Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #144 - Redflagging

Episode Date: August 1, 2014

Mark explains redflagging and the common red flags.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I want to have a podcast that follows up on another podcast, although it's, well, related. It's its own podcast. So I had done a podcast on New World Order, and during that I talked about a concept called red flagging. And I'm going to talk all about what red flags mean today and how we use them in design. Okay. So when you red flag something, what it means is when we create a new world order, the goal was we wanted to create a certain level of complexity and toe the line of that complexity at common. And the idea was that there's different things we care about. I talked about the different types of complexity. There is comprehension complexity.

Can you read the cards and understand them? There is board complexity. Do you understand how things interact when they're all in play together? And then there is strategic complexity. Do you understand the ramifications of what this means? Strategic complexity tends to be somewhat invisible to beginning players. We're less worried about that.

Commons can have commons are allowed to have oh sorry commons are allowed to have strategic complexity but they we have to be careful about their comprehension complexity and their board complexity

so the idea of a red flag is as such is we have a be careful about their comprehension complexity and their board complexity. So the idea of a red flag is as such, is we have a bunch of rules for things that in general cause problems at common. And if you break one of these rules, you are what's called red flagged. What red flagged means is it doesn't mean you can't go at common. It just means that we're supposed to take a look at you. That anything is red flagged. In order for you to stay in the file, you need to get approval first from design and then from development. And mostly what it is, it's a process by which to help make sure that things that might cause trouble are looked at.

that might cause trouble are looked at. And the purpose of red flagging is mostly to be cautionary, to make sure that we are paying attention to stuff. And that once we do that, we can override a red flag. A red flag doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means it can't be done. Hey.

Okay. It just means it can't be done... Sorry, I was just dropping off my coat. My son forgot his coat, so that was my wife saying thank you for dropping off the coat. See, you get to experience my actual drive to work every day.

Sorry. So what I was trying to say is red flagging means that we have to look at it and make sure that it's okay and that we can override the red flag. A red flag doesn't mean it can't be done. So when I give you the rules today for red flagging, all that means is these are things we know can be a problem,

and so we have to sign off on them to make sure that if we're going to do them, we mean to do them, and that they're okay. The other big thing about a red flag is rules are, you don't want to design, you want to be careful when you make rules that it's okay to have rules, but you have to understand that sometimes that there can be exceptions to your rules. You have to understand. So the story I always, the stories I always give is when I was in college, I lived in

a dorm and one day, so it was a Boston University, It was in the middle of Boston, so there was security. They just didn't want anybody coming into the dorm. And so in order to get in, you had to show your ID card. Um, and then if you lived there, you were allowed to sign people in. So if someone came to the gate, to the door, either they had to live there, and they showed you they lived there, or they had to get signed in by someone who did live there. Um, so there was a guard there. I think who did live there. So there was a guard there. I think his name was Tony.

So Tony and I became friends. You know, I would chit-chat with him all the time. And, you know, when we would come in, he and I, I'd always stop a little bit and I'd talk with Tony. So anyway, one day I come in and Tony's there. And I realized I forgot my card. It was up in my room, you know, my ID card. And so I'm like, hey, Tony, I left my It was up in my room, my ID card. And so I'm like, hey, Tony, I left my ID card up in my room. And so Tony was like, oh, I can't let you in.

And I was like, but I live here. You know I live here. And he goes, yeah, yeah, but the rules are I can't let you in. And I was very frustrated because what was the point of the rule? The point of the rule was to keep people who didn't live there from getting in the building. Clearly, Tony knew I lived there. So, it's one of my pet peeves. You want to understand the reasoning behind the rule.

