Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #67 - Creative

Episode Date: November 1, 2013

Mark talks about what the creative team does.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay. Last time, I talked about the development team, and it dawned on me that there's a third team. So there's the design team, there's the development team, and there's the creative team. Are the three teams that sort of work together to make sets. Now, to be fair, there's also an editing team that edits it. There's a digital team that does all our, I mean, those are other teams, I guess.

But the design, development, and creative are the three teams that kind of put the sets together, I guess. I mean, editing is an important part of making sure everything works and is correct. So maybe one day I'll talk about the editing team. But today, I thought it might be, since I talked about the development team, that I might want to talk about the creative team. Because it's a very important part of the process. And it's a team that I work very closely with. In fact, it's a team once upon a time that I ran. Okay, so let me explain a little bit about the creative team.

Okay, so in the beginning, In the beginning, there was something known as continuity. So early in the game, the way it worked was when a team would make a set, and remember, in the early days, they were all external.

All the teams were, the design sets were external. They were responsible not just for the cards, but they were responsible for the naming and the flavor and the story and all that was just part of designing a set. You didn't just design the mechanics. You also designed, you know, you named them and you set your story. So, you know, the Ice Age story was made by the Ice Age guys and the Mirage story was made by the Mirage guys and, you know, the different, you know, the Ice Age story was made by the Ice Age guys, and the Mirage story was made by the Mirage guys, and, you know, the different, you know, the Antiquities guys did the

Antiquities story. So, but sometime around, I guess around Ice Age, they realized that they needed somebody to sort of look at all the different sets to make sure that there was a continuity to it, which is why they were called the Continuity Team. And remember, early on, other than Arabian Nights and, I guess, Homelands, most of the sets were all in the same world. They were on Dominaria. So for those that are unaware, real quickly, the game of Magic takes place in a multiverse known as Dominia. Although we don't talk about...

We just call it the multiverse these days. But originally the name of the multiverse was Dominia. And then the plane that most of the action took place on in early magic was Dominaria. And so in the first ten years of magic's life, there was a few times we left Dominaria, but not a lot. Rabianites took place on a plane called Rabia. See, Arabian, it's from Rabia. Yeah, I know.

And then, Homelands was on a plane called Ogothra. Tempest was on a plane called Wrath that would later get overlaid with Dominaria. Mercadian Masks was on a plane called Wrath that would later get overlaid with Dominaria. Mercadian Mask was on a place called Mercadia. And in Urza's Saga, there was a few planes like Phyrexia and Sera's Realm and a few other places. But other than a few places like that early on,

most of early magic took place in Dominaria. other than a few places like that early on, most of early Magic took place in Dominaria. And so the role of the continuity team was just making sure that all the sets made sense together. That it wasn't like one set said one thing, another set said a different thing, and then they didn't match.

And eventually, the continuity team sort of evolved into the creative team so let me find out quickly what does the creative team do so the creative team has a number of responsibilities the easiest way to think about it is they're in charge of anything on the card that is not mechanical so that would be the name of the card that would be the creature of the card. That would be the creature type,

if it has a creature. Although, that's the one area where mechanics and creative overlap a little bit. There's the art. There's the flavor text, the part in italics at the bottom that talks about the world. And, yeah, so that's it. And the concept, the card concept, not just the art, but what the card represents, which the art tends to show. And so, pretty much what happens is, so let's say design has an idea,

or we'll take, what's a good example here to talk about? Let's talk a little bit about... Maybe Innistrad. Or Ravnica might be a better example. So Ravnica started with the idea that we wanted to do a gold block. And Invasion had done play lots of colors, so mechanically I was interested in play fewer colors. So the idea was instead of focusing on four and five color decks, we're going I was interested in playing fewer colors. So the idea was, instead of focusing

on four and five color decks, we're going to focus on specifically two color decks. So at that point, I go to the creative team and I say, okay, we're focusing on the ten two color pairs and I said we're going to focus on them equally because I wasn't going to play up ally combinations for enemy. I wanted to play them on an unequal level.

And then Brady took that idea and said, well, how do we make a world that focuses on that? level. And then Brady took that idea and said, well, how do we make a world that focuses on that? And Brady's the one that came back and said, well, what if it was guilds on a city world? And I liked that idea, and so then I took it and I based a lot of the design

and the mechanics off that. And so a lot of the way that a design team works with design is we kind of go back and forth. For example, on Lorwyn, we knew we wanted to do a tribal-based set. And so what we did is we sort of sat down and talked about what tribes we were interested in. And then Brady had an idea of where we could set in. So Brady had this idea of maybe doing this Celtic sort of thing.

