Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #392 - Designing Uncommons

Episode Date: December 16, 2016

Mark talks about the challenges of designing uncommon cards.

I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's podcast is actually kind of a follow-up to a podcast I did a couple years ago called Designing Commons. And so today I'm going to talk about designing uncommons. So I'm going to talk all about, I'm going to get into the nitty-gritty. Warning, there's some math coming up. I'm going to talk all about sort of how we make uncommons and what role uncommons play in magic okay so um when I talked about Commons a lot of the role of Commons was really defining your set giving you know definition to your set and very much sort of being the ground

the the cement to make limited work. So uncommon lives in an interesting space in which it shares responsibility with commons to work in limited, because it shows up in enough rarity that you need to carry limited. But it also has some constructed roles. And so I'm going to talk about sort of the uncommon. It's this weird rarity that kind of lives between other rarities. And in fact, if you ask me which rarity tends to have the most problems with it, I mean, commons is the hardest to design.

I've said that before. But uncommons gets overstuffed the easiest. In fact, we used to have 60 uncommons in a large set, and we eventually moved to 80 because we were getting so jam-packed. Like, one of the things that happens is, for example, with New World Order, we change what could be a common, and we have a much tighter set of rules about complexity of common. And as such, there's things that no longer work at common that we had to move

up. Meanwhile, you know, we're always trying to sort of fight for space in rare. And a lot of times rares have to move down. So uncommon both gets commons moving up and rares moving down. So it is definitely always full of trying to do things. And so I want to walk through today sort of what uncommons are doing. So to start with, we got to talk math. Remember when I was a kid, I was in my math class, I don't know, many years ago. And I remember saying to my teacher that I would never need to use math, that I was going to be a writer and I was going to use words. And other than, you know, page numbers and counting up my money, I wouldn't need numbers. And flash forward, I use math a lot.

So I apologize to my math teacher. Kids, stay in school, learn math. It is important. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about pack math. Fun, fun, fun. Okay, so in a booster pack, on average, you will have 10 common cards, 3 uncommon cards, 1 rare or mythic rare, and 1 land.

So one of the things we need to figure out is when you talk about limited, how often does something show up? So common, for example, there are 101 common cards in a large set. Let's, to make math a little simpler, we'll assume there's 100. Okay, so there's 100 cards in a pack. So any particular card in any particular pack, you have 1 in 100 chance of opening it up. But there are 10 copies of every, there are 10 common slots. So it's that 1 tenth, I've said that 1 hundredth times 10. So you have a 1 in 10 chance of opening up any particular common in any particular booster pack.

So 10%. So essentially, if you grab a random booster pack, there's a 10% chance that a particular common is in that pack. Okay, but usually when people play, they play with more than, you know, there's two ways to play. There's sealed, where you tend to have five booster packs, or there's draft, where you tend to have three booster packs. So in five booster packs, if you're playing sealed, you now have five packs, each of which have 10%, which means you have a 50% chance,

or a 1 in 2 chance, of playing with a particular common. And when I say a particular common, I mean, you know, just imagine I'm talking about, you know, there's a creature called, you know, let's just say there's a Skade Zombies in the set. The chance of you opening Skade Zombies, particularly that card, not just any zombie, not just a black card, that particular card, in a single booster pack is 10%, in sealed is 50%, in draft you have three packs, so it's three

out of ten, so that is 30%. Roughly one in three, slightly less, obviously. But the idea essentially is with commons, you know, if we're eating one common, you know, normal booster pack is 10 percent, draft is 30 percent, sealed is 50 percent. Okay, now let's talk about uncommon. So uncommon, there are three uncommon slots in the pack, and there are 80 uncommons in a large set. So that means the chance of getting any one uncommon in a slot is 1 out of 80. But getting it in a booster pack is 3 out of 80, which is about 4%. Now, in booster draft, when you have three packs, it goes up to be 9 out of 80, or roughly 1 ninth.

