Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #303 - Firsts, Part 1

Episode Date: February 5, 2016

Mark is joined by Melissa DeTora for a two-parter where they discuss their Magic firsts.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. But I have a special drive for you today because I have a carpooler with me. Say hello. Hey, everyone. It's Melissa DeToro, who's joining us again.

She was here before, did your podcast. You guys enjoyed it. So we're having her back. Which, by the way, is a big ask of Melissa because she had to drive here. Where do you live? You live not too far from Wizards. Yeah, I live pretty close to Wizards in Kent, which is

just south of Wizards, like 10 minutes away. Right, so she drove 30 minutes or 40 minutes out of her way to come be on this podcast. So that's some dedication, which we appreciate. Definitely. People ask all the time why I don't have more carpool guests and I'm like, because I don't live near anybody. That's the problem. Okay, so today we came up with a fun topic for today, which People ask all the time why I don't have more carpool guests. And I'm like, because I don't live near anybody. That's the problem. Okay.

So today, we came up with a fun topic for today, which is magic first. So Melissa and I are going to share stories about, we made a long list of the first time we ever blank, and a lot of different things having to do with magic. And we're going to share stories. It's going to be sort of a story podcast. Okay. So what is the first one? All right. The first one is, when was the first time you heard of magic?

Okay, so when was the first time you heard of magic? Okay, so this is a pretty funny story. It was back in like 93 when magic first came out. And I was a little kid. I was like 12 years old. So my dad was really into sports cards and comic books. We would always go to comic book shops and he would like, and he would look at stuff that he was into. And Magic was a new game. He had heard of it. I never had.

He said, oh, there's this really cool game. It's called Magic. Do you want some Magic cards? And I said, no, that game sounds stupid. So that was my first time playing it. That's your first time hearing it? And it didn't look very interesting. So, nope, not interested in Magic.

And that was that. Oh, wow. So you first heard about Magic when it first came out? Yeah, it was like, the game was pretty new. I don't really remember. Like, it might have been beta. I don't really know because, like, I was just, like, you know, very young and I didn't even know what it was. But my dad was just like, hey, do you want me to buy you some cards? And I was just like, nah, I don't really think because I was just very young and I didn't even know what it was. But my dad was just like, hey, do you want me to buy you some cards?

And I was just like, no, I don't really think I'd be into that. Wow. So my first story, I worked at the time I was working in a game store, the Gamekeeper, which Wizards would later buy. I remember that store. As a part-time employee, because I was going stir-crazy, I was writing in Hollywood. It's a very loner activity, writing, so I just wanted to get out of the house. So I decided to start working in a game store part-time because I thought it would be fun.

I wanted to do something that I could interact with people, and I like games, so I thought that would be fun. And people kept coming into the store asking about this game. And not all of them even knew the name of the game. They were just describing it to me. And as more people came in and asked about it, I was fascinated. Like, what is this game. And not all of them even knew the name of the game. They were just describing it to me. And as more people came in and asked about it, I was fascinated. Like, what is this game? You know, because remember in the early days, this is back

when Alpha, the game first came out, Peter Atkinson, who was the CEO of the company, was driving up and down the West Coast, you know, going to individual stores to sell the game. And so the game really started with this really crazy word of mouth of just people would hear about it. And so it was very fascinating that my first experience was not, like, people knowing what it was, but, like, coming in and telling me what they knew about it and had I heard of the game.

And at first I'm, like, trying to figure out whether I knew the game. And then, like, finally, like, no, I don't know this game. But that was the first time I ever heard ever heard of magic what's the next one okay the next one is the first time you saw magic okay did you did you how was first time you saw magic okay I remember this too and this was a couple years later so I was in high school at that point but like early high school so like freshman year or something and like there were these kids playing at my school and I thought the game was nerdy so I had no interest in learning how to play and I called those kids nerds I regret it so you know like so I'm sorry about that to those kids back then uh but yeah that was when I first saw magic okay so when I first saw magic was so I'd heard about it people come to the store or asking about it so later that summer i mean not much later like weeks later that summer

i went to san diego for san diego comic-con i've actually been going to san diego on and off for a long time um and uh somebody i was i was somewhere looking at something and somebody talked about it and i'm like wait you have the game you have the the game? I've heard about this and they're like, well, I don't have any for sale, but I own a deck. Would you like to see my deck? And I was like, yes. And so she showed it to me and I just remember being fascinated by it. It was, you know, and all the art and it was just, I held it for the first time and I didn't get to play it or anything. I just got to look at it. Uh, and I just remember it going, wow, this is really cool. And then I tried to find it in San Diego and nobody had it.

