was one of the things where I really wanted to be a game designer, but practically, how about I become a math professor? And so Richard ended up, probably was the first person hired in R&D.

I mean, there were a few people that were, I guess, in R&D. I don't know if they were there before Richard. There was a guy named Glenn Elliott that was technically the first person in charge of R&D, but he predates, I believe, in R&D. I don't know if they were there before, Richard. There's a guy named Glenn Elliott that was technically the first person in charge of R&D, but he predates, I believe, Magic. I mean, he was still there for quite a while after that. Oh, one of my caveats, I meant to say this at the beginning of my thing. I, in the whole idea of the who's who,

I'm going to try to talk about who the key people who made Magic are. So a couple caveats. Number one is a lot of people had their hand in magic. A lot of people. I mean, literally, if you worked at Wizards at some point,

you did something with magic. I'm going to talk about people who, at some point, their primary role was working on magic. A lot of people, by the way, would start in magic and go on to do other things

or start with other things and go on and do magic. So I'm talking about the people that played a major role in magic. Number two is, I'm going to talk about them at the point where they were relevant with magic. So for example, I'm talking about the first wave.

There are some people who may later become relevant that were around during the first wave but weren't in R&D during the first wave. And so I'm sort of talking about when they were relevant, at least for R&D, when I do timelines. A lot of what you'll find is, as I talk about this, the people kind of interweave together. People move from section to section.

There's some people that end up in R&D that didn't start in R&D. There's people in R&D that started in R&D but didn't end up in R&D, that moved to other sections of the company. And so anyway, there's a lot of people to talk about. So I'm going to, like I said, this is a multi-series podcast. It won't be consecutive, but I really do want to have you guys get a sense of who the people are. Anyway, Richard Garfield. So Richard loved games, made a lot of games, ends up making magic.

And then so he goes back and he playtests with his playtesting. So like I said, his first playtest team was in the friends, his math friends, in the graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania. So Scaf Elias and Jim Lynn were friends. They'd gone to Princeton together. So let's talk about Scaf Elias.

So Scaf Elias is probably best known as the creator of the Pro Tour. Scaf was a senior vice president for many years. He was in R&D, but he kind of did lots of different projects. Scaf was brand manager of Magic for a while. He oversaw organized play for a while.

He had his hand in lots of different things. But, all during that time, he constantly was involved in Magic. He was very, very involved in creating the organized play system. He was instrumental in making the Pro Tour. And Scaf is a character. I often talk about how if I make a sitcom,

how I would have to take bits and pieces of different R&D people to make characters out of. I don't need bits and pieces of anything. Scaf is a character. Scaf is famous for, he had a sleeping bag, he used to sleep under his desk. Scaf was, how do I describe Scaf? Because Scaf is quite the character. Scaf was insanely smart, very insightful.

He definitely had his pulse on sort of the way he wanted things to be. But let me describe it this way. If Richard, for those that know psychological terms, if Richard is the ego,

Scaf is the id, and Jim Lynn is the super ego. So I'll explain that. For those that don't know, in psychology, the ego is your sense of self. It's the center of who you are as a person. And then you have two parts.

One that guides kind of the emotional side. One that guides a little more of a logical side. To all psychology people out there, I'm apologizing for my gross, gross simplification. Scaff was more the id. Id is the kind of thing that says, I want to do this, I have to do that. It's more impulsive and kind of follows emotional impulses. In some ways, the id superego is kind of like blue-red, where blue is more logical-based. Anyway, Scaf

is very id-like, in that he definitely, he just embraces things and he does them. And Skaff, if you listen to stories of Skaff, Skaff just goes on adventures, because Skaff comes up with an idea to do something, and whatever that little voice in his head is supposed to say, you're not supposed to do that, he doesn't have that part, so he just does it. I mean, Skaff, there's so many stories about Skaff.

