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Episode 189: Odes to Joy
288 Plays1 year ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! We have reached the end of Mental Health Awareness Month and after finishing out talking about Mental Health Recovery and what the new Sparks could mean the hosts give some time to talk about what Sparks Joy for them. Hobbes's section is added at the end and also has a CW around grief.
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter
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.
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But 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: 988
- 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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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 and Absence of Hobbs
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast!
00:00:35
Speaker
We are here, unfortunately, once again, Hobbs-less. We'll talk about that. He just needed the week off, and so we are back.
Focus on Joy During Mental Health Awareness Month
00:00:44
Speaker
Tay and I are back to record again, talking mental health. It's still May. It's still Mental Health Awareness Month, though decided that there's been a lot of heavy stuff going on and a lot of heavy topics to talk about. So, Tabblies, your suggestion to talk about joy, talk about things that are a little more
00:01:04
Speaker
that are help, you know, helping us. Yeah. So a little happier. Yeah.
Host Introductions and Sponsor Thanks
00:01:10
Speaker
So why don't I introduce myself seeing as I talked and then use your name and haven't introduced my voice. I'm Alex found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him. Do you want to do your intro? Sure. I'm Taya at Taya transcends she her or they them.
00:01:28
Speaker
I'd also like to thank the Grinding Coffee Company, a minority owned LGBTQ run coffee company that keeps Hobbs in all of his caffeine needs. I've heard from other of our other cast fans that they've really appreciated the coffee from them as well. So I'm not a coffee people, Alex isn't either, but
00:01:55
Speaker
I've heard nothing but good things and I appreciate to have, you know, always glad to have their support. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And thank you for remembering. I tend to forget when Hobbs isn't here and I have to be responsible for that. I have had solo episodes. I don't think I've ever actually forgotten, but I have had solo episodes where I that's the last thing I record because I remember right as I'm finishing like, oh, no, I haven't done this.
00:02:17
Speaker
Like you say, I'm not a big coffee drinker, you're not, but really appreciate all the support they've given us. So for years, it's been multiple years now of supporting us and they're big about supporting gamers. So we appreciate that and want to shout them out. So thank you to them and thank you to you for remembering to do that right at the top here.
What Brought Joy This Week?
00:02:38
Speaker
And so we're going to open with an opening question like we normally do and kind of talking about joy. We'll dig into some bigger things later, but
00:02:46
Speaker
thought that it would be kind of a good opening question to just say, you know what, something in the last week that maybe was a smaller thing, just something nice that just brought you some joys, brought you some happiness. And so for myself, I'll start off.
00:03:01
Speaker
Last Saturday, when we were recording this a few days ago, was supposed to be my D&D group. We have an every other Saturday thing, but unfortunately some people couldn't make it. We weren't able to play, but a few of us were still able to get together and play some games, and I was able to introduce two of my friends to what is easily my favorite board game to play.
00:03:25
Speaker
Dice Forge is the name of the game. I have one other that I really like because it's just a nice chill, relaxed game. But Dice Forge is... Have you played Dice Forge? I have played Dice Forge. That's a pretty cool game. It is a literal Dice Builder game for folks who haven't played it. You have two six-sided dice that you use and you're rolling them and accumulating resources.
00:03:44
Speaker
But then you use resources to buy new faces to go on the die and you can pop off the old ones, put a new one on there. And so it's got some cool, you know, RNG in there. So you've got some variants to the play, but there's also some good strategy because you have two dice. There's a lot of different, like, do you try to build up one to be really good or do you try to mix things up to go for a higher, you know, higher variance, but potentially higher ceiling. It's.
00:04:07
Speaker
It was a lot of fun. In fact, my friends had so much fun. We played it and they'd say, like, let's just play that again. And so there's a few cards and things that are part of the game. And we just swapped the ones out that had alternates and we played again. And they're like, let's play a third time. So we just played the same game three times in a row and we all had a blast. So that was a lot of fun. That sounds like fun. Yeah, it's a great game. I've played it as gaming retreats that I've been involved in and
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, that was a lot of fun. And it's one that I was introduced to by a cousin of a friend of mine when they came to, again, it was for a different group, but it was another, like, we couldn't meet up, we couldn't play the normal Pathfinder we were going to do, but let's play some board games.
00:04:55
Speaker
This guy's cousin came, brought Dice Forge, and we played two games with that one, because we did the same thing. We played it, we switched out all the cards, played the other configuration. And you can mix the cards up a little more than that, but we played, we just swapped out all of them we could, and that one him bringing this game to this one session has sold at least five copies, because I bought one. Another guy who was there bought one, and I've gotten at least three friends to buy a copy of the game.
00:05:22
Speaker
that word of mouth really big in some communities like that. Very cool.
Joyful Experiences: Board Games and Farm Visits
00:05:28
Speaker
Well, um, mine would be also on Saturday. One of my partners invited me out for a cute little date idea. Something I haven't think of them before, but a local farm was doing a thing on
00:05:47
Speaker
like if you wanted to raise your own chickens. And I have no interest in raising my own chickens. I have no interest in that at all. But it was still really nice learning about it and seeing the chickens and petting their goats and holding baby chickens. And it was a really cute date idea. And I had a nice time. It was fun. It was very different for a date. And yeah.
00:06:14
Speaker
Baby chickens are adorable. That's awesome. That's so cool. Yeah. That you wouldn't think of it, but that is such a cool thing, um, thing to do. And, and I can speak for myself at least. I think I also have no interest in, in, in really even ability to do something like that, but it would be really interesting to learn about it. And, and also, you know, cute baby chickens and goats. That just sounds amazing. Yeah. It was, it was a fun afternoon. So I, I really enjoyed that. That's pretty cool.
00:06:45
Speaker
All right.
