Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #378 - PAX West 2016

Episode Date: October 28, 2016

Mark talks about his busy weekend at PAX West.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, today I'm going to be talking all about PAX 2016. So for those that are unaware, PAX is a convention. PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo. It was a convention started by the makers of Penny Arcade. And it really is mostly focused on video games. It has a little wider focus than just that. Obviously, it hits games in general. And anyway, this year, we made a big splash at PAX.

So what happened was we took over the Paramount Theater. So there's this big historic theater right next to the convention center where normally there's a lot of big productions and stuff. I've seen plays there. I think Rachel and I saw Wicked there last year. It was really good. But anyway, we took over the Paramount Theater, and we put on a major show for the weekend.

So Penny Arcade is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Monday being with Labor Day. So I'm going to walk you through all the stuff we did. I was busy and so I'm going to walk you through everything. And the cool thing about this podcast is so much stuff I'm going to talk about is online on video. In fact, every single presentation I talk about being in is online on video. I'm going to talk a I talk about being in is online on video. I'm going to talk a little bit also about some interviews I did. Those are online. So if you explore everything I talk about by following up, by going to actually watch it,

this podcast is probably going to be hours and hours and hours of entertainment. Okay, so let's start from the very beginning. So the idea behind this PAX was we had a new set coming out, Kaladesh. Now, for those that have not been aware, I have been very up on Kaladesh for quite a while. I really think it's one of the best sets we've done in a long, long, long time. Not that we don't do amazing work all the time, but every once in a while we just take the extra step above. And I really, I mean, I need to see the audience reaction and everything. So it's hard for me to gauge this, but I believe it's at least in contention to be the best

that I've ever done. Innistrad right now is my personal best, I believe. I don't know whether it'll be Innistrad or not, but at bare minimum, the fact that it's in contention is pretty powerful, because I think Innistrad's really good. So, we were going to talk all about Innistrad, which I was quite excited to do. Not Innistrad, all about Kaladesh, which I was very excited to do. So what we did is we decked out the theater, so it was made to look as if it was part of Kaladesh. And it turns out that the theater is this old theater that has a lot of ornate designs in it, which just happened to match. First of all, it has a gold touch and there's a lot of gold flavor in Kaladesh. And Kaladesh is all about

having curved, a lot of curves and a lot of sharp edges, which the theater has. So it was a really nice match and we did a lot to build it up. I'll get to that in a second. Let me start. I'm going to go chronologically. So the first thing that happened for me happened actually, well, the very first thing happened is that Wednesday night I had to go to do a tech run-through. So what had happened was we decided we were going to do a whole bunch of things.

We planned it. So there was an opening ceremony that I was going to be involved in. And then I ended up getting involved in three different panels. A Mechanics of Kaladesh panel, a Drive to Work live panel, and a Blogatog live panel. And then there was something called the Inventor Spellslinger Showdown that I was also involved with. So I'm going to talk about all of that. The reason I went there Wednesday night was the opening ceremony. There was a lot of tech involved in what we were doing. And so we wanted to have a tech run through.

So I actually went, the first time I saw the theater, or I mean, decked out in Kaladesh garb, I'd been to the theater before, as I said, was for, on Wednesday when I went for the tech rehearsal. And it was, it was beautiful. It wasn't even all done. When I was there, they were still like, you know, there were people, you know,

nailing things and painting things. And it was still, the final touches were still being put on it. But it was really cool. And just the amount of detail, the stage work, it was, once again, the World Championship was being held there. If you actually saw any of the World Championship, that was all on that stage.

