00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to a miraculous special episode since last week Alex Determined was so special because we have all three hosts.
Reunion of Hosts
00:00:39
Speaker
We have all three hosts for two weeks in a row. Wow. Yeah, I don't even know. This is kind of creepy is what it is. And that was the first thing in my thought, my mind was done, done, done. Is that the right vibe? And then Hobbs some creepians? Well, apparently it was.
00:01:00
Speaker
So yeah, so we are back together. We're into the swing of things. I don't know. We're heading towards consistency now. Two weeks is a... Wait, two weeks is a gathering, three is a felony. I don't know, something along those lines. Yeah, it's not the direction of that you're going out. It was twice as a coincidence, three times as a pattern. Yeah, I was going with our good old favorite text. You're going with goblin gathering instead? Yeah. Yeah. So...
00:01:29
Speaker
But anyway, welcome everyone.
Introductions and Social Media
00:01:32
Speaker
All three hosts have said hi now. This is HobbsQ, pronouns he him. I can be found on Twitter and other places on the internet at HobbsQ. And yeah, we'll at least introduce ourselves and then do some announcements. Yeah, Alex phoned on Twitter for now and not anywhere else for now. At Mel underscore chronicler, my pronouns are he him.
00:01:57
Speaker
I'm Taya. Taya transcends on most social media and pronouns are she, her, they, them.
00:02:07
Speaker
covers it for me.
Thanks and Technical Setup
00:02:10
Speaker
OK, so we want to say thank you to the Grinding Coffee Company. So we're getting these thank yous in again. We're doing a lot of cool stuff. It's just awesome. And also we want to recognize that we are not going to have an opening question today because we have spent time getting everybody's mics kind of calibrated. We all have the same microphone now. Taya has got a brand new microphone. We think we figured out
00:02:37
Speaker
how Alex's was blowing the speakers off everything recently. It's wild. Sorry about my audio lately. We figured it out. We think and hope. We'll see how this episode turns out, but it should be fixed now. My end.
00:02:53
Speaker
So yeah, so I mean, we all got kind of the same microphone thing to try to level us out a little bit better. And we want to thank hipsters because they were nice enough to send Taya out a microphone to match Alex's and I, making things a lot easier for me. And I don't know. Taya, you'll have to let me know what you think. I really like the thin profile microphone. Yeah, this is really sweet. Thanks a lot, hipsters, for providing this. Look forward to making use of it, recording with the crew.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, these ones. Yeah, I love the Elgato. So really, really appreciate it. And you know, all of us having the same mic also makes it easy to troubleshoot things because then you can, Hobbs can tell me how to fix this. So like, try this. Hey, that happened to work because you already used the mic and kind of know how to work it. So it's
00:03:42
Speaker
I literally last week was trying to figure out how to come over to your house and figure out how your mic with no changes that we were aware of, all of a sudden started being louder than anybody's. Yeah. Which is very not in line with you. So we determined it's because microphones have firmware. Yeah, it seems like everything has firmware.
Playtest Cards and Their Evolution
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, my headphones that wouldn't work with a three and a half jack without firmware updates Yeah, so Anyway, what we do want to talk about today is kind of the evolution of quote unquote Playtest cards, so we want to be very clear when we're talking about this We're not talking about another name for proxies, which is a name that people do use playtest with We are talking
00:04:36
Speaker
kind of we're mostly talking about play test cards that are meant to be modeled after what Wizards has done internally for years. This has happened with the first time that we have of it happening was Gavin's mystery events. So the mystery booster, the convention edition, one of the best ways I think they've ever had great secrecy, you know, like Gavin walking into an event with a briefcase in hand under lock and key to pull out these cards were were actually ones that had art on them.
00:05:06
Speaker
that people from within Wizards drew like little arts from and you know it was like things like form of the mold drifter like ways you could just get like every creature you played with a mold drifter. But they were designed to look like Wizards where it's basically a it's a printed out copy that gets like glued to a gets glued onto a magic card and it's what they use for internal testing.
00:05:29
Speaker
Now, since doing the Mystery Booster convention edition, Gavin starting in Philly has been running his charity events called Gavin's Unknown Events.
00:05:40
Speaker
So people haven't, this was, I finally got to play one. I think we talked about this on the last episode. Taya, you played at the one in Minneapolis? Yeah.
Gavin's Unknown Events
00:05:48
Speaker
That's right. Okay. And I got to play at the one in Vegas finally. Alex has not gotten to play in one. I have not. So, but we want to talk about these because these have been like a huge hit. I mean, these, these events are literally selling out at 600 people within like a magic event. Like, you know, these are side events.
00:06:10
Speaker
That are getting capped at 600 people and selling out two days in a row. So these are hugely popular We talked a little bit about them last time But we want to talk about like what these cards are kind of what they represent from a design perspective Alex is gonna take us on a little bit of a history lesson. I think yes, I'm Super fascinated. I won't go into details now kind of as we go through the episode, but I'm super fascinated by kind of
00:06:38
Speaker
how in a way this this kind of carries the torch from some other things that magic has done over the years. Well, let's make some interesting connections as
Unset Cards: Concept vs. Marketability
00:06:46
Speaker
we go. Let's start right there. Okay, let's talk about kind of this as your as your you know, we so we kind of I kind of envision these as being a growth out of the unworld. Yes. And I think that's a very I think that's true. I because there's a few a few things to kind of talk about with with silver border and don't want to
00:07:07
Speaker
And even calling it silver border isn't accurate anymore because the most recent one had the, was it the acorn stamp? Acorn, no. Yeah, I still think that was a terrible idea. No silver borders. I think that's sort of emblematic of the whole issue with them is they're cool in concept. I think they can be a lot of fun to play, but they are
00:07:29
Speaker
bad as a product, by and large, the Unsets specifically. And so this feels like, to me, it's filling a lot of that niche.
00:07:42
Speaker
without being a bad product they have to put on the shelf. Like this is a thing that's a, it's an event that's happening at these conventions. And like we've talked about in our last episode where we kind of talk about this version of conventions now. It makes these exciting to go to because you get to play in this weird event. It makes, so it makes the convention more of a convention. It makes these cards kind of feel, fill in that niche a little more and it's a lot more limited. They don't have to print
00:08:09
Speaker
thousands and thousands and thousands of cards and put them on a shelf and have them not sell. You fill 600 slots, two days in a row, and that's all they got to do four times a year.
Unstable Set's Influence
00:08:20
Speaker
On the scale of that, it's way smaller than even the smallest unsets that they've printed. And it's even in his name, like the name of the event is Unknown Event. I think that was an intentional callback to the unsets. Yeah. That's a natural connection. And I think that's perfect. I think it is.
