AuthorThe Ferrett

Sure, you know Mark Rosewater designs cards… But you only know that because he does all the PR stuff. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Michael Elliott was the man responsible for shadow, cycling, slivers, licids, growing enchantments, the Rancor bouncing enchantments, echo, rebels and mercenaries, spellshapers, the oaths, fading, the avatars, gating, the en-Kors, the Laccoliths, the Flowstones, madness, the incarnations, amplify, and more…

So we sat him down for a good long interview to ask him why it looks like Wizards is predesigning our decks for us, how he would redesign Magic if he could do it from the ground up, his rivalry with MaRo, and what the most unpublishable mechanic he ever created was!

This weekend, we covered the Vintage Championships – and yeah, we made some boo-boos. So what if, for three hours, the name of the second-place finisher was spelled wrong? Does it really matter whether someone laid a Mishra’s Factory or a Mishra’s Workshop? And dare we talk about the match where, according to the names that we rapidly alternated between, four people were playing each other? Nah. Those weren’t really important. Not, at least, when compared to the mistakes that we found in the Tenth Anniversary of Magic Museum…

If you’ve played Magic, you’ve seen Ed Beard’s artwork. He’s been around since Legends, illustrating famous cards like the Elder Dragon Legends, Plow Under, Avalanche Riders, 7th and 8th Edition’s Birds of Paradise, and everyone’s favorite toothy win condition, Psychatog. Ed shares his memories on the beginning of Magic (he thought it would flop), his favorite piece, his thoughts on having his artwork on a card that’s dominating three formats, and an artist’s take on Mirrodin’s new look and 8th Edition!

So I witnessed the new Onslaught Block metagame up close and personal this weekend… And although we spent a hell of a lot of time reporting on everything that we saw, there were certain lessons that may have been lost in the shuffle. So let me condense the combined knowledge of thirty-seven articles and match reports to bring you the New Lessons of Onslaught Block.

Starting today, the editor of this here site here will be in Montana at a family reunion and unavailable through Monday night. He has a boatload of articles backed up, which he’ll get to when he gets back, as well as choosing the recent contest winners and doing some general maintenance. Please keep this in mind when asking T.F. questions, as he’s still struggling to catch up with a recent flood of submissions.

The Regionals Tournament reports have been coming fast, and I’m still completely buried. (Alan Meaney’s thirty-page report didn’t help matters, taking up an amazing two and a half hours to edit, though it was about as good as tourney reports get.) As of this point, I still have twenty-six tourney reports to go – and as has been noted before, tourney reports are the hardest single Magic report to edit. (HINT: The next person who sends in any damn article that doesn’t have all of the card names capitalized is going to need a proctologist to remove my sneaker.)

As a result, I’ll try to catch up this weekend, but the reports pour in. I will ask, cheerfully, that unless a) you finished in the Top 32 or b) were running some sort of notably interesting rogue deck, you please refrain from sending in any reports for the time being. It will save me time and effort. Thank you.

Also, thanks to everyone who offered to pinch-hit for me; alas, the time it would take to train you to do it to my retentive standards would take more time than it would to get out from under this flurry of reports. And, God willing, this should only happen twice a year. Message ends.

The reports have been flooding in, which is great – but unfortunately, tournament reports are one of the most editing-intensive and time-consuming jobs I have. I worked ten hours yesterday doing nothing but editing, and I’m still about twenty publishable articles in the hole. So if you have sent something in to me and haven’t seen it up yet, or if I’m slow to respond to someone, I apologize; I am, in every aspect, completely swamped.

It will get done. Eventually. I promise. Tomorrow: Nate Heiss’ triumphant report, Tim Aten’s valiant attempt, and the rest of John Stephens’ coverage.

Much like P.T. Barnum faking his own death in order to see what people would say about him, it turns out that a fake resignation brings the nicest people out of the woodwork to tell me how great I am. It was great, and I have now vowed that I ever get the chance to engineer my own demise, I’m takin’ it. For those who didn’t get the joke, though, April Fools.

It’s not really a strategy article per se, but I figured you folks ought to hear it first from me: Starting in May, I’ll be going from a site with thousands of daily readers to a site whose weekly unique visitors can be counted in millions – well, half millions, anyway – but I’ll have to get used to it. My fan mail will be different. The lingo will fade. And above all, I’ll really miss editing StarCity.

At StarCityGames, we’re always making advances in writing technology. In order to speed up the writing process, we’ve already created the Fill-In-The-Blank Set Review and the Fill-In-The-Blank Tourney Report… But alas, our forums are still filled with angry people. People who have to spend a half-hour at work condensing their venom and vitriol into words. What if we could give you that time back?

Legions is really breaking all the rules here, being a set composed entirely of creatures – meaning no sorceries, instants, enchantments, or artifacts – and you begin to see that really, you’re gonna be up the creek unless you get some help. So if you don’t know Sealed or just need advice from a roaming marmot, I’m here to help!

This past weekend, the StarCityGames.com crew busted their butts to bring you New Orleans live, as it happened! The best match coverage around awaits! Click here to view all of the coverage… or just check out the top 64 decklists!