Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #909: Council of Colors with Chris Mooney

Episode Date: February 26, 2022

I sit down with designer Chris Mooney to talk about how the Council of Colors works, and he and I talk a bit about white, as he's the white representative on the council.

I'm not pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. So today, as you know, I've been doing lots of interviews at home. Today I have Chris Mooney, and we're going to talk about the Council of Colors. Hey, Chris. Hello. I'm happy to be here again. Not driving to work. So I did once before do a podcast on the Council of Colors in which I explained the basics. So today we're going to go in more into the nitty gritty of it. But let me do a quick two second recap for those that haven't listened to the other podcast. For many years, I was kind of like the sole defender of the color pie.

And I used to try to keep us from not doing things we weren't supposed to do. But we started making way too many products, and I'm but one man, and I had other things like being head designer to do. So we created the Council of Colors, which is a whole team now, so I'm very excited to have a whole team dedicated to defending the color pie versus just myself. to have a whole team dedicated to defending the color pie versus just myself. And Chris right now is sort of manages it.

So the team, why don't you introduce the team? Why don't you introduce the team, Chris? All right. So, yes, currently, because we've had a lot of swaps in the past, you know, couple months or so. But currently the team is me, so Chris Mooney as the white council member. We have Ethan Fleischer as blue. Corey Bowen as black. Jules Robbins as red. Megan Smith as green.

We have Ben Weitz as our colorless representative. And then we also have you and then other Mark Gottlieb as sort of the kind of overviewers of the entire council who sort of add into the discussions as things come up

and as they want to add their comments. So one of the things I want to get in today is people get a really good sense of behind the scenes how it functions. So, okay, let's say, let's use Champions of Kamigawa, not Champions of Kamigawa, Kamigawa Neon Dynasty as our example. So clearly we have to go back in time, but okay, so I'm doing vision design and I'm leading Champions of Kamigawa, I keep saying Champs,

the comic, comic, comic, Neon dynasty. What, um, so what, what,

what's the first thing that happens? What, what is the first thing that, uh, council colors does? Right. So the, the color of the color of the council of colors now sort of has a kind of a

better setup on overall schedule. We kind of realized that, uh that we were looking at things, we were looking at cards a lot towards the end of the process, but we realized that it actually would be helpful for us to check in earlier throughout a set's lifespan just so we can keep an eye on potentially mechanics that could be difficult to work with a color pie or set themes that could be difficult to work with the color pie,

or set themes that could be difficult to work with the color pie. So for Kamigawa Neon Dynasty in vision design, we have a sort of check-in where the set lead comes in and would talk about, here are the themes of the set, here are the mechanics of the set, and the color council would sort of weigh in as to any of those things seemed like potentially problematic. So as an example with Nian Dynasty, one of the things that we wove into the set was there was a conflict in the set, and we actually assigned colors, like certain colors leaned in certain directions. And so we sort of said like, okay, one side's the modern like okay one side's the modern

side one side's the tradition side and we said oh well blue's the most pro technology you know green's the most pro sort of history and tradition and so we and the conflict kind of fundamentally is a blue green conflict so we put blue and green at the ends and then we put red next to blue and white

next to green because those are the sort of secondary then we put black in the middle as the color that would do whatever. But we present this to the console colors and say, hey, it's what we're doing makes sense. Not every set is led by me, so, like, I mean, I have a pretty good grasp on the color pie, but... And we also went through all the mechanics, like...

And mechanics can change. In this particular set, other than than I think ninjutsu getting added in set design mechanics were all there in vision design but we would say oh here is reconfigure oh here is saga creatures

and we would sort of walk through and see if is there any problem are we doing anything on a big picture level that might be problematic and normally I mean every once in a while like things will come up about, oh yes this is the theme but wow this color really doesn't do that and so we need to be careful about whatever bend we're

doing or stuff like that. Yeah so to use another recent example, something that, for reasons I'm trying to think back you know like what what are some mechanics from from recent sets that have been released to the public that we would have talked about i think one a good example from a set uh you know one set back is in crimson vow uh blood uh blood tokens right are a artifact token that lets you rummage um rummaging is an effect that we very much uh you know associate with red um but we knew that since this was a larger set mechanic it was probably going to show up in more than just red especially since it was associated with the vampires um so we spent a lot of time or we definitely talked about that idea of all right

