What Happens at a Magic Con? 

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This is one of the best MTG channels out there and surely the best lore channel.

Philadelphia might be the best city to dramatically run through. The Rocky franchise is a testament to that.

Thank you for your kind words. We really do our best to provide the best experience we can.

Man, the comment about magic community toxicity hit close to home. I recently started trying to interact with Twitter more (I know, why?) and it’s a really scary place when it comes to magic and players of. I am happy that you were able to interact with the community in a way that overshadowed that rather than the other way around. Pretty awesome.

I'm glad you found the con fun! I was one of the judges in the red section where the un-known event happened, it was soo stressful as we weren't even told what was the twist until Gavin announced it, I believe only the head judge knew. Philly was also a lot better organized then Vegas, it was better in every way I could think of. But the 1200-200 tix split was consistent for all our events in red I was judging (2hg was doubled but each player got the same amount assuming 50/50 split between teammates) so I'm not sure asking Gavin for a more even split would work, you might have to talk to Pastimes for that.

Fantastic video, it's a really good idea to provide a pov experience explaining what it's like for those that have never attended. Being so used to going to these events, i feel like I forgot that some events will always be someone's first time!

Thanks for the well thought out and detailed description of this event that I feel like must have been amazing!

This video was not only super informative and full of good advice, but the stories of the experience were interesting to listen to, too. Much appreciated! :)

I haven't been to any convention in almost 10 years. I appreciated the story of your time at Magic Con, and definitely took notes of some of your con tips for when I do eventually (hopefully) return to the convention circuit myself!

Great video! Glad you also had a positive experience. I was fortunate enough to go, on Saturday and Sunday, and had a blast. The artists section and meet/greet sessions were the biggest draws for me, and generally everyone I interacted with was super nice and talkative. The more than plentiful free play space was particularly appreciated. As long as the base ticketing and travel costs don’t price people out from attending, I would very much recommend going to a Con like this!

It was so wonderful meeting you -- even by accident looking for an event that was hidden from us! You made my day, and I love all the sweet sweet merch you gave my friends and I. I was indeed the person who said "wow cool shirt I love that channel".

Fantastic video about conventions in general since COVID~!! Loved the perspective and I appreciated it! Maybe see you at one of the conventions in the future~!!

Unironically you're one of the most constructive and interesting channels I've had the pleasure of watching! Your videos are really awesome, keep up the good work :)

This was so great to listen to. felt like I vicariously experienced the convention through your story.

Great summary. Thanks for sharing!

Great video. Your joy really does come through the screen. I feel like I had a good time going and I never even left my house! Haha

Absolutly amazing at least i can live these amazing events with your stories i wish I could attend one day,maybe one in Europe! I can feel the love in your words this make me so happy! Thank you for sharing this is really cool!

Planning on heading to Magic Con Minneapolis, so this is just the video I needed!

I appreciate the lore videos and the title of this video is beautiful

What a lovely Recap..Thanks for all the Info and Insight :)

Thank you for this great video It is really interesting to know all this things even if I will probably never go to such an event

Thank you. I enjoy your Lore. I enjoy your channel. I'm glad you got to go. Now you inspire me to want to go. Thank you for the Breakdown. Thank for this video. Thank to being Magic alive. I hope to see much more from you guys. Thank you!!

Have watched this to get ready for MagicCon Barcelona and I am very thankful you made this video so I can get ready as best I can when I didn't think I would be able to do this until a month out from the event. Regardless, I love these helpful videos, like this one, that you have made, Ryan and Nicole.

I'm so glad you enjoyed yourself! I wanted to go to philly but having gone to events before I knew I couldnt afford it this time.

Going by my past experiences at pre-releases for Urza's Legacy and Destiny, later Invasion block, I can vouch for your tips and bringing a bankroll count. Glad you had fun, which was the overall purpose. Now, let's see Maro make a channel appearance!

Awesome experience video! Keep it up Ryan and team!

So cool! I would have lost my mind going to one of these when we started in middle school. Maybe there is still one in the cards for the future! Seems awesome to have gone with your brother too!

This is such a great video. Thanks Ryan.

Very interesting video, I was already thinking to go to Barcelona and seeing this might be very helpful in order to enjoy the experience properly, if I'm actually going. Cheers from Italy!

It was awesome meeting you on Saturday. You were definitely incognito with the mask on. Thanks for the stickers and tokens! - Max (interplanar beacon cosplay - the Myrel one)

Nice summation of the whole game convention experience. I myself am a tabletop RPG nerd and have gone to a ton of Gen Cons and the occasional Origins, and local convention. The conventions I've attended tend to be within a 5-9 hour drive so I try to time my arrival for the afternoon before the Con starts to take care of registration, settle into my hotel, connect with out of town friends, get my bearings, see a few of the sights, and try out at least one of the local restaurants, before finally trying to get some sleep before what usually is a 3 to 4 day event. It is about as hard as you imagine, being a bit like trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve as a kid. Anyhow glad you had fun even if your bank balance didn't. 😉

This is really cool hearing about. I have no experience with Magic cons but as a longtime attender of Comic Cons, I can say that not attending enough panels is a pretty common issue I hear. Check the schedules, hit the events you think sound interesting, then fit floortime around it

I wish I could've met you there. I also went to the event, but hope you enjoyed it homie.

