Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #353 - 2014

Episode Date: July 29, 2016

Mark talks about 2014 in his "20 Years in 20 Podcasts" series.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today is the 22nd in my 20-part series, right, increasingly, and actually named 20-part series, 20 years, 20 podcasts. So this, I'm basically going through each year, starting from Magic's first year, 1993, and for each year I'm talking about what happened that year. And I've done 1993 all the way through 2013, so today we're up to 2014. So today on the right hand, everything, well, a lot of things we did in the year 2014. So we're going to start on February 1st was the pre-release, and February 7th was the release of Born of the Gods, a.k.a. Romans. It was Friends, Romans, and Countrymen.

So this was the middle set. The set, by the way, when we named the set, we didn't know it was going to be a Greek set. So the fact that it has kind of a Roman name was pure coincidence. People always, like, shocked at the two, because normally the codename has nothing to do with the real name. And in this case, it didn't either.

But, people were like, oh, it's thematically related. But, it's pure happenstance. Anyway, it had 165 cards, 60 commons, 60 uncommons, 35 rares, and 10 mythic rares, which was the size of the small sets at the time. We've since made them a little bit bigger.

So, it introduced two new mechanics. It had Inspired and Tribute. Inspired was a mechanic that triggered when things untapped, and Tribute was a mechanic where you gave your opponent a choice and they could sort of lessen things if they took a penalty with it. And so it's what we call a Punisher mechanic. So it was a Punisher mechanic. Heroic Bestow, Devotion, and Scry all came back.

Monstrous actually didn't come back. Monstrous went away, although it would come back later in the year, we'll see. The set was lead designed by Ken Nagel, and the lead developer was Tom Lapilli. And there was a Pro Tour for us. So Pro Tour Born of the Gods took place in Valencia

on February 21st through the 23rd. And it was modern and booster draft using Born of the Gods. And who won? Sean McLaren of Canada defeated Jacob Wilson of Canada,

two to one. What else can I say about Born of the Gods? So Born of the Gods was the middle set of our Theros block. It ended up being the worst received. I think what happened was we had tried to sort of make sure

we had saved enough for the third set because often we had problems with the third set. So this block ended up having a second set problem instead of a third set problem, because we saved a lot of stuff for the third set. But it was, in general, it was well-received. I mean, I think I'm harsh sometimes on some sets, but be aware that Theros block and hold did very well, and Bourne actually did well. I'm just being more critical

from a design standpoint. Okay. March 14th we have dual decks Jace versus Vraska. This is one of the dual decks where sometimes the dual decks

imply some sort of combat some battle of some kind and then often they'll write a story. So there's a story written explaining the battle between Jace and Vraska, who

both live in Ravnica and had some issues with each other. So this dual deck actually prompted, I don't know if it prompted a story or the story prompted, I think the dual deck prompted the story, is my guess. But anyway,

we tend to do two dual decks in a year. And at the time, in the spring, we always did a Planeswalker on Planeswalker dual deck. And the idea was, when we did that, we would go back one year. So Return from Ravnica was the previous block. So these are both the Planeswalker cards from the Return to Ravnica block. So that's why, like I said, they're both on Ravnica. They both were in Return to Ravnica. Okay, next. April

26th was the pre-release and May 2nd was the release of Journey into Nyx. So Journey into Nyx also had 165 cards. 60 common, 60 uncommon, 35 rares, and 10 mythic rares. It introduced two new mechanics, Constellation and Strive.

Constellation was a mechanic rewarded if you were playing enchantments, and Strive allowed you to target additional things. It had all the mechanics from the previous block including monstrous which came back and although it had very very little devotion the only devotion in the set were the five gods oh I didn't talk about that so the other thing that happened is in the first in Theros in 2013

we introduced five monochord gods that were sort of the major gods and then in Born of the Gods and Journey to Nyx we introduced the minor gods so first the ally gods were in Born of the major gods. And then in Born of the Gods and Journey to Nyx, we introduced the minor gods. So first the ally gods were in Born of the Gods, and then the enemy gods were in Journey to Nyx. We also, for fun, did something we called the God Pack that was sort of a surprise,

that occasionally, on rare occasion, you could open up a booster pack that had all 15 gods in it in one pack. We often refer to it as the god pack, which is a play on... There was a printing thing early in Magic where, mistakenly, when you run decks, we have sheets that you print off of, and every once in a blue moon, they will mess up, and instead of putting commons or uncommons in their slot,

