Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1246: Why Mechanics Don't Make It

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

We design a lot of mechanics. Most don't make it to print. Why? That's my topic for this podcast.

I'm pulling away from the curb because I dropped my son off at school. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's topic, I've talked about before that when we make a magic set, there are some number of mechanics in the set. Usually three to six mechanics, maybe named mechanics, maybe there's a couple more unnamed mechanics, but there's only so many mechanics that actually end up in the printed set. We make a lot more mechanics.

I don't know the exact number, but for every mechanic we make, we probably try five to ten to maybe more than that, depending on the set, but we try a lot of things that we don't put. So today the topic is why do mechanics not make it? All these mechanics that we try, how come they don't get in the set? What happens to those mechanics? Why didn't they make it?

That's today's topic. Why didn't they make it? That's the topic. Okay, so let me go back a little bit to exploratory design. There's a concept that I use in exploratory design that will be my framework today. So when we do exploratory design that will be my framework today. So when we do exploratory design, the idea for those, I've done a whole podcast on exploratory

design, but for those that have not listened to those podcasts, the short version of exploratory design is we're going wide, not deep. The idea is we are exploring space and we are trying to sort of figure out what potential exists for whatever theme or whatever game design focus we have. And we have what we call the three buckets, which I like to call the good, the bad, and the ugly. So whenever we're doing a mechanic, after we play it, it goes into one of three buckets.

The first bucket, the good, that is a good mechanic. Vision design should consider good mechanic. Vision Design should consider that mechanic. We vetted it, it's good. The bad is, this is a bad mechanic. Let's not waste anybody's time. You can ignore this. This is not something you want to explore. And the ugly. And most of what this means is there's potential there, but it's not quite there yet. That there's something about it that we, it's not a good mechanic. We're not putting in the good bucket. It's not a bad mechanic.

It has potential, but potential has not been reached yet. And so the idea is it needs more exploration. So often in exploratory design, if we find bucket one or bucket two, put them in the bucket, move on. Bucket three usually means let's explore it a little more. What about it is causing problems? And so bucket three means we explore a little bit more. Okay, so what I wanna talk about today is,

we're gonna start with bucket two, the bad bucket. Why do things go in the bad bucket? Then I will talk about the ugly bucket. Like why are things so potential when not there? And then I'll get into the good bucket. Why are we making all the mechanics in the good bucket? Because we don't. I'll talk about the ugly bucket. Like why are things so potential when not there? And then I'll get into the good bucket. Why are we making all the mechanics in the good bucket? Because we don't. I'll talk about that.

So that is the topic of today's podcast. Hopefully that sounds fun. Okay, the bad bucket. So why exactly do mechanics get in the bad bucket? What about a mechanic makes it a bad mechanic? And the point is there's a lot of different things. I'm going to hit up some of the highlights. So first and foremost, a very common thing, well I guess the number one thing is what you're asking the player to do is

not a fun thing to do. There are various reasons that might be the case. Maybe it's too complicated, maybe it's too confusing, maybe it requires too much memory, maybe it requires too much logistical moving things around, that there's something about it that, or maybe just what you're asking them to do, they don't wanna do, they don't inherently want to do. That could be because what you're asking is something that isn't inherently fun.

Ooh, it's mechanical, all about discarding your hand. Well, people like to play the cards with their hands. So that's not as much fun. So, you know, sometimes we make mechanics and the idea is you play with them and you're like, hey, you know, the reason you get in the third bucket is, well, there's something here, but sometimes you play and you're like,

I don't know, this isn't fun. Now I will get into a little bit of why it isn't fun. But first and foremost, just like I'm not enjoying playing it. Okay, so why? Why are you not enjoying playing it? Okay, maybe the thing we're asking you to do is too hard to do. Maybe it's like, okay, I get what you're trying to get me to do and they're like, wow, this is really hard to do.

