Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1004: Logistics

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

In this podcast, I talk about an important aspect of design, something we call logistics (all the physicalness of using a card).

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, so today we're going to talk about logistics. Dun-dun-dun. And what I mean by that, there's actually two different types of logistics. There's logistics in the making of the game. I'm not talking about that today. I'm talking about logistics in the playing of the game. So the easiest way to explain logistics is this.

Imagine you're playing magic on a computer versus playing in real life in tabletop. Now, for a second, there are some issues with digital play, clicks, and things like that. We're not going to worry about that for a second, okay? Logistics is kind of the differential

between what happens in digital and what happens in real play, meaning you, the player, there's a lot of things that you have to manipulate and track that if you were playing online, the computer would handle. You wouldn't have to handle. But you do have to handle them. You, the player. And it is something we have to think about. That it's something that very much applies. And very much is a big part of

making things work. And that when you make a mechanic, the interesting thing about it is, on some level, when you make a mechanic, you want to just get to the core of what the mechanic is what the gameplay is um and the classic classic example of that is stickers um we did a lot of playtesting with stickers now it's very hard to playtest actual stickers because we don't have the stickers so we we did a lot of different things. We, I mean, we played sometimes with some stickers, not the real stickers, but some stickers. We did a lot of

post-it notes and like, we did a lot of things to kind of replicate what we needed to do so that we could play the game state of what stickers are. And what we found was that gameplay was a lot of fun. The idea that essentially, you know, I could put, you know, sort of counters on my cards, but I have a lot of choices and a lot, you know, there's a lot more going on and there's a lot more variants and cool things can happen. And, you know, I lost a game to poison, even though there's no card that has the word poison on it. So, but the mere fact of what I had to do with stickers and how stickers work and the re-stickering and like all of the extra that came with it fundamentally caused the problem.

And so today what I want to talk about is all the aspects of logistics and it is something very real you have to keep in mind. The fact that you are making players have to do something is something that you have to take into account. Okay, so what I'm going to do today is I'm going to walk through the many different things you have to care about that fall under logistics. Okay, so first up is what I will call card manipulation. And what I mean by that is there's something you have to do with the card that goes beyond the norm. Morph will be my example for this. So in order to play a morph card, I have to flip the card upside down. I literally, like, I think there's certain things that come

with playing the game of magic. I mean, there's a little bit of logistics. To be honest, there's logistics that come just in playing the card game versus playing online. You have to shuffle your deck. You have to draw cards. You have to lay cards out in front of you. Now, some of that you do all the time, and that is something that's considered sort of a normal part of the game. But even shuffling is a good example. Shuffling is something that players have to do. Now, they have to shuffle at the beginning of the game, so every game comes with one shuffle. That is kind of a given.

Players don't tend to complain too much about that. But every time in the game you're asking them to shuffle again, you know, that is a real cost. They have to stop playing their game, they have to then shuffle their deck, and then that can take up to a minute or so. Like, it is a real, it is kind of like, stop playing Magic, perform this physical task.

And, obviously, one of the things about logistics is, it's not that we don't, it's not that we're not willing to involve logistics. There's a lot of fun things we can do if we make you, the player, jump through some logistical hoops. For example, I'm talking about Morph right now, you know, or even like card shuffling. We have not eliminated card shuffling. You know, we could say, you know what, card shuffling is so onerous, we will just never shuffle the deck. And the answer is, well, there's some effects. Like we think tutoring is fun enough deck. And the answer is, well, there's some effects.

Like, we think tutoring is fun enough that every once in a while we want to let you go get the specific card. Or, you know, land fetching is important, so we want you to get land. Like, there are certain things where we're like, you know what? Every once in a while, you know, we're allowing enough shuffling into the game because there's enough effects that involve shuffling that we think are fun. But one of the things we have to keep in mind is, and this is true for all logistics, there is sort of a baseline. Like there's a point at which we've made you shuffle too much. And so every time we have a card that makes you shuffle, we have to ask ourselves,

okay, should this shuffle? Like a lot of times, what we now call impulsing, so looking at the top end cards of your library rather than looking through your whole deck. So one of the things, and there's some advantages, like one of the things that we've definitely said to ourselves is, hey, when is it better gameplay to, instead of looking through your whole deck, look at the top end cards of your deck.

