Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #979: UNF Loading Ready Run Pre-Prerelease

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

I travelled to Victoria, Canada to participate in the Unfinity Pre-Prerelease with Loading Ready Run. In this podcast, I tell the story of my trip. ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I just got back from Canada, Victoria, Canada, for the Unfinity Loading Ready Run pre-pre-release. So I was going to talk all about my trip. So first, I guess I should explain a few things, such as what is Loading Ready Run and what is a pre-pre-release. I guess I should explain a few things such as what is Loading Ready Run and what is a pre-pre-release? So Loading Ready Run is a Canadian comedy troupe that focuses on games. And so they do a lot of content on gaming and a lot of content on comedy and the crisscross of gaming and comedy. They came to, Wizards has been working with them for many years, and they've made lots of content for us.
Starting point is 00:00:53 One of the things that they do for us is called a pre-pre-release. And the idea is, before the actual release event, they run an event where they usually fly in three guests, three or four guests, and then there is, they play eight rounds of, they play eight rounds of the tournament. They'll draft and then play, and then there's eight people, and the way it normally works is in the eight rounds, each person plays twice, and then one of the eight times, they're
Starting point is 00:01:22 the table friend, meaning the person that kind of sits at the table and helps them. Anyway, I had done a pre-pre-release for Unstable back in 2017, and it was wonderfully fun. Probably the most iconic moment of that pre-pre-release was Wedge was one of the guests, and he used a card called Spike Tournament Grinder to go get a Scheherazade. Loading Ready Run has a backdrop with shelves with lots of games and things on it, and one of the items on the shelf is a Scheherazade. For those that are unaware, Scheherazade is a card from Arabian Nights. You play a sub-game.
Starting point is 00:02:05 What that means is you stop the game you're playing, you go play a completely other game of Magic with what's left over of your library, and then whoever wins that game, I forget the reward, but you get a reward, and then you go back to the main game. So Wedge used Spike to go get a Scheherazade, but before he started the sub-game, he used a card called Better Than One, which turns you into a two-headed giant. So he got me to join him, and we were a two-headed giant playing against Cam,
Starting point is 00:02:34 was the other person from Loading Ready Run. And then we went into the sub game. So it was a two-headed giant, or half a two-headed giant game in the sub game. It was crazy. It was over the top. It's the kind of thing you can do in an unset. And anyway, that set the high market. Like, for all the pre-pre-releases, that's one of the most talked about events ever at a pre-pre-release. So anyway, oh, and for that first one, the guests were me, Wedge, and Megan and Maria from Good Luck High Five.
Starting point is 00:03:03 So this one, five years later for Infinity, they had invited Megan and Maria back. No wedge, sadly. And so the three of us were the guests. And the way it worked was the structure was a little bit different this time than it had been previously. So instead of playing eight rounds, we played three rounds.
Starting point is 00:03:26 And there were eight of us drafting, but two of the people, Serge and Nelson, who are judges, played the next morning, and I'll get to that. And anyway, so the way it set up was we were going to play three rounds. Each round got a full hour and a half. It wasn't best of three. Normally it's best of three. We just played as many games as we had time for in the hour and a half. It wasn't best of three. Normally it's best of three. We just played as many games as we had time for in the hour and a half. That was the setup. Okay, I will get to that.
Starting point is 00:03:49 That's on Sunday. So I will get there. Okay, so I fly in to Victoria, Canada. That's where they are. And the, so I get, last time I had come, I was there only for like two days. And things were a little rushed. So I added a little extra time this time. So I came in on Friday.
Starting point is 00:04:10 I came in the earliest. James, who's the producer for The Leg and Ride Run, picked me up. And then Megan Maria came in and James picked them up. And then, so on Friday we shot some video. Each one of us, there's, I forget the name, Crack-A-Pack or something.
