MTG Salvation

MTG Salvation (MTGS) is a website dedicated to Magic: The Gathering which focuses on Rumors and News. MTG Salvation hosts some of the more active Magic forums online, outliving the official forums on Magicthegathering.com.

Description

MTGS claim to fame were the spoilers which generally came weeks in advance of the prerelease of any given set. These spoilers were generated in the Rumor Mill and originally came from the sources of the user known as rancored_elf. After the Hasbro v. Rutter lawsuit, Hydrokinesis, Hunter, Charlequin, Captain Black and Urzassedatives became the main rumor mongers. In the latter years Wizards of the Coast has shut down most early spoiler leaks, and the Rumor Mill has become largely depended on controlled spoilers. It is known that members of Magic R&D frequent the forums.

Other much frequented forums are concerned with Magic rules, flavor, Magic Online, all separate game formats, creativity and trade. The site also features daily articles, the wiki you are reading right now, and a Radar of Magic-related websites.

Name

Officially, the website www.mtgsalvation.com is known as MTG Salvation; but MTGSalvation is a suitably interchangeable name.

“

Hmm, I think "officially" it's MTGSalvation and MTGS where it doesn't fit, but on the front page it's MTG Salvation and also everywhere in the forums... :) So take your pick ;) —Hannes

”

"MTGSally" (also "MTG Sally" and simply "Sally") is a common nickname for MTG Salvation. The term was coined by sneakyhomunculus on 11 December 2005, in this post.

History

Founding

MTG Salvation was launched (as "MTGSalvation", with no space) on July 11, 2004. Its founder, Xenphire (also known as "The Numen, Kuberr"), created the new website after being banned on MTGNews. In September, rumors that rancored_elf, an administrator on MTGNews, might leave that site due to internal problems drew some attention to the newly launched alternative. Sakabatou was named MTG Salvation's second administrator.

MTGNews schism

On January 1, 2005, multiple staff members from MTGNews, including rancored_elf and urzassedatives, announced their resignation from that website, claiming grievances against its forum overseer, Subterranean Spirit. The MTGNews forums were spammed with links to MTG Salvation, and MTGNews locked its forums in response. Upon reopening, Subterranean Spirit enforced a policy of banning any reference to MTG Salvation. MTG Salvation's user count then spiked abruptly as a result of people leaving (or being forced to leave) MTGNews. This necessitated the rapid promotion of many moderators, often long-time MTGNews members who Xenphire recognized.

The initial look of MTG Salvation.

Shortly thereafter, MTG Salvation accepted an offer of server space and a vBulletin license from Hannes, the owner of MagicCards.info. Magiccards.info served card images to MTG Salvation for many years.

Xenphire began to make decisions which were controversial among the staff and members. An election was held among the moderators, and he failed to receive a single nomination. He retaliated by using his rank to demote many of the moderators and a co-administrator, Wolfwood. Sakabatou, the only other remaining administrator, then stripped Xenphire's administrator rank, and re-promoted the moderators.

Three admin era

Frontpage post-Xenphire until late November 2005

This caused a pause in developments for almost three weeks in which much was planned within the Moderator Lounge and the future was paved. During this time few public statements were made by the staff as to the future with the forums just continuing on. But then on February 14 the future was made very clear. The new frontpage was launched. Articles and the new staff were announced. On February 14 the new article page hit, kicking off a run of daily weekday articles that continues to this day.

On March 3 the new Warning System was announced, one which survived almost a year. The new staff also added many tags still in use today, most notably the /me tag. It was also announced that Salvation would begin running an Article of the Month contest to promote and reward their writers. This was followed up by the announcement that users could now submit news for the frontpage as well, a feature still in use today although rarely taken advantage of. Salvation also began running a monthly artwork contest in the Artwork forum as well as a weekly avatar and signature contest within the Avatar Signature forum.

However all of this advancement was not without pause. During March and April the site lost both Wolfwood and Sakabatou, this time not to forum drama but to real life situations. All of this led to Belgareth becoming the only Admin.

One admin era

A Judge's Forum was added to Salvation which allowed judges to have their own community to discuss common issues and tough rulings calls. In addition another new logo was announced, this time by Bateleur.

However with the community swelling and and the site getting even more traffic many technical problems began to arise. These problems made themselves painfully obvious in mid-August, with the server crashing multiple times. The short term solution, which remains in-effect today, was turning off auto-thread subscription.

In October the competitive forums went through a re-vamping when it was announced each would have the new sub-forum Decks For Critique added to them. This forum made it so that decks that were not casual but also not top tier competitive had a place to go and be discussed.

In November and December MTGSalvation went through some drastic changes that would change its face forever. A new server was purchased and began being operated on the new forums as they changed to vB 3.5. A new frontpage incorporating Bateleur's logo better was also launched. In order to operate this new server a new small banner ad was also sold to StarCityGames. The forum awards were also voted on and announced during this period.