Joy from Magic: The Gathering Deck and Collections
00:06:46
Speaker
Well, then we want to get into the main topic and kind of talk about some stuff that brings us joy. I can go first if you want. Sure, that sounds like a good idea. I know you've got some stuff already set aside for that. Yeah, I got some, I literally have some cards lined up around me right now.
00:07:07
Speaker
So what I'm going to talk about is one of my commander decks. I know this was kind of the initial impetus of the idea, or the core of the idea when you mentioned it. I'm not sure where you ended up, but I kind of ran with that. And so I'm going to talk about my Zyra Irene deck, which I hope is how you pronounce that, the insect legend lady from Legends.
00:07:29
Speaker
Just green, red, black, one, two, flyer, green, red, black, tap, draw, target player draws a card. Really simple, straightforward commander, but is one that...
00:07:39
Speaker
I probably never would have built. It's a card that's interesting to me, but when I used to build commander decks at least, I was very much about mechanics. I mean, I represent sort of the male side on the cast for a long time, and then you come along and you've got a lot of male as well in you. So often a commander like this just wouldn't appeal to me, but ultimately I built this deck back in Shadows Over Innistrad because
00:08:04
Speaker
The Gitrog Monster came out and I love land. I kind of learned about myself. I really like land-centric strategies, but I really wanted Gitrog Monster in the same deck as Relentless Assault.
00:08:16
Speaker
So Relentless Assault is an enchantment where you can discard lands to lightning bolt people and zap people for three. And then, first, Gitrog, if you're familiar, whenever a land goes to a group of yards, from anywhere you draw a card, and it's got a big body, it's a big creature, but that's the relevant thing for me. So I really wanted to do that, and having, well, Gitrog is green and black, does not fit red in there, so I had to come up with, and this was well before Lord Windgrace came out, so I had to come up with,
00:08:46
Speaker
a jawned deck and I had a couple different commanders I tried but Zyra was just the best. She works really well as if I have not a whole lot going on with the deck I can play Zyra at turn three or at three mana which sometimes is turn two.
00:09:03
Speaker
and start drawing cards to try to draw into more things. And ultimately, as a 1-2 flyer, it works really well as a chump blocker later in the game if needed. At 3, it can die a few times even and be really recastable, especially in a green deck with some accelerations. But then there's also, I can play games where Zyra never comes out, and it's totally fine. So I loved that part of it.
00:09:27
Speaker
But this deck was the first deck I ever built that stayed together for more than a month or two. I really loved the deck and have worked on it. Well, Gitrog came out in Shadows of Innistrad, that was like 2015, I think. So this is a deck I've been working on for almost eight years at this point.
00:09:48
Speaker
which is just kind of incredible to me that I've had a deck together, especially when I started. I was moving idea to idea to idea, and there were so many things I wanted to build, and I would build decks, play them for one game, and then tear them apart.
00:09:59
Speaker
And this is the first deck I came to that I had so much fun. I got to keep it together through new sets. And then I got to learn what that feels like to have a new set and not just be looking at it for general things or what new legends are here, what new decks can I build, but be like, what new toys do I get for this deck that I already have and love? So that was really cool. But then what really kind of kicked that up for me was,
00:10:29
Speaker
During, I moved in 2021, it's time is weird right now, but so I moved around then. And so in the lead up to that, I went and I sold just a whole bunch of cards. I was just trying to clean up sort of what I had to move, just move fewer things to my new apartment. And I got a ton of store credit. It's like way more than I was expecting and way more than I knew what to do with. So what I started doing with this deck
00:10:57
Speaker
was replacing, I'm not a big foil person by and large, but I love promos and things. I had collect promos before, I had a promo cube for a while, I built a few commander decks that were all promos. And so this deck, I mean, there's cards that probably will never be printed as promos. So I wasn't gonna quite go that far with this deck, but what I started doing was replacing every card I could with some sort of promotional or special printing.
00:11:27
Speaker
And that also has added layers onto the joy I feel when playing this deck because mechanically, I just really enjoy it. A lot of the specific cards in it, I really like. One of these that will never probably be reprinted again is called Realms Uncharted. Are you familiar with this card, Taya? Yeah, is that the one from M13?
00:11:53
Speaker
Rise of the Eldrazi. Rise of the Eldrazi, okay. The copy I have and I believe it's only been printed once. Okay. It is gifts ungiven for lands. Right. Which if you're not familiar with gifts ungiven listeners, you search your library for four land, for this one, you search your library for four land cards with different names and reveal them. An opponent chooses two, those go into your graveyard, the other two go into your hand. Gifts ungiven is anything.
00:12:19
Speaker
Um, his ridiculous combo potential is broken in a bunch of eternal formats. Band and commander. And in commander, things like that. Yeah. Realms Uncharted though, I love because, A, it gives me Lance to play. Yeah. I was confusing it with Boundless Realms. That was the one that I was. Yes. Yes. Also a good card. And, um, I'm not sure I have that in this deck right now, but it was in the deck at some point, I know.
00:12:43
Speaker
I think that one's kind of bounced back and forth is my basic land count has gone up and down a bunch Actually, it's up recently. So I should look at that adding this again But yeah ropes uncharted I just love that card if I had a signature card from this deck It would be that card just because it's not I don't do anything broken with it by and large I mean I'll go get a bunch of like fetch lands or something like people always roll their eyes at it but
00:13:08
Speaker
It just puts lands in my hand and it puts lands in my graveyard. And those are two of my favorite places for lands to be in this deck. I mean, they're almost as good as play. And in some cases, they basically are in play.
00:13:18
Speaker
So like that one is a lot of fun. I've never taken that out. I have like mountain Valley, which is a land from Mirage. That's, that's a fetch land, but it comes in play tapped, but it's one of the slow fetches. They've never finished that cycle either. No, they just, yeah, just did the, the ally color, but this is, you know, but it also, it says mountain or forest cart. So it has the good fetch portion. I can go get my duels with it. I can go get my tries try land with it.