And so what that means is it doesn't happen. And so I never get to enjoy it happening. And that part of the fun of a game is you want some mental challenge, but if it's too much of a challenge, if it's something you just can't do, well, that's not fun. It's not fun to never, you know,

if we give you a mental challenge, we want you to sometimes solve it. It's not fun if you can never solve it. And so sometimes the task is too hard. Interestingly, the reverse is also a problem. Let's say it's too easy. It's like, okay, you have to draw a card. Well, I draw a card every turn. That's not much of a, you know, that sometimes what it asks you to do is just, yeah, you're going to do it anyway. Um, now, like I said, the being too easy doesn't inherently mean like, there are definitely things we do, landfall is a great example, where it's not like playing a land is anything difficult,

but you get a choice of when you do and don't play a land. So there's actually interesting choices about, oh, do I want to play my land now or do I want to wait a turn and the effect will be more useful next turn. So maybe even though I normally would play a land as soon as I will be more useful next turn so maybe I maybe even even though I normally would play a land as soon as I get it if I can maybe I hold it and that can be interesting but sometimes you know the the too hard too easy metrics just a matter of there's a certain amount of um uh resistance you want right that you want to be like, I wanna work at doing it, so I wanna feel like it's not too easy,

but I wanna be able to do it, so it can't be too hard. So sometimes it falls there. Sometimes we get into the complicated or, and there's a couple different things here. One is I do it and I don't understand what I'm doing. Or I do it, but it's just too hard to track what's going on. That's a real common thing we'll do. Like, okay, we're going to care about thing X. And then you start playing, you're like, wow, it's hard to care about thing X. And then you're like, I don't know if I want to care about thing X. It's just,

it's too hard to track. And like I said, there's a difference between being complicated, I don't understand what I'm doing, being confusing. I'm not quite sure what I'm tracking or being onerous in that, yeah, I know what I'm doing but it's too hard to do it. It also can be logistically problematic. Stickers was a great example where the actual concept of stickers was pretty fun

but the stickers didn't stick and when you take them off and put them back on they'd fall off and you couldn't find them. Or something similar is suspend was mechanic where instead you saved mana, but it cost you time. So you had to wait so many turns for the spell to go off. But every turn you had to put counters on them, remove the counters, remember the end of the counters

and there just was a lot of logistics to it. And a lot of people didn't enjoy that. So a lot of it sort of is, is the app, and like I said, fun is subjective in some ways, but there are definitely things that we find out that cause people, another common thing is too much tension. If the decisions that I have to make is just too hard,

like, oh, every time I'm doing something, okay, hold on. In R&D, what we call it, tanking, when you I'm doing something, okay, I hold on. Um, in R and D, what we call it, we call it tanking. When you just have to stop and think for a little bit. And we want to be careful a little bit tanking is okay. A lot of tanking is not, you know, every once in a while, there's a super important turn in the game. I have a couple of choices of what to do. I really got to thinking out a little bit of that is okay. But every time I go, okay, let me game stop. So I think about it that I run through every option of what I can do You know, we want to make sure that there's it's not too much going on and it's not hard because I'm not sure what to do

You know we want once again a lot of the lesson here is you want some thought you want some tension? You want some decision? You don't want too much thought too much decision too much tension You know, there's a balance between what you want to get decision you don't want too much thought, too much decision, too much tension. You know there's a balance between what you want to get. The other thing that often happens when we're playing is we realize that there's something impractical about it. Normally in exploratory we don't get too deep into how easy is this to make down the road because we're more trying to find the fun. Sometimes you get into something like wow I don't even know how we're this to make down the road because we're more trying to find the fun. But sometimes you get into something like,

wow, I don't even know how we're gonna do this. And if it's really onerous, really onerous sometimes, I guess if it's very fun, we will try to figure out just a way to do it. But if it's kind of like, eh, it's not super fun. And man, I'm not sure how we do this. Sometimes just understanding practical concerns down the road will keep you from

doing that. You know, and that is like a lot of the bad bucket is, you know, part of game design is just learning inherently why games are fun. And it, like I said, there's a sweet spot of I want to challenge the player. I want to make them, you know, they're up for, the reason you play a game is you want a little bit of mental challenge. I want there to be interesting decisions. I want there to be cool gameplay. I want there to be, you want to make what's called

an iterative loop of gameplay, which is, the player's presented with a problem, they can solve the problem, then they see the benefits of what they're doing, they get some reward, and then you can continue to do that. And that a lot of good mechanics you that little iterative loop where, Oh, I need to do this. I did it. For example, landfall is like, okay, I have a landfall one or two cards and play with landfall. I'm going to get a reward when I play a land. I can do that. Okay. I drew my land. I can play it and get the reward. Or maybe I want a way to turn like that

