Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #150 - 2002

Episode Date: August 22, 2014

Mark continues his 20 years in 20 podcasts with the year 2002.

I'm pulling out of somebody else's driveway. You know what that means. Well, it means I had to drop my daughter off at a friend's. But, luckily, it's further away from home, so you guys get extra content today. Okay, so recently I just finished a five-part series on Unhinged. But, five parts is a lot in a row, so I like to break it up. So today, I'm going to do another one of my series, 20 Years and 20 Podcasts. So, the way this works is, every podcast, I started with 1993, the year of the game's release. And every time I've been doing one of these, I do another year, going chronologically.

Well, last time, I did 2001. Which means this time, yes, 2002. Okay. So, I will say this, the interesting, before we start, so before I do these, I do a little research so I can, you know, remember what every year did. And the interesting thing about it was, this year, 2002, had three set releases, had world champ decks, and that is it for product. I mean, I'll go through it all, but it's very interesting as you sort of look at where the game is now and where the game once was. I mean, one of the reasons that I hope people enjoy this series is just trying to understand kind of the context of Magic's history in each year. So anyway, let's

begin. So the first thing happened January 10th through the 13th, which was Pro Tour San Diego. In it, Frenchman Farid Marenghi defeated Jens Thoren from Sweden. So Jens' name is going to show up a few more times this year. So in 2000, the year was all about John Finkel, and 2001 was all about Kai Buda. Nobody was as dominant. In fact, no one really since then has been as dominant as those two, but there are some names like Jens that's going to show up a couple different times.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Farid Meringue. So, the very first major tournament ever played was 1994 World, in which American Zach Dolan defeated Frenchman Bertrand Lestray.

France came in second. The second biggest tournament was the 95 national, that's right, 95 world championships in which Alexander Blumke of Switzerland defeated Mark Hernandez of France. France second. Next big tournament

was the first pro tour in New York City, in which American Michael Lecanto defeated Frenchman Bertrand Lestrade. Bertrand Lestrade was second again. And so, one of the things, there was a theme that kept reoccurring, which is, the French were very, very strong. You know, they've always been a very good, I mean, a country that's produced a lot of good players.

You know, there's numerous people from France in the Hall of Fame, for example. But, for the longest time, it was known as the curse, the French curse. They couldn't win, they kept coming in second. And so finally, finally a Frenchman wins a Pro Tour. And the funny thing is, Frumarenghi was not a particularly well-known player. So, like, there's all these really established, well, you know, very, very good French players, and they kept coming in second. And finally, the one that

breaks the curse is a little-known player. Now, since then, other Frenchmen have won, but Farid was the first Frenchman, I mean, other than, like, French nationals, but of a pro tour or a Worlds first to do so. Now, remember, at the

pro tours at the time, we had what we called the Masters event. And what the Masters event was, is I think we were still showing these shows on ESPN2, but anyway, they were tournaments in which you had to be invited to play, so they were invitationals. I think there were 64 players,

there might have been 32. But anyway, it was a smaller group of players, it was just the top players, there was money players, it might have been 32. But anyway, it was a smaller group of players, it was just the top players, there was money on the line, so it was extra ways for pros to make money, but it's kind of similar to how we do the player championship, where in order to get invited, you had to be one of the top

tier players. And the way it would work is, if the event was a limited event, then the Masters would be constructed, if the PT was a constructed event, then the Pro Tour, the Masters would be constructed. If the PT was a constructed event, then the Pro Tour would, sorry, the Masters would be limited. So let me explain something. I just realized

so now the way Pro Tour works is every Pro Tour has both a constructed and a limited portion. That is not how it always worked. Once upon a time, the Pro Tour was all one format. It was either all a constructed format or all a limited format. The limited formats bounce back and forth between two different types of draft,

Rochester Draft and Booster Draft. I'm sure you guys know what Booster Draft is. Rochester Draft is a draft in which you open the pack, you lay out all the cards, and the first player picks a card, and you go all the way to the eighth player. The eighth player gets an additional pick, and then it snakes back. And so the idea is that it's a draft in which it's all open information. Every pick is a known quantity. And that means that you can react to what other players are doing. For example, you always know your first opponent. So you might actually draft to be able to beat your first

opponent. Okay. In the mafters, which was standard, so the PT was, I didn't write it down, it was a draft. Let me see if I can figure out by looking at future PTs what this one was. What is this? Must have been Rochester Draft because the next limited

was Boucher Draft. Okay, so I think it was Rochester Draft. And Ryan Fuller of Canada defeated Dave Humphreys of the United States. So Dave Humphreys, for those who don't know, is in the Hall of Fame, currently is the manager of the developers in R&D, a longtime player.

