Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #176 - Tales From Europe

Episode Date: November 21, 2014

Mark shares stories from the early Pro Tours in Europe.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, today, so many years ago, I've been doing this podcast for a while. I did a podcast called Tales from the Boat. And it was basically a bunch of different stories about pro tours that took place in Los Angeles aboard the Queen Mary. And actually it was a very popular podcast. So I decided today I'm going to do a different. I'm going to call this Tales from Europe. So today, I'm going to tell some stories about some early pro tours in Europe.

Okay, we're going to start with the very first pro tour in Europe, Pro Tour Paris. Okay, so set the scene. So one of the things that I really enjoyed about my early days at Wizards, or even still now, is the chance that I've had to travel. Before, I mean, when I was younger, I went to Europe on a short trip as a student. But other than that, I really hadn't gone a lot of places, and I was very excited to sort of visit new countries and such. So one of the things that was fun about doing the Pro Tour

was I got to constantly visit new places. So Pro Tour Paris was my first time in Paris. I was quite excited. I'm in Paris, you know. And so what had happened was, the way the system had been set up at the time was, Um, so what had happened was the way the system had been set up at the time was, um, right, right now, uh, all the pro tours are run by the same group of people. Um, but back in the day, um, the, the European office would run the pro tours in Europe.

Um, I mean, now there's a lot of cooperation. Obviously, whenever we're in Europe, we get a lot of help, obviously, from the European office. But the normal staff that runs the pro tours is involved in the European pro tours. But in the early days, when we would go to Europe, it's like, okay, guys, you know, we got it, you know, and we would go to sort of, I don't know, to be there in an advisory capacity. I don't know, to be there in an advisory capacity. But we were usually... The European office was very excited. This is their big event of the year.

And so, anyway, we get to Paris. I'm trying to remember where the venue in Paris was. It was some... I just remember pictures of, like, circuses on the wall. I don't even know where the Paris was. It was some, I just remember pictures of like circuses on the wall. I don't know, I don't even know where the venue was. But, so the event was a constructed event using Mirage and Visions. So let me talk about a couple of the key players here. So Mike Long. Let me talk a little bit about Mike Long he's a controversial figure in Magic history so Mike

Mike was been playing Magic for quite a while he first came to the public stage if you will at 95 Nationals so the 95 Nationals took place in Philadelphia the winner of 95 Nationals took place in Philadelphia.

The winner of 95 Nationals was Mark Justice, which he'll become important in a moment. He defeated Henry Stern in the finals. In fact, a real quick story, is what happened was it was a double elimination tournament, which meant that once you lost for the first time, once you lost your first match, you went into the loser elimination bracket. And then only when you lost a second time were you knocked out. And what it meant was the winner of the winner bracket played the loser,

sorry, the winner of the loser bracket, and then the winner of the loser bracket had to win twice to beat the winner of the winner bracket. So what happened was Henry won the winner bracket, Mark Justice won the loser bracket. So what happened was, Henry won the winner bracket, Mark Justice won the loser bracket. So what that meant is, they played a match. If Henry won, Henry was a U.S. national champion. If Henry lost, then they played another match, and if Mark Justice won that,

then he'd become U.S. national champion. So Henry walked in in a very good place. Henry was playing a deck called Vice Age. I think Mark was playing a variant so Henry and Mark had met at the regionals, the Southwest regionals, it was the first time the two had met each other

Mark Justice I think came in second at the Southwest regionals losing to a guy named Joel Unger I believe was his name going to the recesses of my brain there anyway they had met, they had met. They had become friendly. Mark Justice was from Salt Lake City.

Henry was from L.A. Henry and I had become good friends in L.A. Obviously, I would later recommend Henry get a job at Wizard, so Henry would go on. But at this point, Henry was just a pro tour player. And so, Henry plays Mark, and Mark managed to beat him back-to-back matches to become the U.S. National Champion. Almost, by the way, losing in the process, because in his deck, Mark had Channel and Fireball.

For those that don't happen to know this wonderful combination, Channel allows you... What does Channel cost? Channel costs... Is that a single green mana? Channel... Or is a single green mana? Channel or is it two green mana? Channel allows you to turn life into mana. And so you pay a little bit up front and then you can turn your life into mana. Channel, a fireball by the way

does X damage, you know XR where you get to do X damage. You also can break it out but for the points of this combo you're hitting it right to your opponent's face. So the idea is early on if you're hitting it right to your opponent's face. So, the idea is, early on, if you can use Lotus or Mox to get on turn one, you get enough mana that you could Fireball

for 20 on the first turn. During the match, I think the second match, Mark Justice has a kill with Channel Fireball and messes up the timing of it. And the judges at the time, the people who were running organized play were not, I mean, they knew how to play magic, but they were not, we did not have the fine precision judging

we have today and that they misunderstood what happened. And I believe that they gave him an opportunity to correct himself where modern judges might have just said that he had messed it up. But anyway, they gave him a second chance. Mark did it correctly. He wins. He beats Henry. So at the same event, in the semis, the third and fourth place, because there was the U.S. The very first ever U.S. I'm sorry. The very first team championship, I talked about this in a column I wrote. It happened in 95 Worlds. And I convinced the powers that be.