And so we went back and forth sort of figuring out what tribes made sense in the world. And then once we sort of cemented what we did, then Brady sort of wrapped the world to make sense of the choices we had had. And because we knew we were going to do this mirrored quality between these two mini sets, Brady worked into the whole idea of a world that radically changes. And firstly, made Lorwyn brighter to make Shadowmore darker. Brady worked into the whole idea of a world that radically changes. And firstly, made Lorwyn brighter to make Shadowmore darker. With Mirrodin, we knew we wanted to do an artifact world.

And so, in fact, the earliest concept came from me and a guy named Tyler Beelman of an idea of a metal world. And then Brady sort of fleshed that out. But anyway, the idea of the design team, I'm sorry, the creative team, is they work with the design team early on to sort of figure out the essence of what's going on. You know, in Innistrad, it's like, okay, we're going to do Gothic Core. Well, then design walked away and said, okay, well, what do we need to do to do Gothic Core and figure out the monsters we want and stuff like that. But then we go back to creative and, you know,

work with them to make sure that what we're doing fits in what the story is. And design's role with creative is interesting in that design leads in certain areas that we have mechanical identities we need. But creative also comes back and says, well, to be consistent, we shouldn't do this. You know, creative is the one that said,

when we were trying to build Theros, for example, it said, you know what? Elves don't make sense in this world. You know, so let's not have elves because elves don't make sense. But, oh, but merfolk do make sense. You know, the tritons are a key part of Greek mythology and, you know what? The tritons are basically merfolk.

Or, you know, the dead of the world are kind of like zombies. So part of creative jobs is to figure out where things fit in the structure that we have and where we can use things

and where we need not to. So then what happens is once that is figured out, then the design will create what it's going to create. And during that, the story has to start getting fleshed out a little bit because in order for design to do its job,

we have to understand some essence of what's going to happen. One of the things that we always try to do is I want the mechanics of the design to help tell the story as much as I can. Now, obviously, the creative element, the name, the flavor text, and the art has a much better job of doing that. But, if there's a certain conflict happening, well, I want to have the conflict, like Skarsgård's Myrden, which was, okay, there's a war going on

between the Phyrexians and the Myrrens. Well, I need to give an identity to the Phyrexians, and I need to give an identity to the Myrrens, not creatively, but mechanically, that design can play off of. And then what happens is, once once design kind of gets going, that we check in with creative every once in a while, sort of tell them what we want. We have to figure out the blocks, so we're sort of mapping out the block

and making sure the story we're trying to tell, the story that creative wants to tell is being matched by how the sets are structured out. And like I said, it's back and forth. One of the things that is interesting about design and creative is that design sort of sets some parameters, but then creative sets some parameters, and then design reacts to creative, then creative reacts to design.

We go back and forth. I talk a lot about iteration, and one of these days I'll do an iteration podcast because it's very key to what we do. But this is also, as is mechanics, is an iterative process where usually mechanics goes first. Design goes first and says, okay, here's some rough, as is mechanics, is an iterative process where usually mechanics goes first. Design goes first and says, okay, here's some rough ideas for some mechanics.

And then the creative goes, okay, well, those are true. Although these days we've been doing more top-down stuff, and top-down stuff sometimes has more of a creative start. Like Theros, for example, we started with the idea of we wanted to do top-down Greek mythology. started with the idea of we wanted to do top-down Greek mythology, and Brady suggested at the time, you know, that an enchantment theme might work well thematically with it. Now, that was left up to me going, well, how could it work with it, you know? But we definitely started from a... And Theros was much more of a design, I mean, a creative-centered place.

Oh, we're doing Greek mythology. I mean a creative centered place oh we're doing Greek mythology okay so once that happens then design chugs along sometime during design creative I'm sorry

the creative team will usually let us know who they think the planeswalkers are what the major characters might be that doesn't always happen before design ends

but usually it happens late in design on the large set at least, so we can sort of design some of it. And then, once it gets to the development, so, early on, I'm missing something else.

So, the job of creative is one of the things is to do what we call world building, which is, you know, we have to flesh out an entire world, because we have to, when a magic set goes, there's all these cards that have to represent there. And so the creative team, their job is to figure out, no matter what we do mechanically, they have to figure out how to represent it.

