Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #319 - Early Tournaments

Episode Date: April 1, 2016

Mark talks about the high-profile tournaments he played in before Wizards.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so last time, in my last podcast, I was talking all about my time as a Magic player before I became a Wizards employee.

And I realized there was a whole facet I didn't get to, and there's some fun stories to tell, so I saved it for a separate podcast. And so this podcast is about me as a competitive player. And I'm going to talk about the few competitive events I competed in. So let me explain this window because there was a very

small window where this was true. So organized play in Magic didn't really start until, I would say, the early spring of 94. And it wasn't until about the fall of 94 that I was asked to stop participating in sanctioned tournaments. So the window before there were sanctioned tournaments and I could not compete in them was not very big. But there was a little point in time where I was somebody who was able to compete and I did. So yesterday I talked about how I had a lot of Johnny sensibilities,

and I liked those weird, wacky decks. But I also was willing to go compete in competitive things. And there, I would try to build decks that I thought could win. I mean, they had to be my decks. They definitely was a Johnny spike at best when I competed. But I did actually figure out what I thought were the good decks. Usually what would happen is I'd make a lot of goofy decks, and some of them,

eh, they'd end up being decent decks, even though I had some goofy condition built into them. And then I could fine-tune them a little bit and make them something that I could compete with. And so I actually had some pretty competitive decks. My most famous one, I've talked about, but since I've talked about my competitive, I'll bring this up. So, when Legends came out,

so Legends came out in the summer of 94, Legends had a card called, had two cards, a Nether Void and had the Abyss. Probably the Abyss was the one that had the bigger impact, but there just was an environment

in which playing creatures was not particularly the right strategy and the dominant strategy at the time was just not playing creatures. Now I in my rebellious Johnny-ness felt that creatures were awesome and that we should have creatures so I decided to make a creature

deck in the face of the fact that people weren't playing creatures. So I made a blue-green deck. So my deck had Scribd Sprites and Flying Men, which were for one green mana and one blue mana, were 1-1 flying creatures, which were the cheapest flyers I could get. And blue had a card called Unstable Mutation

that you put it on your creatures and they get plus three, plus three, and then each turn they get a minus one, minus one on your creatures and they get plus three, plus three, and then each turn they get a minus one, minus one counter. So, essentially they get plus three, plus three, then plus two, plus two, plus one, plus one, but I was going to beat you so fast. I was just looking for the plus three, plus three. I also had Giant Growth.

I had, let's see, I had a Regrowth and I had a Berserk. You can only have one of each of those at the time. Berserk was a spell that costs one, that doubles the power of your creature, but it destroys your creature at the end of turn. Once again, this deck was going to beat you really fast.

It didn't matter. I had Land of War Elves. I had Birds of Paradise, both of which are one-drops that tap for mana. I had a card called Concordant Crossroads, which was an Enchant World. Concordant Crossroads allows all creatures to havechant world. Concordant Crossroads allows all creatures to have haste, essentially. It wasn't called haste at the time, but, and the reason

that was so important is a lot of my creatures tap for mana, and I was trying to attack quickly, and so if I put it out, it allowed me to sort of, if I put out Concordant Crossroads and then put out elves, because they had haste, I could essentially dump my hand of all my elves and birds. Also, because of stuff like the, both the Abyss and Nethervoid were enchant worlds, which was something that came out in Legends. And so they were enchantments that were brutal. And the only way to make an enchant world,

well, you could disenchant them or you could get rid of them. But the most effective way to get rid of an enchant world is to play another enchant world. And Concord and Crossroads was an enchant world, well, you could disenchant them, or you could get rid of them, but the most effective way to get rid of enchant world is to play another enchant world, and Concordant Crossroads was an enchant world, so it allowed me to have answers to other enchant worlds, which was important. I also had a land called Pendlehaven, which you could tap to give a plus one, plus one, plus one, plus two, I'm sorry, to give a one, one creature plus one, plus two, To give a plus one, plus one, plus one, plus two. I'm sorry, to give a one, one creature plus one, plus two. And my deck was all full of one, one creatures.

