Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1080: Prescriptive Design

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

In this podcast, I talk about the spectrum of meeting players' desires. At one end is designing cards the players are asking for, and at the other end is designing cards they don't expect.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today, I want to talk about something that I get asked about a lot. And interestingly, I get asked about all along the spectrum. So, for example, sometimes I'll go on my blog or whatever social media, and someone will say, hey, why don't you make Thing X? I want to make a deck and it doesn't exist. Make thing X. Or make more of thing X.

There's people who are like, I want this card to exist. It does not exist. Make the card exist. And sometimes they're all upset that we haven't made the card yet. How long has it been? 30 years and you guys haven't made thing X or Y or whatever. Now, the opposite end of the spectrum is people like, stop designing for my format, R&D.

You know, my format was better when R&D didn't design to my format. You know, I don't want you making cards for my format. Stop, stop designing for me. Now, obviously, these fly in the face. So this is talking about sort of prescriptiveness in design. How much do we design things that players want us to design? You know, so here's the balance. And once again, this is a spectrum.

It's not like one way or the other. It's sort of, there's a range. At one end, look, part of our job as R&D is to listen to the audience. I have my blog. I have my blog. I have my column. I have this podcast. I do a lot of social media. I have a lot of chances for me to explain what we're up to

and for the audience to give replies of things they want. And one of the things about Magic is, look, it's a trading card game. What that means is that you have a lot of ability to craft what you want. And if the thing you want to craft isn't accessible, now part of that is, for example, Commander is very popular. Commander is a hundred card singleton. If you want to do a theme in Commander, you need a lot of cards in that theme. And or you need a Commander, you know, the commander is the one thing you can rely upon because you can always play that. So it's like, oh, I need at least make me the commander that helps me put this all together.

So there's a certain amount of players want to make things. And that, you know, a lot of things are viable. A lot of things can be done. But there are definitely things that are like, oh, if only I had this missing piece. Like I said, the most popular is there's a theme I want. I want to play commander, but I don't have the perfect commander for it. Yeah, there's somebody I can play. I'll make the best, I'll do the best I can. But if you could just make the sweet spot and make this exact thing. So one of the things that happens is R&D is on social media.

When I first joined back in the day, back in 95, R&D was small. There were only four people whose full-time job it was. And even then, the majority of our job, wasn't even all of her job, was to work on Magic. There was maybe, you know, eight other people in R&D at the time that, you know, would dedicate some small portion of their time to Magic. No one, nobody worked in R&D, or almost nobody worked in R&D and didn't touch Magic a little bit. But back then, there wasn't a lot of people. Now, I don't even know the numbers now.

Like, sort of R&D proper. Not Studio X is like all of the tabletop, but just like R&D know the numbers now. Like, sort of R&D proper. Not Studio X is, like, all of the tabletop, but just, like, R&D. The designers itself, I want to say it's between 50 and 80. There's a lot of people. And the other thing is, there's some people,

like Daniel Holt's a great example, where he does card frames and iconography, and, you know, he does a lot of graphic design, but he's also a designer, and he leads teams, and so there's also a bunch of graphic design. But he's also a designer and he leads teams. And so there's also a bunch of people that are sort of hybrid in that they do something. But also, in addition to that thing, they do design. And so there are just a lot of designers.

And social media is just in a different spot than where it was. You know, when I first started working at Wizards, the Usenet boards were what were kind of the internet of the time. They were bulletin boards. Basically, someone could start a thread, people could respond to that thread. But it didn't have the back and forth that you would have now and all the social media we have now. But anyway, I had always been very interested in social media because I wanted to hear what you guys had to say. And I'm not alone. because I wanted the audience, I wanted to hear what you guys had to say.

And I'm not alone. Almost every member of R&D is active, you know, trying to read about what people think. Because it's our job to make you guys happy. Well, one of the ways to make you happy is to make things that you say you want. So there's definitely a certain amount of, hey, it's our job to understand what you want and then try to design it. Now, I did a whole podcast on this, but the short version of it in this thing is there are a lot of people that want a lot of things. There's only so many cards, even though we make a lot of cards. There's only the amount of things wanted versus the amount of slashes to put them in.

You know, there's a lot more desires than asks. And so we make lists, we have a lot of ideas of things players want, and we try to find opportunities to do those things. The more popular the request, you know, the more frequent the request, the more likely, you know, we have to prioritize where we find things. And part of it also is just finding the right slot for something. Premiere sets in particular are tricky, in particular, are tricky. They're built on a certain world. They have certain themes.