It's 11%. And then if you have five packs per sealed, you have a 15 out of 80 or a 3 out of 14 chance, which is basically 21%. So the idea is with uncommons, any particular booster gives you 4% of getting a specific uncommon, 11% in a draft, and 21% in a sealed. Now, by the way, when I say a booster draft, I mean you opening one. Now it changes a little bit. So it's 11 percent that you will open, you in one of your

packs will open a particular thing. What are the chances of it just appearing in the draft? Well, eight people are playing in the draft, so multiply by eight. So if there's 11 percent chance that you open one, there's an 88% chance that someone opens one. So you can see, so for example, with commons, there is a 240% chance of opening one, which means that now you're going to open one, but in any one draft, there's about two and a half copies of any one particular common card. Slightly less, obviously, 2.4, but close enough, two and a half. So when you get to, so what it says is, if I have a particular common,

it's pretty much going to not only show up in every draft, but show up in multiples in every draft. If I have a particular uncommon, well, there's a good chance it'll show up in a draft, 88%. So there's a good chance, but not a guarantee it will. And once again, when we're talking about percentages, remember that I'm talking about the average, that there actually is a range. So some drafts might have two copies, maybe even three copies of a card. Some could have zero. That there is a range for what we're talking about the percent chance of it opening up.

And so, now the reason I bring you all this math is not just to torture you with math, but to make you understand that one of the things, you know, when I talk about a trading card game in general, I always talk about how one of the

one of the great joys of a trading card game is you, the player, never know what you're going to experience. But one of the frustrations for designing a trading card game is we, the designers, never know what you're going to open. And so it is very difficult when you're trying to control an experience. We want to make sure that you have a fun experience. Now, normally, when you make a normal game, you get to choose. make sure that you have a fun experience. Now, normally when you make a normal game, you get to choose, you know, if I'm designing Monopoly, if I think four railroads is the right amount of railroads, well, guess what? That's what you're going to get every time you play,

you know, and that normally when you make a game, you have such precise control over what your audience plays with. But in a trading card game, you don't. So rarity really is the one tool we have available for us. Now, there's another thing that I've not brought up. All my percentages I've been talking about have been about one particular card. Like if I have one card. But we actually have the tool beyond that, which is we can control how many cards. So let's say, for example, I want to make sure you play with something. Between common and uncommon, I can determine how many copies of that. So when I talk about Aspen,

if you listen to my podcast, you know I talk about Aspen all the time. Aspen ties into what I'm talking about today, which is how many cards do I need to put in at the various rarities such that when somebody opens a pack, I have some sense of what they're going to open. So for example, let's say I'm making a multicolor set and I want to make sure there's a lot of multicolor cards. So if I set an As-Fan of two, what that means is between the number of cards I put in all rarities,

based on the math I'm talking about here, each average booster pack will have, As-Fan of two means two of the cards in your pack will be gold cards. And obviously, the more you put it at lower rarities, the higher the as fan, or well, the more you put it at lower rarities, the less you need to put in to get the as fan up. That if you put a card in a common, like I said, any one particular card shows up 10% of the time in a booster pack. Okay, well, you don't need to put that many cards in a common in order to guarantee that you get what you want. Also, by the way, another thing that's important is we have two

different types of slots. Normally, we have a variable slot, which is just like the only thing determining the slot is a rarity. Sometimes, though, we do something special. A good example would be the double-faced cards in Innistrad and Shadows of Innistrad, or even just basic land in a normal pack. That's what we call a locked slot. What a locked slot means is it's not that you know exactly what's going in that slot, but you know what it's getting pulled from. And usually in the locked slot, we are giving you something specific.

And what that means is, you know if you open up a Innistrad or a Dark Ascension or a Shadows of Innistrad or an Eldritch Moon booster pack, you're going to get a double-faced card. Well, how do you know that? Because there's a locked slot.

Everyone has one. You are going, I mean, most of the time I should say, I guess there's packing irregularities. And so you know you're going to get it, just like you know you're going to get a basic land if you open up a normal butcher pack, because there's a locked slot to it. So also in doing your math, that's another, like, there's a lot of factors here for doing your math. But anyway, so first and foremost, one of the things that's important about Uncommon is it is one of the tools.

Like, anything we put at Uncommon, we have to be willing for people to play with Unlimited. Like, we don't put things in Uncommon that we don't want people playing with Unlimited. If a card is bad for Unlimited, then we don't put it at either Common or Uncommon. Well, what do you mean bad for Unlimited? There's a couple things. One is they're cards that are so narrow that they're wasted space in limited. We try to avoid those at common and uncommon. Normally we call those niche cards.

