MagicCon Chicago || TTC Ep496 

It was so good to see you all again!

The Dental Convention was awesome! My friend even got his 'Totally Lost' signed by a real dentist.

Petition to put "Gluttonous but not sloppy" on the Illinois license plates. It was lovely to meet all of you at the convention. Y'all are good folks

Earth is technically a Plane, it's a Plane type from the Doctor Who set!

The 'moving after you drafted' during the Chaos draft was less annoying when I ended up seated by Serge to do my build, which was lovely.

I am that midwesterner sliding into your DMs about pizza. 👀 For real, though, I couldn't justify coming to MagicCon Chicago in spite of it being a 1 hour drive. I barely afford playing magic as is. It does warm my heart that people ran you all ragged doing the meet and greet.

It was nice meeting all of you and thanks for signing my cards. It was definitely a highlight of my weekend there. And thanks to Nelson for letting me spar with him in sf6 on Oki Oki Fight Club. I hope I wasn't too hard on you in the Luke mirror.

I was one of those eggs! and got Nelson to sign a snuff out for my pauper cube, so great to meet both of you, even briefly

I have the day off from work, sick. This is a wonderful treat while sipping coffee and curled up in my reading chair. Thank you!

It was SO FUN to meet you guys I’m the guy that talked about your brain on crack a pack Graham! Very happy to hear the hot dogs weren’t awful and Connie’s is a staple haha

Loved having both MagicCon and LRR in my neck of the woods! - Big agree on the main stage being too loud - that definitely needed to be fixed. - Love to hear Wheeler on team deep dish (but also the secret real Chicago pizza is tavern-style) - One of the reasons Magic hasn't been to Chicago in so long is that McCormick is _so_ expensive to rent. WotC/ReedPop/Pastimes were definitely trying to save money putting it in the Lakeside building, but it really felt like it deserved one of the main halls - I don't want to invite Weather Discourse, but we've definitely been having an unseasonably warm February combined with some wild swings. A few days after you left, we had a drop from 72F (22C) to 32F (0C) overnight. - Watching the Pro Tour with BDM and Reid Duke doing couch-commentary was pretty awesome - Very glad I could give away all my "Ask me about Gladiator" buttons

Well Graham, I happen to work for an NHL franchise and would be happy to send you tickets, and a purple hockey fights cancer jersey. If you’re interested in attending another game in the western states.

Shared this in the Discord thread, but it was great meeting all the LRR folks, and everyone else there in general.

Thanks for making my first Magic Con an awesome experience

“Cheesy 10-stack” sounds like an obscure CanLander combo deck

So much fun to see you all in Chicago! Wish I could have sat across from any of yall during the weekend, but c'est la vie. I at least got to say hi during the meet and greet; I was the guy with the blank, white play mat that you guys were the first to sign! I'm Geekscience in chat, btw :) here's to the next Con

Always a delight to see y'all.

The magic card pun names have me rolling, great job to whoever is on the card reader lol 😂

Man I walked right by Graham and Kathleen near the end of a day on Saturday, did not want to bother them. You both were on your way out it was cool just to see you guys

HEY THATS MY SCRUBLAND!!!!!

It was awesome being in Wheelers draft pod in the Chaos event! I will treasure y’all’s signatures!!

It was a first con visit for me. Very glad to meet your group and attend the event.

I wish I could have been to the Chaos Draft and meet-and-greet but "too many" people love you and it was great to meet you at other times!

Love listening to these podcasts at work. Can't wait to dig into this one!!

So nice to see you all at MagicCon! I had the Legendary Pass and was unable to buy anything from the official store except for a set of pins I got at the House of Blue party.

I got asked by so many dentists “are the cards actually worth that much” and even played a game of jumpstart with a very nice dentist. Didn’t have that on my universes beyond bucket list.

Completely agree with Wheeler on the "enters" change and wordiness in general. I'm tired of every card being a novel, and the answer is not to cut baseline text in order to fit even _more_ words.

Wheeler on 'enters' 👍❤️

It's so cool that you all came to, and mostly enjoyed the food in, my home town! I was wondering if Graham had grabbed footage similar to Minneapolis and was planning on editing and uploading it. I guess my main point is I hope you had a great time outside of the con-space; I didn't get to head to the con myself due to the sell-out or I would have asked in-person! I had heard the physical space was just not large enough, which is INSANE to me. McCormick Place is a HUGE space for conventions. I hope that, as you've suggested, they really sit down and look at their planning for future conventions, and I really hope they come back to Chi Town soon!

I was at both dental and magic con that weekend

As one of the seagulls, thank you for the signed card and Kathleen for the cat spirit token.

