My Early Magic Years, Part 2
In the world of Magic: The Gathering, the story of my early years leading up to and after joining Wizards, from getting hired full time to becoming head designer, continues. Last week, I talked about my journey from game developer to game designer, focusing on finding my niche within the design process.
The Urza's Saga block was a bit broken, and the Mercadian Masques block, a response to it, was watered down. Magic needed a win—a solid, crowd-pleasing block, and Bill Rose, the head designer, was convinced he had the recipe. We were going to do our first multicolor-themed block.
This period marked an important shift in Magic design. Starting with the Mirage block, the creative approach was to build blocks with a specific theme, where the first large fall set would introduce two named mechanics, and the rest of the block would evolve those mechanics. The mechanical connection was that they revolved around those two named mechanics. Blocks didn't have much mechanical cohesion beyond that.
Bill's vision, and the start of what I call the third stage of Magic design, was to give each block a theme. In the case of the Invasion block, that theme would be multicolor cards. Bill had convinced Joel to hold back on multicolor cards to build up a demand for them. Both the Urza's Saga block and the Mercadian Masques block had zero multicolor cards.
To make Invasion a solid hit, Bill took no chances. He assembled a team of the three biggest Magic designers: himself, Mike Elliott, and me. The first week of design was done off-site at my dad's house in Tahoe. Bill utilized "Spectral Chaos," a hypothetical set designed by Barry Reich, to borrow ideas that fit the multicolor theme.
I focused on three things in design. First, I latched onto the color pie, recognizing its value in tying the game's structure to motivations. I wanted to strengthen it as much as possible. Bill spent much of his energy working with the Rules team to clean up and streamline the rules, and I did the same with the color pie, shifting abilities, and building up the color's strengths and weaknesses. I also wrote articles to solidify this and explain it to players, leading to the Council of Colors.
My second focus was maintaining a broader perspective. I stressed the need for consistency within the block, and Bill and I approached issues similarly. The Invasion multicolor theme was a huge step up, and I was excited to see it happen.
My third focus was being the biggest champion for innovation. I constantly looked for new ways to push Magic design, building new tools and processes. For example, Henry Stern and I came up with the idea of holding enemy-color pairs until the final set of the Invasion block to differentiate the sets. The fourth stage of design began when I became head designer, playing around with how to design blocks better by giving each set its own role.
Another area where my push for innovation impacted Invasion was with the inclusion of split cards. Bill and Joel recognized my out-of-the-box design style and made me the lead for Unglued. I pushed boundaries, and the most popular design in Unglued was B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster). I designed split cards for "Unglued 2: The Obligatory Sequel," which was never made, but I pitched them to Bill, who liked the idea and put them in the set.
I led my second large set, Odyssey, following in Invasion's footsteps with a singular block theme. The two main mechanics, flashback and threshold, were both about the graveyard. The entire set was structured to make you care about the graveyard in new ways.
During Odyssey, the entire Creative team left, and Bill hired a new team, asking me to oversee the creative elements. I had experience in creative elements from my work on the Weatherlight Saga, Urza's Legacy, and Unglued.
The next block was the Onslaught block, led by Mike Elliott. I had been pushing Bill to make each block's mechanical elements more thematically connected. When given Odyssey, I gave the block a graveyard-centric theme, but Mike was less sold on the idea. Bill asked for my help, and I found a kernel of something Mike had done that we could blow up into a major theme.
I was a big champion of creature types, and my pitch to Bill was that typal themes were popular despite being weak. Timmy, Tammy, Johnny, and Jenny players enjoyed them, and if we made strong typal themes, Spikes would play and enjoy them. Bill signed off, and we incorporated the typal theme.
Another solution came from my reputation as an out-of-the-box designer. The Rules team had created a new mechanic, morph, inspired by Limited Edition (Alpha) cards. I adapted it and designed cards that triggered when turned face up, showcasing its potential. Bill liked what he saw and signed off on adding it to Onslaught.
The final piece of solving Onslaught's redesign involved getting R&D to reverse a decision. Cycling, a mechanic Richard originally turned in for the Tempest block, was added as the final mechanic, with two cards enabling different cycling decks.
The block was well-received, cementing ideas in R&D: the popularity of typal, the strength of innovative mechanics like morph, and the excitement of returning mechanics. During the Onslaught block, Bill was promoted to vice president of R&D, dividing the job of head designer into two parts.
The next block was the Mirrodin block, where I led an artifact block. The head of the Creative team, Tyler Bielman, and I were excited about a brand-new artifact plane. However, the set had power-level issues, with too much of it being colorless, making it hard to fix problems with just a few bans.
I pushed the boundaries more than I should have, and my mistakes were evident in the artifact lands. I fought to keep them, but playtesting showed they made cards with affinity for artifacts too powerful. The impact of the Mirrodin block was the realization that we needed someone specifically looking over Magic design.
The Champions of Kamigawa block was led by Brian Tinsman, and Bill was excited about a top-down block. We chose a Japanese mythology world, but the set was very ham-fisted, with parasitic mechanics and backward compatibility issues. The biggest impact was that it solidified in Randy's head that Magic needed a dedicated head designer.
I spent a lot of time in development trying to fix the set's design, suggesting splice onto Arcane and flip cards. Eventually, calmer heads realized that leading Magic design and creative each required a person solely dedicated to that task.
In early December 2003, Randy called me into his office and explained that he and Bill had picked me to be the new head designer, leading the Creative team. I accepted the job, and I'm still doing what I love every day. I hope this story gave you insight into my path to becoming head designer.
