Tribute to Julie

Bil

What a moving tribute and a beautiful card!
Without knowing her personally i can imagine how much she would have loved it. Biggest kudos and respects to the team.

Techg

Card is spot on in her reflection. Fantastic effort and thought went into this.

ArielSira

Very thoughtful and well done WC!

Fireguy

Y'all actually did it. I knew it was a big wish from the community but thought it was a long shot. Julies card is an excellent representation of who she was! You all did an amazing job at designing this. We're all very impressed and proud to have developers who take the time to pour so much thought and character into her card. Thank you so much!

Tezzeret

Amazing art, excellent design, lore accurate (if you know Julie) and beautifully presented. I've never seen a delvoper honor someone like this before. You have gone above and beyond and have earned my support and gratitude for life.

Well done

Machine

I have nothing to add to all of the above. I am deeply impressed by you Webcore! By far the best developers this game has had in years! This is not just "a card" to honor a very important member of this community, but it has been very well thought out, great art and a lot of references to who she actually was. My respect!

I hope that her partner could see this card and how she has been honored and will be remembered by the PQ community.

Yammanig

Great tribute to a one off. Cats and dogs are a good representation.

AceAnnihil8r

Well thought out and designed. Kudos to the team at Webcore and thank you from the community!

BadHippo

Thank you Webcore Team for such a beautiful homage to Julie. The art is so moving. I didn’t know her personally, but I am pretty sure she would love it. This is really something special. Thanks again.

Enigma

Ironicaly my crash bug happened when I went to claim the card, and when I try to search my cards with the text box in the filter, that crashes the app too. Can someone please post the details of the card (mana cost/color/card type would be helpful)?

Stormcrow

@Enigma said:
Ironicaly my crash bug happened when I went to claim the card, and when I try to search my cards with the text box in the filter, that crashes the app too. Can someone please post the details of the card (mana cost/color/card type would be helpful)?

Sure!

Julie, Forum Emissary
18 Cost White/Blue
Support Card - Vanguard Julie

Passive: At the beginning of your turn: if you control 2 or more Support cards - This support gains 1 shield.

First activated ability: -5: Each player draws a card. Those cards gain 4 mana. Case cards you control gain the Solved Emblem

Second activated ability: -8: Create a Dog token (Green 3/1 w/ Vigilance). Create 7 Cat tokens (White 1/1 Lifelink).

She's a Mythic in the "Promo/Holiday cards" set (shooting star symbol).

Really a lovely tribute, well done Webcore. Fabulous art, too. Here's an image of the card:

https://imgur.com/a/klDzlcv

Enigma

Excellent support, found it, thanks! And the art is beautiful! Very nice memorandum.

Larz70

Thank you Webcore. I hope Alan sees it.

Bubbles_CS

This is the most meaningful and heartfelt thing ever done in this game, and maybe any game. Truly well done.

poonis74

This is a fantastic tribute to Julie! Thank you. A fellow discord member, Scyther, mentioned that maybe we should let a site like Kotaku know about this. The industry should know what you are accomplishing here. Scyther sent a perfect email to Kotaku's tipline. I just sent a subsequent one. I would encourage anyone with the notion to do the same at tips@kotaku.com

poonis74

Here is my email to Kotaku:

Here's a tip for a nice story highlighting the gamer community and a developer doing good things.

I've been an active player of Magic the Gathering Puzzle Quest mobile game since 2019. Like many games, there is a coalition (guild) system. A lot of the coalitions have servers on Discord. We recently lost a player named Julie71 who was an integral part of the player community. She helped align various coalitions under one discord roof, where the sharing of ideas, strategies, experiences and memes was encouraged. She was a wonderful person who, besides being a full time mom and grandmother with a full time job and many pets, also assumed the role of house mother to a host of players across the world. She was an important representative of us gamers on the forums provided by the game's developers.

She was especially vigilant against game bugs. A game like MTGPQ is especially susceptible to bugs as new cards are introduced. It is impossible for the developers to anticipate every interaction a new card or mechanic may have with the massive library of established cards. Julie became a very important liaison between gamers and the developers regarding these bugs. She was always spurring us to provide proof and examples along with our bellyaching, so she could pass them on.

Last year, a new development team, Webcore, took over the game's reins. The prior team let them know how valuable Julie was, and they enthusiastically reached out and listened to her thoughts on the current state of the game. At the time of the transition, I would say most of the community felt the game had grown a bit stale with few much wanted improvements and innovations being made. As a result, many of us were hesitantly optimistic about the new regime.

Webcore said all the right things when they came aboard: "The community is very important to us." "We are eager to make this the best game it can be," All the things everyone says when they take over a game. But wow, they are actually following through! They have made many quality-of-life improvements and long standing bug fixes. They are incredibly responsive to complaints and bug reports. And I believe a huge factor in their success in improving user experience has been Julie.

Tragically, Julie passed away much too early about a month ago. Webcore publicly lamented Julie's passing when it happened. Most of the top coalitions changed their names to honor her. And today, Webcore surprised us with a new game update that included, in addition to many bug fixes due to a new card set released only last week, a brand new exclusive card created in tribute to Julie. It is a powerful card with original art that they named "Julie, Forum Emissary." It is incredible that a developer would do such a thing. I've never heard of it happening before. Especially with a licensed product like MTG. Wizards of the Coast is extremely protective of their IP, so it shows that Webcore really went the extra mile to get permission to do such a thing.

Anyway, I hope you find this interesting. Could be a heartwarming article that spotlights how a developer can get things right.

Sincerely,

Yammanig

I have made Alan aware.

ambrosio191

I'll be mastering this card in Fateful Showdown. Julie played that event countless times mastering every card she had.

Asylamb

The first "minus" ability should have been at least "+1".

jdouble777

Honestly, this game has been one of the most greedy and player blind games I've ever played. I have quit this game at least five times over 6+ years. I'm not sure of this was new ownership or just how impactful Julie was to the community but I'm truly astounded. This actually makes up for years of anguish and is one of the most thoughtful things I've ever seen by a game or in general. Thank you all for not only considering but doing this...absolutely wonderful.

Smokincookz

This was a beautiful move by the devs, extremely rare to see in the industry. I teared up a bit when I first got the card. Great artwork, powerful effects, and a fine testament to Julie's legacy.

Threw together a Kasmina deck for training grounds that same day, and only lost one match out of 5 with it. Ichormoon Gauntlet and Kasmina's 2nd loyalty ability really help it shine.

Thank you WebCore!!!