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Text File | 1980-04-15 | 17.2 KB | 468 lines

@node start " " '`;,,,, `;;;;; ,,,,,, ,,,,,, ,,,, ,,,,,; ;;;;;, ;;;; , ';;; ;; ' ;;' ,;; '' ,;;';;;; ;;;;;; ,; ;;;;, ;; ,,; ;; ;; ,;;' ';;;;,;' ;;;; ,;;;' ;;;; ';,,,;; ;; ';;, ,;;' ';;;; ;;;; '' '' '''`; ,''' '''''''' ,;;' ;;;; ;;;;. ,;;; ;;;; ;;;;;. T h e G a t h e r i n g (TM) ,;''' ;;'' ```````` PLAYER GUIDE VOL 1 ` ' Inquest Feature: MASTERS OF MAGIC @{ " Introduction " Link "intro"@} @{ " Alex Blumke " Link "blumke"@} @{ " Mark Justice " Link "justice"@} @{ " Mark Rosewater " Link "rosewater"@} @{ " Richard Garfield " Link "garfield"@} @{ " Back to Main Menu " Link Main @} @{ " Back to Sub Menu 5 " Link "start"@} @endnode **-- @node intro MASTERS OF MAGIC You're a die-hard Magic: The Gathering player and you've fallen on tough times. You've just been torched by your opponent for the fifth time in a row. You can't seem to get any of your combos to work, and no matter how many times you read The Pocket Player's Guide, nothing seems to help. Your friends cackle when they ask you for a game because they know you're an easy mark. Wouldn't it be great if you could pick up some tips from the real wizards of Magic? Alexander Blumke, the reigning world Magic champ, could probably show you a thing or two. So could Mark Justice, the U.S. champ. With a quick trip to the Wizards of the Coast's main offices, you could talk to Mark Rosewater, a designer on the Magic team. Or better yet, grab a few minutes with Richard Garfield, the Magic man himself. Sure, that'd help! But assuming you don't have the time, contacts or disposable income to arrange these visits in Geneva, Salt Lake City and Seattle, we've got the next-best thing. Blumke, Justice, Rosewater and Garfield all agreed to tell us about how they play the game they all love-maybe almost as much as you do. @{ " Back to Main Menu " Link Main @} @{ " Back to Sub Menu 5 " Link "start"@} @endnode **-- @node Blumke Blumke, the 1995 Magic world champion, was born in Hamburg, Germany, moved to Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 4, and became a Swiss citizen at 15. Now 27 years old, he's working toward a degree in English literature. Apart from traditional games, he plays a lot of tennis (even organizing tournaments at the local club) and enjoys skiing. InQuest: How were you introduced to Magic: The Gathering? Blumke: A friend of mine named Guillaume introduced me to it while he was searching for playing partners in the late spring of 1994. InQuest: How did you become the Magic world champion? Blumke: I won fourth place in the Swiss championship. (I lost my first match there.) In the world championship, I needed a 3-0 win in my last qualifying match to make it to the playoffs. I succeeded because my opponent's deck was the perfect match for mine. He had lots of big creatures, so my Hymn to Tourach/Dance of the Dead combo worked perfectly. InQuest: What's being the champion like? Blumke: As world champion, I get invited to certain events from time to time. Also, I have to answer to interview requests, mostly from Switzerland, Germany, the U.S.A. I sometimes get phone calls from people I've never met-kids, most often-asking me to see them or to give them advice. InQuest: What about Magic appeals to you? Blumke: The seemingly infinite possibilities of playing and putting cards together. This has a way of triggering the imagination, which I like. Playing with over a thousand little works of art appeals to me aesthetically too. InQuest: What's your philosophy for playing the game? Blumke: Apart from trying to win, I also like being lucky. Although I'm not superstitious in any way, I can't help thinking of a roleplaying universe in which luck is a characteristic just like intelligence or strength. Not that I would be proud of it, or-even worse-believe it; I just like it. InQuest: How do you approach tournament-level deck building? Blumke: First, I try to spoil other people's play. That sounds unfair, but that's how one wins tournament games. I use hand- or land- or spell destruction techniques, or I try to prevent them from playing anything. Sometimes I just take what they play. Second, I try to have some means of getting and playing more cards than my opponent. Third, I also like to have some "mass spoiling" cards between the deck and the sideboard that work against any deck that is not versatile enough These include Wrath of God, Gloom, Energy Flux, Karma, Blood Moon or Primal Order, and Land Tax (which spoils both hand and land destruction). BLUMKE'S KILLER DECK As employees of Wizards of the Coast, Richard Garfield and Mark Rosewater are not allowed to participate in official tournaments. They make decks only for play-testing and for fun, hardly in the killer vein. However, 1995 Magic World Champion Alexander Blumke and 1995 Magic U.S. Champion Mark Justice were each happy to share a killer deck with us. (Turn the page for Justice's deck.) Be warned: These decks can slay your wallet as well as your opponent! Alexander Blumke This is the deck I played at Spiel '95 in Essen, Germany. Wizards of the Coast had invited me there to play at their gunslinger table.... I wanted a deck that could win as many games as possible as quickly as possible so that I could play against as many people as possible without looking too bad.... Thirteen lands plus the Library of Alexandria may seem like too few lands. Not for this deck, though. Eight of the spells require no mana, 20 demand one mana, 12 need two mana, four require three mana and the other two ask for four variable amounts of mana. With the