Magic 2011 Development Chat (w/ Aaron Forsythe and Tom LaPille) transcript - 7/27/10
1. <+PhoenixLAU> Rocs 
, rukhs 
, and uh, rocks 
have historically always been red. Why is Roc Egg 
a white card?
<@AaronF> History is sometimes wrong. Birds are generally white, defenders are white, token making is far more white than it is red.
<@AaronF> I can't think of a real reason why Rocs were red to begin with; we started the shift in Shadowmoor with Windbrisk Raptor 
(which was almost named "Windbrisk Roc")
2. <+AgentOfZion> When developing M11 were any considerations given to the secondary market in relation to what cards would be re-printed, or did you decide to let it sort itself out?
<@TomLaPille> I'm not exactly sure what you mean with that
<@TomLaPille> Like, we want there to be cool and exciting cards in the set
<@TomLaPille> One of the things that was important to us was to not do a "pump fake" with sweet cards like Lightning Bolt 
<@AaronF> Much like any Core Set design, we looked at card prices as a general indicator of a card's desirability.
<@AaronF> We try and choose a wide spectrum of reprints--some for flavor, some for power, some for nostalgia.
<@TomLaPille> I guess most notably, Baneslayer Angel 
was widely adopted by players for several different reasons, and it's still around because people were indicating that they still wanted to play with that card more
<@TomLaPille> and we wanted to let them do that
<@AaronF> Again, that's a function of desirability. We print cards people want, whether they are staples or just cool.
3. <+Zero> What considerations must be made for "flavor vs. function" in making the "new" core sets and particularly M11? Like with changing names, creating new cards and that kind of thing.
<@TomLaPille> I was on both design and development for M11
<@TomLaPille> What makes the set special to me compared to other Magic sets is that we tried to make its cards work as units without context
<@TomLaPille> To make that happen, you have to get cards that feel right with name, art, and game text
<@AaronF> For me flavor comes first, although I will admit that there are specific functional designs that are just fun to play. For those, we try to find the best flavor fit possible, even if it means renaming and/or reillustrating the card.
<@TomLaPille> We just kept raising the bar for how good the flavor match on a card needed to be, and that got us to the place where M11 is
<@AaronF> Temple Bell 
was a function-first card that I wrestled with trying to "explain" with a concept... I tried War Chest, some kind of magic book, none of it felt right, until I came up with the idea of pressing a button, which is what playing the card feels like, which then became ringing a bell.
4. <+Riorvard> The replacement of Drudge Skeletons 
with Reassembling Skeleton 
at first seemed to indicate that regeneration was a goner. But then Cudgel Troll 
got spoiled. CT being the only example of regeneration in the set left me puzzled, though. Was there any discussion regarding dropping regeneration?
<@TomLaPille> Regeneration is a pretty wacky ability, but it's what trolls do, so Cudgel Troll got to do it.
<@TomLaPille> The Skeleton thing wasn't anything about regeneration being bad; we just found a better match for what Skeletons do, and made the better card.
<@AaronF> We argued about it quite a bit. We talked about redoing it, changing the rules, etc., but never found a better solution than what's there.
<@AaronF> "Regeneration" is a powerful word and an ability we want to use in all sets, so we needed to teach it in M11 on at least one card.
<@TomLaPille> The important thing for M11 is that the trolls do what trolls do and skeletons do what skeletons do, so we let them.
<@AaronF> Good point, Tom.
5. <+SunByrne> M11 seems to re-use of things from Mirage-Tempest-Urza timeframe: Man-o'-War 
-> Aether Adept 
, Jinxed Idol 
, Fling 
, Survival 
-> Fauna Shaman 
, Corrupt 
, Mana Leak 
, Cloud Elemental 
, Wildfire 
-> Destructive Force 
, Ophidian 
-> Scroll Thief 
, Shiv's Embrace 
, Welkin Hawk 
-> Squadron Hawk 
, and so on. Was this on purpose, and if so, why?
<@TomLaPille> I think that's a coincidence, but it could have something to do with the inside-Magic nostalgia that the designers remembered.
