MagicCon Las Vegas Recap with Rebell Son
By all accounts, MagicCon Las Vegas was a convention for the ages. It really looks like there was something for everyone. A curated selection of events designed to appeal to Magic players of all stripes—from casual to competitive and everything in between—and plenty of offerings based around enjoying the gathering made this an event to remember.
In this article, I wanted to take a look at some of the highlights from the event. I also wanted to get some insight from an experienced MagicCon attendee, so I enlisted the help of Rebell Son. You may know her as a YouTube star, member of the Commander Advisory Group, and aspiring tournament grinder, but she’s also one of the newest members of the PlayEDH team!
Author’s note: Tickets are not actually on sale now. The event is unfortunately already over.
Themed as a Gathering Ever After, MagicCon Las Vegas was primarily themed after the recently released Wilds of Eldraine, but there was plenty to offer for fans of other Magic sets and planes. There were also promotions based around products in the Universes Beyond series of crossovers with other series and IPs. Let’s start with my look at some highlights of things that were on offer.
We’re really living in the best and weirdest timeline. Wizards of the Coast previously enlisted Elijah Wood for promotion of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth and one of the most hyped events at MagicCon Las Vegas was a slumber party-themed DJ event featuring him and Zach Cowie under the Wooden Wisdom Banner! This was an interesting marriage of his appeal to fans of Tolkien’s work and the overarching Wilds of Eldraine theme of the rest of the convention.
Cosplay contests are a perennial favorite at MagicCon events. I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m extremely jealous of Magic Mishamigo for coming away with this awesome replica Sword of Fire and Ice trophy for winning the MagicCon 2023 Cosplay Grand Championship, but I think that the award was well-deserved. I’m excited to see more great cosplay at future events because Magic cosplayers really go all out.
Gavin Verhey’s Unknown events are a popular attraction featuring crazy playtest cards that offer a unique draft experience to participants. Gavin not only hosted Unknown during MagicCon Las Vegas, he even invited people to try their hand at designing cards that would have a chance to appear for future Unknown events. I’m really looking forward to seeing what people came up with.
We’ve seen a series of highly limited special promo Secret Lair cards at MagicCon events. The promo was Swords to Plowshares this time around, with artwork by Justin and Alexis Hernandez of GlowingRaptor Studio. This artwork features a variety of swords from throughout Magic’s history. Like previous cards in this series, this one is limited to 295 copies and was handed out to lucky people at the event.
PlayEDH was also proud to sponsor Nathan Jones—also known as TheHermitDruid—and send him to Las Vegas. He worked hard to promote our brand and document the experience on Twitter. He was also filming episodes of his YouTube series, The Druid’s Repository. That should make for some cool content. Thank you for all of your hard work during the event, Nathan!
Okay, it’s time to talk to the real star of the show!
Chief: Howdy, Rebell. It seems to me like you’re always aiming for new accomplishments in the Magic as a player and a member of the community. It’s one of the things that I admire most about you. Can you tell me if you went into MagicCon Las Vegas with any specific goals for things that you wanted to accomplish at the event?
Rebell: Win another Ragavan lol!
Chief: That’s right! You did win one of those a while back. I’m pretty jealous.
Rebell: The only goal that I had for MagicCon Las Vegas was to work on my skills as a guest and how to bring more value to the attendees and the game that I’m an ambassador for. I’m actually very introverted and quiet despite how I present my characters in my videos, and being a host-like figure in a large space with a lot of people is a little daunting to me.
A learning moment I had was in MagicCon Minneapolis where Jim from the Spike Feeders, Alan from Mental Misplay, and I were scheduled into a secret Commander Party event. My instructions were just to get the guests excited and have a good time, and I watched Jim just walk up to lines of people and rally them up, and I was really impressed by how easily he could do that. So I tried my best to mimic him in the best way, and the way I saw the guests light up with excitement brought me a lot of joy and fulfillment.
This event and further events, I want to be even better at that. I want to be better at approaching strangers in these spaces and giving them something positive and memorable, and be less shy in that regard.
Chief: Just looking at Twitter during the weekend of the event tells me that you were excited and willing to put yourself out there. What experience did you enjoy the most?
