Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #15 - Codenames

Episode Date: January 4, 2013

Mark Rosewater talks about codenames.

Okay, pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another episode of Drive to Work. Okay, well let me, before we jump into today's show, give a little background on something. So, one of the things I've been working on recently is trying to figure out, you know, different topics I can do. And I realized something interesting, thinking about this show. So, when I was in college, I started an improv troupe, an improvisation troupe, called Uncontrolled Substance. And the idea of improv, for those that never know, is you get up on stage and you ask for whatever from the audience. You know, give me a relationship for two people or where are we? And then you build a scene based on information that you did not have. So clearly, you're demonstrating to the audience that you are making this up as you go along

because you didn't know the information before they gave it to you. And the fun of improv is just seeing if you can make things up. And I realize a lot of this podcast is me kind of exercising some of those muscles of just saying, I'm going to see if I can talk half an hour about topic X. I don't plan, you know, I kind of just pick a topic and I go. And part of the thing I've been trying to do with this podcast is have a feel of like that it isn't planned and I'm just kind of riffing because the feel I want for the podcast is like, hey, we're talking, I'm shooting the breeze, and I'm just telling some stories

about magic. But, you know, I pick a theme so, you know, it's focused on something. And so one of the things I've been trying to do is pick some topics that are a little more off the beaten path. Some of the time I will do, you know, set design, obviously. That's the meat and potatoes of this podcast. But I'm looking for other things I can talk about, other things that lead to stories. So today, I'm trying something a little more experimental. I'm going to talk about code names. Yes!

I'm going to spend half an hour seeing if I can make code names interesting. I think I can, which is why I chose it. But anyway, so let me talk about why magic has code names. So the idea is, we have to work on something and while we are working on it, we need a means to talk about it. I'm a big word person.

You know, you, you need, if you do not have a name for a concept, it's impossible to talk about it. Um, and in fact, in one of the ways to show a bias in society is what concepts have words. Because if something doesn't have a word, you can't talk about it. If something has lots of words, it's very easy to talk about. And so if you study a lot of different fields, it's very interesting about just what words we have kind of dictates our thought process. Anyway, aside. So when we're having a set, we don't know the name of the set when we're working on it.

So, we need to have some means to call it, you know, a nickname for the set. As we walk through, you'll see what codenames are and the function they have kind of evolves over time. Because in the beginning, well, we'll see. Let me walk through the codenames of Magic. Okay, so we begin with Magic itself. Now, it's funny that when Richard first made the game, he called it Magic. Now, it didn't have the gathering at the time. It was just Magic. So what happened was Richard called it Magic assuming that it just would be called Magic.

And when they went to try to, you know, do the legal stuff, to copyright and stuff, like, it's too generic a word. Too many people just call something magic. So originally, they actually went and got another name. It's a little trivia question. So when they first announced the existence of the set, magic wasn't called magic. It was called something else. Do you know what it was?

Okay. It was called Manaclash. That was the name that they were going to sell Magic with for a while. And eventually somebody, might have been Richard, might have been Scaf, said, okay, we're just being idiots. Magic's a great, Magic is the right name. Okay, we need to add something

to it. It can't just be Magic. And that's when Richard came up with Magic the Gathering. I'm not sure influence, I'm not sure what influence caused that name to happen. But anyway, the idea was Richard had this concept that each year magic would change. And so the idea was the first year of magic would be called Magic the Gathering. And the second year I think was going to be Magic Ice Age. So Richard's original intent, the gathering wasn't a

forever thing. It was, oh, well, we'll keep giving magic different add-ons. And the first year, because it's the beginning, well, we're coming together, the gathering, people coming together. But anyway, obviously the gathering stuck. Okay, so we start early on. So

Arabian Nights had no codename. In fact, there was no codename up till, I think, Alliances, which, interestingly, is when I started the company. So Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Homelands did not have any codenames. Ice Age was just called Ice Age. And, in fact, that's not unfair. They all had codenames. The codenames ended Ice Age was just called Ice Age. And in fact, that's not fair. They all had codenames. The codenames

ended up being what the sets were called. In fact, The Dark, the codename for The Dark was The Dark. And then they printed a set called The Dark. And they said, hmm, so here's what's going on psychologically. This is why they realized that they needed codenames.

