Visiting Wizards: A Community Cup Experience – Part 1

“How about a foil Kamigawa draft guys?” Vincent asked. “Each pack has 5 foil rares, 5 foil uncommons, and 5 foil commons.” Well, no need to ask twice. I jump up from my chair and head to the draft table where a few community members and Wizards employees are waiting to battle it out. Who cracks the foil Jitte?

This is a small example of thecrazinessthat unfolded during my time at the Community Cup at Wizards headquarters in Renton, Washington. But let’s start from the beginning…

It was April the 13th and I was working on some improvements on our website when I got a mail from Chris Kiritz from Wizards of the Coast. I opened the mail and found:

Hello Marin,

In recognition of your involvement in theMagic Online community,Wizards of the Coast cordially invites you to join us in person as a member of the Community Team participating in the 2010Magic Online Community Cup! Taking place between June 7^th and June 11th at theWizards of the Coast corporate office in Renton, Washington, the Community Cup is a collection of Magic Online tournaments and special events that pits you (and the rest of the community team) against a team of Wizards of the Coast staff in friendly competition. We would like to fly you out to Renton, WA on Monday, June 7^th to take part in the various activities scheduled for June 8^th through June 11^th, and would provide all meals, transportation, and accommo…..”

The rest was hard to read as I was spinning on my chair and everything basically faded in front of my eyes. Wow! I was going to visit Wizards of the Coast and see all the guys that make Magic. Mark Rosewater whose articles I was following since the Stone Age of Magic back in 1995. Aaron Forsythe and all the other developers that make the sets. I would see the place where everything was made and would spend one week playing Magic against the creators while meeting awesome people from the community?! Yabba, Dabba, Dooo!

After calming down only a few hours later I finished reading the rest of the mail and started providing the necessary paperwork such as a non-disclosure agreement (how cruel) and other data Wizard needed to book the flight and hotel. The Community Cup would be from June, 7th to June 11th so still plenty of time to prepare decks and questions for the crew.

When everything was set and done I only had to wait for the day to come and board the plane to Seattle. Thanks, Hasbro, for booking a flight that made me leave the house at 4am…

Arrival – Monday, June 7th

The flight was without problem if you ignore the fact that I was already anticipating a free middle seat when a last minute change suddenly filled the seat with a gentleman that was a bit to small for his weight. Ah, well – it’s only 6 hours. I spend the time reading the interesting safety manual and the free board magazine with all those hilarious gadgets. Anyone really buying this stuff?

I landed in Seattle at around 10:30 AM local time and immediately made my way to the hotel. We where all stationed in the Hilton Holiday Inn which was literally a “Stone’s Throw” away from Wizards of the Coast and made it easy to walk back and forth when needed. I checked in left my luggage in the room and went back to the lobby to check for a convenient place to have some food. The first person I met there was Nate Price who was killing time by sitting on the couch in front of the fire place and playing Civilization IV. We started chatting for a while when we both decided it’s time to get some food and prepare for the first meeting with the WotC crew. Nate just came back from a long trip from Japan and was a bit tired, but excited for the events that would unfold. A while later more and more Community Cup participants joint and shortly after we where already battling – with Magic cards of course!

Evan had his “Cube” with him and suggested to draft and play to kill some time before our first meeting at Stanford’s where we would have dinner. I never had the opportunity to “Cube draft” before and it was a lot of fun to play with cards such as Mox Jet in a draft deck. Overall my deck was an aggressive Red/Black build but I lost in some close and not so close games to Brad Nelson’s Blue/Green build. He was very nice about the games and allowed me to undo some stupid moves that clearly showed that I was a bit rusty handling paper cards.

The time went by quickly and a few WotC guys joined us to pick us up for dinner. This would be the first opportunity to meet a whole bunch of community members and Wizards folks while enjoying some hearty meal. I was excited and curious to meet some of the people I have interacted with in the past but never actually met in “real life.” This would be the first opportunity to ask some questions directly and hopefully get some insightful answers from the MTGO team. Oh, I forgot – a few pictures that show the community team battling with their Cube decks. Check out Nate’s article about Cube drafting here at the Academy.

Click on any picture to enlarge!

Fierce battle “Superfriends” vs. “White Weenie” Not so fierce battle… The tension increases again

After the WotC’s joined us we quickly wrapped up our games (Cube drafting is a lot of fun and I encourage you to try it if you ever get the opportunity) and met outside the hotel lobby to to devise our “war strategy” for the evening.

Chris Kiritz (bold…hm, nevermind), Mike Gills, Lee Sharpe, and community members plan the evening.

