The Genius Behind MTG's First New Card Type in 15 Years - Extra Credits

for decades the first turn in any game of limited Magic the Gathering followed the same play pattern play a land go play a land go classic oh you bet interesting not very but then about five years ago something odd happened common cards started showing up that were actually worth playing on turn one now I'm pretty confident that this was because one of the goals of the Wizards design team was to make turn one matter in the grand scheme of the game and in that I think they succeeded but man oh man did that have some unintended consequences [Music] to nebula for reliably being the best way to watch a ton of great content early and free of ads like this one magic is like almost no other game it's been around for almost 30 years and for most of that time its design leadership has been fairly stable as a designer this is amazing it means that you can watch their design thinking evolve and you can get a pretty good idea of what they're trying to do with each set which leads us back to the push to make turn one interesting and limited for years even the most aggressive limited decks were loaths to put in turn one place usually common one-mana creatures were one ones with no or at best dismal abilities but then the design team started to really push these cards 1-1 Flyers with LifeLink cards that were key Synergy pieces for the main decks in the format soon the player base adapted and everyone was tossing things out turn one or at least the more experienced players were now this had what might be an unexpected effect though to give the team at Wizards their dude they probably did anticipate it somewhat it made games faster meaning all those late game bombs those seven or eight Mana gigantic Critters that are so fun to play well they basically became unplayable in limited if something said it costs seven plus Mana its text better have been incredibly op because otherwise you weren't playing it and even if it effectively did win you the game it meant that it had to become your whole game plan what you built your entire deck around this obviously wasn't the best either so the team then had a new goal slowed down games without losing the progress they'd made on making turn one matter now they couldn't just up your life total or something as that would break all older formats and the balancing they'd done in the past so what did they do instead they created battles the First new card type that they've introduced into the game in 15 years battles themselves are pretty straightforward they have an effect when you cast them and then when you do enough damage to them how much varies from card to cart they flip over and become a much more powerful spell for you now you probably see where this is going right if you're attacking your battles you're not attacking the other player so if over the course of the game you had a battle in play with five health and you decided that you need to flip it in order to win the game well now you have to do 25 damage instead of 20 to win which is kind of like if your opponent had 25 life to begin with but it actually goes so much deeper than that that five Health Battle well it doesn't care if you do more than five to it let's say the only creatures you have available to attack it had three power and four power if you want to flip it you're now going to have to do 7 damage to it that's kind of like your opponent starting with 35 more life give or take there's another layer to it though just by being on the board battles slowed down the game once you have a battle in play your opponent always has to be worried about you attacking and flipping it this means that they're going to have to leave more creatures on defense in case you have some tricky way of trying to get through the sheer psychological effect of one of these hitting the table will often make your opponents more cautious and psych themselves out about things like haste creatures and removal spells this all adds up to the games going longer and allowing for a much more Shelby say swinging experience instead of just getting run over the games feel like they have a lot more back and forth which also helps make the games feel like they're going longer especially for new players modern aggro decks often feel like a steamroll which made games both unsatisfying and feel like they were happening way too quick and in those shorts of games you don't get to do any of the cool things you were trying to do with battles though we now see a play pattern where yes sure there's sometimes an early aggro stump but then maybe you get one good turn you flip one of your battles and start to stabilize maybe you don't even flip your battle maybe just having it there is enough or maybe your opponent feels like they have to flip one of their battles giving you just that little bit of extra breathing room for your stronger late game cards to come into play it's this seesaw gameplay the faster deck starts winning then the deck with better card quality takes the lead then it goes back and forth as people start dropping bombs that makes the game feel like a longer more satisfying experience it isn't just I got rushed down or I stalled until they ran out of steam it has Dynamics and then when you're telling your friends about these games there's now kind of a story there a bit of an arc which I think is key because when people say they want a slower format in Magic I'm guessing they probably don't mean specifically they just want the games to take more time kinda feels like they want to change chance to be able to play a variety of decks and do big things that might swing the game swinging us right back to where we began a design decision that led to speed and power creep and Magic a desire to reverse that effect another decision to find a way to secretly increase the player's Health without changing the game and the genius of it is how many levels it worked on but there is one more question that does remain what unintended consequences will future players have to battle out of from this change well for the answer to that we'll see you back here in a couple more years oh damn you're like Slow Rolling meal content train now are you that is a bold move cotton let's see if it works out for him oh a casual Matt I do not have time for your shenanigans today no no no no no you got it all wrong I was actually just swinging by to pay you a compliment of all things for your guest spot as the voice of Bill Gates in low spec Gamer's Kick-Ass new nebula first video the secret XBox War what seriously before that I never knew there was like so much drama at Microsoft at the time just really cool stuff oh thanks so much for that yeah but like real how much did you have to pay low spec Alex to get that gig oh nothing actually all of us nebula creators just love helping each other out with projects especially when we need to get them out early and add free over on nebula amazing two turds might burn into a promo actually with the nebula first feature over on nebula you get access to a whole bunch of great content from our creator friends way earlier than you can see it on YouTube sure sure but you're kind of like burying the lead I think because thanks to Big Daddy nebulous support right we can release all of our extra history series episodes at least a full week early over there too true cash math but actually what I love watching on nebula are a ton of my favorite creators like tearzoo mooncat and Chef PK all without ads like this one oh I thought you loved ads hey shut up not to mention nebula is home to a ton of other original shows you can't see anywhere else yeah those are kind of the best too actually I just got finished watching wendover's latest original on the logistics of commercial fishing turns out I had no idea how this multi-billion dollar industry actually gets fish from whatever water they're found into my plate never gonna take my sushi sushi for granted again I'll tell you that will that great content nebula sure must cost a pretty penny or at least as much as other streaming services nope actually an annual nebula plan will set you back 50 bucks total for a year but if you do sign up with our link below they knock 20 bucks off that price meaning you pay 2.50 a month for this phenomenal streaming service that bonus doesn't oh I don't know randomly remove shows from its Library whenever they don't want to pay writer's residuals dang casual Matt's going hard on this one oh I'm sorry but I'm just so mad about that okay okay well of course I could keep talking to me myself and angry eye all day about how nebula is awesome and its shows are great and that you directly support all of its creators when you sign up but I just do think that you should check it out for yourself because it really is that great and don't forget that when you sign up again using our link below your subscription directly supports our channel so thanks so much for that all right deep breaths buddy come on let's go watch some jet lag well here they uh they go to Japan in that one they sure do pal they sure do a million big old thanks to Skylar homes kuya koi Joseph blame Dominic valenciana Casey muscha arcolyte games Angela valenciana and Ahmed Ziad Turk for being fantastic legendary patrons [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Extra Credits

Views: 368,254

Keywords: extra credits, game design, game development, game industry, games, gaming, animated, game developer, game designer, gaming industry, game design basics, animated stories, games industry, game design career, game design tips, game design theory, game theory, player goals, end game goals, designing levels, player choices, card games, magic: the gathering, magic the gathering, wizards of the coast, magic the gathering arena, magic the gathering how to play, MTG, Battle Cards

Id: ZrmwA6T5yHg

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023