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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.

1) When I go off on one of my useless tangents, I will ask someone else on my staff to write the design article that week.
2) I will finish turning all of my articles into Wikipedia entries, and by the end of the year almost every phrase will be a hyperlink to another article.

I predict one of these is on his list

Objection!

Design Lesson #3 doesn't line up with a recent action you have taken. Remember Ooze Garden ? I recall you pushing the design when almost everyone else wanted it out.

Comment Re: Odyssey: Yeah, I can see that being a set not well-received by non-Spikes. Sure, I guess part of it was that discarding cards (especially randomly) isn't fun, but it was also the wildly inconsistent power level attached to it. On one end you have Wild Mongrel and Wearbear ... and then you have the Red discard commons in Odyssey. Discarding a card randomly for a great effect? You might sell casuals on that ( Stormbind ). Discarding a card randomly for +2/+0? On a 1/1? ( Pardic Swordsmith ) Not so much.

Many of the good cards in Odyssey were also rather subtle such that didn't leap out to casual players as awesome ( Bearscape , Moment's Peace , Careful Study , Master Apothecary - all excellent in the right spot, but none say "Wow"). The set also had a huge proportion of crap rares. Yes, every set needs bad rares, but Odyssey needed more bad rares like Cabal Patriarch (Huge, makes the graveyard relevant, good for casual players) and fewer like Tombfire and Pedantic Learning .

I definitely think "discard is cool" could be sold to casual players, but not underpowered discard. Vaguely similar to Echo, I suppose- as discussed in an earlier column, Echo is a nonsexy mechanic whose only benefit is that it allows R&D to safely undercost various effects. Therefore a card with Echo that isn't selling itself on brokenly awesome extra effects ( Avalanche Riders vs. Flamecore Elemental ) is pretty much a guaranteed failure. One of those mechanics only fun at a high power level, I guess.

"Attacking" is the conventional answer: the reason why Nicol Bolas is more popular than any of the other Elder Dragon Legends, and the reason why most dragons with triggered abilities since then have triggered on dealing (combat) damage to a player. ( Hateflayer is another excellent example of rewarding a player for doing what they want to do anyway with their 5/5 wither.)

But "drawing cards" could be good too.

There's even an outside chance it could be "gain life". (Or "play multicolour spells", I suppose.)