Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #159 - Block Plans, Part 2

Episode Date: September 19, 2014

Mark talks about what design changes went into the Scars of Mirrodin through Khans of Tarkir blocks.

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'm continuing something I did last podcast, which is I've been talking about block plans. And I'm sort of, what I realized was when I announced the two block paradigm, the fact that we were ending our blocks being three sets and making them two, I realized that I'd made ten as head designer. I'd oversaw ten three-set blocks. So I thought, I would go over the ten of them and talk about what I had done. The last time I did the first five. So last time I did Ravnica, Time Spiral, Lauren Slash, Shadowmoor, Shards of Lara, and Zendikar. But there are five more, and so today I'm going to talk about those five.

Also, a big shift happens, which I'm going to talk about during this too, which is, this is the shift. The first five were the fourth age of magic design, and the next five were the fifth age of magic design. Well, fifth age hasn't ended yet, but up through the fifth age. I don't know when sixth age is happening. It'll happen when it happens. But let me talk about what the difference is between the fourth age and the fifth age. A don't know when sixth age is happening. It'll happen when it happens. But let me talk about what the difference is between the fourth age and the fifth age.

A lot of people don't understand it. And it's worthy of me explaining. And I happen to be doing a podcast, so let me explain. Okay, so if you look at early design, first age was just make cards. Second age was the idea of a block, of just having blocks,

just the mere idea of blocks, mechanics that wove through blocks. The third age was about trying to do themes that start with invasion. And the idea that the block's just not a collection of mechanics, but it's about something. The fourth age was the start of the block plan, of the idea that we're going to plot out what we're doing. Well, the fifth age came about, let's talk about Scars of Mirrodin. I'll sort of talk about the design of the Scars of Mirrodin block

and then show how the fifth age came out of this. So when Scars of Mirrodin started, the block originally, the plan of the block was we were going to go to New Phyrexia. In fact, the first set was going to be called New Phyrexia. And then, as a surprise twist at the end of the block, you were going to realize that we've been here before. It's Mirrodin! Dun-dun-dun! Sort of a Planet of the Apes moment,

where you realize that, oh, this place that we think was brand new actually was a place we knew well. And the idea originally was we were going to do a lot of hints at it and sort of see if players could slowly figure out that the Phyrexians had taken over Mirrodin. Because when we had originally done original Mirrodin, the plan was to come back and the Phyrexians were going to take it over. So there actually were seeds planted in Mirrodin. So seven years later, the plan was to come back and the Phyrexians were going to take it over. So there actually were seeds planted

in Mirrodin. So seven years later, the fact that we came back and then followed off on that, that is long-range planning. That always excites me when we do stuff like that. Anyway, so I was really interested in the design of trying to capture the Phyrexians,

because I said, oh, well, the real cool thing about New Phyrexia is the Phyrexians are back. For those who don't know, the Phyrexians were major, major villains in early Part of Magic. They were part of the Brothers' War. They were part of the Weatherlight Saga. At the end of the Weatherlight Saga, they were destroyed. But, like, all good villains, the end, question mark. Also also when you can recreate off a drop of oil, it's, it's, it's tough to wipe out your race. Um, anyway, um, but as we worked on it, we found that we were having problems. That the big reveal is not something that we do all particularly well. Um, we kind of have environments and we show you things.

And it's not like in a movie where there's a moment where we have a reveal. It's hard to do that. Um, and then we also realized that we were kind of skipping over a pretty cool story, which is, how exactly did the Phyrexians take over Myrden? That seems like an interesting story. So what we decided to do was we rolled back the Phyrexians taking over. In fact, we came up with an interesting idea. I was talking with Bill about how I wanted to see the Phyrexians and Myrins have a fight.

And then we talked about the idea that maybe the audience doesn't know what happens. And Bill made a really cool suggestion, which is, well, what if we didn't tell them the name of the third set? What if there were two possible names, and the outcome of the war dictated what it was going to be? So it was either going to be New Phyrexia or be Myrden Pure. Either the Phyrexians take over and turn into New Phyrexia, or Myrden manages

to hold off the Phyrexian invasion and it becomes Myrden Pure. And so we did a big thing. People didn't know until pretty close before the set came out which it was going to be. We mocked up, we had key art for both and packaging for both, and we really had fun with it. So the block plan became one of trying to tell the story. And the

story was, we meet the bad guy, the Phraxians, realize that they, you know, we come back to Mirrodin. The first set is kind of like, oh, do you see what's going on? The Phraxians are here, but the Mirrodins haven't figured it out yet. And the second set is, oh, they figured it out, we're at war. And the third set was outcome of the war. Very clean. And one of the things that I was trying to do was, I really wanted the players, when playing the game, to get a feel of the Phyrexians. And this is how we get into Fifth Age of Design. Or the age or stage. I think I go back and forth. So the idea was, one of the things that's important to me,

