Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1139: Sheldon Menery with Scott Larabee

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

In this podcast, I sit down with Scott Larabee, Sheldon's best friend, to talk all about the man and his life. We talk about many aspects of his huge impact on Magic (it's not just Commander) and who he was as a person.

I'm not pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work at Home Edition. So today I have Scott Larabee with me and we are going to talk about Sheldon Mennery. So let me first start by saying Sheldon died, I believe, last September, September of 2023. I asked Scott when that happened. I said, would you like to come on and talk about Sheldon? And Scott said he would, but he needed some time. And that is why some time has gone by. But I was hoping, the one of the reasons I like doing podcasts is that you get into more detail than an article or something can get to.

And Scott, I know this, but for the audience, Scott was very, very close to Sheldon. So that was my first pick when I said I want to talk to somebody about Sheldon. So let's go to the very beginning. I want to talk about when you and I, which I think was at the same event. I'm not 100 percent sure. It might be. I'm not sure. We really first met Sheldon.

So let's talk about our early memories of Sheldon. Yeah, I met Sheldon at a pro tour where he was judging back in Chicago in 1999. I believe that's the pro tour that Bob Mar won, if I'm right. And I was at dinner one night, we had a staff dinner and I was at the dinner and the dinner ended and Felix Hoiberg, I think you know him, he used to run all the organized play in Europe out of the Belgian office. He came up to me and said, hey, there's somebody you need to meet. I think you should meet this person. So he took me over and he introduced me to Sheldon and his then wife Lisa, who was also with him. And we talked for, I don't know, a half hour. It was, you know, we seemed to get along right away.

He was currently, he was stationed in Belgium at the time because he was in the Air Force. His wife was in the Air Force too. And, but he was over to judge. I think it might've been his first pro tour. His first pro tour in the States, certainly. I think I recall him saying that he judged at Mites back in the day.

And then, yeah, we met and didn't really hear from him. We didn't really talk again until he got redeployed. He got moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and he got a hold of me because he was going to play in, he was going to the regional championships and the pre-release that was going on in Anchorage. We ran one up there, it was always very small, but we wanted to make sure everybody had a chance. And he said, I just don't think the guy who's doing this

is one, very good at doing it, or two, not really into it. He seems like he's doing it perfunctorily. And would it be okay if I took over? And so I called up the guy and gave him a chance, said, hey, you know, heard some things about the show that you've been running and do you really want to do this anymore? And the guy said, yeah, not really. I said, great, we got somebody else going to come in.

So I had Sheldon start running pre-releases in the regional champs up there and the state champs, because we were running states back then. And yeah, in one year, he quadrupled the size of the attendance of the regional, which meant it went from 10 to 40. That's how small Alaska was. And then once he was back in the states,

he started judging at the pro tours more and more and more. So. So... Well, so I want to jump in with my first impression. Yeah, rest is history. Because I think that this is Chicago too. I'm pretty sure this was the first event he was at. So back in the day, in the early days of the Pro Tour, I used to run the feature match area on the main days and then I would do all the production and the filming for the

final day. And so I would always sort of judge the feature match area, but I was given one judge to help me and you guys would rotate the judges. It was kind of fun to work the feature match area. So like they would rotate judges. And so I, okay, Sheldon's my judge or whatever and he comes up and he's super polite

and just super efficient. Like he was not messing around. And I just remember like from the first time I met him like he was of all the judges I think I had in the future was just the most serious like he took it very very serious. Judging was very important to him and you know and like I said right off the gate like if somebody who you could tell like it mattered him. Judging was really important to him. No I agree and it And it was like, here's the thing, if Sheldon was going to do a thing, he wanted to do it the

best he could do it. So he didn't really do anything half ass. That's not not necessarily true. He would dabble in some stuff. Yeah, but when it was something he wanted to do, he did it at 11. So and that's, you know, when it comes to judging, he did that when it comes to wine, he did that when it comes to cooking and, you know, gastronomy, he did that. And when it came to commander, he did that. And he just, you know, he found the things he liked music, you know, just the things he liked to do. He did at full tilt, and he wanted, you know, he studied them and he read about them

and he asked other people about them. You know, what do you think about this? Which I think is, you know, kind of how the commander rules committee just kind of came about. It's like, hey, it'll be great. Before we get into commander. Yeah, no, no, no, that's cool. We'll get into commander in a second.

