Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #519: Editing

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

In this podcast, I talk all about the important work done by our editing team.

I'm pulling up at the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Also, I am sick. That's why my voice sounds the way it is. But I will continue on despite my illness. Okay, so today I'm going to talk all about editing. So there's a lot of different facets of magic, and one of the things I like to do in my podcast is make people aware of some of the things that we do and some of the important parts of the game of putting it together that are less apparent up front. I talk about design all the time, and design's important, obviously, it's what I do, but there's many pieces that make a magic set come together. So today, I'm going to talk all about the role of

editing because editing actually is a pretty important thing. Okay, so first we're going to start with a little history of editing so you can learn a little bit about Wizards of the Coast. So there was a woman named Beverly Marshall Sailing and she started coming to work for Wizards at a time where I think she was paid in stock options rather than actual money because the company wasn't making any money at the time. And so she sort of, it was sort of like volunteering, but she was working for stock. Now, as it turns out, ended up being she was paid quite well to do what she did because those stock options turned into stock, which actually turned out to be great for Beverly.

So Beverly was the first person to come, and Beverly was the one who was the first editor at the company. In fact, one of the famous things is Beverly figured out right before Arabian Nights was going to print, I think it was the night

before, it might have been two nights before, that there was no, they forgot flavor text. Because what happened was, magic happened kind of so quick that it was so popular so fast that they had Richard make an expansion and it was made very quickly.

Arabian Nights was made in a very short amount of time. And Beverly figured out right before I went to print that they had forgotten about flavor text. So she got three different volumes of Arabian Nights. I think all the flavor text is from Arabian Nights. Anyway, and she went through and she found flavor text the night before.

So anyway, Beverly then over time compiled an editing team. So for example example if you guys have ever heard me talk about the Weatherlight Saga I know I haven't done a whole podcast on it yet but my

co-creator of the Weatherlight Saga was a guy named Michael Ryan Beverly hired Michael if you guys ever heard me talk about Brady Domermuth

who used to be the creative director in charge of the creative team for many many years the guy that made the guilds for Guilds of Ravnica, that was very influential in a lot of Magic Creative. Brady was originally hired as an editor. Del, Del Lago, who is our current lead editor, she was hired by Beverly. Mark Gottlieb, who now runs, who manages many of the designers, he was originally, I believe, hired by Beverly to be an editor. So when it first started, the editing team was its own team under Beverly,

its own department, just so there was an editing department. And then eventually it was decided that the role that editing had was such an important role that individual games brought the editing onto their team. Um, so when editing had started, it was a, a, a service department like, okay, hey, any game who needs us, we will edit you. Uh, and then eventually what happened is that different games brought an editor. So now Magic has its editors that sit in R&D and D&D has its editor. So editors are now part of the team that makes the game they make. So, or I guess in the case here,

they're in the R&D team that makes the game. So editing got brought into R&D quite a while ago. I don't remember exactly how long ago, but 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, a good chunk of time ago. And anyway, there were a lot of editors. Darla Kenrood was also a magic editor for a while. There were a bunch of different lead magic editors. Quill might have been. Bill McQuillian might have been, I know he was a magic editor for a while. Anyway, so right now, the current editing team is overseen by Dell,

Dell Loggle, Glenn Jones, and Nat Mose, and Matt Tabak, I believe, are the current editors. Also, Eli Schifrin is the rules manager. And the rules manager usually isn't in editing, but consults with editing. So let me talk about what does editing do? Why do we need an editing team? So let me walk through exactly what they do. So the editing team is in charge of making sure that all the cards are written properly. And there's a bunch of different things that means. So first off,

let's talk about templating. So one of the things that's important is Magic needs, we want the cards to be clear in what they do. And part of making that happen is that we want consistency in how the game works. That if card A and card B work the same, we want a lot of, you know, we want the language on the cards to convey that they work the same.

