Shawn: 0:18

What's up wizard? It's time for rule zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of commander. It is our hope that through our combined decades of experience playing EDA, cultivating a great play group, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of homebrew rules that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you. This week, we're traveling a bit off of the beaten path to talk about a topic that doesn't get a lot of attention in magic comedy. And to do so, we have a special guest on the podcast, Brandon, creator, writer, actor, all the things are for MTG variety hour. How's it going?

Brandon: 0:52

Hey, Sean. It's great. Thanks for, uh, thanks for having me. And I think you're the first person ever to actually refer to me as an actor. And I guess that's technically correct. Cause I do act on these, but

Shawn: 1:01

yeah, you're kind

Brandon: 1:02

of like. Yeah, but I also know that I, I mean, I'm writing them and I'm the person like I'm managing it, but I know I'm the worst actor in all of it. Like everyone I get to go on is like a better actor than me. It's kind of like the Seinfeld thing where he was the worst actor in that show by a long shot or Quentin

1:18

Tarantino

Shawn: 1:18

for real. Um, you know, you get that, you get that ability. Whenever you're the director and writer, you get to do that. It's okay.

Brandon: 1:26

It is a lot of fun, but I'm the worst actor of the bunch and I'm okay with it. Yeah. I

Shawn: 1:31

think it tends to lead towards comedy, right? If you're, sometimes the bad acting helps to just make it even funnier. It can.

Brandon: 1:38

Yeah.

Shawn: 1:39

I haven't

Brandon: 1:39

been doing this long enough to get super meta with it. Um, it's, I don't want to navel gaze too much.

Shawn: 1:44

For sure. From what I've seen, you are not. Doing a bad job at all. I mean, not to just, you know, blow smoke up your ass.

Brandon: 1:51

Well, it's a good time to blow smoke up someone's ass when they come on your show. Like that's a great time to do it. Like

Shawn: 1:56

usually I start that way.

Brandon: 1:58

Yeah. And then by the end, then by the end, you've, uh, you've completely broken down me as a person and my belief system.

Shawn: 2:04

I hope not. I hope it doesn't go that far.

Brandon: 2:07

Thank you. Um, you know, I don't know where it's going to go, but, uh, it's been a blast and I'm glad people are really liking it so far.

Shawn: 2:12

What kind of inspired you to jump into it?

Brandon: 2:15

Uh, I refer to myself as a student of comedy in the sense of like, I've never done any actual classes or like, I don't, I've never done. improv troops or, um, never worked for a writing team of a TV show or anything, but I just adore comedy in all its forms. Uh, and one thing I really loved was like late night shows like Conan O'Brien's, Dave Letterman, um, that kind of thing. Conan, especially, especially what he's done since I love that form of that. He can be so silly and, but you have to be really smart to be that silly. And a lot of the TV shows, like, um, you know, it's been a while since we were clear that we're in the golden age of television. We've been in there for a while. There's still like, because of, uh, you know, there's issues with the streaming model and all that, but there's so many people that have the chance to make something now that is off the formulaic thing that wouldn't work on a network television show. So I envisioned. Uh, variety hour as one people do funny magic stuff on, on the internet. And I'm like, I, I'm, I can be funny sometimes. Uh, I know magic very well, so I wanted to kind of just share some, some, some things that I thought was funny and get some folks involved here. In Asheville, North Carolina for where we live with it. And then, you know, I have some, some grandiose plans of maybe making it into almost like a late night show. Yeah. Um, that has like a short run, you know, maybe not like late night shows famously were like four nights, four or five nights a week, they'll be very topical in their monologues and stuff. So we wouldn't do that, but like, and it will be focused on magic.

Shawn: 3:48

I want to say, and I could be completely wrong in this, maybe a listener or something can correct me or tell me the truth, but. In the vague firings of my neurons right now, there's a memory of Jake boss, uh, who's an editor and director on game nights for the command zone. He started as like doing before he was in command zone, some kind of like late night riff type of show where he would invite a guest on. And this could completely be a dream I had. I don't know. It feels so faint and distant.

Brandon: 4:21

That sounds right. I mean, command zone does, uh, Uh, I can zone and game nights, especially like they definitely have, I'm thinking of like game nights, like little ads, like we're talking about before we record it, like they'll, they'll act them and they'll write them as almost like a little skit. And that's kind of like. First people that haven't seen the Friday hour, like to back up a little bit, like it's more, it's largely like skits. I'll do some like voiceover stuff and some jokes that way, but it's largely like little, just quick little skits. Like, I don't remember the game night. Uh, I'm sorry, the command zone, uh, specifically doing those. Yeah. I don't

Shawn: 4:52

think they ever have. And like, he did this before he was ever hired on. Um, it may have been one of the ways he was noticed to get on the command zone. So probably, yeah. And, and I just brought it up because. I thought those were funny as well. Even if they were just in my dreams, I dreamed and thought they were funny. So tell me a little bit about something from MTG variety hour that either a surprisingly took off and you were kind of like, I didn't expect that at all, or vice versa, something that you put a ton of work into. And you're still really proud of, obviously, because it takes a lot of work to do this stuff, but. to click with folks.

Brandon: 5:28

So the most famous video we have that I think is over 300, 000 views on Instagram, the one where, so I'm close friends as you are with the owner of a game shop here in Asheville, North Carolina, Charlotte, who's been on this podcast. Uh, they got in some promotional, uh, large cards, oversized cards or Splendid Angel. Um, so it was like, okay, this is, there's something here. So the idea was that. She'll be casting the Resplendent Angel and it has a buff effect. You spend six mana and it gets bigger. So we made it like when you buff it, it's the huge version. And like, that's kind of funny. And then it's slapstick works. It's been around since the Three Stooges and actually since Shakespeare. Well before any, uh, anything. It still works. So she just, I had her smack me with it. And we actually like, it's a little flimsy. If anyone's seen those Oversight cards before, they're not very thick. So what we did was we took a piece of cardboard, Size to the size of the of the card just hidden behind it. So she was holding it with her hands Uh, so that it was like kind of pinned to the cardboard and whack me with the cardboard and the and the card itself Was just on top. Sure. Um and kind of turned up the volume just a tiny bit on that smack. Absolutely And we did it. I posted the the super cut of me getting smacked like 15 times as well But uh, but that was great. Like it's really just like oh, I buffed it like what's going on? It's huge now and then I got whacked like it's like the the timing of charlotte's And go to combat. Perfectly. Like just getting the timing and the editing. Right. I worked really hard on it and I'm glad that that did very well. Uh, I feel like this is simple. It's straight to the point. Uh, people will like it and they did. Uh, the one thing that I didn't think people would like, and I was just like, I need something, uh, early on. I tried to post every other day just to try to get a base of content out there, you know, slow down. Uh, I noticed the bottom of lots of thunder junction boxes, uh, there's a little note and it says, um, it's like a little emoji bear face and it says something like I might be a bear, but I love magic, secret layer. com. And it's like, just kind of like a little, like secret little thing. And I literally did a post of just like me looking into the camera and going like, Hey, did you notice that it says this little thing on here? And I just zoomed in. That's weird. That's the whole post with like compared, you know, not as big as that one, but like it got, it's one of my most popular videos. And I'm like. That took two seconds. I just thought it was interesting.

