Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1232: Spike

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

This podcast is part three of a three-part series walking through the three psychographics. Today, I  explore the psychological analysis of Spike.

I'm pulling away from the curb because I brought my son off at school. We all know what that means It's time for other drive to work Okay, so recently I've been doing a series of podcasts on the three psychographics So the first one was on Timmy and Tammy the second one was on Johnny and Jenny, which means the third one is on spike Okay, so the psychographics for those that haven't listened to the other two podcasts real quickly, is a tool borrowed from advertising that talks about why people want to purchase your product. Why do spikes play?

Who are spikes? That's today's topic. So the reason I did the spike podcast last interestingly was spike was the third Psychographic to name and it's the only psychographic I didn't name We used to refer to as the tournament player for a while so they're early on in the early days of there's Timmy there's Johnny and there's the tournament player and then at one point the brand team was doing a presentation or something and they wanted a name for the tournament player.

So the brand team named him Spike. That's where the name Spike came from. So today we're going to get into the heart of Spike. Spike by the way is the only one, a while back when I made the names they were very male leaning. And Spike's the only one I didn't give another name to because I've known four spikes in My life three which were female. So I decided the spike was a pretty A name that is all gendered

so anyway Let's get into talking about spike so one of the things you'll see the through line in this series is that one of the things that games do best is allowing players to do something that's important to them. With Timmy and Tammy it was about experiencing something. With Johnny and Jenny it was about expressing something. So Spike, I like to say that Spike's about proving something.

And what I mean by that is one of the things about games, we talk a lot about how games allow you to sort of do things with less consequence, right? That there's a lot of skills that you can learn because the thing, you know, that in life, if I make a mistake, I can get fired, I could lose my, I could not have my rent. Like things could happen that are

of much more serious consequence. Where in a game, well I lose, okay I lost the game. And so there's, one of the things about games is that they are a really good place to sort of hone skills. And that is where Spike really thrives. They are a really good place to sort of hone skills. And that is where Spike really thrives. Spike is all about, hey, I want to use this game to prove something, to show something,

to demonstrate what I'm capable of. And the idea essentially is that Spike at their core wants to get better. Spike is like, hey, games can help you improve. I want to improve. And I want to make sure that what I'm doing is maximizing my ability to use this game as a means to improve. That in some ways you can say that what Spike wants, not just to prove something, but to improve something.

That Spike wants to get better for playing the game. That Spike wants to use the tools of the game as a means to better themselves. Because, and this is one of the big things is, one of the great things about games is that there are things that people need. There are human needs that people have. And like I said, in fact, you know,

Timmy and Tammy wanted to express something, experience something. It's just, there's things they wanted, there's feelings they wanna have, and there's things they wanna do, and they wanna use the game as a means to do things that feel important to them. Johnny and Jenny really wanna demonstrate who they are,

and they wanna use games as a means to let other people see that. Well, Spike is like, Hey, this is the perfect opportunity to to better myself and I want to show that I'm up to the task. And so a lot of what Spike is about is like, Hey, I want to use the opportunity before me. I want to maximize it. I want to learn. I want to improve. I want to, because I play the game, become better. That I want to raise my skills. I want to fine tune myself.

So anyway, as I explained last time, I did two articles on Timmy, John, and Spike The first article was called Timmy, John and Spike. That was like in 2002. And then like, I don't know, 10-ish years later, I did an article called Timmy, John and Spike Revisited. That has the sub-categories that I've been using in this podcast series. So let's get into the sub-series. So first we have the innovators and the idea there is that