And part of how that's worked is that there are templates that work in editing. That there are certain things that if you do things in a certain way, there are certain phrases that do that. And what templating is, is making sure that, you know, if cards work similarly, they are worded similarly. And so the idea of templating is making sure that there's a consistency

across the board. Usually in design, if I come up with a mechanic, the first thing we'll do is we'll test it. Make sure that it's fun. But once I have some faith that I think we might want to use the mechanic, I then go to the editing team so they can do a templating pass, which is

can they write words that close enough? It's not a hundred percent, but get in the ballpark. Because one of the things you realize when you actually template cards is some things are very wordy in templating. And that sometimes what you discover is either it doesn't fit on a card or it fits but it's so wordy that it won't allow much else to fit on a card. And you need to understand those things early. Sometimes, for example, you want to do something and the editing for it is just ugly enough that it is something you want to rethink of how to do it. And usually what templating does is they will give us options as well. Because one of the things is there's a lot of different nuances to how you do something. And so sometimes what

they'll do is they'll come to us and they say, okay, here are three different ways you could do it. And then here are the ramifications of doing it different ways. And usually when you're designing a mechanic, you have some give as far as what you want. Now, sometimes there's certain roles in order to function the way you need it to function, it has to do certain things. And sometimes there are issues in which, you know what, if this template's better, it can work that way rather than this way. You have subtle little changes. And the changes can be everything from, you know, is it triggered or is it, I mean, there's a lot of different ways to write things. How do you activate it? And there's a lot of

subtle ways of sort of, like, a lot of times it's like, well, if you write it like this, it doesn't cover this corner case or does cover this corner case. There's a lot of templating about, okay, well, how do cards interact with other cards? And that's another reason why you involve the rules manager when you're doing templating as well, so that you understand the ramifications on the rules of how different templates will work. And the usual thing that will happen sometimes when you're talking with the rules manager is they'll ask you a bunch of questions. And they'll say, okay, if you're using your mechanic and you have the following interaction, what is your intuition on what

happens? And so one of the ways we help sort of fine tune our templating is getting a sense of how do we intuitively think things will work? Now, sometimes it's like, okay, you treat it like this and everything's fine. Sometimes it's like, oh, well, the things you want are inconsistent with the way we will template things. And so you have to sort of make up your mind. Do you want to do this, which means it'll be intuitive in these ways, but not intuitive in those ways? Or do that, which means it's not intuitive in the first ways, but intuitive in the second ways. And that there's a lot of... but in two different second ways.

And that there's a lot of... Now, from a timing standpoint, so usually exploratory design, I'm not worrying about templating. In vision design, like exploratory design, we're not committed to anything. In vision is where we start going, I think I might want to do this.

So vision is where the initial templating happens. But the real heavy-duty templating takes place during set design. The initial templating happens. But the real heavy-duty templating takes place during set design. The initial templating might guide whether we do a mechanic or how we use a mechanic or influence us on how we want to shape it. But it's not till set design that usually templating gets ironed out and laid down. And then, even then, sometimes during play design, you know, sometimes play design will come back and say, this interaction is a problem. Can we tweak it a little bit to avoid that interaction?

Sometimes what will happen is, oh, there's something that's exploitable in the current template. You know, we'd rather people not exploit that thing. Is there a way to remove it? And often there is. So templating is the first big thing. As far as the role of editing, that's the first thing that editing is going to do, is help with sort of figure out templating is the first big thing. And as far as the role of editing, that's the first thing the editing is going to do is help with sort of figure out templating. And like I said, the first place we ask for help on templating is on new mechanics. Because that we want to make

sure we can word them, they need a reminder text. Oh, the other thing to remember, by the way, is that with a keyword, you have a little bit of flexibility in your wording because if you have an actual keyword, you're going to use reminder text. And reminder text is not as technical as normal text. We are a little looser in the rules and we're more willing to sort of use language that gets people where we want them to be without it being technically precise. We do, usually in Oracle, make the technically precise wording mostly for digital and stuff, but you have a little bit more freedom when you're doing a reminder text.

