New MTG Casual Play Team Coming To Wizards of the Coast

Magic Senior Designer to lead new Casual Play team at WotC

By John Hall

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021

Magic: The Gathering Senior Designer, Melissa DeTora, has announced that she will be leading a new team at Wizards of the Coast (WotC).

I am leading the new MTG Casual Play Design team at Wizards, and I am doing and AMA today at 4pm Pacific on MTG's official discord server. I'll be answering most of your questions there, but for now here is a little info on what our team is doing.
— Melissa DeTora (@MelissaDeTora) October 21, 2021

According to DeTora, the MTG Casual Play Design team will be responsible for “making Commander and other casual formats fun and balanced.” Since the balancing requirements for casual play and competitive play are drastically different, her team will primarily be focused on “finding rates and play patterns that makes the format most fun for everyone.”

– How likely is the card to show up? Is it fun if it does shows up in high quantities?
– How much fun is this for the table (net fun)?
– How easy or difficult is it to include this in your deck?
– Does the card have enough interaction points and counterplay?
— Melissa DeTora (@MelissaDeTora) October 21, 2021

DeTora also adds that her team is not a Rules Committee, and will not be making decisions on rules or the banning of cards.