Skaff was famous, by the way, for eating anything, including old food, no matter how old. That if Skaff was hungry, he would, like, people would put old leftovers in the fridge at work, and like, if he was hungry late at night, doesn't matter how old it was, he'd eat it. You know, like, he'd have pizza that had, you know, some mold on it. I mean, he didn't eat the mold. He brushed the mold off. But, you know. And Scaf is the... Scaf is definitely the person who... One of the things about Scaf,

this is true of Jim too, is on some level, if you want to be an R&D, the following is true. You have to be smart. You have to know games and know magic. You have to have an opinion. You have to be able to voice your opinion. You have to be smart. You have to know games and know magic. You have to have an opinion. You have to be able to voice your opinion. You have to be able to argue. And you probably are a little stubborn.

In Scaf's case, he's a lot stubborn. It's the same with Jim. There's a story I told, I'll be able to tell again just because it's a great story, where Scaf and Jim are arguing about something. I don't even remember what it was. They're arguing about something. And I'm there, and I'm listening to them argue. Eventually, I get bored, because it's hours into this.

I'm like, whatever, I'm going home. They're just not going to stop arguing. So I go home. I have a full night's sleep. I get up, get ready, have my breakfast, shower, get dressed, do everything, come in. They are still arguing about the same thing. They argued so long, I grew bored, I went home, I had a full night's sleep, got ready,

came back, still arguing. I mean, like 10 hours of arguing or something like that, that is Jim and Scott's relationship right there. They had great respect for each other. In fact, the East Coast playtesters all a great respect for each other, but they would argue like nobody's business because they were all very hardcore gamers that like... And this is to an R&D.

I think what happens is each one of these guys were used to being the smartest guy in the room. Growing up, they were the smartest guy in the room. They would win every argument they had because they were the smartest guy in the room. And then all of a sudden they got in a room in which everybody else was also the smartest guy in the room. And I think R&D is a lot like this, where it's a lot of really bright people who are just kind of used to winning the argument, having arguments.

We are not quite as stubborn as Scaf and Jim, although we have our moments. So Jim, Scaf and Jim both were math professors I think Jim actually might have been an engineer Scaf I think

was also a commentator I think Jim was an engineer so Scaf and sorry Jim and Richard I'm sorry

Scaf and Richard throwing a lot of names out here Scaf and Richard were very very good friends. They're best friends. Have been that way, I think, since their time in college. Scaf is the one that introduced Jim to Richard.

And Jim is... So what happened was Jim came to Wizards, worked on Magic for a while. Eventually, he was in charge of all non-Magic TCGs. Because remember, by the way, when Richard Garfield first started making Magic, the idea was that... Look on the back of a Magic card. You'll see Deckmaster.

The idea originally was that Wizards was going to become the trading card game company. They weren't just going to make Magic. They were going to make lots of trading card games. And so Richard, after Magic, started making other games. He made Jihad, that later got renamed to Vampire the Eternal Struggle. He made...

That's like a horde-based vampire clans. It's very multiplayer-oriented. You each represent different clans of vampires fighting for dominance. And Richard claimed that while it's a good game, he didn't understand trading card games well enough at the time to understand that you needed a faster-paced game

and that the flaw he sees now with Vitas, Vampire the Turn of Struggle, is that it's too long. It's a fun multiplayer game, and if you enjoy the game, it's great, but it's a long game, and it's hard to get in and out of. And trading card games are about adapting your deck, and the game is a little long, and Richard you enjoy the game, it's great, but it's a long game, and it's hard to get in and out of, and trading games is about adapting your deck, and the game is a little

long, and Richard says in retrospect. Second game he made was Netrunner. That was... All the games other than Magic were based on other people's IPs, most of which I think were role-playing games. So Netrunner is a cyberpunk game.

It has to do with hackers breaking into the mainframe, breaking into the cyber world, and the corporation's trying to stop them. So the unique thing about Netrunner is it's a game in which each side's playing a different deck. That one side has the runner deck, and one side has the corporation deck. And you have different cards.

They actually have different color backs. Very good game, but the fact that each side had a corporation deck, and you have different cards. They actually have different color backs. Very good game, but the fact that each side had a different deck was confusing, and I think made it hard for people to pick up games easier, because you had to kind of carry both decks around with you, because you didn't know who you were going to meet or what they'd have.

