Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #895: Mirage with Bill Rose

Episode Date: January 8, 2022

I sit down with Vice President Bill Rose to talk about the design of Mirage.

I'm not pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. So using my time at home to do interviews with people past and present, and I have someone today that is both past and present. I have Bill Rose, currently the VP of R&D, but way back in time, the head designer and head developer of Mirage. Hey, Bill. Hello. How are you? There's not a lot of sets in Magic, by the way, that the same person led the first part of it and led the second part of it.

That is true. I mean, it's actually a vision of Richard's and one that I adopted pretty early. We separate. We force people who have designed not to lead the set or vice versa. But back in the day, Mark, when there were only

four of us doing everything, we all worked on all products back. That was 95? Yeah, when we first you and I first started, there were four of us and every development team was us.

We were every, there was no, who was this development team? It was us. So Mirage's origins predate you being a wizard. So let's go back to the very beginning of how did Mirage start? We started working on Mirage before Magic was officially released in 93. So we were original playtesters with Richard Garfield and working on the game and Richard had this idea of expansions and I had a group

who worked on Mirage while there was another group that worked on Ice Age. They were both basically designed nearly similar times, though the Ice Age designers and the Mirage designers sort of strategically went in different directions. But yeah, I mean, we were 93 we started, I think. Okay, so your team, I believe Menagerie, right, was its codename at the time. Menagerie was it. I say 93.

I think it was 92 when we started. Okay. Actually working on the set. Like, we started before Magic was published. And I believe, so your team was, Richard had met you guys at a bridge club, right? Is that where your team met Richard? I met Richard is I had a good friend who was also a good friend of Richard's and I didn't know Richard and Richard came to a bridge

club that I was playing. That's like the first time that I met Richard. So that would be our connection, yes. Okay, so... And then we just started playing games. Then we started blowing off school and playing games. Who said playing games can't help you with your career?

Yeah, it did not help me with my GPA, but it helped me with my career. Okay, so let's go to early, early days of Menagerie. So where did you guys start from? What was your starting point for making the set? Well, back then, so the original vision was Richard would come out with what was Alpha, and then that whole set would be retired and we would come out with another set. And that the idea was that the next set would be like 50 percent new and 50 percent old, kind of like what we used to do with core sets. old, kind of like what we used to do with core sets.

Like, so people would just throw, you know, Richard Elvis was like, well, people just throw away their old cards and we'll do the new cards. And so Ice Age really had embraced that 50-50 model when they were in design. And the Menagerie was a little bit different. Well, of course, after Magic was released, very quickly, Richard and Peter came back and said, nobody's throwing away any cards. Just it's going to be all new. But it was really started there where we had, you know, we would we would keep older cards. And then that influence, like we always had giant growth in Lightning Bolt.

And there were a lot of, you know, sort of those staple cards. So the set like started out, it was like half alpha and half new. And then over time, just more, more and more and more new, more and more and more new. The one thing I would say that we did that was differently. If somebody who's newer to Magic goes back and plays Mirage, it's not a draft experience to today's standards. But when Mirage came out, it was like the best draft experience. We were more creature heavy. We really designed Mirage from Menagerie, what was called at the time, to be a great set to draft.

We loved, loved, loved drafting. Historically speaking, Mirage did a bunch of things, but one of the things that Mirage really put on the map was the idea of limited as an important part of the game. Before that, we didn't really design the set to be played in limited. If anyone's ever played Ice Age Limited, it was not designed to be played in limited. Ice Age was not designed to be played in limited if anyone's ever played ice age limited it was not designed to be played limited ice age was not designed to but no no i mean you had a collection of cards therefore you could play it limited but um you know every now and then a one one went the distance and it was

like okay how'd you die well he played one one i didn't have any creatures so i lost okay so how early the sort of african theme was that earlier or did that come later? No, that was later. An art director, Suzanne Harkey, I hope I got the name right. Yeah, Suzanne Harkey, that's right. Right, remember? I remember back in then, like now we design where the theme of the set and the design sort of happened at the same time and they're melded together. But I mean, you know, this back in the

day, like we designed a set and then we were like, let's choose a setting and an art, right? And so I remember Suzanne coming and saying, like, I want to do this theme. And we were like, OK, seems cool. And then we moved forward with it. So when Menagerie came in, it was like generic D&D-ish alpha art. So we did not, that was something that Wizards added and we just embraced. OK, so let's talk mechanics then. So the set had two named mechanics, Flanking and