I couldn't find it anywhere. Okay, so what's the next one? First time you played Magic. All right, my first time I played Magic, this was another two years later. So this was in 97. And I had friends who played Magic. Now, I was always a video game player i played lots of

like super nintendo games like all of the role-playing games and sega genesis and all that stuff i was really into that but i was never really into like non-video gaming so uh so these friends played magic and they were like oh you would really like this game you should really learn how to play and i was like well no like no. I already knew what Magic was from before, and I didn't want to play it then, so why would I want to play it now? And they were like, oh, come on. You just have to learn.

Just learn. Come on. What else are we doing? Let's just learn how to play. So I finally gave in and said, fine, I'll learn how to play. So we sat down, and they taught me how to play. What set was out? So this was in 97.

Okay, so like Mirage? Or no, Tempest. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the newest set was Tempest because a little while later I bought Tempest packs. So anyway, I learned how to play, and I was like, wow, this is the coolest game ever. Why didn't I learn this earlier? Wow, I'm really dumb.

So I instantly fell in love with the game, and the rest is history. Yeah, it's funny. This is how you make me feel old. The first that you played was the first that I led. Wow. Okay. So, my story is, so, I went to a game convention. So, maybe, I don't know, a month after San Diego Comic-Con, I went to OrkCon, which is, I think it was OrkCon, which is one of the big conventions in Los Angeles, which it was 20 years ago. And there was magic for sale. I could actually buy magic.

And so I bought a starter and three boosters because I felt like, you know, how much do you spend on a game? That's about how much you spend on a game. And then somebody offered to teach me. And so I said, oh, okay. And there were people there that were very excited about Magic, and they were trying to run some sort of little tournament. But I was just learning how to play. So I remember him sitting me down, and the first thing he said, or very early on, he's like, as you play, make sure to spread your cards out. Because he had heard of a card that could, you know, you could flip in the air and it would destroy any card it touched. And he didn't know the name of it. He hadn't actually seen it.

He'd only heard about it. But he was teaching me and I learned from the very first time I was taught to spread my cards out in case I ever ran into this mystery card that he'd heard of. Which is Chaos Orb, for those that might not know. And he did a really, really bad job of teaching me. I mean, hats off for him offering to teach me, but I had no idea. Like, I walked out of that game not understanding how to play the game of Magic. I had some idea. I mean, he helped me a little bit, but he really did not.

I had a lot of misconceptions. We'll get to that in a second. I had a lot of misconceptions about how to play. But the first time I technically played was learning how to play from the guy at OrkCon, which is where I bought my first pack. Okay, next. Alright, next is first product you purchased.

Okay, so I instantly fell in love with magic. I wanted to buy cards right away. So I went to a local comic book shop. It was called Weems Cards and Comics. And I just asked them, I was like, look, I want to get into magic. What should I do? And the kid working there just like didn't really have any good recommendations for me. He was just like, well, this set called Tempest is new, so maybe that? Sure. And then any other one you want, it doesn't really matter. And I was like, well, that one looks pretty

so I'll take that one. So it ended up being I bought two starter decks. Starter decks do not exist anymore, but they're the equivalent of three packs plus they come with basic lands. They used to be used for sealed decks. So I bought a starter deck of Tempest and one of Ice Age. Yeah, sealed

starter decks were close to the equivalent of three booster packs and then 15 lands or so. I think actually the land ratio was slightly higher. Yeah, like they were used for seal decks, and back then you could only use the lands you opened, and you could do a five-land swap back then. And they gave you six of each land. Sometimes you might get five of one and seven of another, but they gave you six of each land. Sometimes you might get five of one and seven of another, but generally it was six of each land.

Right, so I think you got a little less. You got 60 cards total of which was it six of each land? Five of each land? Five or six. I think it was five of each land. I think you got 25 land. Also there was one plan time where it got up to 75 cards in the starter deck.

