Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #263 - 2012

Episode Date: September 18, 2015

Mark continues his 20 years in 20 podcasts with the year 2012.

I'm putting my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, today I'm going to continue another of my 20 years in 20 podcast series. In fact, by the way, technically this is the 20th podcast in 20 years in 20 podcasts. But that name is more of a general sense than a super accurate one. My plan was to cover every single year since Magic's beginning. When I originally did this at the World Championship in 2013, I covered the 20 years since Magic had started. Since then, it took me a while to do this series of podcasts.

A few more years have rolled by, so I'm not going to stop. Today's 2012. I will continue on. I will do 2013 and 2014. Once 2015 is done, I'll do that. And then every year I will update on the previous year. So this is an ongoing thing that'll never quite end, but I'm close to catching up to the brunt of it. And so today I present the 20th year in 20 years in 20 podcast. Okay, so we're up to 2012. So this is chock full of stuff this year is. So let's get right away because we have lots to talk about.

Okay, on January 28th was the pre-release. February 3rd was the release of Rattle, a.k.a. Dark Ascension. So it was Shake, Rattle, and Roll were the codenames for the block. So the set had 158 cards, 64 commons, 44 uncommons, 38 rares, 12 mythic rares.

Now you might say, that's an odd series of numbers. Why is that so odd? The answer is there were double-faced cards in both Innistrad and Dark Ascension, and the double-faced cards were added to normal sheets, so there's a little bit extra.

Normally, a small set wouldn't quite have 158. It would have a little less than that. But, although, anyway. Okay, so I was the lead designer for the set. Tom Lapilli was the lead developer. This was actually the first second set I've ever designed. In fact, the only second set I've ever designed. In fact, the only second set I've ever designed. I did do Eventide,

so if you want to think of the Shadowmoor block as being its own little mini block, then that was the second set. But as far as doing a set that came out in the beginning of the year, the Northern Hemisphere winter set, if you will, that's the only one I've ever done so far. What had happened was I had done Innistrad.

I was trying Ken Nagel, who had worked a long time. I felt like it was time for him to do a large set design. Return to Ravnica was coming out. I felt like that was a really good first set design because there was some structure already to it because we had been to Ravnica before. So I would let Ken do that set. I ended up doing Gatecrash, which was the other large set of the year.

That gave me some free time. And by free time, it meant I was done designing something. How could I have a week go by where I wasn't leading design of something? I've mentioned this set before, by the way. I've continuously been leading a design of a set since I started Shadowmoor, which is basically, um, every single member of my design team, exception of, I guess, my manager, Mark Gottlieb, uh, I've been lead designing continuously longer than any of them have been under my tutelage on my team. Anyway, I had some time, so I did a small set. I really, really like the Innistrad.

I thought it would be fun to do the companion set to Innistrad, which it was. So the set introduced two new mechanics, Undying and Fateful Hour. Undying was inspired by... I was trying to find a mechanic like Persist, but we had a minus one, minus one counter. Sorry, we had plus one, plus one counters instead of minus one, minus one counters. So I had really an idea of doing Persist,

but with plus one, plus one counters. And it fit into the idea of you kill the creature, and you think it is dead, but no, it's back, and it's even stronger. It fits sort of the horror that there's a very common trope where you kill the creature, and the monster is dead. Yay, celebrate! But wait, the music isn't celebrating yet.

What's going on? Oh no, they're not dead yet. And then the other mechanic was fateful hour. Fateful hour was a mechanic that the card got stronger if you were at, I believe, five or less life. It was kind of a catch-up mechanic and it was supposed to represent how bad off the humans were. Because in the set, the first set was about how the humans in peril, and the second set, humans really in peril. And only, they're about, like, they're about to be extinguished. The humans are about to be wiped off the plane of Innistrad.

But, luckily, as we'll get to the next set, something comes and saves them. We'll talk about that soon. Anyway, the set also brought back Morbid and Flashback and Transform. It had new double-faced cards. It had some double-faced cards that weren't creatures or planeswalkers. It actually had an artifact that turned into a creature, and a creature that turned into enchantment, and it mixed things up a little bit more.

We also played around a little bit with Flashback. We had a few twists on Flashback. It seemed morbid. Okay, moving on. February 10th through the 12th, Pro Tour Dark Ascension held in Honolulu. Okay, so a whole bunch of things happened right here. So this, we decided to revamp how we did coverage for the Pro Tour. This was the first with a revamp. So for starters, instead of just showing the finals, we showed all the, like the entire competition from the beginning to the end.