We put them at rare. We're like, oh, it does a really neat thing if you have the right deck for it, but in limited it's just too hard to do that. Let me give you an example. Like Battle of Wits, which is a card that says, if you cast this card and your deck has over 200 cards in it, you win the game. Let me give you an example. Like Battle of Wits, which is a card that says, if you cast this card and your deck has over 200 cards in it, you win the game. Well, oh, okay.

You know, you could build around that. But in Limited? In Limited, you don't even have 250. You don't even have enough. If you played every card you got, if every card you opened you played, and then you added a lot of land in, without playing a crazy amount of land, you can't get to the point where that will work and limit it. But that's a fun card, and no one's saying we don't want to make those cards,

but the idea is we'll push things up to rare. Anything uncommon, the other thing we want, so one is niche cards, and the other thing we don't want is what I call bombs. We want to be very careful where we put our bombs. What a bomb is, is I play this card and, you know, barring you doing something crazy, I'm probably going to win.

It's so powerful that it's probably going to lead me in the game. Now, that said, uncommon... So one of the things we do want to have happen is we ramp up

from common up to uncommon in limited. And that, how do we differentiate what we want to common limited from what we want uncommon limited? Well, there's a couple factors. So number one, I briefly talked about with New World Order, is complexity.

We want to make sure that the cards that you are playing, if common either itself is too complicated, either in comprehension complexity, because it's hard to understand what it does, or in board complexity that it really makes the board harder to track. Here's a good example is before New World Order we used to put Samite Healer all the time into limited environments. So Samite Healer, for those who don't know, it costs two mana, two or three mana, and it's a one-one creature that you tap

to prevent one damage to any creature or player. And the problem with Samite Healer was that it really, really complicated math. Because every combat you got into, you had to adjust for the fact that maybe, you know, one creature there would do one less damage. And it really made a much more complicated board state. And then, if you had multiples of them,

it made it even more complicated. So what we decided with New World Order is that you know what? Things like that make a complicated board state. We can have them. We want them. It's not even that we don't want them necessarily in limited, although Samite Healer might not be the best example. We've been sort of cooling of Samite Healer.

But there are definitely things that we want that are board-complicating, and we want unlimited, we just don't want a lot of them. So, A, you might be pushed up from common to uncommon because you're a little too complex or you're a little too board-complex. Also, you might be pushed up if we just don't want,

like, one of the things we've got to be careful about is we want to have levels as we go up. One of the levels is complexity. Another level is power. Like, one of the things we've learned is we want to make sure that the main building blocks of standard are not, or not standard, of limited, are not too powerful. limited are not too powerful. And that what we found is if we had too much variance in the commons, meaning if certain commons were so powerful, they just, you know,

they themselves made giant swings, it really caused an imbalance. And so what we've been doing lately is to help keep limited a little less, you know, to limit the variance. You want you know, to limit the variance.

You want some variance, but limit the variance is we've been sort of making sure that common, that the power level of common is not disrupting to limited. Now, note, that doesn't mean there can't be commons that are tournament worthy, because there is a big difference between what is relevant and limited versus what is relevant and constructed. The stuff I'm talking about is very limited focus, which is, you know, we want things, we want to have bombs, we want to have giant moments where big creatures come out and huge effects happen.

We don't want that to happen all the time. So we clearly don't want it in a common. We also don't want that in uncommon. But a lot of what happens, a lot of where uncommon came from is us saying, well, here's things we don't want in common, and then uncommon, like, okay, uncommon, suck it up, you get it, you know, and so with things that are too complex, things that are, and when I say too complex, I mean both comprehension complex and board complex.

Strategic complex, we're okay with uncommon, because that's the kind of thing the beginner doesn't really see. Then also, power level, we want to make sure that things that are overpowered and once again I mean in limited we ramp up another thing is size one of the things we want to do size and I'll say splash as well

those are interconnected is we want the commons to be good functional cards that help make a good game. But we don't want every common card to be, oh my goodness, oh my god, there's a certain amount of splash that we want for higher rarities. And what we've decided is that common really isn't where we put splash anymore. That uncommon gets to be a place for limited splash, and then rare and mythic rare are for constructed splash.

