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Episode 107: Who's your Commander? Meet Gregory Sablan
112 Plays5 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! Today Hobbes sat down with one of the newest members of the Commander Advisory Group (CAG) to discuss this new role. This is Gregory Sablan who is Active Duty Military. We discuss everything from the representation of the military in Magic, to his new role, to the altering of Magic Cards (check out the site he runs on FB). We are excited to start this discussion about service members (and veterans) who play magic and how that voice is being heard by the CAG and RC!
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter (with a link to where you can offer support both monetary and not).
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
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As promised, we plan to keep these Mental Health Links available moving forward too. For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com.
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Transcript
Introduction of Greg Sablon and his role in CAG
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Alex is still up north with his family after having broken his foot, is getting ready to be coming back down, so he's going to be joining us next week. But we really wanted to get an episode in with somebody that
00:00:47
Speaker
People probably have seen the name recently because of his new role. So this is Greg Sablon. He is joining us today. He is the newest, one of the newest members of the Commander Advisory Council, the group. What are you guys called officially, Greg?
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah, the CAG, Commander Advisory Group, that's correct. CAG, so I was pretty close. So yeah, so Greg was announced that there was a most recent announcement with a new group of people to represent kind of the idea behind the CAG is, if people do not know, it's to kind of introduce a little bit more diversity into the voices that are being heard by the Rules Committee and kind of bringing in from different communities and different groups within Magic the Gathering, different, yeah, I mean,
00:01:36
Speaker
trying to really make sure that everybody's representation is being heard when it comes to the format that at this point, especially during a pandemic, is easily the most played format. So we really wanted to have Greg on.
Military service and cultural influence in Magic
00:01:50
Speaker
We're going to talk about why. I personally wanted to have Greg on.
00:01:53
Speaker
Because he is current military and his people on the show know I work for the VA and that is my role as I'm a psychologist in outpatient mental health there. And I think the military culture is an aspect that is very interesting when it comes to Magic the Gathering and one that people don't know a ton about.
00:02:14
Speaker
So that's kind of going to be basically what Greg and I are going to be talking about today. A little bit about what military kind of looks like in Magic the Gathering, what we have seen of it, and then kind of talking about his role on the CAG in kind of his own experiences with the game.
00:02:29
Speaker
As a disclaimer at the top of the show, just because both Greg and I are technically government employees, we are not speaking in any way, shape, or form from that capacity. This is just us on our private lives having fun and getting to sit down and talk. So everything we say is not affiliated at all.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah. So Greg, I was hoping to start us off with just having you introduce yourself and then tell us maybe a card or something within magic that really you identify with, with kind of just something that, you know, if I was to ask you what draws you to the game, who do you identify with?
Personal life and social media presence
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, no. Thank you, Hobbs, for having me on the show. It was really great timing. The opportunity to express my view and perspective on the game of Magic and EDH is definitely something I've been wanting to do, so I appreciate you having me on.
00:03:27
Speaker
Just a little bit about myself. My name is Greg Sablon. I am current active duty military in the Army. This May I'll be hitting 15 years in the service. So five years later, hopefully try to get retirement going. Yeah, no, I have a wife and three kids. We're stationed in Japan, having a blast out here, you know, with respect to COVID social distancing and the other restrictions.
00:03:58
Speaker
On my personal time, I manage the Facebook page, Sabon MTG Altars, which we are also available on Twitter and Instagram. So you'll probably see my last name at least represented in the Altars community.
00:04:14
Speaker
As far as the military is concerned, definitely looking at trying to aim for retirement. That's been a big thing. And I love the military and get to do a lot of things, a lot of different jobs with respect to where it is in my timeline of life and my career.
00:04:34
Speaker
Started out as a combat engineer doing a lot of good stuff blowing up things building stuff I've been deployed to yeah I say that's the best part about the engineer piece you you know this is perfect for you being on the goblins show I mean basically that is what the is it goblins do Between either blowing it up or building it
00:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting that I was able to tie that into this. I did a lot of great stuff as a combat engineer. I transitioned to another field mid-career back in 2017 and basically had a lot of different opportunities.
Military career transitions and teaching at West Point
00:05:14
Speaker
I've been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:05:19
Speaker
I'm now posted to Japan, so being in the Army, that's actually pretty crazy. There's not that many opportunities to get posted to Japan. I think of Air Force and Navy and Marines, they definitely have that opportunity more so than the Army, so I'm very grateful for that happening in my particular period of life.
00:05:39
Speaker
From the island of Guam, which is probably somewhat very interesting, I think, for some people. Not many people know where the island is, the small island in the South Pacific. And the U.S. territory, too. And the U.S. territory. That is correct. Yeah. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I always forget. It's just that you can send it with a regular stamp to Guam.
00:06:02
Speaker
Yes, exactly. So a lot of people, they do get that misunderstanding, misconception that Guam is a quote unquote country and you need to pay for international shipping. The only thing you really need to do actually is fill out the customs form, but you still pay US prices.
00:06:19
Speaker
Other than that, yeah, I know there's a lot of other things about myself. I'm a professional licensed engineer. I like to do island style barbecues, so if you're ever accustomed to the lifestyle of an islander, you probably get invited to barbecues whenever the opportunity presents itself. And lastly, I do a little bit of judo on the side if I get the chance.
00:06:47
Speaker
And yeah, no, a lot of different jobs in the Army so far. My previous job before coming to Japan, I was actually at West Point teaching physics and nuclear engineering. So that's me in a nutshell.
00:07:01
Speaker
That's awesome. Wow. So did you go in then with your degree already? Did you get it during the military? I know you said combat engineer early on.
Academic achievements and impact on military career
00:07:12
Speaker
So did you go in? Was that an officer position? Yeah. I guess in terms of timeline, I'm not sure if I know the viewers and audience.
00:07:25
Speaker
The military itself, it might appear to be kind of foreign in nature. If you're not part of the military, if you're not used to talking about the military, then it could kind of get confusing. But yeah, typically you have your officer and then your enlisted side. And so I chose to pursue the route of officer when I commissioned in 2002. I'm sorry, no, when I commissioned in 2006.
00:07:53
Speaker
It's my son in the background, I apologize. My daughter makes appearances on the show, too. So I think our audience loves kids, has been my experience. Yeah, no, that's perfect. That's perfect. What was I saying?
00:08:11
Speaker
I think you commissioned in 2006? Yes. So I commissioned in 2006. So when you commission, you become an officer. And so because I'm in the army, I commissioned into the army as opposed to the other services. Right off the bat from the commissioning source, I received a bachelor's of science in civil engineering.
00:08:35
Speaker
That actually doesn't really have much to do so much with the fact that I chose combat engineering as my specialty. The specialty itself is something up to the person choosing what he wants to do in his military career, and I just decided that that was at least the most appropriate for my technical background.
00:08:56
Speaker
But basically, throughout the years, I acquired another set of degrees. I have a master's degree in civil engineering and a master's degree in nuclear engineering. And once I attained that, I was able to basically hold a teaching position at the academy.