00:08:39
Speaker
Um, I am also on board with the, the acorn and having some of these be legal or not, especially when some of these mechanics have been very, the ones that got the acorn to me, like we had stuff that popped into legacy with the attractions, right? And the third cards, like it's just, it doesn't, it never felt, I didn't understand why we needed to, because the cards that we would want to play, I think, I think of this as being like a commander player, like,
00:09:05
Speaker
the cards we would want to play were not those no they were still cards like borthos which had an acorn on them yep right so we can't play it yeah you still need to rule zero it to play it yeah
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, we took away our best indicator of just silver borders. Yes. Make it easy. I think that was your attempt to make it a marketable product. Yes. And they failed. And they failed. They did. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of good things that have come out of this. That was the whole point of the full art lands. I was going to say, yeah, we got full art lands. But full art lands came out of that, which turned into the extended art on cards. That whole practice came out of that.
00:09:45
Speaker
Putting something useful in an unstable was the first set where we got the borderless card. We got the borderless lands. Yeah, they played with the card borders on lands in the unsets when when they weren't really doing that anywhere else.
00:09:59
Speaker
in an contained environment on I played some very fun like we played an uncubed here in
Quirky Early Magic Cards
00:10:05
Speaker
Minneapolis. I remember one year that Eric Peters had ESP mpg. Did you get to you were in that draft? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So like they play you could make for some fun. Yeah, play environments with it contained though. Yes. Well, and what and I let's go to
00:10:24
Speaker
this tab where I have some unglued cards. So I want to talk about unglued itself, the very first, unless I'm cutting you off, if you had something else to say and then I can transition. I was just going to say, and I don't want this to sound like I'm pooping on products because I actually love unproducts. I just, I'd say commercially they're a hard sell. Yeah. And, and, but there, there's some,
00:10:44
Speaker
There's some interesting things with it, where obviously you have weird things. I'm going to talk about all the Unsets have this to a certain degree, though the later ones have tried to make it a little more playable on a whole. It was unglued, unhinged. What was the third one? Unstable.
00:11:02
Speaker
Unstable the one with contraptions like that set felt the most like a real magic set to me because i think they were really trying to say let's take mechanics we can't put in blackboard right now we can't put in the normal game because it doesn't quite fit with the rules but they're actual cohesive mechanics.
00:11:20
Speaker
You go to unglue, and there's a few cards like that. I'll get to one of my favorites that is actually 100% printed as a real Magic card later, and it's probably not the one you're thinking of. Ooh! I want to start with... Oh man, because I already had one in mind. You have something like Chaos Confetti, which is a reference to a...
00:11:39
Speaker
Urban legend. Urban legend, thank you. I was going to say myth, but urban legends are better. But you're literally tearing the card into pieces. They can't make real magic cards that do that. Not really. And so that is perfect silver port of territory. That's a thing they can't put. But that also makes it a weird hard sell. But now you have possible
00:12:01
Speaker
possibly my favorite simply because it actually works and on a male level, this is like the flavor of this weirdly is really good. The ultimate nightmare of Wizards of the Coast customer service. Are you familiar with this card, Hobbs? I am, but it has been a long time. So this card is XYZ Red Red. Yes. The ultimate nightmare of Wizards of the Coast customer service deals X damage to each of Y target creatures and Z target players.
00:12:30
Speaker
It has a blue border, which is part of it. Makes perfect sense. This is Comet Storm.
00:12:37
Speaker
Oh, wow. You're right. This is exactly Comet Storm, except this is a sorcery. Comet Storm is an instant. Yes. And you are right. You managed to not choose the one that I was thinking of. You're thinking, she stands alone. That's the class of the world. She stands alone became bearing glory. Glory, which we talked about on the show. Yes. Like four years ago when we did an Unsets episode. I also love, again, weird Melthos sort of thing, the flavor text on the ultimate nightmare of Wizards of the Coast customer service.
00:13:05
Speaker
is the old Wizards of the Coast customer service phone line and hours and that was it. That was it. Um, so I think about stuff that's because I think what you're kind of getting at is there's there's ways to use it as a testing ground, right? Exactly. And what's funny to me is we had this whole weird acorn thing and we've even had some of the cards reprinted from old ones that they still haven't like, um,
00:13:30
Speaker
There was ones that were reprinted, but we still have a ton that actually now work because Wizards has changed what
Unglued Set's Design Impact
00:13:37
Speaker
they do, but they still haven't been made playable. So Goblin Bookie, the only reason that it was silver bordered was because it re-flipped any coin or re-rolled any die. And Magic didn't have die rolls.
00:13:52
Speaker
But they do now. We have die rolls, specifically because of the D&D sets. And now, though, Goblin Bookie is still not a playable card, technically. It still is. And if you look at the playtest guard graveyard dig, that card is just Cleave. It is...
00:14:10
Speaker
If you turn up to two target black or green creatures from your graveyard to your hand, you may cast this card for two Golgari Golgari if you do ignore the bracketed text. It takes off the black green. It is just cleave. Yes. Yeah. And I think, Alex, when you were talking about unstable, we got the mutate mechanic. Yes.
00:14:32
Speaker
with kind of how they had the card set up. Sort of. Well, it's a big part of why I looked at Ikoria and I'm like, this is the most silver border, black border set I've ever seen. Because you had mutate, that's the first set where you had ability counters, where you could get a trample counter on a creature and it would just have permanently have trample as long as that counter was on it. There was another mechanic in Ikoria too, where it was like, this is just a silver border set that they found a way to make legal.
00:14:59
Speaker
One's one of the reasons I love Nyqueria, it was a fun set. But yeah, so this is a role that unglued filled, but I mean, I'm gonna make the argument that in some ways, spiritually is in the way, like you would say, this is a spiritual successor to that, or in a resonance sense, the playtest cards are sort of, I think are very directly,
00:15:25
Speaker
an inheritor of sort of the silver border, the Unset, the Acorn stuff. I think that was a direct connection and done intentionally. But I think before the Unstuff, that intentionally or maybe unintentionally goes back to a lot of early magic design in the first few sets. And to sort of bring this hinge, I want to bring up Spatula of the Ages.
00:15:51
Speaker
from unglued, sacrifice spatula of the ages, put into play from your hand any card from an unglued supplement. This is something we don't do in Silver Border anymore where you reference a specific set because cards are reprinted and that makes all sorts of weird things, but that is something they did in early magic design.
