Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #246 - Early Trips

Episode Date: July 24, 2015

Mark talks about the three trips Wizards sent him on before he started full-time.

I'm pulling up the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, today I'm going to tell some stories, but from way, way back when. In fact, I'm going to tell three stories today that all happened before I became a full-time employee at Wizards of the Coast. In fact, back in the day, back when I used to freelance, Wizards flew me to three different events. And I'm going to talk about those three events today in chronological order. So the very first event I was ever flown to by Wizards of the Coast was the Ice Age pre-release. So let me explain for those that might not understand. When I say the Ice Age pre-release, I do not mean a pre-release for Ice Age. I mean the one and only pre-release for Ice Age,

which, by the way, was also the very first pre-release. So up to before this point, we hadn't had pre-releases. And so Wizards had this cool idea of, what if we had this tournament where players could play with the cards for the first time, cards they'd never seen before? And the idea was to do this big tournament, and they chose to do it in Toronto, Canada. In fact, it was held at a comic convention.

But they had, like, one whole, the second floor, the whole, like, major part of the floor was set up. So now, probably looking back, it was probably only hundreds of people. And I know when, you know, recently we had, like, Grand Prix Vegas where there were 8,000 people. So hundreds of people might not I know when, you know, recently we had like a Grand Prix Vegas where there were 8,000 people. So hundreds of people might not sound like a lot,

but at the time, it was the biggest thing I'd ever seen. I never seen a tournament like this. It was, it was in my mind huge because I was used to playing, you know, in a store where like maybe there's 30 people or, you know,

even when we had like regionals and stuff, it would be like 70, 80 people maybe, you know, I when we had like regionals and stuff, there would be like 70, 80 people maybe, you know, we, I didn't have hundreds of people. So anyway, what happened was I, at the time was, um, writing for the dualists. For those that know my story, I started doing the puzzle column. That's how I got connected with wizards in the first place. And then I flew myself to Gen Con, met Catherine Haynes, the editor, and I convinced her that I should be able to write articles. And I was a good writer. I knew magic. I turned things in on deadline.

It's all you need to do, really, to get more work. And anyway, so I would write articles in every duel. I was one of the regular contributing authors. Anyway, Catherine calls me one day and says, Mark, I would like to fly you to Toronto. We're going to have the first ever pre-release for Ice Age and I want you to play in it. You heard me correct.

I was told, I was being flown, I was being flown by Wizards on Wizards of Dime to Toronto, Canada to play in the pre-release and the reason was Catherine wanted me to write an article about it but she wanted me to do it from the perspective of a player playing in the tournament.

And so I was willing to make that sacrifice, and so I did. And, so what happened was we got there. Okay, so, let me set the scene. So, once again, it was in this comic convention. So there were other people there, but we had, like, there was like a second floor, that, like, there was

a balcony that looked over the first floor. You could see all the comic people. But we were up on the second floor. We had our own little space, which was a pretty big space. And there were just rows and rows of tables. More people I'd ever seen at an event, like I said. Once again, it was hundreds. But at the time, I'd never seen hundreds of people playing Magic in one place.

So we all sat down. It took a while to get everybody seated. And a lot has get everybody seated. A lot has improved since then. This was very early tournaments where they were still sort of figuring things out. Didn't have the software we have today. Didn't have a lot of the expertise we have today. But anyway, it took a little while

to get everybody registered and everything. But anyway, we all sat down. And then, armored guards came with a giant pallet that was locked, with, like, locks on it. And they wheeled it in, and everybody was hooting and hollering. And then they pull out the keys, and they unlock all the locks. And they open it up, and it was boxes, boxes of Ice Age. Ooh, it was very exciting.

And then everybody was just going crazy. I mean, pre-releases now are kind of second nature. But at the time, the idea of playing with Magic cards you had never seen before. I mean, I guess when Magic Cets came out, that is true. But, I mean, like, before anybody ever touched it, you knew you were the first people on the Earth to open up these Ice Age boosters. Very exciting. And it was so early, it was so early that the tournament was played with ante.

With ante. So what happened is, you would play somebody, and then, I'm trying to remember how it happened. I think what happened was, if you lost, if you won, you got a random card from the loser's deck, I think. Might have been the sideboard. But all I know is as you played, your deck would change because you would get new cards. And sometimes I think you would lose cards. But anyway, your deck would change over time. So, okay, I remember when I opened my cards.

