Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #912: Watermarks

Episode Date: March 5, 2022

In this podcast, I explain the history of watermarks, talk about the various ways we use them, and explain why we can't mechanically care about them outside of Un- sets.

I'm not pulling in the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition. Okay, so today's podcast is going to be all about watermarks. I'm going to talk about what they are, sort of how they came about, and sort of different ways we use them. And then I'm going to get into why they are something that we don't mechanically care about all that often. So anyway, today is all about everything you ever want to know about watermarks.

Okay, so I think historically, the very first watermarks appeared in Unglued. So one of the things that we try to do in Unglued is each card, this is not how unsets are done now, but for Unglued and Unhinged, we sort of, we would have a graphic artist and each card would be sort of designed as its own piece of art. The frames were there, but it's not, the way we normally do cards is we have the frames and then we input the art. So the art sort of goes in. What we did with Unglued and Unhinged was we had a graphic artist literally sort of design each card. You could think of each card as a piece of art.

Now, they took art components and frame components and mixed them, but we had to individually design each frame, which is very time-intensive. We do not do that. Unstable did not do that. Infinity does not do that. Unstable did not do that. Infinity does not do that. It takes a lot of time. But one of the things that let us do is have some subtlety on how we do the card. So one of the things we did was we would put things in the back of the card.

So for example, Prismatic Wardrobe cares about different colors. So its frame was a combination of different text boxes put together. So one of the things we did on a couple of the cards, like Denied has this sort of web stuff. So behind

the cards are the web stuff. Sorry has a frowny face behind it. Doubleowny face behind it. Double Cross has flames behind it. Crazy Cow has drops of milk. Gosman Ogres has

keeping track of score. Incoming has footsteps. So the idea essentially is we layer these qualities behind it. Now, interestingly, when we originally did this in Unglued, it was done as a graphical component. But one of the things we realized was that there was an ability to put something behind the text that was readable. That's kind of what Unglue taught us was,

oh, you can still read the text and have something sort of behind it as long as that thing has a little more faint to it. So I believe with Onslaught, so Onslaught had a pre-release card, which was Silent Spectre, and so it used the expansion symbol as a watermark on the pre-release card. And what we realized is, like, it was one of the things that we wanted to say, how can we tell you this is a pre-release card in a way that would sort of give it something, like, how can we tell it in a way that, like, what space was there to tell it?

And we realized that a watermark did a good job of sort of letting you communicate to that that this was that thing. We also started using other event cards, like Friday Night Magic, that there were cards we gave at Friday Night Magic that we put the logo Friday Night Magic as a watermark behind the text. And I think that the real compelling thing about the watermarks was it let us sort of have a graphical element. It told you something. Early on, it sort of told you it was a special card and why and give you a hint of where the card came from. And so the idea essentially was it just was a card component that we could use to convey information. And early on, early on, it was mostly about sort of, hey, this is

a special card, not a normal card that you would get in a normal pack. Where'd you get it from? But then, we started realizing, I think Ravnica Block was the first one where we said, hey,

Ravnica Block was very much about where we said, hey, you know, Ravnica Block was very much about factions. And one of the questions we asked ourselves was, hey, is there a way to sort of, how can we really bring those factions together? And so the idea was, well, what if each of the factions had a symbol associated with it? Now, originally the symbol for the factions, we made a cycle of cards that show the faction symbol. But one of the things we said is,

hey, wouldn't it be neat if some of the cards could tell you that they are from this guild? And so we first presented the idea of, what if we use watermarks, not just sort of external to a booster, but inside a booster, inside an expansion, and what if we use that to tell you something

about the cards? Like that, what if the watermark was a means by which to convey something about the set? Not sort of, like I said, early on it was sort of external, like this is an FNM card, this is a Pr-release card.