A fascinating game, by the way. Probably, of the games outside of Magic, it's probably Richard's best game, best trading card game other than Magic. Magic's number one. And then the third game was Battletech. That is another science fiction game. It's based...

There is a role-playing game. There also is pods you can video game fight with. You go to a place that has these pods that you fight in. And it's battling mechs is basically the flavor of the game. And those were the three Deckmaster games, other than Magic. Anyway, the idea was, at the time, Wizards was really going to evolve

and become more than just Magic. It was going to become the trading card game company. And we were doing RoboRally and the Great Del Moody and lots of other games that we were making. In fact, Richard was just pumping out games, and Wizards was making the games Richard made. And games from other people made. It wasn't just Richard. One of these days I will do a history of Wizards games.

That's a fine topic. Anyway, so Jim started on Magic, eventually became in charge of non-Magic TCGs, then he would later become the VP of R&D, and even later than that he would become an executive VP that oversaw multiple things, including R&D. So Jim was, I mean, is, all these people are still alive. Jim's very logical. He's very methodic.

I think that a lot of early magic, Jim was the force to try to put order on things. I think that a lot of early magic, Jim was the force that tried to put order on things. That, in some ways, if you want to think of it as sort of a blue-red conflict, or it's up to you, however you want, that Jim and Scaf definitely, there's a lot of conflict. Jim was trying to make the order,

get the system working correctly, and Scaf was trying to get the feel correct, and they would butt heads a lot. What stories of Jim? Jim is originally from Cincinnati. Yeah, Jim every year has a Super Bowl party in which

he makes Cincinnati chili, which for those that read my blog have learned it's different from normal chili. Anyway, and I don't know, Jim is, all these people were really hardcore gamers. Jim was a little more quiet than Scaf. Scaf is very in-your-face. Although, the funny thing is, talk about quiet.

So, there were four East Coast Players' Touchersorts three of the four actually came out to Wizards so Scaf came out Jim came out and Dave Petty came out Chris Page stayed to finish getting his degree I don't know I know Richard has finished his degree I'm not sure of the rest

between Scaf and Jim and Dave I think that Jim and Scaf had finished and Dave hadn't, because Dave would later leave, I believe, to go back to finish it. Anyway, Dave Petty was the quietest of those three. Chris Page, I've interacted with, but never at Wizards. He's a person, by the way, who listens to my podcast and reads my articles, and when I get factual things wrong on this stuff, he will always kindly write me and tell me what I've gotten

incorrect. So thank you, Chris, for listening. I'm hoping I'm doing fair today. I'm doing the best I can. A lot of this is my memory and what I know from what people have said. So Dave was the quietest of the bunch, at least of the three of them, of Jim Scaff and Dave. I only overlapped with Dave for a little while, maybe six months at most, because Dave ended up going back. So the timeline real quick for today, for the first wave, is the game hit in July of 1993.

I believe Richard was the first one to come out. And he came out into summer or the fall. And then slowly after him, other people would start coming out. I think Jim and Scaf were some of the earliest ones to come out. And then Dave came out. Oh, someone else that came out earlier that I have not talked about yet

is Mike Davis. Let me talk a little about Mike Davis. So Mike Davis was a very good friend of Richard's. I do not know where they met. I don't think Mike is a mathematician. So actually, I don't know what Mike did before he came to Wizards. That's a good question.

So probably the warmest thing in my heart for Mike Davis is Mike is the person who hired me. So if you've ever heard me tell the story of how I was up at Wizards and I said, you know, I'd be willing to move to Seattle, and someone said to me, when can you start? That was Mike Davis. Also, if you've ever heard the story

where when I was originally going to be hired, I had a walk and talk with Mike Davis, where I explained to him that I thought I was a designer, not a developer. And Mike's the one that said, well, we need developers, not designers, because they had Richard. And I said, oh, okay, I can develop. But anyway, that's Mike Davis.

