http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10000.htmlOf particular note:
Oscar Tan Starts Writing.
In July of 2000, I wrote a very bad article on how to play Type One. A young Filipino by the name of Oscar Tan took umbrage with my poor strategy and decided to write an article exposing the common misconceptions of Type One.
He kept writing. And writing. And writing. To this day, in fact.
Oscar was seminal in the field, because up until then nobody had taken Vintage seriously. But though Oscar was not the best player, he wrote with such clarity and force that he made Vintage seem, you know.... like a real format.
He knew history. He'd dissect the smallest decisions with gusto. He made controversial arguments that brought some of the best Vintage players out of the woodwork to debate him. Without Oscar Tan, there would be no Power Nine series, no serious attention paid to Vintage by Wizards, no format as we know it.
You see, people tend to think that articles get written because a format is big, but my experience shows me that it's almost the opposite; a format gets big when good articles are written on it. By shining a consistent spotlight on an underexposed format, Oscar brought enough players in to make it real.
There's a footnote about TMD as well, but you can click the link above to read that.
That aside, there are plenty of people who knock Oscar's work and articles, but without Rakso's tireless devotion to playing, writing articles and keeping Beyond Dominia alive at that critical time, tournament Vintage in the USA would almost certainly not be enjoying its current popularity, there would probably be no P9 series (as mentioned above), and probably not nearly as many Vintage authors getting paid for articles courtesy of SCG Premium.
His articles may have been lacking at times, and his bias towards multi-colour control a bit much, but we all owe Oscar Tan a.k.a. Rakso a great deal, so this thread is to acknowledge that.
