After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response

Lady(ies?) and gentlemen, the great master MaRo talked to us yesterday about his thoughts and opinions about the past year in Magic design. He told his his highs, his lows, and what he wants to do in the next year. Most of us play the game as well as junior designing, so some of their non-design decisions have been on our minds rather then if the past block worked well together. We’ll get to that in due time while some of that will be sprinkled in as well (this is a long post, be prepared).

(MaRo art by UGMadness.net (I don’t think I use that much bandwidth, though WordPress helps me out there)).

Lady(ies?) and gentlemen, the great master MaRo talked to us yesterday about his thoughts and opinions about the past year in Magic design.  He told his his highs, his lows, and what he wants to do in the next year.  Most of us play the game as well as junior designing, so some of their non-design decisions have been on our minds rather then if the past block worked well together.  We’ll get to that in due time while some of that will be sprinkled in as well (this is a long post, be prepared).

Highlights of 2008

The Planeswalkers. Players were really worried when there was an announcement of a new card type, especially one that could break the game in half.  Using the hybrid of a creature and an enchantment, cries were heard that they wouldn’t be different enough to see print.

Yeah, we players were wrong. Continue reading “After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response”

After MaRo – Never Gonna Give You Up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rolled

If you don’t remember, I call MaRo every week to talk about his article of the week, or talk about anything that comes to mind.  I’ve got 500 anytime minutes, I use them as I please.

Hello, this is Mark Rosewater speaking.

Hey, this is Robby ********* from M:tG Color Pie.

Oh yes, I remember you.  I read that you’re back now.  And Congratulations on the marriage and house.

Well, thank you.  I don’t have the high paying job the lets me focus on Magic all the time like you do, but I try and get by.

Well, the come and join us here in Renton.

(Excited) Seriously?

(Laughing) No.  People fall for that all the time.

Yeah, I bet they do. (I sigh)

What’s on your mind today?

Well, since you’re doing your annual State of Design column next week, I won’t tell you what I’m thinking right now.  I will tell you that I’m still playing, no matter if my blog is updated or not.  I guess you can say that I’m never gonna give up the game of Magic.

Never gonna let the game of Magic go?

Correct.

Never gonna run around and desert it?

Uh, sure I guess you could say that.

(Laughter)

Wait…  Damn it. Continue reading “After MaRo – Never Gonna Give You Up”

After MaRo – Just Follow the Clues

Boldwyr Intimidator - Esad RibicIn today’s announcement, MaRo gave us a few hints on what Shadowmoor’s theme might be. Basically, it is something that has never been done in Magic before (Not Artifact based, or deals with creature types), yet there are two cards in Future Sight that will be reprinted in Shadowmoor. Interesting, yes? Before we look at what cards might those be, let’s see what he did (or didn’t say) about the new block.

– It’s like Lorwyn, only in darkness.
– While Tribal isn’t a theme, he didn’t say if more Tribal cards weren’t going to be printed (like Tarfire).
– Lorwyn block and Shadowmoor block fit with each other. It seems like the same creature (race/class) types will stay in play (important for what cards belong).
– And according to promotional material, a favorite mechanic returns, but it doesn’t say if it is a keyword mechanic (like Buyback) or a non-keyworded one (like the “pitch spells“).

Now comes the fun part, figuring out which cards are the hidden ones in Future Sight. Once I read that, I thought of a post title with a National Treasure parody, with all of the clues he gave us, but nothing that I deemed funny. But he’s basically saying: Look, here’s the Declaration of Independence, find the clues. And so we shall…

Here’s the list of the all the Future-shifted cards in Future Sight: Continue reading “After MaRo – Just Follow the Clues”

After MaRo – Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

I love the fact that R&D is pushing the Race/Class model.

Quick aside: If you don’t know what the Race/Class model is, pick up a creature card, let’s say um, Coiling Oracle. Let’s take a look at it (Hint: it’s to the right). For the card type line we see: Creature – Snake Elf Druid. That creature is all of those types (A snake, an elf, and a druid) for every card that cares about creature types. Elvish Harbinger can search him up, can trigger Sosuke’s Summons, and can tap to Seton, Kroasn Protector. Its race (what the creature actually is) is a snake and an elf, and its class (what’s its role in its society is) is a druid. While not every creature has a class, every creature has a race (except Nameless Race, which was updated with the first creature type clean up). But remember, everything on the card type line is the creature type. Remember to check Gatherer for updates to old cards (Creature type update 1, update 2).

Why is this a good thing? Why do we need the Race/Class model in Magic? In the beginning there was “Summon X” and all was good. But over the past 15 years, Wizards have changed it, and some people think that it loses some flavor when it looks a little more structured. Sure, it’s much cleaner for rules, but it lost it’s fantasy flavor. But this is where it can make up with the fantasy fans. I’m not into D&D or WoW (don’t shoot me, I’ve got my one addiction), but I know that those fantasy games have the same race/class markup. Wizards pushed this so they could fit more with those fantasy games, something that Magic didn’t have at the beginning of the game. It added the flavor back into the game, which I love, as long as it doesn’t ruin mechanics (sorry, I’m more of a game interaction than flavor fan). Continue reading “After MaRo – Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”

After MaRo – Rejected Lorwyn Promos

A funny thing happened yesterday: it snowed in the Seattle area. Drivers who aren’t used to the snow (you know the kind, the ones with the four wheel drive SUVs that think they can handle everything and goes 90 down the unplowed highway) seem to have it out for people who drive carefully. The smart people who didn’t have to be anywhere yesterday, telecommuted from home.

Why do bring this up? When I called Wizards yesterday to talk to MaRo about his Warriors column, they told me he stayed home because of the weather. I said yeah right, there’s no snow, it never snows in Seattle. That’s when I looked outside. Sigh, fine. And, of course they wouldn’t give me his home phone number; something about privacy and harassment, whatever, I wasn’t paying attention. But I wasn’t going to let some frozen water get in my way.

As I was sitting on my couch last night watching TV when I saw one of those Morningtide Promos on Adult Swim for the release event happening this weekend. If you haven’t seen them, here’s one they had for Chanrda Nalaar (I can’t find any Morningtide ones on YouTube yet).

This made me sad, as I had produced those type of ads for Wizards before. Yes, I did ads in that very same style for the Lorywn release dates. Wizards asked me to make some “Adult Swim” type promos, and after the snafo they had with the Time Spiral ones (Scroll down to the Akroma picture to get that story), they wanted something more edgy. After showing them mine, they rejected them as they thought it was too “Pop-culturey” and “Made Wizards look bad” and “We’re a family company.” Whatever. You guys decide for yourselves. My last one is my personal favorite.

This first one is the card Hurly-Burly:

Continue reading “After MaRo – Rejected Lorwyn Promos”