I made this realization, I've talked about this in one of my podcasts, which is that what are we trying to do as game designers? We are trying to make a fun experience. We want you to come. We want you to mentally challenge yourselves. We want you to enjoy yourselves. want you to mentally challenge yourselves. We want you to enjoy yourselves. We want emotional highs and lows. We want to make an experience that's fun,

overall fun for you. Well, fun, interestingly, is an emotional response. Yet a lot of times we talk about sets intellectually, like how will people think about them. And it dawned on me that, well, we want people to think positively about them, but more than just think about them, we want them to feel a certain way. And so one of the things

I got very into, and I still am, obviously, is this idea of when you're designing, what emotion are you evoking out of your audience? And so, like, okay, we were going to meet the Phyrexians again. We were reintroducing the Phyrexians as a villain. My favorite villains of Magic History. And the Phyrexians are supposed to be intimidating.

They're supposed to be scary. You know, they come and they infect whatever they're doing and they turn everybody into them and it's scary. Like, if you know the Phyrexians invaded your world, it's bad times. And not only is it bad times, not only is your world probably going to fall to the Phyrexians, but you, you

personally are going to fall to the Phyrexians. You are going to become them. This horrible, horrible thing that you're, that you are so scared of is going to become you. And that's pretty, that's extra scary. You know, that's, that, that's horror movie scary. That's pretty scary. And they make a good villain because of that. So I was trying to capture that. And so my team spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what the feel of that was. And so anyway, when doing the block plan, I really was trying to evoke the sense of each side, you know. And the Mirrens, because they were defending their home world, they had a certain feel. We had met the Mirrens before. I was trying to make sure we maintained enough of the feel from, from Mirrodin.

Um, and so it was kind of like, um, one side of the conflict was Mirrodin as we knew it, with a few tweaks, but Mirrod in as we knew it, and the other side was the Phyrexians. On some level, I was very successful. One might say a little too successful. I made them very creepy and scary, and people were like, they're creepy and scary. But, like I said, the biggest thing about Fifth Age of Design is that the design itself is part of the storytelling vehicle. And if you look at the block design, we're not just doing mechanical stuff. Like Zendikar, if you look at Zendikar, a lot of the block plan was more about getting across his land theme.

Now, Mirrodin had an artifact theme, and it definitely had an artifact component, but the artifact-ness was not, it wasn't like, here's an artifact matter block, which was what Mirrodin was. It was, here's a story, we're telling the story, the components of the design are helping convey the story. But it wasn't about the mechanics, it was about the overall look and feel and tone,

and we were trying to tell a story, and the mechanics were seen as a component to tell that story, to create that feeling, to evoke that emotion. And that really is how we started getting into fifth-age design, is that I wasn't just trying to build a mechanical shell that creative could then layer something on top of. I was trying to make the mechanics a component part of the story, that if you play the game of Scars of Mirrodin, you play it, that you have a sense,

you could feel what it's like to be the Phyrexians or be the Mirrodins. That we are really evoking through gameplay story. And that is something that was pretty much, with the Fifth Age design, something that really came to the forefront. And the interesting thing about that was, a lot of times the conflict comes in at the end. It's like build up, build up, conflict. We actually put the conflict in the middle of this block plan, and then there's an outcome,

which was very interesting. The idea where the conflict was done so that the third set could be the resolution. One of the things Magic has not done traditionally well, and we're working on it, is our resolutions are like, and what happened? The Odrazi rise from the ground, and

what happened? You know, like, and, uh, and a lot of our conflicts come at the end, like, well, what exactly happened at the end of the conflict, you know? And the thing I like a lot about Scars of Mirrodin is you know what happens. There was a conflict. Who won?

99% of the player base who was playing at the time couldn't tell you who won that fight, you know what happens. There was a conflict. Who won? 99% of the player base who was playing at the time couldn't tell you who won that fight. You know, and also the idea of having the war and the first time

we really did an experience where you could pick the side you were rooting for and play with it at the pre-release. Anyway, so that was Scars of Mirrodin. Next we get to Innistrad.

