Making Mythic

Today I get to tell the story of one of my favorite things I did at Wizards of the Coast, and something that became an institution much larger than the sum of the people who built it. The final culmination, for me at least, is this one-of-a-kind card, though that'll make more sense in a moment: Playing Magic at WotC in 2008 I started at Wizards as a straight up intern in 2008 ( they actually paid me to talk about my first week here ). When I started there were very serious  rules about playing Magic with customers in the "real world." In fact, signs were posted all around the Pit, where new Magic cards get made, that read, "DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE OR YOU'LL BE BANNED FROM THE DCI." They weren't a joke: upon getting hired at Wizards on teams like Magic R&D (now called Studio X) you were actually banned from tournament play in service of the idea that it feels bad when a Magic player gets paired against someone who makes the game and then loses to them....

Hi! It’s been a minute. My name is Bill Stark. I’ve spent the last decade and a half working for Wizards of the Coast. Before that I was a professional Magic player and Magic writer. I wrote for companies like StarCityGames and TCGPlayer, in addition to covering Pro Tours around the world for Wizards. My passion for competing never waned, though, and since Arena’s launch I’ve worked to make mythic each month in Limited, Constructed, or both. Now that I’m just about eligible to start playing competitively again, that’s taken on added significance, meaning May has been pretty important. After nine days I made Mythic in Bo1 Standard using a doozie of a deck. Let’s dive in, shall we? Go Frac Yourself I started the month in the gold ranks playing best of one and while grinding the few games I needed to push through there I played against a player running an interesting take on Goldspan Dragon UR: they had added Body of Research and Kazuul’s Fury for some extra reach. Body’s GGGUUU cost is ...