Jonathan Magin

Jonathan Magin
Noted subjects	Literature, Social Science, Arts, African-American Studies, American Drama, and Charles Chestnutt
Current college	Maryland (2006-)
Past colleges	None
High school	Montgomery Blair
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Jonathan Magin is a former player at the University of Maryland who now plays open tournaments and writes questions. Jonathan is largely considered the second best literature player in the history of the game after Andrew Yaphe. Jonathan is one of the most influential writers in the modern game and is also the formulator of Magin's Law, Magin's Formula, and the Ladder Theory of Quizbowl, and Magin's tossup difficulty scale. He is also acclaimed for his efficient service at Potbelly.

Playing

Jonathan has grown to become one of the most feared players in the current game. His most notable tournament finishes include winning the 2008 Chicago Open with Matt Weiner, Eric Mukherjee, and Jerry Vinokurov, remarkably winning a national championship at the 2008 ICT with Charles Meigs despite Chris Ray's dubious strategy of negging five times in the championship game against Chicago, placing 3rd at the 2008 ACF Nationals, and winning the 2009 Chicago Open Literature Tournament essentially playing solo averaging 162.50 ppg and leading the tournaments in powers by a large margin. His other notable achievements include being the high scorer while playing on the second place team at the 2010 Minnesota Open and being the top scorer at both the 2009 Chicago Open and 2010 Chicago Open.

Editing

Jonathan first came to prominence as a writer with his wildly successful Literature Doubles at the 2007 Chicago Open. Since that time he edited the brilliant 2008 Chicago Open Literature Tournament, both iterations of the William Gaddis Experimental Tournament in 2008 and 2009, and worked on the 2009 AC Regionals with Eric Mukherjee. He also edited TIT in 2008 and 2007, and also served as an editor of the 2007 ACF Fall tournament. At the high school level he also worked as an editor for HSAPQ and as the chief editor for the first HSAPQ all star tournament.

Jonathan is an acclaimed writer often lauded as one of the best writers in the game today, but his questions have sometimes been criticized for being transparent on expected subjects closely associated with his personal tastes. Jonathan is also one of the most influential writers whose tossup difficulty scale and theories about writing accessible tossups for hard tournaments have been very influential on a younger generation of editors especially Ted Gioia and Andrew Hart.