Starting point is 00:04:28 They do these video segments where a guest and a member of Loading Ready Run open up a booster pack and talk about all the cards. And it can vary what they talk about. Sometimes it's about constructed play. Sometimes it's about, I don't know, what inspired or jokes they get. Whatever inspires them by those cards. And normally it's about 15 to 20 minutes, I think is how long one of those normally is. So I did mine with Ben, one of the members of
Starting point is 00:04:55 Loading Red Run. And I because this is on Finity, because I worked on the product, on every aspect of the product, not only did I do all the, you know, I led all the designs, but I was there for card concepting. I was there for names and flavor texts. I was very involved, you know, with interacting with Dawn and the art. So, like, I had a lot more knowledge about this product than most products. So, for every card, I just had something I could talk about. The funny thing about the video was we were opening up a collector booster,
Starting point is 00:05:29 an Infinity collector booster, and on the cover is Ambassador Blorpity Blorpboop. And I really wanted to talk about Ambassador Blorpity Blorpboop. So I told a story about him just seeing him on the booster, but then we actually opened up Ambassador Blorpity Blorpboop and then we opened up a second one in Galaxy Foil. I think in Showcase Galaxy Foil. Anyway, so we ended up telling three stories about the Ambassador. But I had three stories, so
Starting point is 00:05:54 I think my segment went to like 35 minutes just because I had a lot to say. But anyway, so we each individually shot that. I shot mine with Ben. I think Maria shot hers with Cam. And Megan shot hers with Adam. I think that's how it went.
Starting point is 00:06:11 Anyway, so we did that. After we did that shooting, we were able to go out. We went to dinner. So Megan and Maria and James and I went out for pierogies, which I'm a big fan of. Okay, that was Friday night. Saturday was mostly shooting a lot of videos. First up, so Meg and Maria have a podcast called Good Luck High Five, which is both audio and video. If you've never seen it, it's a lot of fun.
Starting point is 00:06:46 I've known them for quite a while now. I met them. I had heard of them, but I think I met them for the first time at the Kaladesh, the big fair we did. I met them there. And then at some point they were in Seattle for some event, and they asked me if I would be on their show, and they came and recorded a show at Wizards that I was on. And then when I was in, I did the Unstable pre-pre-release,
Starting point is 00:07:13 I did another show with them at the Unstable pre-pre-release. And so I said ahead of them, hey, if I'm going to be there and you're going to be there, we should do another show. So we ended up shooting not one show, but two shows. So the first show was all about Infinity. And that one has already gone up as of me recording this. It went up right away.
Starting point is 00:07:33 I shot a second show. I have no idea when they're going to use that second show. It was me answering questions that their patrons had asked. So I do talk about Infinity a little bit, so I assume they won't wait super long. But it was less about Infinity and more about magic in general. But we did do something in the second one that
Starting point is 00:07:53 Megan and Maria and I have done in most of our Good Luck High Fives, or all the previous Good Luck High Fives we did, which is called Fairy Tale Theater, where you take a card and for this time we took an infinity card, and then you make up a movie pitch if that's the title of the movie.
Starting point is 00:08:10 And I've done this, this will be the third time we've done it. And Megan Maria basically do a lot of improv. I come from an improv background, so it's a lot of fun making up titles in movies and you know, my former life in Hollywood, I used to do a lot of pitching. I did more TV pitching than film pitching, but whatever. It's fun, you know, my former life in Hollywood, I used to do a lot of pitching.
Starting point is 00:08:25 I did more TV pitching than film pitching. But it's fun, you know, doing the pitch. Anyway, so, okay, so we recorded two shows with them. Then Serge is the judge for, Serge and Nelson are the judges for Loading Ready Run. And Serge normally does a video where he walks through the rules. But since I was there, he did a video with me. So he and I did a video where I
Starting point is 00:08:52 walked through how do stickers work? How do attractions work? What are hats? And it addressed a few different issues. You know, the golden rule, the fact that you have to in uns games, you care about the actual physical card you have. In tournament magic
Starting point is 00:09:07 every card is identical to the card that has the same name in English but for Infinity you care about things that magic can't normally care about like who the artist is or you know, watermarks or flavor types or things that normal magic can't care about. Anyway
Starting point is 00:09:23 so we recorded that video. And then the last video we recorded is they do, Loading Ready Run does a podcast once again, I think it's audio and video, called Tap, Tap, Concede. And so Megan, Maria, and I were guests on that. Kathleen was the host. And we talked about all sorts of things.
Starting point is 00:09:43 We did talk about Infinity Sum. But we talked about other things. I explained my dislike of fruit. Anyway, we talked about many, many things in that podcast. Which was a lot of fun. And that is also put up already. So that's it. Most of the stuff, by the way, I'm going to talk about today.
