Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #877: Most Influential Magic Sets with Matt Place

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

I sit down with Designer Matt Place, and we compare our Top 10 lists of the most influential Magic sets.

I'm not pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so I've been doing lots of interviews while I've been home, just because it's hard to do that in the car. And I had Matt place on a while back. We were talking about, I think, Zendikar. But anyway, during that thing, it came up about what magic expansions have had the most influence in future magic expansions. And so I said one day we would do a podcast where Matt and I would talk about that very topic. Today is that day. So hi, Matt. Howdy. Good to be here. Okay, so let me explain the rules that I set up for us, and then we'll go through this.

So Matt and I each made a top ten list. And the top ten list was you had to list ten expansions. Matt cheated a little bit. We'll get there in a second. You had to name ten expansions. Matt cheated a little bit. We'll get there in a second. You had to name ten expansions. So we're not counting Alpha. Alpha obviously is the most influential magic thing of all time. But top ten expansions that have the most influence on magic in some way

and then I then combined them. So the way the top ten list was, number one got ten points and number ten got one point. So I then combined our two top ten lists and I came up with our combined top ten list was number one got ten points and number ten got one point. So I then combined our two top ten lists and I came up with our combined top ten lists. And so we're going to go in the order of the list as, you know, both are our combined lists,

how they average out. Early on we overlap, obviously, because that's why they're high up. Later on, each of us will talk about why this was on our list and it wasn't on the other person's list. And then I promise, I promise before we're done,

I will read both Matt and I's lists. But I sort of want to introduce things as we get to it. And then I promise at the end, remind me Matt if I forget, I will list our individual lists. Okay. Okay. You ready, Matt? I'm ready. This is exciting. Okay. This is, I'm very excited. This is like a fun topic for me.

Okay. So, number one, with a combined 18 points. So it was number one with a combined 18 points. So it was number one on my list, number three on your list, is Ravnica City of Guilds. So why is it so high up, Matt? Well, it does some things for the first time ever to an extremely high quality bar, right? The combination of mechanics meets flavor

had never been done to this degree before right uh and that's a big deal you guys would go on to do this again but that to me is uh massive right uh and then also just the block plan was uh more i think well planned out than any set before that um in the combination of fun right just the limited format super duper fun, tons of exciting cards. Yeah, it was great. Also, so it introduces sort of the modern faction model, which we've used many, many times. You know, the idea that there are factions

and each faction gets its own mechanic and its own named mechanic. You know, so this is, Ravnica really sort of made a model that we've made a lot of sets like it. You know, even something like Strixhaven owes a lot to Ravnica really sort of made a model that we've made a lot of sets like it. Even something like Strixhaven owes a lot to Ravnica, for example, even though it's modeled differently.

It introduced hybrid mana. There's a lot of... And also the idea, right, block plant, the idea that we were building something and thinking about things down the road i mean we did that a little we kind of backed into it a little bit um like invasion kind of backed into it but the third set was probably the most understood before you even

were done building the first set right the third set was very well understood the path that it was going down yes right and it was very logical and made sense, as opposed to some other blocks where it feels like it was thrown on or wasn't planned in the beginning, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, another thing about Ravnica is I literally could find sort of like remnants of Ravnica in most modern sets. Like, Ravnica, I mean, the other big thing

that's a little behind the scenes is we were on a downward slope for a little while, and like the one blip up was Ravnica. And it was sort of like this downward trend, except one blip, and it really resonated with people. I think Ravnica's the most popular plane. There's a few others in contention, but when we do polls, it would often win for most popular plane.

And it also really, I don't know, it reinforced so many things. I really think Ravnica really set the bar for a lot of things. Yeah, and it's interesting, like, looking at this list, what do you put on the list, which 10 sets, and how many ideas or specific card designs would then get 35 or more cards later made based on those ideas, right? Let alone block design from Ravnica.

