Richard Hagon is one of my best friends, and like most of his good friends I'm continually baffled by just how popular Rich seems to be in Magic land. I mean... his jokes are terrible. Terrible.
Anyway, there's clearly no accounting for taste because Rich continues to find gainful employment bringing you the best Magic action and interviews from around the world, and here at Pro Tour Philadelphia he has had some of that fame bounced right back to him:
"I was walking around the hall yesterday morning when a group of Australian players called me over with "Rich! Rich!, come here you've got to hear this!" and so I went to see what was going on", he told me.
"When I got there one of them started talking to me in a wierd accent, and then it struck me that he was doing an impression... of me! The guy had memorised a whole segment from one of the shows I did at Pro Tour Berlin, a lifestyle piece about Steve Sadin and Aaron Nicastri. I was nailed - absolutely floored that somebody would have bothered to memorise something I had done!"
And from there, things got a little wierder, because those same Australians then approached Magic artist Steve Belledin - here at the Pro Tour this weekend - with a special commission...
...commemorating the day when he finally met the man whose voice he had stolen, one lucky Australian will be leaving Philadelphia with two unique custom playmats, adorned with Rich's famous sign-off from his countless podcasts.
Rich is rarely rendered speechless, but I can assure that this was one of those occasions!
