Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #325 - Magic the Puzzling

Episode Date: April 22, 2016

Mark looks back to what got him involved with Wizards in the first place.

I'm pulling up a driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. And today, I'm going to talk about something that if it didn't exist, I would not be making magic today. So today, I'm going to talk about magic the puzzling. So for those that have no idea what I'm talking about, and some of you probably do, back in the day, my claim to fame was I was the puzzle guy. So let me walk through what Magic the Puzzling was and how it played into the whole magic scene, if you will. So I've told the story, obviously.

So for those who listen to my podcasts all the time, I know I have a habit of telling the same stories. Although in my defense, this is like my 300-something podcast, and it's a lot of time to fill, so I try to give new twists on the stories when I repeat them, but yes, I do know that there's some repetition. And today I'll be talking about some stuff that you've heard before, but I'm trying to give you some vantage points so you understand the story a little bit different than how you heard before.

So I often talk about how I started in magic. So, this has to do with today, the magic of the puzzling. So, what happened was, in the winter of 1994. So, magic came out in 1993 in the summer. I got involved in the late summer. And I got really into magic. Really, I mean, really. I was hook, line, sinker. I was really into magic. Really, I mean, really. I was hook, line, sinker.

I was very into magic. And at the time, there was so little written about magic. It just was, whenever I would find anything, I would buy the tiniest of magazines because they'd have a little tiny article on magic. I was just starved for information on magic.

So when I heard that they were going to start a magazine, that Wizards was making a magazine called The Duelist, I was really excited. And I remember when the first one came out, I in fact had a date. I had a first date, like I wasn't blinded because I knew her, but I mean, it was a first date. And right before the first date, I had gone to the game store and bought the magazine. And I got to my date early. And I remember sitting in the car, reading my magazine. I was early. It wasn't time for the date.

I have a little thing what I call over-punctual. When I used to do stand-up, I had a little joke. So, here's my joke for my stand-up days. So, I'm what you call over-punctual. For those that don't understand what that means. Okay. You know how when there's a party, how there's a guy that comes before the party begins who helps move the furniture and put out the food?

Yeah, I let that guy in. Anyway, there's my little stand-up. You see how often you get my stand-up routine. Okay, so I'm a little over-punctual, and I was there early, and I had the magazine, so I remember just going through it and reading it, and I was so excited. The whole magazine. I was lucky to have an article on magic before. The entire magazine was dedicated to magic.

And so I soaked it up. I read everything from cover to cover. Not all before the date obviously but after the date I just put it away anyway I read that thing from cover to cover multiple times but it was missing something

it was just it was a little I felt like it didn't have a lot of content for the slightly more experienced player it was really good for an introductory you've never played Magic before but I was like oh I't have a lot of content for the slightly more experienced player. It was really good for an introductory. You've never played Magic before. But it's like, oh, I want something a little more. And I just felt it was missing something.

So what I've been taught is, rather than just bemoan something, you know, be the change you want to see. So I went to a convention in Los Angeles. And there was a Wizards of the Coast booth. People from Wizards of the Coast were at the convention. One of which was Steve Bishop. So Steve Bishop, I've talked about Steve Bishop before, he was the head of what

at the time was called Events. It would later go on to become Organized Play. Now, at the time, Events was a couple people. I think it was Steve and maybe two or three other people. It wasn't very big. We weren't doing a lot of stuff. They had just, just started sanctioning.

And so it was super early in the days. I mean, obviously, organized play would go on to be a giant department of wizards. At the time, it was a little tiny part. But anyway, Steve Fish was there. There might have been other people there. So early on in wizard's career or whatever, life cycle, in wizard's existence, they had a philosophy in the early days of they would just go to every convention. Now, this is when Magic was still,

you know, they were still, I don't know, broadening markets. But anyway, the idea was they just went, somebody went to almost every convention. There was a convention, a game convention somewhere in the United States

and often places in Europe and other places. Somebody from Wizards was going to be there. In the early days, we did a lot of conventions. In fact, I did a lot of conventions once I started working there. So there was, I mean, it wasn't a giant booth or anything, but there was a little booth set up. Steve Bishop was there. And so I went and talked to him.

And, oh, so here's what happened is I said, okay, the magazine does not have advanced content. Well, what is advanced content? What would I want to see? And I came up with the idea. said, okay, the magazine does not have advanced content. Well, what is advanced content? What would I want to see? And I came up with the idea. So for those that aren't familiar with puzzles, I'm a big puzzle fan. I've been a puzzle fan since a small boy. And there are a lot of, chess is the most famous example, but there's bridge puzzles and the idea of in-game puzzles, where it's a game, you have a puzzle,

and it's like, okay, checkmate in four moves, or you have a hand, what's the right bid on the hand? The idea where you're sort of mid-game and you're solving something. And I knew, for example, if I was going to do a puzzle for the duelist, it had to involve magic cards, right? It had to involve magic.

Why would they, you know? And so I love the idea of a puzzle, a mid-game puzzle. What if you had to solve what was going on? And so what I did was I tried to figure out, I mean, the original puzzles I made, I think I made three puzzles to demo. I think it was three. It was two or three. I made them to demo,

and at the time, I did not have the advanced technology. I'll talk a little bit about how I made the puzzles, but in the early days, I used to just write it on a piece of paper. I literally would write it out. In fact, that's why I submitted it, I think. It was written out.

It might have been on graph paper or something. But, oh, there's a question people ask me all the time. I'm going to answer it right now, which is, in my puzzles, land was in front of the creatures and spells. I had creatures and spells in the back and land in the front. What's going on?

The answer is, that is how I played when I first started playing Magic. The person who taught me how to play Magic taught me that's how you set the cards up. And there's no picture in the rule book

that contradicted that, so I believed him. I think his rationale was, it made like a division, so like my creatures are here, and your creatures are there, and our lands are kind of like the wall in between our creatures. So anyway, if you wonder why, that is why. It also, I don't know, I mean, that's the

real reason why. I mean, from a puzzle standpoint, it is nice in that it weighted the things at the top and the bottom. There's some nice puzzle things about it, but the reality is, why did I do that? I did that because that's how I play at the time. Also, for those who want to hear how geeky I was in my early days, when I first started playing Magic, I did this thing where I didn't tap cards. I would use counters and use counters to represent that they were tapped. Now, remember back in the early days of Magic, there weren't as many counters on cards.

I mean, I had dice to count as counter zone cards. But anyway. And I had a play mat. I had a play mat back when not a lot of people had play mats. I actually, there's these people who, in San Francisco, Calls of Brain Games, I think was their name. And they made this play mat that was really cool that I liked. And I remember I got, I don't I remember I got artists to sign it.

I don't know. I had a cool mat for a while. But it was something at the time when I had it, it wasn't very familiar to have a play mat. Now it's obviously pretty familiar. But at the time, it wasn't. And everyone was like, oh, that's interesting. What are you doing?

So I had my little play mat. I had my little counters. Anyway, with my little land in front of my spell. Okay. little play mat, I had my little counters, anyway, with my little land in front of my spell. Okay, so, I was trying to, I liked the idea of doing a puzzle, I like puzzles, and I felt like, oh, it required you to solve it, it required you to know something, it required you to sort of work your way through it. So I made three puzzles, I believe, and I... Did I give them to Steve Bishop? No, I think Steve Bishop told me the name

Catherine Haynes, who was the editor of The Duelist at the time. And I think I mailed them to Catherine. And I was really excited, and I mailed them. And a week went by, and nothing. I hadn't heard from her.

But, you know, she's a busy woman. I just sent them. Two weeks went by, and I had nothing. I hadn't heard from her, but, you know, she's a busy woman. I just sent them. Two weeks went by. I was like, okay, you know, she's got a lot on her plate. I mean, you know, this is just me suggesting an idea. You know, three weeks went by. Four weeks went by. Two months went by.

Like, a good chunk of time went by. So I finally decided to call. So when I used to call in, there was a woman named Pat who used to be the receptionist. And I got to know Pat because I called a lot. And every time I would chat with Pat for a minute or two, and then Pat would get me whoever I needed to talk to. Usually, Charlie, so Charlie Coutinho, one of the things, and we'll get to it, but one

of the things about my puzzles was that it needed some fact-checking. And Charlie was my original fact-checker way back in the day, so I also went and called Charlie. Anyway, so I got on the phone. At this point, I probably didn't know Pat, but I talked to Pat. And then Pat calls Catherine. And I don't know. I mean, obviously, eventually I would visit the wizard's offices. It was very, the duelist was in their own little section.

And Catherine Haynes, okay, I don't know if you've heard of Catherine Haynes. So Catherine Haynes had long, kind of like very light brown, like not quite blonde, not quite light brown, but in between. She was very small, smaller than me, for those that know how small I am. She used to always go around barefoot, and she had glasses that she usually wore. Not always, but she wore them a lot. And Catherine was just someone full of energy and full of ideas, and she was really nice. Catherine and I were friends.

I obviously would eventually work with Catherine when I started working at Wizards because I was the liaison to Medulis. But anyway, I get Catherine on the phone and first off, hi, how you doing? My name is Mark Rosewater.

I sent you some puzzles in the mail and it was a puzzle column. And part of me said, maybe she never read it. I mean, I hadn't heard from the mail. And it was a puzzle column. And part of me said, maybe she never read it. I mean, I hadn't heard from them forever. Maybe it got lost or maybe there's a giant pile of ideas people have they never opened. I don't know. And so Catherine goes, oh, no, no, I remember those.

Yeah, we liked them. And I said, oh, okay, well, are you interested in them? She goes, oh, yeah, yeah, one's the next issue. So they essentially had seen them, liked them, included it, never told me, never called me. And so I had her on the phone. I go, oh, well, that's great. I go, do you want some more? So it turned out of the puzzles I turned in, which I think were three, two of them didn't work. So this is a sign that the puzzles required a little more nuance. And so what happened was, she said she was interested. So my first puzzle went into Duelist 1.5. So what happened was, there was Duelist 1, that's the one I read before my date, and

then there's a giant gap for Duelist 2. I mean, like a six-month gap or something. And what had happened was they'd got the first magazine out, but it turns out there's a lot more behind the scenes. There were a lot of issues that were going on. In fact, it took forever to get the first issue out. It was early 94. It took forever to get that issue out. And so they hadn't sort of refined the process. So

the Duelist in the early days was supposed to be every other month, six times a year. And because they realized that it was taking time to get out the magazine, they decided to put out a little mini version of it, which ended up being called Duelist 1 1⁄ half. And in the back of Duelist one and a half was the very first Magic the Puzzling. And my early puzzles, it wasn't a very complex puzzle. And one of the things I try to do, by the way, is I try to make sure to have a mix of puzzles so that

I didn't want all the puzzles to be super hard, but I didn't want all the puzzles to be super easy. I wanted them to mix. The other thing, in general, by the way, I was trying to make sure they were solvable, so I didn't do super hard ones in the magazine, but what happened is they became so popular, there was a newsletter called

the Duelist Convocation Newsletter. The Duelist Convocation would later become the Duelist Convocation International, which would become the DCI. That's what DCI stands for. But then they went KFC with it and they stopped telling you what it meant. But anyway, I used to make a puzzle for the newsletter and the puzzle in the newsletter was hard. It was like, these are the diehard players.

So it was like, and I mean like 70 step puzzles. I mean like really interconnected. Okay, so I learned from my first experience that there's a lot of ways. So here's the problems in making a magic puzzle. Number one is that you could have a solution and there could be a solution other than your solution. Even worse is when the solution other than your solution is a simpler solution. Like I actually had a puzzle once where it was an elaborate puzzle, and, like, the solution was, like, cast a card and bolt their face or something. Like, it was a super, super, and I know, I did do a puzzle like that once, where that was the purpose, where it was very elaborate,

and the answer was supposed to be the simple answer. I did do that once. But there was a puzzle where that wasn't my point, and a lot of times what would happen, well, so number one problem is there was an alternate solution. Sometimes that alternate solution was longer than my solution. Sometimes it was shorter. Longer wasn't a big deal.

And there's a bunch of times I printed a puzzle in the duelist that somebody else would find an alternate solution. Oh, so by the way, the way the puzzle used to work, for those who don't know what a duelist is, I would put the puzzle in the duelist, and then the next duelist, I would have the answer for the previous puzzle. I say puzzle, it eventually would become puzzles. What would happen is, I did the first one, and then every issue of the duelist from then on had Magic the Puzzling in it. And it became very popular. In fact, it eventually became the most popular feature in the magazine. People liked the puzzles.

They were very, very popular. So I started doing an answer column called Magic Tricks. And what Magic Tricks was, was I would walk through the solution step by step. And the idea was, if you had solved it, just with sort of making sure

you did it correctly. But if you didn't, it walked through and explained exactly how it worked. And I would sort of, if things were confusing, I'd walk through

why things worked a certain way. But also, because I'm a writer, I decided I wanted some framing narrative to sort of tie it together. So I started telling this soap opera story about me.

And it was just filled with cliches of, like, soap opera cliches and sci-fi cliches. And it was just sort of this me sort of poking fun. And, like, this is where my evil twin came from. The first time I mentioned my evil twin, I talked about time traveling and about clones and about all the, a lot of the shenanigans that I talk about today

and jest started back in Magic Tricks, which is in my column, my answer column. And it was always a month later. So what would happen is people would get it and then there would be

talk online because people who solved it wanted to there would be talk online because people who solved it wanted to know whether they were right or not so what I started doing was I online

I was very active on the Usenet and stuff and I would say to people send me your solution I'll tell you if it's correct because this is when I had time I mean remember the time

when I was doing my puzzles early on I wasn't working for wizards I was freelancing you know in fact this was back in my days where I was doing my puzzles early on, I wasn't working for Wizards. I was freelancing. In fact, this was back in my days where I was being a writer. Other than the six months I was on Roseanne, most of the time I was doing freelance. I had a lot of free time.

So I was excited. I liked hearing from players. It was my first sort of interaction. I tended to go on the Usenet and and people would talk about the puzzles, and I would answer. And so that was my early days of being a spokesperson, although I was a spokesperson, not really a magic spokesperson at the time. But it really got me familiar with social media, talking with the fans. It was sort of my proto version of what I do now. But anyway, I... So the puzzle started out with one puzzle.

And then it was really popular. So Catherine said, can we do two puzzles? So I started doing two puzzles. And then it was really popular that we said three puzzles. But I said, oh, if we do a third puzzle, let me do something that's untraditional. So when I did the third puzzles, I would do various magic puzzles that weren't always in-game puzzles. So the way it would work is,

once I got to three, is I would have an easier puzzle, a harder puzzle, although not as hard as the duals and complications puzzles, and then I would have a magic puzzle that was more about, maybe it was about recognizing, you know,

I do eyeball benders with magic art. Can you figure out what art this is from? Or I would do a logic problem. I would do other kinds of puzzles with magic, and so I would mix it up. So one of the things I came up with is, at one point before I came to Wizards, I was a Johnny.

I liked experimenting. So one of the things I came up with is I came up with my own magic format, which I called Mana Maze Solitaire. So I talked about this in the Duelist. There was an article about this, and then I ended up doing a lot of puzzles with it. What it was was it's a way to play Solitaire with magic cards. And really in a nutshell, the idea essentially was that you would make a deck, and you knew the rules when you made the deck,

so you would make a deck specifically for this function. The way it worked was you would put mana in your deck. Whenever you had a permanent, if you activated or tapped the permanent, it would disappear. Like, you would lay out a grid.

There's different sized grids, but imagine like 8x8, I think was a very common grid, if you have 64 cards. You would lay out a grid, and then the idea was to get rid of all the cards, like in Solitaire. And the way it worked was,

spells, sorry, permanents would disappear whenever you tapped them or activated them. And spells, you had, in sorceries, you had to cast to get rid of them. So the idea is I would put a lot of mana sources and things. So some of the ways you'd get rid of cards is they'd produce mana and they'd go away. And then you'd use the mana to do spells.

And there were things like creatures and stuff in which sometimes you had to use the mana to do spells, and there were things like creatures and stuff in which sometimes you had to use the spells to get rid of it. Oh, if the permanent either was activated or tapped or was destroyed, it went away. So part of it was like producing mana and then getting to spells and then finding ways to get rid of different permanents. I mean, clearly if the permanent didn't have the way to tap or have some activation, there was no way to get rid of different permanents. I mean, clearly if the permanent didn't have the way to tap or have some activation,

there's no way to get rid of it. Then you had to externally get rid of it with other spells. Anyway, I used to make a lot of man-in-maze solitaire puzzles for those that are unaware. And really, if you like the idea of solitaire magic, give it a fun variant. Give it a fun solitaire variant. It's different.

It's very different from a lot of other solitaire. I mean, you are playing magic in the sense that you are casting spells and you're caring about creatures and things, but in a really different context. So I think we put the rules online. I think if you look at Man and Maze Solitaire, I think you can find it. Anyway, it was, I don't know, I was proud of it.

I made it way back in the day. So I used to do a lot of Man and Mace Altar puzzles. That was probably after my in-game puzzles, the most common puzzles I did. But I did a lot of trivia-ish puzzles,

a lot of, like, different kinds of puzzles. So then... And this is all... This is all happening while I'm still... I haven't started to work for Wizards yet.

The puzzles really took off. And in fact, when I flew myself to Gen Con in the summer of 90... 94 or 4, a lot of it was the puzzles had started to take off. Actually, maybe my...

It's funny. As I think about things, the puzzles must have taken off pretty quickly. I might not have gotten to three puzzles in the summer of 94, but I got up probably to two puzzles pretty quickly. And when I flew to Gen Con to talk to Catherine

to do more with the duelists, I already was known as the puzzle guy. That's kind of like, that was my first notoriety in the magic scene. Like, my first sort of little magic celebrity was, I was the puzzle guy. In fact, when I introduced myself, uh, to like sort of hardcore magic players, they go, you're the puzzle guy. I'm like, yeah, I'm the puzzle guy. Um, so anyway, uh, the puzzles become, became popular enough,

um, that at some point in 95, early 95, Catherine called me up and said, we want to make a book. We want to make a Magic the Puzzling book. And I was excited. I'd never made a book. But it required me making 100 puzzles, which was quite the ask. Remember, I was working on a bi-monthly magazine in which I had to make two puzzles.

And maybe I started making the dual-complication puzzles. So maybe I was making three puzzles once a month, every other month. So I was averaging, you know, one and a half, two puzzles a month maybe. I forget how often the newsletter was. But anyway, so I had to go to, where I had to produce 100 puzzles in a newsletter was. Anyway, so I had to go to, where I had to produce

a hundred puzzles in a couple months. And so what happened was Charlie was my contact for the book and then my two, my two puzzle, they had to get two people

to proof my puzzles so my puzzles are real hard. Oh, I didn't really get into, I'll get into that in a second. So, just as a little side note, the two people that proofed my puzzles were Beth Morrison, that would go on to be the rules manager, and Chris Page, who was one of the designers for the East Coast Designers that did Antiquities and Fallen Empires and Ice Age and Alliances. Anyway, so one of the things that would happen was my puzzles were required.

