Before I start listing reasons why your deck didn't make the cut, I'll just post the "rules" here again, in case anyone forgot.

Why your deck didn't make the cut:

1. You are not a personal friend of Jeff Donais or Mark Rosewater.

Example: Gary Wise's deck. Gary Wise admits in his "Wise Words" column that he submitted the deck as an inside joke for Jeff Donais ("Seriously though, just to explain, I submitted the deck in the hopes Jeff would get a kick out of the listing."), and it breaks many of the rules of the contest - yet it still gets chosen. I particularly love this bit in the rules above; "...this year's Auction won't be decks from Pro Tour winners, but rather decks from all of you." Well obviously that isn't so - is it, Mark? You would think that since the purpose of the auction was to get decks from us commoners that people actually going to the freaking Invitational would be excluded from the contest. If you thought that, you are, like me, are a moron. You would at least think that if they were submitting decks that they would have to adhere to the rules... But you'd also be wrong about that.

2. You followed the rules.

Idiot. Simpleton. Fool. You actually wasted time and effort tuning your deck along a theme? No wonder it isn't on the list. Okay, that is a little harsh, most of the decks adhere to a theme reasonably well but there are plenty of examples where they don't. Again, Gary Wise's deck is the prime example: The whole deck is only Swamps, Plague Rats, and Black Loti. Right - the Rats/Lotus theme, because everyone thinks of Black Lotus when they think of rats. By the way, is this deck fun to play? Turn 1, Swamp, Lotus, Rat or Swamp, do nothing. Every single time, with the occasional
"two Lotus, two Rat" hand thrown in. Wow, that is fun and original, as per rule 2. No wonder Gary is on the Pro Tour.

Ditto goes for the Chimera/Abyss deck. Abyss?!?!?! How the hell does that go with Chimeras? Oh, right - it doesn't, it is just gratuitous power carding. Then, of course, there is the all land deck, and last time I looked at the rules, land had no creature type at all (that deck is actually pretty cool, though; I don't have a problem with it).

I don't expect every single card in the deck to adhere strictly to the theme but I did think that you had to make an attempt for every card - that you couldn't just fling Lotus, Moxen, Abyss around if they were obviously not even tangentially related to the theme. I was wrong.

I must sound pretty bitter, and I am. Not that my deck didn't get chosen, but that I wasted a good deal of time and effort when I made my deck and tried to follow the rules. If I had known the "rules" meant nothing, then I wouldn't have spent so much time. I will most certainly not make the mistake of entering one of Mark Rosewater's contests again, because I don't want to screw around wondering which rules actually apply and which ones don't.

Tony Drew