Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #141 - 2001

Episode Date: July 18, 2014

Mark continues his "20 Years in 20 Podcast" series, exploring the year 2001.

Okay, I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about another of my series of 20 years and 20 podcasts. And today's topic is the year 2001. So for those that have never heard of this series before, what I'm doing is dedicating one podcast to each year of Magic's life and talking about all the things that happened during that year. So a little history lesson wrapped up in a single podcast, at least a year's worth in a single podcast. So today is the year 2001. Now, last time I did this series, I did 2000, obviously, and that was a banner year for John Finkel. John Finkel won U.S. Nationals, won the world title, won

an Invitational, won a team championship, had a pretty good year. As we will see, it's possible to have a better year than John Finkel in 2000, and that's going to be Kaibuda in 2001. We'll get to that today. Also, we are in the middle of the invasion block. So, in fact, the very first thing that happens happened on January 27th, which is the pre-release for Planeshift. So Planeshift was 143 cards, 55 commons, 44 uncommons, 44 rares.

It had a swirling portal as its expansion symbol. Its pre-release name was Hong Kong. So Invasion had been Beijing. Planeship was Hong Kong. And Apocalypse was Shanghai, I think. Is that right? Was, I think it was

Shanghai. Yes, it was Shanghai. So the idea was, every year, to remember our codenames, back in the day, they would all be themed so this time it was Shanghai. So the idea was every year to remember our code names. Back in the day, they would all be themed. So this time it was Chinese cities. And they were done in alphabetical order so you could remember them. So Beijing was a B, Hong Kong was an H, Shanghai was an S.

So they're in alphabetical order. So if you heard of them, you could just put them in alphabetical order. We hadn't quite gotten to the technology of having names that went together in a prescribed order, but we'll get there. So Planeship, let me talk a little about Planeship. So Invasion was the start of what I call the third age of design. It's the beginning of themes to blocks.

And so Invasion block was a multicolored block. Planeship was a continuation of Invasion. Back then, we didn't really do new named mechanics in small sets. What we would do is we introduced usually two mechanics in the large set, and then we'd during the course of the year, evolve them. Invasion actually had one main mechanic, which was Kicker.

And we had a lot of multi-card stuff going on. And it had split cards. So Plane Shift really just took those and added on them. The one thing we did do that was a new mechanic that wasn't named was what we now call gating, which were, they were multicolored creatures that when they came into play, as a requirement, you had to return a creature that shared a color with it to your hand.

And the idea was, it's this kind of thing where, oh, well, it seems like a drawback, but if you use cleverly, you know, we had a lot of creatures with edge of the battlefield effects and things, if you use cleverly, this we had a lot of creatures with enter the battlefield effects and things if you use cleverly this drawback can be used to your advantage and this allowed you to get out bigger

multicolored creatures cheaper and that was probably the big thing so Plane Shift story wise for those who don't know Invasion is about

dun dun dun an invasion this is the story it's the end of the Weatherlight Saga and what's going on is the Phyrexians, the evil Phyrexians, are invading Dominaria.

And the whole Weatherlight Saga was sort of to set this up to create a weapon to stop the Phyrexians with. The whole idea of the legacy, and anyway, the whole story of the Weatherlight Saga was Urza had set some stuff up in motion

which led to the Weatherlight crew, and now is the time they have to stop the Phyrexians. Planeshift, I believe, gets its name because part of the invasion is the Phyrexians, I think, were in Wrath, and they phased Wrath into Dominaria. So Wrath and Dominaria were now intermingled. They were phased together. And I think Planeshift was that connecting, I think? Is that where it comes from? But anyway, the Phyrexians are attacking.

Things are bad. What's gonna happen? But anyway, that was Plane Shift, and that came out in February 5th. The pre-release was in January, but the actual release was in February 5th. Okay, so the next thing that happened after that was there was a Pro Tour. In fact, the Pro Tour was in

between the pre-release and the release of Plane Shift. So the Pro Tour was February 2nd to the 4th in Los Angeles. And it was a Rochester draft. So Rochester draft, for those that might not remember this, something we phased out, is a draft in which you open up a booster pack, lay out all 15

cards. Back then, the 15th card wasn't a land, so you laid all 15 cards out. The first player drafted a card all the way through the 8th player. Then the 8th player got to go again, and they drafted a 9th card. And then you snaked back all the way. And so everybody got two cards out of the pack except the first player only got one card. And then

each player would open a pack. He would draft that, so each player would open three packs. You'd pack one, pack two, pack three. And then the cards you got, that's the cards you got to play with. When we first made Rochester, I've talked about this in other podcasts, we really thought Rochester was the way to play limited, and that booster draft was like a secondary way to play.

