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1~ Magic the Gathering: A Short Treatise on Mechanics and Play ~
2
3									by Mzpy Rtzlvwzq
4                              				et Snpr Hlyrxzrsk
5
6------------
7: SELESNYA :			White - Green
8''''''''''''
9
10I thought I would spend the theme weeks this time talking about guild design. Today, 
11for example, I am going to talk about how to design for green-white in the abstract 
12and Selesnya in particular. I'll also look at the two guild mechanics (from original 
13Ravnica block and Return to Ravnica block) to go a little more in depth as to how 
14they were designed and what needs the mechanics had. Hopefully, that sounds like fun.
15
16To keep things orderly (I will be doing this for ten weeks, after all), I thought I 
17would structure these columns by asking the same sets of questions for each 
18guild/color pairing.
19
20    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
21
22For green-white, the answer is that the colors blend together easily. Of all the 
23colors in the game, the green-white color pairing is the closest. Green and white, 
24for example, are the two most creature-centric colors. This means they are #1 and #2 
25(white, then green) as far as who gets the most creatures. The two share lifegain, 
26creature boosting, enchantment (and, to a lesser extent for white, artifact) removal, 
27vigilance, damage prevention (with green's being Fog effects), adding +1/+1 counters, 
28untapping creatures, and other small effects.
29
30Green and white are not only the closest colors mechanically but also 
31philosophically. Selesnya, for example, plays into the fact that these two colors 
32are the colors of community. They both like to form large bands of creatures and 
33overrun their enemies. Yes, white is more the army color, hitting fast with small 
34creatures working together, while green ramps up its mana to get a horde of larger 
35creatures onto the battlefield, but the two have a similar feel.
36
37Also, in future weeks I'll talk about how certain color pairings are close in one 
38area but distant in another. Green and white, in contrast, are similar to one another 
39through almost every card type.
40
41    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
42
43One of my favorite sayings is "Your greatest weakness is just your greatest strength 
44pushed too far." This similarity between green and white is good in finding synergies 
45but also causes problems because it's harder to find multicolor cards that truly feel 
46like they are green and white, rather than being green or white. In other words, 
47green-white is the king of hybrid design where you're looking for overlap, but is 
48problematic when you want strong definition to mix and match.
49
50R&D has spent a lot of time making fine-tuned adjustments between what green gets and 
51what white gets. As an example, white gets lesser creature boosts (+2/+2 and smaller) 
52while green gets greater creature boosts (+3/+3 and larger). The fact that we've 
53spent so much time splitting hairs between the colors means it's harder for each 
54color to have clear color identity. For example, you can't make the white part of a 
55green-white card grant a +2/+2 boost, because even though it's technically white it 
56feels too close to green.
57
58    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
59
60To answer this question, I must first define my terms. A mechanical heart is at the 
61center of a design. It's the thing that defines what must be built around. For 
62example, the mechanical heart of the original Ravnica design was the guilds. At every 
63point, we used the emphasis on the guilds to create the framework for the design. It 
64led to how the colors were used. It led to how the keywords were defined. It led to 
65all the key decisions of the design.
66
67Now, when I talk about the mechanical design of a color pair, I'm referring to what 
68is the one mechanical element that most defines the interrelation between the two 
69colors. For green and white, this is creatures. Both colors are focused on creatures 
70and both colors define much of their philosophy and mechanics around supporting 
71creatures.
72
73If creatures are the mechanical heart, that means that the definition of green-white 
74(and extra so in Selesnya) has to be found in the creatures. In other words, the 
75guild keyword, which is going to be the strongest marker for the guild's mechanical 
76feel, has to be on and about creatures.
77
78    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
79
80The mechanical heart is about which part of the design has to be the build-around 
81component. For green-white, that's creatures. The focus is more about what the color 
82combination wants to do to win. Okay, green-white is focused on creatures. Wonderful. 
83Now how is it going to use its creatures to win?
84
85The answer was hinted at above. Green and white are both about overwhelming the 
86opponent with creatures. White does it quicker than green, but both have a similar 
87play style. This means the focus of green-white is a creature-based attack strategy 
88that relies on having a number of creatures. The focus is another thing that has to 
89play into the guild keyword. If green-white is about attacking with creatures, then 
90its guild mechanic has to help in that goal.
91
92    Convoke
93
94We'll begin with Selesnya's first guild mechanic, convoke. Convoke was designed by 
95Richard Garfield, interestingly enough, for the Boros guild. Richard felt that it 
96conveyed the sense of the army working together to strengthen the unit. Richard 
97called it crittercast. I enjoyed crittercast but told Richard I thought he had put 
98it into the wrong guild. I'd been looking for a creature-centered mechanic for 
99Selesnya and crittercast fit the bill perfectly.
100
101For starters, convoke is a mechanic that requires creatures yet doesn't only go on 
102creatures. In addition, it greatly rewards players having a lot of creatures. That 
103is very much the identity we wanted with Selesnya. In addition, it lines up 
104beautifully with the philosophy of the guild, as green and white's overlap is very 
105much about the value of community. Selesnya's strength in the story is that it is 
106the most selfless of the guilds. Its guild members consider each other equals and 
107want to work together.
108
109Convoke did a wonderful job of conveying a sense of closeness between the creatures 
110because they have to work together to cast spells. Also, it did a good job of helping 
111green-white get out bigger creatures faster to help their route to victory. Remember 
112that the cost reduction wasn't solely about getting out big creatures. It also 
113allowed a player from Selesnya to cast spells without requiring mana. These types of 
114spells tended to be cheap, to maximize the amount of times they can be used for free.
115
116Early plotting is all well and good, but at some point you have to actually make the 
117cards with the mechanic. It's at this point that you start to explore how much design 
118space a mechanic can support. Let me quickly explain what you're looking for in this 
119area:
120
121    1. How many different card types can this mechanic go on?
122
123    For each additional card type a mechanic can be used on, you're opening up more 
124    space.
125
126    2. Does it require any restrictions?
127
128    One of the biggest limiters of design space is simply self-limitations by the 
129    mechanic itself. Does the mechanic require targeting? Does it require a variable 
130    number? Does it require an ability that can be tweaked? Many mechanics get locked 
131    down because there is simply a small list of things that fit the card's 
132    mechanical requirements.
133
134    3. Does the mechanic fight with itself for space?
135
136    Another big problem is when a mechanic fights for a resource with other cards 
137    with the same mechanic. For example, we've been trying to find a home for delve 
138    from Future Sight. One of delve's biggest issues is that it's hard to put too 
139    many in your deck because each one wants to eat up your graveyard, leaving no 
140    food for future delve cards. When this happens, it forces the designers to lessen 
141    how many cards they make with the mechanic.
142
143One of convoke's greatest strengths was that it didn't cause any of these problems. 
144It could go on any card type, it didn't have any real restrictions, and it didn't 
145fight with itself. In fact, with the last issue it went the opposite way. The 
146enablers for convoke worked well with all convoke cards, often encouraging you to 
147play with more convoke.
148
149Of the original ten Ravnica guild mechanics, I believe convoke was the strongest 
150design with the most potential for future use.
151
152    Populate
153
154One of the things we tried with the new guild keywords in Return to Ravnica was to 
155find ways to make a new keyword that wasn't simply retreading what the first guild 
156mechanic had done. Convoke did a wonderful job, but we needed to find a different 
157way to attack the problem. Obviously, the mechanic had to be creature-centered, but 
158other than that we were free to explore any design space.
159
160I felt like in Ravnica, Selesnya had explored the idea of creatures helping one 
161another. I was interested in focusing more on the explosive nature of creatures in 
162green-white. Selesnya's victory plan is to overwhelm the opponent with creatures. 
163What if the new Selesnya guild mechanic helped with this explosion?
164
165The first place my mind went was this card:
166
167    Doubling Chant
168 
169Could we make a mechanic out of this? No, it was a little too much. Could we tone it 
170down? That's when I stumbled upon the idea of a proliferate for creature tokens. As 
171I've explained, the first version was pretty much just that—it made a copy of each 
172type of token. If you had two 1/1s, a 2/2, and two 3/3s, the spell would make a new 
1731/1, a new 2/2, and a new 3/3. I believe that version lasted for one playtest before 
174it got changed to its current version. It was both too strong and created a weird 
175incentive for deck building—you wanted to have as many different types of tokens as 
176possible.
177
178The interesting thing about populate is that, even though we cracked the mechanic 
179during the first few weeks of design, populate caused a lot of headaches because 
180it's what I call a two-tier mechanic. Let me explain. Some mechanics live on their 
181own. That is, they don't require the interaction of any other card, or, if they do, 
182what is being asked is something that Magic regularly provides.
183
184A two-tier mechanic, though, requires some other element to exist in the set. In the 
185case of populate, that second tier is token creatures. As second-tiers go, this one 
186isn't too bad. The game naturally has tokens and green and white are the two colors 
187that tend to create the most tokens. (Mass token generation used to be primary green 
188and secondary white, but that got swapped when we decided to push harder on white 
189being the army color—this is also when we changed it so white got the most creatures 
190at common.)
191
192Usually, the second tier has to be able to stand on its own, otherwise it becomes 
193what we call parasitic (i.e., it only works with other things from the same set). 
194Selesnya required us to up the overall number of tokens, but as they work fine in 
195isolation we felt comfortable ramping it up. We felt that it would give Selesnya a 
196stronger feel without severely handicapping the set. (Note that this did mean we had 
197to be a little more cautious with the cards that are the natural enemies of token 
198creatures—bounce spells, I'm looking at you.)
199
200Populate ended up having two major problems. One, the populate part of the two-tier 
201system was parasitic. It didn't mean anything without the other piece. Luckily, 
202tokens are a strong part of Magic's past, so although populate is parasitic it was at 
203least parasitic with a lot of already-existing cards. Two, common populate cards had 
204the problem of stranding players with populate cards without tokens.
205
206The first problem we knew we had to suck up but the second one had some work-arounds. 
207The most common trick we did was to make the populate cards themselves create tokens, 
208ensuring there was always something to populate. The other common trick was to use 
209populate as a rider. That way, if you didn't have a token in play, the card still had 
210a function.
211
212The end result of all this is that populate ended up having less design space than 
213convoke. That's not a bad thing, as one of the biggest advantages of the guild system 
214is that we can make use of mechanics that aren't quite big enough to be a showcase 
215mechanic (a major high-focus mechanic of a set). Because we had fewer populate cards 
216overall, we made sure to have a bunch of the higher rarity ones be repeatable. This 
217would help increase the amount of populating going on during a game.
218
219Populate was definitely a bigger pain to design, and design around, than convoke, but 
220I'm very happy with how it turned out. Selesnya, due in a big part to populate, is my 
221favorite guild to play in Return to Ravnica. (It's not my favorite in the block, but 
222we'll get there soon enough.)
223
224Any Final Thoughts?
225
226The joy of designing guilds is capturing the purity of the guild's message. I'm very 
227happy how we managed to make Selesnya creature-centric in Return to Ravnica but in a 
228way different from the original Ravnica. I've mentioned how one of our goals was to 
229make sure the new version of the guild felt unique but still blended nicely with what 
230was done before.
231
232I like how convoke and populate hit different notes but are still working toward the 
233same goal. This means when you mix the watermarks from original Selesnya with the new 
234Selesnya, you get a combination of cards that work together and create a unified 
235feel.
236
237
238-----------
239- AZORIUS -			White - Blue
240'''''''''''
241
242Welcome to Azorius Week. This time out, I'm talking about what it takes to design for 
243each color pair in general and for the guild specifically. Let's get started.
244
245    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
246
247Both white and blue have a very defensive nature. As such, both their creatures are 
248a bit more on the defensive side (they are the two colors, for example, that most 
249often have toughness greater than power), they tend to have more controlling 
250qualities (for instance, tapping creatures as a creature-activated effect is white 
251and blue—blue usually also untaps them), and they often have evasion (for example, 
252white and blue are the top two colors at flying).
253
254When it comes to spells, white and blue have the most reactive cards. White tends to 
255protect itself and its creatures while blue fiddles with the natures of magic, 
256countering spells and the like, but the two have a similar feel in that they often 
257sit back and wait for the opponent to act first. In mechanics overlap, white is 
258closer to green, but in overall feel, white is closer to blue. It's not hard to get 
259each color to push toward the other.
260
261    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
262
263While white and blue each have a defensive aspect that aligns perfectly with the 
264other, they both have a more aggressive side that doesn't match up quite as well. 
265White has a weenie attack strategy (blue, Delver of Secrets notwithstanding, 
266traditionally has the weakest weenie creatures) while blue has a tempo style of play 
267that white can't add a lot to. What this means is that the overlap between the two 
268colors has to concentrate on a smaller sliver of design space than some of the other 
269color combinations.
270
271Also, the area that the two mesh the best in—the "sit back and be reactive, 
272preventing everything from happening" style of play—is not the most fun Magic, so 
273development is reluctant to push it, powerwise. This means design is always on the 
274lookout for cards in white-blue that feel good yet don't make the game screech to a 
275halt.
276
277    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
278
279From a color-pie philosophy, white and blue are the two colors that plan ahead most, 
280white with its orderly strategizing and blue with its thoughtful reflection. This 
281means that the key to white-blue is control of the game. Note that I mean control in 
282the broader sense and just not counterspells (although that is one of the things blue 
283brings to the white-blue table).
284
285White and blue want to take control of every facet of the game they can. They want to 
286dictate what the things on the battlefield can and cannot do. They want to control 
287how and what gets played. They want to grant themselves options while taking away 
288options from the opponent. When designing white-blue, and Azorius in particular, 
289the designers have to always ask, "What is white-blue doing to push the game toward 
290its agenda?"
291
292This means there are a lot of reactive and proactive cards. This means things on the 
293battlefield like to either affect other things or be unable to be affected by other 
294things. White-blue wants to set the rules.
295
296    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
297
298Controlling the game is a good strategy but it doesn't tend to win. Part of having a 
299focus is having a route to victory. For white-blue, this route is through creatures. 
300There are two different ways that white-blue uses creatures to win.
301
302First is the evasion strategy. As I said above, white and blue are the top two colors 
303for creatures with flying. White also has protection while blue has unblockability 
304and islandwalk. White-blue's strategy is to take control of the game and then use its 
305evasive creatures to peck away at the opponent. White then uses protective spells 
306while blue uses permission and hexproof to keep these evasive creatures safe.
307
308Second is the big flier strategy. Both white and blue get big fliers, especially at 
309higher rarities—most iconically Angels and Sphinxes. A different way to win is to get 
310a large flier out in the mid- to late game and then protect it while it single-
311handedly wins the game.
312
313Regardless of the choice, control + creatures + protection of those creatures leads 
314to a white-blue and Azorius victory.
315
316    Forecast 
317
318Let me begin by explaining where the Dissension design team (Aaron Forsythe as lead, 
319with Mark Gottlieb, Brandon Bozzi, and myself) was when we designed forecast. From 
320time to time, the head developer comes to me and explains that some deck is doing 
321well and could design please not push in a certain area? Right before Dissension 
322started, Brian Schneider, the head developer during the Ravnica block, came to me 
323and said that white-blue control had gotten a little stronger than he was comfortable 
324with. Could we avoid pushing in that direction in Dissension?
325
326Look up above where I talk about the mechanical heart of white-blue. Brian basically 
327asked the design team to make Azorius without, you know, playing up its defensive 
328nature (i.e., use its mechanical heart). Brian did understand the awkwardness of what 
329he was asking and he wouldn't have asked if it wasn't important, so we did our best 
330to make Azorius feel like white-blue without pushing the control aspect too hard.
331
332Our solution to this problem was to play more into what I listed as the focus above. 
333We played up the flying aspect of Azorius and made the guild a little more 
334aggressive. I feel Azorius was the guild of all ten in the original Ravnica block 
335that deviated the most from expectation, but now you know that was because we needed 
336to avoid the obvious answer. As you will see, we corrected this problem in Return to 
337Ravnica.
338
339So, we were looking for a mechanic that felt Azorius but wasn't super defensive. For 
340some reason, my mind went to a card that wasn't white or blue. Can you guess the card 
341that inspired me to come up with the forecast mechanic?
342
343Think about it.
344
345    Infernal Spawn of Evil
346 
347How many of your minds went to Unglued? Before I explain how Infernal Spawn of Evil 
348inspired forecast, let me start by explaining how the card got designed in the first 
349place. Many years ago, Ron Spencer was assigned some gruesome black card. Normally, 
350before artists paint their illustrations, they send in sketches so the art director 
351can make sure they're going in the right direction.
352
353Ron Spencer had been assigned some gruesome black card and as a joke sent in a sketch 
354that looked a lot like the art of Infernal Spawn of Evil. Everyone had a good laugh 
355and then Ron sent in the real sketch. While working on Unglued, I decided I wanted 
356to use the original sketch Ron made. I decided the joke of the card was that this was 
357the most evil creature in the world. The name Infernal Spawn of Evil was chosen to 
358play up this joke.
359
360While designing the card, I wanted to find a mechanic that played up the flavor that 
361this creature was so scary that even the mere hint it would eventually appear was 
362enough to scare opponents—scare them enough that it physically hurt them and made 
363them lose life. After playing around with a few ideas I ended up with the idea that 
364you could show the card from your hand once per turn. The card had to be expensive 
365because it was supposed to be big and scary in play and this ability would allow you 
366to do something with it until you could cast it.
367
368Okay, that's how Infernal Spawn of Evil got made. How exactly did my search for a 
369white-blue mechanic get me to a black Unglued card? Looking back, here's my best 
370guess as to what happened: White-blue tends to like having cards in hand. That got 
371me to thinking about cards that had a function while in your hand. That line of 
372thinking got me to Infernal Spawn of Evil, the one card in Magic 's past that did 
373exactly that.
374
375What if, I suggested, we had a mechanic that lived in the hand so that white-blue 
376had something to do with its handful of cards? The idea with the mechanic was that 
377it would generate a small effect. This would allow the player to choose between 
378repeatedly getting a small effect or casting the card for a one-time large effect.
