Subject: Re: The coolest players in MTG Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 11:29:58 -0400 From: "Mary/Scott" To: I agree with the assessment. Dave Underwood is one of the coolest players around. I didn't know who he was when I first met him... he happened to come into my shop for a tournament one day (I managed a shop in Linden, MI, which is about an hour and a half north of Dave). We got to playing a sealed deck match later in the day, and had an absolute blast. Dave's my favourite type of player - one that just sits down and shoots the breeze with you, jokes about things, and all in a way that you can tell is genuine, not designed to throw you off your game. I believe I ended up winning that encounter, and it would be the only one I would win. :-) I remember Chris Kelley looking at me in surprise after I told him I won. I don't remember the other poundings I've had from Dave (thankfully), except for when we ran into each other in a booster draft match at the Stronghold pre-release where Dave entertained me and then happily handed me my head on a platter. I would also like to talk about another of the coolest players in MtG: Mike Guptil. I met Gup when he started playing in my weekly tounaments at a community center about 3 years ago. He was the one to introduce me to the D'Angelo rulings, he helped me when I didn't understand the rules, and helped me become an all-around better player. As far as I'm concerned, anyone slinging mud at Mike is dead wrong, and should understand that they are making the mistake of taking out frustrations on the messenger instead of the message sender. Was there a problem with Mike's ruling? You damn betcha. Was it Mike's fault? Nope. He was enforcing the rules from the DCI, which we know are screwed up and need changing. So instead of pissing and moaning about Mike, how about sending your venom to the DCI where it belongs, folks? You know - I think that I've learned most of what I know about good sportsmanship from these two players... thanks guys! Scott Bland