The feature matches were now video. There was coverage at the desk. You know, all of a sudden we went from doing just video coverage on the final day to video coverage every day and made a much bigger production of it. The Pro Tours at the time went from being open public events to being private events, but we spent a lot of time and energy making it much more accessible as a home viewing thing, so people could view it and have ongoing,

during the whole thing, and have coverage the entire time, and video coverage the entire time. We also changed the name of the Pro Tours. For years and years and years, the Pro Tours were named after the city they were held in. But this was not Pro Tour Honolulu. This was Pro Tour

Dark Ascension. The idea was the Pro Tour's always been a marketing vehicle and we're like, you know, we're trying to sell a particular set. Let's focus on that set. And so the Pro Tours are not named after the set. So the way it works is the set comes out,

and then right after the set comes out, there's a Pro Tour named after the set that focuses on the set. So this was Pro Tour Dark Ascension. It happened to be held in Honolulu. So it was standard for the constructed portion, Innistrad Dark Ascension booster drafting for the limited portion, and Brian Kibler of the United States defeated Paulo Vitor Domingo de Rosso of Brazil.

So a pretty high-octane final match. Two Hall of Famers who, at the time, I'm not sure if they both were in the Hall of Fame at the time. If not, they're cemented in being in the Hall of Fame. I don't remember when who got in the Hall of Fame but anyway, Kibler versus Paulo pretty

like I said, a pretty hot damn match okay, March 30th Duel Decks, Koth versus Venser so one of the things that we always do is we do two Duel Decks each year, one is two Planeswalkers. Planeswalker battle, I put that in quotes.

And the other is a themed one that usually ties into one of the sets. We swapped them up so now the Planeswalker ones happen in March, or the Northern Hemisphere Spring. And then the other one happens right before the release of the Northern Hemisphere Fall set. I'm starting to say Northern Southern Hemisphere because I know when I say fall or spring, that is not true for half the world, so I'm trying to be more cognizant of the fact. The reason I don't always say the months is the set sometimes comes out in October usually, but sometimes comes out in September.

This particular one came in October, but anyway, I'm trying to get good... We have a world audience. I try real hard to sort of use my verbiage that matches everybody who's listening. So anyway, that's why I'm referencing North Hemisphere. Okay. Koth versus Ventor. So one of the things we do with the Planeswalker, we go back a year. So this one was looking at Scars of Mirrodin block

and saying, who are the Planeswalkers in that? Who could we have fight? Who haven't we had in a thing? And Koth and Ventor seemed like good fits. They had some colors. Koth got you some red. Ventor was white and blue. And anyway, I don't know if they actually fought in the story,

but maybe they had a little tip. Sometimes the creative team goes back and figures out a way to have some justification. Sometimes it's a big deal. Liliana versus Garak became like a major story point. But Cosper's Vents are not a major story point. Okay, next.

April 28th was the pre-release. May 4th was the release of Avacyn Restored, a.k.a. Roll. Shake, Rattle, and Roll. So there are 244 cards, 101 common, 69 common, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares, and

15 lands. Um, so normally a large set is 249. Normally there's 20 basic lands. I'm not sure why there were 15 instead of 20. Um, but other than that, this is normal large set size at the time. Um, okay, so, um, Brian Tinsman was the lead designer.

Dave Humphreys was the lead developer. I think this was, interestingly, I think this was Brian Tinsman's last lead design and David Humphreys' first lead development. Passing a baton, sort of. Brian Tinsman would go on to do other great things

at other places, but this was his last lead design. And Dave Humphreys would go on to do many great things at other places, but this was his last lead design. And Dave Humphreys would go on to do many great things. He's still with us. He's the development manager. But this was his first lead development. The set introduced two new mechanics, Soulbond and Miracle. Soulbond was a mechanic that allowed you

to have creatures that linked them with other creatures and then they and the creatures they were linked to or bonded to gained an ability usually or a bonus of some kind. Sometimes power toughness, power and or toughness. And sometimes an ability, usually an ability. Also miracles. Miracles were a mechanic

where when you drew the card right when you drew it you could cast it you could reveal it before you put it in your hand and cast it for less. Also we had the loner mechanical that's not an actual, in quotes, it's something we refer to, but it was nicknamed. Things that got better if you only had one creature in play. Also, it had a major angel theme.