And there's some other offshoot things that ended up playing well. Like, if I let you go get any card out of your deck. And there's some other offshoot things that ended up playing well, like if I let you go get any card out of your deck, you only need one card in your deck. If I say, look at the top six, seven, eight, nine cards of your deck, well, you have to play a bunch of them so that the things show up on the top of your deck. So it makes you build very differently, for example.

But anyway, whenever now we're going to make a card, and the answer is to put shuffle on it, we have to ask ourselves the question, do we have to shuffle? Could we impulse off the top of the deck? Is there another way to handle this? You know, we need to look at other options wherever we shuffle because, and this is my theme of today, shuffling has a logistical burden that we have to be careful with. shuffling has a logistical burden that we have to be careful with. Not that we can't have any logistical burden,

and not that the logistics are off limits, but we need to be careful when and how much we do something. Okay, so now we get to manipulation. So manipulation means that I'm doing something with my card that I don't normally do. Turning it face down for morph is a good example. Another example might be orienting it differently for like flip cards. Flip cards were from Kamigawa and there was

two different sides up. And depending on which side is up, you know, that determines what the card is. And so anytime you manipulate a card in a way that you don't normally manipulate a card, flip it upside down, rotate it 180 degrees. You know, we've had mechanics, for example,

we had a mechanic, what we call the double tap mechanic, where it had a tap on it and then you could tap it a second time, but then it only untapped like one card turn, if you will, like 90 degrees. And the problem there was there was a lot of logistics of understanding where the card was. For example, if I, you know, well, it just was very complicated. And I mean, there were other reasons that we killed the double tap, but the logistics of it and comprehending it and monitoring it was something that was onerous enough that it was one of the strikes against the mechanic, not the only strike,

but one of the strikes against the mechanic. But anyway, we have to think about when are you manipulating cards. The next thing is extra components. Am I using counters? Am I using tokens? Am I using other counters? Am I using tokens? Am I using, um, other cards? Am I using stickers?

Am I using punch out stuff? Um, you know, whenever a card has extra components, now there's a lot of fun and there's whole mechanics built around other components, right? Fabricate is like, do I want a counter or do I want a token? Which extra components do I want? Stuff like modular is like, okay, you know, there are cards that gain something. Stuff like monstrous uses counters to say, hey, I've gone through a state change and it monitors the state change. You know, minus one, minus one counters went on stuff like infect and stuff

like persist. And, by the way, infect didn't just make you use counters on your cards, it made your opponent use counters on their cards. That's something else to keep in mind,

that minus one, minus one counters often, I mean, some of them only affect your cards, but often with minus one, minus one counters, we want to put them on the opponent's cards because they're negative, so you want to put negative things on your opponent's cards. So now you're adding logistics not to your own play, but to your opponent's play, to the other player's play.

And that's an even higher bar, right? Like, if you want to play Fabricate, if you sign up to say, you know what, yeah, I know there's counters and tokens, but I want to do that. Okay, you know, you can sign up for that. But I mean, signing up your opponent for that is a higher bar. Also, with tokens, a lot of times we have token cards. For example, when we made the embalm mechanic,

we came up with the idea of, okay, this creature can go to the graveyard and then you can bring it back and it's a copy of itself, with a little bit of restriction, but it's a copy of itself. And so we made the conscious choice to make a token for each one of them. But now, if I want to play them, you know, let's say I want to play in a Balm deck,

and assuming I've got the tokens, well, two things. If I don't have the tokens, then I have the added logistics of, I have to monitor what's where, right? I have to monitor which token is which item. If I have multiple, you know, dies or, you know, little stones or markers or whatever I'm using, if I don't have the actual token cards and those things are different, I have to differentiate from themselves. Another thing I didn't talk about, I just talked about morph. Another thing that I didn't mention with morph that also comes along with it is

that because I'm turning things face down, I need to make sure my opponent knows which face down thing is which, right? Because maybe I played one morph card at a certain time when I could cast a certain thing, and another morph card at a different time when I could cast a certain thing, and another morph card at a different time. They're like, you want to know what morph card, when I might have done different things.

You need to monitor that. So with all of this, there is, and we'll get to this. I'm not really getting into the mental load. That's a whole separate thing. But there is an element of logistics that require you there's a mental component. I have to keep track of the things. Which face down card is which morph?

Which token is which? Assuming I'm not playing with token cards that tell me exactly. Or if I'm playing with token cards okay, I gotta go get the right token card. Okay, I played this thing. Where's that? I gotta go dig it out.