Or you saw any of our events, they were on that stage. It was just really beautiful. And so if you go look at some of the videos I'm going to talk about today, you'll really see how everything looked. Okay, so Thursday morning. So what we had done is, as part of our thing, we had invited a whole bunch of what we called ambassadors. People who are social media people that do magic all around the world. And what we did is we brought, I think it was 16 of them in, 15, 16 of them in. We brought them in from around the world to sort of be, what we said to them is, look we're

gonna bring you in, you do your thing. You know the reason we brought you here is you do an amazing work doing magic on social media. Do what you do, we're going to bring you in. You do your thing. You know, the reason we brought you here is you do an amazing work doing magic on social media. Do what you do. We will give you all the tools and resources to talk about things, but we'll bring you here. And whatever you want to talk about, you do. And they set it up so that, you know, there were interviews,

and they did a whole bunch of stuff for the ambassadors so the ambassadors could sort of talk about it from their point of view. But anyway, on Thursday, they had brought them all to Wizards, and they had asked me if I could do a tour. We don't do public tours. You can't just walk in and get a tour. But from time to time, we'll do tours for special guests.

Over the years, I've given a lot of tours, so they asked me if I could give the tour. I said I'd be happy to. In fact, Maria from Magic the Amateuring recorded me, did an audio recording of me doing that tour. It's not the whole tour, but it's pieces of the tour. So if you want to actually hear what the tour was like, you can. That also is online. Everything's online.

A lot of it is online. So what happened was I showed everybody around. I showed everybody around. I showed them the building. I only showed them the bottom floor and then the third and fourth floor. Wizards has four floors. We're on all the floors, although we're not all on the first floor, not all on the second floor. We're all the fourth, all the third, part of the second, a little bit of the first.

So I showed them around on the first and then the third and fourth. I didn't show them on the second. And there were a bunch of stuff covered up, especially on the third. Third is where R&D works. We definitely had to cover a bunch of stuff up because there's things that we work far ahead. And so we were excited for them to learn about Cowardish, but not for the next five other blocks coming up.

So anyway, I had a chance to show them around. I had a chance to meet everybody. It was fun meeting all the ambassadors, the great people. I'll get back to them in a second when we get to Saturday. But anyway, so Thursday was tour day. Showed them around. Okay, now we get to Friday. So Friday was the opening ceremony.

Okay, now we get to Friday. So Friday was the opening ceremony. So basically the way it worked was we brought in Jimmy Wong. So for those that have ever seen the Eldritch Moon videos, we did a bunch of videos, Access Magic, I think we called them, where it was kind of like a talk show where he was talking to us about aspects of Eldritch Moon. I did the first video. Yeah, he did three videos. One with me, one with Jeremy Jarvis and Jenna Helen,

and one with James and Mark Winters. Anyway, you can see those. Everything I reference today is online. So anyway, Jimmy plays Magic. He is a celebrity on, does a lot of videos and stuff. And he has a podcast on Commander that he does. And in fact, his co-host was one of the ambassadors. But anyway, Jimmy was, again, we brought him out to be the host.

He shares our love of Magic and he did a great job being host. So the way the opening show worked was Jimmy was the host, and then we brought out a couple different people. So first brought out Jeremy Jarvis. Jeremy talked all about sort of the making of the world, the art of Kaladesh. And then we brought out Mel and James, who did the story of Kaladesh. And then I came out to do the mechanics. So, once again, this is all online. I'll do the recap briefly.

Jeremy talked about, sort of, how we had been in a very dark place. You know, both Battle for Zendikar and Shadows of Innistrad had been darker storylines with lots of destruction. And we wanted to go someplace that was bright and optimistic. And the other thing was Jeremy talks about how we had started of wanting to be influenced by steampunk. And so we had sort of moved to what we now call etherpunk, which is kind of magic's take on it. A little more optimistic take.

The idea of a world of technology where invention, you know, is rewarded. Like, invention is kind of art. And the rock stars of the world are the inventors. And talked about how we built this inventor's fair, which was kind of the world are the inventors and talked about how we built this inventors fair which was kind of the setting of the story and then James and Mel talked all about sort of the story

you know this is Chandra's coming home and they explained a little bit about how the gate watch had finished off their they'd saved the day helped turn away the Eldrazi from two worlds, and they really didn't know what their next step was going to be. They're kind of hanging out in Jace's sanctum on Ravnica,

and they get a visit from Dovin Ban, who is one of the ministers of the consulate on Kaladesh, sort of the government, and they were running this big adventures fair, and they had some news there might be some trouble. And so they come to, you know, after the events of Shadows of Innistrad, Tamiyo, and some others, spread the word through the, sort of, the planeswalker community that if you need help, there are people that can come and help. But Jace and Gideon explain that really they're there for interplanar threats.

