Mark Rosewater… where do I even begin.
I guess I'll start with the title. Why did I choose "the first SJW?" Some of you may be yelling "Anon! They been around since the 60's!" Others may be yelling "Blackblade you faggot! The term comes from a theologian". Well, let me calm you, I meant "The First SJW in /tg/."
Let me start at the beginning, Mark Rosewater (MaRo), was born in 1967, to a jewish family, in the deep south of Mississippi, before the family moved to Pepper Pike, Ohio. At that time, it was a small rural community, and MaRo was described best as a social outcast. It didn't help as a child, he was particularly timid, tiny and weak. However, as was the par at the time, he instead excelled academically, and would go to Boston where he would get a B.A. in Communications.
Now, remember that part about the first sjw? As many of you probably still remember, it was found that most indie developers took into game design, not due to a passion of gaming, but because they couldn't excel in other fields, and they viewed it as the bottom of the barrel.
Mark Rosewater went to Hollywood with the big dreams of making it as a writer. He soon became a gopher, where he ran around doing other peoples work, a common job in Hollywood actually, to the point some gophers have gophers.
He at some point got hired to be a writer for Roseanne, in which he is credited by being the driving force behind two episodes "Vegas, vegas", and "Take my bike…. please". Roseanne was a show that has a whole encyclopedia of back room drama and infighting, so the reason why is up for debate, but he was laid off from the show (a common *chan legend is it was for being too Jewish).
Out of work, he went back to his youth profession, being a magician, and working at a game store that would be later bought out by WotC to become an official WotC store.
One day, while bored, some kids walked in and asked if they had any Magic cards. This, with his history in Magic, piqued his interest, and he would end up buying several boxes of Alpha when he found them being sold (He once showed up the morning Legends was released, and while he opened most of the boxes, he kept several sealed to sell at a later time).
The Duelist was released, and he was disappointed, he wrote a letter to Kathryn Haines, Editor in Chief at the time. When they didn't write back, he called, and said his puzzle "Puzzle the Gathering" was printed.
He lost and was eliminated (it was single elimination that year), and met with Kathryn Haines. It was decided like that, he would write about Worlds. I won't bore you with the details on that. He would continue to write articles and "The Puzzling", and eventually design.
He headed the following expansions: Tempest, Urza's Destiny (he also invented the free mechanic), Odyssey, Ravnica, Mirrodin (Designed Affinity), Shadowmoor/Eventide, Zendikar, Scars, Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Gate Crash, Dragon Maze, and Theros.
He's a person of many controversial decisions, he's designed more banned cards then Richard "I designed Alpha and Library of Alexandria" Garfield, and he believes bad cards need to exist to make good cards look better, the color pie needs to constantly change, Mythic rares are a necessity, and Pro level game play is a must have feature of games.
He's notorious for hating the mechanics of Land Destruction, Counterspells, tempo strategies. He does like Combo, unlike another notable designer.
He also invented "Timmy" "Johnny" and "Spike". He identifies as a Johnny.
Now, remember earlier when I called him the first SJW, this is my logic. His blog show's he's incredibly progressive, despite being literally everything the far left would hate. With the exception of the free mechanic, he feels he can do no wrong, and in his ride to work podcast, he will often say stuff like "It's me who lets you play with such awesome cards!". He hates Kamigawa because he literally had nothing to do w/ the block, and has mused that he could go back to it some day jus to destroy the setting by having Bolas eat it. He has insisted the color pie mutating well passed the point of memetic is a good thing, even though many would insist the opposite. He has designed numerous mistakes that have almost killed the game twice, yet insists he's just that awesome. He deliberately pushed the power of the poison mechanic because he always wanted to win via poison counters.
In this, I feel, while he certainly loves M:tG, he feels ultimately it's beneath him, just like Phil Fish and Zoe Quinn feel Vidya is beneath them. However, unlike them, he has enough foresight and common sense to know not to try and insult his entire fan base (though some are still hoping he will). He also, unlike them, has a sense of humor (he did design the Un-sets), so is he the first SJW, you decide!
>him circa 1990
>his avatar
>An actual quote
>Him not knowing what Eidolon does.
>Progressive Joke from "Tales from the Pit"