So the two cards that I noticed. One was Zern Orb. A card that got banned. So, Zern Orb is an artifact that costs zero that you sac a land to gain three life, I believe. And I remember the time

I saw it, that I was, I had played with a card called Dark Heart of the Woods, which was a multicolored card, green and black card from the dark, that allowed you to sacrifice

a land for, I think, two life. So, like, this card was, like, better on so many, like, you got more life, and it cost less to cast, and it was an artifact, and didn't require any color, and, you know, it was, like, it was just better on every axis. And the card, the other card, like, I had built decks around. I mean, not that it was an amazing card, but I, I respected kind of what it could do. So, I remember I was talking to Chris Page. So, Ice Age was designed by the East Coast playtester, so Scaff Elias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, and Chris Page. The first three of them, Scaff, Jim, and Dave,

were in R&D, were working at Wizards. Chris was not, but Chris had flown to the event. It was, you know, their set. And I remember when I opened up Zurn Orb, I saw Chris, I go, Chris, what are you doing? And Chris goes, oh, it's not that bad. And I was proved correct. That card was...

My ability to judge power level is questionable at times, but I did recognize Zern Orb for being the busted thing that it was. Okay, the other card I opened up was called Vexing Arcanics, which is a card where you spend some mana, your opponent then needs to name a card, and then

if the card they named is on top of their deck, well, target player names a card. You could use it on yourself. And then if the person doesn named is on top of their deck, well, target player names the card. You could use it on yourself. And then if the person doesn't name it correctly, the card gets milled and it does two damage. Milled meaning it goes to the graveyard. So this card in Limited was pretty powerful because every turn it could do, I think, two damage. And it also was milling them. Sometimes you would mill them out.

Sometimes you would do damage. And it was the pre-reliefs where no one knew the names of the cards. So it was also funny, too, when you woulding them. Sometimes you would mill them out. Sometimes you would do damage. And it was the pre-release when no one knew the names of the cards. So it was also funny, too, when you would use them and you're like, ah, it's that green creature with power equal to the number of creatures in your graveyard. Toughness is that plus one. And it's got a name I can't pronounce.

You know. So it was fun. It was just fun playing this pre-release. So the two of those cards together, because Zern Orb just meant it took forever for me to lose. Forever for me to lose. I just could gain so much life. And Vexing Arcanics was just a great kill card. That if I could get it out, and because it was an artifact,

not a lot of people were running artifact destruction standard. People were on creature destruction. But usually I would get it out there, and people didn't often have an answer to it. And so, anyway, in general I had a good deck, by the way. Those are my two MVPs. But anyway, I went undefeated on day one. So the way it worked was, there were hundreds of people.

It cut to 32 for day two. And I, undefeated, I got to advance to day two. And then I get pulled aside by Scaff Elias, and Scaff goes, Mark, look, I know you did well and I know Catherine wanted you to play so you could write about that

but look, we just can't have someone we flew to the event win the event. So I'm going to have to, you're going to have to drop out. So I'm like, okay, fair enough. I was flown there. So I dropped out. So I made day two. And then I think number 33 just got like, the next person in line got advanced.

So I didn't, I wasn't like only 31 in advance because I dropped out. A 32nd person got taken. So anyway, and then the winner of that event ended up being Dave Humphries. So you might know Dave Humphries as the current design manager, not design manager, development manager. He's also a Pro Tour Hall of Famer. Won a Pro Tour as part of Team Your Move Games. Anyway, that was Dave's first kind of big win. In fact, by the way, when Scaf and I were setting up the first Pro Tour

and we were making the invite list, we were trying to make sure that a lot of good players were playing in it. So anything in which somebody won it and we thought the person who won it was good, we just made that a criteria for getting in. So I made the Ice Age pre-release tournament an invitation to the first Pro Tour just because I wanted Dave to be invited. So I thought Dave was a good player.

But anyway, that, my friends, was the Ice Age. So one of the things, by the way, that was awesome, really cool, I remember is that I got some sealed Ice Age. So, one of the things, by the way, that was awesome, really cool, I remember is that I got some sealed Ice Age packs, and when I returned, Henry Stern, a good friend of mine, which will come up in a second, I remember playing with Henry, and he

and I, I brought back a few sealed packs, and he and I, like, Henry played Ice Age for the first time playing sealed with me, and that was pretty cool. We'll get to Henry. Henry's actually important in my next story. Okay, story number two! U. We'll get to Henry. Henry's actually important in my next story. Okay, story number two. U.S. Nationals 1995. So there actually was a U.S. Nationals in 1994 in San Jose.