This seems like an issue that's just interplanar, and so they turn them down, but it turns out that Chandra realizes where Dovan Bon is from, her hometown. She hadn't been back there. For those that don't know the Chandra story, basically her parents were ether smugglers. Ether is this energy that the world has in abundance that they gather and collect, don't know the Chandra story, basically her parents were ether smugglers. So ether is this energy that the world has in abundance that they gather and collect.

And all the inventions, the reason this is a world of invention is they use the ether to fuel all their inventions. But the consulate controls it and so there's people that believe that's not right. And so her parents were ether smugglers. And one day when she was smuggling some ether I guess she got caught and ended up showing some pyrotechnic abilities which was a no-no on Kaladesh and her parents had to sort of run away

from the authorities, hide out in the country but they eventually got followed and then I think she watched her dad get killed in front of her and her mom apparently burned down inside a house. And she was about to be executed for crimes, I guess, of being a pyromancer when she sparked and walked away. And Chandra hadn't been home since that event. So this story was all about Chandra sort of going home, kind of egged on a little bit by Liliana who goes with her. kind of egged on a little bit by Liliana who goes with her.

Once they realize that the two of them are gone, Nyssa volunteers to go after her to make sure that, you know, Liliana isn't too bad an influence on her. But anyway, so they sort of set up the basic stories. As the weekend went on, we would learn more about the story. We learned that Shandra's mom was still alive. We learned that Tezzeret was the head judge of the Adventurers' Fair. And if you know anything about Tezzeret,

not that great a guy, so probably something going on there. But anyway, so we had the environment, we had the story, and now it was my turn. And once again, you can watch all this. So I was really happy.

I was excited to talk mechanics. I had been wanting to talk about Kaladesh for a long time. People who follow me on social media know how excited I've been that I really, really, really like Kaladesh. And so what happened was I had to, or had to, got to go on stage and talk about the mechanics. So I introduce energy and fabricate and vehicles to the world. I assume by the time you are listening to this, these are all well-known things and hopefully you've had lots of fun playing with them in Kaladesh. But so really what I got to do is I got to be there and I got, for the first time ever, explain the mechanics. So both I, we showed off preview cards. One of the things that we were doing

is we wanted to let people see the new mechanics but in context. So we showed a bunch of new cards. We talked about where they came from, how they came about. And I explained the history of the mechanics, especially

energy. Energy goes all the way back to Mirrodin. I had invented it 14 years earlier while trying to make the very first artifact plane, or artifact-themed plane. And I had made too many mechanics, and so it got forced out, but I eventually found a home for it in Kaladesh.

And then I talked about sort of how we came up with Fabricade. And oh, I talked about the idea of something we call Variance of Play. That one of the things we wanted, we wanted you to feel like an inventor. That was a driving force of our design. One of these days I will do a whole podcast on Kaladesh. I'm sort of hitting the high points of this because I want to get all the packs in today. But I will at at some point, do a Kaladesh podcast

and go into great detail on this stuff. Anyway, I talked about how we're... Oh, variance of play is this idea that when you play a game of Magic, that if you have a deck and you play it multiple times, let's say 20 times,

that there's a certain amount of variance in how the deck plays. You know, that the deck won't play exactly identical. Part of it's because you're shuffling the deck. Part of it's because you can make different choices at different times. We want to take the variance of play, which normally exists in Magic, but just make it much bigger.

In Kaladesh, when you play a deck and you play it again multiple times, the deck can play it really differently. Energia does that really well. I also talked about how Fabricate can do that. And I explained how in trying to show technology, plus one, plus one counters were one way to show people having gadgets and devices and stuff that made them better.