379
380The mechanic was very choice heavy but I felt like the style of player attracted to 
381Azorius would actually appreciate the choice and would have fun trying to figure out 
382when to abandon the small forecast effect for the larger spell effect.
383
384Once the team accepted forecast as an idea for the guild mechanic, the next step was 
385figuring out how to properly execute it. Originally, the plan was to have the cards 
386trigger at upkeep, but the rules don't like triggers originated from a non-public 
387zone (i.e., a place all players can't see). In the end, we ended up making it an 
388activated ability but one restricted to your upkeep.
389
390The bigger design issue was figuring out how to design the forecast cards such that 
391the forecast effect seemed a natural part of the card. In the end, we ended up with 
392three main ways to do this:
393
394The Combo: Some of the cards, such as Pride of the Clouds, have a forecast effect 
395that has synergy with the spell effect. For example, if you use the forecast on 
396Pride of the Clouds to make a flying Bird token, when you cast Pride of the Clouds 
397it is +1/+1 larger. On these cards, the two effects are linked only by how they work 
398together.
399
400The Lesser Effect: Other forecast cards have a forecast effect that is basically a 
401smaller version of the spell effect. An example of this would be Skyscribing. 
402Skyscribing can use forecast to allow all players to draw a card. If you play the 
403spell it will allow all players to draw X cards.
404
405The Ability Sharing: This last example can be seen on Spirit en-Dal. The forecast 
406effect is to grant target creature the ability the creature naturally has, such as 
407shadow on Spirit en-Dal, to a target creature for the turn.
408
409Ideally, all of the cards would have been the first category, as from a design 
410aesthetic, the combo was the most satisfying. The second type came about because we 
411simply couldn't make that many clean combo versions. The final category came into 
412play because it was very hard to do the second category on creatures.
413
414With 20/20 hindsight, I think forecast was merely a fair mechanic. It was a bit of a 
415stretch for Azorius, flavorwise, especially given that we had shifted away from a 
416more controlling style that would have synergized more with forecast. Second, the 
417mechanic was very restrictive and I don't feel all the cards were able to meet the 
418standard set by Pride of the Clouds.
419
420The final issue with it is a common issue called repetitive game play. In general, 
421we tend to shy away from mechanics that make the same thing happen every turn.
422Constant repetition simply makes the game less fun and lowers the variance 
423that is one of Magic's strengths.
424
425All in all, I feel like forecast was a B-, which is lower than I like to hit with 
426mechanics. Luckily, when we returned seven years later, we fared a little better.
427
428    Detain
429
430The very first meeting we had for Return to Ravnica design (the team was Ken Nagle 
431as the lead, Alexis Jansen, Ken Troop, Zac Hill, and myself) started by Ken saying 
432the following: "Last time, Azorius wasn't really what you expected white-blue to be. 
433We're going to fix that problem this time."
434
435For those who don't remember, after we broke down the possible guild splits for 
436Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash, we ended up with two choices. I had already had a 
437chance to work on most of the guilds in Ravnica block (remember, I was the lead for 
438Gatecrash—I later ended up handing over the reins halfway through to Mark Gottlieb) 
439so I let Ken pick which combination of guilds he wanted. Ken chose the Return to 
440Ravnica mix partly, he said, because he wanted to do Azorius right.
441
442The first idea we had for Azorius came from me. I too wanted to capture Azorius 
443correctly and had an interesting idea how to do that. In the end, though, my idea 
444had two problems.
445
446One, it was too insular. Knowing the guilds are going to be drafted together come 
447"Sinker," we wanted to make sure there was some synergy between them and this idea 
448just didn't play nicely with others.
449
450Two, it was messing in a space mechanically that we wanted to explore in a future 
451block. If it panned out, we were willing to let the future block fend for itself, 
452but with the other issue, it became clear that we were messing with the future for 
453not enough gain. It took us a while, but eventually we backed away from our first 
454take on Azorius's keyword. When I finally get to the future I'm talking about, if I 
455remember, I'll fill you all in on what Azorius was up to.
456
457After that, we experimented with a bunch of different mechanics, but none really 
458stuck. So when the set went into devign, a sub-team was put together to come up with 
459Azorius guild mechanics. For those who are unaware of what I mean by a sub-team, let 
460me quickly explain: Sometimes, when a set needs a little help on a specific problem, 
461we put together a separate design team to tackle the problem. Usually a sub-team 
462will just meet for a week or two to help attack the problem from a different vantage 
463point.
464
465The Azorius sub-team was led by Mark Globus and included Dave Humpherys, Billy 
466Moreno, and Ken Nagle. Ken was there to represent the needs of Return to Ravnica. 
467Humpherys was there to give a developer perspective, while Mark and Billy were there 
468to design lots of cards. (While Billy is a developer, he has a strong design 
469sensibility.)
470
471When the sub-team started, it used as inspiration a request from the developers. The 
472development team had looked over Return to Ravnica and felt the set needed a tempo-
473based mechanic. The sub-team came up with two ideas, one a little too simple and one 
474a little too complex. The complex idea never got solved (although I am optimistic it 
475might get solved one day so I'm not going to talk about it).
476
477The simple idea was building a mechanic around the idea of "tap a creature." The 
478team knew that Azorius wanted to gain advantage by stopping the opponent's creatures, 
479but only temporarily. The trick, though, was how to turn "tap a creature" into a 
480full-blown mechanic. Eventually, the team came across the idea that the creature 
481would be affected much like being tapped but without the actual tapping. The affected 
482creature just couldn't attack or block. The team called this ability "jail."
483 
484As the sub-team played with it, a few issues came up. First, shouldn't jailing a 
485creature also stop it from doing other things? The spell Arrest, which had a similar 
486flavor, prevented activated abilities. The team decided to add that in as well. 
487Second, the team had to figure out a duration. Playtesting showed that "until your 
488next turn" was short enough to be remembered but long enough to have an impact on 
489both your turn and your opponent's, making both not blocking and not attacking 
490matter.
491
492Third, there was the question of what could be detained. After some experimentation, 
493the team came up with the idea that monocolored cards with detain worked on creatures 
494while the multicolor ones would affect permanents. This idea stuck around all the way 
495to print.
496
497When the team was done, it offered up the mechanic to the design team as its official 
498recommendation. There was some concern from outside the team that detain was too dry 
499and not very sexy. I was one of its defenders because I believed it did what a guild 
500mechanic should—(a) it flavorfully reinforced the feel of the guild and (b) it would 
501be liked by the style of player who likes playing Azorius. Hit those two points and 
502all is good as far as I'm concerned.
503
504And that is how detain ended up the Azorius mechanic.
505
506    Any Final Thoughts?
507
508I feel that Return to Ravnica did a good job of meeting Ken's goal of "doing Azorius 
509right." I like how it controls the game but in a means that helps the game progress 
510rather than dragging it to a standstill. I'm also happy how well the guild has been 
511received. White-blue has the potential to be a little dry, so it's nice to see the 
512guild being so embraced by the fans.
513
514Like green-white, white-blue is combining two colors with a lot of overlap. The 
515challenge of its design isn't finding spells that feel right but rather finding ones 
516that are fun but flavorful. Capture that and you have a guild players can rally 
517around.
518
519
520---------
521- IZZET -				Blue - Red
522'''''''''
523
524Welcome to Izzet Week. This is the third of our guild theme weeks for Return to 
525Ravnica block. This time, I'm examining each color pair from the eyes of design. 
526What does it take to design blue and red together specifically, as well as to design 
527for the Izzet guild?
528
529    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
530
531When you list the colors with the most creatures, from highest to lowest, it goes 
532like this:
533
534    White
535    Green
536    Black
537    Red
538    Blue 
539
540It just so happens (not remotely coincidentally), if you flip this list on its head, 
541you get the colors with the most instants and sorceries. What this means is that blue 
542and red are the two "spell colors" in the game.
543
544When we look to combine blue and red, there's a lot of pull toward spells. Both Izzet 
545mechanics, which I'll talk about in a moment, are based around instants and 
546sorceries. In addition, the Izzet guild has a number of cards with what I'll call 
547"instants and sorceries matter." These are all cards that reward you for playing a 
548lot of instants and sorceries.
549
550    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
551
552Of all the ten color pairings, blue and red have the least amount of mechanical 
553overlap—especially at common. As an example, let's look at evergreen creature 
554keywords in two or more colors:
555
556    Deathtouch (Black-Green)
557    Flash (Green-Blue)
558    Flying (White-Blue-Black)
559    First Strike/Double Strike (Red-White)
560    Haste (Black-Red)
561    Hexproof (Green-Blue)
562    Lifelink (White-Black)
563    Regeneration (Black-Green)
564    Trample (Red-Green)
565    Vigilance (Green-White) 
566
567Every two-color combination has something (and yes, white-blue and blue-black both 
568only overlap at flying—that's its own problem) with the sole exception of blue-red. 
569This is especially a pain when designing hybrid cards where the only design space is 
570overlap.
571
572Also, while the two colors both make use of spells, how they use those spells tend 
573to be very different. Blue is the slowest color, red is the fastest. Blue is the most 
574reactive while red is the most proactive. The essence of what makes them enemies 
575pulls them in very different directions.
576
577    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
578
579Blue-red always comes back to spells because there just isn't that much connecting 
580the two colors mechanically. Both like casting spells for their own reason, so the 
581best way to tie them together is to find a way to connect their spellcasting. There 
582are several ways to do this.
583
584First, you can do something to their spells. This is what both Izzet guild keywords 
585did: Create a new ability that allows you to improve your spells and then give it to 
586blue and red.
587
588Second, you can trigger off of instants and sorceries being played. This encourages 
589a deck full of them, and as blue and red will have the most, this color combination 
590will have the easiest time building this deck.
591
592Third, you can care about any type of spell getting played, as instants and sorceries 
593tend to have more cheaper spells that can be used beyond the first few turns. This, 
594for example, is why the storm mechanic tended to gravitate toward blue and red.
595
596Fourth, you can make permanents that get boosts when instants and sorceries are 
597played. Izzet tends to like creatures with this ability, as it plays into the 
598experimenter flavor of the guild.
599
600Fifth, you can interact with instants and sorceries. For instance, blue is able to 
601bring instants back from the graveyard while red can get sorceries. This came about, 
602by the way, because there are times we want cycles where each color brings back a 
603different card type. Black, naturally, gets back creatures every set, with spells 
604like Raise Dead and Gravedigger. White is able to get back enchantments. Green can 
605get back anything with Regrowth-like spells, so it waited until everyone else chose. 
606Blue wants instants to get back counterspells. So that leaves red with either 
607sorceries or land. As king of land destruction, getting back land feels weird, so red 
608gets sorceries. Thus, green gets land.
609
610Note that this is more limited than a lot of the other color combinations and tends 
611to lead to more combinatory effects (which is fine, flavorwise, as the Izzet have a 
612strong Johnny feel).
613
614    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
615
616Philosophically, when you combine the intellect of blue with the passion of red you 
617get creativity. I like to refer to the Izzet as passionate thinkers. As such, the 
618sensibility they have is one of experimentation. As a designer (and acknowledged 
619Johnny), I tend to gravitate toward this Rube Goldberg feel. Blue-red wants to do 
620things where things interact with other things and the end result is something bigger 
621than the sum of its parts.
622
623Blue-red, more so than most color pairs, tends to build its decks around interactions 
624happening. It's very common, for a Constructed Izzet deck, to start with a single 
625card capable of grandiose potential and then build around it. I feel, of the ten 
626guilds, the Izzet is the most Johnny (with Simic and Golgari coming in second and 
627third).
628
629You'll note that the Limited game has less of that creative feel and the reason is 
630that it's a lot harder to get a Johnny sensibility when you have so much less control 
631over what cards you get. (Obviously, Draft moves closer to Constructed than Sealed.) 
632As such, Limited play leans more on the mechanical connection—the spells—than the 
633focus.
634
635    Replicate
636
637Some mechanics have glorious origin stories and some do not. Replicate falls into 
638the latter category. The Guildpact design team (Mike Elliott as lead, with Aaron 
639Forsythe, Devin Low, and Brian Schneider) realized that blue and red overlapped the 
640strongest on instants and sorceries and looked for mechanics that worked specifically 
641on them.
642
643The original version of replicate was called polycast, and it allowed you to recast 
644the spell as many times as you wanted when it was first cast. In this version, there 
645was no separate cost associated with replicate, as it kept reusing the mana cost. 
646This version was changed in development to have a cost associated with replicate. 
647Why was the cost added if it matched the mana cost every time? Because we felt there 
648was a decent chance of bringing the mechanic back, and that allowed us the 
649flexibility to make replicate cards where the replicate cost was different from the 
650mana cost.
651
652As a quick aside, players have asked which of the ten original Ravnica block 
653mechanics do I expect to see return. Here are my thoughts:
654
655    Forecast (Azorius):  Unlikely, for "repetition of play" issues.
656    Haunt (Orzhov):      Unlikely, for confusion and likeability issues.
657    Transmute (Dimir):   Unlikely, as we're cutting back on tutors.
658    Replicate (Izzet):   Likely to return.
659    Hellbent (Rakdos):   Unlikely, as it wasn't that well received and has limited 
660                         design space.
661    Dredge (Golgari):    Unlikely, for power reasons.
662    Bloodthirst (Gruul): Already brought back in Magic 2012.
663    Radiance (Boros):    Unlikely, as it wasn't that well received and has limited 
664                         design space.
665    Convoke (Selesnya):  likely to return.
666    Graft (Simic):       It would need to find an environment where it made sense, 
667                         but it has a chance of returning. 
668
669That means that only bloodthirst, convoke and replicate have a good chance of coming 
670back, with graft being the one other mechanic that isn't "unlikely."
671
672The design of replicate was similar to overload in that it was all about finding 
673small effects that would have value if they could be made into magnified versions. 
674Most of the replicate cards are just running through the basic spell abilities of 
675blue and red. As we wanted the mana cost and replicate costs to match, there was a 
676little juggling, but mostly it was handled by development.
677
678The one other big issue was whether or not the spell was going to be one big spell 
679or a bunch of little ones. The year before, the Champions of Kamigawa block had the 
680splice mechanic, which combined effects into one large spell. Because R&D was okay 
681with making the mechanic better against permission, the "bunch of little spells" 
682option was chosen.
683
684There's not too much else to say about replicate.
685
686    Overload
687
688This mechanic goes all the way back to the very first Great Designer Search. The 
689first design challenge was called "Gimme Five," and in it I made the contestants 
690design three five-card cycles—one at common, one at uncommon, and one at rare. For 
691each rarity, I randomly assigned them a card type. What follows are the cards Ken 
692Nagle submitted for his common cycle of sorceries:
693
694    Common Cycle—Sorcery: Dispersion
695
696    Dispersive Silence (Common) W Sorcery: Destroy target enchantment. Dispersion 
697        4W (When you play this card, if you also paid the dispersion cost, target 
698        all enchantments.)
699
700    Dispersive Mold (Common) G Sorcery: Destroy target artifact. Dispersion 4G 
701        (When you play this card, if you also paid the dispersion cost, target all 
702        artifacts.)
703
704    Dispersive Blast (Common) R Sorcery: Dispersive Blast deals 2 damage to target 
705        creature or player. Dispersion 4R (When you play this card, if you also paid 
706        the dispersion cost, target all creatures and players.)
707
708    Dispersive Path (Common) U Sorcery: Target creature is unblockable this turn. 
709        Dispersion 5U (When you play this card, if you also paid the dispersion cost, 
710        target all creatures.)
711
712    Dispersive Revival (Common) B Sorcery: Return target creature card in your 
713        graveyard to your hand. Dispersion 6B (When you play this card, if you also 
714        paid the dispersion cost, target all creature cards in your graveyard.)
715
716The Dispersion (alternatives—Radiate, Splay) mechanic allows single targeted spells 
717to change from aimed missiles to cluster bombs. Since sorceries make poor combat 
718tricks, I dispersed Limited staples. I went simple. Simpler. Then...simplest. The 
719flashy fanciness is left for higher rarities (Giant Growth, Unsummon, and ... of 
720course ... Stone Rain).
721
722Here's what the judges had to say. (Aaron is Aaron Forsythe, Devin is Devin Low, 
723Gleemax is Gleemax, and Mark was me.)
724
725    Aaron: Kenneth's cards are good enough to survive this round, in my opinion, but 
726           he'll need to step it up if he wants to win. His commons bury effects that 
727           aren't common in reminder text—innocuous-looking cards are actually 
728           Tranquility (ok, sometimes common), Shatterstorm (uncommon at best), 
729           Falter (common), Steam Blast (uncommon), and some kind of one-sided Empty 
730           the Catacombs (rare).
731
732    Devin: Last week: "Kenneth's had a couple of good hits that I enjoyed, and the 
733           whole thing did not have a lot of flaws. But it did not have a lot of 
734           awesomely inspiring newness either. He played it pretty safe, and a lot of 
735           the cards said to me "We really could make this card....But which players 
736           are looking for this or will be excited to get it?"" This week, the 
737           commons are a good idea, but some effects are not well chosen Common Steam 
738           Blast, Raise Dead all are excessive.
739
740    Gleemax: Common—Good keyword, so-so execution.
741
742    Mark: Kenneth, I felt this was a good week for you. Your initial submission put 
743          you in the middle of the pack and the first design challenge has advanced 
744          your standing.
745
746Your common cycle used the dispersion mechanic. It's a good mechanic that I could 
747see us using. It has the nice flexibility in that it can be burned early cheaply for 
748a small effect or create a larger effect later for a larger cost. The reason we do 
749many mechanics like this is they help make limited play smoother.
750
751My biggest issue with the mechanic was that you chose the wrong effects. I believe 
752this mechanic can be used at common, but both effects have to be acceptable for 
753common. In addition, I think you want most of the dispersion costs, especially at 
754common, to be colorless mana because it lessens color screw. Finally, you want to 
755have some dispersion costs that are a little cheaper. An example of what I would 
756want to see is something like this:
757
758        Dispersive Boost
759        W
760        Instant
761        Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. Dispersion 2
762
763Ken claims that the dispersion mechanic was inspired by the Torment card Radiate.
