You may notice there are no +1/+1 counters in ONE. This was decided pretty early on, and Play Design had to institute a swear jar for every time one of us suggested a +1/+1 counter somewhere.
I've been pretty silent because I've had so many feature matches, but I TOP 8D A PRO TOUR!!!! I'm even first seed going into the Top 8, so I'll get the choice of play/draw. I'm so happy this has been a longterm goal of mine for so many years.
I am using a dating app for the first time in a long time. The app says โyour turnโ after a match messages me. I then mentally referred to the match as โmy opponentโ. I have a lizard brain.
Today I was promoted to Senior Game Designer
#wotcstaff
. Happy to have taken a chance on designing for the game I love and excited for what the future holds. Iโve got some nice cards in the pipeline to share with yโall :)
Vegas is a place for bad decisions, so on this day approximately 12 years after I started building my cube, it's finally 100% proxy free. Happy 25th anniversary!
Been a while since I've done a design story, but I love the history of this card. Normally Black has to lose life or sacrifice something to draw cards, but here the card draw is already attacking the main thing keeping you alive (your remaining 6 cards) so we left it off. (1/2)
The LCI prerelease is almost upon us, and since the set is one I worked on so closely, I like to share some design stories on cards that I think might be interesting. I'll post these from time-to-time and I welcome questions. Today I'll talk about these four uncommons!
#wotcstaff
It feels weird to tweet this to the public but I wanted to tell my close friends and I didn't want to do it 100 times. My father passed away peacefully last night. We were able to say our goodbyes, but I wish we had more time. He was incredibly supportive and I'll miss him dearly
Kai Budde is legendary, I grew up playing his World Championship preconstructed deck with my friends. Stories of his historic runs were passed from veteran to newbie in every card store I've ever played at. A very fitting honor for the PotY trophy to be named after him.
Here are the top Masterpieces (read: my personal favorites) from each of our tent pole sets released this year. Honorable mentions to Venerated Rotpriest, Faerie Mastermind, Agathaโs Soul Cauldron, and Tishanas Tidebinder.
#wotcstaff
I was asked which of six people were most likely to 0-3 a team draft and said
@jkyu06
. He instantly demanded a draft to fight for his honor and then promptly 0-3d
I hear AOC is trying to play Among Us with streamers, which seems bizarre to me because I would think she spends enough of her time trying to vote out liars and murderers
Got as high as
#2
with this last weekend before I was asked to stop playing on ladder. Been bouncing around 6-20 the last few days. Inspired by
@PrediMTG
casting Bontu vs.
@MSigrist83
in Rivals. Particularly proud of this one, its an amalgamation of previous failed ideas of mine.
By popular demand, here is my list of Biggest Masterpiece in the common/uncommon category from each of our tentpole releases this year. Honorable mentions to Gleeful Demolition, Meeting of Minds, Monstrous Rage, and Buried Treasure.
#wotcstaff
So so so happy to finally take down a whole GP, and it feels even better to do it with my own deck I've been working on for a month. Thanks to my testing team for being great, funny, and lifting my spirits on Friday. Ben Weitz and thought-knot seer, name a more iconic duo.
OK here are my Biggest Disasters (read: my personal least favorites) of each of our tentpole sets for this year. These represent ONLY MY PERSONAL opinions. If you love some cards on this list that's awesome, different things appeal to different people.
#wotcstaff
#MTGBRO
was my first set working on Set Design, so it's the first one you'll find bsweitz original designs (as opposed to bsweitz-approved number changes). These are some of the cards I'm most proud of that I had major contributions to the final design.
Ok fine here is the Objective Red Masterpieces from the last year of sets. Itโs objective because Iโm the Red color councilor, so you must accept my decree. Honorable mentions: Barbed batterfist, Chandra, Hopes Beacon, Grabby Giant, and Etalis Favor
#wotcstaff
The card draw ability was added in the first place because the play pattern of "Cast the Demon, then kill everything to not die and wait you out" wasn't very fun. We wanted to make sure the caster dies first because of that and the ability also makes the card tell a nice story.
It's been a long time since I've made a tweet about game design so I figure I'd talk about a few cards/changes that I really like from the last year of Standard sets.
#wotcstaff
Emilie and I broke up today. No malice and nobodyโs fault, just incompatible life goals. Over the last few months she changed her mind about wanting kids, and I dont. Feels weird to say this publicly, but itโs the easiest way to not have the same conversation over and over.
One of my personal design heuristics is that itโs important to give creature-heavy, especially typal, decks some light interaction to make games more interesting. I end up pushing for a lot of cards like these, that can change dynamics a ton vs baneslayers/sheoldreds
#wotcstaff
When designing multicolor signposts for Limited, we think a lot about what the color combo needs to create good games of Magic. The signpost is the easiest way to directly affect an archetype, since changing most cards has knock-on effects. Tagging
@mtg_ds
for value.
#wotcstaff
Won one of the Standard pods at Mox Bellevue with UW crafting. I love setting up thran spider into glyphbridge. I love standard. Beat BR midrange, monored, and Domain.
#wotcstaff
Submitted my favorite design I've ever made in my two years working at WOTC and it made it into the set. Excited for y'all to see it in two years or however long it is
I have spent many a happy hour playing with Braids and forcing my opponents to make difficult choices. I've sacrificed everything from my third land to Bloods to Nixilis planeswalkers. Hope the world enjoys one of my favorite cards from DMU!
#WotcStaff
I've seen a lot of negativity on Twitter recently so I'm going to share one of my favorite jokes.
Why did Oko fall down?
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Because he was imbalanced.
I thought it might be fun to dig through our final draft day of LCI and look at the kinds of changes we make. We do multiple drafts and if we make changes we have to scribble them on the cards for subsequent drafts that day. Curve swaps, rarity swaps, and other small changes!