Also, we had a lot of artifact creatures. We had seen Thopters and Magic Origins. We wanted to continue that theme of artificial creatures. So there's these themes, all plus one, plus one counters and artifact creatures. And just caring about artifacts in general. So we made Fabricate as mechanics just stretched between the two, so you could choose whether you want a plus one plus one plus one counters or tokens,

and depending on situationally what was better for you. And then I explained vehicles, and vehicles are something the players have been asking for forever. And I sort of talked a little bit about how we finally made them. But anyway, my time with Jimmy wasn't even that long. I think I was on for maybe 10 minutes. But I was very excited and I remember it was really nice after I went off. I got a lot of social media. A lot of people were really happy and I guess people always enjoy how enthusiastic I am.

My favorite comment was by somebody on Twitter. Always enjoy how enthusiastic I am. My favorite comment was by somebody on Twitter. They go, the tweet was, my life goal is to find a woman who's excited about me as much as Maro is excited about magic. So anyway, I thought that was very sweet. Okay, so after I did the intro show, that was just the first thing I had to do.

I had a busy day. So we finished off there. Oh, on the end of the show, by the way, we had two cosplayers that weekend, one who played Saheeli Rai and one who played Chandra. Chandra was played by a cosplayer that Christine Sprinkle, who we use all the time, who I know quite well because we keep running in at magic events. She's not always dressed as Chandra, but so anyway, it was fun to see her. She played Chandra, and then... Oh, I played Vanilla, who played Saheeli.

We had brought her in. It was the first time she had done cosplaying for us, but she was Saheeli Rai. At the end of the opening ceremony, we did the thing... On the key art for the art, she has this, like, twirly thing, and then in the art,

we showed off the trailer for the first time in the opening thing. You see her throw it up and it becomes confetti. So she had that, and we used special effects to have her throw it up and have confetti fall out and stuff. You know, it was really cool. Okay, but that was just the first show. So the next thing we did, right after that was a panel on the creative stuff from the show.

And that was, Aaron was the host for that. And then it was Jeremy Jarvis, Doug Byer, Mel Lee, oh, not Mel Lee, sorry, Christine Krennis, Kimberly Krennis, and Ari Levich. Sorry. So it was Jeremy Jarvis, Doug Byer, Kimberly Krennis, and Ari Levich. Mel would be on the other panel. Mel was in the open talking story, but she was not on the world building panel. So the world building panel was really cool.

They talked all bunch about sort of where the inspiration for the world came from. You know, Jeremy explained how early on he was very inspired by jewelry of all things. And they showed off the different races and talked about sort of where they all came. And in the end, they took some question answers or they took some questions and did Q&A. There were some very interesting questions asked. So anyway, once again, go watch it. It was a very good panel. I was not involved in that panel, though.

But the panel right after it was called Mechanics of Kaladesh. I was very involved in that panel. So Mechanics of Kaladesh was all about the three mechanics. So we talked about energy and fabricate and vehicles. Actually, in that panel, we talked energy, then vehicles and fabricate. And we talked about sort of their origins, where they came from. I gave a much more detailed version of kind of where energy came from. And we spent a lot of time, energy, walking through not just the final product,

but how we got there. What did we try along the way? You know, for all the mechanics, we had tried a couple different things, especially vehicles. We tried a lot of different versions of vehicles. So kind of what we did was we walked through what we had done. So if you're really interested in mechanics and how they evolve and how we made them.

So the way it worked is I would introduce them, and then Sean and I would talk about what we did in design. Sean and I, Sean Main and I were the co-lead designers of Kaladesh. And then Ben Hayes, who was on both the design team and the development team, would talk sort about the beginning of how to structure the stuff for development. Then Ian, who's one of the co, Ian and Eric Lauer were the co-leads for development. Ian talked about sort of the development of the mechanics. And then we had on Liz Leo, who was the graphic designer. And she talked about like making the energy symbol or making the frames for the vehicles.

