Magic: The Gathering with Branden DuCharme

[00:00:00] My name is Branden DuCharme with DuCharme Wealth Management and my Unexpected Hobby is praying magic to gather. Welcome to Unexpected Hobbies of Financial Advisors, the podcast where we interview fellow financial advisors about their pursuits and pastimes beyond their professional persona, some of which may be surprising to their colleagues and clients. We're interested in what makes them tick and how their unexpected hobbies might or might not relate to their everyday lives.

[00:00:28] Here's our discussion with this week's guest. Welcome to the Unexpected Hobbies of Financial Advisors podcast. I'm Brian Wright with Fiduciary CFO. And alongside me, sort of, for the first time ever, Joshua is not alongside me physically. He's a, but spiritually he is. Emotionally he is, right, Joshua? Joshua. It's good to see their screen.

[00:00:56] Joshua, yes, finding himself in sunny Florida today as I'm in the cold Midwest Indianapolis suburb. But glad to see you there on the, on the screen, Joshua. It's good to be here. Thanks for giving it a go, doing this with three cameras and three computers. We'll see how it shakes out. We are wildly optimistic that this will be satisfactory. So joining us today is Brandon with Magic the Gathering hobby.

[00:01:25] I know Magic the Gathering. I barely know anything about, I know there's a collecting piece and I know there's like a game that you play and it's sort of like, is it like a Dungeons and Dragons thing? So I have like all these little things that pop in my mind when I hear that as a hobby, but I know it's a thing, which is already better than some of the hobbies that we've talked to. So, um, Brandon, thanks for joining us. Tell us how you got into this hobby of yours.

[00:01:52] Uh, so I got into the hobby because, uh, my mom in a valiant effort tried to buy us some Pokemon cards when I was a kid. Like really, really little like, uh, she was in like 99 or 2000. And, uh, she brought him over like what the heck are these are Pokemon cards, you know, like put them in a box somewhere.

[00:02:14] And then, uh, the next school year, my older brother was, you know, so like I'm in kindergarten and my oldest brother is going into middle school. And so he goes to, and so we were like Pokemon kids. He goes to middle school and, uh, there's these kids playing with that of cards. And so he came home and he's like, where are those weird Pokemon, not Pokemon, Pokemon cards. Mom got us. That's what kids at my new school play.

[00:02:42] And so he started playing Magic the Gathering. And, you know, as a young kid, I, you always, the one thing you want to do more than anything else is hang out with your older brother. So sure. I started playing Magic the Gathering. And, uh, I kind of played that alongside of like the whole, like that early two thousands era, uh, uh, Pokemon was like really big in the beginning and then kind of got taken over by Yu-Gi-Oh a little bit. And then Magic was always this thing that kind of older people played more.

[00:03:11] You know, I was, I never really had friends, kind of my own age that played Magic cards. It was always me playing with the older kids. So, uh, always got absolutely wrecked. I was like horrible in the early years compared to these kids with, uh, you know, what seemed like significantly advanced IQs compared to my own. Uh, I, and so anyways, I, I started playing Magic cards and kind of played alongside, you know, we, so we played Pokemon and, you know, and, and Magic the Gathering.

[00:03:38] And, uh, my older brother sort of phased out of that in, in high school, late high school and kind of never really did much of it after that. Uh, my little brother, he kind of played, uh, and then didn't have much interest once he, once we got a little bit older. Uh, and I just always liked it, enjoyed it. And then, so I just kind of continued playing. Uh, um, and, uh, I've gone through a couple of phases where I don't play very much.

[00:04:06] And then, uh, and then phases where I play a lot. And, uh, I think everyone has that kind of experience with hobbies at some point. Right. Um, but here we are, it's been now like 24 years. Uh, and one of the unique things I've liked about Magic is that everywhere I've ever moved, you can find, you can sort of find your tribe. Right. Um, and it's usually like really nice, welcoming people.

[00:04:34] Um, and so, although maybe like I didn't fit the classic mold of what people would expect a Magic card player to be or look like, or, you know, uh, do otherwise, like they would be like, oh, you know how to play cool. Great. Come, come play with us. So, um, you know, when I moved across the country after high school, like I could find people when I went to different, uh, high school and in high school, I could, I, I found people. Um, when I joined the army, I found people to play with, right.

[00:05:02] It's like all over the country. There's all these people. It's one of the most played games in history. So, um, it's been a really interesting journey. Uh, and yeah, there's kind of three components to Magic the Gathering. There's, uh, like you say, like the collectible part there, there is a, there is absolutely a collectible component to it. Um, we could talk more about that. Um, and then there is actually a lower, what they call a lower side to it, like the story component.

[00:05:31] Um, and that is the part that I've never really paid any attention to. Uh, I don't know almost anything about a lower behind Magic the Gathering. Um, and then there's like the playing, you know, playing Magic the Gathering. Uh, it's, it is, I mean, it is a card game, right? At the end of the day, you got to play.

[00:05:53] Uh, so I would say on the collectability side, a lot of the collectability is based upon the actual game itself and the playability of, uh, cards or, and then there's some that's like, uh, around scarcity of cards, stuff that can't get reprinted. And then, uh, I would say like very little of it is tied to like a lower piece of kind of lower or something like that. It'd be a lot more obscure.

[00:06:19] But episode three of our show, we had Adam on who played chess and he said one of the most played games in the history of humanity. And you're also saying Magic the Gathering, one of the most played games. I'm guessing the history is not as old as chess, but how far back does organized under this trademark or name? How old is this? 92 or 93. So you got in on the ground floor then practically back in the nineties.

[00:06:46] Uh, man, if it would have been a couple of years older, if I would have been a couple of years earlier, man, I would be probably retired. Different path. Uh, well, I guess I, I sort of consider myself a work option. Yeah. But yeah, it would be, uh, interesting, but, but also in hindsight, it's like, you know, the people that are like, well, oh yeah, if only I'd bought, you know, Apple went as a penny stock or whatever.

[00:07:16] But, you know, it's like, would you really have helped? Would you really have held it all the way to now? You know, probably not. I probably wouldn't. I probably wouldn't have all those. I mean, there's magic cards that from like those first couple of sets that came out in the early nineties. That's where people hear about the big, big dollar amounts. You know, like a really the, probably the most iconic and famous card and magic is the black Lotus. Um, which is like, really, it's a mediocre card. I mean, it's good, but it's banned at this point, basically. And most formats people play.