Some of the supplemental sets, I mean, core sets were good at this, although core sets are a little bit limited in what complexity and access to mechanics. But something like Modern Horizons that isn't set in one world and has access to all the mechanics of the past has a little bit more flexibility. So something like a Modern Horizons will have a higher hit rate

of doing cards that people have been asking for just because of the nature of the design. But we're always thinking about it, and it's not even just at the level of card design. It's at the level of mechanic design, set design. We keep track of what kind of places the people want to go, where do they want to return to, what mechanics do they want to see again, you know, there's a lot of sort of people talking about what they want, and so part of our job is to do that. Part of our job

is to figure out what are the kinds of things players want, and how can we deliver on them, what are the kinds of things players want, and how can we deliver on them? And there's a lot. I told this story before, but my blog, we'll have discussions about something. One of the classic examples is, I used to do things head-to-head that I haven't done for a while,

where I would have people on social media vote. I'd have a top 16 of something, and then people would vote every day and eliminate something until there was one winner. And one of the ones I did at one point were, like, class creature types. And the winner was wizard. And at the time, I was working on, was it Dominaria? And I just realized, oh, there was an opportunity to do wizard typo. It just fit, and I literally just seen that, you know, wizards were super popular.

And so there are moments like that where I see something and the opportunity arises and bam, we can do it. Now, a lot of time I hear something, I hear it over time, like Kamigawa, for example, where, you know, there was a reoccurring theme on my blog that people wanted to go back to Kamigawa. So when we were designing, you know, sort of what was originally brand new, you know, world inspired by Japanese pop culture, you know, I kept the door open

saying, well, let's not figure out whether it's Kamigawa or not. Let's just make an awesome world and we'll see you later. But secretly in the back of my head, I'm like, how do I make this Kamigawa? I really want to make this Kamigawa. And, you know, coming up with modernity versus tradition sort of conflicts of the world, you know, building into the world something that made it want to be Kamigawa versus just some brand new place.

But that came from listening to all of you and hearing what you guys want. And, you know, I cannot respond to all my posts on my blog. I believe right now I have something like 650,000 unanswered posts. Um, I mean, I've answered a lot of those. I've, I've answered almost 150,000, I think. But, um, you know, there's a lot of stuff. Now, I try to read as much as I can. I read more than I answer.

Um, reading takes less time than answering. Um, and I do try to answer as many as I can. But anyway, my point is, a lot of information comes in. I absorb that information. Every other member of R&D, they also are on social media. They absorb that. There's places for data. There's places we can collect

information. There's things we can look at that sort of show who's playing what. We have data from Magic Online and Magic Arena. You know, there's things we can look at that sort of show who's playing what. We have data from Magic Online and Magic Arena. You know, there's a lot of places to look to gather what do players want. And so on the one end of the spectrum, hey, it is our job to figure out what would make players happy and provide some of that stuff. You know, so we definitely want to be aware of what it is that players want specifically. What do players want?

And try to create that. Now, there's a lot of things and not everything fits perfectly and sometimes you make something that isn't quite what I mean, well, it's also not like as if one person is asking. Multiple people are asking and what people want don't always align

exactly. And in fact, we get contradictory requests all the time. There's people that want almost opposite things at times. There's people that want something and people are like, well, whatever you do, don't do that. Okay, so that is sort of the meeting expectations, meeting things, designing. And it's designing to a couple

things. It's designing to player requests. It's designing to format needs. Like, one of the things that play design will do is they'll literally look at a format and say, oh, is there a deck that's close, that's almost there, but is not quite powerful enough?

And then, add in a few cards that specifically, manufactured to help that deck. Oh, the deck is missing a good three drop. Oh, the deck doesn't have a good answer in the typo that it cares about. Whatever the thing is, play design will go back and very fine-tune sometimes trying to make cards that will help make a certain strategy viable. So there definitely is some very prescriptive stuff where it's like, we're trying to make an exact thing, we make that exact thing, that is what we're doing.

Okay, let's go to the other end of the spectrum. Part of Magic is a trading card game that also means that it has a modularity to it. The classic example is Commander. Commander wasn't made by anybody at Wizards of the Coast. It was a modularity to it. The classic example is Commander. Commander wasn't made by anybody at Wizards of the Coast. It was a fan-made format. And a lot of formats, not all the formats, we've made a few formats, but a lot of formats are fan-made formats. A lot of formats are someone going, hey, here's a cool idea.