I actually attended it with my dad. A man named Bo Bell won using a black discard deck, if I remember correctly. In 1994, also at a world championship. Zach Dolan won the very first world championship, held the Gen Con. So we'll get to the world in a second. So, Nationals 94 was a little more low-key. They decided to sort of

spruce it up a little bit. For the first time ever, they were going to film it. Now, there was no streaming or anything. The internet wasn't at that point yet. I mean, we were talking newsnets and stuff at the time. But we were going to tape it so we could show it to people later. So we were videoing it. And so I was brought in, A, to help with the judging, because what happened was, when I started writing for the Duelist, I got advanced knowledge

of card sets. Because I had advanced knowledge of card sets, I wasn't allowed to play in any sort of sanctioned tournament. And so I started judging. So I got very involved in judging. One of these days, I will do a podcast about judging, because I actually had, in the early days, I did a lot of judging stuff. Most people don't know this, but I was very, very involved in judging early on. And so they had me go to the event to judge. Also, they were doing video, and so I was going to try to help them out. My background, for those that don't know, but most of you probably do, but in college, I studied communications. And so I actually did video production things.

So I offered to help out there. We'll get to that in a second. Okay, so first, 95 Nationals was held in Philadelphia at, I think it was Origins. I think. I'm not 100% on that. It was for sure in Philadelphia. I think it was Origins. During a heat wave. I mean a heat wave. So I was, luckily, the hotel I was staying in was connected to the convention center, I believe. So I didn't have to go

outside to get to the convention center. But one night, it was late at night, it was dark out, and I was hungry. And so I ventured out to some convenience store. And we're talking like 10, 11 at night. And I had to go like a block, and I was just dripping with sweat by the time I got to the convenience store. Because it was that hot out at night. But anyway, huge heat wave. So there are all sorts of things going on there. Wizards had a booth and things. But I was focused on nationals.

So nationals starts. So Steve Bishop, I've talked about Steve. He ran what we called events earlier on. Now it's organized play. But he was in charge of that department. And so he was running U.S. Nationals. So there was a player meeting to talk about, I don't know,

issues. One of the things that Wizards really wanted was to have limited play be part of it. Not just constructed, but limited.

The players at the time were not really happy with limited play. The draft wasn't really a thing yet, so it was sealed. And most of the players were like,

look, we think that there's too much variance to this. So anyway, there's a player meeting where they argued about whether or not, how to handle the limited portion. And the meeting went on for three hours. Three hours!

That's not true anymore. Player meetings are going on a lot. So, I mean, I don't know if, I guess Steve was trying to be accommodating. I'm not sure what happened. I don't know why any meeting goes on for three hours where you're arguing with the players. But anyway, in the end, they made some compromise, and they got a bunch of cards for their limited,

more so than normal. Anyway, so 95 Ice Age had recently come out. This is after the Ice Age pre-release, that chronological. And so Henry Stern, real quickly, I used for part-timerelease, that's chronological. And so, Henry Stern, and so, real quickly, my, I used,

for part-time work in a game store called The Game Keeper, when Magic first came out, I convinced them to carry Magic, and one of the things I would do in the store is,

I had an open, open-packed demo. I would demo Magic all the time. And, if anybody wanted to trade with me, my rule was,

I would trade, you had to match rarities, and I had a list from like Shadist Magazine or something that listed the r would trade, you had to match rarities, and I had a list from Shadist Magazine or something that listed the rarities. You had to match rarities, and you had to give me a card that the deck didn't have. So you could trade one for one, and you had to match rarities, and you couldn't duplicate a card already in the deck. And so a bunch

of people came and took me up on this trading offer, Henry being one of them, and we started talking one day, and I realized that he lived around the block from me. So Henry and I got together, we played some Magic. He and I acted together, ended up going down to Costa Mesa a lot, where that was the big place to play back then in L.A.

And we became good friends. So I remember when I first found out information about Nationals, what they had done was, so 94 Nationals and 94 Worlds, anybody could play in them. For example, I played in them. I played in 94 Nationals, I they had done was, so 94 nationals and 94 worlds, anybody could play in them. For example, I played in them. I played in 94 nationals, I played in 94 worlds. The only nationals and the only worlds I ever played in.