[00:07:45] So like, even if you have one, it's gotten really limited place. And, um, but if you have a graded one, that's in good condition. I mean, you can get, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars for one. Um, it's, it's pretty crazy, but you know, back then people were just like opening up out of booster packs, you know? So we might have 15 or 20 of them back in, in the early nineties and didn't think about anything. And they thought, you know, I'm bored with this game and they threw their cards out or the game to their cousin or whatever.

[00:08:13] And now today in hindsight, it's like, you know, they gave somebody the value of a house. Uh, so, yeah. So, so for folks that are listening that, that don't know, like how you play this game, present company included, like, I don't know how you, how do you play this game? Sure. Like talk, talk me through the mechanics. Yeah. One of the things that I like about magic is that it doesn't, you don't have to know anything about the lower or like the back history of this or that.

[00:08:41] Um, you really can just pick up a deck, read the row book and start playing. Um, there is, it has become an, uh, increasingly insane amount of different mechanics to the game. And so you, you have to do a lot of read the card. Um, it's kind of a joke at a lot of magic card tables. Like reading the card explains the card.

[00:09:06] Um, uh, but the idea is, uh, you know, it depends a little bit on the format that you play. So let me use, um, my preferred format as an example. It's called a commander or EDH, which stands for elder dragon Highland. And it's a multiplayer format that's designed to be very social and a little bit more casual in nature. And so the way that it would work is we each have our decks. They consist in this format of a hundred cards.

[00:09:36] Um, you can have one copy of, uh, every card aside from kind of what they call basic land, um, which are the, um, components that enable you to play cards basically. Um, and so we would each start with 40 life points and I have, uh, creatures and cards that deal damage. And the idea is I'm going to try to get your life to zero and maintain that I am the last person's day.

[00:10:03] Uh, there's a very high level overview. There's a lot of things that all of a sudden gain life and trade life and you can attack, but somebody can block. And, you know, there's kind of, actually there was an MIT study done on magic, the gathering that said it's the most complex game ever made because of the somewhat infinite number of possibilities and combinations of the game.

[00:10:25] Oh, wow. Um, and, uh, so are you like, is everyone like dealt a hundred cards out of a stack or is this like you, you, you, you pick a hundred of your best, like your fantasy football team and you just go into battle now with your hundred best cards. Yeah. Kind of more like that. So you have your collection of cards that you acquire through various means. And, uh, yeah, so you put together a deck that you, uh, believe is going to have good synergy.

[00:10:53] So it's not always about just saying like, there's not a way in magic to just say like, these are the hundred best cards in the game. So I'm just going to build a deck with a hundred best cards and, and now I'll just basically win. The combinations are in permutations of this whole thing is so infinite.

[00:11:09] And then once you run the randomization of what cards are you going to have and sort of what order in, are they going to be important or relative at the time you have a relative to what other people at the table are sort of doing? Uh, it's impossible to basically narrow. And so you have to pick cards that you think like you have to sort of have a game plan or strategy, but as good as that may be in say, even eight out of 10 games in those other two, there might be somebody with.

[00:11:39] Like some one off deck that absolutely is just built to destroy yours in every way. You know what I mean? It's like, it, it just, there's not a way to really get around that. So one of the reasons I like commanders, cause it is even more complex than, you know, what they call like heads, heads up magic, right? Like one-on-one. And it's because all of a sudden we get it, we get playing and, and I'm going like, man, I'm in a really tough spot, but if I could talk Brian into attacking Josh right now,

[00:12:09] you know, keep me in the game, but take maybe some of the pressure off me where Josh is going to want to kind of get some revenge on Brian. And then, you know, maybe Brian's going to get one of the resources out of the way that I kind of need, you know, to leave the table so I can keep playing. And so all of a sudden there's these, you got to like really understand not only your deck and what it's supposed to be doing, but how it interacts with everyone else. And then like the actual social components of what can I possibly try to do to kind of play the table here. Right.

[00:12:38] And for, you know, a temporary alliance or, you know, now I'm going to, you know, go back on our truce be made earlier for whatever reason, or it's, it's, it's, I don't know. To me, it's fun. I like that aspect of the game more so than like the lower, right. And the storytelling. It's just fun. So how many people are sitting around a table when you're doing this? How many, how many players are there? So magic was originally designed for one, one D one. Right.

[00:13:07] And then you're like very kind of like your professional tournaments. That's how it still is in this more social format than I play. Typically it's going to be a minimum of three and as many as six. I mean, there's not a limit. You can go as like, I've played in groups that had eight or 12, but it just gets to be very unwieldy. Right. Because if I kind of take my turn and then there's 11 other people that have to go. And all of a sudden I'm an hour before my next turn. It's just gets a little boring. Hmm. So. Whoa.

[00:13:36] So if you're playing with four, how long is it like monopoly that it takes as long as it takes? Or is there a pretty much standard? It's going to take about 90 minutes. It takes as long as it takes. And oftentimes it's going to be dependent upon the level of competitiveness you're playing at. Yeah. So I would say on average, a game of commander like should take 45 minutes, maybe, maybe an hour. And if there's, you mentioned when you were first starting, you're fairly terrible.

[00:14:06] If there's different people at different skill level, does that make the game last longer or go more quickly? Or does it depend on the collegiality of it? Do you handicap the, the, the more experienced ones? Like, yeah, this is fascinating. Um, no. So in, so when I first started playing, they didn't have commander. It was a totally different, it was a totally different game back then. And, uh, a commander though, it is what's cool is it can be anyone's game.

[00:14:34] So somebody can buy like a pre-constructed deck from, you know, Walmart or their local game store and play with, um, you know, like three other people that all have decks that cost thousands of dollars. And the guy that bought the 40 or $60 deck from Walmart off the shelf or whatever, like can legitimately win. And, uh, it just has to do, did he get lucky? Did other people not pay attention to him because they thought, well, he's just playing this weak deck.