There was no actual playoff. They weren't playing each other. But I suggested that we keep track of their scores and that there would be a winner just based on who had done the best in the tournament by the combined of the four players on the team. So anyway, the U.S. National Team in 1995 was Mark Justice, Henry Stern, Mike Long, and a guy named Pete Lyre. At that event,

I know Mike Long had started making use of, there's a card in Ice Age called Demonic Consultation. So for those that do not know the card, you spend, I believe, one black mana, and you name a card. And then you remove the top, you exile the top six cards of your library, and then you go through your deck until you find

the card you've named, and everything else I think, I think the first six get exiled and the rest go to your graveyard, I believe is what happens. But it's dangerous because if the card you're looking for happens to either be in the first six or be at the very, very end, this card could make you

lose. And so people were very, very skittish about it. But Mike made great use of the card, had four in his deck, and Mike understood. So one of the histories of Mike Long is Mike is a very good deck builder. I mean, normally when you talk to people that know the history of Magic

and say, let's name the top ten deck builders of all time, Mike Long's name usually shows up in that list. Mike was very innovative. In fact, in Protreperis,

this whole story I'm leading up to, Mike's deck building skills become key. And anyway, Mike had made use of the amount of consultation. Now, you have to understand, at the time,

everybody else thought that card was just, like, bonkers risky, and when people saw that they were playing it, the response was, what? Are they crazy? And people didn't really understand, sort of, you know, essentially the way the math works out is, you know, you have a, you know, 2% chance of losing, but you know what?

You have a 90% chance of winning. And so the card is really, really effective because you don't lose very often from it, but you win games a lot from it. And so is the correct call. And I think both Pete and Mike, they both come from, I want to say Virginia, but they come from somewhere around there. Anyway, Mike Long, for a long time, owned a store. He actually became a judge so that he could help run his store

and train other judges. Mike is known, I think, historically. So what happened was Mike was definitely, he was very charismatic, but shady. I'll put it that way. And I realized early on, in the early days, I was in charge of the feature matches, of the video coverage, that it was my responsibility to sort of put on a show, to make people want to watch the coverage. And so a technique I made use of at the time was I really liked the idea of just having archetypes that we could play with, that there were heroes in heels, there were good guys

and bad guys, and that I really wanted people to root for some people and root against other people and really sort of play up the personalities of the people. And Mike was, you cannot ask for a better sort of villain. I put that in quotes because I don't actually believe Mike to be a villain, but Mike served as a perfect sort of, he was the person who

players loved to root against. And there's lots of stories about this. The one I often tell is on the boat. He was playing. He gets into the top eight. It's the one that Trevor Blackwell won, I believe. He gets in the top eight through, you know, in the last round, there's suspicions that he was doing something shady,

but the judges can't prove it. So he gets in the top eight, and everybody's all up in arms. And the first, the quarterfinal match, this was on the boat, by the way, the quarterfinal match was at, like, 9 a.m. Normally, nobody came. The quarterfinal matches were usually, everyone was sleeping, there weren't a lot of people there.

But it was packed. Like, there was not a seat available. And then Mike wins his quarterfinal match in the semis. The seats are packed. And then Mike loses in the semis. And then for the finals, eh, not that many people are watching. You know, the seats aren't packed. Mike would get people to watch.

And one of my big things, for those who know me pushing, I mean, Mike's not eligible anymore, but when Mike was eligible for the Hall of Fame, I'm a big believer of the Hall of Fame. I don't see it as some marker. I see it as a source of history. These are the people that mattered. When you are going to tell the stories of the Hall of Fame, I don't see it as some marker. I see it as a source of history. These are the people that mattered. When you are going to tell the stories of the Hall of Fame,

these are the people whose stories you're going to tell. Mike squarely falls in that camp for me. And anyway, obviously I was in the minority because he's not in the Hall of Fame. But so Mike was, I recognized in Mike the ability to be somebody that we, that people, he was very charismatic and he just had the right mix of, you were drawn to watch him, but he's the kind of person that you wanted to root against.

He, he just played into the villain archetype. And so I played into that. And so I played into that. And Mike really was perceived as one of the, I mean, he now, by the way, like in sort of time, almost like is the devil. He's like, like, you know, the embodiment of evil or something, you know, he was one of the players in that over time as people joined the game that just saw him as an embodiment of evil because that's how he's portrayed

that slowly the expectations became that that's what he was and Mike eventually sort of started acting in a way that reinforced how everybody was treating him. I feel bad. This is something I feel kind of personally responsible for which is I put everybody was treating him. I feel bad. This is something I feel kind of personally responsible for, which is I put him in that role.

I thought he... I mean, he made an excellent villain. He really did. He really... Like, there was a... U.S. Nationals in 90... This one Matt Lindy won. I want to say 96 is my guess.

Where the finals were between Matt Lindy and Mike Lund. I think I've to say 96 is my guess. Where the finals were between Matt Lindy and Mike Long. I think I've talked about this in my podcast. To me, it's the most thrilling finals ever. We're just, I mean, the audience was just the most electric I've ever seen in an audience. Matt Lindy was his unknown kid.