<@AaronF> Not really on purpose, although now that you put it that way it may not be a coincidence either.
<@TomLaPille> My nostalgia from my tournament days is a little younger than that- think Odyssey and Onslaught, so who knows what would have happened if I had been the lead designer!
<@AaronF> Those sets were during my playing hey-day, so they probably contain a lot of cards and effects I remember fondly.
<@AaronF> I've been wanting to reprint Man-o'-War for a long time.
6. +kaotics2075> When creating the frost titan 
, why did you choose to not do somethng with card draw or flying instead of tapping permanents? Don't get me wrong, I still like the card, it just seems the others are a lot strong compared to him....
<@TomLaPille> Frost titans freeze things!
<@TomLaPille> Like, that's just what they do
<@TomLaPille> Hilariously, there was plenty of internal disagreement about the relative strengths of the titans
<@AaronF> There was definitely a desire to make a card called "Frost Titan" as opposed to "Efficient 6-Mana Blue Monster".
<@TomLaPille> We knew they were all pretty good, but I was one of the people who thought Frost Titan was pretty sweet
<@TomLaPille> Everything on that card is frosty. He's hard to get to through the fog of ice around him, but you can get there if you want
<@TomLaPille> And he taps things, which is also frosty
<@AaronF> Those abilities are the most frost-like. Card drawing and flying have nothing to do with the concept.
7. <%Mono789> What efforts were made to connect M11 to the blocks surrounding, i.e. Zendikar block and Scars of Mirrodin block?
<@TomLaPille> We used individual cards to do that, mainly
<@AaronF> Erik Lauer, the set's lead dev, is always looking to make those kind of cross-block connections, and the design team helped out.
<@AaronF> There are several "artifact-matters" cards, like Hoarding Dragon 
, Phylactery Lich 
, and Steel Overseer 
for Scars.
<@TomLaPille> For example, Primeval Titan 
connects well with both landfall and expensive spells
<@TomLaPille> We tried to go in both directions.
<@AaronF> Right, green Titan was definitely made to interact with ZEN.
<@AaronF> There we even cards made to interact with Shards block, although they were subtle and I don't recall them at the moment.
8. <+Troacctid> Okay. Black is the color of death and the best color at killing creatures, and it has discard (which can force the opponent to overextend) and reanimation (which likes lots of creatures in the graveyard), AND it's the color most willing to make sacrifices to achieve its goals. So black ought to be right at home with a mass-death spell. Why is it then that it's always white who gets Wrath of God 
as a core mechanic with black only scraping the occasional Consume the Meek 
, when mass removal should clearly be a part of black's slice of pie as well?
<@TomLaPille> Black "can" do it, but white is the most comfortable fit for something like Day of Judgment 
. It's just a very rule-setting card, which is what white does.
<@TomLaPille> The core set is where we do the most baseline things, so we don't tend to put black mass removal there.
<@AaronF> We need to divide removal up in chunks. Black gets the most, and gets all kinds of it. White's needs to have a different feel than black's.
<@AaronF> I could imagine a Mutilate 
-style card in the Core Set someday, though.
9. <+GlenDonald> Was there specific thought given to making M11 feel nostalgic so as to tie in with Scars?
<@TomLaPille> To me, M11 is built to be nostalgic for anyone who knows anything about baseline fantasy
<@TomLaPille> Everything there is sometihng you recognize
<@AaronF> Not particularly more than I'd want any Core Set to feel nostalgic. They should all contain familiar cards, as well as some new hotness. So no, no special treatment here.
10. <+Metallix87> The Lorwyn Five were once again reprinted in M11. Is it likely that they'll be reprinted in every Core Set moving forward, or do you feel that it's only a matter of time before other Planeswalkers appear in the Core? Were any others, existing or new, considered for M11?
<@TomLaPille> I'd be surprised if we did anything in the core set forever. Things just aren't exciting the eighth time you do them
<@TomLaPille> It's important that Magic both feels familiar and changes to be fresh
<@TomLaPille> We have to strike the right balance to make the game fun over a long time
<@AaronF> I don't think they'll be printed in perpetuity; there are so many other existing and potential awesome planeswalker designs.