So Innistrad was another set, much like Zendikar, where originally the plan was we were going to do two blocks set in one world, and a third block set in a completely different world. Maybe you can see the two-block paradigm slowly trying to keep its way in, although we kept holding it up for a little while. And mostly the reason I think it kept happening is the creative team at the time was not staffed up to do two worlds a year.

They have been staffed up. And so it was easier for them to twist the world in a way where they did some work, but not as much work as building an entire new world. So what happened was originally, for those that listen to my Innistrad podcast, Innistrad, the horror world, was going to be the third single large set

set in its own place. So Innistrad was going to be the third set, what ended up being Abyssinian Restored. And the first two sets were going to be something else. We never made it. It was the brainchild of Brian Tinsman. I don't remember going into it, but maybe one day. But anyway,

what ended up happening is Innistrad got switched because there's a decision of, oh, it's weird to do Horde. Why don't we do Horde or Halloween? And so they switched it, and then they decided that Innistrad would have two sets, and the other set would have one set. And then we realized, oh, wait a minute, let's stay on the world.

And the idea of Avacyn getting released would change the world. And so we ended up playing into that. The real, the block plan of this one, very much, once we figured out that we were staying where we were going, was about the plight of the humans. What I did in the first set was that I created, one of the things is I'm a very big person, I'm a big believer in synergy, in balance, in the aesthetics, and that sometimes the reason it's so important is

when you break it, it's very potent. And so one of the things I did in Innistrad was I weighted things such that white got disconnected. There were cycles that white wasn't part of. And the idea wasn't that white was fighting any one thing. It was fighting everything. And so the idea of the block of Innistrad was the plight of the humans. And so essentially the story was humans in trouble, humans in more trouble, humans saved.

I don't know if I mentioned this before. I had a writing teacher that the way they explain story is act one, get your protagonist, get your hero off the tree. Act two, throw rocks at him. Act three, get him out of the tree. And humans were our protagonist here, so they start in trouble, they get in more trouble,

they find their way out. And Innistrad also, like I said, once again, we're in the fifth age of design, I was trying to evoke something. So the thing that Innistrad also, like I said, once again, we're in the fifth age of design. I was trying to evoke something. So the thing that Innistrad was very much trying to do is evoke the feel of a horror film. That I wanted all the different monster types to feel like the monster types.

I wanted zombies to act like zombies and vampires act like vampires and werewolves act like werewolves. I wanted the play to have a sense of tension to it and suspense and dread. But anyway, very much the block plan of Innistrad was we are trying to capture Greek, not Greek, Gothic horror. I wanted the entire structure of the set and the story to match that feeling. And I wanted the play to match that feeling. So you can see I started shifting

away. So the block plan for Innistrad was very much capture the look and feel of horror and that I was trying to, through the design, reinforce that sense. And that's where the block plan came from is how do we play up the sense of the dread that I needed from horror. And right, I needed somebody of the dread that I needed from horror? And right, I needed somebody in plight, and I needed monsters, and all of that got built in, and it got part of it. Okay, next, Return to Ravnica. So the interesting thing about Return to Ravnica is I think there are a lot of pieces going on,

and we fell back a little bit. One of the things that I always say is that Return to Ravnica was kind of designed, fourth-age design, in a fifth-age world. It was very beloved. We messed around with the structure of it, meaning instead of 4-4-3, we did 5-5-10. We did a lot of innovative things

with the overall mechanics and the structure of the set. But if you notice, we didn't really play up emotion. There's no emotional response coming out of this set. Return of Ravnica, I mean, each individual guild

had a certain feel to it. But one of the things I look back, and like I said, it was very popular, just it was not, the one of the things I look back, and like I said, it was very popular, uh, just, it was not, the one thing I, that I structurally would have liked to do is, there was nothing tying, tying all the guilds together. All the guilds existed, and they had a relationship to one another, but there was no through line that, like, having one thing that all the guilds were, were interacting with in different

ways to sort of show overall context. Anyway. Like I said, the block structure this way was very structural, which is very different than a lot of stuff around it. You know, the 5-5-10 of making something where you draft these five and now you have a chance to explore these guilds.