7:38

Yeah.

Brandon: 7:38

And then I also have people in the comments being like, Whoa, if I could afford a box, like, they weren't so expensive. Oh yeah, right, of course. Sure, people are gonna grief on, on social media. Uh, but the counterpoint, one that, uh, I worked really hard on, I thought is great. Who is a local player as well. And a side note, I love doing, bringing in my local people. I've used a lot of different people in these videos and we'll continue to do that. Um, like you've been in one and I'm sure we'll find a spot for another. I love throwing little in jokes to each other. Um, like Kenji is famously, uh, late to a lot of events that we do. He'll, he'll be a little, he'll be a little. Late and it's kind of a running joke and he knows this like we love him, but like, you know We can kind of rag on a little bit So I came to him with this idea like what if you're so late that like it's the shop is closed like so it took a while to figure out what the The hook was beyond that because it needs a little bit more So I figured out that I filmed it like a, do you remember in the nineties and two thousands, like those, like it's 10 PM where, you know, absolutely. Can't

Shawn: 8:37

forget.

Brandon: 8:39

So I did that voiceover like that and took a video of him outside a closed shop, just kind of peering in from the outside. And I waited for some big thing. Like, so I did it around Deadpool and, uh, Wolverine's like people are missing F and M because they're out. Distracted. Like, it, it's, it's, it's 7:00 PM Do you know

8:59

where your magic players are?

Brandon: 9:00

I, I changed, like the light would turn off and then the, uh, the lighting became like kind of a cold, like almost like no R style lighting. And I had like, music in the background, like those violins, like that would be like, like this, like tense music, like a true crime podcast or something. The editing got it to like, at the end, like kinda shut down like an old TV screen.

9:20

Mm-Hmm.

Brandon: 9:21

I didn't know anything about video or audio editing. I've been learning on the, on the. Uh, what's on the fly. So, and I also figured out how to make the text scroll when I was doing the long spiel. I was so proud of it. It did so poorly. And it's tricky because we're really, really at, at the behest of the algorithm and whether or not people will share them. I noticed if people. People can like it. And I, I, I, because you can see the stats, like how many people liked it compared to viewed it or how much, how long they watched them. And even the ones that people really are engaged with and they like, they don't necessarily share, but if they don't share, I still have a pretty small following. I'm like 1100 on Tik TOK and like 16, 17 on a hundred on, on Instagram, which is not, not nothing, but it's not huge compared to some of these giants. And people aren't sharing it. It doesn't leave, it rarely leaves my, my circle. It's kind of, Just hitting that just right. And I'm always trying to figure it out, but sometimes it's up to, it's up to luck, hitting it the right time, hitting the right people that will share it. That will then help.

Shawn: 10:21

I'm having fun. We'll see. That's what matters, right? So you talk about the video that didn't do that well, but you're really proud of. Was it worth it to do that video? I think so. Cause

Brandon: 10:30

one, uh, I learned a lot editing it. I very quickly, I did a couple early on just to get some quick engagement, but there's a lot of content out there that is, there's a clever kernel in it, but it's usually just like a meme. It's Captain Holtz from Brooklyn Nine Nine saying, Oh no. And then there's like a tub above it. It'll be like, Oh, when the blue players sit down at the table, it's like, that's the whole joke. That's I've noticed that's half of the jokes of, uh, of magic, uh, Twitter, Instagram. It's just like, Oh, blue players suck. Right. People don't like having their stuff counted. Um, don't get me wrong, like it takes a little bit of, you gotta put it together, you gotta come up with that. But like, they're fast to do and they can go really well, but there's not a lot of yourself in that creation, because it's kind of just like a copy and paste. Uh, and don't get me wrong, like I've done it too, especially early on when I was trying to get content out there real fast and just get something, get some engagement, because I do engage well, I know what people do. To go back to, I'm very glad I did that other one, because I want to have, when people go back and look through, they're I'm happy that this is up there because I want people to go back and see, like, Skits, like mostly skits that took effort and creativity and people acting and we took takes and we edited and we like had this unique thing that you can't find this anywhere else. If you go to my page, like sure, maybe someone will have thought of a similar joke and presented it in their own unique way. But like, I don't think there's a lot of ones where we, uh, ends with people scooping, like, cause they're giving up at their modern tournament. Like they keep scooping. So they go home and just scoop ice cream. And they're just like, I

Shawn: 12:00

really enjoyed that one. Actually I related.

Brandon: 12:05

And I am trying to, I know this is a committed podcast, but I am trying to reach a broader. Aspect of not just one format of players and that one was completely sold by dusty, uh, local player. He's a maniacal laugh Yeah, uh that I just told him to channel newman from uh, so he's just laughing with uh with ice cream in his mouth

Shawn: 12:22

Perfect.

Brandon: 12:23

Uh, I love silly. I love that shit

Shawn: 12:26

Can we swear on here? Yeah, we already have like several times so can't take it back

Brandon: 12:30

I just I did one you did one. We're good.

Shawn: 12:33

We equaled out

Brandon: 12:34

One of the other ones was, uh, I had my, the only one my wife's been in, uh, it was for the Thunder Junction. One, it was one of the first ones they did. So much fun. I, I just spoke, I had, I had fake mustache over my real mustache, uh, spoke in a very cheesy accent saying not real, like, western y, southern, almost southern slang. It was mixing. It was terrible. And, and she's just, my wife's just incredulous. What do you do? Like Thunder Junction is, I know you're excited, but you need to take it down a notch and it's so much fun. But I use Beyonce's, uh, Texas Hold'em in the background because they popped up on like TikTok when I was editing. And I was like, this is great. Like I'll, I'll use this. And then it was like, actually. I know we suggested it to you, but we're going to hide it from folks because that's copyright. I'm like, well, don't say no wonder I didn't

Shawn: 13:18

see it. Anyways, that sounds fun. And speaking of sets that are off the beaten path and totally nuts. Um,

Brandon: 13:26

let's

Shawn: 13:26

talk

Brandon: 13:27

about how many cowboy hats that knows. So,

Shawn: 13:28

Oh, well, I don't know. I haven't counted all the cowboy hats in these unsets, but, uh, I'm assuming maybe 10 cowboy hats are just funny.

Brandon: 13:37

Especially when you

Shawn: 13:38

use them on

Brandon: 13:38

every character in an entire, uh, set.