Ryan Fuller, also another longtime player, he was one of the early bad boys of Magic. He definitely had a reputation for being, he was known for definitely pushing buttons, for being... He was known for definitely pushing buttons, and he was definitely skirted, unsportsmanlike conduct, one might say. But anyway, Ryan actually took this. It was a standard tournament, and Ryan defeated

Dave Humphries in the Masters. Okay, next, we go to January 26th. It's the pre-release of Torment, which came out on February 4th. So Torment, codenamed Boron, so the three sets in the Odyssey block with Odyssey, Torment, Judgment, was Argon, Boron, Carbon.

So they were all elements done in ABC order. Torment had 143 cards, 55 commons, 44 uncommons, 44 rares. At the time, that was the set size. Remember, there were no mythics yet. Mythics wouldn't come until later. So basically, Torment had... So Odyssey had introduced flashback and threshold.

So those got continued and expanded upon. Back in the day, the way blocks used to work is we would have a couple main mechanics, named mechanics, that would show up in the first set. And the name mechanics would evolve throughout the set. So Torment is interesting. It introduced another named mechanic. set, and the name mechanics would evolve throughout the set. So, Torment is interesting, and it introduced another named mechanic. Normally

we did not do that at the time. It introduced Madness. So, Madness was a mechanic where, if this card got discarded through any means, either you chose to discard it as a cost, or your opponent forced you to discard it, you could pay the Madness cost to cast the card right away.

So, A, it allowed you to use the card as a resource and play it, and or if your opponent made you discard it, you could pay the madness cost to cast the card right away. So A, it allowed you to use the card as a resource and play it. Or if your opponent made you use this card, you could still play it. It also essentially turned it into an instant. So a lot of cards were creatures or sorceries. By using the madness, it allowed you to get around the normal time restriction. Also, the set had what we call nightmares. This was a mechanic that Richard Garfield actually made for Odyssey but we ended up pushing back to Torment

nightmares were all on black creatures we'll get to the black thing in a moment when they came into play they removed something from the game, could be a permanent could be a card in the opponent's hand they removed something of the opponent and when the creature died the opponent got that thing back it's funny, we still do that

but now it's a white thing. It's like banishing, banisher priest does it. But that's now moved into white territory. At the time, though, it was black. So, the other major theme of Torment was, the flavor of the story was, the main character was a guy named Kamal,

who was, when the story starts, a pit fighter. So there was these people who are called the Cabal, a bunch of bad guys, but they run the pit fighting. And the Cabal patriarch is the head of it. And Chainer and Braids, if those names seem familiar, they were members of the Cabal. In fact, the book for Torment,

this is back in the day where every set had its own book, was called Chainer's Torment. And Chainer was the main character. Anyway, the idea was, we came up with the idea of, let's do a set in which we weigh one of the colors. And so Torment was a dark set, so there was more black in it. So the way it worked is, red and blue had the normal amount of cards, white and green had less than normal, black had more than normal.

And we did a bunch of other things. There were some cycles that all cycled around black. There were a cycle of lands that were four lands that tapped for one of each of the non-black colors. And then if you had a swamp, also tap for black. It was called the Tainted Cycle. We had creatures

that would threshold into creatures that had black activations. The idea is when things went bad, they would turn dark. But anyway, Torment definitely has this theme of sort of a darkness pervading, and so we went heavy black. You'll notice that since this day, other than Judgment, which I'll get to later today, we really don't wait anymore. I tried waiting in the

structure just a little tiny bit, and development undid it. It really, really messes with limited, and so it's basically decided that it's not worth doing. But Torment was the set that did it. I mean, it definitely was the set that sort of messed in that area. Okay. Anything else about Torment? Oh set that did it. I mean, it definitely was the set that sort of messed in that area. Okay.

Anything else about Torment? Oh, the other thing about Torment was it brought back Singer Vampire. So one of the things that we did for Torment and Judgment, which is weird, is for each set, we brought back an iconic creature that had kind of been popular in the past, but in modern day, wasn't particularly any good.

And so it was really weird. Like, Singer Vampire was a big part of the marketing for the set. But the weird thing is, okay, okay, it's a famous card from the past. It's black. It's a black set. But Singer Vampire wasn't really... I mean, Singer Vampire was good in early, early Magic where, you know,

decks were of low power level. But it was never particularly a good card. It wasn't like a tournament tier card. So to bring it back and make a big fanfare, I think it was on the booster pack, especially when, like, it's not that good a card. Anyway, I feel like a mistake. Okay, next. March 15th through the 17th

was Pro Tour Osaka in Japan. American Ken Ho defeats Frenchman Olivier Rouel. So Olivier Rouel, you might know that he and his brother Antoine are both in the Hall of Fame. Ken Ho is not, although Ken Ho is definitely a good player.