they will put rares because they have the wrong sheet in the hopper. And so when you get a set that's all rares, they often call that a god pack. That's the nickname the players refer to that. It happens infrequently, but it happens every once in a blue moon. But anyway, that was us sort of making a play on god pack. We thought it was funny that we had 15 gods, so we made a God Pack. The lead designer of Journey to Nyx was Ethan Fleischer,

and the lead developer was Dave Humphries. I believe this was Ethan's first, right? I think this was his first lead design with Journey to Nyx. So he was on the Theros team and the Born of the Gods team, so he'd be well familiarized with Theros so he could do his own set. One of the things we had done with Journey is there was an enchantment theme in the block

and the enchantment theme really was much more about playing up Greek mythology, but we knew players kind of... We'd never really done an enchantment block that was at least perceived as an enchantment block. One would argue Ursa Saiga was an enchantment block that was at least perceived as an enchantment block. One would argue Ursa Saiga was an enchantment block, but it wasn't perceived that way. And a lot of players really wanted an enchantment matters theme.

So we kind of held back on it, and Journey gave that, especially with Constellation. So there were definitely a bunch of decks made, Constellation decks, where it's a deck full of lots of different enchantments. And then you play them, and then you can have fun just playing tons and tons of enchantments, a deck full of lots of different enchantments, and then you play them, and then you can, you know, have fun just playing tons and tons of enchantments, a deck full of enchantments. Plus we had Bestow, which allowed you to make enchantment creatures, and so we really gave you the tools.

But the idea of playing a heavy enchantment deck really during the Knicks was the one that supported that. What else? The Monstrous has an interesting story real quick, which was we originally made a bunch of mechanics for Journey into Theros, and then we wanted to add more mechanics in Bourne and more mechanics in Journey. And the problem was, if you have too many mechanics, you just start causing problems. So we had taken out Monstrous from Bourne and the Gods, but then later realized we actually still needed it,

so we ended up putting it back in in Journey into Nyx. Had we figured that out early enough, we probably would have dropped Tribute and just kept Monstrous. That's my guess what would have happened if we'd figured that out early enough. Any time for Journey into Nyx. It is... Yeah, I guess. We'll move on.

Oh, so there's one more thing about Journey to Knicks. May 16th to the 18th was Pro Tour Journey to Knicks in Atlanta. So it had a Theros block constructed, which I think was the last block constructed. I don't think that it was a cons block constructed.

And then it had a Journey into Knicks booster draft. The winner was Pat Chapin, Hall of Famer Pat Chapin from the USA, Block Instructed. And then they had Journey into Nick's Booster Draft. The winner was Pat Chapin, Hall of Famer Pat Chapin from the USA, who defeated Nam Sung Wook, who was South Korean. He beat him 2-0.

I think Nam might have been the first South Korean to make top eight. He for sure was the first South Korean to make the finals, but I think he might have been the first South Korean to even make Pro Tour top eight.

So Pat, winning here allowed him to go to the World Championship, and Pat almost, almost took home the World Championship. We'll talk about that a little later in today. So he had a journey into Knicks things. I think not, so we'll move on. Okay, May 30th, we had the Modern Event Deck 2014, so that's something we did for a bunch of years a couple years, so that was the 2014 Modern Event Deck

I actually didn't write down what it was exactly they were designed to be something that you could take to a modern event that was playable, not necessarily going to win every game but something that you could take and play June 6th was going to win every game, but it's something that, you know, you could take and play. Okay, June 6th was Conspiracy. So Conspiracy had 210 cards, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythic rares, as well as 20 lands. So, oh, did I say that right?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So, did I say that right? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It had 210 cards, 89 commons, 68 uncommons, 43 rares, and 10 mythic rares. Reading from the wrong section. So this was, the lead designer was Sean Main. The developer was Dave Humphries. So Sean came up with this idea for a set in which it was a multiplayer product that you would draft that had things that affected the draft. And this is something that Sean had worked on and come up with,

and it's one of those things that just like he had an idea, and we needed a product, and bam! Before you know it, Sean has made a conspiracy, which really was a quirky product. Like I said, it's a product, first off, you draft it, and then you have cards that affect the draft, cards that while you're drafting affect it. And then when you play, it's actually a multiplayer format where you don't play one-on-one. Usually you would draft with eight

people and then make two four-person pods. That's how you traditionally play Conspiracy. Now, Conspiracy did have a bunch of new mechanics, Will of the Council, Dethrone, Parley, Hidden Agenda, and it brought back a couple things, Morbid and Multikicker. Really what it tried to do was it tried to make mechanics that were more focused on things that would make sense