Part of touching yourself is The innovators want to say hey, I want to understand the system I want to like look in and see the game and understand what makes the game tick Because that is a really important skill. In life, if you can understand the underlying elements to what's going on, you know, the way to win at life is to understand what game you're playing, to understand what is going on, what matters, what elements are, and so in a game,

the way to really harness the skills for life is to harness them in game. So when an innovator says, okay, I'm playing the game, I wanna understand what makes the game tick. What are the building blocks of the game? And so for example, I'll use an example, a friend of mine's name, Brian Weissman. So Brian Weissman was a pro player

and he's famous for making the first named deck which ironically was called the deck. And a lot of what Brian was doing, this is way way back in you know 93, 94 was he was one of the early people to understand the concept of card advantage. By the way, I did a podcast with Brian about card advantage which is really good. So if you ever podcast with Brian about card advantage, which is really good. So if you ever want to better understand card advantage, Brian, I did a very fun podcast on that.

But anyway, what Brian said is Brian sort of figured out something that other people hadn't figured out this idea. I mean, the core idea of card advantage is look, if I sort of draw more cards, cards are the resource by which I can win the game. If I have more of that resource, I will win. And so he really went about understanding how exactly do I get more cards than my opponent. And on the surface levels, I could draw more cards than

my opponent, but it got much deeper than that. I'm going to do things where I'm trading one card for two cards. I'm going to do things in which I am going up over on cards, not just in my hand, but on the board, you know, in battlefield, like I'm, you know, a lot of understanding a card advantage is understanding the means by which you get ahead. And the deck was just, the whole point of that deck was maximizing that.

For example, the deck was one of the early ones to understand the idea of, if I make cards that make my opponent's cards dead, not destroy them, but moat was a classic card. Moat at the time is a card out of legends and you couldn't attack unless you, you could only attack with flying creatures or creatures I think that at Island Walk. But the idea was that if I play a moat, I'm shutting down most of your creatures.

And I didn't destroy the creatures, but if I made them, if I kept them from doing their primary functions, it's a lot like I got rid of them. Meaning the idea of card advantage isn't just about destruction, it's about utility. And if I take something from yours and make it not useful that is not that much different for me just getting rid of it. Anyway a lot of of Brian's of

the deck was understanding this principle and I say that's a lot of deck building a lot of sort of or always the innovative deck building is understanding a how magic works What are what are the key elements of magic things like card advantage and tempo and things like that? But be what makes this particular set, you know If you're playing limited what makes it work in limited if you're playing constructed. What are all the different? Sets in that constructed format. What do they add? You know what it's trying to understand sort of,

I want to make the best possible decks. And to do that, I need to understand the game as well as I can. And so a lot of the innovator is about testing the limits of comprehension. What makes magic tick? What makes this mechanic tick? What makes this card tick.

And the really interesting is you get really into people who are really into innovating, you can dig really deep. Steven Endian, who's a really famous player of vintage, wrote a whole book once about how to play the card gush, which was one card, a whole book about playing one card. I mean, that is deep. And so a lot of the idea of the innovator

is just really trying to utilize and understand so that dynamics of what is going on. And then once you understand what matters, once you understand what are the key components, then you can build. Brian said, card advantage is important. Okay, well, I can draw lots of cards. I can destroy multiple creatures at once,

I can play things like moat, you know, and he pieced all that together. And at the time, you know, like I remember the, I was, I lived in Los Angeles at the time, and we used to travel, I was traveling up to, there was a big tournament in San Francisco. And I remember that I had heard from somebody, because you used to do a lot back in, we're

talking like 93, early 94, the magic communities were very pocketed, meaning the internet was young, there weren't a lot of magazines yet about magic. And so the idea was, um, you kind of fine tune your, uh, like the environment changed city to city. So LA had sort of a metagame, but then San Francisco had a different metagame. And one of the things that you would do is when you would go to a different city, you would bring cards to trade because there were cards that weren't that, you know, people didn't want to trade with you in Los Angeles Angeles but really wanted to trade for you in San Francisco and one of the things I heard was they really really liked moat in San