And so they have to build a world that will make sense for what they know the needs of magic are. So, for example, magic worlds have a very quirky set of needs. First off, there's the five colors. There's going to be... We're not always literal. The city plain didn't have literal mountains necessarily, but it did have some literal mountains.

But the idea is there's always going to be islands and plains and swamps and mountains and forests. There's always going to be... We have to make sure the five colors are represented. We have to make sure that all the different range of creatures, like mechanically we know white creatures are going to be in this range, this size, this percentage probably going to fly. And so creative makes a chart to figure out, you know, what goes where.

And when they're looking at a world sometimes, you know, they've learned how to, well, here's all the things we need to represent. Oh, we don't really have a big blue flying thing. You know, in this world, the Sphinxes don't make sense. So, ooh, what would be our big blue flyer in this world? Or whatever. But they have to figure out, sort of,

what things are going to be. You know, and that part of world building is, like, the way that world building works is they have a rough idea, then they bring in some artists, and they usually spend a couple weeks sort of fleshing out the world, and the artists

actually more than a couple weeks, and the artists will come in and you know, draw iterations of things, and then the creative team will work with them and go, oh, we like this, and you know, and the artists will, draw iterations of things, and then the creative team will work with them and go, oh, we like this, and, you know, and the artist will try a lot of things until they find things that they're happy with. And then, little by little, they start building, like, a visual world. And then eventually, they make a book that just sort of shows the artist kind of different examples of the world to help the artist when

they have to draw the world. And usually, the idea is, here's what the world looks like, here's what the people look like, here's what the clothing looks like, here's what the monster, you know, key monsters look like. And it's interesting because one of the things that's kind of nutty is, for example, in the movie Avatar came out. Zendikar came out six months before Avatar. And one of the things that's very interesting is there were a lot of qualities to Avatar, or sorry, a lot of qualities to Zendikar that matched,

Avatar had made similar decisions. But we had no idea, you know, the movie hadn't been out, you know, the game came out before the movie came out. So we had not seen the movie, and the creative team didn't know. And so the creative team, I mean, I'm sure they spent years and years and years putting together the worlds of Avatar. And we have a year.

Because next year, we're making a different world. So this is something that, to talk about props to the creative team, our creative team makes a world every year. You know, I mean, sometimes we go back and revisit worlds, but even then, there's lots of work to be done. And so, you know, the creative team is responsible for making a world a year, which is kind of nutty.

I mean, nobody else I can think of is churning out that kind of environment at that rate, which is very impressive. I mean, the creative team does awesome work. Okay. So now the world is done. Works with design. Okay, design hands the file, and now we got to work. Okay, so now the world is done, works with design. Okay, design hands the file, and now we got to development. Okay, so early on in development, development has to sort of go in and make some changes, but early on, they have to start doing what we call card concepting. So card concepting is, what does the card mean? What does it represent?

So I have a card that says, spend R, do three damage to something. Or one R, do three damage to something. Well, what does that mean? What is it? How exactly is it being portrayed? And this one is a pretty straightforward one. It's like, okay, it's direct damage of some kind.

Well, what kind of energy source? Is it lightning? Is it fire? Is it earth? Is it ice? Is it sonic? Is it, you know, what is it? How are they doing damage? And they have to write a description so that, the idea is they concept and write a description. And then that gets, Jeremy Jarvis is the art director. He always, he doesn't concept, but he does

a pass on the concepts to make sure that he thinks his artist can draw them. And so we have a concept in every card. Now, we tend to concept in waves, meaning that the whole set isn't usually done all at once. It's done in pieces. And that allows us to do things like let an artist sort of have some interpretation and do something, and then show

other artists what that artist did in the world. That helps us to have things happen in chunks. But anyway, we concept what cards are. Now, some cards, fine, do three damage, that's easy. That's direct damage. That's not a hard thing to do. But sometimes, design makes a quirky card, you know.

Choose one. Destroy target enchantment and artifact, or target creature gets plus three, plus three. And you're like, what the hell? So I either destroy things or I make something bigger? What is that? or target creature gets plus three plus three. And you're like, what the hell? So I either destroy things or I make something bigger? What is that? And so there's tricky things where creative has to sort of kind of figure out how to make something make sense.

