Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #900: R&D Vocabulary, Part 4
Episode Date: January 22, 2022This podcast is another in my series on R&D lingo. ...
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I'm not pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work Coronavirus Edition.
Okay, so many years ago, I did a series of podcasts called R&D Vocabulary, where I talked about different vocabulary words that we used.
I recently did another article updating them, so I thought I would do another of these podcasts.
I think this will actually be two podcasts, but I'm going to do one now,
and then I have a bunch of
Kamigonian Dynasty podcasts I need to do,
and then I will do my other one.
But anyway, so I'm going to take some words.
I'm going to talk about where the word comes from,
and then I might, for some of these,
explain where the slang came from.
Some of these are official words
that do get used in the game.
Some of these are slang in R&D.
And anyway, but these are just vocabulary
that we use every day in R&D.
Note in the article and here,
I've had previous articles slash previous podcasts
where I've gone over other vocabulary.
So I'm not gonna repeat vocabulary
that I've gone over in other places.
So a lot of the idea of this podcast is that you listen to all of them. So I'm just
continuing talking about new stuff that I haven't talked about before. Okay, that said, on with the
definitions. So first up is ability word. Okay, so one of the things that's a little complicated
is that when we use the term mechanic, that really refers to
anything that has a mechanical sort of definition to it, usually that's repeated in some way.
But not every mechanic is necessarily named. Sometimes we do mechanical things that are
connected that maybe we connect the names or the creative or something, or maybe we give it an
informal name. But there are two reasons that
we give something a name that's printed on the card, or one could argue three reasons.
The first reason is what we call a keyword mechanic. A keyword mechanic is something
that represents exactly what... A keyword mechanic means we're taking a certain line of text,
and every time that line would apply, instead of giving that line of text, we're taking a certain line of text, and every time that line would apply,
instead of giving that line of text, we're giving a word or a series of words.
So a keyword mechanic is exact.
Like this keyword specifically means this one thing.
An ability word, which is actually the definition I'm supposed to be giving here,
an ability word is the card doesn't need a word on it.
It mechanically works just fine without it, but we want the audience to understand that certain things are connected, and so we'll
put a word in italics that goes before the expression. And mostly the ability word is a
means for people to connect cards that work similarly, and it provides a language so
that people can talk about it. One of the things we've realized over the years that it's really
important, and obviously it's a podcast all about words, the importance of words, that really words
are something that can help players associate and communicate, and it's just valuable to have words
where they make sense. So an ability word is a word in italic before the phrase.
There's one exception to this I'll get in a second. But anyway, the idea of an ability word is
you could take the ability word off the card. It still works just fine, but it's put there as a
reminder to let you know other cards work similarly. One of the big differences mechanically
between a keyword mechanic and an ability word is you cannot reference an ability word mechanically.
Meaning if something has threshold, let's say, which is an ability word, I can't say creatures with threshold since it's an ability word.
You can't mechanically reference ability words.
You can mechanically reference keywords.
The one other confusing thing is in Adventures in the Forgotten Realm, the D&D set, we introduce flavor words.
Flavor words are words in italic that also come before the sentence.
The difference between a flavor word and an ability word is a flavor word is just kind of defining, giving added flavor for what it is.
Flavor words are different than ability words, usually in that there's no repetition between them
usually a flavor word, this is the only card
using that flavor
and Adventures in Forgotten Realm
had a lot of flavor words
because we were trying to fit D&D
into magic
sometimes when we make magic
we can sort of design things
creatively to make sense
in the cards, we can maximize the making sense.
When you're taking somebody else's IP,
you know, sometimes the flavor's a little quirky,
and so the flavor words really helped us with that.
Anyway, ability words and flavor words
are easy to confuse
because they're both italicized text
before the rules text on the card.
We did mix them in Adventures of the Ground Realm.
I think that's a mistake.
Pack Tactics was an ability word, not a flavor word.
I believe in the future we should either have ability words
or flavor words and not do both in the same set
because I do think they're confusing.
Okay, next up, agency.
So agency is a term we use in design
to talk about the player having a sense of control.
Like, one of the things you want is
you don't want the player to feel like things
are just happening around them and they have
no input into what is happening.
It's a very important concept in
game design that you want the player
to feel empowered. You want the player
to feel like their decisions matter.
So one of the things we talk about a lot
when we're designing cards
is whether or not a card has enough agency to it.