I promise, there's no time for Sheldon and not getting into commander. But I just want to spend a little bit more time talking about the judging. Because so I met him at that event. And then I don't know how often, but he would come to pro tours on some regularity. And he was one of the regulars we got.

That's how I got to know him. And then he slowly started sort of climbing the ranks. So for those that don't know, at least there used to be five levels of judge. I don't know if that's still true. But once upon a time, there was like level one up through level five. And the reason you were level five, I think the only designation for level five is you

could judge a protor if you were level five. You could head judge a protor. You could head judge a protor, yes. Yes. And I just remember him working his way up. Like I think when I first met him, he was like level three or something. And another reason when you get higher up, you do a lot of judge tasks and helping get other judges and things.

And he was really into that. Like he really, really cared about judging and about making sure that the judges had what they needed and getting good judges and training judges. And before Commander became his thing, judging was really like what I first met him. That was his big focus. He really, really cared about judging.

Yes, and yeah, he climbed up the ranks, became a level five, and then just kind of became the de facto, not the person at Wizards in charge of the program, but the person outside of Wizards in charge of the program. And did a lot of, he did a lot of cleaning up. And he's talked about this many times, about how he saw the potential of the Judge Program.

He knew how important it was to wizards. He knew how important it was to players. He knew how important it was to other judges. And really wanted to get it on a track that meant that it was the best it could be. And so he did, you know, house cleaning is kind of not the right word for it, but some judges were no longer judges

and some other people moved up. And when he finally decided that he didn't, he didn't really wanna do the judge thing anymore, I think he was getting a little tired of the travel, frankly, Sheldon's not a big traveler. That's one of the things about Tour, there were a lot of Pro Tours and they were all over the world. There was a lot of traveling. Yeah, so he was never a big traveler. He did it when he had to. But I think he just kind of got to the point where I want to do other things. And there was one thing in particular that we'll talk about later that was becoming a little more important to him

than judging. And I think he'd just gotten to the, he'd gotten the judge program to the point where he's like, okay, I don't need to do this all the time anymore. I'm gonna move on and do something else all the time. So. Yeah. Yeah, one of my memories of this from back in the day

is we were at some event, some it's Pro Tour, and he set the guideline for the judges as far as dress. But Wizards, the staff had a different set of guidelines. And so we were at some place that was really hot. And his guideline for the judges where you had to wear pants, like you had to wear pants. And the staff guideline was you could wear shorts. And I was, technically I was judging, I was doing the feature match area, but I was, I was staffed more than I was, like I wasn't brought by the judges. And so I remember like, I'm like, show that I'm just hot, I'm going to wear shorts, I'm a staff, I'm a lot of wearing shorts, I'm wearing shorts. And oh my goodness, his brain almost exploded.

I just remember- Did he lose his mind? Yeah. He was like, and he just didn't have to sorry to make me wear long pants. Oh, Terry, you tell me no, I can just hear him. Okay, so let's get into the beginning part of Commander because you talked about Alaska. So Alaska actually plays a big part of this. Yeah, no kidding. Not only did it get him, plays a big part of this. Yeah, no kidding. Not only did it get him, I mean, that was a fortuitous choice for him, he had other choices besides Alaska at the time.

He had kind of a choice of where he wanted to get deployed. And he took Alaska, which was fortuitous, because he may have continued to be the great judge he was. But had he not gone to Alaska, it is very unclear that Commander would be a thing. Because, yeah, he moved to Alaska and he liked to play magic and he liked to play board games and he liked to play, he was a huge role player. I don't know, a lot of people, I don't know if know about this, about Sheldon, but I'm going to go off on a tangent here a little. But Sheldon had a campaign campaign not in D&D, not in Dungeons and Dragons, but