It was a block-constructed pro tour, which, being that Tournament had just come out, it must have been... Normally what we do for the block-constructed, back when we did it back in the day, was we normally would have the pro tour after the second set, and so the block constructed would be the first set and the second set, and then the PTs

that did block constructed would have the third set in it. So that way we had a diverse enough environment, or as diverse as we could get, for the pro tour, but then added something for the PTs that followed. The Masters edition was Team Limited,

and Phoenix Foundation defeated a Japanese team called Panzer Hunter. So Phoenix Foundation, for those who don't know, is Kai Buda, Dirk Bobrowski, and Marco Blum, all German. Kai Buda, one of the best players of all time, if not the best player of all time in the Hall of Fame, deservedly. Dirk Bobrowski is one of the best players of all time, if not the best player of all time, in the Hall of Fame, deservedly. Dirk Paparazzi is one of the best players of all time, also in the Hall of Fame. And Marco Blum, not in the Hall of Fame,

but a former German national champ. A very, very good player. So they were a force to be reckoned with. And there was a period in time where they were just dominating all the team events. They were playing against Panzerhunter with a Japanese team, Kazuki Momosi,

Ataro Ishida, and Renji Andu. Ataro Ishida was the leader of that team and he is, like, even to this day, definitely someone

that people constantly talk about should he be in the Hall of Fame. He was a very good player, one of the best Japanese players. It's funny,

the name was Panther Hunter, which implies to me that this team was going after Phoenix Foundation, which was a German team. I'm guessing that's where the name came from. I don't know for sure, but

that's what it sounds like. Okay. Next, May 3rd to the 5th, was Protor Nis. Ivan Nitter of Norway defeated Bram Snipfengers of the Netherlands. Oh, so this was a

booster draft. So here's one of the funny stories of this thing is in booster draft your information is secret. People can't see what's in your draft. And there are rules that say that you are not allowed to show people what you're drafting. So Zvi Mauschwitz, before

the event calls and drafting. So Zvi Mauschwitz, before the event, calls and says, because what Zvi had figured out was that people considered white to be very poor in the format. But Zvi found out that if he was the only white drafter, that he could make a really good deck. So what Zvi wanted to do was, Zvi said, okay, I've made a t-shirt, and it showed a picture of Tarot's Faithful, I think, one of the white cards from the set. And then on the back, it said, okay, I've made a t-shirt, and it showed a picture of Terrell's faithful, I think,

one of the white cards from the set, and then on the back it said, I'm pretty fly for a white guy, which is a reference to a song if you don't happen to know that, and the idea was, he goes, I want to wear this shirt, this shirt really loudly says, I want white, and if two people at the table draft white, white is weak enough that it couldn't support two people. Only one person could draft white. And so Zvi's hope was if he could communicate through his t-shirt that he wanted to be

the white guy, that everybody else would stay out of white because white's no good unless you're the only person drafting white. And so he came to us and said,

can I wear this shirt? And there was a big like a canny and finally in the end we're like, well, we can't control what people wear, and so anyway, we let him wear the shirt.

But anyway, it was one of the interesting kind of judge calls you get. So in this top eight, one of the interesting things about top eight is Kai Buda makes top eight. But wait a minute, I just announced the finals. I didn't mention Kai Buda. Yes, Kai Buda finally loses. Kai Buda had this long streak of getting to the finals that the rule was when Kai Buda. Yes, Kai Buda finally loses. Kai Buda had this long streak of getting to the finals. The rule was when Kai played on Sunday, he won. And finally

somebody defeated him. So trivia question. Who defeated Kai Buda on Sunday? And the answer is Bram Snuffingers of the Netherlands. So Bram is in the Hall of Fame. A very good player from the Netherlands. Bram did not win, though. Ivan Nitter won from Norway.

He won PT Nice. Okay, next. May 18th was the pre-release, and May 27th was the release of Judgment. So Judgment was Carbon, the codename. Once again, 143 cards, 55 commons, 44 uncommons,

44 rares. So the you might say that judgment was the yin to torment's yang. I say the yin because I believe yin is white and yang is black, I think. So what happened was we wanted to make an unbalanced

set in torment. But in order to keep everything balanced in the big picture, judgment offset that. So for example, torment had heavy black, normal red and blue, light white and green. Judgment had heavy white and green, normal blue and red, very light black, very light black, because you had to have extra room for white and green. So what we did is we made one or two decent black cards, but really there was not a lot of black in Judgment, not at all. But there was a lot of white. So, let's talk about

the mechanics. Oh, so, Torment, by the way, I forgot to mention this. Torment was led by Bill Rose, who was the lead designer. I led Odyssey. Bill Rose had led Torment. Bill Rose was supposed to lead Judgment, but it turns out at the time, I don't think

had Bill just started becoming, Bill might have been, started being VP at this point. But Bill had more responsibilities. I'm not sure whether or not he was VP yet or not. He had more responsibilities. Maybe he was just the director. Maybe he was just the director, Aaron's job. Maybe he was director and not.