[00:15:02] So I'm going to kind of try to focus on the other guys first. Um, did people make big errors and all of a sudden the guy comes out of nowhere. And like, there's a lot of stuff that can happen from a time standpoint. It typically can take a bit longer. If there is somebody that's new that you have to just do a lot of explaining and like, you're trying to teach them the game and that teaching component can obviously slow things down. Right. And I think that's true for a, basically any hobby. Um, but, uh, yeah, you don't, you don't handicap somebody because what's interesting is the game or do the hand.

[00:15:32] Handicap and for you. Sure. You mentioned reading the rule book. Is this like reading the, the back of a deck of oil cards or is it like the Schwab manual? It's 900 pages. Uh, for the basic rules, it's going to be, you know, more like an insert in the box. Okay. Enough to get you going for the full list of, you know, like rules and then technicalities and rulings that have been done by official judges. It's more like breeding case law. Yeah.

[00:16:00] And yeah, it's going to be more like, yeah. Reading terms and condition. So there's a, there's apps though, that you could put in, you can actually say like these two, you can put in like this card and this card and how do they interact? And then it can bring out different rulings from judges and, and explain how and why it works a certain way. So it's, uh, it gets very on a competitive level. It's very, very technical. That sounds like a use case for AI.

[00:16:26] Is there a, a, a bot specific keyed into this is the case law. It's been fed in. It knows the questions and answers. Uh, the information is so readily available on the internet that you probably could use perplexity or chat. You can see that very excited to me. Hmm. You mentioned different ways of acquiring cards. There's the going to Walmart. There is the, my mom bought me the wrong thing method. What are the other options, uh, that, that one could plausibly outside for, you know, inheritance?

[00:16:56] How does one acquire cards? Yeah. There, there's a number of websites online that you can go. So if there's a specific card you want, you can just go buy it individually on a second, on a secondary market. Um, you can buy kind of booster packs, which are more like the lottery tickets of magic. Um, right. And that's what you buy at, you know, Walmart or this sort of thing. Um, and I would say like, those are the two primary ways people get cards. It seems trading isn't as common as it you see.

[00:17:26] Like when I was a kid, you'd love to get a bunch of people together playing magic. And you would go like you would go around and try to trade, you know, and, uh, acquire up what you eat. And so maybe like, I remember as a kid, I would get something I had, but didn't really care for, but I knew what I wanted, but I knew that what I had, not a lot of people want it. And so I'd find the person that did want that. And I would, I would actually trade for what they would call staple cards, like stuff that is more readily, readily, uh, desired.

[00:17:56] Right. This is like more people want it. And so I would kind of convert my, you know, obscure, but valuable cards to a more liquid currency, if you will, almost of these like, uh, uh, staple cards. And then I could go and take those and, and trade those really easily for exactly what it was that I wanted to obtain. And I could do that in a Saturday morning, kind of at the game store. Uh, so trading used to be like a big piece and it was fun.

[00:18:27] Um, it nowadays, at least kind of what I observed more, especially amongst adults is you end up with a couple hundred cards. You don't really want to use. They come into the game store and say, what are you giving a start credit? You plop down the thing, you know, they scan them through, you're auto loaded into their inventory. They use your start credit and then you can, you know, buy what you want. Um, so there's a place that my family goes each Tuesday afternoon, we go and paint pottery and next door to the pottery studio is a game store.

[00:18:55] And in the window, they say magic, the gathering. So that's going to be a place where you can buy and sell cards. Is that a place where people would play as well? What, what all is entailed when you see a storefront that says magic, the gathering? Typically, when you see a small, a small store, like a one-off store, right? Like you're not going to show up to, you can show up to Walmart or target and buy cards. Right. Right. What they call LGS or a local game store. That is the exact place where you would go.

[00:19:24] So if I moved to a new city, my first spot that I would probably go visit and like looking to find people to play cards with would be my LGS. Right. Like, so the local game store. And so you show up, it's a place that you can buy there. You can trade there. You can, you know, trade stuff into them. You can buy stuff, but also they typically have tables set up. They're set up where they, people can just sit down and play. And then they typically have events planned to you.

[00:19:50] So like really the most iconic one would be what they call FNM or Friday night magic. And that's like a competitive tournament that most local game stores will host on Friday nights. And now that goes into the whole competitive side of magic gathering, which I'm not super involved with. Um, but there's actually like a national registry people join. And you, you go to your local game store and play in these tournaments are called sanctioned events.

[00:20:17] Um, and so the local game store has to adhere to the rules and standards and regulations of wizards of the coast. Um, who makes magic the gathering and, and then you can, or, you know, acquire points and do this and that, and try to then go from that to qualify for like grand prix. We're going to go to maybe, maybe a larger metropolitan area and play it up in a higher level tournament. And eventually, right.

[00:20:43] That's how you kind of get into playing a professional match, uh, which is a whole other interesting topic that there is. So people out there that are professional magic, the gathering players, but. So if they're professional, then how are they making an income at it? Is it tournaments with entry fees? Sponsorships? Yeah. Tournament winnings and sponsorships. It's like any other, just like any other, like how does a pro golfer, you know, paid to play golf?

[00:21:10] You know, it's like they win tournaments and they get sponsorship dollars. So, you know, like they can win money from winning the tournament, but the sponsorship dollars is going to come in from obviously not from wizards of the coast, but from all the accessory companies, right? Monster energy. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It could be an energy drip company. Absolutely.

[00:21:30] Um, but like, you know, the company that makes cart sleeves and protectors or binders or play mats or, you know, deck boxes or travel bags or, you know what I mean? Whatever. That's like, there's all this product sponsorships though. And, uh, I don't, I mean, I don't think mad, I don't think pro magic players make the kind of money that a lot of pro athletes might make, but I think it's enough that they support a living.

[00:21:59] Um, there's certainly a, I think the people that make the real money in magic are the YouTube influencers in the magic space. That makes sense. Are there a fair, YouTube is the place for this sort of thing. It's not Twitch or any other stream. It's YouTube. So there's a Michael Kitsis of the magic, the gathering world. Yes. Uh, it might be Michael Kitsis. I don't know, but it could be, I'm never met. But I can see him being in magic.

[00:22:27] Like I see, I'm somebody that just loves like the pure enjoyment of, of, of playing, hanging out with friends. I, I like the strategy, like strategize. I like to, you know, look at cards and try to work. You know how they can, uh, you know, how their abilities sort of correlate to each other or compliment or, um, you work together or, uh, or even potentially like don't work together, but in a very intentional way.