So what happens in the story is the humans are in deep, deep despair, but Liliana, because she needs to get to her demon Griselbrand, who's trapped inside the Hellvault, does a big she, through Thalia, gets her to break it open, and then all Griselband gets released.

But all the angels, including Avacyn, who had gotten trapped inside. Well, actually, I guess there weren't too many angels inside. There was Avacyn inside. There were maybe a few angels. Mostly there were demons. But when Avacyn had gotten away,. Well, actually, I guess there weren't too many angels inside. There was Avacyn inside. There were maybe a few angels. Mostly there were demons. But when Avacyn had gotten away, the angels all sort of went into hibernation. So when Avacyn comes back, the angels all return. And the humans are saved!

Avacyn is back! And so this was... We had a couple dark sets where the bad guys had won. But finally, you know, the Eldrazi had come out and it looked bad. And then Neufrexia defeated Mirrodin. That was bad. the bad guys had won. But finally, you know, the Eldrazi had come out and it looked bad and then Nufrexia defeated Mirrodin. That was bad. So, like,

finally we had a set where the good guys were able to win one and Avacyn came back and saved the day. Not that Liliana's plans necessarily were that. She was after her demon.

Liliana, by the way, had gotten the chain veil when Innistrad used the chain veil to kill Gristlebrand, which was one of her four demons. She had previously killed one demon,

which we later learned with Cothephed that we just saw in Magic Origins. So anyway, that's the second demon she killed. She's got two more to go. But anyway, in order to...

So we did something pretty splashy for the pre-release where we made this hell vault out of, like, cardboard, and we sent it to stores, and then people would play, and as they would do well, they'd slowly unlock it, and eventually they'd open the Hell Vault, and then there were

promo cards and things inside that everybody got, and it was pretty fun. It was one of the earliest sort of bigger pre-release kind of things we've done. Okay, May 11th through the 13th was Pro Tour Avacyn Restored in Barcelona.

So, it was block constructed using Innistrad Dark Ascension Avacyn Restored, because block constructed uses the whole block, even though drafting restarted. And the draft was just Avacyn Restored, so the way it worked is when Avacyn Restored came out,

we restarted the drafting started just with Avacthe Restored. So the way it worked is when Absinthe Restored came out, we restarted the, drafting started just with Absinthe Restored. I didn't mention this too much, but, so like Rise of the Odrazi, we sort of done large, small, large,

and a large set sort of reset. It was a mechanical reset, but not 100%. Undying did carry over the mechanic, Undying carried over, and a lot of the creature types

and the tribal things, there was some of that carried over. So there was a little more carryover than we had done during Rise of Eldrazi, but yeah, there's still brand new mechanics in Miracle and Soulbind and stuff. Anyway, at Avacyn Restored in Barcelona,

Porto Avacyn Restored, Alexander Hain of Canada defeated Gadenis Vigris. I'm not sure whether you want to call him from the US or from Lithuania. He lives in New York, but he played on Team Lithuania for Worlds. So I think he's from Lithuania, but he lives in the United States. I don't know his citizenship.

But anyway, I actually was in Abyssinia. I was at Pro Tour Abyssinia Restored. Because the Magic World Championship, which I always go to, was held in Seattle later this year. We'll get to it. I had one extra trip, so I ended up going to a pro tour. So I went to Barcelona, which was a lot of fun. I got to goof around with the Walking the Plains guys and made a video and did some fun stuff

and actually got a chance to go on camera and join in on the coverage. I didn't do any play-by-play or anything, but I did a bunch of interviews and stuff and join in on the coverage. I didn't do any play-by-play or anything, but I did a bunch of interviews and stuff and talked all about cool things. Okay. June 1st was Plane Chase 2012 edition. So Plane Chase

had come out a couple years before. Players had enjoyed it. We decided to make another Plane Chase and show off some more places and make some more planes. Okay. August... Oh, planes. Okay, July 7th. The pre-release was July 7th. The release was July 13th. It was Magic 2013.

Remember, the corsets were always dated a year later, so this actually came out in 2012. There were 249 cards, 101 commons, 60 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares, 20 lands so that's a normal, at the time, large set size the set was lead designed by Doug Byer of creative team fame Doug had been on a lot of different creative teams we were looking for someone to lead the core set

we were just swamped with lots going on and I think Aaron was the one that said, you know, maybe Doug could do this and he talked to Doug and Doug was interested Doug had been on a bunch of core sets usually representing creative concerns

Doug was excited it was his first chance to lead a design Doug did a great job the development was led by Zach Hill and the set the mechanic

that got brought back for the set was Exalted the bench mechanic from Shards of Alara when you attack if you attack alone if you have Exalted you give a bonus mechanic from Shards of Alara. When you attack, if you attack alone, if you have Exalted, you give a bonus to a creature if it attacks alone.