He went on to later prove himself in the Pro Tour. Mike Long was the embodiment of evil and here was... It was like, you know, we can't let the embodiment of evil be our national champion. So Mike, by the way, interestingly, made the national team for 95, made the national team for 96,

made the national team for 98, and then made the national team... I forget the last year. He did it four times. And I believe every time he was on the national team, I forget the last year, he did it four times. And I believe every time he was on national team, I think he won every single time, or he won three out of four if not every time. Mike has been on the most winning U.S. national teams. And in fact, in 95, the very first one, they did so well that their team average was the cutoff for top eight. Both Henry Stern and Mark Justice made top eight. Mike Long was one match out of top eight,

and Pete Lowry was two matches out of top eight. Anyway, so Mike definitely was a controversial figure, but he was a very, very good player. I mean, one of the things I find funny is I know a lot of people want to assume because there's shadiness going on that all his success is just due to the shadiness, and the reality was, no, he was a very, very good player. I mean, I probably wouldn't get a lot of people to admit this publicly, but when I've talked to a lot of pros who knew him well, they openly admit that he had the skills.

He was a really, really good player. And one of the things he definitely did is he definitely took advantage of, I mean, he tried to intimidate people. He tried to sort of, I mean, he understood his reputation and he definitely made use of it later on to say, okay, you know, people, when they're playing me, we're always nervous because, oh, I'm playing Mike Long, I need to be nervous about that. So anyway, Mike makes top eight. people when they're playing me were always nervous because oh I'm playing Mike Long I need to be nervous about that so anyway Mike makes top 8

so understand at this point Mike is seen as like the villain of magic the bad boy of magic and so the European office was kind of concerned they were like oh no Mike Long made top 8 and I'm like guys people will turn out to watch

Mike Long and you know every time Mike Long made a top 8 I I'm like, guys, people will turn out to watch Mike Long. And, you know, I, I, every time Mike Long made a top eight, I was overjoyed because our job, I mean, be aware that the, the, the pro tour at its core is a, is a, it's marketing, right? It's selling the game. And that Mike made people interested

and sit up and watch. And, and they wanted him to lose and they rooted against him, but they got invested. And I said to him, don't worry. I go, you know, Mike is somebody who, I mean, this is marketing. He makes people, he gets eyeballs. He makes people want to watch.

So anyway, another person in the top eight was a guy named Jason Gordon. So Jason Gordon also had a very shady reputation. In fact, I used to be a judge way back when, and I used to run a lot of judge testing. And Jason Gordon was famous in judge circles for being involved in many different incidents that we would use for judge testing because they were very interesting ones. So You go, what's going on?

What's the right call? Nobody was more valuable to the judging process, to coming up with interesting scenarios to help judges, teach judges with than Jason Gordon. So anyway, I'm not sure whether it was the quarters. I think it was the quarters.

Michael Long is playing Jason Gordon. So it's like, two of the shittiest people in the game are playing each other. So what happened was, I was doing the video, and so I'm interested in showing that match. That's definitely two people that I,

I know there's an interesting there. We cut over to them, and they're shuffling. So I'm like, okay, okay, I'll go show another match. So I'm trying to know who else was in that top eight. Sterla Bingen, who was a very good pro player from Norway, I believe.

Jason Zila, who was... I think Jason was in that top eight. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was, because Jason Zila shows up... He gets lost on the subway, shows up late, and gets a game loss for being late. So Jason was definitely one of the top eight.

Mark Justice, I'll get to him in a minute, was in the top eight. Who else? Okay, I'm forgetting. I didn't look this up ahead of time. But anyway, it was a pretty, at the time, was a decently star-studded top eight. So anyway, I go to shoot another one of the quarterfinal matches. I shoot that. They do a game.

Someone else does a game. And I'm bouncing around. Usually when I used to do, I used to produce the videos. The idea was you tried to show as many different games as possible, so different matches, so you get a sense of everybody playing. But then you tried, make it possible to be there for the ending of matches, because that was more dramatic. At the time,

we were more on the philosophy of just bumps around. So we were showing, anyway, so I show the second semifinal match. I cut back to Mike and Mike and Jason still shuffling. So we go to the third match. That finishes. We come back to Mike and Jason still shuffling. We go to the fourth match. They finish. Come back to Mike and Jason still shuffling. So we go to the third match. That finishes. We come back to Mike and Jason still shuffling.

We go to the fourth match. They finish. Come back to Mike and Jason still shuffling. They were just paranoid about each other. So they just shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. And then there's a mulligan and shuffling. Anyway, finally they play each other. Mike Lung comes on top.

Meanwhile, Mark Justice wins his match. I don't remember, I mean, obviously where the story is leading is, the finals is Mark Justice versus Mike Long. So let me explain a few things to understand behind the scenes here. So Mark Justice and Mike Long had been together on the 95 U.S. national team. So they had known each other for quite a while. They'd known each other since 95. Pro Tour Paris was, let me think more correctly.

So I think it was in 96. So the first Pro Tour season was all, were all U.S. We had played in New York and then Los Angeles and then Columbus. And then that year's Worlds was actually in Renton at the corporate headquarters. The second season, we started branching out. So for the first time, we went to Europe. We went to Paris. And so Mike Long and Mark Justice had known each other for over a year at that point.

And I'm sorry, 97, not 96, it was 97, because the Pro Tour started in 96, in February of 97. So this is 97, so two years. They had been friends for two years. The Pro Tour had been going on for a year. They knew each other. So in fact, when Mark Justice showed up in Paris,

he didn't have a deck. And so where did he get his deck from? Well, from one of the best deck builders he knew, Mike Long. So, Mike Long and Mark Justice make it to the finals.