They were open invitation. You literally just had to show up for nationals. Worlds, the way it worked was there were different heats, but anybody could play in any heat. In fact, you could play in multiple heats. It was single elimination. So anyway, this was the first time that you had to be invited. You couldn't just go to nationals.

You had to earn an invite. And I believe the first time they did regionals. So back in the day, it worked a little differently than it does now. There used to be regionals, then there were nationals, and then there was the nationals that go to worlds. So what happened was I helped run the Southwest Regionals because I was a judge and I was one of the more knowledgeable people on magic and rules and things like that.

And so I was one of the key judges. So what happened was we had a man show up for Regionals from Utah by the name of Mark Justice. And Mark ended up coming second. He lost a guy named Felix Unger, I believe was his name. So Mark ended up getting an invite to nationals. Henry ended up not doing well enough in regionals to get invited, but he was in the top 25 overall rating

because the rating system had started. And so he was in the top 25. So I got to call Henry and say to Henry, hey, Henry, guess what? You're invited to Nationals! So Henry hopped on a plane, Justice hopped on a plane, and we went off to Nationals. So what happened was, Henry was playing a deck called Vice Age,

which was a red-green deck that revolved around, I know Black Vice was a big part of it. I don't remember the deck exactly. But it had the ability to make a lot of mana and do all sorts of things. Justice was playing, was that his Elken Bottle deck? I'm not sure whether the Elken Bottle deck was his 95 Nationalist deck or his first Pro Tour deck in New York.

Anyway, so the way it worked was, the tournament was a double elimination tournament. So here's what that means. I'm sorry. Top eight was double elimination. It was a Swiss tournament. Top eight was double elimination. And the way that worked was when you played in the finals, if you lost, you went to a loser's bracket. So one person would win the winner's bracket and one person would win the loser's bracket. So if you went to the loser's bracket, as long as you kept winning, you stayed in it. And then the winner of the winner's bracket would play the winner of the loser's bracket.

But, and here's the catch, the loser's bracket had to win two matches in order to win, where the winner's bracket just needed to win one match. So what happened was Henry won the winner's bracket. Mark Justice won the loser's bracket. So the finals was Henry versus Mark, but Justice had to win two matches in order to become national champion. So they play. First match

is really close, but Justice pulls it out. Now they're even. Now it's down to one match. Whoever wins this match will win. During, I think it was the second game of the final match, Justice in his deck had Channel and Fireball, a very early magic combo. And he misplayed it.

Back in the day, you had to have mana in your pool before you cast your spell. And Mark had sort of messed it up. He didn't have the mana when he announced the fireball. He had messed up the ordering of it. But the judges at the time were mostly wizards people who were not super

up on the rules. I mean, we would get much, much better at that, but people at the time, like Steve Bishop, didn't really know magic rules as well as he could have. I'll be polite there. And so what happened was they let Mark take back his move, which I know upset Henry,

only because this is the U.S. Nationals on the line. You do it right, you messed up. But they let Justice do it over again. Justice ended up winning that game, and then Justice went on to win the match, and Justice became U.S. National Champion in 1995. Henry came in second. Third was a guy named Mike Long, and fourth was a man named Pete Lyre. Both Mike Long and Pete Lyre were, I believe, from Virginia.

Like I said, Henry was from L.A. and Los Angeles, and Justice was from Salt Lake City in Utah. And they became the very first U.S. national team. Well, to be fair, previously, there was a U.S. Nationals in 94, but there wasn't a team made. This is the first year where, so like, in the previous year, three countries had held nationals. The U.S. had nationals, France had nationals, and Belgium had nationals. I think France and Belgium might have brought the teams over,

but the U.S. didn't fly the teams there. I don't even know if Bobel played in 94 Worlds. He might have, but Wizards did not get him there. This year, if you won and you were on the national team, you were flown to the event, which we'll get to in a second. You were flown to 95 Worlds. Part of winning was you got the trip and the hotelio. You got to take into Worlds.

So anyway, that was the U.S. team. That was the first time anyone had ever met Mike Long. You know what I'm saying? It's where Justice really got known for the first time, where Henry got known, you know. It really was a place where, I mean, Magic didn't have a lot of high-profile tournaments early on. And so 95 Nationals, 95 Worlds were some of the first big stage stuff

where people got to know some who had gone on to be some very famous pros. But this is pre-pro tour. Okay, so that transitions us into 95 Worlds. Okay, so the previous year Worlds had been in Milwaukee at Gen Con. Gen Con was in Milwaukee at the time. And Peter Atkinson, the CEO, one of the founders of the company, said, you know what? I want something bigger. I don't want to just be another tournament at Gen Con.