in a different system. And he borrowed, it was really his system, he borrowed the majority of it from a non D&D system and then took from D&D whatever he wanted. And that campaign, he ran, he started it, well, I think he started it when he was in Belgium, because it lasted 30 years. I mean, that that thing lasted until the year he died. He moved and he would just get new people to come into it and create new characters or take over existing characters. And he built this entire world that he ran D&D with. So like, he got there and he's like, well, I got to get a new D I got to get a new role playing group together. I got a new board gaming group. And as part of him getting involved in running events, he came across another judge up in Alaska. I am, I'm

going to, I'm totally not going to remember his name, so I'm not going to try. But anyway, they started hanging out and that guy had magic going on over at his house, so we'd go over there a lot. And one of the times he went over, these guys said, hey, there was an article in one of the Duelist magazines, I think, where somebody had written a format, you know, had talked about a format. And they kind of liked it and they kind of changed,

they modified it a little bit, which was essentially the Roots of Commander. So it it was called they called it elder dragon highlander because at the time uh it was a five player game and you you each chose one of the original elder dragons from legends and you know hunter card deck and you know there were many rules then that are not rules now, but many rules that are. And he kind of played with them and he suggested rule changes, what they did, and he felt it was better. And he told me at one point, he goes,

I think there's something here. There's something with this thing that I really enjoy. So he, as part of Judging Internationally, he brought Dex with him to Pro Tours and got some of the other high level judges involved. So they would like, when the Pro Tour day was over, they would just kind of, it was back when we had 24 hour events, right?

So we had events going all night at the Pro Tour. And so they would just kind of go off in a corner and they would, he introduced people to it. And it spread Through the judge community the pro tour judge community like wildfire this was like 2002 when he first when he first played it in Alaska been there a couple of years and I know by the time that I saw them playing it that was definitely in Philadelphia in 2005 that was skins Tour, if you remember that one. That's where I first noticed them playing because we'd finished up for the

day and I was leaving the hall and I saw all these judges like taking the pro tour area, rearranging the tables and I ran over and I said, well, what are you doing? Sheldon, what are you doing? He's like, we're playing magic. And I'm like, do you need to rearrange the tables to play magic? He goes, well, it's multiplayer. We're playing, you know, four or five people at a table. And I went, Okay, what is it? And he goes, Oh, it's this format. I've been playing in Alaska. It's called Elder Dragon Highlander. And I said, Oh, okay. And I left. I'm like, Okay, you

know, because we got permission from the show manager, blah, blah, blah. So they did it. And then the very next pro tour was Atlanta 2005. It was a team event, I remember. And at that one, I actually stayed one night and watched. So I sat with Sheldon and Geese, he's Hogan, Dike, and watched a bunch of people play and they explained the rules while they were going and I went, this is really neat. And they said, well, we're going to play another game. You want to play it?

I said, no, no, I just want to watch right now. I just want to watch. I had at that point, I had not been playing a lot of magic at that point. I had really gotten into board games. So I wasn't sure that I would enjoy it. And then at the next Pro Tour, he brought a deck specifically for me to play and I played and I really enjoyed it and it took off from there. So what was the commander

of that deck? Remember? It was Lord of Tresserhorn. 10-4. Oh, man. Yeah, that's a yeah, it was a good one. I didn't play that one very long. I started designing my own decks at some point and very quickly and abandoned that deck. But yeah, that's when that is really when he and I you know, we were I would pretty casual friends up until, you know, around that time, because

then he was at every pro tour by that point, either as the head judge or one of the the the appeals judges. So we got to know each other really well. And it was really overplaying commander at these shows that shows that our friendship really deepened. And by 2007, I was starting to go down to his house whenever Graham Pree showed up down in the Southeast, I would go down and stay with him along with a whole bunch of judges and we would play Commander, we'd go do the show, we'd go back, we'd play Commander. And yeah, that's just kind of how, kind of how we became

best friends to each other was was over that and it was convenient. We didn't live anywhere near each other, but we saw each other like every six weeks. It seemed that we were either at a Grand Prix together, or we were at a pro tour together or I would go down, you know, I started going down to his house and just visiting just to, you know, hang out, play games with him and Gretchen and all the people that he knew down in Florida. So yeah, and at one point I was going down there three or four times a year because he stopped doing, he stopped judging. So I just, I continued to go down and see him. So it was great He was at one point there was a short stretch where he was on the coverage team for the Pro Tours Greg Collins brought him in to do