Now, you have to understand that the European office was nervous. They didn't want Mike Long doing well. They were like, this is their first portrait. They wanted, and I was, the thing I thought funny on my end, I was trying to explain to them,

is at the time, Mark Justice and Mike Long were two of the biggest names in magic. Like, we had done this thing, we were trying to promote magic, and we did this thing, I don't know if you've ever seen this video, it might be on YouTube,

where we did this thing with MTV, where they had some beach house or something, and we sent four players, I don't know if you've ever seen this video, it might be on YouTube, we did this thing with MTV where they had some beach house or something and we sent four players to the beach house and so I believe the players we sent was Mike Long, Mark Justice, Sean Hammer Regner and

Brian Hacker. So those were our four. So anyway, they were two of the names we pushed. And so anyway, they were two of the names we put. We talked about like, you know, at that point, remember, Mark Justice had had a top eight at the very first Pro Tour.

Then at Worlds that year, Mark Justice comes in second at Worlds that year. Then we go to Atlanta where Mike Long makes the top eight. So anyway, by the time we get here, they both had had top eights. Um, both of them obviously had been on the U.S. national team. Um, Mark Justice had back-to-back, uh, world top fours.

You know, he came in third and then he came in second. Um, and he had top eight at the first Pro Tour. So, I mean, these were two of the biggest names in Magic. And we had never at the time had a finals between two names. We had finals in which one of the names was a really, really established big name. But we had yet to have a finals where two were just two really well-known superstars. This was the first time. And I was like, I'm like, you know, because they were all nervous.

I'm like, guys, like, I would dream, I would dream of having a Top 8 like this. If you told me that, you know, your Top 8 was going to be Mike Long, your Top 2, your finals would be Mike Long versus Mark Justice, I would have been like, yes! Because everybody in the world was going to want to watch that, you know. So let's talk a little bit more about Mark Justice. that, you know. So let's talk a little bit about Mark Justice. So Mark Justice, like I said,

he was from Salt Lake City. He had come, I think, I can't remember how he got into magic. I know I met him for the first time when he showed up for Southwest Regionals, which was run in Los Angeles. So at the time, I was freelancing for Wizards.

I was doing the puzzles, magic the puzzles and stuff. And because of the puzzles, I had access to cards ahead of time. So I wasn't allowed to play in tournaments. So I turned to judging. This is how I became a judge. And so I was one of the judges that was running Southwest Regionals. Mark Justice shows out of nowhere and ends up coming in second,

losing to Felix Unger. No, Joel Unger, not Felix Unger. Felix Unger is from The Odd Couple. Joel Unger, sorry. And Henry didn't make that top eight. But what happened was Henry had done well enough that he made the top 25 list of DCI ratings,

and that's how he got invited to nationals that year. So Henry obviously comes back, almost wins U.S. nationals, ends up coming second to Mark Justice. Mark Justice becomes U.S. national champ. Henry and Mark go to Worlds. They obviously come in the most big top eight. They both made it to the semifinals and lost in the semifinals. So Mark Justice, it's funny. Back in the day, if I had told people that one day there was going to be a Hall of Fame

and Mark Justice wasn't going to be in it, people would have been like, well, why is there a Hall of Fame? It's hard to explain for people that didn't live during that time. There was a point in time where Mark Justice was, like, everybody on the face of the planet, like, acknowledged, oh, he's the best Magic player. He had won U.S. Nationals, which at the time was a really, really hard tournament. He had come in third at Worlds. He had topped eighth at the first Pro Tour. He had come in second at the next Worlds.

You know, that Mark Justice was just, you know, one of the best ever. Now, other people would come to start taking that claim. Ula Rade had a really, really good run his first season. Obviously, John Finkel would come around. Eventually, Kai Buda would do his crazy, crazy run. I mean, there are other names

that would come of discussion. But there are only a handful of people where the majority of Magic players go, who's the best Magic player in the world? That guy. You know, it's Mark Justice. And I got to know Mark really well. He actually, we had a camp for a while.

We ran a camp in which Magic players could come, and it was at the UW, the University of Washington, and they stayed in dorms, and then different Magic people like Richard would come speak, and I would come and it was at the UW, the University of Washington, and they stayed in dorms and then different magic people like Richard would come speak and I would come speak and they had a regular pro who was there every day, which was Mark Justice. And Mark

was... Mark and I used to be very, very good friends. We used to play a lot of magic with each other. He would beat me left and right. I would teach him new formats. He would beat me in the... I would teach him a format he'd never seen before and he would beat me left and right. I would teach him new formats. He would beat me in the... I would teach him a format he'd never seen before and he would beat me with it the first time we played.

Oh, here's another great Mark Justice story. So Mark and I both ended up going to an event called Manifest, which used to be run out of San Francisco. And Manifest was a trading card game convention run in San Francisco.