in either a multiplayer environment or things that affected the draft in a way that was different. It's interesting to note that those two things don't necessarily have to go together. We could, in theory, make a drafting product that's meant for a one-on-one

draft that affected the draft, and we could make a multiplayer product that didn't have any draft components to it, but that you played multiplayer. It definitely was a hybrid of sorts, so something that Sean had come up with. And obviously, in 2016,

this year, we have Conspiracy 2 coming out. So obviously it was a successful enough product that two years later we made a sequel. So that's usually a good sign that we did something right. Conspiracy is the kind of product that I really love to see. The funny thing, it's not my personal cup of tea, but I'm not, multiplayer play is not my favorite thing. But I love the idea that we keep making different, we use the innovative product

as we call it to do new and different things. Like here's a way to play Magic that maybe you haven't played before. And I know a lot of people who play Conspiracy, basically their attitude was they went kind of skeptical

and watched it going, ooh, that was a lot of fun. I did not expect that to be as much fun. And so I like making products where we keep shaking things up and trying different things and I was very happy for Sean

that he came up with this idea that seemed a little weird and we finally made it and it was a big hit. So hats off to Sean. Okay, then on June 16th, we released Vintage Masters on Magic Online.

So it was a Magic Online only format or product. I had 325 cards, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 105 rares, and 30 mythic rares. So the rares and mythic rares were doubled from normal because we wanted to get more variants and more cards in. One of the things Vintage Masters was trying to do was just get more access to cards that...

One of the problems Magic Online has had is when we started making Magic Online, it started with Invasion. And so, little by little, we've been trying to sort of go backwards and get some other sets into it. But there's a bunch of stuff that's missing. And so Vintage Masters was trying hard to sort of

put in a lot of the missing cards into the product so that Magic Online would have the cards. There's still a few cards missing. It's an ongoing project. The fact that we don't have the early cards makes it tricky. Now, we've tried real hard to get as many of the cards that matter in the format, so, you know, Vintage and Legacy and Modern, make sure those cards are there. I guess all the Modern cards are there, but for Vintage and Legacy, try to make sure

all the cards are there. I know we're not 100%, but we try very hard, and we'll continue to do that. Okay, um, next, July 12th was the pre-release. July 18th was the release of Magic 2015,

as released in 2014. So I've talked about this before. The reason that the year is a year later is the course that's something that's important to have in retail, and retail won't stock things with an old year in them. So let's say Magic 2014 came out in 2014, then comes 2015. We want the product out for a year that when it came to the next year, they would toss it and wouldn't keep it. So like cars, we kind of dated it a year ahead to make sure it could stay in the stores.

That's for those that always wondered why we dated it a year ahead. Anyway, Magic 2015, the lead designer was Aaron Forsythe. And the lead, do I know who the lead developer was? I don't, I didn't write that down. So the premise here was it revolved around Garruk.

The flavor was Garruk, hunt bigger game. So Garruk, we saw in Innistrad, had been cursed, and now he's become a planeswalker hunter, and he's going around trying to kill planeswalkers. And in the story, he kills a few planeswalkers. So the mechanic we brought back, in core sets at the time,

we would bring back a mechanic, brought back Convoke, which was a Celesian mechanic, an original Ravnica. And the set had a card frame change. So Magic has twice changed its card frame in a substantial way. There's little tweaks we've done.

First was with 8th edition, we had changed to the more modern frame from what Magic had started with. And then with 2015, we changed to a slightly newer frame. The reason for this change, the biggest impetus, was we needed to change how the cards were for the way the machines are printed. Everything now is sort of digitized, and it was important that the machine could tell

what each card was. And so we put a card code at the bottom. That's where the bottom is. Now, it's turned out that it means in ways for people to also get the information. We put it there for the machines, but we also put it there so the humans could see it. And so this change did not have quite as much drama as the last change. The 8th edition change, there's a big outcry from people, but this change was a lot more subtle.

