Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #930: Restrictions

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

In this podcast, I talk about the many types of restrictions R&D uses on spells and abilities, and why they're important for the game.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay guys, today I'm going to talk all about restrictions. So the impetus of this podcast is we've started using this ability can only be used once per turn a lot more on activated and triggered abilities and people have talked about it. Why are we doing that? So I thought I'd talk a little bit today or my whole topic of today is talking about on activated and triggered abilities, and people have talked about it. Why are we doing that? So I thought I'd talk a little bit today, or my whole topic of today is talking about when we do spells and abilities, what are the restrictions we do on them, and why do we do them? So I basically divided it into four buckets today. There's four sort of larger categories of

restrictions. Those categories are additional costs, timing restrictions, use restrictions, and condition restrictions. And I'm going to walk through all that and explain them. And then I'm going to sort of talk about why, why do we bother to put restrictions on? Okay, so the first thing I want to explain is I'm talking today about spells and abilities. So spells is anything obviously you cast, usually from your hand, sometimes from other places like the graveyard. Abilities, there's three kinds of abilities. There's static abilities, which is just something that's always on. There is activated abilities, where you have to pay some cost, usually mana, and there are

triggered abilities are when some a certain thing happens at a certain time, those things will happen. And so today I'm talking about the restrictions apply to all those, all spells and abilities. Basically the idea is, hey, I have a spell or ability, you know, should there be some cost in using it? Should there be some limitation to how to use it? So that is the topic today. Okay, so first up, let's talk about additional costs. So what that means is sometimes in order to get a spell or in order to get an ability, you need to pay an additional cost. Okay, now the most obvious version of an additional cost is mana. Almost all spells are mana. A lot of activated abilities are mana. Mana is the main resource built into the game. And one of the nice things about mana is not only is it organic to the game, meaning

every game will have mana, but it gates itself. And what I mean by that is let's say I make a two drop that has a six mana activation. I know that you're not going to play that six mana activation until later in the game. You have to get to the point where you have six

mana. And what that means is, look, it's going to take you roughly at least six turns. I know, you know, there's Birds of Paradise and stuff, but, you know, it's going to take you a while to get there. For example, you're not on turn two, you can drop and play the creature, but that activated ability isn't going to happen till later than mid game or the late game. It's not going to happen in the early game. So mana is really nice in that it gives us control. So one of my themes today as I walk through the restrictions, I'm going to sort of talk about why. Why do we

have restrictions? Well, here's the first example. It gives us, the designers, a lot of control over when and how something gets used. And that can be very important from a play design standpoint. One of the things we always have to think about standpoint. You know, one of the things we always have to think about is, you know, we make something, we want to make sure that inherently how we make it influences how it gets played. And mana is a perfect example. Look, if I make a spell that costs, you know, five mana, I have a rough idea about what's going to be going on in the game at that point versus I make a one drop. You know, like a about what's going to be going on in the game at that point versus I make a one drop. You know, like a one drop is designed to be played early, not that it can't

be played later because you can draw it later. But it gives us, the designers of the game, some ability to have some say about when and how things get used. Another thing I should mention is when you talk about cost, there are sort of what I'll call main costs and what I'll call additional costs. A good example might be kicker, the kicker mechanic. So the kicker mechanic says, okay, you can pay some mana and do an effect, but if you have an extra cost, usually mana, either the effect gets bigger or you get a second effect. So when I talk about restrictions, sometimes the restrictions are for the base spell or ability, and sometimes they're for an added spell or ability.

And the nice thing about that, for example, is let's say I have a kicker spell where it's a cheap cost and an expensive kicker. Oh, well, early game I can cast it without the kicker, and late game I can cast it with the kicker. That the card will evolve and change over time. And that's a valuable tool to have. Okay, the next most common resource you can pay is life. Now, life is fundamentally different from mana in the following regards.