The other templates that happen are on individual cards. Usually individual card templating does not happen until set design. Most of the templating that happens in vision is on keywords and stuff. Now sometimes you have a cycle or sometimes you have something you might make into a keyword. Usually if you're going to bother in vision it's because multiple cards are doing the same thing. That isn't always the keyword sometimes the cycle. And like I said, oftentimes in vision, we will

try keywording things to see how it feels. And sometimes those things don't end up getting keyworded. It's like, oh, yeah, a bunch of cards will do this, but I don't need to keyword it. Now, there's a difference between keywords and ability words. Keywords are, there's new vocabulary word, there's reminder text. An ability

word is just taking actual text and giving it a name. Usually there's italicized before an em dash. And there, basically we're naming something, but we're not using reminder text, meaning that has to be technical text. And so often when we're trying to figure out ability words, that is something that usually we have to be a little more careful with because we don't have, we have a little bit more flexibility with keywords than we do with ability words. And so ability words, we have to work out early. The other thing about ability words is you tying them together is more a utility of wanting them to connect.

We have, what we choose to tie together together we're a little bit looser on. Usually if we're going to put an ability word on something, there's some component that's similar and some aspect of the templating is overlapped. Not necessarily all of it. Sometimes it's the trigger that's the thing and

what happens is not the same with something like I think it's raid I'm not sure not sure whether RAID's an ability word. Or like Morbid, I believe, is an ability word. I think RAID's an ability word. Where, oh, well, if you do thing X, if it has a certain trigger, but then the result you get is different. Other times we'll do it where different things can trigger, but you get the same result, for example. And so anyway, okay, so that's the first thing that editing does.

Editing is in charge of doing templating. And that happens along the way between vision and set design, depending on when things get made. Okay, the next thing that editing does is wanting to make sure, editing, one of the things that we do is we want to make sure that the cards are all doing what they're saying they're doing. So part of that is templating and part of that is editing. Editing is in charge of asking the questions, partly because they have to write it,

partly because it's their job to write it, but also they have to go through and identify and make sure that the cards are doing what people think they're doing. So, for example, Glenn was my editor. Glenn Jones was my editor for Unstable. A lot of the time, Glenn would write to me and say, okay, I want to understand what you want this card to do. So another big thing of what editing does is making sure that there's

a communication between the intent of the card and the execution of the card. Now, some of this involves templating, but the reason I count it as a separate thing is it's really a separate issue. I mean, a lot of editing's roles, you know, they crisscross each other. But one of the important things that editing does

is making sure that the cards are doing what the designers want the cards to do. One of the things that's really common is that either a card is not quite doing what it was intended or there's consequences of the way the card works that the designers might not be aware of. So usually the way it works is editing is not involved deeply. Oh, so for every set, there's an editor that gets assigned to the set. Each set has its own editor.

And then there are people that will do back reading, meaning somebody will sort of, after things are in a certain place, a second editor will come and we'll call back read, which means just double check the work. And one of the reasons that's so important is, in general, a second set of eyes is good, because sometimes when you work with something long enough, you become blind to sort of seeing things, and that is good to have somebody just make sure that you're not missing something because you've changed it a bunch of times and forgot something. So what happens is, usually in set design, is where the editor does the first pass.

Sometimes in vision, but vision isn't, I've talked about this before, vision in some ways isn't real cards. I mean, we make cards, and some of the cards actually do end up in the set. But vision is more trying to map out the space. The editor doesn't really want to go through the cards, so there's a commitment of, these cards are pretty close to being the cards we want. So that happens in set design. Like I said, the editor will go through for mechanics and things because in vision is where we set down

usually mechanics and so that is when an editor will get involved there. But in vision it's only really top level stuff. In set design they start doing what we call a pass, where they're trying to align the file and get it close to correct. And usually, the first pass you do as an editor is just to make sure that all the cards are lined up and doing what everybody wants them to do. Another thing that the editors do is, their job is to monitor what has been done before and then make people aware. So for example, if you're doing something,