you know how much of this are we okay bleeding into other colors you know black is the secondary vampire color so it would make sense for black to get the most are we okay with having that amount of rummaging in black how much do we expect the other colors to want to use blood you know how many cards are we okay with how many blood counters could they make all sorts of stuff like that um because you know right that is an example of a mechanic that did end up appearing a little bit in all the colors but we were sort of like it's okay if every color gets a little bit of these blood counters but we don't want colors that aren't uh black and

red to make a lot of them uh because that felt sort of like it was pushing too far into giving these colors something they don't normally have. Another note, for example, that the council gave was, hey, red is more about this than black, so if red could be a little more about generating blood counters, and black could be a little more about using blood counters, because there's nothing... If black is using them, that's fine. There's nothing about...

It's not allowing you to loot to use them. It's allowing you to loot to generate them. And so... Now, there were some black that use them. It's allowing you to loot to generate them. And so, now, there were some black that generated them. It wasn't, um, but it's the kind of notes that we'll give early on of, hey, here's the things to think about. And usually, right, it's about

where we're bending. Um, so real quickly for terminology for the audience that might not know this, uh, there's normal things. In, you know, in Pi, you can normally do that. There's a bend, which means it's not normally in pie, but it's not undermining the weakness of the color. So in the right place for the right reason at the right time, we might let the color do this. And then a break is it is undermining the color's weakness. It is fundamentally letting the color do something

it's not supposed to do. And so in the meetings, we talk a lot about, like, you know, we don't want breaks to happen. We do want some number of bends to happen, but only so many bends. And bends should always be for a reason. Just because a color could do something in a bend doesn't mean it should do it. Like, is it serving the set? And the council will talk a lot about, like, is this the right place to do that? Right. And there's a lot of different, you know, when it comes to set mechanics, a lot about like is this the right place to do that right and there's a lot of different um you know when it comes to set mechanics a lot of the time when we're talking

about bends we're looking for something that is kind of promoting good gameplay not really uh cutting back on like specific weaknesses so to use blood counters as an example we were okay with all colors getting a little bit of blood counters because mostly what blood lets you do is, right, filter your draw. So in the late game, it's like, oh, I drew too many lands and I can discard a land and draw another card. And we're okay with giving all colors a little bit of that. But for some other set mechanics, they're so sort of specifically geared towards certain color strengths that we wouldn't really want to let that splash into all colors. It would kind of be giving away too much, or it's something that just isn't as fundamental to the game

as sort of card filtering. So here's another example from a release set. When we did the Return to Theros, Theros Beyond Death, we actually had a big conversation about, okay, how are all the colors supposed to interact with enchantments? Because, for example, Red's inability to destroy enchantments is pretty important.

It's not like, oh, it's the enchantment set. I guess if this set Red could destroy enchantments. So one of the big conversations was, like, whenever we do a theme, every color wants to touch upon that theme if it's a big enough theme. But okay, how do we do that? And so one of the things the council will talk about is, okay, it's an enchantment set.

I mean, same with Kamigawa had similar issues, although because Kamigawa chopped it up between two parts, it was easy to say, oh, let this color be more that than this. But in Theros, where it was all enchantments, we actually spent a whole meeting saying, okay, what can red do with enchantments, for example? It's very easy for white and green to do stuff with enchantments.

They do that normally all the time. But red, in a normal non-enchantment-based set, actually has very little that interacts with enchantments. So what would be appropriate? And in that meeting, we talked about, well, maybe red could sacrifice enchantments. Maybe that's acceptable. And we found places where red could interact

in a way that was inherently red and not sort of undermining anything. And then the other thing that we're checking for when we're doing these vision design check-ins, often, you know, vision design is very early, so it's usually the case that everything in the set is not nailed down, far from it. But we do ask the set designers to give us an idea of what do you think the different limited archetypes might be? Where do you think that they're headed? And that also gives us the chance to sort of check in and make sure that those are making sense.

