Eventually, someone’s going to notice that I’m being published on a Magic site. That’s going to be a bit awkward, given how I’ve been drifting away from the game since Time Spiral’s release. The good news is, the Mother Ship keeps deploying questions that I can answer, trumping up my forum responses to look like actual articles. They have the added virtue of being Magic-related.
My first major article came out swinging at Mark Rosewater. My next big article swung at every jerk who’s ever missed the point. Then, again, I took a hit at Devin Low. And this time, I find, Mark Rosewater is inviting me to tell him what I think.
So now, Olbermann-esque, I turn to address the challenge.
How do you feel about the set before seeing most of the cards?
I feel like I’m looking at an incomplete set, and any answer I gave would be just as inc
Do you like the high concept of this set?
I’m fascinated by it, Mark. I really am. The idea of looking back over ten years of Magical history and dredging up Design and Development mistakes, of Flavor mistakes, and doing them right, is amazing. It’s intriguing.
In the initial strike of Time Spiral, I feel a lot of mistakes were made. As Planar Chaos drew near, I wondered if perhaps, this wasn’t intentional? Was there, perhaps, a Black bomb brooding on the horizon, waiting to hit us in the teeth, to bring the color back into the fore of power? Unlike Evan Erwin (may his beard carpet a thousand birdcages), I didn’t think Black needed a big splashy finisher. It had many of those already. No, Black, in my opinion, needed a sweeper. It needed some kind of control element to bring it back up to the position of a control color. The power of Akroma and her cronies meant that people were better off opting for White removal, and that surge is what left White so powerful during Worlds. Nobody else had Wrath of God, After All.
Well, holy damn.
This is what Time Travel is for, man! You go back to the past so you can fix the past! And where have more mistakes been made in Magic’s history than in the far past? Cycle upon cycle of cards from the past squeal out for justice. Mistform Warchief demands an explanation. Storm and mana-free flashback were barely scratched! Where are the creatures that morph up and obtain counters when they morph? The morphing lands, the cycling triggers you preferred to cycle?
If the idea of the Planeshifted cards is that we’ve gone back to the past, changed something, and then moved on to the modern day, using those design senses… well, that’s pretty interesting. It’s certainly an opportunity to remind people of some mechanics that fall into some colors that aren’t obvious.
For example, did you know Vigilance is fine in Blue? It’s effectively untapping the creature once it attacks, and, as Blue is an ally of White, it’s completely sensible for that to bleed over. Did you realize that tapping creatures fits in Black? Paralysis and debilitating, crippling pain are all very much in Black’s arsenal.
What about White and Green? Well, it’d be nice if Green actually got something from its ally colors for once – haste and first strike would be nice. It’s not all that weird to see these effects moving side to side, since it’s only been about nine years in waiting. Stuff like Elvish Archers, for example, is still being used as a benchmark. Wizards are exceptionally cautious about moving things around because it messes with the color’s identity, right? So surely, this time it’d be good to expand the mechanics of these other colors, to move and to change the environment for the better. Maybe if we’re lucky (har har har), one of these Timeshifted cards might make it into a core set in the future as Wizards acknowledge that, well, yes, it should have been here all along.
Are we playing around in areas that you think we should play in?
Absolutely. Now’s a perfect time to man up, to show us what you think you did wrong, and to make it right.
But you won’t.
I think you should be doing this all the time. We know that you have this grand list of cards you’re ready to print in every set. “Green Mana Flare” was somewhat relevant, no? “Fixed Demonic Tutor,” and so on. But you do it so rarely, and so cautiously that it seems to almost never happen. This set is a perfect time to set new benchmarks, to rip the hole in reality and let through the world where you actually playtested Urza’s block.
But you won’t.
In the end, this is a great bit of design space. The alternate views of the familiar are a very flavorsome and intriguing bit of design space. The thing that makes me appreciate it the most is that this is design space created by other design space. You’re building on the foundation you spent ten years creating, not heading off in new territory.
Is it innovative? Is it groundbreaking? No. But it is interesting, and it is cool.
What preview card has had the biggest impact?
I’m going to have to say Damnation. Upon seeing the little flash animation unfold, I had a twofold reaction: It’s about time, and Oh, good god, those idiots.
See, I’m with Zvi. I’m of the opinion that printing Wrath of Dog, at 2WW – an identical card with a different name – would be completely fine, because White kinda sucks. Its section of the color pie rarely features remarkably good mechanics, and Wrath of God mandates a certain style of deck construction. White does not have discard; it does not have efficient pinpoint creature removal; it does not have big, efficient closing creatures or the means to repeatedly drag a creature out of the bin.