But Rochester, there was too much open information, players felt too bad when they made mistakes, it just took too long to do. Rochester draft took significantly longer to do than a Booster Draft. So anyway, Booster Draft ended up becoming the popular way to draft and Rochester kind of fell by the wayside. So this event, Michael Pestelnik of the United States beat Camille Cornielson of Hong Kong.

Not of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the name of the last set. Of the Netherlands. So Camille, the previous year, I talked about how at PT Chicago the previous year, Camille had come in second, losing to Kai Buda, who had won his second ever approach.

We'll get to Kai in a sec. But anyway, Camille would go on to be in the Hall of Fame. Mike Vestelik never got in the Hall of Fame, but was definitely in talking. I know year one, when there was a big controversy with Mike Long, and whether Mike Long deserved to be in the Hall of Fame was definitely in talking. I know year one, when there was a big controversy with Mike Long and whether Mike Long deserved to be in the Hall of Fame or not, a lot of voters were looking for what they considered to be squeaky clean, honest players that they thought were really good. And Mike Vestelnik and Alan Coleman were the two names that kept popping up.

And Alan actually ended up getting in. Mike did not. But he was very much in contention and got a bunch of votes. And Mike was a very good player. He actually wins something later in the year. We'll talk about. Okay, so next is a Pro Tour in Tokyo. So Pro Tour Tokyo was block constructed

using Invasion and Plane Shift. So the finals was Zvi Mausiewicz playing Tiyoshi Fujita, both of which would end up in the Hall of Fame later. Zvi wins this. So Zvi won with a deck that he called The Solution. And what happened was Zvi made a deck that would go on to be nothing special in the context of this

PT format, of the PTQs that came from it. But it was perfectly suited to beat the metagame of that Pro Tour. What Zvi had done very well is he figured out what people would be playing, and then made the optimal deck, the solution,

to defeat that metagame. And he did very well and obviously won. So Zvi would go on, by the way, for a short period of time. He was an intern, a development intern in R&D.

He actually was on the design team for Future Sight. A little trivia question there. Not a lot of players, I mean, there's a few, not a lot of people have both been in Magic R&D

and in the Hall of Fame. Besides Zvi, let's see, there's a few, not a lot of people have both been in Magic R&D and in the Hall of Fame. Besides V, let's see, there's Randy Buehler, there's Dave Humphries, there's Mike Turian, and Alan Comer. Those are for the trivia out there. Okay, so, also at this event, there was a Masters, there was a team challenge at this event, and Alpha Beta Unlimited, which was a team of Ryan Fuller, Chris Benefell, and Noah Boken. They were the team.

They were the bad boys of Magic at the time. So let's see. Ryan was from Canada. Chris was from the United States. And Noah was from, I think, the Netherlands. Anyway, they won the team event. So what we did, what the masters were is we ran events that were separate events that were money on them. They were invitational.

You had to be invited to them. And then we filmed them. This was during the period where we were showing stuff on ESPN2. And it was just more stuff we could show on ESPN2. Okay, the next thing to come up was, April 11th through the 7th, was 7th edition. So 7th edition was 330 cards, or 350 cards if you count the basic lands.

It was 110 commons, 110 uncommons, 110 rares. Spencer's symbol was a little 7. So the gimmick of 7th edition was all new art. Every card had new art, which turned out to actually be not that great. It sounded like a cool idea, but the problem is people really depend upon

the cards to know, the art to know what the cards are, and so when every single thing changed, it really made it a lot harder to understand what was going on. Now remember, this is back in a time where the core set didn't get new cards. It would rotate in cards, so there would be new cards in the sense of new cards to the corset,

but they weren't brand new cards. They were reprints that got added to the corset. Now the corset comes up with brand new cards, and so that's a very different animal. Okay, after, let's see, after 7th edition was Pro Tour Barcelona. Okay, now we get to our Pro Tour story of the year. Okay, so, the previous year, Kai Buda had won

his second Pro Tour. So up to that point, only three people in the history of the Pro Tour had ever won two Pro Tours. First was Tomi Hovi of Finland. He won PTLA when David Mills, his opponent, was disqualified in the finals. I talked about that.

