Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Design”
If you ask “why is ‘bear’ accepted Magic slang for a 2/2 creature?”, the answer is simple. Grizzly Bears was printed as a vanilla 2/2 in Limited Edition Alpha and set the precedent for describing similar low-complexity combat creatures. But maybe that answer isn’t good enough, and you ask: “no, I mean why would that term be the one to …
Typal (formerly “tribal”) decks are very popular in all of Magic’s formats. These are strategies that revolve around playing a bunch of creatures with the same type alongside cards that give you bonuses for that creature type. Recently, cards that offer typal bonuses to more than one creature type have become more common. In this article, I’ll discuss the history …
Assassin’s Creed is the latest huge crossover event under the Universes Beyond banner, celebrating 17 years of the legendary gaming franchise. Given the series’ broad roots in historical fiction, this set also has the fun side effect of introducing famous names like Leonardo Da Vinci, Socrates and Cleopatra to Magic! No Pope or Doge cards though – guess we’ll have …
With Un-sets like Unfinity and Unstable waning in popularity, there’s a clear trend replacing those set’s storied reference game: putting references and puns-a-plenty into Modern Horizons sets. Jacob sits down to argue why Modern Horizons sets are a natural place to put these easter eggs. THE ORIGINAL JOKESTER Magic has several joke sets. The first of these was 1998’s Unglued. …
Love them or hate them, bonus sheets have become a big part of Magic over the last couple of years. In this article I’ll talk about the pros and cons of bonus sheets, especially as they relate to Limited. A “bonus sheet” is a curated collection of reprints that appears in booster packs for a set. Today’s Play Boosters have …
The Outlaws of Thunder Junction previews have made it very clear: Magic’s newest plane is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Every named bad guy in the history of the game (who isn’t dead or in plane jail) is riding around town, shooting up the new frontier and causing cowboy chaos. The Thunder Junction design team have embraced this …
Murders at Karlov Manor is about to shake up how we buy Magic cards, with Set Boosters and Draft Boosters both being replaced with a single product – Play Boosters. This is both a big change and a not-so-big change, depending on how you look at it. It will certainly impact the vast majority of players in some way or …
Happy New Year everyone! We’ve officially made it through the cleanup phase of 2023, and it’s time to start stacking upkeep triggers for 2024. There’s always that wave of annual diligence and new-year rituals to observe in these first few weeks of January, not least of which is casting our minds forward to try and predict what the next 12 …
Ravnica Remastered releases on January 12th, 2024. It’s a set filled with awesome reprints from our various trips to the plane. Apart from Dominaria, Ravnica is the plane that we have visited the most frequently. In fact, the next Standard-release Magic set, Murders at Karlov Manor is a Ravnica set too! We visit the plane regularly because it is the …
As we get closer and closer to the start of 2024, it’s a good time to sit back and reflect on 2023. It was another great year of Magic and in this article I want to take some time to look at the most flavorful card designs of the year. [Note: In order to avoid being redundant, I won’t be …