Shawn: 13:42

Yeah. Yeah. I wish we could talk a little bit more about that too. Cause I have feelings on it, but, um, yeah, not here. We're going to talk about unsets in magic and whether or not unsets. Well, I don't think they're ever going to come back after the, the miserable, like experience that was infinity. We'll ever come back. Not. Personally speaking, although I did not enjoy some of the cards for sure, as one player from a totally different game ruined my comeback in my game by casting outside of it to destroy my main creature. I didn't love that. I'd stabilize my board. Finally, I was at like for life. And then they were able to destroy one of my creatures from their own game. Like they could destroy one in their game and then one in an adjacent.

Brandon: 14:25

Oh, is this like the infinity like pre releaser? Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn: 14:29

Okay. We had our own little pre release event, um, outside and wyvern's tail, I think. And, uh, yeah, I was just so excited to come back and we weren't playing for anything, not prizes, but the expectation of like, I finally did it was quickly.

Brandon: 14:45

They're like, like do something in the game next to you. Like those are weird. Uh, but before we get into that, let's, let's recap the, the onsets, shall we? Okay.

Shawn: 14:53

We'll do. Um, and I put them in a bit of a ranking thing. In general, for my personal taste, I think you may share the first one. I don't know, but I rank unstable, which was released in December 8th, 2017 as number one. I think it was my favorite of all the unsets. It had certainly some mechanics I didn't fall in love with, but. I think some of the jokes were top tier. I don't know. What were your opinions? Do you remember a lot about that unset in particular?

Brandon: 15:21

That one I did because I, did you ever play the first two? Cause this is the third one.

Shawn: 15:25

No, I was out of magic when those were released. So I'm looking back on them. Me

Brandon: 15:29

too. Okay. Um, so I played it and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Uh, also that my favorite cycle of basic lands came from unstable. The full art drawn about lands I love. Yeah, they're

15:37

beautiful.

Brandon: 15:37

That was a lot of fun. Uh, the, the humor was often, Often on point, some mechanics were interesting, were weird. The dice rolling was fine. I think this was an experimenting with dice rolling before bringing the D and D set out. Uh, I did enjoy the different, you could like combine two creatures into one. Yeah. Kind of like a mutate thing, but had different rules. I think it came out before

Shawn: 15:58

mutate as well. So, It's like one of those, uh,

Brandon: 16:00

2017. Yeah. So this was like, uh, three years before or two and a half years before. So like, that's one of the things

Shawn: 16:07

people should know about. Unsets is often talked about as they experiment with a lot of mechanics. And there's certainly been a lot of cases where like mutate or dice rolling cards, like the sort of D and D was in an unset. Before the Dungeons and Dragons set came out. Yeah. They're kind of like a precursor.

Brandon: 16:23

They do a lot of testing. It's kind of like almost like market research kind of about like how much silliness is enjoyed. Like there are some mechanics that debuted in Silver Border and like we can actually make this work. I would not be surprised to see, I know the previews here, you brought up a couple just for example, uh, Last Strike was a thing that totally would work with a small errata. So the rules, uh, it's just kind of like, cause it's something that's great. Cause it's kind of silly. It's like, you're slower than normal, but like you, you can grok it intuitively, you know, like last year, okay. This first wreck is regular damage and there's last wreck. And then the three headed gobbler, perfect

Shawn: 16:58

example

Brandon: 16:58

has

Shawn: 16:59

triple strike.

Brandon: 17:00

It makes perfect sense. So that's fun. And that one is, I could see them eventually.

Shawn: 17:04

Yeah. And I thought that joke was just excellent. Like I love the jokes that were more meta, I guess, in the set. So extremely slow zombie. It has four different printings and each one is a different season. And the flavor texts on each one, if you put them all together, it is. Brains just spelled out, but really slowly across all four. Yeah,

Brandon: 17:22

like two letters in one. Yeah,

Shawn: 17:24

exactly So not a great card, but great joke, I think.

Brandon: 17:28

Yeah, and you have the target minotaur Which also has different versions because the joke is like it's getting killed by other famous magic spells, lightning bolts, fireballs, Like stuff like that. So and it does something when it's not It's like targeted by an opponent's spell or something.

Shawn: 17:41

And I brought up another one, Baron Von Count. It's one, a black, a red. I love that one. Yeah. Uh, Carl, one of the other folks at our shop plays Baron Von Count deck still to this day. And I think it's a blast. It allows you to pick a lot of cards out of Magic's history that no one plays anywhere else because there may be a level up card or something that has the numbers five, four, three, two, one on it, somewhere on the card. It's the only place. That card ever sees the light of day.

Brandon: 18:08

I use that in, I built before the Monty Python Secret Lair years ago, I built the Monty Python theme deck for the Holy Grail. I use this card to reference the fact that King Arthur is unable to count. It's an entire movie. One, two, five,

Shawn: 18:21

sir. No three.

Brandon: 18:22

So that was, that's good. And I know you have under, after unstable, you have, so

18:27

as far

Brandon: 18:27

as your rankings, I'm pretty close to yours. I think, I think the first two for me are tied. Okay.

18:32

Yep.

Brandon: 18:32

Uh, I think I would like Unglued, which is who I have number two, uh, as much or more than that table, if I were to play it back in the day, I just didn't, uh, I think because there are so many in even more in references to magic. Um, this is the first time they did something like that. There's lots of little in jokes. There's, uh, it was really creative to come out of nowhere. I look, I love the Lance in that one to look at me on the DCI here. You just ban a card.

Shawn: 18:57

Some would be flexible. So. Yeah. Deals damage to any player. Destroy target card in play. Other than Lexifor with the most lines of text in the text box. So I kind of love just like the meta aspect of like, Yes, magic's becoming more complicated. We know that. We get it. Alright, here's a card that destroys the most complicated card on the table. And as an ADHD person, That I love that because that's what I do anyway, in real life is when I see it, I don't want to deal with that card. I just destroy

Brandon: 19:24

it. Yeah, there you go. Uh, but yeah, this was, so this was 98. This was the original, the original joke set up until then. Everything was just a set.

Shawn: 19:35

Yeah. I think the story behind it was just that Mark Rosewater needed a creative outlet. And they were like, okay, here's a bone, take it. And it was 88 cards only. ran with it. And Mark Rosewater famously, I guess, before Magic was a writer on Roseanne. So he was a bit of a comedy writer himself and he needed to scratch that itch. Yeah. Um, I mean, I think it was like early first season or something. And then he just left that to be head designer or whatever it was at that time for Magic.

Brandon: 20:00

The old Roseanne to Wizards. So for the pipeline, yeah,

Shawn: 20:04

absolutely.

Brandon: 20:05

Tails all this time.

Shawn: 20:06

So I enjoyed that. It was a smaller set. Clearly it was, they didn't give him a long leash to work on it, but I had a lot of magic in jokes and jokes about where magic was headed as a, as a game at that time, which I appreciate, I think. I would prefer that over all the dexterity type cards and stuff that I honestly don't care for.