Not even finished watching yet and I have to say this was excellent. I live in Boston so I've been going to PAX for years which always has a strong Magic presence so I know a lot of this stuff already, but I remember my first convention and I would have loved to have all this spelled out to me before. Kudos.

Awsome tips, I'm not surprised you got recognized!

ty for sharing! and dang, so much for us plebs being able to afford one of these!

Taking the leap of faith for rosewater was brave. Good on you.

Damn, fresh Magic Arcanum

I wish I could have met you at the convention in Philly!!! I love your content with Nicole B.

You were at con? Uuuugh damn I wish I would have seen you! I've really been enjoying your channel.

......and thanks for saying kind words about Philly! I was born and raised there (and still visit family and friends quite often) and sometimes the city gets a bad rap. Philly is a great city to be in!

What a beautiful thing, Ryan! I have yet to attend a MTG convention. Someday!

I had command zone VIP - there was not ODEs in the zone. You told someone if you wanted to play casually or competitively, and you got into a game in a couple minutes max. It was also where Commander and cEDH content creators played, and I did get to play against Dylan from Play to Win just by being able to be in that area. I would have liked to have ODEs available there, even with the extra price, and a few entries included in the price of the ticket would make a future Commander vip pass perfectly worth it

It was also one of my first cons as well. It was hard trying to see and do everything.

this video made me desire an event like magic con philly. thanks.

Dang, its a shame I missed seeing you there, I love your stuff! Though you made the right decision when it came to food in house there, $8 for a Grilled Chees or Mac n Cheese, and that was it. Not to mention the cost of a small Red Bull lol!

Would love see what's inside the storytelling cube! Was thinking of starting something similar.

Awesome!!! Wish I could go... But the small tiny problem... Living in a different country, makes it impossible xD. Glad you had fun, and thanks for te advices...

Woah I didn’t know you were there! Wish I could have run into you.

Very glad to hear you enjoyed the event! From what I've heard, the Lotus badge was far from worth it this round of MagicCon; the VIP group seemed rather miffed about missing out on Shivan Dragons by staying in the lounge! $160? Worth. $320? Questionable, bahahaha!!

I went that weekend as well and I gotta be honest if your traveling far from home it can be expensive. Luckily I live in PA right outside of Philly so I was fortunate. I also purchased a weekend pass with my friends and one even got the commander VIP pass. One thing we learned was while the staff was nice nobody really paid close attention to anything. We walked all over to any location and did whatever we liked without any issues. The command zone was paid for sure but I did not pay and walked in all weekend without any issue or person asking if I should be there. I’m not sure if there were any prizes or stuff to gain from it but everyone that was there that I met played causal commander with us and it was super fun. The paid events sure could add up but in all reality all you needed was to pay for general access and then do whatever you wanted cause it was not paid attention to.

This was a really cool video

I'm looking for that foil brainstorm playmat there

damn, never been so early! let's go! hat looks great tho :D

Thank you for sharing your experience and insights. I think these are way over costed compared to the SCG events, TCG Con events and Eternal Weekend also held in Philadelphia about 2 months prior. Too expensive for me to justify in the foreseeable future.

I had issues with the way Pastimes ran the events. More often than not they didn't use the timers on the companion app, which caused frustration and affected match outcomes. To your point, 200 vs 1200 is quite the difference so I had a match or two that would have played out different if we knew time remaining. Gavin's event was fun and yeah, the test cards broke the game, but honestly, I gave that a pass. It was so fun I didn't care. A single test card blew me out 2/3 games in one round. Another round I had a similar experience and faced down a Vishgraz, the Doomhive. I somehow ran into Mark at Reading Terminal Market getting breakfast at the same place. Really nice guy.

i was in Vegas last Year, there was no On Demand Events and no real space for Open play what really sucked cause i also didnt wanted to play a few hundred on non refundable Scheduled events. so i was there and had like 2 matches at the Hotel the whole weekend. But good to hear that they changed some things

Oooohhhh snap I was at Phillycon too.also my first one. I got one of the secret lair shivan dragons

I got the secret lair box from this. Just for that playmat. Wish I could've gone to one of these.

didnt realize you would be there nor did I realize you were a fellow CNY'er, we drove down from Syracuse

I wish there was a convention in the UK

I'm from Minneapolis and right now I'm trying to decide if it'd be worth it to try to go to the one here in May. My biggest issue is that I'm not sure I'd have anybody to go with and I'm not sure I'd make the most if it by myself. My second biggest issue is that I work nights so, unless I take a day off work, Friday and most of Saturday wouldn't work out and most likely I'd end up just going on Sunday.