But anyway, Bill was busy. And so he wanted to be on the team, but he didn't have time to sort of control the file. So Brian Tinsman, and I believe this was Brian's first design, Bill said to Brian, here's what I want to do. I want to have you control the file, and you get to be lead editor.

Now, it's funny. Now, we do something very similar where someone controls the file, but they're not lead editor. They're what we call a strong second.

But for this, for this, officially on the books, this is Brian Tinsman's first lead. It really was guided a lot by Bill. But Brian took care of the file, and Brian did add some stuff. So one of the things he added, a thing called Advocates.

So the Advocates was a cycle in which, in order to use, they were activated, creatures with an activation, you had to give your opponent a card out of their graveyard, return it to their hand. You choose which one, but you've got to do it. So it was good at fighting against flashback, but also you were giving them resources, and sometimes

your choices weren't too good. So, anyway, I remember Brian made it, and I wasn't, my first thought, I had a bad first impression of the Advocates, but then I played them, and they actually proved to be really interesting. Next were the Incarnations. So, none of these, by the way, these all were referenced through creature type name or name. None of these were actual named mechanics. So, Incarnations. So none of these, by the way, these all were referenced through creature type name or name.

None of these were actual named mechanics. So Incarnations was a cycle of creatures. They're called Jedis, actually, in design. They were made by Mike Elliott. In fact, Mike Elliott, I don't think, was on the Design and Judgment. I think Mike Elliott made these cards either in Odyssey or in Torment. But we decided to hold them off for the last set. So what incarnations did is

they were creatures that had a keyword, a creature keyword, like the red one is haste. The red one's called anger. So it's a tutu with haste, but when it dies, when it's in your graveyard, it grants all your creatures haste.

So the idea is it was a creature that had some ability, but in death, if you strike me down, I will be more powerful. That's what they're called, Jedi. And so, anyway, those went on to be, like, tournament-quality cards. Wonder was the

blue one that granted flying. Anyway, the whole cycle, they were all named after emotions, and they were called incarnations. There were more nightmares in this set, but the nightmares in Torment were black, and they exiled your opponent's things. The nightmares in Torment were black, and they exiled your opponent's things. The Nightmares in Torment were red and blue,

and they exiled your own things. So the idea was, I got a creature that was cheaper than normal, but in order to play it, I had to exile something, and then if my creature ever died, I got back the thing I exiled. There were the Phantoms. So the Phantoms were, I think, just in white and green. The Phantoms were creatures that they were 0-0 creatures that came in with so many

plus one counters and then every time they would take damage, instead of taking the damage, they would lose a counter. So let's say it was a 4-4 creature. And let's say it gets blocked by a 4-4 creature. Well, you destroy their 4-4 creature and then your 4-4 just becomes a 3-3. And so Phantoms also

Phantom Neshoba saw tournament play. Next, the Wishes. And then your 4-4 just becomes a 3-3. And so phantoms also, phantom nishoba, saw tournament play. Next, the wishes. So the wishes were a cycle of rares. There was one in each color. And what the wishes did is they allowed you to go outside the game to take something and put it into your hand.

Now, in tournaments, this meant you could go to your sideboard. Outside of tournaments, you can go get whatever you owned in your collection. And wishes are interesting. They're one of a few handful of cards that mechanically work different in a tournament than they work outside of a tournament. The wishes were really powerful. So the red wish was burning wish, the blue wish was cunning wish,

and the green wish was living wish. Those were the three powerful ones. The white one got you an artifact or enchantment, but it was really expensive. And the black one could get you anything, but it cost you life, and it wasn't particularly well-costed. So those didn't see as much play. But the red, blue, and green ones saw a lot of play, and they were very, very popular.