Brandon: 20:27

And they do have a lot, a few of those in every one of these. Yeah. We see a little bit of that. Uh, one of my favorite ones was, uh, Herloon Wrangler.

20:33

Okay.

Brandon: 20:34

Which is, uh, it's a minotaur that has denim walk. Sure. So if you are, if your opponent is wearing jeans, it is unblockable. Yeah. And I just think that's, that's just, funny like that's it's so out of left field it's so but like again you can rock it right away you say denim walk you know how especially because back then land walk mountain walk swamp walk plain talk we're all like more common there now we don't really see them anymore but that back then they're very common parts of the game so it's like okay well let's make something else and and the the art is just like uh Looks like a Calvin Klein ad or Wrangler's ad.

Shawn: 21:07

I remember this card now. You could even metagame if you knew that was happening. Yeah, you

Brandon: 21:11

remember it when I mentioned the sexy minotaur. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Shawn: 21:14

Who wouldn't remember that? And there's been some other funny cards like that, that, you know, that reference something in the real world. I'll bring up one type that I remember it was like, if it's night, The card does this. If it's day, the card does this. I don't honestly love those. I don't know what it is about it. It's like, it's too situational. Almost. I don't know when I'm going to play a game of magic often. What

Brandon: 21:35

if we can, what if we can scale it down just a little bit? What if we make it situational, but much slower? There's the seasonal one from unstable. It's a tree that depending on what season it is, it does something else. Sure. That's just one of those. Yeah, that gives

Shawn: 21:46

you at least like, you know, three months to work with. That's fine. Yeah, you know what's gonna

Brandon: 21:50

do.

Shawn: 21:51

These all come out in the fall or winter. Most of the time it came out like October, December. So I think it always did the same thing.

Brandon: 21:58

Interesting. Yeah. They all came out in anywhere between August and December. So I guess you could get some spring there.

Shawn: 22:04

Yeah, sure. If that is unglued, the original set as number two, number three, I have is unhinged. It has some bangers in it is 141 cards. It released in November of 2004. Chidi face being probably the most famous, I think. Right?

Brandon: 22:19

I think so, uh, for those who don't know, uh, it's, uh, a 3 with flying.

Shawn: 22:25

But, You never pay that. If

Brandon: 22:26

you, Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. No, you don't pay that because, uh, you, if you sneak this onto the battlefield without your opponent noticing right away, you just get it for free.

22:34

Mm hmm. So,

Brandon: 22:35

it is, it is a little bit of a dexterity one, but like, Not in the same way. Like you don't have to flip it. You don't have to try to balance something. It's just kind of like distract your opponent or opportunity to put it down. And this is kind of invoked in one of my favorite, uh, unstable cards, actually entirely normal armchair where

22:51

you

Brandon: 22:51

hide it on the battlefield and then you can, uh, like eat an attacker. At some point, as long as no one has noticed that it's hidden. So I would always like hide it under a basic land. Yeah. I got somebody with that

Shawn: 23:01

release actually. That's

Brandon: 23:02

fun.

Shawn: 23:03

So TD face best story that I've got for it at least is not from me, but from a player in our group, Mike green, who during that small window, when they released unstable, where they were like, you can play on cards and commander, he. built a deck and inside of the sleeves of every single 100 card, um, he had a cheaty face. He bought out a hundred cheaty faces. And so all the faces were on the table already. We just didn't know it yet. And at some point he just revealed and like swamped everybody. Yeah. He'd be like,

Brandon: 23:34

okay, I have enough cards on the battlefield that I can kill everyone. By the way, there's cheaty faces. There's

Shawn: 23:41

everywhere. Yeah.

Brandon: 23:42

That's fantastic. And it seems true to the spirit of what these are. Yeah, for sure. Like it is silly, a little broken, you know, just people having fun. Uh, I would say this is my least favorite on set because I think the humor is pretty juvenile. I agree. There's so many, you know, a lot of these cars or faces fine. There's a whole run of cards, the whole joke is that ass means donkey and butt. Yes,

Shawn: 24:06

I know. And that's the joke. I know. And they

Brandon: 24:08

make that joke over and over. There's smart ass and fat ass. And like, it's just fucking, it's weird. Yeah, I agree. It sucks. How many squares is that in a row?

Shawn: 24:15

Uh, but. Keep going.

Brandon: 24:17

Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate. And there's like, I feel like there's a card or two that like, references like how sexualized women were in magic earlier on. Uh, which don't get me wrong, like as like, If you're owning that, like you're just acknowledging it, like that can be funny. Um, there's owning that too. There were half points.

Shawn: 24:33

It started to get more complicated, which was one of the things that annoyed me with unsets over time. It was like, how complicated does this funny game need to be? Because now I'm doing a lot of math and stuff and I don't really find that hilarious.

Brandon: 24:44

Yeah. Uh, but yeah, for me, this was a little bit like the humor was a little more pure out. Yeah. That missed the mark for me on some of them. But again, it's, it's, uh, there's a bunch of cards. Some of them are great.

Shawn: 24:55

Well, I agree. Like I, like, I didn't even show the ass cards in our word doc because you know, I figured everybody remembers them and doesn't really like finding them that funny.

Brandon: 25:02

Yeah. City of ass is not that funny. It's, it's a little funny the first time. I'll be honest. It's just, it's just butts everywhere. You know, that's the joke. It's yeah.

Shawn: 25:12

It's butts. Not a last thing. If you're

Brandon: 25:14

not, This is kind of really geared toward a 13 year old boy, like that whole set, whereas the humor and a lot of other ones are, like you mentioned, like the, the zombie, like it takes a whole year throughout the seasons for it to reach the opponent. It's got last strike and it's got a one word flavor text that's split between four cars and four seasons. Like that's a little more, like, that's not, that's not, You know, here's, here's butts, here's boobs, here's guns, like, here's like, yeah, stuff for teenagers.

Shawn: 25:38

I wonder if Mark Rosewater was going through a phase at that point. I don't know what was going on. Maybe he was under pressure to be like, this has to be popular for the masses. Masses love asses, right? I don't know.

Brandon: 25:48

Yeah. I wonder if they said like, okay, we're, we got to get the, the, the, The kids, we're going to make it edgy. We've got to make it, uh, I wonder if like garbage belt kids came out around that time, like make it gross.

Shawn: 25:59

So the next one I have on here is on affinity and only because of the controversy controversy controversy within, um, And what was that controversy was that they had acorn stamps and they had regular stamps. And if you had a regular stamp, you could be played in any eternal chronicle format. But if you had the acorn stamp, then you were a rare mythic or whatever that could be, uh, only played in unsets or just kind of casual.

Brandon: 26:26

Yeah. Well, the acorn stamps were, uh, were also on comments and comments. They were just in like a shadow and rather than,

26:31

Oh, okay.

