MTG Development @wizardsdeveloper - Tumblr Blog

Dual Lands in Commander 2016

From Ben Hayes:

One of the biggest challenges with developing Commander 2016 was making the mana base and color fixing in each deck work smoothly.

While it’s normally a goal in products like this to cycle out cards of this type where possible. As the lead of Commander 2016 development, I made the call early on that prioritizing that goal highly would be too detrimental to the overall experience, and the playability of each deck.

Different strategies and especially different suites of gold cards demand different types of lands of a deck, so the suite of mana fixing lands you see in each of the decks is the composition that I and the person responsible for the development of that deck thought was the best it could be for that deck, without being concerned with the goal of cycling everything out if it didn’t make for a better final product.

Below are the rare dual lands you’ll see in Commander 2016!

Enjoy!

Does the development team pay attention to the first impressions of spoiled cards? Have there been any that really surprised the team?

FromAdam Prosak:

Oneof my greatest joys in working at Wizards is releasing cards that I've workedon for over a year. First and foremost, seeing reactions to previews isjust vindication that what I do actually matters. I have nightmares ofpreviewing a set, and nobody has anything to say about it.

Ilove both positive and negative feedback on cards, as it really helps me learnabout the types of cards that you want to play with. So keep it coming!

Asfor individual cards, we thought internally that Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy was one ofthe strongest cards in Magic Origins. When it was previewed there was only a lukewarmreaction, which surprised us. As it turned out, it did not take longfor Jace to start having tournament success.

FromIan Duke:

We’reconstantly reading forums, articles and social media looking for what’s goingon in the community, and preview season is one of the most fun times for us.It’s great to get feedback on our work, and to see how our expectations match(or don’t match!) what’s exciting the community. There’s always a lot of energyin the preview seasons, and we love tapping in to that.

Thecard that surprised me most since I’ve been here was Aurelia’s Fury fromGatecrash. That was a card we expected to be exciting for booster draft, sealed deck or casualplay, but not a competitive constructed tournament card. When Aurelia’s Fury was previewed, the community really startedbuzzing about it, Like REALLY! So I went and added some copies to my FFL decks to double checkthat we hadn’t missed anything. Ultimately there was no need for panic, becausethe card ended up not making huge waves in constructed.

Sorry for such a specific question, but I'm very curious: I had read that Liliana of the Veil was considered in standard around the time of the ktk block, and that siege rhino had an iteration in design with the loxodon smiter affect in order to balance LoTV. Just for personal interest in design, why was that standard in a state where LoTV was in consideration, and why was LoTV not okay in the madness-based environment of SOI/EMN? Thank you for your time!

From ErikLauer:

Lilianaof the Veil is a very efficient planeswalker, maybe the second mostconstructed after only Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Black was underpowered afterScars of Mirrodin block, and she was part of what brought the color back intobalance. When we tried her again, it was less about any particular synergy, andmore about her incredible impact for a 3 mana card.

From IanDuke:

I was atournament player during the original printing of Liliana of the Veil. She wascertainly very powerful in standard then as well! Like Erik mentioned, Isuspect the reason she ended up as strong as she did was becauseblack was weak in Standard at that time. We generally try to avoid putting somuch of a color’s power into a single card, so as to create more diversity indeckbuilding. When we tried Liliana again in Magic 2015 (with the simple goal of being an exciting reprint), we were just comingout of an era where monoblack devotion was very strong. It was clear to us inplaytesting that she would not have been healthy to add to that format. Andyes, she was causing problems to the point where we tried anti-discard text onsome cards to counterbalance her.

Hi there MtG developers! I have a question about rare lands for you: There's been a cycle of rare lands that can provide/fetch 2 colors of mana since at least Scars of Mirrodin Block, but Tarkir, BfZ, and SOI have been allied-colors only. Is this temporary, or is development trying to move away from enemy-colored lands at rare?

From Adam Prosak:

We do plan our dual lands very carefully, andwe make an effort to balance allied vs enemy lands in any given Standardenvironment. Currently in Standard, there are cycles of allied dual landsin BFZ and SOI, while there are cycles of enemy duals in ORI and the creaturelands in BFZ/OGW.

Thereare lots of factors that play into the dual lands that are in any givenStandard, and it’s one of the places we put more effort in getting right. The available dual lands are one of the most important pieces of Standard.

All 3 Eldrazi titans were printed without graveyard clauses. Has R&D given up on preventing reanimator strategies? Between Iona, Griselbrand, etc., it's tough to top what's available in old formats, and standard doesn't get Zombify at 4 mana anymore.

From Erik Lauer:

The approach we have been taking with reanimatorstrategies, is to allow great reanimation targets, but to usually charge 5 or more mana for reanimation spells. This gives us a lot of design space for big creatures that you’ll actually cast as well. As far as older formats go, Griselbrand sets the bar very high.