00:16:14
Speaker
City in a Bottle from Arabian Nights has been errated where City in a Bottle, the original wording of it, let's see if I can find the original wording, all cards from Arabian Nights must be discarded from play except for City in a Bottle. While it is in play, no further cards from Arabian Nights can be played. So you're destroying, does it actually destroy the permanence?
00:16:37
Speaker
I think the Oracle text, it destroys. Yeah, so here's the Oracle text. The new text is, whenever a non-togan permanent originally printed in the Arabian Nights expansion, other than City of the Bottle, is put into the battlefield, its controller sacrifices it. Players can't play cards originally printed. And I think the full actual Oracle text lists every single card in the set.
00:17:05
Speaker
because we have a organized complete rule set now that has to have this stuff. Like it just, it can't just sort of, all the rules don't exist on individual cards. Cause that's how design worked for the first couple of years. Thereabouts first few expansions for sure. Where all of the rules, there was a, there was a handful of rules in the instruction booklet about starting at 20 life and the phases, you know, the turn and those sort of the structural things.
00:17:35
Speaker
But then the rest of the rules were on the cards. How do you interact with the game? Read the card. And so there's a lot of cards from that time that just did their own thing that is wildly difficult or impossible to sort of jive with our current rules. And you have things like City of a Bottle that had to sort of be retrofit in to make it fit
00:17:57
Speaker
Just to be playable, right? It doesn't just completely have no functionality. And they still printed these all the way through Homelands. Yes. Yeah. That's a good point. Because Apocalypse Prime was not the last one that was printed like that. As far as I know, that was the last one printed. Yeah, I can't think of any others because there was a few. There were several. I think most sets had one. I want to say Antiquities had one that the Dark may not have. But some of it is the different sets were designed by different teams. They weren't, in fact, the first handful of
00:18:28
Speaker
Richard Garfield did Alpha, he did Arabian Nights, but then the next like six sets I think were not done internally. They were done by external teams. Some of them came internally and were tinkered with, but we don't get all that. Mark Rosewater's podcast covers all that. Do you know what's kind of hilarious that I did not realize until I just happened to go look up because I want to talk about, right?
00:18:47
Speaker
ways that I think they made a reference of this was in the in unhinge. They actually had the card. It was the promo card. I know this because I played in a release event as they made a release card ass whooping, which you could destroy target silver bordered permanent. So it had that same flair, right? Like it was specific to that in any game you can see from your seat.
00:19:10
Speaker
I did not realize that this was Oracle updated to include an acorn permanent. Oh, interesting. Actually is Oracle because we did away with silver bordered, but the acorn is supposed to denote those. That's interesting. So you actually have to have Oracle wording. Yeah. For a non tournament legal card, which is fantastic. It's yeah, that's everything I love in my life.
00:19:38
Speaker
So I want to talk about a couple of other older designs, and I'm going to set aside the one that I mentioned to you guys at the beginning. I'm not going to. I will mention it by name. I'm not going to talk about Chains of Mephistopheles unless you guys want to.
00:19:53
Speaker
What I would like to talk about, because you guys want to talk about these playtest cards, and that's really cool, and I want to do that. So to like speed up my little distraction, not necessarily distract them, to speed up my little section here, I want to go to a collection of cards that were in my favorite deck I played before I could really build my own decks that my dad made. This was a green, red sort of big bruiser monster deck, but it also contained a bunch of ways to play with combat. And some of these,
00:20:23
Speaker
are things that are not so bad, but some of these are really, really wonky. So like false orders, a card that I have a beta copy of that I keep trying to find a home for, but honestly, it's not that great of a card, but I love it.
00:20:37
Speaker
Let's see, the original text says, you decide whether and how one defending creature blocks, though you can't make a choice the player or the defender couldn't legally make. Play after defender has chosen defense, but before damage is dealt. So again, that is not templated right for current modern magic, but it tells you exactly how it works. All of the rules are in the text box.
00:21:00
Speaker
So like the Oracle text is basically the same stuff just cleaned up a little bit cast the spell only during declare blocker step Remove target creature defending player controls for combat creatures It was blocking that had become blocked by this creature become unblocked You may choose to have it block and attack and creature of your choice It kind of just breaks the steps down to make it a little more streamlined But it still works the
00:21:26
Speaker
The deck also had Raging River, which I'm not even going to read the whole text of it, but basically just all of the creatures on the ground have to be divided into left piles and right piles because the river cuts the battlefield in half. But any creature with flying can just fly over, so it doesn't matter. And that's what the rules tell you that. They have to re-template things to make it work in the modern rules structure, but the text in the card just tells you, this is an enchantment, by the way. It's just always in play.
00:21:55
Speaker
That was fun. But then the cards that I really, really enjoyed, and these do a similar thing, so I'll just talk about them together, camouflage and illusionary mask. So basically, these just, you turn all your, you put all your creatures upside down and people don't know what they are until something interacts with them.
00:22:18
Speaker
except that doesn't work in modern day magic. So they had to change, actually, Mark Russell likes to talk about trying to fix the illusionary mask is how they came up with morph. Because they're just like, well, what's an upside down creature? And so in the new version of this card, if you put your creature in upside down, it is a two, two creature. And then if the creature that spell becomes
00:22:47
Speaker
if it's a science damage or would deal damage, if it becomes tapped, if it's this whole thing, then it becomes flipped face up and you treat it like the creature that it is. But I loved playing with these cards that are really, really weird in today's sort of context. And in a lot of ways, I feel like these sort of wordy, goofy, early cards that had a lot of flavor,
00:23:16
Speaker
carry, you know, that's sort of been carried forward by a lot of the on cards by a lot of these playtest cards. Well, what's funny is we actually got the, you know, if we want to go back to this acorn thing, when it came into infinity, we have space Bellerin who creates sectors.
Space Bellerin and Raging River
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah. He created alpha, beta, and gamma sectors. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. That is literally Raging River. Yeah, except you have to assign things to sectors. The ones that are already there are, and the new ones get to be in sectors. But yeah, it's funny, Alex. Every time you've mentioned Raging River, I keep thinking of that card. So yeah, that's my nonsense about all that stuff. So you guys want to talk about some of those? Yeah, I do.
00:24:04
Speaker
I do think that we're kind of seeing a testing ground for potential mechanics and just exploration of cards that work with the magic rules that we're just kind of seeing what I don't know.
Mystery Booster Playtest Cards
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, you want me to give you some examples of that very directly from the mystery booster playtest cards? Yeah, from the mystery was because that's where it started that we first saw that. So there are several different dual land sort of variants. So these are not
00:24:40
Speaker
These don't have the basic land types, but there are several different lands that tap for two colors that have different variants. So there's a whole weird thing. So the reason almost every land that makes two colors comes in place more than one color comes in place tapped is because they can't have a land card be strictly better than a basic.