[00:22:56] That's the part that I really enjoy about the game. And so I don't do a lot of following like the YouTubers, uh, or keeping up on the, you know, the latest meta or that, you know, who the pro play. Like I couldn't even be a pro player, truthfully. Yeah. Uh, so during COVID we, uh, we taught our kids how to play Euchre, which is a, if you're a Midwesterner, you know what Euchre is. If you're not, you probably don't very unique, uh, very, uh, Midwestern type game.

[00:23:24] But anyway, the games in fast enough that we, we, you know, we would debrief thing cause the kids are learning. It's like, okay, if you would have played this here, then this would have been, and it was like this really good teaching environment. Is there any debriefing that goes on or is with magic? There's so long of games. Like, can you really, you just have to watch and learn that way? Or is there, I would say it depends who you're playing with in the environment that you're playing in. So like in the format that I sort of like to play is two and or format.

[00:23:54] It does happen. In fact, it's usually so friendly that you would actually say, look, don't do that. Do this like right in the gate. You say like, you will, this is a better room. Just do that. We're going to let you undo this move. Cause this is like, that's really uncommon there. That's really common actually. Uh, that's cool. That's really cool. Yeah. I would say like, if you're playing like the casual like that, but maybe a little bit more competitive, typically like once everything's kind of said and done, somebody might say, Oh man, you should have actually done this or that. And that would have put you in the better spot.

[00:24:24] So there's kind of that immediate debrief still. Um, and, uh, it's sometimes there's like, there's that after Dean kind of like thoughts that people share. If you're in a strictly competitive environment, like, like no way. Right. And like, if you're just like playing pro chess, like if you, if you're playing pro chess and somebody has a tournament, you don't get up at the end after you checkmate them and say like, Oh, well, if you would have done this, this and this, you could have beat me. Actually. You just say like, good game. Bye. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:54] So, uh, yeah, it just depends on nature of who you're playing with, but most people that are playing magic are pro cruiser. And is it your custom to play with friends, with strangers mix? What's your preferred way of doing things? Um, these days I primarily play with friends, but what's interesting is like a lot of my friends are people that I play by met by playing match. And so like when I first moved to you, like I live in St. George, Utah, it's a pretty small town.

[00:25:22] When I moved here, there was one local game store. There was one place to go play magic basically. And I showed up and just started playing. Right. And you kind of find the people that you kind of drive with and click with, and you find people that, you know, you rub the wrong way or they rub you the wrong way. And you kind of just be polite, but you know, maybe you might not play with them a lot. Uh, and then as times evolved and stuff over the last several years, um, like I kind of figured out who my tribe was and who my friends were.

[00:25:50] And, um, we now typically when I tend to play, I actually just invite everyone in my office and we'll play in the conference room at night. Um, use my conference room table. Um, and, uh, that's, that's, uh, sort of how it's done. When I played in the army, there was like someone in my platoon that mentioned that they were playing with one of the medics. And so she, although he wasn't a very serious magic player, he introduced me to this medic. That was a very serious magic player.

[00:26:21] And, and then I got introduced to kind of the whole group of people. And those people are still my friends today too. Um, and, uh, I don't, I, I don't play with them nearly as much as I, I wish I could, but, uh, wizards of the coast actually during COVID created a platform that is, um, almost like a zoom platform. For purpose built for playing magic cards. Hmm.

[00:26:43] Um, so, you know, you have your webcam, you kind of turn it down to show your, your desk, if you will, whatever your playing surface is. And, and then you can see whatever is what they call it. They're, um, you know, like they're, they're, uh, uh, uh, game board is right. So you can see what, what cards they have out and this sort of stuff. Now this really only works for casual because there's no mechanism to keep people from cheating, obviously. Right. So it's just gotta be people that are just trying to have good fun.

[00:27:14] Uh, but, uh, that's been really cool. It's really cool. So if you, if, if you say like, Oh, well he's got that card, but I can't really tell what it is. You can take your mouse and actually click on the card and wizards of the coast has it built in. It'll pop up the digital copy of it. And then there's the card. And then like in the column off to the side is like, there's all the rulings to you. So if you have any questions about the rulings and this sort of stuff, right. It's just kind of cool. Uh, yeah. And it just shows up everyone's kind of, so everyone's play mats sort of like in a configuration

[00:27:43] like we have right now. And, uh, it's really fun. In fact, that's what I was like looking to try to put together. And in the, uh, XYPN community, when I made the post for you guys, call me like, Oh man, we got this. Like he's going to talk about playing magic cards on our podcast. Yes. There are. I'm like, how do I, there's gotta be in my mind. I was like, there's gotta be some financial plan. I can't be the only financial planner that plays magic cards, you know? Yeah.

[00:28:09] And, uh, and so I was like, but sometimes it's so fun to play with people that you have something else in common, right? Like when I was in the army, we would play and we had, so we had this play group and, um, a couple of guys were medics, you know, I was in, uh, reconnaissance. Um, you have like some military intelligence guys, you might have logistics in sorts like this diverse group, but people, this commonality aside for magic was we were all active duty in, in the army.

[00:28:39] And so like what we found is we had a lot of fun playing because as the game was going, we could still be connecting on like a different level and making jokes about this other thing. We also have. Right. Um, and so there was just like a more unique way to bond than just, you know, uh, you know, Hey, Josh is a physicist. Brian's an accountant and I'm, you know, financial planner or whatever. Right. And it's just like, we all have this one thing in common, but it's more fun when you have

[00:29:08] kind of like two things in common. Right. And so, uh, cause again, like I play from the social side, not from the like strictly competitive side. So I was like, man, there's gotta be other financial, you know, planners or advisors or whatever that, you know, you get on and, and, and you play, but there's this, there is an additional commonality. I have a follow up on that, but before I get there, we've seen your hands, you wear a wedding ring. Is your spouse into the game playing as well?

[00:29:38] Or is that something that's kept separate? I have tried over the years and I would say during COVID, I was close. Almost. I got her playing a watered down version with me. Yeah. I got her playing a watered down version with me a little bit. She knows the basics. Um, but in 2022, we had our first kid and, uh, and then now this year we had a second kid.