I think Ravnica too, you know, one of your rules was Alpha doesn't make the list. Obviously, it's pretty influential in Magic. I honestly believe this. Ravnica is the second masterpiece after Alpha. It is so good and does so many things right. It is, like you said, one of the up arrows instead of down arrows during those like three or four years uh but yeah it's awesome okay our number two with 16 points so i put it as number five and you put it as number one mirage okay so why is mirage number two here so it's gonna sound

funny but there's multiple ideas inside of mirage that really it did for the first time. Number one on my list is commons and uncommons play well. Now, that's laughable, but if you go back in time before Mirage and look at sets like Legends, for example, and I love this trivia question, how many red common creatures could attack for damage in Legends? The answer is uno. There is only one. So the focus on commons and uncommons playing well hadn't really been discovered yet, right? And Mirage does this phenomenally,

which impacts, I think, two major things. Well, I mean, I remember that Mirage was the first set designed for limited. I mean, it's very connected to what you're saying. Like, you have to think about commons and uncommons when you're designing for Limited. Right, and that hadn't really been done before, right? We had fun as players, right? I played a lot of the sets that came before Mirage.

We had tons of fun. Limited was super fun. This upgrade was dramatic, right? Suddenly Limited meant something different, right? We were going to do it over and over and over and couldn't get enough of it, right? Booster packs would, you know, I wanted to have boosters so i could draft right mirage was so fun but this had a huge implication not just because of limited being fun which was awesome in that set but also what does it mean to be somebody who's got a few boosters right you're trading commons on commons what is your world of magic and if you

open sets before that antiquities is probably one of the example that i think of your commons and uncommons were full of do-nothings right you know what was it like three mana you know sorcery look at your graveyard things that just didn't do anything was what your packs were full of if you watch some of the old sets get drafted it'll blow your mind how true that was mirage threw that on its head right mirage was like tons of interesting uh comments and uncommons that not only played well synergized together. It's not the best format if you go back in time for Limited, right? The bar has been raised dramatically, but at the time, it blew everything out of the water. It was a big deal.

The other thing about Mirage, this is more behind the scenes, but has a big impact. Mirage was the first set, I mean, properly developed in-house. I mean, technically, antiquities-wise,vious sets were, but it was the first time there was a dedicated team to doing development. When you think of modern development teams, Mirage kind of had the first modern development team, where there was, like, you know, a set. Like, Antiquities had, like, 13 people on it,

because it was, like, everybody... Not Antiquities, sorry, alliances. It was, like, everybody who was in the building in R&D showed up in that meeting. It wasn't really functional. Not antiquities, sorry, alliances. It was like everybody who was in the building in R&D showed up in that meeting. It wasn't really functional. And Mirage was like, we had a four-person development team. We worked on it.

The way we sort of do development now really started with Mirage. I mean, there are a lot of changes along the way, but sort of the start of development teams in any sort of modern sense started with Mirage. And Mirage had some of the, you know, we talked about Ravnica being very good at this, but block planning became something, right, that you guys were more focused on. Well, I mean, it had a block. I mean, Mirage, I mean, Invasion, sorry, not Invasion. Ice Age technically had alliances, but it wasn't,

alliances was not designed by the designers to be a follow-up to Ice Age. We retroactively added Snow and stuff. It was a separate set. They just made a separate set. Mirage was the first set in which they're like, no. Mirage and Visions were made together. We'll talk about Visions in a little bit.

Mirage and Visions were made together. It was made to be a block. It was developed to be a block. It's the first actual block I mean Ice Age has some you know technical sense of there was Ice Age and Alliances but like Mirage was the first set

designed to be that it wasn't retrofitted it was made to be that right okay yeah and that's why it's so high on my personal list right is the idea like it didn't do

new innovative things with block but the idea that you just start doing block. I mean, blocks are innovative. When you don't have blocks, making blocks is pretty innovative. You do have to invent fire first, right? Okay. Number three on our list

was my number four and your number five. Yeah, that's right. So for 13 points, Invasion. Yes invasion yes okay so why why is invasion so invasion does a few things it makes my list high on my list uh not because it's the very first to do something necessarily but it is the best at it once again we upgrade limited play dramatically but i think it does something that um was sorely missing in previous sets which is the combination of mechanics feel exciting powerful right the cards you are opening

and just in general are just super powerful because gold right multi-color is such a good uh way to make things feel super good without feeling like much of a cost when there actually is a cost right the cost is kind of hidden and having to run multiple colors. And just, yeah, the play of the set is so good, right? Both in constructed and limited to a degree that was such a meaningful upgrade to the surrounding sets that it makes my list. Yeah, I mean, the thing about Invasion that I want to stress, some of these early sets, like, introduce a concept that are so ingrained in magic,

you forget that this wasn't a concept yet. So here's what Invasion introduced. Themes. Like, it used to be early Magic was, we had two mechanics. Did they have anything to do with each other? No. They were just two mechanics.

