I’m not sure if any of you were aware of this, but the LoadingReadyRun crewmembers are fans of Magic: The Gathering and have a great relationship with Wizards of the Coast. So when WotC asked us to appear at their PAX Prime booth and “spell-sling” against MtG fans, we were happy to do so!
We played for the last two hours that the show floor was open, on all three days. The deal was, it was the first chance anyone in the public could play the new expansion for Magic 2013 (in this case, the Steam version), but they had to play us. If they could best us in Magic combat, they would win a PAX-exclusive t-shirt, with Magic planeswalker art by Penny Arcade’s Gabe, and if they lost they’d still win a booster pack of M13. So it was a win-win!
While the point was to show off the 5 new decks in the expansion (in the five guild-themed color-combinations from the upcoming Return to Ravnica set) I definitely faced people who wanted to win. On the first day especially, I must’ve played against the mono-Red goblin deck 60% of the time, and it was almost always a crushing defeat.
On the second day, when we had a chance to actually tweak our decks, things went much more my way. I felt a little bad in a few situations … but not that bad 🙂
It’s always a challenge to find time to play Magic with our fans, and having mandated, official play time was a welcome addition to our PAX experience. We met a lot of great people (some of whom had no idea who we were and just wanted to play some Magic) and played some fun and hilarious games. Huge thanks to everyone on the WotC Promotions and Brand team for setting this up, and running a tight ship at the PAX booth. I hope we can repeat at PAX East!
Added bonus! Did you miss our epic, nearly three-hour panel at this years PAX Prime? Well, thanks to LRR video interns Sarah Mendiola and Jason Chinnock, you can watch all 2:45 of it on our YouTube channel!