00:09:16
Speaker
That's awesome. That's really cool to hear. I mean, that's, you said this is just hearing the different MOI, well, specialties. See, this is the problem with having both of us on here is I could easily see this is, this is kind of like playing magic. I don't think people realize how much of kind of the, the language itself is, it's, well, we know it's got acronyms in it for us, but I mean, it is a whole other type of communication that
00:09:41
Speaker
I was just about to say what your MOS has been and realizing that half the audience, more than half, would have no clue what I meant by that. But you've had different positions. You've kind of moved around. And like I said, it sounds like what's nice is you've been able to get this commission currently in Japan with your family. That's great. Yeah, no, it is. And I could not ask for a better assignment.
00:10:07
Speaker
I've been through a lot of posts, a lot of different duty stations, had a blast for most of them.
00:10:16
Speaker
Climate engineering, I loved it because there were certain things that you could do that not other specialties could do. We dealt with handling and delivering explosives for missions. I've been involved in missions that would be building roads or even building small scale bridges to basically managing construction operations
00:10:45
Speaker
teaching nuclear physics and engineering. I mean, it's awesome. Yeah. So with magic, you know, just kind of starting us off with just a little bit of insight into what yeah, who do you kind of identify with? I mean, I could even just simply be who's your main when it comes to say commander?
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, so it's crazy because I'm a completionist, right? And I think that's probably saying a lot about maybe the military cultures because when you're given a problem and you're required to solve that problem, you got to see it to its full completeness, right? And it's like receiving a mission. You receive a mission, you got to accomplish it, you know, no matter how
00:11:35
Speaker
what way, shape, or form it takes between start and finish. So I don't necessarily have a favorite commander, but if I really had to pin down one, it would probably be Captain Sissay.
Magic deck-building philosophy and approach
00:11:55
Speaker
But let me just backtrack a little bit. The whole completionist aspect of it is, one of my goals was to build a deck out of every single color combination possible. And I had that goal in mind since I started playing Commander back in 2013-2014. And I reached that goal probably in a matter of four years or so.
00:12:19
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. And then, uh, but the, the crazy thing about it is, is even since when I finished, I still feel compelled to build more decks and it's not like I'm trying to now complete a second round of, of the full color pie.
00:12:41
Speaker
But I might get there one of these days, but it's an enduring goal. But yeah, I kind of believe my Captain Sisay deck is one of my most cherished decks if you had to pass.
00:12:57
Speaker
So what is it about that deck? You know, so one of the things I really like that you're already talking about, this idea of completionist and kind of maybe we'll – and we'll talk – we can definitely talk a little bit about how there might be some military mindset that does fit in there. What's cool about that is we've already done an episode we did with One More Mana, so –
00:13:17
Speaker
another podcast that does EDH where they talk about we talked about deck building philosophy and how people approach deck building or approach kind of these projects because we all build for different reasons some it's for optimization where some people are just building completely around a theme like every art has to have somebody with a hat in it I'm currently building a goblin EDH deck that is all artist proofs which is
00:13:44
Speaker
a stupid undertaking. I will tell you now that I am like two months into it and saw a token sell for $300. This might not have been the best project for me to try to get involved in. But I'm wondering what you know, what was it about sis a given that you had this completionist goal that I am blown away by? Like do you keep do you have all those decks still together? Yes, I do.
00:14:07
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah. So let me quickly answer why I still have all those decks and then go to your original question. So the fact that they're still intact is because I typically have, you know, I have my storage where I keep all my stuff. For the most part, I retain
00:14:32
Speaker
the same copies throughout each deck. So I don't really have to change out decks between colors. The only exception is the mana base.
00:14:43
Speaker
So, like, if I had, let's say, two saltide decks, right now I have a Domia deck, which was my primary one, and then I have now a Kadena deck, Kadena, whatever, slinking sorcerer. The only thing I change out between those two decks is the mana base. So, as we all kind of know, especially with things like Reserve List,
00:15:06
Speaker
It's hard to maintain, you know, a lot of the same type of dual land. Those mana bases get out of hand pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah, no, they do. And so, you know, Gaius Cradles, like, there's only so many Gaius Cradles, you can pass around decks and stuff of that nature. I've been collecting for a while, so some people might be wondering like, okay, how many Gaius Cradles do you have?
00:15:31
Speaker
So you know what, I'm not going to say openly, but I have enough to basically put in all of the color combination decks that I deemed it appropriate to put it in. So let's just leave it at that. How many foils? I won't say either because I don't want to sound too de-eathed. But hey, I've been collecting since 1994.
00:16:00
Speaker
So you've been playing for, well, basically from the beginning. Yes, I guess you could say I have. I remember buying packs of revised. I did not have the opportunity to really buy packs from unlimited and prior, but I was always enamored with owning Power9 when I was a kid.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I actually completed that in the mid-2000s. So that was a nice thing to do. But yeah, no, I've been collecting for a while and it's representative in my decks and it is what it is. Going back to your original question of why Cece?
00:16:49
Speaker
You know, it was one of those decks when I started into the age where I just loved the idea of basically having a legendary card tutored for, you know, by one character, by one card. And it wasn't even really about the rank because, you know, the time when I was back in 2013, I was a captain.
00:17:20
Speaker
It wasn't even about the rank. And then, you know, when you think about it, Captain Sisay, she's like this airship captain, right? So you might actually look at it in terms of the Navy. So my army brothers will give me crap because I'm technically advocating for a Navy squid, you know?
00:17:42
Speaker
And so, you know... I do appreciate that you chose the one who actually is on a ship. Like, of the captain. I mean, just like, of anything that you could be... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it was a character that I grew fond of. And I just loved the idea that you could tutor up other legendaries and it didn't have to be a creature. It could be a land, say, it forgets, Cradle, or sort of sanctum.
00:18:11
Speaker
And I don't know if my appreciation for the commander in general was because it had some type of military aspect of it. And I guess talking with you now, it might not have a lot to do with that, actually.
Military themes in Magic: The Boros Legion
00:18:35
Speaker
She is at least a soldier, so we have the creature type there. And soldier is a creature type that we've had basically throughout Magic's history. A lot of the ideas that we've had with the whole concept of combat and early on banding is kind of a representation basically of having
00:18:57
Speaker
your whole group together and it gives you a bonus. We've seen ranks, we've seen soldiers, we've seen the Boros Legion is kind of the example I always think of. We talk a lot about Ravnica on here because Ravnica is so rich of a story and the Boros Legion is kind of the best representation. Well,
00:19:20
Speaker
I don't know if best is, we could talk about that, but it is probably the most complete, at least, representation of a military structure. Even to the point that we have kind of, you know, one of the cool things is to look at the, it's like the little goblin who's on Legion loyalists, he keeps getting promoted in rank, like, who is the card. So it's like, we see him at different levels, which is just really kind of cool. I mean, from a goblin.
00:19:47
Speaker
But yeah, like we've kind of seen that there you know, there's the we have a battalion where you get bonuses when things are attacking together. Yeah. So yeah, so I mean, I'm kind of curious what it's been like for you to see at least some representation of this concept of a military within magic.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think it's really cool. I mean, I think one of the wonderful things about the game is at least Wizards of the Coast, it appears that they try to touch different demographics. And if it's suitable and related and all that with the demographic, then it appears on cards, which I think is really cool as hell.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, some of the mechanics and things like that over the years, I've appreciated it. And as far as being in the military, they definitely are related and I like that it's there for sure. And I'm curious, I mean, you know, this is...