Obviously, we also had more flashback, we had more threshold. I think madness was just in the black set, so I don't think there was madness in the set. Also, Urnumdjinn returned! Urnumdjinn was a creature from Arabian Nights. Basically, its drawback was, it was a

4-5? For like 4 mana, it was like a 4-5, and then it granted all your opponent's creatures forest walks. So in order to get this really cheap creature, your opponent's creatures mostly became unblockable, because odds are you had to get a forest deficit in play. Now, there are ways around that. When

Arabian Nights came out, it was the only way to get Green Madness, even the dual lands were Forest. Later, there would be dual lands that weren't, that didn't, that allowed you to get it out without your opponent being able to walk on, you know, Force Walk on you. But, and I talked about Bertrand Lestray at the

first Pro Tour, defeated by Michael Lacanto. He had actually played a deck called Urnum Armageddon, which was a deck, a green-white deck, where you played a bunch of big creatures, Urnum being one of them, Urnum Djinn being one of them, and then you went Armageddon, so your opponent had, you know, couldn't, had no resources to deal with your giant creatures. Anyway, Urnum Djinn, unlike Sanger Vampire, Urnum Djinn back in the day was a tournament card. The problem was creatures had gotten better, and Urnumdjinn didn't really keep up with pace. So we made a giant deal about Urnumdjinn's back, and he was green, and this was a white-green set. But once again, it's like, hey, here's a card that once upon a time was good, but not any good anymore.

And once again, I think it's kind of a mistake. So, and I don't know, once again, I think it's kind of a mistake. Judgment, both, so the Odyssey block in general did okay, but not great. Odyssey had a reputation as being a very weak set, although ironically it was a very strong set. And this whole block, it's funny, this block has become popular for pros to go back and get and draft. Like, sometimes what people will do is they'll physically get the cards and then have, you know, sort of nostalgia drafts. They draft old sets. And this block is really, really popular with the pros because it is insanely spiky. It's a very spiky block.

In fact, if you listen to my lessons learned, it's too spiky. We don't do sets quite this spiky block. In fact, if you listen to my lessons learned, it's too spiky. We don't do sets quite this spiky anymore. But if you enjoy getting nuance out of every little nook and cranny, this set just has lots of mechanics that really give you tons and tons of incremental advantage if you're paying attention to what's going on.

I mean, really, really close attention to what's going on. Okay, next, we get to August 18th, where it's the World Championship. It was like the 14th or the 18th. It's the World Championships in Sydney, Australia. So I had a chance

to go to Sydney for the Invitational a couple years earlier, but I was excited to go back to Sydney. I like Sydney a lot. In it, Carlos Formao from Brazil

defeated Mark Ziegner of Germany. So Carlos winning would be the fourth continent to win a world championship. The very first world championship was won by American Zach Dolan. The second one was won

by Europeans from Switzerland, Alexander Blumke. The third in 1996 was won by Australian Tom Champagne. And the fourth country, or sorry, fourth continent to win a world championships was South America.

So anyway, also this event, so the U.S. up through this point, from 1994, the first time we kept track of team standings at Worlds, sorry, 95, from 95 through 2001, the U.S. team had won every single year except for 1997, in which place the Canadian team won.

So other than Canada, other than North America, nobody outside of North America had ever won a team event. And coming into this, it looked like the U.S. team was about to have another defeat. They were down, and in order to get to the finals, they had to win four straight games on the team day, and then defeat Denmark in a playoff, which they did. And so it was the USA up against Germany. But not just any Germany.

A German team that included Kai Buda. And the Germans won. And so it was the first time that a country outside of North America had won. First time a European country had won. First time Germany had won. So Germany became the world champs, the team world champs. Okay, next, September 27th through the 29th was Pro Tour Boston. Well, Kai, not quite done yet.

So the Phoenix Foundation won again. I forgot to look up. This is Kai's. So Kai won eight Pro Tours altogether. I think this is number seven. I think he has one more to go. But anyway, this is the last one of this year. In fact, it's the only he won him after because it's

the only Pro Tour Kai won this year. So Phoenix Foundation defeated a team called 2020. That was a Canadian team with Steve Wolfman, David Roode, and Elijah Pollock. All of them were people that definitely were regulars on the Pro Tour. Or all of them had showed up in multiple Pro Tours,

but none of them were major names. But anyway, this was... I think Phoenix Foundation won twice, back-to-back years. This was their second winning as a team. I do not have... Was there a Masters? I didn't use the question. Was there a Masters at PT Boston?

I do not see a Masters written down. So either there was one I didn's a huge question. Was there a Masters at PT Boston? I do not see a Masters written down. So either there was one I didn't write it down. Hmm. Well, let's assume I didn't write it down. If there was a Masters and someone won, I apologize. Okay, next. October 18th. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

September 28th was the pre-release. October 9th was the release of Onslaught, nicknamed Manny. So the Onslaught block, so Onslaught Legion Scourge, was Manny, Moe, and Jack, which a lot of people go, what? So there is a series of car parts stores called the Pep Boys,

and their three, you know, their snap, crackle, pop is Manny, Moe, and Jack, three brothers who I think started the store. They are the Pep Boys. I think three brothersanny, Moe, and Jack, three brothers, who I think started the store. They were the, they are the pet boys. I think three brothers started the store and they were the three brothers.