And so, the point of red flagging is we have some basic rules to follow, but sometimes, you know, sometimes this won't, like, even though normally this causes board complexity, in this particular case, it doesn't cause board complexity, and the case in question, just to finish the story real quick, is, so Tony would not let me in, and so I finally talked him through the rules, and I said, well, in order for somebody to sign somebody else in,

you know, what are the rules for that? You just have to know that they're, you know, they live here. They go, yeah, well, to sign someone in, I just have to know that they're, you know, they don't have to show you an ID. No, no, as long as I know they live here, they're allowed to sign people in. So I said, okay, if I don't need to prove ID and you know I live here, then I'm allowed to sign someone in. He goes, yes. I go, okay, I signed me in, and that's how I got in, because I followed the rules that were really weirdly set. But it is a pet peeve of mine. I do not like rules that are set up in such a way that you kind of make a rule,

and then you break the essence of what the point of the rule is. And that red flagging doesn't mean that we just stop things. It means, oh, on average, this causes this problem, and it's something to be aware of. But it doesn't mean that we are supposed to just automatically reject it. It means look at it. Okay, so let's walk through the red flagging we have. So number one, does it affect other permanents? And this is the one we started with when we first talked about board complexity.

So the culprit I will talk about is Samite Healer. I think I talked about, I might have talked about Samite Healer in New World Order, but it's such the perfect example. So Samite Healer

is from Alpha. It's a card that you tap to prevent one damage to target creature. Now, that might seem pretty innocent. The problem is that one card changes a lot of math.

You know, and that now, any possible combination that I have, if I attack, let's say I attack with a couple creatures, and you have a bunch of creatures you can block with, you now have to do permutations where you figure out, oh, any one of these creatures might do one less damage than they normally do. And it creates a lot of extra math. I know, and one of the things that's hard is when you,

one of the ways magic works is, you start playing, you learn something, you absorb it, and then it becomes so second nature once you learn the rules of it, that you forget how much complication it creates. And semi-heal is a really good example, which is once you know how to do the mental

short-cutting to figuring out, oh, was it semi-healer? You can figure it out. But when you're first learning, it's a lot of extra math. And once again, the point here is not that we don't want to do semi-healer. The point of New World Order is we don't want to do semi-healer

at common. We don't want it showing up at the frequency that they show up in common. Because that also means, common means you might get multiples. So not only might there be one Semi-Healer in play, there might be multiple Semi-Healers in play, which makes things even more complicated. And two Semi-Healers is much more

complicated than one Semi-Healer. Okay, let's get off Semi-Healer. Let's move to a different thing. Let's say I had a creature that said, you know, I activate or tap to give target creature first strike. Well, that also is very complicated, because now I have to act as if every creature you have could have first strike.

And that is much more complex. Now, if a creature gets to pump itself, that's much less complex. Because what that says is, okay, let's say I have a creature that activates to give itself first strike. Well, you, the opponent, if you need a shorthand, you go, I'm just going to assume he has first strike.

And if you act like that, it's a pretty, you know, the more experienced player understands that maybe you will or won't get first strike, or maybe I want you to spend the mana to give him first strike because I don't want you casting other spells, whatever. But the beginning player can just go,

okay, that guy kind of has first strike. I can act like he has first strike because I don't want him casting other spells, whatever. But the beginning player can just go, okay, that guy kind of has first strike. I can act like he has first strike. That's a lot easier than anything could have first strike. So, first red flag is, does it affect other permanents? Now, here's a good example of where we red flagged it

originally, and then we learned that this was okay. And the example is a tapper. So a tapper is a white creature, usually, that you spend some mana, and you tap it to tap a creature. And what we found is, okay, well, let's explain the two scenarios by which you would use a tapper. Number one is, I'm attacking.

So I would tap, before you could declare blockers, I want to tap it. Because I don't want you to declare it as a blocker. If you declare something as a blocker and then I tap it, it doesn't do anything. So, I want to tap before you declare blockers. Now, that is true. All I've done is just said, hey, that one guy that before you had to decide whether or not he could block, now you don't have to decide. I'll decide for you.

He can't block. He or she can't block. He or she or He can't block. He or she can't block. He, she, or they can't block. So, on offense, or on defense, before you can attack, I tap a creature. What have I done? I've, once again, removed your decision. You had some choices of what to attack with.

