Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #285 - Lessons Learned: Gatecrash

Episode Date: December 4, 2015

Mark looks back as the co-lead of Dark Ascension (with Mark Gottlieb) and shares what he learned from it.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And man, I dropped my son off at school today. He had a doctor's appointment. Okay, so for today, I'm going to do another in my series called Lessons Learned. So this is a series I started long ago, where I started talking about sets that I led, and what I learned about them, what I learned having done the set. And so, originally I was just running through sets really quickly and I finally realized that I actually learned quite a bit from every set that I've done and so I've slowed it down a little bit. So today we're going to be talking about one

set rather than many, many sets. So the one set we're talking about today is Gatecrash because the last time I did this I talked about Innistrad and Dark Ascension. So I'm up to the next set that I led, Gatecrash. So Gatecrash is interesting for starters. First off, it's the first time I ever co-led a set. So let me explain what that means. So I had done Dark Ascension, and then I was planning, for the first time, normally I do the fall sets, or for a long time I was doing the fall sets.

But Ken Nagel had done a really good job and I felt it was time for Ken to try his hand at a large set and so I gave him Return to Ravnica I thought that was a really good first set for him to do, first large set because it had some structure that came with it so it wasn't starting from scratch

so I felt like it was a good starter large set to begin with. So what happened was, because I gave him Return to Ravnica, I ended up leading not just Innistrad, but also Dark Ascension. And then, the plan was, I was going to lead Gatecrash,

but it turned out that Theros, which was the fall set a year after Return to Ravnica, I couldn't lead Gatecrash and lead Theros. And so the fall set a year after Return of Ravnica, I couldn't leave Gatecrash and leave Theros. And so the solution we came up with is that I would start Gatecrash, that I would do the first half of the design, and then I would hand the reins over to Mark Gottlieb. And the reason that seemed like a good compromise was, A, I wouldn't be able to do the whole design because I was going to be going to Theros, and second is, Mark Gottlieb at the time

had never done a large set. So we thought it was a good way to do a first large set, which is, the idea was, Mark and I were in the design the entire time. Just the first six months, I would be leading the meetings, and the second six months, Mark would be leading the meetings.

And so what we did is, I gave Gottlieb what we call control of the file, which meant he was in charge of doing all the inputs, watching sort of what happened with the meetings. And so what we did is I gave Gottlieb what we call control of the file, which meant he was in charge of doing all the inputs, watching sort of what happened with the file. For the first six months, I was more leading the meetings and making decisions, although we were co-leads, so I was always consulting with Mark, and we'd talk about things, and we'd sort of make decisions together. But the idea was I was sort of leading the beginning part,

and he was leading the second part. For those that know how we do design, we break design into three parts, what we call vision, integration, and refinement. So essentially, the vision is the first half of the design, so I was leading the vision part. And then basically, as we were coming out of vision, then Gottlieb did integration and refinement. Okay, so the question is, what did I learn from leading Gatecrash? So, not only was it the first co-lead I did, it also was my second return. I'd done, I mean, one could argue that I did some set in Dominaria that were return in Dominaria. Did I actually?

Now they say that aloud. I did Scars of Mirrodin, which was a return to Mirrodin. And so Gatecrash was my second time returning to something. So the interesting thing was, original Ravnica, I had led the first set of Ravnica. And so I had done four of the ten guilds. So original Ravnica, I had done Selesnya, Golgari, Dimir, and Boros. So for Gatecrash, for those who remember,

the original Ravnica was set as a 4-3-3 block structure, which meant that there were four guilds in the first large set, three guilds in the second small set, three guilds in the third small set. So it's large, small, small, 4-3-3. For Gatecrash, what we it's large, small, small, 4, 3, 3. For Gatecrash, what we did was large, large, small, 5, 5, 10. So the idea was five of the guilds

were in the first set, five of the guilds were in the second set, and then all the guilds got a little bit in the third set. Third set, Lessons Learned from Dragon Maze is a completely different thing. I didn't leave that set, but Learned Playing from that set is 12.

