Design

The Design team is one of several teams within Magic R&D. Design creates the vision for a set, while development upholds that vision even if it has to make some changes to get it there.

Description

The designers create new cards, mechanics and themes for Magic sets. Every set should do something innovative that hasn't been done before. It also should bring back something from the past and present it in a new light, it should add new elements to old ideas. Every set should make players have to shift their thinking about the game in some way, while creating a moment that is uniquely its own. By definition, also some bad cards have to exist, even at rare. The rules of design provide four major functions: structure, clarity, consistency and focus.

Design can be bottom-up or top-down. It can also be linear or modular.

Exploratory design

Also known as pre-design, advanced design or advanced planning, exploratory design was an innovation in 2014 in how Magic sets were designed. Long before design starts, exploratory design begins. The concerns itself with the needs of the block and loops in the development and creative teams. The team can talk about mechanics and how each color plays out, but is not concerned with an actual card file.

Main design

Mark Rosewater distinguishes three distinctly different stages in the main design phase: the vision stage (6 months), the integration stage (3 months), and the refinement stage (3 months). Apart from the Head Designer (Rosewater), each design team nowadays ideally consists of a lead designer, a "strong second", a development representative, a creative representative, fresh blood and a filekeeper. Roles are sometimes combined in one person.

Play design

Play Design is a team introduced in 2017, after R&D had missed the Copy cat combo. The team is solely dedicated to the health of tournament environments, to make sure that playing Magic in structured settings is as enjoyable as possible. Dan Burdick was hired to run this team, which also includes Melissa DeTora and Andrew Brown.

Devign

"Devign" or "Structural Development" is the space in between design and development. Design still has control of the file but is addressing notes from the developers. During these early times, Development tries out cards that feel risky, but could also add something cool and interesting to the game. Early playtesting is for taking the big swings. Many of the cards design hands over in the initial handoff will not make the final version of the set, and many more will get tweaks, such as to casting cost, power and toughness, or activation cost. Still others will get cut from the set entirely to make room for new cards that either fill a specific role that is missing or are just independently cool cards. On the opposite site, some fun cards are made stronger.

Historical stages of design

Head designer Mark Rosewater distinguishes six stages of Magic design, and corresponding dynasties of Magic designers.

First Stage (the Golden Age)

Alpha through Alliances. This stage was about the focus on individual card design. Design decisions tended to be made on a card-by-card basis.

• Richard Garfield
• The "East Coast Playtesters", fellow graduate students in the math and physics department.
  • Skaff Elias
  • Jim Lin
  • Chris Page
  • Dave Pettey
• The "Penn group", members of a local bridge club.
  • Charlie Catino
  • Joel Mick
  • Don Felice
  • Howard Kahlenberg
  • Elliott Segal
• The Canadian connection.
  • Steve Conard
  • Robin Herbert

Second Stage (the Silver Age)

Mirage through Prophecy. Richard Garfield left to explore other games, and Joel Mick took over as head designer. This stage was the introduction of the block and the focus of design in thinking of Magic in terms of a year. This was also the era of the psychographics with Timmy, Johnny, and Spike getting defined and a cleaning up of the rules.

• Bill Rose
• Mark Rosewater
• Mike Elliott
• William Jockusch
• Henry Stern

Third Stage (the Bronze Age)

Invasion through Saviors of Kamigawa. Joel Mick became brand manager, and Bill Rose took over as head designer. This stage was the introduction of block themes. Blocks were no longer just a collection of mechanics, but contained specific things chosen to highlight the block's theme.

• Randy Buehler
• Mike Donais
• Brian Schneider
• Worth Wollpert
• Aaron Forsythe
• Elaine Chase
• Devin Low
• Brian Tinsman
• Tyler Bielman

Fourth Stage

Ravnica through Rise of the Eldrazi. Bill Rose had become Vice-President, thus Mark Rosewater became Head Designer and Brian Schneider became Head Developer. This stage was the introduction of block planning. Instead of picking a theme and continuing it through the block, design now planned out how exactly the block was going to evolve. This planning allowed for themes to be better set up and paid off. Members of the fourth generation includes several participants of The Great Designer Search (GDS) 2006, Wizards of the Coast's historic search for R&D's for a Magic design intern.

• Mike Turian
• Erik Lauer
• Nate Heiss
• Matt Place
• Alexis Janson (GDS winner)
• Ken Nagle (GDS runner up)
• Graeme Hopkins (GDS runner up)
• Mark Globus (GDS)
• Paul Sottosanti
• Gregory Marques
• Mark Gottlieb
• Steve Warner

Fifth Stage

From Scars of Mirrodin through Journey into Nyx. How mechanical themes are looked at and used was radically changed. In the previous two stages, themes had been used as the foundation to build the block on. Starting with Scars of Mirrodin, mechanical themes were thought of as tools used to put a block together and to evoke an emotional resonance. Metaphorically, themes were no longer the canvas, but the paint. The fifth generation included participants of The Great Designer Search 2 (2010).

New members:

• Dave Humpherys
• Zac Hill
• Tom LaPille
• Max McCall (GDS & GDS2)
• Billy Moreno (GDS2)
• Gavin Verhey
• Kelly Digges
• Matt Tabak
• Ethan Fleischer (GDS2 winner)
• Shawn Main (GDS2 runner up)
• Jenna Helland
• Sam Stoddard

Sixth Stage

From Khans of Tarkir on. The Sixth Stage was heralded by the introduction of exploratory design. The elements of a set and block are now mapped out, before the actual design of the cards and mechanics start. This stage also features exploratory world building, which leads to a earlier and more extensive integration of flavor and design. The sixth age also features the Council of Colors, six members of the design team who are responsible for protecting the integrity of the color pie: Ken Nagle (green), Ethan Fleischer (blue), Shawn Main (red), Gavin Verhey (black), Jackie Lee (white) and intern Jules Robins (Colorless).

New members:

• Ian Duke
• Ben Hayes
• Adam Prosak
• Tim Aten
• Jackie Lee
• Jonathan Skolnik
• Melissa DeTora

Creature type

Designer is an Unglued creature type which was eliminated from the Comprehensive Rules list during the Grand Creature Type Update (Richard Garfield, Ph.D.).