Mana, you get more over time. Life, you have less of over time. That it's a resource you begin with. It's a resource that you always have. In fact, it's the definitional resource to the game. You know, you lose the game when you have none of the resource. It's the defining quality that says that you're still in the game. So paying life is interesting in the sense that it's the win condition. So every time you spend life as a payment, you are making it that much easier for your opponent to beat you.

So it's a real cost. It's not that life isn't an interesting cost. It is. But because you always have it, it's very different than mana. So if I made a two-drop creature that had some ability that you have to pay life for, I would expect you on turn two to do that, right?

That you, when I play this two drop, I, not only do you have access, but life is easiest to spend early in the game because you have the most of it. Later in the game when you're on a clock and like, you know, there's a point where spending life becomes a very valuable resource because my opponent's going to beat me in four turns and activating means they beat me in three turns and it, you know, it affects the clock as they say so it matters early game matters a little bit less and so it it is an interesting resource and it's something we use um and the other nice thing about life is it adds you know there's um one of the things we also have to think about when we talk about restrictions is sort of the flavor of what's going on life is kind of neat and that it

really feels like you are literally giving a part kind of neat in that it really feels like you are literally giving a part of your life, right? So it really has a nice feel to it. And a lot of times we're trying to evoke things. Life as a payment, it's pretty cool. Okay, next. There's different ways to sort of pay cards. A card as a resource.

And it really matters sort of what zone you're paying it from. So for example, if you're paying a card from your hand meaning you're putting it from your hand into your graveyard we have a word for that. That is discard. Discard effects. Now the other thing to look at

when you're looking at your resources and your payments is how much of a payment is it? One mana is not that much payment. One life, not too much. But one card is a decent payment. If you're going to lose a card, that is a lot. And card advantage is a huge issue. So if you're going to spend a card, it's not that we can't do that. It's not that it can't be a cost. But you have to scale your effect based on what the cost is. So one of the challenging things about discarding is you can't put it on small effects usually because it's a pretty big cost. You can also, what we call exile discard, where instead of

going to the graveyard, it goes to exile. That's a higher cost because cards being in your graveyard both can come back and you can spend them as a resource in your graveyard. Things in exile, I'll get to in a second, but usually isn't a resource. Well, I guess I can get to it now. We did in Battle for Zendikar use your opponent's cards in your opponent's exile as a resource where you spent it and then they went to their graveyard. I don't think we ever want to use your own exile as a cost, only because exile is a way to get things away we don't want you to get back. And so we don't want to sort of build a cost in that secretly lets you do something we don't want you to do. There also is putting cards from your hand either on top of your library or the bottom of your library

or shuffled into your library. Bottom of your library is a lot like exile. Not quite as severe as exile because there's ways to get stuff out of your library, but harsher than the graveyard because there's more ways to get stuff out of your graveyard than out of your library these days. Although I guess it depends on the format. If you're playing older formats with more tutors, Although I guess it depends on the format. If you're playing older formats with more tutors, maybe there's lots of ways to get them out of your library. Card to top a library is considered to be harsher because not only are you losing the card, but you're also losing a future draw. And that is a real cost.

And so we don't do a lot of card to top a library. We do a little bit of it. But once again, it's a very big cost. Losing a card is a big cost. Losing a draw is a big cost. So it's a substantial cost. It's not something we do a lot of. Okay, that is from hand.

If you talk it from library, library to graveyard has a term, a game term. It's called mill. Mill is a smaller bit of cost. It is a cost, but it's a much more minor cost. And usually, if mill's a costing, it's more than one card, just because it's a minimal cost. You can also do exile mill, where cards from your library leave. There is a term for leaving from your library going to your hand. It's called draw.

But that is an advantage, so that's not really a payment. We don't think of draw. We think of draw as being a positive effect and not as a payment. Having to draw, usually, it's a very weird circumstances where draw is a, it's a payment that, you know, that's not a good thing for you. Okay, and then there is the graveyard. So we will do graveyard as a cost, where you're paying a card out of your graveyard or multiple cards. That has a real cost to it. Often, again, one card is not a huge cost. So often when we do cost out of graveyard, it's more than one card.