Phasing. So what do you want to start with? Want to start with Flanking or start with Phasing? Which came first? I don't know. Phasing had the hard the hard. I'm not sure which came first. Flanking came like we were doing more creature-oriented,

and we wanted to add, you know, a creature mechanic. And there was a point where I think Flanking came about, there was a point in design where we had a lot of 3-3 creatures. And the games weren't really fast. So what would happen was like it just there was no real reason to play with anything smaller than 3-3.

Just the small creature strategy just didn't work. And we were like, okay, how do we balance it out? And this is where we sort of came flanking. It came from my experience with war gaming of just like, you know, you just kind of, you know, you imagine these like medieval armies

and the medieval knights and the, you know, the Calvary sort of went around the side and it really, it started balancing our experience because now these two twos could both defend against, you know, two twos can gang up and defend against the three three, and they could also go off and attack. Real quickly, for the audience that doesn't know flanking, I realize we're talking about old mechanics here.

Flanking was a mechanic that said when you attack with a flanker, if you were blocked by any creature that itself didn't have flanking, it got minus one, minus one. Right. And it kind of worked like conceptually it was like, oh, I have this creature on horseback, and if you're blocking with another

creature on horseback, that's fine, but if you're blocking with your giant ogre, they're going to be slow, and it's more of like a mini i mean it's almost like a minis game type of thing yeah and the flavor the flavor was they were on horseback which not everybody got i bring that up from time to time they're like oh i i didn't realize that but if you go look at the art i mean they're always on horse or there is one centaur who is

a horse i guess but yes yeah yeah right so it know, like, right. It was your mobile army of the small army. And then with phasing, like, phasing was, like, phasing was... Let me explain phasing. Let me explain phasing, and then you'll explain where phasing came from. Oh, yeah, you will explain phasing. So phasing, the idea of phasing is, or at least originally, is a creature with phasing would be in turn one turn and then be out of, be in exile for the other turn. So it would go back and forth between being on the battlefield

and not being on the battlefield for a turn. And it would phase in and out at the beginning of your turn. Right. And it was a way to bring in big creatures without big meth. Right? It was kind of interesting also in gameplay. It's like, oh, I know my opponent is going to have their 8-8 this turn and two turns, but they're not going to have it in the middle. And what can I kind of do? But then it didn't work.

Like, as we were developing phasing, we were also playing around with more enters the battlefield effects. Like, enters the battlefield effects, and these really hit a high point in Visions. Right? We were just, it wasn't the first set that had enters the battlefield. It was.

It was the first set that had enters the battlefield. Yes. Visions. So, this is what the audience knows. If you said something that the audience doesn't know, I should just fill in here. Mirage and Visions were basically, Menagerie was kind of both of them put together, right? They were designed together. Yes, they were, yes.

They were, so the Weatherlight, it's Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight, and Weatherlight was designed after the fact. Right. But Mirage and Visions were designed together. Like Ice Age, well, yeah, Mirage and Visions were designed together.

Yeah, what happened was, this might be confusing you, Tempest independently comes into Battlefield without realizing you guys had done it, and had done it independently, but you guys had done it, it got released before we released ours, and you guys made it before we made it, because you made it earlier than we did, so we just didn't know you had done it and had done it independently, but you guys had done, it got released before we released ours and you guys made it before we made it.