But in Ravnica, original Ravnica, we're like, okay, we can go beyond that. One of the things we were trying to hammer home is this is about the guilds. You know, this is a set about the guilds. And the watermarks were a cool way for us to sort of do that. Now, the interesting thing at the time was

we were very exacting on what got a watermark. There were sort of rules for watermarks. See if I can remember these rules. So, uh, if you had, um, if you were a gold card, so if you had the two colors of the guild, you got a watermark. Uh, if you had the mechanic of the guild, so if you were, you know, if you were Boros and had Radiance, if you had the mechanic on it, even if you were a monocolor card,

you would get the watermark. And the third thing I think is this, if you were optimized by having both colors, meaning you had an activation in a certain color or referenced the basic land type. If the card sort of said very loudly, I am optimized by being in two colors, then you got the watermark. We had a lot of conversations. There were definitely cards that like, where the art conveyed something. But I think for Ravnica early on, we were trying to be very specific, and we sort of isolated when and where.

A lot of the monocolor cards, we weren't as specific on where they were. Sometimes you could see something working against a guild, but just because a guild existed as the target of something, it didn't get in the watermark. But anyway, for the very first time, from a sort of

set building thing, we put in watermarks. Okay. So, I guess let me get to why don't those matter mechanically? Before I talk about other places we use watermarks, let me explain a little bit. So one of the issues

is watermarks are a tool to bring people's eyes about something, to tell you that something is going on. But the problem is that we in the game of magic, in sort of official tournament rules, a card is

every card that has the same name is treated identically mechanically. So if I have a card, even though I might be playing... Like, a card could be reprinted multiple times. It could come out in a core set. It could be reprinted in expansion. There's certain things that can change

between printings of a card. For example, who the artist is could change. It could have different art. It could have a different expansion symbol based on what set it came out in. It could have a different watermark. So one of the things, the rules we made is it said, if I'm going to mechanically care about a card, I can only mechanically care about the thing that's a constant

between all printing of the cards. So what are those constants? The constants are the name, the mana cost, the card type and card subtypes, super type, subtypes, and card types, and the rule text, and then power toughness if it's a creature. Anything beyond that, usually most of the creative elements beyond the name, the name is a constant, but the art, the rules,

sorry, the reminder text, and then other aspects like, you know, watermarks, things that vary from time to time. So anything that is not a constant, we can't reference because for example, if I somehow cared about having

a guild watermark, well, a guild card in a set might have a watermark, but maybe we reprinted it in another set and that didn't have the watermark. So it's not the constant. We have in Silver-Bordered,

Unstable had a small Watermarks Matter theme, Hammerfest Boomtacular, Stample Approval, Watermarket, and then there were a couple individual cards that called out the factions by name. So in Silver-Bordered, the rule in Silver-Bordered is

you care about the actual card you're playing with. If I ask you about the artist, it's not any version of the card. It's which one, which artist do you have? And if I ask about the watermark, it's about the watermark on the card. Or if I ask about the flavor text, it's the flavor text on the card. So Un has a rule that sort of says, hey, when you're playing with Un rules, I actually look at the specific card. when you're playing with unrules, I actually look at the specific card.

But because you... In tournament rules, we don't do that. That is why Watermark can't matter mechanically. But, if you always want it to matter, Unstable did make a few cards that care, so there's something you can do there. Okay, so let's talk about other

places we've used Watermarks. Okay, the next time that it came up was in Scars of Mirrodin Block. Okay, so one of the things about Scars of Mirrodin Block was we were trying to tell a story. So the story was we returned to Mirrodin, and at first you're like, oh, it's Mirrodin as I know it. And at first you're like, oh, it's Mirrodin as I know it. But there's something about it. There's some little thing that's showing up that you're starting to realize that there's a problem in Mirrodin. What we'd actually done, by the way, which is kind of cool,

when we first went to Mirrodin, we set up this idea for the return to Mirrodin would be the reintroduction of the Phyrexians. The Phyrexians were one of magic's first bad guys they showed up in antiquities as part of the brothers war and they were part of the Weatherlight Saga

they've shown up in different they were the big bad if you were of the Weatherlight Saga and so what happened was at the end of the story they sort of get decimated by the good guys but we knew that we wanted to bring them back and so we had set up a story

where Karn had traveled and then once he lost his spark it sort of, he had this oil in him, the Phyrexian oil and so literally I think on the first page of the novel for Mirrodin, Memnarch, sort of the bad guy of it, finds this oil, rubs it in his thing, it like disappears, and then it doesn't talk about oil ever again. But we've sort of established that like there's something going on.