That there's interesting package that it's something that's kind of fun You know flashback is the idea that I cast my spell and then later on You know, I have the opportunity when maybe I have less mana to be able to cast a spell more expensive But I get a cast at a second time or kicker kicker is the idea like oh I can do the spell but hmm If I have more mana, I can do something bigger and right once again, you don't want too much tension You want to make it clear? Oh, well do this one I can do that and why not? I'll do that, you know, you want to make the decisions but make sure they're not too two owners on the on the player

Okay, so that's the bad bucket the bad bucket is we're just making something inherently is not working. So let's get to the ugly bucket. And mostly the idea of this whole thing is there's something there. There's something that I'm enjoying. The problem is usually I'm having some of the same problems we're talking about with the bad bucket, but the difference is the bad bucket, I'm just not getting the fun. The ugly bucket is, okay, it's a little confusing or a little complicated, but I kind of enjoy what I'm doing.

Like, oh, there's a lot of logistics to it, but I kind of at the core like what I'm doing. The ugly bucket really is there's something I like paired with something I don't like and a lot of that is trying to figure out okay is there a way to take keep the good and take the bad away. Okay I like trying to do this thing but oh it's complicated like um for example I'll use flashback. One of the things we realized with flashback was that people don't like when there's things on the battlefield, or sorry, public information can be in the graveyard, where I walk into a trap that I just should've known

was there, and I just, like a lot of times there's a lot going on in a magic, you know, in the battlefield, there's a lot of cards and sometimes like okay so much going on I'm just gonna focus on myself I'm just gonna focus on myself and the idea that I attack and haha this combat trick sitting in the graveyard that if you just bother to look you would have seen that there's a lot of feel bad there so one of the things we've learned with flashback is you know just because we can make affect flashback,

doesn't mean we want to. And for example, a lot of what you'll notice is, flashback spells tend to be sorceries, or tend to be reactive instance. Meaning, when I say reactive, meaning a certain thing has to happen, rather than just normal everyday, oh I attacked. And so we adapted that,

and that's a lot of what the third bucket is, is saying what is going on? What do I enjoy? What am I having fun with? What am I not having fun with? And for example, I'll take suspend as a good example. So suspend was during time spiral the idea is you're saving mana by committing turns. There was something quite fun. The idea that I get a spell really cheap but I have to wait for it, there is something inherently fun there. But the bookkeeping of trying to track what's going on and the memory issue of having to remember every turn to remove a counter, you know, is it was onerous in a way that just wasn't enough fun for a lot of people. So a lot of times when

we've gone to look back, like rebound is a good example. Well, we want to not quite that, but the idea of, or sorry, maybe plot or Fortale are a little better examples. I get a savings. I, you know, it's sort of like, I'm not doing it this turn. I'm doing it on a future turn. And because that is true, I can often save mana on it, but I don't have to do all this bookkeeping. Fortel is face down, and I just cast it when I want to. Plot is face up, and I can cast it when I want to.

That plot, I've already paid the cost. So plot is just like, it's for free. So plot and Fortel have a lot of the dream of suspend, the idea that I'm going to save mana by jumping through a hoop, but it just makes a simpler hoop, you know, and both foretell and plot are very interesting. There's a lot of going on there. It's not like you're giving away complexity or interesting strategy.