But we're doing Gatecrash today. So I'm just trying to set up all the parameters of what we were doing, and then I'll talk about Lessons Learned. So what we had decided was 5-5-10 meant large set with five, drafted by itself. Second, large set with five, drafted by itself. Third set, the whole block is drafted. So originally it was Return to Ravnica, Return to Ravnica, the whole block is drafted. You're drafting... So, originally it was

Return to Ravnica, Return to Ravnica, Return to Ravnica. Then when Gatecrash came out, it was Gatecrash, Gatecrash, Gatecrash. And then Dragon Maze came out, it was...

Did we go backwards back then? I don't remember whether we had reversed it yet, but Dragon Maze... I think... I'm not sure if we had switched them yet at that point.

But anyway, we drafted all three, one of each. Return of Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze. So what that meant for Gatecrash was a couple things, was I first had to make a set that can play by itself, I had to make a set that just allowed you to draft the five guilds that were in my thing, oh, and real quickly, So the five guilds of Gatecrash, if I can remember this correctly, was Simic, was Boros, was Dimir,

was... Gruul, and was... What was it? Not Azorius. Not Rakdos. Not Izzet. Not Golgari. What was the fourth or the fifth one?

So, top of my head here. Well, Simic had Evolve, and Boros had Battalion, and Dimir had Cypher. Oh, it's Selesnya, because Selesnya had Populate. Okay, so anyway, interestingly,

I had done some of the guilds when I had done, because Selesnya I had done in original Ravnica, Dimir I had done in original Ravnica, and Boros I had done. So actually three of the ones I had done in original Ravnica. Golgari was one that I had done before that I didn't do again.

But for the first time, I had Gruul, and I had Cynic. So Cynic's awful. Lots of fun. Anyway, so the challenge of the Gatecrash design was that we had to play by ourselves nicely, but we also had to play nicely when all three sets were put together. So we had to not just have themes from ourselves, we had to tie into the themes before and after us. Because I didn't know what was coming after us,

I mostly was tying into the themes before us, knowing that together they would combine an environment that then Dragon Maze could add on to. So what were the lessons learned of Gatecrash? For starters, I learned that the dual... Dragon Maze could add on to. So what were the lessons learned of Gatecrash? For starters, I learned that the dual design was actually a very useful tool. One of the things that's really hard is when you're learning how to do sets, the way it works is the first thing you do is you're doing individual card design.

You're just designing individual cards. And then eventually, usually you're doing whole filling or something. Then eventually you get like on a mini team and then you start doing larger contextual things. Then you get on a design team, which one maybe you're doing mechanics. And then eventually you get put on a small set. So the step between small stuff, the next thing is a big set. But the problem is it's a big difference. A small set means that a large set has but the problem is it's a big difference. A small set means that a large set has come before you. It has established things. It's defined things.

It's made mechanics. It's set tone. It's set world. That a small set has a lot of, I mean, not that small sets are difficult and not that small sets don't have to find their own thing. And I mean, small sets are still a challenge, but small sets have the huge advantage of having the big set before them define a lot of what you need to do. A lot of the role of a small set is to fine-tune and evolve things that happen in the big set. So there's a big difference between doing a small set and a big set. And one of my problems early on is I would give people large sets for the first time, and they would just feel overwhelmed.

That it is such a differential from going. And then the other thing is, remember, we started to do advanced planning with Khans of Tarkir. So we hadn't even got to advanced planning yet. So doing a large set back then was even more daunting. Although it got a little bit, with exploratory design, it's gotten a little bit easier, but it's still very hard. So what we learned is one of the ways to sort of bridge from doing a small set to doing a large set solo is to do what we call a co-lead, where the way it works is I work with them, where the way it works is I work with them,

and I do the vision work, and I'm working with them. It's not as if they're not involved. They're very involved. And obviously, they're in all the meetings, and as I make decisions, I'm talking with them. Usually what we do is we have a one-on-one meeting so that I and my co-lead can meet once a week and talk about how things are going. And then the idea is once we get the vision halfway through,

I hand over the reins. And then I'm still in the meetings, and I still am one-on-one to sort of talk through things, but I'm now letting them make more key decisions. And that's a good way we've learned to sort of ease your way into doing a large set. And so lesson number one of Gatecrash was a very good tool, such a good tool that upcoming Lock I co-led

with Sean, Barrel I co-led with Ethan, and Ham I co-led with Ken. So we've been doing more of that as just a means to sort of work with the designers to help them on doing large sets. Large sets are really, really, really hard. There is... One of the things that I try to describe to people is that when you're starting from scratch, when you sort of have to build from the ground up, it's just a lot more challenging than when you're building off something already known.