I had Mishra's Factories, which were lands that you could activate to turn into two, two creatures. In my sideboard, I had these little pixies, or gozine pixies, I think, that had protection, essentially protection from artifacts. They prevented all damage. I guess they weren't protection, but they prevented all damage from artifacts. So, um, they were good against mishra factors that were very powerful. Um, uh, I think I had, uh,

camouflage, not camouflage, um, not camouflage, I had, um, cocoon, which for a while you could use on your opponent's creatures until they, they eroded it and said that you couldn't. So it was one of my answers to could use on your opponent's creatures until they eroded it and said that you couldn't. So it was one of my answers to get rid of my opponent's creatures. I had

in my sideboard, I think, Bedellian Gold, which was a way to tap a Legends card that lets you tap your creatures. Anyway, the idea of my deck was, and I had Moxes and Black Lotus and I mean, it was, at the time I was playing, there was no standard. Just everything was vintage. I mean, it wasn't at the time I was playing, there was no standard, just everything was vintage.

I mean, it wasn't called vintage, it was just called magic, but everything was that. And so the idea of my deck was that I would put out a creature, or many creatures usually, and then I was able to take one of them and make them really big. So like, here's a good example of a potential turn one kill that that could have. So, I would play a forest or an island. I would probably forest. I would play, let's say, a mox or something. So, what that would allow me to do is I could put out Concordant Crossroads and put out an Elve,

which I could chain out to put out Birds and other Elves. Oh, I'm sorry. Turn 1 kill would require a Lotus. So, basically what I could do is, I could put out an Elf, I could put out Concordant Crossroads so they could attack that turn. I could... I could...

Essentially, the way to kill somebody was Giant Growth and Berserk and Regrowth... Essentially, the way to kill somebody was Giant Growth and Berserk and Regrowth. Essentially... If I... You could... I don't remember the deck. The deck had the ability to kill turn one.

It also often would kill on turn two and turn three. The idea was I was just swarming you with lots of little creatures and then giant growth costs one green mana, and stabilization costs one blue mana. So here's a real typical kind of thing. Turn one

I would play I would play Birds of Paradise, which at the time people weren't particularly scared of. And then in turn two, it'd be like giant growth, giant growth, berserk, regrowth, berserk, and you're dead.

That would be 24 points of damage right there, for example. And with a lotus and stuff, I could pull that off. But anyway, it was a fun little deck. Looking back, I had some decent sideboard tech to deal with some of the stuff,

but usually I ran into trouble with somebody who was just super defensive. Like, if people weren't trying to mess with me, I just would beat them very quickly. And the dominant strategies didn't have you messing with people. Like, my deck was well-su suited to play against people that were serious. Like, it was well metagamed in that the kind of decks that were really good at the time didn't really bug with you in the first

couple turns, and I could usually get out and just do more damage than they could deal with at the time. But anyway, I mean, it wasn't the greatest deck or anything. It allowed me to win some tournaments. But that's the one deck that I, that'll come into play in a second because I want to play some tournaments.

Although, so the idea is, I used to go, I explained last time, I used to go down to Costa Mesa every Saturday and Friday and play at my card shop. And, you know, I would play a lot of Magic. On Saturdays at Costa Mesa, there was always a constructed tournament. Once again, there was no formats at the time, so you played Magic where you had the cards. The thing to remember about constructed Magic is

when Magic first began, you could have 40 cards and there were no deck limitations of any kind. You could have as many cards as you wanted. Quickly, what they found out was that that is degenerate. So here's an example. There's a tournament I went to at one point.

I watched this tournament. I wasn't in this tournament. This was a tournament, I think, like the summer of 94. And the thing was, it was a no-limit tournament. You had to have 60 cards of whatever, no four of limits. You could have as many cards as you wanted of anything, and then you played. And at the beginning of the tournament, they divided you into two pile. It's two sections. One section were people that would consistently win on the first turn, and the second was

people who really couldn't win on the first turn. And the people who couldn't win the first turn had their own little tournament. And the people who won the first turn, it was just how many turns consecutively can you win? And in the end, there were two decks that basically after, I don't know, 90-some times, had not missed. And they decided it was a draw between them. The one that I remember is there was a deck that was nothing but lotuses and wheel of fortunes. And then one, um, uh, what's the card that you shuffle your deck back in? It's an artifact.