Cause you made it earlier than we did. So we just didn't know you had done it. Yeah. I mean, it was a pretty, it was, and really it was, there was no cards earlier than that that just didn't randomly have a

when comes into play trigger. I don't believe so. There was four envisions and I believe those are the, those are the four that put at the time it was called, now it's called into the battlefield the time it's called comes into play cip was the name back then um but that's what put that on the map that i mean maybe technically there was something that had did something but as far as generating a magic effect essentially those were the first ones that did it yeah and the big thing with phasing is it just i mean back then the magic rules weren't logical and when you combine phasing in these illogical rules it was a nightmare

yeah it's true it was a nightmare for life yeah mirage is pre-sixth edition, so, right. Yes. Yeah. And we, you know, we would have a rules committee, and we'd make a ruling, and it would seem really right, and then, like, three weeks later, we'd have another issue, and you'd have a rules committee, and it seemed right, and then you'd look, and you're like, wow, both these rulings seem correct, but when you put them next to each other, they're the opposite of what they, and it just didn't work. It was, it was, yeah, it was kind of crazy. But anyway, those were the, you know, it was an early set. We, we, we, we wanted just creature.

We were very creature focused because Ice Age was so lacking of creatures and creatures are so important playing limited. And it was really, like, I think it's, you know, it had a lot of firsts. You said, like, Visions had the first comes into play creatures, and Mirage was the first true block, right? Like, Ice Age later added Alliances,

and I think they... But Alliances wasn't made to be part of Ice Age, just so the audience understands. We at Wizards did that. The designers had no plan for that to be true. We later sort of said, oh, this is a continuation. But Mirage was the first... Right. Mirage is the first block.

I do this thing I call the Ages of Magic, and it's the second age to me because Mirage introduced blockscks, introduced Limited, and Mirage really was a big stepping up of a lot of technology behind the scenes. Yes. I mean, it was innovative for its time,

but now, like, in prep for this, I looked back through some of the card files, and I'm like, whew! We have come a long way, Mark. We've come a long way. So here's one of my favorite... Well, one thing that's funny when we look back is we were trying to make small incremental

changes, which at the time were a big deal, right? We joke about Ice Age, but one of Ice Age's problems was there were just no creatures, and you literally won the game sometimes because you just had a creature and they didn't have a creature. And Mirage said, hey, you know what? The game's about

creatures. We should have lots of creatures. Mirage really sort of... It's neat looking back. I know that the Model T issue, we look back at Model T and look at a Ferrari, it feels like, wow, the Model T seems pretty ancient, but you don't get to the Model T, you don't get to the Ferrari without

the Model T being there first to sort of pave the way. Okay, so... Model T. Yeah. So let me ask, the next question is, you guys did so back in the day, the people who made the sets did come up with the story. Later on, the creative

team would make the story, but you guys did have a rough idea for a story, didn't you? We did. I know it probably better than you do, it sounds like. You should tell it. You should tell it. I remember, like, Mangara.

Right. So the main core of the story, I'll just get the high points here, is that there were these different wizards. There were three wizards that had basically a big fight between them. And there's Mangara, there was Jor-El,

and there was... Who's the bad one? I'm blanking on his name. He's the black... Is it Karevac? Karevac, yeah. Karevac, Karevac. karavik so karavik jor-el and mangar i think and then taferi has like plays a role in it but doesn't want to get anything to do with them um but there's basically a war between three different factions is kind of where it started and there's this big story and then basically karavik portrays them because he's the he's the bad guy and then mangari gets imprisoned in the amber prison and jor-el and betrays them because he's the bad guy and then Mangara gets

imprisoned in the Amber prison and Jor-El and the company and the Weatherlight have to break out Mangara. We were told by the editors that there were no designers used to do anagrams of their names

to put in the set. And we were told under no circumstances are you to put in an anagrams of their names yeah but in the set and we were told under no circumstances are you to put in an anagram so we so man mongar is an anagram of anagram yes you guys did by that you did get an anagram for all you don't put an anagram in you did get an anagram in so let's talk about the history of talimtor oh oh this is crap this is i don't i'll tell a little bit of Tolemptor. Oh. Oh, this is, I'll tell a little bit of the story. Tell the PG version of the story. Tolemptor is an anagram of Mr. Toilet.

