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 flavor text in various sets including Mirage and Tempest. Rosewater advocated for Pro Tournament (organized, competitive Magic play with significant cash prizes) for years, including the important idea of having feature matches at professional events. Feature matches are chosen at Pro Tournaments to be highlighted for spectators and web coverage because the players or the decks involved are well known or thought to be of greater interest. He is notable for his quick ascent to the head of Magic the Gathering as well as his personable demeanor. 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/Tammy", "Johnny/Jenny", "Vorthos", 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 reviews the Magic design of the previous year and given plans for future Magic designs. His most important contribution as a head designer is the institution of block design. Rosewater's nickname is Maro. This came about because the old email system of Wizards of the Coast had a feature that could complete names based on the letters typed, and Bill Rose realized that maro was the shortest unique combination of letters needed to