00:13:48
Speaker
And they've reprinted them in some commander decks. Those slow fetches have been reprinted, so I have a little bit of hope that we'll see any of the other ones and potentially some special printing of these. So that's fun. It also gave me an opportunity, which I had done early, even before I started switching out all these other cards, I put all these promo basics in because for a long time I was collecting promo basics.
00:14:14
Speaker
I had up until I quit because they're quit collecting them because there were so many coming out at sets and so many coming out in secret layers. I believe I had every promo basic outside of the church lands. If that makes sense. Yeah, they used to be. They used to be a lot lot rare and now there's some that reset. Yeah. And so like that was a lot of fun to collect those and some of these I got in fairly cheap. Like I found.
00:14:43
Speaker
It was one of the APAC lands, the special, the promo ones they did in Asia Pacific in the 90s at some point. But it was, I think it was Singapore, it was an island that just, it was one of the most glorious things I'd ever seen. And so it felt ridiculous to pay $15 for an island.
00:15:01
Speaker
that I could get for free off the floor somewhere on the hall floor. But it was like, I want this island. And that kind of got me collecting. I mean, I have the Mount Fuji mountain. Yeah, that was gorgeous. That is gorgeous. And I would
00:15:18
Speaker
I would really love to see either in a future Kamigawa set or something, if not a direct replay and another one based on like a full art version maybe. I would love to see either like Dead Art Come Back or something similar. It's just so nice. There's a set of lands. These are the MPS Ravnica lands. Have you seen any of these? This was a thing from Japan.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah, I have seen these before. These are ones that I first saw at an LGS because there's just a person who has been playing forever and has a lot of this stuff.
00:16:02
Speaker
They came out with the original Ravnica and there are basics for all the guilds in their colors. So like I just pulled out for this, I have the Gruul Forest. And so it has the infoil in the man, like the text box, you have the green mana symbol in the middle of the card, but then you have the Gruul clans on one side and then the actual Gruul symbol on the other side. It's the same for all 20 lands, two for each guild. Very cool.
00:16:29
Speaker
These are so nice. This one took me a little while to track down. One of my favorite more recent ones was the Magic Fest from 2020, because these are the ones that have the Kylam Battle Bond arenas. Oh, right. Yeah. So I have all sorts, but those are some of my favorites that I have in this deck and a few other decks as well. So that was fun.
00:16:57
Speaker
There's even a few cards I specifically put into this deck because the promo, because it was just so good. The recent burgeoning from Secret Layer. Oh, from Kellogg's Loops? Goodness. It was a specific artist feature, Secret Layer. And that burgeoning is just so gorgeous, I genuinely added the card to the deck because I love this art so much.
00:17:26
Speaker
And Concord and Crossroads was the same thing. There was one in Double Masters that... In this one, I did replace a card that was similar. I had Sarkin Voll in the deck for a long time because of his plus one that gives everybody haste, is really helpful in a deck where I'm making elementals with Angry Omnath or Titania and things like that. It's nice to be able to just drop four mana, give everything haste and swing right now.
00:17:55
Speaker
so replace and he had some other stuff but that was the main point and so replacing with concordant crossroads am giving everyone haste but then it's one instead of one instead of four it was we'll see i haven't played the deck a ton i'm i'm hoping that swap works well yeah that art from the double masters is pretty amazing too yeah
00:18:19
Speaker
Super nice. One I had pulled aside is probably one of my favorite cards on the deck is Life from the Loam. But one of the things that started my whole thought pattern of doing this was the first set of secret layers had this Life from the Loam art from Dan Mumford that is really cool looking. And so that was the first one that I put in here when I had nothing else special. And I was like, well, maybe if I find some other stuff going on, exploration came out around that time.
00:18:49
Speaker
Uh, in the first double masters and a few other things for we're around that I think cultivate the really nice looking cultivate came out in a course set around then. Yeah. The 21 course that cultivate was nice. Yeah. That's when they really started doing the, uh, more and more of the. Yeah. That, uh, that life from the loan printing is awesome with the couple of crows on the gravestone. Oh yeah.
00:19:15
Speaker
And then there's the nature's lower with the owl and it doesn't really look like a magic card. It's just so differently structured like that one. I don't even know what else is in that secret lair set. I genuinely bought it for this card that's, I don't know, like $2 in most of its printings or something. But it was worth it because this just looks super cool.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's just, I love this deck, it's fun to play, and it's one of those, like I did with my promo Commander decks I always loved, because of those in particular. It used to be such a small subset of cards. Now with Booster Fawn and Secret Layers, it's a much larger set of cards I can build better decks, but some of my first early promo decks were just hot garbage, because it was just whatever I could find that they happened to make promos of.
00:20:04
Speaker
My Riku 2 Reflections deck was not good, and unfortunately it got targeted because it was a Riku 2 Reflections deck. It's like, this doesn't work. I just want to copy Wood Elves. That's all I want to do. But like with those two, it kind of doesn't matter if I'm winning. I'm grinning year to year because it's some of my favorite cards, and they are all so pretty.
Magic Con Minneapolis Highlights
00:20:29
Speaker
So that's my thing that just kind of always brings me joy.
00:20:37
Speaker
Well, you know, I, I'm kind of bum Hobbs isn't here because, you know, what I really wanted to talk about is kind of the big recent thing was definitely, um, you know, magic on Minneapolis and getting to see you and Hobbs and person and everybody else. And just getting to spend time with people like Michelle rap, who I hadn't seen in forever.