Is anything sounds normal if you just say it enough. I don't know if you've ever met somebody that has a weird name, and at first it sounds like a very strange name, but eventually with time it's just like, oh, okay, yeah, that's my friend hippopotamus, and it just sounds normal. You know, that any word, the human brain will make anything sound normal. And one of the side effects in magic you'll notice is in keywords. So one of

the things we talk about a lot is how our keywords are supposed to be nouns because you gain them. So for example, you know, if a creature gets first rank, it gains first rank. Well, first rank is a noun. That sounds real. Trample, though, trample isn't a noun. Trample's a verb. You trample over something. You don't have trample. But in Magic Ease, trample's a thing, so you gain trample.

Now, does that sound weird? No, because you've kind of gotten used to it. That just, oh, well, trample's an ability, and you've kind of in your head made it into a noun, even though really in English it isn't a noun. The brain will do that, and that's why we have to be very careful whenever we use names, because names will stick. And it's also when we name keywords and stuff, that's a little more dangerous,

because sometimes we give them names we think will work. What happens with names for sets is we've decided we need to give them names that won't stick. In fact, we now try to give names that have nothing to do with the set for two reasons. One is we're going to want to talk about it externally,

and until we have a name, we use the code name, so we don't really want the code names giving away information. And two, the names will sound normal at a time, and the dark ended up being called a set. And it's like, well, the Dark was fine as a codename, but somebody at some point should go, well, let's actually give this a real name.

Okay, so starting with Alliances, Alliances had a codename. So the codename of Alliances was Quack. Why Quack? To answer this, you have to go back to Wizards 17, 18 years ago. So once upon a time, when I first got to Wizards, I worked on Alliances. That was my first set. You can listen to my Alliances podcast.

So it turns out, at the time, Wizards had nothing but Apple computers. Now, nowadays, that is not true. I still have an Apple because I love Apple. But now it's a personal choice. People can choose what they want. The majority, actually, are PCs and not Apples. But in the day, when I first worked there, everyone had an Apple. And there were certain what they call Apple sound files where certain sounds that Apple made.

And there's a list of them, and you can make sounds. And you can choose those sounds to make things happen. So like when I opened up something, or when I clicked on something, or when I had a warning, whatever. When I had things which the computer needed to make a sound, I could program from this list of sounds. So it turns out, when you open up a folder, if that folder is named one of the sound effects,

it makes that sound effect. So back in the day, people would have folders with the name of the set they were working on. So they thought it was funny since they wanted a code name to give it one of these names from the Apple sound file. So whenever you open it, it would make a sound. Okay, that's very silly, but that is what happened. So quack, it literally is a quack of a duck.

So when you would open up the file to go look at your Quack file, it would quack like a duck. That tickled our knee, and so we nicknamed Alliances Quack. Okay, so now we get to Mirage. So interestingly, Mirage had a codename among the team that made it. So I've talked about how when Magic first went big, Richard turned to the people he was playtesting with and had the groups make different sets. One of the groups, led by Bill Rose and Joel Mick,

also had Charlie Cattino and a bunch of other people, Don Felice, Howard. Anyway, that group was making a large set. They called their set Menagerie, as in glass menagerie, as in a zoo, a bunch of, a collection of creatures. I think actually when they named it, there was another one where they kind of thought maybe that was the real name. But it turned out that by the time we got to make the set, it had a different feel from that. We wanted this African vibe. so it ended up getting Mirage. But anyway, but once the set was worked on at Wizards,

we gave it an internal codename, and because we were using Apple sound files, it got called Sosumi. I don't even know what sound Sosumi is, but it makes a sound. It's an Apple sound file. Now, I will say that that codename had endless, endless joy in the public because it sounds like SoSumi and lots of jokes. So that was the lesson of we have to be careful what the codename was because, you know, if we, people had all sorts of rumors about it. Like somehow we were under a lawsuit or I don't know. They're like, so assuming it was some joke about the state of the set rather than just being a card file. Okay, so the set after Mirage was Visions. Now, originally when they made the set, the team made one large set and one small set all together.

when they made the set, the team made one large set and one small set all together. And remember, much like Alliance has kind of latched on to Ice Age, although it's a little less planned than this was, the block plan hadn't really been created at the time. You know, block plans came later. So the idea of having one large set and two small sets

wasn't a known quantity. So they were just making a large set with a follow-up. And since we knew it was the follow-up, and by the time we went to work on it, we knew the name of Mirage, the actual codename was Mirage Jr. I know, I know, that's not the most inventive of codenames, but that's what we called it.