It wasn't quite as sweeping a change. But anyway, it premiered in the product. Also, 2015, there was a gimmick in it where he went out to famous game designers outside of Magic and had them design cards in fact

probably the coolest my son has ever thought I was when he learned that Notch the guy who made Minecraft was making a Magic card he thought that was amazing and awesome

and I remember when it came out I was tweeting something and I I made some joke out, I was tweeting something and I made some joke to Notch. Marcus Peterson tweeted something and I replied to him and he replied to me. And the fact that Notch

replied to me on Twitter, my son thought that was the most amazing thing. Anyway. Okay. Anything else about Magic 2015? That would end up being the last traditional core set. In 2015, we'd do Magic Origins, which had core set-like qualities,

but wasn't really a traditional core set. So Magic 2015 was the last of the core sets. So I'm hitting traffic. But like I said, traffic for me, more content for you. Anything else about this? We did a big promotion. This set had the

normal five planeswalkers plus a special multicolored Garak, which had, I think Garak had four abilities. One of a few four-billed planeswalkers. The original one we did was Jace, the Mind Sculptor. So I think this was The original one we did was Jace, the mine sculptor. So I think this was the, this was the second one

we've ever done. And, what else? Oh, the cool thing was we did a promotion at Comic-Con later in the year.

And the promotion, because the theme of the set was, it was all about Garak, is we worked with Nerf, Nerf's part of Hasbro, which we're a subsidiary of. And we worked with Nerf to make a axe, a Nerf Garrick's axe, which

I have at home and my son always wants to play with and I always have to caution him as to not hurt other things or the axe. But anyway, that was really cool. That's one of my favorite, I don't know, promotional things we've ever done was the Garrick axe. I think that was really cool. That's one of my favorite, I don't know, promotional things we've ever done was the Garrick act. I think that was pretty cool. Okay. Also in conjunction with the Pro Tour on August 1st through the 3rd was Magic 2015. A Pro Tour Magic 2015 in 2014.

Yeah, we knew that was going to be a little bit weird. But previously, we just had Pro Tours for the normal releases. And then starting with 2014, we started doing one for the Core Set, although that would transition, obviously, as we're transitioning to four normal sets a year rather than three in a Core Set.

But anyway, that was the introduction. We brought back a fourth Pro Tour. Added, by the way, it took place in Portland. It was a standard event and had Magic 2015 Booster Draft as a limited format. Ivan Flock of Slovakia

defeated Jackson Cunningham of Canada 3-2. This is one of the more local Pro Tours for us. Portland is not too far away. So we've had a few Pro Tours in Seattle. Might have been the first Pro Tour in Portland. Remember if it is or not.

But anyway, Ivan Flock's grown on to be quite the Magic player. And here, I think this was his first win. I think he's been in another finals. I think this was his first win. I think he's been in other finals. Okay, July 18th, in connection with the Core Set, we put out a Deck Builders Toolkit. So this is a 2014 edition.

For those that are unfamiliar with the Deck Builders Toolkit, one of the things we wanted to do was when people start playing, we want to get cards in their hand. We want to give them access to cards. So in order to do that, we made a product that just gives you lots of cards. Its value ratio of what it costs versus how many cards you get is very very good. And what it does is it has lots and lots of commons and uncommon cards. And what we do is we pick themes. So we have what we call the welcome decks, which are decks that we give to stores and conventions and things where people can hand out for free the 30-card decks that people can play.

Traditionally, there are two versions of each of five decks. There's five monocolored decks, and there's two versions usually. And the decks are tied to Planeswalkers. But anyway, the Deck Builders Toolkit works in conjunction with the themes built in of the Welcome Decks. The products are kind of tied together. Because one of the things we want to do is not only give you access to more cards, but give you some seeds to help build some decks around. So what happens is you get sort of subsets of cards that have a theme to them

so that it can help guide you of what you might want to do with your cards. I mean, you can do whatever you like, obviously, but we try to give you some themes to help you along, to help give you an idea for new people who are building their decks for the first time. I tell this all the time, that one of the big barriers to entry is, one of the big, sorry, one of Magic's big issues is barrier to entry. And one of those barrier to entries is deck building. Deck building is very intimidating when you've not done it before.

It's a big, important, fun part of Magic. But we wanted to make sure that we had a product that helped taught people how to deck build. And so Deck Builder's Toolkit is exactly that product. That is A, gives you a lot of cards, gives you a lot of choices. And giving you seeds of decks to help sort of encourage the kind of things that you can build. So that is the Deck Builders Toolkit.

