My first day at PAX ended around 1:00 am PST as I crawled into bed and pretended to read as I dozed off repeatedly.

I woke up wide awake at 7:30am, ugh - not cool. Not even the patented roll over and bury my head under the pillow would let me snag a few more hours of sleep. So I got up, checked the site, looked at the state of the vote for which panel to record on Sunday and was pleasantly surprised to see the ‘World Building’ panel in a strong lead.

I got to the convention hall around 8:30am, hoping to get into the exhibitor hall early to get some footage. Turns out they only let press in early on Friday, after that we all wait until they open the doors to the general public at 10am. Apparently people had been lining up since 6am to get into the main hall first. So I waited.

I found a table and pulled out the Nook e-reader, passing the time. I was looking forward to today for a number of reasons, one of which being I was finally going to get to meet @mtgcolorpie aka Robby Rothe Jr. One of my writers for the site. He and I had made tentative plans for dinner Thursday. Unfortunately I had bailed on him, so I was doubly excited to hang out for Saturday.

Robby arrived shortly after nine, and our day began in earnest. To say Robby and I hit it off would be an understatement. We were inseparable for the entire day right up to the Innistrad party tonight. Our humors meshed well, our interests aligned, and were we living in the same city I can only imagine the ruckus we’d cause.

Robby is here for his third PAX and so he showed me the ropes including some paths and routes I wasn’t familiar with.

Wizards’ PAX party is by invitation only, and the way to get your invite was to answer a five step puzzle, involving things from body parts and words to translucent square tablets that had to be aligned in the proper way so as to reveal the correct answer.

While I was exempt from needing to do these puzzles to get into the party, I decided to follow Robby as he worked through them. Look for a fun episode later this week revealing some of the trials and tribulations required to get access to the exclusive party!

After completing the puzzles we sat down and gamed some Commander with his buddy Neil. I don’t remember how the games went, I only remember one real notable play by me. Robby cast an Avenger of Zendikar getting seven plant tokens in play. On my turn I cast Mogg Infestation on him, followed by Insurrection. I believe I won that game...

Insurrection is one of those cards I never cast unless I’m going to remove at least one opponent. It’s just not a fun card otherwise.

The rest of the day passed with us exploring the halls, playing some non-Magic games, and I watched Robby duel one of the guys from Card Kingdom using the new Ajani vs Nicol Bolas duel decks. Robby battled with Ajani and ended up winning the match 2-0.

After that... there was this party... that sort of was a big deal. It caused the MTG twitter world to blowup: #mtgparty

Yeah, the party.

It got off to a bit of a rocky start. We got to the party about 10-15 minutes early, as instructed we went to the side entrance and they were still finalizing their setup. There was some confusion on setup and how people were checking in and getting wrist bands, etc. While they figured it all out Robby and I tried to wait out of the way.

I was excited to see the guys from the Totally Rad Show come up. I’ve been a fan of their show for a long time (since it launched really) and it’s great to see them working with the Magic brand and covering it. They came to the party for a while, got setup doing a sealed deck as the party got started, and then had to bail for other responsibilities as it got going.

I got the chance to talk to all three of them, mainly with Jeff and Alex though. They’re all three great guys, and I truly wish I had snapped a photo with them. Fail. I chatted more with Dan at the bar inside.

Once we finally got into the event hall, the first thing to notice as we ascended a set of stairs is that every five or six steps was a bunch of roses. And the higher you climb the stairs the roses went from fresh and vibrant to dead and drooping. An excellent, but subtle, transition into the macabre world of Innistrad.

Inside the bar the DJ was blasting party music and Wizards employees were passing out booster packs of M12 to the attendees. Past them the oversized Innistrad cards were on display. I immediately gravitated past the initial bunch to check out Olivia, the mythic rare Vampire. And I just sort of stared at her, taking it in when who should appear next to me but Mark Rosewater.

“Alright Mark, explain it to me.” I grin as I asked him. And off we went, he’s willing to tell me about anything in the set. EXCEPT the day/night mechanic.

ARGH.

You don’t understand. You can’t understand.

When I first got to PAX and ran into Mark Purvis, he asked me what I thought about the discussions about Innistrad online.

“Official or unofficial?”

“Unofficial.” He said.

“Well, I can’t see how the card could be back to back, given the whole problem preventing the back of cards from changing. So I guess it has to be with the print run, or their just two cards and it’s a tutor style mechanic. So... what is it?” I have to ask. I knew he wouldn’t tell me.

“You’ll see.”

Later I had a similar discussion with Tolena, my main contact with Wizards. “No I can’t tell you, I enjoy seeing you squirm too much!” That may not be a direct quote, but she’ll back me up for the intent and meaning.

Wizards employees have been taking far too much pleasure in teasing me with this information, and here I was at the PAX party and completley unable to see that one critical piece to the puzzle which brings it all into focus.

As the party really gets started and Mark Purvis and I sit down to make good on a rain check for a Winston draft. Winston draft is the format where you shuffle together 6 booster packs (though Mark and I actually used seven) and then... here just read this explanation - that will be easier.

While we Winston Drafted, I picked his brain. Mark was tangentially involved with developing the set, he helped out with some small involvement to do with the Humans in the set. They had some small breakout groups who worked on the various tribes and that was his level of involvement.

The fact is, he told me, he’s too busy with his main job at the company to really try and work in a lot of involvement with R&D. Since his joining Wizards four years ago as a Brand manager, they’ve begun putting out a lot of products, and that’s squarely under his perview. So it keeps him pretty busy.

Our Winstron progresses and I snag a Garruk, Primal Hunter, Winston drafts regularly go three colors for decks, but he has the potential to be a major bomb for me.