And it's one of the reasons that when we do the co-leads, I do a lot of infrastructure building to start with because that is... for some reason, I've talked about this before, the blank page for most people is paralyzing. You know, you have nothing. You must make something. And it is very scary.

I had a podcast on that, two podcasts on this. So anyway, that was my first big takeaway from Gatecrash. It also was, the thing I learned about having a co-lead, which was nice, is it is nice to be able to talk through things with somebody else and have a sounding board. I mean, it's one thing when you have a design team and you get to use them somewhat like a sounding board, but having a co-lead with one other person, the two of you are making decisions, was really interesting. I found that to be a great teaching opportunity. One of my goals as head designer is,

like I said, I'm 20 years in. I've designed a lot of magic sets. I've designed over 20 magic sets. And so one of my goals is to try to help tech. So the way it works right now is we have a team, and the manager of the team is Gottlieb, and I'm like the technical advisor. So like the design team, there is a manager that manages the time and processes,

and someone who is looking out for them and making sure their hours are... A manager. But my job is to oversee their technical skill. Are they improving as a designer? Do they know where their strengths and weaknesses lie so they can work on fine-tuning their strengths and improving on their weaknesses? And part of that is

the more closely I get to work with them, one of the things I've discovered is having a chance to do a design, a co-design, has really taught me a lot about what a lot of my senior designers are capable of. Because I can see up close and personal as we're making changes and

we can bounce off ideas. And it gives me a really good idea and it's a really good teaching tool. So, first and foremost, I think Gatecrash, ironically, one of the big lessons had nothing to do with the set itself, but it had to do with the larger process, which is I need to teach people how to make magic. That's one of my roles as a head designer, is I want to keep helping my designers get better. And so this has proved to be a valuable tool.

Okay, now let's get on to the actual design lessons. I mean, these lessons aren't important, but let's talk about the actual sort of what I learned design-wise. Okay, so Gatecrash was a return set. So for starters, we were doing something where we were building off the guilds. And what that meant was, the guilds are very defined. So one of the interesting things about

doing Gatecrash design was, when I was designing for Ravnica, we were sort of discovering what they meant. You know, what exactly is Selesneo? What is Boros? What is Dimir? Those were things I had to figure out first time around. And I was working with a creative team, and between us, we had a general good sense of what we wanted,

but still trying to define them mechanically. I mean, we had a good philosophical sense, but what mechanically did they mean exactly? philosophical sense, but what mechanically do they mean exactly? So one of the goals that we had coming into this design was, I said, I wanted you to capture the feel of the guild mechanically, but it had to be something that both felt new. I didn't want to just repeat what we did before, but I wanted to feel familiar. And so the goal was, if you took all the cards with that watermark, that guild, and mixed them together, so if I'm doing Selesnya, and I took all the old Selesnya cards and all the new Selesnya cards, and I mixed them together, that it would feel cohesive.

So the idea was, I wanted it to be different enough that it felt like its own mechanic, but cohesive enough that when you mix together with cards from the last time, that the guild still felt the same. So one of the big things I learned there, which is interesting, is often I'm charting new territory. Often I'm going off and I'm, okay, let's carve out this brand new space we've never done before. And this, I was fine-tuning known space,

which was very interesting. And one of the reasons it's so interesting is magic has a finite amount of design space in it. Now, it's not a tiny amount of space. I think magic is going to outlive me. But it is not an endless amount of space. And when I say that is, are there an infinite number of designs?