Commander was starting to get big right? It was starting to hit the zeitgeist So he Greg brought him in to like do a commander set review as one of their little segments of the Pro Tour because the Pro Tours were all built around a set and so he did that for a couple of years and then then he moved on and, you know, that's kind of how we met and how we became best friends. So. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about, I sort of want to get behind the scenes. I mean, obviously when people talk about Sheldon a lot,

it talks about Commander, which, you know, obviously he had a huge impact there. But I want to talk a little bit about when you think of Sheldon, like what are the qualities of Sheldon that maybe people don't know? That like, you know, who was Sheldon as a person, you know, as someone who you befriended all and saw all the time? Like what were some qualities people might not know about Sheldon that really were, you know, cool qualities for him? Sheldon. There really were, you know, cool qualities for him. Sheldon is insanely loyal. He is not afraid to call you out on

anything. And he also he appreciated being called out. There were a couple of times I called him out on stuff he do he would say something like Sheldon really? And he'd be like, Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna get into what it was. But like, Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm not going to get into what it was. But he was like, like I said, when he wanted to do something, he he went deep, and he was meticulously deep. When he went into it, you know, he decided to go back to school at one point, because he he graduated high school, and he

kind of tried to be a musician for a couple of years, and it didn't only work out, he had to do something. So he went into the Air Force. And he was in the Air Force for 20 years and he retired in 2004. And he never went to school and he at one point he's like, hey, you know what, he was he was reading through all his paperwork he got. I remember this, they were like, you know, the VA would send him papers all the time and he read, hey, you know, your GI bill benefits are going to expire in a year. And he's like, I didn't

even think about that. Like I should go get I should go get a college degree. So he did. So he, he said, I'm gonna go get a college degree. He always wanted to write a novel and he was going to write a novel based on his RPG campaign. He was just going to turn it in, you know, he kept meticulous notes on the whole thing and he was going to write a novel based on his RPG campaign. He kept meticulous notes on the whole thing and he was going to turn it into a novel at some point, something he never actually ended up doing. But he went and got a degree in English from the University of South Florida and then he decided, I'm going to get a graduate degree. So he got a master's. He went and got a master's in English literature and with a minor in film.

And yeah, so I mean, that's the kind of thing he's like, I'm not gonna do this. If I'm gonna go to school, I'm gonna do it right. And he did. I mean, there were times when I would have to plan my trips down there around like his final schedule. He's like, oh, you can come down, but we're not gonna be able to do anything because I'm just gonna be writing. So so yeah, meticulous. He was he's just, you know, fun to be around. Like, I don't know, our our interests meshed in a very interesting way. We were both very into music, but not the same music. We had a couple of areas of crossover, but over the years we influenced each other to listen to other like I listen to a lot of stuff

that Sheldon listened to when he listened to a lot of stuff that I listened to. And he became fan and I became a fan. And books the same way we would recommend books to each other. And so he was very open to new things. He was very interested in in things he also I think one of the things that he really wanted, he wanted, he wanted everybody he was very inclusive, like he wanted everybody to be included. And I think I think commander spoke to him that way he realized at one point, I mean, one of the reasons he's he's always touted commander as Commander became this

refuge from competitive play, right? The judges all day at the Pro Tour were just, you know, judging competitive play, competitive play, competitive play. And then at night, they would sit and play this format where it didn't matter who won. What was cool is that you got to do something cool. You got to do you get to have the big turn and if you lost it didn't matter because you had the big turn. So he wanted any wanted he was very, very into inclusivity on all aspects of that and and did not abide anybody trying to gatekeep or anything like that. He wanted everybody to be able to play commander you He wanted everybody to be able to judge.

He was very, I know in the later years of the judge program, he was very, very determined to get more women into judging and get more people of color into judging and to get more LGBTQ people into judging. And the same with Commander. I mean, he really wanted everybody to be able to play. He goes, magic is a universal game. There's no, everybody should love this game.