[00:30:07] And so I think the idea of my wife playing magic is, uh, indefinitely table. Uh, but I have started running the Psy op on my, on my son at turns, uh, three soon. And, uh, so I started him, he, you know, he doesn't get screen time ever, but so I know whenever there's a screen, it's like a real treat for him. So I started playing Pokemon go. So he had interest in Pokemon and, and now I've started buying, you know, like booster

[00:30:36] packs of Pokemon. I'd be like, Oh, let's do Pokemon and catch you there. And so he's starting to like that. And then, you know, he's got questions if I get my magic cards out and stuff. And so I just try to talk to him about a little bit. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll ease into it. I'll probably have to go back. It's Pokemon. Actually, they developed the Pokemon game. Um, when that was bought by Hasbro, it was supposed to be a kind of a way for people to springboard into playing magic.

[00:31:01] So Pokemon plays somewhat similar to magic cards, but in like a very watered down version. And so I kind of anticipate that as my son gets a little bit older, the next couple years here, I'll probably be tilting back into Pokemon cards for a time. So I can teach him the basic fundamentals of like, dude, your turn is your turn. My turn is my turn. You have to wait. You know what I mean? There's an order here. There's rules.

[00:31:28] There's, you know, this is the objective and just teach him those basics on a, on a simpler game. And then, and then lead into hopefully he plays magic. You know, that's right. I think that's every dad's dream though. Right. Is that your, is that your, uh, firstborn son does every, every hobby activity like, yeah, yeah, I'm still waiting. Yeah. So you've just said earlier, he's really interested in all the big ones. So keep my fingers crossed.

[00:31:58] My wife's father got us, uh, when we were like 20 settlers of Catan. And so we played that for a while. My wife and I as a party of two before we had our daughter. And then once she was old enough, eight, 10 and 12, we introduced her to settlers and then cities. And, and it was very, very proud. The first time that she beat me in fair square open play. Good work child. That was great. Never do it again. But my wife was the strategist trying to get us, she would play us off each other.

[00:32:25] And you talked about the, the, the anti-collegial nature of the gameplay, getting, getting one party to do your bidding against the other, which was very crafty of her. And I resent her very much for that. So being new to the business, I've listened to a lot of industry podcasts. And one of the ones is my favorite is Biff bites. The guy's the Boston Institute of finance and Jerry who runs that does magic the gathering.

[00:32:50] And one of his lessons that he did was this is this card game. It's a fun thing that I do, but there's a collectible aspect of it. So there's the, Hey, I'm going to buy and sell these cars. We're going to use Bitcoin. And so there's that tax aspect. And then when I saw my cards, there's capital gains and I got a valuable collection and there's insurance. How much of your financial planning work comes into play in the, in the cards? Or is it just, you know, this is a social thing I do for fun with my social friends. Nevermind all that stuff.

[00:33:20] I'm going to say it's very heavily skewed towards the latter. The reality of it is, you know, I think in a perfect world, you, uh, every time you get a, you open up a booster pack, you could keep selling data log and you say, I have 15 cards and it costs at $5. So here's what my cost basis per card is. And I'm sure the IRS would love that if you did that. So as he sold it, bought them, you kept track. Yeah. In reality, it's kind of like buying a blender. You know what I mean?

[00:33:49] It's like you buy a blender for 30 bucks. You just go sell it for, you know, like, but maybe inflation came through, you sell it for 35. Did you really remember what you even sold it for? And is, are you really in the wrong for not reporting this? You know, the $5 technical capital gain, you know? And, and, and if you certainly, if you sell for 25, you're not going to be able to write off a loss. But if you maybe sold other household items that you did get a gain, can you use the loss on other items to offset that? I don't know.

[00:34:18] I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a CTA and I don't know that I want to get into that. I don't know. The IRS wants to get into that. And I don't know. There's other pod. There's other podcasts that cover that sort of stuff. That's not us. That's not us. So what I'd say is if there was cards that somebody owned of sizable and significant value that you bought at a stage in life that you knew and understand what it is, you probably ought to keep some kind of record of your cost basis in that and realize that there is some

[00:34:46] collectible tax law that could come into play. But if you're just, you know, buying and selling as kind of a hobby thing, I tend to not to to save more along the lines of like, I don't really think that's reportable unless it becomes significant. If somebody has a valuable card, they're going to protect it. Do they use it in play or is the sort of thing that you keep on a shelf on the wall?

[00:35:12] You know, that is a really interesting question because really, there's kind of a couple different schools of thoughts and it's a kind of a controversial topic within the community. And so here's the thoughts. If I have a card that is worth $3,000 and you know, I'm going to go play. But Joey next to me might spill his Mountain Dew.

[00:35:41] Do I really want to put the $3,000 card on the table? So then you have what's called proxies. So you might just get a, you know, a card that was worthless and you might say Tropical Island on it, put it in a sleeve, put it in your deck. And now, you know, you draw it, you play it and you say, well, I have a copy. I'm just not going to let you knuckleheads still Mountain Dew on it.

[00:36:05] I mean, some people say, well, okay, that's, you know, people don't really like that, but they get it. I think there's some sanctioned rules around that. Like in very high end play. The issue becomes that there's now printers in, honestly, other countries that have gotten very good at printing. What is basically counterfeit magic cards. Now, it's just counterfeit money.

[00:36:35] You can tell if you know what you're looking at. Right. But there's somebody that does has a totally untrained eye. I look pretty convincing. And, and so I, you know, I'm hoping Wizards of the Coast doesn't sue me for condoning this. But I'm actually in the camp of, if I have one of this $3,000 card, and I want to play that and say like in commander, I have like, I don't know, 18 or 20 different decks. So let's say I really need 10 copies.

[00:37:05] Well, I can go spend $30,000 is what option and get 10 copies of this card, put it in which deck. My other option is every time I'm changing, I can try to take it out of this deck and put it in this deck and keep track of all that. Well, that really bugs everyone in the table. Right. Because now you've got a bunch of time in between games. It's a hassle. I run the risk of damaging the card, moving it all the time.

[00:37:27] And, uh, or what you can do is, uh, and just buy a, I mean, just buy it basically a fake counterfeit card, um, and run that as your proxy. So it still looks like the real card. It still feels like the real card. It's not something totally different that somebody looks at the picture and say, well, I thought it was that, but you just sharpie down and oh, chocolate islands. Instead. Yeah.