I've now removed your choice. It can't attack. So that's an example of a card that affects other permanents, but when you examine how it's played, it actually decreases decisions, not increases decisions. So this is a good example where just because something is red flagged doesn't mean necessarily that it breaks the spirit of what the rule is. And that's why we have to examine it case by case. I want to get in the dorm. You don't have a card. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. I know you live here. It doesn't break the underlying rule. The underlying rule says I don't want strangers coming in here. I know you're not a stranger. And so once again, the point of this is so we can examine on a case by case. Now, something like tapping, we've learned, oh, tapping's okay, so we don't need a red flag tapping every single time. We've learned,

oh, well, here are some exceptions. We do make some exceptions where once we learn they're okay, that there are certain things we go, okay, we've examined them where it's okay. Tapping is something we're comfortable doing at Common. Now, there's other, by the way, I'm talking more about board complexity issues and stuff like that. It is possible, by the way, I'm talking more about board complexity issues and stuff like that. It is possible, by the way, that the development might figure out that tapping from a power level thing might be an issue, and they might remove things from common. So some of the things that I'm going to talk about today are design-related, some are development-related, but development also can always say, this is not a New World Order thing.

This is a power-level thing. And there's some things where they go, you know what? The power level, we're going to move it up to uncommon or higher. So one of the things to keep in mind, by the way, is that the red flags here are, there's a variety of different reasons we red flag things. Some of them are more design-oriented. Some of them have a development underlying cause to them. So as I walk through them, be aware that there's different causes for why we red flag things.

Okay, number two. Do you have four or more lines of rules text? So that is an interesting one. Well, why that? And the answer is, we've learned that there's a point at which the text just intimidates the reader. And that one of the things we want to be careful about is, I mean, textiness is a sign of multiple things. One of the things development does is, one of the metrics they look at is words per card, especially a common. Or words per as-fan is also very

common. And the idea is well, the wordier you are, usually not always, but usually means the more complicated you are. And as a nice metric, just like red flagging, the point to having metrics is not to be dictatorial. The point of having metrics is not to be dictatorial.

The point of having metrics is so that you can understand. It's a guideline that tends to show you if you need to give a further look at it. If your text is a little above average, that doesn't mean it's not okay. It means you have to look and figure out why the text is above average. What is going on? Now, it turns out there are longer texts that are easier to process. So one of the things about this red flag is it says, okay, are you wordy? And I'm defining wordy as being four or more lines of rule text. If you are wordy, it means, okay, let's take a look at you. Maybe that means there's just too many words on you. Maybe that means you're doing too much. Maybe

it means, let's just see how easy it is to grok what you're doing. much. Maybe it means, let's just see if, how easy it is to grok what you're doing. And sometimes it's like, okay, okay, this is not too bad. When we say four lines of text, usually I'm not talking about reminder text,

because sometimes you could have reminder text that's three lines long, and so the mere act of having this ability with reminder text makes it four lines. That's not real, I mean, we have to be aware of reminder text, and

the existence of reminder text can be intimidating. So it's not that we're not, I guess to be clear, that if something with reminder text is over four lines, we want to be aware of that. But usually the reason it will, I mean, reminder text in expert expansion tends to be on new things. And so normally we're vetting the new abilities and saying, is this an ability we think people want to understand? One of the things in general about new world order when you look at mechanics is how hard is the mechanic to sort of understand in a vacuum and how much does it add to the complexity of the board?

We are allowed, so one of the things about red flagging is what we call the 20%, which is we want 80% of our commons to follow all the rules we normally set up. And about 20% can break those rules, meaning when I talk about you have red flagging exceptions, we allow ourselves a certain number of exceptions, about 20%. So one of the rules about New World Order is you are allowed to make the player think about something they don't normally think about, but focus that thing. It should be one, usually one thing, at most two things. But, for example, let's take landfall in Zendikar. Normally, you don't track when lands come into play.

