RENTON, Wash. -- Wizards of the Coast announced Friday that all employees were to continue to pretend that the contents of the Mirrodin set were unknown by the general public, and that this policy would continue until November or possibly December.

Wizards representative Mark Rosewater said that neither the company nor any of its employees would be acknowledging the existence of particular Mirrodin cards even after the set's release unless those cards were officially previewed in a special, formal article on magicthegathering.com.

"Our policy, which you'll notice is changing just slightly, is not to confirm, deny or even acknowledge the existence of 'leaks,' even upon the release of our own official card checklist or Oracle wording," Rosewater said. "Oracle? Leaks? What? Don't know anything about any of that, ha ha," he said.

"For example, Lightning Coils, a card that we've officially previewed, I will talk about. And I will tell you that Lightning Coils has a fairly cool and fun combo with a certain black creature in Mirrodin -- that's all I can say right now," he said, grinning impishly.

"You'll just have to wait for an official preview to see what creature I'm talking about. That is, unless you check our own spoiler; or the message forums of any number of hundreds of Web sites, the existence of which we'll be pretending to discount, perhaps even for the rest of the year. Na na na na na na na," he said, covering his ears.

Official outlets such as Sideboard Magazine Online will be referring to decks when covering tournaments as containing "4 x fantastic green Mirrodin creature," or "3 x cool Mirrodin artifact," throughout the fall and for as long as the policy is in effect.

Rosewater said that things would be different if Magic: The Gathering attracted the attention of large media outlets.

"If Magic were covered by the New York Times, ESPN, 'Access Hollywood' -- you know, the real media -- and they were to leak the spoiler, then things would be different. I'd probably go ahead and talk about the things in the next set that everybody knows anyway. I'd kind of have to, because it would look really silly to pretend nobody knows about a card that appeared in the New York Times.

"But Magic right now is only covered as news by a bunch of crappy little Web sites. It's not like those count or anything. You know, I mean, 'Whatever,' that's what we think," he said.

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!

RENTON, Wash. -- Wizards of the Coast announced Friday that all employees were to continue to pretend that the contents of the Mirrodin set were unknown by the general public, and that this policy would continue until November or possibly December.

Wizards representative Mark Rosewater said that neither the company nor any of its employees would be acknowledging the existence of particular Mirrodin cards even after the set's release unless those cards were officially previewed in a special, formal article on magicthegathering.com.

"Our policy, which you'll notice is changing just slightly, is not to confirm, deny or even acknowledge the existence of 'leaks,' even upon the release of our own official card checklist or Oracle wording," Rosewater said. "Oracle? Leaks? What? Don't know anything about any of that, ha ha," he said.

"For example, Lightning Coils, a card that we've officially previewed, I will talk about. And I will tell you that Lightning Coils has a fairly cool and fun combo with a certain black creature in Mirrodin -- that's all I can say right now," he said, grinning impishly.

"You'll just have to wait for an official preview to see what creature I'm talking about. That is, unless you check our own spoiler; or the message forums of any number of hundreds of Web sites, the existence of which we'll be pretending to discount, perhaps even for the rest of the year. Na na na na na na na," he said, covering his ears.

Official outlets such as Sideboard Magazine Online will be referring to decks when covering tournaments as containing "4 x fantastic green Mirrodin creature," or "3 x cool Mirrodin artifact," throughout the fall and for as long as the policy is in effect.

Rosewater said that things would be different if Magic: The Gathering attracted the attention of large media outlets.

"If Magic were covered by the New York Times, ESPN, 'Access Hollywood' -- you know, the real media -- and they were to leak the spoiler, then things would be different. I'd probably go ahead and talk about the things in the next set that everybody knows anyway. I'd kind of have to, because it would look really silly to pretend nobody knows about a card that appeared in the New York Times.

"But Magic right now is only covered as news by a bunch of crappy little Web sites. It's not like those count or anything. You know, I mean, 'Whatever,' that's what we think," he said.

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!