You're just giving away kind of unnecessary logistics. And that's a lot of what the third bucket is, is saying, okay, there's something here we really like, but there's something, something's in the way. There's something that makes this not as much fun as it can be. And that, a lot of that third bucket is that. Okay, let's get to the first bucket. First bucket is actually the most interesting of this,

which is, I don't think it's hard to understand. We made a mechanic, it wasn't fun. Well, why didn't you print it? Well, it wasn't fun. We made a mechanic and it wasn't quite there yet. Well, why didn't you print it? Well, it wasn't fun. We made a mechanic and it wasn't quite there yet. Why do you print it? Well, it wasn't quite there yet. People understand that the bad and the ugly buckets, of course, we're not printing those. They're not ready. OK, but the real question is, OK, it's the good bucket.

Why are you making the good mechanics in the good bucket? And the answer is, well, it's a complex answer. That's why I'm doing a whole podcast on it. First and foremost, there's only so much space. So let me first explain a core essence of designing a set. So I'm going to use what I'm going to call my dishwasher metaphor. Let's say I want to fill my dishwasher. Okay, I made spaghetti, so I have this giant pot.

If I put that giant pot in first, I have no problem. There's nothing in the dishwasher. Oh, yay, I can put the giant pot. If I put that giant pot in first, I have no problem. There's nothing in the dishwasher. Oh, yay, I can put the giant pot in. Now, when I go to put other things in the dishwasher, well, there's a giant pot in there. And can I put dishes in? Oh, yeah, there's some spots to the side for dishes. Can I put silverware? Oh, there's a little place to put silverware. Yes. Can I put my skillet? Oh, no, no, the skillet takes up space and the pot taking the space the skillet would. So like I can't necessarily, once I put something in my dishwasher,

there are other things maybe I can't put in my dishwasher. And that's kind of when you're making a set that when you put your first mechanic in, it's gonna define space. It's gonna require things about your set. First off, it'll just take up a certain amount of space in the file, but second, it'll require things of your file. You know, if I am doing an artifact based mechanic,

I need to have enough artifacts in the set or enchantments or whatever. Like let's say I care about something, I need my as fan high enough that I can care about it. Like for example, in Theros, we were doing enchantment matters So we had to make enchantment creatures and bestow and we had to do a lot of things so that the the volume of enchantments Was high enough the Asfan was high enough that you could care about them

So first and foremost sometimes you pick your main mechanic you put it in and normally your first mechanic is the mechanic You want to build the set around it It's the heart of the design. A classic example might be in Kaladesh, we made energy. Well energy does a lot of things. It takes up a lot of oxygen. It's a fun mechanic, it does cool things, but it needs space. And so, you know, if you're going to make a set with energy, usually, you know, you kind of need it.

Energy has to kind of be front and center, especially in Kaladesh where we were introducing it. Sometimes we can introduce something and once people know it, we could bring it back in smaller amounts. But when you're first doing certain things, devotion is another good example where it kicks up a certain amount of space and devotion is a good example in that having devotion means, oh, I need to have some spells that have more colored mana pips on them. And, you know, each mechanic is, will dictate things about your set.

And what that means is that once you have one mechanic in your set and starting to sort of say, hey, I need certain things, it limits what else can be in the set. So that's the first thing. And that sometimes you have a mechanic, it's a good mechanic, but it doesn't fit you know it doesn't that the the mechanics that pre that are in the set before it are asking for things that this mechanic doesn't

line up with and that every mechanic different mechanics act differently, but mechanics essentially have some amount of mechanics act differently, but mechanics essentially have some amount of requirements of what they need to support them. And that sometimes the reason you kill a mechanic is it just isn't supporting, it doesn't fit the space that's in the set. And that each time you put a mechanic in the set, you shrink what space is available. And in fact, what tends to happen for the last one or two mechanics often is you design for the space you have. That's very common.

