M13 A New Development

The M13 Design team could continue to tweak and improve the set's design indefinitely. The longer you look at something, the more you test it, the more previously invisible imperfections you find to fix. But we don't have forever. We've got less than two months to wrap this set up now. I had intended to pass the set off to a Development team much earlier, but life interceded. The current team has kept a strong eye toward the Dev side over the last couple months, so we're not starting at square one, but I can't pretend that makes up for real testing and revision from a dedicated Dev team. Regrets aside, we need to get as much proper development done as we can in the time we have left.

We'll do this in a couple different ways. Firstly, I've exported the latest version of the set to Wizard's Familiar so that everyone is free to view it and build Constructed decks (of all kinds) and goldfish those decks. See it here. In conjunction with that effort, there are specific cards that we'll be challenging you to break. Is Lich's Pact broken two ways to Sunday? Does Moon Druid make Coalition Victory too easy? You'll soon have the opportunity to build a deck that abuses them as much as possible.

Secondly, we're putting together a real Dev team. We'll be reaching out to some folks we know have valuable insights due to their experience, tournament record and/or design work. It's important to get not only a fresh perspective, but one from those who understand the underlying game well enough to break open a format. Though Sealed and Constructed can't be ignored, I expect this team to focus on Draft since that format informs the set's Limited archetypes most directly and since the entire community will be able to build Constructed decks.

For a lot of folks, a real deadline is the best motivation. Well lucky you, we've got one. I'll be running an M13 Prerelease event on the Magic Cruise that departs June 1st, so we'll need to be finished by midnight May 29th so I have time to print the cards before flying out to Seattle. Releasing a month before the official Wizards' Magic 2013 seems about ideal. We don't want to release at the same time or after, since that would feel like a shadow rather than an appetizer. I'll let you know as soon as we've got our team or the set is up and usable online.

Apart from printing hundreds of cards—something I've been doing all along, but can't reasonably expect from anyone else—the only way to play M13 Limited will be through an online customizable site/program. I've been unable to export to Octgn, but Chah is looking intoCCGDecks. If you have another good solution, let us know.