Mike Long

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mike Long
Born
Nationality Flag of the United States American
Winnings US$ 102,669[1]
Pro Tour Top 8 Finishes 4[2]
Grand Prix Top 8 Finishes 4[3]
Lifetime Pro Points 191[4]

Michael Long is a former professional Magic: The Gathering card game player. He was a highly influential and controversial Pro Tour mainstay for a number of years in the late 1990s. Despite making four Pro Tour top eights and winning Pro Tour Paris in 1997, Long's legacy is the subject of much controversy due to allegations of cheating and unsportsmanlike behavior. In 2003, he began selling "MTG Secrets", a book and DVD guide on how to play Magic.

Contents

[edit] Contributions to the game

Mike Long's Prosperous Bloom (or Pros-Bloom) deck, which he piloted to a Pro Tour championship at Paris in 1997, is widely recognized as the first successful combo deck in tournament-level play. The deck was centered around a card-drawing and tutoring strategy (Prosperity, Infernal Contract, Vampiric Tutor) contributing to a mana engine (Cadaverous Bloom, Squandered Resources) that eventually led to a 20-plus damage Drain Life spell for the victory. Prior to this, no combo deck was consistent or powerful enough to earn any major tournament success.

By winning the 1998 Magic Invitational, Long became the third pro player to create a card for inclusion in a future Magic expansion and have himself drawn into the card's art. The card, Rootwater Thief, was printed in the Nemesis set. It is the only Invitational card (prior to gemstone caverns) that does not depict its creator as the card's subject creature, instead depicting Long as a rower being ambushed by a humanoid sea creature.

In 2005, the possibility that Long could be inducted into the Pro Tour Hall of Fame reignited debates over whether Long's overall impact on the game was positive or negative. Head Magic Designer and former Pro Tour organizer Mark Rosewater, who is allowed to submit a Hall of Fame ballot, voted for Long in his first two years of eligibility. Explaining his decision, Rosewater wrote, "Mike made the Pro Tour exciting. He made it tense. He made it...more interesting than any other player on [the list of inaugural Pro Tour Hall of Fame candidates]." In another article, Rosewater wrote that Long was "the best" at star building and that his reputation as the Pro Tour's greatest villain consistently evoked passion and emotion among tournament followers, which often brought large turnouts to normally low-profile games and events. Rosewater wrote that while few people counted themselves as fans of Long, many came to watch him.

Long began writing strategy articles in 1998. Through his M:TG Insider website, Long built a community of players who use and discuss his decks and concepts. In 2005 professional poker player David Williams played several of Long's decks at major tournaments.

Long is also responsible for designing a Vintage format combo deck that used the storm mechanic. The deck used Burning Wish to fetch Yawgmoth's WIll out of the sideboard and set up a kill with Tendrils of Agony. The deck, called Long.dec, resulted in the restriction of both Burning Wish and Lion's Eye Diamond, which was a key mana engine in the deck. Subsequent Vintage combo decks that use tutoring to set up a Tendrils kill have retained the "Long" name, although the original deck was rendered unplayable by restriction. A version that used Death Wish was called LongDeath, and a more current version with Grim Tutor is called Grim Long. Another storm combo deck was called "Pitch Long" because it used a high number of spells with the alternate casting cost of losing (or "pitching") a card in the caster's hand.

[edit] Playing style and controversy

Long's detractors do not generally dispute that he was a talented Magic player. Instead, he is a controversial figure because he used a great deal of mind games and psychological tricks, was frequently accused of cheating, and has been disqualified and suspended from sanctioned play for cheating on the Pro Tour.

[edit] Mind games and psychology

  • In the finals of Pro Tour Paris 1997, Long was playing Mark Justice. In one game, Long, piloting his Prosperous Bloom combo deck, faced a sitution where he would lose unless he could win on his current turn. In order to get his combo to go off, he needed to discard his sole copy of Drain Life, the only card in his deck capable of dealing damage and thus killing his opponent. After drawing a large number of cards with a large Prosperity, Long showed his hand to Justice to communicate that he had the game won and would only waste time going through the motions. As Justice did not know the exact contents of Long's deck, he was unaware that Long had discarded his only copy of Drain Life and thus had no way to win the game. Justice conceded the game and went on to lose the match.[5]

[edit] Cheating and suspicious play

  • At the 1998 U.S. Nationals, Long was caught with a key card, Cadaverous Bloom, on his chair during a game. [6]
  • During a crucial round of Pro Tour Los Angeles in 2000, Long was given a warning for improperly shuffling his deck. [7] Long made a comment to his opponent, Darwin Kastle, designed to keep Kastle from shuffling Long's deck before starting the match. Distracted by Long's banter, Kastle only cut Long's deck, despite intending to shuffle because there were rumors before the round that Long's shuffling was suspicious.[7] Many players, including Rob Dougherty, a former Magic judge who attended that event as a player, accused Long of deliberately cheating by not randomizing his deck to keep copies of the card Howling Wolf evenly distributed. Dougherty wrote an article laying out his case against Long. Dougherty contended that Long's pregame actions were not shuffling but instead pretending to shuffle while stacking his deck. The judging staff, Dougherty asserts, was not familiar enough with catching cheaters to understand what Long was doing.[8]
  • During the US Nationals Draft Challenge held at United States Nationals in 2000, Long was disqualified without prize and given a one-month suspension for presenting a deck that was not sufficiently randomized.[9][10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lifetime Winnings Leaders. Retrieved on 2007-02-16.
  2. ^ Lifetime Pro Tour Top 8s. Retrieved on 2007-02-16.
  3. ^ Lifetime Grand Prix Top 8s. Retrieved on 2007-02-16.
  4. ^ Lifetime Pro Points. Retrieved on 2007-02-16.
  5. ^ Rosewater, Mark (2004-07-26). On Tour, Part 1. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.
  6. ^ Burn, Seth. The Rule of Law. Retrieved on 2006-12-05.
  7. ^ a b Buehler, Randy. Pro Tour-Los Angeles 2000 Round 14 Feature Match. Retrieved on 2006-12-05.
  8. ^ Dougherty, Robert. The Anatomy of a Cheating Method. Retrieved on 2006-12-05.
  9. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20020507101454/http://magic.mindripper.com/Index.cfm?ArticleID=588&SectionID=1&Show=All
  10. ^ Eikefet, Kim. The Long Controversy. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.