I have to physically find the thing. There's this constant manipulation that has to happen. Another thing that pops sometimes is sometimes we have cards that can't go in your deck. DFCs, double-faced cards, are a great example

of this, where, okay, either I have to play with sleeves, meaning I have to have, you know, opaqueness, um, on the sleeve, or I need to play with the checklist card, meaning I need to play with a card that's a different card than the card I have. And when I play that card, I then have to go get a different card. Um, and you know, um, I mean, DFCs are a good example of something that brings up a lot of logistics. Swapping is part of it. Another part is the next thing, what I'm dubbing physicalness.

Meaning, and this sort of goes with manipulation, but the thing about DFCs that are a little bit different is I have to take them in and out of the sleeve if I'm playing with sleeves. And the majority of players play with sleeves. So it's just an act of something I have to do. And every time it changes, let's say I'm playing with transforming DFCs, let's say I'm playing like a werewolf deck. Okay.

Well, I'm asking you a lot to play a werewolf deck because on regular occasion, something's going to happen and then every card I have that's one of those cards then has to change sides. Now there's different ways people handle this. Some people just swap back and forth. Some play with a checklist card and then they bring out a clear sleeved card that's a double-faced card that they can flip back and forth without having to pull it out of its sleeve. Some people, the first time they transform it, take it out of its sleeve

and leave it on top of its sleeve so they don't keep having to put it back and forth in its sleeve. But something we really have to keep in mind, and so stickers are another example. So it's not just a matter of the component. Like stickers, stickers have the extra component part. Oh, I have to have these stickers. Stickers also have the monitoring part. There's different stickers and I have to keep track of all the things going on. So there's some of that. But there's a physicalness to stickers. I have to peel the sticker off the sticker sheet and put it onto my card. And then when I'm done with it, either because the game ends or it goes to my hand or my library, I have to peel the sticker off.

And then I got to put the sticker back on the sticker sheet or put it somewhere that I can monitor and track it. And one of the big challenges with stickers is, you know, the very first time you stuck them on a card, they stuck great. But when you peeled them off, it was hard. They didn't really stay on the sticker sheet well when you put them back on, or at least not on the part where they came off of. The trick, I think, then is putting them on another part of the card.

They stuck a little bit better to the non-clear. The part that they peel off easy of, they don't stick as well to that. That's part of why it's there, so it's easy to peel it off. But then when you sticker it on the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time, each time, it's not as sticky as it was before. So there's logistics of keeping the sticker on

the card. And then, once again, there's a little bit of memory issue. Remembering when the game ends, or when the cards go to zones that they can't have a sticker on, that the sticker comes off. One of the trickiest things, for example, is stickers stay on in the grave.

So if I play a card, put a sticker on it, it dies, it goes to my graveyard. At the end of the game, I got to remember that there's a thing in my graveyard that has a sticker on it that I have to deal with. So that gets us to the next thing, which is tracking. So the question is, does the mechanic make me sort of have to track something in a way

I've got to keep up with it? My example here will be level up cards, right? So level up was a mechanic where the card has three different states. where the card has three different states. And you sort of have to figure out... At different times, it can get counters and it can change. And so you have to care about that. You have to sort of know what state it's at and you have to represent that.

So there's something about the card that is... The opponent might not know what it is or you might not know what it is, or you might not know what it is, and so you have to track that and keep track of it. Another one is memory. So I'll use suspend for this. So suspend is a great example of tracking, right? That I have a card, and so suspend, by the way, is one of the poster childs of how logistics can take what's a really cool mechanic and make it something that the players struggle with. The idea behind Suspend, that I'm trading mana for time, is a cool concept.

Oh, normally it costs five mana to play this card. Oh, but I could pay one mana and instead, you know, wait four turns. I could trade four turns for four mana. And that sounds great in concept. And when you're playing on digital, where just, you know, the computer reminds me when it's time to cast the card or just cast the card, that's great. But in tabletop play, I have to take the card. I have to put it aside in the exile. Remember it's there.

I have to put counters on it. And each turn, I have to remember to put a new counter on it, and then at the right time, when it has enough counters, I have to remember to put it onto the battlefield. That's a lot of tracking, that's a lot of memory, you know, and it's very easy to like, for a turn, just forget it. And then you have to go, oh, wait, wait, and the other thing to remember is one of the hardest things is when there's memory issues and it's not optional. Like, suspend does not say you may put a counter on it. Suspend is supposed to come out in end turns. Not, like, we did not make suspend that says every turn you may put a counter on it. And when you have four counters, gas it.