And then, if enough people like it, it gains popularity. Pauper was fan-made. Canadian Highlander was fan-made. I mean, some of the limited formats, like Booster Draft, for example, R&D did have their hand in. And stuff like Standard. It's not as if R&D hasn't crafted some formats. But there's a lot of formats, and some very popular formats formats that, hey, it was just the love of the audience. And that one of the things about Magic, and this was designed how Richard made the game

in the first place, was we want to have a lot of open-ended things that you, the audience, can figure out what to do with. Our job, you know, if you go and buy Monopoly, you're going to open it up and there's the same 40 squares on every Monopoly board, the exact same board. You're going to get the same pieces and the houses and all the elements that come Monopoly are in every Monopoly game. I mean, maybe it slightly shifts over time. But mostly, if I go to the store and buy Monopoly, my friend Barb goes to the store and she buys Monopoly, we're going to have the same game experience. Magic, you know,

Richard designed to be bigger than the box. That the idea is we make a lot of cool things and then you, the audience, figure out what to do with those things. So some of the designs, we want to be non-prescriptive. Like, I love making designs where I'm like,

I don't know what people would do with this. It's a cool thing, you know. Like, I remember I made a card called Seance. It was in either Indestroud or Dark Ascension. Where the idea is, you animate a creature for a turn, but you

don't give it haste, and then it goes away. And a lot of people are like, oh, why do you give it haste? I can't attack with it. I of people are like, oh, why do you give it haste? I can't attack with it. I'm like, well, that's the whole idea. Is I summon, I have a seance, I summon you. I'm not attacking with you. That's not really what a seance is.

But is there some way that having a creature temporarily for a turn, how is that useful? Okay, the low hanging fruit is you attack with it. I'm not letting you do that. Okay, what can you do with that? And then a lot of design, we want to, I want to build things that are cool and flavorful, and I don't know what you do with them. Like one of the things about the, so Magic has like 25,000 cards. So the combinatorics, the fancy way of saying all the mixing and matching, we have no, there's way more cards

that you can mix and match. Like people sometimes say to me, oh, when you make a new card, do you test it with every card? And I'm like, ah, there's no way in the world we can test it with every card. There's a lot of magic cards, and we are just a small group of people. Like even, for example, let's say we took one card, and we said, okay, we're going to play this one card with every, not even play it, we're just going to look at it with every card and think for a minute

for a minute, well just for one minute contemplate these two cards going together okay, so we have 250 how many cards do we have, 25,000 cards we have 25,000 cards in magic so even one minute

per card, that's 25,000 minutes. Now, I don't have a calculator in my head, but that would be longer, I believe, than we even work on the product and probably by quite a bit. But the idea is it's just impossible. There's no way for us to do that. And on some level, we don't want to do that. Like, we want to make some stuff for you to discover

and then have the joy and fun of you discovering it. We want you to go, oh, wow, how do I use this? And it is, I mean, and there's a couple different ways we make it. So let me walk through the psychographics. Okay, so the Johnny Jenny card is kind of the easiest to explain, which is it does weird thing. How do I use weird thing? Build a deck and figure it out. Right. Um, but there also is sort of like Timmy Tammy, where is it like, it does some big spectacular thing that's fun or exciting, or it makes a neat dynamic happen, or it just, it just does something that you're like, I, I want to be there when that thing happens.

And then you figure out where you can put that so that moment occurs. Sort of the spike answer of this is we make something that has utility, and then the spike has to go, oh, is this good enough? Is it efficient enough? And we mix and match things,

and we try things. I mean, we've been making magic for 30 years. good enough? Is it efficient enough? And we mix and match things. We try things. Part of... I mean, we've been making magic for 30 years. Yes, we repeat cards. Yes, we tweak things we've done before. But also, some amount of doing a new set is just doing things

you've never seen before, right? One of the things that makes magic magic is that you go look at new cards, and there's a card you can't evaluate. Like, most cards, the reason you can evaluate them is you compare them to an existing card. So, for example, if I make, you know, one in the green for a 2-2 with some ability, well, you can look at other ones we've made. You know, we make a lot of bears, and how does it compare to other things? And so, you know, the understanding of two mana for a 2-2 in green,