And design and development try hard not to make too many of those. Sometimes there's a card that mechanically is just perfect for what we need and it's quirky and we let creative try to figure out how to represent it. But anyway, so a card is a good concept. That's the next level. We figure out what they are, descriptions are written. Okay, so once the card is concepted, it then goes to

Jeremy, who's the art director, and Jeremy's job is to get an artist to draw it. Which is, by the way, a lot more complex than you might think at first, because what Jeremy wants to do is, A, he's got, so most of our artists, or almost all our artists are freelance, and so Jeremy has, you know, a Rolodex full of artists that he uses, and what he wants

to do is he wants to make sure that each individual card is given to an artist that will best do that card. So just as the card concept has to spend time and energy going, okay, this is a fireball, or, and also sometimes they want to get creative. It's not just a fireball. It might be, oh, this person's made a giant

hand of fire that is swiping at the enemy, you know. And who is being damaged? You know, it might be, if we're in Ravnica, it's like, oh, the magic is from this guild, but it's fighting this other guild, you know, oh, is it magic, but it is attacking a

Orzhov priest, or whatever, they have to figure out the context, not just what it represents, but does it make sense in the story, is it showing anything, what part of the environment is it showing, and they have to make all that make sense. Then Jeremy, as the art director, has to say, okay, this is showing, you know,

oh, this piece is supposed to be a close-up of, you know, an Orzhov priest in one of their churches with stained glass behind them, let's say. And so Jeremy's like, oh, well, who's going to, which of my artists do I think will do a real good job of, you know, intricate, close-up person with stained glass in the back? And, you know, who really could do that best? And Jeremy has to juggle because he's got all these different pieces of art that have

to get done. And so, you know, he has to look at all the art to figure out, well, who's best for this and who's best for this? But if one person would be good for A and B, but I could only have them do one, well, maybe they do A and this person does B. There's a lot of figuring that stuff out, and there's a lot of relationships with the artists. Jeremy does an amazing, amazing job, which is pretty clear if you've seen Magic Cards. But there's a lot that goes into figuring all that out. And on top of that, Jeremy also changes the art style based on the set you're in.

So if we're doing Gothic Horror, well, that's a different mentality and maybe a different group of artists or a different subset of artists. Where if we're doing Theros, it's brighter, it's got a Greek feel, and there's a certain quality that he's trying to get. So each year, Jeremy's job is visually to have a cohesive look to that year. But year to year, magic changes. The cohesive look of Innistrad is not the cohesive look of Theros, which is not the cohesive look of Return to Ravnica.

Each one has its own look and feel. Okay, so now that gets done. Now, once that happens, so once a card has mechanics and has a concept and has art on the way, now the next is names and flavor text. So the card has to be called something. And there's a lot of rules for names. Names, one of these days, probably next time that I carpool with Matt,

because Matt and I have both done naming. And naming is tricky. Last time he was in the car car, we talked about flavor text. But naming, usually the person that does flavor text on the set does naming as well. They're intertwined. And so you've got to name the cards. And the names have a very functional job, which is people have to refer to them. And so there's a whole bunch of rules about names.

I'm going to do a whole podcast on naming, so I won't get into it. But somebody has to name the cards. The way it tends to work is there's freelancers that work with a creative team and that they will send them, okay, here's what we need and here's the art description and here's what the card does or give them enough detail to be able to write names and flavor texts. And then people submit names and people submit flavor texts. Now, flavor text, the idea of flavor text is A, to add some flavor to the card, B, sometimes to kind of explain what the card is doing, C, build up the world or advance the world or the story

or trying to add to the creative element that's going on. Now, notice that these are all somewhat concurrent. I mean, the card concepting happens before art happens. But oftentimes, the name and flavor text, they haven't even seen the art when they're doing the names and flavor text. And then what happens is once the art comes in, you know, once we have names and flavor text and art, then someone's got to look at them and say, well, do they all work together? Because sometimes you have this awesome name, but the art comes in, just that name and that art don't work. And then you have to make changes.

And, I mean, there's all sorts of things that can happen. I mean, the art is a laborious process. Every once in a while, maybe a piece doesn't come in because something happened and the artist wasn't able to get it done because, you know, extended circumstances.

And so it's like, oh, you know, or there's all sorts of different things that can happen. But anyway, so when the dust settles, you know, the card has a name, has a flavor text, has a piece of art, a flavor text that fits, and it has art. Okay, so now, what does it all entail? So there's an entire team built to do the creative. And not only are they in charge of the cards, but Magic has, you know, for example, Duels of the Planeswalkers. You know, there's a lot of creative in that.