<@AaronF> I was happy printing them a third time here;I think three printings in a row burns them into people's minds, which is how cards and characters become iconic and memorable.
11. <+Frank4Fingers> Day of Judgment is no Wrath of God , is this a temporary (hopefully not permanent) shift to make regeneration matter, or to keep 8 Wrath effects at 4cmc out of standard?
<@TomLaPille> I think it's better when more of cards' game text matters, so I like that the marquee mass removal card allows regeneration to actually do something
<@TomLaPille> I always thought it was stupid when River Boa 
was sitting in the same standard as Incinerate 
and Wrath of God :/
<@AaronF> Regeneration should always matter; there should always be trumps to trumps. If mass-removal gets too prevalent, it's nice to be able to find creatures that are good against it.
<@AaronF> In general, I think Day is like 98% of Wrath, if not more, which is the power-level I want.
12. <+AngelCollector> Before we got Planewalkers, in M11 appear Titans. Why do all Titans have in ability "When it enters the battlefield or attack..." is that something connected with Greek History Titans? Why exactly such ability?
<@TomLaPille> Our goal was to find a cool mechanical identity for the titans, and use the open parts of that identity to get the color and flavor of the card across.
<@TomLaPille> Not every mechanical match can be perfect; the goal is to make it feel right, and after several iterations of Titans, that was the one that spoke the most to us.
<@AaronF> The design goal was pretty loose... impressive cycle of giants with a common line of text.
13. <+MarshallLRcast> M11 feels a lot like M10 for draft yet you have to keep things "core". How hard is it to keep core set drafting exciting?
<@AaronF> I actually think they're pretty different.
<@AaronF> I'm happy with how different the dev team got this set's limited to be from M10 considering they were working with a very similar parts list. I'll leave it the public to tell us if it's exciting or not; I'll be watching the MTGO numbers closely.
<@TomLaPille> Making M11 draft exciting was a lot easier than M10 thanks to scry, which puts more spice into games
<@TomLaPille> My favorite thing about M11 draft compared to M10
<@TomLaPille> is that there are a ton of differences as to how I (and probably Aaron) approach the two
<@TomLaPille> but if you're looking for something familiar and hoping not to have to adjust too much, you may not notice anything different
14. <+Bughferd> Do you feel that by making creatures more efficient and with more utility such as the titans you can safely print strong countermagic like mana leak 
without upsetting the standard environment?
<@TomLaPille> Standard was a lot faster in the heydey of Mana Leak
<@TomLaPille> I think the reason why Mana Leak worked out for us is that it is very strong early in the game, but then goes dead later
<@TomLaPille> and when there is time to cast a six mana 6/6 in a top tournament deck, there is also time for Mana Leak to sometimes be outlanded.
<@AaronF> The developers have had a lot of discussions about what makes countermagic "okay"... is it quality? Quantity? Never an easy target to hit.
15. <+mulldrifting> How much do you guys care about the balance of the color pie in Standard? I feel a strong imbalance in the colors, and M11 exaggerated those imbalances for me, instead of correcting them but I'm not sure how important it is.
<@TomLaPille> We care that the decision about which color to play is interesting
<@AaronF> Ebb and flow is fine; it is unrealistic to think that every metagame will have all the colors represented equally.
<@AaronF> But I think black is struggling right now, and that's not great. We constantly watching and trying to address that stuff. We shoot for balance, and live with the fact that we're off.
16. <+Branden> What was thought to be the most powerful titan internally? If you thought the Frost titan 
was good were you surprised to see it being referred to as so useless by many players? Also whats your favorite card in m11?
<@TomLaPille> Grave Titan 
and Primeval Titan were the favorites internally, I believe
<@AaronF> I'm never surprised at how wrong people are when they've played 0 games with new cards versus our hundreds, but I am surprised at how confident they are in their wrongness 
<@TomLaPille> I loved Frost Titan 
and played it in several decks; I wasn't surprised when people called it bad because it reads worse than the others, but I wasn't surprised when it started showing up :P
17. How do the design team approach matters that extend beyond the cards themselves especially as it relates to social issues/justice? What thought is given to diversity, for example? games like The Sims have both followed and led social thoughts like same-sex relationships/marriage...