okay, you understand what that means and how much space there's left. You have a sense of how powerful that is. So when we do something that is similar to something we've done before, hey, you have a lot to look at. Like when play design is trying to balance something, you know, there's a lot of space we've played in so much that, hey, they have a general handle on it. If we make a new mechanic that's kind of a kicker mechanic well we've done a lot of kicker mechanics they got it they understand it but if we make something

um like companion is a good example where um so for icora we made mutate and companion both of those were really out there things we had not done before. And one of the, I mean, I've talked about this recently in my Lessons Learned article, and I did this in my podcast, was we just did two things that were so new and so out there that we just went beyond Play Design's

ability to sort of understand it all. Because the same thing that makes players be able to grok things makes us be able to grok things, makes us be able to grok things. What can I compare it to? You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of understanding that comes from looking at other things. But

we want to do things you've never seen before. We want to try new spaces. I love making cards that I'm, like for example, I don't know, when I make a card, I don't necessarily know how it'll get used. Now, like I said, there are cards made later in the process in set design and play design where they're fine-tuned to do something. This is the three drop-in deck whatever, you know. So there are definitely times we make cards where we have some sense of what they're

doing. I'm not saying we don't, but my part of the, the early part of the process, we're really exploring new space. I love making cards that, like, one of the things that I always care about as head designer is there's, you know, I want to use, whenever I go to a new set and there's mechanical space I can use that can't go in a normal set. Like, it goes in this set because we're doing something weird. But in a normal set, we wouldn't make that card. It's not something we would make. I love adding those cards. That's just sort of saving design space. Like, whenever we can make a card that makes sense in the set we're making, but wouldn't make sense in other sets, that is a thing of beauty. That is something that we really can, um, I want to hold on to that stuff. And so I'm always looking,

whenever we're exploring a new space, structurally, does that beget cards that do cool things? Like one of the classics is in Scourge, there's a theme in Scourge about mana value, things that care about the mana value of cards. And the set had Morph.

So I think it's Scornful Egotist. So basically it's a card, I think it's a 1-1, but it has a mana value of something like 9. But it is morph. So the idea is you can play it for its morph cost, you can unmorph it. Like, there's ways to get on the battlefield without spending 9 mana. Well, why would you want a nine mana 1-1? And the

answer is, oh, there are cards in Scourge that care about mana value, and here's a way to get a really expensive mana value without actually spending all that mana. And so, that, like I said, or

another example, in Shadowmoor more black I think this wasn't even tied we had a theme about minus one minus one counters we cared about minus one minus one counters so I made a three three a flying creature that entered with a minus one minus one counter um and the idea is I think I think it was for two in the blue, the idea is, for all intents and purposes, I made a 2-2 flying creature. But the reason it's not a 2-2 flying creature in this environment is having a counter on it, especially a minus 1, minus 1 counter, meant something.

There were ways to remove that counter. So it wasn't just a 2-2 flyer. It was a 3-3 flyer. I mean, a 2-2 flyer that could become a 3-3 flyer. Or mean, a 2-2 flyer that could become a 3-3 flyer. Or maybe that cared in other ways. Maybe you could use that counter in different ways. But the idea is, I wouldn't

make the 3-3 that enters with a minus one, minus one counter flying creature. In any set, if you don't care about minus one, minus one counters, I'm just making an expensive, I'm just making a more complex two, two flying creature. And so that is, you know, we definitely are looking at that end. So this is the other end of the spectrum, which is,

hey, part of design is making non-prescriptive things, making things that nobody's asking for, making things that players see for the first time and go, what is this? Or how do I use this? And that, sort of the point of today is that one of the challenges of designing for a trading card game, for Magic in particular, is there are a lot of different needs. And there's a lot of different needs. And there's a lot of vectors that I've talked about before.

There's a lot of different, you know, like, one of the reasons, you know, this is my, I don't know what, but well over a thousandth podcast. And it's a topic I've not talked about. I mean, I've hit elements of it, but, and that just goes to show, show like there's so many different vectors that you have to think about when you're designing magic. There's so many different nuances. I have to care about the color wheel. I have to care about mana curves.

I have to care about play balance. I have to care about, um, structural needs for the set. You know, there's lots of things, but, but today's thing is sort of on prescription, which is how much do we make what you want us to make? How much are we answering what you ask for? And how much are we making sort of what we want to make that you're not asking for? And what does that balance? Now, the answer to that, so that's sort of we get to the crux of today.