You know, it's like, we have flanking and phasing. You know, and, I mean, definitely early sets would figure out mechanically how to make them relevant with each other. But, like, Invasion was the set that said, we are the multicolor set. We're about multicolor play. All our mechanics are going to play into this theme. And it really was the set that introduced a theme.

You know, it's a set that, it's kind of funny, by the way, that each of these early ones was very much the start of something. Like Ravnica was the start of me being head designer. Mirage was the start of... They'd hired me and Bill and Mike and William. The first sort of dedicated new hires for that. Invasion was the start of Bill... Working as a team. What?

Working as a team. Yeah, working as a team. Invasion was Bill Rove starting as head designer. So, like, interesting, each of these points are, like, some new person comes and, like, puts their stake in the ground. You know, that's very interesting. It has a keyword that you would use again, right?

Kicker. Right, Invasion, right. Invasion introduces Kicker. I think it, um, I guess it didn't introduce off-color, but it really sort of put off-color activations on the map. I mean, said Troll in Alpha, it was the first one to have it. But it was something every once in a blue moon you would see, like the Drowned or whatever.

But this was like... Oh, and the idea of cycling, how we cycle a lot of Invasion... I mean, not the cycles were created by Invasion, but a lot of the way we did multi-color cycling stuff was very much like invasion really reinvented how multi-color was done yeah it was and i would argue it's the first like this is a multi-color set there are multi-color cards and mirage right obviously in alpha but this is the first time it was done to a degree that was

like yes okay i'm playing a multiolor set. Here we go. Yes. And it's funny, like Ravnica was our number one pick. Like Ravnica was defined by being multicolor, but not Invasion, you know, because Invasion was like, play all five colors or something. What's the fewest colors you could play and be a multicolor set?

Well, how about two colors? I'm doing something unique in my Invasion draft. I'm only playing four colors this time. Yeah. Okay, so number four, I had it as my second pick, and you had it as your ninth pick, with 11 points, Innistrad. Okay, why is Innistrad number four on our list?

So, it's a masterpiece, I think, again. It's super fun. Limited did things that I think propelled it to the best limited format of all time. I played so much of it. But I think it does things that were so crazy if you just talked about it, like double-sided cards successfully and helped pave the way for more crazy ideas, right? Like, this always makes me think of your Englued sets, right? Just, you know, hey, this card needs multiple cards to be one card, right? Just crazy ideas that are Englued. This was the first time that level of crazy was in a real set and an A-plus mechanic.

Well, actually, I would beg to differ. I think Invasion, the set we just talked about, was the first set to do that, which was Split Cards. Oh, you're right. That's fair. Invasion introduced Split, and split cards were like, people would see them and be like, what is this? It doesn't look like a normal magic card, you know. Right, is this real?

But yeah, Innistrad introduced double-faced cards, which has obviously gone on to be a huge thing. It really, in my mind, was the first kind of successful top-down design. I mean, there were previous top-down designs, but the first one that really mapped how to do a top-down design. I mean, there were previous top-down designs, but the first one that really mapped how to do a top-down design.

And, like, we talked about, the reason I put this number two was it is like the template of how we make top-down designs now. Like, when we do a top-down design, we just, like, we follow how Induschri did it. It really is this sort of template-setting set. That's why it's so high on my list, is that there's so many sets now that have Induschri's fingerprints all over it. That's why it's so high on my list, is that there's so many sets now

that have Indus Run's fingerprints all over it. That's a great point. Like, we talk about top-down design in my years there, right, 2003 to 2010, all the time, right? But as individual cards, mostly. I mean, like, Champions of the Come of God

was an early attempt at top-down, you know, and obviously, like, Arabian Nights obviously was top-down. It wasn't our story or anything but you know it was top down in that there was a very like Arabians I would say is a top down in that it's a very clear theme yeah but when I look at Arabians or champions I don't

go oh these mechanics line up so well with that theme you know that's your point too yeah I mean right Innistrad sort of said right the gameplay itself was as flavorful as the names and art of the cards and flavor text of the cards. Yeah. Like, right, one of the things we tried so hard in Innistrad, and obviously we model it now, is, like, how do the zombies play like zombies?