There was a PT riot and stuff. Then, Tomi would go on to win PT Rome, one of the early European pro tours. John Finkel won a pro tour in New York against Dominic Krapicec, the guy who created Wits and Wagers, by the way. Two Americans. He won that back in pro tour New New York against Dominic Krapicz, the guy who created Wits and Wagers, by the way. Two Americans. He won that back in pro tour New York many years ago.

And then he won Worlds at 2000 in Brussels, beating Bob Marr Jr. So that was his second. And then Kaibuda won Worlds in 1999 against Marc Lapine in Yokohama. And then he won again in 2000 in Chicago beating Camille Cornelius.

And by the way, the top eight in Chicago not only was Camille in it. So Camille was in it. Rob Doty was in it. Zvi Mousher was in it. Brian Kibler was in it. One more person. I know of the top eight, six of the top eight are now in the Hall of Fame. So that's a pretty impressive top eight.

And I think it's the only top eight where John Finkel played Kai Buda. They played in the semis, and Kai beat John. So this one, by the way, so Kai had been in two finals. He had been in two top eights and won every top eight he'd been in.

So PT Barcelona, Kai Buda got in the final against Alan Comer. So, two former Pro Four Hall of Famers playing off. And Kai wins his third Pro Tour. No one had ever done that before. It was very impressive. And at the time, by the way, a little story was, I used to produce the video and Randy Buehler was one of the commentators.

So, Randy and I, when we were sitting in the booth in between stuff, we'd talk about who the best players were. So when Kai won a second Pro Tour, I said to Randy, okay, Kai, Kai's got to be in contention now for one of the best players. I mean, very, very few players have ever won two Pro Tours. And Randy was like, well, I mean, he's good, but best player in the world? I don't know.

So I'm like, okay, Randy, what has to happen for Kai to be in contention? For you to say maybe we should start talking about, is Kai the best player in the world? And Randy goes? I don't know. And so I'm like, okay, Randy, what has to happen for Kai to be in contention? For you to say, maybe we should start talking about is Kai the best player in the world? And Randy goes, I don't know. Well, for starters,

he probably has to win another Pro Tour. So he wins this Pro Tour and I go, okay, Randy, now can we talk about it? And as you will see, he is on a hot streak.

So right now, not only has he won his third Pro Tour ever, he's now won his second Pro Tour within a year's span. Never been done before. Okay, also that event, the masters of that event, was Ben Rubin versus Jay Elirar.

So Ben Rubin is in the Hall of Fame. Jay Elirar was actually one of the two people in the top eight, the Kai won in Chicago, that didn't end up in the Hall of Fame. But Jay, I think Jay won a, I think Jay won a Super Series, a Junior Super Series, and he had at least one top date, which was Chicago. He was definitely a player

that popped up from time to time. So Ben Rubin managed to defeat him. And I think they were playing standard. They were playing a constructive format because whatever the Pro Tour was, if it was limited, then they were playing constructive. If it was constructive, they were playing limited. Back then, by the way, Pro Tours were a constructed format because whatever the Pro Tour was, if it was limited, then they were playing constructed, if it was constructed,

they were playing limited. Back then, by the way, Pro Tours were a single format. Right now, there's always a limited portion and a constructed portion. That's a newer thing. Back in the day,

PT Barcelona was only booster draft. PT Tokyo was only block constructed. PT LA was only Rochester draft. Okay, so, after Pro Tour Barcelona, the next thing that happened was a bocalypse. June 4th, May 26th was a Rochester draft. Okay, so after Proctor Barcelona, the next thing that happened was Apocalypse. June 4th, May 26th was a pre-release. June 4th was a release for Apocalypse.