Oh, this is how I met Mike Ryan. So for those who know my stories, that know that Mike Ryan was the person who I pitched the Weatherlight Saga with, who has become a good friend of mine. He actually was my first contact. He edited my puzzles. So Mike was an editor at Wizards.

And so what would happen is Catherine would make use of editors to do editing on the puzzles. And so Mike picked my puzzles, my puzzles and my answer column to edit because I wrote pretty well and it didn't require much editing. He figured out pretty quickly that I was pretty consistent and it just didn't require a lot of editing.

So he chose to do my columns and my answer column because it was actually easy work for him. I don't know whether or not it was a freelance gig for him or whether it was part of his job. I forget. But anyway, so I met Michael. And so I would call Michael up and he would walk through to make sure that, like, because I would write the, originally I would write the puzzles off by hand, and then eventually I started using a graphic program to write them out. And it's funny because what I used to do is I would make little cards, I'd cut them out, and then I would

test the puzzles. Or sometimes I would write them on paper, and then I would, once again, I would cover them with counters as they got used up or destroyed. But anyway, one of the things that happened is that there were mistakes that would happen. And for the longest time,

what would happen is, remember, I would make the puzzle and then there was a month before I had to write the answer column. And so, and remember, I went on the news and had people turn in their answers. So what happened is, I would figure out if there were alternative answers. And then, if I went to go write my answer, if I went to my puzzle column, if there was a better answer, I would use the better answer as my official answer. I did that a couple times.

Every once in a while, there was a problem where it was a much simpler answer. So that that a couple times. Every once in a while there was a problem where it was a much simpler answer. That was a problem. But anyway, there was one time where the puzzle actually wasn't solved. I remember that my, I always named my opponent. My opponent was Scaf, someone I worked with, Scaf Elias.

And Scaf was the one puzzle I made in the duel that didn't work. So anyway, my great shame, the one puzzle that didn't work. So anyway, my great shame, the one puzzle that didn't work. So anyway, people always ask how I made the puzzles. So I'll give you the super secret, the secret of making magic puzzles. So the secret was I would start by figuring out a cool thing I wanted people to do. And usually what that meant was it was using a card in a unique way or setting something up or doing something in which you wouldn't normally do something

this way. It was something a little different. And then I would start that as my center of my puzzle. I'd say, okay, I think it's neat that normally card X does effect one, but I'm going to do effect two. I'm going to use it in a way you're not expecting me to use. That's usually how I would start.

I would have some sort of neat little trick, and then I would build around it. So let's say I wanted to do something, and I'm like, well, you know, instead of drawing cards, you're decking your opponent, whatever. I mean, that's a very simplistic version, but... And I would figure out what it was, and then I would

start figuring out, how do I build the parameters? One of the things about the puzzles that I enjoyed was I wanted you to figure out how do I build the parameters because one of the things about the puzzles that I enjoyed was I wanted you to figure out how best to do it and so I needed branching paths meaning I needed you to I needed to give you viable ways of how maybe the solution was because if the only solution was the correct solution even if it's obscure well then you would just you'd find it so what I had to do is I would start from my solution and work backwards. Meaning, okay, I know you have to do this.

And then I would start figuring out other possibilities of things people might do. And I'd branch it. Which is another good tip, by the way, that if you ever want to solve a maze, it is, for most cases, easier to solve a maze from the end of the maze than the beginning of the maze. Because most people who make mazes do the same thing I'm doing with my puzzle, is you work backwards. And so they make it forward, they make it more confusing coming forward because they are able to mislead you. But you go from the back, there's just less options. Anyway, it's easier to solve.

So everyone needs to solve a maze fast. Solve it from the back. Okay, so I would take my thing, and then often what I would do is, as I would sort of build off my thing, I would come up with other clever little things I could do while I'm building off of it, so that I could make multiple things.