00:25:02
Speaker
So if this card came in untapped with no cost and it makes two mana, that makes it better than a basic in every circumstance. Basically. Not every, but the vast majority of circumstances. There are a few times where basic matters.
00:25:17
Speaker
So that's why, well, after the original Dual Ants out of Alpha, that were exactly that, where they had the Dual Ant types. Now, of course, with all the anti-color hosers and the anti-color hate cards early on, it's arguable that that may or may not have been as much of a benefit.
00:25:35
Speaker
That's why some of these cards come in tapped. It's a super easy, make it come in tapped, make you pay life, make you do something to make it untapped, or just- Yeah, some drawback, because it can't be that good. There are some of these that have some of those drawbacks, but these are different variants of those. In particular, the two I'm looking at are aggressive Craig and noxious bayou.
00:25:56
Speaker
Um, the one of which Bayou is a direct in a way, as a direct reference to the dual land from alpha. Um, so noxious Bayou is tap at a green or black. You get a poison counter. Guns and play untapped. You can tap it for two colors, but every time you tap it, you get closer to dying and way faster than just paying a life or losing, taking a damage.
00:26:20
Speaker
And this is also similar to something that, you know, I think we're also going to see a lot of these are plays on things that have been discussed within the community. Especially with the first one, this first set, but because there was a lot of discussion for years that they could just make to try to get almost around a reserve list thing would be to make ice or to make snow duals. Snow duals, yep.
00:26:41
Speaker
Or aggressive Craig, I think, is a little more interesting from a design perspective. But you're right about there being definite references. There's another card on this list that I can talk about in a little bit. That's that. But aggressive Craig is taps for red or white at the beginning of your combat step, tap card name, which means you tap this land.
00:27:00
Speaker
And that, I don't know that I've seen, and maybe it was a reference. Unlike Noxious Bayou, I've definitely seen the community talk about. But Aggressive Craig is an actual, I think, interesting design choice to try to create a new version of this.
00:27:18
Speaker
Because if you are forced to tap this land when your combat starts, you can't use it for surprise combat tricks. You can't hold it up for other people's turns. It limits when and how you can use this land, and therefore it can come in untapped.
00:27:35
Speaker
Um, you know, another one that's from that is, uh, Barry's land.
Barry's Land and Domain Mechanics
00:27:40
Speaker
So that's why you can't get deep was another way to get domain in, and it came specifically off of like a test, uh, like card of adding like a sixth color and magic or before we get, or, or had waste as a way to add another add to domain. Yes. So, so domain is an ability where.
00:28:01
Speaker
you get its scales based on how many basic land types you have. Yeah, you get a benefit. It used to not be key worded, right? It was just like tribal flames when it initially was out was just this deals x damage based on the number of basic land types. Yes. And waste don't have a base. They are a basic land, but don't have a basic land type. So they don't show the main various land waste, but came with a basic land type. Yes. And that cloud in this case,
00:28:27
Speaker
And Barry's land was was in specific was a reference to Barry Barry, I don't know his last name, was a designer who kind of talked about that. Yeah, Paul Barkley, I think is the person that they talked about. But like, I think it was like, Bill, Bill Rose, who had worked or proposed it as basically as like a land that counts as a basic land type while it's in play. And I want to say like, one of the big reasons that they didn't do that early on is because that would be strictly worse than a basic.
00:28:57
Speaker
There actually was issues they at least on the wiki and this is where but I remember this there was like rules fuzziness to do with it. Okay a basic versus a non basic. Okay. Yeah, cuz if it became is it a non basic land when it becomes a base? Yeah, there was like stuff to do with
00:29:16
Speaker
basic versus non-basic. Okay. Because that's where there were there were when wastes were originally came out, like that was part of the thing where it's like, this taps are colorless, it is very, they are basic. They are not, however, a basic land type, because whatever reason that was fuzzy, it was still fuzzy.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I do want to point out while we're talking about the mystery booster playtest cards, the art on these were all done by internal wizards people.
Unique Art Style of Playtest Cards
00:29:44
Speaker
They're all like sketch style art, and there are some really cool ones. And a lot of them are super goofy and fun. I mean, I think a lot of them are really cool, but like Noxious Bayou is not super fun. It's just a bayou that has the phyrexian symbol in it, which is ominous. Some of these are really well done, too. Yes.
00:30:05
Speaker
So because you could actually so so like bombardment was done by James Arnold, who did all the set symbols for magic and actually is a magic artist. Yeah. Like bombardment was like they had to all do it in in that style. Like it has to be like line style and be like black and white. But there is a difference.
00:30:27
Speaker
There's a serious gap between some of these words like Barry's land has a stick figure on it with a little label saying Barry and pointing towards the stick figure.
00:30:38
Speaker
versus like bombardment is like a little goblin behind like a blown out kind of like building around it. And you could tell that this is done by like an artist. Like there's a big difference. Okay. I got to read this because this is, this is a great goblin card. Bombardment is a sorcery for red until end of turn cards you own that aren't on the battlefield, lose all card types, costs, names, and abilities and become red sorceries named missile that cost red with missile deals two damage and target.
00:31:07
Speaker
You literally just turn every card that isn't in play into something you throw at somebody. Like rock. It's beautiful. I never got to play with that card. I'm kind of disappointed. I played a lot of mystery booster draft and I never got to play that card. Fun fact, I'm actually getting the little guy in there tattooed.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah. Perfect. That is awesome. That is cool, Hobbs. I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm so excited on this idea. The card's so good. Hey, the card is so good and it's fun, but this is a perfect example of those, of a card that may or may not work in the modern rules very well, but it tells you what it does and it's easy enough to just go, yeah, okay, I can do that. And you just play it and it works. Where the one right next to a high troller is one that can be played within the rules.
00:31:58
Speaker
no one in their right mind would play it. But, you know, if all targeted spells and abilities cost too less, then have their targets chosen randomly.
00:32:10
Speaker
We see the like the difference in the art, right? Yeah, we have a box blowing up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's that's like how to keep an is it? Is it made you busy? It's a it's a sorcery for a blue red hybrid banner that just says return to its owner's hand. So you just keep casting the spell over and over again for triggers. But it does nothing on its own.
