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One thing I had them clarify is how their two roles relate and interact. As co-Brand managers, I wasn't sure if they oversaw the same things and worked in tandem, or if there were some sort of split to their responsibilities. As it turns out, it is a fairly clear separation. Mark is much more focused on the products and game itself, while Paul is about the experience and how people interact with the game and its products.
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We began our talk by going over the upcoming release schedule, Mark found a bit of pleasure in seeing how well I had the upcoming product schedule memorized, so I led the way by discussing the popular "From the Vault: Relics." Most of the discussion centered on the focus of the product as a way to hold true to the collectors of Magic. The people who find their joy in the game in collecting and having the various cards rather than those who want to battle across the table or play with the cards. Having got a copy of my own, I can completely agree. Mark identified himself as a collector of Magic before he joined Wizards (and I suspect still is today, though the cards and products are a bit more readily available to him I suspect.)
From there we got to the upcoming Duel Deck, Elspeth vs. Tezzeret. Perhaps the most exciting Planeswalker face off since Jace vs. Chandra, and in fact Mark felt the ties were much closer between the two decks, citing recognition of evenness of the decks and power levels. In Jace vs Chandra they put Jace on Counterspell and Chandra on Seal of Fire, making new forms of beloved cards. While no one is likely to sneeze at the Foil Elspeth nor the Foil Tezzeret in the deck, he wanted to be clear that there are 12 Rares in the deck, and "a few well known uncommons coming back" in the deck. On top of that, given its release a month before Scars of Mirrodin, I inquired about any "future" cards in the decks? Indeed, there will be two Scars cards in the deck. He gave no hint as to "how exciting" they might be, but future cards are always cool.
Our discussion on Scars of Mirrodin was rather limited, I didn't probe too deeply into it. We discussed how it was a return to Mirrodin and that players would be able to feel that in the set. I perhaps could have explored this more but I was caught up in the further schedule and I moved us past it without much thought. In fact, we come back to it later in this article, so read on!
Half joking I mentioned that there is the Holiday card, a tradition from Wizards to make a unique card for the holidays. Last year's was "Season's Beatings" and the year before was "Fruitcake Elemental." I expected to just skip over this but it led us into a brief discussion of, "I didn't think we'd announced that..." and I pointed out that we knew of it via Rosewater's twitter.
It was after this that Mark Purvis pointed out a few items I had overlooked, such as the re-issue of Jace vs Chandra. Japan is the second biggest market for Magic (after the US.) They were looking for more ways to encourage new people to get into the game in Japan. They were very excited to be working with Yoshino Himori on it, and as such they loved the idea of re-issuing the Jace vs Chandra duel deck in conjunction with Mrs. Himori's Manga. Having him do the art for the cards seemed only logical, and it should prove a popular project worldwide despite being largely aimed at Japan.
The other item I had completely overlooked the Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning. The Premium Deck Series premiered last year with the Slivers deck. Mark openly acknowledged that it was limited as a product because, while Slivers are popular, it appeals to only players who want more Slivers or to newer players who like the idea of a sliver deck but didn't have one before. So taking lessons learned from Slivers, they created Fire & Lightning. Designed and developed by Aaron Forsythe and Zac Hill, it certainly holds a lot of promise. The deck will have two cards with new art that also utilize a unique new foiling process not used in any other Magic product to date. One of these cards is, I believe, Chain Lightning, based on the art they released with the announcement and a tweet from GP Columbus about artist Christopher Moeller.
You may be wondering where Paul has been in all of this, he's been sitting right next to us. But the majority of our questions to this point are more aimed at Mark. He chimed along the way, but we'll get to talk to him a bit more further on.
We get into discussion around the Deckbuilder's Toolkit. It is an interesting product and rather foreign as a concept when it was first announced. After having gotten two and played with them I have to admit: I'm a big fan. Mark and Paul explained that it was intended as a second-step for new Magic players. The progression being a Theme deck, and once they're ready to begin tinkering and building their own deck, here is the perfect toolkit. It was developed in response to hearing many store owners were selling a set's Fat Pack as the "second step" item. While a Fat Pack is cool and pre-Deckbuilder's Tookit it was the best option for a second step. But it's very unguided and it can leave players a bit confused and possibly underwhelmed depending on what the packs contained. So the toolkit was developed and it has proven to be a great success such that we should expect to see it on Magic shelves for several more years.
We talked then about Mirrodin Besieged, and in fact we talked about it a few times. I had actually begun our discussion by noting how awesome it was to be surprised by the set name. Having thought that we had figured out the system only to be caught with a surprisingly strong curveball right through the strike zone. Mark and Paul grinned and nodded.
Mark pointed out that Wizards has been aware that the US Patent and Trademark office documents are all public and so they've known what they were doing. Though they would obviously prefer no one spoiled anything for them, they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. It should be noted that the registration for the set name went through earlier this week.
They were both tight lipped about Mirrodin Besieged itself, though Mark deserves a nomination for the Oscars this year after the performance he gave. I commented on the very visible lack of expansion symbol in the set announcement and he gave a quite convincing "What? Really? I hadn't realized that." When I roared with laughter and called him out, he began noting that they liked switching up what they provided in the Announcement posts. "But not the expansion symbol, that's always there." He opened his mouth to respond and then reconsidered, and stopped himself, "I won't argue about this." Drat, I was hoping he would! I did a quick review of the past Announcing posts, he's right the expansion symbol is not always there, but it is only lacking on some Product releases, as far back as Lorwyn, every set announcement has an expansion symbol. So I am not sure what he intended in that discussion, but I still find the lack of an expansion symbol quite unusual.
