In 1993, one editor at Wizards of the Coast created all the flavor text for all the cards in a Magic: The Gathering expansion. Oh, an it happened all in one night.
Flavor text on Magic cards nowadays can take weeks or months to craft just right. Flavor text used to come from sources all over, including real world books and people. This included William Shakespeare and Calvin Coolidge. Sometimes it was just a single word. After awhile though they stopped that and opted for quotes from characters and direct lines from the story.
However, as long as it takes to find the right thing to put in a card, or pull the right quote, it hasn't always taken as long. In fact, early on in Magic's history, it could take less than a day. This takes us back to Arabian Nights, the first ever Magic: The Gathering expansion.
Released in late 1993, the expansion was hurried up following the success of Alpha and Beta. It was so hurried up, that just before being sent out to the printer, some at Wizards of the Coast noticed something about the expansion -- they had tested all the cards and got them just right, but they forgot the flavor text. And they didn't have much time to add it.
One editor, armed with a copy of "One Thousand and One Nights", took on the task. Or as Mark Rosewater recalls:
"Beverly Marshall Saling was the original head editor at Wizards. This was back when editing was its own department and wasn't part of R&D. She was finishing up her pass on Arabian Nights, the first Magic expansion. In the morning, it was being sent to the printer, so she was doing a final pass on it. It was at that moment that she realized no one had ever chosen any flavor text for the set. She had two different Arabian Nights books at her desk, which she used as the source material. She looked up all the flavor text and put it on the cards all in one night."
Amazingly this worked. As all the quotes were directly from the public domain books, it could all be used willy-nilly, with characters and events being easy to find. Nowadays, it takes months to get it right. But back in 1993, it didn't take one thousand and one nights, but a single night to get it all right. And, as rushed as it was, it all ended up working out perfectly - it's hard to argue with quotes when they come directly from the source after all.
Magic never did this sort of thing again, but in early Magic, it was, well, Magic that it all worked out.
