Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1101: Designing Universes Beyond

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

In this podcast, I go through the process from start to finish of designing a Universes Beyond set.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so somebody on my blog asked for a podcast talking about the process of making a Universe is Beyond set. I said that sounds like a great idea, and so today I'm going to talk about that. So basically what I want to do, so I'm going to talk generically today, meaning I'm going to talk about the process that they sort of all go through. And then I'll use different UB sets as examples. But I'm not talking about any one specific set. And each set is a little bit different. I'll get into that.

Okay, so we start with our business team. So one of the first things that we have to do is we have a lot of analytics. We have a lot of information about magic players. So basically, one of the ways we slice up our data is there are heavily enfranchised magic players. Those are the most diehard players. There are moderately enfranchised players. There are lightly enfranchised players. And then what we still call the rings out. So the next ring are don't play magic, but the most

inclined to play magic. And then the ring out from that is someone inclined to play, but not as likely as, you know, each ring there's less enthusiasm, you enthusiasm, less chance of playing. But the idea essentially is that when we look at these rings, it's sort of like we look at how much you play magic and how much you're into magic if you play magic, and then how much you might play magic or how much you might be inclined to play magic. The second thing we need to look at is our business team will look at the analytics of other properties, right? So the idea is we think, oh, what might be a property that might be a good fit for magic? Well, the first thing we have to do is the business team and the analytic team, two teams actually,

need to come together and look at, okay, let's say we did property X. How many people that play property X, what's the overlap with magic? And then what is the overlap with the rings that are just outside of magic players, the potential magic players? And the idea is, a good property for us is there's a decent amount of overlap with magic players

so that existing magic players will get excited to buy it. And there's a decent amount of overlap with magic players so that existing magic players will get excited to buy it. And there's a decent amount of overlap with the next rings out, meaning we might introduce magic to people who, because of their passion for this particular property, might try magic before they haven't sampled magic. And so the very first thing we need to do is they need to sort of figure out, the business team, what are the properties that show the most potential sort of figure out, the business team, what are the properties

that show the most potential sort of as a product? Meaning there's an audience there, that if we make this product, we believe that we can sell it and that there would be a large enough audience to make it worthwhile doing. Another big thing they look at is what is the overlap? Like how many existing magic players, how many, uh, potential magic players sort of looking at, um, what we can do now existing magic players is about sort of, Hey, if you play magic and we make a property you like, you're very likely to buy that product. Um, and then we look at the people who are very, um, highly enfranchised in the property and say, what potential of, you know, of how many people

that potentially maybe could enjoy magic. So an interesting question is how do we know that? How do we know people that might enjoy magic? Well, there's a bunch of factors. One of the things about doing a lot of data is you look at, well, what are qualities, like of people who play magic, what are the qualities they share? And you can look for those qualities in other groups. Anyway, so that's the very first thing we have to do. The very first thing we have to do is, it's just a business analysis saying, okay, what properties do we feel like from a business standpoint makes sense? You know, what properties, because there might be a property

that we could do a really good job on, but if we can't sell enough, you know, if there's not enough people interested in it, if there's not a big enough audience, and if there's not a big potential audience, another big, one of the big reasons we're doing Universes Beyond is it's a great way to expose people.

You know, I've talked about this a bunch of times, but magic's sort of, I think, greatest weakness is its barrier to entry. It's a complicated game. You know, there are over 25,000 pieces to the game. It's 30 years old. The rulebook, the comprehensive rulebook is inches thick. It's an intimidating game. And so we know that there's a number of people who might like magic, they might

really enjoy magic, but they're intimidated by it. And you need something to get them over the sort of the hump of trying it. That might be having friends that encourage you. Or in the case of Universes Beyond, maybe it's just a property you're so excited to play that you're willing to finally learn magic. And the neat thing about magic is, let's say you come in to play Lord of the Rings or Doctor Who, and you learn to play, well now you know how to play magic. Now you might find other things in

magic that you enjoy. And that once you're over the, sort of the, once you get over that barrier of entry, once you've learned how to play, you're much more open to experiencing and trying other things. You now know how to play. You've overcome the greatest obstacle. Okay, so the brand team and our analytics team figure out potential. What are the brands, the properties that have the greatest potential? Okay, the next step is

they take that information to R&D. And what R&D will do is do what we call an assessment, which is, okay, let's imagine we're doing this property. Would it make a good magic set? Not would it sell well, that's what business is figuring out. Can we make a good magic set out of it? R&D is looking at the design potential, like, you know, how much synergy is there between this property and magic? So let me walk through the things they have to think about. First up is the color wheel. You know, does it, magic worlds are designed to fit the needs of a magic set.