We could have done that. Maybe we should have done that. I'm not sure. Although that makes its own issues. But the point is, one of the things that's hardest is mandatory effects that you have to remember to do that are mandatory. And if you ever remember you forgot, now you're in a state like, oh, I didn't put a counter on it. Okay. Was that one?

Did I forget one counter? Two counters? Now you're in a state like, oh, I didn't put a counter on it. Okay, was that one? Did I forget one counter, two counters? Like, whenever you have to backtrack and figure out what you had to do that you forgot to do, that could be problematic. Another example here is echo, right? So echo is I pay a cost, and then on my second turn, I have to remember to pay that cost again.

And if I don't, I lose the card, right? And so another issue with memory issues is, or even the fancier one, that was the packs. So the packs were cards where you could cast them for free on the turn you played them, but then during your next upkeep, you had to pay mana

for them, or you lost the game. So that's something that has punished you really severely for not remembering. And so memory issues, especially when you do mandatory memory issues, can cause a lot of issues. Okay, next. The card has multiple states. I talked a little bit about that in tracking. And what I mean by that is, I mean, flip cards are kind of the classic example here, where something can go back and forth between multiple states. The one nice thing about DFCs is DFCs do a better job of clearly dictating what part is active,

because the face-up part is active. But flip cards, the orientation of the card informs you what state the card is in. And when you do things like tap it, when it's sideways, it becomes way harder to understand what's going on. You know, prototype is another example where the card is in one of two states. I got to remember which state it's in. A lot of times when there's two states, we try to give you a memory aid. Like, for example, when you make something monstrous, we put counters on it. Often when you kick something, we'll put counters on it.

Normally, whenever, or maybe there's an aura or something. Like, whenever we do something in which there's some, something that goes beyond the first turn. Like, the idea is you can remember until the end of the first turn. And I'm sure I'll do a podcast on memory one of these days. That's its own issue. But whenever there's something that goes beyond a turn,

we like to have something that kind of reminds you. And when there's memory issues that don't, that becomes a tracking issue. And usually you need to do something to remind yourself that thing happens. For example, a real common technique would be if I have a creature with an upkeep effect, I'll put it on the top of my library because when I go to draw the card, I go, oh wait, I can't draw a card yet. I have to deal with this upkeep effect.

Okay, another thing, monitoring in other zones. Okay, another thing, monitoring in other zones. So sometimes we do things, the most common thing is being active in the graveyard. Flashbacks, sort of the poster child of this. But, you know, aftermath, escape, you know, there are plenty of mechanics where they are viable in, you know, they have some use in the graveyard. Sometimes you can cast them in the graveyard. Sometimes they have have some use in the graveyard. Sometimes you can cast them in the graveyard. Sometimes they have an effect while in the graveyard. And once again,

it's not just something that you have to track. It's something your opponent has to track. And that's why we've messed around with symbols and a little graveyard symbol. Is there some way to help remind you that that's so... Yeah, another thing thing by the way that we do i didn't even write this one down is um you having to monitor that there's multiple ways to cast something that's another thing that can be like one of the the common things is you

look at your mana cost and then later you're like oh yeah that costs five mana but i had this alternate cost that could have let me do it for three. Ooh, I forgot that I could do that. So there's also monitoring of when you can cast things. And that could be something that could be problematic. Another issue is when things live in another zone. So this is similar to monitoring. They overlap a little bit. But my example here is like Fortel

that I've placed the card face down in exile and I kind of remember that not sitting in play not right in front of me but off to the side here's something that can affect the game but it is not in the game wishes also bring this up a little bit but it is not in the game. Wishes also bring this up a little bit.

I mean, wishes add the... carrying something out of the game with the added value of going and getting that thing. So when I make you go get something from external to the game or from your sideboard, you have to go get a thing that's not there and then you have to retrieve it and get it. That has logistical hurdles to it.

Another thing sometimes is when two cards have a connection to each other. Sometimes, like Soulbond, that's in play. Sometimes, like with Imprint, usually one of the cards is in exile. But knowing, for example, that this card interacts with that card. Now, there's shorthands to some of this. Often when you imprint something, you'll put it underneath the card, even though it's technically an exile, but that's how you can remember. There's a lot of shortcuts.

And so, okay, so the reason I bring all this up, so there are a lot of things that can make something logistically problematic. That doesn't mean, by the way, we don't want to do it. There's lots of fun mechanics to use counters. There's lots of fun mechanics to use counters. There's lots of fun mechanics to use tokens. Oh, the other thing I should mention. Sometimes you have to monitor the state of something. Day-night is a good example where here's this thing that there's two states.