And sometimes, I would know, I would, like, I'd give myself threads to pick up on, and I'm like, okay, I know that I need this card to do this thing, oh, but maybe there's a way to use that card earlier to have double use out of it. That was a common thing of mine. Like, I loved allowing you to regrow cards or give you access where you could cast the same card

in more than once and do different things with it. Like, one time you'll cast a card, it does this. And another time you'll cast a card, it does that. And so anyway, when building the puzzles, I want to make sure that there are cool things going on. I would layer things. I would branch it out so there are a couple other options. You have to be careful when you're branching options, though.

You have to make sure they, in fact, didn't work. And that's one of the tests I would do, is I would figure out different ways to solve my, and then try to solve it doing that ways. And usually what I would do is I would figure out different ways to solve my and then try to solve it doing that ways and usually what I would do is I would tweak the numbers so you got really close because part of making

you know you want sort of false fronts as they say is I would give you not quite enough mana to do like here's option two and you would do it like oh you're off by a mana or you're off by one thing and I always or sometimes what I would do is, I would throw

things in the way where, like, oh, you wanted to do it, but oh, you forgot about that thing. Now, what would happen is, my, I had proof testers that would test my puzzles. It was Charlie from the magazine, and then when I did it for the book, it was Beth and Chris, and I think Chris later did it for the magazine. What would happen is, there were two big problems. Problem number one is alternate solution. And once they pointed it out, I got really good at learning how to

sort of patch puzzles using cards. One of the challenges using with my puzzles, though, was I limited myself to some pool of cards. Like, if we were introducing Ice Age, they were all Ice Age cards. And sometimes finding answers with your limited pool of cards could be, if we were introducing Ice Age, they were all Ice Age cards. And sometimes finding answers with your limited pool of cards could be challenging,

although I had tricks and things to do. The second kind of mistake was a rules mistake. And this was, your answer doesn't work. You think it does something that it doesn't do. And I had a decent grasp of the rules.

People seem to think I don't know the rules. I actually had a pretty good grasp of the rules. I don't know the rules. I actually had a pretty good grasp of the rules. I don't know them perfectly. I'm not a rules manager. But anyway, I would do a lot of shenanigans in my puzzles. And every once in a while, I'd run up against something that didn't actually work. It's one of the reasons that, for example, one of the people checking my puzzles at the time was Bethmo, who was a big rules person.

And Charlie was also very good with the rules. So anyway, the way that it used to work is I would make the puzzle, I'd turn it in, I'd get notes on it, and then I would have to fix it. Some puzzles were, not every puzzle didn't work, but the chance of no alternate solutions or no rules issues, usually

there was something going on that I had to deal with. My simpler puzzles usually weren't problematic. It was my more complex puzzles. But I would get them proofed, and then I would bring them back, and I would make the necessary changes, and then I would... Sometimes the other thing I would do... Oh, not only did I have to give you the false starts, I also would put some cards in because I had to make it make sense.

That's one of my things is... One of my rules is I wanted to make sure that sense. That's one of my things is, one of my rules is, I wanted to make sure that whatever was going on on the table, okay, there's a way it could happen. It didn't have to be likely, but it had to be possible. And so a lot of times I would stick extra cards in

just to make sure that, oh, well, that's why that, oh, that's why that, like there always was a reason why whatever craziness was going on could have happened in theory. A lot of times the could have were crazy things had to happen, but I always wanted to make sure it was possible, it could happen. And a lot of times in my description, I would set up kind of how you got where you got,

so I would explain a little bit, you know, well, you're in a weird situation, this is happening, you know. Usually my goal in the puzzles, by the way, was to win. That's the most common, like, okay, win this turn. That was the most common thing. Every once in a while, I would do win over multiple turns. It required something, so I understood

what my opponent was going to draw. It was an open-ended puzzle. And I did other kinds of puzzles, too. Sometimes, like, how much damage can you do? What's the most... Like, one of my puzzles was, what's the largest amount of damage you can do with this fireball?