I don't remember if that was Tempest or not, but for seal decks, they ended up being 75 cards. Well, maybe. Maybe they went up. That's possible. When they first started, imagine if it started, they were 60 cards. And then maybe we had them go up. We eventually got rid of starter decks and just ended up with just booster packs. But anyway, so Tempest, that's your first, your first thing you bought is Tempest?

Yep, Tempest and Ice Age were the first two starter decks I bought. So the first thing I bought was Alpha. I bought a starter deck and three boosters. Um, and the funny story is that's all I bought at the convention because I thought, like, that's all you would need. And I saw people at the convention buying boxes. Boxes of Alpha! I could have bought boxes of Alpha. I was like, why are people buying boxes of products? I didn't understand it. But I got into the game real quick.

And so when Beta came out, I went and bought two boxes of starters and two boxes of boosters. Not all for me, but I knew that I needed to teach my friends how to play, to have people to play with. And the product went so fast, I knew that they couldn't find it in the store. So I bought products that I could sell to my friends. And so I ended up selling product to all my friends to play. And then years later, when it was clear that none of them wanted to play, I bought it all back. So, okay, what's the next one? The next one is the first rare you opened.

Okay, so back then there were no color rarity symbols, so we had no idea what the rares were. And when I bought those starter decks, I had no idea that there even were rares. So I just had no idea what was going on. So do you know what your first rare was, the Grudge Effect? I have some ideas of what they could have been. But back then, after my friends were like, oh, what rares did you get? I was like, rares? What's that? And they explained what rares were, and I was like, oh, what rares did you get? I was like, rares? What's that? And they explained what rares were, and I was like, oh, I don't know.

Let me look through my cards and let me see what could be a rare. So the card that I thought was a rare was Scaled Worm because it was so big. It was a 7-6. I mean, come on, that card had to be rare, right? But it turned out that was a common. So that wasn't my rare. And as for the actual first rare that I opened, one car that I remember being in the Tempest starter was Rathy Dragon.

Okay, that is rare. That's definitely rare. So I remember that. I don't remember the rest. Just Rathy Dragon. Okay, I remember. So back when we started, Starter Decks originally had two rares in it. By the time Tempest happened, they had three rares in it.

So I had two rares. it. By the time you, by the time Tempest happened, they had three rares in it. Yep. So I had two rares. I remember this. I don't know, by the way, it wasn't at the time I knew they were rares. I just remember when I opened. So the two rares

and my first thing I ever opened was Dark Pact, which was an anti-card where, what does Dark Pact do? It allows you to, I don't remember what it does. Remember what Dark Pact does? I don't actually remember what Dark Pact do? It allows you to, I don't remember what it does.

Remember what Dark Pack does? I don't actually remember what Dark Pack does. It's an anti, it's an anti card. I never really played it. Oh, and it's not true. I had a friend, there's a place I used to play for a while, where once a month he had an enforced anti knight. And then I played Dark, I made a mono black deck full of anti-cards and little beanie cards. I didn't care if I lost. And so I played Dark Pact.

And I don't know what Dark Pact does exactly. I didn't play a lot of Dark Pact. The other card, though, was Stasis. And I thought Stasis was the most amazing card because my opponent never untapped. How are they supposed to beat me? I know. They never untapped. And it took me a while to understand that I didn't untapped either. So early on, it was this very, I just

thought it was this crazy card. And it, well, it was a crazy card, but it wasn't quite as crazy as I thought it was. Okay. What's the next one? All right. The next one is the first card that wowed you. Okay. Okay. So back when I first started playing i had these two starter decks i might have bought a couple of more booster packs my decks consisted of all the cards that i owned that's it it was all cards i own dot deck i had about three different decks like split into like two colors i had one was a mono color deck but i didn't really know what decks were i just played all the cards i owned so the first real deck that I played against, it was a friend's deck. And like, I would say the card that wowed me was like Ivory

Tower. So the way this deck worked was played Ivory Tower, and then you played Land Tax. And so he would be searching for these lands. His hand was always full of cards and he kept gaining life every turn. And once he had a second Ivory Tower in play, well, that's six life a turn. And then if he had, like, a third Ivory Tower in play, so every turn he was gaining all this life, and I had no idea what was going on. I was like, I don't understand.