Now draft these five, you explore these guilds. Now bring them all together and then make a third set that allows you to combine them that gives you a little bit of everything. In fact, I like a lot the general structure. I like the idea of here's five guilds, draft them. Here's the other five guilds, draft them. It gave every guild a chance to shine in the sun.

It gave every guild a chance to be drafted. One of the problems with the original Ravnica is the first four guilds that were in Ravnica, so Boros, Golgari, Dimir, and Selesnya, you could draft those. But as soon as we started mixing the things, the mix of the cards, you just never

had a chance to just draft Orzhov or just draft Azorius. You always had to have a third color pretty much in the way the draft worked. And the nice thing about this block is, whatever your guild was, there was a moment it had in the sun where you could draft that guild. Now, that didn't mean you can't draft three-color stuff, and there was other shenanigans going on, but it gave every guild the true chance in draft to allow people to play it, which I liked a lot.

And like I said, the guilds were so popular that a lot of what was going on was, when you go back, one of the things about returning to a world is, you have to figure out what was the popular thing, why did people like it the time before, and say, what part must I bring back, what part don't I have to bring back. And some of it is exact,

sometimes it's specifically bring certain things back. I mean, in Ravnica, we made sure to bring back hybrid and split cards. But other things, like the individual mechanics changed. That all the guilds got new mechanics. So, though, the feel of the guild stayed the same.

And so a lot of that black plan was just making sure we keep that. Next! Theros. Okay, so Theros, we were trying top-down again. So Theros, by the time we started it, very much was about, okay, much like we took Gothic horror, could we use the same treatment with Greek mythology? Could we get a look and feel out of Greek mythology? Could we get a look and feel out of Greek mythology? Could we get a set? So the thing that was tricky about Theros

was it was a three-set block, a traditional large, small, small, three-set block. And if you look back a little bit, return to Ravnica, that wasn't a normal block. Yeah, Innistrad, nope, that wasn't a large, small, small block. Skarsgård and Myrddin, well, we made New Phyrexia a little bigger than normal. So it was the closest, but even that wasn't quite a traditional large, small, small.

Okay, before that, Zendikar, that wasn't large, small, small. Get back to Shard of the Lara. The last time we did large, small, small, and that had a major gimmick in the third set. All gold, that's a major gimmick, you know. And so the last time we did something that didn't have this major gimmick in the third set. All gold, that's a major gimmick. You know? And so the last time we did something that didn't have this major gimmick in the third set was what? Back to Time Spiral, which is a crazy... I mean, that was crazy.

We were doing something in which we had to make sense of something that we really hadn't done in a long, long time. And I think, by the way, if you're talking about how we got to the two-block paradigm, how we decided to just get rid of the third set I think Pharos

was the nail in the coffin because we went back and said okay we haven't done this for a while we've learned so much we have all this new technology

let's make a third set work and the answer was it's still really really hard and basically what I said in my standard design was I think we made

the third set working by taking stuff from the second set and what ended up happening was I think the third set was pretty successful, but at the sake of the second set not being as exciting as it could have been.

And that's one way to go about it. We'll make our third set better by making our second set a little worse. But the real lesson there is, you know how you don't have a third set problem? Don't have a third set. But anyway, Theros was an interesting challenge. I was trying really hard to both evoke the sense of Greek mythology and build something

that allowed us to get to the third set where the third set met something. So the black plan behind Theros was the idea of, can I hold back a component that will completely change how you look at everything? Because what I wanted was you played for the first set, you played with the second set, which mostly just added new things, but it wasn't changing the scope of how you looked at it. And the third set came out, and man, it changed everything. That was what I was trying for. And I knew that people wanted Enchantment Matters, and I knew that once Enchantment Matters is in the mix, all of a sudden you can start making enchantment-heavy decks.

Before that's true, eh, there's not a reason to do it. And so what we did was we said, okay, we'll put a lot of things that have enchantments in it so that early on, look, you can play enchantments, and enchantments are important. But then the Thursday comes out, and all of a sudden we're like, okay, you wanted to just play enchantments, now you can. And we opened up a whole new option for how people could play with their cards now on paper, on paper, on paper

it sounded awesome it's one of those things, one of the problems I found was I picked a little something a little too important we had never really done enchantment matters, I mean we'd done it a little bit in Urza Saga but no one actually considers that other than me an enchantment block. I mean, we've done it a little bit in Urza Saga, but no one actually considers that other than me, an enchantment block. And so people really had expectations for

the first time we do a blink matters that there's a certain amount of cards that just make them matter. And I knew they wanted that. I knew it was something people wanted. So I withheld them because I was trying so hard for the block to really give an identity to the third set, which I did, and on some level I was successful. I made the third set more popular than normal, as well as the entire design team of Journey to Nyx, so Ethan Fleischer being the lead designer. But it came at a cost, and the block didn't quite play out exactly the way I was hoping.

There's a few other things going on there. The other big thing is, if you look at, like, devotion, how I was trying to use the mechanics to tell a story. Look, they're very devoted. Things are going a little weird. Uh-oh, the people are losing faith in their gods. There's stuff like that. I am happy that I managed to convey the sense of accomplishment and achievement

I wanted from Greek mythology and that all the different strategies were building up and starting small but building to a giant hero or monster or a god that had that sense to it. And so Pharaoh's Block really much... I had lofty goals when I set out to do the block plan. I think I accomplished a decent amount of it

but definitely something where everything didn't quite play out to do the block plan. I think I accomplished a decent amount of it, but definitely something where everything didn't quite play out as much as I hoped. Finally, we get the cons of Tarkir. So, interestingly, so I've explained this, but let me answer a question that people keep asking me, is

okay, I said we're going to start with a crazy block draft. People are like, why? Why that? And the answer was, I knew, we're going to start with a crazy block draft. People were like, why? Why that? And the answer was, I knew that it would create a structure that would require us to answer a question, which is, why is this this way? Why does it do this? And I knew that those questions would lead us down a nice path because it would force us. I always talk about restrictions for creativity.

And what I like to do as a designer is I like to put restrictions on myself. I like to say, here's some restrictions that are cool that I've never had before. And I know when I have restrictions that are new that I've never had before, it'll force me to find answers I've never had before. It'll force me in places I've never gone before. And I thought this block structure was a neat block structure. And also, on some level,

I could read the writing on the wall. I knew that the three set blocks were looking like they might be on their way out. And so, I think on some level, I knew it was a chance to do this. Now, I don't know if I consciously knew it, because

at the time I made it, that wasn't a known thing yet but I like to think in the back of my head that I kind of knew that this was my last chance so at least that's what I want to believe and what it did was the structure said okay you have to make sense of why the first set goes with the second set

and the third set goes with the second set but the first set doesn't go with the third set it also meant that in order to the draft strategy said the second set had to the second set, but the first set doesn't go with the third set. It also meant that in order to, the draft strategy said the second set had to do something very unique, which is it had to mean one thing with the first set and a different thing with the second set. But the cards don't get to change, you know. And one of the reasons I put Ken Nagel on, who's my most, after me, my most seasoned designer, is that was a challenge. Trying to make a set in which it both means something to the first set,

but it means something different to the second set. I mean, I don't want to get too into that because we're not there yet, but there's little hints of things to come. But anyway, this blog plan was let's make sense of this. And I got the Explorator Design team. I got Sean and Ethan. Basically what happened was they had just won the GDS. Ethan won.

Sean came in second. We'd hired them. We had them for six months and we had to judge them to figure out whether we wanted to keep them on. That's basically how all internships at R&D

basically are. You have six months. Show us what you can do. And then at the end of six months we're like, oh, did this work out? Do we want to hire this person full time?

And so what happened was I really wanted to put Ethan and Sean through the paces. We were looking for more vision, world-building kind of skills. And so I said, okay. We had a year before the design started, so we had plenty of time. And I'm like, okay. Let's experiment. Here are my

goals. Here's what we need. First set and second set go together. Third set and second set go together. First and third set don't go together. How do you make that work? And they came up with all sorts of different ideas. There were a lot of different ideas. You know, A and C were different places and B was a means to get from A to C.

So, you know, B was the boat between two continents or something. Or, you know, something in which it explained why B had a relationship with A and a relationship with C, but A and C didn't ever get together. We came up with all sorts of different ideas. But in the end, I think Ethan came up with this, is the idea of a time travel story.

Now, I'm not at liberty. Even though the set has come out, we're early enough in the block, even though I'm doing this way ahead of time. I can't explain quite the details of it, but I can explain this. We came up with a time travel story that explained the nature of

the block, and then we used that as the template for how to make the block work. So the point is, the draft structure was just a beginning to get me to a structure that I liked, and then that structure dictated how everything was designed. So, and like I said, this one's a little tricky to talk about since you guys don't know all the pieces. But very much, I mean, the part I can say is in order to make our story work, we needed a world in turmoil.