Oh, I'm building up this horde of zombies and slowly attacking, you know. How do the vampires feel like vampires? How do the werewolves feel like werewolves, you know? How do the vampires feel like vampires? How do the werewolves feel like werewolves, you know? And that, right, Innistrad, really, really, like, there are certain sets that we do something and do it successfully, and another big thing about Innistrad is Eric Lauer did a lot of

stuff with how Limited works that just became the template for how Limited works. Behind the scenes, like how we build Limited. It really was the template, so much followed that template-wise of how we do Limited. Yeah really was the template. So much followed that template-wise of how we do Limited. Yeah, and it's still my favorite Limited set of all time. Yeah, and Transformation's another great example,

right, of like Flipkart's overlapping with a horror set perfectly. Yeah. Well, dark Transformation. Okay. Number five is the first one where we deviate. This is on your list, high on your list, not at all on my list which is visions so okay

why is it so at nine points imagine having this idea right when you play a creature when it enters the battlefield it does something it is okay visions is the first yes it's the first set of battlefields come on that's gotta make the list it is brain blowing

but there are years of magic where this was not a concept. Well, here's the funny thing, and it's between you and I, is in Tempest, we, not knowing, because we hadn't seen the vision design,

we have to start with something before you see, so before we had seen visions, we started working on Tempest, and we came up with End of the Battlefields in Tempest, and then I saw visions, and I was like, oh, they made it too!

So anyway, it is the set that came out first and the set that was worked on first. So they do deserve the honor of having made it first. It's just, in my mind, it's like, we had made it in Tempest unaware of what they were doing in Visions. And so, in my head, it's always like, well, we also made it, but no one knows that because it came in Visions first.

As a player, it was the first time I saw it, obviously. Oh, no, it's the first time anybody saw it. Yeah, yeah. And it was made first. Power along with fun were both extremely high, right? Like, Octavia Rangatang, I can destroy artifacts without feeling like I have to have an answer that's always a one for one, right? Like, I can get an advantage

with my shatter. It was a big deal as a player, right? As a competitive player. And how many designs after Visions would have creatures that have a battlefield and do something? I don't know. Dozens, probably. I mean, Enter the Battlefields is huge. I agree. Enter the Battlefields is huge. Okay, so next, number six on the

list is one I rated highly that Matt didn't put on his list. So this was my number three. Mirrodin. So I will explain, since you didn't have this on your list. So Mirrodin is the first set where we said, we want to do a theme. Let's build a world that's the embodiment of that theme. Like, oh, we want to do an artifact set.

Well, what if we made a metal world? And so a lot of sort of modern sort of world building and sort of integration of mechanics to world building, that's where it all started. I mean, there were a few sets that had artists building worlds, like Wrath got built, for example, by a team. But Meriden is the first time we really ingrained the world building into how we... The mechanics.

It's the first world that evokes what the mechanics are. As a player, I saw that in Mirrodin. I didn't see it in Wrath as much. Right. I mean, Wrath was... They built a cool, flavorful place. But the mechanics of Tempest did not bespoke, like, what Wrath was. I mean, it made flavor sense

to the story. But, like, Mirrodin and its set, the mechanics of Mirrodin and the world of Mirrodin are as enmeshed as possibly can be. And that was really

the start of us doing that. So I ranked that very high because it really, how we make magic sets and how we build worlds owes a lot to how we made Mirrodin. That very was... That's fair.

And Mirrodin came before Innistrad, but a lot of why I put Innistrad on the list and not Mirrodin is because I think Innistrad did it so well. Yeah, Innistrad did do it very well. Okay, so next on our list, so at number seven on our list, so our top ten list is more than ten

since you and I didn't overlap. We also agreed on this one. I put it at eight, and you put it at seven, but combined it gets seven points. So Zendikar, which you and I talked last time you were on my podcast. So why is Zendikar on the list?

Many reasons. Yeah, it's a lot of the world building meets mechanics, right? You have a vision of the world you're going to before you start designing, I think is a big part of it. Yeah, I'm curious why you put it on the list. I mean, it was a changeover

in how... Like, when I first pitched Zendikar and I said, it's for Landsat, I mean, you were there, and you were the one that was mocking me. Nobody sort of understood that. You were probably the one who mocked you more than me, right?

You were probably the one who mocked me more than anybody. I think you were number one in mocking me. You were saying, Lands are going to matter. And I was like, finally! Finally, I'm going to play a magic game where Lands matter. But it really sort of... This template of how we make something mechanically and then we can ingrain it.