It's a zero-cost artifact that you can use to shuffle your graveyard back into your library. And basically, the deck was just I wheel, wheel, wheel, wheel, wheel, um, using the lotuses to cast Wheel of Fortune

because it costs three mana. Um, and then at some point, I get the card that shuffles my cards back in, and I just deck you. That's how the deck that shuffles my cards back in, and I deck you. That's how the deck works. I just deck you. And there was, I don't know, there were a bunch of different decks,

but Magic, if you can just play any number of cards, gets degenerate pretty fast, and the point is that tournament tried to demonstrate is, look, when you can play anything you want, it's just how many, you know, who wins the coin flip? Because whoever goes first is going to win on the first turn kill. And how consistent can it be? And the decks that won, like I said, essentially played like 100 games and hadn't lost yet.

Meaning, had won on the first turn 100 times in a row. So, clearly it's not 100% because, I mean, those decks do have the ability to lose. Although, with the Mulligan rules, it was tough. Because if you drew no lands, you were allowed to draw again once. That's how the Mulligan rules worked at the time. And so since the deck I'm talking about didn't even have land,

it's like I get two shots to get something. And the deck can work really... The only way the deck gets hosed is if you draw all Lotuses or all Wheel of Fortunes. And so you have two chances. You would have to have that happen twice in a row. And the chance of that happening is really bad. So, anyway.

So, I would go and play a lot of tournaments. My friend Henry Stern and I would go off together and play a lot of stuff. I remember numerous times there'd be some prize at some shop we'd never been to before, and he and I would drive there together, and then we'd meet in the finals, and sometimes he'd win, and sometimes I'd win. But anyway, today I'm going to talk about the two big tournaments I played in, which is 94 U.S. Nationals and 94 World Championships. So I actually played in two big-stakes tournaments before I wasn't allowed to play in sanctioned tournaments. So I'm going to talk about those two today.

Okay, so the first one was in San Jose, San Jose, California. In, when was it? Spring, I think. So the previous year, well, I said previous year. 93 the game came out. In the year, 93 the game came out. In the summer of 93 the game came out. So this was the first year, and the idea was they were going to have a U.S. Nationals,

and then the winner of the U.S. Nationals would get invited and I think win a trip to Worlds in 94. And so it wasn't a, I think U.S. Nationals would later become a much bigger high-profile thing. This was much lower profile. It was in a convention in San Jose. My dad, Gene is his name. For those, I had a podcast with him, if you called Meet My Dad.

So, my dad is a gamer. He's the one who introduced me to gaming a long ago. So, when I got into Magic, I got my dad into Magic pretty quick. In fact, remember I talked about how I bought boosters, starters and boosters to get people to play? I gave my dad some so that he could play. And then I went up to visit him one time and made him decks, and he and I played a whole bunch. And then I also, later on, R&D would come. My dad's home up in, he lives in Tahoe,

was a place where R&D used to sort of take vacations. Although sometimes we did work there. Because my dad, my dad retired when he was young. He was a dentist growing up, when I was growing up. And then he became a ski instructor

for many, many years. And so we would come visit him and go skiing and stuff. Invasion, the preliminary work on Invasion was done at my dad's place. And we would go visit and all come. And we'd bring tons of Magic cards. And we'd play a lot of limited games.

And we'd leave the cards for my dad. My dad had one friend named Don who played Magic. And the two of them would play all the time. And so Don would always come with us. Anyway, my dad was very into Magic. And so the nationals the U.S. nationals would be in San Jose

my dad lives in Tahoe which is in California and so my dad and I met in San Jose I lived at the time in Los Angeles

so we both lived in California so we met in San Jose and we went to the U.S. nationals I remember the funny thing

about U.S. nationals is I don't the funny thing about U.S. Nationals is I don't remember tons of details. I remember one important thing. I'll tell you the one thing I remember. And then I will, I have a little better memory of the World Championships, but anyway. So what happened is,

