Gathering at MagicCon 2023 in Las Vegas | Side Quests

Magic: The Gathering premiered 30 years ago on August 5th, 1993.  A lot has changed in 30 years but one thing that has remained the same is that fans are in love with Magic.  In celebration of 30 years of MTG, Wizards of the Coast did four separate MagicCon events in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Barcelona, and finally in tandem with Magic World Championship XXIX, MagicCon Las Vegas.  I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to spend some time at MagicCon Las Vegas on September 22-24. I took in some panels, played some magic and did a lot of walking. 

First, I have to say that Wizards of the Coast staff were incredible.  A special shoutout has to go to Larry, who managed the media room and helped get us squared away after it initially looked like we wouldn’t be admitted to the convention.  

MagicCon ran like a well oiled machine.  I’ve coordinated my fair share of big events in the past and rarely did anything ever run completely on time. But every panel, every tournament, and every meet & greet ran precisely when and where it was supposed to run.  

There were 14 panels, including a memorial to Sheldon Menery, the co-creator of the Commander format, who passed away earlier this month after a long battle with cancer. The main stage was also used for a smattering of other events, including a watch party for Magic World Championship XXIX all afternoon on Sunday. I personally enjoyed 4 different panels.  There were three different locations for panels, and twice I had to decide between two panels I was interested in. That certainly isn’t a complaint, though.  I sincerely appreciated how much WOTC was trying to appeal to a wide variety of players by offering so many choices for attending a panel.

Secret Lair

The Secret Lair panel showed off current and upcoming card drops from MTG’s Secret Lair (I can hear The Professor now).  The Fall Superdrop is already out, so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone, but seeing the Gatewatch baseball team in their uniforms was cool.  Magic: The Baseballing includes 5 foil planeswalkers, including Liliana and Ajani, donning a baseball uniform.

After showing off Magic: The Baseballing and other items currently available in the Fall Superdrop, WOTC introduced the upcoming Spooky Drops.  Most people knew about Doctor Who coming on October 2nd, but there were still a few surprises.  

Prolific MTG artist John Davis had the chance to reimagine the artwork on popular Magic cards such as Emrakul, The Promised End, and Progenitus. Emrakul’s new design gives off Stranger Things vibes. It really feels like a picture of the Upside Down.

Doctor Who didn’t show off anything we didn’t already have information for but as a dedicated whovian who even liked the Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who, I was more than a little stoked to see one of my favorite IPs being turned into Magic cards.  Additionally, the first floor of MagicCon had a full-sized TARDIS, and anyone who took a picture with it received a promo TARDIS card.  It’s a vehicle artifact that, when crewed, becomes a 2/4 creature.  TARDIS also has a triggered ability that says “Whenever TARDIS attacks, if you control a Time Lord, the next spell you cast this turn has cascade, and you may planeswalk.” 

While Doctor Who has a light horror element to it, Secret Lair’s Spooky Drops wouldn’t be complete without something that hits a little harder.  Coming on October 2nd, Secret Lair is also dropping cards that celebrate Steven King’s Creepshow comic books and The Evil Dead.  Seeing Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams on a Magic card was nothing short of fantastic! The Creepshow cards are double-sided and meant to look just like a comic book. In fact, I didn’t realize I was seeing cards at first because of how well they were done.

There are also two land packs coming in with the Spooky Drops. One of them is a Japanese Watercolor style by artist JungShan. JungShan is known for his incredible work on Secret Lair’s Kamigawa Ink and these new land packs continue that legacy.  The other is a second pixel art land pack from artist Jubilee. The first pixel art land pack was released in 2021 and this new land pack is more of the awesome work they’ve done before.

The biggest moment came when the panel moderator, Nate Price, asked the audience if we wanted to see the next drop.  After a brief affirmative cheer, Nate simply said, “As you wish.”  I immediately asked out loud “Are we getting Princess Bride?” 

The promo started, and moments later I got my answer when Buttercup, Provincial Princess appeared on screen.  Buttercup is a repurposing of Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. In fact, all of the Princess Bride drops that were revealed are based on existing MTG cards.