A big thing we do is we balance the color wheel, meaning there's an equal number of things that we can show off in the world that are each color. Now, even in magic worlds, there are worlds that push towards certain colors. The classic one is Innistrad. Everything kind of wants to be black. You know, it's a horror plane, gothic horror plane. And, you know, most things could be black if you wanted them. So we had to work really hard to figure out how not to make things black. Well, what if the werewolves, instead of being green and black, were green and red? What if the ghosts, instead of being white and black, were white and blue?

Try to find ways to take things and push them in a way that balances the colors. Now, the challenge with another IP, another property, is they aren't thinking about that. They don't care about that. I mean, that's not, you know, yes, a magic environment is made to make a good magic set. By definition, we design the worlds to make good sets

because that's what we're doing with them. But somebody else is just trying to make a good story, usually. So they're just making the best environment for, for their purposes. So we have to evaluate and say, okay, can we, will the colors balance or not? Um, and a good example, Lord of the Rings, for example, um, there was a lot of black and white and green and red, uh, but blue is a little bit weird. There are a few magic users like Gandalf, but not a lot. and white, and green, and red. But blue is a little bit weird.

There are a few magic users like Gandalf, but not a lot. There are definitely a few sneaky characters. But blue is definitely sort of a pinch point. Now, we ended up solving that by making the elves blue, and we found ways to do it. But we have to evaluate and look at the colors and saying, how much are the colors represented in the property as it is? And part of that is looking deep. And sometimes it's like, well, all the surface things go in this direction.

But there are some things that fit. You just have to go a little bit deeper into the lore. And different properties, you know, properties vary quite a bit. Lord of the Rings is based on three books. Doctor Who is based on 60 years of television. Marvel is based on 80 years of comic books. So different properties have a different amount of depth to them, depending on what their source material is.

Another thing we've got to look at is say, okay, here are the card types. Obviously, creatures make sense. Although, even with creatures, we have what we call the creature grid. And the creature grid says, okay, we need small, medium, and large creatures, and some on the ground, some in the air, some that fly, in all the different colors. And magic builds our world. we literally build the creature grid.

When you're building a world, it's like, okay, what are the large black creatures on this world? What are the large blue flyers on this world? What are the medium green creatures? You have to figure all that out. Once again, when you're going to a universes beyond world, it's pre-existing, like it exists. So the question is, okay, you okay, we need to make sure that the creatures of every size, of every mana, all fit. And you have to figure that out.

And then, okay, do artifacts make sense? Are there objects that are sort of core to what the thing is? Do enchantments make sense? What are interests in sorceries? We sort of realized really early on that we just didn't want to worry about planeswalkers, so we don't do planeswalkers universes beyond,

because that's a very magic-specific thing. But anyway, so we've got to figure out, like, do the card types make sense? And for creatures especially, do we have the right size? I mean, we have to hit different mana values and sizes, and so, and not just, are there, you know, I mean, we have to hit different mana values and sizes. And not just, are there, you know, magic is a game of magic, but not every IP has magic.

Is there technology? What are their weapons? The other thing to think about is magic is a combat game. Now, a lot of things we look at have elements of combat in them. Most stories have an element of combat. Sometimes we do games. Games inherently have combat. They don't inherently have an element of combat. Sometimes we do games. Games inherently have combat. They don't inherently have combat, but a lot of them do. And so we wanted to figure out, like, does it

do the things we need to do? So they'll look at the basic effects. You know, what would a giant growth effect be? What would a bounce spell be? What is direct damage? And sort of figure out, like, here are the key things that every magic set has to do. Okay, does it have those things?

