Mike Long - Contributions To The Game

Contributions To The Game

Mike Long's Prosperous Bloom (or Pros-Bloom) deck, which he piloted to a Pro Tour championship at Paris in 1997, is widely recognized as the first successful combo deck in tournament-level play. The deck was centered around a card-drawing and tutoring strategy (Prosperity, Infernal Contract, Vampiric Tutor) contributing to a mana engine (Cadaverous Bloom, Squandered Resources) that eventually led to a 20-plus damage Drain Life spell for the victory. Prior to this, no combo deck was consistent or powerful enough to earn any major tournament success.

By winning the 1998 Magic Invitational, Long became the third pro player to create a card for inclusion in a future Magic expansion and have himself drawn into the card's art. The card, Rootwater Thief, was printed in the Nemesis set. It is the first Invitational card that does not depict its creator as the card's subject creature, instead depicting Long as a rower being ambushed by a humanoid sea creature.

In 2005, the possibility that Long could be inducted into the Pro Tour Hall of Fame reignited debates over whether Long's overall impact on the game was positive or negative. Head Magic Designer and former Pro Tour organizer Mark Rosewater, who is allowed to submit a Hall of Fame ballot, voted for Long in his first two years of eligibility. Explaining his decision, Rosewater wrote, "Mike made the Pro Tour exciting. He made it tense. He made it more interesting than any other player on the list ." In another article, Rosewater wrote that Long was "the best" at star building and that his reputation as the Pro Tour's greatest villain consistently evoked passion and emotion among tournament followers, which often brought large turnouts to normally low-profile games and events. Rosewater wrote that while few people counted themselves as fans of Long, many came to watch him.

Long began writing strategy articles in 1998. Through his M:TG Insider website, Long built a community of players who use and discuss his decks and concepts. In 2005 professional poker player David Williams played several of Long's decks at major tournaments.

Long is also responsible for designing a Vintage format combo deck that used the storm mechanic. The deck used Burning Wish to fetch Yawgmoth's Will out of the sideboard and set up a kill with Tendrils of Agony. The deck, called Long.dec, resulted in the restriction of both Burning Wish and Lion's Eye Diamond, which was a key mana engine in the deck. Subsequent Vintage combo decks that use tutoring to set up a Tendrils kill have retained the "Long" name, although the original deck was rendered unplayable by restriction. A version that used Death Wish was called Death Long, and a more current version with Grim Tutor is called Grim Long. Another storm combo deck was called Pitch Long because it used a high number of spells with the alternate casting cost of losing (or "pitching") a card in the caster's hand.