Okay, we have three mechanics we like, we want one more. Okay, what are we missing? We are missing a manasic mechanic. We're missing something that goes on spells. We're missing like, you start figuring out what you're missing and then you tend to make the later mechanics, you design them to fit the needs of what you have. Another thing that can happen, even if it can fit, sometimes it's just not synergistic. You know, one of the things you want when you make a set is you want the mechanics to speak to each other to a certain extent, that it matters. Like one of the things that's really important,

and this is a limited thing, but it's generally important, is you want to make sure that every card you make more than one drafter, for example, want that card. That if I make a card in red, now I don't need every red player to want this card, but I need at least two of them. Like, okay, red, white, and red green want this card. Maybe red blue doesn't want it, but red green and red white want it. So two different drafters might fight over it. I mean the dream is every, you know, every color that that has red is interested and you make some of those removal spells there's certain things you make that everybody will be after but you want to make your card such that multiple people want it and so sometimes you make a mechanic and it's like oh this mechanic just

doesn't blend nicely with other mechanics. It does what we call siloing. And what siloing means is only the people that care about this are going to care about it, nobody else will care about it. And that causes a lot of problems, especially in limited formats that have the same person. Let's say this car is only wanted by the blue red drafter. So nobody drafted, but the blue red drafter. Well, that means a, the blue red drafter always gets it. No one else is taking it. So it means there's more repetition for the blue red drafter. And in general, it can cause power issues. Well, if the blue red drafter has no competition and they get everything they want, their deck might just be better than everybody's deck. And then, oh, well, now I have to play blue red because blue red is the best, you know, that it causes imbalance issues. Another reason sometimes that mechanics

might not make it is that it's not meeting the needs like I'm a mechanic there's a certain amount of complexity so I always talk about complexity points but people think I mean this literally we don't actually have like but but it is nice to conceptually think about this because it does a good job of explaining the problem i'm just we don't literally have complexity points let's say for example sat got 30 points once again this is hypothetical but let's say i got 30 and let's say you made mechanic your main mechanic it's like 20 like it's complicated like okay you have a little bit of complication left, but you then can't put it on the mechanic because I'm 15.

Like, you know, so sometimes, you know, that even if the two mechanics are synergistic, even if there's space, there are certain resources that you have to be careful about. Complexity is one, memory is one, logistics is one. Like, if you have a mechanic that really requires people to have to spend a lot of energy remembering things, you don't want other mechanics having to remember things. If you have a mechanic that has like an outside component that you gotta care about,

well we don't want multiple outside components. If you have a mechanic that really makes players have to stop and think about something they don't normally stop and think about, well we normally want one of those, not multiple of those. And so a lot of time we talk about what we call workhorse mechanics. And what a workhorse mechanic says, look, I do what I do. I'm good at it. I'm not splashy. You know, I'm probably something people understand. Maybe it's a returning mechanic that people know. Maybe it's just something that's like meat and potatoes.

But those mechanics are really good because they help fill out the thing, they make the gameplay the gameplay good, but they're not necessarily pulling focus and that's another big thing is like there's a space issue doesn't fit, there's a synergy issue doesn't work well with other things, and there's just a resource. Is it taking resources that need to be applied to other things? And all those things are interconnected. They're not, they don't live in a vacuum,

but they're different, they're different aspects of it. Another big thing that'll happen sometimes is I have a slot and I have multiple mechanics that can go in that slot. Sometimes the mechanic loses out, not because it's not a good mechanic, but because it just... there's a better mechanic. You know, it's like, well I could do this, but this mechanic does that a little better than that mechanic, and that mechanics do on some level fight

for space and fight for attention. And that one of the reasons we put a lot of you know exploratory design we fill up the good bucket is you know let's say for example you're in vision design okay you take the mechanical you want to be a central mechanic well that's just gonna start eliminating other mechanics okay it's taking up space that one needs it's not synergistic it's eating eating resources. Like you start having to empty your bucket because it's just not fitting in what the set needs. And that's an important part that you want the best. And so sometimes we make great mechanics and they just don't fit. Not because they're not good, but they don't maximize what the set

is doing. And this is for longtime listeners This is a regular theme when you are making design choices you are trying to maximize the set you are making the game you are making and that anything that doesn't maximize is You not your game not living up to its potential So if I could do mechanic a or mechanic B, mechanic A is okay, but mechanic B just delivers a little bit more. It's a little more synergistic. It's a little more fills in space. The other one does it like it just it does something that makes it more active in what's going on. Or maybe it's making you make choices that in this set are more interesting choices than they would be in another set. Or maybe, you know, like the idea

essentially is you're picking what maximizes what you are making. And I'll be honest, one of the biggest problems I see with young designers or, you know, less experienced designers is you make something awesome. You're like, I got to put that in the next thing I make. This is an awesome mechanic. This is an awesome car design. This is an awesome theme. Okay, let's put it here. And a lot of times what we have to do is say, that is an amazing mechanic, car, theme, not here. This isn't the place for it. And so, for example, I'll use my energy story as a classic example of this.