Brandon: 26:32

But instead of silver border, instead of the very identifiable silver border, meaning that like, this is not a real play card, like it's a joke card. It was the little stamp at the bottom, which is hard to tell at a glance. And it got even more confusing when they misstamped a bunch of cards.

Shawn: 26:46

I remember that controversy as well. There were a

Brandon: 26:48

bunch of cards that were acorn cards. They're not legal for any constructed or commander play that had the Full regular stamp on it or vice versa. Like, so it's already confusing and then you screw it up in that way. And, and

Shawn: 27:05

then people remember too, from this set other controversies that came from this one, instead of making jokes so much and ensure there were some jokes, but it had. Way more of a storyline to the set. Like there's a space circus. And so there's going to be tons of clowns and robots and attractions at the space circus, which is a, honestly, a very annoying mechanic. I'll play with it at the table with people want, but I don't love it.

Brandon: 27:29

Attractions were kind of fun to me because it brought some randomness to it. It was, it, it made sense in a magic sense. Cause you're like setting up like a resource. You're, you're, you're taking advantage of it. You're getting value off it. You're trying to do a thing really for me. It wasn't, I'm sure the other part of the controversy was stickers. Oh my goodness.

Shawn: 27:45

Yeah.

Brandon: 27:46

And they just happen to also be broken in certain forms.

Shawn: 27:48

Right. Like, um, old mind goblin or whatever. So you could go, you're a

Brandon: 27:52

blank goblin, but it's always mind goblin.

Shawn: 27:53

Always mind goblin. And besides the funny video of the professor using mind goblin deez nuts on Cedric Phillips, I didn't really get anything out of it. And Cedric not getting the joke for a while. Which was great.

Brandon: 28:06

Yeah. Their reaction was better than the joke was itself. And it became a problem. Like they had to eventually ban them in legacy and they're basically banned everywhere. I don't know. Did commander officially ban them as well? I don't think

Shawn: 28:17

so. I think you can still use them.

Brandon: 28:19

Uh, the RC.

Shawn: 28:19

Yeah.

Brandon: 28:20

Because it became a problem because you have to have your own sticker deck randomized, but at least I think like 10 cards, right?

28:26

Yeah.

Brandon: 28:27

Yeah. Cause you, cause you don't always get the same one has to be some level of randomization. You'd have to have them. So people would bring them for their, cause it was the mind goblin that was basically like a ritual, uh, in certain decks, but there were also decks that ran Firexy and Metamorph. So if you thought you might be getting your opponent, you might copy a mind goblin at some point, a blank goblin. You had to bring your own sticker deck just in case. Um, and it's an elegance. You have to stick things. Um, I don't know. I'm sure people had some other work arounds besides the physical sticking. Yeah. I think some Etsy shops opened up

Shawn: 28:56

for that kind of stuff, but it was still a nightmare. The fact that you have to bring 10 sticker cards and then worry about that before your legacy match is it's just not in the right place. And, uh, Right. The fact that wizards thought they needed to do that to sell it, which is I'm assuming what is the reason they did this. They're like, Oh, we've got legacy or like vintage playable cards stuck in this set. So now you have to buy it.

Brandon: 29:20

I think it was commander. I think they did specifically want these to be. Bought by commander players to play, uh, to play the legal cards, uh, as opposed to just doing a full joke deck

Shawn: 29:30

recently. And we'll move on from this side after this, but recently the commander rules committee came out with a statement. It was met with controversy because everything on the internet has met with controversy. That they're right. I remember saying that

Brandon: 29:42

the sky was blue and then they were like, not here. What is dark?

Shawn: 29:48

Yep. Yep. Thanks to Twitter and everywhere else. So they are going to release a document at some point, it's not going to be an official unbanning of a lot of uncards, but they're going to go through and list out which cards are pretty good for your rule zero conversation. You can play these at the table. Things like Goblin Tutor, I'm sure will be on there, which are like, Dice rolling is totally acceptable in Magic these days. It's not a strange thing anymore. So let's have Krok's other thumb or whatever.

Brandon: 30:14

Yeah, things that make that, that make sense. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if The Last Strike or Baron Von Count went in. Things that you think Krok, probably not the dexterity ones. Like, there's one you have to keep your head on the table for the entire thing. Please, please, no. Very funny when Charlotte did that for, uh, the pre release. I think that's great because then it gives like, it's a shorthand and that like, okay, we want to play with some of these silly cards, but not the ones that are ridiculous. And I think if the rules committee says like, we kind of did that work and these are the ones that make sense that are not crazy.

Shawn: 30:45

I appreciate the effort. Um, at least it's a proactive action from the rules community to make everybody's. Game conversations a little bit better in my play group. Everything's fine, but I know not everybody experiences that amount of leniency with like people want to play silver border cards or not. So having a little bit of backup will be nice for those folks to play things that like, uh, who, what, when, where, why totally fine card and magic.

Brandon: 31:07

It's the five card split card. Yeah. And just everything does, does like

Shawn: 31:10

destroy an enchantment, destroy an artifact, whatever, gain three life. It's, it's very simple stuff. None of it's strange, but the flexibility of it's kind of neat.

Brandon: 31:18

Yeah. And it's a little silliness is fine. But I'm a fan of silliness magic and all the formats to do it. Kick commander.

Shawn: 31:26

I would have been shocked by SignDrift the podcast and you weren't okay with a little silliness, at least for this topic.

Brandon: 31:33

Yeah. I mean, this is also someone that, that likes to play competitively as well. So it's two sides of the same coin.

Shawn: 31:39

Yeah, of course we are multitude inside of ourselves. Um, so let's talk about our

Brandon: 31:43

multitudes. Some of us are less than one.

Shawn: 31:47

So let's talk a little bit. Cause the last one was unsanctioned, which was just sort of like a standalone, almost box set of 30 card decks and a lot of reprints. There were a couple of new ones. Beables like a beable planeswalker or something, but nothing that really stands out. They did however bring things like cheaty face and things back into print, which was nice for people who yeah People that missed the first

Brandon: 32:08

couple goes around. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that was cool. I I got that and it's I haven't really Done anything with it after me either. It sits in my board game

Shawn: 32:15

cabinet Waiting for something. I don't know. It does. They all do. Yep. They all do. Let me just ask you this really quickly. What do you think is the future of unsuch? I don't think they're going to go back because of the financial losses and the controversy they're in. However, do you think mystery box is the future of kind of comedy in magic?

Brandon: 32:38

Did it take a financial loss? I

Shawn: 32:40

believe it did not do nearly as well as unstable. Like unstable had a lot of additional print runs. It was, it was a shockingly popular set. It kind of brought back the fire for unsets after a long dry spell.

Brandon: 32:53

Yeah. Cause how long was between those two?

