Mark Rosewater
Mark Rosewater is a prolific
Magic: The Gathering card designer for
expansion sets. He is often referred to as "MaRo," originally a Wizards office name for him. In the
Mirage expansion of the card game, a creature card named
Maro was included, named after him.
Rosewater has helped design and develop many card sets, including
Tempest,
Unglued,
Urza's Destiny,
Odyssey,
Mirrodin and
Ravnica: City of Guilds.
Rosewater writes a weekly column on the official
Magic: The Gathering website called
Making Magic, which has been the target of both criticism and praise. By giving an "insider's view" of
Magic design, he often writes about topics which often generate much comment. In one such controversial article[
1], Rosewater described the importance of including rare cards which are inherently (even intentionally) "bad" when compared to others. In another[
2], he wrote about why he voted for
Mike Long, a player once suspended from official tournaments due to cheating, for the newly made Pro Tour Hall of Fame for
Magic: The Gathering. He often writes his articles in off-the-wall or unusual styles. There are also many articles in which he writes from the point of view of the game's cards or mechanics.
Rosewater is also famous for designing
Magic gameplay puzzles, which were published in
The Duelist and even led to their publication in the book
Magic: the Puzzling (
1996, ISBN 1575301008). In the foreword of the book,
Richard Garfield describes
rosewater as a term coined at Wizards of the Coast to describe "a card that has no use except in puzzles".
Rosewater attended
Boston University, and has a background in comedy writing, including writing for the
sitcom Roseanne. One of the most notable things about his weekly column is the frequency with which he mentions that he wrote for the popular 1980's sitcom. It has become a running joke among Rosewater and his readers. Mark's comedy writing shines through in his current endeavours as well: he once judged the
Unglued pre-release tournament while wearing a chicken suit, and the
Unhinged tournament in a donkey suit.
* "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike"[
3], the article in which Rosewater introduced R&D's famous
psychographic profiles of the three different types of
Magic player. Several years later, he wrote another article, a "revisited" (and revised) appraisal of the three archetypal player types. [
4]
* "Mons Made Me Do It"[
5], an article famous for its odd ending.
* "Topical Blend #2"[
6], which was written based on the results of two reader pollsâ€"one on a Magic subject and one on a non-Magic subjectâ€"yielded the results of
The Sixth Color and
Mark Rosewater is %#@$ Insane!.* "Topical Blend #1"[
7], considered by Rosewater to be one of his best columns, combining the subjects of girls and design mistakes.
* "Elegance"[
8], a highly-controversial (and oft-discussed) fifty-word article in which every word linked to another fifty-word article (he explained its purpose
here).
* "Free Association"[
9], a
nonlinear multi-part column navigated by free association
* "State of Design 2005"[
10], in which he outlined his plan as Head Designer for the future of
Magic design
* "When Cards Go Bad"[
11], "Rare But Well Done"[
12], and "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Truth"[
13], where he writes about why some cards are bad, some cards are rare, and some cards are bad rares
* "Myr Myr, Off The Wall"[
14], an article in which he continuously switched between many writing styles
* Also well known are his five articles on
Magic color theory, which jointly are second-most-linked-to articles ever, behind
Timmy, Johnny, and Spike *
All Mark Rosewater articles on magicthegathering.com