There are comic books. There are a lot of other things that get done that creatives got to at least, you know, keep their eye on. Some of them, like the comic books, are done external with consultation with a creative team. Some of them, like Du comic books, are done external with consultation with a creative team. Some of them, like Duels of the Planeswalkers, I think are just done by the creative team. But there's a lot of different things to do because the magic IP is very big.

You know, the story's big, and the worlds are big, and somebody's got to make sure that things are being consistent among the worlds that, you know, if the comic book decides it wants to visit a world, got to make sure that what they're doing connects with how the world is represented. Now, the creative team, so once upon a time,

here's the interesting thing, which is, well, I've been on development teams, and so I definitely understand how development's been done. I've never led a development team. I've never been in charge of development. But on the creative side, I have done card concepting for sets. For example, Urza's Legacy,

I did the card concepting, as well as for Unglued. For Odyssey, and for both Unglued sets, I did the names and the flavor text. I've never been in charge of art, although I have had a... the names and the flavor text. You know, the, I've never been in charge of art, although I have had a,

I've had been very involved in art and working on different sets that I've done. You know, I have been very involved in frames and stuff like that. And for a while, when I first became head designer, they,

I actually was in charge of the creative team for a while. Some of my job wasn't enough. The creative team reported to me, and it was very interesting. I had an opportunity to work with the creative team, and I was very involved. I didn't do the work, but I managed them, so I was very involved in what was happening. So I oversaw the creative team during, basically Return to Ravnica and, not Return to Ravnica, Ravnica and Time Spiral. So those two worlds were the ones that I,

I was overseeing the creative team during that time. And it gave me a very big insight that, you know, being in charge of running the creative team means that I'm very privy to a lot of the things the creative team has to worry about and care about. Essentially, by the way, the reason I do not anymore run the creative team, in fact, I don't even manage my own team. I don't even manage the design team anymore. It was just, it needed its own dedicated person.

The fact that I was splitting my time between design and creative was not helping anybody. That design needs a lot of attention. Creative needs a lot of attention. And so we decided that, you know, look, creative just needed its own people running stuff. And creative's even gotten bigger. When I was there, my team was five people, I think. And now the creative team is nine people, ten people. I'm trying to add them in my head. nine people, ten people. I'm trying to add them in my head. And so the relationship that, like I said,

that the creative team has is that they want to have a consistency, and the juggling is that design and development are trying to make the game play as good as it can be. And the creative team, I mean, their job enhances gameplay. That when you take a card and you give a good flavor to it, it makes it easier to remember. When you give it a good name, it makes it easier to talk about. The art, obviously, is the identifier for most cards.

If you're doing your job well, the creative definitely enhances what is going on. But the needs of creative are a little bit different from the needs of design and development from a gameplay perspective. And so one of the places where, I mean, conflict's the wrong word, but where there's the most different desires is sometimes design and development have gameplay needs that contradict creative needs. Now, normally, we try to all work together, and, you know, sometimes it all works perfectly. Like, oh, this is

thin, that's perfect, and this is the creative, and this is what it does, and it all comes together, and it's like this perfect little ball of wonderfulness. But sometimes, it's kind of like, well, for example, let me give a story of the werewolves. So the werewolves was an interesting story where I'm putting together Innistrad, and I realized very early on that one of the problems was everything in Innistrad wanted to be black

because horror leans toward black. It's creepy crawly, and it's monsters and, you know, it definitely has a very black sort of mentality to it. But the problem was the set can't all be black. You know, I had to make four other colors. So one of my guidelines was I said, okay, I have to make sure that whenever possible, I'm going somewhere else to do things. So the werewolves. So I knew we wanted. So, the werewolves. So, I knew we wanted to do vampires and werewolves and zombies at the time. What I called the big Halloween three,

which is Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman. And so Frankenstein is a zombie, Dracula is a vampire, the werewolf, Wolfman is a werewolf. I knew zombies had to be black. I just knew that. I mean, they're literally the dead raised up. You know, black is all but the dead, you know. And same with vampires.