Why can I never win? You just keep gaining all this life. And it was really frustrating. I expect people that might not know, Ivory Tower is an old, famous card, but people don't know what it does. Okay, so Ivory Tower is a one-mana artifact, and it says at the beginning of your upkeep you gain one life for each

card in your hand above four. Yes, so this card was now restricted in Vintage to give you a sense of power level. Is it? Well, for a long time it was. It was for a long time. Maybe it's not currently. It was for a long, long time. There's no way the card is very powerful now, right?

It doesn't seem like it is. That's probably true. I don't think it's restricted, although I haven't seen that card be played in so long. So Zach Dolan, who was the very first world champion, had Ivory Tower in his deck. The combination of Ivory Tower and Library of

Alexandria, that's a card that lets you draw a card if you have seven cards. So the idea between those two cards is Library of Alexandria makes you want to just keep a full hand, and Ivory Tower rewards you for having a full hand. Bertrand Lestrade, the guy who lost to him, said that it was the combination of those two cards that lost. The two games that he drew both cards, Bertrand had like a weenie red-green deck and just couldn't beat that combination, and he attributed his loss to those two cards. And one funny thing about that, about, like, how I was just, like, so wowed by this Ivory Tower,

that wasn't even the powerful card. It was actually Land Tax. Yes. Because you just, like, fill your hand up every turn. You thin your deck out. Like, you always have a land to play every turn. Like, that was actually the powerful card. Yeah, nobody—I had a—for a long time, I had a deck that ran off land tax, but nobody understood that land

tax was the important part of it, that they always go after other cards. Although, for those that don't know land tax, it's a Legends card. It's an enchantment, and it says that every turn, if you have less land than your opponent, then you're allowed to go get three lands. Three basic lands. Three basic lands. And the funny thing is, there's a little guy on it holding a money bag, and people who play me used to always try to bolt it. I bolt the little guy. I'm like, well, it's not a little guy, actually, if I don't. And that card is funny. That was the first card where I realized the

discrepancy between players, and that the players who understood that that was the first card where I realized the discrepancy between players in that the players who understood that that was the powerful card were the good players, and the players who didn't have any idea weren't as good. It was the first card that really made me realize the differential between how people could understand the game. Anyway, so first... What were we asking again? First...

Oh, first card that bothered me. So what happened for me was I had bought this box or two boxes of boosters. And so I sold some to my friends, but I had a lot left. And to keep me from opening them all up at once because I knew I wanted to, I made a rule that said every day when I came home from work or every day at the end of the day or something, I was allowed to open one booster pack.

And I would spend a lot of time looking at the, okay, I just opened, so I'd look at every card. So the one that I could not believe when I opened for the first time, that I was just, it just wowed me, was Thicket Basilisk. So Thicket Basilisk is a 2-4 creature for three and a green, I think.

So four mana. Three and a green, five mana, is it? Oh, it's five mana, but three and a green, maybe?. So, 4 mana. 3 green, green, 5 mana, is it? Oh, it's 5 mana, but 3 green, green, maybe? I believe it is. Okay, maybe it's 5 mana. And it has the equivalent of Death Touch. It was written out at the time. Oh, and it didn't work on walls.

You couldn't turn a wall into stone. So, but it basically, it was close to Death Touch. And the idea that it could just kill any creature it fought, I was like, mind blown. You know, I'm like, any creature? How do you, how do you stop a creature that can kill any creature? And I, I, I just never seen anything like that before. It really, uh, that, that's the one that really wowed me.

Okay, what's the next one? The first card you didn't understand. Uh, okay. Okay, so. What's the first card you didn't understand. Uh, okay. Okay, so... What's the first card you didn't understand? Alright, so first of all, as young Magic players, we have played every card wrong anyway. Like, you always hear the stories of, oh, Dark Ritual, I get to search for three swamps. The way that I played Dark Ritual back then was I just put it out there, and every turn I just got three black mana every turn, you know?