we are, the event is happening at some point. It's in the morning or something. It's like 10 or 11 events happening. And all of us are milling around. And so Steve Bishop, who's the guy who was in charge of the DCI, or not even DCI, the Duelist Convocation, organized play at the time, which was called Events, I believe, gets up on the chair and goes, okay, the event's about to start,

but some of you might not have seen our website, so I have an announcement to make. Okay. For this tournament, for the U.S. Nationals, if your card has an expansion symbol on it, it is not allowed to be played in this tournament. Okay, now at the time, Arabian Nights had come out, Antiquities had come out, and Revised had come out Antiquities had come out

and Revised had come out and Revised had some cards in it from Antiquities and Arabian Nights so people like what Steve Bishop like I always describe him had sort of a rock and roll vibe to him

he used to wear like leather like leather pants and leather jacket and he definitely had this sort of, a lot of the people that were in events at the time had a very goth vibe to them. And Steve, Steve, I don't know, he knew somebody like a lot of early Wizards was friends of friends of people. And I don't know, Steve knew somebody who was working there. And the events group early on was really small. That Wizards would later get really, really into organized play.

And obviously it's a major, major section of our company now. But at the time, it was just three or four people that were running it. Steve was in charge. But anyway, this is the first time I think... No, no, no. I'd met Steve Bishop once before. Because he had come to a convention in the winter of 94, and I talked to him about wanting to write for The Duelist. And he's the one that got me the name of Catherine Haynes, who was the editor-in-chief.

So I'd met Steve once before. But anyway, he stands up on this chair, and he announces that no cards with expansion symbols can be played. So people are raising their hands like, what do you mean? And he goes, if your card has an expansion symbol, can't be played. So people are like, wait. So they call it, hold on. You've sold two expansion sets. There's Arabian Nights and there's Antiquities.

We can't play cards from Arabian Nights and Antiquities? And he's like, well, okay. You can't play anything that came from a booster pack from Arabian Nights or Antiquities. But, there are some cards that are in Revised that are originally in

Arabian Nights or Antiquities and as long as you have the Revised version of those, because they don't have expansion symbols, you may play them. So, like, hands are raised. You're like, wait, you're saying that we can play, so, for example, like,

I'm not sure what's the card. Like, White Lily Wolf, I think, was a card that was in Arabian Nights and then was, I think, in revised. Maybe White Lily Wolf was not, but it was later in a course. Let's imagine it was revised for this conversation. So you're telling me that what a lily wolf, if I have it on a revised

pack, and it doesn't have an expansion symbol on it, then I can play it, but if I have a lily wolf that is from, oh, here's one I know for sure is true. The rack from, the rack from antiquities. I know this is true. Okay, so if I have a rack that has an antiquities symbol on it, I can't play it. But I have a rack from antiquities. I know this is true. Okay, so I have a rack that has an antiquities symbol on it.

I can't play it. But I have a rack from revised that doesn't have an antiquities symbol on it. I can play it. So the antiquities symbol was a little anvil. The Arabian knight symbol was a little scythe, a little sword. So if you're a scythe or an anvil, you can't play it. And the funny thing was there was a card in Antiquities that got you back an artifact

that it was misprinted in Antiquities without an expansion symbol. It didn't have the little anvil. So it was ruled, that card you could play. Any card that didn't have an expansion symbol. So why? Why exactly were you having the U.S. Nationals

and not letting people play with the cards that you published and stuff? And Steve Bishop was like, well, we haven't yet made determination of which of those cards might need to be restricted. So just to make it fair for everybody, we are not letting you play them. And people were like, why is that fair? So anyway, everyone was scrambling because most people's decks had cards from Arabian Nights and Antiquities, and no one was worrying about having, you know, revised versions. Revised versions exist.