How do we decide? How do we know if a set's supposed to lean more toward known things and more toward the unknown things? The answer is every set should have both. It's the simple answer. The more complex answer is finding room for things that players want is challenging. Finding things that players don't want has a different set of challenges. So let me walk through the challenges of each of those things. So finding things players want is

a lot of times the cards have to fit where they're at. And so, like one of the things when people ask for something, like, hey, where's my legendary goat? Someone wants a legendary goat. I don't know if we've made a legendary goat. I don't think we've made a legendary goat. I mean, we've made legendary changelings.

But someone said, okay, I want a legendary goat. I have a goat deck. Where's my legendary goat? So the challenge is, okay, there's only so many legendary creatures in the set. And is there a set where it makes sense that there's a goat? And why is he legendary? What about this goat is legendary? And then there's other factors like, okay, well, if we're making this legendary goat,

we think to be a commander. Because probably if someone's asking for a legendary goat, odds are that they're talking about commander. Okay, well, what colors have goats been in? If I want to make a goat commander deck, you know, and we have to do things like, are there enough goats? Oh, well, the problem with making a legendary goat commander is there's not enough goats. I'll tell a story similar.

I was working on Unfactioned, which was the box set that had uncards in it. It reprinted a whole bunch of uncards, and then it had like 10 new cards in it. It reprinted a whole bunch of Uncards, and then it had, like, ten new cards in it. So I was trying to make some cards that people were unhappy hadn't shown up in Unstable. And one of the notes I got was that we hadn't made a legendary squirrel, that we hadn't made a squirrel to be a commander for your squirrel deck. So this is a Cornelia I'm talking about.

So the problem I ran into is I went and looked and I said, okay, there's squirrels in black and there's squirrels in green. More in green than in black, but green and black had the squirrels. There was one in Ikoria that was white. I'm not even sure if that existed at the time I made this product. But anyway, it was clear that, okay, squirrels are black and green. If I'm going to make a legendary squirrel designed to be a squirrel commander, I have to make him black and green.

The problem was I counted. There just wasn't, there wasn't, if you used every squirrel in existence, there wasn't enough squirrels. So I said to myself, okay, well, how do I get more squirrels in the squirrel deck? Well, first off, I noticed that there were a bunch of cards that had squirrels in the art that weren't creature-type squirrel. And I'm like, well, it'd be kind of cool, you know, like Might of Oaks, there's cards that have squirrels in them. It might be cool if there's something to encourage you to not just have the squirrel, you know, creature-type squirrel cards

in your deck, but hey, what if you also played cards that featured squirrels in them? That helps make the deck feel more squirrely. And then I said, well, is there even some way that I can help you get more squirrels? So I did two things to Acorn Alley. One is, it has a system where you get little acorn counters. And part of that is based on, is it creature-type squirrel? But part of it is based, is there a squirrel in the art? The idea being that if you are a squirrel,

and naturally a squirrel, not a changeling, if you're naturally a squirrel, well, you're going to get two acorns because you're a creature type squirrel. And hey, if you're a creature type squirrel, you probably have a squirrel in your art. One or two weird exceptions, but mostly you do. Now, if you want to play a changeling, okay, you are a squirrel in your card type. You're not pictured as a squirrel, most likely. You're pictured as something else. So you only get one counter. But also, if you play Might of Oaks or other cards that just show squirrels in it, hey, you can

also get a counter. So it just was encouraging people to, A, play creature type squirrel versus just play changelings. You could play changelings. The other thing I did is I said all tokens are squirrels. So if you... I granted the squirrel creature type, all tokens are squirrels.

So I granted the squirrel creature type to all tokens. Now what that says is, hey, as you're building out your deck with squirrels, you know what? You can also include any card that generates counters. And the reason I did that is green is sapperlings and black is rats. And there's a lot of 1-1 counters that black and green can make. Green also makes larger ones and black makes larger ones

as well. So the idea is, I want you to make squirrels, but squirrels isn't enough to fill out the whole thing so then I supplement it by giving you a secondary theme which in this case was token creatures. And both black and green have numerous cards

that can spit out a whole bunch of tokens, mostly 1-1s. So anyway, it just gave extra depth to it. Now, given Unsanctioned is a place where I had 10 cards, I could do whatever I wanted. I had lots of freedom. So a lot of the cards I made were hand-picked for things that people said they wanted