A good example where we get into, like, an area where we have concern, I'll use Lord of the Rings again. So, Lord of the Rings has a lot of creatures and it is a really spelled out world. So we didn't have a problem with the creature grid, but we did have one problem with the creature grid,

which is the flying part of it. There's not a lot of flying, not nothing. There's dragons, there's the Nazgul, there's birds. But the things flying are not core to what that IP is about. You know, there are other, like, Marvel has lots of flying creatures. It's a big part of superheroes is flying, but less so, you know.

And flying actually in a lot of IPs, it depends. I mean, something like Warhammer 40,000, that is a combat system where flying means something. So they do have flying things. But like Doctor Who is like, okay, the TARDIS flies, but, you know, what are all the things that you need? And so when you look at the different qualities of different properties, you know, different sets can have different issues. But anyway, so the idea essentially is what R&D

does is it evaluates all these different things and says, okay, we want to turn this property into a magic set. Does it have the makings of a magic set? Does what the property do lean and lend itself toward making magic cards? Now, some of the time we'll evaluate and we go, no, it is not. It just doesn't have what we need. Some properties, for example, are sort of just about humans and there's nothing

else. There's no other creatures. And it's kind of hard making a magic set that's just humans. We could have a set that's heavy humans. We could do that. But it gets tricky when there's just no monsters. There's no other creatures to play with. That can get hard.

And there's also sets that maybe skew way too hard on a color, or sets that just have some aspect, you know, that don't lean well into combat, or just, there's something about it that doesn't make for a good magic set. So sometimes R&D will go, we'll pass. We don't think we can make a good magic set out of this. Now, sometimes it's like, well, yeah, we can make a magic set out of this. Now, sometimes it's like, well, yeah, we can make a magic set,

or yes, we can make magic cards, but, so the next thing that comes in there is there's a lot of different things we can do with Universes Beyond. On the small spectrum of things, we can make a secret lair, like Walking Dead, or Stranger Things, or Princess Bride, or Evil Dead. It can be a small number, and that's a lot easier because you're just making a few cards.

On the other end of the spectrum, we can make a full set, like Lord of the Rings, where it's a full draftable magic set. And then there's in between. You know, we've done inserts with insets, like with Jurassic World or Transformers. We've done Commander products, like with Doctor Who or Warhammer 40,000. You know, there's a lot of different...

So not only do we have to figure out, like, can we make a magic set? Part of the discussion also is what would make, like, what magic product best works with what the property is? Where does the property shine? How do we make it shine? Okay, once we do that, so now, step one, business identifies properties that make sense. that. So now, step one, business identifies properties that make sense. R&D looks at those properties, figures out of those properties, which ones we think we can make a good magic set out of. So the next step is going to the licensee. So we have to go to the people that own, I'm sorry, not the licensee, we're the licensee, the licensor. We have to go to the people that

own the license and find out, do they want to make a magic set? Because even if we think it's a good business opportunity and we believe we can make a good magic set, it doesn't matter if the people who own the license don't want to make a magic set. So the reason we do all work ahead of time is so that when we go to the licensor, we know what we want to make. We know what we want to do. And part of the process usually of testing things is making cards. And sometimes, like for example, when we went to pitch at Marvel, Aaron came to me, I'm a huge Marvel fan if you don't know, and said to me, hey, can you make me some sample cards?

And he said, I need, you know, a wealth of things. I need some characters, some objects. I want some generally well-known stuff, but if you can do one deep cut, you know, let's show them the breadth of what we can do. I mean, in a handful of cards. We can make tons of cards. And the idea is we go to the property and we sort of say to them, hey, here's what magic is. And we educate them about magic. Not everybody is as familiar about magic. Talk about who our audience is. And then the business team, the same people that do the initial survey stuff, goes and pitches magic to other teams, to other, you know, other businesses. And the idea is we want to make a deal. We want to, you know, and there's a lot that goes into that. And, you know, every, every deal's unique and, you know. But anyway, so they go and try to

see if that business wants to make a magic set. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Okay, so let's say we've identified a good property. R&D has tested it and says that we think can make a good magic set and we know what we do with it. And we go to the owner, the licensor, and they want to make a magic set and we sign the contract. Okay, so the next step is we need to make a design team. We need to start making the set. So we now have what we call a SME, which stands for S-M-E, a subject matter expert. So what we do is R&D, when we think there's a good chance

that we're going to get a license, usually while they're negotiating, we'll send out a form that says, here are properties we're looking at. How familiar are you with the property? And usually it's on a scale of one to five. One means not at all familiar, don't know the property. You know, it's not something I've ever partaked of.