From IanDuke:

We alsodesigned the new Eldrazi to have a lot of their power contained in their casttrigger. Between that, and them not having annihilator this time around, wewere okay allowing them as reanimation targets. And by not having to writeout the anti-reanimation text that the original Eldrazi titans had, it gave us moreroom for other cool abilities.

It's was my birthday yesterday, and I'd ask maro, but I feel this is a deck development question. How do you decide the removal spells to print? Like ultimate price was twice reprinted in a muticolor block, rtr and ktk. Doom Blade was last I'm standard when mono black devotion was the best thing. Seems like nonbos imo. Is it intentional?

From Erik Lauer:

Happy belated birthday! Yes, weoften intentionally protect the newest block themes from the most efficient removal.That gives those themes a better chance of showing up in Standardtournaments when they first come out. We still make sure to give some reasonable answers to the newcards, because it is important to keep an interactive environment.

How many of you were judges before you came to work at Wizards, and how has that experience affected your work?

From Melissa DeTora:

I was a Level 2 judge before starting at Wizards in January2015. I had actually been judging for the majority of the time I’d been playingprofessionally, having certified in 2004. I became an L2 in 2012 as a way toimprove my rules and policy knowledge, which helped me improve as a player aswell.

As a Magic developer, having 11 years of judging experiencehas helped me in many ways. The most obvious way is that when we are designingcards, I can easily identify what won’t work with the current rules and let therules manager know of any potential problems, as well as figuring out how newcards should be worded so that they work. Another way that judging has helpedme is that I can I can identify crazy corner-case scenarios that come up duringFFL play. If we feel that these scenarios are not appropriate for tournamentplay, we’d either cut them from the set or even weaken the cards so that itwon’t show up in Standard. There are lots of things that come up in playtestingwhere knowing the Comprehensive rules and the Magic Tournament Rules comes inhandy. Things like tournament shortcuts and priority passing are the firstthings that come to mind. For example, sometimes I will identify scenarioswhere a card would play in an unfair way due to the tournament shortcut rules,and we may change that card to make it play in a more fun way.

Not a question, just wanted to say thank you for all the work you do. I wouldn't be surprised by now if you've gotten more aggressive messages, but there are people who appreciate the work you do. :) Hope all of your days are going well.

From Ian Duke:

Thanks for the kind words, mirron91! Actually, the vastmajority of the messages we’ve been getting are really positive. When I do reada message that comes across as “aggro”, I try to stop and appreciate the factthat people love Magic enough to get that passionate about it. Plus, there’salways something to learn from any kind of feedback. We have a really diverseplayerbase, so learning how a player feels and why can teach us a lot,even if (or especially if!) they’re frustrated or upset.

Anyway, keep the great questions and feedback coming!

Why doesn't Reality Haemorrhage exile the creature it destroys? And why were there so few exile effects in Oath of the Gatewatch?

From Ian Duke:

Thematically, Battle for Zendikar was supposed to focus moreon Ulamog and his brood, while Oath of the Gatewatch was more about Kozilek.Ulamog’s mechanical focus was on exiling and processing, while Kozilek’s newthing was colorless mana in costs. So we intentionally dialed back on theexiling mechanical space in order to shine the spotlight on Kozilek.

How does development deal with all of the 13's in the INN and SOI blocks? How does that affect costing of things like, for example, Startled awake?

From Adam Prosak:

Once you reach a certain point, for many effects adifference of one doesn't have a huge impact. For example, the card isn'tsignificantly stronger or weaker if it mill 14 cards or mill 12 cards. Dodecaphobia (fear of the number 12!) is a similar card toTriskadekaphobia. But only certain effects make sense to have the number13 attached to them. And, for example, "draw 13 cards" or “deal13 damage would be dangerous to print at any cost because of effects that could“cheat” them out by bypassing the cost.

Hypothetically, development could be much more concernedabout a world built around a different number. For example, it’d be tough to do a world that was all about the number 4 and pressured us tochoose that instead of 3 or 5. But we are happy trying to find ways tomake the number 13 happen.

I have asked Maro if Psychatog could ever see a reprint in standard. His response is "I'm not a developer, but I believe it's too strong." Well, you're a developer. So what gives? Is he too strong, or was it the other cards available that broke him?

In my opinion,from a pure power-level standpoint I think we could do Pyschatog in standard.It’s at least close enough that we could test it in our FFL. It would have tomake sense in the context of the set and environment. So my answer is “not toostrong to test”.

Puttingon my developer hat for a moment for the sake of discussion:

Psychatoghas a couple things about it that we’d want to be careful about. We always haveto be mindful of activated abilities that don’t cost mana. In some cases theycan cause fast combo kills or even infinite loops. And they can also make boardstates harder for some players to process (when “tapped out” isn’t a full “shieldsdown” moment). That’s generally fine in small doses, but it’s easy to gooverboard and end up with very “chess-like” board states which can beparalyzing for less-experienced players.