00:20:54
Speaker
We're here to talk about EDH, so I know that you have a love of it. If not, you were definitely the wrong person to choose. But, you know, I mean, I think of it from from day one, you know, when I got into it and I'm it sounds like from when you started probably.
Transition to EDH and evolving game formats
00:21:11
Speaker
2013, we're still basically calling the EDH at that point. I don't know. Did you grow? I can't, I'm trying to like, my time is so fuzzy that, uh, I don't even remember. I think that was right around when the decks starter decks came out. They were commander.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, let's see. Let's see. So I, I, I guess I have to try to break away from saying EDH so much and then, you know, basically calling a commander, but my basis is, is in the idea of the original, uh, nomenclature of, of the, of the game. Okay. Yeah. So when, when the first series of decks came out, I don't know if it was 2013, it might've been 2011. I remember it was, it was 20.
00:21:56
Speaker
I'm looking back right now and I'm pretty sure it was 2013. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. And so I started into EDH basically. Oh, no. Sorry. You're right. 2011. And then it became yearly from 2013. Sorry. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. No, because I remember 2011, they had the Kalia deck.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah, it was Riku, gave, Zedru, Memielplasm, and then he had like the backup, everybody had like a backup commander in the deck. Yeah, so that came out, but then I was still actually in 2011, I was still playing kitchen table.
00:22:37
Speaker
So, you know, at the time when I grew up, I started reading Inquest Gamer, and I was reading Scry, and I was paying attention to cards during that time frame. You know, cards that I always wanted, cards that I thought I should probably complete playsets on, and all those things.
00:22:57
Speaker
And then, uh, so 2011, you know, years, years after my collecting, uh, frenzy, uh, I was just basically still playing kitchen table. But, uh, interesting that we, we, we talk about those pre those first few pre-cons, because, uh, when I'm playing kitchen, when I was playing kitchen table at the time, it was like, okay, how did we get to, you know, win a game faster? Um, and, and so, you know, you'd play some broken ass, I'm sorry, broken
00:23:27
Speaker
and you're you're trying to figure out how to be your buddy and then you know that your buddy can get salty or not or whatever it's it's all in the flavor of of your play group uh but i saw this card and i was like this is cool as hell and it happened to be a initial pre-con uh it was the memeoplasm and um i was building this deck and i even i even posted it on
00:23:55
Speaker
It was one of the deck building websites. Um, but I liked the idea, uh, that you can play the memeoplasm. And at the time I wasn't even familiar with commander. Um, but the memeoplasm was, uh, was the card I wanted to play around. And, uh, basically, uh, I would put a blistering fire cat into the graveyard. Right. It's a seven one.
00:24:24
Speaker
And then I would put a, um, I think it was a 13, 13, some other card out. It was, it was definitely not death shadow, but, um, uh, there was another car that basically it equaled exactly 20, right? Uh, 2020 or not 2020, but yeah, I guess it was a 2020 pound toughness creature. Anyway, I would try to get memeoplasm out by turn to, by playing like either Lotus pedal, dark ritual, whatever.
00:24:54
Speaker
All those kitchen table staples, that will stick to the card casual format. Yeah, so, you know, Memeoplasm has the abilities of those two cards, right? And the power and toughness, you know, I guess, I forget the exact wording, but ultimately, it would at pace turn to... And trample. Yeah, and so this is, again, red, because Blistering Firecat is red. You can't play it in an EDH deck with a Memeoplasm, and unless you splashed in for the four-color combination,
00:25:24
Speaker
But so, yeah, when I did that, I was like, this is freaking awesome. And I thought that was great. And lo and behold, two years later is when I realized that I was basically already kind of sort of playing commander. But but I was essentially using all of the cards that I grew up on and making it a singleton deck.
00:25:54
Speaker
where my heart is right now, it's definitely EDH. Yes, okay, so I... Commander. Commander EDH. The idea is, you know, the name change happened, but from the outset, I mean, the idea behind this was that you had either, you know, a general or you had a commander, whichever name we want to use. Both of those names are very rooted in the military. And the idea behind them is they are sitting in a zone. They are basically sitting
00:26:23
Speaker
planning strategy i mean that's how i think of it from day one i mean so my deck that i've had together the longest is nickel bolus and we are talking original original and older dragon eight literally yeah literally elder dragon highlander right
00:26:41
Speaker
I started playing EDH somewhere, I think I found some files on my computer from 2009, I think is when I built my first deck. And that one was Marike from Ice Age. And it was really because all of my play group had better cards than I did, so I just wanted to steal them.
Comparing EDH commanders to military leaders
00:27:02
Speaker
I mean it was like I can't win well you have nice stuff I'm just gonna play with what I have and I'm gonna clone it or I'm gonna take it and that's actually what grew into my bolus deck but the idea behind it has always been
00:27:16
Speaker
Bolas is just kind of sitting there in the background. He is waiting for the moment to come to the table. He is the strategist. He is the planner. He is the one that is really basically surveying the field to make decisions. And I really approach deck building like that. And to me, EDH as a format has always felt very similar to this military culture where you have kind of this, like I said, there is
00:27:41
Speaker
almost a hierarchy, at least there is kind of a chain of command, at least from my view, in that the basis of the format from day one was you had somebody that was in charge. They did. Yeah. So I think we go from name changes, even then they kept the name change very much in line from that. We just moved from general to commander.
00:28:06
Speaker
So interesting in all of this, one of my themes that I had going on for a long time, I think there's one exception, but my feeling at the time, at least when I was building decks was, so in terms of the military, right?
00:28:23
Speaker
like a commander is in charge of soldiers, sailors, airmen, you know, Marines, whatever. And they definitely have to make decisions, right? Now, that person is in charge of a formation. And there's basically only one of that person, right? And so when I was building my decks, I actually started thinking about basically just, you know, the theme is this, if a general,
00:28:49
Speaker
If a commander is a, I'm sorry, if you selected one particular guard as your general, as your commander, he cannot be a soldier in another deck.
00:29:01
Speaker
because he's not part of that organization. That's what I was going with. And for the longest time, I actually made that a point because not unless you were in the hierarchy, because as you think of it in terms of rank and all that, you could technically still be a soldier underneath someone else. But then for the purpose of the formation that is created by EDH, you're your own general.
00:29:30
Speaker
You know, and you can't be a soldier for someone else. But you are a legendary for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you think about all those generals in the past, right? And our in our history and throughout, you know, the span of time. But, you know, I think about the Eisenhower's, the MacArthur's, you know, all these folks that did great things, you know, in previous wars and World War Two and all that. And so, you know, there's only one guy, there's only one general that does this.
00:29:59
Speaker
Now, if you question whether or not MacArthur was under Eisenhower, yeah, you'll know that he was.
00:30:08
Speaker
But still, you're in charge of formation, dealing God's justice over the world, and there's a different perspective on that. And that's what was happening, and that's what I was looking at. Now, however, there is one exception I've figured out. So this is one of those that just basically kind of slipped through the cracks, and I didn't realize this until someone asked me about it.