Magic Story Podcast Live: Storytelling in Eldraine

With 30 years of Magic comes 30 years of storytelling. I’ve never fully understood the lore, so I wanted to check out the Storytelling in Eldraine panel to see if I could get a better grasp on how the characters in Magic: The Gathering fit together.  This was more than just a typical panel of people discussing Magic. This was the first ever live recording of the Magic Story Podcast.  Its hosts, Harless and Natalie, came out first to hype up the crowd so that listeners at home would know exactly how much they were missing by not being at MagicCon Vegas.

Harless and Natalie had the chance to interview three people involved in the storytelling component of Magic: The Gathering.  Roy Graham is on the design team involved in creating the worlds in Magic.  Arsenault Rivera wrote the story for Wilds of Eldraine and had the chance to talk to us about the innocence of its hero, Kellen and the setting based on the small village her family is from in Puerto Rico.  Chris Mooney is a senior game designer for Magic: The Gathering. They gave us a lot of information about how the story influences the card game.

Chris talked extensively about each story component and how players can see it flow through the cards.  Magic: The Gathering can certainly be enjoyed without ever reading the stories, but the stories inform how the cards come into existence.  In that way, the lore adds even more depth. It becomes increasingly richer for anyone who invests the time into reading the stories and studying the cards without penalizing those who don’t.  

You Make The Unknown Card

My favorite and the funniest panel I attended was You Make The Unknown Card.  Unknown events are hosted by Gavin Verhey and include a chaos-sealed pack that marries different MTG sets together. In addition, never before seen playtest cards were intentionally designed for the event.  In You Make The Unknown Card, audience members collaborated on three different Magic cards that will be used at a future Unknown event.

The way it worked was  we first gave Gavin some basic ideas for a card.  After he stopped taking ideas, we voted on which ones we liked the best. Then, we had to define how the card would work. Gavin is a pro at the small details, so he would assign it a color and a mana cost and steer us in a direction that made the card truly playable.

Our first card was Trampled Lotus.  As with all lotus cards, the point of Trampled Lotus is to create mana.  It costs 2 to cast and has the directions to tap and sacrifice it. Then tap up to 4 of your opponent’s land cards to create mana.  Gavin realized the only problem was that opponents could simply tap their lands in response, so Trampled Lotus was given Split Second which prevents other players from responding once the process begins.

After that, we worked on a card based on an idea from an attendee of a Questing Beast “but with even more text.”  To that end, we created Kevin, The Questing Dragon.  Kevin has flying, first strike, and mountainwalk.  Kevin prevents all damage it would receive.  Kevin can’t be countered and has a power/toughness of 8/8. Unfortunately, being that overpowered comes at the cost of being an 8 drop. 

Lastly, we worked off an idea for “unproliferate.” We had to decide exactly what that meant and landed on a card called Takesies & Backsies.  Takesies & Backsies is a split card with separate mana costs.  Takesies is 2U and Backsies is 1B.  Takesies takes all +1/+1 counters on the battlefield and moves them to a target creature.  Backsies turns all positive counters into negative counters. For example, a creature with 2 +1/+1 counters on it now has 2 -1/-1 counters instead. Planeswalkers instantly die because all of their loyalty counters become negative loyalty counters.  It seemed overpowered to me for only a 2 drop, but I guess it’ll be a Mythic Rare.

Making Magic Content While Dealing with Mental Health

The last panel I attended was on Sunday morning and it was called Making Magic Content While Dealing with Mental Health.  The title implied that it was going to be very specific to content creators but honestly, it was so much more than that.  HobbesQ and his panelists, Shivam, Chase, and Ryan sat and discussed their mental health journey.

As an introvert who deals with ADHD, a pathological need to overthink, and crippling social anxiety, I can’t even explain how enriching it was to know that people who entertain others daily are dealing with the exact same issues that I deal with on a day to day basis.  HobbesQ, a clinical psychiatrist, created an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding in the panel. 

No one was going to be put down for dealing with whatever they were dealing with. He challenged us to make decisions opposite of what our brains told us was the safe move.  It made me remember that a Tiktoker, Elyse Myers, once said that her anxiety means that she just makes content scared.  There’s no secret recipe, just do it scared. HobbesQ was giving us the same advice.  It was a well-attended panel that illustrated the need for more mental health awareness in the MTG community and the gaming community at large.