[00:37:48] And so for me, I, I like that option because I, you know, I'm not cheating in the sense that I have the card, you know, I've made the investment, but I am taking the convenience side and I'm trying to not detract from the game overall. Right. People not knowing what I'm actually playing because, you know, they're looking at my, at my, you know, cards I have out and they only got sharpie written on for what they are supposed to be. Yeah.

[00:38:13] So, you know, the sharpie cards don't have the rules and all that, you know, you say, read the card. Well, you can't read the card if it's a sharpie card. Right. Right. People, what is that again? They got to look it up or not. And then also to you, that gives away like from a, a, a game point standpoint, Mike, well, if somebody keeps asking me to read my card, they like that means something. You know what I mean? Are they worried about it? Are they going to try to, you know, destroy that card now? So should I be worried about this player? Should I, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

[00:38:43] There's an element of, of the game that kind of comes with that, right? Like this, this revealing of information from, you know, like a poker standpoint, right? Just like in poker, you know, yeah. You have what's in your, what's in your hand, but a lot of the game is what's on your face. You know? I, and so, yeah, it's just, it's interesting. So I fall into the camp again. It isn't casual for you.

[00:39:02] Like if, if you get, if you get, you know, fake magic cards and you try to sell them or pass them off as, as real, it's, it's illegal and immoral. If you're doing it for convenience and drive it out of the game, by all means, I like, I, I'm going to say, I don't, you know, I don't really care. Uh, I just want to have fun.

[00:39:25] So that's my, are there lessons that you've learned through the 25 years that you've doing this that are applicable to the day job of being a financial planner? What's, what's the overlap in thought processes and stuff like that? Oh, it's probably, uh, it probably plays a lot into your fundamental nature of all of it. It's very strategic.

[00:39:49] You're just, I, it's, you know, wired my brain from a kid to be very strategic and understand, uh, you know, how things interact, but also question how things may interact. And, you know, what is a, uh, uh, probability distribution look like that? Um, it it's, it's actually really, uh, fun that way from a mathematical perspectives. Um, and I think that has, it has played in, in, out in, into what I do.

[00:40:20] Um, certainly the organizational skills of trying to keep them when the cards organized to you, um, probably plays in, in a little bit, but, uh, yeah, I think more than anything, it's just, it's a, it's a fun game that really can challenge you mentally. It's not a, you know, what the, I'm not a video game person in the reason why is I feel like video games has always come down to me as, uh, like that, that quick response time and dexterity. Right.

[00:40:48] So how fast can I hit the right button at the right time with the joystick, just the right, just the right amount. And, um, that's all what I like. Yeah. So yeah. And I coordinate. And she was not one of my strengths, not one of my skills. Um, and so like when I play video games, not only do I get frustrated, I often times feel like this is also just like mind numbing versus intellectually engaging. And I feel like magic is more intellectually engaging.

[00:41:17] So because it's intellectually engaging, which is interesting for me, and it doesn't require any kind of hand and eye coordination and, and, you know, reflect the response time. But it, it, it, it's more enjoyable for me. Right. It doesn't have any surprise second and it's got a little stuff I like. Well, making the most of your opportunities and taking what comes. You were talking about how a game unfolds and you just don't see how things are going to happen and surprises happen.

[00:41:42] It made me think, yeah, sequence of returns risk that there's, you never know what the next event is going to be and how you're going to have to adapt to it. Well, yeah, I think I learned in magic that you can't, you know, there's no perfect plan. You can't have a, you cannot have a deck that will just wait every time. And the more that you try to make a deck that will work great in all situations, the lower your chances of success of actually winning.

[00:42:10] And so you have to say in magic, you have to say, which risks am I comfortable with? It because I can identify for whatever reason that I am more willing to play around that against it, or not a lot of people play that. So in the one time that that happens, I'll just lose, you know, but I, if I win eight out of 10 times, otherwise, like I just like those odds. Right.

[00:42:37] So as you've been doing this for coming up on 25 years, are there special memories that you have that were a special triumphs in the game or, or social moments, things that you're going to look back fondly on or, or tell your kids about that? Hey, this one time stories like that. Um, how, no, I don't really think so. I think it's more of a foundation, just a foundational piece of my life more than anything.

[00:43:07] Um, yeah, I think more so that. Sure. Yeah. You talk about the social aspect of it to playing with groups of people and people you've met that are now friends, um, that you play with. Has there been any, any new business opportunity that's come from this people that you've met that ultimately, you know, found out what you do and are now clients. Not that that was the purpose of it, but just kind of as a happenstance. Sometimes these things happen. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:33] I have, I, people have different views on, on, you know, friends and business and, um, my sort of personal view on it is if they are truly a good friend and the expectations are right. And I'd love to do business with friends. Cause that way I would do business with friends will pour my energy into like helping friends and, and family or whatever it may be. Then, you know, stranger off the street that may not appreciate it.

[00:43:58] So there's always an expectations conversation, which you, you know, it's like, you should be transparent with everyone anyways. And you should always be trying to set right expectations and, and shoot people free. And so, you know, I haven't, you know, I haven't, I, they haven't minded you in business with friends and family. And I certainly have, uh, you know, a couple of friends that I've met playing magic that, uh, are, are clients and, and, uh, you know, it's not, it's not a focus.

[00:44:27] It's not why I play magic, but all else you, or Brent approaches you and says, you know, gee, I really could use your L. Well, the last thing I want to say is, well, gee, I'm not going to give it to you, you know? So, right. Yeah. On the flip side of that, then do you have clients that, you know, non magic, the gathering playing clients that know you do this? Like, have you, is this something that you're like, Hey, look what I do. This is by, this is you wear that on your sleeve as part of your identity.

[00:44:53] Uh, no, no. And not because I'm not because I'm ashamed of it. I mean, I'll talk now I'm on a public podcast talking about it. There you go. They're going to know now, but probably more so because the last couple of years, I haven't had as much of a chance to play having kids. Okay. And so I've had a lot of my play professionally and then a lot of my played at home and that's really, uh, you know, put the brakes on a lot of hobby stuff.