And so Mark comes to a booth and these people are, it was a game called Wyvern, made by a man named Mike Fitzgerald, who would go on to make many other games. A very good designer. He had made a game called Wyvern and Mark walked up and they were,

they said to him, oh, hey, why don't you learn how to play? We're about to have our nationals. And Mark Justice said, oh, well, how do you play? And there was some money on the line and the title of national champion. So they teach Mark there. Mark enters the event having just learned how to play at the booth, wins it. So Mark is national champion, not just of magic,

but also of Wyvern. And I remember when he looked at me, and he came back after he had played it, and he goes, hmm, he goes, okay, he goes, it's kind of like war with Giant Gross. That was his comment on it. But the idea that he could learn the game, pick it up, and in the very first tournament,

play against, in theory, the best people who played the game, pick it up, and in the very first tournament play against, in theory, the best people who played the game. This is the national championship. I'm not saying it had the competition that a magic event would, but still, he's playing people that have played this game, some of which might have ventured specifically to come to the national championship, and he wins it, having just learned the game. I mean, there's also all sorts of stories in me watching Mike,

I mean, not Mike, me watching Mark, and just, he was one of the natural. I mean, I would argue that maybe John stories of me watching Mike, I mean, not Mike, me watching Mark, and just, he was one of the natural. I mean, I would argue that maybe John Finkel is slightly more of a natural, but Mark Justice is in that same camp of people who, like, just intuitively got it. It wasn't that they studied and studied and studied. I mean, there are a lot of

good players, you know, like Kai Buda and Randy Buehler, who, like, just, they put in the time and do the homework and learn, you know. But Mark has this natural kind of just pick things up. Like I said, I would teach him formats

and he would beat me the first time he played me. He was that fast to study and learning and he just had really good natural instincts. So anyway, finally,

we're in the finals of PT Paris. I'm beside myself. The European office is a little nervous because they're like, you know, they're not sure about Michael Long or Mark Justice and I'm beside myself the European office is a little nervous because they're like they're not sure about Mike Long or Mark Justice

and I'm like no no no this is awesome this is like the clash of the titans this is going to go down in history ok so Mike and Mark are playing so let me talk a little bit about Mike's deck so Mike was playing a deck called

Prost Bloom. Prost Bloom stood for... So when we were making Mirage, I was on the development team. So Mirage, originally called Menagerie, was designed by Bill Rose and Joel Mick and

Charlie Cattino and a bunch of other people who were all from a group of bridge-playing people that had befriended Richard. It's the game players he had met through bridge. And when magic hit it off, he had given them a set to design. They designed a set that was called Menagerie, turned into what we mirage in Visions.

During development, we would make holes, which means, oh, something wasn't working, and then we would have to fill in the holes. Now, I really, really wanted to be a designer. But I was hired as a developer. But every once in a while in development, we would kick out cards, which meant we needed new cards. And whenever that happened, I would make new cards.

So we needed a card for a green block slot and I said oh here's an idea. Block is all about you know discarding as a cost. Green is about mana production. What if we made a card that allowed you to discard cards for mana. This card would be called cadaver's bloom. Meanwhile, Bill Rose had made a card called Prosperity, which allowed you to, it was X and blue, I believe, all players draw X cards. Mike Elliott made a card called Squandered Resources,

not Squandered Resources, called Natural, Natural, forget it. It's a green card where you wipe away your lands and then go back a certain number of lands. Okay, I'm blinking the name of it. And then Mike and I together made Squandered Resources and Visions. But anyway, when you put all these cards together,

it made this crazy combo deck that was called Cross Bloom. And basically the idea of the deck was I sort of the deck was I sort of stalled until I could draw a whole large number of cards and then I would turn those into mana and I would fireball you to death.

It was a combo deck. Now, at the time, combo decks did not have a lot of respect. Combo decks were a lot like tribal decks were back in the day. It was like, I'm glad you're having your fun, and that's great that Magic can let you do silly things like that, but that is for news.

That is not for competitive play. And Mike said, no, no, no, this deck is good. In fact, Mike thought it was so good that Mike was convinced that we made the deck, built it, and then took apart the pieces and planted it in Mirage and Visions. Because Mike believed that the deck was so efficient, so perfect in how it was put together, that there's no way that those spells could independently have been made. And I said to him, I go, Mike, I make

it every bloom. Bill made Prosperity. You know, Ellie and I made Squadron of Resources. They were not all made by the same person. And Mike was like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. But Mike comes with Prosperity. And at the time, I mean, he played it before Paris at one other event. Might have been Nationals that year. In fact, that would have been

maybe in 96? Mike might have played... No, no, no. In 96 he played... Oh, right. In 96 he played Turbo Stasis. Which is a whole story when I get to that. Anyway, Mike had been playing the Process Bloom deck for a little while.

Paris was perfect. Paris was made for this deck. Or maybe Frosted Bloom deck for a little while. Paris was perfect. Paris was made for this deck. Or maybe he made the deck for this event. Now that I think about it. Maybe he played it in another event. Probably that's what happened. He must have made it for this deck.

Anyway, Mike had this deck. A lot of people laughed at it because it was a combo deck, and combo decks just weren't something you played in Constructed. Meanwhile, Justice shows up without a deck, and might give him some red-black deck, I believe. It wasn't a Frostbloom deck. Now, one of the things about the Frostbloom deck was

your kill spell... I'm sorry, it wasn't a fireball. It was a drain light. So you didn't have red, you had black. It was a drain light. You would drain your opponent to death. And the thing is, drain life needed a lot of black mana, but because you're generating your mana all through Cadavra's Bloom, you could get lots and lots of black mana. It wasn't a problem.