So Liz was there talking about that. And Aaron was the MC or whatever of our panel as well. And so anyway, we talked for I think 50 minutes and explained all the mechanics. Not to sound like a broken record, but once again, it's online. You can go see that. We had a lot of fun. We tracked down a bunch of pictures of like whiteboards from early design and early playtest cards. I had playtest cards from Mirrodin, where energy first appeared.

So there's a lot of fun stuff. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. We really were trying to sort of, and we did a lot more than normal to explain kind of where things came from and how we balance things. But anyway, if you're at all interested in the mechanics and where they came from, I would listen to that panel. Okay, so the next thing we did, I don't remember all the panels that weekend. I remember all the panels I did.

What other panel was that day? There were other panels. There were more panels than what I'm talking about. I'm mostly talking about the panels I did. I know there were some other panels that day. But my next panel that day was actually the only one not in the Paramount Theater. So we had done all our work

in the Paramount, all day long, all the events were in the Paramount Theater, except we did one thing live on, what was it, live on,

I'm blanking on a name, Twitch, live on Twitch. So we went to a special theater, like the Hydra Theater, I think it was called. So we did Drive to Work live. And so what we did for this one was,

like I did last year, I did Elastipax. It was a live edition of Drive to Work. So I pretended to be in a car. I wasn't actually in a car. Unlike now, where I'm actually driving. I'm actually in a car.

And we had a little steering wheel. And the idea was that I had three special guests. So because we were at the adventure, we wanted to have some special guests. So my guests were Sam Stoddard, who writes the latest development column, who's one of our developers. Ben Hayes, also one of our developers. And the guy who I mentioned earlier was on both the design and development of Kaladesh. And Gavin Verhey, one of our designers. So the idea was I was driving to work and they had car trouble.

So I was picking them up on the way. So what we did was I was driving in my extra wide van, apparently. And I pick up Sam and then Ben and then Gavin. So the topic I picked was the top 10 myths about R&D. I did a top 10 episode and so I talked all about mostly what it was because I had a lot of R&D people is I wanted to talk about what it's like

to be in R&D and work on magic and from the vantage point of here are a lot of things people think about magic R&D that just aren't true so we walked through a lot of myths like the idea that I'm in charge of things or the idea that R&D is mostly design development, or development just tweaks numbers. Anyway, you can go watch the show and see all the different myths.

But anyway, it was fun. What had happened was we were... This was the only place we were in a different theater. And so originally when we had named it, it was called Magic the Gathering, Cold and Drive to Work Alive. But they shortened it and they took out the Magic the Gathering.

So, we were in a different theater. It was hard. People didn't quite know where it was. It didn't have the words magic on it. So like, unless you were a diehard Drive to Work fan, and thank you if you are,

you didn't necessarily know Drive to Work was magic. So we had a little bit of a smaller audience. Although, from the camera, we put them all in front of the camera. I'm sure Liz and Brenner, don't tell them that. But Liz did a great job of getting all the people in front of the camera. So on video, it looks like a full room. So actually, it was a really big room. We did have a decent turnout, but not as big as for the other

events. It's a winter in our own space. It's a lot easier to have a lot more people there. And by the way, at the space, not only were there panels going on, not at the same time, but the Magic World Championship was going on. There were tables there to play Magic and they were running events.

And there was learn-to-play stuff and there was a store where you can buy all sorts of merchandise. Anyway, there was a lot of stuff going on. But anyway, Drive to Work Live went really well. And we had fun. I've had carpool guests before, but never more than one. So regular listeners know that I've had a bunch of different guests on. But usually when I have a carpool guest, it's a single guest.

So this is the first ever drive to work with multiple guests. I don't even know how I could logistically do that in my car, but I was able to do it on stage in which I could fake it. So, but anyway, it was a lot of fun, gave a lot of behind the scenes. So that was my Friday. That was all just Friday. I had a long Friday. As I said, my Friday wasn't even done yet. After I got to work, my final thing was two times during the weekend, I had autograph signings.