Zombies and vampires are the two characteristic races of black. So, like, we figured out a way to, like, I knew I wanted two colors for each of them. So I'm like, okay, well, science, you know, Frankenstein is a science-made zombie, not I'm like, okay, well, science, you know, Frankenstein is a science-made zombie, not a necromantic zombie, but a, you know,

science bringing the dead to life. So I said, oh, well, if we play up that aspect, that could be blue, zombies could be black and blue. And we figured out that, well, if you make your vampires more bloodlusty and a little more reckless, you can make them red. So, okay. But it meant, okay, I need to make the wearables, and I don't

want them to be black. So the obvious place to go was green, and I went and talked to Brady. Brady was the creative director at the time. The person I keep mentioning, Brady, Brady Dabramuth, for a long time in Magic was the creative director of Magic. He's no longer with us. He moved on to some other stuff, but a lot

of the stories I tell involve Brady because he's the one who was there. You know, nowadays, we've got, you know, Doug Byard, Jed and Helen, and the whole crew. But back, some of my stories I'm telling, I'm interacting with Brady. And so, Brady agreed that Green made a lot of sense for werewolves because, you know, they're feral, and they're almost, they are like a wild monster, a wild beast, which is, you know, they're feral, and they're almost like a wild monster, a wild beast, which is, you know, I'm a human, and when I turn into a werewolf,

I have no control. I'm just, I'm at the, you know, whatever the werewolf wants to do. And the werewolf acts like an animal in a lot of ways. So Jeremy, I mean, not Jeremy, Brady was very on with it being green. But I knew that I needed a second color, and when I looked at what we were doing,

I figured out that the second color that And when I looked at what we were doing, I figured out that the second color that made the most sense was red. And I felt like a lot of thematically what werewolves are about is the idea of you're sort of stuffy, but when you

become a werewolf, you're sort of following your gut. And just like it's instinctual, it's got an emotional, impulsive aspect to it. And Brady at first was kind of skeptical. He didn't see it, you know. Or he felt they were so green that he didn't make sense to go to another color. But eventually

I came to him and I said, Brady, I have to be the second color. In order to, because I was doing tribal, like I wanted enough choices and options and I find if tribal's locked in one color, it makes it very narrow, and you don't have the bandwidth you need to sort of make variety.

And if you put them in two colors, then people could choose to play one color or the other, or both. So Brady finally came around, and then, you know, I explained my sort of concept of, you know, werewolves as being this emotional outlet, which Brady understood, and he came to embrace. And then I sort of got him around to the idea of,

okay, look, mechanics need to be the second color. Because Brady was like, you know, creatively they really should just be green. And I was like, well, they can't just be green, you know. And that's the kind of thing, the interplay that we have to work with, where sometimes creative has to sort of stretch a little bit and go, okay, how that we have to work with where sometimes creative has to sort of stretch a little bit and go, okay, how

can we make this work? And what I often say on this thing is that design is not as flexible as creative. Creative just has more, like design, there's only so many ways you can do a card and that you're much more locked in how you can do things. In fact,

one of my issues on Kamigawa is the way that we did Champions of Kamigawa is creative made their stuff, locked it in, and then mechanics try to match it. And it's very ham-fisted, if you will, because the only way to match it was very sort of... It wasn't subtle. And that what we do nowadays is we sort of weave things together.

Like, the thing I love about Theros is that a lot of what's going on is subtle and woven into the gameplay. And that when you first look at it, you might not even realize what's going on. But as you start playing, you're like, oh, I see. Oh, I got my hero. And he has an ordeal to being tested by the gods, which makes him stronger. And when that happens, he's strong enough that

he can fight the monster that's sort of found the monster's side of itself. Like, it all starts coming together. Like, oh, I see how this all is working. You know, and that part of that is working with creative, and a lot of times creative's job is to try to figure out

how to make things work. Mechanics try to make things work, too. You know, sometimes creative says, oh, it really needs to be a certain way, and mechanics try to see if we can make it work. But it's more often creative can make something mechanical work than mechanics can make something creative work. Although we do,

mechanics do try to match things as much as we can. So the creative team, the one interesting thing is they are not in the pit. The design and development teams are both in the pit. But the creative team,

what we found was they do a lot more writing and a lot more stuff where they kind of need to be quiet and the pit is not quiet. In fact, it's pretty loud. Because design and development do a lot of arguing and there's playtesting. And one of the things that kind of, one of the, I don't know, the way R&D works is that there's a lot of interplay and talking.