So we had always planned for on the return to Mirrodin that we wanted to tell the story of it becoming New Phyrexia. In fact, by the way, the original plan for Scars of Mirrodin, for that set, the fall set, was that it was just going to be New Phyrexia. And then the idea was we were going to have a whole set in New Phyrexia

and at the end of it, in the third set, do like a Planet of the Apes moment where you realize, oh my goodness, this has been Mirrodin all along. That was the original plan. But as we worked on it, what we realized was we were kind of glossing over this pretty cool story, which is Mirrodin getting taken

over by New Phyrexia. Or becoming New Phyrexia. And so I remember discussing with Bill, I was in charge of Scars of Mirrodin, the set, and I really, like, the idea that we first started with was this New Phyrexia, and then we later learned it was Mirrodin.

It was a cool concept. Maybe, you know, you're making a movie, it'd be cool, but it wasn't, it didn't lend itself to a good card game. But what led itself to a good card game was an environmental story, and the idea of Mirrodin slowly taking over Phyrexia, sorry, Phyrexia

slowly taking over Mirrodin was a cool story that we could tell in cards. And then Bill came up with this pretty cool idea of, well, what if the middle set, like you see them in the first set, the middle set is a war, and then we don't know the outcome. I mean,

what I had said to Bill was, we see them, there's a war, and then the Phyrexians win. And Bill said, well, what if we don't know who won? What if we advertise the third set of being one of two sets? Maybe it's new Phyrexia, maybe it's mirrored and pure. Like, you know, the audience

isn't going to know the outcome of the war until the set comes out, or shortly before the set comes out. I thought that was a really cool idea, so we leaned into that. But one of the challenges was, okay, how do I convey in the first set that Phyrexia is there and a threat, in the second set that they're equally matched, and in the third set that it is the Phyrexia I? matched, and in the third set that it is the Phyrexia 1. Okay, Phyrexia 1 is the easiest part to do, but the really hard

part was, how do I subtly tell you in Scars of Mirrodin that there's a Phyrexian threat? And that's when we realized that watermarks were the answer. Because watermarks did this cool thing

where we could convey information in a subtle way, but in a pretty, like, the nice thing about watermarks is, while they're subtle, they're not, you don't miss them, you see them, and we don't always have watermarks. Like, it's not like every set has a watermark. So when we do have watermarks, they tend to draw attention to themselves. So what we did in Scars of Mirrodin is in the first set, I think it was like 10% of the set,

we put Frexian watermarks on a bunch of cards. And once again, just like Ravning a Block, we had a bunch of rules. Let's see if I can remember these rules. First off, we had two mechanics that were associated with the Phraxians, which was poison or infect and proliferate.

Okay, so if you had either poison slash infect or proliferate, okay, for sure, if you reference infect or poison or reference proliferate, you were Phyrexian. You had a Phyrexian symbol. I think we allocated to the Phyrexians death triggers and pang of mana. So there's certain things we sort of associated with the Phyrexians, certain style effects. So any of those things we associated with them, like paying mana, like death triggers, those were also Phyrexian. And so I think early on in the first set,

we, one for one, made things that had a Phyrexian mechanical feel to them Phyrexian. But the thing that happened when you placed Scars of Mirrodin, oh, and then what we did is, if you weren't a Phyrexian, you were a Mirrodin. We made a symbol for the Mirrodins and a symbol for Phyrexians, and I think every single thing that wasn't a basic land or a planeswalker either had a Phyrexian symbol or a Mirrodin symbol. So what that did was, when you first came to the set in Scars of Mirrodin, you could see that it was mostly Mirrodin, and only, like, 10% of the

