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First, though, let me back up a second."

That second spanned 12 paragraphs, a number of different topics and an entirely new headline midway. I guess there's nothing wrong with foreshadowing, but I just couldn't follow the mental path through the topics that Zac follows without getting Lost in the Woods . 

Feb 10, 2012 -- 12:26AM, Zindaras wrote:

I noticed that as well, but I think he's talking about Avacyn Restored here.

Yeah, I guess this is more because the marketing department has tried really hard lately to tie a Pro Tour to (the release of) a set, so that colors our impression of 'corresponding pro tour'. 

Feb 10, 2012 -- 12:26AM, Zindaras wrote:

But what I'm talking about is his overall style. Zac has the same thing that Kelly Digges had: he is genuinely enthousiastic about Magic and manages to convey this in his writing (as opposed to, say, an Adam Styborski, who just reads like he's shouting all the time). You may disagree with him (as I surely did with Kelly and his "let's keep people alive until they kill me"-strategy), but you can't dislike reading his articles. Also, I like his sense of humour and generally find his articles to be good, content-wise. I can forgive faults in his writing style.

Yeah, both his enthousiasm and content are awesome. There are so many interesting new insights in this article, well worth the read. 

Okay, just one more thing I think I stumbled over: "It goes deeper than that, though. Not only do players find powerful strategies at the Pro Tour, they find powerful ways to beat those strategies, and their ability to do that informs the kinds of cards we develop to solve problems. Those reactions in turn form new strategies ("There are a lot of 1-toughness creatures in this format that need to be killed. I suppose I'll play Tragic Slip to deal with them—and wow, that card is really good with Snapcaster Mage!") that require us to react to them in turn."

I think 'Those reactions' refers to "players finding ways to answer strategies", but the 'in turn' made me think it refers to "wizards developing answer cards", which completely changes the meaning of what comes afterwards. It's all clear when you stop and think about it, but the first time I read the article this was another thing where I couldn't follow/grok what I was reading anymore.

Maybe the problem is that it's such an abstract concept, as he says in the closing part, compared to normal development articles and issues. For insiders this is all a second nature, but I don't have a framework to place it all in, each new sentence is a frontier. And because of the abstract nature, those sentences have multiple interpretations. 

Feb 10, 2012 -- 12:15AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

I don't. Well I liked his previous articles, but  I found this a really hard read for some reason.

Take this sentence for example: "Because of that, we've accommodated our set development schedule such that it doesn't end until well after its corresponding Pro Tour."

What does corresponding mean? My first thought was that the coming Pro Tour is named Dark Ascension, so Dark Ascension's set development doesn't end until after it, but that's not what it means. Right? 

Also this: "While it's true that cutthroat-competitive players like to create problems, they also like to solve them.

First, though, let me back up a second."

That second spanned 12 paragraphs, a number of different topics and an entirely new headline midway. I guess there's nothing wrong with foreshadowing, but I just couldn't follow the mental path through the topics that Zac follows without getting Lost in the Woods . 

For what it is worth, this article is written to a 9.2 grade level. That is higher than typical media. Perhaps Zac being new to writing isn't aware of this topic at all. And also FWIW, to get readability, you use spell check, which found this: " Limited and highlighting sme of the more creative Standard brews from around the world."


SME? Your editor can't even use spellcheck? Do you even have one? This is embarrassing. Spellcheck even highlighted the errors in grammar this article has that should have been fixed. Spellcheck>your editor.