The set also had a theme of, it was the Nicole Bolas set. If you remember, a black packaging with his horns, and the set for the first time ever, with our first gold cart ever in a core set, which was Nicole Bolas himself.

There also was a legendary theme. We had done that once. There had been a legendary theme once before in a core set. So this is the second time we did it. But there definitely was a legendary theme. Obviously, there were planeswalkers. There was Nicole Bolas. It had definitely a strong Nicole Bolas sort of feel.

Okay. Next. July 13th. So right at the same time as Magic 2013 was the Deck Builders Toolkit 2012 edition. So we started making the toolkit. We refresh it every year because we wanted... One of the things you got to remember is in mass market, they only keep things for so long. So if you have things you want on the shelves, you kind of got to refresh them to get them

back into mass market. And this is an introductory product, so it's important that we can do that. So what we do with the Deck Builders Toolkit is every course that we would refresh it. So this was the 2012 edition of Deck Builder's Toolkit. For those who don't know what it is, it comes with a lot of magic cards. It's one of your early purchases to say, hey, you've just started out.

Let's give you a whole bunch of cards. There are comms and uncommons, but when you're starting out, hey, there's lots of cards. And it gives you a box, and it just kind of gives you the things you need to sort of start out with. Okay, next.

August 17th through the 19th was the World Magic Cup held at Gen Con in Indianapolis. So Chinese Taipei would defeat Puerto Rico. So this was the first year of the Magic World Cup. The previous year we had done the final Old School Worlds. We revamped it, and what we did was we broke it apart. So there still was a Magic Championship, and then there was a team event. And so the team event was dubbed the World Magic Cup.

Teams get to come together. You get to qualify to be on your team, and then you play, and the winning team is the winning world championship team. And so this year, Chinese Taipei won. Meanwhile, August 29th through the 31st at PAX, PAX Prime in Seattle, we had the Magic Players Championship, which would, every year after this, be dubbed the World Championship, but for this one year, it was called the Magic Player Championship

and at it Yuya Watanabe of Japan defeated Shota Yasuka of Japan so we got some

Hall of Famers in fact Shota is just getting inducted this year he just got he just I mean by the time you hear this

it wasn't yesterday but this weekend we announced you can tell when I'm doing this podcast. We recently just had Pro Tour of Magic Origins for me, and we announced the winners of the Hall of Fame, and Shout had just conducted. Okay, next.

August 31st was From the Deck. I'm sorry, not From the Deck. From the Vault Realms. So it was... Every year we do From the Vault. It is usually 15 cards. They're was, every year we do From the Vault, it is 15, usually 15 cards. They're premium, and they play into some theme. This year's theme was lands.

Realms just sounded fancier than lands. But it definitely allowed people access to a bunch of lands from throughout Magic's history. Okay, next, September 7th. Dual Decks, Izzet versus Golgari. Okay, so one of the things we do with the Duel Decks that comes out right before the Northern Hemisphere Fall set is we try to do a theme that ties into the set. Sometimes we can be very blunt, sometimes we can't.

Last year, or not last, I mean, my example actually is from 2014, when we had, we were doing Contents of Tarkir. We, you didn't know anything about Tarkir, so we did like Speed versus Cunning, which is playing Aspects. But that was a little more esoteric. Because this was, we were going back to Ravnica. It's going to be returned to Ravnica. So it's Izzet versus Golgari. And we used cards from Izzet and cards from Golgari. We teased a little bit.

I think we showed some preview cards upcoming. I think we showed off the Izzet mechanic and the Golgari mechanic. The Izzet mechanic would be Overload, and the Golgari mechanic would be Salvage. I'll get to that in a second. But anyway, so the dual decks came out with Izzet versus Golgari. Then September 9th was a pre-release. October 5th was a release

of Return to Ravnica, a.k.a. Hook, Hook, Lion, and Sinker. There are 274 cards, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares, 20 lands. So you'll note that we went from 60 commons, I'm sorry,

60 uncommons up to 80 uncommons. We did that at the time because fitting five guilds in was tricky. But it's something I think we've adopted. It's just large sets now have 80 uncommons. That's something we did. Nagel was the lead designer. I talked about it earlier.