I want us to be our own thing. It's going to be the Magic World Championships. And so they're holding it in Seattle just because it's easier to get ready in Seattle. It's easier to bring all the players in than move all the staff somewhere else. So it was held in a Red Lion Inn, which is right near the airport, near the SeaTac airport. And so what happened was, in order to get into Worlds, you had to be invited. There was two ways to get an invite. Number one was, you had to be on a national team.

And there were 20 to 30 teams. High 20s, low 30s is my memory. And the one other way to get in was if you were the previous year's world champion, Zach Dolan got invited. So there were, that's it. You were on a national team or you were Zach Dolan, you were previous world champion,

you did not get invited. No invites on rating. You had to be part of a national team or a former world champion, the reigning world champion. So what happened was in between nationals and world, Steve Bishop had left. Steve Bishop had gone off to do other things. And a new man, a man named Jason Carl, who had been on the events team, the organized

play team, but when Steve left, sort of got moved up and became the guy in charge. And Jason's an awesome guy. He really, really is. He was studious, and I loved working with Jason. He hadn't really run a large Magic tournament before. I don't know how many Magic tournaments he'd run. A few, probably. But nothing to the scope of Worlds.

And Steve had left, which put Jason in charge of it with not a lot of time. By the time Jason realized he was in charge of Worlds, there wasn't much time. And so Jason was just in over his head. And, I mean, he was doing his best. And the event came across pretty well. So, I mean, Jason did a good job, being that he was thrown in the middle of a crazy project with nowhere near the skill level of knowledge of having done it before.

So, anyway, when I got there, I was, all I know is Jason was running the tournament. And because Jason had not run a tournament before, or a bigger Magic tournament, he had made some decisions that were a little off. And so I and some of the other judges were trying to convince him. So the one I remember, the big one was, at the time, a win was worth, I think, two points, and a loss was worth zero, and a win was worth I think two points and a loss was worth zero and a tie was worth one later wins would go on

and be worth three I believe but anyway at the time I think it was two one zero so Jason wanted to award buys as if it were a draw instead of getting two points

he would get one point because in his mind well you didn't really win but we're like no you can't punish the... No one... The buys, it gets... I mean,

it's random in the first round and in later rounds, obviously the lowest seated... the lowest ranked player plays it. But I'm like, in the first round, you're just randomly hosing somebody

if you don't give them the win. It's not their fault they got the buy. It's truly random. And so we had to convince them that it should be two points and not one point. You had to award a win for a buy.

You couldn't award a tie, a draw. I think we managed to convince them of that. The other thing that I was trying really hard to do, and I wrote about this, is I really, really wanted recognition of the teams. I'm like, oh, we have all these teams here. You know, not just an individual winner. We should have a team winner. But the point is they hadn't set that up.

There was no trophy for it. There was no time allocated for a finals. And they're like, look, we just have a team winner. But the point is, they hadn't set that up, there was no trophy for it, there was no time allocated for a finals, and they're like, look, we just can't do it. And so I finally said, okay, Jason, can I keep track of it? Because I was doing the article for the duelist. So in the early days, for those unaware, I was, one of my specialties

was I did all the organized play stuff. I did all the event coverage, because there wasn't a lot of event coverage to do. So, like, the reason I had been flown out to do nationals and to Worlds, partly was because I was helping out as a judge, but really, probably the bigger reason I was flown out was I was writing the articles

on both things. I might as well be there to help out. No reason not to help out. But anyway, so I said to him, I go, look, can I just keep track of it? I'll just, I just, people would be cool to know.

I mean, look, the teams are going to play in the Swiss rounds. There won't be a playoff, but someone's going to have the best record, you know,

and we'll say, hey, best record won. And he goes, I don't care, whatever. So, basically out of frustration,

he's like, you want to keep track of it, keep track of it, I don't care. So I got this big whiteboard and I put all the names of all the countries on it and then every time

at the end of the ring I'd check who won what and then I'd update the score. And so the idea is every time you'd win your team would get points for the win and then your country

got every win that any member of your team would apply to your country. So the idea essentially was the team that had the most wins overall counting all the players on their team

would win the event. So it turned out the U.S. was the team that had the most wins overall, counting all the players on their team, would win the event. So it turned out the U.S. was the winning team. The average of the U.S. team was the cutoff for top eight because two of the U.S. team, both Henry and Mark Justice, made top eight. And then Mike Long was one out of top eight, and Pete Lauer was two away from top eight. So they did really well. The U.S. team did quite well.