the editor is the one to say, have we done this before? If we've done this before, how have we done this before? To make sure that it works similarly and then to double check with usually the set designer is that the intent so like unstable is an interesting case where unstable tends to play around in space we haven't messed with but in some case we did for example I'm rolling six sided dice oh well unglued rolled six sided dice so Glenn will go back and look at unglued and say you you know, okay. Or Glenn might even look at Plane Chase or other things that use die rolling and look at language for die rolling and figure out, okay, how do we explain that? And whenever I did something that there was any sort of

history for, one of the things the editors will do, we'll do the history to look up and figure out, okay, what are other cases and how this was done? And one of the ongoing things is we're constantly improving upon sort of templating and stuff. We're improving upon how we word things. Another big thing that happens from time to time is we will overhaul things. Usually that happens in core sets and there's like a rules overhaul where some how we're doing the cards changes some for example like in 10th edition or sorry magic 2010 we got rid of um

damage on the stack okay well we have to figure out how does that affect cards and what's how does it you know how do you think how are things working um so one of the things the editors also do is whenever we're messing around in new space or revisiting old space they are sort of the things the editors also do is whenever we're messing around in new space or revisiting old space, they are sort of the historians that go and document what has been done. And when we want to make changes, it's up to them to understand what the changes mean. Like it's very easy for us to say, hey, for example, in one of the last changes we did is we got rid of, we created a new vocabulary word, create, which meant you're going to make a token, you now create a token,

rather than whatever, put it onto the battlefield, whatever we used to say. And so they have to go to all the cards that make tokens and say, okay, what happens if we change this vocabulary? How do the old cards work? They're in charge of sort of making sure they keep up with Oracle, making sure that as we change new templates, that officially old cards that use the same abilities have the templates that match.

So there's also a responsibility to go back and do updating through Oracle. So every card that is in a tournament format, we update in Oracle. Also, recently we updated the unsets because we were putting out unstable. So the idea is if anyone's playing the card in a tournament, there's an official wording for the card. Not necessarily what's on the card, what's printed on the card, but there's an official wording that people can look up, that judges can look up, for example. So one of the other things that editors have to do is they have to make sure that when we make new changes, when

things adapt, that they go back and look at old things. And whenever we're going to do a new thing, it's their job to do the sort of the research to sort of understand the ramifications of what that means. Okay. So, so during set design, um, they're doing the pass, they're making sure the cards are doing what they say they're doing. Um, and like I said, they're also asking a lot of questions to make sure they understand the intent of the card. And sometimes what's interesting is there's things that you didn't think about when you made the card.

And that they're asking you intent. So sometimes they ask you intent and you've got to figure out, oh, I had not thought of that. So a lot of times the editors will bring up stuff that you had not thought about so that you can go, oh, well, this is important in order to sort of do this card. We have to understand it and it will change the language. So what is it you want? Also, sometimes they come

back and they'll say, if you don't do thing A or B, it'll cause a problem. So sometimes, usually what the editors want to do is they want to make the card do what usually the set designer, it depends on the set. Usually they want to make sure you do what the set designer wants the card to do. And sometimes, though, they come back and it's like it doesn't work in certain ways if you want the card to work. So where they have the flexibility, they let the set designer usually dictate what the card's functionality is.

But if there is need to do it a certain way, they're the ones that say, if you want to do the card and you want to make it work, here's your options of how it can work. And then sometimes they give guidance. Here's your options of how it can work. And then sometimes they give guidance. Now, at the same time, so another big thing that's going on during set design is, and I've talked about this in a previous podcast, the art is going on. That the creative team has to figure out what the concept for the card is,

and they have to figure out who the artist for the card is, and the card has to get made. So one of the things that also goes on is the editor is the one that's looking at all the pieces of the card. It is the job of the editor to hand off a finished product. So what happens, let me jump ahead a little bit, is at some point, the editors are going to hand over a completed file to CAPS, to the people that are going to physically make the cards. And what editing's job is, is to make sure that there's a clean handoff between R&D and Caps. That R&D is like, this is exactly what we mean and what we want and what we want to print. And Caps goes, okay, we will print the thing you're asking us to print.