Rebell: My favorite thing to experience was the Gavin Verhey Unknown Events. They’re absolutely the best thing to do at these conventions with exclusive and hilarious playtest cards, and unique Limited experiences that you can’t really get anywhere else. Because you’re playing with playtest cards, the overall vibe is very casual and feels like kitchen table Magic where you bend the rules a little and just go with it.
Chief: Yeah, I really want to make it out to an event just for Unknown as well. It looks extremely fun. Did you feel like you had enough time to do everything that you wanted or were there things that you missed out on because there was so much to choose from?
Rebell: I definitely didn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted. I missed out on all the panels and only had one crack at the Secret Lair Showdown. There’s a ton of really unique things at MagicCons and I think part of the fun is knowing you can’t do everything and you’ll have to explore something new next time.
Chief: I remember that you said that you were having a lot of fun with the Fae Dominion Commander precon from Wilds of Eldraine. You even dressed up as a Faerie for the convention!
Rebell: Hehehe. I upgraded the Fae Dominion precon with Alela, Cunning Conqueror as my commander, and took a ton of cards from one of my favorite commander decks “Bolas Roleplay” to create a splashy, fun, political Dimir control deck that I called “Faerie Royale”.
Chief: That does sound pretty fun. I’d like to play against it sometime too. What was your most memorable Commander moment during the convention?
Rebell: The most memorable Commander moment is captured in an upcoming episode of Tabletop Jocks with Alan from Mental Misplay, TappyToeClaws, and Joe Johnson. But I won’t spoil the episode. You’ll have to watch it.
Something I can tell you now though, during the Commander Party event I met an awesome group of players and ultimately I beat everyone with their own strategies and cards. In one of the final turns, one of the players was trying to figure out how they could possibly crawl back into the game.
I told them I’ll make their decision easier and cast one of my favorite cards, which is Time Stop. This card is always a showstopper, and everyone laughed when they saw it and we ended the game on a good note. I did hand everyone a pack of Commander Masters for giving me such a great experience.
Chief: That does sound like a lot of fun. Time Stop is one of my favorite blue spells too. A lot of big names in Magic were in attendance. Were there any creators or other people that you wanted to shout out for going above and beyond to make things extra special for people at the event?
Rebell: Definitely Lua Stardust. She organized an incredible cEDH event where players can borrow decks and play in pods with cEDH creators. There was a lot of work organizing creators to do this and also managing the event during the convention. I think it was really awesome for her to do that.
Chief: That does sound like a good way to get people involved in cEDH. Based on everything that I saw online, it looked like everyone was having a great time. What are some things that you think could be improved for future events like this one?
Rebell: The main problem with MagicCons I find is that it’s extremely difficult to know what’s happening on each day. The website to get event ticketing is difficult to navigate, and a lot of events are so unique that it’s difficult for attendees to imagine what the events entail.
What is Sealed Commander with 30 packs from different sets actually like? What goes into an event where you play two drafts then combine those decks for a third round? I think they need to design fliers or posters to put up during the day so that people can see what’s happening in detail, find something fun to do, and go do it.
Chief: I guess that we can only hope that it will get better as they host more and more MagicCons. I have one more question for you: Did anyone ever find your creator stamp?
Rebell: No lol! Someone out there is PUTTING OUT FAKE STAMPS WITH MY NAME ON IT!
Chief: I sure hope not. Thank you for your time today. I’ll look forward to reading all about your adventures at the next one.
While they’re not perfect, MagicCon events continue to look like a great time and I’m going to prioritize making it out to one in 2024. I look forward to seeing my friend Rebell and tons of other great creators, as well as enjoying all of the fun events. You can actually catch me at Magic Summit in October, which is the first large Magic event that I’ll be attending. I’m very excited.
If you want more Rebell content, she’s always putting out great videos on YouTube, featuring everything from cEDH deck techs to the slice-of-life series known as The LGS. Make sure that you give her a follow and check out some of her videos if you haven’t seen them already! Rebell will also be working with PlayEDH on deck consultations and more.
Articles like these are made possible and kept ad-free due to the support of all of our Patreon, Twitch, and Discord subscribers. Come check us out on Discord to chat about all things Commander and play curated games with people from all over the world! We’d also love to hear from you on Twitter where you can find all of our latest news!
“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards.
Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”