There is in a purely hypothetical sense, but not in a practical sense. And the reason I say that is, deal one, deal two, deal three. I can keep dealing amounts of damage until I get to as high a number as I want. Now, those are uniquely different cards. You know, deal 1,422,384 is technically different than deal 2,522,386. But for all practical purposes, those are the same card. And there's also a lot of elegance you worry about, which is I can keep adding words to make cards. So at some point I run out of space for the words. And at some point the card is just too complicated to be a viable card. So although there's a lot of potential things we can do, there's a finite number of

realistic things we can do. And so one of the important lessons of Gatecrash was having a chance to explore in known space to go, can we deliver something new within a space that is old? Meaning when I was designing the guilds, I had to stay true to what the guilds were. I couldn't redefine the guilds. But could I find new space within that? And the answer was yes. Yes, I could.

You know, I feel, for example, we'll take Simic as an example. Evolve is a very different mechanic than Graft. Now, do they play nicely together? Yeah, there's some synergy. There's cards that care about getting bigger, and both mechanics can help make things bigger. So there's a way to combine, you know, there are cards that

overlap those different effects that you'd put in the same deck. But, they're different. They both have the same feel, but they're different. The same level takes Selesnya, which is Populate and Convoke. They play in a similar kind of deck. They're really different mechanics. They do different things. But you know what? You

might want to put convoke with propagate. I mean, the mechanics actually can work well together. So that was, and so one of the things I walked away is realizing that this is a space that we have to be more comfortable working in. This is something that Magic is going to have to do. And another thing is, I think one of the things that we've gone from a period where we're just constantly exploring new things to a period in which, ah, about half the time we're going to go back to old things. We've built all these exciting worlds and we've built all these cool mechanics. We're not just abandoning them. we've built all these exciting worlds and we've built all these cool mechanics

we're not just abandoning them if we visit something that's cool you know what, we can come back to it there's no reason worlds aren't disposable and what that means is the more we're going back to worlds the more I have to learn

how to work in that space which is a very different space and gatecraft, like I said, I've done it first in Scars of Mirrodin. Although Scars of Mirrodin, it's interesting. Scars of Mirrodin did something a little different from Gatecrash. Scars of Mirrodin said, we're back, but there's a radically different thing going on, which was the Phryxian invasion.

So the dynamic of Mirrodin and Scars of Mirrodin were very different. Not that there's not a decent amount of overlap. 80% of the cards in Scars of Mirrodin were Mirrodin cards essentially, but there was a very different feel to it because there was something different going on. With Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash, we were trying something a bit different where there was a

story, but it was much more business as usual. Now, one of the things that happened was, because I didn't lead the fall set, and I led the winter set, Gatecrash, I wasn't sort of leading

the block as much as I normally do. And, one of my big takeaways from the experience is, I wish Return of Ravnica, so I talk about the different stages of design. At the time we were doing that set, we were in what we call the fifth age of design, and Return of Ravnica, so I talk about the different stages of design. At the time we were doing that set, we were in what we call the fifth age of design. And Return of Ravnica got a lot designed like a fourth age of design set.

Because the original Ravnica was fourth age. And a lot of what we did in Return of Ravnica was kind of repeat what we had done in Ravnica. Now, we found new things. We were different. We did change the structure a little bit. But we didn't really take the guild concept and advance it any. That's my one regret. And the funny thing is during Gatecrash, I figured out how to do it.

But it was too late. Ravnica was too far along. I'm not going to tell you exactly how I did it. Only because one day I have faith that we'll go back to Ravnica again. And I don't know necessarily this is how we're going to do it, but I want to at least save it so that I have a tool

that I might be able to use if I need it. But one of the big lessons to take away, and this is not just Gatecrash, it's sort of Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash, but I learned it during Gatecrash, so I'll count it then, is we need to get better in understanding how to return to worlds

such that it is not enough to just repeat the experience from the first time I want a component of that I want you to go, oh, it is this thing, but I want to advance what we're doing. I feel like Scars of Mirrodin did that, I feel like Battle for Zendikar

did that I feel, I mean it's important to me that when you return someplace, that you bring, like, there's the old and the new. And I want to make sure that you have enough of the old there. And I was happy with Gatecrash

in that we were able to do enough things that we had guild mages and hybrid mana and split cards, although I guess we saved the split cards for Dragon's Maze, although the block had them. I felt like there was a lot of familiar

returning things and there's a lot of flavor obviously that returned, but that we were able to add a twist. I wish the structure went to 5-5-10, but I wish we had done

something a little more than just change around the basic structure of the block. I wish we had sort of taken the level of the guilds and done something with it. We advanced it a little bit. I regret that. Also, let's walk through the mechanics real fast.