White’s philosophy has been one that means that Wrath is almost necessary to keep it in the game. It really is! I mean, when was White last played at the tier 1 for anything other than Wrath? I suppose there were those awful White Weenie decks, which were really more of a harbinger to Joshie Green. With colors no longer needing White, and already adding Black to their Blue decks, why would they keep it around? To deal with Akroma? When they already have Edicts, bounce, and counterspells? Pshaw.
How do you feel about the set?
I’m interested. I’m hopeful. I’m also dying to get new cards, because Time Spiral bored me. So I guess you could say I’m positive.
But I’m watching with the eye of a man watching a drunken P-plater getting into his car on Christmas Eve. I’m watching because I know something’s going to go smash and I’m waiting to see it, and hoping that I won’t. This has so much potential to blow up in your face, Mark. You know it – why else would you so fervently prime the propaganda pump? Not a word about the card you actually previewed – no, instead you spent your time putting out a forum fire and pimping the mechanic change.
It smacks of fear. And I can’t help but help but think, with the bullrushing, ramshackle approach you lads have had towards the most recent few sets (such as the bomb that was Saviors of Kamigawa, the multiple mistakes in Ninth Edition, the “Whoops!” error-fest that was Ravnica block Constructed, and Coldsnap – which, while being better than it’s said, certainly doesn’t seem to have any fans in the upper tier), that if you’re scared, it’s for a damn good reason. Could it be, perhaps, that we’re seeing Mark sweat?
But Seriously:
Now, there is an ugly half to this. Scott Adams has written at length about bastardly Manager techniques, and one of the ones that is most commonly used is the Open Door policy. The theory runs along one of two operating procedures.
Both start with the same core behavior; make it be known that you have an Open Door policy. Let everyone who wants to visit you and chat do so. Make it very, very clear that you’re eager to hear people’s feedback, and that your Door Is Always Open. Then the two tricks kick in.
The first is, the boss lets busywork accumulate. Instead of doling it out mindlessly, he keeps a giant outbox of busywork until such time as it’s nearly urgent – i.e. it requires immediate attention, but not so immediate that he needs to assign it to someone. Then, anyone who comes into your office and disturbs you while you’re napping gets a nice, Due-by-Friday slab of busywork that you “just remembered” as he enters the room, and that you think would be “just up his alley.” The Pavlovian response will take some time to manage, but over time, workers will quickly realize that by taking advantage of your Open Door policy, they will be punished in a non-obvious fashion, and they will rapidly avoid you.
The second is more effort-intensive but relies on the same parameters. You have to make sure you listen. You ask people to write their suggestions down (a suggestion box is a great tool for this). You nod. You mm-hmmm at everything. And then, once they’ve left the room, you forget the whole thing. While there’s more effort involved, it gives a different image. The first option sets you into a mindset as being a vindictive ass that’ll make life hard for those who annoy you. The second, people, more often than not, just assume their suggestion wasn’t taken for some higher reason. Nothing succeeds like ignoring people.
The strategy works for workers, too! In most engineering businesses that Adams has experienced, managers were replaced on a six-month basis, due to the Dilbert Principle prompting huge promotion waves. This meant that workers could happily continue doing their own things, because the performance reviews happened halfway through the time your boss would have to deal with you – and he’d not get a chance to do anything about it by the time the next one rolled around. Who knew?
This “Dinosaur Principle” that he mentions is how I feel Mark Rosewater handles the public. For the better part, the Magic-playing public is supposedly casual. This massive, brooding, silent majority is a huge boon to a non-transparent system like this. If I get up on my chair and holler about Green sucking, and nine months later we get an extensively-spun mistake from Devin Low, they can say that I had nothing to do with it (which I probably didn’t), and then say that the majority of players are happy with what is going on. Why? Well, I haven’t done the market research, have I?
It’s very, very easy to get the feeling that Wizards don’t care about us. I fancy that they don’t. They care about their money, which can often connect to us, but as players go, Wizards don’t really give a damn. Upper tier pros? Well, they’re visible, so they need some slack (especially if they’re cheaters!). The vast, silent casual base? They’re ripe to be exploited. The middling group, who supply feedback, write articles, strive for the pro tour and who dream of being important?
Bupkis.
Direction
You have yourself a fine day, readers. Enjoy yourselves and have fun doing what you do. I dunno where I’m taking this column at this point, but thanks to Mark for giving me a real splash to lead with.
Hugs and Kisses
Talen Lee
talen at dodo dot com dot au