[00:45:22] So, you know, like the last couple of years, my hobby has been, you know, uh, yeah. Learning how to take care of babies and, you know, support a wife and doing that and, you know, and then, uh, taking care of a growing number of clients. And I did this last year, the CLT program, which was somewhat of a heavy lift too. So that absorbed a lot of Richard time.

[00:45:49] Sure. So, um, just, I, I, I hope to get back to it a lot, you know, like I didn't stop playing, but before we had kids and it was like three nights a week, you know, cause like during COVID, I was two, three nights a week. It was fun. I'd like to get back to it a day, but, but that probably won't happen until my son is old enough to come with me.

[00:46:14] In a local community, the people that would frequent a local game store, yours, for instance, how old would be the older upper edge of people who play? Like when it came out in the nineties, if somebody was 40 and got into it and now they're pushing 70, are there a lot of those out there? Or is that, um, not something that you see much of? Are you, are you the senior citizen of the group?

[00:46:37] No, no. Um, I would say I'm like me, I, I'm probably median age. Uh, um, you know, 30, I'm almost 31. Uh, yeah, there's, there's a couple of guys that are, um, yeah, pushing 70, uh, you know, guys in their, uh, you know, fifties, forties. Um, and that's typically the crowd that I tend to like to play with a little bit, a little bit more.

[00:47:04] Uh, uh, and then it's, I mean, yeah, it's all the way down to like teenagers, you know, that are still, you know, newcomers to the game and getting in. Um, so one of the great things about a local game store is this is a very diverse, you know, um, it's, yeah, all kinds of people from all different walks of life, from all different professions, from all different age groups.

[00:47:26] And the social, socioeconomic statuses, it's, you know, it, it, it, it's really interesting. I, I, I love it. I know you're using the expression guys generically, but what is the gender balance in the crew? Uh, where is it? It probably varies from store to store. I would guess it skews male, but not exclusively.

[00:47:50] It absolutely skews male. And I think it depends on, on geographic area. So like when I was in the army, it definitely was like 98. Selection bias. Dude, it would have been a lot of, you know, like women in the army to begin with. Right. Um, I would say like the local game store here, if you have, if you have maybe four people there on a Friday night, you probably have maybe.

[00:48:14] Yeah. Four to six, seven females, maybe. Uh, but then like in Washington stage, I would say it was, it was closer to, uh, maybe a 70 thirties balance. Sure. Sure. So thinking that really, definitely skewed. Well, for sure.

[00:48:36] But, but nothing, nothing is keeping it that way. And, uh, women are very much welcome if they choose to you. In fact, I think sometimes women, it would be preferred if there is more women that were playing. So. Stands to reason.

[00:48:51] If you could go back and talk to yourself as a kindergartner or middle school or high school, what words of wisdom would you share with yourself that, uh, things you wish you knew then that you've known now aside from, Hey, this card's going to be true into a fortune. What words of wisdom would you, other than the obvious. Marty McFly with the magic card all in the act. Yeah. Yeah. Excluding that. What words of wisdom would you have for yourself going back?

[00:49:18] I think like it, if anything, I'd go back and tell myself, like, do you don't spend so much money on booster packs and just buy the card. You know, like, this is like, you know, but that's more akin to like telling somebody like, Hey man, just go back in time. It's like, tell yourself to buy less scratch off tickets to the gas station and just spend more time playing, you know, blackjack at an actual casino or something.

[00:49:44] You have a better chance of winning. It's like, is that really, is that really the advice you want to go back in time and keep yourself? I don't either. Well, we'll flip this question around then. If you are trying to get your kids into it, how heavy a hand are you going to take molding their minds? Are you going to let them figure it out for themselves or what's the blend there? Do you think? I think I want to use it as a tool to help him learn how to think. And my daughter too, if she, if she plays, which I would love.

[00:50:13] I think it's a tool to learn how to think, not what. Okay. And, and that's what I want to see them get out of the game. And so I, I think I just want to make it engaging enough that they start a game, you know, like, I just want them to think like, well, if I put this deck together, I could be dad's, dad's deck, you know, like, I just want to see that right.

[00:50:36] Or like, oh, this was, you know, maybe this would be dad's deck if he plays this one, but he plays this other one. And my sister plays that or, you know, whatever. It's like, I just want to see those strategy wheels, you know, turning in, in, in their head.

[00:50:50] Um, and so I don't really want to get into process much beyond that. Uh, just, well, what I, what I don't want to do is enable them to just, you know, go online and say, what's the best performing deck in the current meta copied on someone else's deck list and just go play it. Right. If somebody is a financial advisor, doesn't have an older brother, doesn't have a parent that's going to help them get into it. How would they go about finding more about the world of, of magic cards, magic, the gathering?

[00:51:19] Is it as easy as going into the local game store or the YouTube channels? Where do you start? Uh, yeah, any of the above, uh, magic, the gathering has an app now called magic, the gathering arena. Uh, I believe it's a largely a free app. You can learn it. Just get a little bit of exposure to maybe how the game works a little bit. We have very basic, not super social, you know what I mean? Kind of experience, but you know, it's like a easy, not trying to wait a different towers.

[00:51:45] Maybe, um, I would encourage people to go to the local game store and just say, Hey, you know, like if they heard this podcast and they're thinking like, I don't know, that's kind of interesting stuff. I, you know, maybe I want to check it out more. Just go in and say like, Hey, I just heard about this guy, like playing the digital podcast. And he said, he played commander. And I'd like to know more about that. Like, is there not that you guys have, do you guys have a commander neck here at the game store?

[00:52:08] Or, you know, what's the sort of barrier to entry? And is there, you know, a group of people here? Like, here's the thing is the owners at a local game store will always basically know from the base customers are. Right. It's kind of like the bar owner always knows like the local community. It's like, and they know what people drink and how really they are and what they're, you know, whatever their sort of personalities are. Game store owners are very much the same way. So if you go in and ask if you'd get the guy that works with a local game store, like, Hey, look, I want to learn how to play.

[00:52:36] Like, is there a group that's very welcoming? They'll introduce you right there to, you know, whoever they think, or they'll say, you know, yeah, come back on amazing night or whatever. And we'll, you know, introduce you to some people that are really, you know, welcoming, but be excited to, you know, teach how to play or whatever. Like a coordinator.

