Las Vegas, Nevada
Thursday June 19 2025 - Sunday June 22 2025


Thursday - Black Lotus VIP Activities


Why Am I Here?
So this event, some of you may have noticed me participating in such un-stafflike activities as playing in the PTQ and hanging out in the Black Lotus Lounge. Well Wizards of the Coast runs a New Perspectives program that sponsors 10 people to go to each MagicCon. I apply each time thinking "hey, I'll throw my hat in the ring". Because, here's the thing, I actually really like playing Magic. You wouldn't think it based on how much more I judge, but I actually prefer to play. The problem is, travelling for large events is expensive, and practising for those large tournaments is time consuming. Thus I judge instead, as it's a sustainable way for me to engage with the game the amount that I want. I was pretty floored by the acceptance, and was super excited to go! The last large event I got to play in was GP Vancouver in 2014. To clarify the "Black Lotus" badge is the highest level of badge you can acquire, it's about 1000USD and there are a limited quantity available. It comes with some swag, special line and hall permissions and a private lounge.

Badge Pickup
I came in a day early because there were a bunch of events for Black Lotus people on Thursday. Badge pickup began at noon, so that's when we went in. When I first arrived I attempted to go upstairs to the Black Lotus lounge only to be told that I needed to pick up my badge first downstairs. I went downstairs, didn't see a dedicated line for Black Lotus, so I got in the regular line, luckily it wasn't that long since we were still quite early. When I got to the front after 10-20 minutes I was told that actually I needed to go upstairs. I was a little annoyed at this, but left and went upstairs and made it into the lounge without further issue. I arrived, checked in pretty easily, got my swag and sat down to build my sealed pool. There was a lot of confusion about how the "progressive sealed" worked, something-something two games per day, get a collector booster? but could we add the collector booster to our sealed pool? What about these other collector boosters in with my swag? Also the sealed was only four packs? We also got a mystery booster pack, but it was unclear whether that was for the progressive sealed either, and the staff members didn't have a ton of answers. I built my pool out of just the four packs, but being particularly socially awkward, I didn't really know what to do with myself afterwards, there were a few hours before the build-a-plane panel. The next day we got a card for tracking sealed games. I would've loved this on Thursday, since this would've given me a bit more of an incentive to challenge people. As it was, I was a little lost, so I went around and picked up pack wrappers and helped direct people to the land stations since they were a little hard to find. Eventually a super friendly and regular Black Lotus badge purchaser explained the sealed to me, based on what it had been like at previous events, and played against me. He gave me a few of the ins and outs of the badge in general as well.

It's About the Gathering
Matt Tabak came by and challenged people to a game of "Magic Timelines", there was a deck of cards that had events from Magic's history on the front side, and the date they happened on the back. When you drew a card you were supposed to place it on the table in the appropriate location between other cards, temporally. It was very cool. We all got a mystery booster pack for participating and the winner got a final fantasy play booster. Another player in the lounge recognized me and asked me a judge question about Vincent's Limit Break, which I happily answered. I then awkwardly derped around in the lounge for a bit until I found a commander pod of three looking for a fourth and started up a game. We played until the "build-a-plane" panel started, and then kept playing during the panel. I didn't find this terribly interesting, but I'm also not a huge fan of panels in general. I don't think I can share specific details about the created planes but one was Secret Lair themed and was named "The Queue" and the other was LGS themed revolving around the "toxic" mechanic. The panel was a fairly entertaining backdrop for our commander game.

A Blocker's Dilemma
AP controls Kaldra Compleat and NAP blocks with three 4/4 beast tokens, is AP able to deal 3 damage to one of the tokens, and 2 to each of the remaining ones, causing them all to be exiled? Yes. (CR 510.1c)

Loungin' Around
There were beverages in the lounge on Thursday but no snacks, which was a little disappointing. After the commander game I wasn't able to find another game, and was too awkward to just ask people. In about an hour the MagicCon shop opened for early access where you got the privilege of waiting for two hours to buy stuff. I didn't really want any stuff so I just went back to my room to play some sealed on Arena, get some dinner, and wait for the evening Black Lotus party at Area 15.