00:21:04
Speaker
and people from all over and hang out and play games. I actually got games in, which I'm surprised. I usually, you know, a lot of times I'll go to these magic things and maybe get one or two games. I managed to get quite a few in, especially Sunday. I got in a lot on Sunday. I guess, I mean, after the panel, I didn't have a whole lot going on. But the, yeah, so I mean, that was,
00:21:33
Speaker
something big for me is just, you know, coming out, seeing y'all and, uh, spending the weekend out there was, uh, a really big, uh, source of joy for me. Yeah. Yeah, it was really good. It was really good to see. I wish I'd been able to spend more time at the, at the con, but I'm glad you got to play a lot of magic. Do you have any big highlights from the games you're playing and stuff?
00:21:58
Speaker
Yeah, I managed to villainous wealth somebody for 36 and still lost that game. That was amusing. But I did deck the person, though, that I villainous wealth. Not with the villainous wealth, but shortly thereafter. That was fun.
00:22:27
Speaker
just doing the panel, being up there with friends. And, you know, I got to, I went out to dinner with a bunch of people, including Shivam and Kathleen and Graham from Loading Ready Run and Michelle. And that was pretty, it's like, wow. I'm like with all these super cool people. And it's just like, oh, this is just me here with all these awesome people. How did I get here? Yep. Yep.
00:22:57
Speaker
No, that feeling. I know that feeling. Yeah. And yeah, it was especially hit me the, the next day when they were, um, doing their signing at the LRR booth and the line is like super long and it's like, and I was just hanging out with these people at dinner last night. Like it was nothing. And, you know, yeah, like I watched them, I watched them all the time online and it was just cool to be able to hang out with them. And like, how do I.
00:23:25
Speaker
How do I end up in situations like this? Mostly because of Michelle, I have to say. That's Michelle or Hobbs. That's how I end up in situations like that. Yeah, I know. I feel that feeling too. It's getting back to Hobbs. At events like this, sometimes it's really surreal because he's just been in the community for so long. He just seems to know everyone. Yeah.
00:23:54
Speaker
And it's the same with Michelle. She knows everybody. Do you get a chance to meet Vorphel's Mike? I did. When I gave him his two good doggos cards from the Gavin's Unknown Event, I got the Yoshimaru and whatever the other dog is. I can't think of it right now.
00:24:20
Speaker
Isamaru maybe? I don't know. Ishamaru. Ishimaru. Yeah, it's the double doggo card. And I played against Chris Cluey and he had a copy of it. And I'm like, I know someone who would really like that. And Chris was like, here, give it to him. That's awesome. And then I hunted Vorthos Mike down on Sunday and gave him the card.
00:24:51
Speaker
He was very appreciative. If you're not familiar with the Gavran's Mystery Event, it's something they started doing in Philadelphia. This is the coolest thing because they're doing it in all of the Magic Cons this year. They're all a special tournament with a twist. They start off as a regular SEAL tournament, but there's something not quite normal about them.
00:25:13
Speaker
So like this one first they they handed out that the sealed deck was some
00:25:23
Speaker
marching machines boosters, draft boosters, a set booster, and some mystery convention boosters. So that was our seal pool to begin. And on top of that, we were given sealed playtest cards. There were 10 randomized packs of, there's like, and Gavin did a video on this, so you can go watch it on his YouTube channel, which I highly recommend if you're interested because it was really cool.
00:25:47
Speaker
and he goes through all the cards. But there's 10 randomized cards of these playtest cards made just for this event that'll never be used again. And one of the things they did for this event was because of all the mashup, you know, the team up event cards that just came out in March the Machine, they did a bunch of them in this event. So there was team up cards like Emrakul and Chatterfang.
00:26:15
Speaker
And, and the, yeah, the, the dogs and like, oh, you mentioned Riku earlier. I have a Riku and Riku team-up card. That's the best. That's fantastic. I opened a Helena and Elena and Chisa and Giralf. Couple of team-up of team-ups. And I gave that one to Sean McGuire.
00:26:41
Speaker
But I thought, you know, if there's anyone who needs a card with geese on and it will be her. Yep. Oh, that's cool. But, you know, this is so cool. And then there's just other cards besides the team up cards. There's just other wacky cards like. I had incubob.
00:27:00
Speaker
which was like incubate, except it makes it makes Bob. It makes a dark confidant instead of incubate token. And when you flip them, they're dark confidants instead of regular incubate tokens. Oh, that's so cool. And it's just it's kind of ridiculous like that. And then on top of that, because it was the
00:27:24
Speaker
You know, the going through the planer battles is there is this like mini plane chase thing going on in the background where everybody who is playing was on the same plane at the same time. But the the planer things were all like really weird things like we were on Dominaria Yargle's barge and anyone could pay five mana discard a land to create Yargle.
00:27:46
Speaker
Oh my god. I was really bummed I couldn't do this event on Sunday as well because it overlapped with our panel. And I'm bummed that I'm going to miss Vegas later this year because I have a conflict because I won't be able to go again. But I highly, highly recommend it is worth going to one of these Magic Cons just to do Gavin's mystery event.
00:28:16
Speaker
Can't recommend it enough. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, that's cool. I'm glad we're talking about it because I know I talked to you about it briefly, but I haven't had a chance to talk to you about it in more detail. That's awesome. Yeah, I recommend watching his video on Good Morning Magic where he goes through all the cards because there are some really amusing cards in this set.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah, and that's what I love these events for. I think, like you say, if you can do it, if you feel comfortable, if you're in a position where you feel safe doing that, and you're able to, especially with so few cons this year, and we'll see what next year brings. But they're just able to do stuff that you can't do at a normal LGS level.
00:29:05
Speaker
And even outside of like this particular, incredibly specific event, like I did a ice, ice age sealed at a magic con almost or a grand prix at the time, um, in 2014. And that was just like, here's how they do. I think it was four cold snap to ice age packs. And, and I mean, at the time it was cheaper than those are right now, but.
