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?

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 5)

Please enjoy the third in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Five: Undergrowth and identity vs. gameplay

Green and black decks are doing quite well in Standard right now and are even seeing high-end competitive Magic play. This makes it all the more interesting that the undergrowth mechanic landed with such a thud with players. There's very little of it to be found in these decks. There are cards from Guilds of Ravnica in these successful decks, though, and there's a lot to learn about why those made the cut and cards with undergrowth did not.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 4)

Please enjoy the third in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Four: Surveil and liberating the jank

Mark Rosewater and other Magic designers are pretty open about the challenges of designing for blue and black together. They've been allied colors from the start, but the relationship between the blue and black is thematic and not mechanical.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 3)

Please enjoy the third in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Three: Mentor and simple complexity

I have to start by confessing that I have a hard time designing for the red and white color identity, and Boros is the guild I have the least connection with as a player. I'm a lover of weird and crazy combos, and the Boros Legion has no time for the shenanigans of Johnnies and Jennies. They're too busy busting the skulls of miscreants.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 2)

Please enjoy the second in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Two: Jump-start and making "spells matter" matter

In draft and sealed formats, where players have 40-card rather than 60-card decks, creatures are highly prioritized and other spells tend to be limited. Non-creature spells tend to be focused primarily on impactful cards that help swing the game in your favor. A limited deck may have only a handful of non-creature spells, often removal and combat tricks.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part I)

Please enjoy the first in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson One: Convoke as comfort food.

Anecdotal experience tells me that we amateur Magic designers tend toward the Jenny/Johnny play style and are very interested in seeing mechanics and sets that do new and different things. That's certainly my Magic identity.

Undaunted

Hey folks. Please enjoy a post from guest columnist Skye.
—Jay Treat

I wanted to tackle a Daunting subject today. For the past few years, Wizards has been experimenting with trying to find meaningful evasion for non-blue colors. Blue has more than its share of good evasion, with both flying and unblockability. This leaves most of the other colors, especially Green, with a bit of a mixed bag. For the benefit of green, I want to start somewhere you might not expect: Fear.

Designing for Timmy and Tammy

BARK BARK BARK!

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

Multiplicative Design

Today I want to dig into a broad design concept called multiplicative design, and look at how we can approach Magic design through that context.

Why Designing Other Games Makes You Better At Designing Magic

I spent several years before the GDS working on non-Magic games, and the experience I gained from that is what gave me the skills necessary to get second place. I wanted to share a couple specific reasons how designing these games helped me as a Magic designer and to help illustrate an alternate path to becoming a Great Designer.

Wrath Effects Are Bad for the Game.

Hypothesis: Effects that kill everything hurt the game.

A game session is a story. Actually, it's two. One story is being told by the game about the fiction of the game's world. In Magic, it is a story of a conflict between two powerful wizards, whose spell repertoire represents the most powerful magic across many planes of existence. The other story is about the players themselves, and their card-based duel.

CCDD 060718—GDS3 Jury-Rig

Cool Card Design of the Day
For the mechanic challenge in GDS3, I built and tested a number of mechanics. Jury-Rig was my next choice. You might recognize it from 2016. Originally, Jury-Rig had a variable cost; In testing I found that having two different costs for a bunch of cards made knowing how to play your hand far too much work. So I stole the best part of another mechanic (I'll tell that story another time) and simplified Jury-Rig to always cost {3}; That way you can evaluate your hand with the costs you see printed and just one more.

CCDD 060618—GDS3 Riding

Cool Card Design of the Day
For the mehanic challenge in GDS3, I built and tested a number of mechanics. Ride came the closest to making the final cut over bloodspill. I'm really excited about ride because it solves so many of the classic mount problems in a fairly elegant package. I didn't submit it because it's super risky to claim to have found the holy grail so many designers have been searching for, and because bloodspill created the most novel gameplay.

CCDD 052518—Bloodspill r5

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/25/18—Yesterday I processed the comments the GDS3 judges gave me on the bloodspill mechanic I submitted. Because I'm still really excited about the gameplay it creates and I now have tons of perspective and advice to apply to the idea, I've re-worked it. Unlike the original, this is un-playtested, so it's possible this isn't as fun as it looks or that certain tweaks playtesting would reveal are possible but unseen.

There are 38 cards below, which is far more than a set would devote to a three-color mechanic, but we're not building a set, we're exploring a mechanic, and that means considering as many executions as possible so that we can pick and choose the best.

The GDS3 Design Test I Didn't Submit

Months ago now, I walked through the 10 cards that I submitted for the Design Test and my process. Today, I'd like to share with you my alternate set. The group I compared with the one I did submit and just barely decided against.

Comparing the Limited play of Unstable, Ixalan & M25

Ixalan is the least dynamic Limited format we've had in perhaps a decade. The problem is that the only supported archetypes are tribal and there are only four tribes. We get a bit of flexibility in pirates and dinosaurs since they're both three-color tribes, but there is zero cross-tribal support and apart from the difficult-to-draft explore deck and flying deck, there are no alternatives.

Unstable is huge fun even when you ignore the silver-bordered silliness because the various mechanics you're invited to play are less strictly distributed between colors and there are a ton of bridges: Cards that reward players for mixing two different mechanics together.

How I Approached the Design Test

Mark Rosewater recently shared what the final Design Test was to help determine the finalists for GDS3, and then went over how he might've attacked the problem in Reading the Designs. I found that insightful and interesting; some of his methods were similar to mine, but some were very different. Today, I'm going to share how I approached the test, and suss out some conclusions from his approach and the differences. I'll also share a few methods of playtesting small numbers of Magic cards.

Multiple Choice Magic Design Questions of the Day 33 & 34

33) What causes complexity creep?
 a) new mechanics
 b) balance
 c) resonance / flavor
 d) variety
 e) clarity
 f) set needs / factions
 g) variance

34) What increases complexity?
 a) new mechanics
 b) balance
 c) resonance / flavor
 d) variety
 e) clarity
 f) set needs / factions
 g) variance

Click through to see the answer and my rationale.

Multiple Choice Magic Design Question of the Day 32

32) Which of the following is an experienced designer most likely to discover through playtesting rather than before?
 a) That the timing on an effect makes it nearly useless.
 b) That a creature's power and/or toughness are too high.
 c) That a spell's mana cost is too low.
 d) That a card is confusing.
 e) That a mechanic isn't fun.

Click through to see the answer and my rationale.