But everyone did that, so, like, that's not very interesting. So I have two answers to this question. Okay. The first one is... So, the first answer i have is forcible and the reason why i didn't understand it is because this card was just so popular and i didn't understand why like it was five mana all it did was counter a spell like who cares like i i just didn't understand and it was like like a very like expensive card and everyone wanted it for their deck and i just didn't understand. And it was, like, a very, like, expensive card, and everyone wanted it for their deck, and I just didn't get it. And, like, I didn't really know why you would want to

pitch a blue card from your hand to play it without paying its mana cost. That didn't make any sense to me. So I just, like, I couldn't understand why an uncommon, not even a rare, an uncommon, would be this good or, like, this strong of a card. So that's my first one. It's funny, by the way, a real quick side story on Force of Will is,

I was working Wizards, obviously, but Alliance was the first set I worked on. And at the time, there were people in customer service who really believed that Force of Will, like, was a card that should never be published. It was just, it did something that Magic shouldn't do. And there were big fights about how, I mean, R&D really, we believed in the card and obviously backed it up, but there was a big fight in the company about, like, should this card even be made? So it's funny that you didn't even understand it, and, like, you know, there's this, like,

major fight in Wizards of, like, are we making the card that should never be made, so. Yeah, like, I didn't really understand Forcible until I started playing against it, and I was like, oh, that's why it's good, but at first I was like, oh, I need to get Forcible for my deck, oh, I need Forcible, everyone just wanted Forcible, and I didn't understand why. So, uh, well, actually, I mentioned the card that I, like, the first card I didn't understand why. So, well, actually, I mentioned the card that I, the first card I didn't understand was Stasis. Because Stasis, for those that never played Stasis, what does it cost? It costs one blue.

One and a blue? Yep. So it costs two mana, one of which is blue. And it says, is it Landstone untapped or nothing untapped? Nothing untapped. Yeah, you just skip your untapped. Nothing untapped. You skip the untapped step, but you have an upkeep cost of a blue mana.

And because your stuff doesn't untap, it's kind of like cumulative. Because once you spend a blue, you can never spend that blue anymore. It's not going to untap. I didn't understand that it affected you. I thought that, well, why would you ever play a spell

that kept your own stuff from untapping? It just didn't. It just didn't seem like it makes sense to me. So one of the things we'll get to in a second, I think, is I had made two decks to play against each other because I didn't have people to play with early on. So I made two different decks that I would play against myself. And one of the decks was green. We'll get to that in a second.

And one of the decks was blue. And the blue deck had stasis in it. And I just couldn't beat that. I put stasis up, like, game over, what can I do? I eventually figured it out, but I think I had to see someone else play it before I figured it out. The other thing that really threw me is, after the person who tried to teach me at the convention,

I got the rulebook, and I went through the rulebook, and I spent a lot of time reading the rule book trying to understand the rules and the rule that threw me, interestingly enough is I could not understand mana burn because I didn't have any cards that could put extra mana in your pool

and so I was like why wouldn't you spend, like if you don't spend your mana I'm like why wouldn't you spend your mana what circumstance do you have mana that you wouldn't you spend, like, if you don't spend your mana, I'm like, why wouldn't you spend your mana? What circumstance do you have mana that you wouldn't spend? And it wasn't until I saw Mana Flare, like, you know, probably a month later I saw Mana Flare. And I remember when I saw Mana Flare the first time, I'm like, oh!

That's why you can mana burn yourself! Cards like this exist. Okay, what's the next one? Okay, so first, going back to the first card I didn't understand, I have a second answer to this question. Okay. And it's actually, it's not one card, but it's like a card interaction. Okay.

So what happened was, have you ever played in a tournament, and then you're a new player, and your opponent is comboing off, and you have no idea what's going on, all you know is you're losing? Well, this is what happened to me. So this is actually my first tournament. And I was playing a creature deck. I could only win by attacking with creatures, right? So my opponent had this combo that he played every turn,

and every turn all of my creatures died. So it was Corpse Dance with Buy Back. Okay. Corpse Dance reanimates a creature, and Buy Backs you can do it every turn. But the creature gets exiled at end of turn, okay? So theoretically you can only get one creature, then it every turn. But the creature has exiled at end of turn, okay? So, theoretically, you can only get one creature, then it goes away forever. And he would reanimate a Crater Hellion.

And Crater Hellion is a six-mana creature that does four damage to all your creatures, to all creatures in play. And he also had this card in play called Goblin Bombardment. So, you would, like, sacrifice a creature to do one damage to something. Right, Goblin Bombardment is an enchantment. Right. Sacrifice a creature to do one damage to something right, Goblin Martyrs Enchantment sacrifice a creature to do one damage

so every turn he would corpse dance with buyback this Crater Hellion kill all of my stuff and then sacrifice it to do a damage to me, and then do it again next turn and I just kept reading all the cards over and over, and I was like, I just don't get it, like, you're killing all my stuff every turn, but it says you have to remove it from the game,

but you're not doing that. I don't understand what's going on. Like, why is this happening? Why aren't you removing it from the game? Judge! And I don't think there was a judge in that tournament either. It was, like, you know, a very, like, small thing. But anyway, like, he was just like, oh, when I sacrifice it, I don't have to remove it from the game. And I was like, huh. Okay, that kind of makes sense.