One Friday and one Saturday. So I did the autograph signings, and I felt bad. I don't think it was always clear where the autograph signings were. During the course of the weekend, I did a lot of autograph signing and I did a lot of picture taking, but most of that was just walking by. One of the fun things about being in a magic environment is I'm a big fish in a little pond, but in a magic environment, I get to be the celebrity. So it's fun. I get stopped. I always like signing autographs and taking pictures and talking to people. So please, if you see me, I'm more than happy to do that.

But it was fun. I was just, as I was doing things, you know, it's definitely the one place where I get to be most celebrity, where people just are constantly stopping me. So that was kind of fun. If that was every day, I'm sure I would not like it. But as everyone's in a thing, it's kind of cool. Okay, so Saturday, that was Friday, went home, got some sleep. Saturday, so we had, I think, 16 ambassadors. So what had happened is they said to them, hey, what we want to do is, part of this is, we want you to make content. So whoever you

would like to interview, you let us know, and they gave them a lot of choices of people they can interview. We'll let you interview these people, and then you can post the interviews. So one of the options was they could interview me. Guess what? They all chose to do that. So Saturday was me doing 16 interviews. I had six hours. I did get a lunch break. So six hours of doing interviews. I interviewed every single ambassador.

I believe I interviewed in many, many languages. I mean, I was always interviewing in English, because I obviously, but usually what would happen is if either the host spoke both their native language and English, in which case they would introduce the video in their language and ask questions in their native language, but then they translate in English in that answer. Sometimes there was a translator there if they didn't speak English well enough.

if they didn't speak English well enough. But I got interviewed in Russian, in French, in Italian, in German, in Chinese, in Malaysian language, I think Malaysian, in all sorts of languages. And it was fun. It was fun meeting people from all around the world. It was fun. I really had a great time with the ambassadors. And all the different interviews were very different. One of the ambassadors from, I think it was Ireland, did trivia. And he had asked questions previously. I think Melissa

and Gavin had been interviewed. And both of them had only gotten two out of five. I got, I think, four and a half out of five. I got them all right very quickly. And then the final question, which was a really, really hard question, I gave an alternate answer that was technically correct, but then he clarified. And I think I could have worked out the answer if I had more time, but it would have required me sitting there thinking,

which wasn't a particularly compelling video. Anyway, I did a lot of interviews. There was a lot of fun stuff. Most of them are video. I did a few audio podcasts. I did one with, I did Commander Zones with Jimmy

and, what's the name of his co-host? I'm clicking on names right here. And then Maria did, also did an audio broadcast with me. I did a sit-down with a professor, which was a fun video. If you haven't seen it, go watch an interview with Mark Rosewater, it's called. Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I did a whole-down with a professor, which was a fun video. If you haven't seen it, go watch an interview with Mark Rosewater, it's called.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I did a whole bunch of interviews and spent all day doing that. I then got a very long dinner break and I came back and I did another interview signing, this time out on the street fair. Oh, I haven't explained the street fair. So not only were we in the theater, but on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, during the day into the evening, there was a fair outside and there was glass blowers making glass and there was

metal workers and you could make a little time, we had a little make your own sopters area and there was some of the cosplayers were out there and there was food and there was, anyway, all sorts of stuff. There was just a lot of activity. We were trying to replicate the idea of the street fair and we did that outside as an extension of it. We also, by the way, on Saturday morning had a parade. There was this giant metal puppet. There was this giant elk thing that we called Stan that was there that also you could see at the parade.

Anyway, so that was Saturday, that also you could see at the parade. Anyway, so that was Saturday. Sunday, so what had happened was I had been asked to do a lot. It's not evidenced by my long listing of things. So I had asked for permission if I could have Sunday off, and then I got another ticket for my son, Adam, and he and I went around PAX, because PAX is quite exciting, especially if you love video games like my son. And so we had fun sort of going around

and seeing different things. So Sunday was my day off. I did pop my head in. I did pop my head in at the Paramount. Signed a few more autographs. But that was my day off. So we get to Monday. So on Monday, the first thing I did

is I came in early. I shot a video with Nate and Sean of Walking the Plains. So it turns out after numerous years, it was the last Walking the Plains episode. And I had done a podcast on Walking the Plains, which you can listen to. And you can go watch all the Walking the Plains. I've been a regular guest. I've been one of the first people. When Nate and Sean first showed up at Worlds in San Francisco,