Okay, taking a drink as I drive. Okay, now, next, we got to Weatherlight. So Weatherlight had the codename Mocha Latte. Where did that come from? So at the time, the Magic brand team, Joel Mick had gone from being the head designer slash developer to being the brand manager of Magic. And on his team was a guy named Dan Cervelli,

who was one of the people on the Magic brand team. Dan, by the way, he was in R&D for a while, was a programmer. And for a long, long, long time, the collation software we used, in fact, it might even still be the collation software we used, Dan programmed. But anyway, he was a programmer, and he did a bunch of different things. But anyway, Dan came up with what he thought was a humorous name for a fictional coffee drink, which is mocha latte.

I'm not a coffee drinker, so for the coffee drinkers, hopefully this makes more sense. I know latte and mocha are both elements of coffee. Anyway, he made up this fictitious coffee name. Maybe it's no longer fictitious. I have the way coffee goes. And they thought it was funny. So Dan was on the design team for Weatherlight. And so they came up.

At the time, what happened was we let the design teams nickname their own sets. So they chose to call it Mocha Latte because they thought it was funny. Now, you'll notice at the time, we had gotten off the Apple sound files. There really wasn't any cohesion. But as you'll see, we'll slowly get some cohesion. So next was Tempest. Oh, Tempest, my baby.

So the codename for Tempest was Bogavati. Okay. What the heck is Bogavati? So Bogavati was an Indian land of poison snakes. I think it's part of Indian mythology. Anyway,

originally Tempest had a poison theme, for those who don't know. One day I'll have to do my poison podcast. But anyway, Tempest was trying to do poison, and in fact we had a bunch of poison in it, and Elliot, I think, suggested the name because it was this Indian land of poisoned snakes. I thought it sounded cool, so we named it that.

You'll notice in the actual set, the sidekick to Grevin Ilvec, who's the sidekick to Volrath, the first on his ship, is a guy named Vadi Ildal. Vadi was a reference to the codename Bogavadi. That's where that came from. We'll notice every once in a while we do little nods to codenames. That's one such name. Okay. So, after Bogavadi, after

Tempest, was Stronghold. Stronghold was called Rashimulat. Where does this one come from? Okay, so after Magic hit it big, trading card games were hot. Hot, hot, hot, hot. And everybody was trying to get out of trading card game because Magic was just the exploding thing in the game scene. And people follow the pattern.

So at the time, Dungeon Dragons was owned by a company named TSR. And they rushed to get out a trading card game to sort of capture the popularity of Magic. Now, at the time, Dungeon Dragons was having some problems. I mean, later, Wizards were going to buy Dungeon Dragons, or buy TSR and let's get Dungeon Dragons. So anyway, they ended up putting out a set, but they didn't have a lot of money for their art budget.

So some of the art was just repurposed art from other places in Dungeons & Dragons, and some of it was stuff they did with a camera. Now, it was hilarious because it was so low-end. Like, they just dressed up their employees in costumes and took pictures. If I remember correctly, Rashimulat was a crumpled black piece of maybe construction paper. It was supposed to be like you're looking into the abyss or something.

But literally it was a crumpled up piece of black paper called Rashimulat. We thought it was hilariously funny. Or actually, I take it back. I take it back. Rashimulat, I think, was a plastic rat. The one I think was a different card. One of the things was a rat. They literally, I think, was a plastic rat. The one I think, I think it was a different card. There was a, one of the things was a rat,

and it was a plastic, they literally just took a picture of a plastic rat, and that was on the card. I think Rashimulat might have been the plastic rat. Somebody can look it up and tell me. It's one of those two things. Anyway, we thought it was funny. We named sets of random things at the time.

