In a stunt known to anyone to visit www.MagictheGathering.com in the past two weeks, lead designer Mark Rosewater has offered the masses of ordinary Magic players the opportunity to design a Magic card for release in a future set. This contest, entitled “You Make the Card,” comes despite the fact that very few, if any, of the players participating in the process have ever won a Magic Invitational.

Allowing ordinary players to design a card infringes upon the rights of Invitational winners, claims Mike Long, winner of the 1998 Invitational and father of the card Rootwater Thief. “Fuck me if I’m gonna sit back and watch while these scrubs make a card that’ll probably see more play than mine ever did!” he was heard to comment. 2000 Invitational champ Jon Finkel told reporters, “While I respect the design team’s intention, this is like giving a machine gun to a trained monkey. Most [contest entrants] wouldn’t know a good card if it bit them on the ass! They can’t understand the intense decision-making involved with creating a card. 'Ophidian with fear?' That’s genius stuff right there. Way over the head of most Magic players.” He then retired to his bedroom, which, from the doorway, appeared to be wallpapered with Shadowmage Infiltrators. Chris Pikula, winner of 1999’s Invitational also had some strong words for Rosewater, jumping up and down while slamming a Meddling Mage down on the table and screaming “Scrub Card! SCRUB CAAAARD!!!!”

Mark Rosewater himself was not reachable for comment. A source close to Mr. Rosewater, codenamed “Bandy Ruehler,” reports that, after discovering how eager players were to design cards, Rosewater has decided to slowly offload the entire design and card creation process onto the players themselves. “After a few years, Rosey won’t have to do any work at all! He’ll be drinking margaritas on beaches in Hawaii while these randoms wreak havoc with the game! Phase 1 is almost complete! We’re all DOOMED!” Ruehler said.

The contest will be run as a series of polls, first for color, then card type, and eventually all other aspects of the card. Several card submissions have been received by the design team, including:

“Mise,” a red sorcery that allows the caster to win the game (suggested by several),

“Jiannt Monnstr,” a 30/30 flying trample first-strike (suggested by Little Timmy, age 10), and

“Cadent Fervor,” a 7/7 green creature that creates tokens (suggested by “Fat E. King”).

- Mystyc

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!

In a stunt known to anyone to visit www.MagictheGathering.com in the past two weeks, lead designer Mark Rosewater has offered the masses of ordinary Magic players the opportunity to design a Magic card for release in a future set. This contest, entitled “You Make the Card,” comes despite the fact that very few, if any, of the players participating in the process have ever won a Magic Invitational.

Allowing ordinary players to design a card infringes upon the rights of Invitational winners, claims Mike Long, winner of the 1998 Invitational and father of the card Rootwater Thief. “Fuck me if I’m gonna sit back and watch while these scrubs make a card that’ll probably see more play than mine ever did!” he was heard to comment. 2000 Invitational champ Jon Finkel told reporters, “While I respect the design team’s intention, this is like giving a machine gun to a trained monkey. Most [contest entrants] wouldn’t know a good card if it bit them on the ass! They can’t understand the intense decision-making involved with creating a card. 'Ophidian with fear?' That’s genius stuff right there. Way over the head of most Magic players.” He then retired to his bedroom, which, from the doorway, appeared to be wallpapered with Shadowmage Infiltrators. Chris Pikula, winner of 1999’s Invitational also had some strong words for Rosewater, jumping up and down while slamming a Meddling Mage down on the table and screaming “Scrub Card! SCRUB CAAAARD!!!!”

Mark Rosewater himself was not reachable for comment. A source close to Mr. Rosewater, codenamed “Bandy Ruehler,” reports that, after discovering how eager players were to design cards, Rosewater has decided to slowly offload the entire design and card creation process onto the players themselves. “After a few years, Rosey won’t have to do any work at all! He’ll be drinking margaritas on beaches in Hawaii while these randoms wreak havoc with the game! Phase 1 is almost complete! We’re all DOOMED!” Ruehler said.

The contest will be run as a series of polls, first for color, then card type, and eventually all other aspects of the card. Several card submissions have been received by the design team, including:

“Mise,” a red sorcery that allows the caster to win the game (suggested by several),

“Jiannt Monnstr,” a 30/30 flying trample first-strike (suggested by Little Timmy, age 10), and

“Cadent Fervor,” a 7/7 green creature that creates tokens (suggested by “Fat E. King”).

- Mystyc

Discuss this article in the Magic: the Gathering Forums!