Had a great time at the convention, despite the crowds and technical mishaps. Shivam and Wheeler Live Magic was a blast, and so happy I managed to get some of your signatures after missing the cutoff for the Friday meet-and-greet. Didn't play as much magic as I would have liked, but had a blast nonetheless. Hoping to make it to another one someday!

It was so nice to see you all back in Chicago! Hopefully you can come back more often!

First of all, I would like to issue a formal apology to one Serge Yager. I was looking for the signing booth on Sunday and saw him walking past me quickly, so to get his attention, I tapped him on his arm - in EXACTLY the spot where he'd recently gotten stitches. I thought I'd killed him, but that sweet boy shook off the horrendous pain and gave me directions as best he could. Unfortunately, while giving those directions, another attendee walked up behind him and accidentally bumped him AGAIN on the stitched arm, and I felt SO bad for him. Second, a huge thank-you to Ben Wheeler for taking a minute of time shortly before the Sunday signing for two things: 1) You may remember me as the guy who shared your interest in German foils, and I couldn't wait to show you the full set of Zendikar fetches and the Gatecrash Godless Shrine I had acquired that very morning from one of the vendors. Your reaction of "Holy shit" made my day, sir. 2) I appreciate the selfie, and my sister's friend who could not attend was elated to see you in a photo. As for me personally, I had an AMAZING time at MagicCon Chicago. My sister was also able to attend Friday and Saturday, and while we couldn't get tickets to 2-Headed Giant events (because they were - you guessed it - sold out by the time we could buy them), we did manage to sneak into the Pauper events on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. She ran Kuldotha Red and did okay considering she'd never played in an actual Pauper tournament before, and I (on Golgari Gardens) went 2-0-1 Friday and 5-2 Saturday, finishing in 17th place in the Pauper Cup. I also traded in about 6 fat packs worth of cards that were merely collecting dust before, and the grand total that the store gave me was enough to allow me to afford those incredible German foils and also pay off a credit card. While I was conducting that business, my sister hit the artist tables and got a bunch of cards signed. I even managed to sneak in 4 Commander games on Sunday, winning with Zada and Thalia+Gitrog and having a blast in all the games. Chicago was one of the better MagicCon experiences I've had, especially the food; INFINITELY better than standard convention fare, and at prices that weren't the most unreasonable I've ever seen.

@48:00 Preach, Wheeler!

Glad you guys had a good time- you’ve given me a lot of pleasure

It was wonderful seeing you all again after first meeting in Minneapolis (and meeting Serge for the first time)! I'm glad y'all thought House of Blues was cool. I didn't make it to the party but I saw a Twenty One Pilots show there a few years back and loved the venue.

Live Highschool Hokey is the most exciting sport I've ever watched.

The voice actors have developed new tech for cons: A headset microphone wired up a personal speaker on the table. That way they don't have to project their voice and can protect their vocal chords.

Great meeting some of you at magiccon and playing against ben u. I had a good experience but i have my complaints

I like the discussion on the White Castle meat sweats/fever dreams

Current goal is a Nelly Borca signed by Nelly, Which led me to start thinking about cards I'd want signed by lrr. Assume I won't be Wheeler's first Dingus Egg

I really hope there’s a Canadian magiccon one day. I can’t justify going to the states (I’m trans…) right now but I really want to see you all again (got to see you at conbravo in Hamilton (checks notes) 9 YEARS AGO. oof.)

If you think Chicago was full, I can't wait for how packed Amsterdam probably will be. :D

MagicCon was so much fun and I got to meet so many of you ; however, *moves closer to the mic* next time I will not just thank you for what you do and move on but get autographs. hehe /hugehugs please never stop.

Chicago was a great time. I was a bit disappointed to learn that the LRR chaos event was BO1 (though I can understand the reasoning, it did feel like there was a lot of time sitting around between rounds) and it made mulligans and mana problems feel especially bad. I had the blotus VIP package and just being able to skip the lines and hour early alone made it feel worth while. Guaranteed that I was able to get the merch and artists signatures I wanted in the mornings and left me plenty of time once the Con opened fully to still play the events I wanted to.

Oh you're definitely supposed to crush a cheesy 10 sac w a bud, gotta eat em hot or they turn to mush

I grew up in chicago.. def deep dish is great once awhile and food coma

I got in line for the show store during game knights live. When I got in line, they said where I was was about a 5-6 hour wait. I waited for 45 minutes and I saw them take down an item that sold out while I was in line, so I wasted 45 mins for nothing. I decided to get in line FIRST THING Saturday, and luckily only waited 15 minutes. But then all of the clothes I wanted didn't come in my size because they only went up to XXL. I was pissed.