Francisco so I remember I traded and got a whole bunch of moats so that I could trade my moats when I got up to San Francisco and later I didn't know this at the time it was because of the deck moat was key to the deck and that's why everyone wanted to get their hands on moats. Because in San Francisco, that was the meta game. The deck was the meta game, or the core of the meta game. Okay, next, the tuners. So the innovators are all about doing something no one's done before and trying to figure out

what is key to winning in the environment. The tuners are like, look, our job is not to find, I'm not an innovator, I'm not necessarily gonna find the best deck, but what I can do is figure out from what exists, what deck is the best deck and then make it even better. The idea of a tuner is that there's a real skill. For example, in writing, you have writers

and you have editors. The writers write the core ideas of everything and are the first pass, but the editors go back and sort of clean things up, right? In a lot of ways, tuners are the editors of debts. They say, okay, you have a good idea. This foundation, really good, but, you know, and what the tuners are really good at is learning from what other people are doing.

The innovators are sort of trying to understand in the vacuum what is happening, and now the innovators don't pay attention to each other. But the tuners are much more about the way I'll be the best Magic players, not that I'm gonna innovate, but I'm going to take what is there and make it better. You know oh clearly this card is the key card in the environment or this combination or

whatever whatever is really winning but is there a way to make it better is there a way to you know the person who came up with the idea really you know was the one that innovated the idea that this is what is going to win. But are they maximizing it? Are they making this good as they could? Are there combinations they haven't seen? So the idea of a tuner is someone who takes what exists and then makes it even better. And so a lot of that mindset is that a lot of, I mean, and once again, these are all

great life skills. There's another good life skill of saying, I'm going to take what exists, but make a better version of it. In fact, in business, there are whole businesses that I'm going to take something that is popular, but be better at it, do a better version of it. And so the idea of trying to improve upon the known, not finding the unknown, but improve upon the known, it's also a really important set of skills. And, you know, when I look at pro players, the interesting thing was there were some innovators,

it's not like there weren't innovators among the pro players, but if I looked at the very tippy top of the players, what I tended to find was that the best players had really good tuning skills. Not that they had zero innovation skills, most of them have some innovation skills, but the skills that actually were more important. And there were some top players, like very, very top players who really didn't innovate at all, but they were really, really good at tuning. And a lot of what tuning is, because one of the things about high level magic play is the key to winning when you get to the highest level is about a lot of small details.

And learning about those small details is super important. Which leads us, by the way, into the next, the analysts. So the analysts say, okay, you have people who are, who are innovating and doing new things. You have people that are fine tuning and trying to make things better. But the analyst says, I'm not looking, I'm not looking at the game necessarily. The innovators are really trying to crack the game. The innovators, I'm sorry, the, what am I?

I just blanked what I called them. The analysts, the analysts are about looking at the entire environment of what we call the metagame. So for those that don't know the term metagame, the metagame is like, okay, there's lots of different people playing. They're playing lots of different decks. Knowing all those things,

what is the best thing to play? And so the idea of an analyst is there is no one best deck overall, but there might be a best deck at the one moment in time. You know, if I look around and I think, you know, for example, right before a pro tour happens, there's a lot of playtesting that goes on. And the innovators are trying to find things no one knows about. And the fine tuners are taking the best decks that exist and they're trying to make them better. The analysts are saying, okay, I understand that this deck in a vacuum is the best deck, but knowing what people are bringing, knowing what, you know, knowing what I believe the

environment will be, it turns out this deck, that in a vacuum is not the best deck, but in this environment very much is. I remember there was a tournament, Zvi Moshelvitz was a really good pro player. And the reason he won the tournament, it wasn't really that, I mean, he didn't have the best deck in a vacuum, but he figured out the environment and said, well, if people are going to play this, and that's like, he figured out what the dominant deck of it was, and he goes, okay, I'm going to play the deck

that is really, really good against the dominant deck, and then is, you know, can hold its own against the next few decks that are the best of the decks. Meaning that this deck in this environment is the deck that will have the best track record. And so the analyst is a little more big picture is, like I said, the innovator is about looking at the roots of what the game system is.