<@AaronF> impressive feat
<@TomLaPille> I think that's a question for Creative, not development.
<@AaronF> Those are mostly Creative Team issues, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable divulging philosophy as I may get it wrong.
<@AaronF> Needless to say, we discuss race, drugs and alcohol, sexism, and so on quite often. Granted, we're a fantasy game, not an alternate-reality like the Sims.
18. <+andrew_holder> Voltaic Key 
has a history of being a strong card that leads to many powerful interactions and even sees eternal play. How much debate, if any, went into giving the Key a reprint, especially with Scars around the corner?
<@TomLaPille> Key breaks with other broken artifacts, like Mana Vault 
and Time Vault 
(heh)
<@AaronF> Key wasn't ever really the problem card, it was always the other insane cards like ... see above
<@AaronF> It's like blaming Hypnotic Specter 
when the real broken card is Dark Ritual 
.
<@AaronF> Key does stuff with Scars block, but I don't anticipate brokenness.
<@TomLaPille> Key does cool and fun and reasonable things with cool and fun and reasonable artifacts
19. <+Anusien> Protean Hydra 
got "downgraded" from Mythic to Rare. Why did you make that change? Was it help the poor guy get ahead?
<@AaronF> FUNNY
<@AaronF> "get ahead"? Get it?
<@TomLaPille> He's the perfect hydra, and we didn't want to lose him to space concerns.
<@TomLaPille> When the choice came down to whether we were supposed to cut him or downgrade him, we chose to be nice to him instead of vote him out.
<@AaronF> Titans went to mythic late in the process; other stuff got bumped around. We've been willing to shift rarities on cards in the past... mythic isn't so sacrosanct that we can't demote stuff from there.
20. <+norbert88> Why did you decide to print Scroll Thief instead of the core set staple Thieving Magpie 
? (and will we see Thieving Magpie back in future core sets?)
<@AaronF> Who loves Thieving Magpie? Raise your hand!
<@AaronF> Oh, just you
<@TomLaPille> Scroll Thief is something that I can describe to someone who doesn't play Magic, and they'll get the idea and why the card lets you draw a card when you hit them with it.
<@TomLaPille> Thieving Magpie s just make crazy-looking nests. That's a worse match for drawing a card.
<@AaronF> Magpie is a fine card, not exactly the best example of a "cool fantasy concept," though, and I like the gameplay of the card-drawer not having evasion. Gives Goblin Tunneler 
something to do.
21. <+LaurieChe> Some of the cardnames in M11 are really unsubtle: Captivating Vampire 
, Hoarding Dragon , Reassembling Skeleton , etc. Instead of a contextual name such as "Kaervek's Skeleton", their name is just what they do. Does this bother any devs as much as it bothers me?
<@TomLaPille> There are a few ways to go with fantasy names. One is to make up place names you've never heard of and will never hear of again, and the other is to use real adjectives. I strongly prefer real adjectives when there isn't a world built around the card.
<@TomLaPille> It's cool to have War Priest of Thune 
every once in a while, but even then "Thune" feels to me like a place where a war priest might come from.
<@AaronF> Doesn't bother me. We've made countless Skeletons, some are bound to have "practical" names, might as well be the Core Set ones.
<@TomLaPille> Hoarding Dragon is a dragon who hoards. I like truth in advertising.
<@AaronF> We have a goon mix of Yavimayas, Thunes, and Serras in there still.
<@AaronF> ^--"good" heh.
<@TomLaPille> oh, Yavimaya Wurm 
, you're such a goon
22. <+TomBoyd> With an increase in planeswalkers was there any consideration to add more PW removal with -ring 
and Pithing Needle 
rotating out of standard soon?
<@AaronF> Straight development question.