We split up into different vans and headed to our first dinner location which was an American Diner. Stanford’s provided us with solid food and a comfortable place to chat with fellow players and hosts. I remember taking the seafood grill plate and a beer and spending a long evening chatting about, well, Magic mostly I guess

That basically wrapped up the first day and it already shaped up to become an awesome week. All of the WotC’s where very nice folks (as expected) and interesting discussions made the time fly by quickly. Maybe I should have prepared some questions, but that felt to nerdy and it was more fun this way I think. We drove back to the hotel and awaited day 2 that was planned to start with a tour in Seattle. Pike Place Market and Sci-Fi museum we are coming!

Day Two – Tuesday, June 8th

The second day started at 8:00 AM with a tour to the Seattle center to visit the famous Pike Place Market. Pike Place Market is apublic market overlooking theElliott Bay waterfront inSeattle. The Market opened August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continually operated public farmers’ markets in the United States. It is a place of business for many small farmers,craftspeople andmerchants, and is one of Seattle’s most popular tourist destinations.

The Market is built on the edge of a steep hill, and consists of several lower levels located below the main level. Each features a variety of uniqueshops. Antiquedealers,comic book sellers, small family-ownedrestaurants, while the area contains one of the few remaininghead shops left in Seattle. The upper street level containsfishmongers, freshproduce stands and craft stalls operating in the coveredarcades. Local farmers and craftspeople sell year-round in the arcades from tables theyrent from the Market on a daily basis, in accordance with the Market’s mission and founding goal: allowing consumers to “Meet the Producer.”

This is a view from Pike Place to the bay We had ample time to explore the various levels of the market and indulge in some exotic specialties such as chocolate covered cherries or spicy pepper breakfast jelly… Additional excitement generated Vince’s announcement that we will receive a bunch of questions and the first team that solves them gets some nice Magic swag. The questions where pretty tough and soon after teams spread out to find hints and answers….

Pike Place Market was a fun experience but made us pretty hungry. So much delicious food and lunch still hours away – cruel! We wandered around the second level and found a different kind of “Magic”!

After all the walking, talking, and specialty food we observed it was clearly time for lunch. We did not have to walk far as the Pike Place Brewery was in close distance. We ordered pitchers of beer and water and supplemented with burgers and fries the lunch was in full swing. Everyone was so busy talking, drinking, and eating that we did not manage to take a lot of pictures…

Strengthened by beer and burgers we made our way to the second attraction in Seattle. the Sci-Fi museum. It was a bit different then I expected because they mixed the Sci-Fi museum with the music museum which made for some interesting twists. It was a very interesting experience to say at least and left a lasting impression on us.

The music part of the museum was not less impressive than the Sci-Fi one. With a nice collection of old and new instruments and a bio of many popular bands fro the area and beyond. The top floor even had a music studio that allowed you to play and record music on your own. Some of the fellow players tried their best to sound “groovy” while playing the drums and other instruments. I am glad that no one was able to hear my creation though!

For those of you that don’t know, Jimmy Hendrix was from Seattle and so it is not big surprise that there where a lot of items from the superstar to be found in the museum. I learned a lot of things I didn’t know and found the experience amazing. If you ever happen to be in the Seattle area check it out. It is a lot of fun.

After spending a few hours in the museum we walked back to our bus that was a few minutes away because of the limited parking possibilities in the area. Some people couldn’twithstandthetemptationto refresh themselves with fountain water or try some of the local attractions such as the kid’s karussell. If you ever wanted to see a Magic Pro riding the “Dilu Horse” here is your chance!

As if this day wasn’t already awesome enough we headed towards a food court that had a Game store in it. What do Magic players do when they see a game store? Well, they play Magic, what else?

Uncle’s Games provided us will a lot of space to try out the new multi-player product from Wizards of the Coast – Archenemy. In Archenemy one player, the Archenemy, is battling multipleopponents at the same time with the help of a set of “Scheme cards”. Those cards are drawn at the beginning of the turn and help the archenemy to fight the “heroes.” The game was about to be released a week later and we had the opportunity to try it first. It is a lot of fun and I can recommend it if you love multi-player Magic. Check it out here!A short video that covers our experience:

Our visit at Uncle’s Games wrapped up Day Two and…wait…it was actually not really the end, but you will have to wait for part 2 to see what happened. Check back next week and see the first day inside Wizards of the Coast and many more interesting pictures and videos.

Take care everyone and see you around,

Marin

*Videos and a few of the pictures courtesy of Wizards of the Coast and Nate Price. All rights reserved.