And that's because there was a great football player, nicknamed The Fridge, played on Chicago chicago perry was his last name um yeah william perry was nicknamed the fridge so one of the so one of our designers said that's cool we should also we should all have a nickname after an appliance and i said, okay, Mr. Toilet. And he was like, he was the only one nicknamed. Anyway, we put it in. So it was kind of, it was goofy times. I mean, it was more, we weren't very professional, so I can say. But, you know, it was back in the time,

like we didn't really know. We designed Mirage when we weren't even sure that Magic would be around when it came time to get the set published. Like, you had no idea. We had no idea. Now, you look back at it, you're just like, that seems absurd. Why wouldn't you? Magic wasn't even out yet.

Like, no one, it's hard to predict what happened with Magic, right? Right. Right. Magic hasn't been released, and Like, no one... It's hard to predict what happened with Magic, right? Right. Right. Magic hasn't been released, and you're going to produce a set that's going to come out two years later. Who knows? Who knows?

So do you have any other memories of Mirage? Thinking of, like, elements of Mirage that you were proud of? Individual cards or anything? Something that stands in mind? Well, I have... It's a weird card. I don't even remember.

I'm bad with names, and I'm especially bad with the playtest name. But we had this 4-4. You'll know the card. It's a red and blue 4-4 that does as much damage to you as it deals. Yeah, hold on. I'm pulling the card up so that I can read damage to you as it deals? Yeah, hold on. I'm pulling the card up so that I can read it to the audience.

Hold on. It is a 4-4. Let's see. I'm looking at the file right now. Blue and red. No, not frenetic or free. That's a 2-1. What is that? 4-4.

Sorry, I'm searching through the file hard trying to find the card. It was... Talk about it. I'll find out when you talk about it. When you find out, it was like, it's this 4-4 flyer that does as much damage, and people thought it was... I mean, it's not a good card. that does as much damage and people thought it was i mean it's not

a good card it was just a goofy card and the story i remember is we convinced people in the office that weren't great magic players that it was like all the pro tour players were going like we're loving this card it was like the card to victory. And they all would come back and be like, I have no idea how this card works. Okay, so let's see. Oh, okay, it's Emberwild Caliph. So Emberwild Caliph, two blue, red, four, four, summon Djinn. Flying Trample, Emberwild Caliph attacks each turn of Fable. For each one damage Emberwild Caliph successfully deals,

lose one life. That is the card. I mean, to be honest with you, Mark, I mean, this is like 25 years ago. I just remember the drafts and the creature battle. Like, to me, the fun part of Mirage, we would draft Mirage like every night. We just go and we draft and we change cards

and we draft again. How did you draft? What draft did you guys use? Did you use Rochester? How did you draft it? No, we did a booster draft. Oh, we did a booster draft. Okay.

Like, yes, before Magic, because Richard and Scav had thought about this booster draft before magic was released and they showed us booster draft and we just loved it so we were yes we were we were booster drafting mirage cards before magic was released yeah people ask a lot about limited and like, like, it was part of Magic, the idea for Magic very early on, like, right before it was released, obviously. Yeah, not so much, I mean,

I don't think so much with Alpha, but, like, with, like, that's really where Mirage put its focus. And then I think after Mirage, like, Mirage kind of put a stake in the ground, and every set since Mirage has Mirage kind of put a stake in the ground and every set since Mirage has just been better it limited

we keep iterating right so each set learns from the set before it and proves upon it so every set has been committed to limited like before Mirage like try to play limited with Legends.

Holy moly. Yeah, if you get an enchantment out and it's not an enchant world, you have to go to Rare to get rid of it. You can bounce it with Boomerang, I guess, but so. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, for us, it was like a lot of what we did with design

was focused on limited tech. You know, it was really an X. We were trying to produce the best repeatable fun, limited experience that we could. Like that was really the effort of the set. So you had the time.

You have the unique perspective that you worked on it before you came to Wizards, and then you also worked on it once you got to Wizards. So, right. In fact, I was recruited by our good mutual friend, Joel Mick, to come and work on it at Wizards after I worked with Joel. Joel was my partner, the second lead designer of Mirage when we were in Philadelphia, and then had joined Wizards as, I guess he was lead designer at the time, then became, you know, vice president of marketing. And Joel recruited me to come and and lead the development of the set I mean we were I mean the boring stuff but like we like we were all smart people but like nobody knew how to like actual work and real work um so there were some struggles. I mean, there's a reason why the year before we only were able to get out like two sets. Ice Age and Alliances took forever to publish.

