![]() There's no question that he is much stronger than we intended. Oko, Thief of Crowns, however, we missed on. Different effects will be relatively stronger or weaker set to set and format to format, but our intention is to hold around this level of strength in our marquee sets going forward. ![]() Our hope is the power level of the coming sets are in the same league, and we do not intend to keep raising the power level of our marquee sets over time. It's on the high end of that range, but within it. Outlier cards aside, Throne of Eldraine is in range for our new normal as far as marquee set strength is concerned. We learned a great deal about all of these, but let's set those aside for a few paragraphs and come back to some of these. Second, we expanded back into riskier space for Constructed that we'd previously engaged with but shied away from or severely powered down during the BFZ-M19 era, namely low-cost planeswalkers, color hate, and open-ended combo cards. The strength of a Standard format is such a nebulous concept that we don't try to rigidly and rigorously define it, but that era is a good ballpark description of our aim. Our intention was that this powering up was gradual over the course of the year, and afterwards, we would level off at a Standard power level somewhere in the range of Standard circa Return to Ravnica and Theros. Also, while we'd opened up design space at higher mana costs, we realized we'd lost design space in the wackier strategies because a lower-powered Standard couldn't absorb them as easily. It's easier to make cards relevant to more players without making bizarrely engineered cards laser-focused on a specific niche that may or may not actually get there (looking at you, Alpine Moon). We think Standard is more fun at a slightly higher power level. We took this path for a variety of reasons. This philosophy spurred a large number of changes in how we design Magic, and shifted the way Play Design approached our work.įirst, we intentionally powered up our marquee sets (and therefore Standard) from Guilds of Ravnica through Throne of Eldraine. Cards like Smuggler's Copter and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar were dominant in ways they wouldn't be if the rest of the format met a higher bar.Ĭhandra, Awakened Inferno | Art by: Chris Rahn F.I.R.EĪround the time we were designing Guilds of Ravnica, largely in reaction to the points above, we adopted a philosophy we call F.I.R.E. On top of that, within Standard, the lower power level meant the format was more sensitive to cards that missed on power level a lot of those Standard formats were badly warped by that fact. ![]() Our main booster sets should be for everyone, and at that lower power level, if you didn't play Standard, we weren't really making cards for you. We succeeded in those goals, but there were costs that outweighed the benefits. Our primary goal with that direction was to open up design space, mostly in higher-cost cards and in effects typically not impactful enough for competitive play. Where We Startedįor the period starting in Battle for Zendikar and going through Core Set 2019, we-what was then called R&D-made a conscious effort to gradually power down our marquee sets and, by extension, the Standard format. Additionally, this past year has had a lot going on, so on behalf of Play Design, I'd like to take a bit of time to walk through where we are, how we got here, what we've learned, and where we're going next. Today, we announced some Standard bans that you can read about here. Hey everyone, my name is Bryan Hawley, and I lead the Play Design team for Magic. ![]()
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