Mike Long

Mike Long
Born 1974 (age 40–41)
Albany, NY
Alma mater James Madison University
(Class of '97)
Occupation Online marketing professional and entrepreneur
Years active 1995-present
Employer OMG Machines
Known for Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering)
Home town Franklin, TN
Website
http://www.omgmachines.com/

Michael Long, known as Mike Long, is an American online marketing professional and entrepreneur who, with a partner, owns OMG Machines. He was formerly a professional Magic: The Gathering player who was a high-profile figure on the Pro Tour in its formative years.[1]

Early life and education

Long was born in Albany, New York and attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.[2] At James Madison, he wrestled and played on the football team.[3] He began competing at Magic: The Gathering tournaments in 1995.[4] After graduation, Long owned a game store called "The End" in Charlottesville, Virginia and wrote strategy articles in addition to working on the professional tour. He began using internet marketing for both his strategy articles and for card sales.

Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering career
Pro Tour debut 1996 Pro Tour New York
Winnings US$ 102,669[5]
Pro Tour wins (Top 8) 1 (4)[6]
Grand Prix wins (Top 8) 1 (4)[7]
Lifetime Pro Points 191[8]
Planeswalker Level 43 (Archmage)
For more details on this topic, see Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering).

Magic: The Gathering was released in 1993 and a Pro Tour launched the following year. Long proved to be an early celebrity champion known for his aggressive persona.[1] Long's first individual tournament win was at the Paris Pro Tour during the 1996-1997 season.[9] During the Paris tournament, Long debuted a "combination deck" called Prosperous Bloom that was notably the first successful combination deck in tournament-level play. In the finals, Long was playing against Mark Justice and faced losing unless he could win on his current turn. After drawing a large number of cards, Long showed his hand to Justice to communicate that he had the game won and they were now 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 had no way to win. Justice conceded the game.[10] At the 1998 U.S. Nationals, there was controversy when a key card was found on Long's chair during a game.[11] The head judge issued a match loss to Long, who went on to finish second in the tournament. Long won that year's Magic Invitational. The award was the chance to create a new card and inclusion in the card's art.[12] That card, Rootwater Thief, was printed in the Nemesis set.

By his retirement, Long had won a Pro Tour, a Grand Prix, and an Invitational and held the record for being on the most winning national teams and was in the top lifetime money winners. Long's legacy also included one of the first player teams, created while he was still in college.[2] He was responsible for several technical innovations; he designed a Vintage format combo deck, named "Long.dec" for him, that used Burning Wish to fetch Yawgmoth's Will out of the sideboard and set up a kill with Tendrils of Agony. Subsequent Vintage combo decks that use tutoring to set up a Tendrils kill have retained the name although the original deck was rendered unplayable by restrictions. In 2005, former organizer Mark Rosewater nominated Long for the Hall of Fame. This ignited debates over Long's impact on the game. Rosewater wrote, "He was an early pioneer in deck design and had an influence on how deck building technology evolved. He was a tournament organizer. He wrote about the game."[13] Others felt Long did not qualify his entry due to the playing controversies. During the Pro Tour Los Angeles in 2000, Long had been given a warning for improperly shuffling his deck.[14] Darwin Kastle made a further error when he cut Long's deck instead of shuffling.[14][15] 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.[16][17] The controversy over Long's place in game history and Long's response are featured in the documentary I Came to Game (2014).[18]

Internet marketing

Mike Long giving a conference in Las Vegas, NV in 2014.
Mike Long giving a conference in Las Vegas, NV in 2014

Long began working the card market while still a professional player and was an early adopter of using Ebay and online shopping for trading.[19] Long created a subscription Internet forum and wrote M:TG Secrets, a book and DVD guide with his advice and strategies for M:TG with David Williams as one of the players who used them.[20] After his retirement as a player, Long continued his card business and launched several online ventures connected with Search engine optimization (SEO) and affiliate marketing.[19][21]

In 2004, Long was part of the product launch of Traffic Secrets by John Reese which set a sales record for the time.[22] Reese stated that Long managed, and came up with the idea behind the successful launch day.[23]

In 2006, he was part of the group of internet marketers that created the idea behind StomperNet, an online SEO and Pay per click course and forum. The launch created a new sales record. Long had left the company by 2008, when the owners engaged in a disagreement over asset ownership.[24]

In 2010, Long and partner Kelly Felix launched Bring the Fresh. An affiliate marketing training program; it highlighted optimization of online sales using SEO, keyword advertising, affiliate marketing and ClickBank.[19] In 2012, Long and Felix re-released an updated version of Bring the Fresh.

OMG Machines

Long created One Man Gang Machines (OMG Machines) in 2013, with Greg Morrison. Like StomperNet, it is an affiliate marketing and internet marketing course that focused on SEO, search engine marketing, and keyword advertising.[23] David Mills, who worked with Long on the StomperNet launch, is also a member of the idea team of OMG Machines. The company was the brainchild of the group once StomperNet was sold and then failed.[24]

Long and the team created a new line of products, including OMG Machines' Project Juggernaut program focused on building backlinks - especially once Google changed the rules around the quality of inbound links from link farms, certain article banks and directories, certain types of reciprocal links, and most types of paid links.[25][26] They host an annual event, OMG Live, in Nashville, TN.[27]

The Law of Implication

OMG Machines released a beta version of The Law of Implication in 2014. Created by Mills, the series represents a way of life.[28]