So, I was making original Mirrodin, and so we were making an artifact set. And one of the ideas I was really intrigued by was the idea of... One of the cool things about artifacts is the idea that I have limited uses of them. You know, the idea that I'm playing a video game and I have a bow, but I only have three arrows, so I gotta be careful when I use my bow and arrow. In fact, the card that inspired this was a card in Homelands, of all places, called Serrated Arrows. And the idea was you had three arrows,

and you could use it three times. But then it was gone. And I was really intrigued by the idea of, hey, in artifact world, it would be kind of cool. One of the things in a lot of other games, the idea of artifacts have restrictions. You only get to use them so many times. Felt cool.

And that led me to a place of saying, oh, well, what if this resource was mix and match? What if your bow had three counters on it, but your orb had three counters? And maybe between them, you could use it six times. But maybe if I wanted to take a use of the orb and use it on the bow, I could do that. And that felt really cool.

And anyway anyway the easiest execution of that as we played it it went into the third bucket like oh there's something cool here but it was we haven't quite mastered it and we finally figured out oh let's just make a resource you the player get a counter an energy counter and then you could spend it however you want and the thing that gives you energy gives you a way to spend the energy but there are other things and they'll give you different ways to spend it it was really cool and it really fit in Mirrodin. It was a great, but what happened was I turned the set in. So at the time I was the lead designer of Mirrodin, but Bill Rose was the head designer

at the time. This is before I took over. And Bill said to me, look, there's too much going on. There's just too much here. And he said, look, you got to take something out. And Bill was right. There was just, there was too much going on that when you're making a set, you need a little bit of flux. So you have room to do things and it was, it was just too tight. You couldn't move anything around because everything was taking up space. So I ended up taking energy out, not because I didn't

like energy, not because it wasn't a good mechanic. I thought was a great mechanic. But what I realized in this particular set was of all the things I were doing, of all the synergies I have, it kind of was living in its own space. It wasn't as synergistic with the other components, meaning I could take it out in a way that less impacted what the set was doing. I had put it in because I liked it so much, but the reality was it just wasn't as synergistic. And so I took it out and we made Miradent, and Miradent was a fun set. Maybe a little overpowered. But it was a very fun set.

There were a lot of fun mechanics in it. And what happened with energy is like, I like energy. Let's find a place to use energy. And for Sharjah and Alara, we looked at energy. And there are a bunch of different sets. I thought, oh, does energy fit here? And often it was like, no, it doesn't fit here. And I would move on.

And then eventually we got to Kaladesh. And I'm like, OK, we're making a steam, steam like a kind of us sunny steampunk world about invention and Creativity and it's gonna be an artifact set and oh my goodness it fit exactly And I was so excited we talked with a creative team and we built it into the world and the ether and anyway It was like a slam dunk Like it found its home and it was something that really got brought to life because it was in the right set And that's a lot about this which is is not like when you turn down mechanic you were dissing the mechanic It's a matter of you know

Use my toolbox metaphor We're making tools and then we got to use the tools available to us to make the best set possible and that maybe I make a hammer and this set doesn't really want a hammer, it wants a saw. Okay, but some set will want a hammer. And so a lot of my job as head designer to be honest is the reason I'm in all the exploratory design teams and all the vision design teams is those are the teams where we do the most blue sky design, where we come up with stuff. And I remember this stuff because,

you know, we'll experiment it and I remember why it works or doesn't work, where the problem might be, or if I really enjoy it, where did it shine? And then whenever we're working on new stuff, I'll go, you know, here's something we did five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and I'll bring up stuff. And that, for example, there's a mechanic called layaway. So we made a game, we made the Star Wars trading card game. Richard designed it. I was on the, I was on the initial design with him and then I led the first set with it. And in the game there was a mechanic that will let you like play things over turns. and we made a magic version of it