Anyway, this proved to be a very, very poor codename because not a lot of people knew it, and so the order, if you don't know it, you don't know the order. Now, if you know the order, they are Manny, Moe, and Jack

who was in that order, but a lot of people didn't know. But anyway, this was Manny. It was 350 cards, which means 110 common, 110ons, 110 uncommons, 110 rares, and 20 basic lands. So Onslaught introduced Morph, brought back cycling,

and introduced the tribal theme as a major block component. So Morph came about because the rules team was trying to fix the card or two cards Camouflage and Illusionary Mask

and their idea to solve the problem was to define what a face down card was anyway, when I get to Onslaught I'll tell the long version of the story, but essentially they came to different people trying to see if they could turn this into a different mechanic that you played as a face-down creature

and then turned face-up. They ended up coming to me. I liked the idea a lot. I worked to make some cards. Anyway, when I get to the Onslaught thing, I'll tell that more in detail. So, more for those that don't know, is you play the card face-down

as a 2-2 creature, costs 3 mana. It's a colorless, non-creature-type 2-2 creature. And then, by paying it its morph cost, you can turn it up, and it becomes whatever creature. So that is, it's hidden in its down state, although it's a defined 2-2. Also,

cycling came back, and this was the first time we had brought back a named mechanic. We had brought back, like, pitch spells before, kindle spells, we had brought back stuff before, atogs, but this is the first time we brought back a mechanic, before kindle spells we brought back stuff before atogs but this is the first time we brought back a mechanic and there's a lot of

controversy at the time once again when I get to the onslaught stories I'll explain it but we did a few things to tweak it up a little bit we finally made cards

that cared about cycling and we did some things that when you cycle did things but once again when I get to the onslaught I talk more about that finally we I really wanted to have a block with a strong tribal component.

And the set needed something, and Bill came to talk to me, and I suggested there was a little seed of tribal in it. And I said, let's really push that. And I kept pushing it more and more and more. And we're like, no, more, no, more. Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up. And it's funny that when the set got printed, clearly the tribal of Onslaught could have been a little bit higher.

I mean, Lorwyn might have been a little too high. So anyway, the fun thing about Onslaught was, for the first time, I mean, we had always had a tribal component in sets. But it was the first time where there was a major, major player. That what tribes were became a big, big deal. Okay, next. October 18th through the 20th.

The Magic Invitational in Seattle. So what had happened, for those that listened to my Magic Invitational podcast, I got no budget. The OP team said, we don't want you to stop having the Magic Invitational, just we can't fund you anymore. So I ended up going to Magic Online, and this event was sponsored

by Magic Online, which meant it was all played online, and to keep costs down, it was played in Seattle. So this was the one Invitational played at the corporate headquarters. And in it, who did Jens win? Jens Torren won this. Who did he beat? I did not write down who he played. Jens is from Sweden, I talked about him earlier.

And he won and made a card called Solemn Simulacrum. So he turned the card in. It was a two creature that you got to I think you got a land when it came into play and you draw a card when it died. Or reverse that. I think you got the land when you played it and you got a card when it died.

He turned it in as a blue-green creature but we turned it into Artifact because it ended up going to Mirrodin, which was an Artifact set, and he didn't know we had an Artifact set coming, and we decided to make an Artifact just so that everybody could play it. So that went on to be a really good card. And that Invitational was a fun Invitational.

I did a lot to try to make sure that it was fun because, you know, in previous years, we had gone to Africa and Sydney and Malaysia and, you know, had tours and petted cheetahs and did all sorts of cool things. So I tried to make it as special as I could. The one nice thing, because it was at the corporate headquarters, it allowed a lot of people to come and watch it. And so I thought that was really cool. That just, there was a lot more of, like, meeting all the people who make magic.

You know, normally at Invitational, it would be me and maybe one other person that came to help. But at this event, like, All of R&D was there. All the people that played at the event really got a chance to meet everybody. That was one of the coolest parts of it. It also allowed us to go out and do some stuff. I got to take them to my favorite seafood restaurant. November 8th through the 10th was

Pro Tour Houston. Justin Gary of Team Your Move Games from America defeats Rob Doherty, an American also from Your Move Games, and from America, defeats Rob Doherty, an American, also from Your Move Games. In third place, Darwin Castle, also from Your Move Games. So Rob Doherty and Darwin Castle,

and Dave Humphries, all are in the Hall of Fame. Justin Gary should be in the Hall of Fame. In fact, every year I promote somebody. This year I'm promoting Justin Gary. I always pick an old time and I think he really deserves it. Justin's stats are insane. He has three top eights. I know

a lot of people like more top eights. One of them is a win, obviously, at this event. He also has the U.S. Nationals under his belt at a time when the U.S. Nationals was very hard to win. He made the U.S. National Team another time and won the team championship at Worlds. He obviously came in second in Masters earlier this year.