We needed a world where the main character got to come to it, or in this case, come back to it, and say, wow, this is pretty messed up. This is a messed up world. And the thing that we needed to do was we created factions. We very much knew we wanted

to sort of play up the warlords. And there's a lot of stuff we did that you will see when the whole block comes out. In some level, I mean, Constance Arcade is probably the most structured block I've ever done. Or at least at the time, it was the most structured block I've ever done. Or at least at the time it was the most structured block I've ever done.

I mean, there's a lot of nuance. I will do a podcast after everything is out where I can walk you through and talk exactly the actual things we did. I know this is a little frustrating when I'm talking in vague terms because you guys don't know enough for me to explain everything. But the nature of this block plan was have an impetus that creates a question, answer the question, with that answer created the structure I needed to build my set around, my block around, and that's what we built it around. Okay, so now we get to recap.

I'm close to work. So, Scars of Mirrodin, the evolution of Scars of Mirrodin was really the fifth age of design, was the idea of invoking the emotion into the design. That's really what Scars of Mirrodin was really the fifth age of design, was the idea of invoking the emotion into the design. That's really what Scars did. It also was the first set that really, really was telling the story through gameplay

in a way a little more concrete than we had been. You were watching the Phyrexians invade. Well, you were being the Phyrexians invading. You were watching the Mirrodins defend themselves. You were the Mirrodins defending yourself. You really got that sense and that feel. Innistrad came along. Innistrad was us reclaiming top-down.

We tried to do it with Kamigawa, Champs Kamigawa Block. And there were some successes. I know my blog loves talking about how awesome Kamigawa was. There were a lot of failures, but there were some successes. But I feel like this was us saying, okay, okay, let's try this again. Let's just see if we can do top-down correctly. And I feel like what Innistrad did is Innistrad just blew the roof off the hinges.

Innistrad's like, no, no, no, we can do this. And Innistrad, in my mind, Innistrad's probably the best design I've done. Well, Kahn's pretty good, too. But anyway, but Innistrad was definitely something where it really showed us what we could do with top-down design

and how we could incorporate it such that the gameplay itself was part of that feel. That what the things were got seeped all the way down through gameplay itself. That the act of gameplay made you feel like people in a horror movie. Whether you're playing the monsters or playing the victims, you've got to feel what the people in the horror movie felt. Okay, next is Return to Ravnica.

That's a good example of us learning about structure and about how block plan, there's a lot you can do with structure. While there's things I would have liked to do with that block, I'm not unhappy with all the stuff we learned about structure. And it really was, on some level, Scars of Mirrodin, while it was us returning to Mirrodin, was really, I mean, while technically we were,

was not us recreating Mirrodin. Where Ravnica was, we were going back to the same world we were before. We weren't radically changing the world. No one was invading it. It was the world as you knew it. And the chance to sort of reinvent yourself when you're going back to the same place was interesting, and a lot of the structural things

we did. We also cleaned a lot of things up. Theros, like I said, was us trying to prove that Innistrad wasn't a fluke. I feel that we did a pretty good job of the top-down design part, some of the structural block things. I mean, I was trying to salvage large, small, small.

In the end, the funny thing is, I think the lessons in the end of Theros was get rid of large, small, small, not redeem it. I mean, we sort of like, in trying to redeem it,

I figured out that it didn't, it wasn't, we finally saw the flaws and figured out we needed to change it. Khan to Tarkir, finally saw the flaws and figured out we needed to change it. Condit Arc here, that's tricky. Condit Arc here is me learning about archetypes

and stories and how to use archetypes as a tool of design. Not really a topic for this podcast because, well, mostly because I can't talk about most of the details. But I will. I will talk about most of the details. But I will. I will talk about that in the future. But anyway, so Skarsgård, Mirrod, Indus,

Ravnir, Theros, and Constantarkir were the second five blocks. And so last time I talked about Ravnir, Time Spiral, Lorwyn, Shadamore, Shardzalora, and Zendikar. So in two podcasts, I walked through all ten of my three set block plans. Hopefully, I hope that you enjoyed these two podcasts and you got a sense of sort of

all the different things that go into actually making the block plan itself. I talk all the time about set design, but this is about block design, which is a different animal. But, I have now parked my car, which means it's time for me to be making magic and an end to my drive to work. Thank you guys for joining me. Talk to you next time.