We called layaway and layaway essentially is oh I can take a card I can I can exile it and I put so many counters on it and then I can spend mana over time and put more counters on it and then The counters count for the colorless so I can cast it anytime I want by paying the colored mana, assuming all the colors have been paid for. Like once it's paid off, it's on layaway. Once it's paid off, I can cast the spell. Um, and we found layaway. We liked it, inspired by the, by the Star Wars game and, um, and we never quite found it at home for it. And then I'm working on Kaldheim. Um, and like, we're trying to figure something out and like, I brought up layaway.

Now we ended up adapting it, um, for it it for it became Fortel but a lot of the essence of what layaway was we took some of that and then figured out how to tweak it a little bit better in what we were doing but that's a good example where you know Fortel really was us taking layaway and then adapting it. So sometimes we take a mechanic like energy and I hold on to it and full cloth we make it later. Sometimes like layaway maybe we adapt it, we do something slightly different. Another similar one was we had a mechanic called leadership that we adapted in Lord

of the Rings, that the ring mechanic is an adapted leadership mechanic. So anyway, that's the thing to remember. Part of the lesson of today is when mechanics get cut, it's not cause we don't like them. It's not because we don't think they're good enough. It's mostly because they don't serve the purpose at the time. And you know what? Maybe they'll find their home later on.

Um, the other final thing to talk about real quickly, I'm here at work, but I, I've won this category of checkbox. I'll quickly get this in. Um, one other thing that will get in our way sometimes, the reason we won't do a mechanic is we like the mechanic, it's fun, it does in fact fit in the set, but there are a lot of other teams we have to work with and sometimes it runs into a problem somewhere else. Maybe the rules don't work. Maybe there's not a viable template. Maybe it's not there's not enough knobs on it

Or it can't be balanced. Maybe it's going to cause a problem for digital Maybe it's going to cause a problem for organized play that we have a lot of people downstream of us And sometimes the reason something gets cut is not that at its core. It's not fun or a good mechanic but there's something about it that's problematic and that a lot of what happens in vision is we have to take the theoretical and turn it into the practical. And sometimes when you turn something into the practical, you get practical concerns. And that's why, you know, I don't really worry about do the rules work till I think the mechanic is good enough to like, I don't want to bother the rules manager every two seconds and

Sometimes the things that will never come to be but once we have some hope that we think a mechanic shows some promise Hey, I'll go ask like does this work and normally the rules manager will give me one of three answers. Yes, it works No, it doesn't work and it could work not yet, but it could work We think we can make it work kind Kind of, once again, kind of good, bad, and ugly. And so that is another reason sometimes the mechanics don't make it. It's not because at the core they're not a fun mechanic, but they have to work within the confines of what we're doing. We need to make sets that work in the rules,

that we can template the cards, that we can balance. You know, there's a lot of needs for a magic set. And sometimes you make something that, unbeknownst to you, because there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of needs for a magic set and sometimes you make something that unbeknownst to you, cause there's a lot, you know, some of these can get really technical. Why something, you know, one of the, for example, I make a lot of uncards that just don't work in the rules and I only learned that cause I tried to do them

and they're like, oh, well, it turns out you can't do staying power, you know, that's the one where effects don't end. You know, it works 99% of the time, but here's the 1% where it doesn't work. Or, you know, that's the one where effects don't end. You know, it works 99% of the time, but here's the 1% where it doesn't work. Or, you know, there's a lot of effects that like, you would think they work, but they don't, you know? And so that is another reason sometimes

that we don't make mechanics. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast. A lot of what I was trying to talk about today is, there's a long path to go from, I came up with you in Design to you are printed on a card and a lot of things can get in the way of that And so today was kind of show you like why some mechanics fall along the way and also to point out that some mechanics that do fall Don't forever fall. They just don't make it this time and eventually they do make it and magic has lots and lots of mechanics that

Weren't right at one point but later were Okay, guys. I'm now at work. So I know that means it means 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 all next time. Bye. Bye