And it's a term we use in game design
because this concept is so important.
Like I said, the reason vocabulary exists
is we want to emphasize that a certain concept
is an important concept.
So we'll give a word to it so that we have that language.
And the mere fact that a word exists kind of implies importance
because it's an important enough concept there's a word to.
An agency is one of those kind of things.
So like in design all the time, you know, for example, I might say,
oh, this card doesn't have enough agency.
Maybe you want to tweak it a little bit to give the player a little more choice
or a little more control of what's happening.
Okay, next up, Art ID.
So we have a database.
The database right now is called Drake.
Before that, it was called Multiverse.
And before that, we've had a couple different databases over the years.
databases over the years. So one of the things that's important in a database is you have unique items that you have to make sure you can, unique items want some signifier so you know what that
unique item is. So an art ID is a, I think it's numbers, it might have some letters in it, but
it's something that goes with a piece of art, and what it says is, this is this piece
of art, so no matter where it gets used, because sometimes we will use the same art, you know,
we'll reprint cards or have a product that's, you know, doing, I guess, reprints. Like,
sometimes we have a set in which we, anyway, there's multiple ways we use art, where we reuse the art.
I guess how and why is not super important.
The important of this is that we, because we want to make sure that people understand,
when I say this piece of art, I mean, specifically, this piece of art illustrated by this artist,
we have what's called an art ID.
And one of the things when you manage the files is, there's a lot of things you have to be careful
of and one of them is making sure you associate with the art ID. So it's a term we use from time
to time. Art swap. Okay, so what happens is we have to do the art and you have to do the art
before the set is finished because you need to get the art in. And so what happens is sometimes we'll assign art, art waves are usually, I'll get to art waves in a second,
but art usually takes about seven weeks. It can take a little longer sometimes, but roughly seven
weeks. That's how long the artist has to draw the painting. And in between when we assign the art,
and when the art comes in, sometimes the card will change. Mechanically, the card changes.
when the art comes in, sometimes the card will change. Mechanically, the card changes. And a lot of times, you know, when you, once the art is done or the art is assigned, you, the person working on
the file, sort of make sure that you're matching what the, either what the art description says or
what the sketch says or what the final art, depending on what point you're in. But sometimes
the card needs to change in a way that doesn't match the art. The art contradicts what the card's trying to do.
It doesn't happen a lot.
And we try hard once art gets assigned to not change a card to not match the art.
But things happen.
And so an art swap is when you change the art usually between two cards.
Sometimes you can change it between multiple cards.
We used to do art swaps a lot more frequently
way, way back when.
Like a set like Mirage, I think,
had tons and tons of art swaps.
Nowadays, just because of the technology
of how we do things,
we don't really do art swaps all that much.
Usually it only happens now
because something has changed on the card
that keeps it from working.
There's a few other weird sideway cases that happens.
But anyway, if we say we need an art swap,
that means we're going to swap the art between two cards
because usually one of the art has a problem
with the card it's on.
ArtWave.
Okay, so the way art is done is,
I don't know, seven, eight times a year.
We, the art department, or the magic art department,
we, like, there's a time when all the art goes out to a bunch of people.
And there's a lot of logistics to assigning art.
And so, we carve out times in the year.
So, for example, when I say it's seven weeks,
I guess there must be seven of them,
because seven times seven is 49. Maybe there's a tiny eighth one. I'm not 100% sure. But anyway,
the idea is there is just a time when a certain amount of art has to be done. So, if you're
working on a file, you know when your art waves are. And usually, your set is broken up to multiple
art waves. So, all the art from your set is not in the same wave. It can be in different waves.
And usually, in the first
wave, for example, you'll put stuff
that you might need to reference in the second wave.
So sometimes we will do legendary
creatures in the first wave
so that if the second wave wants to have
another art by another artist reference
the same character, we can give them
the art of the first
artist so they can see it and reference it. But anyway, there are so many art waves.
Usually an art wave, usually the majority of an art wave
is one set. Not always, and there's always multiple
sets in any one art wave. But any one product usually
has one or two art waves, usually two art waves.
Some smaller products, like Infinity is a smaller product,
we kind of piggybacked on other people's art waves.
So I think we had like four art waves
because we chopped it up into smaller pieces
because we were piggybacking on more things.
It would spread out over more time.