So I don't have a great example. I'm just going to make something up. But if someone came in and said, we're doing a red-white theme and it's about life gain uh i have a good example why don't we use strict let's use red white and strict saving as the example okay yeah um so right uh red white in strict haven is looking at the graveyard right it was the uh lore hold the red white college is themed around history graveyard was sort Lorehold, the red-white college is themed around history. Graveyard was sort of picked as how we're going to represent history here. And red and white do both have ways that they interact with the graveyard. But red-white graveyard as a theme is very different from the norm, off the beaten path. And so it's the kind of theme where we can do it, but it was really important early on to check in and say, here are exactly the ways that these colors are going to interact with the

graveyard. You know, we don't just want to allow these colors to start bleeding and getting access to graveyard effects that they normally don't just because that was the theme, right? So if you're doing a theme that's a little bit more off the beaten path, a little bit more different than normal, it's important in these vision design check-ins to say, hey, here's how these colors interact with that theme and how they're going to be sort of enabled and limited in what they can do. And so at the vision design check-in, the feedback is a little more general.

It's like, here's areas of concern. You know, it's not very specific. It's more of, here's areas to watch out for. Here's areas where, you know, we'll be worried if you go too much. You know, it just gives the vision design sort of a general sense of what to think about. It's not, as we'll see, we get much more tactical later on. But when it's really early, it's just okay be aware of thing x or thing y or this mechanic with this color

here's the ways you might want you might have to think about this when you're designing it like there's a set coming up I can't get the details of it but like one of the notes I got when I was doing the vision design was this mechanic in this color is really problematic so either don't put it in that color

or you have to be very exact in how you use it, because it's not the kind of thing we want to be in constructed, for example. So you can't push it. And that was something I had to think about when I was designing it. Okay, so that's the first check-in. So what is the second check-in?

So the second check-in is the sort of mid-set design check-in. So this is several months after the vision design check-in? So the second check-in is the sort of mid-set design check-in. So this is several months after the vision design check-in. The vision team finishes up their work. They hand off the set to the set design team. The set design team goes to work on it. They're making the file. And this check is basically just, it's very similar to the vision design check-in in terms of it's looking at, okay, a couple months have passed. You guys have done a lot of testing. You might have changed the set mechanics. You might have changed the limited themes. You might have added set mechanics that weren't there before.

And so this check-in is to see what's changed since last time and has anything that's come up since then gone in a direction that's potentially problematic. And how does the set design check-in differ from the vision design check-in? I would say that in the vision design check-in, because it's so early on, well, you know, vision design is just an early part of the process, the feedback is definitely more along the lines of, hey, here's where we can see some potential problems and maybe, you know, think about those things as you move forward. The vision design, because the mid set design check-in is much deeper into the actual creation of the set, we have a better idea of where the set is actually going. And so that also means we have a better idea of saying, hey, this is going too far. Like when we do our final

check-in, like it's going to be a problem. You should really think about this now. Or right, like be careful with this. It's okay now, but if it goes any further, like that could potentially get into some troubling space. So it's a little bit more pointed feedback because we have a better idea of how the set is actually going to turn out at that point. Yeah, and also the other thing that happens in set design is we're starting to

see more concrete examples of how things will be used. And it might be common during set design, we might say, hey, we're actually noticing execution in this way. Look, that's problematic. Like vision design is a lot more like, think about this, these are things that you might want to keep in mind. Where set design sometimes can be a little more hands-on practical and, look, we notice you're doing this thing, yeah, maybe you shouldn't be doing this thing. Or, if you're going to do it, really you have to pull back in these ways. And that, one of the things we tend to do when, oh, whenever we have these meetings, by the way, the lead, whoever the lead is at the time, you know, when it's vision design, it's vision design lead. When it's set design, it's set design lead. They come to the meeting. So the person who has to act on the information, if they're, I mean, sometimes they're a member of the council, but if they're not, they're there so that they can ask

questions. It's not, this isn't just a one-way thing. You know, we're giving information, but they're asking questions and they can clarify. And what's very common sometimes is they will explain what they, the lead will explain what they care about. Like, we might say, this is the problem. They're like, oh, whatever, fine, I'll change it. Or we might say, this is the problem.