764
765The judges all basically said the same thing—the dispersion mechanic was interesting 
766but it required some nuance in what effects you used. As I said in my review, the 
767mechanic could work at common "but both effects have to be acceptable at common".
768
769Flash forward to the first design meeting of Return to Ravnica. Ken suggested 
770dispersion as the Izzet mechanic. My response: "I remember that." Everyone liked 
771the mechanic and it stayed the Izzet mechanic for the remainder of design and 
772development.
773
774The challenge with the mechanic kind of stemmed back to Ken's initial design. It's 
775neat in concept but tricky in execution. One, both effects have to work in the rarity 
776of the card. Two, there's a big swing between targeting one thing and targeting all 
777things. Three, you have to make sure the cards don't become too hard to process. 
778This happens when it's unclear whether or not you even want to use overload because 
779things are happening to you and your opponent.
780
781Let's walk through how we solved each problem.
782#1—The Rarity Issue
783
784The easiest way to solve this was to make sure the overloaded version was something 
785we would do in the rarity the card was in. At common, this means the targeting-all 
786option had to also be a common effect. We simply had to see what target-all effects 
787existed at common to get a list of possible effects. At higher rarities, as long as 
788the larger effect fit the rarity we were good. It was okay if the single effect was 
789from a lower rarity.
790
791#2—The Swing Issue
792
793This ended up being more of a development issue than a design one. The key for design 
794was making sure we were making effects where both sides would want to be played at 
795different times.
796
797#3—The Processing Issue
798
799We solved this problem by deciding that we didn't want overload to ever be downside 
800(well, at least not most of the time). To help solve this, we figured out who you 
801wanted to affect—you or your opponent—and then put that into the targeting. For 
802example, let's look at Mizzium Mortars.
803
804    Mizzium Mortars
805
806The card says "target creature you don't control," so when you used overload it just 
807hit your opponent's creatures. If the effect was something positive you wanted on 
808your own creatures we said "target creature you control."
809
810Overload didn't have a lot of turmoil in either design or development and was printed 
811pretty much as design intended. Matt Tabak okayed the fun rules text that Ken wanted 
812(replacing all instances of "target" with "each"). And that is how overload finally 
813made it to print eight years later.
814
815
816-----------
817- GOLGARI -			Black - Green
818'''''''''''
819
820Welcome to Golgari Week. This is the fourth installment of the Return to Ravnica 
821block guild theme weeks. How exactly do we design cards that are black and green in 
822general and Golgari specifically?
823
824    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
825
826After green-white, black-green has the most overlap of any two colors. For example, 
827they have not one but two creature keyword overlaps—deathtouch and regeneration. 
828In general, the range of their creatures is similar. Green on average is larger than 
829black but black definitely has access to larger creatures, especially at higher 
830rarities.
831
832The other giant overlap is that black and green are the two colors that have the most 
833to do with the graveyard. There are a bunch of different areas of graveyard design 
834(I'll talk about them in a moment) and black and green overlap in pretty much all of 
835them.
836
837In addition, black and green tend to have a set of abilities that interconnect well 
838with one another. Green has the muscle to hit hard and black has the means to remove 
839any threats that try to get in those creatures' way.
840
841    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
842
843I like to say that your greatest flaw is your greatest strength pushed too far. 
844Green-black's synergy is so good that it tends to want to pull all the cards into a 
845very similar space. This space, while flavorful, isn't all that large mechanically. 
846For example, in a normal set, black and green might each have one card that cares 
847about the graveyard.
848
849Get black and green together and they start to warp the environment because they 
850push the designer to up the amount of graveyard interaction. Obviously, the Golgari 
851have just embraced this and run with it, but it does mean that black-green tends to 
852have a narrower band of things it can do than many of the other two-color 
853combinations.
854
855The overlap also causes problems because a lot of time, when you make a black-green 
856card, you discover you've made a card that one of the two colors could do alone. 
857Obviously, you can have a little of overlapping mechanics on gold cards (what I call 
858"Venn Diagram cards" in my article on designing gold card) but it's something we have 
859to keep at a low volume (especially because it eats into hybrid design space).
860
861    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
862
863This one's pretty easy. Black-green loves the graveyard. Designwise, it's a very 
864robust vein of design. Note that there is a difference between how many cards can be 
865designed for a mechanic and how many make sense within any one set. Graveyard design 
866is deep but narrow, meaning that unless you have a set with a graveyard focus, it's 
867hard to put a lot of these cards in a set together.
868
869Here's the different areas you can play around with in the graveyard:
870
871    Ability to Get Things Back from the Graveyard
872
873This is the simple ability to play with dead things. In other words, this is the 
874ability to take things that have gone to the graveyard and bring them back. When you 
875talk about returning cards from the graveyard directly to the hand, this is green's 
876domain. It has cards like Revive (from Magic 2013) that let you return any card type 
877you wish (Revive limits itself to green cards but green's ability here doesn't have 
878to self-limit in the color). Black's niche in this area is getting back creature 
879cards with spells like Disentomb (also from Magic 2013).
880
881When you talk about bringing cards from the graveyard back to the battlefield, you 
882get into black's domain. Note that black only tends to bring back creatures. This is 
883flavored as reanimation and plays into black's fondness for death. Also note that 
884black, and green to a lesser extent, has the ability on some creatures for them to 
885get themselves back onto the battlefield.
886
887When you talk about bringing things back to the library, this is green's domain. 
888Sometimes these cards go to the top of the library but more often are shuffled 
889directly into the library. Black also has some ability to put creature cards from 
890the graveyard on top of the library. This is more of a Disentomb tweak than what 
891green is up to.
892
893    Graveyard as a Resource
894
895Part of the strategy of Magic is learning how to maximize the resources you have 
896available in order to win. The graveyard is one such resource. Black tends to use 
897this resource by eating it up to fuel whatever it's up to. Vile Rebirth from Magic 
8982013 is a good example of this. Green, in contrast, tends to like looking at what is 
899in the graveyard and drawing strength from that. A good example of this would be 
900Boneyard Wurm from Innistrad. The contrast between these two different styles is 
901that black is faster to use the graveyard but depletes itself while green tends to 
902grow in strength over time.
903
904    Caring About Things Going to the Graveyard
905
906There are two basic ways to care about things dying. First, you can care about when 
907other things die. Black is king of this area, as black enjoys watching things die 
908(often having a hand in the act). Black cards will often have effects that trigger 
909when other things die. Village Cannibals from Innistrad is a good example of this 
910kind of effect. Note the mechanic morbid in Innistrad block, which cared about 
911something having died that turn, rested mostly in black and green. The second way to 
912care about death is what is known as a death trigger. A death trigger goes on a 
913creature and triggers when that creature dies. An example is Moldgraf Monstrosity 
914from Innistrad. While all the colors can get death triggers, green and (especially) 
915black get more of them.
916	
917    Ability to Remove Things from the Graveyard
918
919Another way to interact with the graveyard is to remove things from it—usually your 
920opponent's cards (unless you are using it as a cost, as seen above). Black is the 
921best at removing specific cards from a graveyard. A good example of this is Cremate 
922from Return to Ravnica. Green tends to remove cards from the graveyard by shuffling 
923them into their owner's library. Loaming Shaman from Dissension is an example of 
924this.
925
926    Things Active in the Graveyard
927
928The last category is one we tend to only do in the expansions. These are cards that 
929are usable while in your graveyard. Most often, this is an activated ability, but 
930sometimes it's triggered. The reason we are careful with how often we do these cards 
931is because they require players to pay attention to an area they normally do not 
932have to. In expansions, we can make the graveyard a theme and thus help train players 
933to pay attention to it, but we tend to not do that if there is not at least a minor 
934graveyard theme. While every color can have these types of cards they tend to show up 
935more in black and green. Both of the Golgari mechanics play in this space.
936
937    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
938
939As I've explained in previous articles, the mechanical heart is about what the color 
940pair is mechanically built around. The focus is about how the colors win. What is 
941their strategy? For black-green, the route to victory is through exhausting the 
942resources of the opponent. You win because you keep coming at your opponent until he 
943or she no longer has any defense. If you like, you can think of this like a horde of 
944zombies. Early on, they're not hard to beat, but they just keep coming until they 
945eventually overwhelm you.
946
947The key to this route to victory is that black-green is good at not running out of 
948resources. How? By utilizing the graveyard to keep getting back the resources. Sure, 
949the opponent can kill your creatures, but black-green can reanimate them. The 
950opponent can stop your spells but black-green can regrow them. No matter what answers 
951your opponent has, black-green keeps bringing back threats. Thematically, this plays 
952into black-green connecting life and death. The Golgari are the ultimate recyclers. 
953Death is not an end but just a new beginning.
954
955What this means for design is that black-green want to find different ways to 
956overwhelm. One popular way to do this is also through card advantage. Black and 
957green are both secondary at card drawing, both are decent at token creation (although 
958green is a bit stronger in this department), and both are good at destruction—
959although what they are capable of destroying varies between the colors (black is good 
960at destroying creatures and land while green is good at destroying artifacts, 
961enchantments, and land).
962
963Black-green is one of the slower of the two-color combinations, but once it gains 
964inertia, watch out.
965
966    Dredge
967
968Every guild set I've ever designed seemed to have one guild that was a pain in the 
969neck. Interestingly, it's never been the same guild. For the original Ravnica, the 
970guild that caused us the most trouble was Golgari. The interesting thing is that we 
971knew out of the gate the parameters for the Golgari mechanic, but finding the right 
972one took a long time and a lot of tries.
973
974We knew two things when we started looking: (1) the mechanic had to involve the 
975graveyard (see mechanical heart above), and (2) the mechanic had to be recursive in 
976some way; you were recycling (see focus above). With these two clear-cut goals in 
977mind, we started making mechanics. For those who are unaware (and welcome to the 
978column), I'm a Johnny. Of the four guilds in Ravnica, Golgari was the Johnniest, so 
979it pulled my focus. As such, I made it my mission to find a Golgari mechanic.
980
981The details are all a blur but here's what I remember happening again and again:
982
983    I design a new Golgari mechanic that fits the criteria above.
984
985    I show it to the team (Tyler Bielman, Mike Elliott, Aaron Forsythe, Richard 
986    Garfield, and myself) and the team gives the mechanic a thumbs up.
987
988    We playtest it.
989
990    The graveyard-focused recursive mechanic is broken and smashes the playtest.
991
992    I go back to the drawing board.
993
994How many iterations did this go through? About forty. Note that not every mechanic 
995was broken. Some would be boring or confusing or not Golgari enough. Forty mechanics? 
996Am I exaggerating for comic effect? No. We went through a lot of mechanics for 
997Golgari. A lot. It was, as I said above, a pain in the neck. During this time we were 
998designing a lot of individual cards and many of those were working well, so it wasn't 
999that we didn't have Golgari moving along; we just didn't have our keyword mechanic.
1000
1001One day I got fed up, so I turned to Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is a principle that 
1002basically says the simplest form of something is usually the best answer. So, I sat 
1003down and thought. I wanted a mechanic that worked in the graveyard and had a 
1004recursive component. What was the absolute simplest version of that concept?
1005
1006What if I could just play the card out of the graveyard? No, that was flashback.
1007
1008What if I could just draw the card from the graveyard? Interesting, I thought. What 
1009would that entail? It would have to be at a time I normally drew a card. Also, 
1010drawing two cards seemed too powerful. What if the mechanic allowed me to draw it 
1011instead of a card from the top of my library any time I could draw a card? Perfect!
1012
1013I named my mechanic reclaim. The idea behind reclaim was that the cards were 
1014overcosted but the ability to get them back might be good situationally. For example, 
1015imagine a 3/3. As green can get 3/3 for as little as three mana, six mana is 
1016overpaying by quite a bit. But late game, at times, especially in Limited, you would 
1017be overjoyed to be able to draw a 3/3 for six mana. Reclaim in that form is what I 
1018handed off in the Ravnica design handoff to development.
1019
1020Development worried that if they costed reclaim the way they had to, to keep it from 
1021being broken, it was going to appear very sucky. Also, they wanted a cost associated 
1022with getting the card back that guaranteed players weren't just going to keep getting 
1023back the same card turn after turn for the entire game. The novel idea Brian and his 
1024team (Aaron Forsythe, Mark Gottlieb, Matt Place, Paul Sottosanti, and Henry Stern) 
1025had was to use self-milling as an additional cost. This would limit how many times 
1026players could get back the card and would also create a cute synergy where paying the 
1027mill cost could help you get more dredge cards. (Obviously, at some point reclaim got 
1028renamed as dredge.)
1029
1030I thought the redesign was clever and gave it my thumbs up. I trusted Brian's 
1031instincts on what was dangerous to print. In the end, the "cute" synergy turned out 
1032to be a bit better than anyone expected and dredge became a powerhouse mechanic that 
1033has shown up in just about every format in which it's legal. I have a soft spot for 
1034dredge but I understand that it's one of our more broken mechanics.
1035
1036I will say this, though: it's awfully Golgari.
1037
1038    Scavenge
1039
1040Ken talked about scavenge's design in a feature article, so if you'd like another 
1041take on the story, feel free to check it out. I'll be telling it from my perspective. 
1042In one of the early design meetings (the team consisted of lead Ken Nagle, Zac Hill, 
1043Alexis Janson, Ken Troop, and myself), Ken (Nagle) said it was time to talk about 
1044Golgari. Once again, we were looking for a graveyard mechanic that had some recursive 
1045element and would allow you to ultimately overwhelm your opponent. Ken informed us he 
1046had an idea for the Golgari mechanic. "What if," he said, "you could eat the 
1047creatures once they died?"
1048
1049For those unaware, during Shards of Alara block, Ken designed a mechanic called 
1050devour.
1051
1052The devour mechanic was for the shard of Jund, the red-centered world that also had 
1053black and green. In the vicious eat-or-be-eaten world of Jund, Ken liked the idea 
1054that the bigger creatures liked to eat the smaller creatures. I'm not sure if the 
1055devour mechanic influenced his new Golgari mechanic but I like to think it did. Ken 
1056called his mechanic digestible.
1057
1058In the original version of digestible, the card could be eaten by an attacking 
1059creature to temporarily boost its power and toughness and gain the eaten card's 
1060abilities (all of the boosts and abilities matched those of the creature digested 
1061and all only lasted until end of turn). That version proved both unimpressive and 
1062lacking in flavor. Why was the mechanic limited to an attacking creature? Creatures 
1063in Ravnica liked to eat on the go?
1064
1065The mechanic went through a few iterations but the next important one had two key 
1066shifts. First, the boost was now +1/+1 counters rather than temporary bonuses until 
1067the end of the turn. Second, instead of limiting the use to an attacking creature, 
1068the ability now could be used any time a sorcery could be cast.
1069
1070Let me quickly answer a question I've received a few times on my blog. Why did we 
1071choose to limit scavenge to sorcery speed? Basically, any time we limit a mechanic 
1072to sorcery speed I get the same question. Doesn't more choice lead to a better game? 
1073The answer is no. The idea that options improve a game actually flies against the 
1074entire concept of how games are designed.
1075
1076I talk a lot about how a designer's job isn't to make it easier for the player, but 
1077rather harder. Games thrive when the players have to figure out how to accomplish the 
1078goal at hand. Besides breeding creativity, restrictions force the players to have to 
1079make hard decisions. For example, if I could activate scavenge at any time, the 
1080correct answer is always to wait until the last moment when it's necessary. By 
1081restricting the mechanic to sorcery speed, you now force players to have to make 
1082decisions rather than waiting to see what happens.
1083
1084The other issue we had to deal with for scavenge is that it's what I call a false 
1085negative mechanic. What I mean is that it's more powerful than it looks, so when 
1086development costs it correctly, it seems weak at first glance. For example, here's 
1087the card we first previewed scavenge with:
1088
1089    Deadbridge Goliath
1090 
1091The first reaction to the card was "Six mana to use the ability. Worthless!" Let's 
1092take a step back. For starters, the card is a 5/5. If this was a vanilla creature, 
1093it's a shoo-in in any Limited deck with enough Forests to handle the double green in 
1094the mana cost. So what's been added? Would you play this card in Limited?
1095
1096Maybe. Now how about if it magically appeared for free when you played a 5/5?
1097
1098Because Magic is at its heart a game about discovery, we don't mind doing a few 
1099false negative mechanics. It's fun for players to learn that some things in the game 
1100are better than they appear at first glance. The trick is to make sure the set is 
1101balanced with other mechanics that do pop when the audience first sees them.
1102
1103All in all, I felt dredge and scavenge both did a nice job of capturing the essence 
1104of the Golgari.
1105
1106
1107----------
1108- RAKDOS -			Black - Red
1109''''''''''
1110
1111Welcome to Rakdos Week, where we design for black and red in general and Rakdos in 
1112particular. Let's talk Rakdos.
1113
1114    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1115
1116After green and white, black and red are the two colors in Magic with the most 
1117mechanical overlap. In fact, this is such an issue that, like green-white, we've 
1118taken steps over the years to draw clear separation between the two. The most famous 
1119example is putting "can't block" in black and "attacks each turn if able" in red. 
1120Recently, by the way, we've started putting more toughness in black to separate it 
1121from red's higher-power-than-toughness make-up.
1122
1123Both black and red are aggressive and they are the two colors with the best creature 
1124removal. Black and red both also deal direct damage to creatures and players (black 
1125with draining effects and red with normal direct damage), destroy lands, boost power 
1126(both with spells and self-pumping), have or grant haste, and have intimidate (they 
1127are #1 and #2 for it).
1128
1129In Limited, both have a similar strategy of playing a mana curve of creatures while 
1130using their spells to remove blockers, often finishing off the game with damage 
1131directly at the opponent. This natural overlap makes it very easy to make black-red 
1132cards that have the feel of both colors.