It had 143 cards, 55 commons, 44 uncommons, 44 rares. There was no such thing as mythic rares yet. It was called Shanghai, and its symbol was the Mask of Yawgmoth. So what Apocalypse was is when we did Invasion, we came up with this idea of saving the enemy gold cards to have their own set. So people were very, very pumped for Apocalypse. Now, not only that, back in the day,

we had this attitude that allied colors got along better than enemy colors, because they were allies. So we used to make a lot more gold cards of allies than we made with enemy. Then we made it a lot harder to play enemy. That we gave you less access to mana, we had less gold cards that existed in those colors, we just made it harder to play the enemy colors. We've since reversed that strategy.

But what that meant was, when we had a set of enemy colors, there was not in Magic at the time, we were literally maybe doubling or maybe more than doubling the number of existing gold cards for enemy color combinations. And so, Apocalypse was coming out

and really, really, not only giving something people want, but something that was really, really in demand. In fact, I often talk about the third set problem, of how we always have this problem that trying to keep people's interest and get them excited in the third set, and it's hard to sort of change things,

but keep it the same enough that it feels like the same block. And third sets have been a pain in our side forever. But Apocalypse is the one shining light where, like, you know, it's the third set that did better than the second set, which does not happen very often. And Apocalypse, story-wise, was the final defeat of the Phyrexians.

Urza gets killed, I believe, or his head gets chopped off. Well, he does get killed. And Gerard is able to save the day and stop the Phyrexians from invading Dominaria. And the Phyrexian invasion is done. We've destroyed all the Phyrexians. They're finished. We will never have to see them again.

Okay, that didn't turn out to be true. But good bad guys are hard to keep down. Especially when they can replicate from a drop of oil. They're hard to stop. Okay, after that was the U.S. champs. June 1st and 3rd was the U.S. Nationals. Trevor Blackwell

defeated Brian Hegstead. So Trevor Blackwell definitely was a pro player, ended up with a couple other top eights. He actually won a PT Los Angeles. Anyway, the reason I bring this up, the funny story of this one was, so

we were filming the U.S. Nationals for ESPN2. So Trevor was all mic'd up so we could hear him. And there was a break between rounds and Trevor went off to the bathroom. But we were talking on air. Randy and...

I'm not sure if Brian was there yet. But Randy and his co-commentator were talking about sideboarding or something in between. And we heard some noise. We were trying to figure out what that noise is. And it sounds like water splashing. And we heard some noise. We were trying to figure out what that noise is. And it sounds like water splashing.

And we finally figured out that Trevor had wore his microphone. It was on. Nobody turned it off. And he went to the bathroom. And we were hearing him in the bathroom. And then in the end, we hear the sink.

And we're like, oh, at least he washed his hands. Anyway, that was followed shortly after by a couple couple continental championships so there's the European championships that in which all the different European countries played off so Ivan Nitter of Norway defeated

Dave Montrell of Switzerland in Latin American championships Scott Richards defeated Diego Ostrovich and then in APAC championships which is Asia and Australia, Jin Okamoto of Japan defeated Jun Nobushita of Japan.

And so back then, we used to have continental championships. We don't do that anymore. But that was a thing at the time. Okay, so next, in August 8th through the 12th, we had the world championships in Toronto. Tom Vandelot beat Alex Bortat. August 8th through the 12th, we had the World Championships in Toronto. Tom

van der Lacht beat Alex Borta. So Tom was of the Netherlands, and Alex was American. And it was a normal Worlds. The outstanding happened in that Worlds. Nothing too breathtaking.

It was, they played a lot of them before a match. Oh, the USA by the way, won the team championship. So from 1995, which was the first team event, through 2002, the US won every single year with the exception of 1997,

where the US bombed out and Canada won. So up to this point, up to 2002, nobody had ever won a team championship other than North Americans. We'll get to that when we get to 2003. Okay, so what was after the after Worlds?

Next was Pro Tour New York. So Pro Tour New York was a team event, a team limited event, and at it, a team named Phoenix Foundation beat Less Plus Class. So Phoenix Foundation was led by Kai Buda. Also had Marco Bloom and Dirk Babarowski.