I like Evolve a lot. Both Evolve and Battalion. Evolve was Ethan's mechanic from Great Designer's Search 2. Ethan Fleischer. And Battalion. Evolve was Ethan's mechanic from Great Designer Search 2, Ethan Fleischer, and Battalion was Sean Main, also from Great Designer Search 2. So those two mechanics, I liked them in Great Designer Search. I was aware they existed. As soon as I was getting Gatecrash, I realized that one perfectly fit Battalion,

I'm sorry, one perfectly fit Boros Battalion and one perfectly fit, um, Simic, which was, uh, Evolve. So, I walked into that knowing those two.

I was happy with them. I liked how they played. Um, I was happy with both of those. Um, wait a minute, I didn't have, Populate was in,

one moment, same. So, I, I, I did make the Populate mechanic, but I was on the Return of Ravager team. So,

Selesnya, Izzet, Raktos, Azorius, and... Okay, who am I forgetting? That was Return of Ravnica. I'm missing Golgari. Golgari was there. Okay, so what is the one I'm missing? Oh, Azor... Orzhov. I had Orzhov. Okay, so I was doing... Okay, sorry. So Boros and Simic had a mechanic-specific designer search.

Very happy with those. Simic went through a bunch of different... Not Simic. Orzhov went through a bunch of different changes. We ended up getting a mechanic from Sean who wasn't even on the design team, which was whenever you cast a spell... What was that called? You gotta drain them for one when you cast a spell, what was that called? You got to drain them for one

when you cast a white or black spell. I'm blinking, and you guys know what I'm talking about. That was a Sean Main mechanic. He wasn't on the team, but he came up with it. I really liked it. It took us a while to find that mechanic,

but I was really happy with it after the fact. Then we have Dimir, and we have demir and we have gruel so gruel had a mechanic called blood rush which was you can discard cards for giant growth effects that got changed we had a different mechanic and i think divine that changed um my problem with blood rush is i don't dislike the mechanic i think it's a fine mechanic um one of the things is I believe part of building the guild is understanding the psychic graphic playing

that guild. Like what kind of player enjoys that combination of colors and that style of gameplay. And red green definitely leans a little more to me. And I feel that we gave Blood Rush as a more spiky mechanic. And so my big issue there is I think the audience that most appreciates that style of play,

that isn't the kind of mechanic they like. So it's not that I dislike the Blood Rush mechanic. It's a fine mechanic. I just felt like it wasn't as apropos for the gruel players it could be. That's one of my big takeaways from actually both Ravnica's is I feel most of the time we nail the guild. That mechanic is what the

people who like that guild want to play. But I feel that there are a couple of guilds that we, like Izzet for example, I yet to believe we've made a truly Izzet mechanic. We've made cards that go into Izzet colors, but that's different than making an Izzet mechanic that has the sensibility of being Izzet. One of the biggest go into Izzet colors, but that's different than making Izzet mechanic

that has the sensibility of being Izzet. Um, one of the biggest problems is Izzet really, really wants to mess with artifacts, and there is no space for artifacts in a set full of, um, gold cards. So, anyway, one of these days we'll get Izzet right. Um, but anyway, I felt, I felt that Gruul had a good mechanic, but not a good Gruul mechanic. There's always a difference. I mean, obviously, it thematically fit into the thing.

And it didn't follow the gameplay that Gruul was playing. I just think it doesn't match the key demographic of who wants to play Gruul. Okay, the final mechanic was Cypher for Dimir. It's the mechanic I made. I loved the intention of Cypher. The Cypher was kind of make-your-own-savage-her mechanic was Cypher for Dimir. It's a mechanic I made. I loved the intention of Cypher. The Cypher was kind of make your own saboteur mechanic was the idea. That's like, I can have a spell, and once I cast

the spell, I then link it to a creature, and then from then on, that creature has that, what we call saboteur ability, which is, if this creature does combat damage, that spell happens. The idea was beautiful. It was a wonderful idea. There's a good difference between concept and execution.