It's not something where I go, ooh, did a land come into play this turn? But we're like, okay, in this environment, this is important enough that you have to track land entering play. That's an important thing. But, in Zendikar, that was the thing you had to care about. In Innishrod, you had to care about things dying. But that was the thing you had to care about. You know, that we pick one thing usually, sometimes two, but usually one thing that each set.

Okay, in this environment, this is a thing that matters. This is something you need to care about. And we make people care about that. I guess Innishrod did that too. Because Innishrod also made you care to care about, and we make people care about that. I guess Innistrad did that too, because Innistrad also made you care about not playing spells and playing two spells. Now, that was only when you had Werewolves in play, but still, that happens enough, that's something that you have to track.

Okay, so if you have four more lines of text, it just means we have to understand, are you confusing? You know, and sometimes the four lines aren't necessarily confusing. Being four lines of text doesn't by definition make you confusing but it does mean on average you're going to be confusing or you have the potential to be confusing um the other thing that we have to look at is and

this is related is what we call things that are hard to parse uh and the literally the best way to explain this is if you have to read a common and then you have to read it a second time, that is what we call hard to parse. And that doesn't mean it's necessarily wordy, although the wordier you are, the greater your chance of being hard to parse. What it means is, there's just something about your wording that people are like, what? What is it doing? And if you're hard to parse, there's a couple things. One thing that can mean is, okay, we need to go back to templating. Like, for example, conspiracy was a good example. One thing that can mean is, okay, we need to go back to templating. Like, for example, Conspiracy was a good example where

we actually had our slideshow. This is much, much later than normal, but Conspiracy was a very weird set. We were doing our slideshow. We were looking at cards. So before the set gets hand-off, R&D is a slideshow where we look at the cards. And some of the templating was just hard to grok. And so we said, you know what?

Sometimes when you're in the weeds, as they say, when you're trying to make something make sense, and there is a lot of fine-tuning, and magic templating is a language, essentially. I call it magic ease. That it is a language. That when you say when or whenever or if, I mean, those all mean things.

They're not insignificant. And so one of the things that happens when you're trying to make, technically make something work is sometimes you lose what I call sort of the big picture look at it. That you're so sort of in the minutia that you don't have the ability

to step back and see it. And sometimes other people that are less involved can go, okay, that makes no sense. Yeah, I know what you're going for. That makes no sense. And there I know what you're going for. That makes no sense. And there's a couple of classic things. One of the things that

we have, this is a good example, where one of the templates is when you play this card, you know, when this card comes into play, if it came into play, you're like, what do you mean when it came into play? If it came into play, it just came into play. You're like, that is there to sort of prevent something where? If it came to play. It just came into play. Like, that is there to sort of

prevent something where you can't do something and destroy it and have things happen, but it's hard to parse because you're like, huh? I don't understand. You know, and so we have to be careful in stuff like that. We have to be careful where we do something that the person reading it doesn't quite understand what's happening. And the general rule of thumb,

if something's hard to parse, we tend to get it out of common. And once again, let me explain the philosophy behind neural order, this aspect of it, which is the following, which is that we want magic to have some complication.

We want magic to be something that the player goes, ooh, there's some really meaty things to have to think about. The point here is volume, is how often are you running across a more complex thing. And what we want is the beginner just has less packs. Most of the cards in a pack are common. If we just take out the more complicated stuff from common, it just means the beginning player has less confusing things when they're starting.

And as you get better, you're going to get more cards, and you're going to just start caring about all the cards, you know, rather than just the cards you own, and that you'll start being exposed to higher rarities and more cards, and you'll have the opportunity. Once you're a more experienced player, you're just going to build your deck. If you want to take the complicated things, you'll put them in your deck. But the beginning player who's more building with what they have to start with,

it makes things a little easier just to pull that out. So a lot of this in Red Flagging is about numbers. It's about how often you want to see something. I don't mind having some cards that are hard to parse if they do cool things, but I don't want you getting lots of them. You know, a lot of this is, a lot about New Order is, how many copies do you

want to get? You know, I'm okay if players get a couple single copies of cards that they might have to think through. But having multiples of them, especially if the multiples become harder to play and make more board complexity, that causes problems. For example, cards that affect other cards.