So that is my story of that interaction that I didn't understand. Okay, what's the next one? All right, the next one is the first deck you built. Oh, okay, what's the first deck you built? So like I said before, my first decks were just like, oh, I have white cards. I'll just put them in this white deck. Like they didn't have synergy or anything. But the first real deck that I built was an elf stoppie deck.

So, just like, it was basically like all the elves I owned and all the green creatures I owned. So, the deck had Llanowar elves, Priest of Titania, Moltani's Acolyte. It played, like, pump spells like Giant Growth, Elvish Fury, because, you know, elves. And Elvish Fury gives plus two, plus two, and also has buyback. And Elven Rite. Real quickly, buyback, for those buyback means you can spend

extra mana, and if you do, instead of going to the graveyard, it goes back to your hand. It was one of the major mechanics of Tempest. Yep. Elven Rite, which was another elf card, like, because it had Elven in the name, and that put a plus one, plus one counters on all your creatures at sorcery speed. Not a very good card, but, you know, it fit in the elf deck. Um, and then I had, like, I had one Gaia's Cradle, so I had that in the deck.

Um, I had, like... Gaia's Cradle's a land that taps for a green mana for every creature you have. Yep, very powerful card. Um, and I have, like, a Child of Gaia, which is, taps for a green mana for every creature you have. Yep, very powerful card. I have a Child of Gaia, which is a 6-mana 7-7 trampler that had enough keep cost. That was my giant creature in the deck. So basically, I was going to this tournament, and my friend was like, Oh, you need a real deck. You don't have any real decks.

So he just looked through my collection for me and was like, Oh, you can probably build a Stompy deck. So, like, Stompy is not a term that we use now, but Stompy was the term that was used for just, like, green beatdown decks. Like, back then, most Stompy decks played Pouncing Jaguar, Albino, Troll, Cradle Guard. They were, like, you know... Rogue Elephant back then? So this was not in that standard format back then. Like, the standard format was Temepis plus Urza Saga.

Okay. Oh, Rogue Elephant is Mirage. Yes, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so I built a stoppy deck built around Elves. So the coolest thing I could do is go turn one Llanowar Elf, turn two Priest of Titania, add extra mana, and play a Child of Gaia.

So that was the cool thing that I could do in that deck. So by the way, real quickly, I think it's a little bit disturbing. I think Stompy comes from the original version of the deck had a card called Rogue Elephant, which was a 3-3 for one green mana, but you had to sacrifice a forest. And the idea was it was Stompy because elephants stomp on you. I think that's where the name comes from. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Sorry, sorry, a little extra trivia there little extra okay so you made an elf deck yep so so basically i learned like basically like i just learned like about mana acceleration because sure i had land or elves in my green deck but i didn't realize how powerful it was because like the deck was just a pile of cards I owned before, and I rarely drew it on turn one, but this deck actually taught me, oh, you can do things on turn one that lets you play all these powerful cards earlier in the game than usual. So that was a pretty cool experience for me, and I actually tweaked that deck for a very long time, and by the end of that standard format, I had, like, four land URLs, four priests of Titania. I cut all the bad cards.

I had, like, Weatherseed Treefolk, which I thought was a really cool card back then. Weatherseed Treefolk is a 5-3 trampler for five mana, and it had this, like, kind of undying ability. Like, if it would go to the graveyard, instead return it to your hand. So it just never dies. So it's go to the graveyard instead return it to your hand. So it just never dies.

So it's hard to kill. Okay, so it's interesting that you had Monogreen. My first deck was Monogreen. What a coincidence. By the way, it's very interesting to see how many first decks are Monogreen. We've learned from a lot of market research that green seems to be the most popular color

for new players. What's the number two most popular color for new players? My guess would be white. Ah, red. My guess was white because white is simple. The creatures are easy to understand. Direct damage is just so compelling to new players, though. Yeah, that's also true.

