For those who don't know MagicCon is a convention for Magic: The Gathering players/fans that occurs a few times a year starting in 2023. They're not always in the same cities each year, but there's been one in Las Vegas each year since it started, and for those interested, it will be in Vegas again next year in May.
For MagicCon Las Vegas 2025, though, I got to go with my brother-in-law for two of the days. Funny enough, for something called MagicCon where people play a lot of Magic....I only ended up playing a few games during the con itself.
That's because I did a bunch of other things...and for this, I'm not going to go in order.
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| Gavin Verhey and T.J. |
On the second day, I got to take part in an event called Unknown with Gavin Verhey (who is a principal designer for Magic: The Gathering at Wizards of the Coast.) This event was honestly the only time I played any Magic during the convention. We weren't told what the format would be beforehand, but I had guessed we'd do some sort of sealed, which is what we did. Except this sealed was unique. We had to build a 60-card Commander-style deck where the color identity rule didn't matter. We were given 3 packs from Tarkir: Dragonstorm, 3 Mystery Booster II packs, and a special playtest pack of ten cards. These playtests were only able to be used during this event as they're regular cards with fake card attached on top of it. But these "playtest" cards were honestly really fun to play with.
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| The prize pin |
Another fun thing I got to do was the Fblthp scavenger hunt (yes, I spelled that correctly). The goal was to scan the QR code on 8 special posters throughout the convention center. If you did that, you'd get a special pin, which my brother-in-law and I did.
Now I'm gonna back up to some of my day 1 fun. Because they were going to be doing a Game Knights Live recording in the late-afternoon on the first day, my brother-in-law and I wanted good seats. And even though there were two panels I wasn't as interested in before Game Knights, we pretty much took turns sitting in the area.
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| Olivia Gobert-Hicks, Brian Kibler, and T.J. |
While my brother-in-law sat there and I went on a walk (seriously, my back would've hated me), I randomly was able to get a quick photo with
Brian Kibler and Olivia Gobert-Hicks from Commander at Home. I mean, they were gladly doing photos, so I gladly got one. And while the preview panel was awesome, I'm going to just put
a link to it here if anyone is interested. But...some spoilers.....I'm more excited for Edge of Eternities (and the return of Tezzeret) and for the Universe's Beyond set of Avatar: The Last Airbender than before and I'm still extremely excited to finally see a return to Lorwyn in Lorwyn Eclipsed and then was thrilled to see that Strixhaven will be following Lorwyn.
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| Steven, Rachel Weeks, and T.J. |
After that panel, my brother-in-law and I were able to snag a quick photo with Rachel Weeks (from Command Zone) and Voxy. They were clearly trying to get backstage to get ready for Game Knights where Rachel was one of the hosts and Voxy was playing. After snagging our quick photos, I sat through the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond design panel. (Gotta be honest, before MagicCon I never played a Final Fantasy game. But something caught my interest and I ended up getting Final Fantasy VII and started playing it after I got home from the con.) Then it came time for Game Knights.
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| T.J., Steven, and Voxy |
Now, let me tell you this: when asked what I was hoping to do during MagicCon I had one answer and one answer only: To be one of the four people chosen for the pre-game trivia to determine which Game Knights player goes first. From what I'd seen previously, whoever got to do the pre-game trivia was given a box of booster packs of the latest Magic set. Honestly, I was more interested in playing the trivia than the prize/gift. The way they do these is that where you sit determines which player you're supposed to root for and we were seated in
The Professor's section.
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| T.J. and the Game Knight |
Well, when it came time to choose contestants for it, a lot of people raised their hands. And even though my brother-in-law's hands were up, he wasn't raising them to get picked...he was pointing at me. This (and a lot of pleading from my brother-in-law) got me picked to be one of the four to play the trivia game. Since it's not on their YouTube channel yet, I don't want to spoil how I did with Magic trivia. Either way, just know that I had a ton of fun.
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| T.J., the Professor, and Steven |
Back to the second day, I got the awesome opportunity to meet The Professor and get to say I represented him for Game Knights. If you watch some of his shows, he'll throw a plug in for Infinitokens (making sure we know they aren't a sponsor of his, just a really cool product). Since I didn't have anything else I really wanted signed, and since my wife got me a package of them for Father's Day, I got two signed Infinitokens (one for me and one for my son, who's also a Prof fan.)
All in all, it was an awesome experience and I hope to go again next year. And as always...
Alien abductions are involuntary, but probings are scheduled.