They go, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is fundamental. Help me, because this is not an easy thing to change. And then we will give a lot of suggestions, and a lot of what the Council of Colors will do is sort of say, hey, here's what the color does do well, or, you know, we will give suggestions and push them in directions of,

here's how to do what you want to do, but in a way that's more what this color does. Okay, should we move on to the third stage? Yes, yeah. So the first two, we call them, you know, we call them check-ins, because we're really just talking to the lead and getting a sense of what's going on. The third stage, the third time we look at the set is our file pass, and this is really where we get to the meat and potatoes of the color council. So each council member goes through the entire set and focuses, well, each color counselor will look at the cards that are in their color. So for example, I am the white color counselor. So I

will go through the set and I will look at every white card and I'll write, I'll make a list of any cards that I sort of have comments on. Usually you also go and check any gold cards that are your color. So I'll go to the goal, I'll go to the multicolor section and look at any cards that are white plus another color. I'll sort of create my list. I will put my list on Microsoft Teams. That's our software that we use to coordinate. So all the color councils will put all of their cards that they want to talk about in a thread. And then we will, in our meeting, we will go over all of those.

So when we do our file passes, there's sort of two kinds of cards that we pull out. The first kind is what we call a discussion. of cards that we pull out. The first kind is what we call a discussion and that is a card that we think is doing something that is really important to get feedback on. So it could be something that is a big bend or a break or it could be something that's just entirely new that we've never done before and we should talk about you know is this the right color to do this effect in. And the second category is what we call a quick check. And quick check cards are just sort of, this is bending a little bit, or this looks a little odd to me, or something about this doesn't quite feel right. So we'll just look over it, but we might just look at it for a couple seconds and be like, this is fine,

and move on. So the discussions are really the ones where we want to stop and talk with everyone, and the quick checks are more, we'll give this a quick look the other thing about the quick checks is usually a quick check means we're not we're not going to ask you to change it but there's something about it we want to have a little discussion on you know um that it's a lot of times we part of the we have a meeting every week and part of the reason that we do this is we also want to evolve and understand our philosophies. And so as new cards come up and do things that maybe we haven't quite done before, it's good to sort of talk them through.

The quick tips usually aren't this needs to change as much as, hey, this is doing something we as a group should talk about. And the discussions are more, yeah, heavy duty. We might, so if I remember this correctly, so I think there's four suggestions, right?

We give. Yes, we, yeah, we've sort of always had this, but we've just recently kind of actually codified it so that we can be more specific in our feedback. So when it comes to cards, there are sort of four levels that we settle on in terms of kind of as a group, what we want to tell the set lead. So the set lead is always in the meeting, but we also like to give the set lead a collection of our notes so that they can keep track of everything that we said.

So the first level is fine for this set. And that basically means that, hey, this card might be uh you know it was maybe a little bit strange a little bit of a color pie bend but just because you know the nature of magic and the nature of the color pie is that we need to do bends every now and again for various themes um and so you know but we want what we want to make sure is that those bends are fitting you know they make sense for the set, that they're not undermining any important weaknesses of the color. So fine for this set is basically, this is cool, like you can leave this card as is, but this might not always be a thing that's okay

in every set. The second category is Take Another Look, which means we think that this card is a color pie bend. it's probably not going to break anything it's not going to cause any major issues but you should look at it again and if you could change it like if it's not causing any problems for limited or constructed for you to change this card then you should you should consider it um the third category is strongly reconsider and that's when we see something where we're like this is definitely a color pie bend it's getting into some weird space or some space that is potentially problematic um we would really like for you to think about changing this card but at the end of the day ultimately if it really really has to be this way sometimes there's big

flavor constraints sometimes there's big uh mechanical constraints. Cards are trying to serve specific roles in specific formats. So sometimes we're like, you should strongly reconsider this. But if it really has to do this, then it would be okay. But the last category is must change. And those are cards where we're like, this is a color pie break, or it's a bend that is so far that we just can't do it. This is something that the color fight feels strongly about. We really need you to change this card to fix an element of it