00:30:34
Speaker
I play Kiki Jiki in several of my, you know, red splash decks. And I don't know why. You're not just pandering right now, right? You're not just pandering to us by admitting to playing Kiki Jiki. Yeah, my model Red Commander is Kiki Jiki, right? So maybe it has something to do with his copying abilities. I don't know.
00:31:02
Speaker
You know, he is his own commander, but he also is a soldier in other decks. So he is literally the only exception. I don't know why.
00:31:15
Speaker
because he's a goblin we're totally fine with you right here right now you just had an insight just we had a breakthrough people recognize yeah i mean i it actually what's kind of funny you mentioned that um i i belong to a play group the first real play group that i had for edh was when i was still in grad school in san diego um they actually had a rule that nobody could build a commander that was that somebody else in the play group had oh indeed
00:31:45
Speaker
So they even had like a board. And when like new sets came out, you would have to like fight over which who was going to get the new, like you had to like put a bid in and make a claim on it and fantasy football and all that, right? Yeah, I mean, and they had a list that like you couldn't you couldn't build it until the person decided they wanted to retire that deck. And then somebody else could build it. I mean, they were it was it was basically taking the idea of the of the multiverse to the extreme, like there is only one
00:32:15
Speaker
possibility to have one deck of that because there's only one legendary, right? So I kind of love to hear you talk about that idea that I don't want to have my commander be somebody else's soldier. It just doesn't work. Or you have to have a story reason for it in some ways. Right, right, right. Now, you know, that's also akin to I think one of the original
00:32:42
Speaker
that if you played a legendary creature on one side and someone else played it on another, basically, I think both will die if I'm not mistaken. Oh yeah, yeah. You're talking about one of my favorite, mono blue clone removal.
00:32:59
Speaker
There was very many times you used clones in order to basically be a kill spell. I mean you would take out somebody's commander by cloning it. I mean it was – there's actually a fascinating history with the legend rule. We actually – if you decide to go back and listen to any of our episodes, I think it's like the fifth episode we did way back. I mean we're on a hundred now.
00:33:23
Speaker
We talked about the legend rule because it is very interesting to move through. Well, what does that mean from a story point? What does it mean? And that's how I approach a lot of deck building. It's the story that I'm trying to tell. Yeah Yeah No, that's perfect So I want to talk about kind of this new role that you're finding yourself in well, actually before we do that I want to talk about military
00:33:51
Speaker
and talk about gaming and just gaming culture within the military because
00:33:57
Speaker
I've worked in the VA full-time since 2013. I've worked on and off in VA settings since 2002. I know what misconceptions even other professionals have. So 2013, when I came to Minneapolis, I was in a treatment program and I said, hey, I want to do a Magic the Gathering group for veterans. I'm in this program.
00:34:22
Speaker
Talk to some friends. I can get some starter decks that are real cheap. And actually Wizards Thank You donated just a bunch of what we used to give out at the conventions. They were like single color decks with one rare in them. And I was like, I want to teach this.
00:34:39
Speaker
And I got initial pushback of like, well, come on, Thomas, really? Which of these soldiers are going to want to play Magic the Gathering? There was this whole belief that just nobody was going to want to play that. And I'm, you know,
00:34:55
Speaker
My grad school was in San Diego. We had bases. I know who came into my local game store. I know who was dropping money on boxes because they had money. And that's mainly Navy. They needed somewhere to play. They needed something to do on the ship. But I think there's a lot of misconceptions about gaming culture. And I think the stereotype is that
00:35:21
Speaker
All soldiers, all veterans play, call of duty, first-person shooters. That's it. That's where it extends. That's not my experience at all. Yeah, no. I'm glad we were able to talk about this topic because
00:35:38
Speaker
Honestly, the military community, you know, there's different perceptions, different perspectives on what they do, what they do on their off time, things of that nature. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're not discounting the fact that the military community also plays other games like Call of Duty and all those other things, but you definitely have representation in the trading card games for sure. And, you know, that's very much a thing. Here's the fact of the matter.
00:36:08
Speaker
You know, military guys, military people, they're basically normal people, but they made a choice to raise their hand and say, I will serve, you know, in the United States military and support the Constitution and all those things. And that's a decision they made. But they still are normal people with normal heartbeats. They put on the same pants just like everyone else does.
00:36:33
Speaker
They might do PT more, you know, physical fitness more than the next guy. But in general, they are basically normal people. I will also tell you, based in my experience of at least with veterans, that wasn't always because they were excited to do physical therapy or to do more exercise. So, you know, the thing about it is, you know, I have to think back to things that basically
00:37:02
Speaker
you know, human beings, what do they choose to do to unwind?
Gaming in the military and hobby diversity
00:37:07
Speaker
And, you know, it's part of whatever the social status is, what's the social accepted thing to do, you know, back in the earlier days of maybe the 90s and maybe early 2000s, if you even mentioned that you played video games and basically people rose an eyebrow at you,
00:37:27
Speaker
But, you know, fast forward to 2021, where we're at right now, everything is mostly socially acceptable to do certain things. And it's in a sense, you shouldn't be too embarrassed about what it is that you do on your off time. But, you know, with regards to off time, it's like, hey, look, you know, if if there's something you enjoy and you want to just wind down, just do whatever you want. You know, and I remember back in when I was in Iraq and Afghanistan,
00:37:56
Speaker
And I was busy as hell, you know, there was a lot of different operations that I was supporting and in charge of and different things. And, you know, it's hard to figure out what it is you want to do on your off time. And I found some solace and, you know, doing some magic, maybe a little bit of video games and anime watching, you know, whatever.
00:38:18
Speaker
And it's like, look, you had a hard day at work. Do whatever you want if it causes you to be able to sleep peacefully at night.
00:38:27
Speaker
And so I come back, maybe start off the day, let's say I was in Iraq or Afghanistan, you know, just depending on the emission flavors. And it'll be four o'clock in the morning, leave, come back at nine, maybe 10 o'clock. You're dead tired. What else you got to do? You know, maybe put on a DVD, watch some anime or watch some, you know, two doors or, you know, whatever.
00:38:49
Speaker
And then just be dumb with it. But if you had some additional off time and there were people of like-minded taste would jump in on some magic, we would. We get some Xbox game going on, PlayStation 2, you know, whatever, et cetera, et cetera. And that was life. And if you didn't like that, man, you know, get out, get out of here.
00:39:13
Speaker
You know, forget that you even know anything about the military, but just understand that, you know, we had a certain purpose, we had certain missions, and if we wanted to do whatever we wanted, we can still be human beings like anyone else. And, you know, I had a buddy when he was on his own time. He was on World of Warcraft all the time. And he loved it. You know, he became like a guild master or whatever the heck they call it.
00:39:43
Speaker
And he still freaking did whatever he had to do. And no questions asked. You might be like, hey, what are you doing?