land, Moxes and Barbed Sextants, your supply will be fine. There is one rule to follow with this deck: As long as an opponent is taking damage from a Vise and has blue mana available, don't cast anything-not even a Mox. Apart from that, this is a very easy deck to play. Not much thinking is required (although this depends on the opponent deck), which makes for quick play-especially for me. QUICK GUNSLINGER DEMO DECK Spells RED 1 Blood Moon 4 Chain Lightnings 4 Lightning Bolts 1 Shatter 1 Wheel of Fortune BLUE 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Copy Artifact 1 Timetwister 1 Time Walk BLACK 1 The Abyss 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Mind Twist GOLD 1 Stormbind GREEN 1 Regrowth WHITE 1 Balance Artifacts 4 Barbed Sextants 1 Black Lotus 4 Black Vises 2 Howling Mines 1 Ivory Tower 1 Meekstone 1 Mox Emerald 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Sapphire 3 Relic Barriers 1 Sol Ring 1 Urza's Bauble 1 Winter Orb 1 Zuran Orb Land 4 Badlands 1 Library of Alexandria 2 Plateaus 3 Taigas 4 Volcanic Islands 4 Tundras @{ " Back to Main Menu " Link Main @} @{ " Back to Sub Menu 5 " Link "start"@} @endnode **-- @node Justice U.S. CHAMPION MARK JUSTICE Justice, the 1995 Magic U.S. champion, lives in Salt Lake City. He owns and runs two sports card and comic book shops called Sports Cards America. He completed two years of college before quitting to start his own business nearly three years ago. Now 25, most of his time is occupied with running his stores, but he still finds time to play Magic. InQuest: How were you introduced to Magic: The Gathering? Justice: I learned of it through the store. I'm always looking for things to sell, and Magic came along. We started selling it and people started playing it and that's how I picked it up. InQuest: How did you become the Magic U.S. champion? Justice: For the nationals, they took the top 25 ranked players in the country. I had finished second at the southwest regionals, so that's how I qualified for the nationals. I had a really good tournament at the nationals. They had two [separate] sanctioned Type I tournaments at the nationals, and I won both of those. Then I went on to win the national title as well that weekend. InQuest: What's being the champion like? Justice: It hasn't changed my life. I don't take it that seriously, but it's nice to be known as a good player. InQuest: What about Magic appeals to you? Justice: The game's strategic format. Whereas in a board game, the players each start on an equal playing field, I go into a game of Magic with my own ideas on my deck. I have my own thoughts, my own work, my own process to start out with. I like that mental challenge. I really enjoy designing decks. I enjoy designing and play-testing decks even more than playing in tournaments. I get stressed during tournaments, so I don't get to enjoy the game as much. InQuest: What's your philosophy for playing the game? Justice: I'm a very defensive player. It's kind of a contradiction because I played an all-red deck at worlds. A defensive red deck seems to be a contradiction in terms, but as those who saw it can tell you, it was just that. No matter what colors I might be using, my deck is usually very defensive. InQuest: How do you approach tournament-level deck building? Justice: The decks I build, a lot of people can beat them. If somebody walked off the street and said, "Hey, let's play a game," I won't necessarily win. I build a deck to have the best chance of beating an open field. You don't know what your first opponent will have-or your second or your third. I try to build the most well-rounded decks that I can. I really feel that every card, no matter at what point in the game it's drawn, needs to be useful. For instance, pulling a Rack in an opening hand doesn't do much good. I don't like cards like that because they don't do anything by themselves. They can't help you win by themselves. They're auxiliary cards. They can be useful, but I usually try to stay away from them. Mark Justice This is the Type I deck that I won the two tournaments with at the 1995 nationals. I'm cautious when playing this deck, which is in line with my defensive philosophy. I like to wait for the right moment to make my move and be as can as I can be. The official name of the deck that I've always used is the Bolt Me Not. The reason for that is because every creature is unboltable in the deck. That is, every one has a toughness of at least four, meaning that they can't be killed by a single Lightning Bolt. BOLT ME NOT DECK Creatures Blue 4 Serendib Efreets Green 3 Erhnam Djinns White 4 Serra Angels Spells Blue 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Braingeyser 2 Counterspells 4 Mana Drains 1 Recall 1 Time Walk White 1 Balance 3 Disenchants 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Wrath of God Artifacts 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Emerald 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Sapphire 2 Nevinyrral's Disks 1 Sol Ring 1 Zuran Orb Land 2 Adarkar Wastes 1 Island 1 Library of Alexandria 1 Maze of Ith 2 Plains 3 Savannahs 3 Strip Mines 4 Tropical Islands 4 Tundras Sideboard 2 Circles of Protection: Red 2 Control Magics 4 Deflections 1 Disenchant 3 Dust to Dusts 3 Wraths of God @{ " Back to Main Menu " Link Main @} @{ " Back to Sub Menu 5 " Link "start"@} @endnode **-- @node Rosewater MAGIC DEVELOPER MARK ROSEWATER Originally from Pepper Pike, Ohio, a small Cleveland suburb, Rosewater studied broadcasting and film at Boston University. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles top work in television comedy. His six years in Hollywood included a stint on the "Roseanne" writing staff. InQuest: How were you introduced to Magic: The Gathering? Rosewater: I was working part-time in a game store when Magic first came out-I had decided that I needed to occasionally get out of my apartment, as freelancing was getting a bit lonely-and I had a few customers come in and ask about this game that they had heard rumors about. I tracked down the rumors and learned about the existence of Magic. Finally, at a convention, I was able to actually find cards that I could buy. I bought a few packs-later I would kick myself that I didn't buy every Alpha I could have gotten my hands on-and quickly got hooked. Los Angeles has a very large Magic community and I was able to play often and against very good competition. InQuest: How did you become involved with Wizards of the Coast? Rosewater: When Magic first came out, I really enjoyed the game and was always thinking of ways to expand it. When The Duelist #1 came out, I decided that it was missing something. There wasn't anything in it which really tested the layer's knowledge of the game. So at a convention in Los Angeles, I approached Steve Bishop, the former head of the Duelists' Convocation, and presented my idea for a puzzle column. Steve suggested that I write a proposal, which he then passed along to the editor of Duelist. She liked the idea, and soon my column was being printed. I started writing for the magazine, and that quickly took up a good chunk of my time. I began going to conventions, and pretty soon I became acquainted with a good portion of Wizards of the Coast's staff-and mind you, that is quite a feat! Once I had made the connections, I started getting asked to do other freelance projects. Finally, there was a point where I was doing projects for seven different sections of the company, and it became apparent that it was in everyone's best interest just to hire me. InQuest: What's your title and what are your responsibilities? Rosewater: Officially, I am a game developer in research and development. My primary responsibility is to help develop new expansions to insure that they are both balanced and interesting. I also am a liaison for R&D to both the Magic: The Gathering Professional Tour and The Duelist. InQuest: What about Magic appeals to you? Rosewater: The draw of Magic to me is the fact that it creates so many interesting choices for the players. The reason that the puzzles work so well is based on this very concept. At any point in any game, there are always a great number of juicy decisions to make. And as a die-hard game player, nothing is more exciting than having to be constantly stimulated mentally. InQuest: What's your philosophy for playing the game? Rosewater: I play Magic for fun. That means that I have to enjoy playing a deck in order for me to want to use it. This obviously excludes me from certain very narrow decks, but overall allows me to explore areas that others may not think to. The key to deck innovation, I feel, rests in playing decks that other people are not. InQuest: How do you approach tournament-level deck building? Rosewater: If you are playing to win, the obvious goal of tournament play, you have to make sure to accomplish several things. First, you need to decide how your deck is going to win and dedicate all your resources to that end. This does not mean that the deck has to be narrow, but rather that everything in the deck works together toward a certain focused goal Second, you need to know your deck better than anyone else. You have to play it constantly until you know every nuance of it like the back of your hand. A good deck is like any good tool. The person using it has to know what it is capable of and what it is not. If two players of equal skill face off, the one who has a better understanding of his deck will win almost every time, save the few instances of just bad luck. @{ " Back to Main Menu " Link Main @} @{ " Back to Sub Menu 5 " Link "start"@} @endnode **-- @node garfield" MAGIC CREATOR RICHARD GARFIELD You're playing with Richard Garfield's toys, but he's not complaining. In fact, he's glad. Garfield, who invented Magic: The Gathering, joined WotC after his brainchild became a hit. These days, Garfield spends a lot of his time coming up with new game designs and handling interviews. The popularity of Magic has changed his life forever. InQuest: What about Magic appeals to you? Garfield: Many things about M:TG appeal to me. The primary attraction, however, is probably the constantly shifting strategic ground, the seemingly endless opportunity for a player to innovate. InQuest: What's your philosophy for playing the game? Garfield: My play philosophy will change depending on the context of the game and my mood. Usually I try to do things that people don't expect. I try to win using less-trod paths. I usually leave the strategic honing, the perfection of an approach to the game, to others. Being a top-notch Magic player takes a lot of discipline and patience, more than I am usually able to give. InQuest: How do you approach tournament-level deck building? Garfield: I don't construct tournament decks very often. I much more often participate in drafts or sealed decks. When I do construct decks, I value flexibility, because my advantage in the game is thinking on my feet and using new siuations to my advantage. I will try to use cards my opponents aren't as familiar with to maximize their opportunities to make mistakes. Copyright 1996 Gareb Shamus Enterprises, Inc. @{ " Back to Main Menu " Link Main @} @{ " Back to Sub Menu 5 " Link "start"@} @endnode **--