We called it Rashimulat. Then the last set, Exodus, I named this one, it's called Gorgonzola, which is a cheese. I don't, I think at the time we just had the problems of

our codenames need to be silly and nonsensical. So we would just come up with silly and nonsensical names. I just thought Gorgonzola sounded funny. I don't know why. But I got to name the set and so I named it Gorgonzola. Um,

okay. Next we have Armadillo or Zasago. It's called Armadillo. Um, so I, I don't know at this point, uh, we were just on the silly name thing. Uh, Armadillos are just a funny animal to me. Uh, I don't know if there's any other rationale to calling them armadillo. I mean, there wasn't any set connection or anything. Yeah, I think we were just doing silly names. Because Urza's Legacy, we called Guacamole. Because Guacamole is kind of funny, and it's a cool-sounding word. Once again, it was just a silly-sounding word.

Now, Urza's Destiny, we called Chimichanga. So I think I had done Urza's Legacy Guacamole because that was a silly name. And I think Bill, Bill Rose, called Urza's Destiny Chimichanga kind of like, well, it's a theme. And this is the first time, by the way, the beginning of, oh, well, maybe we want to connect our code names so people can remember them. And so for the first time ever, guacamole and chimichanga, at least, okay, they sounded like they went together, both being Mexican food. Okay, so the next set was Mercadian masks. And that we called Archimedes.

Now, I think, I think we, well, so what we decided was we were going to start calling all three names in a block names that were connected by theme. So at least if you heard the names, you'd go, oh, that's that. So for some, I don't know why we decided to name them after Greek names, but we did. And so Archimedes, I don't know, I think we thought it was a funny word again. Nemesis was Euripides and prophecy was Dionysus. So those are all Greek names. Um, they're in no order that we'll get there in a second, but, uh, I just think, I don't really know why we can name the Greek names. And once again, like, I think we might have just called the first set Archimedes and then said, oh, well, let's continue on that path.

I think Archimedes was just a silly sounding name. And then we decided to do Roman words, Roman Greek words. I don't know. Well, anyway, I'm not sure what they came to be. So the next we got to invasion, that was Beijing. Plane shift was Hong Kong. Apocalypse was Shanghai. Okay, now we've firmly established all sets have to have a name, a theme that people can follow.

So if you hear the name, you know what set it belonged to. Oh, Greek name. Oh, well, that's from Urza Saga. Was that right, Urza Saga? No, I'm sorry, Mercadian Masks. That was Mercadian Masks. Or comedies. Urza Saga was Armad I'm sorry, Mercadian Masks. That was Mercadian Masks. Archimedes. Urza Saga was Armadillo.

Urza Legacy was Guagmoli. Urza Destiny was Chimichanga. And then Mercadian Masks was Archimedes, Euripides, and Dionysus. So Mercadian Masks were Nemesis and Prophecy. Sorry. One of the problems about driving is I've got to do this off the top of my head, and that's hard at times. Okay, so Invasion was Beijing, Plaintiff Hong Kong,

Apocalypse Shanghai. I remember one of them, I think the middle one, Hong Kong, originally was another name, but it was a hard, starts with an X. It was one of the Japanese cities that no one knew how to pronounce, and I think Bill named him after, because Bill was in charge of invasion, I think

Bill named all three after Chinese cities, but he named one that most people didn't know how to pronounce. So it ended up getting changed to Hong Kong, which at the time was a jespin, maybe a jespin annexed by China. Anyway, I'm not sure. But those were those. So next came Odyssey.

So Odyssey, Torment and Judgment was Argon, Boron, and Carbon. So those were all elements. Now, you'll notice this is the first time that we did something, which is we made a preset order to them. What's the preset order? It was alphabetical. A, B, C. Argon, Boron, Carbon. And so that was us saying, okay, C. Argon, boron, carbon.

And so that was us saying, okay, not only do we want silly names and in the theme, but we want them, you have to have an order that we understand so that people know which one's which. Because one of the problems we had early on is, you know, there's Beijing and Hong Kong.

But like, which was Beijing? Which was Hong Kong? Was the second one? You know, and people would get very confused. And like, was Shanghai the third one? You know, and people would get very confused. And like, was Shanghai the third one? You know, and people didn't know. But Argon, Boron, Carbon, oh, well, first one's A, second one's B, third one's C.

Then the next year for Onslaught, we decided, okay, not only do we have three names that are connected, but three names that go together in a preset order. So the names for Onslaught, Legions, and Scourge was Manny, Moe, and Jack. Okay, a lot of you are going, what is Manny, Moe, and Jack?