00:39:52
Speaker
Dude, get off my back, you know? So I have a colleague actually that is still, so he's still reserved and he was activated recently. And I got to talk to him when he came back, he found out that, so we're currently running a D&D group that we're trialing at RVA for social anxiety. We're on kind of the fourth iteration of it. And him and I got to talking about the fact that on his last deployment,
00:40:21
Speaker
They had a campaign going, they just kind of happened to start. And like, there was officer and enlisted, which once again, if people don't really fully know, those things don't always mix. And there were officers and enlisted playing this campaign. And what he was telling me is he left to come home. It continued, right? That was one of those things. Like people came out, people came in, it continued. And you had this like, basically, you know, one of my coworkers who was also former Air Force,
00:40:50
Speaker
No, wait, no, yep, she was, but she also was on ship. So she was a mechanic, but she was also on ships. But she would talk about the fact that even back then, in like the 80s, when it was that was more D&D, you had your D&D manual, you had some dice and a map, you could play in a small area. You know, we think about this, magic doesn't take up a ton of room, you don't have, I mean, you can have your deck, I mean, I think of it as still the rubber banded together type kitchen table magic, but
00:41:16
Speaker
You could have your deck. You can get a draft. You don't need a ton of space. And when you don't have a ton of space, that's great. Like this is easily something that you can do. Oh, yeah, no, perfect. I mean, so part of my one of my things I'm trying to do is more military outreach right now that I'm more socially available. And I've never really spoke with Navy folks before, but I got a chance to talk to one of these guys.
00:41:41
Speaker
And, um, I was starting to think of myself, like, I've never really been on a ship, right? But I know from, from, at least in terms of being part of the military operation or anything, but there's obvious living space. So it's like, you got to get some playing time and some playing areas. So, you know, where is that? What is that? And so I got to asking questions about what his playbook does and whatever. And I'm like,
00:42:06
Speaker
Man, magic is ever present everywhere. You can play it anywhere, anytime, anyplace, special webcams and all that. But then I started to think about the broader picture of what the military also offers, and this is not really to pump up the recruiting advertisement here, but the fact that you can
00:42:28
Speaker
travel different places to support missions or basically go to different permanent changes of station, you know, where we get to be assigned to places like Japan, Germany, Korea, freaking Djibouti, you know, wherever. There's no space on the planet where a service member cannot play magic.
00:42:52
Speaker
And I find that idea just extremely uplifting that you can do it. There's a guy that reached out to me. He was buying some cards off me. And I was like, hey, man, you're in the military, this, this, and that, whatever. And I'm like, where are you at? He's like, yeah, I'm on Guam. I'm like, that's freaking awesome. And we got to talking about where he actually is posted. And he's not even posted on Guam, but he's there for a few weeks or so.
00:43:19
Speaker
And not to really get into any obstacle or anything, but like operational security issues. But essentially, he found time to basically get cars and play. And I'm like, holy hell, you've only been there a few weeks and this is what
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so like, if you're in the military, you find ways, you know, you find ways to just figure it out. And then you get a game and whenever you can. And if it's commander, that's freaking awesome. You know, because the nice thing I like about the commander is there's more people playing that than playing modern or legacy, your vintage, you know, God, God forbid vintage, like holy hell. I mean, if I wanted to, I could play advantage if I wanted, but like,
00:44:05
Speaker
Again, my heart has always been in EDH, but if I can play Legacy, I'll drum up the decks together and then build painters, you know, mono-red painters serving, grindstone combo, or freakin' mono-red sneak attack or something. They're probably obsolete now, but you know what I'm saying.
00:44:22
Speaker
Well, no, actually none said they're not that's not obsolete I mean I haven't played legacy in a while, but that's still I mean, yeah I'm thinking of you know, you're you're also giving away a little bit of kind of what you bring to the CAG We're already standing trying to see just a little bit about you know What pieces you're gonna bring what you know when it comes to your style of play You're talking about the fact that that you know, you built the Mimeo plasm you put it into a deck that was already existing This was at a time when 60 card
00:44:52
Speaker
kitchen magic was starting to fade out. You know, that, that was what I did. I played 60 card casual for the most part, and it just morphed into EDH. To me, the pool was, I think you said, you got to play with all those cards from your history and all those cards from your childhood.
Magic as a community for servicemen
00:45:07
Speaker
And for me, I got to play with cards that I only had one of. I mean, at that point, Sol Ring was, Jesus, I mean, Sol Ring was worth 20, 30 bucks at a time. And that was that much because, you know, nobody had them.
00:45:21
Speaker
I mean, but I had one so I could at least play a deck. But I mean, it really is that, you know, to me, if I'm going to sit down and play, I like to play multiplayer if I really have it. It's the community. It's the, you know, especially during a pandemic, but I'm thinking it is that roots of the kitchen table magic. And I feel that that is where I could see just so much more the military piece coming in of wanting to play
00:45:48
Speaker
You've got limited time. You want to play something that is, I don't know, just to me, Commander lends itself to that. And so seeing that that's going to have a little bit more of a voice into the CAG and into how the game has been developing and just what the philosophy is behind it. I'm kind of wondering how this came about because I said at the top, you know,
00:46:14
Speaker
Sheldon and Scott and Toby and oh man, my mind just went blank because I was playing with them the other night.
00:46:25
Speaker
The other yeah, it's gonna hate me dougan, but I hate my name is going yeah, uh, but any Gavin Yeah, um, yeah the first name I could only get the last name which just killed me. But anyway, you know They that's part of your va culture, right? Right It completely is give me give me your last initial last four. That's the only way I can identify you um So, you know, they they have
00:46:52
Speaker
been kind of the holders of this format for a very long time. And they have been very honest about where blind spots have been. And really within the last couple of years, I think have, in my opinion, at least been making those strides to make it more representative of the broader magic community.
Journey to CAG and military perspective
00:47:10
Speaker
Well, we had the first round kind of CAG, we've had some people come on in these advisory capacities.
00:47:18
Speaker
We got the announcement of the new group, and it included, you know, like Rachel Weeks, who a lot of people knew, and Power Dragon, who's just also great.
00:47:28
Speaker
The people that when the names came out, there was all of a sudden this name, Gregory Sublon. Yeah. And I don't think, you know, I, I, I don't think I'm stepping out of line here to say that a lot of people probably were like, I don't know who that is. Right. Especially if you didn't go read the full announcement, you literally saw some tweets, you're probably saying, okay, who the hell is Gregory Sublon? Right. Right.
00:47:56
Speaker
One of the first things I did was I go and read the full announcement and I am like, oh my gosh, this is somebody from the military. And there was a little blurb about how you had kind of over the last year really been interfacing.
00:48:10
Speaker
with the rules committee and with the CAG and with the community. And so I'm curious how this all came about, basically. Yeah. Yeah. No, so you're definitely not out of line and saying that it's like, okay, who the heck is this guy Greg Saban? Totally, totally reasonable assessment. You know, and whether or not there's any backlash from, from the audience.
00:48:37
Speaker
of why I was selected. I mean, that's up to them to make a determination. Now, here's kind of what happened. My wife and I, we were planning on attending an SCGcon.