that is outside of that color's jurisdiction. And there's two big reasons for changes. One is a break, right? Look, the color's not supposed to do this. Don't do this. Another one is, a bend, there's different levels of what a bend is, and so there's kind of an appropriate bend and an inappropriate bend,

and what that means is, hey, it's a bend that's serving the set, and there's a reason that you're doing it here. An inappropriate bend is, look, this doesn't serve the set, and it's just sort of not following the color pie for no particular reason. And sometimes when

we have this final category, we're like, look, this might not be inappropriate in the right set. This isn't the right set. This isn't the set where that makes sense. And so the sort of must change is one of those two things. Either it's really nobody should ever make this card, or maybe someone

should make this card, but you in this set shouldn't make this card. Yeah. And it's definitely something that I think is important to remember and why it's good to have such a large group of people who are able to weigh in is because, yeah, these are all very nuanced discussions. You know, occasionally we're all unanimous, but almost all of the time we really discuss you know how big is this how important is it uh and we try to like come to a a consensus as a group um so there's lots of discussion it's uh it can get very very specific and nitty-gritty um but generally speaking right it's it's very nuanced because what might be okay in one set isn't in another so you know for example something that comes up often is can uh can a black card get an artifact back from your graveyard well usually we really don't want you to do that you know we really want getting artifacts back from your

graveyard to be something more that white does you know black is really a lot more about getting creatures back it's you know necromancy and the dead and all that stuff but if your set is an artifact set and it is really useful for this one card to get artifacts back in the graveyard okay maybe we could allow it this one time right um so context really matters a lot we the and the reason why is because we want to make sure that things are always flowing and changing as we go from set to set if we allow something to happen in a set with that theme and then we say that's okay for every set to do well now all of a sudden we're we're sort of just letting every color get get a lot a lot of extra space um throughout all of magic and that kind of becomes unwieldy so we're we want to be flexible to make sure that set themes work and that we can create fun different experiences.

But we also want to make sure that we pull it back into that core color pie so that we don't get too unwieldy and too far out from what the colors truly should be about. Yeah, so probably we have a meeting every week. I would say the majority of weeks we're doing the stuff that Chris and I are talking about, the checking in on existing things. But there's one other pretty important thing that the council of colors does. So I want to talk about that a little bit, which is

we will argue about, like, do we want to change things? Like a very, I mean, having the white council here, like, white was clearly having problems with Commander. That the Commander format warped a bunch of things

that really were, like the strengths of White were undermined in the Commander format and that, you know, White is really good at white weenie

fast strategies. Well, that does you no good in a, you know, 40 life, you have all these different people

you're trying to beat. And a lot of the things that the way White had been structured and read to some extent as well, in a, you know, 40 life, you have all these different people you're trying to beat. And a lot of the things, the way white had been structured, and red to some extent as well, were really problematic. So, like, one of the things that we actually had a couple years back, we had a goal, an R&D goal, which is, like, help white.

And so that was put on this team to say, okay, what can white do? And there's two big things we can do when we have discussions like this. One is, hey, what can white do? And there's two big things we can do when we have discussions like this. One is, hey, there are tools that color already has that we're not playing up enough. Like, one of the things that came up is,

hey, let's highlight some of white's strengths and say, let's have white do that over some, like, a good example is, white is supposed to be primary in blinking or flickering, and blue is secondary. But we kept making, like, really good blue flickering cards and not really good white flickering cards, and it's sort of like, hey, guys,

one of the ways to help white is let's just do more of the good ones in white and less in blue. And then another big category is are there places we could push that we haven't before? Like, white card drawing. So we'll talk a little bit about this as you're the white person.