Party Hard
The party was at Area 15 which was an Uber away. Luckily I was able to questbunch with one of the other New Perspectives people, using the Discord to coordinate. I later learned there was a Black Lotus Discord that might've been good for me to use to coordinate rides, but I didn't hear about it until after the event. I also found out there was a schedule change in the hours of the Black Lotus Lounge that was only transmitted through discord and not updated on the website. I just want to take a moment to mention that Discord seems to often be used for things that other mediums would be better for. I arrived at the party and grabbed some of the food. The person I played sealed against earlier came to hang out with me, which was actually really nice. He had a friend so all three of us hung out. We talked about magic, griped about complexity creep and just generally geeked around.

There was a cute icebreaking activity where we were each assigned a role as we walked in the door, and needed to find four other people with different roles, in this case it was Edge of Eternity themed, so captain, chief of security etc. After we found our "crew" we had to write them on a ship and hand it in to "launch" it. It was cute, but would've been better if there were some activities or games to do with your "crew". Maybe some puzzles or simple party games? I like it when it's a little more LARP-y than just "find people with different nametags than you".

Then we got shown the new Tezzeret card and as there was nowhere to play Magic and I'd already talked to my two new friends for a while at this point, I decided to call it and hailed an Uber back. Outside I found another confused Black Lotus person who didn't know where the Uber pickup point was, I helped them find the right spot and we chatted for a bit about Magic before splitting off.

Capitalism, Ho!
The next morning I got in at around 9am and wandered over to the Ultra Pro booth. I heard there were limited edition Cloud and Sephiroth playmats that would resell well, and Black Lotus badge holders got line priority. I stood in line for a bit with a bunch of other people until about 60 Black Lotus badge members came running up, out of breath. Apparently some people were told that they had to wait in the Black Lotus lounge and would be escorted to the front of the line. Me and about 100 other people weren't told that and ended up in front of people who'd been there since 5:30. Oops. The person behind me in line chatted with me for a bit, since the judges I came in with were shooed away for not having Black Lotus badges. The person in line literally just spent most of their time at MagicCon buying stuff to resell. Apparently not only did the badge more than pay for itself, but was a significant enough source of revenue for it to be worth it to this person to come to Vegas to just wait in lines. I waited in the line for about 45 minutes got a few playmats and left. Waiting in line was stressful and overwhelming. I wanted to browse the UP shop for other things, but didn't want to hold up the others in line, and it was also so crowded and uncomfortable, that I just left instead.

I went upstairs and checked out the official merch booth. One of my friends wanted four of the show specific Secret Lairs and another wanted the Final Fantasy commander decks. The commander decks were all sold out by Friday morning when I arrived (still during Black Lotus exclusive buy time), I could also only buy one secret lair each time I lined up. I was well and truly done with lineups by this point, I picked up my one Secret Lair, a Festival in a Box and went to do... literally anything else until my first event started.

Puzzlingly Pleasant
This is the second puzzle I've done at MagicCon and it's easily my favourite part (aside from the Magic, of course). It's kind of like an escape room puzzle, but magic themed. It usually consists of figuring out a bunch of words based on clues, and then using those words as a cipher for a different part of the puzzle. The booth for the puzzle is usually themed really well and has a cool vibe. I had a lot of fun doing the puzzle with the other players while I was there. I got a "red mana" pin and left to hit the lounge before the breakfast spread was taken away. I also wanted to pick up my daily stuff for having a Black Lotus badge. I hadn't realized how many free "events" came with the Black Lotus badge, and had foolishly signed up for scheduled events. I got my daily stuff, filled my bag with sodas and apples and left immediately to get to my event.

The "Unknown" is Referring to the Fun
I signed up for the Gavin Unknown event and was in flight A. The event was supposed to start at 11:30 but I didn't get seated until 11:50, notably after flight B. The announcements were difficult to hear and myself and a lot of other players were somewhat confused. I just kept refreshing Companion until it gave me a table number. I sat down, Tabak gave a speech while product was handed out, and then we started build.

It was commander, but we didn't have to follow the color restriction or singleton rules. It was a 60 card deck minimum with a starting life of 30. I liked how our "opponent stamp card" also reiterated these rules. Where I was seated I couldn't see the gold gathering point that was being used for matchmaking but enough other players pointed to it that it was fine.