set was Phyrexian. So you got the set as a threat, but it started off by seeming like not a terrible threat, at least percentage-wise. So then you get to Skarsgård, sorry, you get Mirrodin besieged, and 50% of

the set was Phyrexian. And what we did, by the way, for those that weren't playing then or don't remember this, is at the pre-release for Mirrored in Besiege, we divided the set in half, and then we made Phyrexian boosters and Mirrored boosters, and you chose what side you wanted to play on. So if you chose the Mirrored side,

you got half the set that was the Mirrored set. If you chose the Mirrored side, you got half the set that was the Mirren set. If you chose the Mirren side, you got half the set that was the Mirren side. And then you got a play. And so in that set, it was the same shtick we did in the first set, but instead of being 90-10, it was

50-50. Oh, the first set might not have been 90-10. I think the first set actually was maybe like 25%, maybe 25% of the first set might not have been 90-10 I think the first set actually was maybe like 25% maybe 25% of the first set and then when we went to

New Phyrexia I think it was 90-10 in New Phyrexia because what happened was it was a large set in there was a large set in the first set

and then the second set was a small set and the third set was I'd call a medium set it was bigger than the small set but not as the second set was a small set, and the third set was, I'd call a medium set. It was bigger than the small set, but not as big as a big set. But in order, so we wanted to even out between the whole block that half the cards were Mirren and half the cards were Phyrexian. And so in order to do that, I think the first set was like 75-25, leaning toward Mirren,

then it was 50-50, and then it was 90-10, I believe, in the new Phyrexia. Anyway, this is a good example of something we can do with watermarks, which is, it is very hard to say percentages are changing and have you, the player, sort of organically understand that. That was a very

complex idea. And that is one of the things that watermarks can do really well, is they can sort of bring your eye and let you notice something. And so the Scars of Mirrodin was really interesting in that it did a... Ravnica was about giving identity to the guilds and

creating sort of symbology to them. Scars of Mirrodin... I mean, obviously, each of them had a symbol, but it was as much about understanding sort of this larger story we were trying to tell. Okay, the next time we saw a watermark with an expansion was in Khansatarkir.

So I think what happened was we'd been happy with how Ravnica had done the factions. We had done three-color factions before Ravnica, or sorry, we'd done them after Ravnica in Scars of Mirrodin, not Scars of Mirrodin, sorry, in Alara Reborn, or Shards of Alara, Shards of Alara Black, Shards of Alara, Conflicts, Alara Reborn. We had done three-color factions, but we hadn't used the Ravnica technology. We, although we had five factions, we didn't give them a symbol.

And really one of the largest feedbacks we got from the player base was why didn't you give us a symbol? Why didn't we, you know, really define each one in a way? I think they really liked that for Ravnica. So when we came back for cons, we're like, okay, we made the mistake in charge of Alara, we will not make it

here. So we did like, okay, we made the mistake in Shards of Alara. We will not make it here. So we did the same thing where we made five symbols and then we used them as watermarks for the clans. And the one thing that happened in Khans of Tarkir was we didn't have as delineated mechanical reasons. Like in Ravnica and Scarves of Mirrodin, at least in the first set, or somewhere in the second set, but there was a very clean definition between what didn't get in a symbol. Kinds of Turquoise for the first time was a little more flavor-based,

but it wasn't as consistent. I think the reason it got it was if the card was flavored as being that, like, through the art and stuff. But that was a little... It was a little less clean than it was if the card was flavored as being that, like through the art and stuff. But that was a little less clean than it was with mechanics. But it did a good job, once again, of what we

found with factions is that the audience really likes the iconography when we're doing factions. And so we tend to use watermarks for that purpose. So Khans used it. And then one of the interesting things about Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, and Dragon of Tarkir was, once again,

we had a story to tell, right? There was a world with no dragons. The dragons had been killed off. These five factions had been formed. And the factions were built around the parts of the dragon. That even though the dragons were dead, they still very much...

