State of Design 2023 from Mark Rosewater
State of Design 2023 from Mark Rosewater
Mark takes a critical look back over the last year of Magic releases to better understand the highlights and lessons learned from each set.
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:
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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!).
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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."
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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."
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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.
It's an interesting read to see what they think people thought of the sets, and it's good to see that some of the issues I had with sets and opinions I shared are getting to them. But there's not a ton here that we don't already know, especially if you're active in MTG communities already. Like when he says
The game has plenty of legendary creatures, so why did we turn what was the most unique group of characters into something more mundane?
I dunno, why did you? Seems like that's a question that could have been discussed, but it wasn't really.
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.”
Both of those sound great. You've got my vote for lead designer of the next Magic set.
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 .
Maybe he personally wasn't too on board with that strange decision 🤷🏻♀️
The Phyrexians were too easily defeated.
Yep, that.
Looking forward to the one that covers LotR.
or just bring blocks back!
PLEASE bring blocks back. The most fun I ever had was block constructed as a format. It sits between limited and standard and lets players into the lore more easily. You don't have to keep hopping around sets and mechanics every 2-3 months.
I'd welcome the return of blocks from a lore perspective, and Block Constructed as a format, but I have to say I don't miss drafting blocks. When you're opening packs from three different sets, every common might as well be a rare, in the sense that you'd better take it now or risk not seeing it again. At that point I'd rather just do a chaos draft.
Removing blocks started the golden age of draft IMO.
I was surprised that they didn't put LoTR Constructed on Arena for the entire run of the set. That seems like it would be an obvious way to sell more packs of a set that people aren't playing in Standard.
Feels like a lot of complaints this year was for story or product reasons. I think gameplay wise the sets were all pretty great. DMU and ONE took some old, maligned mechanics and revamped them into much more popular cards, BRO was a masterclass in nailing the old-school feel while innovating with both new and old mechanics, and WAR was just full of creative designs and the Battle card type seems like it went down pretty well. Unfinity feels like the only major stumble this year, with both the new mechanics being a pain to keep track of, made worse by the fact that they're eternal legal.
Blocks are the way to go tbh, not only do we get more time spending on a new plane but also meeting new characters that we can get attached to. You can have 1 of set in planes we have seen before if you want something like an intermission. It also allows for more synergy between cards as the blocks are designed together. Imagine Kamigawa - Ravnica standard but 8th - Mirodin - Kamigawa - Ravnica. It would actually suck with little to no cohesion and a lot of annoying things to play. But either way I hope blocks come back, 2 set blocks are the ideal tbh. The Guilds and Allegiance sets were really fun (even if jank from Dominaria is there)
Blocks are the way to go tbh, not only do we get more time spending on a new plane but also meeting new characters that we can get attached to. You can have 1 of set in planes we have seen before if you want something like an intermission. It also allows for more synergy between cards as the blocks are designed together. Imagine Kamigawa - Ravnica standard but 8th - Mirodin - Kamigawa - Ravnica. It would actually suck with little to no cohesion and a lot of annoying things to play. But either way I hope blocks come back, 2 set blocks are the ideal tbh. The Guilds and Allegiance sets were really fun (even if jank from Dominaria is there)
Blocks are the way to go tbh, not only do we get more time spending on a new plane but also meeting new characters that we can get attached to. You can have 1 of set in planes we have seen before if you want something like an intermission. It also allows for more synergy between cards as the blocks are designed together. Imagine Kamigawa - Ravnica standard but 8th - Mirodin - Kamigawa - Ravnica. It would actually suck with little to no cohesion and a lot of annoying things to play. But either way I hope blocks come back, 2 set blocks are the ideal tbh. The Guilds and Allegiance sets were really fun (even if jank from Dominaria is there)