Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #661: Power Level

Episode Date: August 9, 2019

In this podcast, I talk all about power level. I describe what it is and how it impacts how we make Magic cards.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to answer a question from my blog and talk all about power level. I'll explain what exactly that is and why we care about it and why for design it's something we need to understand. Okay, so the question asked me on my blog was, we've been previewing Modern Horizons and someone said, hey, why couldn't all standard sets just be of the power level of Modern Horizons? And I said, that's a good question, a good enough question that I could answer on my blog because there's a lot to it. It's actually very complex.

It is, and I realized that I've never talked about power level and it's a pretty important concept. So I'm going to talk about it today. Okay, so let me start by asking the question question, the most basic question that I get asked. Power level related, that is. So we make cards. We then cost them. Not every card is costed to be tournament viable.

Not every card, like a lot of times people will look at a card and go, oh, if that card costs one less, I might play it. Why doesn't it cost one less? Why is every card not costed so that it's played? Okay, so first off, let me explain a little bit about the idea of that there's a system, that power level is inherent within the system. And what it means is, when I say power level, I'm talking about how powerful something is. If you just make everything, well, so, how about this way?

Let me explain it this way. In design, in vision design, we do a thing when we're testing early on where we put everything at an equal power level, where every card is just costed so you could play it. Now, the reason we do that in vision design is we haven't, there's no, the power level hasn't been set for the set yet. That gets done by set design and play design. And early on, I'm just trying to figure out, in vision, I'm just trying to figure out, like, what's'm just trying to figure out what's the good stuff.

We're trying to sort of make an environment. Because Vision Design is all about making the blueprint for the set. So we want everything kind of to be playable just so we can sample everything and then we can try it. But the interesting thing about it is, hey, there's an environment where all the cars

are costed of equal power level. Okay, well, what's it like? I've experienced it many times. So there's a couple issues with it. One is when everything is the same power level, it's a lot harder to make decisions. It's a lot more. Now, one of the things that guides us in vision design is we are not trying to maximize the power. Meaning when we design a vision design, what I'm saying to my designers is

sample things. I want you to play things you haven't played before. And the goal of vision design, a vision design play test, is to understand the environment. And so we have a different motivation than most players. Most players when they play are trying to win. And so we have a different motivation than most players. Most players, when they play, are trying to win. And so they are trying to play the best cards that they can play. If you're trying to do that, and there's an equal power level, meaning if every card is playable to every other card, it becomes very hard to understand how to build your deck. And that you have to start understanding synergies, and it gets very hard to understand how to build your deck. And that, like, you have to start understanding synergies,

and it gets very complex. Now, on the upside, it does mean that the power level of the best player's deck versus the worst player's deck is a lot skinnier. But that just means skill matters less. It means that, you know, if you have too even a thing, you can't go too far wrong, right? I mean, yeah, there's synergies that make certain cards better in combination with other cards. But in general, if all the cards have equal power level, you can't go that far wrong. You know, all the cards are roughly the same power level.

The other thing that tends to happen is you have less variance. Now, a lot of people might hear that and go, oh, that's good, less variance. But it's not. Long-time listeners of my podcast will know that variance is what makes games fun. Now, the appearance of variance tends to upset people. So there's a delicate balance between having enough variance for some fun to happen, but not so much so that it feels like there's no control. But in general, having less variance means that you have less up and down moments, which

is where a lot of the fun comes from playing. If you think about your most memorable games, for example, a lot of them are where, you know, it looks like you were back to the walls. No way you're winning this. Oh, and it turns around and somehow you manage to dig your way out. Those are very exciting. And having the lack of variance is the kind of thing that, while it sounds good on the surface, it really isn't.

We know it from doing a lot of play that it just means the games would be a little more slug-festy and a little less, you know, it would come down to a lot of minute decisions. Now, I will say, by the way, as I'm describing this, if you're a very hardcore series player some of these sound oh that's awesome harder decisions

less variance oh that sounds awesome but the reality is it is not what the majority of players would want I'm not saying there aren't any players that would like it the other thing that happens

when everything's of equal power level is the cards feel similar that just it's hard to get differentiation between things because they just everything sort of feels samey when the power level is all the same. Also another important thing is there's no learning curve. Like one of the important things about any experiment, any environment is you want people to get better as they play more. And if your power level is too

flat, just it's a very, the learning curve becomes very very flat more. And if your power level is too flat, just, it's a very, the learning curve becomes very, very flat itself. And that one of the things that people really enjoy about playing is they play once, and when they play a second time, they feel better than when they played the first time. This idea of strategic learning

is a big part of why people like to play. It's something they really enjoy. And so making that harder to do just really makes it more unapproachable and just the overall experience is less fun. You know, I talk about less variance. I talk about a steeper learning curve. All these things combine that it's just less fun.

