Mark Rosewater – Page 5

Magic Celebrity Commercial – You Like Fallen Empires?

INT – WIZARDS OF THE COAST MEETING ROOM – MORNING

Inside one of the meeting rooms, two members of a marketing company, TIM and CARL get ready to pitch a series of commercials for the Magic: the Gathering brand. Sitting across the room are several managers of Wizards of the Coast and MARK ROSEWATER, head of Magic Design. Tim stands up and smiles.

TIM
Thank you gentlemen for meeting with us today. As you know, Blizzard decided to do some commercials for World of Warcraft with celebrities saying they played the game themselves. Those commercials were wildly successful and anything that we’ve learned is that if it works once, it will work again. We have come to you thinking the same thing: showing celebrities loving your game.

PAUL, one of the Wizards employees nods in agreement.

PAUL
That sounds perfectly reasonable. I’m sure that some of the Pro Tour players would love to be in a commercial.

Carl, sitting to Tim’s right, shakes his head no.

CARL
No, we’re thinking of movie celebrities, that lost of people know. What do William Shatner and Mr. T have in common? They have geek cred. You get someone your core demographic is familiar with,the you can have the geek cred as well.

MARK
When I was working on Roseanne…

TIM
(Cutting him off)
Fascinating story, I’m sure. We’ve already filmed a pair of commercials with a high profile actor who has a ton of geek cred.

Tim picks up a remote and points it at the screen.

TIM
(cont’d)
Let’s watch. Continue reading “Magic Celebrity Commercial – You Like Fallen Empires?”

After Maro – Lies! Lies and Slander!

(Editor’s Note: Not all of you get my references to jokes in titles and other areas of my posts. I understand, so I’m helping you out in this one. Watch Futurama, Season 3, The Route of All Evil. That’s as far as I’m going to help you here. Also, there’s spoilers to what Wizards have deemed alright to show on their page. If you don’t want spoilers, come back after the set has been released.)

Hello, Mark Rosewater’s desk.

Mr. Rosewater, it’s me, Robby from M:tGColorpie.

Sigh. What is it this week? Are you going to tell me you don’t like Exalted? Because I just don’t…

No, I do like Exalted.

(Beat) Excuse me?

At first I was like, “Wow, that’s kinda dumb, only one creature attacking. That’s not White, especially White Weenie.” Then I was like, “Wait, this all makes sense. All of the creatures are helping out one creature. That’s like totally White.”

I was waiting for the explosion and the “Bew bew sounds” but it sounds like you like it.

I totally do.

Good. (Beat) I’m sensing a problem.

Ah, the Force is strong in this one. Continue reading “After Maro – Lies! Lies and Slander!”

After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response

Lady(ies?) and gentlemen, the great master MaRo talked to us yesterday about his thoughts and opinions about the past year in Magic design. He told his his highs, his lows, and what he wants to do in the next year. Most of us play the game as well as junior designing, so some of their non-design decisions have been on our minds rather then if the past block worked well together. We’ll get to that in due time while some of that will be sprinkled in as well (this is a long post, be prepared).

(MaRo art by UGMadness.net (I don’t think I use that much bandwidth, though WordPress helps me out there)).

Lady(ies?) and gentlemen, the great master MaRo talked to us yesterday about his thoughts and opinions about the past year in Magic design. He told his his highs, his lows, and what he wants to do in the next year. Most of us play the game as well as junior designing, so some of their non-design decisions have been on our minds rather then if the past block worked well together. We’ll get to that in due time while some of that will be sprinkled in as well (this is a long post, be prepared).

Highlights of 2008

The Planeswalkers. Players were really worried when there was an announcement of a new card type, especially one that could break the game in half. Using the hybrid of a creature and an enchantment, cries were heard that they wouldn’t be different enough to see print.

Yeah, we players were wrong. Continue reading “After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response”

After MaRo – Never Gonna Give You Up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rolled

If you don’t remember, I call MaRo every week to talk about his article of the week, or talk about anything that comes to mind. I’ve got 500 anytime minutes, I use them as I please.

Hello, this is Mark Rosewater speaking.

Hey, this is Robby ********* from M:tG Color Pie.

Oh yes, I remember you. I read that you’re back now. And Congratulations on the marriage and house.

Well, thank you. I don’t have the high paying job the lets me focus on Magic all the time like you do, but I try and get by.

Well, the come and join us here in Renton.

(Excited) Seriously?

(Laughing) No. People fall for that all the time.

Yeah, I bet they do. (I sigh)

What’s on your mind today?

Well, since you’re doing your annual State of Design column next week, I won’t tell you what I’m thinking right now. I will tell you that I’m still playing, no matter if my blog is updated or not. I guess you can say that I’m never gonna give up the game of Magic.

Never gonna let the game of Magic go?

Correct.

Never gonna run around and desert it?

Uh, sure I guess you could say that.

(Laughter)

Wait… Damn it. Continue reading “After MaRo – Never Gonna Give You Up”

After MaRo – Just Follow the Clues

In today’s announcement, MaRo gave us a few hints on what Shadowmoor’s theme might be. Basically, it is something that has never been done in Magic before (Not Artifact based, or deals with creature types), yet there are two cards in Future Sight that will be reprinted in Shadowmoor. Interesting, yes? Before we look at what cards might those be, let’s see what he did (or didn’t say) about the new block.

– It’s like Lorwyn, only in darkness.
– While Tribal isn’t a theme, he didn’t say if more Tribal cards weren’t going to be printed (like Tarfire).
– Lorwyn block and Shadowmoor block fit with each other. It seems like the same creature (race/class) types will stay in play (important for what cards belong).
– And according to promotional material, a favorite mechanic returns, but it doesn’t say if it is a keyword mechanic (like Buyback) or a non-keyworded one (like the “pitch spells“).

Now comes the fun part, figuring out which cards are the hidden ones in Future Sight. Once I read that, I thought of a post title with a National Treasure parody, with all of the clues he gave us, but nothing that I deemed funny. But he’s basically saying: Look, here’s the Declaration of Independence, find the clues. And so we shall…

Here’s the list of the all the Future-shifted cards in Future Sight: Continue reading “After MaRo – Just Follow the Clues”