So it turns out there was a guy named Bo Bell. Bo is from California. I think he might be from, he's from northern or southern California. He didn't go to Costa Mesa, so my guess maybe it was northern California. Anyway, or middle of California. Anyway, Bo had a discard Mesa, so my guess maybe it was Northern California. Anyway, or middle of California. Anyway, Bo had a discard deck, a black-red discard deck, and he needed, he had four racks in his deck. And he had antiquity racks, because they were black border. So if you had them in, the way it worked originally is the first time it was printed was black border, subsequent

printing was white border. So the rack, when it got reprinted and revised, had a white border. Well, black border looked a lot cooler, so he had black border racks. And so he had to go around and find white border racks because he needed a revised version of racks, because he couldn't play the rack unless he

had revised versions. And the deck, I mean the deck was a discard deck so the racks were the kill condition so like that wasn't something he can just sort of play around so it turns out that he came up to me and my dad and my dad uh we had bought a bunch of revised uh really what happened was i i would buy packs and get them to my dad and so i bought a whole bunch of revised and and so my dad had racks um my dad had made a discard deck. I don't think he was planning to play the discard deck in the...

My dad and I both were playing U.S. Nationals. I don't think he was planning to play the discard deck. But anyway, he had four racks. And so he ended up trading to Bo. I remember Bo was very good, made a very nice trade with my dad. I don't remember what the trade was for. I remember it was a good made a very nice trade with my dad I don't remember what the trade was for I remember it was a good trade for my dad but Bo really really needed the white border my dad was the only one that had the white border

and to be fair my dad wasn't really trying to pull one over on Bo it was just like Bo really needed them first offer was a very nice offer that made sense for my dad to trade my dad said sure and so Bo Bell got the four racks he sense for my dad to trade. My dad said sure, and so Bo Bell got the four racks he needed from my dad. All right, he got some of the racks from my dad. Maybe he didn't

get all four, but I know that my dad was, I think, the last person he traded with, and he got the things he needed to finish his deck. So anyway, my dad and I go and play in the tournament. To the best of my knowledge, it was a single elimination tournament because all tournaments at that time were single elimination. Swiss really hadn't caught on yet as it being a means. I actually take that back. I think locally we were starting to do Swiss tournaments. But the way they ran now, and the reason I know Nationals was single elimination

was, we'll get to in a second, worlds with single elimination. So, um, but anyway, in the end, uh, I remember my dad got knocked out pretty early. I actually, I hung in there for a while. I wasn't playing my blue green deck because my blue green deck had, needed legends to work. There were no screen corner crossroads yet. There wasn't an unstable mutation yet. So that deck wasn't built yet. I don't remember what I played. The deck that I had that was pretty good... Oh, no, no, no. That used Legends cards.

I don't remember what deck I played. I had some competitive decks. I mean, I know when I was playing in a tournament that was a competitive tournament, I would lean toward one of my better decks that I knew could win more consistently. I don't remember what my deck did. I remember that I did pretty well and that I think I made...

It was either top 32 or top 16. I did pretty well. I was in spitting distance, but I think top 16. That was my memory. Anyway, I did well. I didn't make the finals or anything, but I did respectable.

I was in contention for a good chunk of the tournament. Anyway, Bo Bell would go on to win. And few people... One thing that's interesting is, for Bo Bell, this was his pride and joy. This was his big accomplishment. He was the U.S. national Champion for 1994, which is pretty cool. It was at a time where the tournament was not... I mean, there would

come a point in time where the U.S. National Tournament might be one of the most competitive tournaments. U.S. was really dominant on the Pro Tour. All the pros showed up. All the U.S. pros showed up. And winning U.S. Nationals was a major, major accomplishment. This is a little early. Magic

was pretty young. I mean, Bo clearly had a good deck and was a very good player and deserved to win. And Bo would then get flown to U.S. Nationals. There were actually only three Nationals, to the best of my knowledge, in 1994. All of which sent people to

U.S. Nationals, I'm sorry, to World Championships. U.S. headed Nationals championships US headed nationals, France headed nationals and Belgium headed nationals and interesting the three countries in the top four at Worlds would be US, France and Belgium I think

the French and Belgian players had done well in their nationals Zach Dolan who would win I'll get to him in a second didn't even well in their nationals. Zach Dolan, who would win, I'll get to him in a second, didn't even play in U.S. nationals. Okay. So, I went, I did pretty well. Like I said,

I was hanging with players that would become pro tour regulars later on. And so, I wasn't an amazing player, but I was a pretty good player. Like I said, when Henry and I would go to a random card shop, like, we'd be one and two. Like, I, you know, Henry was probably a little bit better than me, although I could beat Henry. And so I was decent.