So there's these stores on the West Coast called the Pep Boys. I don't think they're on the East Coast, at least when I grew up, it wasn't there. And they sell automotive supplies, and they have three spokespeople, kind of like Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and their name is Manny, Moe, and Jack.

But that's their names in that order, and if you know them, you would know it's Manny, Moe, and Jack. Now, the problem we learned in this one was we picked something not enough people knew, so having an order didn't matter since not enough people knew that there needed to be an order. And so Manny, Moe, and Jack taught us that important lesson. So next was Mirrodin, Darksteel, and Fifth Dawn.

I named this one. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Okay, they're thematic. They go together. You know the order. It's funny because the audience really thought, like, bacon meant something. And then later when the set came out, they go, oh, bacon is meat, and meat is brown, and it's when the set came out they go oh bacon is meat and meat is brown and it's an artifact set at the time artifact sets

well used to have, they didn't change it at the time to silver but used to have brown I don't know they're trying to come up it's funny how we have code names how people just want to read stuff into them okay so after that was Champions of Kamigawa blocks of Champions of Kamigawa, Traitors of Kamigawa Saviors of Kamigawa

that was Earth, Wind, and Fire. That's a musical group. If you've never heard of it. And once again, we just wanted the order to be known. And so next was Ravnica, and Ravnica was Control-Alt-Delete, another computer term. The problem we ran into here was

we learned that you can't name a set after something where the codename means something in Magic. For example, Control. Because often we'll talk about the Control deck. Oh, do you mean the Permission deck? Or do you mean the deck using cards from, you know,

what would be Ragnarok? And so, we learned from that lesson that not just any three names will do. So next was Time Spiral. Time Spiral Planetary Cat's Future Site was Snap, Crackle, Pop. Once again, at this point, we just sort of got to the point of trying to find good, catchy names. I don't know who named that one.

What happened is I started getting in charge because we're now getting in the ring where I was doing my five year plans. So I just started naming them. So most of these names are mine. Um, so next is Lorwyn. And so Lorwyn Morning Tide and Shadowmoor originally were peanut butter and jelly because we work ahead of time. Um, and when I had originally named it, it wasn't clear it was going to be four sets. Um, so we had, it was peanut was long, it was peanut butter and jelly.

And then we realized we had a four set, so we were like, well, what to do? And I didn't want to change the names because we already know it's just peanut butter and jelly. Also, I didn't want to give up our hand that we were doing a four set. So I came up with the name donut, so that it was peanut butter and then jelly donut. Originally, we were talking about maybe doing a sandwich, for peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but the problem was we really had two mini blocks, so I wanted a name that hinted it was a mini block,

I mean internally. So donut became the name for Eventide, so that it was peanut butter was the first mini block and jelly donut was the second mini block. But peanut butter and jelly felt like a natural three-set for the outside, so we weren't giving away any secrets. Because the goal of Codenames is not to give stuff away.

Next we get to Rock Block with Rock, Paper, Scissors. Who named Rock, Paper, Scissors? You guys did! Because I did an article about Codenames, and I ended it by letting my audience of my column vote! And the winner was Rock, Paper, Scissors.

And the funny thing is the next one, which is Zendikar block, Live Long and Prosper. When I asked people to vote, I gave them names to vote on. But people were suggesting other names and Live Long and Prosper was suggested by somebody. And being a longtime Star Trek fan, I thought that was pretty cool. Oh, something else, by the way, I didn't mention is

one of the constraints now that we try to do is blank, blank, and blank. So if you notice, it's earth, wind, and fire. Live long and prosper. Rock, paper, and scissors. Although rock, paper, scissors, I guess, doesn't have the and. A lot of them have the and, now that I say that. I guess we don't always do the and, but we often do the and. Okay, next after that, Scars was Lights, Camera, Action. I named this one.

You might think, by the way, my Hollywood background was inspired to me to do Lights, Camera, Action, but interestingly enough, my daughter at the time, Rachel, my oldest, was really into an Australian musical group, a kids group, called The Wiggles. And they had an album called Lights, Camera, Action. For some reason, that was on my head. If you ever want to know the intersection between The Wiggles and Magic the Gathering, there's some trivia for you.