It was a beautiful concept. It was a horrible execution. And what that meant is there was no way to execute it that kept it clean. A, the design space proved to be a lot smaller than I thought because it had to be something that happened once you did combat damage. It needed to be an effect

that could work post-combat. And there's just not a lot of abilities that work post-combat. Especially in black and blue, which is what the Dimir colors. So there's a limited amount of effects you could do. It also had a lot of developmental issues.

If not a mechanic, the development wanted to push. And that's a bad sign. When development goes, well, we don't feel comfortable pushing this mechanic, that means your mechanic just isn't going to show up in Constructed. You want mechanics to have a card or two at least show up in Constructed. So, Cypher had...

I definitely learned some lessons there. Once again, the set was handed off halfway through. Cypher, by the way, for the first half was a milling mechanic called Grind, where it was Grind N, and you milled

until you got N lands. The mechanic made sense in a vacuum. I actually kind of like the mechanic, but it didn't work well with anything else. One of the things, another lesson learned from from, I mean, I kind of knew this from Ravnica, and I learned it again in Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash,

is you can't have a guild mechanic that's too isolated. The guild mechanics have to play with other like, if I'm drafting a Rakdos deck, red-black, I'm going to have every guild that is red in it and every guild that is black in it, which is most of the guilds.

Seven of the guilds. Four and three, I believe. So what that means is that I'm going to have access to most of the mechanics. So the mechanics, like, if you are a mechanic in a red guild, you have to play nicely with other red guilds. And the problem with grind was it just didn't do that. It just was a mechanic that was so... It was so insular to itself that it didn't play well with other mechanics.

First of all, it had a different win condition. Like, I'm trying to mill you out, so I don't care about things like damage. And other mechanics are like, I care about damage. Well, they didn't link together. And one of the things that's really important when you make factions is you need to make sure that the factions

that overlap in colors, that they can mix and match match that if i'm making a faction in blue i got to make sure the other factions that play blue can play that faction otherwise it causes all sorts of problems especially in draft where you don't want to have a card in which nobody wants but one faction which means that faction always gets it which means there's repetitive play in that faction and so you get a little of it you want to make sure there's some enablers so that you make sure the factions get a little bit of gas, but you don't want to do too much of it. Otherwise it just gets the gameplay is too much the same that, you know, nobody wants it, but you, but that, that archetype. So that archetype always gets those cards and it creates more similar gameplay, you know. The other lesson of Gatecrash, I think, was

that one of the things I'm always learning, and this was important, is understanding what being in the middle was like. I've talked about this before, is I hadn't made a lot of second sets. I think Dark Ascension, for example, was my first technical second small set. I mean, I did Eventide.

I don't know how you might count Shadowborn Eventide, but I hadn't made a lot of second sets. Gatecash wasn't a small second set, but it was a second set. And it wasn't even drafted with it, so it's its own animal. But I did, because the Dragon Maze have to make themes. So one of the things I did during Dragon Maze

that I was very happy with is I made sure for each of the five archetypes that we had multiple versions of what you could do with them. Sort of a slower and a faster version. So each of the guilds, I said, okay, if I'm playing Boros, what's my faster Boros deck?

What's my slower Boros deck? Now it turns out the whole environment was a little faster than we intended. I mean, a lot of this was development and not necessarily design. Although design did make mechanics and pushed in this direction, obviously. But I liked the strategy of trying to make sure that we had enough different ways to play. One of the things that I get more and more experience with doing design

is trying to be more aware of what different formats require of me. And draft is tricky. A lot of what draft wants are very peculiar and specific things that you have to sort of craft when you're building a set. Development obviously has to do even more than us. But design needs to be conscious of it. So Gatecrash

definitely taught me sort of how to be aware of that. The other thing we did is I took each of the mechanics and lined them up with mechanics that overlap in color and said, okay, what happens if I'm playing Dimir and I overlap with Golgari? Okay, how does Cypher and Salvage work together? Or if I'm playing Dimir and Rakdos,

how does Cypher and Unleash work together? And I was thinking about a lot of those things, and the team would actually spend time and energy. The other thing I did for the first time, which I was real happy with, is I did this process where I would take a card that was in mono color and then make sure that multiple guilds wanted to play that card. As I said before, my rule of thumb was I wouldn't make any more than one card that only one guild would play at common and uncommon.