1133
1134    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1135
1136The two colors overlap so easily and efficiently that it becomes hard to steer the 
1137colors away from where inertia pushes design. For example, if a designer isn't paying 
1138attention, he or she will find most of his or her black-red spells become either 
1139creature-kill spells or very aggressive creatures. When designing Rakdos, you have to 
1140be very conscious of avoiding this obvious space, because without effort all spells 
1141will drift in this direction.
1142
1143Black-red also has the same problem as that facing Selesnya. The two colors feel so 
1144much alike that it's hard to make multicolor spells that feel black and red. A lot 
1145of black-red multicolor cards feel like they'd be very comfortable with a hybrid 
1146mana cost.
1147
1148The other interesting challenge I discovered during Innistrad block, when I made the 
1149Vampires black-red, was that it's actually hard to make a weenie strategy in the 
1150color pair. At first blush, the two colors seem a natural fit for an aggressive, 
1151low-mana strategy, but the high efficiency of black and red's kill spells strongly 
1152pushes the colors toward control. Why attack recklessly when you can slow down a 
1153little and use your removal to control tempo? Erik Lauer and his development team 
1154were able to find ways to play up an aggro strategy for black-red but it took a lot 
1155of work on their part (doing things like introducing the Slith mechanic to the 
1156Vampires to make attacking quickly more viable).
1157
1158    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
1159
1160To find the mechanical heart of two colors, you have to look at their overlap and 
1161figure out what part of it is the most efficient thing to build around. For black-red 
1162that answer is simple: black and red are good—very good—at killing creatures. This 
1163ability is so important, especially in Limited, that it defines what the color pair 
1164is about. What I mean by that is this: when you are figuring out how to build a theme 
1165for a black-red deck, you always start with the assumption that the deck will be good 
1166at killing creatures. This frees you up to use your other resources to dedicate 
1167toward winning.
1168
1169    Hellhole Rats
1170
1171For years, black and red were the kings of Limited because we allowed many of their 
1172kill spells at common to be what we call "two-for-ones." A two-for-one is a spell 
1173that allows you to kill a creature while giving you another resource. That resource 
1174could be a creature (usually the "enters the battlefield" effect would kill a 
1175creature), an extra card, or other card advantage (black-red loves mixing direct 
1176damage with discard). This allowed black-red to offset its greatest liability: 
1177running out of threats and/or answers. In the last few years, development has mostly 
1178moved two-for-ones out of common to take a little wind out of black-red's sails.
1179
1180    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
1181
1182To find the focus, you have to examine how the color pair intends to win. Black-red 
1183is very focused on aggressively damaging the opponent. It does this in two ways. 
1184First, it plays a range of creatures and then uses its creature removal to pave the 
1185way. Second, both black and red have the ability to directly damage the opponent. 
1186(Note that black actually uses loss of life rather than damage, with the exception of 
1187drain effects.)
1188
1189This combination means that black-red can be fast, but usually not as fast as a guild 
1190like Boros. The reason is that black-red has a control element, using its creature 
1191kill to help it net card advantage. Black-red wants to keep the pressure up, but it 
1192isn't so reliant on speed to keep the opponent off balance.
1193
1194The key to making black-red work is to understand what identity you want to give this 
1195"killing machine." Black's selfishness matched with red's hedonism means that Rakdos 
1196tends to have a sadistic streak. The Rakdos enjoy causing the chaos they create, but 
1197unlike mono-red, their chaos has a purpose. A lot of building black-red mechanically 
1198is to give that controlled chaos a flavor. As you will see in a moment, it's a little 
1199more challenging than one might assume at first blush.
1200
1201    Hellbent
1202
1203Rakdos was one of the three guilds in the final set of the original Ravnica block, 
1204Dissension. One of the things we did when we separated the guilds into the 4/3/3 
1205breakdown (that's how many there were per set in the original block) was to make 
1206sure each set had at least one fast and one slow guild. Rakdos was Dissension's fast 
1207guild.
1208
1209One of the goals all three design teams had was to find a guild mechanic for each 
1210guild that didn't just match the color pairing but also matched the feel and 
1211philosophy of the guild. We also wanted the mechanic to not only feel right but to 
1212play right. What I mean by that is we wanted the game play itself to reinforce the 
1213guild's flavor.
1214
1215Rakdos was clearly the wanton and thrill-seeking guild. They were destructive, they 
1216were sadistic, they enjoyed themselves probably a little bit too much, and—most 
1217importantly—they were a little reckless. The goal for the original Rakdos mechanic 
1218was to try and capture this sense of recklessness. To do this, we asked ourselves, 
1219"What does Rakdos want to do?" It wants to destroy things and attack. It wouldn't 
1220just destroy creatures. The destruction could be of artifacts and land and other 
1221people's cards. Rakdos just wanted to go full throttle.
1222
1223So we did something we like to do in design that I call "extreming." It's a little 
1224trick I picked up in a writing class. Sometimes, a character is stuck in a scene and 
1225you don't quite know what to do. When we got ourselves in those situations, my 
1226writing professor suggested having us make the character do the most extreme thing 
1227we could think of. For example, I had a scene where the main character was cooking 
1228breakfast. I wasn't quite sure what was supposed to happen so I was stuck.
1229
1230My assignment for the next day was to finish the scene with the most extreme ending 
1231I could. So what did I do? The main character turned up the gas on the oven, lit his 
1232wooden spoon on fire, and torched his apartment. As it burned down, he toasted a 
1233sausage.
1234
1235My writing professor was very excited. He said my scene solved my problem. What was 
1236the main issue my character had to deal with? Anger. Why was he angry? That was the 
1237meat and potatoes of my scene. I had an angry character—that's the germ I was to use 
1238to write my less-extreme version.
1239
1240So let's apply the same strategy to Rakdos. What is the most extreme turn? I cast 
1241every spell I have, blowing up everything on the board. Now we take a step back. 
1242What did we learn? We learned that Rakdos wants to go full throttle and not stop. 
1243Okay, what if we made a mechanic that rewarded that behavior?
1244
1245That is how hellbent was born. The Rakdos want to just use everything they have, so 
1246let's encourage that behavior. Hellbent was a mechanic that said, "Empty your hand 
1247and your spells start getting more powerful." Note that this flies in the face of 
1248conventional Magic. Normally, emptying your hand leaves you vulnerable. Here, we 
1249were going to turn conventional wisdom on its head.
1250
1251    Anthem of Rakdos
1252
1253The design team (Aaron Forsythe as lead, Brandon Bozzi, Mark Gottlieb, and myself) 
1254was happy with hellbent. It was the first guild mechanic we settled on. We loved 
1255both the feel and the way it helped define how black-red was going to play. There 
1256was just one problem.
1257
1258To explain this, let me first explain a design term. Hellbent is what we call a 
1259threshold mechanic. Named after the original threshold mechanic—you guessed it, 
1260threshold from Odyssey (design by Richard Garfield)—a threshold mechanic is a 
1261mechanic with the following two traits:
1262
1263    Cards with this mechanic have two states. One normal state and one heightened 
1264    state.
1265
1266    All cards with this mechanic change from the first state to the second state 
1267    based on the same criteria. (For threshold, as an example, this was having 
1268    seven cards in your graveyard; for metalcraft, this was having three 
1269    artifacts on the battlefield.)
1270
1271Threshold mechanics are exciting but scary because there tends to be a huge shift 
1272between the first and second state. Not just one card changes, but rather every card 
1273with the mechanic.
1274
1275As such, threshold mechanics tend to lead to a few things: First, the mechanics tend 
1276to be very swingy. Second, the mechanics are very linear, because once you're 
1277dedicated to meeting the requirement of the switch, you now have incentive to include 
1278more cards with the mechanic in your deck. You can see how these two things feed off 
1279of one another. The linear nature makes you want to play many cards with the 
1280mechanic, which means the variable swings get even higher as the difference between 
1281the first and second stage grow bigger and bigger.
1282
1283In the end, hellbent proved to be tricky to pull off. It required some support cards 
1284in black and red to help players empty their hand. It led to a lot of arguments about 
1285how big a swing we wanted between the two states. I argued as I always do when we 
1286play with threshold mechanics that if we're going to bother doing them, we need to 
1287go big or go home (i.e., not do the mechanic). The only way the mechanic is sexy is 
1288if players are lured into wanting to try and meet the requirement.
1289
1290When the dust settled, the mechanic only turned out so-so. Development decided to 
1291push the mechanic but it tended to lead to very swingy games. Also, not everyone 
1292wanted to empty their hand, getting us into Odyssey space where we were at times 
1293encouraging players to do something that they didn't naturally want to do. Having no 
1294cards in your hand is scary and a lot of player resisted it, which made Rakdos hard 
1295to play.
1296
1297It did, though, set us up with an interesting challenge. How do we get Rakdos to feel 
1298right but in a way that was a little less swingy? That story is coming right up.
1299
1300Through most of design, the Rakdos mechanic was this thing called paincast. The way 
1301paincast worked was that any spell with paincast was cheaper for each point of damage 
1302you had dealt to an opponent this turn. The mechanic was very flavorful but had a 
1303few problems:
1304
1305    The mechanic worried the development team. The quote I remember was this: 
1306    "Paincast is the scary part of affinity."
1307
1308    It was what we call a "win when you're ahead" mechanic, which means that it is 
1309    often very useless when you most need it and meaningless when you are able 
1310    to use it.
1311
1312    It majorly warped the set. Here's how. When you put in a mechanic, you also 
1313    start making cards that are synergistic with that mechanic. In paincast's 
1314    case, it pushed us to make cheap creatures that could make a one-shot burst 
1315    of an attack. Normally, these creatures are pretty bad, but when they enable 
1316    paincast, they start getting good. These cards, though, were useless to 
1317    anyone who wasn't playing the paincast deck, so it cut down on the 
1318    interconnectivity between the guilds and made decks have less variety as 
1319    there were fewer cards that could go into every deck.
1320
1321Meanwhile, Aaron was concerned that Return to Ravnica didn't have a single creature 
1322combat mechanic. Most large sets we make have at least one, especially when we're 
1323doing a set with five mechanics. Aaron asked the Return to Ravnica design team (Ken 
1324Nagle as lead, Alexis Janson, Zac Hill, Ken Troop, and myself) to add a creature 
1325combat mechanic.
1326
1327So we had a mechanic that made people nervous and was causing a design issue combined 
1328with a dictum by Aaron that we needed to find a creature combat mechanic. 
1329Interestingly, the idea for unleash didn't come from the design team but from Aaron 
1330himself. Aaron doesn't get to stretch his designer muscles as much as he used to, so 
1331rather than just force the design team to solve the problem, he tried to see if he 
1332could find an answer.
1333
1334    Bloodfray Giant
1335
1336Aaron designed a couple of different mechanics. One day, he asked me into his office 
1337and showed them to me. My favorite was this one which allowed you to choose one of 
1338two choices when you played the creature. Either you played it normally or you could 
1339have it come into play with a +1/+1 counter and it gained "must attack each turn if 
1340able." My one suggestion was to shift the negative from the red "must attack" to the 
1341black "can't block." I felt that it would be better flavor, would play better, and 
1342would create fewer bad feelings for the players (as a rule, players dislike when 
1343their creatures are forced to do dumb things that get them killed).
1344
1345The one other interesting tweak that happened with unleash was the decision to have 
1346the mechanic grant the "can't block" restriction if any +1/+1 counter is on it, 
1347regardless of where the counter came from. (Note that we also made scavenge "target 
1348creature" to allow the clever moment where Golgari gets to attack for the win 
1349against Rakdos.)
1350
1351Once we made these last few tweaks, unleash was ready to go. Most of the remaining 
1352work was development trying to find the right power balance for the mechanic. We had 
1353asked that the choice be an interesting decision a good chunk of the time. Making 
1354that happen was probably the hardest part about the mechanic and hopefully, later in 
1355the week, Latest Developments will talk about what went into balancing it.
1356
1357For those wondering, we did know that unleash was what we call an "unsexy" mechanic, 
1358in that it seems worse than it is at first glance. All during previews, I kept saying 
1359on social media, "reserve judgment until you play it." Luckily, once they did, the 
1360players really embraced unleash and the Rakdos horde.
1361
1362
1363---------
1364- BOROS -				White - Red
1365---------
1366
1367Welcome to Boros Week. Hopefully, this is the sixth one you've read so you already 
1368get the hang of what's going on.
1369
1370    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1371
1372Many of the other enemy color pairs have some tension between the two colors. While 
1373white and red might disagree philosophically (you know, the whole order vs. chaos 
1374thing), the two colors are on the same page as to how to win. White and red are the 
1375two colors most associated with weenie strategies. In nongamer-lingo, that means that 
1376these are the two colors that like playing a creature every turn, starting from turn 
1377one, and attacking. ("Weenie" is Magic slang for a small creature of usually three 
1378mana or less.)
1379
1380Red and white have the most efficient one- and two-drop creatures. (To be fair, 
1381white's the color that excels at this; red's weenies are okay, and are helped by 
1382the fact that red is the best at getting blockers out of the way.) White has a 
1383defensive side, but that part doesn't show up when it teams up with red. Instead, 
1384out comes the army flavor that quickly assembles and attacks.
1385
1386Red and white also are the two colors best at combat. The two colors are both the 
1387home of first strike and double strike and they tend to have the best cheap instants 
1388to play during combat (okay, green does have Giant Growth–like effects—those are 
1389good, too). The two colors are both good at getting through with their attackers. 
1390White has evasion like flying and protection. Red has trample and intimidate. White 
1391also has Pacifism effects to remove blockers, while red uses spells like Panic that 
1392make creatures unable to block for the turn.
1393
1394    Pacifism
1395	
1396    Panic
1397
1398Red and white also overlap in the flavor of an army. True, white's army is uniform 
1399and structured, while red is a ragtag collection of people with their own agendas, 
1400but the two colors are the ones where the little guys band together to take on the 
1401big guys.
1402
1403Red and white might not be kings of the long game, but they are experts at the short 
1404one.
1405
1406    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1407
1408If all you had to design was one- and two-drop spells, you'd be golden. 
1409Unfortunately, both colors have to flesh out to cover spells with higher mana costs, 
1410and that's where red and white start going their separate ways. There are a few 
1411overlaps. Red and white, for instance, both like big 4/4 fliers (Dragons and Angels, 
1412respectively). One or two are fine as finishers in a deck, but a weenie rush strategy 
1413cannot support all that many expensive cards.
1414
1415As the cards get more expensive, you start to see the colors pull in other 
1416directions. Red starts ramping into bigger creatures and larger destruction spells. 
1417White gets much more defensive and begins doing things to slow down the game. There 
1418does exist a slow red-white deck that acts more like a control deck using white's 
1419spells to stall and red's spells to blow up threats, but that deck is much harder to 
1420piece together than the weenie deck.
1421
1422The other issue of contention is that the wants of the two colors are opposed (they 
1423are enemies, after all), so once the two get out of "army attack" mode, they start 
1424wanting different things. White tries to control things while red likes to cause 
1425chaos. This can make it hard sometimes to capture the flavor of both. That's why you 
1426tend to see red-white cards leaning toward the military. I like to think of the Boros 
1427as "purpose with passion."
1428
1429    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
1430
1431Cheap, aggressive creatures and spells. The Boros defeat you not because any one 
1432piece is big and scary, but because the combination of all its little things is big 
1433and scary. Red-white is about hitting the ground running and trying to end the game 
1434before it has to stop. This means there is a lot of focus on getting the best 
1435advantage you can from the early turns. One-drops are meaningless in many color 
1436combinations but are crucial in red-white.
1437
1438    Boros Elite
1439	
1440    Foundry Street Denizen
1441
1442When designing red-white, for example, I usually make sure that both white and red 
1443have two one-drop creatures in common. Usually, the other colors only have one (green 
1444is the only other color that sometimes has two). We also always make sure that red 
1445and white have cheap combat-oriented spells that you want to use to help attacking 
1446creatures win combat. The finishers for red-white tend to sit in the four- or five-
1447drop spot. You don't get many of them, so you want to make sure they are going to do 
1448the last bit of damage to take the game.
1449
1450The key here is keeping focus on cheap and aggressive. Every card has to be lean and 
1451mean and do its job efficiently for its cost.
1452
1453    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
1454
1455The key to understanding how red-white plans to win is this: All its answer are 
1456themselves threats. Now let me explain what exactly I mean by this. When you step 
1457back and look at Magic from a distance, it's a game about flow, where initiative 
1458passes back and forth between the players. At any one moment in time, one player is 
1459the aggressor and one player is the defender. In many games, these roles can go back 
1460and forth. Sometimes you're the one playing to win and sometimes you're the one 
1461working not to lose.
1462
1463Red-white's basic strategy is to try to take the aggressor role early and never give 
1464it up until it wins. To accomplish this, all its tools need to be focused on being 
1465the aggressor. That means that red-white doesn't have room in its deck for cards that 
1466only serve as answers. Its answers are cards that also have uses as threats. For 
1467example, red's direct damage can be used to remove blockers or just straight win the 
1468game. If red finds itself on the defensive, these spells can be used defensively. The 
1469need to have threats that can double as answers drives the focus of red-white.
1470
1471    Radiance
1472
1473I've publicly claimed on multiple occasions that I feel this mechanic was the big 
1474miss of Ravnica block. Note that I don't think the mechanic itself is necessarily 
1475bad, I just feel it doesn't have enough of a Boros feel. Haunt and forecast, which 
1476are the other two Ravnica block mechanics I have a beef with, designwise (dredge was 
1477more of a development issue than a design one), both at least have good guild feels. 
1478So what happened? How did radiance end up being the Boros mechanic?
1479
1480    Rally the Righteous
1481	
1482    Wojek Embermage
1483
1484It all started with a desire I had as the lead designer of Ravnica. For each guild, 
1485I designated the space I wanted us to aim at. For Boros, that was an army feel. I 
1486knew the Boros were going to be the army of the world and I wanted to make sure their 
1487keyword tied into that army feel. A key part of that, I felt, was that the mechanic 
1488needed to be relevant in combat. The Boros wanted to be the weenie rush guild, so I 
1489knew they would be constantly attacking. That meant they would force the opponent to 
1490have to block, so why not give the Boros a mechanic to help win those fights?