So Dirk Babarowski had previously won a Pro Tour Chicago, currently is in the Hall of Fame. Marco had won a German Nationals. Anyway, a very, very good team. So this was Kai's fourth win. Turned out to be Dirk Babarowski's second win. So anyway, Kai's second win for this. So now Kai has won four Pro Tours,

three of which happened within the last calendar year. Les Plus Class, by the way, was a French team. The big standout was it was the first sort of appearance of Gabriel Nassif, who would obviously go on to not just be a Hall of Famer, but be one of the all-time greats. A lot of people argue, I mean, usually people argue whether Finkel or Buda is the best of all time, but

I think when you get past the two of them, you know, the third spot, Nassif is often in the discussion of, is he number three? Okay. So, the event, by the way, oh yeah, the event was limited. Okay, so, the event, by the way, oh yeah, the event was limited. Okay, so after that,

was, oh, Odyssey. So September 22nd was the pre-release, October 1st was the release. Odyssey was a 330 card set, plus 20 lands. 110 commons, 110 uncommons, 110 rares. It was,

it had a clay spider spider as it's expected. So it had the morph guy. And so, oh, no, no, no, no, that's wrong. That clay spider would be the onslaught symbol. What is the Odyssey symbol? Odyssey was something graveyard-y. Odyssey was, so Odyssey, the code name of Odyssey was Argon. So I talked about how previously in code names we had done, what was it, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai. But we started saying, okay, let's do things in a pattern, but instead of just random,

we'll go ABC. So we did chemicals this year, or elements this year. So it was Argon, Boron, Carbon were the names of the three sets. I'm not sure where the Odyssey expansion symbol was, but it was something having to do with the graveyard. So Odyssey was a graveyard set. In fact, so the previous year Invasion was the first theme block, which was mechanically themed, which was a multicolor set. Now we had a graveyard set. So the main mechanics of Odyssey were Threshold and Flashback. Flashback obviously came back in Indistrad. Flashback are spells that you can play and then play for a second time

out of your graveyard and enter the sorceries that have a second use that you exile them and play them. Threshold went on cards that upgraded the cards when you got seven cards in your graveyard. And so it was...

We talk about Threshold mechanics, which ironically, in your graveyard. We talk about threshold mechanics, which ironically, this is one of the earliest threshold mechanics, which means that at a certain level, things turn on, and that you're trying to make that happen. Okay. Odyssey had a lot of graveyard-related things. There was a cycle of Lurgoys

and a cycle of Aetogs and a cycle of Kindles and just a lot of things that were graveyard-focused that sort of allowed a graveyard of A-Togs and a cycle of Kindles and just a lot of things that were graveyard-focused that sort of allowed a graveyard of equity and mean things. And we had a little symbol called a little graveyard that went on a card that meant if there's a little tombstone by your name, that meant you were active in the graveyard

and you could... People had to look at the graveyard and anything in the graveyard that had a little tombstone, like a flashback card, like other things that had abilities that worked when they were in the graveyard that had a little tombstone, like a flashback card, like other things that had abilities that worked when they were in the graveyard. It lets you know that, be aware, these cards are sort of active in the graveyard. Odyssey was, when it first came out, was coolly received. Invasion block was very popular, and then Odyssey had a theme that was a little harder for people to sort of wrap their head around.

Or, I should say, the graveyard at the time just wasn't as popular as Multicolor, and people perceived the set as being weak early on. It's funny because there's a pro tour coming up right after this that was extended, and I kept track of the number of Odyssey cards being played in extended, which was a much, much bigger format, and there were like over 40 cards played, which is pretty impressive for a brand new set. And so little by little, people realized that Odyssey actually ended up being one of the most juiced sets of all time. It was a very powerful set.

Okay, after Odyssey, from October 5th to the 7th, was the Magic Invitational. So it was in Cape Town, in Africa. So the Magic Invitational actually has managed to be on every continent save Antarctica. So this was our final continent. Actually, I take that back. I don't think it had been in North America.

It would be. But I don't think at this point it had yet been in North America. So this is our fifth continent, which is Africa. I had a blast. South Africa was amazing. I got a pet of cheetah, and we went on tours. It was really, really cool. I had a great time in Cape Town.