Or it's a specific card. That's another thing, by the way, in some of these costs. When I say a card, it might be discard any card. It might be discard a creature. It might be discard a land. It might be exile a creature. It might be discard a land. It might be exile a creature from your graveyard. So sometimes when you're paying a cost in zones in which you have choice. In your library you can't see things so you can't choose from there. But in your graveyard in your hand you can.

Graveyard to library is similar to exiling it from your graveyard but a little bit better for you because now you can get it back if you have a way to get it it from your graveyard, but a little bit better for you, because now you can get it back if you have a way to get it back from your library. So that is a cost we can do, but it has lesser value. But anyway, there are a bunch of different ways to care about cards in other zones.

The one last zone to talk about is the battlefield. So taking things from your battlefield and putting them in other zones, putting permanents on the battlefield can be a real cost. The most common one we do is sacrifice so that I take something and I put it into my graveyard.

There is bounce, where as a cost I can put it back into my hand. Not as severe as a graveyard because I can recost it. There is to library. Top of library is a lot like bounce, but you're also losing a draw. Bottom of library is a lot like graveyard, but usually it's a little bit harder to access the library than access your graveyard.

The one other thing that we do sometimes, well, sorry, there's a couple things. The other thing we can do with permanents on the battlefield sometimes is instead of leaving the battlefield, you use them in some way. The most likely is you tap them. So you have to tap some number of untapped things. Usually not land, because land would be mana. But tap some number of creatures, for example, is very common.

Sometimes at the cost, we have things not untapped. So you have to do something and then it doesn't untap. That's sometimes, we don't use that a lot. Also, sometimes from hidden zones, especially your hand, we'll have you reveal things. So say, oh, well, if you want to do something or boost something or have an effect, you need to reveal a certain thing from your hand. Usually there's a limitation. Show a certain creature type or something.

It's something that sort of inherently has, you may or may not have it. So the cost is, do I have that thing? And if I play it now, it's not a resource in my hand. Finally, there are what I would call additional resources. Energy from Kaladesh is a good example, where something in the game generates things. I know I've seen, for example, sometimes we'll use counters as resource. Sometimes we'll use any counter, so we can use counters not for that purpose. Sometimes there's things where there's charged counters from something,

where specifically it needs to use that as a resource. So anyway, there are a lot of additional costs. There's lots of ways that we can say to you, hey, you want to use the spell or ability or upgrade the spell or ability, you need to pay some costs. That is one restriction. Okay, the next area is what I'll call the timing restrictions. So what this says is you have a limitation when you can use. The additional cost says what you have to do to do it. The timing restrictions say when.

So the most common timing restriction is sorcery. So on spells, it might be, oh, you can only play this during one of your main phases on your own turn. So I can't play it on my opponent's turns. I can't play it during combat. I can't play it at the beginning or end. I can only play it during the main phases on your own turn. So I can't play it on my opponent's turns. I can't play it during combat. I can't play it at the beginning or end. I can only play it during the main phases. When it's a spell, there's a whole card type for that called sorcery. If it's on an activated ability, sometimes we'll use the text, use only as a sorcery. Meaning that we can take the sorcery restriction and we can add it onto things. Normally for static or triggered abilities, triggered

abilities happen at a certain time, so the nature of when they trigger sort of limits when they can be used already, so we don't necessarily need to add that to them, but triggers themselves can be thought of as a restriction to a certain extent, meaning they only happen at a certain time. So, I mean, triggers kind of have a built-in restriction, and I'll get to conditional restrictions in a second. But anyway, sorcery speed is the most common timing restriction. But there are a couple other we do. Sometimes we do your turn, and what that means is normally when we say your turn, it's on something we want you to do on your combat