Two is, okay, you know, I've seen it, I'm aware of it, I've, you know, I've sampled some of it, but I'm not, I'm not what I would call

a fan of the show at all, but, you know, I watch it. Three is, I'm a fan, I watch the show. If it's a movie, I've seen the movie.

If it's a TV show, I've seen the TV show. If it's a comic, I've read the comic. Whatever the source material is. Like that, I'm, you know I watch the show. If it's a movie, I've seen the movie. If it's a TV show, I've seen the TV show. If it's a comic, I've read the comic. Whatever the source material is. Like that, I'm, you know,

three is like, I'm a fan. Four is like, I'm a dedicated fan. You know, I go a little bit over and above. You know, maybe three is I'm a fan.

I've seen some of it. Four is, I've seen most of it. Five is, I'm a super fan. This is my passion. I love this property. I go extra lengths to experience it. I've seen all of it.

I'm well-versed. So for a SMEs, we want ideally five, sometimes four. The best SMEs are truly five. They just are passionate about the license. Now, what we do is we find who the SMEs are. Ideally, it's great if either the vision designer or the set designer, or sometimes both, are SMEs themselves.

They don't have to be. It is possible to put SMEs on the team. Usually, a set will have at least two SMEs on the team of just people that are really, really, like, diehard fans of it. And we like, if possible, to have the lead or one of the leads, at least one of the leads, be a SME. That's not always possible, depending on the property.

For example, Walking Dead was the very first Secret of the Latter-day Dead. The universe was bound Secret of the Latter-day Dead. I actually designed the cards for it. And the reason is, I was the fan in R&D of Walking Dead. I had read the comic from the very beginning. And I had watched the TV show. And so,

I think Brady, when he was looking for someone to make the cards, actually, I'm a pretty busy guy. So he didn't come to me at first. And finally he said, okay, you're the biggest fan we have. And it was only six cards or seven cards, so I said sure, I would do it. And it was a lot of fun. So anyway, okay, so we get together our team and explore, sorry,

Universes Beyond works the same way. There's exploratory, there's vision there is set design, there's play design so it functions, well I should take that back. It depends on what we're making. If we're making a product like a full set like like Lord of the Rings

yeah, then it goes through the full cycle. If we're making something a little bit different, a little smaller, like Secret Lair, obviously, usually there's someone who designs it and then someone who develops it. So there's two eyes on it. But anyway, we do have multiple teams.

How many teams we have depends a little bit on the product. But the bigger stuff does have exploratory vision. Sometimes exploratory and vision are combined. But there is, we go through the whole process. The one thing that's different about a Universes Beyond set is we start earlier. And the reason we start earlier is that there's a back and forth that we have with the licensor

that we don't have in normal magic sets. In normal magic sets, we have a licensor. So we don't need a, like, the way we think of it is the licensor is the expert on the property. We are expert on magic. And so we do a lot of interfacing with the licensor to make sure that they're happy, to make sure that what we're doing matches the property that it is. Now, it varies how much, how into magic different businesses are.

Sometimes, I mean usually what will happen is we're making a magic set, they will find somebody in the organization that are fans of magic. The big question is how high up those people are. Sometimes, you know, major players at the company are huge magic fans. Sometimes they're not. And how much they're into Magic might change how we interact with them a little bit. The more into Magic the people making decisions are, the more there's more shorthand because they already understand Magic. The more the people making decisions really aren't familiar with Magic, the more we have to sort of walk through and explain stuff.

So it's just how we approach things varies. And how each business wants to interact with magic, the more we have to sort of walk through and explain stuff. So it's just how we approach things varies and how each business wants to interact with us, how each licensor wants to interact with us just varies quite a bit. Some are very detail oriented. Some are more big picture oriented. It depends. But what will happen is we will start making the product. But what will happen is we will start making the product. And now, as with any product, we do market research.

We try to figure out. So one of the things is usually the licensor will share information with us. They'll have information about their audience, more so than we have about them, because much like we pull our audience, they pull their audience. And so we get a much deeper dive of who their audience is, which helps. And they normally have a better sense of what their fans like about their property so that we can sort of lean into the things that are the most generally popular about their property. Anyway, so we will start designing it. And then there's check-ins with the licensor.