And he felt Commander was a format that spoke to that because it, because it allowed you to express yourself. You know, you're not necessarily, you know, we always say, I mean, I try to win every game in Commander I play. But it's not the most important thing. Of course it's a game. Of course you're trying to win. But like more important was to have fun and to gather, to be together with some people. And the best

games of Commander I ever had were not about what took place on the table. They were about the conversations we had while it was going on. Whether it was about the game or about Commander or about movies or about books or about food. It could have been anything. It didn't matter. And those were great. And some of the best games were when it was somebody, you know, three people at the table that knew each other, like me, Sheldon and somebody else like Toby Elliot. And then we bring a fourth person in that didn't know any of us, you know.

And by the end of the game, we were all chums because everybody got their say and got to do their thing. And was just fun. So yeah, those are I think those are the aspects of the aspects of Sheldon that I liked. There were you know, were the things about Sheldon I didn't like a bit. He's arrogant. He was arrogant as hell. He knew what he knew. And he liked to let people know what he knew. And sometimes it rubbed me the wrong way but that was a minor thing and that you know often the thing I called him out on was something like that. So one of the interesting, another part of the story here is he had a bucket list. He had things that he wanted to do.

You talked about he went to school. So one of his bucket lists was he wanted to work at Wizards. And so he came and he was in R&D three, four months. It was a um, yeah, he came and he was on a commander design team. He was on the strict saving commander design team. He did a bunch of things and he did. Yeah, but yeah, he did that. I mean, I was I was at the show when he talked to Gavin Burje about it. And Gavin's told the story about how, you know, Gavin asked him

with anything you anything in magic you haven't done? He goes, yeah, I'd like to be honest. I'd like to come to work with wizards for a bit. Gavin's like, I'll get back to you. And the next thing you know, it was happening. So it was great. Yeah, it was really interesting. Probably the longest conversations I had with him were we'd be in the pit and we talked through stuff. One of the things I spend a lot of time on is like, there's a lot of things we have to care about

behind the scenes that like, the players don't necessarily care about, but we gotta care about, but we gotta make magic sets and- Oh, I know. You know, and a lot of times you're just talking through like, you know, here's ramifications. Like Commander has been awesome for the game

in the sense that it's opened all sorts of stuff up and done really, really great things for magic. But But only bully didn't up cut the apple carton already Like just it just required us changing a whole bunch of things to figure out, you know, and I know magic magic constantly evolves That's the nature of the game. So that is fine, but you know, it always has that's People understand it wasn't commander wasn't the thing that changed magic. It had changed a lot over the years. Yeah, I mean Commander wasn't the thing that changed magic. It had changed a lot over the years. I mean, just go back and look at a set like Legends and compare it to something else now.

And you're just like, remember how excited we were when Legends came out? Oh yeah, yeah. We just did a, there's a promotional video that's coming I don't know if it's out yet, but where I opened a booster, Aaron and I each did it with somebody who had not been born when Legends came out. And we were walking through and talking about it, it's kind of fun.

Right. And to see people who've started the game in the modern era, and by that I mean maybe since 2012, right? Just, they go, you guys wanted to buy this? I mean, there's just, you know, now when you look at I mean, I'm from a commander standpoint, I, you know, I always am building new decks and updating my decks and I always look and I mean, I think there's only like five legends cards I've ever put in decks. It's just, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's very high variance.

I mean, there's a few really cool cards. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of like, why would you put this on cardboard cards? And also there were cards that were good when it came out that are just not good now under modern design. They just were like, oh they just over, you know, they're just, they're they're not, they're over costed for today's game. And so people are like, well I'm not gonna play

that, it costs seven. It's like, well yeah if we made it now it would cost four. But it's just, you know, it's just the way it goes. So, I was really happy that he came to White Wizards. That was a nice... It allowed me to interact with him in a way that I had never interacted before, which is really cool. He said that it was one of the most fun things he ever did. It was enlightening to him. He would tell people this afterwards. He said, what was it like? He goes, it was so cool just because the day wasn't for him, you know, maybe for him a little bit, it wasn't structured. Like he liked to talk about meerkat moments in R&D where somebody would kind of say something and then people would kind of pop up from

the cube walls and start engaging in it. The next thing you know, there's this whole conversation going on. And so he realized that really early and he's like, he purposefully would start a discussion about something because he knew he could, you know, so he enjoyed it a lot. It was not easy on him. He was going through chemo at the time, because I know, cause I would, you know, he would fly back and do his chemo and then he would turn right around and come back and I was taking him and picking him up at the airport.