The tuners are about trying to improve what exists. The analysts are about saying, Hey, in any one moment in time, I want to understand everything. I want to understand all the decks that are being made. And then I'm going to figure out from what is getting played and what percentages, what is the most dominant deck for that particular moment in time. And it's not as if this deck's going to be the best deck next week. No, no, no. And so one of the things about the analysts is they're

constantly changing their deck. An innovator, I mean, they change their deck so they're constantly innovating, but they'll spend time on the new innovation, the fine tuners might change their decks, but they're also trying to make things the best they can. They wanna keep playing the same deck that they can. The analysts are the ones that are much more willing to change decks on a whim because the analysts are about, I'm trying to understand the larger system.

And once again, these are all great life skills, trying to say, hey, I want to understand what people are doing so that I can find the best way in, not because it's truly the best in a vacuum, but it's the best knowing what other things are out there. That understanding environment, understanding influence, you know, in a vacuum, but it's the best knowing what other things are out there. That understanding environment, understanding influence, you know, all those skills are very good skills. Okay, which brings us to the final of the, and once again, I'll give this caveat on my previous ones. These are big subcategories. They're not the only subcategories. The ones I did when I wrote the article. I think the things I'm saying hold true, ones I did when I wrote the article. I think the things I'm saying hold true. And I mean, I think there are spikes that focus

on other things. The through line of spike really is that they're trying to prove something. I'm the best at finding things that no one else sees. I'm the best at making things better. I'm the best at understanding the interconnection between things. So the last one is what I call the nuts and bolts. The nuts and bolts spike is like, the thing that needs the most improvement is me. And this is interesting. The more you get into pro play, the more I think you gravitate toward nuts and bolts. And the reason is, on some level, the difference between the good and the great, or between the very, you know,

even if you say the great and the best, is this willingness to sort of understand that the biggest thing that you need to improve to get better is yourself. Like one of the real things, like one of the things about Magic is the sign, I spent many years running the feature matches and interacting with a lot of pro tours,

and the best of the best were the ones that said, whenever they lost a game, I lost that game. What could I have done so I didn't lose that game? That is very easy when you lose and go, well, I got unlucky or my opponent just had better cards or it's a bad matchup or whatever. There's a million reasons to give excuses. There's lots of reasons to, I mean, and to be honest, as a game designer, one of the things magic does really well is it gives you a lot of outs it gives you all

sorts of reasons why it wasn't your fault that's actually a strength of magic the fact that there is randomization in the game the fact that there's unknown information there's a lot of things that let you if you want to sort of as we call protect your ego right magic has many many ways for you to go well it's not really my fault but if you want to be good and I think the top tier players the lesson is I've lost now I have to trace back through my game look at everything I did and understand hey where was I not a hundred percent one of the ways I would describe it is imagine if while you're playing you got

10 of the best Magic players in the world to watch you play. And then after the game, they took notes and said, okay, what could I have been better at? There are not many games you play where all the top players go, well, you were flawless. There was nothing I could have improved there. Usually there's something You know, well you did this but you know, how you anticipated that you could have done You know, there's always something you can do and a lot of what the nuts and bolts strategy is is saying Okay, let me keep getting better

But one of the things for example the little spike in me and I'm I'm as I said in another podcast I'm much more Johnny Johnny than I'm spike, but there's some spike miss Timmy Tammy me despite in me and I'm I'm as I said in another podcast. I'm much more Johnny Jenny than I'm spike But there's some spike miss Timmy Tammy me despite can me um the spike in me like when I first joined R&D I Was not a great magic player. I did not come from the pro tour I was a decent deck innovator in the sense that I I can make some fun decks And I wasn't I mean I wasn't amazing I was in top tier But I was a decent deck innovator and I've said I can make some fun decks. And I wasn't amazing. I wasn't top tier, but I was a decent deck innovator.