If I have one card that affects other cards, okay, okay, I can focus on that one thing. I got an uncommon creature that grants any creature first rank. Okay, well now we have to look at the board and figure out what that means. But I have one creature that does that, and a different creature that grants any creature first rank okay well now we have to look at the board and figure out what that means but I have one creature that does that and a different creature that grants this and a different creature that

in volume is the problem and a lot of these things about board complexity is that having one thing or two things that you have to think about is fine having five is hard having ten is really hard this all came about, the New World Order came about from

Lorwyn Morning Tide Limited, where Lorwyn cared about these eight races, and then Morning Tide cared about these five classes, and every car attendant had at least one of the races and some of the classes, and just the lattice

of work that you had to figure out what you could do, what was in play, just become mind-boggling for people who weren't really adept at it. And the goal is that we don't want to make that a regular occurrence, especially in limited. I mean, if you and your friends want to sort of make the lattice happen,

we give you the cards to make it happen. It's just something that's going to happen because you and your friends choose to make it happen and volunteer for that, not because you're just walking into it. Okay, next, and this is a big one. Cards that get card advantage are red flags. Let me explain card advantage.

So what card advantage says is if at the end of the day, if I do something and the number of cards I lose is less than the number, or I do something and the end state is there's a change in the cards, how many cards we have. If I either end up with more cards than you in the gain, or we both lose things but I lose less than you, that is considered a card advantage.

So, for example, you have a creature in play. I have a terror in my hand. I have a dark banishing or a kill spell. I kill your creature. Well, I spent one card. You've lost one card. There's a parity, a one-for-one parity. Now, let's say, for example, that the creature you have has an aura on it. Now when I kill your creature, you've lost the creature and the aura, and I've played the spell. So that is an example where there's card disadvantage. It's kind of built into auras.

Now, we understand that some of that's going to happen. I mean, auras happen in common. But what we don't want to happen is, have a card that says destroy two target creatures. Or a card that says destroy target creature and then its opponent discards the card. You know, you want to be careful. Once again, this doesn't mean we don't do them. This means they get red flagged. That whenever you're going to be a card, that's going to cause a card disadvantage.

And the same is true for card drawing, which is if I spend one card to draw two cards, I've gained in card advantage. Now, that is a much less problematic card advantage change. And so that's something we're more likely to do a common, because it's having a little bit less impact on the board. But anyway, it's something we want to be careful of, is how often are you creating card advantage? And correlated to that is are you capable of killing more than one creature? So if you have a card that can kill multiple

creatures, we want to be careful. You're red flagged. We tend not to make cards that we tend not to make cards that kill multiple things at common. Nah, I'm not saying we never do. We make tremors and things like that every once in a while.

And as part of the card disadvantage, we tend not to make permanents that as an ETB effect, as an enter the battlefield effect, kill a creature. So, for example, Flinkon Kabu was a famous... It was a 4-2 creature that did 4 damage to an enter the battlefield, to a creature. So those tend to go to uncommon because they kill something, but they're still there. They're, you know, I've lost no cards, you've lost one.

Or things that are repeatable kill. Things like Prodigal Pyromancer, which is a 1-1 that taps through one damage to a creature or player. That, I mean, that also has effect on the creature problems. That's in red flag for a different reason. But it's also red flag for repeatable kill causes problems at common. And so we also, if you're capable of killing more than one thing, either because you, you know, off the bat you kill more than one thing, a sweeper of some kind,

or if you have repeatable kill, meaning every turn I can kill something, or every once in a while I can kill something. Both of those things we red flag. Now, like I said, Tremor, which is something that does one damage to all creatures, that's something we tend to do in common that has the capability of killing more than one creature, but it most often doesn't, so