1491
1492Mike Elliott (the design team for Ravnica was Mike Elliott, Aaron Forsythe, Tyler 
1493Bielman, Brian Tinsman, and myself) liked the idea of spells that could affect your 
1494whole army, so he came up with a mechanic he called radiant (Mike called the mechanic 
1495"radiant" but we would change it to a noun in playtest). Here's how it worked:
1496
1497    Radiant Boost
1498    W
1499    Instant
1500    Radiant – Target creature and every creature that shares a color, creature type, 
1501              or converted mana cost with it gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
1502
1503Mike's idea was that these spells actually hit a swath of creatures and you had 
1504control of what that group was by which creature you choose to target. Because a 
1505Boros deck would be made up of similar creatures, these spells could easily be used 
1506to buff the army even if that army didn't have one singular connection. Just aim at 
1507a multicolor red-white Human Soldier, for instance, and odds are you hit all of your 
1508attackers.
1509
1510Playtesting showed that Mike's initial idea was too hard to play with. Should I 
1511target this white creature and boost my white creatures, Humans Soldiers, and 
1512creatures with a converted mana costs of 2 or should I target this red-white creature 
1513and hit all red creatures, white creatures, Minotaurs, and creatures with a converted 
1514mana cost of 4? It was just too much to process. In design, we removed converted mana 
1515cost and in development creature type would be removed as well. Color, it was 
1516decided, was plenty complex.
1517
1518Another problem was that radiance was not limited to one player's creatures. If I 
1519wanted to boost my creature, I might be boosting some of your creatures as well. In 
1520addition, because each spell was really affecting a group of creatures, there was 
1521limited design space. (We just don't make all that many cards that target many 
1522creatures in a set, especially at low rarities.) Also, the swap between cards you 
1523wanted to use on your creatures and the ones you wanted to use on your opponent's 
1524creatures made it hard to grok what exactly the role of radiance was.
1525
1526The real problem, though, seen with 20/20 hindsight, was that the connection between 
1527radiance and the Boros was too far removed. Yes, Boros wants to be aggressive and 
1528attack with a swarm of small creatures. Yes, radiance works best on spells that want 
1529to target a large swath of creatures. Yes, there's an overlap in those two groups. 
1530But it's a two-step process to even see the connection.
1531
1532The key to the best guild mechanics is that they communicate very loudly that they 
1533are advancing that guild's goals. The Golgari love the graveyard and recycling so 
1534their mechanic uses the graveyard and recycles. Radiance doesn't feel like it has an 
1535agenda. It does a variety of different kinds of effects that can be used in a variety 
1536of different ways. It has a wide decision tree that allows a lot of options. None of 
1537this says Boros.
1538
1539The one silver lining of radiance was that, coming into Gatecrash, I felt like I owed 
1540the guild an extra good mechanic. (Dimir and Boros are the two guilds that were in 
1541both Ravnica-based sets I was lead designer on.) Luckily, I was able to come through 
1542on that promise.
1543
1544    Battalion
1545
1546During previews, I explained how battalion ended up in the set. For those who didn't 
1547read it and refuse to click the link, here's the super-short version: Designer Shawn 
1548Main made the mechanic, then called "assault," in Great Designer Search 2. I liked it 
1549and felt it was Boros. I put it in the set. And... scene.
1550
1551    Nav Squad Commandos
1552	
1553    Legion Loyalist
1554
1555I thought today I'd talk more about how having battalion as the Boros mechanic 
1556affected the design of Boros. As I explained in my preview, I made one tweak to 
1557Shawn's mechanic. In his initial version, a card with battalion said, "Whenever 
1558three or more creatures attack this turn, CARDNAME gains BLAH." I changed it so that 
1559the trigger required that the creature with battalion be one of the three creatures 
1560attacking.
1561
1562While this seems like a pretty subtle change, it did have one ramification. Shawn's 
1563initial version clearly wanted to go on creatures but wasn't limited to just 
1564creatures. (You could imagine, for example, a land that gains the ability to tap for 
1565two of any color mana if three or more creatures you control attacked.) My tweak 
1566forced every card with battalion to be a creature. While the change narrowed design 
1567space, I felt it was more flavorful and encouraged the play pattern we wanted.
1568
1569The effects for battalion fell in two camps. First was the cards that boosted either 
1570themselves or your whole team. The second was cards that created a spell-like effect. 
1571I made the decision that the common cards with battalion would only be of the first 
1572type and would only boost themselves. This was done to be compliant with New World 
1573Order and help keep battalion from making the board state too complex. Higher 
1574rarities could affect other creatures and could generate spell-like effects.
1575
1576    Daring Skyjek
1577	
1578    Firemane Avenger
1579
1580The first category was easy to make, as it was just a matter of listing out what 
1581creature keywords were available to red or white. It's not that long a list.
1582
1583A quick aside. I often talk about how designing guild mechanics is different because 
1584only having to make eight to twelve cards opens up mechanics that have less design 
1585space. Battalion falls into this camp. If you don't want to repeat effects, there 
1586really is a limited number of cards that can be designed.
1587
1588The second camp of effects—the spell-like effects—had a few limitations, the biggest 
1589of which is that it had to trigger when the creature attacked. This forces the spells 
1590to be proactive rather than reactive and encourages the designers to choose effects 
1591that can be relevant in combat.
1592
1593The next issue was mana cost. We wanted Boros to be the most aggressive guild in 
1594Gatecrash, so we made the decision to make most of the battalion creatures cheap. 
1595Here's the breakdown of the eleven battalion cards in the set:
1596
1597CMC 	Battalion Cards
15981 	2
15992 	4
16003 	2
16014 	2
16025 	1
1603
1604I believe we were even a little more aggressive in design but development adjusted it 
1605to match the speed we needed for Boros in both Limited and Constructed.
1606
1607Once we had the battalion cards, the next issue was figuring out what else the set 
1608needed to make battalion work. Here are a few of those things:
1609
1610    Creatures (Especially Cheap Creatures): This was one of the biggest pluses to 
1611battalion. Boros is a guild that wants to be about creatures so it's nice to have a 
1612mechanic that pushes you to build an army. Cheap creatures are especially important 
1613because the Boros deck wants to "power up" as fast as possible. Battalion is what 
1614R&D calls "a threshold mechanic," meaning that once you get to a certain state, its 
1615abilities click on, so there is a lot of push to quickly get to that state.
1616
1617    Combat Tricks: These are cards that help you win combat fights. The reason these 
1618    are so important is that Boros needs to attack but wants to always ensure it 
1619    has three creatures in play. Combat tricks allow you to aggressively attack. 
1620    Also, even having a few makes bluffing easier.
1621
1622    Creature-Saving Spells: These work a lot like combat tricks in that they allow 
1623    you to be aggressive when attacking.
1624
1625    Cards Granting Evasion: Boros needs to keep attacking but doesn't want to drop 
1626    below three attackers. Often, getting one creature through helps you turn 
1627    on your battalion, which will help protect the other creatures. Cards that 
1628    prevent blocking, like Panic, also fall into this camp.
1629
1630    Creature Removal: Okay, all Limited decks like creature removal. Boros can dig 
1631    much deeper, using lower-quality creature removal spells because it wants to 
1632    use a lot of its creature removal early to clear the way for its creatures. 
1633    This means that cheap removal that only works on small creatures is usable 
1634    by Boros.
1635
1636You'll notice that most of these effects are generally good in Limited. The 
1637difference here is that Boros is able to use cards that aren't normally thought of 
1638as A-level cards. Its needs allow you to prioritize cards that might not get played 
1639in a slower deck.
1640
1641One of the expressions I like is "game design is often a game of inches." That means 
1642the key to making certain environments work is often just gently pushing cards in a 
1643certain direction. Boros design definitely falls into this camp. Nothing we did is 
1644something you wouldn't normally see in red and white, but the combined choices help 
1645make the Boros strategy a little better than normal.
1646
1647Some color combinations are a struggle, but red-white is not one of those 
1648combinations. There's a lot of overlap in the colors—especially the parts that meet 
1649in Boros. The biggest trick is not individual card design but making sure you have 
1650the right mix of cards (both in effects and costs) to get the job done.
1651
1652
1653---------
1654- SIMIC -				Green - Blue
1655'''''''''
1656
1657Welcome to Simic Week. This is the seventh installment of the Return to Ravnica 
1658block guild theme weeks. How do we design green and blue cards in general and Simic 
1659cards, specifically? Let's start talking Simic.
1660
1661    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1662
1663At first glance, one might think these two colors have nothing in common. Green is a 
1664hardcore creature color and blue is a diehard spell color. As it turns out, though, 
1665the two colors share a lot of mechanical space:
1666
1667Hexproof: Untargetability was something seen in the early days on blue and green 
1668creatures. Eventually, R&D decided to put the untargetability naturally on green 
1669creatures and enabled blue to add it to creatures with spells and enchantments. This 
1670slowly shifted over time until green had what we know today as hexproof and blue had 
1671what we know today as shroud. When the ability was keyworded to shroud, both blue 
1672and green got the ability. When it shifted to hexproof, blue and green shifted over.
1673
1674Flash: Green and blue share not one creature keyword, but two. Green gets flash to 
1675represent its speedy animals that can jump out and surprise you. Blue gets it because 
1676it's the color that most often wants reactive "enters the battlefield" effects on 
1677creatures.
1678
1679    Ambush Viper
1680	
1681    Faerie Invaders
1682
1683"Curiosity" Ability: When we talk about abilities that could get keyworded, this 
1684ability (draw a card when the creature deals combat damage) often comes up. This 
1685ability overlaps green and blue because of the next category.
1686
1687Card Drawing: Blue is primary at card drawing but green is secondary. (Black is also 
1688secondary but it always pays something extra for the cards—most often, life.) Green's 
1689card drawing is restricted to involving creatures in some way. Green and blue are 
1690also the two colors that get cantrip creatures.
1691
1692"Maro" Ability: Creatures with this ability have a power and toughness equal to the 
1693number of cards in your hand. It's in green to represent growth (green is the color 
1694of */* creatures that grow over time) and in blue to represent a connection to 
1695knowledge.
1696
1697Big Creatures in Common: Which two colors routinely get 5/5 and larger creatures at 
1698common? Green, because green is the "big creature color," and blue, because blue gets 
1699serpents.
1700
1701    Axebane Stag
1702	
1703    Harbor Serpent
1704
1705Counter Manipulation: Green is the color that most often generates counters (another 
1706offshoot of its growth theme) and blue is the color that does sneaky things like move 
1707around counters and Auras. Normally, this is a pretty unused design area (a few cards 
1708a block at most), but when green and blue get together it is probably the most 
1709flavorful and deep, designwise. It's no accident that both Simic keywords have played 
1710around in this space.
1711
1712Duplicating Your Creatures: Green tends to do this by going into the deck and getting 
1713another copy of a creature you have. Blue clones. The end result is similar, though, 
1714if you're focused on copying your own creatures.
1715
1716Untapping Creatures: Recently, we've given green the ability to untap single 
1717creatures with spells to allow them to be surprise blockers. The ability used to be 
1718in white, but white had so many ways to protect against attackers—and green had only 
1719Fog—that we moved it over to green. Blue has twiddle effects (i.e., "tap or untap 
1720target permanent").
1721
1722Islandwalk: This is the kind of overlap you usually only see on green/blue hybrid 
1723cards. I just wanted to point it out to be thorough. Green is king of landwalk and 
1724gets all five basic land types. Each creature gets landwalk on its own land (flavored 
1725as it understands its own terrain) so blue gets islandwalk.
1726
1727Only white/green and black/red have any chance of coming close to this overlap.
1728
1729    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1730
1731While the two colors have a decent amount of mechanical overlap, thematically they 
1732are wide apart. Green is focused on creatures and its spells tend to be sorceries. 
1733Blue focuses on spells and it leans toward instants.
1734
1735You'll notice that the Simic, creatively, were the guild most overhauled between 
1736original Ravnica and Return to Ravnica. That reflects a theme seen in mechanics as 
1737well, which is that the identity of the overlap is an odd one. Most of the other 
1738enemy pairings find a clean way to bring the opposites together. They tend to make 
1739one color the goal and the other color the means to achieve it. For example, the 
1740Boros want peace but they use their strong impulses to guide them. The Orzhov want 
1741power and their tool to achieve it is order.
1742
1743The Simic don't line up as easily. They're not after either growth or knowledge, 
1744exactly. The way I like to explain it is they want to "improve upon nature." They're 
1745trying to make a better world. Neither color leads but they blend together. 
1746Mechanically, it's similar. The feel of green/blue isn't blue and isn't green. It has 
1747a feel that you have to sense as you're working and that's a hard thing to do.
1748
1749When you find that middle ground, the Simic shine (and I'm very happy with how they 
1750turned out in Gatecrash), but it's a difficult target to hit.
1751
1752    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
1753
1754The mechanical design is the key part of the design that comes first and that the 
1755rest of the design has to work around. It's the jumping off point. So where do you 
1756start when you combine green and blue? Interestingly, it's the creatures. But it's 
1757not that simple. Green/blue is about experimentation, about metamorphosis, about 
1758forced change. That means, before you begin Simic design, you have to figure out how 
1759the creatures are going to change. The mechanical heart is this change.
1760
1761For example, the Simic in Gatecrash are about evolve and all the requirements the 
1762mechanic requires. I'll be talking about this below. The reason this is found on 
1763creatures is that the improving of nature tends to rest on the creatures created. 
1764Yes, green/blue has spells, but its identity is found in the weirdness of its 
1765creatures.
1766
1767From that nugget, the design then figures out what kinds of creatures have been made, 
1768how they can be further adapted, and how the environment can be crafted to play into 
1769this evolution. In some ways, the designers of green/blue are much like the 
1770scientists whose work they are trying to recreate. When we make green/blue, we're 
1771improving upon the nature of Magic.
1772
1773    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
1774
1775The mechanical heart is what the set is built around. The focus is about how the 
1776color pair plans to win. Some colors have a wide divide between the mechanical heart 
1777and the focus. Not so much green/blue. Green/blue is going to make and evolve 
1778creatures. This ongoing change will ultimately lead to victory if the opponent does 
1779not stop it.
1780
1781Green/blue's route to victory is a little more open-ended than other color 
1782combinations. Green/blue is going to make something that will grow and evolve and 
1783adapt. That thing might result in aggressive creatures, strange combos, twisted 
1784environments, or who knows what. The key is that green/blue will have the tools to 
1785fiddle with and create something which should ultimately lead somewhere, but that 
1786outcome isn't as known as most other color combinations.
1787
1788The open-endedness of possibilities is the focus of green/blue. Things will happen. 
1789If left unchecked, those things will lead to victory. What exactly are those things? 
1790You'll know when green/blue figures it out.
1791
1792    Graft
1793
1794In the original Ravnica block, the Simic were in the third set, Dissension. The 
1795Dissension design team was comprised of Aaron Forsythe (who was leading the design 
1796of his very first set), Mark Gottlieb, Brandon Bozzi (a member of the creative team), 
1797and myself. Because this was the final set in the block, a significant amount of 
1798creative work had been done. We knew going in Simic was going to have an Island of 
1799Dr. Moreau feel, so the team was interested in exploring a mechanic that felt like 
1800experimentation. The big question was, how exactly do we do that?
1801
1802The first thing that became obvious was that the mechanic was going to play out on 
1803creatures—on the experiments themselves. We had talked about different cards that 
1804affected creatures but it felt like we were pulling focus away from what the Simic 
1805was about—the creations. The key, we decided, was to find a mechanic that showed off 
1806the mutations. To do this, we had to figure out how we mechanically represented 
1807mutation.
1808
1809One week, Aaron gave us the homework to design a "mutation mechanic." It was 
1810Gottlieb, I believe, who came back with a mechanic he called mutato. Gottlieb's idea 
1811was to use +1/+1 counters to represent mutation, and the mutato ability would allow 
1812the creatures to spread their mutation to other creatures. The mutato creatures then 
1813had a second ability that allowed them to grant abilities to any creature that had 
1814been mutated by a mutato creature. We would soon change that requirement to just 
1815having a +1/+1 counter. That simplified the wording and also created a little 
1816backward compatibility, allowing the mechanic to interact with the many other Magic 
1817cards with +1/+1 counters.
1818
1819The one other small change made was that the original mutato creatures all were base 
18201/1 creatures. We did this to separate them from the spikes from Tempest block, but 
1821development rightfully turned them all into creatures with a base 0/0. This made it 
1822easier to do the math on the creatures' power and toughness and removed them from 
1823the battlefield when they had been "used up."
1824
1825Finding the abilities was actually pretty straightforward, as they mostly granted 
1826the creature abilities that green and blue had access to. The most controversial 
1827card was this:
1828
1829   Vigean Hydropon
1830 
1831This card was called Wall of Hats in design and the whole idea was that all it did 
1832was the basic graft part. To make the card even more odd, it could neither attack 
1833nor block. The card just handed out pretty hats to boost other creatures. There were 
1834a lot of discussions in R&D about whether this card made any sense in a vacuum. A 
1835creature that couldn't attack or block? What? By the way, the original version of 
1836Wall of Hats had defender and "CARDNAME cannot attack." In the end, we convinced the 
1837others that the card would play well and its quirkiness would tap into the feel of 
1838the Simic guild.
1839
1840Graft was definitely one of those mechanics that took some people time to warm up to. 
1841It took playing with it for many players to start to get its play pattern, but once 
1842they did, graft was very popular with the Simic crowd. In fact, other than dredge, 
1843graft was my personal favorite mechanic of the Ravnica block.
1844
1845    Evolve
1846
1847For the Great Designer Search 2, I asked the finalists to build worlds for their own 
1848blocks and then pitch me both the worlds and the block structures. Ethan Fleischer 
1849came up with a world where each new set in the block would jump thousands of years 
1850in time. To make this work, Ethan started his world as far back as he could—
1851prehistoric times. In my first notes on his block, I stressed that I felt the theme 
1852of his block was evolution. Thus, for his first design challenge, Ethan made a 
1853mechanic to represent evolution called, appropriately enough, evolve. (For the full 
1854story of evolution's creation, check out my column from the first week of Gatecrash 
1855previews.)