And if you haven't heard about Cape Town, I did a podcast where I talked about it. You can hear all about it. The important thing, I guess, for this podcast is, so who won? Well, the finals were between Kai Buda, obviously from Germany, and Dan Clegg from the United States.

Dan Clegg was a long-time pro player, very famous for being very slow. Anyway, Kai Budda wins! So far, let's rack up, he's won two Pro Tours and an Invitational. So that's four main events still within the calendar year, and five overall. Four of them are Pro Tours.

Kai would go on to make the card... What was the name of it? It was a... What's the name of this card? It was a wizard helper. It enabled wizards. I'm not belittling the name of this card. Anyway, you out there are yelling at your screen...

Or not screen. Whatever you listen to. And telling them the name of the card. I can't remember. Shadow Mage Infiltrator was Finklebeater before. And it was... I know that we did it, and the art didn't turn out great, and so we ended up doing a promotional version.

I mean, none of the art wasn't good-looking. It just didn't look a lot like Kai. So we did a promotional version, and we did the art, make it a little more like Kai. It'll come to me. I'm sure that card's going to come to me. Okay, so after the Invitational was PT New Orleans. So PT New Orleans was won by a young up-and-comer named

Kai Muda! So Kai won his fifth Pro Tour. His fourth Pro Tour in a calendar year. His third Pro Tour of 2001. His fourth major event to become the Invitational. So Kai was having a really strong year.

So remember, by the way, in the history of the Pro Tour, the history, the Pro Tour now started in 1995, so it is coming up on its 20 years. So it's not quite 20 years, but in its 19-year history, there have only been a handful of players

that have ever won three Pro Tours. John Finkel has done it. Dirk Babarowski has done it. Two of them were team, but still, Dirk Babarowski has done it. And that is it. I mean, Kai Booth has done this. Not only did Kai do it, he did it within one calendar year. In fact, he won four within one calendar year.

He won three within one Pro Tour season. Well, I guess this one is after Worlds. But anyway, he won three in 2001. No one's ever won three, or very few people have ever won three. He did it all in one year. So it's crazy. Crazy! So, and not only that, this, the extended pro tour,

it was nothing to sneeze at. So in the finals were, I mean, in the top eight, were Benedict Clouser, Jelger Wiegersma, Anton Janssen, Dave Humphreys, Darwin Castle. He played against Tommy Wallamies. All of those were, like, really good pro players. I think Wiegersma and Humphreys and Castle and Booty, obviously, are in the Hall of Fame. Anton Janssen and Benedict Clouser and Tommy Wallamies were all,, obviously, are in the Hall of Fame. Anton Janssen and Ben DeClausier and Tommy Walden, these were all, like, contenders for the Hall of Fame. Any of them could get in the Hall of Fame.

So not only did he win, and in the event, he actually, in order to win, he was playing against Tommy, had to, at one point, double top deck. He had no permanence in play, no cards in his hand. He was dead on the board in two turns. His only out was turn one to draw I think a mountain and turn two

to draw a red elemental blast I think is what happened but anyway he had literally to top deck two in a row and he did it so Kai at this point

still undefeated on Sunday up five top eight finals five victories so pretty impressive now Kai's not done yet he's done for 2001 but anyway that was quite impressive okay so victories. So pretty impressive. Now Kai's not done yet. He's done for 2001. But anyway,

that was quite impressive. Okay, so we have two products left before we finish the year. I'm not too far from work. So my next product is called the World Championship Decks. The 2011 World Championship Decks. For those that don't know what these were, for a while what we did is

we would take the winner of the World Championships, the second place person, assuming they weren't playing the exact same deck, and then usually we'd go in order of how they finished, but there's a little bit of a combination of what was a neat deck versus what was a good name. So Henry Stern was in charge of this product. So we always would have the first place, almost always would have the second place, unless, like in 2000, they were playing the identical deck. And then we would try to pick other people, usually in the top eight,

that were good names that had fun decks. Every once in a while, we would have to dip below the top eight. Like, I know that Randy Bueller never made a world's top eight, but actually got a world champ deck one year. So anyway, 2011, I know I didn't write down who that is. So Vandalak and Borta which were the one and two clearly had their decks