All through our draft Mark is having to step away either to meet with another VIP, or facilitate meetings, etc. No worries, I’m nursing a scotch while I wait, and of course talking to people as well. Gregarious gent that I am.

Once we’re done and decks are built, we shuffle up and do battle. I attempt an early silly play which, if successful, will give me a major boost. In our game on turn three I cast Incinerate targeting myself. I go to 17. Mark is clearly perplexed but I can see he didn’t figure out why I wanted it. The answer being that on turn four I cast Timely Reinforcements, which was sadly Mana Leaked by Mark. All the answers it seems.

Here is a photo captured by Zac Hill when he came by and found out the play. That’s Mark hand holding the offending Mana Leak.

The party is really roaring by now. It’s getting jam packed and the music is pumping. And I’m stoked. As I go from person to person, introducing myself or chatting them up, I’m grabbed by Mark Purvis again and pulled into position to see the video screen. As I get into place I see the other Magic brand manager, Paul Levy, get up on a raised platform and begin addressing the hundreds and hundreds of Magic nerds packing the club.

As he finishes his introduction, ominous bells toll and a video begins. The video is in the same style as the Gideon video from a few months ago. The narrator is deep voiced. He discusses Lilianna and how she had cursed him. They reveal the narrator to be Garruk and we see him transform before our eyes into the cursed looking Garruk we saw on the Ultrapro art from GenCon. The crowd is going nuts and as the video comes to a close, three Innistrad cards which were on prominent display rotate 180 degrees to reveal their backs are also Magic cards.

I promptly tweeted this:

And then make a beeline for, I think, Elaine Chase. Elaine is the Brand Director for Wizards. She competed on Pro tour #1 and has been a big fan of Magic ever since. She currently oversees all of Wizards’ brands. I’m blabbering at this point, trying to form coherent words to say: “Is this real? Are they really back to back?”

Mark Rosewater was perched on a stool just behind Elaine and he pipes up saying, “Yes, there is a face of a card, and on the back is a face of another card.” OMG.

I send this tweet:

At this point, the wall that held them back from telling me stuff about the set crumbles and I begin grabbing employees to get answers as fast as I can.

How does this work in general? In draft? Will pro draft packs be handled differently? But how? Why? I don’t understand!

I literally talked to the following people getting answers to various questions:

I mean, if they worked for Wizards, I snagged them and picked their brain. Thanks to everyone I snagged by the way.

If you haven’t read it yet, you need to start with the article that Wizards posted tonight on their website. They do a good job of giving the broad strokes and explaining the checklist card etc.

Twitter was heating up with people trying to grasp how this worked. There are legitimate concerns. What I struggle with is the inevitable cadre of people who immediately assume Wizards has lost their mind and gone nuts and ruined the game.

I will say, I heard the same phrase multiple times from Wizards employees. “We know what we’re doing. We’ve been tackling this for several months, we’ve addressed and tested all the things people are concerned about and more that they haven’t thought of to be concerned about.”

Tomorrow I will be sitting down with Mark Purvis and putting him on camera to discuss just what exactly is happening in Innistrad, how its happening, and how they decided to make it happen. I promise video later this week.

The reveal of the back to back cards seemed to crank the party to 11. People had an experience. Wizards threw a truly kick-ass party. I’ve never seen that many nerds all ‘dancing’ at once. I’m overjoyed I made it out for PAX this year, I can only imagine my response had I been home as the news came out.

One other person who I chatted with, though admittedly less about Innistrad and more about Magic Online was Worth Wollpert (@mtgonline) who oversees Magic Online. We’ve been twitter acquaintances and I think our paths crossed maybe once before - but tonight I got a chance to stand and chat with him for ten minutes.

Work on the next generation of Magic Online continues, they’re in a very limited closed beta right now, but according to him it’s release is nearing. He gave me a tentative date range but I don’t want to publish it without fact checking beyond a loud discussion in a louder party.

I also picked his brain about why they moved away from Silverlight for the upcoming version. Silverlight was a promising platform which permitted them to get accessibility to the Mac OS which is sadly without Magic Online currently. The reason they abandoned it is all about concerns over the security Silverlight would provide. They couldn’t get comfortable and felt that they had legitimate issues with the platform. Sadly this means no Mac for the upcoming version (as far as I know.)

But I hope players would all agree that we’d rather they protect our accounts and not leave themselves open to be another Sony.

After talking to Worth, I had the immense pleasure of finally meeting Michelle Roberson aka @Sunie_FDC. She competed in the Community Cup this year. She’s just a bundle of pure awesome. She’s here at PAX working as a FragDoll Cadet, but she was able to escape for the party. And while hanging with her I met the hysterical high-energy @jamiebot who I chatted with about Commander and Standard a fair bit while we waited in line to get our custom tokens made. Along with those two lovely ladies I meta @nightelyn who is getting back into Magic and she was a pleasure to meet also.

As the party neared its end it become quite clear I had work to do, so I gathered up my stuff and headed out. After a taxi ride I got back to my hotel just $5 poorer. Seems fair. Rather than lugging my backpack with camera for blocks.

What a day. Lots of people are concerned about the idea of printing Magic cards back to back. Concerns are merited, and we will have to wait and see how it goes.

I have concerns as well, I mean - how is it going to work? It seems like draft suffers from it. Other things like that. However, I also have a strong faith in the survivor nature of Magic. Wizards has to push boundaries and break its own rules or else it dies of stagnation. Could this move kill the game? No. Could this change hurt the game? Sure. Will it? I don’t think so.

I remain hopeful but we will have to wait and see how it goes on Sept. 24th when the Innistrad Pre-releases take place and we get our first look at how it drafts or plays.

Until then, I’ll see you all tomorrow night with the conclusion of my PAX experiences!

The image used at the header of this article was from @wizards_magic, tweeted here.