And Alliances didn't come out until the next year. Homelands came, I guess. There was Ice Age and Homelands came out and Alliances took a little while. Yeah, I was brought in as much for business as i was for design yeah so because and like we won as a player it really like you know i remember talking with joel we were like as a player who wants to wait nine months for the next set i mean that's like that's torture so we were able to come in and then with Mirage and Visions, we set up the block.

It was really fun to draft. And then, you know, Tempest came on. It was another unique experience, which was really fun and had a block. It really launched Magic moving forward, right? You call it like 2.0? Yeah, starting Mirage, it's the second wave is? You call it, like, 2.0? Yeah, the starting mirage, it's the second wave is what I call it. Sort of like the, you know...

It was a set that said, you know what, we're going to start doing things, we're going to have limited matter, we're going to have blocks matter. Like, it really... Magic started coming into its own as a little bit more organized in the early days.

It was sort of all over the place. And I would say, like like with the outside influences, like with up till then, like the designer really led, like the designers and the developers just did the same set. And while I led both people like you and Mike Elliott and William Jockish and Henry Stern, we really had two separate teams.

So you had this second voice come in. And I think Mirage is probably the first set that had significant changes from design to publication because we brought in that second team. Yeah, I mean, in some ways it was the first set that had kind of a full development. I mean, there was some development before that, but it's the first set that had, when we think of a kind of a modern development, Mirage is probably the first set that had a modern development. Right, because a card had to be liked by both halves.

Like before, we used to get cards that would come in that were only liked by, I mean, if a designer liked it, they'd put their card through. So, yeah. I mean, it's something that I look back on very fondly and I'm very proud of it, even though when I look at it, I'm like,

well, it is the Model T. Well, I mean, look, it's not... For example, I did a podcast last week with Richard all about Tempest. And Tempest has a lot of the same qualities of... Hey, in its time, it was very innovative. It did things that we hadn't done before. But, you know, you look back now and like,

okay, well, you know, it is a Model T. It's old and... But... The other thing we could see at the time is like Ice Age Alliances at the time is like ice age alliances at the time were sort of pushing um constructed play um a little bit unhealthy and then mirage overcorrected and then tempest overcorrected yeah so back then we were doing the cycle like you would have one set that was a little too strong for constructed followed by have one set that was a little too strong for Constructed,

followed by the next set, which was a little too weak. Mirage got the short end of the stick. So Wave 3 is Invasion, and that's when we started getting real development in, so... A little more, like, pro-tour development stuff started.

I worked on Invasion, too. You did, you did. One of the things I've always talked about is, I think Invasion. You did, you did. One of the things I've always talked about is, I think Invasion was the first time you were head designer, I believe. And then with Shards, I have, it's funny, some of it by choice and some of it by luck, but, you know,

I, do you, do you have, is Shards of Alara another wave for you? I have to look at it. There's like seven waves now. There's a whole bunch of them, but yeah. Because I did Mirage, then I did Invasion, then I did Shards of Alara. So a lot of times there's like this, you know, we're going to, we're going to, magic needs a change.

So I go to go back. Um, but I'm not designing anymore sets. Yeah. Alara was my last big one. Yeah. Yeah. So,

yeah. Yeah. One of the things that's fun looking back at Mirage, I mean, I have fond memories of us sitting around, you know, uh, like developing Mirage.

Um, in fact, my nickname comes from Mirage. So that, we can tell that story. Is that right? Right. Yes.

Yes. So do you want to tell how the name Morrow came to be? Do you remember this? I mean, no. Isn't it just from how we shortened names on the server? Yeah. You figured out the shortest number of letters you had to type so you could email somebody.