Now, once again, that doesn't mean there can't be, and there are, common and uncommon cards that are good in tournaments. Usually what that means is, like, a good example would be, what's it called, Delver of Secrets, which was a common in Innistrad. That card was fine and limited because you had to build around it. It was a creature that, if you had instant or sorcery,

it could turn from a 1-1 to a 3-2 flyer. And the idea was, if you could get it turned quickly, because the creature came out for, I think, one mana, it was pretty powerful. But if you couldn't turn it quickly, it wasn't nearly as good. And so it limited it good enough to play, but it wasn't nearly as good and so unlimited good enough to play but it wasn't overpowering so that was okay at common um and so we want to be very careful of watching sort of what our splash value is um so uncommon gets splashy limited cards um

and what it means is things in which can help win a game for you. They're not bombs in the sense that if your opponent can't quickly answer them, they're doomed. But it could be things that, okay, if it goes unchecked for a number of turns, it can help me win the game. It's not like it's going to win the game in one turn. And then one of the things we also do is, in order to keep splash level, we also watch size. So one of the things that's common is white tends... The biggest white creature you'll see usually is three power at common. Blue is usually about three power with the one exception that we make a serpent. Usually like a five power serpent.

Black is about four power. Red is about four power. Green is about six power. Green is the color of the fatty. So it gets a little bit bigger at common. But the idea is, we want to save some room to get you excited at higher rarities, and we want some splash value, so part of that is size. So uncommon also tends to have, you know, the 5-5s, the 6-6s, the things

that, you know, especially like stuff with evasion. It's like, okay, I get this out, you know, or even like a 4-4 with evasion. It's very common, for get this out, or even like a 4-4 with evasion. It's very common, for example, at Uncommon to have like a 4-4 flyer, which is like, okay, this is not going to win the game instantaneously, but if I get a 4-4 flyer out, okay, you got, you know, four or five turns to figure out what's going on to stop me,

or else I'm going to win. Now, given you have Chumplocks, I mean, you have like an Uncom uncommon card, a splash-in common card, is something that, like, you're going to draft highly. It's very much going to maybe dictate what colors you go into. But it's something that your opponent has some ability to answer. Where rare is where we put stuff that's just like, what are you going to do? It is, you know, it's going to be really hard to deal with.

Not impossible, but very hard to deal with. The other thing in general, which is sort of a corollary of what I've been saying, is if there's any reason why in limited we don't want too many of any one particular card, like we want the card in limited, but we don't want too much of that card in limited, uncommon is where we stick the thing. Sometimes that has to do with how many breakthrough cards we have. Sometimes that has to do with board complexity. Sometimes it just has to do with, hey, this is more fun if there's not a lot of them. So let me talk about another specialty, an uncommon special for Limited, what we call the build around. So what the build around is, is when we make magic, one of the things that we do is we want to make sure the build around is, is when we make magic, one of the things that

we do is we want to make sure the draft experience is fun, not just the first time, not just the second time, not just the fifth, the 10th, the 20th, the 30th. We wanted to make it fun for many, many drafts. And so part of doing that is we create a system by which we build in things for you to discover. And the idea is early on what we do, because we want to make early drafting something accessible to everybody, we put a lot of archetypes. Normally in a traditional draft, we'll take each of the two-color combinations and make an archetype.

Sometimes we do one color, sometimes we do three color, but on average, it's the two colors we focus on. You'll notice we often do an uncommon gold card. That's a new staple that we tend to do that's meant to help explain what you're trying to do in draft, to be a guide card, if you will. So uncommon often will do that where it's helping making strong messages of what can and can't be drafted. So anyway, the idea is that we work into common all the stuff that we want. Let's say, for example, we're making

a red-white and we're like, okay, red-white's going to have an aggro sort of team-up quality. We want to make sure the cards in common can do that. And blue-green's going to do this ramp strategy to get bigger fatties. Okay, we'll make sure the basic ramp qualities are there. And maybe green-common that normally has one fatty,

maybe it has a second fatty or something. Whatever the theme is, we want to do there. But then the idea is that uncommon then follows up with the gold cards or the things that really sort of... If you're trying to ramp up bigger things, well, maybe the effect... Maybe common only has one big thing, but uncommon has a bunch of big things to make sure that if you're trying to ramp up bigger things, well, maybe the effect, maybe common only has one big thing, but uncommon has a bunch of big things to make sure that if you're playing green, you have access to some bigger things.