00:29:29
Speaker
You just we got 17 people 17 people and a judge and all 17 of us had played when ice age first originally came out. So we were Basically just hanging out. Sure. It was you know sanctioned. It's been run. There's a judge there You know, we're doing the event but we're all just chatting We're all just you know, having fun and joking and hey remember this or hey someone pulled an amulet of quag or something which is an anti card from back have anti
00:29:55
Speaker
And they had to ask the judge, like, can I even play this? And the judge was like, I don't know. And they had to go find out. And it was just a weird thing, but it was a lot of fun. And that Gavin's event sounds like just a bigger blown out version of that type of stuff. Yeah, it was. It was really great. You know, they were doing it. It also was to raise money for the Trevor Project. So that was cool that they did that on top of it.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I, I had a really great time doing that event. And, uh, I, I got to look at that. I played, uh, Chris Cluey in one round. I played Sheevum in the last round. Uh, Sheevum wrecked me with an Ellishnorn. I went 0 and 3 in that event. I went to three games every round and just could not win a, I could not win a round.
00:30:55
Speaker
Thanks mostly to Ellish Norn on Chum's End. Also, the first round, you know Koma, right? The Cosmo Serpent, the one that makes the coils every upkeep. Yes. That Commander Nightmare card, you basically have to have an exile effect to get rid of it. One of the team-up cards was
00:31:21
Speaker
Koma and Tosky. So it made, it made Phyrexian squirrel coils. And then they dealt, they drew cards when they dealt damage. But it also was, it was impossible to get rid of just like the real, just like the real Koma. And that, that wiped me two games. So some of the things were definitely a painful,
00:31:52
Speaker
But yeah, it was fun though. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, glad that was a lot of fun and glad you had a good time. These events are great when you can go to them.
00:32:05
Speaker
Like I said, I had a similar experience in years past with like, where I would just like, there was one day I was just leaving, like it was Sunday, it was four, five o'clock, fairly late in the day, but it was like, okay, cool. I'm just gonna say goodbye to some people. And I said, Hey, you know, just heading out and he points at me, he's like, you're coming to dinner, right?
00:32:22
Speaker
Okay, I guess I'm sitting down, I'm coming to dinner. And it was like, it's just a group of people, some person or two I'd met before, but just a group of magic folks who many of whom I met through that night through mic and just with a big group. And it's just the folks who that's what makes this community so special. Sometimes it's one of the things that makes this community special. Yeah.
00:32:45
Speaker
These are these are good forums to be able to kind of blow that out, to do that in a big way. So, yeah, I mean, that was. That was. Definitely something big to bring me joy recently and. Kind of. Had a.
Post-Convention Reflections
00:33:10
Speaker
Well, I got to play a little since being home, kind of getting back into
00:33:16
Speaker
going from magic all weekend and playing and talking about it and round friends to going back to the normal way of life is always like a big con drop afterwards. I definitely felt it this time.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, me too. When I can, I try to take a day off to recuperate a little bit, recharge, but then I get back to work. I love my coworkers. They're wonderful people, but they have no frame of reference for most of my hobbies. It's things like, so how was your weekend? How was the event? Okay, it was cool, but I can't really get into very much with them because they have no idea what this is or understand it. They're just happy that I did something that was cool and fun.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, which is, which is nice. Like, it's great that they're, they're so excited about, about that with me. But, but like you say, you know, you go and you spend all weekend with a bunch of folks who you all have this common language, we're playing magic, we're hanging out, we have a lot of other things in common, and then you get to get back to the, you know, your normal life. And a lot of that is just gone. I think that's, you know,
00:34:30
Speaker
of one thing you look forward to the next thing after that and I think that's one thing that makes it hard and there aren't a lot of the things like this going on right now and there's you know we're getting some command fest and some local more local stuff but for the most part yeah they're doing the four big events during the year when
00:34:56
Speaker
We used to have events, there used to be an event going on like somewhere in the country almost every weekend.
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, and a lot more around the world, too. Yeah. You know, at this point, the non-US gets Barcelona. Cool. Yeah. Great for folks around there. But if you can't travel to the US, you can't travel to Barcelona, you're stuck this year for the biggest social events. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, nothing at all in Asia, which is kind of surprising that the
00:35:27
Speaker
or don't have anything in that market. It's a bummer for the people who can't make one of those limited events and it would be really good if they start doing... I don't see them stepping back from this big con style event now that they've started doing them. I think they're going to be doing more of
00:35:55
Speaker
this where they have, you know, a couple of big tent, you know, big tent pole events during the year and then have some smaller events like the command fest that are more regional. You know, they've got their partnership with Reed Pop now and they seem, seem like these are being very successful. So I have a feeling this is going to be what we see next year too, whenever they announce the plans for next year.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm thinking what we usually see around July ish. At least that's what we used to. I guess I can't remember last year when they announced the schedule for this year. Did they announce the schedule for this year? When did they announce Minneapolis?
00:36:42
Speaker
It was after, it was all after Vegas. I know that. Yeah. Well, and they announced the three domestic, the three domestic in the US together. Cause I remember they just doing for Philly, Vegas, Minneapolis, and Europe question mark or not. Yeah. It was somewhere in Europe. Like it was Europe for sure, but they didn't have the city nailed down. Yeah. So those were all, I think they were announced sometime around the holidays. Oh, it was that late. Because, because they were done at, they were definitely done after Vegas.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah. When was Vegas last year? Vegas was, uh, it was Halloween weekend. Oh, that's right. Okay.
Future Magic Conventions Discussion
00:37:19
Speaker
So it could be later. We'll see. I'm hoping things are a little more organized. Maybe they were kind of just waiting to see how the stuff, I mean, and I get in this, in this world, this environment after, you know, quote unquote post COVID, not actually post COVID, but post the pandemic officially designated pandemic phase of COVID, I suppose.