Starting point is 00:09:59 Most of the videos. By the time you hear this, they're up. The only one I don't know is, I don't know how long before Megan and Maria are going to use my second recording for Goyla Kai 5. It might be used right away. I have no idea. But the Infinity Show we recorded, I think all the Loading Redditor stuff
Starting point is 00:10:16 I recorded, I believe is already or by the time you guys have this, it should be up. I think most of it's even up by the time I record this. Not all of it. Okay. And then we went out to dinner. But after dinner,
Starting point is 00:10:31 we came back and we played some games. We played a fun game we played called Welcome To where you're setting up like a housing like a neighborhood that was a lot of fun. But anyway, it was fun playing some games with them. And then we went to bed because Sunday was our big day.
Starting point is 00:10:49 Okay, so the way it works on Sunday is the first thing we do is we draft. So we draft on camera. Oh, well, sorry. There's eight of us drafting. Two of us, which is me and Maria, were on camera. In fact, I was the eighth spot and she was the first spot. So I was passing to Maria in the first pack. Now, Maria and I had talked about how the thing she was most excited to draft was robots. So red-white is the clown robot archetype. And she had talked about how she
Starting point is 00:11:23 really wanted to draft robots. This is important to the story. So I open up my booster pack, and I get Pietra. Pietra is the uncommon goalpost, you know, the signpost for red-white. It's a card that both gives your clown robots plus one plus one, technically robots, and it allows you to activate and tell a joke to make a clown.
Starting point is 00:11:45 So it's really, really good in Clown Robots. If you want to play Clown Robots, that's the card to have. I open it. Now, normally this was a normal anything. You know, I would probably go Clowns. I like Clowns a lot. Clowns are a lot of fun. But I know Maria really wanted to go in Clowns.
Starting point is 00:11:59 And the whole point of the pre-pre-release is we wanted to show off, you know, magic and have awesome, fun games. And I'm like, okay, you know, I'll pass this to Maria so that she can go into Clowns because she was so excited to go into Clowns. And I really wanted someone to play Clowns because it's a fun archetype. Anyway, it turns out she didn't take it. Nelson, who's the next one, did take it. So Nelson did make the robot deck. So I'll talk about that when we get there.
Starting point is 00:12:22 But anyway, it was, I ended up taking Centaur of Attention, which is a 5-5, sorry, it's a 3-3 creature that you roll five dice when it enters the battlefield or whenever, or whenever you roll five dice, then whenever it attacks, you may re-roll any number of dice you want. He gets, Centaur of Attention gets plus one, plus one for every matching die that's sort of stored on it. So the idea is you're trying to roll
Starting point is 00:12:47 the same number. But the secret about this card is it is the card that best enables dice rolling. So you can roll a lot of dice
Starting point is 00:12:56 with, you know, you can roll five dice a turn. And so there's a lot of things that you can get that work really well.
Starting point is 00:13:03 And black, red, and green all have like die triggering things. Like when you roll a certain die, something happens. Blue has a little bit too. So anyway, I picked it up and said, okay, this is a, it's really, really good in a die rolling deck. I probably want to do a die rolling deck. My thought time when I picked the first card was I might go to red greengreen. Red-green is the archetype about rolling lots of dice. And this card works really well
Starting point is 00:13:28 in an archetype about rolling lots of dice. Then I got passed my first pack from Megan, who was on my right. And it had Disembowel in it, which is really good. It's a common. But the fact that she passed Disembowel made me
Starting point is 00:13:43 think that there's some chance she wasn't going to be in black and it's just a really so it's 3BB, destroy target creature and they lose life for each unique vowel in their name and usually what tends to happen is it destroys a creature and they lose
Starting point is 00:13:59 3 or 4 life usually on average so it's a pretty good card and it's one of the better... Like, in black, it's the best kill card in black. So I took Disinvolve, and then pack two, or pack three, I got another Disinvolve. So I really got this message like
Starting point is 00:14:15 black was open. It turned out black was not open, but I... Or, sorry. Megan ended up drafting a heavy attraction deck. So she took all the black cards that cared about attractions. So I really wasn't getting a lot of cards that cared about attractions. So I wasn't very focused on attractions because I didn't have a lot of cards that cared. So much so, by the way, that I ended up not drafting three attractions.