In their final thoughts, Chase, a Twitch streamer, MTG Ambassador, and host of the Bad At Magic podcast gave me quite a bit to chew on.  They said it’s important to make room for yourself.  Whatever platform you create content on, don’t fall into the trap of thinking everything you do has to be for content.  They enjoy playing Magic and sometimes will sit at an LGS without their camera just to enjoy playing Magic.  It doesn’t always have to be for content.  They also said it’s important not to compare yourself to other creators.  I mentioned before that I have a pathological need to overthink. That compulsion has often led me to compare myself to others in my life.  I always tell people not to compare themselves to others but sometimes I need to hear it too. 

So Much More!

There was a creator zone for people to go and meet their favorite content creators. I personally have never been one to watch other people play Magic but the tables were always crowded.  Again, MagicCon was appealing to all kinds of Magic players so the fact that I didn’t spend much time meeting creators didn’t take away from my overall experience.  I would go to MagicCon again in a heartbeat.  Yes, my legs are still killing me from three days of walking but it was totally worth it.  

Next to the main stage, there was an area where about 40 different artists that have worked on Magic: The Gathering were able to showcase and sell their artwork.  I’ve never been an art guy.  I don’t want to join you at a museum to go look at paintings and sculptures. I’ve never gone out of my way to buy big original pieces for my home.  I’m just not that guy… except when it comes to Magic.  Magic: The Gathering has so much great artwork from different artists in different styles.  I didn’t have much to spend but it was such an incredible experience to walk around and see all of the artists proudly displaying their creations.  Some of the pieces were familiar and others were completely new to me.  I loved getting to see familiar art not being confined to a small card covered by text.  I only wish I had been able to afford more than a few tokens to put in my card collection

MagicCon took place on two floors, and both floors had a small marketplace for shopping.  This may be my only real complaint with the whole weekend.  Sometimes, I couldn’t remember if what I had seen was on the first or second floor but there was definitely enough room to have put the entire market on one floor if they had moved the artists or maybe the eating area to wherever there wasn’t a market. 

Instead, in order to see everything being sold, I had to go to two separate areas.  The other weird thing to me was how very little local presence there was.  As a Vegas local, I can think right off the top of my head of 5 different local game stores. Alas, Darkside Games was the only LGS from Las Vegas represented at MagicCon.  I’m not sure if that was because there was only one that responded to invitations to come out or if WOTC didn’t invite any others but it seemed like a big missed opportunity for supporting the LGS scene in the local community hosting MagicCon.  

There were two different places to play Magic.  The more organized area was called The Command Zone and was specifically for finding a game of Commander.  People like me who don’t like starting conversations with people I don’t know could get into a game fairly easily by grabbing a card that stated what kind of game was desired.  I grabbed a CASUAL card which let others know that I wanted to find a few people to play a casual game of commander.  There were also cards for CHALLENGING and ALL.  

The other area to play Magic was much less easy for me to access because it was just called Free Play.  Some tables were set up, and players could just find a table and play whatever they wanted.  Most often, these tables were being used for sitting around talking, looking at cards, or eating lunch.  I never felt comfortable enough to go around asking if anyone there was looking for a game as most of them weren’t playing and involved in their own conversations already.  I really wish there had been a better organization of the Free Play area, maybe cards similar to The Command Zone that said things like DUEL, MULTIPLAYER, etc.  

There was also a ticketed play area for people who had signed up for tournaments or were playing in one of two different Unknown Events.  Anyone with access to the convention could walk in but only ticket holders could participate.  It was a great way to engage the community in a large tournament that could also be enjoyed as a bystander. I didn’t play in the ticketed area but spent some time checking everything out. Like I said before, everything ran smoothly, and everyone was having a fantastic time.

Conclusion

MagicCon 2023 is over with the conclusion of the Las Vegas event, but I’m more interested than ever in diving into the world of Magic.  I was introduced to Magic: The Gathering over 20 years ago and I feel like this is the most I’ve ever wanted to dive in deeper.  I want to listen to podcasts, read up on lore, and Play. More. Games. I even downloaded Magic: The Gathering Arena on my phone to play anywhere I go.

I find myself wanting to step outside my shell and get involved in local events.  Many LGSs run tournaments for multiple formats, open play days, and other ways to connect with other MTG players.  Without MagicCon, I may have never had any renewed desire to get out there to play more Magic. Ryan from the mental health panel said something so amazing that I feel like it’s a great way to end here. To paraphrase he said that at the end of the day, Magic is about The Gathering.