And nonetheless, I was very much a Johnny Jenny. But the spike in me was I was pretty good at understanding what made the game tick. So I think I'm a good game designer. I really had an understanding of what was working on. So when I was, no, I was using those skills to do wacky, weird things to show off what I could do more so than break the game. But once I got to Wizards, I'm like, OK, now wacky weird things to show off what I could do more so than break the game.

But once I got to Wizards, I'm like, okay, now it's my job to understand things. And a lot of times, for example, you know, we'll have tournaments and things and well, especially when I was a developer before Behemoth Designer, where I was doing more of the testing on the back end, the later part of the testing. I would have, you have to sort of crack down and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how do I make myself a better player? What am I doing wrong?

What mistakes am I making? And a real common thing I would do is I was playing against much better players. These are people who are on the pro tour. I would ask, should I, at the end of the game I go, I did this, was that wrong? I will inquire about things and I will sort of, you know, find people who are better than me.

And then when I get in situations and say, hey, in your opinion, should I have done that differently? And I spent a lot of time doing that. And while I'm, you know, I'm still not pro-tour level or anything, I'm much better than I used to be. And I, a lot of that is realizing that the greatest way to get better was me. Like I'm my weakest link, right?

Not that you can't get unlucky, not that there's not elements to other things. It's not like you losing is always you, but you control you and so you can make it better. So anyway, now comes the point where I talk about designing for each of the things. So the interesting thing about designing for spikes is you want to build things in the game that allow them to make fun decisions, to outplay their opponent. Like a lot of what makes all the spikes happy is that you're just making cards that aren't super blunt. I mean those are fine. be is that you're just making cards that aren't super blunt. I mean, those are fine.

I mean, on some level you need the tools and the tuners especially care about the tools. Well, the innovators like, let me go through the thing. The innovators want you pushing new territory. The innovators want you doing things you haven't done before because that is where they excel. You making the 20th version of something. Well, most people understand that by now that you've hadth version of something, well most people understand that by now that you've had 20 versions of it, but you making a brand new mechanic that you've never made before, you know you delving in areas that they're going to be faster and

cracking that. And the things that innovators really love is they love meeting new systems where you're doing something new or where you're approaching things from a different way that takes old things and makes them work differently. One of the classics, one of the early sets that I worked on was Odyssey. In an Odyssey I decided to take the concept of card advantage that you know people like Brian Weissman had had innovated on and really threw it on its ear and Odyssey is all about like doing things that don't make sense from a card advantage standpoint. I want to throw away my whole hand, but it gets me threshold which will win me the game. You know, there's things that I was really playing. That set ended up not being fun for the Timmy Tammies

and Johnny Jennings of the world. It really was counterintuitive to how people want to play. So it wasn't, I don't think in retrospect a great design, but for the spikes out there, it really tested you because it was challenging assumptions you had. And one of the ways you really, where innovators get the most, innovators love when you play a new space or you recontextualize known space. That's where the innovators are the happiest, where you have to take a fresh approach and go, okay, let me figure out how this works. Now, the good news is we like doing new mechanics.

We like doing new things. It's a core part of what magic is. But that is where the innovators are the happiest. The tuners are happiest with tools, right? The big difference between a good deck and a great deck usually is, are you maximizing your tools? Sometimes it can be maximizing synergies and things. There are other elements to make decks better.