I think white might be number three, but red for sure is number two. Green and red are by far the two most favorite for new players. But anyway, when I first started, okay, so when I opened up my first cards, similar to your experience, I had a Crawl Worm. So a Crawl Worm is a 6-4 creature for six mana, I think, five and a green. Is that right? It's a four. A four green green.

Four green green. Yep. And so I saw that card. And once again, there was no rarities or anything that to me was just the most awesome card

I owned it was a 6-4 creature and like the closest I had to it was like a 3-3 I had like 1-1's 2-2's

like back in the day we we kept creatures a little bit smaller we let them get a little bit bigger over time but I opened up

all my cards and like I had 1-1's and 2-2's and 3-3's and 1-2's 2-3's and then I had 1-6-4 and I'm like oh my goodness and I had 1-1s and 2-2s and 3-3s and 1-2s and 2-3s. And then I had 1-6-4.

And I'm like, oh my goodness. 6-4, I hit you three times or four times, you're dead. And so I also didn't understand that you could have more than one color. My idea was, oh, well you put all the cards with a certain color in and that's what you play. The idea that you could have two different colors never dawned on me until I saw a dual land. And they're like, why? Oh, I guess you could have more than one color in your deck. It's amazing

by the way, early Magic, there was not there was no websites to read. I mean, like they were using that. There was like bulletin boards you could go on. But there wasn't like deck technology you could read. Nobody knew anything. And so the early days was kind of like everybody was just a very young, inexperienced player because everybody was inexperienced.

No one played for long. So there was nobody to sort of teach you like, oh, card advantage or card tempo or all the concepts that we now understand. That wasn't something you could just read about. There weren't articles or anything about it. In fact, the first duelist didn't come out until January of 94, and even that was pretty simplistic. Like, there wasn't a lot of high-level strategy in it. So I made a mono-green.

I don't even remember what was in it other than... Basically, every green card I owned, I think, because I had to make a green deck. Now, originally, because I read the rules uh decks were 40 cards not 60 cards so I had a 40 card mono green deck um and then I didn't have anybody to play with so I made a second deck so I could play it in somebody and that was a mono blue deck um I'm not sure why I did blue maybe because stasis looked weird to me I'm not sure I played

this mono blue deck um my mono blue deck didn't have any cohesion to it. It just had Stasis. So the deck really couldn't beat the green deck except if I got Stasis out. And because I completely misunderstood Stasis, it was broken. So my early matches were basically either the green deck would win

or the blue deck would draw Stasis. That was my matchup against myself. Okay, so what's the next one? Next is the first card you traded for. Okay, so what's the next one? Next is the first card you traded for. Okay, so this is actually a pretty interesting story. So I never really traded at first. I just, you know, bought some packs, improved my decks or whatever. But once I started going to, like, tournaments and stuff,

and I had my green Stompy deck, I thought, you know, like, maybe I could try trading or whatever. But anyway, Urza's Legacy had just come out, and Urza's Legacy is the first set that had foils. So I bought a couple packs, opened them, I got some foils. I was like, what even are these things? This is so weird. Why would they even make these cards?

Like, they're the same, like, the foil version is the same as the non-foil version, so what's the point? So I didn't really get the point of foils. It's shiny! Like, yeah, that didn't matter to me, because the game was for playing, right? So to me, the foil just didn't make any sense. So anyway, I go to the game store,

and there's this dad and two sons, and they're just aggressively trading for all the foils. They're trying to collect the foils for this legacy set. So they've got any foils, got any foils. They're just, like, trading for these foils. And I'm like, oh, well, I have foils. I trying to collect the foil Urza's Legacy set. So, like, got any foils, got any foils, they're just, like, training for these foils. And I'm like, oh, well, I have foils. I just opened some packs earlier, and I got some foils. I had a Foiled Brink of Madness, which was a rare.

I don't remember what exactly it did, but it made the opponent discard their hand in some way. I think it was, like, not a very good card, but... Yeah, I believe a year earlier we had started putting Rarity symbols on. I think... Yeah, Urza's... No, actually, Exodus was the first set that had the Rarity symbols. Rarity symbols on i think uh no actually exodus was the first set that had the rarity symbols right yeah and so you could tell your rares were yep and this is pre mythics mythics didn't happen till what shards of lara yeah i believe so so the things didn't

didn't exist yet um okay go ahead okay so i had a foil brink of madness and the other foil i had was granite grip was just like, not a very strong magic card. It's just, like, I think it gives your creature plus one plus zero for each amount when you control or something. It's not a very good card. But anyway, it was what I opened. So these kids and this father, they just were like, oh, we really, really want to trade your foils.