And then the funny thing is I wrote it up on the duel list, and so it is now considered to be the first team event. I recorded it. Clearly they had won it. There was no playoffs. That wouldn't happen until 1996, when America would take the Czech Republic and play in the finals. But that was in 1996.

In 1995, there was no actual playoff. There was no trophies. I don't even think at the event they announced that the U.S. team won. But I announced it in the duelist. And being that very, you know, a handful of people were at the event. A lot of people read about it in the duelist. So me announcing it there ended up being a lot louder, I guess, than there being a trophy awarded.

So anyway, the top eight. So Henry and Mark were the two U.S. in the top eight. There was Mulun Wang from Austria. There was Ivan Karina and Andrea Reddy from Italy, two people from Italy. There was Henry Schilt from Finland. There's Alexander Blumke from Switzerland and Mark Hernandez from France.

So a pretty cool world. There were six countries represented. Is that right? Five countries represented. There's two from the U.S., two from Italy, one from Finland, one from Austria. Six-six. One from Switzerland, one from France. So what happened was both Justice and Stern won their quarterfinal matches, as did Alexander Blumke and Mark Hernandez. I believe Alexander Blumke played Mark Justice and Mark Hernandez played Henry.

So I remember in the semifinals, oh, so what happened was the role I ended up playing at both Nationals and Worlds was I ended up being what's called the spotter. So what happened was, when I was talking to them about planning, they had commentators that were going to commentate, but I said to them, hey, you guys need to have information because you're not going to necessarily know the score. If you have information about hands or something,

if you have a guy on the floor that you're mic'd to, you can talk to me, and I can answer questions. If you've ever seen the video of either 95 nationals or worlds, there's a little man on stage, that little man is me Worlds, there's a little man on stage. That little man is me. And I have a little headset on. I'm running between things.

And I'm talking to the commentators. And I was what's called spotting. Later, when I would be the producer on the Pro Tour, I would get other people to be spotters. Scott Larrabee, Scott Johnson, famous people that would be my spotters when I was a producer. Anyway, I remember watching Henry play Hernandez. Let me be aware, I have a stone face.

I, you know, I couldn't be rooting for anybody. But secretly, down deep, Henry was my friend. I wanted Henry to win. And I remember watching this one game where it was in game three, and Henry had the perfect hand, but he needed a force. That he could just go off. If he could draw a force, boom, he was just going to be, he was going to win. And he had like four or five turns

to draw the forest. You know, he had a couple turns for it to happen. A bunch of turns for it to happen. And just watching him draw, like, not a forest. Not a forest. Not a forest.

And Henry always said, he and I talked afterwards, that had he drawn a forest in the first four or five things, he believed he would have won the game and won the match, and that his deck was a really good matchup against Bloomkey's deck, he felt. So Henry felt like if he had drawn a force there, he would have been the world champ.

That was Henry's take on it. Anyway, he lost to Hernandez. Mark Justice lost to Alexander Bloomkey. So Justice came in third because I think Justice was the top seed going into the top eight, and then Henry was fourth. Which, by the way, in the following year, both of them would make top four again. Justice would make number two in 1996,

and Henry would be, I forget his seeding, but third or fourth. So, anyway, the finals ended up being Mark Hernandez of France versus Alexander Blumke of Switzerland. And one of the big things was they asked permission if they could speak to each other in French, because both of them were from French-speaking countries, and they were native French speakers. And we said, yes, this is the world championship.

Our finals could be held in all sorts of languages. I mean, the commentary was in English. But the players themselves would talk to each other in French. Whenever they'd have to ask the judge something, they would ask in English. So whenever there was any sort of need for communication, it was done in English. But when they were bantering between themselves, I don't even know what they said.

I was there, but they were talking French, so I don't speak French. But anyway, there was a good game, but in the end, Alexander Blumke of Switzerland was victorious and became the 1995 World Champ. The previous World Champion was Zach Dolan, so for the first time, he was a World Champ that wasn previous Euro World Champion was Zach Dolan.