but not in other people's combat a good example might be an activated first strike where it's a first strike we only want to be aggressive and not defensive so we say only activate on your turn because we want it to be burnt during combat and we said use it as a sorcery

you couldn't do it in reaction during combat you could do it before combat happened also sometimes we have only on its opponent's turn we don't use that one a lot sorcery, you couldn't do it in reaction during combat. I mean, you could do it before combat happened. Also, sometimes we have only on its opponent's turn. We don't use that one a lot, but sometimes we restrict things to opponent's turn. Sometimes we restrict things to only during attack. And there's some sneaky ways. Some of these restrictions

are some sneaky ways to do them. For example, if I only want to do it during attack, one of the tricks is I might target an attacking creature. So the idea is, well, it doesn't say only during attack, but because it can only target an attacking creature, it has to be when there is an attacking creature, and that only happens during combat. So sometimes some of our timing restrictions can be woven into targeting restrictions.

But fundamentally, this whole category, the idea of timing restrictions is, yes, this is a spell or ability you can use, but it's not available to you at all time. The restriction is when you can use it. Also, and we don't, once again, we don't do this a lot, there are a few spells that care about, is this the second spell you've cast or something like that? We've on a rare occasion had a few spells that you could only cast it, I think, as the second spell you've cast or something like that? We've on a rare occasion had a few spells that you could only cast it, I think, as the second spell. Or there's a couple that, like, there's some advantage if it's the second spell. Stuff like that. So when I say timing, there's a little bit of overlapping between timing and condition, which I will get to.

But there is a bunch of things. Just controlling when you can do something. Okay, next are use restrictions. So use restrictions talk about how, not when you can use it, but how you can use it. And so the one that brought on this whole podcast is only once. You may only use this ability once per turn. Or it triggers once per turn, whatever. The idea that, I mean, with spells, other than the spell that you can use multiple times,

which is buyback or something, most spells are inherently one use. So the idea of one use is baked into spells essentially as you will. One of the things to really explain is the idea that only using things once is a new thing is just not the case. Alpha, while the tap symbol itself did not exist in alpha, tapping as a concept did exist in alpha. And so the idea that, oh, I have abilities that I can only use once per per turn is something that began from the very beginning of the game. So, activated abilities being a once per turn thing is

nothing new. Like I said, Alpha's full of them. Spells inherently are kind of once per game. So, the idea of once per game is not new. What is relatively new is we've started adding once per game on activated abilities, for example

on enchantments, because enchantments don't tap, and on triggered abilities. So like a trigger ability, we don't want that ability to trigger many times during the turn, we'll say it can only trigger once. It's hard on static abilities to limit use since static abilities tend to be on.

You can do a triggered ability where under a certain trigger, the static ability happens. So once this trigger happens, oh, the static effect happens. So you can sort of combine triggered abilities and static abilities. And you can combine activated and static abilities where once I activate the ability, then for the rest of the turn, it is true. So you can sort of mix and match those a little bit. The other thing, oh, the reason why, by the way, just to explain since it's the impetus for the whole podcast, the reason we've started doing once per turn is it's a valuable tool. Magic, we've had it before. We've used it a lot of other places and we just sort of realized, hey, this is a useful tool we have in other places. Why aren't we using it here? We can make the words. And the reason it's really taken off is it's very valuable. It's very good. So once again,

one of my ongoing themes today is why? Why do you use restrictions? And the answer is, we are trying to promote certain gameplay. And sometimes we're also trying to balance things. Some new reasons why we do it. What I mean by promoting things is, for example, once per turn, a lot of times on effects, like triggered effects that happen once per turn, what we're trying to generate is we want you to care about this thing in the larger context. Kind of what the deck wants you to do is do it every turn. Not have one big turn,

but try to do it consistently. That we want you to set up your deck so your deck is something you can do with consistence and put over time. And like I said, a lot of restrictions are about, there's a certain style of gameplay that we think is sort of what we're trying to promote. And so a lot of times we use words to promote that gameplay.