I remember Borta had a Merfolk deck which was very very popular with players he didn't win but he came in second with a fish deck

and I know that people that was a very popular world champ deck or you know from these world champs anyway the last product I have a little bit of time

so I got to start with the last product. The last product was called Deckmasters, Garfield versus Finkel. So what happened was, we needed to make a holiday gift box. This is before we finally got the idea to just make it and call it the holiday gift box. So the idea we came up with is,

what if we took two of the biggest names in Magic, Richard Garfield, creator of Magic, versus John Finkel, considered at the time the best Magic player. Although funny, we hadfield, creator of magic, versus John Finkel, considered at the time the best magic player. Although funny, we had planned this ahead of time, and while this is all coming out, Kai's just ripping up the tournament scene. But still, John was a big name.

So the idea was, each one of them had to build a deck, and the rules were they could only build them out of Ice Age and Alliances cards, they could only have four rares total, and no more than two copies of any one card. And then they were going to build their decks and then play in an exhibition and then people could buy

their decks. So what happened was R&D built Richard's deck. Richard Wall, Richard Wall, an awesome game designer, is an okay Magic player. I mean, he builds fun, wacky decks. He's very much a Johnny. But he doesn't build... He's not a competitive

deck builder, so R&D helped him out. And so what happened was there was a little metagame thing going on where Finkle was known for being a huge fan of blue, and there's a lot of good blue in Ice Age Alliances. So, the assumption was he was going to build a blue deck. So R&D put in standard, not

sideboarded, but in the deck, anti-blue cards. And then Finkle figured out that they were going to do that, so Finkle actually didn't go blue. Finkle went, I think, red-black. Garfield ended up going red-green. But! Finkle did not take into account the meta-meta game,

of which, once R&D saw what had happened, they didn't want to put dead cards in the product, so they took out the cards and changed it. So, Finkel managed to out-think R&D, but R&D sort of out-think Finkel in the bigger picture, knowing that they wouldn't put dead cards in a product they were trying

to sell. So, the Deckmaster came in this, essentially it was a lunchbox, except we didn't put the handle on it, which got a lot of people upset, because people really wanted to have a lunchbox, and we would later make other, I know from Mirrodin we made a promotional item that was basically the same thing, but with a handle. people upset, because people really wanted to have a lunchbox. And we would later make other... I know from Mirrodin we made a promotional item that was basically the same thing, but with a handle.

But anyway, it came in a lunchbox, just without a handle. It was a metal box. It was a lunchbox. And so there was a big exhibition where Richard Garfield plays John Finkel. It was at one of the Pro Tours. I think it might have been in New Orleans. That's my guess where it was.

Oh, I forgot to mention, by the way, at New Orleans, I think is that where, by the way, one of the masters, I forgot to mention, Michael Pistilna

beat Chris Benefell and another one, Ben Rubin defeated John Finkel. Oh, no, no, that was the previous year. That was the previous year. Anyway,

Michael Pistilna beat Bennefell. I forgot that. Okay, it's Richard Garfield versus John Finkel, best of three, at the Pro Tour, at side event of the Pro Tour. Okay. Game one, Richard messes up the rules and loses.

And the joke at the time was Richard said, oh, I thought we were playing by the rules that I had made, because the game obviously had changed over time. Sixth edition had kicked in. And so game one goes to John Finkel. Game two, Richard Garfield gets man-screwed. And John Finkel's quote was, he goes, this is the first time I've ever actually been

upset my opponent was man-screwed. And then Richard didn't come back. Really, the chance of Richard winning that matchup was next to nothing. I mean, Richard Wallet, like I said, awesome game designer, is a fair Magic player, playing against Johnny Magic, possibly the best Magic player of all time,

although Kaibu did give him a run for his money here. But at least in the top two, we have not the best Magic player. So that matchup was not going to be in Richard's favor. And as expected, John Finkel won the exhibition. Anyway, that, my friends, is 2001 in a nutshell. There was a lot going on. We had Invasion Block, start of Odyssey Block. We had a whole bunch of products.

We had a lot of pro tour play dominated by the German Juggernaut. But that, my friends, was 2001. So, I've just parked my car, so guys, that means it's time for me to be making magic. Talk to you next time.