I think this is one of my peak design moments. We wanted a piranha card to show off the fauna of the region, but the team was very stuck. We went through tons of nonsensical rares until finally we tried this simple concept that does the thing that cartoon piranhas do!
A slightly different discussion. I believe these five keywords have done the most net good to magic.
#wotcstaff
1. Flying
2. Dredge
3. Landfall
4. Flashback
5. Storm
HM. Convoke
Down 20 lbs from my heaviest in August. Have 10 to go before I hit the goal I set for myself. Very happy that I can do this when I really set my mind to the task.
I am at the airport waiting to fly one-way to Seattle for the foreseeable future. Lived in the Bay for the last 9 years, and CA for the last 13. Really the start of something new, a soft reset after the worst of covid. Nervous and excited
Iโve talked a few times about my favorite cards from BRO, but Iโm bored enough over the holidays that I figure Iโll do it again. This time Iโm going to mention 4 of the trickiest cards Play Design changed a lot, where I thought we did a great job.
(Potentially hot take) Competitions are stressful and always will be. Not everyone can easily maintain a healthy relationship with competitions and it's important to understand that and take care of yourself. But this isn't the fault of the competition.
The removal of Limited from PTs is an absolute travesty. WOTC doesn't even make a big effort to broadcast the RPTs, can we please not pander to "the viewers" if we aren't even willing to put in high production value?
I turned 31 today. This was probably the worst year of my life for various reasons, but it had bright spots. I Top 8d the PT Finals, I switched careers to
#wotcstaff
, I made a bunch of new friends online playing video games. Hoping I can keep the good and toss the bad next year.
There was recently some shakeup at the MTG Council of Colors, so I will now be representing the color Red, my favorite color. Feel free to tell me all the things you love and/or hate about Red cards!
#wotcstaff
This card is just for nobody. It isn't particularly cool, it has a lot of text, and it's a reference to a 20-year old card that few remember. It isn't resonant. Archfiend of the Dross is this card but done right.
One of the cards from NEO I'm most proud of is Reckoner Bankbuster. That card went through like a hundred changes but the final product is a really satisfying card to play with. Seeing it in a variety of decklists across archetypes makes me happy.
#wotcstaff
@flooey
There are many ways to break the symmetry and kill your opponent first. The easiest one is to mill them with e.g. Restless Reef after casting this.
Watched John wick 3 and at first I was upset about how all these assassins think they can take on the GOAT so easily, but then I figured that being an alive assassin self-selects for overconfidence because they never failed.
Ten is just too large a number for Breach. It has a bunch of power in the high mill number, and a lot of games end by milling an opponent out instead of using the cool creatures you get. It breaks the color pie by giving you tons of selection from the top of the decks.
An equipment that crafts seemed like a good idea at the time, but there's just a ton of weirdness with this card that makes it complex and clunky. It unequips when you craft it, it specifically calls out sacrificing something other than itself, it only hits creatures, etc
This is the ninjas deck I've been ranking up with. I never played with Okiba Reckoner Raid in FFL but decided to try it out after the buzz it's been getting in Limited and it's been decent. The Spectral Adversaries are flex.
#wotcstaff
I've been out of academia for 5 years, but after some new Twitter follows I recently stumbled upon a series of papers that continue the line of work that my thesis was part of and answer some open questions I left behind. It was cool to read the intro and see citations of me
Some things never change. Six years later, I still have that excitement, nervousness, and anxiety the night before the PT. Love my decks, and I think these formats are very skill-rewarding. Will try to take things slow and methodical, and play my very best.
The team I'm on added an innocuous, mid-power level common to a draft format and it immediately made it onto all the playtesters' favorite cards feedback. FeelsGoodMan
#wotcstaff
Everyone out here trying to compare insane magic accomplishments, but forgetting about the GOAT
@Smdster
being the only person in history to get a negative pro point from an event.
Just saw Uncut Gems for the first time. I feel like the movie was an artistic success in that I probably felt the way they wanted me to feel while watching it, but I cannot say that I enjoyed the experience.
My two goals for the last long time have been to Win a GP and to Top 8 a PT. I've completed both of those goals in early 2020, but the tourney isn't over yet, you all can watch me win the whole tournament next week :D
Just drew into presumably top 8 at
#GPPhoenix
. GPs in this city have been kind to me lately. It's been a goal of mine to win a GP for a while so we ain't done yet.
I've been dieting for a few months now and I've officially lost the weight I put on since the pandemic started! Next on my list is to lose the weight I put on since I gained access to free peanut butter-filled pretzels.
Some of my thoughts on today's announcements: . These are mostly my reactions and feelings about the announcement and the direction Magic seems to be going. Happy to discuss nuances.
He may deny it, but
@bsweitz123
rattled from a day of what heโd describe as poor play in the players tour,stands up from his bed in our hotel room, grabs a stack of draft commons says โF%#* it this is going in my GP deckโ. And at that moment, a Satyr was born.
This is a Gixโs Command admiration post. Commands are fucking hard to design and this one has all its modes chosen a decent fraction of the time. It also lets you feel very smart by combining modes. And the art is sick.
Today I turn 30 years old, quite a milestone. Many parts of my life I really like, some parts I really hate. COVID has turned the world into a strange place, but I feel like I should start trying to change the parts of my life I don't like when I can, or it will be too late.
I think I'm going to do a mental exercise of building a Monored Cube. I sketched out some archetypes and I think there's (barely) enough distinction between them that it could be fun. If it looks sweet I'll build it physically. Posting this for accountability.
@BenS_MTG
this is a really bad take imo. Trump shredded tons of norms and actively spread hateful rhetoric. He was most definitely a unique and dangerous president. It was clear what he was after the first 9 months, and probably before that.