So green will really give support and make sure you understand what the draft is. But in the stuff that's the major stuff, we want to put it in common so that you understand what it is you're trying to do. But one of the things we want, one of the ways to make draft fun is we want to make sure that there are things to explore beyond the earliest level. The first level is like okay let me play the themes of the set and the second level is kind of okay let me play the archetypes built into the set. Third level is what we call the Builderonomies and the idea there is it's a card that if you open up in Limited, it will push you in a certain direction.

Spider Spawning, for example, from Innistrad, is a classic example of a build around. Another thing we do all the time is we make red enchantments, uncommon enchantments, that do two damage whenever you do a thing that is relevant to the set you are playing in. And those kind of cards, it says, okay, pick one, pack cards, it says, okay, pick one, pack one, I get this card,

and I go, oh, okay, I see a strategy. I'm going to now adapt all my drafting to try to follow through on what that is. And because limited, like I said, there's always a chance that maybe a second copy can show up. You might be able to grab

that copy, and because your deck's built around it, if another copy pops up, there's a better chance that maybe a second copy can show up. You might be able to grab that copy. And because your deck's built around it, if another copy pops up, there's a better chance that you would get that card than somebody else. The other thing we tend to do at Uncommon for Limited is things in which they're the ramped-up version of our themes. That if Red-White's doing an aggro strategy, Uncommon will have,

you know, even slightly more aggressive, you know, aggro creatures for you. So let me, now let me explain the, so in limited, you know, you're definitely sort of figuring out what are the higher, you know, people aren't going to get a lot of the uncommons, so what you want to do is take your themes and ramp them up a little bit. Then you want to add layer and other themes, which allow you to do build around these. The other thing we'll do in uncommon sometimes is what we call bridging cards, where we do things that take two different themes in the set and we'll connect them through an uncommon card.

And what that does is if you get it early, it might encourage you to do a hybrid of two strategies where you normally would do one of them. But this card encourages you to do a hybrid. But in general, that's what Uncommon does in Limited is it's providing sort of extra content. It's helping cement you in directions you're going. It gives you other possible directions. It also is where we tend to put finisher cards for Limited.

Not the bombs, those go to rare, but cards that, like I said, really, if you get this out, it will help you win the game. Not immediately, not, you know, bombs are sort of like, I do this and, wow, I can completely swing the game. The uncommon cards I'm talking about are things that will help you win the game, but will help you, you know, through time

win the game, not instantaneously win the game. Okay, so, now let's talk a little bit about constructed because uncommon actually plays another role as well. So let me talk about an idea called an excitement point. And what that means is when you open up a booster pack, there are, let's say, five layers of things you might be looking for. I could be somebody who opens up just a few booster packs. Let's say I'm a really casual player and I only buy four or five booster packs at every set.

For me, my excitement point is the comments. And what that means is, well, actually, let me go from the opposite end. Let's say that I'm a diehard Magic player and I open boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of product. What is the thing I'm looking for when I open it up a pack? I'm looking for the masterpieces. Those are something that are very infrequent, but I have all the cards. I have all the normal cards. I have all the mythical rares. I have the rares, the commons, the young cups. I have them. I've opened up a lot of cards. Well, my excitement point, the thing I'm hoping when I open it up, is I'm hoping, you know, my focus on it is, okay, did I get a masterpiece?