we, on a case-by-case basis, look at things and figure out whether they're allowed. But, as a general rule of thumb, we like to hold back on things that create the card advantage or things that kill multiple creatures. In general, by the way, that leads us to the next one, which is, in general, we red flag things that do repeatable effects. Now, there's some repeatable effects we're fine with a common,

but if every turn you're able to do something, we have to figure out, are you complicating the board state? And pretty much one of the rules is, if I do this, does my opponent have to take into account that I am doing it? Now, some things like milling, so taking cards from top of the line, putting in the graveyard or life gain, there's some things that it can, your opponents sometimes have to think about it, but most of the time they don't. If I have a creature that is milling you, it's not until you get low enough in your library that that mill is a threat to win the game that you really have to think about it.

In the early game, it's like, well, you're milling me, whatever. It's not going to change how I'm blocking or doing anything. Life gain is similar. It can matter later in the game that you're gaining life but early on when i say okay i gain the life my phone's like okay i mean i have to mark it on my sheet to mark your score but you know life total but it's not it's not affecting decisions about blocking or the board you know or it can late game it's not in the beginning of the game and so the repeatable effects we have to be careful that they for the most of the game like if i have a repeatable effect that we have to be careful that they, for the most of the game, like, if I have a repeatable effect that makes my opponent have to

constantly think about that effect and how it affects each turn, oh, well, we tend not to do that at Comet. A lot of those cards affect other things, so they trigger a different flag. A lot of those generate card event trigger, you know, that one thing you'll notice is, a lot of times when something gets red flagged, it gets multiply red flagged, because

it's breaking a bunch of different rules. And usually that's a sign, by the way, when you get multiple red flags. I'm not saying some of the multiple red flags don't make it through, but usually that's a sign that you're not supposed to be a common. Next thing is do you create a loop? So the classic example here is gravediggers. So a gravedigger is a card, is a black creature that when it enters the battlefield, you get to take a... You're raised dead. You take a creature from your graveyard and put it into your hand.

And the problem with Gravediggers is they create a loop. Meaning if I can get two Gravediggers, I play one Gravedigger and I get back the other Gravedigger. And then what happens is I create this loop that every time one of my Gravedigger dies, I'm able to get back the other Gravedigger. Now, it's not that we don't want loops. Loops are cool, but especially in Limited and for casual players who are beginning, we don't want a lot of loops. And so one of the ways to avoid loops is getting them out of common. Once again, this is about just numbers, which is, this is something we want to happen less frequently.

Well, if they're at common, it's just going to happen more frequently. We'll get them out of common, okay, it can still happen. You can get two of the same on common, especially if you're drafting, but it's going to happen not as often, not as frequent. And so in general, if we see loops, we tend to red flag them, or we do red flag them. I mean, sometimes we keep them, I'm not saying we get rid of every loop. Okay, related to that are cards that are more powerful in number. So if I have a card that, if I have multiples of them, it goes up in power. Now, sometimes we want that a common. We are making something like a Kindle. So Kindle

was a spell from Tempest. So it did two damage, plus it did an extra damage for every Kindle in your graveyard. Oh. Well, kind of what makes that card interesting is I want to have a bunch of Kindles. The idea that my first Kindle does two damage, but my second Kindle does three damage.

Pretty cool. But it doesn't mean as much unless you have access to Kindle. So whenever something is needed in a number, we red flag it because we essentially do we want it to be, you know. Sometimes, like Kindle, we want that. That's a positive thing. We want you to collect a bunch of them. So we, like, specifically put it in a comment. But sometimes, like, oh, well, that's kind of problematic if you get too many of them, especially in limited. Okay, you know what we're going to do?

We're not going to put that at a common. We're going to put it at a higher rarity. And that, you know, there are definitely cards that, I mean, like I said, it's a balance of figuring out how much we want you to have access to that, both for the limited player and for the casual beginner. have access to that, both for the limited player and for the casual beginner. Okay, the next category is what we call causes confusing interactions. So one of the things in general is there are certain things we've learned that there are certain rules that we know are hard for people.