And after Zendikar, people stopped yelling at me when I'm like, I'm going to try this crazy idea. People are like, okay, sure. You know, the idea that you could sort of find things, like you can find find pockets of interesting design space, and that you could build something out of that. Zendikar really put that on the map, and it's something we do, like, it's funny that the thing, like, now people behind the scenes encourage me to do it,

and once upon a time, it was like, you know, I had, like, fights to force me to do this. It also introduced the concept, by the way, of... It introduced the concept of sort of let people do what they want to do. Like, for a long time, we did a lot of tension building.

Like, oh, to do this, you have to sort of... And this is the first set that said, what if we just said, this thing you're already going to do, we'll just reward you for doing that. And there's a very different mind shift that happened with this set of, hey, we can just, people have fun doing

the things they want to do, and then just reward them for doing the things they already want to do rather than make them do things they don't want to do. Yeah, I remember we had those discussions on the initial design team, right, with, we had discard a land as a land matters mechanic, as a major land matters mechanic, right? way of matters mechanic yeah and changing

that to land fall yeah that's a big deal right way more fun has a lot of the same decision making right do i hold land or not right it gets so much of the goodness without that negative tension yes i would also list something else that um we started in the previous year right but new world order right this is the first set built to New World Order. I was going to mention that. Yes. This is the first set built to New World Order. We retrofitted it to Shards of Alara.

I mean, you and I were actually the engineers of New World Order. Yeah. And this was the first set that started from the ground up. Like, it wasn't retrofitted. We built from the ground up with New World Order. And so, yes, it also very much was a big influence there.

Yeah, and that does kind of play into let people do what they want, right? Like, less, you know, text boxes that you understand quicker, right? Things you want to do are rewarded. Yeah, upping the rarity of things that are more higher tension and maybe more confusing, etc., etc.

Okay, so now we're getting to the second half of the list. We have less time. So, nothing, everything off the list, only you or I said. None of this was both of us said, one of us said. So, we're going to go

the speed round here. So, we're going to go through these. So, next up, you picked this as number four, Urza's Block and Math Block, which I argue you cheated, but okay, why Urza's Block and Math Block? So, I was cheated, but okay, why Urza's block and Mass block?

So I was going to pick a specific set from each of those blocks, and I'm like, hey, if I'm cheating, let's just do the whole blocks. I believe this was a big deal. I wasn't there at the time, but I've heard a lot of stories of this from Bill Rose, which is basically we have the biggest disparity between two adjacent blocks ever in terms of power level, right? Mass being super terrible and Urza's being hilarious

because it's got cards better than what was in Alpha, right? And what did that mean for a lot of internal stuff, right? Like how do you approach development, right? Final design. How do you hire? I think that block is a lot of the reason I got hired at Wizards, right? And, you know, a lot of my friends got hired at Wizards. How do you make

a set exciting without it without it being overbalanced right or underbalanced and that was clearly not a skill that was had by rnd in those two years and later would become a skill because it was focused on i think that's oh we we did not mention that during invasion by the way invasion was the first time pro-player mentality really affected how development was done. I think it's a good example of it's balanced, but not overbalanced.

It's balanced, but also very exciting designs. Next up is tied at five points apiece. You and I each put it six. I'll do mine first, then I'll do yours. Because you just talked about Ursus Black. I put Antiquities.

So the reason I put Antiquities is it's the first mechanically themed set. It's the first set that had a story, and the story was interwoven into the set. I guess that's my main two reasons. Like, the idea of it's an artifact set, like, that's a thing. Like, mechanically, it's an artifact set, like, that's a thing.

Like, mechanically, it's a thing. It has a theme. It has an identity. And the fact that, like, I mean, there were cards with names. Like, characters got referenced. Like, Urza's was in Alpha. But there was no story.

It wasn't until Antiquities where, like, we're actually in a trading card game going to tell you a story. And, you know... It's the first alternate art set, too, right? It was also the first alternate art set. Yeah, right? It was also the first alternate art set. Yeah, the Brothers War is the story. But later, in 2022, we're having

a set on the Brothers War. Antiquities was the first time mentioning the Brothers War. Okay, so next, you put Homelands. Why did you put Homelands? So, this is, in my opinion, one of the biggest duds ever released right and one of the ways to

measure a dud is what are the surrounding sets right what what was the ability of the design team at the time homelands is such a dip relative it might literally be the biggest dud of all time measured that way it was also uh something that was done a lot by not R&D. And I think that was a big impact, like teaching the powers that be that, hey, you know what? You should have teams that work together and their job title involves designing magic cards to make magic sets.