I had volunteered to do a video with them, which you can go and see, which is a very, very fun video. And that's my first chance to interact with them. I really sort of said to them, I'm willing to go the extra length. And we ended up going. We took a trolley, went way far away to shoot scenes

just to sort of make a cool scene. And then from then on, whenever we were in the same place at the same time, I'm not at all walking the planes because I wasn't at most of the events, but any event in which I was at, they would always shoot a scene with me. The relationship between me and the wizard

was kind of a spy versus spy. We keep trying to one-up one another, and sometimes I'd win, sometimes Nate as a wizard would win. But anyway, that was a lot of fun. So I shot, by the time, you can go see it, by the time you'll be able to hear this, we've recorded it. So definitely go take a look at that. It was fun, and it was a good capper to the whole thing.

I thought it was a fun final sequence. Yeah, also, I think it was a music video I shot a few scenes for, and then we did the ending, which was a lot of fun. After that, I had yet another panel to do. This time was Blogatog Live. So Blogatog Live was basically a question and answer.

I do my blogs. Those don't know. I do Blogatog on Tumb't know. I do Blog Talk on Tumblr and I answer questions. I also post my daily comic. I post my weekly podcast, obviously. I post my weekly column. So, anyway, I did a Q&A.

I had a special guest. Ethan Fleischer was my special guest. I had made a special video that I showed at Blog Talk Live at San Diego Comic Con because I had a special guest. Ethan Fleischer was my special guest. I had made a special video that I showed at Blogatog Live at San Diego Comic-Con because I had done one there. And so I made it a summer exclusive. So Blogatog Live was where I showed it.

It was a video I had made with my daughter who shot it, directed it, and edited it. I was the actor and I basically wrote it. But anyway, she and I worked together to make it. It was like a four-minute video. That's also online if you want to go see it.

Anyway, it's just a fun, goofy little video I had made. It took about three weeks to shoot. And I don't want to ruin it, but you can watch it. It's a fun video. It's called You Know What That Means. So for podcast listeners, maybe you get some idea what it's about. Okay, so we did the Q&A. We had a lot of live questions. We took some questions off the internet as well. We sort of rotated. I think every third question was off the internet. But anyway,

I answered a lot of questions, most of them about Kaladesh, but a few of them weren't. And then after that, we had the Inventors Spellslingers Showdown. So what happened was we had three celebrities, myself, LSV, Luis Scott Vargas, and Chris Cluey, who was a former NFL player, a big Magic player. So the three of us were the celebrities, and what we did is the audience could randomly get pulled off to play against us, and then the fans had a lot of help. They had two coaches, Marie and Megan, from Magic the Amateur, were their coaches. There were the two cosplayers, Chandra and Saheeli Rai, were there to help them, and then Matt Tabak and Nate Holtz were sort of the hosts doing the commentary on what was going on.

And basically what happened is the... Oh, and we were playing decks that had a strong Cavalry-ish theme, especially the Celebrities, and there was a lot of preview cards. So there were four decks the fans could play. There were three decks that the Celebrities played. Almost every deck. I think Chris's didn't have preview cards. All the other decks had preview cards in them. Mine had three preview cards in it.

I played an energy deck. I think Chris played a vehicles deck. And Louise must have played a fabricate deck. And so what happened was, as cards would come up, we previewed cards. So during the course of that, I think we previewed nine new cards. And normally what would happen is the celebrity would come out and play against the fan. Usually we'd be up, and then shenanigans would happen. And every game, except for mine, we lost.

Louise played two games and lost both, and Chris played one game and lost. In most cases, we should have won, but shenanigans. So part of the fun of this was, you have to see the video. It was fun. I mean, we were goofing around. It wasn't, there was no expectation. I somehow actually won.