And, you know, like a lot of times you'll just be playing a game. And, like, as you're playing, you realize something. So you yell to the relevant person, you know, hey, Dan, CW01, it needs first strike, or whatever, you know. Or, oh, we've got to increase the cost because it's causing this problem. Or, oh, let's make this activated. Whatever it is, we just yell out in the middle of playing to sort of fix things. Or just start getting conversations or arguments or discussions or whatever. The pit's a noisy place.

So the creative is often their own little area. It's not noisy place. So the creative is often their own little area. It's not far away, but... And... So when you need something, you know, you go over to creative, and a lot of times what will happen is, when I get myself in a box, or... Because one of the things right now is, not only do I do

design, but we do advanced design, which is even farther ahead. And the tricky thing about advanced design is when I'm doing design, the creative is pretty much signed off on what we're doing. But when I'm doing advanced design is when I'm doing design, the creative is pretty much signed off on what we're doing. But when I'm doing advanced design, it's kind of even before design is 100% bought off on what we're doing. So I'm sort of getting ideas from them and then trying some stuff and going back to them and saying, you know, well, what do you think of this? And so that's even earlier. That's a lot of my discussions because

I'm the head designer. A lot of my discussions with the creative are like, we're trying this crazy thing that you haven't thought about. Think about it. That's a common sort of discussion we have, but I think at some level, the creative team, well, here's the interesting thing.

I think the art gets tons and tons of props because it is so front and central that it gets a lot of attention in fact, one of the things when I talk about the strength of magic one of magic's greatest strengths is its art is that when you pick up a card

that you just get this beautiful piece of art on every card and that's just so compelling you know, one of the things that's interesting is, I playtest all the time with stickered cards. And then every once in a while, a new set comes in and I get a chance to play with a new set. And it is so much more fun to play with real cards.

And the funny thing is, really the only difference is that the creative is done. That there's art. That there's names that are... And sometimes on stickered cards, the names are real. Usually there's some flavor that there's names that are... And sometimes on sticker cards, the names are real. Usually there's some flavor checks on the sticker cards, but somehow having the art and just the whole thing, it's just...

I don't know, it's really breathtaking. And it's funny, I'm so used to using sticker cards that, like, it really is this brush of fresh air every time I get to play with real cards. I know for the public, they all thought they played with real cards, but to me, it's kind of a special treat when I get to play with art. And it makes me realize, like, I think that people recognize the art.

I think that people, like, get what the art does for the game. I mean, it does more than they realize, because it also helps signify things that tone and does other stuff. But I also think that just the whole creative element, the name and the flavor text and the concepting and the world and that all the elements that go into the creative of a card really enhances what the card does. And one of the interesting things is like watching in Theros as we show a card and that people go, oh, it's this and oh, that's why it's this

and oh, you know, it's fun when it all comes together and that when the creative elements are shining like it and the design elements and the development elements are all going in the same direction that really is the key of R&D is getting the design elements, the development elements and the creative elements to all be going in the same

direction and I often talk about that's design's job which is to set vision so that everybody else has a unified vision to follow. And not just with development. I talk about that a lot. But one of my jobs in design is making sure that I have a mechanical heart that the creative can pay off on, that creative can do something cool with. And then I work with them early on to make sure, like, one of my

big things is I'm very big on structure. I'm very big on archetypes and trying to tell a story that is relatable and understandable, that we know we can make the cards to do. But anyway, I'm now at work.

And I had a little bit of traffic today. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed today's thing. One of the things my hope of both the last podcast and this podcast is, I want people to appreciate the hard work that is done by the development team and by the creative team. I think matching the last set of years has been just hitting it out of the park every year. And I'm very, very proud of my design team. I think design's been doing an excellent job. But development also has been doing an excellent job.

And creative's been doing an excellent job. I think the three teams have all sort of found a place to work in harmony to just sort of nail it. Anyway, I think everybody's really into the podcast because of how awesome the work is. And today is saying, look, there's a lot that goes in creative,

more than you might even realize. And that, you know, next time you have a card, take some time to really look at the creative elements and see all the little nuances of what's going on and really look at the art and look at the flavor text and the name and, you know, think about how the world and how it fits. And it's impressive when you, I mean, the creative team spends so much time and energy making it all make sense that, you know, I think it's fun sometimes to sort of think of the card as a whole, not just as a mechanical thing, but as a whole essence that represents something. And I think that's what makes magic shine,

is that all those things come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. But anyway, I have to go make more cards today so that we can put creative to them. So anyway, thanks for joining me this week. And it's time that I was making magic. Talk to you next time.