I ended up with very few decent legendary creatures so I went with "Your Favourite Missing Character". This card is fine, but not amazing. Two of my unknown cards were "Mana Conference" a card that had each player secretly choose a color. I actually think this card is really well designed, and fun to play with. Unfortunately I can't say that for all the other unknown cards. There were a lot of rules questions in my games that I ended up heading off, I also answered some questions for folks around me a few times. I finished build quick and found an opponent right away. Later I heard that there were some basic land shortages, but I guess I dodged those by building fast. The allotted time on the website for this event was like 4 hours, but I ended up being done by around 2:00pm.

Overall I learned one thing from this event. Mystery Booster/Unknown cards are not fun for me. They are needlessly complex and logistically challenging. Any cards that conjure other cards are horrendous. This event is billed as a "super casual fun experience" but rules and complexity-wise it's frustrating and not good at all for people with a reasonable understanding of the game, I can only imagine how annoying it must be for poeople who are even less invested.

Trumpeting Snares
I controlled Ensnaring Bridge and my opponent cast Angel's Trumpet, and there was as little confusion about whether a creature tapped for an activated ability would cause its controller to lose life. It won't, but Angel's Trumpet isn't entirely clear about that.

Lost Breaks
I had my next event around 4:30, so I decided get some lunch in the food court, which had been rethemed to be Magic oriented, and then to just hang out in the Black Lotus lounge, and refill my sodas. I also used this time to check out the Lost Tavern. This was a really cool ambient place with live performers and a cash bar. I didn't buy anything but liked the music and atmosphere. Unfortunately, because walking across the hall took about 15-20 minutes, I actually didn't get that long of a break before my next event.

Mysterious Sealed
The next event was mystery booster sealed. It launched a little late, but not so late that it really mattered. I built my deck pretty quickly, and once again I found myself at a loss for what to do while I was waiting, so I cleaned up some pack wrappers to pass the time.

For the majority of my first round match there were no judges in sight, so I was glad nothing contentious or complex came up in my game. In the match next to me a player's opponent never showed up and according to them they were told to wait fifteen minutes, at which point their opponent would get a game loss, and then to just keep waiting for the remainder of the round to see if the opponent would show up. The opponent never did, so the player ended up just waiting there the entire time. Halfway through round one I became aware that the timer had never been started in EventLink, and the judges weren't sure when the round should end. I recall finishing my match and all of us just being confused as to when the round was ending and feeling like it had gone on for about 60+ minutes. Eventually our judge returned and told us there were five minutes left in the round. After I was done my match, I realized the participation and winner tix still weren't on the table. I saw an unattended deck on the table from the match that was on the other side of me (not the no-show match) and realized it must be lost. I grabbed it but realized lost and found was about a mile away. There were no judges in the area, so I just held onto it, since I figured I'd probably recognize the player who it belonged to, since they had a few pretty recognizable features. After round two was paired I saw them moving around rather frantically and returned their deck to them.

In round two I decided to start my own round timer just in case. I was paired against someone incredibly new and played a bit of a teaching game with them. I always worry I'm either going to trample them or that I'm going to come across condescending as I try too hard not to trample them. I think I managed to strike the balance because they seemed happy at the end. They liked cats, and made a note of it each time I played a cat creature in our games, so after the event I gave them my cat cards. The third round I fought hard against another veteran and closed out the event at 3-0. I had to wait around for a bit for my prize tix to be put on the table (about 30 minutes into the round is when they arrived). Overall the amount of uncertainty and logistical issues made the event low-key kind of stressful for me.

I spoke to the HJ of the event afterwards, gave some feedback and had a pretty productive discussion.

Commanding Value
All my friends at the event were judges, and were still on shift when I finished my event, so I wandered over to the command zone and joined a pickup game. The system here was quite good, there were no paid pods, so you just went to the front, told them the approximate power level of your deck, and they'd direct you to players waiting around a sign of that approximate power level, then eventually your pod would fill up, you'd return the sign to the front and the process would start again.