So you probably heard, I probably told stories where you, Mike Davis was in the story, you just didn't know it was Mike Davis. You know, he was a good friend of Richard's. He was the one that came with Richard to pitch RoboRally. So Mike became the VP of R&D. I think the first VP. I think Glenn Elliott had been in charge of R&D. I think the first VP. I think Glenn Elliott had been in charge of R&D but wasn't a vice president. So Mike became the first vice president of R&D,

I believe. And he was there for a while. He ended up, he and I overlapped for a couple years and then he moved on to do some other stuff. Mike was a real sweet guy and, I mean, I keep saying was. He is. These guys are not dead

or anything. I just interacted with him a long time ago. I had a great fondness for Mike and he, like I said, if it wasn't for Mike, I wouldn't be at Wizards. The other thing that was interesting is that I had worked with a lot of different sections of the company,

and that when I first said that I wanted to work at Wizards, the Duelist was interested in me because I had done a lot of stuff with the Duelist. The Magic team was interested in me, and R&D was interested in me. And Mike fought really hard to get me in R&D, and so I'm really, really happy that Mike did because I've had a good time in R&D. So what else does I want Mike? He's sweet. I mean, he's a gamer, too, but he is not as,

he's a little less hardcore. I mean, he enjoys games and loves gaming. And I believe that RoboRally was a co-design between Mike and Richard. So I guess Mike did do some game design. Anyway, like I said, he was, unlike most of the rest of R&D, and Richard. So I guess Mike did do some game design. Anyway, like I said, he was,

unlike most of the rest of R&D, the stories I'm telling were like, they were stubborn. Mike was not nearly as stubborn and was very easy to get along with. I liked Mike a lot. Okay, other people. So, Richard comes out, Mike Davis comes out shortly after that. Soon after that, so either during the fall or the winter, so, uh, Richard comes out, Mike, Mike Davis comes out shortly after that, soon after

that. So either the, during the fall or the winter, so either the fall of 93 or the winter of 94, Scaf and Jim come out. I think Dave comes out shortly after that. Uh, what else can I say about Dave Petty? Um, Dave was very exact in what he wanted. One of the things about the East Coast Playtester is that there were legendary stories about them designing, which was, you had four actually

really good designers. One of the things about Alliances, for example, was the last that they did. So the East Coast Playtasters did Antiquities, Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and Alliances. And I,

my favorite set before I came to Wizards was Antiquities. One of the sets that people asked me that I thought showed the most potential for the future was Alliances. I thought they were a very, very good design team.

They had their biases. They really didn't like flying. But in general, I really like a lot of the stuff the team did. And I enjoyed working with Scaf and Jim and Dave. I've enjoyed my interactions with Chris. I've never worked with Chris. But all bright guys, all really understood magic and gaming and that. A lot of early magic.

If you, I mean, they're the people that really put, I mean, some of the people, that really put magic on the map. And the three of them did a lot of the early development. So what happened was, let me figure out the timing here. They got out here in time to do development work on Legends. That's the first set I believe they did development on. So what happened was, magic exploded.

Peter's like, oh, we've got to make more sets, we've got to make more sets. And so Richard made Arabian Nights mostly by himself. Antiquities was made by the East Coast Playtesters. And Legends was made by, led by a guy named Steve Connard, who was a role-playing buddy of Peter Atkinson's and Legends was based a lot on

a lot of the characters and stuff from the role playing games that they had played together most of Dungeons and Dragons and the R&D, the first set they worked on was they did some development on it and if you've ever seen the cards from the design,

Steve Connard is an awesome man and very imaginative. Legends had a lot of very cool and neat ideas. But if you've ever seen the original Legends card, they were written very... They weren't any technical speak. It's kind of like, go get a guy and he comes and plays and he fights with all the other people. And like, well, what does that mean?