But a lot of times it's sort of like, well, and one of the interesting things is what you want to do is make a lot of different kinds of tools. And then what the tuner's like is, oh, in this situation with this combination of cards, this version of this effect is the best because every effect has a little tiny add-on. That little tiny add-on here is synergistic with what the deck is doing. This version of it is the best because this deck is it. Once again, this is something we do, but one of the things we really try to do is, look,

we're going to make a giant growth every set. But that doesn't mean we have to make exactly the same giant growth every set. Hey, some of the times it'll literally be giant growth. But a lot of times we're gonna weave in one of the set mechanics, or we're gonna do something with it. We're gonna grant trample or vigilance,

or we're gonna do something, probably not vigilance, that's a bad instant. But I mean, we're gonna do something that just makes you think about it slightly differently and that is really really good for the tuners. For the analysts, it's a little bit tricky. The analyst is more about building larger, like one of the things that Play Design does is they want to make sure, we like to build decks that are like, one of the things we do a lot is we like to build decks that are like one of the things we do a lot is we'll design component pieces that go together. We call it a prescription package is what we call it.

And the idea is here's a cool thing that you can build around and that now the innovators aren't as excited about that because it's a little more presented you know hey here's these cards all work together and you can do this thing. For example, a typo theme is pretty much, oh, warriors matter. Okay, we'll get a lot of warriors and play them together. I mean, the innovators will test that out to figure out whether or not there's something new there and the tuners will figure out how to make the best version of it. But the analysts kind of like it best when there's loud things that really push people

in certain directions because that allows them to sort of understand how the winds are blowing. And going into an environment where the next lower level players are being swayed by the themes, and then there's some strategy to play counter to the themes, is where the analysts thrive. So the analysts really, really like when we do themes. Not because they play those themes, but they like it when it's very loud what the themes are because it lets them play against the theme and that's a lot of fun for them.

Finally the nuts and bolts, it's um I think the thing the nuts and bolts like best is cards that are hard to use or better yet not hard to use hard to maximize. or better yet not hard to use hard to maximize one of my go-to of this and I talked about this in my my chat on the the 20 innovative cards factor fiction was a card one of our Divi cards was from innovation from invasion and the idea was you you have to split the cards in two you know one player splits them into the other players to choose them and stuff like that where you have to sort of understand The opponent like factor fiction is a really interesting card in that

At a low level, I mean the lowest level version is just look at the cards in the vacuum and what you know The cards divide them but as you get better it has a lot to do with okay. What am I playing? What is my opponent playing in this matchup? What's the important thing and in the current board situation of where we are right now? Not just in the game in general, but right now in this game what matters? And so the cards we can make like that that really sort of test the skill of the player The the nuts and bolts players really like that. It's really fun to make cards that you know The card gets stronger the more skilled you are and both players really like that. It's really fun to make cards that, you know, the card

gets stronger the more skilled you are. I think all Spikes like that, but especially the Nuthin' Bolts. The real through line of today's thing is that the Spikes are very much about saying there are real practical skills that I will pick up and learn, that I will learn in this game, that I will bring to real life. And that one of the things in general, there's a lot of, I know a lot of pro players who went and got jobs in other fields,

and the fact that they were so good at a game was really appealing to their employers. They're like, oh, well, there are skills that you learn that are very applicable to what we do. And in lots of different jobs. And I think that's part of the idea of the spike, which is, hey, if I'm gonna spend my time playing a game, I'm going to maximize what the game can do

for me, the person. I'm gonna sharpen myself, I'm gonna sharpen my mind, I'm gonna sharpen sharpen myself. I'm going to sharpen my mind. I'm going to sharpen how I perceive things. I'm going to sharpen my ability to examine things, to analyze things, that I'm going to take all these skills that exist that the game can make me better at. And I'm going to focus on that. And I'm going to prove that I am good at that thing.

I am going to, like I said, they want to prove and improve. They want to show what they're capable of and they want to get better. And that really is the core of the spike experience of saying, Hey, games are a great way of improving. I'm going to do that. So anyway, guys, um, I am, uh, that's my, that is the end of my psychographic talk. I hope that also, if you haven't heard the two before I did the first one's on Timmy and Tammy second one's on Johnny and Jenny This one's on spike. I hope you enjoyed them. If you haven't heard them all go give them a listen Oh, but anyway guys, I'm now at work. So we all know 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. I'll talk to you all next time. Bye. Bye