I know players think, I mean, it's funny. Players often say, why do you make everything open-ended? Why don't you just let us do what we want? Why even make sorceries? Why not everything be instants? But the reality of it is, as game designers, what we are trying to do is make and craft the best game we can. And restrictions are a tool to do that. So one of the ongoing themes of today's podcast will be, we're not trying to

take your fun away. We are trying to add to your fun. And I will get to that at the end of this podcast. Okay, the other, oh, the other reason that we use once per turn is a balance issue. Play design is sometimes if we let you do it as many times as we want, okay, we have to cost for that. We have to, like, we have to assume that you're going to do it many times, so it's costed and balanced for many times. So if you just do it a little bit or just once per turn it's it's like it it's only good if you kind of abuse it and it's not good generally so if we want to have bigger effects by making things only trigger once per turn it allows us to have lower costs it allows us to have bigger effects it allows us to make things that are more engaging and fun and one of the things that we have to always think about is if there's a way to abuse it, we have to cost to the abuse. But if we can cut off the ways to abuse

it, then we don't have to do that. And so a lot of times when we add one, it is us balancing it in a way that will make it more fun. Finally, use restrictions. And I talked about this up above, but targeting restrictions can be use restrictions. You can only use this on a certain thing. Now, when I say attacking creatures, that's a little more timing related, but I might say, you know, only use it on a goblin or only use it, you know, on an artifact. Like, I can limit where and how you use it. Or sometimes what's the case is you can use it on anything, but there's a bonus. Target creature gets plus three plus three, but if it's an elf, it on anything, but there's a bonus. Targeted creature gets plus

three plus three, but if it's an elf, it gets trampled. It gets a bonus. And so you can do things in which targeting can either be, I have to do that. That's the only thing I can do. Or it can be something in which there's a bonus added if I hit that particular thing. Okay. The final bucket is condition restrictions. And what I mean by that is, in order to make something happen, you have to do something. There's multiple ways to do

this. A could just be a triggered ability that just triggers when that thing happens. Or if you take something like raid, where it says you can only activate this if you've attacked this turn. Morbid. You can only activate this if you've attacked this turn. Morbid, you can only activate if a creature's died this turn. So we could put it on an activated ability.

We can also put it on a spell. We can restrict the spell. More often what we do with something like raid or morbid is we increase what the spell does if you meet that requirement. But anyway, there's a lot of conditions. Usually it ties into game actions. So the most common one has to do with combat. We can do attack

triggers. That means this creature must attack. So the restriction essentially is hey, this creature which has this ability, you have to put it in jeopardy to get this payment. And so my opponent might interact with that. So it's, the nice thing about attack triggers is there's a built-in answer and that I have to put it at risk. Saboteur triggers are attack triggers where you have to do a combat damage to the defending

player. So that is a more restrictive attack trigger. So a saboteur trigger, not only do I have to attack, but I have to get through. When an attack trigger, I get the ability as soon as I attack. I'm putting them at risk, but I do, I guarantee I get the ability as soon as I attack. I'm putting them at risk, but I guarantee I get the ability. A saboteur ability, I have to put it at risk and I might not get the ability. But once again, the more restrictions there are, the bigger the payoff could be. So saboteur abilities tend to be bigger than attack abilities. We also can care about sort of the means by which you attack. Did you attack with two or more creatures or three or more creatures? Did you attack with an elf or a goblin? Sometimes in multiplayer games, do you attack multiple players?

You can care about the nature of how the attack happens. You can care about things leaving. So you can care about things dying. I talked about morbid. So you can care about... And one of the interesting things is combat can lead to things leaving. So you can care about things dying. I talked about Morbid. So you can care about... And one of the interesting things is combat can lead to things dying. So sometimes,

like one of the neat things about something like Raid or Morbid is that it makes you rethink how combat works and that I attack with a creature. Oh, well, if Morbid's in the game, do they want me to kill the creature?

