What Banned and Restricted Lists Tells Us about Design – September

Yes, today’s post was not yesterday, but I’ve been working on the first one of my series of the Color Pie Identity Project, and I was wait for the new Banned and Restricted list. For those of you who haven’t seen it, click here.

Personally, I don’t care about Online formats (sorry MTGO players) since I don’t play online. But the one big change for the B&R list this quarter was for the eternal formats with the banning of Shahrazad. What the DCI just said, it doesn’t like three things:

  • I creates too much space to keep having sub-games.
  • Sub-games create longer than normal games and in tournaments you run out of time.
  • DCI hates that Shahrazad/Fork combo as much as you do.

Continue reading “What Banned and Restricted Lists Tells Us about Design – September”

After MaRo – Voices in My Head

Hello Robby.

God?

No, this is the voice in your head.

It’s Mr. Rosewater with a mind controlling device! He’s mad about that phone call last week. Damn, where did I put that foil helmet.

No! This is the voice in your head where you have internal monologue.

Oh, yeah. I recognize your voice now. Wait a minute, does that mean I have other voices in my head as well?

Robby hungry.

Who’s that?

Maslow’s voice.

Ah. So, what is it you want to talk to me about voice?

You remember MaRo’s article?

The topical blend one where he’s talking to his therapist?

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The Color Pie Identity Project – Introduction

The key to designing good cards is to know where they go in the Color Pie.

Color Pie? I’ve mentioned it around a million times. Hey, even the title of this blog is M:tG Color Pie. What is this Color Pie that I keep mentioning then?

The Color Pie is a term invented by Wizards of the Coast (either Wizards or WotC) for Magic for the identity of the five colors of Magic. Each of the colors have a flavor of what they can and cannot do with their spells, and those restrictions are what the Color Pie is about (I personally capitalize Color Pie because I believe it’s a proper noun). You can’t have a Green discard spell, and you can’t have a Red gain life spell according to the color pie, and you’re find out why.

Continue reading “The Color Pie Identity Project – Introduction”

Magic Motivational Posters

I love those motivational posters that people do online. I’ve got like 100 saved on my computer though I can’t show because of Rule #34. So, I did the next best thing, I created some Magic: The Gathering Motivational Posters. It’s a little comedy break while I’m working on my big project about the roles of each color of the Color Pie. hopefully I’ll start it in the next week.

In the mean time, here’s some Magic motivational posters. Make your own and send them in. Or, if you think you’ve got better punchlines, comment me and I’ll change them if I think yours are better. If you want full scale pics, e-mail me and I’ll send them to you (I may change this wordpress theme since I have to shrink pics all the time).

You guys like this comedy stuff (this and the MaRo piece of Tuesday)? Or do you just want straight design topics? Tell me what you think: mtgcolorpie_AT_gmai_dot_com, or commenting here.

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After MaRo – An Interview with MaRo about Planeswalkers

Warning: Let me first say that this is a fake interview. This is not real. This is a farce, a joke. Do not take anything in this “Interview” seriously. I am Orson Wells and this is my War of the Worlds. Anything you read during this interview either a setup or a punch line of a joke. Thank you for understanding.

My Tuesday posts deal with what MaRo said the day before. Yesterday was theme week about Onslaught, and since I wasn’t on the Onslaught design team, I decided to write about another topic. Since one of the biggest events ever to hit Magic happened on Thursday, I was a little curious about why nothing was said by Magic’s leader. After all, why introduce something, then don’t talk about it, especially when we don’t know what it is (we, meaning the Magic playing community).

After doing a little research online, I called Wizards and arranged a quick telephone interview with MaRo. Here’s the transcript:

Continue reading “After MaRo – An Interview with MaRo about Planeswalkers”