I have to monitor when it's day and when it's night. And that's a particular one that changes. Poison counters are something that I get and I have to monitor how many poison counters my opponent has or how many I have. And that's something that you have to keep track of. So the reason I bring all this up, the reason I make my giant list of logistical issues to deal with is there is a bar. There's a logistical bar. And the thing we got to be careful of is if something gets too much logistical headaches, if you will, it could be problematic. Now, here's

one of the tricky things to balance. The more fun something is, the more that the gameplay is worth the hoops, the more players are willing to do it. I use double-faced cards as an example. Double-faced cards have a big logistical, you know, you have to either use sleeves or you have to play a checklist card. When you play them, they can rotate sides. You know, they also have added logistical stuff like in drafting. Now there are cards that opponents can see. You know, so now

if I'm really keen on what's going on, there's more information that I've got to keep track of in a draft. So DFCs have a lot of baggage, a lot of logistical baggage. But they're very exciting. And there's a lot of upside to them, and having two cards lets you tell stories,

and lets you monitor things in a way that's easier to monitor. So, like, while there's downside, there's some upside. People really like double-faced cards. Mind you, there are people that don't like double-faced cards, and the logistical issues are the number one reason most people who don't like them don't

like them. But the vast majority of them do like them. On the flip side, there's something like Suspend where I think the core gameplay of Suspend was very interesting. And in fact, I think it's pretty fun. But the logistics of having to track it, the logistics of having to be the monitor of all that, really made Suspend not nearly as much fun as it could be. And stickers are another great example of that, where I think the core identity, the gameplay of stickers is quite fun.

You know, one of the things we found when we were playing with it is there's so much emergent gameplay that really makes fun and exciting things happen. But, but, you know, the idea that I can't keep, like, the number one negative thing about stickers that I hear from people is,

hey, it's a pain to play with them. It's a pain to put the stickers on and off. And even more, the bigger problem, actually, is it's a pain to keep track of the stickers. Did I lose the stickers? And it's the next game and I don't know where my stickers is. Or you know, like logistics can get in the way of people enjoying

the gameplay. And so as a designer, one of the things that we always do is we need to keep track of logistics. Now, stickers is a great example of a really challenging problem, which is we don't have the final component until it's made. It's not true. Like, for example, well, I mean, I guess whenever we use a frame as a resource, there's that challenge. Like whenever, a lot of times when we're playtesting, we don't have the final thing. when we're playtesting, we don't have the final thing. Now, sometimes what we'll do is, if there are elements of the card that are tools,

we will mock up those tools. So if we have, like, play aids, we will literally mock up the play aids so we can actually practice with the play aids. Stickers are another layer because it's something that has to come from, the final version has to come from the printers. So it's one of those things that there's no way to play test it with its final form. Because by the time you have the final form, it's done.

And we did do a little bit of testing with stickers. But it's very restrictive. And so one of the big challenges and one of the big lessons of stickers is it's very, and one of the big lessons of stickers is it's very it's risky to build around something where you don't have final understanding of logistics until past the point

that you can easily make a change. That was my big takeaway from stickers is we had something that was fundamentally a cool idea, but the thing that got in the way wasn't something we could test. And so that, a big neon something to be careful with in the future. There's not a lot of things that got in the way wasn't something we could test. And so that, a big neon, something to be careful with in the future. There's not a lot of things that fall in that category,

but definitely one of those things. So anyway, when you're making something, one of the things that is always careful, and if you notice, by the way, when I do my storm scale, I talk about this. I combine logistics and memory issues into one category when I'm talking about in my Storm Scale articles. But the logistics is a big part

of that. That I have to ask myself when I make something new, am I using, you know, all these things. Do I have to manipulate it? Are there extra components? Do I have to swap? Is there physicalness? Is there tracking? Is there memory? I'll get into it. There's some larger memory stuff I'm not getting into here.