That seems important. Yes. Yeah, I mean, Homelands, I mean, it's funny. Homelands had a lot of lessons, none of which were, it went right, but there were a lot of lessons from it. Right, there's a card or three that you can go, that's cool design, that's good. Okay, so

next up, I put it number seven, so it's four points. Time Spiral. So Time Spiral, I thought, really introduced the idea of the importance of nostalgia. It's the first set where we regularly repeated a lot of old characters. We took characters from the past

and made cards out of them. First set with a bonus sheet. And one of those lessons learned things is normally up until that point when we made a magic set, organized play and sales went like arm in arm. And for the first time, organized play was great and sales were not. And we're like, what's going on? And this is when we,

we, we called them the invisibles, which is, they're people we can track, but they buy magic sets. And it really opened our eyes to the more casual players. And like,

Time Spiral was this very eye-opening set and making us understand that we didn't understand something on a pretty fundamental level. Yes. And also, if you like modern Horizon sets, Time Spiral is the direct descendant of modern Horizons. I mean, literally, we like, Time Spiral 2 was our pitch for modern Horizons, so.

Yeah. It was so interesting to have the, kind of the graphs break, right? Yeah. The tournament player loved it right which is the first feedback we get right i remember uh bill rose bought us a cake yeah everybody that's going to tournaments is super excited and when we kind of find out that the graph broke he's like i'm never buying you guys cake again and we've never had cake you know um okay so next you put it as your number eight, Darksteel.

Yeah, so this one's also kind of the negative side. It is so incredibly broken. And I didn't list Mirrodin, you did. But I think Mirrodin's a great example of kind of, hey, here's some mechanics that when properly balanced are very fun, right? Like Mirrodin by itself, affinity is not broken. It's just merely powerful, right? It does great things. And then to have it sink so fast with just one more set, I think is amazing. And I think it's shined a light on a huge danger, which is when you mess things up, right? You can dramatically affect the sales of magic, right? And we would have a tough year the following year.

But yeah, I think, you know, Skullclamp and Friends really showed how you can easily undo a great set, right? I think Mirrodin's a fantastic set, and I think that block did not finish well at all, and most of it is because of Darksteel. Okay, so our final two sets, we each put 10th on our list, but they were unique, so I'm going to let you go first.

Throne of Eldraine. So I put this on the list because I think it is the best example of that feeling of top-down, right? When I'm opening boosters for the first time as a player and I see something, it's so evocative.

It's so like, oh my gosh, this is perfect. Oh yes, this is a great magic card i have an anchor in the character or the concept you're showing me and the mechanics overlap in such a great way and just the overall feel of the set i think is the best example of top down set okay i put war of the spark um so i think what is broke on a couple ways one is, it really sort of taught us the lesson of, hey, you can be sort of bold.

Like, I remember when Doug first pitched the idea of War of the Spark, like, it's going to end with a giant planeswalker war with almost every planeswalker

we know fighting. And I'm like, Doug, I get like three planeswalkers in the set, what are you doing to me? And really, it's a set that said,

okay, okay, let's not let's assume we can do it okay i want to have lots and lots of planeswalkers let's figure instead of saying we can't do that it said let's figure out how to make that happen and i'm really really proud that like like if you had said to somebody ahead of time you know i don't remember how many planeswalkers are on the set but some crazy number of planeswalkers. Three. Well, how many? Much more than three.

Much more than three. Like, 30-something. There are a lot of planeswalkers. And, really, it led us, like,

I love the idea that we went in and we said, okay, what do we have to do to make this happen? And we made uncommon planeswalkers. And, like, we started adapting and saying, well, you know, what does that mean and how do we have to do to make this happen? And we made uncommon planeswalkers. And, like, we started adapting and saying,

well, you know, what does that mean? And how do we make planeswalkers that aren't quite the same but still feel like planeswalkers? Actually, there's three things. Second thing is, it's the first, what I'll call, event set, where, like, it was about this, it was this grandiose, giant thing. Like, I remember the weekend it came out

was the same weekend that, like, one of the Avenger movies, I think Endgame, and, like, it just felt like this, and there was, oh, it was the final, like, it might have been the final Game of Thrones. It was like the geek weekend where all these, like, giant build-ups

that took years to get there were all in one weekend, and it just felt really, the fact that it built up to something, and that the grandiosity of it was something that, you know, just really meant something. And the third thing

is... I think it did something really important that I think is going to affect Magic's future, which is it said, hey, you know, Ravnica's a cool world. Maybe we could be on Ravnica and not be a faction-based set.