Let's go down a little bit. Let's take somebody who opens up maybe just a box or two. Well, for them, the Mythic Rare is the excitement point because they don't have all the Mythic Rares, so they're looking for things. And, you know, even if they have one they really wanted, maybe they want a second copy of it, you know. So that's what they're looking at. Well, let's say, for example, you open up only a box or maybe a little lesson box. The rare might be your

excitement point. You know, that might be the thing to go, okay, that's, you know, I, yes, I'm excited when I get a mythic rare and excited when I get a masterpiece. But the rare is really where my focus is. I don't have the rares right now, so every rare is what could be exciting. So, notch down a little bit. Let's say maybe you get half a box every time. Now the uncommon's become your excitement point. So, the idea is, whatever you open up, that's the lowest thing you can get. Whatever's the most certain you'll get, but the least you have is where the excitement point lies. So, the idea is is some people, and this is one of the things we think about for Uncommon, is what we want is what kind of person is opening half a box where their excitement point is the Uncommon. Now, once again, as I started, there are people who open very few, just a few booster packs,

in which even the Common are the excitement point because they don't even have all the cards. They don't even have all the Commons. And so Commons can be exciting for them. We very much think about that when we make commons. There's a little bit about how to excite that player. But that player also is excited just by new things, new mechanics and stuff. The excitement point of the common is a little easier.

But when you're making uncommon, one of the things is, on one side, nothing goes in uncommon that you don't want people playing in limited. That's the one factor on one side. The other side is, you want to make something that people who are at the uncommon excitement point level, where they buy a few enough things that just the uncommons are where they get really excited.

You want to make sure there's things to really excite them. And what we've discovered is that limited is a lot like, so let me explain a different concept, what I call casual constructed. Casual constructed, it means the following for my definition right now. I own magic cards. I make decks. My format is the cards I own. Now, traditionally, casual constructed often is standard if you're new enough

it's modern if you're not you know it's like I've been playing for n number of years and I got the cards I got now there are some casual players that are that actually go beyond modern

they've been playing a long long long time and just you know they've never got super invested in the sense that they keep buying magic cards but you know

they just play with what they own and so one of the things we've learned about limited is limited does a lot got super invested in the sense that they keep buying magic cards, but you know, they just play with what they own. And so one of the things we've learned about limited is limited does a lot to sort of mere casual constructed. Because a lot of casual constructed is you play with what you got. And so a lot of your decision making matches kind of how sealed works. It's okay, well, I'll play the best green creature. This is the best green creature I got.

You know, and that you'll play so many and you'll go as deep as your collection allows and that if you need 15 green creatures, well, your 15 worst green creatures makes your deck. You know, if you're doing a mono green, whatever, you know. And the idea is that you're, when you're designing Uncommons, you want to make sure that there's exciting things for the casual level player, the casual constructed player. Because for a lot of them, not all of them, but for a lot of them, their excitement point is Uncommon.

And luckily, a lot of the things that make casual constructed exciting make limited exciting. And so, like I said, there's a balance here. We want to have things like the Build Around Me cards are wonderful cards for the casual constructed. That, you know, it's a card that has a little bit of a challenge, and hey, you know, they can then build around it with their cards. So there's an overlap there. Also, a lot of times things that are, when I say sort of limited splashy,

you know, like a Sarah Angel, that is exciting. Those cards are quite relevant. In a casual constructed environment, where the power level is just a lot lower, hey, getting out a 4-4 flyer can be very... have a big impact in the game. And so, when we're looking at Uncommons

from a constructed standpoint, it's kind of connected to limited in some sense, in that we want things that are impactful and that in low level will matter because obviously sealed is much lower level power level than constructed. So we want things that matter in lower level power games

that can be dominant without being overwhelming. The other thing that goes on is that be dominant without being overwhelming. The other thing that goes on is that so if I make a card, so here's another reason why rare cards get pushed down to uncommon. Is I make a card, we play with it, and it's fun, and it's fun and limited.

And then we always look at it. One thing to remember is, it's not as if rarities, there's not an exact line between rarities. It's not an exact line between rarities. It's not like there's a hard line. There's fuzziness. And then when we look at cards, there are cards that I call gray zone cards, which are, they overlap two rarities.