So most people would run two or three drain lives in their deck because it was the kill card. That literally nothing else in the deck had the ability to kill your opponent. And the reason that Drain Life was so good was that... I'm trying to think how the deck used it. The deck has some ability to convert life, so the ability to drain life from your opponent

sometimes could be used as a means to draw cards. I can't remember how that happened, but there was means by which you... Or, sorry, sometimes you'd use...

I'm saying that incorrectly. I think sometimes you'd use drain life early to keep yourself alive so that you could get to the point where you could defeat them. I think that's what it is.

So people would have drain life in their deck because until it was the kill spell, it helped keep you alive as a defensive spell. But nothing else in the deck could defeat them. There was no other kill card in the deck. Most people ran two or three

Cadaverous Blooms. Not Cadaverous Blooms. Ran two or three Drain Lives. Mike, Mike did this thing where I think he only ran two in his main deck. And then after sideboarding, he'd often side one out. Which meant that he would do something pretty risky, which is he would only have one in his deck. So he's playing Mark Justice.

I don't remember exactly the order of this. They played five... It ended up going to five matches. Five games. So one of the games, it was not the last game, and I think not all these games ended up on camera. I think

three of them ended up on camera. We lost some feed, so we don't have all of all the games. But anyway, there was one game which I believe didn't end up on camera. Because I always talk about this story, and people keep trying to find it on camera. I don't still think it exists on camera. But anyway, there's one game. One of the...

My favorite Mark... Sorry, Michael Long stories. So Michael Long's playing Mark Justice. Okay? So we're in the finals. So basically what happens is the decks are decently matched.

Both players are really good players. And so Mike Long is in a sticky wicket, if you will. And he had sideboarded out a second drain life and he's forced to use his drain life to stay alive. So now he's in the situation where he doesn't have his

kill card, and what is he going to do? So he decides that the only way to do this is he just plays as if he has a second drain life and then he gets to the point where he does his things, he draws everything and he just says to Justice he's like, okay, I got it do you want me to play this out?

and Justice goes, no concedes, where Mike because Justice didn't understand that Mike had boarded out a second Drain Life. And so Mike, without having a win in the deck, manages to bluff Justice in the finals of a Pro Tour to concede the match. Because he had set up the combo and he clearly had the means by which to do it. You know, he would need to draw his own deck and everything, but the point was he bluffed out justice by showing that he was capable of doing it

without justice realizing he didn't have the second brain light. It's funny, by the way, I started this drive thinking that I was going to tell you many, many tales of Europe, and I've been telling you lots of tales of Pro Tour Paris. I'm almost to work. So, I'm trying to figure out whether or not I have enough time to start telling you a different story. I guess I will,

because I have a little extra time. And I said tales from Europe. And this was tale from Europe. So anyway, that was Mike Long going to win. He didn't win on that particular game. He won on a different game. And it went to five matches. It ended up being a really dramatic final.

At the time, one of the highlights... I mean, I believe the most exciting final we'd had at the time. It was two big, big names with two really interesting decks playing, you know, in the final... up to the fifth game of the final match. Okay. The next Pro Tour took place in Rome. And for this Pro Tour,

the European office... So, by the way, for those wondering why I'm at the 36-minute mark and I'm not quite at work yet, it's raining. I'm not sure if you can tell here with the rain. So I'm sitting in traffic because of the rain. So you guys... So I have time to talk about one more, one more story.

So this is Protor Rome. So Protor Rome, a couple things. First is, it was extended. I believe it was the very first, oh no, it wasn't extended. It was standard. It was standard. That's how crazy this was. It was a standard event

using Urza's saga. For those who do not know their history, Urza's saga, using a technical R&D term, is what we call Barokin. We made probably the most we've ever goofed up.

I mean, there was some mess-ups in Mirrodin, obviously. But Urza Saga, the joke at the time was, there's the early game that is flipping the coin, CEO goes first. There's the mid-game that is mulliganing. And then there's the end-game, and that's turn one. The format, which I think was standard, had the means by which you could end the game on the first turn.

In fact, Brian Hacker, who didn't end up making top eight, but many people thought had the best deck, had a deck that could very, very consistently kill you on turn two. And turn one was play Goose's Scepter. Oh, not Goose's Scepter. Play Lion's Eye Diamond Go.

Play Lion's Eye Diamond Go. That was, you know, he might have played a land. Maybe it was land, Lion's Eye Diamond. But anyway, that was his first turn. Turn two, you're dead. For those people who always say that Lion's Eye Diamond is a horrible card. Not so bad. A bad Lotus is still much better than many other cards.

Okay, so, this year the European office is like, okay, we watched you last year, we got it, we're going to do it. And they're like, you know, basically we came, once again, we were more in an advisory capacity, but they're like, you know, I didn't even run the video this time, just sort of sat and watched um uh but it was it

was very very funny because it was the sort of thing where anytime you do something for the first time you just miss stuff not because you don't know what you're doing just you haven't done it before um and so there are a lot of fun things like i remember we were starting to do the video and they didn't have a spotter um and the spotter is somebody who comes and sees things and then talks to the producer. And they didn't have a spotter. And I was like, I'm just crazy. You guys don't have a spotter. They're like, no, no.