I wasn't amazing. I don't know whether I would have made the Pro Tour or not, but I was at least hanging with people that did make the Pro Tour. Okay. So my last big tournament would be U.S. Nationals. So what happened was I had been writing, I'd been doing the puzzles for the duelist and I wanted to do more. The story basically is I was working in the game store. It was like my eighth manager. He just laid everybody off and decided to start fresh with new people. I don't quite know why he did that.

I don't know whether there were things I did or didn't do. The story I always tell is there was a policy in the store that you had to wear. You couldn't wear tennis shoes. But you had to stand up for like eight hours at a time. And I tried other shoes and just my feet were hurting and I was in pain. And so I went to my manager at the time and I said to him, look, I know by the book I'm not supposed to wear tennis shoes, but I'm behind the counter. You know, I seldom come up from behind the counter. People don't normally see my shoes.

I'm in discomfort and I just I don't want to be in pain. My manager said, oh, not a big deal. I said, I don't want to be in pain. My manager said, oh, not a big deal. I said, fine. And from manager to manager, whenever I get a new manager, I would go to them and I would say, hey, I just need, I need to wear these shoes and this and that. And they would always say, okay. And I think eventually we changed managers a lot, obviously. Maybe around the fifth or sixth, I stopped asking, I guess. I just assumed that I could wear my shoes. And the eighth person, I mean, my memory is he just laid everybody off, and I don't think my, like, I don't know whether it was my maverick ways and my maverick shoes

that had something to do with it. Because the thing that was crazy was I was a part-time employee, and I was the best-selling salesman, like, by leaps and bounds in our store. In fact, there's a game called Set that I like a lot. It's a little card game. We had 26 locations. I managed to sell more Set in my store than the other 25 locations combined. Anyway, so I had got laid off. I was a little bummed.

I said, you know what? I enjoy doing the Duel stuff. I'd like to be more involved in that. I'm going to fly myself to Gen Con. I knew Catherine, the editor, the editor would be there. I'm going to go there and have a chance to meet with her.

But while I was there, guess what? It was the World Championship. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to play in the World Championship. So the way it worked was there were flights. I don't remember how many flights, like eight flights or something, and you could play in multiple flights. I decided just to play in one flight, and the way it worked was it was a flight of like 64, maybe 64, 128,

and then if you won your flight oh maybe it was maybe it was flights of 64 and maybe there were like 32 flights or maybe actually maybe not the top maybe the top 4 advanced I'm pretty sure there was

64 on the finals so there's some number of flights in which some of the time i don't know whether it was the top one top two top four so at some level you advanced to the final day um so i remember that i played in my thing and you needed to go i think five rounds maybe top four maybe it was 64 and top four advanced i needed to go five rounds to advance to the next to the finals and in the third round I won the first round handily. I won the second round handily. In the third round,

I met a guy whose whole deck was a mono-weight deck that was just like stall, stall, stall. That's all it did. And he said that he had played his brother and that this deck was like metagamed against his brother. And it was perfect against me. Because my deck was all about, I quickly

get on my things and beat you and that all it took was you know, like the deck had four swords and it had four, I don't know disenchants and four just everything it could install and my deck was all about getting a 20-20 and beating you with it

and so his deck was just perfectly suited to stop my deck I had some answers on my sideboard, but obviously I lost game one. And my memory is that we went to game three, that I did manage to beat him in game two. But anyway, I lost, and then I was out. And I was, I think if I won that, I had to win two more to advance, I believe. I think I was halfway. But anyway, I lost. But I did get a chance to play in the World Nationals. And then

what happened was I went to meet Catherine. And I said to Catherine, hey, I want to write for you. And Catherine was like, you know, at the time, I was just doing the puzzles. I also had an answer column where I would explain the answers to the puzzles, which had a little bit of text to it. And she's like, look, you're very good. You know magic. So far you've turned your work in on time. Yeah, give me some ideas for articles. So I pitched her two article ideas on the spot.