Starting point is 00:14:37 Near the end of the draft, I was trying to pick up three. There's a rule that says you can only have an attraction deck if you have three or more attractions. I only drafted two. Now, it turns out I really didn't have you have three or more attractions. I only drafted two. Now it turns out I really didn't have many cards that cared about attractions. It's why I didn't draft them until pretty late because my cards didn't care. Anyway, I made a black-green deck not about attractions, which is a weird
Starting point is 00:14:54 black-green. Black-green usually is all about attractions, but that's not what my deck ended up being. The other really fun thing is when we had talked, when Megan Marie and I had talked ahead of time, we were talking about fun things that we thought could happen in the draft. And I talked about that if I got a photo op, I was going to photo op for Scheherazade. So remember in Unstable, that was the big thing that
Starting point is 00:15:14 happened. And I said, oh, might it be funny if every, you know, pre-pre-release we have a Scheherazade sub game. But so anyway, Megan opened up photo op and passed it to me. And she said, this is for you. Because she knew that I had fun plans for the photo op. But as I'm drafting, what I realized at the end of the draft was that I didn't really pick up a lot of other
Starting point is 00:15:38 mana sources. I wasn't playing attraction, so I didn't take up coming attraction, which gets you a land and then you open an attraction. I wasn't playing Attraction, so I didn't take up Coming Attraction, which gets you a land and then you open an attraction. I didn't get a park map. I didn't get a nearby planet. I didn't get a big top. Like, I didn't get the cards.
Starting point is 00:15:53 There's a bunch of cards to help you splash a third card if you need to. I didn't get those. So I was really playing a black-green deck. So what I decided was, well, instead of getting Scheherazade, which I couldn't cast, what if I got another sub-game card? So it turns out there's a black sub-game card and a green sub-game card. The green sub-game card is Tug of War, which is in
Starting point is 00:16:11 the set. The black one is Enter the Dungeon from Unhinge, where you play a sub-game under the table. That one seemed like more wacky, you know what I'm saying? I mean, not that Tug of War doesn't have plenty of wackiness to it, and it's from the set, but I thought, like, just, I was trying to think spectacle and fun. And you're going to remember when this happened.
Starting point is 00:16:29 So the idea of playing under the table sounded a lot of fun. The problem is we're recording this, right? There's cameras recording it. There's lights. That's just not an easy thing. So the second the draft was over, I went to talk to James. And I said to him, look, here's what I want to do. I want to, you know, photo op for Enter the Dungeon.
Starting point is 00:16:46 Oh, and photo op, by the way, for those who don't know it, costs a single black mana. You, on social media, record a picture of you posing like a card and just hashtag guess that magic card. You don't put anything else on it. So I did three pictures. One was for Enter the Dungeon. One was for Tug of War. And I did one for knife or death. So it turns out that I later found out that Maria had knife or death in her deck. So like, oh, that was going to happen in the game. And I was more focused on doing the mini game.
Starting point is 00:17:18 We could not find a tug of war. There was no tug of war in the building. But James did have someone run out and go get me and enter the dungeon. So he found me a knife for death. He found me and entered the dungeon. I knew Maria had a knife for death. So I was kind of hoping to let her do the knife for death thing. But I managed to draw it.
Starting point is 00:17:33 And we had worked out with the technical people. It turns out that the tabletop comes off. And the table underneath it has a hole in it that you could shoot through. So anyway, we were able to set it up. And I was very careful. Kathleen was my opponent. I was very careful not to let Kathleen know that we were doing Enter the Dungeon,
Starting point is 00:17:50 because I wanted, like, full shock value from Kathleen, right? And the other thing, not only would she not expect, like, this is crazy, but, like, the same sense I had when I was thinking of doing it is, can they even shoot that? Like, I knew she would have, like, can they even shoot that, you know? So anyway, I
Starting point is 00:18:06 game one we play it goes back and forth. I lose game one. Game two we're both doing okay in game two and I get my photo op. So I'm like, okay, we're going under the table and I cast I go get my
Starting point is 00:18:23 enter the dungeon and then on the next turn I cast enter the dungeon. So they had all planned this out because I told them we were going to the table. And I cast, I go get my enter the dungeon, and then on the next turn I cast enter the dungeon. So they had all planned this out because I told them we were going to do it. A key part when you're shooting something is make sure the technical people understand what you're doing. But we were able to do it. Kathleen and I were laying on cushions. Adam, who was our table friend,
Starting point is 00:18:39 was like sitting up under the table. His head was hitting the table, underneath the table. We played, so the way enter the Dungeon works is you play a sub game to five. I had a good early lead. I got a Rat in the Hat, which is a one-two, one-drop. And I
Starting point is 00:18:55 also got the Hammer, which when you attack, you roll a die to get plus X plus O. I had an early lead. It was looking good. I had to trade my Rat for one of her cards. But then I got out a real handful, which is a 1-1. But if you touch it with your hand, it becomes a 3-3. And if you touch it with a second hand, it gets menace.