So I'm going to use this as an example of kind of what this team does, right? So, okay, we're given the task, hey, help Commander in white. So let's talk a little bit about how this team was able to do that. Right. So to give the sort of like eagle eyes view of the issue um white in

commander and this is something that you know i've i thought a lot about and also ari nie who was the the white color council before me she also thought a lot about it and we talked a lot about it as well um but so the main crux of the issue was that white as a color uh its primary strength is or its primary strength from a commander standpoint like its proactive game plan is to right flood the board with lots of stuff you know make lots of small creatures or tokens or or as an equipment right just put a lot of things out there um but it its strongest tool in the commander format was uh wrath effects right board sweepers like that was the white effect that everybody went to white to get it you know it scales super well in a multiplayer game and there is a lot of like internal conflict between white wants to put a lot of stuff out

there and also white's strongest thing it can do is blow everything up um and so that was causing a lot of issues and then that was compounded with the fact that classically white's uh one of white's weaknesses was that it couldn't draw cards. It had really flexible tools. It had the ability to make multiple creatures with a single card, but it wasn't able to regain those resources. And that was particularly problematic, again, when your main game plan was put a lot of things out there and then also blow everything up so all of your stuff dies.

And so when we approach the sort of the question of white in commander we really tried to tackle all of those different categories and figure out what were the ways that we could help out uh white you know you don't change the fundamental identity but right make each of these things more useful to white in commander so for example like one of the things that you were you were bringing up is that um traditionally white is kind of supposed to be the color that is best at making lots of creature tokens right like that is a super duper white thing to do is make a ton of creature tokens um and one of the things that we were noticing

is that there were just a lot of other colors that were as good or better than white and making a bunch of tokens. Like we kept on printing cards that were really good at making tokens and other colors. And that was just really that was a really challenging thing. Making tokens is super fun. But also we really wanted white to be, you know, the king of making tokens. So one of the things we did was was we started to look at the other colors and look at their token making cards and be like, hey, this is more of a white space. Other colors should be able to make tokens for doing their various colored related things. But we really want just the ability to pump out a bunch, a bunch of creature tokens should be white.

So that was an example of us looking at the strength of a color and saying, let's really emphasize this in white and try to de-emphasize it in other colors because they have other things they can do. And just to tie the two parts of this podcast together here, as we're doing passes on cards, that allows us to take these philosophies we're building in separate meetings and apply them. So we might do a pass and then somebody, you know, the green council member might go, oh, look, here's a green card making tokens like a white card should. Ooh, maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe that shouldn't be a green card. And so, as we start making philosophies and start understanding things, like, us doing passes is the way that we can make sure that the existing sets are reflecting what we're talking about. Right, right. So, another example of, like, this white. that are reflecting what we're talking about. Right, right.

So another example of this white... So the second sort of category was the white wrath effects. White has these board sweepers. Traditionally, white has been the best at having board sweepers that just blanket, get rid of everything. And that made a lot of sense from a philosophical standpoint of white sort of like leveling the playing field. But from a mechanical standpoint, other colors like black especially was able to get sort of wrath designs, board sweeper designs that allowed it to keep some of its stuff or rewarded it for having more stuff. And we were like, hmm, that feels like something that maybe white should be able to do. So we actually, you know, we looked at a bunch of different white and black Wrath designs.

And we talked a lot about which ones felt white, which ones felt black, which ones, you know, how we wanted to separate those two colors out so that their Wrath effects felt philosophically matching with the colors, but also mechanically helped them out and so i think over the next you know a bunch of sets that are being released we'll start to see more and more examples of white board sweepers that either allow you to keep some of your own stuff or reward you for having lots of stuff in play when you cast them um or allow you to write like you get to pick a category of thing that lets you you know as long as you've built your deck in a certain way like i get to keep all of my creatures because they all fit under a certain condition. So that was an example of how we've sort of, we've redistributed a little bit of the color pie to make sure that colors have the tools that they need to work in those various formats. And as we're doing that, we are doing write-ups. So we'll have meetings where we talk this through and then as a group come to conclusions

and then we will write up documents that we will post with the rest of R&D saying, look, here's our new thoughts, here's how we're handling things, so when you're making a set, you know, this used to be this color but it's not anymore, or here's a new thing you can do in this color that we haven't done before. And another thing that happens a lot is somebody on set design or play design will come to us and say hey here's a problem we've been having a really classic example of that was they came and said hey could vigilance be in blue like we need we need more combat stuff in blue and it's really problematic that blues mechanics aren't helping in combat right because traditionally like blue had exactly the two keywords it had flying and hex proof or