because I know people had wanted it. And it also was silver border. I mean, it was a very, it was a window where I could do things. I also made a five color commander for host augment that I had not made in unstable. Like unsanctioned did a bunch of like, well, here's what people were asking for. I will fill that in. The challenge though is, you know, unsanctioned was a set where I had a lot of freedom. Let's say I'm trying to make the Goat Lord. Well, I need a place where the Goat Lord makes sense. I need it in the colors that make sense. Like, it's a big ask. It's a big ask to make a Goat Lord. Not that we, not that I think problems with making Goat Lord, not that I don't think there might not

be an audience for a Goat Lord, but I will say, as far as requests go, not a lot of requests for a Legendary Goat Lord. I'm not done, some. And so, you know, each of these requests, you have to find the thing that fits. And so we less take the thing we want and make it, and more figure out when we're making something, what does this set entail? One of the questions we always will ask early on in design is, okay, what are players asking for

that would make sense in this world? Are there legendary creatures they want that we can't do normally that we could do here? Are there things that play into our themes? So we're always on the lookout to try to find when and where and how we can add cards. The challenge is that any one idea, you know, it is really, you know, it's almost like you have a puzzle piece and you're trying to make it fit. And a lot of puzzle pieces just don't fit. So we're conscious about it. Luckily, there's infinite number of things that people are asking for.

And so, you know, it's not as if we don't have a long list of things to look for. So normally, when we make a set, we have a lot of things we're looking for. You know, we eventually find homes for some of them. But it also means that, let's say you're a goat lord person and you're constantly asking for a legendary goat lord. Long time to go by before we find a place where it makes sense to make that. It's not a high level request. It is a very

niche request. So it might take a long time to find that. Now that said, I'm very conscious of things players ask for. I'm always on the lookout, not just I all of Arndee's on the lookout for it and we eventually will find things

stuff like Modern Horizons that gives us a little bit more freedom you know, there's a little we're locked into world and some themes, so okay, that's the challenge on the one end of the spectrum the challenge on the other end of the spectrum is we've made

25,000 cards the idea of doing an effect that we haven't done before becomes harder with time. The way I like to, my metaphor I like to compare is in Star Trek, there's a villain called the Borg. And the Borg is a collective. But the idea is when you use a weapon against the Borg, they learn from it and adapt and become immune to it. And so one of my jokes is trying to do new stuff to the audience is like fighting the Borg. That, hey, I do something brand new you've never seen before, but now you've seen it. Now it's not brand new. So finding space that is novel space, that is stuff that we haven't done before, is a challenge. Now, the way we're able to do it is, you know, I like to start every set from a vantage point we've never started before, right? I like to say, let's make something, you know, even when we do returns,

is there something about the return where we can lean into it in a way that is novel and new? Can we do something that is fresh? And when we do that, when we find a novel it in a way that is novel and new. Can we do something that is fresh? And when we do that, when we find a novel mechanic or a novel theme, we can lean into that. Top Down is similar. Like, one of the things that Top Down is good for, Universes Beyond are especially good for this,

is when you try to make something, like, you know, so my example is, when Walking Dead came out, Brady Bell is the person who oversees a lot of the designers. He was trying to find a designer for it. He eventually came to me. I'm a big comic book reader.

I have read all the comics, Walking Dead. The comic is finished. I've watched a lot of the show. I'm a little behind, but I've watched a lot of the show. And he was like, oh, we're doing Walking Dead. No one else in R&D is a fan, but I know you're a fan. Could you please make these cards? It was six cards.

I'm like, sure, I can make that. So one of the characters in Walking Dead is a guy named Negan. Negan is the main bad guy of Walking Dead. And there is a really famous scene in the television show, which also exists in the comic. They're slightly different, but they're, where basically he gets our heroes, ties them up, pulls out a gun and says, I'm going to kill one of you. Now, spoilers for a second. In the TV show, he actually kills two people.

I think in the comic, he just kills one. Although there's an overlap between the comic. So I was trying to capture that moment of that tenseness of how many people are going to die. And I came up with a mechanic. So the mechanic for Negan is when he enters the battlefield, you, the caster of Negan, write down a name.

And the other player that you pick, they write down a name. So you pick a player, an opponent. You write down the name of one of their creatures. They write down the name of one of them. So you pick a player, an opponent. You write down the name of one of their creatures. They write down the name of one of their creatures. And then all the creatures that are named, I forget whether they're sacrificed or you destroy them, but you lose them.

Now the idea of the little game that it sets up is you, the Negan player, are trying to write down a different name than what they write down, because if you do that, you kill two creatures. Meanwhile, the person who is the opponent that you've chosen, they're trying to match what you write down, because if they match it, they

only lose one creature. And so it creates this very fun little mini game of, like, trying to match what the other person's thinking. I don't think I ever would have gotten there had I not been trying to match what the other person's thinking. I don't think I ever would have gotten there had I not been trying to match this particular story moment from comic and television.