Starting point is 00:19:17 And if you touch it with a third hand, which is not you because you only have two hands, it gets lifelink. But Ben, who was the cameraman shooting me, he loaned me his hand. But it turned out that Kathleen had, what's the bite card called? There's a card that is Liliana and Sarkin, like wrestlers dressed up like Liliana and Sarkin on it. Finishing move. It's called finishing move.
Starting point is 00:19:39 She cast finishing move on it to do three damage. I was able to embiggen it, which is the giant growth of the format, plus one, plus one of each super type, subtype, card type, or subtype, to get plus three, plus three, but she had embiggen, so it turned out that I lost, and not only did I lose my creature,
Starting point is 00:19:55 but she now was big enough to hit me to do five in one swing, so I lost the sub game. I ended up losing that game. I did win the third game, and then we ran out of time. The second match was Maria versus Cam. The highlight of that match was there
Starting point is 00:20:12 are two lands in the set. Nearby planet, that is Rangeland, that's every subtype. And Urza's Funhouse, that once a game can tap for infinite mana if you have all three of the Urzatron pieces, which nearby planet is. So if you get them together, it's infinite mana. One turn, infinite mana if you have all three of the Urzatron pieces, which nearby planet is. So if you get them together, it's infinite mana.
Starting point is 00:20:27 One turn infinite mana. Now, interestingly, there's not, I mean, there are things you can do with infinite mana in Limited. Probably the best thing you can do, I think, is Clown Car, which can make you infinite clown tokens and make your attraction infinite size. But anyway,
Starting point is 00:20:50 Cam had a card called Opening Ceremony. So Opening Ceremony lets you go get a booster pack. Ever since Unhinge, every unset has had a pack opening card. The very first one was Booster Tutor, where you got a tutor for a card from a booster. So what Opening Ceremony did is it cost four mana, four red red. It gave you white, blue, black, red, green colorless when you opened it. So it sort of
Starting point is 00:21:12 gave you back the mana you used to spend it, although spread it out in colors. And then you can open up a booster pack, and it's sort of like Impulsive Draw, that you can cast those cards this turn. Cam chose to open up Kamigawa Nian Dynasty, because he really likes that set.
Starting point is 00:21:28 Opened up a reality chip, which lets him cast cards from the top of his library, and he went to town. He has a lot of mana, and, I mean, not just the infinite mana, but a lot of colored mana. And so anyway, it was one of those kind of like, one of the things that we try to do in normal magic, but more so in unsets,
Starting point is 00:21:48 I did a whole podcast on this, is what we call narrative equity, where the idea is when you make something so fun that it becomes a story that you will tell for the rest of time, you've not only made this game sort of more fun, but you've given the person something that is of value to them, that goes beyond the game. Now here's something they can share for the rest of time.
Starting point is 00:22:15 And so when you make a moment like that, Cam is going to tell that story to the end of time. It just was this amazing moment. And it was theirs on camera, and it's one of the things people will talk about. One of the things I was hoping for when we shot this is you wanted every match to just have a moment that people could talk about. And the Infinite Man Opening Ceremony was that moment I think in the second match. Third match was
Starting point is 00:22:39 between Megan and Adam. So Adam had a card called Pie Eating Contest, which, by the way, Kathleen and my match also did. And Kathleen had gotten a bag of chips, and she stuffed her face with a bag of chips as she killed me one game. So Adam had that, but what he did, because they had more time,
Starting point is 00:22:59 Kathleen and I went up right away. There was a video segment. Graham and me and Sean, baby, all did flavor text for the set. And so we did a 30-minute round table to talk about the act of making the set. And so that was edited. And that half-hour segment played
Starting point is 00:23:21 while we did our deck building. And then in between the first and second one, they did what they call sick rips, which are comedy sketches. They showed the comedy sketches. And then, I forgot what they showed between the second and third round. Anyway, there were little segments, so there was time in between. The third round was Megan and Adam. Oh, Adam,
Starting point is 00:23:38 because he had time, went and bought a rotisserie chicken for his pie-eating contest. So when they kind of do the pie eating contest, he like pulled out a tarp, which he first put on the table, then he put on himself, then he ate a chicken.