I think I won because I was at such a dominant board position that even after they killed multiple of my creatures and made me not have creatures deal damage and all sorts of stuff, Chandra took my dragon out for a walk. Anyway, I did manage to finally win.

But once again, a lot of shenanigans. Oh, one of my favorite things was there's this flag that the way that Marie and Megan would call the planeswalkers to help get the side was to throw a red flag that they had. So in the final game with Louise, I stole a red flag that they had. So in the final game with Louise,

I stole the red flag so they couldn't throw it, but then I felt pity on them and gave it back. But anyway, like I said, you can go see that. That was a lot of fun.

I think that event was an hour and a half, two hours. It was a longer event. Then the last event, I wasn't in this last thing, was a closing ceremony which we had Chandra

Christine came on Chandra and got to show off Chandra's new card, which you guys all know now, but amazing. It's our third ever four loyalty ability planeswalker after Jace and Sarkin, not Sarkin, and

Garak. I know there's some double-faced planeswalkers. So not kind of the double-faced planeswalkers that have multiple abilities. But anyway, it's really good. It's one of the probably the best genre we've ever made. And one of the best planeswalkers maybe we've ever made. It's really good.

We got to show that off. Jimmy was the host for the finals. Aaron came on. Oh, so we had a video that kind of recapped the weekend and showed all the different things that happened. They sat down to interview with the world champ. Brian sat down with Marshall for an interview and sort of talked about what it's like to win the world championship

and had a little bit of highlight of that. And then Aaron came on and Aaron sort of talked about all the different things we had learned the weekend and all the preview cards and talked about Kaladesh. And then he showed up and that morning had been revealed that Tezzeret was part of the story and so we showed off a card, a pretty cool card that Tezzeret was in the art and flavor text of. As you guys now know, they didn't know at the time, Tezzeret is not in Kaladesh,

although we might be seeing him pretty soon. But he's not in Kaladesh. He wasn't a planeswalker card yet in Kaladesh. But anyway, so we had the big finale show, and we wrapped it up. So it was, like I said, every single thing I referenced, my opening show, all the panels,

including the Mechanics of Kaladesh panel, the live Drive to Work panel, the live Blogatog panel, the Spellslinger Showdown that I was in, and things I mentioned that I wasn't even in, all of that is online. All the interviews I did with all the different people, it's all online. You know, if you want to, like the whole weekend, one of the things that's really important to us was we wanted to make an awesome experience for people at PAX, but we also wanted to make an awesome experience for all Magic players,

even those that couldn't come to Seattle. So you can, even, some of you, all this was streamed live, but it's recorded on YouTube. You can go watch it now. Just put PAX, I don't know, PAX 2016, Magic PAX, or whatever, Magic this was streamed live, but it's recorded on YouTube. You can go watch it now. Just put PAX, I don't know, PAX 2016, Magic PAX,

or whatever, Magic the Gathering PAX, and you will find it. But anyway, it is all there, and it was an amazing weekend. The Paramount looked beautiful. All the panels were just

chock full of cool stuff. I mean, the previews now aren't as exciting because it's now a known set, but at the time, just the energy of all the players was really cool. But anyway, like I mean, the previews now aren't as exciting because it's now a known set. But at the time, just the energy of all the players was really cool. But anyway, like I said, this is the day after.

It ended yesterday for me. And so I had a great time. And it was a rousing success. I had been really optimistic on Kaladesh coming into this. Hopefully people see why. Because it's an amazing set. And so I hope at this point you guys all know that, and you're having fun playing with it, you know, because

I know it's six weeks or eight weeks from now. But anyway, that is wrapping up. That was packed. It was an amazing show. We had a great time. Please, if you haven't seen all the stuff online, go look at it online. But that is all I've got to say about it. School started back up, so I'm dropping

off Rachel again, so I'm here at Rachel's school. So we all know what that means. It means the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Hope you guys enjoyed today's talk, and I'll see you soon. Bye-bye.