00:32:34
Speaker
make it arcane in the art that's that's like oh my god and see this is another goes again to the why I love the time spiral block but also why it's not great for people was I can't remember the name of it but there was the future sight card that was an 8-0 trample
00:32:51
Speaker
Oh yeah, I have that in one of my Borlok deck because I can salvage
Imaginary Friends Card Strategy
00:32:57
Speaker
it. Yeah, and so it's a card like How to Keep an Is It Made Busy, like Imaginary Friends, which is an arcane sorcery for what in a white that creates three zero zero white spirit tokens of flying. They're cards that you just can't play on its own. It does nothing.
00:33:14
Speaker
not the good kind of nothing like a Null Rod, but it does nothing on its own. But it still fits in the rules. And in the context of I'm putting this in my deck, I know I can take advantage of it. It works well. But that's it's a goofy card design that obviously Time Spiral Block Future Sight was in normal Black Order cards, but
00:33:38
Speaker
It's a thing they don't do very often because it's hard to pull that out of a booster pack and know what to do with it for most people.
00:33:47
Speaker
I, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously biased, but they're the, the Sikh boluses council. I was just going to bring that one up. How have you not mentioned that one? Yeah. So it's funny. So these, these, you know, I, I've shown this off a few times. I don't talk a ton about it. So like the, the art from these cards, like they're all wizards employees. Like you were saying, Alex, so like they can't act. Oh, what? I think Taylor was saying that. I didn't know. Oh, sorry, Alex. I thought you said that. Sorry. Um, but they, they, for that reason, they can't be sold.
00:34:17
Speaker
Um, so, uh, with that, they can't sell the artwork because of being employees, but I was gifted the, basically the only original art that exists for sequel is this council. That is so awesome. It's all thumbnails. I'll set it, but yeah, it's all thumbnails of it as they were sketching to determine it. But like the joke is like, this is me, right? It's like supposed to be like the, like the kid that's supposed to be like the similar to like the, the, the, uh,
00:34:46
Speaker
the game like the the board game where you like you had the where you would like make call a dream date or something but it's like you have the 80s phone and the kid in bed calling bolus but the abilities are just so amazing it's a sorcery for for grixxis that at random you could get an emblem that you have to pay grixxis or you lose the game or each player describes your hand or planes walk to the pool of becoming
00:35:15
Speaker
Once there, you could roll the plate or die, but only if you're playing plane chase. So if you weren't playing plane chase, you're just now in the pool. So becoming like bullets, just for each opponent, exile cards from the top of their library until you exile a nonland, you can cast it, destroy all creatures and non-bullest planeswalkers. And then you get an emblem with you could cast nonland cards from your sideboard. It's just like.
00:35:39
Speaker
I wanted to build an Oathbreaker deck where the whole goal was to like find ways to force like hive mind and stuff to make my opponents cast it until they ended up with the emblem that they couldn't pay. That's great. Also, I had to look this up. So, Sikh Bullis' council, like all of these, there's the joke that it's supposed to be a sticker stuck on a real magic card. Yeah, it's cruel ultimatum. Yeah.
00:36:05
Speaker
So some of them, you could definitely see what card it is below, but that's the one that's most clear. It's just a C, just the first letter of it. The card is very clear on that one.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, but anyway, so we didn't manage to get there. So, you know, like, this was the first kind of way to do it. But as you're saying, we're seeing like the wide range here between probably never going to see play, but ways to experiment, as you're saying, Alex, with other ways to do lands that we could. And some of those could fit into a new dramatic design. I mean, like, one, I just saw looking through the scale destruct, scaled destruction,
00:36:46
Speaker
Four white white sorcery, choose one or more, destroy all small creatures, destroy all medium creatures, destroy all large creatures. And then in parentheses, it defines, small creature has power for power, total power and toughness for less, medium is five to eight, large is nine or more. This is very similar to board wipes we have, where those are based on casting costs usually, or just power or just toughness.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's a card that's very similar to something we have multiple cards, frankly, that we have in like austere command is the exact yes, the one I was I was had in my head. Yeah. So
00:37:26
Speaker
from there we now have basically the mystery boosters were I think I mean they were a huge hit I mean they got punished because they basically came out right before everything locked down yeah like they came out they came out two months before the pandemic almost like right around there and they were supposed to be like the big draw for the GP or the the magic fest for 2000
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, for 2020, they were going to be like 2020. Every event, they were going to be the thing and to the point where they actually made Mystery Booster that you could get at home, but they didn't have the playtest cards in them. Then midway through the pandemic, stores got some because people wanted to play this. It was fun. Presumably, Wizards had some stock they couldn't use at events.
00:38:17
Speaker
I was like, let's give it to store, which was cool. If I remember correctly, they just gave them to stores. They gave them a print run of them to the stores to try to get people back into the stores, which was really pretty cool of Wizards to do.
00:38:35
Speaker
So now, you know, where we where we're at now is now we have entered this this past year, starting in Philly, where Gavin has been doing these as part of charity events. So you usually get some packs associated with common like current sets. Each one has been slightly different. So I believe, you know, we talk about this, but I think, you know, Philadelphia is the first one that I remember I didn't
00:38:59
Speaker
I don't remember which cards were there. Minneapolis was the first one I really remember. One real quick thing just before I forget. Oh, of course. As we're going on, too. And they still fire mystery draft boosters at these conventions, too. Yes. There are the scheduled events that have the special things for those events that are made specifically only for those that you're about to talk
Pitfalls of Mystery Booster Events
00:39:20
Speaker
about. But they also have mystery booster drafts
00:39:25
Speaker
Oh, I do have to say, though, don't do a mystery booster sealed event because these are the way they do the coalition on the mystery boosters. There's two of each color in the packs and they're terrible sealed. Wow, really bad. It's really bad. I was so excited to get to play them again after the pandemic that I I signed up. The only thing they had at the event I went to was sealed and I played it. I'm like, wow, this sucks.
00:39:56
Speaker
I was thinking about doing a draft but at Minneapolis a draft is a lot of fun but sealed is the way the coalition is done on mystery boosters is not a fun time yeah and they they sell like I bought a couple instead of doing a draft yeah they've been doing it for every one of the magic cons for the they've been selling them as part of the like magic con in a box
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah, and that too. So, so like, even if you can't make it to the Gavin events, Phil, if you get to an event, or you can't make it to the events, there's ways to play with these mystery boosters still. Yeah.
00:40:34
Speaker
So these are different, right? So these so far have been only available at these events and they've been tied
Magic Con Event Decks Overview
00:40:42
Speaker
to these. Now Vegas was a little bit different, we'll talk to that in a moment, but they basically have been tied to events. Now there was overlap between Barcelona and Gen Con, but each one has been kind of slightly different. So I think that when you did
00:40:57
Speaker
Minneapolis. That was like plain chase commander, right? It wasn't commander from Minneapolis. It was March of the Machine. And it was like four packs of March of the Machine and two packs of Dominaria Remastered or something like that. Okay.