Is it a good thing if the creature dies? If Raid is in the game, are they trying to trigger raid? And maybe this creature, they don't have a giant growth in their hand? Like, maybe I can block this creature. Maybe they're just trying to get their raid trigger through. So, you know, there's a lot of fun on caring about whether something happened or not happened.

Another big thing that can happen is caring about spells. Did you cast a certain kind of spell? Did you cast a certain color spell? Did you cast a certain card type? Is it the second spell of the turn? Sometimes you can talk about, did you cast a spell that targeted something? So there's a lot of different ways to care about, you know,

did I, like, attacking and casting spells are the two big actions of magic. So those are the two biggest things when you talk about conditions that you look at. Sometimes there are conditions about just having things. Like, metalcraft is, do you have three artifacts on the battlefield? Sometimes we can look at things entering the battlefield. Landfall is, like, cares when the land enters. Alliance cares when the creature enters. Constellation cares when an

enchantment enters. So there are a lot of what the condition idea is. There's something I want, but to get this ability or cast a spell or upgrade the spell, a certain thing has to be. So this is another example where we

can promote gameplay. Hey, I want you to be. So this is another example where we can promote gameplay. Hey, I want you to be more aggressive. Okay, we'll make more attack triggers and more saboteur triggers. Oh, I want you to be more conscious of how you play spells. We can do spell triggers. A lot of the conditional things, the reason we do that is it gives us a sense of encouraging you to do something. it gives us a sense of encouraging you to do something. Like, a lot of magic design is saying to the player, hey, I want you to do thing X. Well, how do I get you to do thing X?

I'll give you a carrot. You know, I'll give you a reward. That if you do thing X, there's a pot. Now, sometimes you can make negative things happen. But normally in games, one of the things you want is positive encouragement tends to work a little bit better. There are negative things like cost, I guess you can think of as being negative. Whoa, to get this I pay life. Okay, that can be thought of as negative. But anyway, the idea essentially is we can encourage play if we give you rewards for doing things we want you to do. Okay, so let me get

into the final issue of why I brought this up today, which is a lot of times when we add restrictions, the response we get from some of the audience is, why? Why are you ruining our fun? Why are you being the fun police? Why can't I just activate this as many times as I want?

Why does this have to cost so much? Why can't it cost less? Why do I also have to pay life? You know, whatever the restriction is, why can't I do this at any time? Why is it just my turn? Whatever the restriction we stuck on it, there's people that come back and like, why are you doing that to us? You know, and so the fundamental answer to that is when we design, so in general design, when you design any normal object, not games, an example I often go to is a lamp. If I am a designer that designs lamps,

I want that lamp to be as easy to use as possible. That I want the light switch to be where you expect it, that it's easily noticeable, that it's obvious what's on and what's off. I want that lamp, you know, I want it to have a swivel so you can direct the light where you need it or whatever. I want that lamp to work as effectively as it can as a lamp, and I want it to be as easy as possible for you to understand how to use it. Okay, but when we get into game design, that is not true. The role of the game designer is not to make your job easy.

In fact, the exact opposite. Our job is to give you a goal and then actually make it hard for you to accomplish that goal. The part of a game is you want to mentally challenge yourself. You want to sort of solve the game. You want to figure out how to win. If the game was just like,

push this button, okay, you won, eh, not much of a game. You know, if you can instantaneously win, if there's no obstacles in your way, if there's nothing stopping you, then you kind of, you lose the fun of the game. That the whole reason for a game is to have the obstacles.