And so I was like, how are you planning to do scores? And they look at each other and like, well, yeah, how are you supposed to? You have to put the scores online. And they're like, okay, we'll get a spotter. So the top eight for that, let's see, it was a pretty good top eight. So both Tomi Hovey and Oli Rade, who both made the initial Hall of Fame, first five in the Hall of Fame. Eric Lauer, who's currently the head of development, head developer.

Who else was in that top eight? It was a decent top eight. I mean, oh wait, who did, who did, who did Rade play in the finals? That's a fine question.

Because Rade, not Rade, who did Hovey play in the finals? Hovey beat, Manny, I'm blanking on this. Who did Hovey play in the finals? So let me talk a little bit about Hovey and Rade.

So, Tomi H Hovi is from Finland. His first top eight, I think his first top eight, was in Los Angeles, where he played David Mills. I talked about this in Tales from the Boat. In the finals, his opponent kept playing spells before tapping his mana which at the time was not allowed

and he kept getting warnings and warnings escalated to the point where he got DQ'd from the tournament DQ'd with prizes and Hobi ended up winning but what I learned was

so it's very interesting so Hobi would go on to win Pro Tour Paris Hobi was really really happy when he won and when I asked him why What I learned was, so it's very interesting. So Hovi would go on to win Pro Tour Paris. Hovi was really, really happy when he won. And when I asked him why, like, he was, I mean, the thing about Tommy Hovi is, Tommy was always very quiet.

There's a famous, famous interview I did with him at the LA that he won, where in between the semis, I would come to talk to them. I used to do interviews in between, like before the finals, I would come to talk to them. I used to do interviews in between. Before the finals, I would come interview the finalists. And I'm trying to get Tomi to talk, and I'm asking these long, evolved questions, and no matter what I ask, he's answering with a one-word answer. And I'm just trying my hardest to set up and give him something he can talk about, and no matter what I do, he just gives me one-word answers.

set up and give him something he can talk about. And no matter what I do, he just gives me one word answers. And finally, I'm so frustrated, I start laughing. Because I just can't... Anyway, if you go on YouTube, I'm sure you can find my painful, painful interview with Tony Ovi. Anyway, years later, I would go to Finland. I was invited as a guest of honor at Ropacon, which is the largest game convention in Finland. And what I discovered is, in his

native land, Tomi Hylvi was a jokester. He was like the class clown. But on the Pro Tour, especially early on, he was very, very quiet. So when he won Pro Tour Rome, I had never seen anybody as happy as I'd seen him. And when I asked, I knew he was happy because he won Pro Tour Rome, I had never seen anybody as happy as I'd seen him.

And when I asked, I mean, I knew he was happy because he won, but he seemed really happy. And what he said is, I finally won a Pro Tour. Because in his mind, he didn't win the last Pro Tour. It was given to him. And so in his mind, he'd always wanted to win a Pro Tour, and he didn't count the Pro Tour he'd won because he didn't win it himself.

You know, his opponent was DQ'd. and to him, that wasn't a win. So, Tomi would go on to be the first person to win two Pro Tours with this win, but in Tomi's mind, this was his first real win. Oh, another fun moment in that event was Tomi Hobi's playing Ula Rade in the semifinals. So, both Tomi and Ula had this very good skill, which is, imagine early on the printing was a little bit inconsistent, and both of them had the ability, by looking in the back of a card, to know which printing the card was from. So, for example, they could look and go, oh, that's an Ice Age card.

Well, since their deck was made up of different cards from different sets, just knowing what set it came from often would give you information about what's on top of your deck. You know, if you know you have an Ice Age card on top of your deck, and you only have a couple Ice Age cards on your deck, you have more information than normal. The other problem was, at the time, the way we used to do lighting is that the sleeves were too reflective, and that if you were wearing sleeves, you couldn't see the cards. And so on camera, you always had to de-sleeve.

So Ulla Rade is playing Tomi Hovi in the semifinals of Pro Tour Rome, both of them with unsleeved decks in which each of them knows that the other can tell what... I mean, has a lot of knowledge about the top of their deck. And so the joke at the time was

that they had chosen to start the game with Fields of Dreams in play. So Fields of Dreams was a card Enchant Worlds from Legends, in which both players play with the top card of their library face-up. So, so Tomi Hovi would go on to win that match, So, um... So, Tomi Hovi, um,

would go on to win that match. I don't... Ah, I feel bad. Whoever he played in the finals, I feel horrible. I'm just blanking on who it was. Um, I know Eric Lauer, but Eric Lauer didn't make the finals, I don't believe. Eric Lauer's, um, first,

maybe only top eight, Pro Tour top eight. Eric Lauer at the time was also, I talked about Mike Long being one of the best deck builders. Eric Lauer was known as a real, they called him the mad genius. And Randy Bueller,

the deck that Randy Bueller won with was built by Eric Lauer. In fact, there was another deck that won a Pro Tour that was built by Eric Lauer. There was a point in time where Eric Lauer had won more Pro Tour winning decks

than anybody else. And if you name top ten deck builds of all time, I think Eric's also on that list. And Pro Tour Rome was definitely a deck in which there were just really, really degenerative decks. Like I said, I mean, people were winning. The big thing in that one was the High Tide decks. High Tide

was a card from the Fawn Empires of the Dark, which allowed you to use blue mana and all your islands tap for extra blue. Anyway, the decks made use of Tolarian Academy. That was the major broken card from Urza Saga. But also, there was a whole bunch of free spells.