Eric Lauer was the lead developer. So there was five new mechanics, which correspond with the five guilds. So the way we did it is previously, it was our last Ravnica block with large, small, small, four guilds, three guilds, three guilds. This time we did large, large, small, five guilds, five guilds, then all ten guilds in a small set. That's not 2012. So we'll talk about that in 2013. But return to Ravnica, the first set.

So we had the Izzet. They had the overload mechanic. That was a mechanic where you could normally hit one thing, but you could pay to hit everything. And the spells, usually they hit the opponent's stuff, it would ward it so he didn't hit your stuff, too. Or if you wanted to hit your stuff, it wouldn't hit your opponent's

stuff. It was spelled out. Next, we had the Azorius. So, Izzet's blue-red. Azorius is white-blue. They had the Detain mechanic. It's a mechanic that keeps a creature from attacking or blocking or using activated abilities for the turn. It's sort of a temporary arrest, if you will. A detain.

Then we had the Rakdos, which is red-black. They had the Unleash mechanic. That's a mechanic where you could choose to put a plus one, plus one counter on them, but if you did, they couldn't block. So what bonus do you want? Do you want them to have the counter, or do you want them to be able to block? Next we had Selesnya, white-green, that was populate.

It was a mechanic that allowed you to take any one token creature in play and you could copy it. And then Golgari was black-green. They had scavenge. That allowed you to take cards that were in your graveyard creatures and you were able to use them to enhance the creatures you had in play. That allowed you to take cards that were in your graveyard, creatures, and you were able to use them

to enhance the creatures you had in play. It allowed you to sort of beef them up by using sort of... The bigger the creature was in the graveyard, the bigger a beefing you got.

So it was a corollary tie between how big the creature was and how much of a boost you got. Anyway, we were back in Ravnica, and it was set up a lot like original Ravnica, the guilds were there we focused on those guilds, you didn't see the

five guilds that weren't there obviously it was a large set but instead of having four guilds there were five guilds because we changed from the 4-3-3 structure to the 5-5-10 structure like I said we beat stuff up on common a little bit to fit it in, ended up being something we liked because uncommon has always been tight

so it kind of solved the problem we've been meaning to solve okay October 17th through the 19th is Pro Tour Return to Ravnica

it was a modern was the constructed portion Return to Ravnica booster draft was the limited portion in it Stanislav Siska from the Czech Republic

defeats Yuya Watanabe Watanabe sorryanabe, sorry from Japan Yuya had a good year he won the championship and then he came in second at the Pro Tour Siska obviously a very good player, obviously won

he had a deck called Second Breakfast that he managed to win the modern the finals are always in the construction format and so it was modern so he won with his modern deck. Okay, next. November 2nd was Commander's Arsenal. So what happened was, I think the previous year, we had put out the very first Commander decks.

They went over really well. Players really liked them. We're like, you know what? We should be doing this every year. But we weren worked so far ahead that we weren't able to get the decks done in time. So we decided we'd do a temporary product

as a filler. And so it had 28 foils, 18 regular, 10 oversized. It had just a bunch of cards that we thought would go really well. It had some sort of box. It had a special life thing. It was just a lot of cards that we thought would go really well. It had some sort of box. It had a special life thing. It was just a lot of things that would

a commander player might want. Including a bunch of new, a bunch of cards with fun treatments to them, but it wasn't soils. And, but anyway, it was sort of the filler to say, hey, we're going to start doing commander annually. We couldn't as quick,

we weren't quick enough to get it in this year. We'll make a little sort of product as a filler. And then next year, we're going to start doing Commander annually. We couldn't as quick we weren't quick enough to get it in this year. We'll make a little sort of product as a filler and then next year we started doing an annual Commander Dex series product. Okay, November 16th was a 2012 holiday gift box

which comes with a box, had four boosters and 20 lands from Return to Ravnica. So one of the things is we spent years and years and years trying to figure out sort of how to make a gift box for the holidays. And we had very success. Going all the way back to, I remember during Visions we put out this like a gift box that teased Visions. And just over the years we've done tons and tons of holiday boxes. So I was in the brainstorming session for this box

and I remember I go, I just have one request. One request. This one request I think will be immensely helpful for us. Could we please just call it the holiday gift box? We used to always give it, it's the battle box

and the people are confused. I don't know what to get as a gift box. We used to always give it, it's the battle box. And the people are confused. I don't know what to get as a gift box for my nephew or my grandson. Could we call it the gift box, please? And we had a lot of, we talked a lot about what to go in it. We knew we wanted to serve a cool box. And we ended up deciding

