|
|
|
|
Mark Rosewater
|
| |
|
| |
Mark Rosewater is a Magic: The Gathering card designer. He is currently Magic's head designer.
water grew up in Cleveland, where he attended the Orange High School. Rosewater has a Jewish background. Rosewater has described himself in his youth as a "social outcast", who did not have many friends. He was particularly small, smart and was bullied by other children. In his youth he worked as a professional magician.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Mark Rosewater' Start a new discussion about 'Mark Rosewater' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
Mark Rosewater is a Magic: The Gathering card designer. He is currently Magic's head designer.
Youth
Rosewater grew up in Cleveland, where he attended the Orange High School. Rosewater has a Jewish background. Rosewater has described himself in his youth as a "social outcast", who did not have many friends. He was particularly small, smart and was bullied by other children. In his youth he worked as a professional magician. Rosewater attended Boston University, where he got a Bachelor of Science in Communication.
Television
After graduating, Rosewater started his career in television as a runner. He then acquired work as a writer. Before 1994 he was on the writing staff of Roseanne. He is credited for two Roseanne episodes: "Vegas, Vegas" and "Take My Bike, Please", both aired in 1991. He considered his time in Hollywood a "roller coaster ride." While working as a free lance writer he took a job at a game store in order to have some social contacts. Working there he got in contact with Magic: The Gathering.
Magic: The Gathering
Between 1994 and 1995 Rosewater did freelance work at Wizards of the Coast, the company which makes Magic: the Gathering. He wrote puzzles based on Magic cards and other articles for the The Duelist, the Wizards of the Coast magazine promoting and covering Magic. In 1996 Magic: The Puzzling was published, a collection of 25 puzzles written for The Duelist. Since 1996 Rosewater has worked for Wizards of the Coast as a designer of Magic cards. Rosewater has designed at least one card for every Magic expansion since Alliances. While working for Wizards of the Coast, he wrote columns called “Insider Trading” for the magazines The Duelist, Topdeck, and The Sideboard which gave an inside look at Magic design.
Rosewater has been the lead designer for Tempest, Urza’s Destiny, Odyssey, Mirrodin, Ravnica: City of Guilds, Future Sight, Shadowmoor, and Eventide. He also did the design of the Unglued set by himself. In it he combined his career as a magic card designer with his previous career as a comedy writer. Picking up on the comic note of the "un"-sets, he judged the Unglued pre-release wearing a chicken suit and the Unhinged pre-release wearing a donkey suit. He also wrote the flavor text for sets such as Mirage and Tempest.
Rosewater championed the Pro Tournament for years, including the important idea of having feature matches at professional events.
Since 2002 Rosewater has a weekly column called "Making Magic" on magicthegathering.com, the official site of Wizards of the Coast. In these columns, much like in his previous "Insider Trader"-columns he gives an inside look on how Magic cards are created. He has written on many controversial subjects, such as why Wizards of the Coast makes "bad rares".
Other key subjects of his columns include Wizards of the Coast's "psychographic" profiles of players called "Timmy", "Johnny", and "Spike" and the color wheel. He often writes his articles in off-the-wall or unusual styles. For instance in one column he took the perspective of the Magic card "", in another he wrote from the perspective of the mechanic "splice". One article, which even had the subject "Mark Rosewater Admits He’s %#@$ Insane!" was written like a bulletin board on one of his columns. Many articles also touch upon his personal life. Rosewater claims he reads every email sent to him and has written several mailbag columns in which he responds to praise and criticism alike.
In December 2003 he became Magic's lead designer, later called head designer. Before that he was senior head designer. As head designer Rosewater has written a "State of Design"-column every year, in it he has reviewed the Magic design of the last year and he has written his plans for future Magic designs. His most important contribution as a head designer is the institution of block design.
Mark Rosewater's nickname is Maro. This came about because the old email system of WotC had a feature that could complete names based on the letters typed in and Bill Rose found out that the shortest unique combination of letters that he could write to email Mark Rosewater was Maro. In the Mirage expansion of the card game, a creature card named "" named after him was included; Rosewater claims that it is his favorite magic card. is his second favorite card. He made the art of this card himself. Rosewater considers his personality to align with that ascribed to blue-red in the game itself, and the player profile of "Johnny."
Private Life
Rosewater is married to Lora Rosewater. The couple has three children—a daughter Rachel (born 2000) and twins Adam and Sarah (born 2004). As a hobby Rosewater likes "stereotypically geeky things", such as comics, television, games and writing. He for instance owns a collection of action figures of comic book characters.
External links
|
| |
|
|