So after that was Innistrad Block. That was Shake, Rattle, and Roll. That's another song. If you'll notice, by the way, I like doing songs. There's a lot of musical stuff. I mean, sometimes it's bands. This is a particular song.

Then we get to Return to Ravnica block. So we're getting caught up today here. So that was Hook, Line, and Sinker. I'm not sure. A lot of people, once again, we'll name a set and people think the name means something. I know a lot of people once again we'll name a set and people think the name means something I know a lot of people

thought that it was called Hook because we were returning to Ravnica and that had a good hook and I think at the time I named it I did know it was

returning to Ravnica but other than maybe subconsciously the hook was not it was not chosen for any determination I wasn't trying to determine anything

I mean I wasn't I don't like I said I don't trying to determine anything. I mean, I wasn't... I don't... Like I said, I don't try to... The codenames are picked pretty randomly. And I have a long list of them, by the way. I've collected them over the years. So when people say,

oh, you're going to run out of codenames, I'm like, well, we only need a three set every year, and, you know, I have quite a bunch of them. Maybe one day we'll run out. Okay, so after Hook, Line, and Sinker is sets you only know by their codename. So next year is Friends, Romans, and Countrymen. Actually, that doesn't have an and either. Okay, they don't all have and.

That is wrong. A little factoid is incorrect. Where did Friends come from? I mean, it's a line from Julius Caesar, played by William Shakespeare. I don't know, I think someone came up with that. What happens sometimes is people give me names in the pit, and I'll write them down, and I like that one. I thought it was kind of cool. And once again, when I went to do my seven-year plan, I actually named all seven years and then I had to go back things change

once I talk about the seven year plan what was in the friends block when I pitched the seven year plan is not what ended up at the end of the pitching of the seven year plan so when I originally named it like I said a lot of times we'll name things and then they shift

and that they... Anyway. The names actually are irrelevant as far as... Because I tend to pick things I think are fun. What's After Friends? After Friends is

Hook, Line, and Synchro... No, no. It's Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Huey Block.

So Huey Block, those are the three nephews of Donald Duck, and that's the order they always are presented in. The cute thing about that, by the way, people don't seem to realize is all three names are spelled differently. So Huey is H-U-E-Y. Dewey is D-E-W-E-Y.

Louie is L-O-U-I-E. I'm not sure why Disney, anyway, whoever named them at Disney thought that was humorous, and so they're all spelled differently. It is proven, by the way, to be a bad name internally, because they sound too much alike, and not enough people know the order. So it's Huey, Dewey, Louie, and people get mixed up, so it's proven not to be the best name. I'm not sure you'll see three rhyming names again in the future.

We've never done it before, but... So the one after Huey is the last one that's public, which is Blood, Sweat, and Tears. That is another band name, but it is named after, I think, a Chamberlain quote. I think the quote actually is Blood, Sweat, Toil, and Tears, which is funny. I guess band names take famous names,

like Earth, Wind, and Fire just threw out the air and got Earth, Wind, and Fire for the elements, and then this band threw out the toil. Toil is not as much fun, so we'll just have Blood, Sweat, and Tears. The interesting thing, by the way, a little side note is the original code name for Blood, Sweat, and Tears was Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner,

but I had to change it because Duel Masters, their sets are made with four naming conventions instead of three. And they wanted to do Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Dessert or something. And so we couldn't have the same codenames, and their codename could make fours, and fours are a lot harder than three. I talk about how we have threes and I can go on for a long time. Well, fours are a lot harder, and they've already done, I think, like the Elements and the Beatles

and a lot of the things that jump to mind, the seasons, a lot of the things that would jump to mind is things that are four they've done. And so they're scratching a little more. And so, out of kindness to them, I gave out breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And we took blood, sweat, and tears. Anyway, I am driving

into the parking lot, or sorry, into my parking space. Or the parking space. And I actually managed to make 30 minutes on Codenames! Which I wasn't 100% I could do, but I had faith. That's why I did it. Well, I hope you guys learned something today. I hope the... I'm curious to see feedback. Like I said, I'm trying different things. I'm trying to talk about different

stories and tell different kind of things, see if you guys found this was interesting. Anyway, I'm now at work, so it's time to go make the Magic Cards.