That’s the kind of questions I ask the Rules Manager to make his eyes twitch. The problem with the tapped library is that I’m not sure there is enough gain for the chaos it creates.
Pretty low. For starters he’s dead and has been dead for quite a while. Second, he was an old school planeswalker making him much more powerful than modern planeswalkers and thus hard to make a card for. But I never say never because Magic will always have twist and turns.
For trivia buffs, can any of you name the legendary creature that was actually Urza in disguise? The answer below.
The answer is Blind Seer from Invasion.
I promise when we know, we’ll tell you. The reason we haven’t said anything yet is that we’re still gathering data.
Yes, hydra is to green what dragon is to red or angel is to white.
It’s the most frustrating part of the job. For example, we have this really cool idea for “Friends” block and… um, never mind. Aargh!!!
I handed off the design of Innistrad over a year ago. I started working on the design of Innistrad over two years ago. I first came up with the basic idea of Innistrad over six years ago. So yeah, I’ve been working on it for a while.
I think if you get Rules Manager Matt Tabak mad, he could pick up a car.
I’ll read it at multiple times starting at where I left off last. And yes, I always read the threads to my column.
Sets get their real names in all sorts of ways so there’s no simple answer to that question. Once we know a set’s real name we will use it internally.
The one exception was New Phyrexia. To make sure the name was kept secret (as we were playing up the mystery of who was going to win the war), we called it “Action” up until its public announcement.
Many years ago (around twelve or thirteen if memory serves) I designed a mass market TCG called Mood Swings. It took the trading card game experience and boiled it down to its essence aimed at a much more casual game playing crowd.
Magic was originally designed as a game you could play in between role playing sessions. Mood Swings was created as a game you could play in between Magic games. The games took one to five minutes and used a lot fewer cards.
For different reasons, Mood Swings has never been made but, being the optimist I am, I hope one day it will find it’s way out the doors onto actual cards. The only people who currently play it are my wife and I. It’s one of my favorite games to play.
Huey, Dewey and Louie. Donald Duck’s nephews for those somehow not in the know.
I give sets codename when I have to start talking about them. Traditionally that happens when I put together a Five/Six/Seven Year plan (plans keep seeming to get longer).
I had a day the other week where in the course of a single day I talked about five different blocks. So yes, it can get confusing. Every once in a while I’ll start a meeting by saying, “All right, what block is this?”
The good news is that each block (each set really) has such a distinct feel that it’s often very clear what cards are supposed to go into what sets.
You got it.
I never found out. I have an educated guess, but it was never revealed.
Right now I am leading the design team for Line. I am also on the design teams for Hook and Sinker. Next month I start leading the design for Friends. I am also running a team to finalize what exactly we are doing for the Huey block the year after. I have also been consulting with the development team for Roll as the lead designer of that set has since left the company so I am acting as de facto lead. I also write a weekly design column about Magic (called “Making Magic” at dailymtg.com if somehow you didn’t know.) Or as I like to say, “an average week”.