We just want to collect the foil set. And these kids, they memorized all the collector numbers of the set. They're like, oh, Treetop Village's number, like, you know, 200 or whatever it was. I don't know. But it was like, wow, these kids memorized the collector's numbers just because they're trying to collect this foil set. So anyway, they were just so interested in these foils

that, like, I could not trade them. I didn't really want them. So I ended up picking up, like, a Gaius Cradle, which was really cool. Like, you know, it's a very powerful card. Now, back then was really cool. Like, you know, it's a very powerful card. Now, back then, it was just like, you know, it was a good card, so. For some of you who understand, who might not have been around for Urza's Saga, Urza's Saga block was broken.

There were so many crazy cards in that block. Yeah, so there was a time, this was like, I was playing Magic back then, but not Tournament Magic, so I missed the entire brokenness that was Urza's Saga. Like, all the cards were banned by the time I started getting into Standard. So, I missed all that. But anyway, Gaea's Cradle was a pretty strong card.

Which, to show you how crazy strong Urza's Saga is, Gaea's Cradle is a land that taps for a green mana for every creature you have. So you have five creatures that tap for five green mana. That, not broken enough to get banned in Urza Saga. Oh, no, that did not get banned, no. The card that got banned was Tolarian Academy,

a card that I owned and I thought was cool, and I put it in a blue deck, but I didn't know how broken it was. It's a land that taps for blue for each artifact you control. Yes. You're allowed to play one of it in your vintage deck. Yes, that card. It's funny, Gay's Cradle, by the way, by modern standards is crazy broken.

It's really good. Like, we would never ever put that in a standard legal set. But it wasn't anywhere close to the level of cards we had to ban. Orzisago is not the highlight. I was actually a developer at the time, one of the developers. And we actually got chewed out by our CEO after the set came out because we screwed up some. The set was not as balanced as it could have been.

Oh, geez. Okay. And then the other card I traded for during the same trade with these kids was Weatherseed Treefolk, which I mentioned earlier. I thought this card was really cool. I wanted to get four of them for my deck, so picking up another one was pretty cool when I was only trading away some spoils that I didn't care about. But what I learned

that day was, this game is not only for people who like to play the game, sometimes you like to collect the game too, and I never even knew that before. Yeah, it's very interesting to interact with collectors. I don't know, I mean, some of the listeners I'm sure are collectors. It's a whole other facet of the game,

and it's really interesting to interact with people who, like, their number one thing isn't even playing the game, their number one thing is collecting the game. And I've met a lot of very interested collectors that are very... Like, some of them just try to collect one of everything, but some people are like, I collect this thing, you know. Like one of my co-workers used to collect every printing of lightning bolt. Do you know Mike Darnay?

I don't actually, no. Mike Darnay, he was a judge for a long time. I've heard the name before. Anyway, that was his thing. He collected every printing of every lightning bolt. Every language, like every printing of it. And he had an impressive collection. You wouldn't think there was that many different lightning bolts, but there were.

And he had them all, so. Anyway, I see what we're getting close to Wizards. So what happens is Melissa joins me. She has to drive all the way to my house. And so I feel it's completely unfair to make her just do one podcast since we have to drive home. So I don't often do drive from work, but we will. So we're going to do, and we're nowhere near done. We have a list of things to talk about.

We're nowhere near done. We have many more firsts to talk about. So the plan here is we are going to continue and do part two on the drive home today. So there's a part two to this. And part two will continue with what was the first card you traded for home today. So there's a part two to this. And part two will continue with what was the first card you traded for. Yes. You didn't say yours. I know. I, by the way, have a crazy,

crazy, the craziest trade I ever made was the earliest trade I remember making. And it is such a crazy trade. I will tell you the story on the next podcast. It is... I feel bad in retrospect because it was...

You'll hear the story. But anyway, I have a crazy trade to talk about. Okay, so we're now in the parking space, which means this is the end of our drive to work. And so instead of talking magic, it's time for us to be making magic. So we'll see you guys soon. Ciao. Bye.