One was, what if I covered Gen Con from the point of view of a magic player? So it was called an MTG-er at Gen Con, as if I thought the term MTG-er was going to catch on. Both these articles that I'm talking about, I think, are online. And the second thing is, I said that I wanted to cover the World Championships. And I said, I'd be willing to transcribe it and then both write up what happened in the game and also write an article about it. So I ended up writing an article about Gen Con and nestled within that is my article about the World Championship.

They were very, they did not like us giving away information about what the decks were. So I talked about how they played, but if you notice, I did record the decks and I later would publish them years later. But I didn't, at the time, say the decks. And then for the them years later. But I didn't at the time say the decks. And then for the Duelist Convocation newsletter, I wrote a play-by-play thing of what happened.

Like turn one, Zach Dolan had this in his hand and he played, you know, a forest or not forest, whatever. He played a land, he played the spell. And I, there's a guy named Chris Page who was one of the original East Coast playtesters, who did the design for Antiquities and for Ice Age and for Alliances and for Fallen Empires. And he and I, he helped me transcribe the hands. I transcribed, I think, Zach's hand. He transcribed Bertrand's hand. And then I took all the information and wrote it up for the Duelist Convocation. So if you've ever seen this picture, it's a pretty famous picture. There's a picture of Bertrand Lestray and Zach Dolan

playing in the finals. And right next to Bertrand Lestray, right next to Zach Dolan, is a very young me wearing an underdog t-shirt transcribing it. I was right there. And the thing that was interesting about the finals was we were playing the finals on these old

wood tables. like the kind that like you wouldn't rub your hand against it because you get splinters. And people were playing with, you know, classic magic cards, black lotuses and such on this without sleeves because sleeves didn't exist at the time. So I know some people will look at this picture and just cringe because like the conditions that they're playing these amazing cards on is hard to watch. But I was there. I mean, thanks to my sort of go-gettedness, I was

in the thick of the thick of the World Championships. I didn't make it. In some ways, by the way, it was a good thing I didn't make the finals because if I made the finals, I would have played in it and I wouldn't have had the chance to be part of history. I mean, I would have been part of history by playing the finals. I guess there's this

chance I was the world champion, but most likely, had I made it to the finals, I would have lost in round one or two, and then I wouldn't have been sitting at the table of the finals, like, next to the winner. I had a chance to also interview Zach when he won. I printed some interview

in my article. So it's interesting. Like, one of the things that I use this podcast to be is try to be a historian of the game. And the fact that just to be there, one of the reasons I get to be a historian was, like, I actually was just president of some major, major things. So the interesting thing about the finals, real quick,

since I have a little bit of time, was it was a single elimination tournament. Both of them had very interesting decks. Bertrand Lestrade's deck was a red-green weenie deck that just was very aggressive in attacking you. It had, I don't remember if it was all, but it had Curd Apes and stuff. It was built around Curd Apes. That's why it was red-green. Curd Ape was a one-drop that if you had a force

in play, it was a 2-3. So essentially, it was a one-drop 2-3. If you played a Taiga turn one, it was a 2-3. A Taiga is a force and swamp dual land from original alpha. Anyway, his deck was very aggressive. Zach Dolan had a much more quirky deck.

It had a lot of cards. The way John Finkle described it, John Finkle played his deck in the Invitational in Sydney. It was called the Auction of Champions for players to auction off decks. And he ended up getting Zach Dolan's deck at a very, very good price. And the way he worded it is, he's like,

it was a lot of cards that were kind of janky but worked really well together. And one of the things that Zach had in his deck was he had one Library of Alexandria and one Ivory Tower. Both were restricted, that's why he had one. Library of Alexandria lets you draw a card

if you have seven or more cards in your hand. And Ivory Tower every turn gives you one life for every card over four that you have. It's kind of the negative version of Black Vise. Black Vise would punish your opponent for this. Ivory over four that you have. It's kind of the negative version of Black Vise. Black Vise would punish your opponent for this. Ivory Tower would gain you life.