Dragons were a big part of the culture. So the five different factions were built each around a part of the dragon, the wing of the dragon, and such. But then, when we went back in time, the Fate Reforged was showing an earlier version of the factions, sort of proto-factions. And then Dragon'sforged was showing an earlier version of the faction, sort of proto-factions.

And then Dragon's Maze was showing the dragon faction. So what happens is Sarkhan goes back in time. He keeps Ugin from being killed in a battle with Nicol Bolas. Little spoilers. And then when Ugin sort of comes out of his, I guess, cocoon or whatever, well, whatever, the dragons don't die off because of actions of Sark

and the dragons don't die off. So when we go back, now it's an alternate timeline where the factions are dragon-based. But what this allowed us to do by having the symbols was we could slightly change them between Khans of Tarkir,

Fate Reforged, and Dragon of Tarkir. Fate Reforged could do more proto-versions, Dragons could do the Dragon versions, and so they were clearly related to each other, so we could demonstrate that they had a similar origin, but that, like, it was another way to use, like, one of the things that's always neat

is where we use watermarks to convey something. And in Conjure Tarkir, it was about this shift, this sort of different timeline. So that was cool. Strixhaven, once again, is a faction set. It had five schools.

It was able to do the same thing to use for the factions. Each of the school had it. And similar there was another thing where if it represented the school, I think creatively, is when it got the symbol. Now, if it used...

So the mechanics were... Strixhaven, unlike Considere or Ravnica, we didn't break up the mechanics by guild or by faction. And so there, it was more about, did you represent the faction? Okay, so, let me talk a little bit about Unstable. So, in Unstable,

one of the things Unstable was trying to do was it wanted to do the factioning thing that, like, one of the things I like to do in Unsets is I like to, I like to really think about where you can... where you can take things that have been popular in sort of normal magic and bring a Silver Border aesthetic to them.

And so I really like the idea of doing a faction set. Well, if you're going to do a faction set, you needed to do... I wanted to do iconography. I wanted to do symbols for them. But the thing where I made it a little bit different, as I sort of hinted earlier, was I knew in Silver Border we could care about them. And I thought that was something neat, that we were able to care. And so one of the things we did

is there were five different factions, each faction was used as a watermark, but then I used that as a means and a ways to care about that. You know what I'm saying? I used it as a way to... Because in Silver Border you care about the actual card, we were able to... I could make cards that cared about a faction, and how you knew it was in the faction

was you looked for the expansion symbol. So you could look at the top card of your library and said, is this a spy? You know, is it from the Agents of Sneak? Well, there would be a symbol, and you could care about the symbol, and I was able to care about it. So, one of the reasons I was excited to,

one of the reasons that Unstable used Watermark Matters was because I was able to use Watermark because I was doing a faction set, and I thought that was pretty cool. So, those are the main sets that have used Watermark. So, all the... And when I say the Ravnica block,

every Return to Ravnica... So, the Ravnica block, Return to Ravnica, and Guild of Ravnica. All three times we went to Ravnica in which there was a guild-focused set, we used the symbols. Scars of Mirrodin

obviously did it with the Frexians and the Mirrons. Khans did it with their factions. Strixhaven did it with their faction. Unstable did it with their factions. I will say, by the way, that I do believe that

we understood now that the audience likes the iconography of a faction. So I do believe as we do other factions in the future, you will see more iconography. Whether we use them as watermarks or not depends upon sort of the nature of the set, but when there is iconography and there is factions

that leans us to using it where we can, we do like the use of watermarks. The other place that we use watermarks is there are other means by which to mark things. For example, the story spotlight cards. We might want people to identify the story spotlight cards. So for a while, I think we put the planeswalker symbol in the back as a watermark to tell you that. So, like, one of the things we're always looking for is watermarks are a cool tool that allows us to sort of connect iconography with cards

and can often, like I say, tell you stories. The reason I spent a lot of time with Scars of Mirrodinblock was I don't know if we could have conveyed what we conveyed without the use of watermarks. I don't know if we could have conveyed what we conveyed without the use of watermarks. I mean, I think like the... Well, I think there's a lot of added benefit in the faction sets. One of the cool things about watermarks

that I look at in the future, I mean, faction sets can use watermarks, I'm great for that, is that Scars of Mirrored and Concentrate here really demonstrated that sometimes there's more complex ideas you're trying to communicate and that watermarks can be a means to help communicate those things. And that is something that I think is pretty cool.