Plays Only a Lunatic Could Think Of
AP controls Lunatic Pandora and is tapped out during NAP's end step. AP untaps and before they draw says "oh I should've activated this during your end step". They look at the top card of their library, then draw it for their turn. NAP calls a judge. The judge on the call ruled no infraction because the actions AP took were looking at the card they were drawing for turn, then putting it into their hand, all of which are legal actions they can take.

Saturday - Final Fantasy Sealed PTQ


Morning Dues
I resolved to not go in the Ultra Pro line again, but stopped by the show store to grab another Secret Lair for the day, and to attempt to buy those commander decks they said they'd have in stock. They didn't have the commander decks, but while I was waiting in line another Black Lotus member let me know that the show store was selling Final Fantasy collector packs at $40, and vendors literally downstairs were buying them at $70. I bought six by waiting in line twice since they only let you buy three at a time. This was, of course, incredibly unfun, but was very high value. I think either they should let people just buy as many of whatever thing they want at a time (and allow those people to just go and enjoy the con instead of constantly waiting in line) OR limit purchases per person by punching holes in attendees badges when they'd made their allowed purchase (ie. People are allowed to buy 3 collector boosters for the whole weekend. When they buy their three, punch a star-shaped hole in their badge. The next time they come up, they can't buy any collector boosters). As it was, Magic players had discovered how to optimize the fun out of MagicCon. At 10am the regular attendees were allowed in and the Black Lotus merch line slowed down significantly, so I didn't bother continuing to grind packs. I walked downstairs, sold my packs and headed over to the lounge. I had just enough time to grab my daily swag and stuff my bag with beverages and snacks before it was time for the PTQ to start.

Casual Tour Qualifier
I enrolled in the PTQ, since I really wanted to play in at least one highly competitive event over the weekend. I so seldom get to play in events like this, and was excited to give it a shot. This was the event I was looking forward to the most. I spent the previous week grinding sealed on Arena since my prereleases didn't go well (I ended up 3-2 both times, which is pretty poor considering my local prerelease crowd isn't exactly hall of famers). I got together with my friends and did a bunch of sealed leagues with them. The playtesting for the event was honestly the most fun I've had with Magic in a while. Collaborating over plays and figuring out together what cards were good and which ones weren't was awesome, and reminded me why I love Magic. By the end of the week I felt very confident in my format knowledge and was regularly knocking out 7 wins in the online best-of-one sealed events.

The PTQ was in a separate room, which was great, it was quieter and had carpet. Deck registration sheets could've been on the table when I arrived, however, we were seated before the scheduled start time, so the reg sheets not being out in advance didn't really slow us down that much. The acoustics in the room, however, were not awesome. I only ever heard garbled noise and guessed what was being said based on knowing the sealed procedure. I helped explain to the people around me how things worked, since the judges seemed constantly tapped out. My opponent hadn't finished registration when it was time for build to start, but since there weren't enough staff to take my judge call, I just timed how long they took, and made a note that we should get an extra 2 minutes at the end if we needed it. Neither of us ended up needing it, luckily.

I ended up going UR with a Vivi and Urza. While I was pondering over my pool I bumped into some of my local grinders! Sit around watching top 8s long enough and you get to know who the good players in your community are. They were excited to see me playing, and gave me a few tips for my G2 and G3 deck, since I'd made a few blunders in my G1 deck. Round one went great, and after the round I touched base with the grinders again to see where they were at. We shared stories and cheered each other on for R2. This became a common theme of the day, connecting with them was kind of a highlight, and made me feel like I was part of a community... or Gathering, if you will. I finished R2 pretty quickly and saw some of my judge friends. We helped some of the judges working find judge calls, since the amount of pillars in the room was more than zero. I also helped softly course-correct a few rulings that sounded odd by encouraging a double-check or two.