And so it's the editor's job to make sure that all the different components get done. I'm spending a lot of time on cards, by the way. I don't just mean cards. So, for example, let's just take a normal booster product. On a normal booster product, there are the normal magic cards. There are the ad cards that go in the thing. And there's tokens and other cards that go in the booster packs. There's the booster wrap itself.

There's text on the booster wrap. There is text on the box. And there are different things related to the product release. There might be inserts. There's various things that are all tied. The editing has to look at all of that. Now, usually R&D is responsible for the product.

There are different editors normally that do organized play and marketing stuff. I think our editing team might see some of that, but I think mostly the responsibility is the product itself. But there's, like I said, it is not just a matter of the cards. We talk a lot about the cards because obviously that's the heart of the game and that's really, really important. And getting that right is key.

But editing is also in charge of making sure that all the components come together. So one of the things, for example, the editing does is they make sure, for example, that the right art is on the right card. Now, the creative team is backing them up. There's an art director that's also double checking that as well. And they're doing things like making sure that the artist credit is for the artist. It's the right art on the right card with the right artist credit. The editing team works with the creative team to make sure that the names are correct, that

the names are doing what they need to do. The editing kind of is the people that double check both the names and the flavor text. If there are issues with the names or the flavor text, if the name of the card implies something that's not true, they will point that out. A common mistake sometimes is you name something, but that name has a word that conveys something earlier on the block.

You know, all the cards that had that word did something, and this card does that but doesn't do that thing. That might lead to confusion in gameplay. So also, the editors are just watching to make sure that the name is not too close to a name that's already been used. That's another problem where we don't want people get confused because the classic mistake was in, was it Legions, where there was a card called Quick Sliver and Click Slither. I'll say that one more time.

It's a sliver. Quick, like fast sliver, like the slivers from Tempest. So Quick Sliver and two words, and Click Slither. Click like you would click a button and slither like a snake would slither. All one word. It was a goblin, I think. So those two just cause endless confusion because they sound a lot like each other. That's the kind of thing editing nowadays would keep from happening.

Also, they're looking at flavor text and they're making sure the flavor text is clear, that it's grammatically correct, that they're editing, much like they would edit the text of the card. Oh, the other thing, by the way, I didn't even get in this. There is a thing called editing style, meaning there are certain rules. Every editing group,

there's a bunch of different choices of what to choose. But there's an editing style that you choose that just says here's how we word things and they make sure that the cards and the flavor text and everything match editing style. And so that's another big part of what editing is doing is making sure that they're lining up with the editing style. And that's the kind of thing that one of the things that's really important about editing in general is when editing is doing their job, you know, like you're not, I mean, at

some level you're not supposed to notice what editing is doing. Editing's job is to make sure that nothing grabs your attention, that everything is smooth and feels right. Not that cards that work similarly don't sound like they work similarly, or whatever it is, they're cleaning all that up and making sure that it has a unified feel to it. And one of the things is, I mean, mistakes happen.

I'm not saying there's never a mistake, but our editing team is really, really good, and mistakes are actually pretty infrequent. And I think the reason that mistakes kind of stand out is they are so infrequent that really is a big deal when they happen. Editing also, by the way, there's a lot of other, I mean, I'm not an editor. I don't do this daily. So I am more telling you what editing does from someone watching from afar.

I interact with editing some. Because I do vision, I don't normally interact all that much with the editing team, other than, like I said, a little bit of templating. But I was super, super involved in Unstable. And so I was much, much more involved, for example, with the editing of that than normal. I also was the architect for the product, so I did a lot of overviewing of stuff, and that's definitely the recent set where I had the most interaction with editing.

