Designing for Timmy and Tammy

BARK BARK BARK!

Why, it’s Bassie, my faithful dog hound! What’s wrong, girl?

BARK BARK! BARK BARK BARK!

What’s that? Timmy’s stuck in the well?

BARK BARK!

Oh sorry, I misheard you. Timmy, the broad player archetype, is being misinterpreted as being only children who want to play 9-mana creatures?

WOOF!

I’m on my way!!!

My main player demographic is Timmy, and much of my non-Magic design work is about creating an experience in a box. Thus, when I see people summarize the archetype as people who like big, splashy, expensive cards, I’m able to understand that this is only a fraction of the demographic, and that designing cards with Tammy in mind requires a lot more nuance than making a 20/20 creature with every keyword. I’ve collected my thoughts on the archetype, and designing for it, in this article.

Note: In this article, when referring to specific, male people, I use Timmy, and in all other cases use Tammy. Don’t @ me, Ron.

What Does Tammy Want?

Most of the more recent player demographic articles refer to Tammy as someone who plays Magic “to experience something”. This is unhelpfully broad, and I think it could be better summarized as “Tammy wants to do what they find fun.”

Most Tammies have specific things they enjoy doing. Some are classic and they like casting big creatures and splashy spells. Others adhere to and specialize in specific deck archetypes. (I’d argue that pros like Craig Wescoe and Shota Yasooka, who play the same kind of deck in every meta, have Timmy streaks in them.) Some crave variety, and enjoy formats like Cube where you can do different wacky things every time you play. Even things normally thought to appeal to Spike, like tournaments, might have some fringe appeal to Tammies who enter GPs for the tension and stakes they create.

Thus, what Tammy wants is actually fairly wide, but it could be summarized with relative accuracy as the freedom to choose what’s the most fun for them without feeling like the have to play something they don’t like to keep up with the other players. 

Of the formats currently getting Tier-1 support from Wizards, I would argue that Modern is the most Tammy-friendly.  The Modern metagame is essentially the wild west, and you can play basically anything you want to that’s reasonably optimized and have a good chance of making day 2 of a GP. (Skred, of all things, took down a GP a couple years ago!) No matter what playstyle lets you have fun, you won’t feel like you’re being punished for choosing it, and format rotation won’t regularly force you to play something else. Furthermore, the decks offer a “purer” experience of archetypes because they have a wider selection of cards to choose from: For example, the mono-red deck from this year’s Standard, with its 4- and 5-mana top end, doesn’t satisfy the need for speed as much as red aggro with Lightning Bolt and Goblin Guide.

Weird supplemental variants, like Archenemy and Planechase, are also aimed towards Tammy because they offer a prepackaged experience that’s significantly different from everyday Magic. These are often too rigid for Jenny and too silly for Spike, but players looking to try something out of the ordinary will get a kick out of it.

Commander, the first format people would think of as being a “Tammy format,” does have quite a bit of appeal, but the nature of the format overwhelmingly favors durdly decks with a certain amount of staple cards like Sol Ring, Cyclonic Rift, and signets. For Timmies like myself who prefer aggressive strategies, there isn’t much to work with that doesn’t fizzle out 25% of the way through the game. It’s arguably more of a Jenny format because the singleton decks and commanders are a great method of self-expression, even within its strategy constraints.

  

What Doesn’t Tammy Want?

Of the three player archetypes, Tammy cares the least about feeling smart.

Jenny and Spike want some challenge in self-expression or in achieving good results because it separates them from other people. Thus, making a goal too easy to accomplish or a deck too easy to pilot is a problem for them. Conversely, Tammy wants to feel something specific, and if that’s difficult to achieve, they won’t enjoy it.

For example, Tammies in general have the fewest reservations about netdecking. Spikes are okay with it provided they know it’s the right decision, and Jennies don’t like it because copying decklists isn’t self-expression, but Tammies enjoy the fact that they can find something tuned that suits their preference simply by searching online a little.

The actual experience of playing should, of course, be mentally strenuous, because that’s what makes it good. But the most important part of making a card, set, or format appeal to Tammy is to not put unecessary extra barriers in between them and fun.

Designing for Tammy

Cards aimed towards Tammy don’t necessarily have to be expensive or powerful, they just have to do something cool and not require a lot of work to achieve it. One of the best examples is Eye Gouge. Jenny doesn’t like it because being able to exploit it depends on what the opponent plays. Spike is okay with it, because knowing when it’s good enough to take out of the Limited sideboard does require some skill, but it’s basically an on/off card with not many uses. Tammy loves it to death, however, because even theoretically killing your opponent’s cyclops by stabbing it in the eye with a spear is extremely cool and actually pulling it off is a great story.

Having strong, well-defined set archetypes is the best way to orient a set towards Tammy; they want whatever archetype they choose to build into to feel like something specific. The Abzan in Khans of Tarkir convey a strong impression of an entrenched siege force slowly rumbling towards the opponent, as well as a family working together to share their skills and knowledge. The Temur, on the other hand, didn’t feel like much of anything besides a mishmash of fun midrange toys, and thus didn’t feel unique to the set. Novel archetypes that significantly alter how you play the game like Lost in the Woods or Goblinslide are also great.

Because Tammies enjoy a wide variety of playstyles, it’s hard to quantify how to design a mechanic specifically for the archetype; in general, if something plays well and leads to interesting decisions that other sets don’t have, it should be good for Tammy. The one mechanic I can think of that was specifically good for Tammy is cascade, as the semi-randomness made for an exciting mini-game every time you played a cascade card. (It’s also one of my favorite mechanics to play with.)

All this said, big splashy effects are primarily enjoyed by Tammy because they enjoy the viscerality of plays much more than Jenny and Spike. There is some truth in the narrow definition; it’s just important not to sort a large number of players into it.

Conclusion

The point of player demographics isn’t to separate players into Gryffindors and Slytherins, but rather to remember that different people play Magic for different reasons. If you’re reading this article, you’re probably very enfranchised, and when you’re this deep into Magic it’s hard to remember that there are people who just want to pick up their favorite deck and jam a couple of games with their friends. 

Tammies aren’t just children who learned how to play yesterday, and in fact comprise a wide variety of experience levels and tastes. However, what all of them have in common is a desire to have a blast. Whether you let them by introducing a new archetype that plays unlike anything before in Magic or by making a card that improves someone’s favorite deck, it’s important to make sure you keep it in mind in the first place.