You know what I'm saying? Now, one of the things about vision design playtests is we're not playing for it to be fun. We're playing for it to learn because we're trying to make the best set we can. And we're not, like, there's a lot of things that we're not maximizing in a vision design playtest, meaning that

because of what we're trying to do, the flat power level is okay. We're not trying to make it the most fun environment. We're trying to learn from it. But that's different than what you all do when you play. Okay, the biggest problem though, of all these problems, the biggest problem of having a flat power curve is what we call power creep. So let me, let me explain power creep because power creep is a pretty important idea when you're talking one of the way to sell something is, um, so in, in a game that is ongoing, like, um, that keeps putting out new resources, um, one of the way you can get people

to buy your new stuff is by just making it better than the old stuff. You know, so it could be I make a set, set one, and then set two, everything's just a little bit better than set one. So why do you want to buy set two? Well, set two is going to just make up more of what's going on. Like one of the problems in general of any ongoing game is, you know, when you have set one, set one matters. It's the only set there is. Of course, set one matters. It's the only set there is. Of course set one matters.

There's nothing to compete against it. But when set two comes along, now set one and set two are fighting against two sets worth of content. And when you get to set three, you're fighting against three sets worth of content. And so one of the inherent problems of a trading card game is if you just put up more content and don't do anything to try to adjust for it, each set is just going to be less relevant than the set before. And one of the ways to see this is just take a magic format that is bigger.

Let's take vintage. So vintage is every card in existence, except there's a few cards banned and there's some cards restricted. But pretty much every card in existence. So how often does a new set impact vintage? Not often. I mean, not never, but not often.

There's whole sets that go by that not a single card really gets added to. And when I say vintage, I'm talking about high-level tournament play. I should point out, by the way, whenever we discuss a format, there's a breadth of people that play the format. On one end is what I'll call the casual players, which is the format is used to define what they're playing with, but they're just trying to find what's fun. Not that

they're not trying to win, but winning is they're not trying to maximize winning. They're trying to maximize them having a good time. Where the other end is sort of the competitive end of things, where that's all about understanding metagame and netdeing and, you know, trying to understand in this environment what is the best thing that can win.

So when I talk about what adds to the environment, I'm talking more about the tournament stuff. Everything adds to the more casual environment because if I'm playing a vintage merfolk deck and we make a new merfolk, well, then your merfolk goes in there or the merfolk could go into the merfolk deck. and we make a new merfolk, well, then your merfolk goes in there, or the merfolk could go into the merfolk deck. Now, once again,

the more things that are in the environment, the harder it is for any one thing to be of value because it's competing against so many other things. Even a new merfolk, your vintage merfolk deck might not need it because there's been a lot of merfolk. Is this merfolk better than any of the previous merfolk already in the deck?

And that's a pretty high bar after 26 years worth of game. So one of the issues that a trading card game has to deal with is how do I how do you, the people making the game, how do they encourage you to buy new product? Now one

thing that helps is new product is new. That's exciting. But one of the things that we realized early on was we needed to have some answers because power creep is I just keep making sets more powerful. Two is better than one. Three is better than two. And you don't need to power creep much. You can very subtly power creep.

The problem is that that's not a long-term strategy. It is a short-term strategy. It is a short-term strategy. And the reason is, there's a point at which the things you're making are just too powerful. They break the game. You know, that if I...

If I start making stuff where it's like turn one before my opponent even goes, I can just win? Well, then there's not much game there. And if you keep power creeping, it's just not, it is a solution for a short-term game that is not trying to sell many components over a long period of time.

It's not Magic, though. Magic's whole business model is we put out, you know, four sets a year that are standard sets. Well, I'll get to standard in a second. We put out four sets a year plus other stuff as well. We put a lot of product out. And how do we do that? So there were two solutions to our problem,

to the power creep problem. Meaning, an alternative to power creep. How do you solve the problem? Like, power creep is one answer, but power creep is a not good long-term answer because fundamentally, power creep will crash the game. Your game will eventually die if you keep power creeping it. So we did two important things. One is we introduced the concept of formats. And the idea of format is the sense of

that not every way to play involves all the cards. The very first change we made, when Magic first came out, there just was Magic. There was no formats. And then we introduced the idea of formats, and we made what we called Type 1 and Type 2. So Type 1 is what you now know as Vintage, and Type 2 is what you now know as Standard. And the idea of Standard is, okay, we're going to have this environment that is not all the cards, it's just the last two years worth of cards. And there's a lot of advantages that Standard had.