Second, alot of the strength of Psychatog is that you can’t attack me because I could use this ability, therefore youdon’t attack me and I don’t have touse the ability. We like when cards that convert resources into an advantageactually make you spend the resource, not just threaten to. That way, the gameis more likely to progress forward rather than remain a stalemate.

Lastly,Psychatog has a lot of potential for synergy, so if we had mechanics that workwith it in the format (like madness) we’d need to balance those things aroundeach other. Which is fine, but if we found that having Psychatog would make ushave to nerf a whole bunch of other cards, we’d usually rather spread the poweraround.

None ofthose things mean we can’t or wouldn’t do it, I’m just trying to give someinsight into the things we think about when considering it.

-Ian

Hey development team! If you guys had to choose, what is/was your favorite tribal deck to build and/or play?

From Adam Prosak:

Ireally enjoyed playing werewolves during the FFL process. One of thethings we did with werewolves this time around was to give them some flashcreatures, so that you could flip the werewolves in Shadows over Innistrad withoutskipping your turn. Cards like Howlpack Resurgence and Spirit of the Packare really fun to play, as you have lots of optionsas to how to play them. They can serve as combat tricks or ways to keep youropponent off balance, and they play well with transforming your werewolves.

how often do you tweak and depower some deck that is dominant at the start of playtest, but ends up being fringe at best in actual standard, and was only a pillar of your version of the format because it had always been? (/is this a real concern?)

Yes,this can happen. I wouldn’t say it’s a dangerous or a bad thing, since we oftenwork in terms of a deck’s probability to show up rather than an absolute,binary “this will or will not show up.” We like to aim for the border, so thatif we miss high or low we’re not too far off. The same goes for individualcards.

Andsometimes, yes, a deck that was strong in early playtesting gets some nerfs inorder to bring it in line with other strategies, and the nerfs end up causingit not to show up in the real world. One recent example was Temur in Theros-Khansstandard. At one point Temur was one of the strongerclans, but we dinged Savage Knuckleblade and Temur Charm a little bit and itended up just being a fringe deck in standard. (Though I will add it wasn’t toofar below the rest of the metagame - people still played it in Grand Prix and in unified standard at the World Magic Cup.)

Theonly thing that would be dangerous is planning lots of other elements ofstandard relying on the fact that a certain deck is strong, not realizingwe over-nerfed it. But that doesn’t really happen with the way we work, because part of our process is to avoid putting all our eggs into one basket.

-Ian

We now know that the back side of a DFC has a cmc equal to its front side. Is this decision based on emerge or something else?

From Dave Humpherys (as lead of Shadows Over Innistrad):

Thedecision about the converted mana cost of a DFC to remain at the same valuewhen it transformed was something I wanted to be true without any considerationto emerge. That emerge mechanic was a relevant point in our discussion of this topicthough. To varying degrees, transforming your cards is a challenge during gameplay. In most cases, your reward is a more impressive creature or permanent.The converted mana cost of a card is something we use as an inexact indicatorof investment of resources when we balance cards like Abrupt Decay, RatchetBomb, and cards that show up in small quantities in many sets. I didn’t wantthis potentially hidden drawback to achieving the transformation, that of theconverted mana cost being set to zero, when it wasn’t clear what the mostintuitive answer to that card’s converted mana cost was once it had transformedto our average player. Player’s intuition on what they’d expect was somewhatmixed and depended on their familiarity with the rules in similar situations. Ialso didn’t like that an entire group of cards like werewolves would besusceptible to cards that dealt with converted mana cost.

Will we ever see a vanilla 1R 2/2?

Only time will tell....-Sam

When balancing cards, are you more apt to add additional colorless mana (say, going from 2G to 3G) or to turn colorless costs into colored costs (say, going from 2G to 1GG)? What situations warrant one method over the other?

We don’t use colored mana symbols to strengthen or weaken cards very often, since usually the fundamental problem with a card being too strongis how much total mana it costs, not how reliably a multicolor deck can cast it. If we change a card from 2G to 1GG, it’s still just as strong in the heavy/mono green deck as it was before.

Instead, we use colored mana as a knob to tune how many different decks have access to a card. If we want a card to be a reward for going heavilyinto a color, we’ll give it more colored mana symbols. Usually we’ll do that with “rate” cards, which are just powerful but not very build-aroundy. Conversely, we make a lot of the Johnny/combo cards a single colored mana, so that creative deckbuilders havemore variety in what they can do with them.

-Ian

Do you ever lower the power level on a card so that it will appeal to its intended fans but not to the competitive scene?

From Erik Lauer:

Yes, when we lower the power level of a card, we try do take enough away to accomplish our goals,but not more. We do that so, as you say, it will still appeal to the intended fans.

Sometimes the cards still see constructed play, but at a smaller rate. For example, Engulf theShore was creating problems at 3 mana. When we added a mana, we thought it would still be fun for casual mono blue players. In fact, it still saw a bit of constructed play; Frank Karsten finished 15that Grand Prix San Jose!

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

MTG Development