Me and my friends stayed at the loews hotel too! Idk how we missed you, ugh 😩

Not related to MTG, but part of me was really worried that you were no longer with your wife because of the move to New York. I'm glad that wasn't the case. Thanks for all the content you put out.

Sounds like there's some stuff that should be posted on a website and/or sent in emails to attendees about how to prepare for the event and alert "the press" about press passes.

It wouldn’t be hard to recognize you from a crowd. That mustache is legendary. And did I hear this right, Gavin Verhey wrote for Roseanne? What?

Funny thing is that I was visiting my girlfriend in Philadelphia over the convention weekend. I don’t know if it is better or worse that I didn’t know about the event.

Dude I would love to play commander with you sometime, Story Teller vs Getcher Snacks (Birgi vs Gyome maybe? XD)

Looks fun, are you going to any other cons this year? i.e. Vegas

As a dedicated con-goer who decided to skip this one, it sounds like a more promising start to this sort of thing than I expected and I'm very curious to see how stuff shifts over time (if this indeed continues to be a thing). At all other cons I go to, I tend to skip Magic despite it being my favorite game as it can take up a lot of time and takes away from everything else you can do. A con just for Magic seems to solve that issue! However, worth noting that the best cons I can think of have grown big enough to allow you the option of jumping around or settling somewhere without having to pay out the wazoo each time. If MagicCon grows enough that regular content creators can bring free panels to the schedule (not to mention more actual free play areas) that would be ideal--we're Magic players and we're already spending our money on cards, so throw us a bone! Also, while the events are up and down, Philly is still my favorite city for events. A convention center actually in city center is so nice and it's right across the street from Reading Terminal Market, too! You never need to wonder where to go for meals because you could eat at a different place for each meal in Reading Terminal and have a fantastic meal each time. One of my favorite spots on Earth. Hope you were able to grab something there at least once!

It’s cool we have another Rochester, NY native. Do you ever go to Millenium?

I totally feel like I saw/talked to you and did not recognize you one bit, but now that I'm seeing the shirt I'm realizing it. fyi the Unknown event wasn't supposed to pay out prize tix at all, hence why it didn't mention it on the website. The playtest cards were supposed to be prize enough. It was just a mix up with the judges. For the Command Zone you only had to pay additionally if you wanted to win prize tix for your pod. But general match making was free (after the add on pass).

as a part-time Pioneer grinder who got owned at a store championship in Austin, please tell us more about your Pioneer deck!!

As you’re in Rochester now, are you going to Commander Sealed in September?

Many of the playtest cards in the Mystery Boosters were unplayable or problematic, as well. They appear to be seeded for play in EDH or Cube but you would think if they were unique to a limited format, they would be tailored to be useful/good in that format.

We stan Ryan Gomez!

As a community, MTG players are super respectful and helpful, in person. I’ve been playing since the late 90’s, but quit for about 7 or 8 years. Arenas is fun, and a good way to help new players learn the game, but I’ve, as have most of my friends, noticed that the community can be a lot more toxic online. I really don’t think that’s a picture of the community as a whole, however.

People pay unperceivable amounts to enter some sort of VIP zone where they get an extra hour at the ballpit

Imagine looking at Ryan's mustache and not recognizing him.

I wish they do even mini events like this in the Philippines. We have tons of magic communities here. T^T I can't afford a plane ride to the US but I can join if the event is here T^T

What's the best way to buy the books? I want to start at the beginning.

You are from, Rochester? Nice. What part?

What song would you want playing in the background as you sprint to meet Mark Rosewater in your hypothetical romcom?

Papa Ryan Gomez thank you for the information

Hey Ryan, Did you notice a lot of people playing brawl? How was brawl supported there? Thanks

It's a shame this will probably never come to Australia/Overseas 😔 😔

First rule of Magiccon is that we don’t talk about Magiccon.

Ur still looking for a wandering emperor? I pulled a regular a foil and a showcase

better start saving

Can you play at the event as a beginner new to the game but I know the basic rules

MagicCon Amsterdam anyone?

How's the game you're making going?

If you’re giving away dragon shield sleeves out in upstate New York, I’d love a chance.

I thought what happened at magic Con stayed at magic Con

Is your pioneer deck Bogles?

I watched this video for 8 min until I realised it’s not about a magic con like illusionist/magician but one about the card game

I'll prep the typical condescending Twitter response used for cash grabs (interject sarcasm): Is this cost prohibitive for you? Maybe this event isn't for you. Thank you for the financial breakdown. I've always wanted to know the costs involved with one of these things, and now I know I will never want to attend one of these cons.

You were here?!

Getting signs from Gavin or Mark devalued your product