Starting point is 00:23:50 And there's a pretty, Adam's very comical. So it's a very comical bit. And then later on, there's a card called gobsmacked, where it's an arrest, but it only works if you name a player and as long as, or a person, as long as you can see that person from your seat, it works. So she named Ben, who was running the board, because it's hard for him to leave because he's doing the engineering.
Starting point is 00:24:13 And then Adam tried to stop it by covering up Ben with the tarp. Now, I had to come rule that you're not allowed. You're not allowed to cover up the person for gobsmacked. But it was very funny. And anyway, so that was that match. And then we managed to wrap up a little bit earlier. When we had done Unstable, it had gone really late. We pushed back our dinner reservations like three times.
Starting point is 00:24:38 Afterwards, everybody who was in the show, we went for burritos and we had a fun dinner. We talked about stuff. One of the things that's really fun is we talked a lot about what they liked of the year and what they'd like to see coming. And it was very interesting that some of the stuff they wanted to see coming is coming, so it's very exciting.
Starting point is 00:24:59 Anyway, so when we went back, only a bunch of us went back to their headquarters, if you will. But Megan Maria went back, and so I ended up doing a sealed deck with Megan. I will stress that
Starting point is 00:25:14 Infinity works much better in draft. I mean, it works in sealed, but it's a better experience in draft. But only the two of us wanted to play, and so we... There wasn't really any of us there other than Megan. So anyway, Maria and I played a sealed game.
Starting point is 00:25:33 I think Megan actually, not Megan, Maria actually I had a squirrel stack in my game. This time I did have attractions. I had a squirrel stack, and I talked to her about how you could stack 7-8 high. I thought with practice, it's I talked to her about how you could stack seven, eight high. I thought with practice, it's not that hard to do.
Starting point is 00:25:49 And I ended up, I messed up a little bit, but I got seven high. So she recorded it. It's a little video of me stacking dice. I actually messed up. I almost did eight, and I dropped one, but I didn't do seven. Anyway, so we played.
Starting point is 00:26:03 We had fun. Megan beat me. Not Megan. Maria beat me. Not Megan. Maria beat me. Then on Monday, which was the next day, there was the final match. So Serge and Nelson had drafted. Nelson drafted the clown deck, if you remember. And Serge drafted a blue-white-black deck.
Starting point is 00:26:23 Anyway, they were playing a judge match. So instead of playing just for an hour and a half, they played best of three with stakes on the line, which ended up, they didn't know what the stakes were, but it was a special certificate of honor that I signed. Anyway, in the match, first game, Nelson won pretty quickly. The clown robot deck is the most aggro of the decks, and he game, Nelson won pretty quickly. The Clown Robot deck is the most aggro of the decks, and he was able to win pretty quickly.
Starting point is 00:26:50 Game two, Surge really was able to build up a pretty good defense. There's a card called Vidalcan Squirrel Whacker, where you roll for power and roll for toughness, but then you can swap those dice for other die rolls. So he managed to get it pretty big because he would swap in other die rolls that were larger. And then he ended up putting a hexproof sticker on it and an exalted exalted, so double exalted sticker on it. He then used a card called Mobile Clone.
Starting point is 00:27:20 I'm sorry, Mobile Clone. It copies everything on it. You take a picture of it, and then your phone is not just a copy of the creature, but any stickers on it, any counters on it, any equipment, any auras. Normally when you copy something, none of that stuff is copied. But with the phone
Starting point is 00:27:36 you take pictures of it, so it is copied. So he had two creatures with exalted and exalted, both of which had hexproof, and I think one was a 6-6 and one was a 4-6. You do have to re-roll the dice when you roll. But anyway, he managed to get that big two. So he was attacking every turn with, like, one creature for, like, seven or eight damage. But Nelson was able to hold them off and finally played Starlight Spectacular,
Starting point is 00:28:01 which is the parade card, which you get to line up all your creatures in a line, and then each creature gets plus one, plus one for every creature in front of it. So the first creature gets plus zero, plus zero. Second creature gets plus one, plus one. And Nelson had such a giant board. He had so many creatures that he was able to attack with like ten creatures where the largest creatures were like
Starting point is 00:28:20 you know, the largest one was plus nine, plus nine. It might have been like a two, one or something. So have been like a 2-1 or something. So it was like plus 11-10 or something. Anyway, Nelson managed to win that. I really, I thought Serge had the second game down. The funny thing is I had to get to the airport. So on some level, it was good that Nelson won.