00:37:41
Speaker
I understand them not wanting to do tons and tons, especially if you're working, these are much bigger. They are so much bigger than the old Grand Prix's are. I mean, the amount of, if you haven't seen or been involved with one of these, just the size and like the amount of stuff they bring in for the planeswalker rooms and the props and everything else.
00:38:07
Speaker
Blows away the old brand pretties. And the space taken up, like I have no idea how big the events in the other places were, but here in Minneapolis, and I was kind of talking to you, you being there had some sense of scale, so if I can try to explain this, but they used, I would guess, a third, maybe a quarter of the space that this, a con used this year.
00:38:28
Speaker
And it, to the point where like they actually had two major sections of floor, which is not how any of the Minneapolis events have been before. It's very much, we're in this one space, you got the vendors, you got the artists, you got the tables, and that's kind of what they take up. And this time it was so much bigger. They took up a lot, a lot more of the convention center than I thought they were going to. And that's just here in Minneapolis. I imagine Vegas is probably even bigger than, than what they're doing here. Yeah.
00:38:57
Speaker
The venue they had it in Vegas in the fall was awful. Um, so hopefully it'll be back at the convention center this year. Okay. Um, but yeah, they had, they had the whole facility at the one plus, plus a building, you know, um, a couple of blocks away in Vegas and it was.
00:39:20
Speaker
It was not good. They had the whole thing was like outside waiting to get in was a giant cattle car, you know, catacall area where everyone was just like boxed in and then they would release like one gate at a time to let people in. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You were telling me about that. That's yeah. That doesn't sound very special. No, it was Vegas. Oh, it was not. It was not good. And I think that was just because they put Vegas together for the last minute. Mm hmm.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful we'll get an announcement, maybe a little earlier this year to give people more time to plan. And I'm hopeful it's going to be bigger. I don't expect it to be too much bigger. Like number wise, we got four this year, just randomly with based on no information, just my own guests. I'm guessing we'll have like maybe six or eight next year. I don't think they're going to scale it too fast because it's these things are so much bigger and.
00:40:14
Speaker
I'll be surprised if we get more than four again next year of the main cons. I think we'll see more of the smaller cons. That would make sense. That would make sense to try to scale up more events, but without on the smaller end of things that are less logistically heavy. Yeah. Yeah. That would make sense. No, I don't see them doing more than one of these every season because these are
00:40:39
Speaker
These are big. Yeah. Yeah, they're like I said, I can't believe how big this was. And that might be why there's only the one outside. You know, they also align them with the pro tour, you know, for the people who actually care about that sort of thing. So it lets them kind of box multiple things together to build. Yeah. And.
00:41:00
Speaker
which in this case works like that's that's part of why the grand prix work before it was like it was all about one big tournament but like but we have enough magic players in one place we can run on-demand drafts all day long we can run yeah weird site events you know bring in the artists and so this kind of does the same thing you hit a critical mass of people you can search it's more about we're doing a magic convention and oh yeah the pro tour is happening at the same time it kind of flips what's the main thing but
00:41:27
Speaker
Yeah. Serves a similar purpose still. Like the big thing against the small thing, but it still brings in more people and allows us to kind of package this all together to do more overall. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I think that was kind of a good overview though. I wanted to have some time to talk about how
00:41:53
Speaker
that went because last week we focused on the spark rupture and so I thought it would be good to have some time to kind of go over how Minneapolis went because it was great. Yeah, that was a really good call.
00:42:15
Speaker
This was good, and thank you for bringing up this topic. I think we're coming to the end here, so I just want to remind folks that this is still May. It's coming out probably right at the very, very end of May, but Mental Health Awareness Month, it's an important topic. It's an important thing we want to keep talking about. We make a focus of it in May, but it's a topic we talk about all year long.
00:42:37
Speaker
And we've got resources in our show notes. If you ever feel like you need help, you need to reach out to someone. There's resources and information in our show notes, please, of every episode all the time that we post. Part of that mental health is seizing what does give you joy. Find those small bits. Sometimes that's all you have and grab onto them and hold on.
Personal Reflections on Grief and Memorial Tattoo
00:43:07
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers. I believe at this point you have just finished listening to Alex and Taya talk about kind of the the Ode to Joy, what brings them joy, a topic that we thought was really important as a cast to be hitting on.
00:43:21
Speaker
As you probably know, and they did say that I wasn't going to be on the episode, and people may know from following me online or may be aware of this, just, I don't know. But anyway, this is Hobbsq, and currently life has been chaotic, and I mean that in the sense of
00:43:42
Speaker
My grandmother my last remaining grandparent who also was kind of one of the more influential probably the most influential in my life she's from England or is currently on hospice and.
00:43:57
Speaker
She and my grandfather, my papa, and she's my nan, were the grandparents I spent the most time with as a child. So this last week I was asked to go to California, come out because she has been on hospice for a couple of weeks, but there was thought that, you know, unfortunately death may be imminent.
00:44:16
Speaker
A little bit of a content warning that I am kind of going to be talking a little bit about grief, even though it's almost like pre grieving, it's thinking ahead. But I'm also going to be speaking about joy, similar to kind of what Alex and Taya did with their portion of the episode today.
00:44:35
Speaker
When I kind of found the point that we had gotten to where my, it was very clear that my grandmother was going to be passing, is going to be passing at this point, you know, it's time being what it is. My thought is by the time you hear this, I don't know. I don't know if she'll be alive. I don't know if she won't. But I was looking for a way to kind of memorialize my family and my heritage and my kind of the influences of my grandparents growing up.
00:45:03
Speaker
So let me know that I have a memorial to my dog, Bean. He was the first dog I had on my own, on my leg in the form of a tattoo of his paw print that was taken directly from an inking. And I actually also have plans to get a inked nose print from my dog, Duncan, who many in the magic community do know who he is before he passed.