There are cards that could be common or uncommon. There are cards that could be uncommon or rare. There are cards that could be rare or mythic rare. And a lot of times it depends on what are you doing. Like one of the things, for example, here's another reason, another place we'll use uncommon, is sometimes we're doing a theme for a set and we want to make sure that theme is prevalent enough. For example, when I do artifact blocks, Mirrodin especially, although Kaladesh to a lesser extent, one of the things that people associate

with artifacts is kind of weird quirky artifacts that kind of environmentally do something they change the environment

the problem is normally when we do artifacts the way a normal set does it is the common artifacts there's very few common artifacts

normally it's like mana fixing maybe equipment or two and then uncommon has, I mean, common also sometimes with artifact creatures. Common is a little more detailed than that, but usually the more wacky things we save for rare, like, hey, everything's different. But when we're doing an artifact block, one of the things we do is we want to get that quality across. So we take something that normally we do at rare in the average set,

and we pull it down to uncommon. We take some of the quirkier artifacts that are simple enough, where the complexity is not a problem, and limited is not a problem, and we pull them down. So that's another thing that uncommon tends to be, is finding what normally would be rare, but helps this set work or this set shine. Because one of the things about making a set work is you really want to sort of play up its strengths and play up, you know, you want people to see what's the cool part about it.

And we want that cool thing to happen in the limited. So there are things sometimes that we will lower the rarity to make them work. Like I said, in artifact things, we will take uncommon artifacts and sometimes make them common. We'll take rare artifacts and make them uncommon. The same is true for other themes. Like sometimes, normally, for example, look at graveyard themes. Yeah, there's not a lot of things that interact with graveyard at lower rarity. A little bit, but not a lot.

Usually, it's a rare enough thing that more higher rarities do it. But in a graveyard set, when you care about the graveyard, okay, we're going to pull that down a little bit. And so that more higher rarities do it. But in a graveyard set where you care about the graveyard, okay, we're going to pull that down a little bit. And so that's how uncommon gets cards from above. It gets cards from below because you're trying to do limited and you realize things are either cutting into complexity or power or splash or doing something that's being problematic and limited. And the solution to that is often pulling it up to uncommon.

That's a way to lower its rarity, but allow it to still exist in limited. So it's funny because a lot of, like when I did my Common podcast, so much of Commons is, Commons are defined by what defines the environment. And so while there are cards that could be common or uncommon, common kind of knows what it's doing. Where uncommon in a lot of ways is defined by what it's not. That it's not common. It's not things you want to show up at that rarity. It's not things you want at that complexity or power level limited or whatever. There's things that you care about that you push up. So a lot of uncommon, a very, very common thing in limited, not limited, in design

is I will ask my team to design common cards. And they will give me common cards and we will play with them. And then the ones that stay, like it killed from the file, but the ones that stay often get pushed up in rarity. I mean, there's classic cases of, like, for example, Change of the Rocks, which was a pacifism variant that you enchanted a mountain. And originally, that was a common card.

It was really like a very, you know, flavorful telling card. And as development played with it, they slowly realized that it was, at first, too powerful for common, and eventually, or when I say powerful, I mean from a limited standpoint. It was causing too much problem in limited and common, and then they tried uncommon, still, so they ended up making it rare. And so, a lot of things along the way. Uncommon, when the dust settles and the things that are sitting in

uncommon, some of them spent time at common, some spent time at rare, mythic rare, and got pushed up or down accordingly. The big thing really when you're looking at your uncommons, like if you take your commons, so here's my metaphor, if commons are the cake uncommons are the icing uncommons are the thing like if I'm going to draft a deck and show somebody obviously the things I'm most excited about are the rares and mythic rares

those are the bombs and such but if I sort of said okay what are the cards that people show off when they draft that are excited by that really helps define their deck that does it on a more regular basis it's the uncommons You know, people show off when they draft. They're excited by it. It really helps define their deck. That does it on a more regular basis, it's the Uncommons.

That the Uncommons really are the cards. And, like I said, there's the same parallel for Casual Constructed. They're also the cards that sort of get people excited that aren't buying quite as many cards. Anyway, I'm almost to racial school. So the last thing I want to sort of talk about is one of the things that happens in Uncommon is you are trying to serve two masters. That you are trying to make cards that do good work in Limited, that sort of play up limited, but in the same sense, you're trying to make sure that there are splashy things that can enable deck building at a lower level. Like, one of the things to remember is

that some people are capable, they can, whatever card they need to build, they will get that card. Other people don't have that ability. And so, they're going to play with what they have access to. And so, uncommons play a very important role in casual deck building.