He sort of just got the gist of what he wanted, but then R&D had to sort of turn that into actual magic ease. So the first thing they worked on was Legends. So, also that came, so the

East Coast Playtesters, that was one group. The other big playtest group, and there were some Coast Playtesters that was one group the other big playtest group and there were some individual playtesters that Richard had but there were two main groups the other group Richard met through his bridge club and that was the group East Coast Playtesters did Ice Age and the other one

when Magic first took off he assigned each of his groups a set to work on knowing that eventually they'd need it and it took off, he assigned each of his groups a set to work on, knowing that eventually they'd need it. And it took off faster than he thought, so that's why some quick work had to be done. The other group he met through the bridge group would go on to make Mirage and Visions. So that was a group that Bill Rose was in, a guy named Joel Mick, Charlie Cattino, Don Felice, Howard Kallenberg, I think is his last name, and Elliot

Spitzer. If I get Howard and Elliot's last name wrong, I apologize. I literally met each of them once. So what happened is that group would design Mirage. Joel Mick actually worked with East Coast Playchafters

on Antiquities. And Joel was the first person from the Bridge Group, they don't have a fancy name like the East Coast Playstafters, to come out to Wizards. Joel, in fact, was the very first head designer of Magic. Well, I mean, one could argue Richard was the first head designer, but once Richard was moving on to other things, Joel was the first head designer that wasn't the creator of the game.

And when I say head designer, he was head designer slash developer. It was actually one to other things. Joel was the first head designer that wasn't the creator of the game. And when I say head designer, he was head designer slash developer. It was actually one role back when. It would get split into two later. In fact, when I became head designer, it got split in two, because I really didn't have the chops to be head developer. So Joel was the original head designer slash head developer.

He was there... When I talk about the waves of design, he was oversaw the second wave of design, or the beginning of it. He was the person who was the head designer during the period where we did Mirage. I mean, Bill was the lead designer of Mirage, but Joel was the head

designer, and he was the one that pushed us toward doing blocks and stuff. That was his doing. Now, Joel would later go on to become the brand manager of Magic, and probably at some point, one of my who's who's will be on the brand managers of Magic.

That's actually an interesting thing, and I'll talk more about Joel there. But Joel did a lot of innovations on the brand team, real quickly, like stuff like rarity icons and premium cards. That was all Joel was doing. Joel's reign as head designer.

Sorry, his head as block. Let's try this again. Joel has a lead as brand manager of Magic. So, in fact, two of the people today, both Scaf Elias and Joel were brand manager of Magic for a while. Joel for longer than Scaf was. So, in fact, two of the people today, both Scaf Elias and Joel Mick, were brand manager of Magic for a while. Joel for longer than Scaf was. So Joel was, what did Joel do?

I think Joel, was he in business? I'm not sure what Joel did before he got here. I do know that Joel, I think he'd been a manager because he managed very well. And Joel and Bill were really, really good friends. One of the funny things about Joel is Bill and Joel had gone on a trip to Europe, and this is before cell phones, so they were supposed to meet up

in a certain city at a certain place, and then Joel just never showed. And that became a running joke of what was called getting Joel'd when someone was supposed to show up and they just didn't show up and that became lingo in R&D so if you had a meeting and someone just didn't show up for the meeting, you got joled

it's funny now because one of the things I tell stories about some of these people people in R&D now, most of them don't know who I'm talking about because you know, of the I'm going to mention in a second Charlie Coutinho of the first wave people, the only person that's still there, first wave, is Charlie Coutinho. And of second wave, the only one still there is me and Bill.

But anyway, second wave is not this podcast. Okay, so Joel, Joel came out, I think, shortly after Scaf and Jim, and definitely started definitely worked on a lot of the early stuff. Charlie Cattino, who was also part of the Bridge Club, he came out later. He came out in February of 1995. So I call him the tail end. So the first wave starts in the summer of 1993 and goes through the beginning of the winter of 1995.

That's the first wave. Most of them actually got hired at the end of 1993, beginning of 1994. Charlie, in some way, is his own wave, but I tend to think of him as being more of the first wave than the second wave, although he's definitely in the middle. So Charlie ran, I think Charlie worked in a chemistry lab before he came out. I think he was a... I think he majored in chemistry, I think. That's a good question.