you know ward is a is a variant of hex proof um and so it was just really difficult to make blue cards that had a keyword on them and one of the things they especially were calling out was that um we can make blue creatures that fly we can make blue creatures that are unblockable but it's we're having a lot of trouble making a defensive blue creature because flying and unblockable are really good at attacking because you know they're evasion keywords um but they're but we don't have anything to give blue if it just wants a creature to sit back and block and defend and so vigilance was they they pitched that to us we talked about the pros and cons and we saw a lot more pros and cons and we were like hey everyone vigilance is blue now um and so you know we'll start to see that coming up

i forget what's the first set that that does it but um we'll definitely start seeing that more and more yeah the uh something to also keep in mind is one of the philosophies that we've been embracing a little more is uh i think in the early days, we were more segmented in what colors did what. And like, for example, I'm under the belief now that keywords want to, it's okay to be in three colors. Like, you don't want to be in all the colors, because then you lose the definition. But like, once upon a time, like early magic, they were in one color, you know, like, this is the color that does that. And eventually said, okay, we need a second color. And we made a secondary color that did it. And now we're kind of going, you know like this is the color that does that and eventually said okay we need a second color and we made a secondary color that did it and now we're kind of going you know what on a lot of

things it's okay to be you know have some tertiary stuff that there's reasons and that as long as we can make cards that are different you know that's okay um and and and sort of that hit our whole theme today a lot of what the console colors is doing is adapting to the needs of the game. That magic keeps changing, so we need to change with it, but we want the philosophies to hold through.

We want red to always feel like red, and blue feel like blue whenever, but we do have to adapt. Like, here's a brand new format that changes things. Here's new technology that changes things, and so we constantly like the reason the team meets every week is there's a lot of work to sort of constantly evolve and inform the rest of our indies they're aware of what we're doing so the last category which is which is the biggest one by far, is the sort of white card draw, the white card draw conversation, right? So we essentially, for a long time,

white could not draw cards. That was the way that it was. And, you know, in a world where the game is only a 1v1 game, I think you can, a color not being able to draw cards, I think is a totally reasonable downside to have. But in these big multiplayer games that go on for a long time that are a lot about resource accumulation

it was just really difficult um to have no tools to draw cards um but it was very important to us uh that we um right like okay so we want to give white some card drop but we can't lose the core of what white is um it's very important that these cards are doing things in a white way and we were really inspired by the success of a lot of um the impulsive draw cards in red because that is an example of red used to not really be able to draw cards um but then we said okay well what if red draws it in this way that you have to use it right away? It's a very red effect. You can't plan ahead.

You have to, you know, just act on whatever was on the top of your deck. And those cards ended up being very fun. They were very useful, and they still felt red. So we were really inspired by that approach. And Ari was the really one who led the charge on this of coming up with a lot of different ideas. But essentially the way that we did it was as a color council, we got together. Ari had a bunch of ideas of here's some potential ways that white could draw cards.

We went through all of those and we picked out some that we thought were maybe the most promising, maybe felt the best tryout first. And we started to, you know, distribute those, tell set leads, hey, start making a couple of these, and let's see how it goes. And so we started doing a lot of experimenting and figuring out which of these would work, which of these were going to lead to good designs, which of these were performing well. And over time, we found a lot of things that we really enjoy that are really helping to alleviate some of those pressures in Commander, but still in a way that is very core to white's identity um you know and we've come up with a couple of different solutions which i think

have worked to varying degrees um you know we started introducing a lot of small cantrip creatures into white this is especially useful in limited environments um just having uh the ability to play a lot of small creatures but not necessarily lose out on on your card flow um that was something i really enjoyed you know the the the result of that being i have more small creatures in my deck um i'm able to flood the board with them they're really good with blink effects which is again is something that we wanted to like play up and white even more um we started to look at a lot of our taxing effects these are effects that are traditionally kind of seen as pretty unfun things to have.