So some of my comments here come from watching Glenn do Unstable. And like I said, there's a lot of... Like, one of the things that's fun is not only did Glenn make cards work well and make sure they were clean and all that, but, like, Unstable was a set that had a lot of jokes in it. So one of the things is Glenn, from time to time, when he would find opportunities to add humor to the templating,

would talk to us and say, you know, what do you think of this? And, you know, and there's some fun templating things that like, I think, for example, on Ninja. Ninja is an augment, but most augments can only be cast in sorcery. You know, you can only cast them when you can cast a sorcery. But Ninja's special ability is you can cast it anytime you want. So the reminder text for augment tells you you can't cast it except during your main phase. And the reminder text sort of stops halfway through

realizing that it's not true. And it's just a clever little joke there that Glenn was able to add that was just sort of a fun joke. And that's one of the things is editing is always looking for possibilities, depending on what the product is, to enhance the product. And then once they're, so during set design,

they're in charge of, you know, looking through the file, getting everything up to snuff, talking with the set designer, making sure they understand sort of, you know, set lead, making sure they understand sort of, you know, set lead. Make sure they understand what is needed. Making sure that what we're doing matches what's done before. You know, making sure that card titles

aren't, oh, that's another one they do. Because we have 25,000 card, not 25,000, we have, whatever, 18,000 card titles, they make sure that we haven't used a card title before. It's not uncommon for us to use a title and go, wait, we've used that before. Um, and, uh, so anyway, they are going through making sure that everything is where it needs

to be, making sure that everything comes together. And then, um, they do what's called, uh, uh, what do they call called, I think they call it one-ups. So what they do is they get the cards that are the final version of the cards, I mean, on screen, and then make sure that everything's exactly where it wants to be. Now, there's a lot of things. So what happens is they then, okay, so, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. is they then, okay, so, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.

They, once they're ready, once they think that everything is where it needs to be, they then send it to CAPS to do the printing and it gets laid out. And then once the cards are laid out, the one-ups, it then comes back to editing

to proof everything, to make sure that, and that's the place where editing is looking at how the things are laid out and catching things about the layout as well. For example, sometimes things are positioned in a certain place where they're not supposed to be. Oh, another thing that editing does, by the way,

I didn't even get into this, is font sizes. Here's exciting stuff. One of the things that they have to care about is, will things physically fit on the card? Will a title fit in the title space? Will the creature type line fit, you know, the card type line and subtype, and card subtypes? Does the text fit? the card type line and subtype and card subtypes.

Um, does the text fit that, you know, whatever, whatever we're doing, they have to understand and figure out what are the limitations and do they work? Um, in the case of rules text,

they go to the, usually the set designer, the set lead, um, with names and flavor text, they will go to what the creative lead is. Um, and one of the things to understand is, um, With names and flavor text, they will go to who the creative lead is.

And one of the things to understand is one of the things about making things fit is about spacing. And a lot of that, when you get to like names where it's a very exact place, it has a lot to do, for example, with width of letters and things. Like one of the things they have to do is they have to take the text, put it in the fonts it needs to be in, and do test layouts to make sure that things work and things fit. Now, one of the tools they have available to them in rules text

is they have some ability to shrink the text. But, oh, and this is another big thing editing has to do, is editing, our cards are translated translated and we make them in English and they're translated into 10 other languages. Can I name all 10 the 10th one. And so another thing that has to happen is there are documents that have to be made to go to the templaters. And that part of the editing's job is to make sure that things are clear. Because, for example,

the gender of characters in English might not even matter. I mean, it matters from a sense of if a card references the character and we want to know whether it's he or she or neither he nor she or whatever. But even characters in which the English doesn't care, other languages, romantic language, for example, the verb choice might matter based upon the gender of the character. And that goes beyond not even just named characters, but let's say you're doing

flavor text in an art in which there's a character appears in the art. We have to figure out whether or not that character is a male character or a female character. We have to know things like that so that when templating, they can pick the right words and things. So editing's also in charge of interacting with templating.