So for the first time, he was a World Champ that wasn't American. He was European. It was very exciting. Hernandez coming in second. There was a running joke at that point where the first Worlds, France came in second. The second Worlds, France came in second. Then the first Pro Tour,

France came in second. There was a joke for a while that France was really good at coming in second. Eventually, they would win one in San Diego. It would take a while, though. It would take many, many years in the Pro Tour. I mean, France would come in second

a bunch of times, but it took them a while before they finally won. But they did, and now they've won a whole bunch of times. Like I said, France has been one of the top magic countries

for a long, long time since the very beginning. But anyway, so for those, by the way, that don't, just the, one of the things I want you to understand

for all these events, especially Worlds, Worlds, like, we were our own event. We weren't at somebody else's event. Like, Nationals was at Origins. The previous Worlds

had been at Gen Con. The cool thing about Worlds was it was us and only us. I remember we had, like, a player dinner where everybody was us and only us. I remember we had like a player dinner where everybody got to mingle together. And I remember some of the players had brought special shirts.

And I remember there was one shirt given away to everybody, which was a shirt that had the art of justice on the back, which we made jokes because the US team had justice on it. And then there's this black Lotus shirt that only the players got, that I know Henry had, that I never got because I wasn't a player. But it was really, it was this neat bonding experience, these players from around the world. I mean, now the Pro Tour is a regular thing that just,

it's almost taken for granted. Like, hey, you know all these people from all around the world. By the time, just meeting all these players that also played Magic was a really just exciting experience. And like I said, Worlds was raw. There's a lot of things that went on that was clear that we were finding our feet. Wizards was trying to figure out how to do things. And that, you know, I look back now and compare it to modern day.

You know, it's night and day as far as stuff. But in its day and its time, you have to sort of, like, you've got to look at the Model T as the Model T. And say, you know what? Fine, compared to modern sports cars, it's nothing special. But in the day, it was a car and there were no cars. So it was pretty impressive, you know, and I felt the same way. Worlds were just this amazing thing. Like one of the things today, I just want to share some stories is there was a point in time where I was the wide eyed new kid who just everything was was new and exciting. You know, I get that. I get when, like,

one of the things I'll say to people is, if there's ever a Grand Prix remotely close to you, even if you have to drive four hours, go to it. Go to it. Because when you walk in for the first time and there's just a tournament larger than any tournament you've ever seen, there's more people you've ever seen in one room

playing Magic, there is such an exciting experience. I mean, I didn't have a chance, obviously, to go to Vegas, but just knowing there were 8,000 people. I would talk to people who were at the event, and they were like, there are people I know were at the event. I never saw them. Never saw them.

I was at the same event as them. Never saw them. Just too big. Did not see them. I think back to the Ice Age pre-release and to the 95 Nationals and 95 Worlds and this is early things

that I I've been blessed that I luckily got I got flown there all three of these events like on Wizard's Dime they flew me to the event

I mean I was covering them I guess not that I didn't work but I it still was an amazing thing you know and I was

once again I went to Toronto I went to, I went up to Seattle. I was living in Los Angeles at the time. I was going all over North America, getting to go to these awesome magic events, seeing things for the first time, seeing these experiences for the first time, getting just a sense of all these people, first from across the nation, then from across the world, getting to meet and know people that I would know 20 years later. But anyway, it is exciting. It was fun.

And all these events, like one of the reasons today I wanted to share these stories was, it was a neat time. I mean, in some ways, a lot of my stories go back. I mean, one of the reasons I'm one of the historians is, my stories involve the early stuff. You know, like, my first tournament was the first tournament that did this. My old man speech. Get off my lawn! But anyway,

I look back and it's fun. It is so exciting. There are memories I cherish. I will remember to my dying day of the armored car bringing in the Ice Age boosters and players chanting. They were so excited they were chanting. They were pounding their hands on the table screaming. It and like players chanting. They were so excited they were chanting.

They were like pounding their hands on the table screaming and it was just, it was an amazing thing. Or just like, just thinking back to the 95 Nationals, you know,

of just like the dramatic like finish where Justice manages to win or just Bloomkeep's face when he won Worlds and became the World Champion. Just all those things, you know. And I was lucky.

I was literally like two feet from him when it happened, you know. I had this interesting vantage in history in that not only was I there, but I was like really there. You know, I was literally as there as you could be. But anyway, those are my stories today. I hope you guys enjoyed a little jaunt into Magic's past. But anyway, I'm in my parking space so we all know what that means

it's time to end my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic talk to you guys next time