Magic: The Gathering professional appearances

Season Event type Location Format Date Rank
Worlds Seattle National team 4–6 August 1995 1
1996 Worlds Seattle National team 1996 1
1996–97 Pro Tour Atlanta Sealed Deck 13–15 September 1996 6
1996–97 Invitational Hong Kong Special 14–16 February 1997 2
1996–97 Pro Tour Paris Block Constructed 11–13 April 1997 1
1996–97 Grand Prix Washington D.C. Limited 26–27 April 1997 1
1997–98 Invitational Rio de Janeiro Special 29 January–2 February 1998 5
1997–98 Worlds Seattle National team 12–16 August 1998 1
1998–99 Invitational Barcelona Special 4–7 February 1999 1
1998–99 Pro Tour Los Angeles Rochester Draft 26–28 February 1999 8
1999–00 Pro Tour Los Angeles Block Constructed 4–6 February 2000 4
1999–00 Invitational Kuala Lumpur Special 2–5 March 2000 7
1999–00 Grand Prix Nagoya Team Limited 22–23 April 2000 3
1999–00 Nationals Orlando, Florida Standard and Booster Draft 8–11 June 2000 5
2001–02 Nationals Kissimmee, Florida Standard and Booster Draft 31 May–2 June 2002 5
2002–03 Grand Prix Pittsburgh Team Limited 31 May–1 June 2003 4

Last updated: 31 July 2009
Source: Event Coverage at Wizards.com

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Pearlman, Jeff (November 17, 1997). "Revenge Of The Nerds Magic Is Played With Cards. It's Wildly Popular. It's Tough To Explain". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kushner, David (2006). Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids : how a gang of geeks beat the odds and stormed Las Vegas (Random House trade pbk. ed. ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 0812974387. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  3. ↑ Bluestone Yearbook Staff. "Bluestone : 1993 Football". James Madison University (http://jmubluestone.com/). Retrieved 8 December 2014.
  4. ↑ Rosewater, Mark (16 November 2009). "Around the Worlds in Fifteen Years". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  5. ↑ "Lifetime Winnings Leaders". Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  6. ↑ "Lifetime Pro Tour Top 8s". Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  7. ↑ "Lifetime Grand Prix Top 8s". Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  8. ↑ "Lifetime Pro Points". Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  9. ↑ Buehler, Randy (2006). "Hall of Fame: One Man's Ballot". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  10. ↑ Flores, Mike (March 15, 2007). "Master versus Master". Magic: The Gathering Magazine (Wizards of the Coast LLC). Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  11. ↑ Burn, Seth. "The Rule of Law". Archived from the original on 2000-11-17. Retrieved 2006-12-05.
  12. ↑ Rosewater, Mark (2005-05-10). "All-Star Studded". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  13. ↑ Rosewater, Mark (June 27, 2005). "It’s a Long Story". Making Magic Magazine (Wizards of the Coast). Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Buehler, Randy. "Pro Tour-Los Angeles 2000 Round 14 Feature Match". Retrieved 2006-12-05.
  15. ↑ Dougherty, Robert. "The Anatomy of a Cheating Method". Archived from the original on 2003-02-05. Retrieved 2006-12-05.
  16. ↑ Mindripper OnLine - MAGIC
  17. ↑ Eikefet, Kim. "The Long Controversy". Archived from the original on 2001-06-25. Retrieved 2007-02-17.
  18. ↑ Chalk, Titus (July 11, 2011). "The Exiled". Magic: The Gathering. CoolStuffInc.com LLC. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Pisarski, Tom (September 9, 2013). "Bring The Fresh Review". http://www.artswire.org/''. Arts Wire. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  20. ↑ Long, Mike. "M:TG Insider". http://mtginsider.blogspot.com/''. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  21. ↑ Long, Mike. "Area 51 Services". Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  22. ↑ Gover, Martin (June 10, 2013). "Internet Marketing History". Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Swanson, Mike (December 13, 2014). "Shark Tank Fantasy: OMGMachines.co". Wall Street Window. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Flatley, Joseph L. (May 10, 2012). "Scamworld: 'Get rich quick' schemes mutate into an online monster". http://www.theverge.com/''. The Verge. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  25. ↑ Schorr, Brad (September 27, 2012). "Are Your SEO Techniques Up To Date?". Adotas.com. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  26. ↑ Santana, Kyle (July 22, 2014). "DOES GOOGLE SNIPER WORK EFFECTIVELY IN 2014 OR ARE THE TEACHINGS OF GEORGE BROWN OUTDATED?". AB Newswire. Thrive Marketing. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  27. ↑ Wright, Russell (November 17, 2013). "What Happens In Nashville Stays In Nashville". Network Empire. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  28. ↑ Long, Mike. "Law of Implication". Retrieved 12 December 2014.
Preceded by
N/A		 Magic: The Gathering Team World Champion
With:
Mark Justice
Henry Stern
Peter Leiher
1995 		Succeeded by
United States United States
Dennis Bentley
George Baxter
Matt Place
Mike Long
Preceded by
United States United States
Mark Justice
Henry Stern
Peter Leiher
Mike Long		 Magic: The Gathering Team World Champion
With:
Dennis Bentley
George Baxter
Matt Place
1996 		Succeeded by
Canada Canada
Gary Krakower
Michael Donais
Ed Ito
Gabriel Tsang
Preceded by
United States Darwin Kastle		 Magic Invitational Champion
1998 		Succeeded by
United States Chris Pikula
Preceded by
Canada Canada
Gary Krakower
Michael Donais
Ed Ito
Gabriel Tsang		 Magic: The Gathering Team World Champion
With:
Matt Linde
Jon Finkel
Bryce Currence
1998 		Succeeded by
United States United States
Kyle Rose
John Hunka
Zvi Mowshowitz
Charles Kornblith