As Garfield Intended

I’m a big fan of variant formats. Not only do they add some spice and variety for long time players, but they also allow for more flexibility when scheduling Magic events with your friends (I’m always looking for more limited formats that don’t require 8 people in the same place for multiple hours). When I saw the most recent episode of Enter the Battlefield about Richard Garfield and the Alpha Playtesters, I became inspired. The “original” Magic format they described, full of surprises and built around trading, sounded like a lot of fun! It got me thinking: how can we best recreate that original Magic environment using modern technology and design sensibilities? In this article I’m going to explore the best way to play Magic “as Garfield intended”, literally.

Tesla: Playtest Engineering III: Testing Cards

This article is WotC-safe.

Hello again, everybody! Once again, a return from a lengthy break, and this time, we're concluding the series about designing an all-commons playtest. Last time, we designed all the commons for our playtest. In the first part, we talked about the overall structure of a playtest set. Now, we're onto the most important part: playtesting the cards, gathering feedback, and using that feedback to improve both the designs and the set as a whole.