Shawn: 32:55

Um, I want to say 2017 was when unstable came out. It

Brandon: 33:00

was forced 13 years because Unhindered was 2004. Okay. Wow. I do think it's going to be a hard press another un for a while. I think maybe they try to go back and recapture what people liked about it. Uh, I think

Shawn: 33:11

Silver Borders for one, I mean, it's nostalgic now. Silver Borders for

Brandon: 33:14

one, please. I have to hope they learn the lesson in some ways, but I think mystery booster and to a larger degree, secret layers are the form that un that the spirit of, of jokes and onsets will take. The average magic set itself has become sillier, very much

33:32

so. Like,

Brandon: 33:33

uh, car Carla Manor, despite a serious tone, was kind of silly in the sense that everyone was just wearing a detective hat and you

Shawn: 33:39

had a clue, a clue tie in. So can't wait for the Mr. Potato Head tie in too. Sure.

Brandon: 33:45

I can't wait for the Downton Abbey tie in. That's for some, I dunno, like the. Like the racing one will be a fast and furious one. I'm sure anyway, um, Gran Turismo, all the great characters in that franchise. Uh, um, uh, mystery booster is kind of, it's serving a lot of purposes. It's like, it's a huge reprint vehicle. It's a chaos draft. It's like what they're doing now with the white border future site border is kind of silly. Uh, in the sense that like, cause White Borders are famously disliked. Not, not, not a hundred percent, no, not a hundred percent folks. I enjoy them. I used to do all my basics in White Borders, but I think there's opportunities in supplementary products like this to be a little bit more silly, be a little more jovial. Like they also have the mystery booster, uh, playtest cards, which are very silly. Gavin, Bear, Hay, Unknown Events at Magic Cons. They have those other playtest cards. Those are also very silly. They're made often with people. Uh, at like panels and stuff that kind of collaborate and joke around, uh, and I think secret letters as well. Like they have a lot of freedom to like, you see like the chibi, um, planeswalkers with the huge heads. Like

Shawn: 34:51

those are very silly. Terminally online goblin release that they just had.

Brandon: 34:55

Yeah. The one that was all like Instagram posts through goblins. Like that is very, very silly. A joke didn't hit for me, but for some folks, I love it. Or

Shawn: 35:03

comic sans, uh, Ruination, you know,

Brandon: 35:08

what's that one really didn't hit for me. Oh, it

Shawn: 35:11

will. When you're at the next table with me, I'm just kidding.

Brandon: 35:15

Well, yeah, I mean, I, I get, I get it. It's like, it's supposed to like kind of bug people even more, especially because they're all cards that will like someone casts over in a hellfire against you, you're going to be a little frustrated. Um,

Shawn: 35:26

so I guess it doesn't make it better. That's for sure.

Brandon: 35:29

Common sense certainly does not make it better. Uh, so I think there's. I think it's a lot they can do, especially with like, they're not introducing, usually, new cards to magic through secret layers. Um, they are just kind of skins on top of it. So if you don't like the jokiness, if you, if you want your nickel bullets to be scary and intimidating and not cute, you don't need to use the chibi version of it. Like, uh, so I, I think that's where we will see a lot of that, which is what I'm excited about magic. And that's kind of like this. opening of this taking itself less seriously. To me, magic is camp.

36:03

Yeah.

Brandon: 36:04

And it has been for a long time. Uh, it is open to experimentation, open to expression of niches and ideas and, and, uh, quarters of the popular culture that is not inherent in magic. The game system is a fantastic medium. There's storytelling inherent in it. Um, there's art inherent in it. There's, uh, writing as far as flavor text or, you know, where that can go. Um, I do like that it is becoming, for every person that, you know, Is annoyed that there's a modern technology in Dusk 1. There will be two or three people, if not more, that are like, this is really cool, either I like this as a Magic player or, or will get more interested in the game as a result because they're not huge fantasy people. But the game itself has so much to offer and, like any other talking about diversity and offerings, like, the more there is, the more people, the less narrow, um, Uh, an offering is the more people can, can come into the fold. And I think there'll always be something there for people that don't want universes beyond that don't want. The jokiness, like you can get all those versions of cards. You might have trouble finding games where none of those cards come into play. But, um, but it's just kind of the game has to evolve and I'm not saying I'm excited about the marble one, but that's going to be a lot. Um, I'm looking forward to the chase for the serialized one of one infinity stones.

Shawn: 37:32

I may be in danger of checking out at that point, but there's plenty of cards that I can play with regardless. I checked out for Doctor Who too, you know, it's fine.

Brandon: 37:41

Well, that's the thing is like, I, I had, I could not be less interested in Doctor Who and that's nothing against people that do like it, it's just not something I'm interested in. It has not affected my enjoyment of magic whatsoever. I occasionally will come across in the commander game. Fine. Uh, again, like the acceptance of like, when they do a property that I love, I'm going to go nuts for it. And people are gonna have to deal with that. Like, like not everything will be for everyone. The goal was to have something for it.

Shawn: 38:06

So let's talk a little bit now switching gears into why magic. Is one ripe for riffing and ripe for jokes, but also counter to that. Why is it that so many. magic channels that more focus on the funny or the humor side of things don't seem to do as well. Now, granted, I don't have the numbers and analytics from all these channels, but I've listed out a bunch of places. I think for short form video, like TikTok, stuff like that, or Instagram, they seem to do a little bit better, but for long form, like YouTube, these videos and channels do not get the do I think that they are deserved.

Brandon: 38:45

Yeah. I mean, do you want to go over a couple of those?

Shawn: 38:46

Yeah, sure. So I have some listed many are older. I'm an old man. I apologize. I'm sure Brandon can bring me up to speed with some newer ones. I am

Brandon: 38:55

not, I don't think, I don't think you're older than me, or I think you're like maybe a year or two. We're about the same age.

Shawn: 39:01

Well, you are young at heart. And I am a child. Yes.

Brandon: 39:04

And the inside. Yes.

Shawn: 39:06

So we have good luck. High five with Megan and Maria. Luminaries in the magic community. They've been around forever. They started out on the prof's channel as like sort of a subsidiary, almost of Tolarian community college before they went on their own, they've done all kinds of comedy sketches. I think Maria is in improv currently and talks about it openly about how it's improved like her life in a lot of ways. And they just did like a musical number on their channel, but I look at their video counts and they're diffused.

Brandon: 39:34

I'm sorry, I just like that you just said like improv, like, like an AA class or something. Like, she's open about it. It's improved her life.

Shawn: 39:41

Right. Yep. Don't need to hide in the shadows anymore. Yeah. We're gonna have an intervention. Clown intervention. I mean, some of the videos they have get lower view counts than the ones I release. And I don't release things that are of that amazing quality. And I have mostly porn bots that follow me on Twitter. So it feels one, I know there are two women in the space trying to do a thing, and I'm sure that plays into it as to why they're not as popular. Unfortunately, um, that should be the name of the next onset. Um, anyways, uh,

Brandon: 40:12

unfortunately, Here's the difficulties of being a not white, straight white male content creator. Good luck.