So we will start designing it. And then there's check-ins with the licensor. Also, at the same time, the art department is interacting with their people. It depends. Once again, different licensors, it matters in different levels. The other big factor that depends is, are we doing actor likeness or not? If we are doing something with actor likeness, once again, it depends on the property,

but a lot of properties that have actors, the actor needs to sign off on it. Now, that part is usually done by the licensor, but we need to get them the thing, so, okay, we want to get permission to do, you know, we want to use your image, we need permission to do that. So the reason that we start Universes Beyond earlier is there's just a lot of steps and elements that don't go into a traditional magic

set that do in a Universes Beyond set. That we have to think about all those different factors. And so what happens in Vision is Vision is about, okay, what about this property makes for the best magic set?

It's kind of a similar thing we do. Normally in magic, like, oh, we're going to a gothic horror world, a Greek mythology world, a fairy tale world. Like, we have to figure out whenever we do something that's top-down, how does the resonance of the top-down match with what magic does well? So it's a process we do it's just a little bit more exacting than it is um once again we have the ability to shape our worlds so if we start designing something and realize there's some cool area of play we can shift the world to match the

play the universe is beyond the world's the world we're not shifting the world to match the play. In Universes Beyond, the world's the world. We're not shifting the world. So a lot of vision design is trying to understand what is the essence of what the product is. Where's the Venn diagram of this property and magic, where we overlap? Where is there potential to not just make a... We want to make a cool magic set, but we want to make a magic set that evokes this property.

And one of the really cool things, one of the advantages of Units Beyond is it really sort of pushes us to find solutions. Like, because there's elements that can't be changed, it does make us get creative. Restrictions bring creativity. But one of the things we have to understand is where's there naturalness that we can make cool magic things of restrictions pre-creativity. But one of the things we have to understand is where,

where's their naturalness that we can make cool magic things and where are we going to get ourselves in trouble? Where, where are we, like,

what to lean on and what not to lean on is a lot of what vision design is doing. And another big thing that happens earlier in vision than it normally does

is there's a lot more caring about words early on. Like, a lot of times in a normal set, I might make a mechanic, but like, well, I give it a playtest name, but we'll figure out the real name down the road. But in Universes Beyond, usually it's like, no, no, no, I'm capturing

this concept. This is the name. It is this concept. And so there's a lot more. Universes Beyond have a lot more of we are trying to capture something, but the flavor is preset ahead of time. And there's some challenges. There are some opportunities there,

and there's some challenges there. One of the things that's very challenging about doing Universes Beyond is so we have a concept called a lock-in. So, for example, normally in a magic set, at some point you make art. And once you have art, it starts locking you in, meaning I now have to match the art.

I don't have freedom to just make the card whatever I want because I have to match the art. Universes Beyond have that sort of, some of that locked-in quality where, okay, this card represents this character. And so, you know, I can't do that property without that character, so I've got to figure out how to make that character work. And that character will lock in qualities of the card. And so, one of the challenges of Universes Beyond

is there are more restrictions that you're working with and there are more things that you kind of have to meet. Now, part of making a set is figuring out what makes the best magic cards and where to lean in and not. If your property is big enough, like Doctor Who

did 60 years of Doctor Who, we're not going to hit everything. But once again, that's why we have the subject matter experts and why we interact with the licensor. We want to make sure that we're hitting the things that the fans most want. And then some of the time also, hey, we've got to make a magic set.

What are the things that make sense in this property that allow us to do the things we need to do? We need flyers in Lord of the Rings. Okay, well, let's go a little bit deeper. Maybe we're doing things that aren't asers in Lord of the Rings. Okay, well, let's go a little bit deeper. Maybe we're doing things that aren't as famous in Lord of the Rings, but they fly, and they're in Lord of the Rings. And so there's a combination of figuring that out.