And we want to make sure, not only do we want the splashy cards for limited, we want to also make sort of the cards that really help drive and push together decks. If we want to make a deck, for example, that someone could actually play at FNM,

but that doesn't require lots and lots of rare cards, we lean on Uncommon, obviously. And so we want to make sure that Uncommon has good, meaty things that people might want to build around that just don't have access to all the rares. You know? Like, one of the problems is,

even if you get one rare, getting four copies of a rare, you know, if you're not... If you're a lower-invested player as about how even if you get one rare, getting four copies of a rare, if you're a lower invested player, it's about how many cards you get. Wow. And so one of the things that's important is no matter how many cards of magic you buy, whether you buy one pack, five packs, ten packs, half a box, a box, two boxes, four boxes, a case, whatever level you buy, whatever level of cards you buy, we want to make sure that there's a fun experience for you. And that a lot of making that happen

is figuring out where the excitement point is for that players and then designing that rarity such that you are making sure that the player that relies on that is excited by it. And that uncommons need to be exciting in a certain way to a certain audience. And so a big part of making uncommon is not just being in a place to fit things that don't feel elsewhere, but to make sure that you're doing that excitement, that you are covering that area. The other thing, by the way, is common cards, because their size are a little smaller, tend to don't quite go as high up the curve. And so another thing about uncommon is we let you broaden the curve a little bit to do a little bit bigger things. Not that we don't have smaller

things, not that there aren't efficient smaller things in uncommon, but there are. But we want to make sure, one of the things, the way to think of it is, so here's a, they talk about, there's a I don't know, like a a wise saying or whatever where there's a master teaching a student. And the master says to the student, he shows him an empty

glass. And he says, is the room in this glass, is this glass full? And the student goes, no. And then he pours like rocks into the glass. All the full and the student goes no and then he pours um like rocks into the glass all the way to the top of the glass and he says to him is this full is this full and the student goes yes and he goes no and then he takes smaller rocks and put it in and fills up the gaps of the bigger rocks and he goes now is now is this full? And the student goes, yes. And the teacher

goes, no. And then he takes water and he pours water in until water fits the edge of the glass. And it's like, now is it full? And the idea is that part of what you're doing is you're always sort of filling in the cracks of what comes before. So in that metaphor, commons are the big rocks. And uncommons are the small rocks. And that a lot of what uncommon wants to do is fill in the gaps of what common isn't doing. And it's obviously filling it out for limited because those are the cards that we depend upon. And then even in constructed, it's filling out in the guise of, you know, what can I give you? I want to make sure for the player that gets excited by the uncommons,

what kind of cards do you want and need that I can deliver for you? And so when you were looking at your uncommons, a lot of what you want to see is, are your uncommons supplementing your commons? Are your uncommons taking the themes that your commons introduced and next leveling it, notching it up. Like, oh, well, this mechanic exists. Okay. Now, the commons, the bare bones one,

the uncommon gets to be a little bit splashier, a little bit bigger, gets to be something that if you draw it early, maybe you're building your deck around. The uncommons get to be the next level up. Obviously, at some point, I'll talk about designing rares. Rares are the next level up again. But it's important when you're thinking

of your uncommons that you realize that they are in relationship to your commons. And you'll later realize your rares relationships are uncommon, so it's all connected.

But as you're building, one of the things you want to do is look at your commons and say, what aren't my commons able to do? Or what are my commons doing that I need to do more of that I then need to go to the next level?

And that's a lot of where Uncommon sits, is taking your themes and pulling your themes up and stretching your themes and doing the stronger version of it or the bigger version or the splashier version, especially with limited and casual construction in mind. Okay, well now I'm driving up to Rachel's school, so we are here. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Today was a little more technical, a little mathy, but the one thing I'm trying to point out is there's a lot of different things we need to care about, and this

is just looking at one aspect of one part. This is just one rarity of four rarities that we're constantly trying to deal with, and that normally, by the way, this becomes kind of internalized. That when I make a card, I can look at it and get a pretty good sense of what rarity it is or between what rarities it is. And so this is something you eventually will internalize. Okay, but I'm now at Rachel's school, so we all know what that means.

It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of making magic, it's time for me to be talking magic. Sorry, I said that backwards. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.