Now, that's not to say that we don't want those rules to ever happen, those interactions to ever happen, but when we know there's a problem, when we know that the average person gets it wrong, we want to limit how often people are going to run into that, and especially, we kind of don't want beginners to run into it. So, one of the perfect examples there is

most, not most, a lot of players don't necessarily understand how trample and death touch interact. We're kind of careful to make sure that those two abilities don't easily get together most of the time.

Now, it's not to say you can't compile them. It's not to say you can't ever make things do that. But we're very cautious of that. We're very cautious to say, okay, when this is going to happen, we want to make sure that we limit how often the interaction happens. And let me stress, none of this, none of New World Order, none of red flagging, none of this is to prevent cool things from happening in Magic. We want cool things to happen.

The issue is, if something's going to cause problems and confuse people, we just want to lessen how often it happens. And remember, in Constructed, where you pick your cards, you get addicted to how often something happens. When we pick something for common, the two things we are affecting is how it impacts in the limited and how it impacts for the casual player that has less cards. And note, by the way, when I say casual player,

one of the problems of using the term casual player is there's two different types of casual player. What I kind of mean is really the less enfranchised newer player, not likes to play casual formats. So maybe I probably should get a better word for that. So what I'm talking about is the newer player,

the player that is less enfranchised, and that a lot of what New World Order is about, and this red flagging, is percentages. It's just how often do we want you to see something. And the idea is, if something's going to cause problems for the newer player, we say, you know what, let's lessen how often they see that. And on the flip side, something we really want people to experience, like the other

thing, for example, is when you build a set, you're like, here are what my set's about. And some of the stuff that your set's about, like every year we make magic and we want magic to do some new things. So the way we do that is we go, okay, we're going to a new world, there's new mechanics, this is what we're doing. Well, part of the fun of the new world is you have to care about things. It was neat that in Zendikar, I have to care about when I play my land. It was neat that in Innistrad, I have to care when things die. You know, it is neat in Theros that I had to care about which of my cards targeted my own creatures.

You know, and that happened in building, that happened in play, and that it is fun that each environment cares about things that other environments don't care about. So it's not that we don't, you know, when you're trying to figure out percentages, it's like, I want people to experience this. Oh, is this something very cool that I think having a higher visibility will increase happiness? Is this a neat thing the set is doing? Okay. Then there, I'm trying to get things in common.

My whole thing about if your theme's not in common, it's not your theme. Just me saying, if you want your players to experience something, you have to put it in the numbers that they can experience it. And a big, big thing about understanding trading card games and rarity is you don't control

the minutia. You don't control the granularity. You don't control the minutia, but you control the granularity. I can't control what you see, but I can control about how often you see it. I can take the different things that are in my

set and I can say, okay, I want you to experience this at this rate. I want you to experience this at this rate. I want you to experience this at this rate. This is why ASFAN is so important. The concept of how often we literally draw it in your pack. How often you will get this concept. And we literally sit and go, okay, this ability we want this ASFAN. This ability we want this ASFAN.

We want this showing up at this percentage. This showing up at that percentage. And what red flagging is really about is just us saying, these are the things that are problematic at too high a percentage. If they show up at too high a percentage, it's a problem. And that really is what we're

doing. The red flagging is us saying, okay, hey, do we want this showing up at the frequency that it would show up by showing up in common? And when the answer is no, hey, do we want this showing up at the frequency that it would show up by showing up in common? And when the answer is no, well, then we take it out of common. But, once again, and I'll stress, red flagging is not hard and fast rules. Good creative work does not function under hard and fast rules. It functions well under rules, but then you need the ability to make exceptions.

And a lot of what design is there for is to figure out when's the right call. When should you make the exception? Okay. Well, thanks for joining me today. So I'm now part, and it's time for me to be making magic. Talk to you guys next time.