And so the combination between the two of the, you could get cards in your hand, you know, essentially if you, with Library of Alexandria, you could draw two cards a turn. Now you couldn't play too many cards because you had to stay at seven, but you could draw two cards a turn. Now, you couldn't play too many cards because you had to stay at seven, but you could play two cards a turn, and there was card drawing, so with card drawing, you could get back up.

And then Ivory Tower would gain you four life a turn if you had seven cards in hand. In fact, if you did it correctly, you, in fact, could get five life a turn because you could have eight cards in your hand because of the Library of Alexandria. And so, essentially, it was this defensive thing that got you cards and life,

and Bertrand Lestrade's deck just couldn't outrun that. And so what Bertrand had said to me was that he believed he could beat Zach. The only thing he couldn't beat is if Zach was able to get out an early Library of Alexandria and Ivory Tower, that's the one combination that he couldn't beat. And in Game 1 and in Game 3, Zac did that.

Game 2, he did not, and Bertrand beat him. And so, I think on paper, Bertrand had the slightly more consistent deck. I believe on paper, Bertrand was probably the better player. But, Zac won. I mean, I'm not saying Zach was a bad player. Zach was a good player. I'm not saying Zach's deck was a bad deck.

I think Zach's deck was a good deck. Both of them beat a lot of players in single elimination to get to the finals. What I'm saying is, I think if they had played,

you know, best of a larger amount of games, I think the, I think Bertrand had a slightly better edge going into that. But Zach got the library of Alexandria and got the ivory towers. And once again, Zach was a very good player.

The Zach story is an awesome story, by the way. Zach decided he wanted to play in the world championship. He loaded up his car. He drove to Milwaukee. I think it's now Indianapolis, but at the time it was in Milwaukee. That's where it started for many, many years. Gen Con was to Milwaukee. I think it's now Indianapolis, but at the time it was in Milwaukee. That's where it started for many, many years. Gen Con was in Milwaukee. And as he got to the city limits of Milwaukee, his car died.

Died. It just stopped working and would no longer work. And he had to hitchhike from where his car died to get to the convention center to play in the event. And his car was dead. I'm not even sure how he got home. He got a ride from somebody. But anyway, for winning the very first ever

world championship, he got a lot of product. A lot, a lot, a lot of magic product is what he won. Boxes and boxes, a very early magic product, which I guess, historically speaking, is what he won. Boxes and Boxes, a very early magic product, which I guess, historically speaking, is a cool prize. And I remember

I interviewed Zach when he won. He was really blown away. Zach was a cool guy. I liked Zach a lot. Batron was very nice, too. Batron was very kind of upset. When I interviewed Batron, he was just frustrated that he lost. And rightfully so. Can you imagine

you were inches away, on paper you're supposed to win this, and you're inches away from being the very first ever world champion. Now, Bertrand, by the way, would go on to play in the finals of the very first Pro Tour, and again, lose

in the finals in a very close matchup. And so, I mean, Bertrand is an awesome, awesome player. He came to the first Invitational. The fact that he was the runner-up at the very first World Championships and the runner-up at the very first Pro Tour speaks volumes of him. And Zach was very sweet. I remember interviewing Zach, and like like I said I wrote up my interviews my articles are all online

so you can read them I even think my Duelist Convocation play-by-play article is up online where you can like literally it's like here are the seven cards

that Zach in his opening hand had and here's the cards that Bertrand had and you can actually like play out you can look at the cards and play out

what exactly happened and watch it but anyway after Worlds I started writing for the Duelist. And then the Duelist got the idea that my puzzles should involve the latest cards. And so they then politely asked me not to play in sanctioned tournaments since I had advanced knowledge. I said I would do that. That's when I started judging and getting very involved in running tournaments,

which would get me very involved in the Pro Tour later on. But anyway, that is the stories of my competitive play. I don't have tons of competitive play. It was worth a podcast worth. You know, I mean, there's pro players that could do, you know, an entire series of podcasts all about all this tournament, that tournament. But I didn't plan a lot of tournaments. So that was U.S. Nationals and the World Championship I played in.

So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my little chat I had about the traffic today, so you got a little extra. But anyway, I'm in my parking space, so we all know what that means. That means it's the end of a drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.