Like, imagine we were, imagine we could do a cool new thing and we didn't have to reinvent the world every time we did it. Like, we could have had a war anywhere, right? But the fact that it was on Ravnica just added all this gravitas, because the audience is like, well, I don't want something bad to happen to Ravnica.

You know, if we just put this on a random place. And so, I really like the idea that, like, it introduces this concept, which I think is an interesting concept of can we do a brand new thing, but with an existing world? You know, I mean, obviously, Dominaria did this for years, but in the

new model, when we started going to new worlds, it's like, well, Ravnica always means faction set. But what if Ravnica could be something else? What if Ravnica could be the backdrop for this thing? And I think that is something that really intrigues me

and something that I think could spell cool things in the future. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. By the way, as you're talking about War of the Spark,

it makes me think we might have made a mistake. We might have made a mistake not including Lorwyn. Oh, Lorwyn. Maybe we messed up. It is funny. One of the things is you and I, I had runners-up as well. I had Tempest and Onslaught and Kanzatarkier. Lorwyn makes sense.

There's a lot of... Yeah, Lorwyn did introduce the Planeswalker. That's pretty big. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big deal, right? That's a huge deal. That's a huge deal. I mean, the other thing, by the way, if you and I had made these lists tomorrow, it might have been a little bit different. Oh, I promised before we finish, I would run through

the lists. So, Matt's top ten lists. Number one, Mirage. Number two, Visions. Number three, Ravnica. Number four, Urza Block and Math Block. Number one, Mirage. Number two, Visions. Number three, Ravnica. Number four, Urza Block and Math Block. Number five, Invasion. Number six, Homelands. Number seven, Zendikar. Number eight, Darksteel. Number nine, Innistrad. Number ten, Throne of Eldraine. My top ten.

Number one, Ravnica. Number two, Innistrad. Number three, Mirrodin. Number four, Invasion. Number five, Mirage. Number six, Antiquities. Number seven, Time Spiral. Number eight, Zendikar. Oh, number nine, Magic 2010.endikar oh number 9 Magic 2010 we didn't even talk about Magic 2010 oh I gotta talk about that real quick and then number 10 was War of the Spark

so I guess this got 2 points how did we miss this? Magic 2010 was Aaron Forsythe's baby it was the reinvention of what the corset could be and it really the reason I put it on this list was it really was a return

to resonance. A really saying, you know what makes people happy? Cards that do things that they already are excited by. Oh, it's this thing. I love this thing. And it really imbued in I think all of R&D, this idea

of, and this is true for every set now, where's the resonance? You know, whenever I start a set, I'm like, even if it's not a top-down set, okay, what is resonant about it? What are we doing? You know, where can I find resonance in a set that might not be necessarily

about being top-down, but like, you know, okay, I'm doing this kind of set. Well, what can I do? What do people expect to be there? What are cool cards I can make that are not, you know, that are things people know but now we get to put Magic Stamp on what it is. Right.

And Magic 2010 really infused that, so I somehow missed that for my list, but in going over, I did get hit. You need to find the rules for what a core set could do, right? There's unique cards there. Oh yeah, completely right. It also said, Aaron did a good job of saying, here's the thing we've done forever.

Why do we have to do it the way we've always done it? Why can't we reinvent it? And that philosophy of reinvention of, hey, maybe we can do things differently than the way we've always done them, led to the idea of stop doing blocks. You know what I'm saying? Like, we've always done blocks, like, led to the idea of stop doing blocks. You know what I'm saying? Like, we've always done blocks,

but, well, maybe there's a better system than just doing blocks. And so Magic 2010 really got that. So, anyway, guys, that is the top most influential Magic expansions as of today, I guess. I mean, we... I do think if we did this in a year from now, we might just pick some different stuff,

but I think we hit the high points. And so thank you, Matt, for joining me. This was lots of fun. This was super fun. Thank you. And so everybody else, I'm now at my desk. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to make magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.