Are there multiple states? Does it live in other zones? All the stuff that I'm talking about today, I've got to think about that. And then, when we play, as much as we can, we want to play to us those logistics. We want to mimic what the players will actually be playing with. Because one of the things we have to ask ourselves,

like, sometimes when you're doing logistics, sometimes you have to say to yourself, you know what, this isn't worth shuffling. Can we find a substitute for shuffling? This isn't worth the tokens to track it. Or sometimes we just kill the card. There's been a couple cards that I, I mean, many cards, actually,

where, like, oh, in order to do this, I need to use counters, and then I have to remember, and then I'm like, ah, too much. Like, the lesson of suspend is that you know, there's a point at which you make the player have to pay attention to too many things, that it just kind of sucks the fun

out of it. And even if the core experience is neat gameplay, like suspend is very neat gameplay. I quite enjoy Suspend. And I believe if Magic was solely a digital game, if there was no tabletop version, I think Suspend might be something we see a lot. I think Suspend, you know... And the other big challenge is, where do you draw the line? What is enough shuffling cards? big challenge is where do you draw the line what is enough shuffling cards when is a dfc okay when are tokens okay when are counters okay like when when are we've crossed the line um and like i said i'm giving a lot of examples here where i think we might have like i mean i'm not saying we

shouldn't push boundaries i'm not saying we shouldn't try things i'm not upset we tried suspend or upset we tried stickers but i we did learn a lot from those, which next time we go into that area, suspend made us very shy about how much do I have to force you to track something and then keep track of it for multiple turns.

For example, the big takeaway from there now is, if whenever possible we make it not mandatory, so we say, okay, if we're going to make you track something it's to your benefit to have it and you have to opt to do it so well there's a memory but you like we have to encourage you to do and you remember to do but if you forget well you just chose not to do it and then there's none of the let's catch up and figure out what happens when things that had to happen didn't happen.

You know, like, that's another big lesson of this, is when we do something, and we see logistical issues, now, double-faced cards to me are the poster child of, hey, if something's cool enough, you can get over a lot of logistics. The players,

and that's the other tricky thing about logistics, is, it's not as if there's a set amount of logistics that are good or bad. It is not as if, you know, oh, there's an amount of logistics, and then over that, that's a problem. It's how much logistics are there versus how much excitement the mechanic brings. DFCs did a good job of just being so exciting that people go, you know what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's logistics. I'll deal with it. Where something like Suspend, most players

were like, eh, too much. I'm just not going to play with this. And it's tricky to find like, as exemplified with stickers, I mean, part of it was we had to take a leap of faith, but you know, my big takeaway from Infinity is, knowing what I know now, knowing how stickers work now, it's like, okay, is there a way to get that gameplay that I really do love, that I think players, you know, if logistics get out of their way, would have a lot of fun with, is there a way to capture that?

And the interesting thing is, I mean, the first place I went to is like, what if they were punch-out corners? What if they didn't stick to the card? So there was no repeatability issues. There was no sticking to the, you know, I just have to track them as a separate thing. But, and the problem you get in there is,

there are a bunch of card designs that really wouldn't work. For example, there's a card called Juggletron, where you play stickers and try to fit how many stickers in it. But the only reason that mechanic really works is the tightness of the stickers allows you to play this gameplay that I don't think you could do if you were

doing it with tokens. And so that's one of the things that, like, logistics will influence mechanics. Once you understand your logistics, what you choose to do logistics, there is an end state of it, like it affects how and what you do with your mechanics. So logistics, it's not just should I do it or shouldn't I do it? It's sort of like, what elements should I do? How much should I do it? Um, and a lot of things that we've done is we've like, um, we've been much more careful about letting you opt into things much more careful about finding ways, like, um, a lot of our frame, like we were much more willing

now to change frames, to give you elements of frames that will aid you in logistics. We're much more willing to give you play aids. We're more willing to do stuff like punch out. Like we're more willing to find tools to help you. Like one of the big things, logistically speaking, is when we started putting tokens in packs, that freed us up to do more with tokens than we were comfortable doing with when you had to represent the token. Because the second we started doing something like embalm

that there's some complexity to it, it was really hard to do it. So the resources we can have and provide you tokens, punch-outs, stuff like that, the more we're willing to do. But anyway, the whole point of today's podcast is just to explain to you that whether or not a mechanic is fun,

the rawness of the mechanic itself is not enough to figure out whether it's something we should or shouldn't make. We have to take into account that people are physically playing with this. They're manipulating it. They're watching it. They're tracking it. They're caring about it. All that has

to matter. That's the lesson of today. Log to matter. And so, that's the lesson of today. Logistics matter. Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed this. I'm now at work, so we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

As with every case, I love getting into nitty gritty of things that you may or may not think about. Today's one such thing. So anyway, guys, thanks for joining me, and I will see you next time.