And M-A-R-O was the shortest you needed to get my name. That's what you had learned to be able to type to get my name. So in the middle, we killed a card, and I came up with a card. And so you just wrote Maro on it because, like, I made it. And I don't think anybody thought that the name would stick, but you put it on it and then it's some name kind of stock. Here's another thing, and I don't even know what it was, but any one word piece of flavor text likely came from me. Oh, was it Catch You? was Catch You.

A lot of, I mean, so, and I can't even say on this, but, you know, I would sit around and remember with Mike Ryan and do a play test, and I'm not a great writer, but every now and then I would, like, give the one word, and he'd be like, yeah, we're going to use that. Yeah, we did. We had a theme for a while where every set had a one-word

piece of flavor text for a couple years. So you were very involved in that theme. I'm almost to my desk here, so we need to wrap up soon. But any final thoughts on Mirage, looking back 25 plus years to your very first set? No, as I said, it had fond memories working with the developers. I want to, you know, and, you know, it made me when I when I thought about the set, just sort of the the early people.

And I mentioned, you know, Mike Elliott, Henry Stern, William Jock, of course, you and me, Jim Lynn, Joel Mick. Scaf. A lot of good times. Scaf. What? Scaf. Scaf. A lot of good times. Scaf. What? Scaf. Scaf? Yeah. Scaf was there.

No, Scaf was going off doing other things. I guess Jim was too. But, you know, I really look at the fun times we had developing these cards and just how we would, you know, we, we would just like spend nights. I mean, we just,

we just worked with those sets nonstop, you know, back, you know, we had four people. Yeah. Remember we had four people and they, they said like,

do you think we have too many designers at one point? And I was like, what are you talking about? You mentioned Henry and Henry didn't even start until Tempest. Henry wasn't even on Mirage. Mirage was me, you, William, and Mike. Oh, I thought Henry joined in early 96. Henry's

first thing, I think, was Tempest. I don't think Henry worked on Mirage. He was early. Yeah, he was early, but not quite as early as you and I. Okay. Another thing that's hilarious, a quick story before we wrap up. It was a very interesting time because we were all hired within three months.

Oh, yes. Yeah, right. You, I, and William started within a month of each other, I think. And then Mike started in December. So we started in October and Mike started in December. But, right, it was started within a month of each other, I think. And then Mike started, like, in December. So we started in October and Mike started in December. But, right, it was all within a very short time period. I started a week before you, so I got the computer. You did?

Well, Joel saved the desk for you, so I didn't. When I started Wizards, I didn't get a desk because we were moving soon. So they're like, eh, just use other people's desks until we move. You got a desk. I did not. They're like, just use other people's desks until we move. You got a desk. I did not.

Joe and I were buddies from before, so he looked out for me. Yeah, I think, by the way, you technically started three weeks before I did. Because you started early October. I started the end of October. I started October 4th. Right, I started October 30th. So it was, you were at the beginning of the month. I was at the end of the month. So you keep, by the way, this funny story

for the people that know this. Bill has a little thing. Everybody who works at Wizards, and he... It was like a phone list from around that time. And whenever someone left, Bill would cross them off. What? Warren Wyman kept it, and when he left, he gave it to me.

Warren Wyman was the head of security way back when. But anyway, it's a list that he crosses off whenever people leave. And I got crossed off because I started three weeks after him, so I'm not before Bill. I got crossed off early on. There's only one

person left. Is Charlie the only one ahead of you? Charlie's still ahead of me. So my claim to fame is, because when I got started, one of my conditions for hiring was I wanted them to backdate my start date for all benefits.

So on the computer, I started January 1st, which is ahead of Charlie, started in February. I mean, not really, obviously I started in October, but on the books, on the record, I started in the early days. On the books, you've been with Wizards and Magic longer than me. But on my list, I pulled out my black pen and you're gone. I'm gone, that's true.

Anyway, it was great talking with you. This is fun. I really, really enjoy talking old sessions because it's really fun to sort of go way back. So this was fun, Bill. Yeah, thank you. So anyway, guys, I can see my desk,

so we all know what this means. This means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So again, thank you, Bill. Thank you. And I'll see all of you next time. Bye-bye.