Okay, so, let's see. And we will continue to use watermarks as a means to tell you where and how we get things from. Uh, and I think that is an important part of them. Um, mechanically,

will we care about them? Uh, that is only going to be something that we can do through now acorn cards. it is, it is, I, as a designer, you know, for example, having made Unstable, where I was able to use them,

it would be awesome. It would be awesome if we could. One of the problems right now is there is no clean way to say whenever you use this faction. Like, I can't say, if you use a Boros card, or look at a card, if it's a Boros card, there's no way to do

that. So I do admit, one of the things that was nice and unstable was I could, it let me care about a faction of things that I couldn't normally care about. So the designer in me would love to use watermarks mechanically. I understand why you can't. But there is a lot of value. And the reason I think I get asked by players all the time about using watermarks mechanically. I understand why you can't. But there is a lot of value. And the reason I think I get asked by players all the time about using watermarks is, you guys see what I see, which is, hey, like, one of the cool things about magic design

is can I care about a subset that I've never cared about before? Can I make it mechanically matter? And watermarks are a very neat distinguisher of something unique that crosses cards that are thematically connected, but not mechanically connected. And I would love to mechanically connect them.

So I feel your pain. I would like to do that. Oh, but there's one other way we use it. I forgot something. There was one other way we used watermarks, which is in call time. So we made a mechanic called Fortel, which was a mechanic that you could exile the card for two mana,

and then you could cast it from exile. And we put a raven watermark on all those cards so that you had a visual thing to identify. So if you put a card and put it in exile, your opponent can look and see if there's a raven on it, and go, oh, that's a Fertel card. And I think there's potential there with using watermarks

as a mean to identify mechanics. And that is something pretty cool. And so I don't quite know when and how to use it, but Fertel using it definitely said, there's something cool here. Oh, I should also mention, by the way, the contraptions use watermarks in Unstable. They weren't behind

the card. They were in the lower right-hand corner. I think they just ended up not looking good, so we ended up putting them in the right-hand corner in Unstable. I'm trying to think why. Oh, because the art goes for the whole card. You see through it. There already was texture behind the thing. I think we were planning to put it behind it,

but then we liked the idea of the full art so we could attach them. If you've ever seen the contraptions, they're three by three giant pieces of art that you can put together. So we wanted art that goes behind the card and all the way to the edge, and that didn't work with watermarks. But anyway, I do think that there is a lot of potential

for watermarks to... I mean, while mechanically I can't use them, they are a very good tool for communication, and so I do want to find new ways to use them to communicate. And, you know, I'm not guaranteeing that Infinity is doing this, but for future acorn cards, Watermark Matters is something that we can always keep in mind.

I do think there's some fun stuff there. But anyway, that, my friends, is watermarks. They're a cool thing, a cool component of magic. We've used them a lot of different ways. There's a lot of information and communication that comes from them. Oh, another cool one of Magic. We've used them a lot of different ways. There's a lot of communication that comes from them. Oh, oh, I didn't, another cool one I did not mention. In what was the set? We did

a set where it was, was it one of the Master sets? It was a set in which it was cards from across Magic's history and every card had their expansion symbol as a watermark on it. That was really cool. I would like to do more of that. I thought that was very cool.

Anyway, we keep finding cool and neat ways to use watermarks. It is something we enjoy. It is something we'll continue innovating on. And while we can't make them mechanically matter, we can make them matter in ways that help communicate what the set is and help them be tools to enable you to do cool things. So that, I promise you, we will continue to do. Anyway, guys, I now 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 make it magic. Hope you guys enjoyed hearing about watermarks, and I'll see you next week. Bye-bye.