1856
1857The thing I really like about the evolve mechanic is how it cares about things you 
1858already want to do. Magic design tends to thrive when it pushes players to focus on 
1859something they want to do anyway. Landfall, in Zendikar, for example, played into 
1860this space by making land drops important even past the time when they usually 
1861matter. We knew the Simic mechanic was going to revolve around its creatures (see 
1862the mechanical heart, above) so it was nice to have creatures that cared about the 
1863playing of other creatures. To maximize this, we did a few things:
1864
1865Power/Toughness: Evolve cares about having creatures with larger power or toughness 
1866enter the battlefield. That means we had to make sure at least one of the attributes 
1867was low. How low? Of the eleven creatures in Gatecrash with evolve, three have a 
1868power of 0, seven have a power or toughness of 1, and one creature has a toughness of 
18692 (okay, multiple evolve creatures have a toughness of 2—one creature's lowest stat 
1870was a toughness of 2). All of them were designed to grow because, well, that's what 
1871evolve does. Remember that part of making an interesting mechanic is also setting up 
1872the cards that have it and the environment its played in to ensure that the mechanic 
1873has a high likelihood of happening. Additionally, to help the evolve creatures evolve 
1874one another, we made sure a number of the evolve creatures, mostly at common, had 
1875their other stat be higher than normal.
1876
1877Abilities: Six of the evolve creatures in Gatecrash, all five commons and one 
1878uncommon, are French vanilla (meaning they have no rules text other than creature 
1879keywords). Five of those six have a creature keyword in addition to evolve. These 
1880abilities were chosen to work better as the creature grew.
1881
1882Added Ability: The higher-rarity evolve creatures take advantage of evolve in an 
1883additional way. Fathom Mage triggers whenever it gets a +1/+1 counter. Others use 
1884the +1/+1 counters for additional effects. Still others use the number of +1/+1 
1885counters to define how large an effect they can create. These cards are what we in 
1886R&D call "build-around cards" that encourage players to make decks with a new 
1887mechanic.
1888
1889Environment: Another important part of making evolve matter isn't on the evolve 
1890creatures but on the cards that are played with them. Just as we were careful with 
1891the power and toughness of evolve creatures, so too were we aware of it in the rest 
1892of the set, especially in green and blue. Gatecrash also made a number of cards that 
1893care about +1/+1 counters. Some grant abilities to creatures with them, some move 
1894them around, and some allow you to turn those +1/+1 counters into another resource. 
1895In addition, there are cards that care about the highest power of creatures you 
1896control. Each of these cards has to matter unto itself, but they all combine together 
1897to create synergy and help give green/blue a strong Simic feel.
1898
1899Like with graft, we worked very hard to allow evolve and the rest of the green and 
1900blue cards to get the feel that your creature were experiments with mutations. That 
1901you, as the Planeswalker, was changing them as the game progressed, making them 
1902better. You know, improving upon nature.
1903
1904I'm very happy with how evolve turned out. It is my personal favorite keyword of the 
1905Return to Ravnica block.
1906
1907
1908---------
1909- GRUUL -				Red - Green
1910'''''''''
1911
1912Welcome to Gruul Week. This is the eighth column in a ten-column series talking 
1913about designing two-color pairs. For those of you who are reading this explanation 
1914for the eighth time, I'm sure you've got it memorized.
1915
1916    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1917
1918Red and green have a common pursuit. Unlike their shared enemy, blue, who likes to 
1919sit back and examine every option before taking action, red and green focus on 
1920getting things done. They want to attack. They want to play their creatures and hurl 
1921their spells and get in the opponent's face. This shared emphasis makes it easy to 
1922push red and green in the same direction.
1923
1924Red and green share the trample ability, they boost power, they destroy lands, they 
1925both have some access to mana ramping (green's are more permanent while red's are 
1926one-shot effects), both can have access to haste (although green only occasionally), 
1927they both have access to the fight ability, and they have the highest average of 
1928power on their common creatures. While red doesn't overlap with green as much as it 
1929overlaps with black, their unique abilities tend to work well together. For example, 
1930both red's direct damage and green's Giant Growths help make sure they destroy any 
1931creatures that get in their way. Red's direct damage, along with its Panic effects, 
1932also are good for removing blockers, allowing green's giant beasts to break through 
1933and hit the opponent.
1934
1935The thing that separates red-green from red-white or black-red is that red-green 
1936tends to rely a lot more on larger creatures, which it is able to quickly ramp into. 
1937Red-green isn't the fastest of the aggressive guilds but it has the largest punch. 
1938Once its stable of creatures gets rolling, there's not much that can stop it.
1939
1940    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
1941
1942Red and green's single-mindedness makes it difficult to create a wide swath of 
1943different abilities. Sure, red-green can help win fights and do more damage, but 
1944after you do the few obvious things, the mechanical space dries up much quicker 
1945than many other color pairs.
1946
1947The trick to making red-green work is finding a lot of nuance in the area where they 
1948want to work together. There are numerous ways to help red-green strategy, but when 
1949designing them, you have to take extra care to keep them separated from one another.
1950
1951Another problem is that their flavor pushes heavily toward bluntness. Gruul is the 
1952guild that thinks things through the least, so the top-down flavor pushes you to 
1953make more blunt cards. Trying to capture this feel while also giving the player 
1954interesting strategic choices can often be a challenge. I feel that bloodrush 
1955managed to strike a balance here, but it's not an easy task for design to deal with.
1956
1957    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
1958
1959Red-green's mechanical heart lies in its creatures. More specifically than that, 
1960red-green's mechanical heart lies in its attacking creatures. Red-green is driven 
1961not just to win with its creatures but to do so aggressively. Other color pairs 
1962might sit back, but not red-green. Red-green's focus is on its relentless pursuit 
1963of its goals through combat.
1964
1965What this means when you're designing for red-green is that you have to always be 
1966thinking both about its creatures and how it's going to attack. Notice that both 
1967Gruul mechanics not only make a creature bigger but encourage attacking as well.
1968
1969    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
1970
1971The mechanical heart is centered on attacking creatures. The color pair's focus, on 
1972the other hand, is more about how to build up the forces such that it can win 
1973through aggression. You see, here's the problem: Red-green is not a fast color pair. 
1974This stems from the fact that green's creatures are more about quality than quantity. 
1975(White is the creature color of quantity.)
1976
1977Green is good at both summoning giant creatures and having the mana ramp resources 
1978to be able to cast them. Red, with its direct damage, is actually a color capable of 
1979stalling. Add in that red has a little mana ramping of its own and its share of 
1980high-power creatures and the two colors have a common goal. Red-green isn't going to 
1981win by getting there first but by getting there with an attacking force that's 
1982difficult to stop.
1983
1984What this all means is that when designing red-green, you have to think about how 
1985the color pair is going to both grow and survive the early game to get to the point 
1986where it becomes its most potent. At this point, this blunt color pair requires a 
1987little more sophistication in design.
1988
1989As a designer, I find Gruul extra tricky because what it wants to accomplish and the 
1990feel the color pair needs to have are not completely in tandem. As you'll see in a 
1991moment, designing the mechanics for Gruul requires a subtle hand—something that, 
1992interestingly, Gruul is not.
1993
1994    Bloodthirst
1995
1996To start out our story of bloodthirst's creation we have to jump into our Wayback 
1997Machine and travel back to 2004, to the design of Guildpact. The design team was led 
1998by Mike Elliott (for those unfamiliar with the name, Mike has led the design of more 
1999Magic sets than anyone other than yours truly) and included Aaron Forsythe (current 
2000director of Magic and ex-head developer), Devin Low (also ex-head developer), and 
2001Brian Schneider (a third ex-head developer, although at the time of this design team 
2002he was the then-current head developer).
2003
2004The team had the challenging task of finding the guild mechanic for Gruul. I say 
2005challenging because, as I talked about up above, trying to make a mechanic that has 
2006the simplistic single-mindedness of Gruul while also actually allowing interesting 
2007strategic game play is a tall order.
2008
2009The team started by examining the other guilds it had to build: Izzet and Orzhov. 
2010Izzet clearly wanted to focus on instants and sorceries. Orzhov wanted a slower 
2011style of play that plinked away at the opponent—what Ramp;D calls a bleeder deck. 
2012This meant that Gruul clearly wanted to be the aggressive guild of the set. (In 
2013contrast, as I'll talk about below, Gruul in Gatecrash isn't the most aggressive 
2014guild.)
2015
2016The team quickly decided that it wanted Gruul to be about attacking with creatures, 
2017which meant that its mechanic had to reward that behavior. After a little 
2018playtesting, it came to the conclusion that the mechanic needed to go a step farther. 
2019Not only should it reward attacking, it wanted to actively encourage it. The earliest 
2020version of the mechanic, which the team called paincast (and yes, paincast was also 
2021the name for the initial Rakdos mechanic in Return to Ravnica—note that it was a 
2022completely different mechanic) worked a lot like morbid from Innistrad. It merely 
2023asked if an opponent had been damaged this turn. If so, it enhanced the spell with 
2024the mechanic.
2025
2026I don't have the notes from the early design so here's a card I've made up to give 
2027an idea how it worked.
2028
2029    More Pain, My Gain
2030    G
2031    Instant
2032    Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
2033    Paincast—If an opponent has already been damaged this turn, that creature 
2034             gets +4/+4 instead. 
2035
2036The problem with putting the ability on spells, though, was twofold:
2037
2038The mechanic wants a deck full of creatures because it needs the opponent to have 
2039taken damage. If the mechanic is sitting mostly on instants and sorceries, it 
2040creates conflict because some number of cards in the deck can't be creatures.
2041The Izzet mechanic wanted to focus on spells, so its mechanic, replicate (the Izzet 
2042mechanic was the first one the design team found), sat solely on instants and 
2043sorceries.
2044
2045These two points pushed hard for the paincast ability to appear solely on creatures. 
2046The team felt that this could be seen as a feature because it would create a nice 
2047contrast between the Gruul and the Izzet (the only two guilds in Guildpact to share 
2048a color). The question was what abilities to grant the creatures?
2049
2050The team messed around with various versions but, in the end, decided it would be 
2051best to have one unified effect. This would both help make the Gruul feel focused 
2052(remember that you want to give the Gruul the feeling of single-mindedness) and 
2053lower the complication. The most obvious choice was to turn the reward into +1/+1 
2054counters. I believe the team talked about cost reduction (interestingly, what the 
2055initial Return to Ravnica Rakdos paincast mechanic was doing) but it seemed both a 
2056bit scary developmentally and a little too complex of a feeling for the Gruul.
2057
2058After some more playtesting, the design team realized that each bloodthirst creature 
2059essentially had two states: one slightly under the curve and one slightly above it. 
2060There was some talk of whether or not the damage wanted to be any damage or just 
2061combat damage, but the team felt it would be wrong to not let the color with direct 
2062damage interact with the mechanic.
2063
2064The design team also figured out that it was interesting to put bloodthirst on some 
2065creatures with rules text that cared about their power. This interacted not only 
2066with the +1/+1 counter but also with the power-pumping spells that existed in both 
2067red and green.
2068
2069Finally, the existence of bloodthirst encouraged the design team to impact the mix 
2070of the set around the mechanic. Certain cards that are traditionally weaker in 
2071Limited, such as one-drop creatures, became stronger when working in combination 
2072with bloodthirst.
2073
2074    Bloodrush
2075
2076The Gatecrash design team (Ethan Fleischer, Mark Gottlieb, Joe Huber, Dave Humpherys, 
2077and myself) started in a similar place as the Guildpact design team. We knew 
2078red-green was centered on its creatures and that its route to victory was having 
2079bigger creatures than the opponent. Remember that Gatecrash also has the Boros guild, 
2080which was taking up the "weenie rush" slot. This led us to ask ourselves—how can we 
2081reward red-green for having the bigger creatures?
2082
2083The first obvious answer was fight. For those unaware, fight is a keyword action 
2084added to the game during Innistrad (although the first card to have its function was 
2085a promotional card called Arena that came out with one of Magic's early books in 
20861994) that allows two creatures to get into a pseudo-combat where each deals its 
2087power in damage to the other.
2088
2089Fight was attractive for several reasons. First, it was flavorful for Gruul. Second, 
2090it was primary in green and secondary in red, matching up perfectly to Gruul colors. 
2091Third, it made size matter in an elegant way. The next step was figuring out how to 
2092use fight to help create a new keyword.
2093
2094After some thought, the team designed the first Gruul mechanic, called rowdy. Here's 
2095how rowdy was done:
2096
2097    Rowdy Bear
2098    2G
2099    Creature—Bear
2100    Rowdy—When CARDNAME deals combat damage to another player, CARDNAME may fight 
2101          with a creature controlled by that player. 
2102
2103The mechanic worked well. A little too well, actually. It was efficient at killing 
2104the opponent's creatures. Once the Gruul player got ahead, rowdy made it almost 
2105impossible for the opponent to come back. Dave Humpherys, who was the development 
2106representative on the team (and, interestingly, also the lead designer for the set), 
2107expressed concern. The mechanic was a little too overpowering, it created unfun game 
2108states, and it often made it impossible for the opponent to play creatures.
2109
2110Trying to keep the keyword revolving around fight, we took another stab at a 
2111mechanic that used it. This mechanic was called kickboxing:
2112
2113    Kickboxing Bear
2114    1G
2115    Creature—Bear
2116    Kickboxing—1G
2117    When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you may pay the kickbox cost to have this 
2118        creature fight target creature. 
2119
2120Kickboxing was quite simply a cross between fight and kicker. (Thus, the cutesy 
2121keyword name.) If you paid the kickbox cost, the creature would fight as an "enters 
2122the battlefield" effect. Kickboxing wasn't as devastating as rowdy but it still 
2123turned every creature with the ability into a potential two-for-one. Part of New 
2124World Order is that we've made two-for-ones default to uncommon or higher. We want 
2125our guild mechanic on common cards so, once again, it didn't work out.
2126
2127We tried a bunch of other mechanics that all encouraged attacking. Some of them 
2128showed promise but none quite had the Gruul feeling we were looking for. By this 
2129point, we were into a part of the process we call devign. Devign is the part between 
2130design and development where design still controls the file but development starts 
2131raising issues. This gives design time to address concerns that would potentially 
2132cause problems in development. By catching them early, design is able to think how 
2133it would rework the set to fix the problems development identifies. (Sometimes, by 
2134the way, design's job isn't to fix the problem but to explain to development why a 
2135certain thing needs to be done a particular way.) The design team brainstormed a 
2136bunch of different ideas for Gruul and passed a number of them by development. One 
2137that caught development's eye was bloodrush, at the time called ambush.
2138
2139The basic idea of a creature you could throw away to be a Giant Growth was solid, 
2140but it needed some tweaking to make it feel right. Here are a number of decisions 
2141that got made:
2142
2143    The power/toughness of the creature had to always match the power/toughness 
2144    bonus. This was key because otherwise the two abilities wouldn't feel linked.
2145    If the creature had a keyword ability, that ability also had to be granted to 
2146    the creature that was targeted by the "spell" effect. A creature with trample, 
2147    for example, would grant trample.
2148
2149    For various reasons, we didn't want any two bloodrush creatures having the same 
2150    power/toughness combination.
2151
2152    In general, we wanted the "spell" effect to be cheaper to cast than the creature. 
2153    We did make two exceptions (Wasteland Viper and Wrecking Ogre), but both of these 
2154    require the same amount of mana (although the Wrecking Ogre requires more red 
2155    mana).
2156
2157    For New World Order reasons, we chose to make all the commons vanilla creatures 
2158    (meaning no rules text other than the bloodrush). The uncommons are all French 
2159    vanilla creatures (only creature keyword abilities other than the bloodrush). 
2160    The rares are also French vanilla creatures with only one exception (Rubblehulk). 
2161    The reason we mostly kept to vanilla and French vanillas? Bloodrush takes three 
2162    lines of rules text and we didn't want the cards too texty.
2163
2164    The red "spells" tended to lean more toward power greater than toughness while 
2165    the green "spells" were more all over the board. This reflects how each color 
2166    uses Giant Growth effects.
2167
2168    We tried to keep the "spell" costs on the low end because we wanted to make sure 
2169    they could be used without majorly telegraphing that the "spell" was coming.
2170    Finally, we had to be careful that the granted keyword meant something along 
2171    with being a power/toughness boost and being cast as an instant during combat. 
2172    For example, green has access to vigilance, but that didn't work well with a 
2173    Giant Growth. The time you would have to use vigilance-granting would prevent 
2174    you from surprising your opponent with it. 
2175
2176Finding the right power/toughness and keyword mix took a lot of time (and continued 
2177through development). The cards might seem simple on the surface but getting the 
2178feel and game play right was the result of countless playtest iterations.
2179
2180
2181---------
2182- DIMIR -				Blue - Black
2183'''''''''
2184
2185Welcome to Dimir Week. This is the ninth installment of the Return to Ravnica block 
2186guild theme weeks. This time around, instead of talking philosophy, I'm talking the 
2187craftsmanship of design. How does one design for blue and black in general and for 
2188Dimir in particular? Stick around and I'll tell you.
2189
2190    What's the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
2191
2192Blue and black tend to be the kings of card advantage. Blue is primary in card 
2193drawing and black is secondary (tied with green). Blue has counterspells and bounce. 
2194Black has discard and creature destruction. The two colors are excellent at slowly, 
2195and sometimes not so slowly, gaining the upper hand, often subtly enough that less-
2196experienced players aren't even aware of it.
2197
2198What this means is that blue and black thematically click together well. The two 
2199colors have a clear flavor and feel that mesh well. Blue is sneaky and cunning. 
2200Black in underhanded and ruthless. Mix them together and you have a guild you might 
2201not want to trust.
2202
2203    What's the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
2204
2205While philosophically the two colors mesh well, mechanically they are the two ally 
2206colors that have the least in common. Now, this is a pain for making hybrid cards, 
2207but shouldn't a clear mechanical identity make gold cards easier to design? The 
2208problem here is that while blue and black don't overlap much in actual mechanics, 
2209they have a lot of abilities that are close to the other but just a little different.