00:41:19
Speaker
but it was plane chase, right? Yeah, it was planes chase. Yeah. Okay. And it wasn't the plane. The planes were all custom planes too. Oh, see? Yeah. And everybody in the event was on the same plane at the same time. Oh, really? Yeah. So it was, it was timed and they had it up on the monitor, which plane everybody was on. And they were all really weird.
00:41:45
Speaker
um various planes like at one point everybody was on urborg on dominaria and you could once during the game you could discard a card and pay five mana to make a yargle
00:42:01
Speaker
So, but it was multiplayer, right? It was not multiplayer. It was 1v1? 1v1 at Minneapolis. And I just remembered Philly was the theme behind Philly was Mirren versus Phyrexian. And there's even cards that theoretically are based on which faction won.
00:42:24
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, which faction won for the day. It depends. Yeah, the each day had a special card that the people who participated that day only got that card. Yeah.
00:42:38
Speaker
And it was based on that. Like if you like, if the phyrexians one, it had one ability. If the Mirans one, it had another. It was like almost like all back to the, you know, like the new phyrexia where they didn't tell us what the set name was until. Yeah, it was either.
00:42:55
Speaker
Weird and pure or whatever it was or new Phyrexia. I didn't play then but I know that during the pre-release they had promos that were for one or the other and I know that because I got one of the mirrored and pure cards because it was
00:43:16
Speaker
I can't I think of it. It's just a mana rock that taps and gives you a life, but it gives you a mana and a life But it's the only printed card Christine tells me tells but yes, thank you The only card with a that expansion symbol printed on it was for that release Yeah, and you get like yeah I have like a box that was like it was a reversible box on which side you wanted it to be on and stuff There was some cool stuff. So these so you did that for that one Vegas was 1v1
00:43:45
Speaker
commander where they gave you you got double the amount of playtest cards because it encompassed all of the previous events plus new ones
00:44:00
Speaker
So you played 1v1 Commander with it because we had like Commander Legends for some of our packs, but then we had like Eldraine and some of the new things. And one of the things that stood out to me was for this event, there were cards specifically meant to go with kind of the stuff that had been out kind of at that point. So for instance, like there is, I'm like looking through mine, there's a Wrath of Oko.
00:44:25
Speaker
which all creatures lose all abilities and become green out creatures with base power toughness 3-3, all of them. And it literally has a reminder of this effect lasts indefinitely, just like Oko, unfortunately.
00:44:40
Speaker
So like, there is like actual jokes and stuff still done in these, but like, there's also a force of Rowan, which is a red force of will, except it forks a spell. I need to get a copy of that card. So you could fork. Yeah, so you get you basically you get it. You could copy any spell by doing the pay one life or exile red card, but it is specifically related to kind of like Eldraine. So they have ones that are related to what is going on right now. Force of will. Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but meant to be Rowan, right? So that one's one that can easily make a playable card. Yeah, it's just a joke. That's the reason it's in this. Yeah. And we see like that that range, right? Like Wrath of Oko is a fun take on a wrath effect in blue, right? Alex, like in some ways. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a card that by the rules, they might be able to print, but I don't know that they want to.
00:45:36
Speaker
No, no, no, it has the memory issue.
Wrath of Oko Card Discussion
00:45:40
Speaker
It has color pie, maybe, but they don't have to worry about it. If it's a playlist cards, it kind of doesn't matter. Yeah. Polymorph is solidly in blue. You, I mean, exodron, poly morphs the whole board. Yeah, but when was when everything faced down and maybe I'm not thinking of one that was recent, but I mean, there's still a lot of single target poly morphs in blue mass polymorph. You know, it's.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's fair. I mean, like the doing that effect is still is pretty blue. That's that's true.
00:46:14
Speaker
But there's, there's also ways to like, it's fun because there's before or after there are ways that they did a bunch of mashup cards for Minneapolis, which was right when they had first done those. Yeah, that was that was because yeah, that was that was the big theme in the Minneapolis ones was the mashup card. So like, I had Gisa and Garalf and Hana and Alana in my pool.
00:46:41
Speaker
And I had to deal with Koma and Tosky completed a lot, which is just a ridiculously busted card because Koma is already bad enough. Let me read how ridiculous this card is.
00:46:54
Speaker
This spell can't be countered. It's a 7-7. Let me see. They have the mana cost on here. I think it was 7 mana. They don't have it on the TCG player. It doesn't look like it. At the beginning of each upkeep, create a 1-1 Phrexian serpent squirrel artifact creature named Tofsky's Coil with whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
00:47:16
Speaker
sacrifice another serpent or squirrel choose one target creature attacks this turn is able it's activated abilities can't be activated this term common task be completed gains indestructible until in the turn so I laugh but there also is
00:47:32
Speaker
Emrakul and Chatterfang. Yes, that one though is a little hard to cast. That was 15 mana. No, it's 11. 11? Okay, so it was 11. It's three green, it's eight, but it's 15, 15, Flying Trample. That was a 15, 15, yeah, okay. Flying Trample, Forest Walk, protection from non-squirrels, because the joke has always been that like, who would win? 15 squirrels could kill Emrakul, yeah.
00:47:58
Speaker
because no protection from them that they had flying. And then when you cast Emrakul in Shadowfang, you also get 15 1 1s. If you can get to 11 mana unlimited, you deserve your apparently a 15 15 or 30 power on the board. Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:18
Speaker
But like, yeah, I have Tuthi and Zinder split. So like when you win a coin, it basically has all the both abilities, but on one card. It's really cool. It is. The fun one that they did make new that I played, which it shows you, Alex, I think templating and how we're kind of seeing these tests of things. So I played at the event that I was in Riku and Riku, where Riku was paired with Riku.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, I got a copy of that. They had a Minneapolis event. I have a copy of it. So for you are, you copy, target, instant, or sorcery spell, activate this ability only once. Or green and blue, you can copy a creature spell and activate it only once.
00:49:00
Speaker
did not realize that the once meant not like once per spell or it's per game or it's like it completely changes like maybe I just build a blink deck like but like there are these like just abilities that like you said like are my favorite was they they played with the um
00:49:18
Speaker
the names, Alex, so to make it where they could reprint, because we've talked about this with names when it comes to Unsets, right? Even within these, they did things like have spells that could be your commander, like the spells like Rampant Growth did, but they had punctuation differences in them. Oh, wow. Okay.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, because that's the whole thing that even within the difference between a silver and a blackboarder, the on and the non-on sets, they can't share names because that name is used forever. Yes.