And he has 20 top 32s. 20. I think the next closest to him is like 13. And other than top 32, I believe there was a streak in which for two and a half years he made top 32 consecutively. That's insane. His best three years are insane. Anyway, so another amazing thing about this tournament

was Your Move Games came in first, second, and third in a constructed tournament, all playing different decks. It was, I believe, an extended tournament. Justin Gary was king of extended. That was the format he also did well in Masters in. Did I mention

he came in second? Is that something I missed? Justin Gary, who did Justin Gary play? Let's see, if I didn't mention I missed? Justin Gary, who did Justin Gary play? Let's see, if I didn't mention something earlier of Justin Gary, I know Justin Gary came in second. Where is that? Hmm. Did I miss it somewhere?

Well, Justin Gary, one of the things this year is he played in the Mafters, an extended Mafters. Oh, um, yes, P.T.fters. Oh, um... Yes, he... P.T. Neese. He, um... He...

Alexander Witt defeated Justin Gary in extended. So I forgot to mention that. But Justin Gary came in second earlier in the year. In the Mafters of this event, Jens Therren, who just won the Magic Invitational,

defeated Gary Wise from Canada. So Gary Wise is another Hall of Famer. Very, very good player. Particularly known for his limited game. And they did a booster draft in the Masters. So Yens had back-to-back wins. He won at Invitational and then won at a Masters,

which is pretty impressive. Finally, we get to December. In December, the World Champ decks. So Carlos Hamal and Mark Ziegner, I'm sure their decks were in it. December, the World Champ decks. So, Carlos Hamal and Mark Ziegner, I'm sure their decks were in it. The way the World decks work is it's the winner in second place as long as the second place

is not playing the same deck. Sorry, Bob Marr from 2000. And then two other people, usually in the top eight. We try to get names. I didn't write down what decks we had this time. Henry Stern used to run that thing.

And the way it worked was they were actual cards with a gold border and a different back, a World Champ back, so that we could print the cards. And the way it worked was they were actual cards with a gold border and a different back, a world champ back, so that we could print the cards. And you could try out the matches of the worlds, and you could play the top deck versus the second deck. Would you win if you were playing

Carlos Amado's deck? So, people ask me all the time, what happened to the world championship decks? So, here's the answer. Whenever we made something, and you go, I love that thing. Why did that thing go away? Nine times out of ten, the answer is not enough people liked it. You were in a

minority, and World Champ decks just didn't sell that well. I mean, we made them for a while. We actually made them for many, many years, but it was real hard for us to do because one of the problems was they had to be they wanted to be the World Champ decks, and so they were normally standard

because the top 8 at Worlds was standard but the problem was it took us a while to make the decks and so by the time the decks came out usually the standard had changed because normally we would make the World Championship would happen August

a new set would come out, like Onslaught came out in the fall and by the time we get the World Champs happen August, a new set would come out, like Onslaught came out in the fall, and by the time we get the World Champs out, the decks aren't even standard legal anymore. And the larger formula, which was extended,

they weren't powerful enough for. So it was kind of this weird thing where if you played them as dual decks and just played them by themselves,

it was fine, but you didn't get to really mix them with normal magic because by the time they came out, they were out of date. So I'm almost to work, but I, because I'm not quite to work, a few the time they came out, they were out of date. So I'm almost to work,

but because I'm not quite to work, a few things I did not mention, so I will quickly mention these. June 28th was the European Championship where David Bruegger of Germany defeated Christoph Nijm. I don't know where Christoph is from. He has a French-sounding name,

so he's from, probably the country speaks French, so France, Belgium, Switzerland, sorry Christoph. So one thing to remember is, at the time, the European used to do

a continental championship every year, where the players of Europe would play off. For a while, APAC would do a championship, and Latin America did a championship,

but I don't have either of those written down this year. I'm not sure if they stopped happening. They weren't listed when I went through. either of those written down this year. I'm not sure if they stopped happening. They weren't listed when I went through. So one of the things I do when I do, if you're curious how, in fact, I do one of these, is I sit down, I go through our calendar,

both our product release calendar and our events calendar, and look at all the things that are going on. Normally, I restrict myself to higher-profile events. Unless there's a Grand Prix that was super, super important in some way, I tend to skip Grand Prixs because there's a Grand Prix that was super super important in some way, I tend to skip Grand Prix because there's so many of them by this point

oh, the other event that I did oh anyway, so what I do is I go through I write down everything and then I sort of fill up my page and make sure that I have enough stuff that I can talk about for the year the interesting thing is this year because there were so few actual releases I needed to spend a little more time on organized play.