So I know we, I'd pick him up late, you know, late on a Sunday night and we would go eat and then I'd drop him off the house where he was staying and you know, I'd pick him up and I'd also he was staying right near me, which was also right near the office. So I would pick him up every day, drive to work. I'd drive him home. It was, yeah, it was, it was fun. It was, it near the office. So I would pick him up every day, drive to work, I'd drive him home. It was, yeah, it was fun. It was really cool. I mean, you know, other than the times

when we were on the road or I was down at his house staying, you know, we got to see each other daily, which was great for, you know, long stretches, which was really nice. So we're almost out of time here. So let's get to the end of our story. Sure. The sad part of our story. I remember, so I was actually, so let's get to the end of our story. Sure. The sad part of our story.

I remember, so I was actually, interesting, I was visiting my dad, who recently actually died also. And I remember, I was like, okay, I'm not gonna do magic. I'm gonna shut magic off. I'm here visiting my dad. And then I saw on my phone that Sheldon died. I'm like, oh, I ended up having to do a bunch of stuff just because like, you know, the,

I mean, the community, like I said, I have not seen the community react like they did when Sheldon died. Like the just, the sheer outpouring of emotion was voluminous. I mean, it was like, I felt like obligated, like I had, you know, thereated, like I had, you know, like there were just so many people that, you know, and I had done a podcast with Sheldon that, you know, that

I like, one of the things that's really nice for me having people that matter to me die is some of them I actually had a chance to like have a podcast with. It was really cool that, you know, like my podcast with Sheldon went great. Like it really was about Sheldon. I'm like, if you never listened to it, I have a podcast, me interviewing Sheldon went great like it really was about Sheldon. I'm like if you've never listened to it I have a podcast me interviewing Sheldon really it's just about Sheldon I mean me talking Sheldon but it's really about him and his life so this is sort of us talking about him but if you want to hear Sheldon from Sheldon that exists which is cool. Sure I can imagine I could just imagine that thing you probably just said hey Sheldon tell

me about yourself and 45 minutes later you stopped talking stopped talking. Yeah, it was, it was interesting. I had at Pro Tour Barcelona last summer, I had literally just landed in Barcelona and I was going to dinner funny thing with Jot Brower and geese, Ogendyke, who happened to be in Barcelona, they weren't coming to the show, but they were there. And while I was waiting for them to show up at the restaurant, Gretchen called me and said, you know, he's not doing well. And the doctors have basically said there's nothing more that they can do. So he basically went on hospice care at that point. And by the end of the show, I,

I actually flew home, flew home and then like the next morning flew back to Florida. And I was down there for about five weeks. I you know, one of the cool one of the good things about about COVID was that we all figured out how to work remotely. And I realized I could work remotely from down there. It wasn't gonna be a problem. So I went down there for five weeks. And because, you know, Gretchen said, you know, if you wanna spend some time with them, you should probably get down here because it could happen at any point.

So I went down and I spent, you know, like I said, I spent five weeks there and then it was getting to the point where, you know, we were gonna have the next world championship was gonna be taking place in Las Vegas. And he was doing really well. And so I said, look, I'm gonna go back. He's like, you absolutely have to go back.

I understand. You've gotta get ready for your show. You gotta do your job. And when you're done, you can come back. And I said, yes, absolutely. I said, I will be back. And he goes, and I'll be here. And I got home and five days later,

Gretchen called me one evening, the phone rang and it was her and I went, I just, I knew the minute I saw it was her. I knew and she told me and she said, I don't want this to break wide. I'll take care of it in a couple of days. I'll post something on my Facebook in a couple of days. Well, she did it the next morning.

And I was still in bed and my phone was blowing up. And I went, and I knew immediately she had posted something or word had gotten out. So it was a rough day where I spent a lot of time replying to Facebook and Twitter messages and texts from people offering me their condolences because they knew that we were good friends. Sheldon told people he would often introduce me by saying Scott is my best friend who is not my wife.