Something that it's like, oh, players can only cast one spell per turn or your spells cost more to cast or something. These are effects that a lot of players like to play, but a lot more players really don't like to play against. And a great idea that Ari had was, you know, could we make some of these cards where instead of preventing someone from doing something, you get to draw a card when they do it. So it's still having that effect of white sort of laying down the law and saying, here are the rules and you must obey them or you'll be punished. But instead of just restricting other people's access, you're able to gain an advantage off of them. So this was a really useful tool that helped us to create some cards that felt like classic white designs, but were providing white the resources that it needed in Commander.

And then I think that the last category, which is the one that we're still really sort of exploring out what the right space is, is kind of the opposite of red. We saw red as if red wanted to draw cards, it had to do it right now. It was, you know, very temporary. White we sort of felt like was the opposite of red we saw red as if red wanted to draw cards it had to do it right now it was you know very temporary um white we sort of felt like was the opposite it's a very it's a color that can often wants to plan ahead and build up and have like a grand scheme of things um and so we started to make a lot of cards that allow white to draw a card uh only one card each turn given that you've met some kind of condition. So if you're

playing a white strategy, and every turn you can meet the condition, you can draw one card every turn, which is quite strong. But it's still limited in a very white way, because it's slow, it's methodical, and it requires you to plan ahead in order to get the best advantage out of it. So we're still exploring a lot of space in there. There's a lot of cards that are you know coming down the pipeline that are going to going to be looking at these things um but that's something that has really allowed us to give white those tools that it needs in commander while still being very strict to the kind of white philosophy and the white ideal and the white gameplay uh that doesn't you know doesn't just allow white to draw cards willy-nilly like like some of these other colors can.

And another important thing was Commander had the issue with white. Standard didn't. Like, we had to make sure that the answers were giving tools to the format that needed the answers and not accidentally giving tools to the formats that didn't need them that would cause problems. And that's one of the other challenges is we have a lot to balance. It's not like when we are trying to handle colors that like commander is part of magic but it's not

all of magic there's a lot of other things to think about yeah and i think that the you know certain effects like cantrip creatures are an example of something that right is a little bit better in uh in standard and in limited Limited and in these environments where, right, in Commander, drawing one card is useful, but it's probably not going to be, you know, what you need to really, like, catch up to the other players. Whereas in Limited and Standard, a good creature that draws you one card,

that could be, you know, a huge advantage. So, yeah, we really were able to deploy various different tactics for the different formats. And that's really something that is key to the color pie as well as making sure that we have many different formats in Magic. They all have very different needs, but at the end of the day, the color pie needs to be consistent throughout all of them. And so figuring out how do we make sure that every color has what it needs in every format while having a consistent identity is definitely a big challenge.

And I think it's a large part of why the council is so like having a dedicated council for this is so important. Well, anyway, I'm, I can see my desk here, so we have to wrap up. The, the, the one thing that I said that hopefully people won't take away today is the, I honestly believe, I mean, there's no greater fan of the color pie than me, but I, I believe, I used to call it the secret sauce of magic. Like it, it is the, the foundation of everything, right? The mechanics come from it.

The creative comes from it. And I'm just really, really happy that we have a very dedicated team and it brings me great joy. Like we have meetings and we argue about the minutiae you would not even imagine about the fine points of that that it just it i don't know the fact there's a whole team dedicated it really warms my heart because um it used to be like i'd argue against five other people and they're like and they would do a card that didn't want to make and so i'm happy i'm happy yeah i think it's definitely um right it's great to see it can definitely get very very specific

and you really have to like figure out like what matters and what doesn't matter and all these different formats and stuff but yeah it's super i love being on the color council and and getting to have like these discussions that really right are are key to the fundamental design of magic and helps to keep it both balanced and fresh, sort of, for hopefully many, many years to come. So look, like I said, we've done a lot of work, and you'll see a lot of cool stuff, white especially, more and more stuff's coming out. So you will see all our work as sets come out. But I can see my desk. So we all know what that means. It means this is the end of my drive to work

so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic and thank you Chris thanks for joining us today thanks for having me and all you I will see the rest of you next time bye bye