That was a fun puzzle. And it was one of those things where, like, people were like, I got 722. Is that the correct answer? I'm like, no, the correct answer was 54,386. It was like some... Anyway, I had fun with that one. But anyway, I did the book.

Although the book ended up... We ended up breaking the book into two halves. And then we never made the second book. So the book actually has 50 puzzles. So if you ever want to find it, I mean, it's long since discontinued, but I'm sure you can find it on eBay or something if you look. It's called Magic the Puzzling by me.

The biggest problem with the old puzzles in the book is the rules kept changing in Magic and not all my puzzles I can guarantee work under the current rule system in fact, one of the things I was the reason we got rid of Mandenberg, I was the big person pushing other people agree with me the saddest it ever made me was, one of my favorite puzzles I ever made was in, I think it was in my book.

It might have been in a magazine. And the puzzle was you had three lightning bolts and they had three counter spells. And you had, they had just enough mana to cast their three, I think they had six islands and three counterspells, and you had three lightning bolts. And then you had a mana flare. And the puzzle basically was, kill them. And you're like, I have three lightning bolts, and they have three counterspells.

My only sources of damage are, they have an answer to each of my sources of damage. And the answer was using mana flare, maybe two mana flares, the idea essentially was that, right, you had two mana flares. Because what you did is, you made each island tap

for three mana, rather than two mana. And what you do is, made each island tap for three mana rather than two mana and what you do is you set it up um using i mean even though you didn't creatures to attack using different periods of the turn to make the mana burn and so what would happen is you would lightning bolt them they uh you put out the mana flares so that they had a tap for three mana you would lighting bolt them forcing them to counter it otherwise they die oh they die. They were exactly at three life. You had three lighting bolts, they were exactly at three life, they had three counter spells. And then they'd have to counter,

otherwise they'd lose the game, but then they would mana burn, and you were able to do that three times, so they lost the game to mana burn. And that puzzle doesn't work anymore because there's no more mana burn. But that was one of my favorite sort of just elegant little, I mean, it wasn't a super hard puzzle.

I didn't do a lot of branching paths. It was a lot like, how do I even do this? That was the kind of puzzle. But anyway, the puzzle, like I said, I think that a lot of my getting in good with Catherine was the fact that puzzles were really successful and that when I went to talk to her, I had a lot of equity as being the puzzle guy, which I definitely think, I don't know,

helped a little bit. And the puzzles also, it's through the puzzles, I first met Richard Garfield. He was a big fan of the puzzles. He loves puzzles in general. Obviously, he loves magic. So he really liked the puzzles.

So when I first met Richard, like I wasn't just some stranger. I was like, I was the puzzle guy. And he was, you know, oh, you're the puzzle guy. You know, and it did a lot to open doors for me. It's how I met Charlie Coutinho, obviously. How I met Mike Ryan.

A lot of people that were going, I'm very good friends with. Like, I met through the puzzles. And it really was this interesting intro into sort of wizards and the world of magic. But anyway, I haven't made... It's funny. People ask me about puzzles all the time. Can I make more puzzles? I made one or two puzzles

back when Duel of the Planeswalkers made puzzles. I made a few there. People always ask me time and time to make a new puzzle. The real problem is they take a long time to make. Probably if I... I'm sure I'm a little rusty on puzzle making, but I'm sure it'll come time to make. Probably if I, you know, I'm sure I'm a little rusty on puzzle making,

but I'm sure it'll come back to me. I did make hundreds of puzzles. But it is, it was fun. It was definitely a neat part of my experience. And I like that there's a little time in my life I was the puzzle guy. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoy my little jaunt through early magic.

A very tiny niche early magic. A very tiny niche of magic. A little niche of my past. But, uh, and that, my friends, is all, probably more than you want to know about magic the puzzling.

So anyway, I'm in my parking space, so we all know what that means. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Thanks for listening today, guys.