With his new tell-all autobiography ‘Did You Know I Used to Write for Television’ hot off the presses and in your local game-store, all anyone can talk about is head designer of Magic: The Gathering, Mark Rosewater’s shocking admission that he has never so much as played a game of the world’s most popular trading card game.

“I’ve never seen the appeal, I was always much more concerned with how to keep whipping up snappy one liners for American sit-coms set around working-class families” Mark states in chapter three of his autobiography. “Whilst I understand that many people enjoy the fantasy setting and feel of role-playing as a duelling wizard, Magic just never had that ‘most-watched-television-show-in-the United-States-from-1989-to-1990 feel that, personally, I’m a huge fan of.”

The question on the lips of players the world over is, of course, how did someone with literally no knowledge of the intricacies of such a complicated game manage to be its lead designer for such a long period of time?

Magic: the Gathering professional and game designer in his own right, Luis Scott Vargas had this to say: ‘It’s just bewildering, as a fellow game designer, I don’t understand how someone that has never so much as tapped a land for mana can orchestrate limited environments on the level of Innistrad, regardless of how ground breaking ‘having a female lead whose likability did not rely on her appearance’ was in the nineties.’

In response, Mark Rosewater tweeted ‘Luis Scott who? I’m sorry but I don’t see him in the credits for the TV show ranked number 32 in TV guide’s 60 best series of all time.’

Other members of Wizards design team have issued varying statements, with Randy Buehler exclaiming ‘I have had my doubts about Mark for a few years now – in M10 when we made ‘deathtouch’ a keyword, I was just able to stop the presses in time as Mark had submitted the overarching plot for season 3 of Roseanne as the reminder text.’

/u/EveryPosterOnReddit has come out and posted ‘this has always been incredibly obvious – I’ve been saying for years that every subsequent MTG release is a clear sign that no one at Wizards has any idea at all what they are doing. It’s wonderful to finally have my poignant and important opinions justified, also Siege Rhino has ruined Magic so much that not even a writer for a sitcom that was renewed for nine seasons and cherished in the hearts of all Americans can save it.’

In explanation of how he was able to design so many of Magic’s most beloved cards despite not knowing the difference between first-strike and flying, Mark Rosewater stated he views ‘every card as if it were a 22-23 minute episode of good, wholesome entertainment for the whole family and, what can I say, I guess that’s just what I was born to do.’

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