Anyway, so CS comes back. They do the proofing. They figure out sort of whether things are where they're supposed to be, whether, you know, they have a second set of eyes for CAPS, essentially. Now, meanwhile, while all this stuff is going on, play design is the last part of the design process. That we do vision design, then we do set design, then we do play design. And play design is in charge of testing the cards and making sure that nothing's going to break in any of the formats that we support. Now some of play design is done overlapped with set design, but there's a window of time in which play design

is doing work past set design. And one of the jobs of the editors is to keep up with that because sometimes play design needs to make some late changes. Now, usually what happens is there is a window of, there are different deadlines when things can change. There's what we call pencils down, which means there's a point at which, of there are different deadlines when things can change. There's what we call pencils down, which means there's a point at which,

look, we got to print it, we got to commit to something, nothing more can change. And I did a whole thing on printing. Remember that it takes a while to make the files, transmit the files, print the files, you know, ship it wherever it's going, that it takes time to make cards and then get them to where they need to be. So we have to be done, you know, months and months ahead of time to make that happen.

But there's a window where essentially there is handoff for rules text, then there's handoff for creative text, that's names and flavor text and stuff. And then there is sort of final, the pencil's down. So there's a window where they can do minimal changes. Usually it's number changes, meaning they can change the mana cost of something. They can change an activation cost. They can change a power toughness. Literally anything that involves a number changing, they can do. Because that doesn't require relaying out the... Remember, when you lay out a card, once you actually have words and you've laid it out,

it becomes... Once you change things, you're really changing the card. Where a number is in a locked place, meaning numbers take up the same amount as... Well, assuming you're not going from a single digit to a double digit number, but assuming you're staying in the same digits of number, which is normally the case. We don't have that many double digit numbers.

Then they can keep the same and just change the number. And it is editing's job during play design to sort of keep in touch with play design. Oh, so another thing to keep aware of. The way we physically make magic cards in R&D is we have a database. The current database is called Drake. The old one was called Multiverse. So in Drake, what happens is

the lead of the set has control of the file when they're making it. So during exploratory and vision, usually I have a strong second that I have to do the file. I do a lot of training and I have a lot to do. So I usually have someone else who's handling the file. It's a good way for me to train people. Then the set design, the set design can have a strong second that controls the file depending

on their experience level and whether they want to be training somebody. But most set leads will control their own file. And then there's a point where it gets handed off where editing controls the file. What that means is when you control the file, you can go in and make changes to the file. Once the handoff and editing controls the file, you must make any changes and tell editing about the changes so that editing makes it. And what that is for is once editing controls the file,

it's the point where they're starting to prove things and make sure that they're right. And so the file gets locked, meaning that only editing is able to make changes to the file. People can still make notes. We have fields like I'm making a note on the card. Those fields are still open. But the actual text on the card is locked down at some point. Now, the thing, my caveat of today is this isn't my job. Whenever I talk about somebody else's job,

I've been doing this, I've been doing what I do a long time. I've interacted with the editors for a long time and I've had different projects where I work more and less with the editor. So I do have a general sense of what the editors do, but I don't know all the details of it. So, you know, if, if, if I had, you know, Dell as a carpool guest and we were talking about editing, I'm, I know, I know, I know I'm missing some of the fine-tuned stuff. There's some little details that I know I'm missing. So I apologize in that. But I will say this. Hopefully part of my podcast today has taught you is there's a lot of things that editing has to care about.

There's a lot of details. And they are caring about every single thing on the card. They're caring about the text on the card. They're caring about the art on the card. every single thing on the card. They're caring about the text on the card. They're caring about the art on the card. They're caring about font size and positioning choice.

They're caring about credit for our art credit. They're in charge of the legal text. You know, one of the things that most people ignore is all cards at the bottom and really tiny print have legal text. They're in charge of the legal text

and not just legal text on the cards, but legal text. And not just the legal text on the cards, but the legal text on the booster packs, the legal text on the boxes. You know, they have to work with legal to make sure that whatever text they do, you know, for example, let's say, we don't do this a lot anymore, but let's say we use real world quotes.