2210
2211I'll walk through some of them to demonstrate:
2212
2213Card Drawing: As I said above, blue is #1 and black is tied for #2. But blue always 
2214    does its card drawing straight up, often these days at instant speed. Black 
2215    always has to trade something for its cards—most often life. Black usually does 
2216    this at sorcery speed.
2217
2218Evasion: Blue and black both have flying. Blue also has unblockability and 
2219    islandwalk. Black has intimidate and swampwalk. Black also has deathtouch, which 
2220    doesn't technically give it evasion but heavily encourages the opponent not to 
2221    block.
2222
2223Library Denial Blue "mills," meaning it makes the opponent put some number of cards 
2224from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Black "extorts," 
2225meaning that it goes into the library and exiles particular cards. The flavor here 
2226is that blue makes you forget in general while black lobotomizes you.
2227
2228Hand Denial: Blue and black are the only two colors that can easily deal with a 
2229    threat before it hits the battlefield. Blue has the ability to use counterspells 
2230    while black has the ability to force the opponent to discard.
2231
2232Tutoring: Blue and black are the two colors best at getting specific cards out of 
2233    your library and into your hand. Blue tends to be more focused, with cards 
2234    directing you what kind of card you can get, while black has the more blanket 
2235    tutors, sometimes with an additional cost associated.
2236
2237Stealing Creatures: Blue takes the opponent's creatures while they are alive, while 
2238    black takes them after they've died.
2239
2240Learning the Opponent's Hand: Blue has spells that peek. Black gets glances as part 
2241    of certain discard spells where it needs to see the hand, such as Duress or 
2242    Coercion, to make choices of what gets discarded.
2243
2244In each case, they are similar but a little different. That's great for giving each 
2245its own identity but it makes it more difficult to make blue-black cards. The blue 
2246ability always feels close to black, and vice versa, often making the cards feel like 
2247they'd fit in one color or the other rather than in both.
2248
2249    What's the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
2250
2251Of the ten two-color pairs, this question is the trickiest for blue-black. Why? 
2252Because blue-black's mechanical heart is more about a feel than a concrete quality. 
2253Boros is about cheap aggressive creatures, Golgari is centered in the graveyard, but 
2254Dimir isn't quite as easily pinned down.
2255
2256The easy answer is that blue-black is about the library. Blue and black are the two 
2257colors that interact with it most. They have card drawing, tutoring, milling, 
2258extracting, filtering. One of their win conditions is library depletion. But all that 
2259is more a secondary strategy in Gatecrash.
2260
2261No, the thing that ties together blue-black is this sense that it's getting 
2262incremental advantage at every turn. If any color combination is the poster child 
2263for the two-for-one, it's blue-black. What this means is that when you build a blue-
2264black theme, you have to figure out how it's getting its incremental advantage. Note 
2265that the two Dimir mechanics do it in different ways.
2266
2267Transmute is about trading card utility, upgrading one card for a card more fine-
2268tuned for your needs. Cipher is about setting up a situation where you can create 
2269raw card advantage, generating spells without the card. I'll talk about each more 
2270as I get to their creation, below.
2271
2272    What's the Focus of This Color Pair?
2273
2274Blue-black's plans are not as straightforward as some of the other color 
2275combinations. Part of this, I believe, is because blue-black wants to keep the 
2276opponent guessing. Its advantage comes from the fact that the opponent doesn't know 
2277where the attack is coming from. The end result is that blue-black has three main 
2278ways to win.
2279
2280Evasive Creatures: Blue and black are two of the colors with the best evasion. Once 
2281they take control of the game, they can use their evasive creatures as a kill 
2282condition. Because they have the tools to mess with the opponent's plan and slow 
2283things down, the small evasive creatures have time to do their thing. The cipher 
2284mechanic clearly plays into this space.
2285
2286Library Depletion: Magic has an alternative win condition built into its very core. 
2287Blue-black are the two colors that most often win through this strategy. Blue has 
2288straight-up milling; black has extracting. All it has to do is stall and use its 
2289milling and extracting to win. This strategy is even more powerful in Limited, where 
2290the decks are only forty cards. Grind, the unnamed "mill until you get a land" 
2291mechanic from Gatecrash, plays into this strategy.
2292
2293How'd I Lose?: The final strategy is the subtlest. Blue-black uses its incremental 
2294advantage to eke out every small gain it can. The opponent loses but never has any 
2295clear thing to point to. Somehow, he or she just lost. Transmute played in this 
2296space.
2297
2298These strategies can be mixed together or run separately. They make blue-black extra 
2299hard to fight against because you're never quite sure where the danger lies. I know 
2300when playing against Dimir in Gatecrash, I'm always trying to figure out what 
2301strategy my opponent is using.
2302
2303This focus is unique and not something I'd want to do a lot, but it philosophically 
2304fits blue-black to a T.
2305
2306    Transmute
2307
2308In the initial Ravnica block, Dimir was in the first set, Ravnica: City of Guilds . 
2309The design team (Aaron Forsythe, Richard Garfield, Mike Elliott, and Tyler Bielman, 
2310led by myself) approached Dimir as the "library guild," much as we approached the 
2311Golgari as the "graveyard guild." As I explained above, this comes about because 
2312blue and black have more interaction with the library than any other two-color 
2313combination.
2314
2315I'll be honest, when I pushed us toward the "library guild" I had one goal in mind. 
2316I am a huge fan of alternative-win conditions so, of course, I was a huge fan of the 
2317one already built into the game: milling. I didn't know how exactly it was going to 
2318work, but I wanted milling to be a part of Dimir's identity. At the time, though, it 
2319never dawned on me to make milling itself part of the guild keyword. (That wasn't 
2320true for Gatecrash.)
2321
2322While I was fiddling with milling, someone else on my team, Aaron Forsythe, decided 
2323to take a different approach in finding a mechanic for the "library guild." Rather 
2324than focus on the opponent's library, Aaron turned his focus onto the player's 
2325library. As I explained above, one of the areas where blue and black overlap is 
2326tutoring. Aaron wanted to see if he could make a mechanic that gave blue-black the 
2327ability to get the cards it needed out of the library.
2328
2329Aaron's major problems were basically tutoring's major problems. First, we have what 
2330R&D calls "repetitive game play." Magic is fun if each game plays out differently. 
2331When games follow the same pattern, game after game, it becomes monotonous and less 
2332fun. The game solves this problem with the library, an item that is randomized such 
2333that the players get their cards in an unknown order, making each game play out 
2334differently. Tutors undo this tool by eliminating the randomness.
2335
2336The second problem is a power-level concern; this is more of a development issue 
2337than a design one but design has an obligation to make things that can be developed. 
2338A combo deck stalls until it can get the pieces to its combination, which usually 
2339allows it to quickly win the game. Because a combo deck requires the player to 
2340collect a series of different cards, the randomness of the library tends to slow 
2341down the deck. Tutoring once again bypasses this safety valve, allowing a combo 
2342player to "go off" with a combo far faster than he or she would normally be able to. 
2343Aaron recognized both problems but he thought we could find a way to work around 
2344each.
2345
2346As proof of concept, Aaron turned in a card with his mechanic proposal. You guys 
2347know the card as this:
2348
2349    Perplex
2350 
2351But when Aaron first turned it in, it looked like this:
2352
2353    Perplex
2354    1UB
2355    Instant
2356    Counter target spell unless its controller discards his or her hand.
2357    Transmute UB (UB, Reveal this card from your hand: Put this card on top of your 
2358        library, then search your library for a card with converted mana cost three, 
2359        reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)
2360
2361There are a few differences between Aaron's original version of transmute (note the 
2362name never changed—that was what Aaron called it when he submitted it). Let's walk 
2363through them.
2364
2365The cost: In Aaron's original proposal, blue-black cards would transmute for , blue 
2366cards for , and black cards for . In the finished version, the blue-black cards cost, 
2367the blue cards, and the black cards. This change was made by development because the 
2368design version proved to be a little too strong.
2369
2370What you do with the card with transmute: In Aaron's original version, you put the 
2371card on top of your library, which would then be shuffled in at the end of the 
2372effect. The finished version just had you discard the card. Why this change? Mostly 
2373because everyone just discarded the card and forgot to put it on top of the library. 
2374Usually, in design, when the players keep doing something wrong, but do it 
2375consistently wrong, you want to seriously consider just making the mechanic do what 
2376everybody instinctively wants it to do.
2377
2378Play only as a sorcery: The original version could be played any time you could play 
2379an instant. While this offered all sorts of cool moments where the card could tutor 
2380on the fly, it was just another thing making the mechanic too powerful. Development 
2381wisely also made this change. (Note that modern template now says, "Transmute only 
2382as a sorcery.")
2383
2384Other than those few, mostly power-related issues, transmute was printed as 
2385submitted. The trick for the design team was figuring out what kind of cards wanted 
2386to have transmute on them. Aaron felt strongly that they had to be cards you would 
2387want to main deck but cards whose value would swing as the game progressed. Perplex, 
2388as an example, could be powerful early but often could be worthless later in the 
2389game, when the opponent doesn't have any cards in hand.
2390
2391The other thing we had to monitor was making sure the transmute cards covered a 
2392range of converted mana costs. The transmute mechanic was linear, in that it made 
2393you want to include other cards with the specified converted mana cost, so we wanted 
2394to ensure there was a wide spread.
2395
2396As mechanics go, we got it in early in the process and it made it cleanly all the 
2397way through development (with the few tweaks) to print. Cipher wouldn't be quite as 
2398easy.
2399
2400    Cipher
2401
2402Let me start by revealing something I've never revealed in an article before: I love 
2403grafting things. Let me explain. Grafting is an R&D slang term where you take some 
2404aspect, usually a sentence, and stick it into the rules text of another card. (Note 
2405that there also is a mechanic called graft used by the Simic in the original Ravnica 
2406block, but I'm not talking about that.)
2407
2408Here's an example of a famous old card from Urza's Saga that grafts:
2409
2410    Hermetic Study
2411
2412The point of grafting is that you take an existing card and expand what it can do by 
2413grafting on additional words and/or abilities. Why do I enjoy grafting so much? I 
2414don't know. My best guess is that it's my Johnny sensibility enjoying turning cards 
2415into other cards.
2416
2417I bring this up because my love of grafting has led me to design numerous mechanics 
2418that incorporate it. Two of the most famous are imprint, from Mirrodin, and splice, 
2419from Champions of Kamigawa (best known for its original use, "splice onto Arcane").
2420
2421    Isochron Scepter
2422	
2423    Glacial Ray
2424
2425I bring these two up because cipher essentially is the love child of these two 
2426mechanics. Let me explain. When Gatecrash design started I pushed hard for a milling 
2427mechanic with the playtest name of "grind." While grind stayed in the set, we decided 
2428we wanted a different mechanic to be the Dimir keyword, so I spent some time thinking 
2429about a new replacement. (For the full, longer story of grind's creation and ultimate 
2430removal as the guild's keyword, check out this earlier article where I tell the full 
2431story.)
2432
2433Much of design is spent realizing that something you'd worked on isn't quite right 
2434and then having to search through all the existing parameters to find a solution. 
2435When I do this, I find it works to write down as many things as I can that I know to 
2436be true. The more restrictions I have to my problem, the more I can figure out which 
2437areas I need to explore. Here's what I had when I started trying to find a new 
2438mechanic:
2439
2440    The mechanic had to feel Dimir: I talk a lot about how I design by feel. I'm a 
2441    big believer that a game designer has to be very conscious of the emotional 
2442    reaction his or her game mechanics will create. As such, my number-one priority 
2443    in finding the replacement mechanic was finding something that just oozed Dimir.
2444    
2445    We couldn't mess with milling: Grind had been shifted from keyword to nonkeyword 
2446    status. That meant anything in the similar space was off limits.
2447    
2448    It needed to play into the focus of the guild: Up above, I outlined three ways 
2449    Dimir could win. Restriction #2 eliminated the mill option, so that left evasion 
2450    and card advantage. Card advantage is tricky to work with (and we already went 
2451    there in original Ravnica—see above) so I decided to focus on evasion. What did 
2452    Dimir creatures want to do? Well, they liked sneaking in and damaging the 
2453    opponent. Was there a way to make doing that even better?
2454    
2455    It wanted to be a spell mechanic: Boros? Creature mechanic. Simic? Creature 
2456    mechanic. Gruul? Creature mechanic. Orzhov? Not totally a creature mechanic but 
2457    it was on a bunch of creatures. That meant we really needed a spell mechanic, so 
2458    while I was solving one problem, I might as well solve another.
2459    
2460    It wanted a little bit of splash: The other guild mechanics were all solid and 
2461    they played well but none of them tended to jump out at you when you first heard 
2462    about them (okay, maybe evolve). This was another problem we could solve while 
2463    finding the replacement.
2464
2465With all this in my head, I started walking through my options. What follows is a 
2466rough approximation of my train of thought:
2467
2468Okay, we have rogues and scoundrels who sneak around and hit the opponent. How could 
2469I help that strategy? I could help make them harder to block. No, blue and black are 
2470already the best at evasion. What if I rewarded them for damaging the opponent? That 
2471shows promise. How do I reward them? Saboteur abilities (what R&D calls the ability 
2472that has an effect when it deals combat damage to the opponent). When you hit the 
2473opponent, something happens.
2474
2475So I want to graft saboteur abilities onto my Dimir creatures, many of which would 
2476naturally have evasion. How do I do that? Creature Auras seem the cleanest. The 
2477problem with that solution, though, is that there's no keyword. Most sets have an 
2478Aura that grafts text. How do I make this mechanic something I could keyword? Also, 
2479what do I do to make this splashier?
2480
2481This led me to the splice mechanic. What if I had a sorcery that I could graft onto 
2482a creature as a saboteur ability? That sounded cool. Also, I channeled imprint with 
2483the idea that you would exile the spell itself and then use the actual card as the 
2484reminder for what got grafted. Mark Gottlieb (my co-lead for Gatecrash) suggested 
2485that you get to cast the spell first, before it gets grafted, to allow you one use 
2486of your spell—and often two if you set it up correctly. This would help make sure 
2487the cards had enough value to play.
2488
2489With this idea figured out, the next step was to actually make the cards. This 
2490proved to be a little more difficult than I initially realized.
2491
2492First, we decided we wanted to keep the mechanic on sorceries because the timing 
2493with instants had the potential to confuse the players. It also raised the mechanic's 
2494power level and development was already scared of cipher (called "encode" in design).
2495
2496Second, the effects all had to be something that were useful at the tail end of 
2497combat, when your creatures dealt damage. This meant they had to be proactive, not 
2498reactive, and they had to be effects that were generally useful at most times of the 
2499game. We also realized we could essentially make a few creature cards by making them 
2500sorceries that generated creature tokens.
2501
2502Third, we had to keep the effects small enough that a creature with evasion that was 
2503doing this every turn would shift the game in the Dimir player's favor rather than 
2504just winning it outright.
2505
2506Fourth, the abilities had to be short (meaning few words) because they had to fit on 
2507the card, as cipher was going to take up six lines of reminder text.
2508
2509Luckily, blue and black's subtle differences helped make it easier to find enough 
2510effects, many of which were short enough to fit.
2511
2512And that is how cipher came to be.
2513
2514
2515----------
2516- ORZHOV -			Black - White
2517''''''''''
2518
2519Welcome to Orzhov Week, the tenth and final Return to Ravnica block guild theme 
2520weeks. I am going to be exploring the design of a certain two-color pair—today, 
2521obviously, is white and black. 
2522
2523    What’s the Easiest Thing About This Color Pairing?
2524
2525For some reason, with the sole exception of blue-red, all the enemy color pairs have 
2526a decent amount in common. Maybe that’s because thematically it’s interesting for 
2527enemies to see a bit of the other within themselves. White-black is probably the most 
2528resonant enemy pair as the colors represent the break between light and dark, a core 
2529staple of conflict in stories (and, one could argue, in life).
2530
2531White-black has a nice balance between some overlap (lifelink, flying, etc.) and some 
2532stark differences (white builds and protects while black destroys) making multicolor 
2533cards pretty easy to design, mechanically.
2534
2535    What’s the Hardest Thing About This Color Pairing?
2536
2537The hardest part comes from something I said above—no enemy color pair in Magic more 
2538feels like enemies. The fight between the light and the dark is the core conflict of 
2539the fantasy genre. Richard Garfield is a huge fan of mirrors in design—that is, two 
2540cards meant to represent the opposite sides of a conflict. While Richard included 
2541many in Alpha, one stood heads and heels over the rest:
2542
2543White Knight and Black Knight. Black, to this day, has tertiary first strike almost 
2544solely so it can be mirrored on Knights with white. What speaks more to fantasy than 
2545the side of chivalry, honor, and righteousness fighting against its selfish, dark, 
2546scheming mirror?
2547
2548Richard might have invented blue, red, and green magic, but the idea of white and 
2549black magic far predates the game. Is this a problem? It is when you are trying to 
2550put both colors on the same card. Yes, mechanically we can do it, but what does it 
2551represent? Why would two mortal enemies combine their magic?
2552
2553Resonance is a big part of design and has only gotten larger over the last five 
2554years. When you make a white-black card, you have to figure out what it represents 
2555and you have to figure out how to get the mechanic to have the right feel. White-
2556black never makes this easy.
2557
2558Orzhov was one of the best solutions I’ve seen to this problem. Creating a group 
2559with black goals and white means helps to visualize the kind of spells this group 
2560would want. I’m sure one day we’ll explore the group with white goals and black 
2561means but that one is a little trickier to execute (although clearly possible).
2562
2563    What’s the Mechanical Heart of This Color Pair?
2564
2565It’s interesting that Dimir and Orzhov were the last two guilds I talked about 
2566because they are the two that have the least straightforward mechanical hearts. 
2567White-black is about optimizing systems. That is, it is the color pair best at 
2568examining a system and understanding how to abuse it. When it turns its attention 
2569to game play, it’s about figuring out how to abuse each component.