00:48:54
Speaker
start a city games convention. And we actually set up a booth at the SCGCon for our alters page. So for a good, this is back in 2019, by the way. And so for about maybe three-ish years or so, we had already been formally part of the alters community and we decided, hey, we're in the area, why not? Let's set up a booth. So we drove, you know,
00:49:24
Speaker
seven-ish hours, and I forget exactly how long it was to get down there, and we stayed the weekend in support of the SEGCon and had our booth up. And part of that experience I was privy to at the time
00:49:43
Speaker
What is it? One of my buddies who I taught at the Academy, he was a level four judge, magic judge. So back in the days, they actually had level four level judges. I think they only capped out at level three now. Anyway, this gentleman basically mentioned, hey, you should go talk to Sheldon, Sheldon Menary. Always an intimidating phrase to hear.
00:50:12
Speaker
And so, you know, I hate to admit this, and this is 100% true, but I loved Commander, but I didn't quite know who the most important people were. And so, at the time, I was like, okay, Sheldon Manray, who's that? Like, you know, now I'm like, I can't believe I did not know who he was.
00:50:35
Speaker
And so at the time I'm like, okay, okay, cool, cool. You know, I think if it happens, it happens. Sure. We'll talk to this random dude named Sheldon. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, no offense to Sheldon or anything because I love the work that he does. Okay. I'll say we try to offend Sheldon on this show as often as possible.
00:50:59
Speaker
Also, this is just my periodic reminder. If you were ever in a game with Scott Larrabee, you'd kill him first. It needs to be said. I think you're right about that. Because that game I played with him on Twitter a few weeks ago, he definitely won the match, the pod. I was playing Grothama all devouring and his... What is it? The...
00:51:24
Speaker
slumbering isle he was playing a rick smithies the card that he helped design just you see there's some unfairness that goes on so yeah so he won with that and i'm like that's awesome i love this game uh anyway so back to sheldon right sheldon i i didn't know who he was at the time so you know you mentioned the whole thing about like okay who the heck is greg suban like at the time i was
00:51:49
Speaker
So I might just be blasted. I might just be blasted in the fact that I did not know Sheldon at the point of 2019. Anyway, so… Just to say, I actually think that this is kind of the point that I think that gets lost with how social media functions.
00:52:09
Speaker
people don't realize how large these spheres are. I mean, that's the whole thing. People don't realize, I don't think, how large the military contingent of the magic community is. You know, we've got people that I can tell you online, people like Zachman86 and Dixon and Pseudo-Soldier. You know, these are people that, these are names that people know that they do know either are currently serving or have served. You know, there are some people that
00:52:35
Speaker
Or at least you know we do have creators that are known but it's not like it's known to be a huge thing it's almost probably seen as kind of an anomaly and i think it always is that idea that magic is an iceberg you know the whole thing that even mark rosewater always talks about is kitchen table magic and who really is driving.
00:52:53
Speaker
you know, single, like not single sales, but more like box sales and stuff like that is the people that you don't see in a store necessarily. And I think in some way, the people who maybe aren't as plugged in, aren't as connected to the, you know, these people in the community. And so I think it's great to hear that this is the point that you didn't know who Sheldon was, right? That's fine. That's actually, but it proves that you were somebody invested in the game, invested in EDH,
00:53:20
Speaker
invested in this format to the point where you had made a ridiculous number of decks by the time, if we're talking by now, you've already completed your project. Yeah, but it was a matter of four years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you were, you were heavily, you would, you know, we would see is heavily invested in EDH and playing EDH and building it. And you may not have known these, these particulars. And I think that that's, I think that is very important. Oh yeah. No. So.
00:53:50
Speaker
shell then I met up with him for the first time like, Hey, sir, how you doing? My name is Greg Saban. I'm here for the alters booth and all that. And I'm like, my buddy tells me your former retired Air Force, and you're the godfather of EDH. And so crazy thing was,
00:54:15
Speaker
that that so we had there was an after party that I was invited to and that's where I met Sheldon formally and we
Meeting Sheldon Menery and Magic discussions
00:54:22
Speaker
we hit it off really well we talked about the military we talked about magic we talked about family where we've been posted you know that's one of the things that
00:54:30
Speaker
you're probably very familiar with in the VA is whenever two people talk about their time in the military, they always talk about what they did, where they were posted, how long they've been in. And I got a chance to really get to know Sheldon just even in that first hour and change that we talked about.
00:54:50
Speaker
Well, you guys already had a shared language, right? I mean, that's one thing we talk about when it comes to the military. A lot of what I work with is helping people reintegrate. And this is a big part of this, is into the community. One of the things that's difficult is there's not that shared language that you have. And that's one of the things that what is a draw to the military, it's one of the strengths of the military. We can talk about how it can lead to some development of unhelpful thought patterns and everything else, but at the same time,
00:55:19
Speaker
It's a shared language. There's already a known factor. And this is how we develop friendships in general. I talk about this when I do social skills. You look for people that are similar because you already have something in common. And you have magic in common. You had the military. I could just see this. You could learn more about Sheldon in that three or four minutes than people may because there is that shared language that you already know about each other. Oh, yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what happened that night.
00:55:49
Speaker
Basically, I tried to maintain some minimal contact with Sheldon. And then I think a fast forward a few months later, Sheldon, he puts out this post on his personal Facebook profile. And he says, hey, we're putting out some feelers with respect to the rules committee and the CAG. We're interested in seeing if anyone might want to reach out and see if they could contribute.
00:56:19
Speaker
And I was like, okay, let's make things happen. And I saw that I was like, I want to try to be part of this community more, you know? And when I reached out to him, you know, I already had something going. I was, you know, part of being in the military is like, you don't approach anything without having some sort of a plan.
00:56:46
Speaker
You can't roll in with nothing. You've got to roll in with something that is of some value because if you approach a problem and don't have a solution to it, then you're basically just regurgitating the fact.
00:57:00
Speaker
Now, you know, like— And a pretty detailed plan with contingencies and, you know— Oh, yeah. Exactly. And so I sent Sheldon an email. I said, hey, sir, I don't know if you remember me. We met at SCGCOM, blah, blah, blah. You know, I was in—I'm in the Army. The Altars page and all that and whatever. He said, yeah, no, I remember you.
00:57:22
Speaker
And I sent him an email. I sent him a PowerPoint. I said, this is why I think you should consider me. If you're interested, please let me know. I have the background in being in the military, being a small demographic, being an islander from the island of Guam. You know, I'm part of the Walter community. You know, if this is something of interest that I could represent, please let me know.
00:57:51
Speaker
And I put that all together in like this four slide slideshow packet. And I was essentially trying to be ever present and representative of the culture of the military and the other communities. So that's how it happened in deliberation over the last year and a half, essentially since that time. I finally came to fruition and I can't thank Sheldon and Arcee enough for that opportunity.
00:58:21
Speaker
I'm kind of curious, thinking of this, I know how plans get put together. I know the idea behind it. I talked about the contingencies. This is what's nice to me. I've been in my role now long enough that I have a little bit better of that shared language. It's one of the things that I try to really instill with the people that I'm working with and teaching because it's helpful to get people on board. I teach a lot of problem-solving skills.
00:58:46
Speaker
The concept of an after action review is something that makes a lot of sense. So that's something I bring into every single kind of like therapy session. We talk about after action reviews because things don't always go right. I'm wondering kind of what was in that initial pitch that you put together, you know, what was kind of it? What was it that you thought was important to have people know, or to have a voice at the table?