Like I said, because you get locked in, there's some challenges. There are some great freedoms of doing Universes Beyond, but there are a lot of challenges. And like I said, the biggest challenge is you are working with something that isn't malleable. And

awesome great things can come from that. You can push boundaries. Sometimes you discover great things. But sometimes it's just a restriction that causes problems. Sometimes it's like, oh, well, ah, okay, you know. And sometimes you have to figure out where to give up on things. You know, we've definitely looked at something and said, oh, this is a cool idea, ah, you know, and sometimes you have to figure out where to give up on things.

You know, we definitely looked at something and said, oh, this is a cool idea, but it doesn't make for a good magic. It doesn't play well in magic. And so sometimes you have to say, well, maybe this, you know, this aspect has to be done a different way than the way that we wanted to do it. Anyway, so what happens then is vision design will hand off to set design. Set design has to, that's when we start doing art. Universes Beyond is a little bit easier in the sense that, I mean, give and take. It's easier in the art, in the art ways because, hey, I know what I'm doing. I'm doing these characters. Even if I'm not 100% sure how the character's getting represented on the card, that is the character.

And so we tend to commission art a little on the earlier side. Once again, licensure has signed off and stuff like that. But then we start making a set. The other thing is, when normally in set design, there's a lot of adjusting that gets done. You know, you're building the house in my metaphor. You have to adjust things to make limited play if you're doing a limited set and just to make things work, to make the gameplay work. And so there's a lot of changes.

There's a lot of back and forth with the licensor. Sometimes you want to change something or maybe you want to put something in a certain direction, make sure that that's okay with the licensor. Sometimes the licensor has a demand. You know, it's important that this is that. And so you have to meet those demands. And there's just a lot that goes on in set design in sort of, like I said, you're making multiple, there's multiple groups you have to make happy, one of which is the licensor. And so there's a lot of give and take. And that's why we have longer for it.

So we have more time for the back and forth to get notes so we can make changes. And there's a lot that goes in. I'm not even getting to the whole art side of things, but there's a lot doing another property. There's a lot about getting the right style and getting a thing that the licensor is happy with that sort of captures the essence of it, but feels like magic and anyway, a lot of that. So anyway, then finally, we are sort of pencils down and that's when we do our last big sort of the licensor approval process when things are sort of like, this is kind of official.

Now, we will get notes from the licensor at that point. So pencils down in the sense that we weren't planning to make any more changes, but if we need to, because of notes from licensor, that's when we can make more changes. Meanwhile, and there's a lot of stuff that are just like normal. We have drafts every week, you know,

or occasional drafts of the product if it's a draftable product. There's playtests with it. If it's not draftable, then we're doing commander playtests. But we're playing with it to make sure it's good. There's playdays and all sorts of things that we normally do. And then the final process is, even once we're done, we've made the set, when we get to the final part of it, which is sort of the licensing of it, all that is also

run by the licensor. So if I write an article or articles about it, if I record a podcast about it, all that gets sent to the licensor to make sure that um because part of what's happening is when we're working with somebody else we want to make sure that our game of their property reflects their property um and anyway and so um that is uh the key elements of how you make a universes beyond set there's a lot that goes into it there's a lot of component pieces to it um there definitely is some challenges that are unique to Universes Beyond. But on the flip side, there are some advantages.

The story I always tell, and then I'll wrap up here, is... So, I had worked... I was on Lord of the Rings. I'd definitely done playtests for a lot of our other Universes Beyond products.

But the first time time I think I really like emotionally got Universes Beyond was the first play test I did with... I led one of the Marvel sets. And the first play test we did was the first time I got to play with, you know, magic but with Marvel. Obviously, I'm a giant, giant magic fan. I've been playing magic since the beginning. And I'm a huge Marvel fan. And the emotional excitement, the idea of taking two different things that I'm really passionate about and putting them together was just so exciting. It was really, it really made me realize the high highs that Universes Beyond can get. That there's something about embracing

a property you love through the game of magic, which we all love, that was really exciting. It really got me, you know, I think a lot of times people talk about, if you go back in my blog 10 years ago or something, and I, I, I was saying, yeah, I don't think we're doing other properties, this and that. And I really got turned around. I really, over time, realized that, that Universes Beyond is an ability to let people experience

magic in a different way, to maybe bring people to magic that might not normally sample magic. Um, and I've become a convert. And so, anyway, that, my friends, is the making of the Universe of Beyond set. So anyway, I'm now at work. So you all know what that means? It means it's the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.