Okay, then August 22nd, we had From the Vault Annihilation. So this was led by Gavin Verhey. So one of the things we do with From the Vault is we're always trying to have different themes. We're trying to mix it up. We're trying to do different kinds of cards. So From the Vault Annih always trying to have different themes. We're trying to mix it up. We're trying to do different kinds of cards. So From the Vault Annihilation

was basically board sweepers. And so Gavin worked hard to sort of... The idea of From the Vault is you want to go through history and find a lot of iconic cards that fit some thematic theme. And we try to mix up

the theme of From the Vault. The idea is... I mean, there's the From the Vault Collectors, obviously, but then there's a lot of people who are like, oh, well, this year the From the Vault. The idea is, I mean, there's the From the Vault collectors, obviously, but then there's a lot of people like, oh, well, this year, the From the Vault's for this subgroup. And we tend to mix it up, you know, who the, who it's for so that we can sort of introduce different kind of, of products that, you know, hey, here are cards that make, that work well in a cube or work well in Commander. Oh, we have a Commander product, so usually it's not for Commander. But,

and this one was thematic. Sometimes, you know, we have a Commander product, so usually it's not for Commander. But this one was sometimes, you know, we've done creature types like dragons and angels. We've done band and restricted. We've done lands.

You know, we've done a lot of different kinds of things. So this was us trying, this was a little different for us. It was the first time

we did one in which it was based on the effect, I think. We've done, I think. Have we done... I don't think we've done other ones with effect. But anyway, it's just definitely us doing a different kind of thing. Okay, next, on September 5th, dual deck speed versus cunning.

So this was a tricky one. So the way it traditionally worked at the time was in the spring, we would make a dual deck that was based on planeswalkers, and that was always the planeswalkers and that was always the planeswalkers from one block back. So it was Theros so we'd go back

to Return of Ravnica and we'd pick two planeswalkers from Return of Ravnica. Ideally we'd pick two people that actually had a beef with each other. If they didn't have a beef sometimes Creative

will make a story or explain why they didn't have a beef. Like Jason Vraska. I don't think Jason Vraska actually fought in the original story but we ended up making a short story to sort of explain the conflict between them.

They both care about Ravnica in very different ways and a very different agenda for what they want Ravnica to do. So them butting heads made a lot of sense. But in the fall set, normally the fall set is tied to the set that's coming out. Now, when it's a known set, when it's a set we're revisiting somewhere, like the previous year, we had gone to Ravnica, Return of Ravnica. Well, it was very

easy. We were able to have two guilds fight against each other. Well, the guilds were known quantities. People know who they are. We had a previous block of cards to pull from. So, we had a lot of ability to sort of use the core set to show off the new set. So the problem here was the new set was Khan to Tarkir. How exactly do you show off Khan to Tarkir

when we've never ever been to Tarkir before? You know, and yeah, we give a few preview cards, but like there's not enough to sort of get a feel. So what we did instead was we took two of the factions and sort of flavored them they were in the colors of the factions, in the theme of the faction, without too much of the faction. I mean, some of the preview cards were using faction stuff, obviously. But the idea of Speed

vs. Cunning is, well, we can't say it is Mordu vs. or Mardu, sorry, Mardu vs. Jeskai, because Mardu didn't mean anything versus Jeskai because Mardu didn't mean anything and Jeskai didn't mean anything. So we sort of split the difference

and sort of, they matched the colors and they matched the theme but it was something that was just a little bit different. Oh, hold on one second. I think I got a cut over. There's a Is it accident? I think I got a cut over. There's a... Is it accident?

I think there's an accident. Okay. Sorry. As we know, the rule first in my podcast is safety first. So let me first cut over here, and then I will continue on with the year 2014. Okay, I've cut over. Okay.

So where was I on? I was on talking dual decks. Oh, so we did speed for cunning. Didn't quite go over... It wasn't quite as clear as we hoped. We were definitely trying to make something that sort of said, hey, this is kind of connected, but people didn't really see the connection

because we didn't want to call it Mardu versus JustGuy because we knew the factions wouldn't mean anything at the time we were selling the product. People didn't quite understand what we were up to. So not the most successful as far as people understanding it. The decks, people did like the decks, so the decks were fun.

Okay, September 30th. I'm sorry, September 20th was the pre-release. September 26th was the release of Khans of Tarkir, a.k.a. Huey. So, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. So there are 269 cards.

Oh, really? Did I get into the lane just to have to... I did. They made me get over in a lane only to then move and I have to go back in the lane I started. So... Oh, actually, they scooted all the cards over.

Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. Khans of Tarkir, Huey. So Huey, Dewey, and Louie, which were the nephews of Donald Duck. In fact, they are... That's the order of their names. So that was a horrible,

horrible mistake for a codename, because people kept getting confused, because they all rhyme, and not a lot of people know the order of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. So just remembering which set was where and which order caused a lot of problems. Anyway, 269 cards, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, Dewey, and Louie. So just remembering which set was where and which order caused a lot of problems. Anyway, 269 cards, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares,

15 mythics, 20 lands. So you'll notice we changed this. We finally went up 20 cards in uncommon from 60 to 80. Uncommon was just really pinched and we decided that we would have a better draft environment if we just made some more cards to give us a little more flex room in Uncommon.