I'm very proud of the design, but I don't think I would have gotten there. And so, one of the things that we're always looking for is the more input you have that's asking for something different than you normally do, and I've had podcasts on this. The neuro brain way, the way your brain works is once it learns to do something,

it does it that way the next time, which normally is good. Once I learn how to do something, I don't want to have to relearn it every time. But for creativity, it's the one time you kind of don't want the same neural pathway. Because if I start with the same input, I often will get the same output. But, so the challenge on trying to do non-prescriptive stuff is really leaning into what is new and novel about the sets you do. Okay, so that brings up a larger question. How much stuff are we supposed to do

that are designing for what the players want versus doing new things that they don't know that they want? And the answer is, as it often is, it depends set by set. It really matters what kind of set you're making. For example, let's say I make a set that just really leans into the ability to do stuff that players have been asking for. Oh, maybe this could be returned to Kamigawa. Okay, if we're going back to Kamigawa, what are the things people want from Kamigawa. Okay, if we're going back to Kamigawa, what are the things people want from Kamigawa? What's tied to that? So in returns, we can think about

are there things that people want that we can do because this is the return? Or maybe we're doing something where we're just playing in a theme that allows us to do something. Or maybe sometimes I recognize a lot of people have been asking for something. I see that connected as a theme. I look for a place to find that theme.

I find that theme. So some sets we make, and also like I said before, like Modern Horizons, there's some sets, core sets of Modern Horizons, that are kind of, I don't know what to call them. They're not centered in one place. They're a little more open-ended. So you have a little bit more flexibility, what you can represent. So sets like that can lean a little more in kind of doing player requests, if you will. On the flip side, sometimes you make a set where you have a really weird theme. It's just some very novel space. You're doing something you don't normally do. And when you recognize that's going on, sometimes you can really lean in.

Every once in a while, for example, you can make an archetype that is just, we've never done that archetype. That's not what those colors do. The classic example there is Red White, a Lorehold in Strixhaven. That was not remotely a normal Red White archetype. Red White normally is about aggression and speed. And this was about, it was a slow controlling graveyard focused deck, right? And so that allow us to make a whole bunch of cards we had never made before. We just happen to be playing in a space we don't normally play in.

Now, as I talked about before, you know, a certain amount of design is familiarity. Like we want to make sure, like we don't want to make a set where everything is alien. Everything is, doesn't feel like magic. And so, you know, I can find spots and opportunities to do, to do the, the new and different thing. Um, but that also, both ends of the spectrum, you have to be careful with because they can cause problems in volume. If I do too many things that are what players are

asking for, it might be hard to make a connective theme. If I do too many things that are what players are asking for, it might be hard to make a connective theme. If I do too many brand new things that you've never seen, it might not quite feel like magic. It might not feel as connected as we want. And so each thing comes with its own challenge. Each thing comes with something you have to think through. But, and like I said, the reason I brought this up today, oh, just for those that are wondering, because I'm well past my 30 minutes, there was an accident on one of the freeways.

And so I did not mention that when I realized it was an accident. But for those that are wondering why, and like I said, welcome back to Drive to Work where I drive to work. You get extra content because I have to sit in traffic. Anyway, the reason I picked this topic today is it is, I mean, no matter what topic you pick, there are players that want Thing A and, you know, opposite of Thing A. That's pretty normal. There's a lot of Magic players. But this particular one is really interesting. I realized I hadn't talked about it. It is neat that a trading card game has forces that

pull you in really opposite directions. That there's things that make you want to make things that fill in gaps and do things play- Oh, another thing I haven't talked about. Let me talk about inertia real quick, since I have a little extra time here. So what inertia means is there are certain things that humans like. One of those is pattern completion, right?

So if we make something that feels like it's a pattern, there's a desire for the audience for us to finish that pattern. So sometimes we do that on purpose, right? Sometimes we make some swords and we're like, oh, we've just made two of the swords. When are we making the rest of the swords? Like sometimes we do things open-ended where we're aware that we are making points that players will connect. And, you know, sometimes we do cycles within a set. Sometimes we'll stretch them across a year. Sometimes we'll stretch them across multiple years. We've done multiple

what we call mega-mega cycles, where we do a five-card cycle, one card a year for five years. That's the long game. We've done that a couple times. But the other thing is, sometimes there's patterns that we didn't mean,

at least consciously, but players see that pattern and are like, oh! A real classic thing that will happen is we'll make a bunch of cards and players will say, well, see how this is a cycle? When are you making the other parts of the cycle?