I know he worked in a chemistry lab. So Charlie was... Charlie is currently... He worked on Magic for quite a while, worked on other games. Now he's in charge

of our Japanese trading card games. Well, he's in charge of Duel Master, which is our Japanese trading card game, and Kaijudo, which is, we brought it to the U.S. It's slightly changed, but we brought it to the U.S. Now Charlie runs that. For many years, Charlie was on

the design teams, obviously, for Mirage and Visions. I had him on the design team for Tempest. He did a lot of early stuff. Charlie was one of the earliest advocates of don't make all the cards. You want a balance of cards. Charlie was one of the earliest advocates of don't make all the cards. Like, you want a balance of cards. Charlie was one of the big voices of you need bad cards.

That magic can't just be every card pushed. And Charlie was one of the people saying we have to watch the power level. We've got to pull stuff down. Charlie really actively would like to make bad cards. In fact, ironically, Charlie's favorite bad card he ever made was a Mirage Lion's Eye Diamond. So he made a Lotus that you had to discard

your hand and tap for three colors mana. I made one change in development, which I said if it's going to be a bad Lotus, it should be a bad Lotus. And I changed it to three of one color. And anyway, it went on to be the most broken card in the set. So, Charlie's job of making a broken card. He made plenty of other, not broken cards. His job of making a weak card.

Charlie is super fun, and he always has a smile on his face. And he is almost the opposite of some of Jim and Scaf. I mean, I guess Charlie can be stubborn and can argue, but he is less likely, you know. He usually tries to find a way to find the solution that makes everybody happy. He definitely is good at finding the middle ground, and he's a very, very good sort of people person.

Charlie, by the way, for a while, was a level five judge and used to judge the Pro Tour. He wasn't the very first level five judge, because that was Tom Wiley, one of these who's a lot to be on rules managers, but he was the second, I believe the second level five judge. And he had judged a whole

bunch of events. He was a very good judge, I thought. So Charlie came out, the tail end came out in February of 1994. Charlie was a very good judge, I thought. So Charlie came out, the tail end came out in December, or sorry, February of 1994. Charlie, by the way, now has the distinction of everybody who currently works at WOTC to have worked at Wizards for the longest amount of time.

There are some people who used to work at TSR, we bought them, the Dungeons & Dragons people, that still work at Wizards, so they've continually worked on D&D longer, but they've not continually worked for Wizards longer. Charlie is the longest employee. I, right now, am number seven or eight. Bill Rose is one ahead of me

because he started two weeks before me. But anyway, Charlie, I started in October of 95. Charlie started in February. So that is the first wave. Like I said, there's a lot of other people that were around, a lot of people that did stuff. These were the major players that had the biggest impact on Magic. Um, and one of the things to remember is, so let me walk through what they did. Um, okay, so this group showed up in time to do, or a bunch of the early ones, did the development work on Legends. They then, The Dark was done by Jesper Mirfors, who was the first art director for Magic.

And they did the development on The Dark. Next was Fallen Empires. That was East Coast Playtesters. They did that. And they both did it and did their own development work on it. After Fallen Empires was Ice Age. That was also the East Coast Playtesters.

After Ice Age was Homeland. I did a podcast on this. So Homeland was two people from Wizards, Kyle Namvar and Scott Hungerford. Kyle ran the customer service group and Scott or Scooter was on

the creative team it's called continuity of time but it was the creative team and they made Homeland R&D had a big fight over Homeland because they didn't like the original design they did some development on it.

Probably not as aggressive as they would want to do, but they really wanted to make major changes, and Peter wouldn't let them do that. So, they were there for Homelands. And then, Homelands is the first set that I was not yet

working at Wizards, but I was a playtest group. I did a playtest work on Homeland. And then the passing of the torch between the first wave and the second wave would be during Alliances. In fact, all the first wave, or most of the first wave and most of the second wave were on Alliances.

Alliances had like a development team of like 13 people. But a lot of... So what happens is these people spent... The first wave spent almost two years, a year and a half working on Magic.