Sketchy Transformations
AP uses Relm's Sketching to create a token copy of Kefka, Court Mage, can the token transform? Yes. (CR 707.8a)

Usurper of Subtypes
AP controls Ardyn, the Usurper and uses its ability to create a token copy of Summon: Leviathan, what happens when the chapter one triggered ability resolves? The token copy of Leviathan and Ardyn will both return to AP's hand. Summon: Leviathan becomes a Demon and is no longer a Leviathan when it's copied by Ardyn. (CR707.9b)

The Commerce of Rulings
I attacked with two creatures, then before NAP did anything, I was like "Oh wait, I want to equip this thing, then attack with these same creatures". My opponent wasn't super on board, so I called a judge and they ruled in my favor, after ascertaining that the opponent hadn't given away any information. (MTR 4.8) However my opponent was still a little annoyed, they were newer to competitive Magic and weren't entirely aware of reversing decisions policy. I prodded the floor judge a bit to explain the ruling a little more, and after they did my opponent's mood improved a lot. It was very interesting being on this end of the interaction, and helped me realize how important it is to not only get the ruling correct, but also to sell it to the player that you're ruling against. Playing a match against a salty opponent is oftentimes not worth whatever incremental gain I can get from winning a judge call.

There were many times where my opponents gave me a missed trigger, or we executed a reversing decisions all on our own without judge intervention. Partially because the judges always seemed super taxed, but also because neither of us wanted to deal with the hassle of waiting for a judge to arrive, explaining the situation and then waiting even longer for a ruling to be finally delivered. An also because we didn't want to ruin the social "vibe" of the match. I've heard tournaments described as 50 minute speed dates and I don't think this is entirely inaccurate, you spend 50 minutes with someone, you want to have a pleasant time, if you start off arguing about a missed trigger, your next 49 minutes are gonna be hell.

A Soft Landing
I missed my win-and-in for day 2 in round 7 of 8, and drew into top 128 with my last round opponent, since even a win here wouldn't get us top 32. The promo was a foil Tifa which was going for quite a bit on the secondary market, and a draw locked us for it as well as a booster box in prizes. I sold mine to a vendor for 500USD and then later regretted it when I got an offer for 1800. I ended up in 50th out of ~500, which I was fairly pleased with, considering I don't really play much competitive Magic. I had a great time and all my opponents were really nice, and generally fun people to play against.

Sunday - Retail


All Good Things Come to an End
My birthday was on Sunday, but I had such a good time on Saturday that I wanted to end the weekend of play on a high note. I was also concerned about product levels, since I knew at previous shows ODEs were sometimes closed for registration on Sunday, and had already heard whispers of the competitive drafts being limited to one per person. I also knew that most scheduled events filled up far in advance, especially competitive ones. Also to compound the issue, even if I did get into a competitive event, it would likely be flooded with Pro Tour scrub outs, making the average skill of the event skyrocket. With all this information, it should be no surprise that when I was asked to work retail the next day I shrugged and obliged. In the morning I hit the show store to get my collector booster value, but unfortunately, the jig appeared to be up, as what looked like basically every black lotus badge holder was queued up to grind value. I only did one run of the line before heading to the lounge to fill my bag with snacks and grab my daily packs. I sold my collector packs downstairs for a reduced rate of $60 instead of the previous day's rate of $70. I also sold the booster box I won from the PTQ as well as my pile of loose packs to the vendor booth I would later be working for. Then I began work. The booster box I sold to the booth instantly vanished. I guess most booths were out of play boosters. Retail was rough in Vegas, it was constant and tiring. There was never a moment where no customers were at the booth. Notably the booth at Vegas didn't have to deal with the annoying inventory management I mentioned in Nanaimo, I was simply able to sell cards for cash without running the transaction through the machine.

...In Conclusion
I had an incredible time at MagicCon Vegas as a player. If money was no object I would definitely hit up more large events. Though I do admit a few times when the staff looked overburdened, I lamented my inability to help support them. Judging is just so ingrained in me, it's difficult to not jump in and help even when I'm not in uniform. Another great part of the weekend was how many players approached me, noting that I wasn't judging! This was really quite odd because I wasn't even wearing my characteristic headdress, I was effectively incognito. I just assumed the players didn't notice or care who the judges were. We are, after all, background NPCs in the grand scheme of tournaments. This is part of why I never introduce myself during HJ announcements, realistically, who cares what my name is? The players just want to play. Well, apparently I'm wrong and they remember us more than we think. I also got asked a non-zero number of judge questions even out of uniform, which really made me feel like I am a good judge. It's nice to be recognized and appreciated for your job, and this weekend made me realize that even more. I certainly won't stop judging events, but this whole experience made me rethink my approach and consider taking the odd Friday or even whole event off to just, be a player.