Cathy Nicoloff
Cathy (Catherine) Nicoloff is a former professional Magic player, deck designer, writer for sites such as The Dojo and StarCityGames, as well as the creator and webmaster of Meridian Magic, one of the earliest portal/content aggregator sites for the game.
Her most well-known contribution to Magic: the Gathering is as a designer of the deck that came to be known as Five Color Green, which she played to victory in the 1997 Florida Regional Championships. Five Color Green made up just 7% of the field during the US Regional Championships that year, but 62% of those who played it qualified for US Nationals.[1]
As a deck designer
Mirage/Visions Constructed, B/R: Both Brian Weissman and Matt Place took this deck to Pro Tour Paris in 1997. Weissman placed in the top 16 (11th) [2].
Five Color Green (aka 5CG or G5C)[3]: Created as part of a collaboration with Matt Place, with extensive input by Dan Burdick and Nate Clarke, 5CG was called a "near perfect metagame deck" by Tom Guevin [4].
As webmaster of classicdojo.org
In 2020, two posts on Reddit revealed that Cathy has been the secret webmaster of classicdojo.org, a nearly complete archive of the original pre-Psylum Magic Dojo, since 2002.[5] [6] In these two posts, she also revealed that the site had been created using a backup given to her by Frank Kusumoto and that she was now in a physics Ph.D. program.
Personal Life
A search for 'Catherine Nicoloff' on ResearchGate turns up a profile with over a dozen peer-reviewed physics publications since 2015.[7]
Notes
- ↑ Analysis by Frank Kusumoto of The Dojo, originally posted on rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy/8WKnVWq3n_c
- ↑ Pro Tour Paris 1997 Final Standings: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptpar97
- ↑ Cathy's 5CG tournament report from 1997 (with additional commentary by Eric Taylor and Erik Lauer) at classicdojo.org: http://classicdojo.org/history/5CG_01.html
- ↑ Tom Guevin, 1997: The Magic Year in Review (long!): https://classicdojo.org/bou97/bou.971231tgu.txt
- ↑ "classicdojo.org missing, my apologies": https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/gvd80d/classicdojoorg_missing_my_apologies/
- ↑ "classicdojo.org returns": https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/gwjh58/classicdojoorg_returns/
- ↑ Catherine Nicoloff, Michigan State University, Department of Physics and Astronomy: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Catherine-Nicoloff