And we've made that a staple now. So now, in large sets, we're up to 80 Uncommons. The set was... Where am I? The set was led by me. I led the set. And the development was led by Eric Lauer. So I think this was... He and I had done Theros, and he and I had done Innistrad.

So at the time, I was doing most fall sets, and Eric was doing most fall sets. So this was a common thing. I mean, you'll see. We're changing things up a little bit, although I'm still doing, I have my hand in most of the big sets now. I'm doing a lot of co-leading, you'll see, in Kaladesh. The way it's going to work is I was leading the first half of the big sets now. I'm doing a lot of co-leading. You'll see in Kaladesh, the way it's going to work is I was leading the first half of the design

and then I hand off to one of my designers for the second half of the design. So Sean Main, for example, for Kaladesh. So the idea is I'm co-leading. So for a while, I'm going to do some co-leading where I'll be doing every large set but then handing it off halfway through so that I can go to the next large set.

I do stick around. I just, I'm not leading anymore. Okay. So Kanzasar Kira introduced wedge, our first wedge block. Although one of the things, so once again, Kanzasar Kira was built around, it started with a draft structure we wanted to do. We wanted to do large, small, large, in which the small set got

drafted with both large sets, but the two large sets never got drafted together. And then from that, I came up with the idea of doing a time travel story, and then it ended up being the story about Sarkhan returning to his home world, to this war-torn sort of warlord world. It's a world in which dragons that he revered had died through some special mechanisms to be able to go back to the past. He manages to save Ugin, who had been previously killed in his fight with

Nicol Bolas, but Sarkhan goes back in time and is able to save Ugin, and by doing so, he keeps the dragons from dying. And that's when we would go back for Dragon Stark here next next year, in 2013. It's a radically different world. So this is the original world of the war-clad world.

And there were five factions, and they were all wedge-colored factions. And each of the factions, it was based on sort of, the inspiration was different areas of China. And we sort of took five different areas and built five different factions out of them. Each one had its leader, its warlord. And the set had five mechanics, one for each wedge, plus a sixth mechanic in Morph. So Morph played a big role in this block. It was the magic of the dragons. And the idea is the dragon magic got taken by the humans and they adapted it and used the magic to kill off the dragons.

But anyway, so there was, okay, the five factions were, let's see if I can remember this from the top of my head. The white-based faction was Abzan, which was white, black, and green. It was all about endurance, the scale of the dragon, and it had Outlast as its mechanic, a mechanic that allowed you, instead of fighting, you could give yourself, your creature could, at the end of the turn, tap to give a plus one, plus one counter to itself, but it required that you hadn't used it previously.

So a lot of the ways you could not attack and then sort of use that time to make yourself better was the flavor. The blue base was Jeskai, which was blue, red, and white. It was the wing of the dragon. It was all about cunning. And it had prowess, which was a mechanic that whenever you cast a nine-creature spell, the creature with prowess gets plus one, plus one until end of turn.

It ended up being so popular, we made it evergreen. So you might recognize prowess, even if you've never played Contra Targ here. The black-based one was called Sultai. It was black, green, and blue. They were the... I think the Tooth of the Dragon. Wait, the... Yeah, were they the Tooth of the Dragon?

I think they were the Tooth of the Dragon. They were all about ruthlessness, doing whatever it takes to win. And then their mechanic was Delve, which the mechanic hinted at in Future Sight. It basically allows you to take cards out of your graveyard to reduce your casting cost of spells. It's a graveyard mechanic, using your graveyard as a resource. The red-based wedge was Mardu, so red, black, and white.

It was all about speed. It was the... Oh, maybe it was the wing of the dragon. What was Jeskai? Jeskai was something different. I think this was the wing of the dragon because they were speed. They were very fast. They had the raid mechanic,

which rewarded you for attacking. That if you had attacked this turn, you got a bonus when you cast the spell. And then the green-based one was... Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say this backwards? No, Abzan was white. The green-based one was Temur,

which was green, red, and blue. It was all about ferociousness. And their mechanic was ferocious, which you got a bonus if you had a creature, a power four or greater. So anyway, we had five mechanics, five wedge mechanics, and we had Morph as an additional six mechanic. It was chock full. There was a lot going on, and it was very popular. Anything else? It was chock full. There was a lot going on. And it was very popular. October 10th through the 12th was Pro Tour concert here in Honolulu.