I think what's going to happen, I mean, I have no idea, because every time I do a set, I figure out based on the year I have. But I'm noticing as I'm going along, I know the future, right? I've lived the future. That we're going to start putting out more and more stuff every year, which means that I'll have less time to do the nuance of explaining what things are, more like, we did this, we did this, we did this, we did this. My goal is to make each year only one podcast,

because it's 20 years and 20 podcasts, not like 24. So I'm going to, anyway, it'll be an interesting challenge to see what happens when I have a longer list of things to do. The other big event I did not mention was on May 31st with the U.S. Nationals,

in which Eugene Harvey defeated Eric Franz. So Eugene Harvey nicknamed the Eugenius. I believe he also came out of... So there was a pro tour team that Randy Buehler was on, that Eric Lauer was on, that Mike Turian was on, that Aaron Forsythe

was on, known as Team CMU. CMU standing for Carnegie Mellon University. Most of CMU actually weren't from CMU, but that's where a couple of them were, and they tended to play there. And so, anyway, Eugene Harvey was the next sort of generation of Team CMU, and he was known as a really good deck builder.

And like I said, his team put up quite the fight. They made it to the finals. Pretty much we thought the U.S. was out. We looked at them and we're like, and then someone figured out that no, no, mathematically, wait a minute, if they sweep every match and then they'll have a tie-off and they can beat

the people in the playoff, they could make the finals. And that was the big story of the team day, is could the U.S. pull off the impossible? And they did. So it was actually quite exciting. So let me recap this year. I'm almost to work, but let me recap 2002. I think it was interesting.

It definitely was a year of us doing some experimenting. If you kind of look at the sets that came out, we did color imbalanced. We did a keyword in the second set of a set, we pushed new themes with Tribal, we did Morph, which was definitely a really out there mechanic.

I think you see us, this is kind of the year where we start pushing the boundaries a little more, that it definitely is a set where we're not content to just do what we had done. Not everything worked out in the sense that color and balance proved to be not as useful tools as we

had hoped, but it did allow us to give a different identity. I mean, Torment is the black set. If you know anything about magic, when you say Torment, you go, oh, the black set. I mean, so looking back, I mean, I feel that this was definitely... I see the seeds of things to come. You know, and Onslaught, for example, was another real thing where we'd start doing block themes,

and it really took a little bit of convincing, but finally, once I got everybody on board, they really embraced the tribal component of the set. One of the funny stories is, Randy Bueller was, I think, the head developer at the time. And Randy was convinced that Morph was going to be, like, the most exciting thing in the set was Morph. Because Morph's a little more spiky, right? And I've been pushing the tribal theme, obviously. I mean, I liked Morph. I've also been one of the people that, you know, obviously convinced us to do Morph. But I kind of, my heart knew that the most exciting thing about the set was the tribal theme, obviously. I mean, I liked Morph. I've also been one of the people that, you know, obviously convinced us to do Morph, but

I kind of, my heart knew that the most exciting thing about the set was the tribal theme. So we came back from the pre-release, and Randy was like, oh, well, they liked Morph, but wow, they really liked the tribal theme. And I'm like, Randy, why do you think we did the tribal theme, you know? Because we had so many arguments about, you know,

how much to turn up the tribal theme, this and that, and I was always the one going, no louder, no louder, no louder. So, anyway, it was very nice when the tribal theme went over well that I could say, see? Okay, so, my friends, I am pulling into Wizards of the Coast.

That, my friends, is 2002. So, it was a year of some experimentation. It was definitely a year of lots of pro tour play. No dominance like some previous years. But lots of good players, a lot of good experimentation. It was definitely a year of lots of pro tour play. No dominance like some previous years. But lots of good players, a lot of good names. You know, Justin Gary and Jens Theran. You see a few names pop up a couple times.

And pretty much notice when I start talking about how people do, I keep going, oh this guy's in the Hall of Fame, oh this guy's in the Hall of Fame, oh this guy's in the Hall of Fame. This is really some of the early years where these people were making their names as being people that were worthy of later would be worthy of the Hall of Fame, and this guy's in the Hall of Fame. You know, that these, this is really some of the early years where these people were making their names as being people that were worthy of, later would be worthy of the Hall of Fame.

But, that, my friends, is 2002. I've now parked my car, so it's time for me to be making magic. Thanks for joining me, and I'll talk to you guys next time.