this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
37 points (100.0% liked)

MTG

1959 readers
22 users here now

Magic: the Gathering discussion

General discussion, questions, and media related to Magic: the Gathering that doesn't fit within a more specific community. Our equivalent of /r/magicTCG!

Type [[Card name]] in your posts and comments and CardBot will reply with a link to the card! More info here.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
37
State of Design 2023 from Mark Rosewater (magic.wizards.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is Mark's 20th (!) anniversary as head designer! He lists out a bunch of highlights and lessons from each of the sets in the previous year, a few that stood out:

  • There needs to be more synergy between sets. This has been true since blocks went away and one I really hope they improve upon (or just bring blocks back!).

  • Many players liked having a set (Brother's War) that looked back at one of Magic's greatest stories. "Players liked seeing old characters they recognized in card form.... They also liked how the design made the artifacts feel like a throwback while still applying modern design technology."

  • The Transformer cards (in Brothers War) felt out of place. Happy he identified this one. "[T]he core of the set for many players was nostalgia. These players felt seeing cards of a different IP flew in the face of that."

  • All of the lessons from Aftermath! Set was too small, most (all?) players didn't like paying the same amount for fewer cards, the set was sold as story-focused but not much happened story-wise, and many players were unhappy about Planeswalkers losing their sparks.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, I’d rather them say “We really should stop making 100 legendaries each set so the ones that are legendary do still feel special. Also we wanted battles to (mostly) replace planeswalkers going forward, putting only 1 planeswalkers in each set. This allows more back and forth with battles instead of the win more that comes with planeswalkers.” Than “uh, I guess people didn’t like desparking people. Oopies.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Both of those sound great. You've got my vote for lead designer of the next Magic set.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also we wanted battles to (mostly) replace planeswalkers going forward That's clearly not true because they explicitly said they were gonna see the feedback from the Battles before going all on with them .

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I mean, I’m not saying that was literal, but also of course you’re going to see how a brand new card type affects the game before going forward.