Shawn: 40:19

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um,

Brandon: 40:21

We say this is to shoot two white men talking to each other here. One. Yeah, I know. But you're absolutely, you are absolutely right. It is a different, uh, playing field.

Shawn: 40:29

So this is my shout out for their channel. Like they almost always riff at the beginning of everything and they release a lot of great videos about like drafts and commander and have a commander play series. So watch their channel a little bit more anyways, then an older one that did take off was another white male, Nathan Holt, who released the walking the planes. And this was sort of comedy on the side of being the first like quality documentary series that focused on grand Prix's and pro tours to the point where magic actually employed Nathan Holt to film walking the planes. And I think there's even a walking the planes movie that came out of that. It's on Netflix. Yeah. And so But he would always dress up as like this horrific, like wizard and just like dark, almost like the emperor from star Wars. And he would be like this brooding figure who was just trapped on this elemental plane with us peons. And he would go to these events and interview people as this character. It's pretty funny. People can go back and watch like 25 episodes, not only for the comedy, but it also brings like a really great view and interviews with a ton of pros and stuff that I think hadn't been done that well at that point. So

Brandon: 41:38

I still don't see a lot of that.

Shawn: 41:40

No, I'm hoping for more of it as the pro tour comes back. I would love to see standard and stuff take off again. Cause I feel like personally, that's where I thought magic was at its healthiest.

Brandon: 41:49

I think a good, uh, strong standard is great for Magic as a whole. Me too. And, and I think the, the huge growth and popularity of Commander is, is great and it's emblematic of something great about the game, about people, but I think Wizards of the Coast's ignoring every other format for it, like when you, when you have, Modern horizons cards that are primarily designed for commander. That becomes a problem. Uh, and, and doing nothing for standard players. Well, they, like, they realized recently, like, Oh wait, why aren't people playing Stanford? We need to fix that.

42:16

I

Brandon: 42:16

think they realized a couple of years too late, but hopefully I still play standard at our local shop. Like we still have it. It's, I think it is a blast. And Hey, uh, first grand prix. What is it

Shawn: 42:26

called? Yeah. I don't remember

Brandon: 42:28

something serious. Oh, geez. I can't remember, but it's basically a grand prix first ones at Atlanta in January and in the standard format, you can come out open entry, you don't have to qualify for it, and if you do well, you can go on the approach.

Shawn: 42:39

Yeah. Yeah. I love grand prix when they were around. So whatever this new series thing is, I will also love that signature

Brandon: 42:44

series. I want to say it

Shawn: 42:46

sounds good.

Brandon: 42:47

That sounds right.

Shawn: 42:47

Alliteration. So another comedy sketch, did you ever see this? This was came on a channel called Snow Stories on YouTube. It's Mana Screwed. And it was a sitcom sort of series that followed a character as they were, you know, trying to be an adult, quote unquote, and also play magic, um, around their adult life. Oh, you can't do both. Yeah, I know. Simple, simple joke, but they did it well. There was a lot of professional actors, actually bit players. You see. In other things in Hollywood often, and it went on for 10 episodes. They talked about a season two, but a lot of the clips didn't get that many views overall. And, uh, I don't know if people want to check that out in the comments, y'all can leave your notes, thoughts on why it didn't do well. I'm going to guess because in episode nine, they preview, they hinted that at some point, Andy Dick would be in the series and he was in like the very end and he just tanked the whole thing. I'm going to assume that's what happened.

Brandon: 43:43

I will assume that anything Andy Dick touches becomes radioactive. Yeah, a hundred

Shawn: 43:47

percent.

Brandon: 43:48

No, thank

Shawn: 43:49

you. Yeah. That's an invitation. They shouldn't have accepted it. Be like, Andy Dick wants to be in this cause he'll be in anything. No, thank you. Now

Brandon: 43:57

there's a reason it's because his schedule is full. No one else wants, anyway,

Shawn: 44:02

you talk about good games morally. You brought this to me and I've seen a couple of their clips online. They're really funny.

Brandon: 44:06

Yeah. They're in Australia. Uh,

Shawn: 44:08

I think it's Australia. Yeah,

Brandon: 44:10

I think it's Australia. I've never, never been to that, that hemisphere. So I couldn't say myself, but, uh, they're hilarious. They're a game story in Morley, I believe, Australia. They are. games and they just have so much fun. It's hard to describe, but they are kind of, I discovered them like right around the time I started. I had conceived of my own of the variety hour and what I was going to do and as I started getting more entrenched and like researching a little more just seeing what was out there like they are kind of for me the golden standard of uh, of good in this corner of the universe, the magic worlds. The gold standard for comedy writing. Sure. They, uh, have such a good finger on the pulse of what people are thinking and feeling. And not just that, they are silly, they're fun, they are clever, uh, they did, it's hard to describe the sketches without making them sound rote or boring. Yeah, people should go watch them. They're

Shawn: 45:03

simple and fast. Absolutely

Brandon: 45:05

go watch them. They're fast, um, they, but they play with the form a little bit. Like the little self referencing meta jokes and they do it well. Like they did a between two ferns.

45:14

Where it

Brandon: 45:16

was, uh, one of them like, Oh, thank you. Thank you for coming to me. It's like, yeah, I work here. Like I work, you work for me. What am I doing here? And they're just being rude to them and stuff. And like, there were two four, I guess that they've mentioned the comments. There were two forests on the wall behind them, but they sat in front of them. So they didn't notice that you couldn't see the two ferns. One of my favorites was. A character comes in and is like the perfect, perfect customer. Is there a game shop will come in? Like, Hey, I, I have a list. I have a few, I have a written out. I'll take as much time as you need. Uh, I'm going to go next door. Would you like something to drink while I go next door? Hey. I'm happily married, man. I, but, but like, I like to compliment you. Like, you look, you look very nice today, all this great stuff. And it's like, Oh, he's so great. Thank you. And then he's like, Oh, by the way, have you heard that, uh, that Jesus is coming back and he's made entirely out of prawns, like a shrimp. And then like, that's the whole thing. Ah, you've ruined it. And then of course there's like, they, their comedy timing is perfect. The editing is perfect. And they'll at the end, like, he ruined it. And the guy walks away and then one of the other guys working there goes. Is he talking about Shrimp Jesus? Like that great little singer at the end. I love it. They're fantastic. I cannot recommend them highly enough. They seem like great folks and they're just really funny.

Shawn: 46:28

And so we have now a couple more that we'll hit really quick and then we'll have a more broad discussion to close things up. We've got the Professor's Office Hour Sketches, which he's got great writers on his show. Um, I really enjoyed the most recent one in which he's talking to Ashiok and the cosplayer who plays Ashiok very well, which I can't remember their name. It's, it's such a great ending bit to that sketch. Um, I suggest that people watch it for sure. He does those really well, but they're not the main focus of his channel. Clearly. He's just having a blast with people that he likes.