Starting point is 00:28:39 Because if they had gone into a long third game, I was the, oh, I didn't mention this. I was the table friend, which means while they were playing, I was there the whole time. And I was making comments and sharing stories and talking about Infinity, and I had, I mean, I was judging a little bit. Since both of them were in the game, I was the judge. I mean, they all knew the
Starting point is 00:28:58 rules, but whenever an Infinity thing came up, I would, more to make sure the audience understood how it worked, but also, I was outside assistance. There's a superlatorium played. Nelson also had a carnival barker. So I clapped. I thought he did a good job.
Starting point is 00:29:17 Anyway, so that was fun. And then I had to rush off to the airport. Not rush off, but I had to go to the airport to go home. I had to rush off to the airport. Not rush off, but I had to go to the airport to go home. So I had a full jam-packed time in Victoria. So I just want to say I really had a good time. And one of the things about a pre-pre-release for me,
Starting point is 00:29:38 at least an un-pre-pre-release, is the whole point of it is you really want to show off the set, right? You really want the audience... Because one of the things about any set, but even more so about an unset, is you really want to get sort of the essence of what the set is. And everybody had a really good time. Like, I didn't even get into, like, I mentioned earlier that Maria had Knife in Death. So Knife in Death is a card, I think it's three black, black three black black or four black black. You take ten cards from outside the game from three feet away you toss them
Starting point is 00:30:09 and then any creatures they hit it does one damage to that creature and you gain a life. And then you can also hit multiple creatures sometimes. Anyway, it is Megan cast that three different times and did a pretty good job each time tossing the cards. And Cam started spreading these cards out
Starting point is 00:30:26 because he started anticipating it coming. That was super funny. There's just a lot of really, like... Magic is inherently fun. So just playing magic is fun. But the nice thing about the unsets is they add this extra veneer of silliness on it. And so there were just lots of fun things.
Starting point is 00:30:46 I was running it all the time, making judge calls on things. Being the unrules manager, I would pop my head in from time to time if something came up and, you know. And it was just fun. I really, I... In general, I enjoyed the pre-pre-releases. I think Loading Run Red does a great job. I think they're a lot of fun to watch. You know, they're streamed. Ours, oh, enjoy the pre-pre-releases. I think Loading Run Red does a great job. I think they're a lot of fun to watch.
Starting point is 00:31:06 You know, they're streamed. Ours, oh, by the way, so the pre-pre-release went for seven hours. So you can go online and you can watch all seven hours. Or I've been told, and this should be posted before you guys, when this is going up,
Starting point is 00:31:21 they edited it down to like a two-hour show. So that's more of like, just see the highlights of everything. See the best things you could see instead of having to watch seven hours worth, which is a long time. I mean, it's fun live, but after the fact.
Starting point is 00:31:33 There's an edited two-hour version. There's the, I forget what they call it, but the one where the three different videos with me and Maria and Megan ripping open packs and talking through them. There's my judge video. There's the tap, tap, concede we did with Kathleen.
Starting point is 00:31:51 There are four original comedy sketches tied to Infinity they made, two of which are animated. They're very funny. So there's all this content. And good luck, high five. For sure they'll want the Infinity one. Maybe the other one. If not, keep your eye out. But anyway, the
Starting point is 00:32:12 all of the all of this is online. So everything I'm talking about you want to see me playing Kathleen under the table? Online. You want to see Cam do the infinite opening ceremony? Online. You want to see Cam do the infinite opening ceremony? Online. You want to see Adam eat chicken? Online. So all the stuff I'm talking about is all available so you can go watch. I just want to say thank you to everybody, to Kathleen, to James and
Starting point is 00:32:38 Kathleen and Cam and Adam and Graham and Nelson and Serge and Ben and I'm sure we're getting somebody. But thank you to everybody who just made it. And Megan and Maria, thank you to everybody for an awesome weekend. It was a lot of fun. You can actually go see all the fun I had. And also, if, I mean,
Starting point is 00:33:00 hopefully all these talks of Infinity make you say, hey, maybe I should play Infinity. Hopefully, if you're on the fence about Infinity, you might want to watch this and just see us play Infinity and see how much fun it is. So anyway, that is all. I mean, now it works. We all know what that means.
Starting point is 00:33:14 It means that my end of the drive... It's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. See you all next time. Bye-bye.

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