00:49:55
Speaker
Right. And so we've talked about that before. So they had like, I think it's like, it's like rampant, common growth or something like that. Okay. There's ones that do it where they did it with spells in a way that you could like that spell was then like your commander. Okay, I mean, I guess they kind of have that I've just still I have the the Scryfall page for the booster ones, but there was a waste space land. Yeah, it's just a different car. Yes.
00:50:22
Speaker
Yep. Um, and like they, but they had like some full, cool, like plays off of like old cards that, you know, like I think, so like they have instead of riding the dilu horse, which is a fun card because it gives your creature plus two plus two and horsemanship. Again, it's a sorcery, but it's not till end of turn. It gives it horsemanship for the rest of the game, which is one of the weird, like that's from, um, portal three kingdoms.
00:50:46
Speaker
And it, it led to weird things because it didn't, it didn't fall off basically the way that they normally would for a sorcery. So they made the dilu horse, instead of riding it, you actually get to be the horse, which it has horsemanship and it gives all your commander's horsemanship.
00:51:03
Speaker
But they have these fun things like they like it has the jokes you would expect from on like my deck is about a seven, which is an instant where you choose a number between six and eight. And it deals that much damage to a creature. Now, they've also had ones related to the areas that they did. So like Minneapolis had Welcome to Minneapolis, which is a Segovian card.
00:51:31
Speaker
Whenever an opponent casts a creature spell, you get a token of it, except it's a 1-1. So you get a copy of whatever they cast, but it's a 1-1. But it's a play on Minneapolis. They did a specific one called Gen Confiter of Ages for Gen Con. So there's ways to have these jokes and stuff within there.
00:51:52
Speaker
But once again, I'm wondering, like I think of this the way that they're doing these and like gluing them on and making them to look like they are like you're the internal play testers. How much play testing are we doing?
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah, honestly. Yeah. Especially if it's a event that fighters once or twice, I'm curious how much balancing they're even trying for. How much of it is just like fun designs and goofy. I don't think they're trying for any balancing on these honestly.
00:52:27
Speaker
where they just give their own, give an honest try and then just, that's it, print it. I kind of want to know, right? Like, like, so like, I know that these are like a big part of this is like, this is definitely a project, right? Like, this is something that I think, especially Gavin really loves doing, but I am wondering what the process kind of goes into making these because they are like, people I've talked to had games that were fun.
00:52:51
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Oh, I lost. I lost all three of my games, but they were fun. I had a really good time, you know, are all three of my rounds. I went I went to game three, all three rounds. I lost all three rounds. Still had a good time. Lost to the Kamantoski. Every time I saw play, which kept showing up against me.
00:53:17
Speaker
For a card that, you know, was rare, I kept seeing it and it was a real headache. But, you know, I got the pleasure to lose to Chris Cluey and then I lost to Schieven, but so I had a... That's pretty awesome right there. Yeah, I had a good couple of matches.
00:53:42
Speaker
like I just like I'm looking at the ones that I have in front of me and like there's funny like there's like this these ones you could tell were from when they did Barcelona and they had the Lord of the Rings because there's a toe breaking helmet which is a reference to when Viggo Mortensen broke his toe kicking a helmet in the movie like it's still in there and you can see it when he does it there is a one does not
00:54:03
Speaker
which is an enchantment that simply does not simply untap. An enchanted creature has non-basic land walk. So you do not simply walk into Mordor. Yeah. But you have non-basic land walk over it. Yeah. So like there there is a lot of flavor here. And I think these designs are so I mean, they're so good from a flavor perspective in a lot of cases.
00:54:31
Speaker
I mean, the team up cards were like exactly what you would expect from the team ups of the characters. Yeah. Um, well, so like the what kicked off me wanting like proposing this as an episode was Tay and I are gonna hopefully both were still figuring out what
Mirren vs Phyrexian Charity Event
00:54:47
Speaker
the details are. But the end of the month, there's a Mirren versus Phyrexian event.
00:54:50
Speaker
that is for raising funds for people in both Florida and Texas, well, organizations like grassroot organizations kind of fighting some of what's going on there, especially around trans legislation. And I got the one card that I wanted, and thankfully, our good friend Chase opened it and they gave me their copy, which is slow bad, comma, actually just fine. Oh, God, I love that.
00:55:22
Speaker
It's awesome, right? We saw Slobad, he's basically fused to Bosch. He's in the background of the story and he has a card, but that's it. Now it's over. As soon as I saw that card, I was like, oh my God.
00:55:39
Speaker
This card is amazing, just from a flavor perspective. So basically what happens is you could sacrifice creatures or artifacts anytime something says one or the other. You can use either interchangeably. And then you could sacrifice those to put like a rebuilding counter on him. When he gets enough rebuilding counters, you can remove them and create Bosch.
00:56:00
Speaker
like you get a token of body. Yeah, nice. And like, that's like, like, I know, I'm very biased here. Like, first of all, we're talking slow bad. We're talking slow bad and boss getting to still be friends and not be corrupted. But like, that's an incredible amount of flavor.
00:56:19
Speaker
onto like a joke card in some ways. Yeah, that's a lot of work. It feels like there's a lot of work going into these things that are around for kind of one event. I mean, honestly, these are physical cards that are printed and asked around, like you're getting some, but still. That's the thing, right? Like I think we're expanding in some ways what the definition of something like Rule Zero encompasses to make these, you know, like decisions that, you know, like I have gotten some, but I have put into decks already.
00:56:49
Speaker
Now, every deck that I've put ones into, I have backup cards on hand for.
00:56:56
Speaker
But like a lot of these are ones that you know, like there is that question of like how much balance you can have. Like I kind of want to build Riku and Riku as a flicker deck to now know that like that that that that restriction that gets my mind going again. Right. Like even just the design of these have my mind like being a lot more creative and thoughtful about like wanting to play some of these cards. Mm hmm.
00:57:24
Speaker
And it's just, it's, it's a very interesting thing, like, right? Like, like, so the other part is, you know, Taya, you were mentioning before we got on, right? Like having to pull up these cards on like TCG, that's the thing right now. They're, there's not a good place to even find them.
00:57:40
Speaker
No, and or trading with like I've looked for some of them on like eBay and they're just not there's not out there there and there's not it's hard to find like fair pricing for them, too. Yeah. Yeah. The pricing is all over the place. I mean, I've seen ones sell at two hundred dollars and I've seen other ones just nobody wants. Right. You know, right. It's like right now there's two copies of Chatterfang and Emrakul on TCG player and they're both for four hundred bucks.