00:59:11
Speaker
From, like you said, both the smaller, maybe the islander groups, the people that are maybe being underrepresented in kind of those smaller communities, but also the military. What was it that you wanted people to know or what you thought would be helpful if we're looking at shaping the game?
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I honestly just wanted to, I felt like there was not enough of that type of representation. Maybe I wasn't looking or researching enough into it. And I thought that that was something of value that was probably, that would probably be suitable for this revamping of the RC and KEGG.
00:59:53
Speaker
So whether or not I believe there was military or alters or small enemy or whatever, I don't know which one placed the highest priority on. But being basically immersed in the military and
01:00:09
Speaker
The biggest thing I think about the military aspect of it, the pitch, was being able to show the pulse worldwide. I anticipated that in my particular job in Japan, I would be able to be doing a lot more travel.
Promoting EDH globally
01:00:28
Speaker
Now, 2020 obviously put a whole wrench in the system.
01:00:33
Speaker
and prevented that, but I believe that if the greater good of the EDH committee could be highlighted from a road-wide traveling perspective, that would be something that would be interesting because, you know, we talk about the Navy ships that have, you know, maybe a small area of play or whatever, but I'm thinking more along the lines of, hey, if I'm in freaking Thailand and there's this shop, this game shop,
01:01:03
Speaker
You know, who knows if they're even up to date on anything, but you might have a corner out there where there's four people playing and they're wondering what kind of game they're playing and it might just be EDH. And if it is great, let's highlight that. Let's be honest. It's going to be EDH. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, maybe it's kitchen table, but maybe it could upgrade to EDH. Yeah.
01:01:28
Speaker
Well, I was thinking of even just, you know, when you mentioned your project of having that many of the decks together with those combinations, I'm sitting there thinking, you know, you get a soldier that is.
01:01:41
Speaker
expresses any interest, right? You're in a good position to be able to teach somebody to play. You're in a good position to be able to have them sit down and actually learn the game and you have decks that they can use. I mean, this is kind of that thing that's important to me that they don't have to have everything right then. They don't have to go to the store. They don't have to buy a ton of stuff. I mean, that's what I was thinking is like, it's kind of cool with you having these decks like, well,
01:02:06
Speaker
I don't want to jump to conclusions about your comfort level with people borrowing debt, but I'm just thinking, you know, that there's room for something like that that you might be able to be bringing now back to, you know, your own, your own squad or your own, you know.
01:02:22
Speaker
Now, you know, because sometimes, you know, it depends on the culture of the military, right? So, like, different people have different things that they're interested in. You know, in my time, I've had people that were only interested in fishing, you know, and that was cool. You know, I would partake in some of that every now and then, or we'd be playing basketball or we'd be playing football.
01:02:44
Speaker
or whatever when I was in a gas and we did an ultimate frisbee like every every chance we got and you're like okay ultimate frisbee what the heck are these soldiers doing like okay remember remember the discussion about if we're doing a freaking hard days of work that we swore an oath to
01:03:03
Speaker
We can do whatever we think we want to wind down. And so we play ultimate frisbee all the time. Anyway, so going back to the idea that you can just do whatever you feel like you think you're within your comfort and hobby zone level is, you'll do that.
01:03:24
Speaker
Being in the military, you have the opportunity to interact with a lot of people. Maybe in the private sector, you probably don't have that opportunity so much. It depends on the leadership levels. If you're in charge of soldiers, airmen, sailors, whatever, at least from the civilian side, you might be in charge of one, two, or three people. But it's different from the aspect of the military because you could be in charge of, at the most, I've been in charge of 140 soldiers.
01:03:51
Speaker
You know, do I have any influence on them? Sure. Can I, can I advise them, uh, or mentor them to do certain things to wind down? Sure. You know, make things make life easier. Um, and so I think that that's, that's a nice thing about, about maybe pushing the game out there is like, Hey, look, if you got nothing else going on, you know, keep yourself out of trouble. Don't, don't, don't drink and drive. You know, like we have these weekend briefings where we say the soldiers and stuff like,
01:04:21
Speaker
Hey look, it's a long weekend coming up, four days, what are you gonna do? And we always tell them don't drink and drive, don't do drugs, I'll do this and that, whatever. Sometimes people just need the physical voicing of hey, don't do this or don't do that because if someone doesn't hear it, they're probably gonna do it. Now there's the other spectrum of people that hear it, they're just gonna do it anyway and that's a different problem but I'll leave that alone. Yeah.
01:04:49
Speaker
Well, I think it is very true that I think – I mean, to me, one of the reasons I wanted to discuss with you because I love being able to get a chance to start this conversation with our listeners on military culture. And I'm hoping that this is something that we're going to be able to explore more in-depth in kind of future episodes because I have –
01:05:07
Speaker
I mean, this is what I do for on a daily basis and kind of trying to think about, you know, those strengths and the weaknesses that we get from the military and kind of the structure that it provides. Like you're saying, you know, that that structure and just even people saying yes, no. It's also to me, we're now much more comfortable in my experience that I've seen in the last 10 years in the VA with not stigmatizing
01:05:36
Speaker
quote-unquote nerdy pursuits or hobbies. And I think they just weren't asked about. It's not that I ever think that this wasn't going on. I think that there is still a belief among other, sometimes within the military and among soldiers of what you should and shouldn't be interested in. I've had veterans, they almost mention it to me sheepishly because I think they don't think that anybody who works at the VA,
01:06:05
Speaker
they think their providers are going to have very preconceived notions about what a soldier is. And so, you know, all of a sudden they kind of like let out this little secret about, well, I'm playing this game with my friends, you know, it's got, and I'm like, you're playing magic, right? And they're like, yeah. And like, it is just funny to see, uh, or, or, you
01:06:25
Speaker
So the co-worker and I recently did a whole presentation to all the psychologists about, you know, hey, here's ways that you maybe just ask about it, right? Find out what they're doing because you're trying to find these hobbies, you're trying to find these things that they may connect to. And you may not be asking about them because you're making assumptions about the fact that they're military. So you don't ask about, hey, yeah, do you watch anime? Do you go to an anime con? You know, yeah.
01:06:53
Speaker
Do you have a collectible collection at your house? I mean, you're not going to ask those questions. And I think you might ask that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for real. Yeah. I'm looking at a, so in, in the process of figuring out what it was that I put together, um, I found the, I found the file that I sent Sheldon, you know, uh, several years ago.
01:07:18
Speaker
And it's interesting you mentioned when you were trying to get some wizard support. When I did the initial research, there was this thing called the Magic Military Support Program that Watson was doing.
01:07:33
Speaker
I'm not quite sure how far that went, but I think it had something to do with the fact that if this service members were deployed, how could WOTC provide some sort of type of relief? And I think that was the goal of this program. Whether or not it took off, I don't know. But you mentioned that when you were trying to get basically product, free product or whatever. How do you bring that to these
01:08:03
Speaker
these war-torn soldiers and service members where they just need a belief.
01:08:13
Speaker
more apparent the nature of military members having other hobbies that are not normally conforming to the typical nature of hobbies, then that would definitely be interesting.