<@TomLaPille> We think about planeswalkers in constructed all the time, and we regularly adjust cards to better answer them.
<@TomLaPille> We are aware that Planeswalkers are a little trickier to answer than other cards, but like Aaron said, we always want answers to things.
23. <+scryguy> What was going to replace baneslayer angel 
and what was going to replace the m10 duals?
<@TomLaPille> I think the first cards in the file were the M10 dual lands.
<@TomLaPille> And I don't remember a time when Baneslayer Angel wasn't in the file either.
<@TomLaPille> so... nothing?
<@TomLaPille> c_C
<@AaronF> Eventually they'll go away, not yet thought.
24. <+gcilley> How do casual formats, especially EDH, affect development? For instance, why no legendary creatures in core sets?
<@TomLaPille> There isn't a story for core sets that gives us natural legends, so the legendary supertype would feel a little tacked on.
<@AaronF> Legendary creatures are reasonable candidates for future sets, but planeswalkers are the "guy you need to care about" cards right now.
<@TomLaPille> I guarantee you that EDH matters to development, as that's why things like Wrexial, the Risen Deep 
show up in sets as two-color legends when it's not otherwise a multicolor set.
<@TomLaPille> The core set is just a weird place for them.
<@AaronF> There are plenty of cards we tested in EDH in M11, though, we like that format around here.
25. <+zturchan> With white's lord changing from a soldier to a knight, why are there not as many knights and knight support cards in M11 as there were in M10 for soldiers?
<@TomLaPille> There were four soldier lords in M10, not one!
<@TomLaPille> That's so many lords
<@AaronF> Soldiers were treated as a theme in M10, Knights aren't really in M11.
<@AaronF> That card used to say "Soldiers get +1/+1, Knights get +1/+1" but it changed late because we didn't want it to have the wonky Death Baron 
template. Regardless, we didn't have the strong white tribal thme this time, mainly just to be different.
26. <+BelangiaJo> I was interested with Goblin Tunneler being reprinted in M11. The difficulty of designing interesting Red cards at common has been a recent concern in set design. Is this tunneling ability a method of extending the color pie for Red commons? If so, are there any other clues of this in M11?
<@TomLaPille> Goblin Tunneler is there because it's fun to sneak your Scroll Thief s and Nightwing Shade 
s past things
<@AaronF> My color pie philosophy is that one color should do something well, and another color does is not very well.
<@AaronF> Blue can make anything unblockable, so Crafty Pathmage 
is an unecessary card in that color as far as I'm concerned. It does a lot more "work" in red.
<@AaronF> Hornet Sting 
is an extension of that philosophy as well.
27. <+RobJelf> With Zendikar block we had an adventurer theme and feel throughout. M11 also has a number of RPG/Adventure elements as well. I understand that there are inter-brand meetings at WotC to compare practices. Is D&D having more impact on MTG Dev & flavor than in the past?
<@AaronF> Not consciously. I just think our recent attempts to make Magic more about top-down fantasy tropes has us dipping into the same well that has been so successful for D&D... and a lot of other fantasy franchises over the years.
<@AaronF> Familiarity is powerful, and D&D and Magic overlap on a lot of the trappings of the worlds.
28. <+loucksj>How has knowing that two core sets will be standard legal together changed your process, if it all? (Ex: ever worried about overlapping Howling Mine 
and Temple Bell ?)
<@AaronF> It has changed the discussions a bit.
<@AaronF> We talk about scenarios in which we'd have to take a year off from making a kind of card so there wouldn't be 8 at a time, but so far we haven't had to actually do that. 4 Mines and 4 Bells was tested a bit, but we saw the interaction as upside for the short-term.
<~Gardevi> And...that wraps it up
<~Gardevi> A big thanks for Tom Lapille and Aaron Forsythe!
<~Gardevi> Who actually is doing this chat from home!
<@AaronF> At home with sick baby!
<@AaronF> Yay!
<~Gardevi> Well, follow @mtgaaron and @tomlapille for ramblings, and @gardevi for future devchats!
<~Gardevi> (on Twitter!)