Now, when we first announced the format, there was a lot of rebelling, because the initial reaction was one of, hey, what do you mean I can't play my cards? I bought my cards. Why can't I play my cards? And we explained, look, we didn't get rid of vintage. Vintage exists.

There's a format where you can play all your cards. But one of the nice things about Standard, it was a couple things about Standard. One is, you ever heard we talked about the crispy hash brown theory? Why magic is fun. And in short, the idea is the most, the awesome part of a hash brown is the crispy hash brown theory. Why magic is fun. And in short, the idea is the most, the awesome part of a hash brown is the crispy outer shell. And that when you finish that,

then you eat the inside, but it's not as good as the crispy outer shell. Magic's sort of secret to success is it keeps regrowing its outer shell. Meaning that most games you explore, but at some point, once you sort of crack it, then you start getting to the point where you need to do rote memorization.

You get to the point in chess where you have to memorize opening moves, or in Scrabble where you have to memorize two and three letter words. Because magic keeps reinventing itself and keeps sort of changing, you don't have to do that. You're constantly discovering magic. But you need things like standard to make that work. And the reason for that

is that when you only change through addition it does not change nearly as much but when you change through subtraction it changes substantially so for example if one of the things you really enjoy about magic is that things keep changing well then limited and standard are for you and those are two very, very popular formats.

You know, people, like I said, people complain when standard first existed, but standard has gone on to be the most played thing in stores. And the reason for that is that a lot of people, A, they like the idea that I don't have to think about, you know, standard is two years worth of cards. That's something you can wrap your brain around not that there aren't people that don't enjoy

26,000 or sorry 20 years of cards 26 years of cards which is many many over 20,000 in this card

unique cards that standard it allows you to absorb there's less information to take in and things change that if I like having a dynamic metagame, standard radically changes.

Because every year, a year's worth of cards leaves the system. And cards leaving the system have a much bigger impact than just cards entering the system. Because ours entering the system, it's all about, oh, are there things that make other things viable? But usually it is hard to take the existing things and make them less viable with new stuff. Now, sometimes there's answers, and I mean, it's not impossible. The other solution to the power group issue was what R&D refers to as the Escher stairwell. So Escher is an artist. artist. He is known for drawing mostly black and white illustrations that involve, what do you call them, visual optical illusions. So one of the classic things he does is people

on stairs in which the stairs always go up. So using optical illusions, you can draw stairs that each set of stairs goes up. But obviously, you can't have a forever ending stairs go up. But one of the things that R&D has learned as a way to make the audience feel like the power level is always going up is this thing we call the Escher stairwell. So what what it is is magic has many component pieces. There's lots of different mechanics in magic. So whenever we do a new set, we focus on something. The set's about something. You know,

War of the Spark was on planeswalkers, so we can push planeswalkers a little bit and we can, you know, do new things with planeswalkers. And we can for that set So the way to think about this is each set can have a certain amount of power in it. So the way I like way to think about this is we each set can have a certain amount of power in it

so the way I like people to think about it it's not technically how we do it but thinking a set of having power points that you have so many power points that you can you can give to the set and so the way that the extra staircase works is

whatever the new thing is whatever the thing that's the the selling point of the set we put our our power point there. Is the set about artifacts? It goes there. Is it about enchantments? It goes there. Is it about whatever it's about? And that one of the things we like to do is,

I often talk about how magic is like a pendulum, a swinging pendulum. Well, we push in one direction and play up that, and then we go down in power level on things we're not focusing on. So we're not adding any power to the system because we're using the same amount of power points per set, but we're shifting where we put the power points, and we always put the focus where the power points are. So the things we're showing off, the things we're previewing, the things that people are talking about are the powerful things. So whenever you see a new set, players tend to talk more about the cards they think will get played and less about the cards that won't get played. So what happens is the conversation about the new set tends to dwell on the cards that

matter where the power points were put at. And the effect that creates is every new set feels like something is going up, and that's just because you're focusing on what is going up. Meanwhile, in the background, things are going down so that later they can go up, and that's why, for example, we might put lightning bolt in a core set, and the reason that worked was,

for years before it, we had really lowered the power level of direct damage in standard. And then, as a surprise, we're like, okay, we're going to put lightning bolt. And wow, all of a sudden, there's really powerful direct damage in standard. That radically changes standard. And then, when that rotates out, then, okay, we're going back to a lower power level in direct damage, but we're pushing somewhere else. And that overall impact helps. So the combination of rotation and of formats and of the extra stairwell

are how we avoid having to power creep. So let's get back to why can't every card be of equal power? Like, why can't we just make every card so it's played? So two big things. So, one is power creep, obviously. But let me talk a little bit about why the power creep happens, now that I explained all this.

Which is, you only get so many points. You only get so many power points. If I spend more power points on a set than the set before it, we create power creep. So, what that means is that I can't cost every card at its optimal costing. That would be using too many power points. Now there's another thing also at play here, which is that power is defined by overall relationship between the cards.

So here's the other thing. If we made every card as powerful as it could be, that doesn't mean that every card would get played. That is not the impact. What it means is certain cards would still stand out and they would be the best cards. So my example there is, so Ancestral Recall is an alpha. One blue mana, draw three cards.

That is a very powerful effect. If we put that in the set, it would get played. But, if a set later, we made a card that was blue mana, draw four cards, now, again, depending on the power level,

maybe you play both, but the idea is you can, anything can be obsoleted. The idea that anything is inherently powerful, it's only in context. And social recall is only good because mostly card drawing is divination, right? That's too you to draw two cards as a sorcery. Well, one card at instant to draw three, that's much better than divination. And so a lot of us trying to set things is trying to create an overall power level, understanding how things interact with each other.

So another big reason why everything can't be the same power level, everything can't be pushed, is all it does is just raise the overall power level of the format. It doesn't make things any more played. The idea of everything is pushed idea that if everything is pushed it becomes played is not even true so it's not even as if we just if every card was costed, ultimately all of them

would be playable, that's not the case on a tournament level now, in vision design when we do that, once again stress, the guideline I give my people when we're playtesting is sample, try different things. The reason that all the different cards get played

in vision design with a flat power level is because the main guiding goal isn't make the best deck possible. If we said make the best deck possible, what would happen is we'd all test the same cards, and anyone thinks there's going to be better cards, but the notion of how we have to cost,

the meaning that things have to cost it and round it in numbers. Like, for example, let's say I make one card and I cost it at three mana. It might be the correct power level is 3.2 mana, but I can't cost it 3.2 mana. We can cost it at three or at four. I mean, we can do double colored mana and stuff. But the point is, there's not exactness to costing. And what that means is, the cards that become most powerful

are the ones that are the closest where it needs to cost three, and it costs three. That's a stronger card than a card that needs to cost 2.9 or 2.8 and cost three. And so that is why, even if we try to even things, they're just cards that fundamentally...

And there's also synergy issues that are going to happen as well where certain things within the environment are just stronger. Okay, so now let's talk a little bit about the impact on formats. So when we make a magic set, a standard legal magic set, we are not making... I mean, I say this all the time, magic's not one game. It's multiple games with a shared rule set and card set, right? So we know that there's only so much power points that we can stick in the set. So the answer is, well, what do we do with the rest of the set?

And this is where limited and casual constructed come in. So limited is really nice in that one of the things that we've set up and one of the cool things about Magic is there's a way to play that is if you enjoy things being uniquely theirs for themselves, if you enjoy, if you like the crispy part

of the hash brown, there's nothing quite like limited play. Sealed or draft. And the reason for that is when you're playing in an environment, if the only cards you're playing is from that environment, it really matters. And the nice thing about limited is it can take cards that wouldn't normally matter and make them matter. And so one of the things we learned early on was the sets were going to have some cards

that weren't of the power level for constructed, for standard, let's say. That's just going to be. Because the nature of it is we can't make every card standard level, standard power level. We can't. All we're doing there is we're pushing up

the power level of the environment. We're not actually making more cards playable because there's just only so many cards that can be playable. So one of the things that we be playable. So, one of the things that we wanted to do, and one of the reasons that formats in general are good is different formats have different

requirements. And in general, the less cards you have in your format, the deeper you can have, the less the power level, the less cards in your format, the more cards of the format matter. So for example, if I'm playing limited, a lot of the cards matter

because I'm playing unto itself. So the power level is at the lowest and more things can matter. If I'm playing standard, some of the cards can matter. Playing modern, okay, a few might matter. As you go up in formats, each format is going to have less things

because the overall power level is less. And simply put, the power level is based on two things. One is how many cards are in the environment. So as a general rule, if there's more cards in your environment, your power level is higher. Standard has the last two years worth of sets.

Right now, Modern has the last 16 years worth of sets. I now, Modern has the last 16 years worth of sets. I mean, Modern keeps growing. It doesn't change like Standard. Okay, well, which would be a higher power level? The set that has, you know, two years worth of cards or 16 years? Not even close. Modern's way more powerful. But Legacy has more cards than Modern.

So it is even more powerful. Vintage has all the cards Legacy has, plus some cards that Legacy bans, so even more powerful. The more cards you get in the environment, the more powerful they are. The other thing that can matter is what I'll call synergy. For example, we'll take Commander. There are certain things that

matter in Commander that are unique to that format. Legendary creatures are the biggest one. So, you need to play with a legendary creature as your commander. That means that there is a certain value put on legendary creatures

in the format of commander that is not normally there in other formats. So certain synergies for format can make certain cards have more value. You know, pauper is a format that only plays with common cards.

Well, that means that the value of commons, what you need, goes up because you're playing with less cards. And there's some synergy things. In Pauper, for example, there's things we don't often do at common, just effects we don't do at common. So if we ever introduce an effect

we don't normally do at common, even though Magic might do it all the time, it being in common would matter for a format like pauper. So, there are different formats and it is not a mistake. Like, the fact that our formats stratify power

levels is by design. Like, we want we want seal to be of a lower power level than draft. We want Seal to be of a lower power level than Draft. We want Draft to be of a lower power level than Block Constructed. We want Block Constructed to be of a lower power level than Standard. We want Standard to be of a lower power level than

I don't know what next, but Modern. We want we like the idea that the system is set up so that there's different things. And the reason for that is different players want different things. And the reason for that is different players want different things out of their magic. Remember before when I said

how if everything was even and there was like harder decisions and less variance and this and that. You know, if you like having, some people go oh, I don't want to think about all those cards. Just give me two years worth of cards. Other people are like, no, no, no. I want as many cards as possible.

And so one of the things that having different formats lets us do is cater to what players want. And so one of the nice things now, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. One is, one of the reasons that we focus on limited and standard as the major things we focus on, is those are the formats in which the new cards matter the most. They have the biggest impact.

And as people who are, I mean, we're a business, we're trying to sell cards, there's a lot of reason to put major focus on the thing that most makes people want to buy cards. Meaning that, yes, you can play magic and you can play vintage. You don't need to buy a lot of new cards to play vintage because you'll have your deck. There's not that often something even comes out that is relevant in vintage, let alone relevant to the deck that you play. And it's a locked format, meaning it doesn't change.

So, you know, barring abandoning a restriction, you know, your deck probably will be good for a long time. But, like I said, some people really enjoy the idea that what's fun for me about Magic is I have a deck, I know it, and I tweak it over time, but I played the same deck for 15 years. Some people

embrace that. Other people are like, oh, no, no, what makes Magic exciting for me is I'm constantly playing new things. That I'm having new experiences and interacting with new cards. One of the things we found is when you look at players over time, one of the interesting dynamics is

that limited play goes up the more time you've been playing magic. And the funny thing is, I don't know if that is inherently, like, seems obvious or not. The reason is the following, which is,

when you've been playing Magic for a long time, two things tend to be true. One is, you're getting older, because in order to have played Magic for 20 years, you have to have at least been old enough to play Magic 20 years ago, right? So one thing that happens is, as people get older, they get more responsibilities. You know, when you first start playing, maybe you're a kid, you have all the time in the world to play.

You know, at some point, you get married, you have kids, like, you have a job. Your responsibilities are not as easy. And the nice thing about limited play is, I can show up at a place, play for a set amount of time, and it requires no prep work. I mean, if you want prep work, you could read the cards and stuff. I mean, you don't need to do any prep work. So it requires a lower amount of investment. And as you get older, you have less time because other things are fighting for your time investment. The second thing is that one of the things that people tend to enjoy as they play longer is,

the reason I talk about the crispy hash brown effect, is that one of the fun things about Magic is that it does change. And the way that it changes the most, the way that, like, if you really want to experience the radical change, limited is that in its strongest, you know. If I play, you know, Guilds of Ravnica or Ravnica Allegiance and then I go play

War of the Spark, those are really different. You know, then I go play Modern Horizons or, you know, I play Core 2020. They're all very,

very different. The formats are very, very different. And if what I enjoy about Magic is experience all the sort of differences it has, the other thing

about Limited is Limited requires you to sort of, it requires a more general knowledge of cards that in order to be good at limited, I have to be good at understanding on the fly what things are good and not good. And that is a skill that comes with time. So the reason that,

and once again, when I say more, I don't mean, this is true of everybody, but the reason that as you get older, you tend to play more of limited, especially draft, is because it just is more suited to the reason that as you get older you tend to play more of limited, especially draft, is because it just is more suited to the people that it falls into.

And so, I mean, one of the reasons that I think draft is so popular is that it really does allow a lot of variance and a lot of, you know, if I can only play Magic a little bit, but I go do drafts, I'm just having more variance in my gameplay.

I'm having different things happen. And the other thing that's nice is, because the power level of Limited is lower, it just makes more cards actually viable in it. That if I go play Constructed, I'm just going to see the same cards again and again and again. Or if I play Limited, there's just a wider swath of cards that can matter. And so you're just seeing more of the game.

There's more variety. So in general, I think the other reason that it's kind of popular over time is just it has higher variance. And it has, you just get more exposure to more things. And so if you've played Magic for a long time, I think that constant exposure is kind of fun. Now, that said, there are people who the way they play is vintage or the way they play is legacy or modern or whatever, who have the same deck and they keep the same deck forever. That is viable. I mean, like one of the big things for us as people who make Magic is we want Magic to be what you want Magic to be.

And that means making a lot of different things. Okay. So the reason I bring this up is, let's talk about power level now. So we want sealed and draft. We want limited to be at a certain power level. Now there's some variance, but we generally, what we want is we want it at a level where there is the breadth of experience that players are looking for. Kind of what we want is we want Limited to be what people who play Limited enjoy. And over 26 years of iteration, we've learned. We have a general sense of where's the power level in Limited. Now, it ebb and flows.

Recently, for example, we've started turning up the power level of Commons. limited. Now, it ebb and flows. Recently, for example, we've started turning up the power level of commons. There is some... Magic itself always is sort of in flux by the nature of how we build it. And we're always trying new things. As we're trying new things,

things drift and we keep changing. But there's a general sense of a power level we like for limited. That we have a general sense of what we like. There's a whole grading system they do in play design where they grade cards on like an ABC scale

and that sort of says how often you're taking things and what are you taking versus other stuff and there's a lot of figuring out sort of like how many cards should go on your deck

and where are you stretching? Like where am I playing something I might not normally play? You know, is it going to be my 20th card? my 21st card? Or am I getting 27 cards and I only need 23 so that I have some choice? We vary a little bit how they work.

But in general, there's a power band we want for limited. And once again, sealed is a lower power level normally than draft, which is a little bit higher of a power level. Then we have standard. And we have a certain power level we like for standard. We want a certain robustness

to standard. And part of that is making sure that there's a certain... Like, remember, the one thing to keep in mind is whenever we build an environment, you know, Play Design has 10 plus people.

You, the public, have millions and millions of people. So if we make something that we understand, you all would crack it in minutes. You know what I'm saying? That we have to make a system robust enough that it'll take time for you all to figure it out. Which means that we don't know the answers. We push certain things in certain directions

and have a general idea where we think things will go but we don't definitively know we make a system complex enough that we can't figure it out ourselves because we want you all to have time have fun figuring it out that we don't want it so simplistic

that it's easy to figure out and part of doing that part of having the tools is having standards set at a certain power level so that they can balance some of that stuff. The higher the power level in general it is, the more on a razor's edge you're trying to get stuff. So having the lower power level makes it easier to cost things. So anyway, we want standard, I'm sorry, we want limited, we want sealed and draft to be at certain power levels.

We want standard to be a certain power level. And we tend to define the power levels based on, because those are the major things we do. And once again, I'll stress, look, we want to make the format that most encourage you to want to buy the new cards as fun as possible. Because Magic's health depends upon a robust sales of the cards like the thing i talk about a lot is um we make a lot of formats but if we if the formats that sort of sell the most cards aren't fun then we're selling less cards if we're selling less cards we're generating less revenue we have less, we just have less resources to make the game. Like, one of the reasons I think Magic is such a good game is because of the business model,

we make so much money selling the game that we can get, like, I will work on stuff for years, for years. You know, like, I remember one time when I was working on another project. I remember one time when I was working on another project, and I was given a month, basically, to do the design of something. A month. I'm like, in magic, I have a month to just consider options of something. You know what I'm saying? I had my entire from beginning to end of the design, because it was a smaller product. It didn't have the resources.

I got a month of design. Right now, for example, if I work on a set, I got a month of design. You know, right now, for example, if I work on a set, I get two to three months of exploratory design, I get four months of design. And sometimes there's some work that goes before that. And then once I'm done, there's about a year of set design and play design, you know, we spend almost two years on every set we do to make the best possible sets we can. And the reason we can do that is that we have a business model that generates a lot of money that allows us to sets we can. And the reason we can do that is that we have a business model that generates a lot of money that allows us to fund that resource.

And then what that ends up meaning is we have a really well-designed game. That the reason Magic is so good, I mean, A, Richard made a very robust, awesome game system, but the reason I think Magic is so good is we spend a lot of time and energy. Now, we've been iterating.

I mean, one of the advantages of doing this for 26 years is we've gotten good at it. But the other thing is that we just put a lot of time and energy. Like there's things that you don't think about, decisions that you don't think about that we will spend days and weeks and months on trying to get right. So anyway, the power level for Sealed and Draft and Standard are set at a way to maximize those sets. And then those power levels sort of dictate down the road. Like, we don't really set the power level for Modern.

What we do is we make cards that make sense for Standard, and then, I mean, every once in a while we'll think about modern. I mean, once again, like I said, there's certain synergies. We know, for example, that modern might require something.

So when we're making something, if we're aware that, oh, this is something modern is lacking and it's something that won't in standard cause problems, that's when we can do things

that might help modern. The other thing that we do is stuff like Modern Horizons, where we put stuff directly into modern for legacy and for vintage and for commander. We make, you know, commander products. You know, we make a lot of different things to allow different formats to shine and have their fun. The main, the standard legal stuff, like I said, in forefront is making standard and limited work. But,

in the back of our brain, you know, we are also trying to be aware that we are adding things that add to the older formats. We're less focused on that. Like, people ask me all the time,

would you make something that is fine and standard but broken and vintage? And the answer is, yeah, we will. We don't hold the future hostage of the past,

is how I like to say it. If Vintage has a problem, it'll ban or restrict it. Vintage has tools to deal with it. And like some of the Delve cards, for example, we made Delve. It turns out that Delve is just more powerful in older formats that can just fill up the graveyard faster. And so, you know, we had to... Delve was not a problem in Standard, but was a problem in some older formats that can just fill up the graveyard after. And so, you know, we had to... Delve was not

a problem in standard, but was a problem in older formats. Okay, so we banned some cards. You know, the older formats, we accept that's part of what comes with an older format is, look, we're going to make new cards, we're going to make fun stuff. If it causes problems, you know, the reason that banned and restricted lists

exist is as a means to deal with that in that format. So, let's circle back to the question in the beginning. Why not just make every standard legal PAC the power level of modern horizons? And the answer is that would put standard at the wrong power level. We need standard to be at a power level where we want a certain mix of plays we want the ability to sort of adjust it if you like the power level of modern

we have a format for you it is called modern so there's not a great advantage of taking our slower formats that we've spent years and years crafting the right power level for them and just changing them,

just speeding them up. Because the reality is, if you like your magic more high octane, if you like having higher power stuff, well, go play modern. If that's not high enough octane for you, play legacy. If that's not high enough,

play vintage. You know what I'm saying? There are formats where you can do crazy stuff in a very short amount of time. And those formats exist. They exist. And you want to do that.

But we want to have the full breadth of possibilities. You know, we want limited, and we're happy we're limited. We want limited B to play for people who, like I said, there's a lot of people who, the more they play Magic,

they get into limited, especially into draft. And that's a very valuable part of our ecosystem. We want to make sure that we don't, you know, like this idea of why not just make everything so things are like modern. It's like, well, not everything wants to be modern. You know,

I don't think Sealed or Draft or Standard get better trying to push a higher power level. They don't. We're at the power level we want because over 26 years we've iterated to figure out what lets us do what we want to do. You know? And like I said, there's ebb and flow. I'm not saying, like, we're constantly

coming, like, right now we're pulling up some of the limited power level a little bit by raising the power level of some of the commons. You know, we are constantly tweaking. I'm not saying that there's not some ebb and flow of the power level, but it's within a band. And so when people are like, why don't you just change over the system? It's like, no, no, no.

We have a carefully thought out system that does stuff that is very exacting. And kind of what I hear is people going, oh, well, this is what I enjoy. Why can't magic be more like what I enjoy? well this is what I enjoy why can't magic be more like what I enjoy and the answer is look we try to make a wide berth of things for magic players we try to do a lot of different things

to make magic players happy and the answer is is magic is in a better place with the current power levels of the formats where we have them that making standard the power level of modern, A, would do horrible things to standard, and would just speed up everything down the road.

Like, if you speed up the standard legal sets, okay, now limited and draft, you know, sealed and draft are more powerful. That has an impact. Standard's more powerful. That has an impact. Modern gets even more powerful. Like, it just, everything just gets sped up. And like, look, they're already as vintage. If you want to play just crazy power of stuff, we have that format for you. It is not like Magic doesn't have the I want to play powerful things

with a crazy power level. We have that format. We have, you know, we have formats for that. That is not, there is a reason, for example, I mean, there's multiple reasons, but one of the reasons that Vintage and Legacy have a smaller share of the market,

part of it is card availability. I get that. But part of it also is that not everybody wants to play souped-up, overpowered magic. There's people that enjoy that, and like I said, we have a format for them. But having the ability to have more things matter. Like, one of the things in general is,

what we find, and what we try for Standard to do, is we like games to last a certain amount of time. And so, in older formats, turns could be over in turn one or in turn two. We try to balance Standard so it doesn't do that. You know, we want Standard to have a certain amount of play, so there's this back and forth, and that, you know, there's a lot of energy put

into considering that. Like play design and set design, um, spend many, many hours fine-tuning to get something that's a real fun play experience. And, um, I, I know it's very easy to just say, but I enjoy this and why don't you just make the norm what I enjoy more? And the answer is, look, I mean, it's twofold. One is, if we maximize magic such that we didn't encourage a lot of players to want to play the formats that use most of the cards, magic would get in big, big trouble. Like, you know, we want people to want to play standard and limited. Luckily, they enjoy it.

There's another big thing. There's a reason that those are the two formats that are most played in stores. People really do enjoy it. There's a method behind our madness. I get that there are people that want different things. Like I said, it is not as if we don't provide those things for you that if you like having magic higher octane there are formats that do that, but that is not good

for general magic, that is not good for everyday magic it wouldn't be good for the business model and it wouldn't be good just for general gameplay, I don't think people would enjoy it or not enough people would enjoy it so that is why we don't do it. It is a very carefully thought out ecosystem. I mean, the reason I wanted to talk about power level today is that

this is something that we spend a huge amount of time on that we don't talk a lot about. I mean, every once in a while, PlayDesign will write an article or something talking about costing something, but there's a lot of time and energy talked about balancing something but like there's a lot of time and energy to talk to balancing and costing and there is a

like one of the things I do all the time is when I'm trying to make something I'll go talk to play design to get a sense of where they think it should be costing

it's not an area of my expertise I mean I'm I'm good enough that I can get in the ballpark but I usually like to talk to them and sometimes

when I talk to them they'll bring up things I might not think of that'll result in them to cost things but I usually like to talk to them. And sometimes when I talk to them, they'll bring up things I might not think of. That'll result in them to cost things. But anyway, that is power level, guys. Power level is an important

part of the game. It's an important thing to understand. It is something that a lot of time and energy is spent on. It just isn't something vision design

spends a lot of time on. So it's not something I talk all that much about because it is not something that I do. And a lot of my talks are more about the things I do. So today was not something I talk all that much about because it is not something that I do. And a lot of my talks are more about the things I do. So today was about something that other people do. I have very little to do with power level. That is after, you know, when I hand off the set, like I said, normally we balance things so we can play it and test it. But then when it

gets to set design, they figure out what makes a dynamic environment, what's fun, and they start pushing things to make a more layered environment. And that is a lot more fun. I mean, I can just say that, I mean, having played an even environment, it's less fun. I've played that a lot. You know, I've probably played more. Everybody on the face of the earth, I've probably played more even keel balanced games than anybody. And it is less fun.

I mean, it's informative. It helps us. We do it for a reason. I learn a lot from it. But it's just less fun. So, like I say, we play a lot of unfun games. So you can play a lot of fun ones. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my talk on power level.

I think it's an important talk. Something I, interestingly, 600 plus things in I never talked about. So hopefully you guys enjoyed it. But I, interestingly, 600 plus things in I never talked about. So, hopefully you guys enjoyed it, but I'm at work. So we all know what that means. It means it's time to stop talking magic and go,

I messed this up again. It's time to stop talking magic. It's time to start making magic. Anyway, I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.