2570
2571Where white-black shines is the use of the dual-purpose cards. Here are the pinnacle 
2572examples from each Ravnica block:
2573	
2574Both Pillory of the Sleepless and One Thousand Lashes function as defensive and 
2575offensive cards. This allows white-black to defend itself without having to devote a 
2576separate card to win the game. This theme runs throughout white-black. Why? Because 
2577white-black is patient. It understands that it will win if it can use all its 
2578defensive cards to incrementally be offensive.
2579
2580    What’s the Focus of This Color Pair?
2581
2582The most typical white-black deck is what we in Ramp* call a bleeder deck. The idea 
2583behind a bleeder deck is simple: Take control of the game and then slowly plink the 
2584opponent to death. To make this happen, white-black wants two main things (and as we 
2585saw above, these two things will often be on the same card):
2586
2587    White-black wants to remove threats: As the color pair that is best at optimizing 
2588    systems, white-black understands that the key to winning is, first, not losing. 
2589    The trick there is analyzing the opponent’s strategy and taking out the key cards 
2590    that allow him or her to win. With the tools to handle any kind of card, 
2591    including cards in other zones, white and black is good at both pinpoint and mass 
2592    removal.
2593    
2594    White-black uses small incremental threats that are hard to remove: White-black 
2595    then works hard to make its threats less vulnerable. The key to doing this is to 
2596    both have patience—it doesn’t matter how long a victory takes if you win—and 
2597    spreading its threats around. White-black never puts all its eggs in one basket. 
2598    White-black is hard to stop because it provides lots of tiny threats rather than 
2599    one or two large ones. This isn’t to say that white-black can never have larger 
2600    threats, but those threats have to also have a secondary function to keep their 
2601    removal from being too much of a setback.
2602
2603White-black follows this plan and it will win, slowly but decidedly.
2604
2605    Haunt
2606
2607I have some strong opinions about the haunt mechanic, but before I get to those, I 
2608want to start first by explaining how haunt came to be. The mechanic was created by 
2609Aaron Forsythe during Guildpact design. (The Guildpact design team was led by Mike 
2610Elliott and included Aaron, Devin Low, and Brian Schneider.)
2611
2612I talk about how every time a team designs a set with the guilds, there’s always one 
2613guild that’s problematic. Orzhov was that guild for Guildpact. Izzet was the spell 
2614guild and Gruul was the creature guild and each one found its mechanic relatively 
2615quickly. That wasn’t the case for Orzhov.
2616
2617The design team started by exploring the themes of trading and business. When that 
2618didn’t lead anywhere, they tried an “oppression” mechanic that forced the Orzhov 
2619player to pick one color at the beginning of the game to focus its hatred on, but 
2620that proved too swingy. While trying to come up with a flavor that might work, Aaron 
2621toyed around with a theme that the creative team had brought to the guild—ghosts.
2622
2623Aaron’s mechanic was called haunt and it represented creatures that stuck around as 
2624ghosts after they died. Here’s the first card Aaron designed with his mechanic:
2625
2626    Haunting Knight
2627    2W

2628    Creature—Knight Spirit

2629    2/2

2630    First strike

2631    Haunt (When this card is put into the graveyard from play, remove it from the 
2632        game haunting target creature. When the haunted creature is put into the 
2633        graveyard from play, play this spell without paying its mana cost.)
2634
2635The initial version was pretty powerful, as the creature kept coming back. Here’s 
2636how it worked using Haunting Knight as an example: Haunting Knight is a 2/2 first 
2637striker. When it dies, it “haunts” a creature on the battlefield. Then, when the 
2638haunted creature dies, Haunting Knight comes back to the battlefield under your 
2639control. This made Haunting Knight pretty hard to get rid of, as killing it only led 
2640to it haunting a creature and making the whole cycle start over.
2641
2642The design and development teams liked the general feel, but it was clear a few 
2643changes had to be made:
2644
2645    The effect was made to only happen twice: In Aaron’s original version, the 
2646    creature with haunt hops back and forth between life and death, allowing it to 
2647    get into play many times. The new version only had an effect that happened once 
2648    when the spell was first cast (or entered the battlefield for creatures) and 
2649    then again when the haunted creature died. But that was it.
2650
2651    The effect was reworked to go on spells as well as creatures: The other big 
2652    change was to adapt the mechanic to allow it to work on spells as well as 
2653    creatures. To make this happen, the mechanic ended up working slightly 
2654    differently between instants/sorceries and creatures. As you’ll see in a minute, 
2655    this was one of the big flaws of the mechanic. 
2656
2657The design and development teams played around with a lot of variants of haunt. Some 
2658only haunted your own creatures while others haunted your opponents’. They 
2659experimented with having a separate effect, which was the effect that was haunted. 
2660In the end, they went with what they thought was the simplest execution.
2661
2662All that said, I think haunt is my least favorite guild mechanic of Ravnica block. 
2663Radiance was a poor choice for Boros, but I could imagine a set that could use it. 
2664So what was my problem with haunt? Let me walk you through a few of them:
2665
26661. Players Didn’t Get It
2667
2668The mechanic sounds great at first blush. My creatures die and then they can haunt 
2669other creatures. Very resonant. There was just one small problem: While most people 
2670got the general sense of the mechanic, the majority of players couldn’t remember 
2671what it did. I call this problem unstickiness. The best example of an unsticky 
2672mechanic is when you read it and then as soon as you are done, you say to yourself, 
2673“What does this do?”
2674
2675The reason a mechanic becomes unsticky is that it messes around in space that’s not 
2676intuitive. It just doesn’t do what you would expect it to. I always talk about how 
2677important having your mechanic do what the audience expects it to do. Unstickiness 
2678is what happens when you don’t do this.
2679
2680Now, I’m sure there are plenty of you reading this saying, “Haunt was obvious. How 
2681could anyone not understand it?” My response is that I’ve seen too much data that 
2682shows that most players just didn’t get it. Why? One of the biggest reasons is...
2683
26842. It Wasn’t Really One Mechanic
2685
2686The choice to have spells and creatures work differently was a big part of the 
2687problem. Both said haunt on them but they worked quite differently. Spells resolved 
2688and then haunted, but creatures, which all had enter-the-battlefield effects, didn’t 
2689haunt until they died. The spells worked better mechanically because they happened 
2690right away and it was clear what the effect was when the haunted creature died. The 
2691creatures, though, were more flavorful. I mean, creatures are what turn into ghosts 
2692and haunt you, after all. Mixing and matching spells and creatures, though, made 
2693everything less clear and muddied the message.
2694
26953. It Didn’t Play Well
2696
2697In the end, this is the one that damns it for me. Players have proven that they will 
2698figure out more complex mechanics if they are motivated enough, but haunt’s play 
2699value wasn’t up to the amount of energy it took to keep track of what was going on. 
2700It was a lot of work for very little payout.
2701
2702Like any mistake, haunt proved to be a valuable teaching tool and it definitely 
2703taught me some things to be careful about in future designs.
2704
2705    Extort
2706
2707As I talked about in one of my Gatecrash preview articles, extort was not our first 
2708attempt at an Orzhov mechanic. In fact, it wasn’t our first, second, or third. It 
2709wasn’t even designed by a member of the design team (although its designer, Shawn 
2710Main, was credited as being part of the design team due to his contributions 
2711designing extort and battalion). Extort was designed by a design sub-team put 
2712together at the start of Gatecrash "devign"—the period in between design and 
2713development where design still controls the file but development starts to give 
2714feedback to be addressed.
2715
2716The sub-team recommended extort as the Orzhov mechanic but the design team was split. 
2717Mark Gottlieb and I (the two co-leads) were fans. Dave Humpherys, who ran the sub-
2718team, stayed neutral as to not bias the decision. Ethan Fleischer and Joe Huber 
2719weren’t so sure about the mechanic. As Mark I and I liked it, it went into the file.
2720
2721One of the concerns was that the mechanic didn’t do enough. Interestingly, that was 
2722the same reaction of many players when we first previewed it. To prove this wrong, I 
2723decided that for the next few drafts I was going to draft every extort card I could. 
2724I was convinced that not only was it flavorful and interesting as a mechanic but at 
2725the current costing it was very strong. So I forced Orzhov. I took every extort card 
2726passed to me despite its stats. I believe my first draft deck had fourteen extort 
2727cards in it. I crushed every opponent I had that day. The skeptics became a little 
2728less skeptical.
2729
2730The team eventually came around and it was clear extort was going to be the Orzhov 
2731mechanic. The key then was figuring out what kind of cards wanted to have extort on 
2732them. For starters, it was clear that extort worked best on creatures. Extort was the 
2733kind of ability that would slowly whittle away at the opponent, but cards with it 
2734needed to be able to serve another function so that the game would progress as you 
2735were nibbling away. We did make one rare enchantment, Blind Obedience, which was 
2736designed to specifically slow down the opponent, to work with extort.
2737
2738Next, we chose to put extort on mostly cheap creatures—only two multicolor creatures 
2739cost more than four mana. Beyond that, we mostly made the creatures vanilla or French 
2740vanilla (meaning they had no text or just a creature keyword other than the extort 
2741text). This was done because extort took three lines of rules text and we didn’t want 
2742the common and uncommon extort creatures being too wordy. A simple creature with 
2743extort did a lot of good work and proved to be plenty interesting in playtesting.
2744
2745Development did make two important changes. First, in Shawn’s version, the extort 
2746cost was . The development team felt that it needed to have a color commitment. I 
2747think development toyed with white cards costing and black cards costing , but to 
2748make the reminder text consistent (and shorter) it decided to opt for the white-black 
2749hybrid symbol. This also indirectly helped with another problem. The ability of 
2750draining an opponent felt at home in black but was a little odd in mono-white. By 
2751using the hybrid mana, it got a skull—if even a tiny one—to help give the mono-white 
2752cards a hint of black for flavor.
2753
2754The other change made by development was to tweak the mechanic for multiplayer play. 
2755The design version drained “an opponent.” The final version drained “each opponent,” 
2756giving the mechanic some chops in multiplayer play.
2757
2758The other thing design had to do for the extort mechanic was design support for it. 
2759Here are a few of the ways we did that:
2760
2761    Cheap spells: One of the things I learned quickly as I started drafting extort 
2762    decks was how important it was to have some cheap spells in the deck. Once you 
2763    have four or five extort creatures in play, you really wanted to play spells 
2764    that you could pay all the extort costs for. To make sure this was possible, we 
2765    slightly upped the number of cheap spells.
2766
2767    Defensive cards: Bleeder decks need two things: One, a small incremental way to 
2768    do damage over time. Extort filled that duty. Two, cards that slowed the game so 
2769    part one could do its job. Luckily, Orzhov is all about gumming up the game and 
2770    slowing down the opponent, so this wasn’t too tough to do, either.
2771
2772    Other small means of damage: I keep bringing up bleeder decks, but that is only 
2773    one way for Orzhov to play. Another is a more aggressive style, using the cheap 
2774    and fast white creatures from Boros and the sneaky evasive black creatures from 
2775    Dimir to get in as much damage as fast as possible, using the extort as the 
2776    means to get in the last few licks of damage. This deck was looking for other 
2777    ways to nip at the opponent while taking the initiative.
2778
2779Put this all together and we ended up with a mechanic that I felt much better about 
2780than haunt. It was just as flavorful but much easier to understand.
2781
2782
2783
2784---------
2785- RULES -				Modifications and Extensions
2786'''''''''
2787
2788One can frame up a numerical argument to present a modified set of bounding numbers
2789for Magic the Gathering without modifying the quality of the game. Presented here
2790is a coarsely well playtested system called 50/60 with OT. While we never tested
2791for OT (and simply declared winner), options exists to keep competitive play open
2792to flutter both over time and within hosted tournament tierings. Let's give some
2793simple details on the rules.
2794
2795Basically, each player starts with 50 life and a deck count of 60. Play commences
2796until one player has died. If the the winner is 5+ in life, then it advances,
2797otherwise, the match is considered a draw. Draws are immediately resolved in a
2798hot-shot Overtime with winner taking first draw. One overtime option is giving
2799each character 5<N<10 life with FRACTION mana in play and a short hand drawn from
2800a spiked micro-deck. Life buffers of +-1/2 could be argued in favor of the winner.
2801All in all, the system ensure extended game-play with a more complex decision tree,
2802more interesting hands, and a fairly good spread on semi-deep draws of both decks.
2803
2804A quickly noticed factor in long-play was the endless feel of a 'panic-wave', the
2805heat for a specific draw to quell a specific threat, and the burn of a bingo set
2806of maneuvers. Multi instantaneous counters, pumped and artifact-ed heavy hitters,
2807and completely bizarre team strikes happen always, and failing to seam-up your
2808defensive metrics will cost you the game. After the 33% mark, an automatically
2809noticed trend was 'get burned twice and get burned'. Hot draws and half-hitters
2810lead to good life flutter, and a general sense of confusion until 66-78% of the
2811game. At our level of play, the ends were a little predicted but in one there was
2812good gnawing and a good ending life scatter at final tally.
2813
2814To further boost interest in these rule changes, I wanted to discuss a tri-color
2815deck with colorless and statistically rare spike factors. Even further. And bear
2816with me, I wanted to extend both the above 10 guild analysis, the tri-deck utility,
2817and the rule extensions by provided indicators for all of the tri-deck combinations.
2818To do this, we need to quickly review a simple diagram, so bear with me.
2819
2820
2821                                  Wt
2822                                   |
2823                          Rd       |
2824                            --___  |       Bl
2825						   --+---''''
2826                                 /'|      
2827                               /'  |
2828                             Gn    |      the 'Magic Spindle'
2829                                   Bk
2830
2831What can quickly be seen for the needed three deck array is as follows: 3-Polar
2832Sweeps, 1-Triple Ring, and the face count. The faces will reflect predictivity. As
2833such, we will set ourselves up to label 10 different decks, and I believe the labels
2834are abstract enough to develop some research into this system.
2835
2836
2837
2838-----------
2839- MALAKAI -			White - Blue - Black
2840'''''''''''
2841
2842The Malakai deck is based on a super-boosted philosophy: Double-pump the white-black
2843deck as hard as you possibly can with blue interupts and red henchmen. Furthermore,
2844this deck is spiked with colorless deepdraws and both light and dark graveyard
2845harvest mechanisms. It is designed to take damage while setting up for a late game
2846empirical counter.
2847
2848Correctly setting up this deck is technically beyond me, but let me at least offer
2849up a high-quality spine based on my previous experience in testplaying the 50/60
2850system. First things first, the horned-skull. This deck requires 4 first print
2851Colossus of Sardia. The original printing stated that the Colossus of Sardia was
2852placed in the graveyard during its untap phase. As such, it was either a meat-shield
2853or a disposed bomb. With the Malakai deck, we hope to set up a perfectly tuned semi-
2854harvest/triple-combo. However, I'd like to mention the support cards I'm already
2855looking at, because of how they emphasize white-black capability.
2856
2857With the Orzhov deck, we were introduced to a more loosely gauged, technically
2858mutable system. This system is sensitive to both timing and shuffle display, and
2859extending game length only lets you abuse it to the limits of it's assembly. Besides
2860a critical emphasis on selction of blue instant counters and sorceries, the weaker
2861side of blue's offering needs to be replaced by black and red outliers: cards that
2862are rare and bizzarely defined. Cards that are designed to deal with red.
2863
2864Firstly, Voodoo Doll is an absolute must. Anytime you get an early draw on this
2865token, you can immediately begin torturing the enemy. Getting it off the board is
2866actually not simple, and swindling from 50 life is a wicked sweet way to open a
2867game. Another required card (red to boot!) is Mogg Assassin. This is an offshoot
2868that permits me to coin-flip take out my most powerful units with a minimal demand
2869on mana lacing. This is an excellent style of defensive thinking insdie of a
2870white-black setup due to the amount of perks white-black offers on the side.
2871
2872To try and pump the graveyard, two completely illicit cards are Revive the Fallen
2873and Gravedigger. Both of these cards are pure black, plugged nickel, Colossus right
2874back on the top dirty swindlers. Cheapest way to harvest a repeat time bomb. On the
2875flip side, Akroan Jailer is an excellent piece of white corruption. The goal of
2876this assembly is to pester and divert the enemy until the deck has been drawn deep
2877enough to tap 9 and go. Harvest cards and hot heavy hands lead to good speculation
2878on winning. 
2879
2880Never forget, getting bit by clever decks or beaten out is always possible. In the
2881testplay the loss was suffered from, believe it or not, countered counters! Keeping
2882the player alive is always the main focus. The cards that assemble well tend to
2883team pummel well statistically often inside of the white-blue-black arena. Lacing
2884it with red candy, like the Colossus and Mogg is where the players imagination and
2885mindframe start to come into play. This deck really performs with a good mix of
2886the commentary provided above, however bang-bust deep draw systems use an inverted
2887decision mechanic regarding unit selection when certain white-black overlaps show
2888up. Using blue to play flak is always possible.
2889
2890Now, we have all of the information provided from Mark Rosewater, the Malakai deck's
2891core philosophy, and the extension of play to the 50/60 level; some abstract yet
2892fitting names for every triple-deck setups are given here:
2893
2894    Wt-Bl-Bk: The Hood
2895    Wt-Rd-Bk: Dragon Scales
2896    Wt-Gr-Bk: Vines
2897    Rd-Gr-Bl: Mana
2898    Wt-Rd-Gr: Juggernaut
2899    Wt-Rd-Bl: Valkyrie
2900    Wt-Gr-Bl: Briars
2901    Bk-Rd-Gr: Wyrmm's Blood
2902    Bk-Rd-Bl: Hellfire
2903    Bk-Gr-Bl: Fungal Plague
2904
2905That pretty much wraps it up. Thanks again for reading this again, and thanks to
2906Mark Rosewater and Wizards of the Coast LLC for making such a great game for so
2907many years. Best of luck to anyone out there wanting to toy around with three,
2908four, and even five color decks!
2909
2910
2911
2912.