Skaff Elias was a Senior Vice President for Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro. Skaff was responsible for the design and development of many Wizards' card games and was the primary architect of the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour and organized play system used for all Wizards products including the Pokemon card game. This customer retention program for Magic distributes millions of dollars in prize and scholarship money and supports over 2000 tournaments weekly at retail locations worldwide. Skaff was the brand and business manager for Magic: The Gathering during its formative years, taking it almost from launch to a $300 million brand. He has also been contracted to design and develop computer games for Microsoft and Electronic Arts. Skaff received a B. A. in Physics from Princeton University and was studying for his Ph.D. in Mathematics at University of Pennsylvania before leaving to help start Wizards of the Coast.

Richard Garfield is one of the world's best known game designers. For his first game, Magic: The Gathering, he was granted the patent on trading card games--now a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Since that time, he has produced many award winning trading card games and board games including Netrunner, Robo Rally, What Were You Thinking, and Filthy Rich. In the realm of computer gaming he has been a game designer and consultant for Electronic Arts and Microsoft. Richard was a professor of mathematics at Whitman College before he left to help start Wizards of the Coast, the original publisher of Magic, now currently owned by Hasbro. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania