Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #755: Dave Humpherys

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

In this podcast, I talk with Dave Humpherys about the Pro Tour and all the sets he's led.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. So I've been lining up some fun interviews and today someone from Wizards. It's Dave Humphries. Hi everyone. Okay, so Dave, I'm going to start with the question I've been asking everyone, which is how did you start playing Magic? did you start playing magic um i started playing magic during my spring break of i guess it was 1994 my senior year in college and uh i had a bunch of a couple of my high school friends had been really into gaming and we played games kind of together all through high school and went down over spring break one of my friends had bought some cards and was playing with my other friend and they're like you got to check this out it's great um and yeah i picked it up over spring break. One of my friends had bought some cards and was playing with my other friend. And they're like, you got to check this out.

It's great. And yeah, I picked it up over spring break and kind of kept playing it every once in a while. I showed some friends at college when I got back there and had really been playing mostly ever since. Okay, so you started playing. What set did you start playing with? I mean, technically, like when I first went into stores and got cards it was with unlimited unlimited was pretty much what was available okay shortly around that time antiquities i think i found in stores as well okay so um the first time i remember interacting

with you or knowing your name is um at the ice age pre-release yeah so yeah it's been a while but yeah that was a worldwide pre-release sort of a one-of-a-kind in that sense um it was the largest event for a very long time it was simultaneous with canadian nationals uh like darwin castle one of the people that i played magic with a ton as many many of you know, from Team Year Move Games, he drove us to Toronto to go play in this pre-release from Boston. So we made a big road trip to go to this event. It was advertised the first prize was a diamond, like three diamonds and an Ice Age medallion. And you won a couple boxes of ice age which i guess is not as amazing compared to that but yeah so um yeah it was just this cool special one-off event um it had a lot of funny things going on in the event where this is still when you played for ante and i don't you couldn't get

all the lands you wanted maybe you could have swapped a couple lands i think but i remember like i would play someone i beat them i won their mountain and they're like hold on i need to like sideboard because now i don't have enough mountains to play red in this this limited event anymore so it was a much different age and uh yeah i mean there you know there was someone that told me they were afraid to play their icy manipulator um in the tournament because it was for ante but so very different environment. Okay, so a little behind the scenes here is when we were putting together the first Pro Tour, we wanted to get a list, and we were trying to get as many pros as we could to the event.

And I threw your name on the list because you had won the Ice Age pre-release. I'm like, there's a name. Let's invite Dave. And so we threw your name on the invite list. So I know you got invited to the very first Pro Tour. So what was that like? Yeah, it was exciting. Yeah, I remember a lot of my friends had to call in to try to get one of the slots so I was glad I didn't have to deal with that. But yeah, it was exciting. I mean, it was a disappointing event for me at some level because I started the event

5-0 and I think I just needed to win either of my last two rounds. It was only, like, seven rounds before the cut to top whatever. It was 16 maybe for that one. But, yeah, so I went 5-0, just had to win one of my last two rounds. I lost to, like, Eric Tam and Dennis Bentley in the last two rounds. And, you know, they had cards that were well poised for what I was trying to do like Dennis Bentley played his Autumn Willow before or yeah before I could play mine which at the point meant I that the legend rule at the time I couldn't play mine and I just

lost you know or it was kind of a close thing and uh but yeah I had a I had a goofy deck that had four Sinbads in it um which is I don't, not as good as a lot of other options that could be played at that time. But I had a tendency to play really kind of offbeat decks, and I had four Control Magics, and that was my favorite go-to removal when everybody else was playing other sorts of stuff like Swords to Plowshares or whatever. Okay, so I think you obviously went on to be a hall of famer um probably i guess your biggest event was what washington dc yeah that was uh yeah i mean certainly that felt like one of the most important events where yeah that was we're thinking of the same thing that yeah the first team pro tour um i played again with darwin castle and rob doherty we uh yeah we just did very well in

that event i mean that event like i look back and um the the people that i played in my seat so i played in the middle seat which i don't know a lot of people tended to have again good players in middle seats but just good teams in general where like i think how much i can go backwards in memories but like in the finals i played um i'm not going to forget Alan Comer, a Hall of Famer. Before that, I'm losing internet a little bit here, but before that I played against Steve OMS in the semi-finals. I played against Mike Long in the last round of Swiss to advance to the top four. Before that, during the day, I played like people, you know, people that you know by first names.

I played against Randy, and I played against Kai, and I played against, like, almost every person I played against in day two. And the top four was, like, a future Hall of Famer. It was, you know, people look back at some of the old events, and, oh, those were kind of easy. That was a different time. But, yeah, like, again again team events in general tended to have like really good competition by the time you got to later rounds and that event was it was pretty special like i think i i had figured out some stuff about predicting what people would do in sealed deck where like it was sort of just a given that you expected everyone to have black

in the left seat of that rochester draft so I kind of predicted that the person in the left seat would also play black in the sealed event portion. And then we metagamed our sealed decks to take advantage of that and expect to play against a black deck and play good decks against black decks in that season. So at least I think that got us well poised to get into day two with a good record. And then, you know you know obviously had a really good team given that my whole team is in the hall of fame now okay so you obviously had a very illustrious pro tour career you got you got into the pro tour hall what was that like getting

inducted to the pro tour hall of fame yeah i mean it was it was really fulfilling i mean again i i was in a way kind of surprised in the first year. So I was inducted into the second year. The first year I finished kind of disappointing in my mind. I don't even really remember exactly where I was, but, you know, like maybe eighth or ninth or tenth or something. balloting was a little different. So, I mean, it was surprising and rewarding to finish then second in the class of the next year. I think some of that came down to... Oh, came down to... So Dave just froze up here. So, okay, we're going to call Dave back. This is one of the funs of live... Let's see, okay. Hey, Dave, you back? I'm back. I don't know where you guys lost me, but yeah. So yeah, the first year I didn't have quite the resume based on stats,

and then the second year I just had very good stats compared to the people that were left in it. But yeah, it was hugely satisfying. I mean, it was fun to go through the induction ceremony. It was fun to be able to, like, you know, the Wizards flew out a guest, and I brought my mom out with me to that event, and I think it was really important and special for her to be able to be part of that, you know, as someone who had supported sort of my hobbies throughout my life. Yeah, it was just really satisfying. I mean, again, at that point, magic wasn't something that I was quite as involved and passionate about, but it was a really special

weekend and event for me. Okay. So you have a very luxurious career as a pro player. So how, how did, I mean, how did that transition to later being a Wizards employee? Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, it became a sort of a roundabout thing where, um, so after, so I was in grad school, I was in grad school at MIT, um, got a PhD in biology, studying epigenetics. Um, so it's sort of a weird starting place in general to be where I am now. Um, but all of my pro play was during that window, mostly when I was in grad school. my pro play was during that window mostly when i was in grad school uh i after that you know i had a good friend take a take a job in game design for uh one of magic's competitors and so yeah i was working as a game designer for about seven years um after i finished up grad so i finished up grad

school took a year to travel i actually was was very seriously around that time i had like back-to-back world's top fours right after grad school um and then but then yeah then then after that it's like all right i you know need to figure out what i'm doing i took a full-time game design job did that for seven years that i could tell that yeah things were at a point where i needed to move along along from that position. And I contacted actually, Mike Turian was the first person I contacted. And like, you know, I was like, look, you know, I'm really, I'd really love to work for Wizards. You know, do you think you can help me get the process rolling and, you know, talking to the right people? And before I knew it, I had an interview to be a development manager, which was, again, yeah, in some ways sort of a new role there at the time.

But yeah, I was a development manager, and that was my first position, and I have since transitioned to being pretty much full-time designer and not manager. Okay, so what was the first set you worked on? The first set I led was Avacyn Restored. The first set that I worked on where I feel like I was... Well, the first set that I think I was on a development team for was M12, sort of halfway through. The first set that I was on all the way through for set design

was Innistrad. Okay. And then the first set you led was Avacyn Restored? Yep, yep. So that's pretty fast for a wizard. That's very fast. And a good experience, obviously. I feel like very few people have come in and been given that trust.

In some ways, it might have shown that I took on that set a little too early since it had some issues. But there's a lot that I'm proud about with Avacyn Restored as well. Let's talk about Avacyn Restored a little bit. What was the essence of designing that like? It was also tricky at the time where we just introduced double-faced cards within Estrade. We didn't really know how those were going to pan out.

It turns out they went over very well, but I know we were a little bit nervous about continuing them with Avacyn Restored, so that's why that set in part doesn't have them. But I don't know. I mean, I loved, you know, I feel like a lot of my designs are pretty ambitious. Again, I was following up more on like Brian Tinsman's lead and whatnot. But, you know, miracles were ambitious. I was trying to add a lot of new different things in Limited as well,

like sort of the loner mechanic is, I think I referred to it in, like, Centered in Black, where, you know, you're trying to have just one creature and things like that. But, yeah, I mean, I love the themes there. I think there are a lot of outstanding individual card designs in there that I'm proud of. But, yeah, it was a fun set. I mean, I love sort of the angelic and demonic aspect to that set as well.

Okay, so what was the next set you led? Let's see if I can remember the order of things. It was probably Gatecrash? Or am I forgetting something in between? Well, after Innistrad would have been... It's a return to Ravnica. After Innistrad's return. No, no.

Right, it was a return to Ravnica. So Gatecrash would be your next one. Gatecrash was my next one, yeah. So yeah, right into another large set. Yeah, I think that set certainly had more, you know, I got to follow Eric Lauer's lead on Return to Ravnica, and, you know, I feel like that was

sort of a more structured, you know, a very well-structured set, and that I knew what I needed to do. I mean, again, that set ended up being faster and limited than I would have liked, but otherwise, yeah, that set went over well, I think. Okay, so your next set after that is Journey to Nyx? Journey to Nyx, yep.

So talk a little about Journey to Nyx. Yeah. Let's see if I can even remember all the handoffs. So yeah, Ethan Fleischer was the design lead handing off to me. Right. remember all the handoffs so yeah that ethan fleischer was the design lead handing off to me um right i mean that that stuff that set was you know sort of in the window when we were still trying to figure out what to do exactly with third sets or what was the flow i mean we held back a lot for that set like we were holding back um the constellation mechanic right yeah then she all the shaman matter stuff we held back for the third set right so yeah i mean i think i think i i wish that some of that stuff had hit harder and constructed i mean like doom wake giant and some other stuff if i'm remembering

the card name right you know did make a difference and did impact the formats um you know there was stuff like eidolon and blossoms and stuff there there was there was cool stuff there i mean i feel like we were stretching by that point on some of the stuff, like Bestow. Like I had all those goofy Bestow creatures that all had drawbacks that you'd like maybe even sometimes put on your opponent's creatures. But, yeah, we were, you know, stretching with some of the other stuff that was there.

But, you know, and the gods, like, with the blue-red god, like, Kerenos, yeah, was, you know, a pretty big hit. But a lot of the gold gods we kind of missed on in those post-Tharos sets. Okay, so after Journey into Nyx, now we get into Khan's block. You did Fate Reforged, is that right? Yeah, I did Fate Reforged. I also finished up Dragons of Tarkir.

Right, so yeah, that was the whole structure of having Fate Reforged, needing to work with both the other sets was certainly a challenging and fun project. Yeah, I mean, I really liked what we did with some of the legends and, yeah,

just what we did with hybrid mana like Tassigar and, you know, even just what the, I remember the white creature that you could kind of copy spells with red or blue hybrid mana. There was a lot of cool, fun stuff there. I mean, I did like how that set played with other stuff. Fate Reforged, I i know is one of the sets that i got a lot of criticism from uh at least especially our most competitive players about how balmy there are like lots of limited bombs that wasn't super well appreciated um but again i feel like i'm sort of notorious for that anyways um

but yeah yeah that was that was fun i mean dragons of tark here so yeah like what ken nagel handed off fate reforged me dragons of tark here i took over from tom lapilli um got the division yeah i get that design yeah right so a lot of the structure for that was set up before i took over it. But yeah, certainly I played a big role in what the final bit of that looked like. But Tom had set up most of the structure and a lot of the general design of what was going on there. Okay, so after, let's see,

next we get into Battle for Zendikar, is that right? Yeah. Did you do Oath of the Gatewatch? I did not, no. I was on to uh if i'm in the right year that's shadows yeah shadows of enderstrand you did shadows of enderstrand i did shadows of enderstrand yeah mark gottlieb did the design lead um yeah i yeah i mean i think shadows shadows is just like an all-around solid set. I mean, I don't, yeah, there wasn't too much groundbreaking. I mean, Delirium was, I feel like the mechanics we went with there were kind of risky in their own way. Like, Delirium is kind of an unusual mechanic, as is Madness.

You know, I think there are some, Gottlieb does an amazing job of just some standout designs that, you know, got through the process, like Thing in the ice and some other really just you know some of my all-time favorite cards in terms of design and creative um but yeah i mean i think yeah i think limited you know i was really trying to like it's hard to do innistrad again given like innistrad's held up as you know one of the best all-time limited sets and i certainly was you know trying to focus as much as possible on getting limited right. I think we did a very good job there. I mean, it was not necessarily going to live up to the best set of all time, but I think the limited was very good there.

I mean, I think the creative and design meshed well there. I mean, I think overall I'm very pleased with that set. Okay, so now we get into Kaladesh. Oh, you did Amonkhet, right? I did Amonkhet, yeah. So what was Amonkhet like? I mean, Amonkhet was a fun set. There was sort of trying to figure out what to do with gods was tricky and challenging.

For the most part, I'm happy with how that all worked out. I mean, Hazoret ended up kind of pushing the format in more oppressive ways than I would have wanted, and Amonkhet's Glorybringer was like the bane of limited rare. But yeah, again, a faster limited format than I would have wanted. That set, I mean, I think we've said, you know, before, I think that set had just a little bit too much going on. I know I struggled with that set just in terms of minus one,

minus one counters I feel are like really hard to deliver on in a satisfying way. I know that, right, like a lot of, you know, we certainly want to vary up what we're doing set to set and give players new challenges and all but you know like a lot of magic magics plus one plus one counters are just a really good mechanic and if you do have minus one minus one counters and you can't do that then it's like i don't know it's it's it's hard when yeah like you're going to tear things down and make things weak and less powerful and games be more grindy and yeah it's i i feel like that's a very hard starting point like i know i've questioned how much we want to do minus one minus one counter is ever again i mean you know i'm sure there are going to be fans here they're upset with that and i don't

know that i'll get my way but um that's true yeah it's just it's a tricky design place to start from and i i you know i think i had pushed for some of the more unusual designs where you're you were trying to use minus one minus one counter is almost like a resource and i think i had a lot of cool ideas that were going on in that regard i mean the the execution is in limited work pretty well i think in constructed that's kind of hard to get to work well and that's the other thing with minus one minus one counters and constructed is you mostly want to kill off creatures you don't want to maim creatures and at the point where right like yeah you like you can't really afford to be leaving creatures behind and their abilities behind so um it was just yeah a tricky set i mean i i think overall i you know, Embalm was really cool.

Aftermath cards, you know, like, again, a lot of people didn't love the frame execution there, but I think, like, in general, those cards were really cool. I think, yeah, I think a lot of the other elements of the set there I really liked. But, yeah, we had probably too much stuff going on in that set to all deliver on well. Okay, so next we get Ixalan Year,

and then after Ixalan was Dominaria. Did you work on anything that year? Yeah, so Dominaria I led. So that was my first set design lead, so I imagine you've given some amount of background on that. I mean, Eric, it was technically handed off to Eric Lauer for a couple months. But yeah, I mean, so again, a lot of that just being more like, yeah, I had a lot more responsibility on that set than most of my previous sets. Like I had a lot more time to try to carve out how things would work. And I the benefit of eric trying to provide some of the initial structure um right so yeah i mean dominaria like was super well received i mean it was fun to be working on that set given you know i had been playing since 94 um yeah there's a lot of fun nostalgic stuff to work with um i feel like yeah we could rely on a lot of the

resonance that's provided by sort of the the more traditional fantasy elements there yeah i think just overall we delivered really well i mean the set's pretty straightforward sagas i think are like a home run um you, I'd done a lot to try to simplify like the saga execution that I'm glad I pushed on. Yeah, like I don't think we needed to do anything more fancy than we did there. The legendary one per pack and just legends in general, I think were a hit.

Yeah, I mean, again, you know, it's one of those sets that our fans, many fans have told me how much they love that set, both in Constructed and Limited, and a set that I'm really proud on and that I'm glad I got the opportunity to do a lot of work on it. Okay, so the next year is Guilds of Ravnica,

Ravnica Legions, and War of the Spark. And I know you are War of the Spark. Yeah, I'm War of the Spark, which you did the vision design for. I did. So yeah, War of the Spark again. Yeah, War of the Spark again. yeah I'm more a spark which which you did the vision design for right so yeah we're the spark again yeah we're the spark and contrasted dominaria we're a spark again as was super ambitious set knew that going in I mean it was also fun as the first event set and trying to define what that means where this yeah

this that's more about yeah kind of a story than some of the other things that the set would otherwise be about. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad we pushed for, or I pushed for some of the stuff we ended up doing. Like, again, the one Planeswalker per pack, the Uncommon Planeswalkers, right? I mean, we... You're king of one per pack. That seems to be the case.

Well, yeah, I mean, it wasn't even... Again, it was funny. Ethan Feicher was the one that sort of recommended one legend per pack for what would have been like a second Dominaria set. And then that wasn't... And it didn't end up going through for the follow-up set. And you used it, yeah. And then, yeah.

So, yeah. Once he's like, all right, well, once we couldn't do that, I totally was, all right, this is a great idea. Ethan's idea is great. I'm going to do it here. And then, like, I liked like how it worked for dominaria let's do it again for war um so one of the things i want to point out the i you know this but i the audience might not is that one of the things that you like to do is you like to be on the vision design team as well as the set design i mean you lead the set design team but you are on the vision teams of the sets you lead which not all set designers do yeah um yeah i think a lot of this in terms of the handoff i mean historically i know

just like process wise there's there have been hurt feelings and sort of rework and all sorts of issues that arise from like oh well design early design hands off to later design where that was in the process for as we transition stuff and right like there's sort of the like oh well why didn't you tell me this earlier why couldn't we have worked at this earlier and yeah i just want to be on the early part of the process to as early as i think things aren't going to work like try to steer things in other directions i mean i try to be at the same time very hands-off. I try to not design cards, not design mechanics all that much in that early process. But I just, yeah, I'm looking to steer things.

Like if I can tell I'm likely going to need to change things or if I need, like, I need you to help solve this problem that I'm not sure I'm going to be able to solve. I want to be in those meetings and trying to get those discussions happening as early as they can. Were you nervous when I handed over 36 planeswalkers? No, no, not really. I mean, again, I feel like I had sort of... You were there. I mean, you were there with the vision part. Right. I mean, I had even, you know, like I think you proposed going up to some very large number,

and I'm like, Mark, we can just go all the way to, you know, whatever we need to one per pack. So I wasn't intimidated by that. I mean, again, like, right. You've already talked about how we said some other mechanics, more like skirmish and things like that, that I just, I didn't have confidence in. And, you know, again, that was the sort of thing where I liked being on the earlier part of the process. Um, yeah, I mean, war, yeah, war, I'm again, super proud of, I mean, I think, I think we made some, some you know we certainly made

some power level mistakes um you know certain you know like again not not to the point where we've you know had to deal deal with them in standard i guess it's let's say but like yeah you know cards like you know to ferry certainly ended up more oppressive than we would have wanted or i would have wanted and like you know i do i do hope people can see beyond some of the the outliers in terms of power i mean i think a lot of what we did for uncommon planeswalkers and rare planeswalkers was really excellent and fun um there are just a lot of cool designs i think like we really hit on the core identity of the Planeswalkers really well. We designed to the Planeswalkers well. I'm proud of those designs.

I think, again, other than Planeswalkers, the set actually was pretty straightforward. Just like this is magic in the way that people appreciated about Dominaria, like Perliferate. It was a returning mechanic that wasn't doing anything too out there and cons you know a mass i guess conscripted called earlier uh a mass also was just you know i think pretty fun good solid gameplay i mean i i do i think limited gameplay for war was more polarizing i mean i i personally love war limited i i think it's really, really good. But yeah, I know it's more polarizing. I knew it would be more polarizing.

It was in our internal testing. It just had a steep learning curve. If you people, new players against new players loved it. Experienced people with the set versus experienced people loved it. But yeah, like if there was ever a gap in experience levels with that particular set, with war, it tended to end up with people being unhappy, which we sort of saw in internal testing. And I think I saw it reflected in the real world. Okay, let's move ahead. We have one more set here that's actually come out.

Let's talk about Ikoria. Yeah, Ikoria. So yeah, again, yet another really ambitious set. Don't worry, my next son coming up are not as ambitious. But yeah, Ikoria is super ambitious. I mean, I feel like we went all in on the, you know, build a monster concept. mean i feel more and more just about some of my own design goals and where we want to be i right some people felt that there was stuff to take out of the set like you know i talked about on my cut that i think had too much i mean i think some people felt that way about akoria but like whereas in the almond cut it was a whole bunch of disparate mechanics like i feel like akoria it was a lot of stuff,

but it was all pointing towards one thing, and that was the note that we wanted to hit. It was all about making awesome monsters. So I was hesitant to pull back there. And again, I think it was correct in the way that we approached that. Yeah, I mean, I think Mutate's a ton of fun. All the mechanics pulled well in our testing internally, and I Mutate's a ton of fun. Like all the mechanics, you know, pulled well in our testing internally. And I think that's pretty much reflected externally.

I mean, obviously Companion we overshot on and I wish I could go back and reevaluate how, you know, where we were. I mean, I am still, you know, I'm still of the mind that, yeah, Companion certainly had huge potential upside. I'm glad that we were willing to take risks like we did with Companion. Yeah, I mean, we overshot, but I think there were very big upsides there in ways that other cards or mechanics don't deliver on and then fail us. And it was more like, like well why did you try that i feel like there was something for people to really latch on to with companion um if yeah if we got it exactly right i think yeah the landing strip was pretty small for that

yeah but one of the things that's interesting as I look at sort of the history here is I find you sort of coming into your own like some of the early sets you were sort of finding yourself but like if you look at, I feel like Ikoria and Dominaria and War of the Spark that you've just been I mean, all three of those sets for example

were sets that I handed off to you and I was very happy with how all of them turned out. I thought you did a great job. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I hope we're all still learning and getting better at our jobs in certain ways. I mean, you know, those are, those three, the last three sets are all, so, I mean, also the sets that I did the set design lead on. I mean, I do think our process has helped out here, and that it just affords, yeah, it affords more time for us to iterate through some of the people that, you know,

iterate through some of the process that we need to with some of the people that we need to. And that there's, yeah, there's just more, there's more space for the final designer to sort out stuff before we need to start committing to like art concepts and all sorts of other stuff there There's just more wiggle room. So yeah, but yeah, I mean, otherwise, yeah, I, I hope to think that I'm still learning with each set. So I'm almost to my desk here. So any final thoughts as someone who's lived, breathed magic for a long, long time?

Yeah. On party notes, I don't know. Yeah, it's, right, yeah. I mean, I love, I love what I do. I love, I love, you know, giving people challenges. I love trying to explore a new space. I mean, you know, as I mentioned, I do, I am interested in pushing boundaries, you know, but at the same time, I still love in pushing boundaries. But at the same time, I still love what magic is. I know I've sort of internally heard people that get concerned when,

oh, a lead designer is like, this person doesn't really love magic anymore. They're trying to make it something else. And I guess one of the things for me is, no, I really love original magic. I love core magic. I feel that can be seen in something like Dominaria. You don't need a lot of new shiny things or external things or whatever else. When I'm doing stuff, I'm out there trying to just give people new experiences, new ways to think about the game. Yeah, just give people new experiences, new ways to think about the game.

I mean, you know, despite his shortcomings, Companion, I do think got really people to really think about various aspects of deck building and how, you know, card evaluation in ways that were, yeah, I hope good for a lot of people that engaged with those cards. Well, anyway, Dave, I want to thank you for being with us. But it looks like I've arrived at my desk. So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

So Dave, thank you so much for being with us. Yeah, thank you, everyone. And guys, I will see you all next time. Bye-bye.