That the obstacles are part of the point. And so the reason we put restrictions on things is not that we're trying to take away your fun. We're not the fun police. It's ironically the exact opposite. We are trying to make the trying to take away your fun. We're not the fun police. It's ironically the exact opposite. We are trying to make the game more dynamic and more fun. We are trying to encourage you to do things. We are trying to promote themes. We're trying to play up flavor. That we are doing things that make the act of doing it more fun and more engaging. And I understand, like, one of the things that,

as a magic designer, I've long learned is that there's a gut reaction to reading something that is different from playing something. That when you see something, it's very easy to go, like, people want to imagine the best when they read it. And so when they read any kind of downside, it's just sort of like, aww. Because in their mind for a second, they saw the crazy things they could do. But the thing they're not really seeing when they read any kind of downside, it's just sort of like, aww. Because in their mind for a second, they saw the crazy things they could do. But the thing they're not really seeing when they read it is they haven't played those experiences.

Like, we do playtesting. We try things. Sometimes we try it with no restrictions, and it's crazy. Or it makes us do things that make the card less fun. We have to cost it more. Or, you know, like, everything comes at a cost, meaning that if we don't put restrictions on you, we have to lessen what we can give you,

right? It is not as if, you know, oh, well, we can give you the fact and just make it cost less. No, that has ramifications. That impacts things. And, look, you guys have played with broken cards, you know. Like, occasionally we make mistakes, and you guys get to play with our mistakes. And a lot of that isn't fun. You know, like occasionally we make mistakes and you guys get to play with our mistakes.

And a lot of that isn't fun. Broken, you know, usually when a card gets banned, it's not because we're trying to take away the fun from the players. It's existence causes the problem. So if we, in playtesting, recognize something's a problem, we preemptively do things to fix that. We change the mana. We add an additional cost.

We add a restriction. We add, you know, a timing restriction or a use restriction or a condition restriction. Like we, all these resources I talked about today, we add that, right? We do that. We put those in. And the reason we do that is to make a dynamic game system. And the reason I walked through today is one of the great things about Magic is it's a very robust system. Now, obviously we've made almost 30 years worth of cards. You know, if we didn't have a robust system, we couldn't keep making cards. I mean, it has to be a pretty robust game system to do that. But sometimes to the outsiders, or sorry, people who are designing the game day in, day out,

sorry, the players, the the game day in, day out. Sorry, the players. The outsiders, R&D. Something that might not be apparent is that there are a lot of things that when you're making the game, you have to, like, I'm very, very conscious of all the restrictions available because there are tools in my toolbox. I'm making a card.

I have to craft that card. And now, given the restrictions are even more important to play design. I mean, they're important to me. They're important to me as a vision designer because I do want to encourage certain things. So I put restrictions in at the vision level because I'm encouraging certain styles of play. Play design often put restrictions at the play design level because they're balancing things and they want to make sure that things don't break or things are playing the way that vision and set design want it to be played. A lot of restrictions, well, some restrictions are baked in early

because it's organic to the system and the environment and some are put later as additional tools to adjust. And so it's very interesting that when we talk about this, a lot of these restrictions are baked in from the very beginning. Like, for example, let's say I'm making a set all about creature types, or certain creature types I will say, oh, well I want you to care about goblins, let's say, so I would put a lot of restrictions in

that make things better if you have goblins that get better if you have goblins, that improve goblins I will do things, and it's not just restrictions sometimes it's effects, There's other things you can do to encourage play, but restrictions are a very clean and forceful way to get people to

do certain things, and it's definitely something that is effective, and that's why we do it. So mostly what my point of today is, A, because this is always a resource for people who like to understand game design, I wanted to sort of walk through the mini tools in our toolbox. And I'm sure I forgot some subtle ones.

One of the neat things about Magic is we're always finding new ways and new restrictions. And, you know, it's neat to make a set and care about something you've never cared about before. And so that can be a very neat thing. But anyway, the reason we do restrictions is not because we're meanies. We do restrictions because it makes it a better game, and in fact, makes it more fun for all of you.

So anyway, I hope this was informative, but I'm now at work, so we all know what that means. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.