They played Standard and Cons Booster Draft. Ari Lacks of the United States defeated Sean McLaren of Canada 3-1. So Sean McLaren, I mentioned, won Pro Tour earlier in the year. So this was a mighty fine year So Sean McLaren, I mentioned one Pro Tour earlier in the year. So this was a mighty fine year for Sean McLaren who managed to come in first and second at the Pro Tour

in the calendar year 2014. So cons, the interesting thing about cons was we really were doing something different and I really was trying, I spent a lot of time

and energy explaining to people that we were going to do something and it was going to radically change. And it did, but people definitely... We had never done a wedge set. We had done multicolor, two-color multiple times. Obviously, Invasion had done two-color.

Then Ravnica... Or Invasion had done multicolor. And then Ravnica did two-color specifically. And then Shards of Alara had done the ally the Shards if you will the three connective so Shards are, it's a color and it's two allies Wedges is the color and it's two enemies

and so anyway we spent a lot of time sort of building up the structure for cons and we really also changed over how we were doing our storytelling. Um, this is the period where we switched over from doing novels to doing short stories online. Um, and it really was a big hit.

Uh, Kansan Tarkir Block was where we started that. And there was a lot of story to Kansan Tarkir and the, um, uh, it went over really, really well. It really was the start of our... a change in how we told the story. Starting with Magic Origins, which will come in the following summer, in 2016. There's even... Oh, wait, wait.

Magic 2015... How do this... Right, right. We're in 2014. So the following year, in 2015, Magic Origins would be a big shake-up in sort of what we're doing with the story and how we're telling the story.

But the seeds of that started during Khan's Tarkir block, with how we told the story of Khan's Tarkir. Okay, next. On November 7th was Commander 2014. So this was led by Ethan Fleischer.

I don't know who the lead developer was. So the shtick to this one was that we had planeswalkers that could be your commander. And there also were lieutenants, which were cards that cared about having a specific... How do lieutenants work? They cared about having a specific commander. do lieutenants work?

They cared about having a specific commander. They cared about which your commander was. But anyway, this product did a lot of looking back. There was a lot of throws to, there was legendary creatures from the past. Some of the planeswalkers that were from the past, like Teferi was from the past. So the set had a real high nostalgia and really sort of said, hey, we really could use Commander as a way

to sort of go back and explore some of the creative things we might have missed in the past. And so one of the things that Commander 2014 also did is really sort of really hit flavor hard and use Commander as a means to sort of take some things, because normally when we do sets that are set in the present,

so it's hard for us to sort of capture things we might have missed. But Commander doesn't have that restriction, and so it was neat to sort of definitely do some things

we had never done before. Okay. November 14th was the 2014 Holiday Gift Box. I'm not sure whether this was the first Holiday Gift Box. For years not sure whether this was the first Holiday Gift Box. For years and years and years, we've done products during the holidays,

but eventually, with some convincing from me and other people, we convinced them to finally just call it the Holiday Gift Box. Because one of the problems we had is, people who would come to buy magic products for their friends and family who play magic, who don't themselves play magic, would always get really confused what to buy. So we said, how about we just label it the Holiday Gift Box? Perhaps if you're buying a gift for the holidays, this would be a good idea for you.

But anyway, that has definitely proved to be something that people have enjoyed. Okay, finally. So December 2nd through the 3rd and December 7th, and then on December 5th through the 7th, so one could argue December 2nd through the 7th, was two events, both holding Nice, France, was the 2014 World Championships and the 2014 Magic World Cup. So the Magic World Cup is the team event.

So that's held, this particular year was held together. The events aren't always held together. Nowadays they tend to be held separately. But the way it works is there's teams from around the world. They create four-person teams. They have to qualify. There's a qualifying at different events in your country. And then they come and they fight.

And the idea is to see what country can take the year and be the world championship team of the year. So this particular year it came down to Denmark versus Greece. And Denmark managed to defeat Greece 2-1 in the finals. So it was an all-European finals. Or all-European final. I know the United States made the top four, but they did not make it to the finals. Okay, also was the World Championships.

So I think at the time, I feel like 16 or 24. I know we've gone up. I think it was 24, but it might have been 16. Anyway, for those that have seen Nate and Sean who make the Walk in the Plains video did a documentary

called Enter the Battlefield. And the big, the conclusion of Enter the Battlefield is this event. It is the World Championship in Nice, France. So in it was Shahar Shenhar from Israel was taking on Pat Chapin. So the interesting

little trivia about this was Shahar Shenhar the previous year had won. So he had just played in a Magic Finals the year before. Pat Chapin had played in a Magic Finals a bunch of years before where he lost to an Israeli whose name I don't know off the top of my head.