They have to make sure the real world quotes are accurate. They match the source, that they're in public domain so that we can print them. You know, like in Magic 2015, we did this thing with outside inventors, outside designers that design individual cards. They had to work to make sure that there's credits. You know, whenever there's anything on the card, whenever there's something that is printed on the card, it is their job to make sure that it is right. And if that involves,

you know, tracking down whoever that is or looking at that, you know, editing interacts with a lot of different parts of the company. You know, I didn't even get into the fact that editing and brand have to interact with each other, that brand does certain things that they want and editing is making sure that brand needs are met and such. Like I said, they interact with the legal team to do legal text. They interact with digital. Sometimes there are digital ramifications

for cards, for example. And they'll have interaction with the digital team to make sure that... Also, there needs to be a handoff. Not only does the file go to translators, for example, and go to make sure that, you know, also there needs to be a handoff. Not only does the file go to translators, for example, and go to caps for printing, it also goes to digital. There's a digital handoff because we have to digitally make the cards. And so there is some work that goes there that they have to make sure that the people who are programming the cards understand the needs

of the cards. There are a lot of moving pieces. And the editor starts early in the process. Like I said, they can start, usually not exploratory, but during vision, they'll start. And they will work throughout. You get assigned to a set, and you are from the set from the very beginning to the very end. So, for example, have you ever heard me talk about the slideshows that happen on Tuesday?

This is something that's near the end of the process for editing. So what happens is editing turns in the file. CAPS gives them the one-ups that are sort of, here's what we think is right. Editing does some passes on those, does some back and forth to fix mistakes. A lot of times in LANG, mistakes can get added, but there's a proofing process to fix that.

And then we have a meeting, a Tuesday meeting where we call the slideshow. And that is late in the process where the editing team shows the cards to everybody. And the idea is the cards are mostly done, and it's a chance if R&D as a whole,

if just a last minute kind of sanity check to make sure we're not missing something. Sometimes you get so ingrained. Like common things that will happen. I'm a little common drunk. Things that can't happen. Excuse me a second.

Is sometimes we'll have a template that technically makes sense, but when you read it, when you sort of stand back a little bit and go, oh, that's confusing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it technically makes sense, but it does read it, when you sort of stand back a little bit and go, oh, that's confusing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it technically makes sense, but it does not, you know, and we'll catch that during slideshow sometime, things in which it kind of takes, in some ways, a fresh eye. Sometimes we'll catch some things that's hard to catch when you're kind of very deep in it. Also, sometimes there are

little tiny mistakes that somehow snuck through. So that's, you know, super infrequent. Usually those get caught. But every once in a while, someone will point something out or sometimes they'll point something out that's not even a mistake necessarily, but more of an editorial question of, you know, do we want to imply this or imply that? Oh, another thing that editing helps with is we have a lot of issues like diversity and just different things that we care about as a company that are just general issues. And that editing is also one of the people that will question those things and ask about them and double check and stuff like that and make sure that anything we say we want to be doing, they're

the final word that's checking on those to make sure that we in fact are doing the things we say we want to be doing, they're the final word that's checking on those to make sure that we, in fact, are doing the things we say we want to be doing. And so editing is a really hard job. It is not easy for us to find magic editors. It requires a lot of skill, a lot of understanding of magic. Magic is very, very technical. And so there's a very precise technical expertise you need to be able to do magic editing um and it's a lot of work and it's a lot of fine attention to detail um and what we found is you know finding editors that are really good editors that also sort of have enough magic knowledge to

be good magic editors is a tricky thing to do um and so um one of the things that uh i want to end my podcast today because i just drove into the parking lot is a tip of the hat. I think editing is one of, it's a really, really important part of the cards that it's only appreciated when something goes wrong. You know what I'm saying? It's like no one kind of appreciates how good it is.

It's just when it goes wrong, people go, hey, something's wrong. This isn't supposed to happen. Not realizing that there's people that spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours making sure that the cards look right. So, anyway, I hope today gives you a little better understanding of all the cool stuff that editing

does, because they are instrumental instrumental instrumental, sorry my cold's making it hard to say some words, part of the process, and without them, you would not have as much fun playing Magic. You know, the fact that your cards look right and things are correct

you know like I said it is so easy to recognize a few times when things don't go right but realizing that all the rest of the time that everything else goes right

is a real tough hat to the awesome work that editing does so anyway I want to say thanks to editing and all the hard work but I'm now perked so we all know what that means

and this is the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic see you guys next time