Tibalt's Bag of Tricks

Tibalt's Trickery caught the eye of the Magic player base as soon as it was revealed. It was a counterspell in red, something that hadn't been heard of before; not only that, the rest of the text was exceptionally bizarre, involving milling, random decisions, and Chaos Warp effects. While it looks like it was added at random, this text is Wizards' best attempt at preventing abuse while maintaining a smooth pace of gameplay. But is it the optimal decision, and what else could have been used instead? Let's find out together.

Designing for Spike

This is the third article in my series of designing for player psychographics. I encourage you to read my articles about Timmy/Tammy and Johnny/Jenny, as well.

Designing for Timmy and Tammy: Reloaded

A couple years ago (gross, I can't believe it was a couple years ago) I wrote an article about designing for the player psychographic Timmy/Tammy. I decided to get around to writing the other two psychographic articles, but I'm a bit unhappy with the previous article because I felt like I made some points for the sake of being contrarian. This is the redo of that article.

The Three Immutable Laws of Magic Design

One of Magic's defining features is its mutability. Every format and every set brings with it new opportunities for players to redefine the game. Mark Rosewater calls this process of constant renewal and discovery "Crispy Hashbrown Theory" and posits that it's one of Magic's core strengths. While I generally agree with this, I have two objections. The first is that hashbrowns aren't the best example of a breakfast food you get sick of partway through and that it should be called "Pancake Theory" instead. The second is that while constant change is the lifeblood of the game, Magic has a set of qualities that should never be changed, no matter how weird or experimental you're getting. These are the three immutable laws of Magic design.

At What Price Variance?

Unpopular opinion: Mana screw is bad.

The number of non-games that Magic’s core system regularly produces would seem to indicate that most players would get frustrated with the game and leave. Yet, Magic has one of the highest player retention rates of any game invented in the past 50 years. Why is that?