00:45:28
Speaker
And it got me thinking about tattoos. So I have two tattoos to date. I have more planned. I already did have more planned. But I had been kind of realizing that a lot of what I... It took me a while to get my first tattoo. I have a Hobbs. That was my very first tattoo. It's just kind of a simple Hobbs. And I had known I had wanted a tattoo for many, many years, but wasn't sure what I wanted that to be, what it was going to look like.
00:45:53
Speaker
And so I finally decided to get a just simple Hobbs facing forward on my arm. Hobbs has been the Calvin and Hobbs in particular, but Hobbs was a big influence in my life as evidenced by my screen name and my gamer handle and basically my old screen name from the time I was a freshman in college in 98. I took on kind of the name of Hobbs Q.
00:46:16
Speaker
and in reference to that. And so I had known that I likely after studying that comic in such a way that it was actually one of the first things that ever really elicited joy for me when I was working on my, even my undergraduate degree and in papers and freedom, I was in a personality psych class and I had a teacher that let us
00:46:39
Speaker
She wanted us to look at different, either historical or fictional – and really, she was thinking novels, movies, and then real historical people – to analyze or to look at their personalities based on some of the different theories that we have around personality.
00:46:57
Speaker
And I approached and asked if I could do one on Calvin and Hobbes, which is kind of, I think in line with what I've always done when it comes to what is passionate and what I'm passionate about is I find a way to make it work. You know, I kind of threw it out there and the teacher at first was kind of like laughed about it and then
00:47:16
Speaker
was asking me to pitch it, basically. And I did. And she was very convinced that I would be taking this as an academic pursuit and not just reading comics, which is what it appeared to everybody on the outside. I mean, this led into my undergraduate honors thesis on looking at films from the 80s for accuracy of representation of mental health and stigma.
00:47:47
Speaker
I was finding a way to basically turn my love of watching movies into a thesis and I did. I graduated with honors for the work that I did with that and sadly still looking at the amount of stigma that's in films now. So this has always been something that was kind of what drew me to the field was when I could marry my love and my passions with also my beliefs around stigma, my beliefs around mental health and my analytical kind of perspective, my ability to analyze things.
00:48:07
Speaker
And once again, the thought was that I basically was using my
00:48:18
Speaker
Hobbs has always stayed with me because of that, Calvin Hobbs in particular, but Hobbs is a figure. So I had that. And then I started from there thinking about, well, my dog passed and that was something that was very important to me. He really was kind of, when I was struggling my way through grad school, I had my dogs.
00:48:40
Speaker
I found my way through. He came out here with me to Minnesota. It was basically a restart for him and I. Well, for me in particular, but I had him with me and it was him and I that first year I was here in Minnesota. Duncan joined us the next year. So, I mean, these are always these things that in my life that are very
00:48:59
Speaker
Important to me and i want a way to be able to to see them on myself and just have other people be able to see them you know i mean it's funny cuz i'm places where you know it's like they're not gonna be seen at work on my upper arm in my cap but when i run in which is you know one of the reasons the things i think about.
00:49:18
Speaker
I really have the joy of hoping that somebody sees this dog pod print and it makes them think of a dog. Or they see the Hobbs and they get, you know, that brings up or conjures some memory for them. Because a lot of what that is, is we don't know what ties people may have to these symbols. It's my symbol, you know, it's what it means to me. But I love the idea of other people being able to see it and to maybe spark something. So when all this was happening, I really had the thought of,
00:49:47
Speaker
I want to be able to memorialize my heritage, my family. And so I actually commissioned James Arnold. So some may know James Arnold from Magic. He did a scent of the worthy. He did the marari conjecture. Mainly he designed frames and did set symbols for a long time for Magic the Gathering. And I really enjoy his style and his kind of passion just as a human. I've been fortunate enough to get to know him
00:50:17
Speaker
and spend time with him and have great conversations with him that really make me think. And I knew that he would be somebody whose work I would want to be able to capture this. So I reached out to him to talk about commissioning something for my family, something that would combine elements of every one of my grandparents.
00:50:39
Speaker
And it's coming. It is actually coming. I mean, as soon as I can get it done. He worked so quick with it and he was able to take my vision or what I didn't. I didn't have a vision. I had ideas. You know, I was thinking of the concept of a butterfly.
00:50:56
Speaker
representing one of the things to do with my grandmother who is on hospice now, but just really kind of that that birth and the kind of the move from the cocoon to a butterfly is something that just really stands with me and thinking of the wing patterns and you know, I was kind of like thinking okay a butterfly that's just a very large one where wing segments could represent sagas or different elements of the family and he wrote back to me after I
00:51:19
Speaker
I had kind of filled out a pretty good questionnaire and gave him backstory and gave him information about my family and sent me a design that was completely different in what I had envisioned but hit so much more on. And this is why I love artists and this is why I value visual artists in particular. Because he was able to take the butterfly and give it movement by not having the whole image be a butterfly but be a butterfly with a backdrop behind it.
00:51:48
Speaker
He incorporated my family my dad's family were beekeepers and you know that they had an apiary I mean we have stuff with their name on it. It's a big part of even my dad's identity. He talks a lot about it
00:52:00
Speaker
you know, having old honey jars and just learning about that. That's what my family did. You know, they were, my grandfather was a mailman. My grandmother kind of ran the bee business and she was very much that kind of, that was her, you know, really big can just what she enjoyed doing and what she did for the family as well as raising, you know, four kids. And she also loved hummingbirds. So, you know, I kind of started pulling these images together.