But anyway, Pat really there's no person on the face of this earth that I know that more wants to be world champion matches together and world champion, than Pat Chapin. If you see the documentary, he talks a lot about that. And so,

Pat, he had said his win of Journey to Knicks was just, he needed a means to get to the world championship, and that was, he won it so he could get the seat at the table of the world championship. So Pat did really well,

he got to the finals. So, this was the first time that any person had repeated in the finals of a World Championship. And it turns out that both of them were repeats. Now, obviously, the play here was Shahar wanted to be the first person

to ever win twice. And not just twice, back to back. Pat wanted to finally claim the trophy that he had won in his entire Magic career. And in the end, Shahar won. Three zeros. It was a crushing, crushing victory. Or crushing defeat, I guess.

I guess your victories aren't crushing. And Shahar won. And Pat, for the second time, lost in the finals of the World Championship. Two in Israeli. I'm sure Pat will come back and win eventually. But congrats to Shahar, who managed to win twice. For the second time, lost in the finals of the World Championship, two in Israeli. I'm sure Pat will come back and win eventually. But congrats to Shahar, who managed to win twice. For those that don't know how the event is run, the World Championship, it's an invitation-only event.

Currently, we have 24. I think at the time, there was 24 in this event. And you have to qualify. You can qualify by winning pro tours, by having the pro points. There's a bunch of different ways to qualify. And then it is a very intense. There's lots of different formats. They played three formats at the event.

They played standard, they played cons booster draft, and they played live vintage mafters. Remember what I said earlier that vintage mafters was the online-only product? Well, for this event, they got actual cards and made actual boosters, and the players drafted Vintage Masters live in paper.

So it was quite exciting. That's a format. Well, it's not exactly the same. The championship has a little some throwbacks to the Magic Invitational. Magic Invitational used to have 16 players, and we played a bunch of different formats,

and they're not identical. It's not even 16 players anymore. It's not a round-robin tournament. And in Magic Invitational, every player played every player once. It was a round-robin. But anyway, Shahar managed to win, and congrats, back-to-back world champion.

I actually was at that event. My sister and my mother had brought my nephew, Josh, who is a Magic player, to the event as a special reward for him. And so I had some family there, and it was fun. And I ate a lot of bread, because

France makes mighty fine bread. But anyway, that, my there, and it was fun. And I ate a lot of bread, because France makes mighty fine bread. But anyway, that, my friends, is the year 2014. Like I said, it was a pretty good year. So we finished up Theros Block and started a concert here at Block, both of which did very well. We had a bunch of pro tours around the world. Valencia, Atlanta, Portland, Honolulu, uh, a bunch of people won.

Uh, what else? Nothing too, I mean, this is not, there's, there's a bunch of big changes coming. Uh, this is, uh, you know, like I said, the, uh, I think, actually it's not even until 2015 I announced it. So the audience, the two year block model model which is coming is not even known yet. We don't announce it until 2015. But this is definitely one of those. This, in some ways, is the last year.

If you think of Magic as being, oh, you know, Magic has the large set and two small sets, or sometimes a second big set. But, you know, the idea of magic with two sets, especially two small sets and having a core set, something that magic had done for a long, long time. This was the last year

that kind of did that traditional magic year. The idea of doing, you know, small winter set, small spring set, core set in the summer, large set in the fall,

something that had been a magic staple, something that just we had done time and time again. 2014 would be the last year that we ever did that. So it was a fun year, it was a good year, it was a growth year. So 2014, if I remember this correctly,

was the seventh year in a row that we had had the best year, or sorry, the sixth year in a row that we had the best year we'd ever had. So if you go back five years previously, we had a year in which it was the best year Magic had ever had. And then the next year was the best year Magic had ever had. And in 2014, it was our sixth year consecutively of doing that. The streak doesn't end

there, but we'll get that in future years. But anyway, guys, that is, in a nutshell, everything you probably want to know about what happened in Magic in the year 2014 so I have one more

of these to do to catch up to 2015 and then eventually I guess my plan with this series is even though I keep claiming it's a 20 part

series it's not I will keep doing one as years finish although probably I will wait into further in the year like I will do 2015 sometime during years finish, although probably I will wait until further in the year. Like, I will do 2015 sometime during 2016,

but I won't do 2016, obviously, until 2017. But anyway, I'm at my daughter's school, so we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Thanks, guys, and I will see you next time.