And so some of us fulfilling things also is meaning some of that. Like I said, some of that is on purpose, some of that is accidental. You know, some of that is very focused on we want, like, we will do things like set up cards

upcoming, set up themes, make open-ended cycles. Another classic thing that we'll do is we'll make... So ally and enemy sometimes will do things. So dual lands is the classic one where hey, we'll make a dual land. We'll make ally version of it. And the player's like, okay,

when do we get the enemy version of it? So there is also a certain amount of some of us... Like, some of the player requests are just we haven't made it yet. Some of the player requests is hey, we kind of leaned towards something. Another class example there was we made My Little Pony cards. And the first batch of My Little Pony cards, one of the cards referenced other cards.

Referenced three ponies that weren't even in the set. And we've done that in normal match. We've done that as well. done that, in normal match we've done that as well. Like in original Mirrodin block we made an equipment in each of the three sets and in the second set there's a card that references the equipment that was in the first set and equipment in the third set that hadn't come out yet. So we like to, we call them throw forwards, we like to do throw forwards. So some of this is of our own doing, some of this is sort of setting things up

so that we can deliver on it. Some of it is hey, we didn't think of that as a cycle but yeah, I guess you could think of it like some of it is sort of accidental. But we've definitely had cycles that we didn't intend as a cycle, but players thought it was a cycle. The classic example there was in Mirage

we made a bunch of tutors where you go get a card and put it on top of your library. And we made a bunch of tutors where you go get a card and put it on top of your library. And we made one in blue and one in white and one in green. Then in Visions, we made a black tutor that happened to go to the top of your library. In our mind, it wasn't part of the cycle, but players were like,

well, you made a white, blue, and green one. You made a black one. Where's the red one? And I originally did the red one in, I think, Unglued. And then players were like, how about a red one that's Terminalegal? And then we made a red one in Orchard Saga or something. So there's stuff like that.

Anyway, so the point of today is one of the ways to demonstrate the complexity of magic design is there's a lot of different inputs and different kind of things we have to care about. This input has to do with player prescription and how much players want it or don't want it or whatever. But anyway, that is something we have to care about. So I'm almost at work here. So sometimes I do a podcast where I'm trying to like come to some conclusion. This was more sort of an educational podcast

of, hey, here's the spectrum. We have to care about it. We have to care about this end. We have to care about that end. And we have to care about stuff in the middle too. Ironically, I really talked about the two ends. There is a lot of stuff in the middle where it's sort of like well

it's kind of like I didn't even get to players have asked for something and will deliver it kind of will deliver it but not in the way they expect it we do some of that as well where it's like oh I want a thing and we're like okay we know you want a thing

but we're going to add something sometimes there's a mix and match quality to it we're going to take a thing we know you want a thing, but we're going to add something. Sometimes there's a mix and match quality to it. We're going to take a thing we know you want, but then add in a thing that you didn't ask for, but does something cool with it. We're going to make a legendary creature that hits the theme you've talked about, but add in a secondary theme,

or add in another component. Like I talked about with Cornelia. Okay, I knew there was a desire for squirrels, but hey, here's another theme I'm messing around with. Here's something that you can do with creature tokens, and that maybe no one was asking for a creature token, Commander, but hey, I made one that plays nicely with squirrels.

And so you get that. Anyway, guys, I am now in the parking lot. We have a parking lot. So, for those who don't know, the new building that we're in, there are different layers to the parking lot. We have a parking lot. So, for those who don't know, the new building that we're in, there are different layers to the parking lot. And so, we're supposed to park, it starts with

level A, level B, level C. We're supposed to park in level C or above. So my joke is, don't park below C level. But anyway, I'm in the parking lot, and I've well hit my 30 minutes. It is my plan, by the way, because this is a slightly shorter drive. When I don't hit 30 minutes, I plan to—my rule is to get pretty close to 30 minutes.

So if I get to work and I have, like, only 25 minutes, I will keep looking for—I'll keep talking. But anyway, today we had traffic, so you got extra content anyway. So anyway, I hope you guys all enjoyed today's podcast. But as I'm in the parking lot, we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Talk to you next time. Bye-bye.