Brandon: 47:00

If you are having fun and you want to bring people into like that's what I'm doing like I have friends around here that like I just love feeling silly and doing these videos with like I don't think if I got professional actors would would the the skits improve slightly probably but like I don't want to do that like I want to have fun and I think that carries through I think if you You And I was coming from someone who has a writing background as well, like a creative writing background. Like if there's joy, genuine joy and curiosity and fun had in the creation of, of art of any kind of creation, it comes through for the, for the, uh, reader or the watcher, the viewer, it comes through and it means a lot. And that is the closest thing to like an X factor that there is. And,

47:42

you know,

Brandon: 47:43

for anyone out here that this thing of, of doing that, like, Don't commit yourself to like, Oh, I can't do this until I'm later. Just do the stuff you want to do. Good

Shawn: 47:50

point. Yeah. And so that is the difference. And particularly, I think in comedy, like you have to have that genuine joy underneath it all. Cause otherwise what are you doing? You're making something that's funny. Supposedly. It's not going to come.

Brandon: 48:02

If you don't get the joke, if you don't get the joke, if you don't think it's funny, like, I mean, there was something funny about someone not getting a job that has to be then framed in the way that it's funny. Like, yeah. What are you doing this for? If you don't, if you're not having fun, especially in the common world.

Shawn: 48:17

And so a couple others, uh, Dan Sheehan and Rachel weeks, both luminaries of the magic community, uh, started out talking together, uh, about Um, they were both involved in magic, but had a podcast called Commander Sphere, which is now turned into Pie Break.

Brandon: 48:32

I believe that's correct. Dan was talking about the, um, the teaser in the tweet was like, what's the color identity of pasta primavera? Um, so great. Let's get into that. Sure.

Shawn: 48:42

Sure. And it's pretty fun, esoteric conversations with folks. And, um, they go pretty deep in that. It's, it's amusing, but I really enjoyed the, the back and forth between Rachel Weeks and Dan Sheehan, as they talk about like, which, which dragon and magic legendary creature. They went through like two episodes. Breaking it down would be a most suitable, uh, stepfather to your child. I don't remember, but Nicol Bolas was not up to it. There is

Brandon: 49:11

no, I don't think so. I don't think it would be either.

Shawn: 49:13

So just fun, ridiculous off the wall, things like that, that they talk about. You can go back and listen to those. I think they're all part of the pie break family of episodes. Now there is no, I think commander sphere podcast on its own. So commander's brew, Sean Tiberius and Andy Hull, they're Canadians. And one of them was actually in what we do in the shadows, like four or five episodes is like one of the. Dopey Canadian friends next door neighbors. Yeah, that's a great show. Yeah. And, and I know Andy Hall had done a standup before, but I also find Sean Tiberius hilarious and they have a lot of what I find the funniest on their channels. They used to do this fake news channel. There's in which they would report on events, like from like the blind eternities or whatever, they'd have a reporter just floating around in the middle of doing this on the scene interview as to what was going on. A lot of different character work, always the worst possible costumes. Like they would dress up as, um, Bruce Tarl or Oh, Drake, they had like Two Odric twins that would do like a Hans and Franz type thing. I think it's worth a watch. Nobody watched it, of course. There's only like a couple hundred views on each one. That's why I'm going to highlight it here. And then Game Night Comedy Bits. One of the only channels I will watch the commercials on, to be honest, because they're usually kind of funny.

Brandon: 50:26

Yeah, they do. It's not just like they don't pipe in other people. They create them themselves and they do little jokes, little sketches, almost with them,

Shawn: 50:35

shifting gears a little bit. We're probably online more than is healthy for anybody. However, it's part of the, part of the bag, right? So because we're online all the time. There's some things that are real and valid and matter a lot. And then there's some things that are just like, why are people upset today? I don't really understand. Like what could comedy do for magic players? What is important about it? I know that's a broad, big question. So

Brandon: 51:01

help us to take it a little less seriously.

Shawn: 51:03

Yeah. On the baseline, right? Yeah.

Brandon: 51:06

On the, and I mean, it's funny too, that I'm saying that about a game, it's a game, uh, but, but, but at the same time, it is serious. It's a, it's livelihoods. Yeah. Many people's major like it's my number one hobby Where we

Shawn: 51:18

met all met all of my friends that i'm currently with outside of the high school buddies, you know

Brandon: 51:22

Yeah, a lot of my social circles become i mean i have some greater social circles A lot of magic players in the area But I I think comedy in general it'd be the same answer i'd give for comedy in any any sphere Which is that like taking life a little less seriously and having more flexibility And less rigidity is good. It's good for your mental health. It's good for your day to day. It's a comedy and magic is, um, if it, if this game was drab and never took itself very seriously, you'd have a small portion of people that would like it more. You would have a lot less people. Like it at all.

Shawn: 51:59

Absolutely. So that's a good note that I think we can end on. Is there anywhere that folks can find you online that you want them to talk to you or, you know, see your stuff?

Brandon: 52:09

I mean, don't talk to me. I'm, I'm horrible. No, no, I love, I love, I love what we were here for a sprint. That's not what we talked to observe, looked at, thought about. No, I love it. When people chime in comments or just message me or just, uh, just share the space in the community. I love it. I'm on the major. platforms, but I'm on Instagram, TikTok, uh, YouTube and Twitter. I'm still going to call it. Yeah.

Shawn: 52:32

It doesn't deserve the other name. It's

Brandon: 52:34

fine. Yeah. And still just doing shorts at the moment and doing skits and yeah, we'll keep doing that until it's either no longer fun or, or I can do something bigger and better.

Shawn: 52:42

Awesome. Well, the invite sits for you to join in on the D and D cube. Not sure when it's going to happen, but triple strike goblin is in there and uh, Yeah. Time to go ham.

Brandon: 52:53

Do I have to keep my head on the.

Shawn: 52:55

No, but there is in flavor with D and D a enter the dungeon card in which you probably have to play a sub game underneath the table. Okay, great. You and Carl will join up. Cause usually we just hate drafted. So Carl doesn't get the plant. It's kind of mean, but we're all old friends. So, um,

Brandon: 53:15

what are friends except people you can hate traffic,

Shawn: 53:18

really healthy relationships going on. So if you all enjoyed this discussion, be sure to follow us on. X slash Twitter or Twix, whatever you want to call it at rule zero podcast. I've heard that before in a sports, yeah, Twix, it kind of stuck with me. Apparently, um, or email us at rule zero podcast at gmail. com. Let us know. And if you would like for us to highlight one of your decks, we'd love to just reach out and don't forget. In magic, there's no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.