00:52:27
Speaker
My grandfather, my mom's dad, the one, my papa, the one that I was saying him and my nan were the most kind of influential in the sense of just that's who we spent a lot of my childhood with. He worked in the oil fields and he also though is the one who made me an Angels fan. I mean, doesn't mean like forced me to be one, but he was the one who watched the Angels. He was the one who listened to them. He was the one who followed them. He was the one who talked to me about baseball from the time I was a kid.
00:52:55
Speaker
that used to take me to games and he was the one that even in kind of later in his life, you know, that was my connection to him. I would call him on the radio or I would call him on the phone just to talk about baseball, right? You know, at a time when I maybe I needed that support from my family, but I really didn't want to talk about maybe mental health struggles and everything. I just needed to connect and that's what he would, him and I would do. James was able to take
00:53:22
Speaker
And kind of like it's just the part that's gonna be amazing is this this is why it's bringing me such joys I think about it to bring that the a the big a the angel symbol
00:53:32
Speaker
with the halo around it into the background of this nature-driven design with the bees and the butterfly and the hummingbird and really kind of some beehive geometric shapes. I mean, the image itself encapsulates so much. And he was able to take that A, the halo, and bring it in.
00:53:55
Speaker
I just. It's bringing me such joy to think about the fact that this is going to be on my calf. It's going to be somewhere big and prominent that when I'm out it's going to be seen.
00:54:08
Speaker
The final elements are flowers. My grandmother, who is on hospice currently, was a florist for many years. She worked in the church, and then she actually owned her own flower business. I grew up around flowers. Anyway, she's also British, as I was saying, and he was able to incorporate both an English rose, which was also the favorite flower of my other grandmother, along with white daisies, which were very symbolic for my nan, who's currently on hospice.
00:54:34
Speaker
And while I was visiting California this past week and when Alex and Taya recorded, this image was something that I wanted to share with my family. Because they're not tattoo people, so it's kind of one of those weird things. I think that they don't always get that I have the ones I have and that I want more. It's just not really something that it was, but they all wanted to see the image.
00:54:58
Speaker
Um, my dad commented on it, who just not his typical kind of way to think about it. He was the one who gave me, you know, like suggestions, even related to his own parents, which is what I wanted. Um, my uncle does stained glass and is looking at getting.
00:55:14
Speaker
the image files when I get them and actually working the image into a stained glass piece because that was something else that I actually asked James to do was to make the butterfly stained glass now without color because I'm doing it in a black and white. And that comes from just the fact that there was stained glass kind of around both grandparents' houses when collected
00:55:36
Speaker
antiques and then my grandparents had stained glass that my uncle had done built into their their doorways and It's just it's incredible. It's just something that's bringing me incredible joy in this time when I'm also having to Prepare for the death of my my final grandparent which brings a lot with it The weight of kind of that not having a generation anymore that that went back to World War two and that
00:56:06
Speaker
You know a grandmother who came over here from the UK and like resettled here and spent her life here and then, you know, took her opportunities to she still traveled back when I was a kid and I was fortunate enough to have those opportunities to get to meet even an older generation than that, you know, I had.
00:56:24
Speaker
great grandparents that were involved, including a great grandfather in England. And I got to meet him. And so it's just making me think of this concept of generations.
00:56:37
Speaker
To me, Jen and I are a lot about kind of traditions. Our wedding rings, my wedding ring is my papa's, her wedding ring stone and the initial design belong to her great grandmother. We have a lot of pieces around our house that are memorials and being able to take that and to have it where it's gonna be something that all of you will be able to see, well, if we ever go out for a run together, it was just something that was really important for me. And it was also important for me to just come on and kind of mention,
00:57:06
Speaker
There's been a lot going on with the uncertainty of her health and just kind of chaos at home with that for both my mom, so my mom and dad who lived the closest and my uncle. I mean, we're a very small family at this point. I'm an only grandchild, so this is kind of
00:57:27
Speaker
It's my mom and her brother and me. And so it was very important for me to be able to leave to go out there and I'm privileged enough to be able to and fortunate enough to be able to.
00:57:38
Speaker
And I just wanted people to listen to this to understand that and to know, I mean, we're in Mental Health Awareness Month and in some ways it was kind of this, you know, felt like abandoning the show at a time when I know that that's what needed to be done just in terms of what was going on. However, you know, there's always still that piece of me that's going to struggle with the fact that we are talking mental health awareness, we are talking about
00:58:04
Speaker
taking care of ourselves in self-care and also feeling like, you know, I don't know, a sense of responsibility. Yeah, and that's just kind of where I'm
Conclusion and Mental Health Awareness Reminder
00:58:13
Speaker
at right now. I wanted to be able to share with you all and add this on to the end of kind of Alex and Taya's great discussion already.
00:58:20
Speaker
But just wanting people to think about what brings them joy, especially as we kind of leave Mental Health Awareness Month and go right into pride. But just we are thinking of what brings us joy. We are thinking about those pieces of our recovery that really are about, you know, we had a lot of heavy episodes this month, which is typical. We had the panel.
00:58:38
Speaker
You know that this is those are the elements that often comes up when we bring up these difficult topics But as we talked about with the panel the concept of recovery is a hope but it's a concept that there are things that bring us joy and there are things that we can be grateful for and it's important to look back at them and you know, we all wanted to kind of highlight something and I just want to I really was really important to me to add this on even though I wasn't able to join Alex and Taya and so I just wanted to say that and I wanted to thank you all for Yeah for for also coming along for the rain
00:59:09
Speaker
that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. Hobbsq can be found at Hobbsq, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel underscore Chronicler. Editing and production was done by Tom Gustafsson, who can be found on Twitter at PSG Reader. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinlordpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com.
00:59:33
Speaker
If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gobslugs, the cast can be found at Patreon.com slash GoblinLorePod. Opening and closing music by Vindergotten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergotten or online at Vindergotten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raphael, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffle.
00:59:55
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.