to just give you a look, recent stuff. Because, you know, if a relative or somebody who doesn't know Magic 2-Ball just buys this for you,

would you be happy? Yeah, it's boosters of recent product. Yes, I will be happy. So, but anyway,

that was the 2012 holiday gift box. Whew! Okay, so I'm almost at work which is good since I've

just hit the final thing. So, this was a pretty good year. I think it was marked in a couple things. Number one was we really revamped how we did coverage of the Pro Tour. You know, like I said, that was a big change. I remember watching Pro Tour, sorry, Dark Ascension, the one, the Kibler one, and just, I had never, like,

because normally, I mean, every once in a while I go to the Pro Tour, but normally I'm home, and normally, you know, maybe on the final day I can watch the final matches, but this was like, I got coverage constantly. It was just, it was awesome. I had my little Twitch app on, and I was watching it all day long, and I remember my wife going, what are you watching? And I'm like, it's the Pro Tour!

It was just on all day, three whole days, it was great. But anyway, I's the Pro Tour! It was just on all day. Three whole days. It was great. But anyway, I think the Pro Tour definitely, that was a big metamorphosis for the Pro Tour. I think we were definitely finding our stride. So one of the things to remember is, what was it, in 2009, which was when Magic 2010 came out, and that fall was the release of Zendikar,

that was the turning point for us. Between Magic 2010 and Zendikar and New World Order and Magic Duels of the Planeswalkers and all sorts of factors, a perfect storm of great factors, that was really the start of Magic's recent... Well, ever since 2009, the following has been true, which is

2009 was the best year Magic ever had in its entire history. Then 2010 was the best year. Then 2011. Then 2012. This trend continues to the future. But 2012 was the best year of the time we've ever had. I think that there was a lot of... One of the highlights. But 2012 was the best year of the time we've ever had. And I think that there was a lot of...

One of the highlights of this year was we went to PAX East and we announced that Return to Ravnica was coming. So we did this panel, and at the very end, they said, oh, one last thing. And they just showed the key art and the logo

for Return to Ravnica. And we had video of the panel. And there's people screaming and they're like hugging. People were so excited to go back to Ravnica. I think Innistrad really... It's funny because when I first pitched the block of Innistrad

and the idea of having a horror block, there was a lot of resistance. People were like, really? Is that something players want? It took me years a lot of resistance. People were like, really? Is that something players want? And it took me years and years to go, no, no, really, this would be awesome. So to have Innistrad's block play out the way it did, and just get so well received. I also returned to Ravnica,

because people love Ravnica, and going back. I mean, we had gone back the previous year to Mirrodin, so this was our second return. I mean, I guess we've gone back to Dominaria, obviously, in the past. But in some ways, when we returned to Mirrodin, it was such a different place because it was

being invaded by the Phraxians, that return to Ravnica was the first kind of return. It's like, you know, it's pretty much what you remember. I mean, the story, things have changed, but as far as the general structure, I mean, we changed up from 433 to 5510, but it's kind of like, hey, remember Ravnica? You got the guilds, and they got a keyword,

and it's a gold set, and you know, a lot of it was a lot of, a very familiar, it was a very familiar return, unlike some other things we had done, you know, like Scars of Mirrodin. There was a lot of continuing just things. Dual decks, and From the Vault, and Deck Builder's Toolkit.

You see a commitment to Commander Commander Plane Chase came back anyway 2012 it just, I don't know it was a chock full year I mean there was a lot going on, it's funny when I do these podcasts one of the things I would realize is I write everything out on a piece of paper and the early years

I had a lot of white space I could write large but as I write everything out on a piece of paper. In the early years, I had a lot of white space. I could write large. But as the years go by, more and more things are getting on there. Things get more and more cramped as I try to figure out all the things that happen in the year. And so 2012, we're getting into the modern era now. We're like, there's a lot of stuff. Every month there's stuff coming out.

There's a lot to do. There's a lot of magic stuff out there. And there's a lot of events and stuff going on. So anyway, I'm driving to work. So I hope you guys enjoyed 2012. Like I said, it was, it was a year, a pretty good year. A lot went on, a lot of fun events, a lot of fun product, and it was definitely, it was a packed full year I mean I guess all magic years are pretty packed full now but anyway guys that was 2012 but I've just pulled in my parking space

so we all know what that means means this is the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic I'll see you guys next time