And then Wizards was growing, and so they were all interested in working on other games. And that we were making new TCGs and new games, and so Scaf kept... Scaf is the one of the original ones that kept his

toe in the most. I mean, he still worked on organized play stuff. He was on the occasional development team. So Scaf kept his fingers in Magic. Jim went on to do other trading card games. He was in charge of other trading card games for a while, and then

new games, and then he ended up being the VP of R&D. Dave Petty ended up going back to school, so he did not stay around too long. So he worked on Magic, and then he ended up leaving. Joel Mick would go on to become brand manager of

Magic. Charlie Coutinho would go on to be in charge of our Japanese TCGs. Mike Davis was the vice president of R&D. He was there for a couple years, and then he left to go on to do some other stuff. He was still making games, but other places.

And that is wave one. One of my plans, by the way, real quickly, I'm almost to work with this Husu, is I'm going to try to mix up a by the way, real quickly, I'm almost to work with this Husu, is I'm going to try to mix up a little bit the kind of Husu that I'm doing. I'll definitely get through all of R&D, but I'm not just going to do R&D.

My plan is that there's all sorts of different people that worked on Magic. And so my idea is I want to run through, I'm going to pick some area of, like, today I did R&D, but I'm going to pick some area. In the, today I did R&D, but I'm going to pick some area. In the future, my idea is I will talk about rules managers, I will talk about art directors, I will talk about brand managers. You know, I will pick different aspects of the game.

You know, I can talk about creative team members. I want to pick sort of different people that had their hand in magic. And like I said in my intro today, if you want to understand the history, you know, understanding history is understanding people. This is very much true if you study history of anything. That, you know, what made changes happen? People.

What made magic the game it was? People. You know, and that one of the things that's very, very important to understand is that magic is a game, and the reason Magic is where it is now, 20 years later, is all the hard work of all the people along the way that kept innovating and improving on the game. And if you look at early Magic, you know, the first wave, for example, these are the guys that came up with Standard as a format and understood the importance of Standard.

A lot of these people were the people that started pushing toward a lot of the rule changes. I mean, some of that would be Bill in the second wave. Oh, so by the way, what happened is, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. This group did formatting. They started doing some rule things. They really revamped a lot of stuff on templating and understanding what shouldn't go in a set. They really much sort of started ironing out

that a lot of the early color pie, like color pie early on was a little bit in flux. They're the first ones that started sort of figuring out where things needed to be. So this early group really was the ones that took magic from this kind of infancy through its toddler years and got it to the point where it was a little more stable. The early group was also ones that, as magic started going international, this is the early

group. There was a lot of work early on of making sure that new markets and new languages sort of, you know, you had to figure out how to start them when they weren't starting at the absolute beginning. And anyway, this early team did a lot. That if you love magic, a lot of things that you think of as probably being

a core part of what the game is, things you may not even realize the game didn't start with, this group got and came together and brought. But, this group decided they wanted to go on and do other things. And so they decided they needed to hire a whole new wave of people that could take care of Magic R&D. That wave was what I call the second wave.

I will come along with that. Bill Rose, Mike Elliott, William Jockish, Henry Stern. So anyway, when I pick up like I said, this series is not going to be consecutive I'm not even sure the next time I do this I'll do R&D but the next time I do R&D so the next Who's Who R&D

I will do the second wave in which I'll introduce basically my group when they came in, how they came in, where they came from I'll talk about background a little bit and basically my group, when they came in, how they came in, where they came from. I'll talk about background a little bit. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed today. I purposely decided to do this because it's its own thing.

For the people that don't care, they don't have to listen to it. But I want people to know who the people were that made the game. They're an awesome group of people. And magic exists because of their hard work. And so I'm going to spend some time over the next...

I'm sure it'll take years for me to get through all the people. But I'm dedicated to doing this Who's Who's category to really introduce you guys to all the people who made Magic Magic. Anyway,

as much as I love talking about magic history and magic people, even more, I like making magic. So it's time for me to go, guys. I'll talk to you next time. Ciao.