And so, the fact that high tie could reduce extra mana meant when you untapped a whole bunch of free spells, and so the fact that high tie could reduce extra mana meant when you untapped your lands through using free spells, you would go up in mana rather than down in mana. And all sorts of degenerate things happen when you've access to kind of infinite mana.

So, and that was very interesting. So that was in Rome. I remember that was, it was not my first trip to Rome, because as a, as a student, I had gone to Rome, but very, very briefly, um, that was the first time that I got to sort of, like, walk around and really see Rome, which was amazing, um, you know, I got to go to the Colosseum, and I got to, I, I got to just, you know, do all the things you would do as a, as a sightseer, I got to go to the Vatican. That's the first time I ever went to the Vatican. Well, I take that back. I'd gone to the Vatican.

But, I mean, first time I was on my own, doing my own thing. And, you know, I was able to sit and stare at the Sistine Chapel for a while. I remember, by the way, when I went to the Vatican City, that all these magic players were there. And it was very esoteric of, like, standing in the Sistine Chapel, surrounded by magic players, looking up, you know, at, at, you know, Michelangelo, and anyway,

it was quite a, quite a thing. So, I'm almost, almost at work. Lovely, how long are we on time here? Let's see. Ooh, we're having a long drive short today, so I'm glad I picked a topic where I knew a bunch of stories. Anything else? Oh, let me tell you a little bit

about Ula Rade. I talked about Tomi Hovi. So Ula Rade was, they called him the littlest Viking at the time. So early, early in Magic's history, Sweden was one of the powerhouses. They had a really good organized play system,

and they just had an organizer that really, really got what was going on, and that they did a lot of early organized play that just built a very robust system, and there were a lot of good Swedish players. So Tomi came for the first time to Pro Tour Columbus, and he, although he was a junior I mean he was young enough

to play in the juniors he played in the senior in the senior Pro Tours early on by the way in Pro Tour there was a junior section there was a senior section he played in the seniors

because he wanted to play with his friends but all the rest of the Swedish players had come on a different plane their plane was delayed they all missed the Pro Tour got there late

and couldn't play and Tomi not Tomi Ulla ended up winning the Pro Tour, got there late and couldn't play. And Tomi, not Tomi, Ula ended up winning the Pro Tour. He ended up coming in first with a little spider deck, a red-green spider deck. It was an Ice Age Alliances constructed event. He beat a guy named Sean Fleischman

in the finals. Sean was from New York. And Sean was one of the top eight at the very first Pro Tour, or top 16 at the very first Pro Tour. He was known for wearing a big feather hat. Anyway, Ulay was then at the world's top four, the next world, the one that

was held at Renton, the corporate headquarters. Then, two times later, not at Atlanta, which was the pre-release Mirage format, but at Dallas, which was, I think another draft, I think Rochester draft? Or might have been constructed, I forget.

Anyway, he came in top 8 at Dallas. Then he would go on to win the very first Invitational held in Hong Kong. So he put himself on the map pretty fast. And like I said, there's only a handful of players that a majority

of Magic players, any one moment in time would say, yes, this is the best player in Magic. And Ula had that for a little bit. He took the title from Justice. And then Finkel would take the title from Ula, I believe. But anyway, he, at the time

way back when, he had long, long blonde hair. In fact, it's funny. He won, I think I mentioned this in my podcast on the Invitational. He won the first Invitational and then turned in a couple of joke cards for his prize, none of which were usable, and then never really gave me a usable card. And he just didn't seem to care. But after Darwin's card came out and Long's card came out,

he came back to me and he said, you know, I made a mistake. It was a great honor. I really would like to have my prize. And at the time, he had joined, he was in the army, I believe, and he had shaved his head. And I said to him, you know, you won the prize. I will gladly give you the prize. My only thing I ask of you is, I need to portray you

as when you won, not as you look now. And so in Sylvan Safekeeper, which is his card, he has long, flowing blonde hair, because that's what he looked like when you won, not as you look now. And so, in Sylvan Safekeeper, which is his card, he has long, flowing blonde hair, because that's what he looked like when he won. But anyway, so I'm almost there. So, hopefully today I'm... In some ways,

this was, as much as this was about pro tour, European pro tours, it was also about early magic. One of the things I wanted to do is I like telling stories. I believe that

magic has a rich history and that it's fun for people to know these stories and understand who these people were. And when names get bandied about

like Mike Long or Mark Justice or Ula Rade or Tomi Hovi, I want people to know who they are. I get at least Tomi and Ula in the Hall of Fame.

But it was up to me, both Justice and Long would be in the Hall of Fame. It is hard to tell stories about early Magic and not include those two. They are a very fundamental part of the early part of Magic. And, I believe two of the best players to ever play the game. So, anyway,

on this rainy, rainy day, you can hear the rain, I've finally gotten to work and so you guys, finally an end to this epic,

wow, for a long time my record had been 51 minutes so I tied my long time record although I've since beat that. I went over an hour with some crazy,

I had a crazy, crazy drive in one day. But today, anyway, thank you for listening to my extra long podcast all about the Pro Tours of Europe

or some of the early Pro Tours of Europe. But,