He was absolutely my best friend too. And I miss him every day. So it's been we're getting you know, we're getting on to what eight months, eight and nine months and every day there's some point during the day when I'll see something and I almost reach for my mouse to send him a message and discord or to send him a text and I have to stop myself and go right, I can't. So it's been rough, but things are getting better and better. You know, the the the times that I get to spawned and over him gone, the the iteration time between those is longer and

longer. I know your I know your dad just died died recently and I met your dad a few times back when we were both living back in LA going to the same tournaments. And yeah, your dad was a great guy and I hope that you're doing well and taking care of yourself and doing what you need to do and it'll get better. My mom actually said something that spoke to me, that grief is a sign of love. It is. It is. Yeah.

Absolutely. One thing that's very nice looking at Sheldon was, I felt the same way my dad in a different way. The impact that Sheldon had was large. One of the things I always talk about, when someone dies someone dies that I think I called the it's a wonderful life Moment, right? Yeah, I'm like what would life what would the world been like that person just never existed, right? You know, yeah, and I mean Sheldon's impact was huge You know, I just the number of people the number of relationships and the things that

Existed because he existed is just so big and so yeah I mean, I am I am sad he died. But you know, I would rather have what happened, IE meeting him and being a friend with him than not. I'll take the time I got. So do I want more? Sure. I want more.

Yeah. You know, but it's you know, one of the cool things is like by being around him, I made a bunch of new friends. Dee Dee, my wife and I are actually, we're flying down next Friday to go visit Gretchen. We're going to go down and stay with her for a week because I've made so many friends down in Florida that, you know, I've got a whole, I've got gaming groups down there of people I can play with and people that I can go eat with and it's great.

So I will continue to go down and visit those people for as long as they are down there because, and I met them all through Sheldon. And without that, my world would be smaller. So anyway, to wrap up today, yeah, my main goal with today's podcast was just let people know a little bit more about Sheldon, have a little better sense of who he was.

I have a lot of positive memories. And it's very funny that, you know, I was probably closer to Sheldon than you were, but he and I coexisted for a lot of years and so I had a lot of interactions with him and so, you know, it was always... I really, really enjoyed... I love people that like believe what they believe and stand up for it and you can have really just spirited conversations with them. A lot of my fun times with Sheldon was just, we didn't always agree on everything but... Oh, I know. Whenever he had a knockdown drag out with you, he would get a hold of me later and tell

me about it. But like I said, some of my favorite times with Sheldon was just having knockout arguments with him and not no and it was yeah me too I would have arguments with him and but there's but there was always I mean I'm sure it was with you and me it was mutual respect like we didn't agree and we were going to agree that we didn't agree but the debate was lively and fun. Yes very much Yeah, and so let's end today as one to say a tip of the hat to Sheldon. Um, Like I said, I mean and not just commander I mean the judging program, you know, like had a huge influence there

Even if he never had done commander just on the judge on the judge stuff Which is not something people most people know much about but he had a huge influence there. Yeah, he which is not something most people know much about, but he had a huge influence there. Yeah, he, I mean, he did, in Magic, he did two things that were just world-class best things ever. And I don't know anybody else in Magic that's done that. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. Maybe, you know, maybe we'll get close, but you know, he was the leader of a judge organization for Magic for years and really changed the way it was. And while he didn't invent Commander, he popularized Commander and shaped it into what it was. Yeah, very much. Yeah. You know, and it's now by far the most popular way to play Magic.

It's not even close. And so the legacy that he leaves is stunning, just on Magic. And if you count the stuff around that, it's even more amazing. Okay, well thank you so much, Scott, for being with us today. Absolutely. I'm glad we took our time and waited so we could get the podcast I wanted, which this exactly was. So thank you so much for being here.

Yep, and thank you for continuing to bug me about doing it. And I'm sorry it took this long, but I think it was worth it in the end. So everybody else, I can see my desk. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic,

it's time for me to be making magic. So a final remembrance to Sheldon, and I'll see all you guys next time. Bye bye.