In all the products we discussed though, I came away excited. Their energy and excitement over the game was clearly evident at every turn of the conversation. As we sort of wrapped up the specific product discussion I turned to the product lines as a whole.
One thing I was curious about was the earlier release date of Archenemy as compared to last year's Planechase. It was part of the plan for the "Summer of Magic" as a product that stores could use as a driving piece of their internal organized play. We got Paul more involved in the discussion as we talked about it. "Will Summer of Magic continue happening?" Mark turned the question over to Paul, from whom I got a short, concise and beautiful answer from Paul: "Yes." It caused a bit of laughter due to the surprise for the brevity, but he shrugged, "I could say it in a more complex way but the answer is just 'yes.'"
One thing that was interesting to learn was that the Brand team is more heavily involved with coming up with ideas for the products aside from sets, and R&D is handed the concept afterwards. Also I was interested to learn that for a number of the products, they weren't pre-scheduled. Wizards tried something, adjusted and tried again. There was no plan for Duel Decks: Jace vs Chandra when Elves vs Goblins released. Nor was there plan for Fire & Lightning when Slivers released. But as long as it continued to work they will keep running these side products, and there will be new ideas for products coming down the line, whether it be this year, next year, or the year after.
Mark confirmed for me that they're happy with the pattern of non-Planeswalker then Planeswalker Duel decks, so we should expect to see that pattern continue into 2011 with Duel Decks 7 and beyond. The non-Planeswalker one being more likely a battle or confrontation from the Magic universe.
After this I turned the conversation away from upcoming products and instead brought up the recent product placements such as in Disney's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and Syfy's "Warehouse 13." This turned more to Paul, but it was clearly an example of both Paul and Mark working together, especially for Disney.
While we mainly only noticed the cardboard standup in the movie, there were a few other products developed for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," including a Drake Stone fatpack which is visible very briefly on his couch, according to Mark. The partnership was exciting as it is another way Magic is getting its brand and name out there to people who have yet to play or check the game out. We should be on the lookout for more examples of Magic product placement on the TV or at the movies, though I neglected to ask if there were any specific instances coming up.
One of the main things Paul and I have discussed in our previous meetings was organized play, Paul wants to find the way to take Grand Prixes and Pro Tours to the next level. One thing they're clearly focusing on is the "Magic Festival." A term I initially scoffed at when I read it, but one that I have since become a huge supporter and proponent of. To the competitive and institutionalized Magic players, the idea seems silly. To describe a Pro Tour as a "festival" seemed as a way to describe what goes on in very generic blase terms, but I couldn't come up with a better way to describe it. We as players I mean. We want the Pro Tour to become more than just 400 players battling it out for the big prize. Consider a major sporting event such as Nascar or the NFL. There are other things to do at these events, games for kids, shopping, etc. Magic needs that too.
So Paul, Mark and all of Wizards are working to make this more apparent and easily conveyable to draw more people into the events. While they wouldn't give me anything specific, we should expect some big things coming down the pipe for Grand Prixes and Pro Tours.
Of course there are also the conventions like GenCon, PAX being perhaps the biggest convention for them now as it falls in their wheelhouse for announcements and reveals. Last year PAX was a major success with spoilers, parties, and more. They promise this year will be even more, especially as it falls on the same weekend as Pro Tour Amsterdam. They are planning to tie these two things together and make it a major Magic event.
I tried to find out anything about the future schedule, are we going to see the expansion of the Grand Prix schedule? Pro tours? Something new? But nothing was given sadly, so we'll have to wait and see the official announcements. I did talk to Scott Larabee and he says we should have the Pro Tour schedule later this month.
To wrap up the discussion they gave me a few tidbits about Scars of Mirrodin; a confirmation and an explanation.
The confirmation was that yes, Scars of Mirrodin will have TWO watermarks used on their cards (this was also found in the Sales document for Scars.) We have seen one in use on the Sword of Body and Mind in the new From the Vault: Relics, but we couldn't be sure how many watermarks there would be. This seems to point to the idea of factions with Mirrodin and Phyrexia in the set, though I did not bring them up.
The explanation is about why there is life on Mirrodin. It was believed that, at the end of the Mirrodin stories, Memnarch's Soul Traps sucked all the life forms off of Mirrodin leaving the plane desolate and devoid of life. What wasn't made clear in the novels was that the vortexes actually only pulled the original life forms that had been brought to Mirrodin, but they leave their progeny untouched.
What does this mean? It means that Mirrodin is still inhabited and that it is a world in chaos as it just lost every elder from every race across the plane.
That ends the explanation from Wizards, let me now turn to some exposition and guessing.
With this story setup, it seems likely we're going to see "Scars of Mirrodin" be the set that sets the stage. It'll re-introduce us to Mirrodin, it'll show us the tribes (Aurioks, Vulshoks, etc.) and it will allow players who haven't been to Mirrodin to get a feel for it. Then, with Mirrodin Besieged, it would seem a plane without its leadership is a juicy target and one which might be attacked by another Plane, perhaps... Phyrexia?
-- Trick