[00:52:55] Yeah. Well, I mean, it's in their best interest to get more people to buy, you know, play the game, right? And you get, you know, you get one more guy hooked. It's like another, you know, life, lifetime customer here, you know, it's got to keep going back and buying product for them. So, so I imagine with the success of magic gathering, being around, being, having it being around as long as it has been probably spawned other fantasy strategy sort of card games.

[00:53:19] I mean, is that, is that industry really boomed and is there an oversaturation? Is, is this still kind of the big, you know, the big gorilla in the room, which is what you'd learn first? Or there are other, is this a gateway drug to another game or vice versa? I think it's still the main, I think it's still the main trading card game. There's some other interesting ones that have kind of spun off of magic. There's, and there seems to be, there's always, you know, there's always one new one, right? Kind of doesn't really last.

[00:53:47] There's maybe two or two other that meet me up stock a little bit earlier, but still don't have a ton of traction. So magic continues to be the kind of, you know, main, you know, gorilla in the room. But WotC or wizards of the coast is, you know, they got bought by Hasbro. It's just publicly traded and they have this thing of seeking too much shareholder value, I think.

[00:54:15] And it can be disruptive to the game and the community in a, in a pretty big way. In fact, I heard, I think he was, it's the street wise podcast. What's that guy's name? Jack how yeah. Like maybe like a year and a half ago, he actually had an episode on how Hasbro was, was, you know, making like printing. So many new cards and doing so many new things.

[00:54:42] And the community was not responding well to it. So there, there comes a point where from a publicly traded company perspective, it's an interesting dynamic. You have to balance with, you know, people who want to play the game, but not be bombarded with, it's going to suck all of my income to keep up. You know, which in reality, like when you play casual like me, it doesn't, it doesn't have to. It's just a social pressure people might feel.

[00:55:12] And those people tend to be in the younger demographic, you know, that they think they have to buy everything. But either way. When you were talking about Wizard of the Coast, originally the governing body, I just sort of naively assumed that it was a collective of volunteers keeping order in your world. I did not realize that there was some middle manager guy at Hasbro in Manhattan keeping order for. Yeah, I think it's actually out of Seattle. I think, I think Wizards of the Coast is out of Seattle.

[00:55:40] Well, in the game was originally developed by Richard Garfin, who is, he was one of the guys that, that developed Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons was a, it was, is a Watsi company as well. That's a, that's a wizard. And so that's why sometimes like the name of cards or creature types or this sort of thing. It's there's, there's this kind of natural high correlation, assimilation type thing in the public's mind between Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons.

[00:56:10] That's why. That's why. Okay. But they are, they are quite different, right? You can't play Dungeons and Dragons, which I've never played, but what I understand, you can't play without getting into like the storyline of it. That's the whole point, right? It's narrative. Yes. It's a narrative game. In Magic the Gathering, you can just say, I just like, man, I play this game from a purely math perspective, which is kind of the approach I take.

[00:56:37] Like nothing against Dungeons and Dragons, like different strokes for different folks. And if you're a narrative person that, you know, like likes to talk about, you know, orcs and wizards and fairies and all this stuff like. That it's probably a really fun thing for you to do to play Dungeons and Dragons. It could also be a really fun thing for you to play Magic. But if you don't like those things at all, but you do like nah, you could still have a very fun time playing your actual gathering.

[00:57:04] Well, hopefully, hopefully you'll find more advisors that play Magic the Gathering. And hopefully somebody out there knows somebody that's an advisor that does Dungeons and Dragons so we can get them on the show and give some equal air time and get another take on Wizards of the Coast and what they're up to. I promise there is an advisor out there. Yeah. That plays Dungeons and Dragons. JD Bruce does. I saw JD reached out to you to invite you to the Discord on that post. I was going to tell you when we met, it's like, hey, you should reach out to JD because I know he's a big gamer.

[00:57:34] He's big at a D&D. And he has, I know, like he'll, when he goes around to conferences and stuff, he'll be like, they'll do a meetup for D&D parties. I need to have, he's like a consultant now. He's not like the owner of the firm. I guess it's our podcast. We make the rules. But I was like, is he still a financial advisor? Yeah, sort of. We should have him on Talk Dungeons and Dragons. He's a good storyteller. Shocker, right? The sooner the better. Yeah. Yeah. The Dungeon Master is usually our previous storytellers. Yeah.

[00:58:04] Well, we appreciate having you on here. Before we wrap up completely, if people are in Southern Utah and want to know more about the work that you do professionally, how do they go about finding your firm and your day job? Deshormwealth.com. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify. I have a podcast about wealth management related topics on Spotify.

[00:58:33] Also posted to YouTube. If you want to do no due diligence whatsoever, just schedule some time with me. If you go to brandondeshrong.com, it'll take you right to my schedule. But I tend to not send me an email or something and let me know why you put it on. Give me a heads up. But I'm not a super hard guy to find, especially if you're in St. George. It's not a huge community.

[00:59:04] I mean, I'm right downtown. I used to be on the board for the local chamber of commerce. So I'm around. Find you at the local gaming shop, if nothing else. A couple of years ago, they went out. Oh. Yeah. Now they'll find you at the Babies RS. But if there's somebody listening to this that plays Magic and you want to play it,

[00:59:30] I am trying to get a group of people put together to play the webcam. So. Here you go. It's something Rets-ish. All right. Sounds good. We appreciate having you on. Yeah, Brandon. This is really, really interesting. As I said at the beginning, I didn't know a whole lot about it. I know a whole lot about this now. Like my brother-in-law plays. I guess he's played his whole life. And I may tell him to bring a couple decks next time he comes down. And like, all right, let's see what this is all about. My wife, the CPA, loves math.

[00:59:59] Again, shocker. So I don't know. She may dig on this. Like she loves Yahtzee. Like if it's a math game, it's like, yeah, that's a terrible game. But she may dig it. Once you get past the idea of it being like a fantasy type game or some of the basic rules, you really start to learn that it's a math and strategy game. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, good. Thanks so much for coming on. Yeah. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate it.

[01:00:26] Unexpected Hobbies of Financial Advisors is brought to you by Fiduciary CFO, forward-thinking tax and planning solutions for business owners, like RIA firms and their business owner clientele. The opinions of Brian, Joshua, and their guests are for entertainment purposes and should not be construed as legal, tax, financial, or investment advice. You should know better than to take any of this content seriously.

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