Us Midwesterners take our sports food very seriously.

Look, a lot of New Capena is New York, but a *lot* of it is Chicago. How did nobody associate it with Al Capone?

Put Less Words on Cards is a platform I can get behind!

Wheeler signed my badge

I'm with Wheeler on the deep dish. It's amazing. It's a casserole, not pizza, but it's soooooooo good

I need to visit America so I can trip balls on White Castle

is there isn't a podcast called tap tap crowning there definetely should be one made

i will not hear any slander of SPONCH! yes they're bad but also they're oddly great. was so nice to get to see y'all!

Here's hoping we get a G-vlog!

The weekend was awesome but I have a question for Wheeler...does Boompile count as an egg? I need a ruling on this for reasons.

Well now I just wanna watch TeethTeethConcede

Its hilarious that LRR has to keep telling us to stop them and say hi at conventions, because we WILL NOT if not actively encouraged.

There was a,dentist convention

it's nice but the real question is. did you go to the zoo and see the axolotls?

I need to get Nelly to sign the best magic card, Trading Post.

So tru lack of space

Problem was scalping

Thank you so much for calling out the frabkly egregious problem with the position of the main stage relative to the tournament area! Just to add additional context, not only was it difficult to near-impossible to communicate with one's opponent at points during Game Knights Live, but i have seen several people (at least 2 of whom were X-0 and X-1 at the start of the GKL timeblock) talk about how they were considering dropping from the PTQ entirely because the noise was so horrendous and all-consuming that they felt they might literally be unable to play the game. One person in particular received 2 of his 3 losses across the entire event during this time frame, at least in part due to his ability to concentrate being completely destroyed by the wall of noise. He ended up in 9th, and had either of those loses been a win he would have cleanly locked in top 8, and a Pro Tour invite.

also, let's be honest- gavin's event is absolutely brawl.

One day we'll get Wheeler back in NJ and get him some real NYC pizza. Note not dunking on other pizza as all pizza is good pizza and I'm also on of the freaks that say CT has the best pizza.

that bbq was pretty solid!!

I was happy to be in Shivam & Wheeler Live! It was so rad.

In defense of the templating change: "enters" only occurs in one context in this game. It's like when they shortened "Discard a card" to "discard", even though that too might be kind of confusing for a new player. Also, while "enters" only is used in this one context, "leaves" is not, so they can't change that. "Leaves your graveyard" is a thing, as anyone who has played with or against Syr Konrad the Grim will know.

The deep dish they had in the convention center was not great

Completely agree with Wheeler on the "Enters" tidbit, lol!

if it was slow to onset and the primary symptom was a scratchy throat, that might have been COVID that's how all my covid cases happened

Any story about an extended visit to Chicago is at least 20% food. Once you live long enough in Chicago, you forget just how good food is in Chicago. Anywhere other than New York City is a bit disappointing. A popular summer tourist activity is a walking food tour which is exactly as it sounds.

sad to know ill never get to go to a magic event again as a poor magic player. im glad the events are so great, just wish the community was open to us poor people.

Abruptly changing the subject after Ben brought up legitimate concerns was kinda weird. Gave me, “don’t speak Voldemort’s name” vibes

47:30 I understand where Wheeler is coming from and respect the desire to keep flavourful text in the game, but I respectfully disagree with Wheeler on the change from ETB to "Enters". Maybe it's because I played Yu-Gi-Oh before Magic, but Magic to me has always done a good job at shorthanding a specific complicated effect or game action as a word, both on the cards (Scry, Surveil, Double Strike, etc) and as a community ("mill" before that was officially adopted or "edict" for forced sacrifice). But "Enters the battlefield" and "Leaves the battlefield" have always felt cumbersome and awkward to me. It feels like Yu-Gi-Oh templating, where many words are used to explain the exact mechanic of what's happening when one word could have sufficed. Hell, the community, yourself included, already shorthands Enters the Battlefield to ETB already because it's cumbersome! And yeah, they're just cutting 16 characters (including spaces), but when 32% of the cards printed in a set (which was the case for MKM) have ETB on the card, its got bad mouth feel, it's already shorthanded by the community, and those 16 characters might be the difference between a card having flavour text and not, it's the easiest cut to make. This isn't going to remove the Battlefield as being the Battlefield. It will still be refered to as such on a lot of cards. But just like how Wrath of God doesn't specify "Destroy all creatures in play" anymore and doesn't need to have "Destroy all creatures on the battlefield", neither do cards need ETB.