01:08:34
Speaker
We joke. We've had our
Magic as a therapeutic tool in military contexts
01:08:39
Speaker
range. We've had a bimodal range in our first couple of groups. We had a couple of veterans who were in their 50s or 60s that had been playing D&D forever.
01:08:51
Speaker
and we had people in their 20s. We also had some women that had joined our group that had never played but liked the idea. It was the same sort of thing. I approached, we had to pitch this to staff. We had to come up with a whole presentation, exactly what you're talking about. The student I was working with, the trainee I was working with, prepared this entire basically PowerPoint because we were wanting to head off any potential
01:09:19
Speaker
No, people saying no to us or saying like, well, you guys aren't going to be able to get enough people to join your group. And once we had the ability to go forward, Wizards did. I mean, what sucks is our group started.
01:09:33
Speaker
three weeks before the pandemic and Wizards had sent us dice and manuals and figures and maps and then it was literally it's all sitting in my office right now I feel like every time like but but I mean there has been that kind of we've we've I've had good experiences with Wizards
01:09:54
Speaker
recognizing that and I'm hoping that that is something that, you know, you being now part of the CAG, fostering those relationships so that we can have more outreach because I think as you're saying, there's a lot of roles when we're talking about healing and especially, I mean, obviously, me doing mental health and me doing this, there's a lot of roles for gaming in that process. Indeed. Yeah, for sure. No, that makes total sense.
01:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, I can't stress the idea that, you know, enough that there's hobbies out there, you know, if ever someone needed to just take a break from normal job and life and all that, you know,
01:10:44
Speaker
Take the time to find something and keep yourself out of trouble. The keeping yourself out of trouble seems to be what most of my hobbies are aimed at. I think as you said, it's demystifying in some ways what military is.
01:11:02
Speaker
In my experience, we've seen how military and military culture can be used. And because of that, I think there's almost mythos and almost this aura that surrounds military. And it is recognizing that it was a decision that was made to provide service, as you said, to take an oath to make that.
01:11:24
Speaker
And it still is a job. It still is something that you need downtime for. People in the military are not some, you know, Captain America, one size fits all demographic or.
01:11:42
Speaker
contingent and we need to recognize that same variability that we're seeing in our society, you're going to see in the military. There's differences when maybe why people chose to go or what happened while they were in, which is where an area that I obviously think we need to be spending the time and effort and giving support to organizations like the VA or even the outside organizations that support veterans because
01:12:12
Speaker
It was a job and that's, that's, that's what it is, is to stop treating things as a monolith. And I think that's always my kind of me on my soapbox is this, the dangers of treating things as monoliths or the stigma that becomes associated with that. And you know, the thing about it is, is like magic as a hobby for a service member, it's not far fetched.
01:12:39
Speaker
You think about where we're at in social media and everything nowadays with video games, even like that. First of all, it's a trading card game. How many times have I come across soldiers, they're in a corner of a tent. Let's say we're at a training center and we've been away for like 30 days. How many times have I seen someone just playing space? That's a card game. It may not be a trading card game, but that's a card game.
01:13:07
Speaker
The objective of it is just for your team to win. And the other thing too is, again, it's not far-fetched at all because we have recruiting campaigns that the military does where they literally have esports programs for
01:13:25
Speaker
for each of the respective services. I forget if the Marines actually had that esports program, they might be the exception, but everyone else I think does. But they literally have MOSs or specialties as part of recruiting units. We've done very well overall of cutting out on acronyms. Yeah, so Human Resources Command, HRC, they figure out
01:13:52
Speaker
that the military has to reach out to these other demographics. So the military has also been trying to figure out how to reach out. And so in that process, over the last 30 plus years or so, they've incorporated the esports programs. And again, I can't really speak too much on all that, because I'm not an expert. But I've met a few of the people that are on the esports team. And some of them do.
01:14:21
Speaker
Some of them do League of Legends or something. Some of them do Street Fighter or whatever. Some of them play Magic. I've met a full team of people that play Magic for the Army Esports team. And I'm like, you know what? This thing is out there. If it helps out, people consider serving the country or whatever great. And again, it's not far fetched at all.
01:14:46
Speaker
It's just now, since I'm on the CAG, there's representation. It's nice that we have that. That's why I want, like I said, I'm wanting people to
01:14:59
Speaker
Get some more experience with understanding what the military is and what the military means to people who have served. And also to see that this is – I am just very excited that Greg is now on the CAG. This is an area that I am excited to see what it looks like going forward, kind of what your role brings.
01:15:19
Speaker
Like I said, I'm really excited to just get to sit down and talk with you today. This has been absolutely fantastic. I am now, you know, I'm probably going to reach out to Sheldon and try to figure out when we can set up a game. I mean, I want to play over some webcam with you. You know, luckily your time zones make it so easy at the 15 hours ahead of us. But I just, I really appreciate you coming on today, Greg, and just giving the time and kind of talking about your role because
01:15:49
Speaker
It's something that's always in the back of my mind. I've chosen the job I've chosen for a reason, and I've chosen to stay within that position even when I've had opportunities to move to the civilian side or to the private side. I do think that this is a sign I've always said that military people are playing magic. Military people are playing EDH.
01:16:12
Speaker
It does have, you know, it's another subgroup. It's another community to find out with it. I didn't see this as a cool thing today. And I will be linking this in our notes. I already went and signed up for your guys's Facebook page. The alters are also absolutely fantastic. I didn't even know that side of like your hobby and your enjoyment of the game until you mentioned it. So I'm so glad you brought that up.
01:16:36
Speaker
Right on, right on, yeah. Now we've been in operation for the greater part of five years now, or even near five years. So it's definitely contributed greatly to my appreciation of the game for sure.
01:16:54
Speaker
And I would say go check out the Facebook page, the altars and Greg's Twitter. I think you said you're working on, it sounds like you're going to be a little bit more, you're being more present on Twitter and stuff now. You're not getting the horrible messages quite yet of people yelling at you. Okay.
01:17:17
Speaker
It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It'll depend on how, you know, maybe it is a good way to stay in the background because I know, I know how it is for Shivam. So, gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. No. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you again, Hobbs. And, uh, maybe we'll have you back some time to talk like more specific, just straight up military, um, to look at like the Boros Legion. That would be something I'm thinking. I've been thinking of trying to get together a round table of some military folk. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:48
Speaker
No, that's interesting. Yeah, I might also pick your brain if you don't mind, Hobbs, because again, the social media outreach is something I'm still definitely kind of in the infancy stage of developing. But yeah, no, this is great that I was able to talk with you and share my experiences and personal view about the military and the Alters community as well to your audience. Thank you.
01:18:20
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HotzQ can be found at HotzQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel Underscore. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinmoorpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinmoorpodcast at email.com.
01:18:38
Speaker
If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gospel, the cast can be found at patreon.com. Opening and closing music by Vindergarten, who can be found on twitter at Vindergarten, or online at vindergarten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raffaeo, who can be found on twitter at Steve Raffaeo.
01:19:01
Speaker
Goblin lore is proud to be presented by hipsters of the coast as part of their growing vorthos content as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you all for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.