Well, maybe at common I made one, maybe one at uncommon. The idea was, if I have a card and nobody but one guild wants it, then you know what, I want to be careful making two of those. But if I have a card and say, let's say I'm looking at a red card, and I go, okay, well, the way it worked in Gatecrash is every color had two guilds that wanted it. So let's say I'm making a red card. So in my set, I had Boros and I had Gruul.

So if I made a red card, I wanted to be careful how many cards... Now, be aware, I was aware that people could draft more than two colors, but if you pick two colors, one of the nice things about doing Return of Ravnica and Gatecrash as it was is we did allow people to actually draft two-color decks. In original

Ravnica, only in Ravnica, Ravnica, Ravnica could you truly draft a guild. Once you were mixing in the other sets, by the nature of mixing the cards, you really were playing three-color. So the nice thing in this is in Gatecrash, as it was in Return of Ravnica, you really could play two-color decks. So I made sure that if you were a red card,

that most of the time you could be played in Gruul, and most of the time you could be played in Boros. Now note, some cards were better in Gruul or better in Boros, meaning I knew that they would be more high-picked in certain directions, but it did allow more flux and interplay between the archetypes, because, and once again, I was looking at a slow and a fast archetype, so I made sure that, like, this red card, okay, slow Boros, fast Boros, slow Gruul, fast Gruul,

where did it go? I made sure there was multiple opportunities for it to go. Sometimes the cards would go in both archetypes of the same guild. That was possible. But I tried to be careful not to have cards that were like, this is only good in this one particular deck, and I tried to be careful how many of those I did.

I don't remember exactly. one was probably me being a little there was more than one, but we were very careful about how many of those were, especially that were in the guild and only in one kind of archetype of the guild. Okay, I'm almost to work, so any final lessons of Git Crash?

Yeah, I think that the I guess my final lesson I'll talk about is it was the first time in a long time in which I was following somebody else's design. Because both Dark Ascension and Eventide, I had done the large set. So, in fact, this might be

the first set ever where well, I'd done Urge's Destiny. Okay, first set in a long time in which i had not done the first set and i was following the lead of the first set you know ken had done a bunch of things that i then had to follow on and so another really important thing was um as the guy who's normally leading like like uh setting the pace for other sets it was important and interesting for me to be in that position, to sort of be aware

and remember what that's like. Because sometimes things get done and like, that really causes you to sort of make choices. The person before you will make decisions that often makes decisions for you. Now given I was in the large set, but normally the person doing the second set is in the first set's

design team. Anyway, it was very illuminating. It taught me some stuff. I think one of the ways to understand people is to sort of walk a mile in their shoes, if you will. And being the second set really helped me and sort of see what changes and what things got done in the first set and how it impacted the second set in a way that I might have known intellectually, but just to viscerally feel because I was doing it and seeing it. I also learned

like, the good example is I really wanted to do the charms, but in order for me to do the charms, Ken had to do the charms. And so I stuck the charms in my set and said, hey Ken, there's charms in my set. And Ken was like, okay, okay, I'll put charms in my set. Now, part of that was, I'm head designer, I probably can get away with that a little easier than the average person. But I also sort of said, hey, you know what, the person

leaving the first set does need to listen to the second set. And if they have good ideas, you know, sometimes the second set should generate ideas the first set can use. And, you know, so anyway, Gatecrash definitely opened me up to that. And so I think that was very valuable. So anyway, as I parked my car here, I think Gatecrash was an interesting set in that it definitely taught me the value of teamwork.

It taught me sort of the value of returning the sets and how to work things in. It taught me a lot about being second and what that meant. So all in all, it was a pretty good, I mean, it wasn't a set where I had some of the major, major lessons I've had in other sets. But it definitely was something

where I walked away, I walked away much wiser than walking in. I think I did learn a decent number of things from it. So anyway, that, guys, is my lessons learned of Gatecrash. So I'm now in my parking space. We all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking

magic, it's time for me to be making magic. See you guys next time.