The biggest change of this period happened at the very beginning of December. ButteBlues and CrAzEd MiKe resigned which led to a firestorm and in the end would result in both of them and Raia off the staff and Belgareth de-admined. Goblinboy would replace him as admin.

Restoration and growth

Goblinboy quickly appointed rancored_elf and Feyd Ruin as temporary administrators alongside him. New moderators for the now empty forums and newly announced MTGS Wiki were also quickly decided and multiple changes to the emoticon list were made.

Various end of the year awards were handed out at this time, including the FCC of the Year, the official Forum Awards, and the Clan of the Year award. In January sneakyhomunculus and urzassedatives replaced rancored_elf and Feyd Ruin and became full time Administrators. As a result this once again created a "Three Admin System" at MTG Salvation. During this time a monthly short story contest was added and the forum rules and forum layout was reorganized. The article program also was expanded with Saturday articles.

Hasbro v. Rutter case

The major story of early 2006 was the Hasbro v. Rutter case, Wizards of the Coast's attempt to stop rancored_elf (Daron Rutter) from posting rumors and more specially playtest cards. After an initial DMCA order it eventually led to an lawsuit. Wizards of the Coast attempted to obtain summary judgment. The case was settled out of court, and the terms of the settlement have been sealed. While details of the settlement have not been announced, Daron made a specific statement asking not to be shown or told of "info about Wizards' products that isn't already publicly available". Daron thanked Jay Shergill (Haloscope) for his pro-bono legal assistance.

Two admin era

Frontpage January 2007

In June 2006 Goblinboy left the staff ending the temporally three admin situation. urzassedatives and sneakyhomunculus decided to not appoint a third admin and went on together. After several staff changes resulting in the appointment of new moderators and global moderators a two admin system was set up with a wide group of global moderators to lend administrative support.

Other big administrative events in 2006 were the rewriting of the Forum Rules. The Warning System was changed into an Infraction system, making it clearer and stricter, but also making Infractions more time-based and less number based. Several popular site features were stimulated. As a result more attention was given the Wiki and the Storyline forum, the Colosseum was restructured and a rebirth of Team MTGS was tried.

In early 2007, MTG Salvation underwent a number of changes, including a new front page to celebrate its second anniversary, a new Forum Jump and Spy feature, and the much awaited introduction of the blog forum.

Changes of ownership

Curse

In September 2012, it became known that the owners of MTG Salvation were in sale negotiations with Curse, a network of gaming websites. The deal was finalized on December 17, 2012. The MTG Salvation Wiki became a part of Curse's Gamepedia.

Twitch

In 2016, Amazon-owned Twitch purchased the entirety of Curse, including MTG Salvation and Gamepedia.

Fandom

In December 2018, Twitch sold most of Curse's properties, including MTG Salvation and Gamepedia, to Fandom. Fandom is a wiki hosting service previously known as Wikia; its websites are often subtitled as a part of "FANDOM powered by Wikia".

Closure

MTG Salvation will be closing on July 8th, 2019. Fandom and its development team "can no longer justify the development, infrastructure, and maintenance costs of the site".

MTGS Wiki

The MTGS Wiki is a project that was initiated on 13 December 2005. On 14 December 2005, Hannes, the bureaucrat of MTGS Wiki, changed group memberships of SorryGuy, VestDan, Voice of All, and Votan from "(none)" to "sysop" (system operator), making them the first four administrators or "mods" of MTGS Wiki. Between 2007 and 2009 nine different admins were added to the roster. From these, GeoMike, Oracle of Truth and Magic Mage would remain active for the longest time. Magic Mage would become known for her eloquence, impulsivity, and a (too) intricate system of categorization. After a pause of three years, some new admins were appointed (e.g. Hunter and Barinellos). Magic Mage's reign ended in January of the following year, when too many pages were locked and too many users blocked for no apparent reason. By that time, the wiki was in dire straits and plagued by spam-bots. In that same month, however, the MTGS Salvation was taken over by Curse which provided many improvements. In September of 2013, Curse moved the wiki to a new server and to their own log-in system on Gamepedia. Since then, admins have come and gone, but the contents are gradually growing and improving.

MTG Wiki

On February 22, 2017 the name of the wiki was changed to 'MTG Wiki', steering an independent course from MTG Salvation.

Merge with Fandom wiki

After the Fandom takeover their were two wiki's about Magic: The Gathering in the hands of the same owner. Admins, mods and staff from both Fandom and Gamepedia decided to merge the Fandom wiki with the Gamepedia wiki you are reading right now.

Gallery

• 

  Forum banner circa 2005

• 

  Forum banner circa 2007

• 

  Wiki logo circa 2005

• 

  2007 banner (hi res)

External links

• "The 2006 Sally Nostalgia thread..." — MTG Salvation
• MTG Salvation group at Last.fm