As some of you will know, David DeLaney is the Wizards NetRep for the rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules newsgroup. Basically, if the rules exists, he knows it. He may even have written it. His pop quizzes and often hilarious tag lines to his signature make his posts well worth reading. But who is he? Does he play too? And what's it like working for Wizards? Let's see...
Melgin's Keep: So Dave, to start personal, how old are you?
Dave: 35. And three quarters.
Melgin's Keep: Wow, a senior Magic citizen then. Did you start with Alpha?
Dave: Started playing about mid-94.
MK: Cool. As a NetRep, how much say do you and the others have in the making of new cards, if any?
DDL: Very little. Can't say too much, for fear of breaking NDA [non-discolsure agreement], but they sometimes run concepts past us...
MK: OK, given that, if you could take back one card that R&D and printed, what would it be?
DDL: Take -back-? ... Hmmm. Ah - Volrath's Shapeshifter.
MK: No surprise there! So, are you just a rules God, or do you play too? And how good are you?
DDL: I'm a medium-ish player. I'm not really tournament-quality, and there are much better drafters than I around... and I don't get enough -time- to play, these days, so I'm out of practice too.
MK: Any favourite cards/decks/combos?
DDL: Oh goodness, yes. My deck is currently not Together, but when it is, it
basically consists of stuff that draws cards, stuff that gains life, and stuff that changes the colors of things...
MK: So a rules nightmare then. Moving onto the NetRep side of things, how many hours a day do you spend answerinhg questions?
DDL: Well, considering I'm currently using three newssites, it works out to a few
hours each day... a good bit of which is simply reading over the same stuff
on another site to make sure I've not missed something on the first site or
two I read. I get a few questions in email every few days - the vast majority of what I do is on Usenet.
MK: So, given that you spend that sort of time on Magic, do you have a day job?
DDL: No, but I have 2 night jobs...
MK: We know you get paid in product, but is a lot of product?
DDL: It's a medium amount. I still have to trade for cards to complete what I want
for sets... but only for the rares, usually.
MK: Any Magic-related anecdotes for us?
DDL: This margin's too small to contain them. There's a fairly interesting
group of players here, that contains people who started off in Alpha and
have been making fun of the game & its combos ever since... playing multiplayer
games here can be an Experience. We have one lady here who collects Hurloon
Minotaurs, a guy who can break any card if it -can- be broken, people who
are expert Chaos-Orb flippers, people who've been arguing about the rules
in -all- the rules sets, etc., etc. Several of them have become gurus in simple
self-defense against me... I could tell you about Dan Wetham buying the table
after Chronicles came out, or about TacoDave tearing up the Erg Raiders, or
about why Ziggy will destroy Shahrazads on sight... but a lot of these require
a good bit of explanation too. And then there's the newer generation of
players - RatBoy, and Felix-who-can't-keep-his-brain-working, and Eli the Great
Trader... Anyway, the answer's "yes, but I'd have to figure out what they
were", essentially.
MK: And, finally, what's the strangest rules question you were ever asked?
DDL: You don't want to know. No really, trust me.
