Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater (b. May 25, 1967 in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA) is Head Magic: The Gathering Designer for Wizards of the Coast and is one of the more influential and renowned card designers and employees at Wizards.

Early life and education

Mark Rosewater was born on May 25, 1967, in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA, to a family of Jewish ancestry. He has a younger sister, Alysse.

Rosewater attended Orange High School in Pepper Pike, OH and, later, Boston University in Boston, MA, whereat he earned a Bachelor of Science in Communication.

Career

Hollywood

Prior to his work at Wizards, Rosewater was a Hollywood "runner" and a writer for the television sitcom Roseanne. After being fired, he ended up working in a game store called The Game Keeper. About the same time that Alpha was making its first big explosion at Gen Con '93, Mark was being introduced to this new "trading card game".

Wizards of the Coast

Before Mark got a full-time job at Wizards of the Coast he still lived in Los Angeles, and made Magic puzzles for The Duelist. At GenCon 94 he played at the Magic World Championships. There he introduced himself to the editor of the Duelist, became a freelance writer first and later the chief editor. Because of this official capacity, he was banned from sanctioned play, and got into judging. At Wizards of the Coast R&D, he first was a developer and later became part of numerous design teams. In December, 2003, he got promoted to Lead Magic Designer. In 2004 the title was changed to Head Magic Designer so as to not confuse the title with the lead designer of each individual expansion.

Designing

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Developing

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Rosewater was co-creator of the Weatherlight Saga and the plane of Mirrodin. In addition, he also was responsible for writing flavor text and overall flavor of sets (most notably during Tempest block). He was also heavily involved in the creation of the Pro Tour, which he attended regularly until 2003 and makes it a point of visiting at least once a year.

Non-Magic: The Gathering products

• Duel Masters (original design team, lead design for two small sets)
• Star Wars: TCG (original design team, lead design for first release)
• G.I. Joe TCG (original design team)
• Neopets TCG (original design team)
• Dungeons & Dragons TCG (unpublished)

Writing

Making Magic

Rosewater is known for his weekly column Making Magic, published every Monday on magicthegathering.com. In "Making Magic" he gives Magic players insight in the design process of Magic cards and sets. His column discusses many controversial topics, such as the Color Pie and the sacking of Merfolk.

In his article Topical Blend #2 he parodied the MiseTings forum, which gave him that title and is home to many of his most critical fans.

He has explained in detail the Timmy, Johnny, and Spike profiles. He also coined the psychological profile "Melvin" and explained the differences between Melvin and Vorthos.

He has also written about the philosophies of each of the five colors. During Ravnica block, he wrote about each of the ten color pairs.

Philosophies

In "Topical Blend #1 - To Err is Human", Rosewater related mistakes with women to mistakes in card design. The lessons were:

• Don't Be Blinded By The Ideal
• Learn When To Quit
• You Have To Understand Why You're Doing Something
• Don't Ignore The Obvious
• Desire Isn't Enough
• Think Out Your Problems Far Enough To See Where Decisions Lead
• Avoiding What You Want Causes Problems
• Harnessing the Past Can Be Dangerous
• Idealism Is Great, But At Some Point Realism Needs To Poke Its Head In
• Not Every Mistake Is Actually A Mistake

In "Life Lessons, Part I" and "Part II", he shared further life lessons and related them to Magic design. These lessons were:

• Judge yourself (and your ideas) by the people that care about you. Don't give that power to people who are not invested in your well being.
• Things happen for a reason; Even disappointments can be opportunities.
• You seldom regret failing. You always regret not trying.
• It's not my job to look out for the welfare of others at the expense of myself.
• If you want things to happen you have to take the initiative to make it happen.
• You can't be inflexible with your future.
• The little stuff matters.
• “I Can Do Better” is the path to ruin.
• There are things that happen that you simply have to accept and move on.
• Having priorities doesn't mean anything if you don't actually prioritize them.

Blogatog

Blogatog is a blog run by Rosewater where he answers questions submitted to him. The blog also regularly features a series of Magic related one-panel comics entitled "Tales from the Pit" (also the former name of the blog) as well as links to Rosewater's Making Magic column and a weekly audio podcast he records on his morning commute entitled "Drive to Work".

Personal life

Rosewater married Lora Montrose in a Jewish ceremony, with whom he has three children; Rachel and twins Adam and Sarah. Lora used to work the night shift at the Game Center of Wizards of the Coast, and that's how they had met.

Miscellaneous

• The "Un" sets, Unglued and Unhinged, were his idea and mostly his creation, and has a special connection to these silver-bordered sets. For this reason, he answered the Ask Wizards "Un" set-related questions, and even drew the art of Look at Me, I'm the DCI. He would only accept a check from Wizards for 1 dollar for the artwork, which he has framed on his wall, along with a copy of said card and the original artwork.
• Mark Rosewater has admitted to visiting rumor sites, such as [[Template:MTGS]], because he loves reading rumors and theories that people come up with; however, he has a distinct hate for unofficial spoilers.
• Rosewater jokingly refers to the rules manager as his arch-nemesis. Mark Gottlieb most notably filled this role.
• Mark Rosewater came up with the idea for The Great Designer Search.

"MaRo"

One of his nicknames is "MaRo", an abbreviation of his name, and was originally used by his co-workers at Wizards. Maro was included in the Mirage expansion as a tribute to him and using a piece of artwork he had purchased himself. Today, creatures with power and toughness equal to the number of cards in the controller's hand are commonly referred to as Maros. Fans of Rosewater sometimes claim to belong to the "Cult of MaRo", a play on Mark Gottlieb's "Cult of MaGo".

Literature

• Magic: The Puzzling

External links

• Mark Rosewater Archive — Wizards of the Coast
• Blogatog — Mark Rosewater's Tumblr
• Mark Rosewater — Twitter
• Mark Rosewater (March 11, 2002). "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Mark Rosewater (March 20, 2006). "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Mark Rosewater (August 21, 2006). "State of Design 2006". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Mark Rosewater (May 21, 2007). "Design Language". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
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