00:58:06
Speaker
Is that the real market price for them? Who knows? If they're worth whatever someone's willing to pay for them. Well, on that one, isn't there been some copies that have sold?
Collectors and Playtest Card Sets
00:58:18
Speaker
Like there is like a price history? No, we're still gathering sales data. Yeah. Okay. I think some are getting like I've seen. So I will say what's kind of cool. So kind of showing that I'm getting ready to send out a copy. There is somebody on one of the Facebook groups.
00:58:34
Speaker
that almost has a complete set of literally every single one. And they are scanning them in to at least send a Scryfall. Oh, that's good. OK, yeah, that's good. So people can find them out. I mean, like, you know what? Like, it's the same thing as anything, I guess. Like, it's funny, I'm calling these playtest cards that said I'm talking different than the proxies, but like, you can at least eventually get to the point where you can read what they all do and test them out and play them. Yeah. They seem like they want to be played.
00:59:10
Speaker
And if you do want to see all of them right now, the best place to do that is in Gavin's videos. He has released a video after each of the magic cons where he goes through each of the cards. Yeah.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yeah, which it's cool. I like the fact that they like for each event, they've given out like a promo card, the one from Vegas that we actually got something weird in Vegas. They actually did sign that was a little bit different being, you know, we have to go over the top. They actually designed cards that morning in a panel that Gavin did.
00:59:42
Speaker
So Gavin did a panel, like create an unknown card and they created two cards. One I think is Kevin Questing Dragon, which is a red version of Questing Beasts to make fun of keyword soup. So it's eight mana. Kevin can't be countered. Devour two. Flying Mountain Walk. Rampage two. Bushido two. Trample over Planeswalkers. Damage can't be prevented. Players can't gain life. Whatever Kevin deals damage to a player, gain control of target land they control.
01:00:13
Speaker
It's an eight mana eight eight. But there was also the like a mocks that when you cast like when you when you do use it, it taps down three of your opponent's lands that you can then use for mana that turn. So it basically is a black lotus because it has splitter second nothing is faster than it. But they designed those that morning. Him and the crew that work with them literally went and printed them out and made them up for the event.
01:00:43
Speaker
to get them that day. The one that they gave out there is called You the Magic Playtester, and it's actually a legendary that is Wooburg, but you choose a playtest card and you can increase or decrease a number of it as long as it remains on the stack or the battlefield, but it has Wooburg reveal the top eight cards of your library, put each playtest from them into your hand. It's like they're making a legend that cares about playtest cards, right? Like people are gonna play with these.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I am. I can't like vlogs my opponents let me, right? Like, yeah. I just, I like, I really wanted to do this episode because I think that having these are the things that I think make the magic con like we talked about a little bit last week. Like what makes them kind of like in some ways worthwhile to somebody like me. Um.
01:01:40
Speaker
Things that you can only kind of experience at least in this way there, right? Like that's why they should be using this money to raise, like these are perfect to have for charity events. Oh yeah. The charity event part of that too is nice.
01:01:57
Speaker
Because they're going to be signed up for. You're going to make sure that you're raising the money. But it's also a cool thing to get to do. And like I said, it gets to this evolution of the events where you have a critical mass of people in one space. You're like, we're all going to get together and play Magic here. And if you get enough people, they can start to do things that aren't really
01:02:20
Speaker
repeatable en masse. They don't really doable everywhere. But it's like, we get enough people in this one building, we can do some of these things. So yeah, I think for me, this is just kind of fun. I I'm interested to see these I am trying to get as many as I am able to pick up reasonably, because I want to see kind of how they play. I'm interested in slotting them in. Like I put the Welcome to Minneapolis is a five man enchantment, but I threw it into my clone deck. Um,
01:02:50
Speaker
There's a red white that cares about, you could choose, it's got like four abilities and it's like you choose two when it comes into play that have to do with equipment that I put into Sir Gwyn. Yeah, if people have a problem, great, I'll take them out, but.
01:03:05
Speaker
God, I really love these. Sorry. No, it's a cool thing. I'm glad we talked about it. I wouldn't have thought about it because I haven't gotten to do some of these events. I haven't gotten the most recent ones at the Gavin event. It feels like it went further than what they did in the playtest cards in them.
01:03:25
Speaker
Mystery boosters, which is kind of a thing. You test the water and then you go a little bit further when you see this is cool. Especially there where they found a more niche place to put it. They're like, we're doing these big events. That's part of what makes it these cool events where you're going to show up and you don't know what you're doing. This isn't going to just be throw a few booster packs at you and do a mystery booster draft or a chaos draft where it's just various types of packs, which can be fun, but it's like you can do that easily.
01:03:51
Speaker
This is something that can only be done at these events. You now know to expect probably that you're going to be playing with cards you've never seen before. That nobody has seen before. And not just in an old school pre-release style. These are cards that are not part of the normal magic. They exist at this event, for this event.
01:04:13
Speaker
But I really do like that tie into even old magic, which is this question of like, is this, you know, like, how is this being used for templating and testing grounds and trying out things. And in a lot of these cards too, you've a lot of these cards are very playable. Like there's not very many of these that aren't you got
01:04:31
Speaker
you know, goofy things, but especially the ones at the event. Like I just happened to scroll past one with death where it's a black mana for an instant that just as you lose the game, you can play that. That works in the rules. You just, why would you play that? You can literally quit the game at any, you can scoop at any point. It's faster than an instant and costs zero mana.
01:04:53
Speaker
but there are cards that do all these goofy things that you've been talking about, but they can put in the rules box, here's how the card works and you just understand it. Even if it doesn't fit in the greater framework of the rules, which it may or may not, I'm not an expert in the full comprehensive rules of magic, I'm guessing some of these don't fit in that, but they don't have to. I also love the fact that that has, once again,
01:05:23
Speaker
in has rulings like in in gatherer one with death like I love whoever gets to do these because it's like it says yes you lose the game yes seriously one with death has no target so a spell or ability that changes the target can't be used to have another little player lose the game but going back to my hive mind example there's ways to force people to have to like that the whole deck behind hive mind is with packs right you force that and their copy will resolve first
01:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, so that goes back to some of the other ones that don't seem to have an effect on their own, but actually, you can build around it. Cool. Yeah, that's all I have. It's a cool thing. Yeah, these are really fun, and I hope to see more in the future. So Gavin, keep doing this. You have the Goblin Lore podcast behind you. To be fair, that's like an evergreen statement I think we could make about Gavin. Yeah.
01:06:22
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatransends, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes and dreams to the Goblin Lord pod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
01:06:44
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood Gob's Hugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link for our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Gob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
01:07:12
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.