The Very Best Magic Story Ever.....That Never Actually Happened

Hi Everyone!

As I'm sure everyone who read the title of this article found, I'm going to talk about the greatest Magic story that never actually happened despite Mark Rosewater saying it did, and I can prove it.

Mark Rosewater wrote an article about the pro tour hall of fame. You can read it here.

Here's the excerpt:

"Mike has a number of amazing plays. My favorite happened in PT Paris. Mike is playing Pros Bloom (the first successful tournament combo deck). He realizes that he is dead in a turn and needs to have his combo go off to win. The problem is that Mike's only means to go off involves him removing his only win condition from the game. But this is before decklists were shared so he gambles that his opponent doesn't know that he only has one copy of the kill card (that card being Drain Life, most other versions of the deck played two or three). He removes his win condition from the game and starts going off. Then when he gets two thirds along the way, he just shows all the cards to his opponent and says, 'Do I really need to go thought the motions?'"

It's from the section titled "#5 – Here's Why I'm Voting For Mike Long" in the "playing ability" subsection.

How do I know this is all made up and not a real true story? I have seen the video. Yes, there is a video.

It's actually on youtube. Watch the video here. Oddly enough, the video only has about 880 views. I think a video like that would have been watched by thousands checking the facts on "the greatest pro tour finals play ever" (those are my words, but Mark Rosewater does call the above described moment his "favorite"). Rosewater made it sound like he had seen the video, or was there but watching the video contradicts the story about the event.

Here's a breakdown of the video if you don't want to watch the whole thing:
18:30 Mike Long loses game 1

24:25 Mike long wins game 2 by showing Drain Life in hand (it is NOT exiled).

32:15 Mike Long loses game 3.

44:37 Mike Long wins game 4 showing drain life  (again, drain life is not exiled)

1:01:45 Mike Long wins game 5 (this time Mark Justice did make him play it out. He drew his entire deck and played Drain Life for 22.

At no point did Mike Long ever in the match exile Drain Life and get a concession from Mark Justice. Justice didn't concede once without seeing Drain Life in Longs hand.

I hope this brings some truth to the story of the "exiled drain life".