But anyway, that is what an art wave is.
Next, as played.
Okay, so I've talked before of the term as fan,
and that talks about
when we're trying to figure out how much of something
is in a booster pack, for example.
It talks about if you
fan the cards, what percentage of that
thing is there. As played
talks about not
just what exists,
but what we think will be played
in the format we're caring about.
So if we're caring about limited,
it's like, of the things that have this ability,
which ones do we think
will be more likely to be played in draft?
Or if you're talking about standard,
which cards are most likely to be played in standard?
As played looks at the percentage of stuff
that we think will be played.
So it's talking about the percentages
based on the stuff we think will be played,
not just on the stuff that exists.
And it's used when we're trying to figure out more competitive stuff.
It's like if we're trying to figure out, especially for drafting or standard,
if we're trying to figure out if a certain element or theme is showing up enough to have a constructed impact.
That's what we talk about as played.
Bend.
constructed impact. That's what we talk about as played. Bend. So, uh, when we do, uh, so in the color pie, when you do an ability that's not in the core of the ability, meaning it's not a main
thing that color does, but it doesn't undermine its weakness, meaning it's doing something outside
its normal things, but it's not undermining its weakness, that's called a bend. And the other one I'll get to in a second.
But anyway, we do bends in sets.
The idea is each set has a theme.
Maybe we're doing a graveyard set or we're doing an enchantment set
or an artifact set.
And that certain colors
do certain things more naturally.
But in a set with that theme,
we will lean in that direction.
For example, you know,
black, green, and white
do a little bit more in graveyard
than blue or red do.
But in a Graveyard set,
we have some things
that blue and red can do,
and we will bend toward the theme.
And sometimes, by the way,
there are certain things
that are in color,
but we do infrequently
for themes we do all the time,
like Artifacts or Graveyard.
And sometimes, like,
oh, we're doing a brand new thing,
we don't do all that normal,
and then we'll bend things.
Bends can be both in mechanics and in flavor,
but we usually talk more about bending in mechanics.
Okay, bleed.
So this is when we purposely use an effect normally in one color
in another color to play up the set's themes.
Bleeding usually use bends because bends are...
I guess bends is more talking mechanically
bleeds i guess that's true i think bends is more mechanical and bleed is the term we use to talk
about mechanics and flavor um for example uh when we did like bleeds bleeds sometimes can be mechanics
we use bends bleeds sometimes can be flavor. For example, like zombies traditionally are black
and aren't white, for example.
But in Amonkhet, oh,
mummies being the sort of
servant mummy class, it made
sense that they were white in a way of how
they were in that world, even though we don't
really do zombies in white. But we
bled it, or it was a
bleed in that set.
So I think, I guess, terminology-wise,
bleed talks about pushing things in other places.
It can be mechanical or flavorfully.
And then I guess bends and breaks are a little bit more on mechanics.
I guess that makes sense.
Okay, Black Monster.
So this is a deck made up of cards from the same magic year.
So the beginning of magic year comes out in sort of the fall,
using Northern Hemisphere seasons,
and goes through the spring.
And so the idea is
that we want to be careful
that one deck doesn't come cards
just from that one year, because then
it's problematic for multiple
years. Like, if the strength
of a deck is spread over two years,
when a rotation happens, that deck will lose
some cards, and so
one of the things we've got to be careful is not to congregate
too much of the power within one
singular magic gear.
The term comes from the idea
that we used to have blocks, that a year
used to be, you know, large, small, small, or
large, large, large, and a core set, and so
the block monster came from
usually a theme that showed up in the block.
And especially in blocks, when we carried the same theme over three sets,
it could happen a little more as we were evolving themes.
But anyway, it's a term we still use even though blocks don't exist.
Okay, a bonus sheet.
So a bonus sheet is...
Time Spiral was the first sheet that did it.
It's a full printing sheet, usually of reprints,
that we add into a
booster. Often it'll have its own slot or slots.
And the idea
is, it's just, it
takes something, usually it's a reprint,
and it adds it in. Like, Mystical Archive did this
in Strixhaven. And it's a way
to add something fun into the set
that adds some variance to it.
In Time Spiral, it was old cards.
You know, in the old frame.
And in Mystic Archive,
it's specifically Incidents and Sorceries.
But the bonus sheet can have different themes.
It's just, it's a tool that we can use
to add variety and sort of help play up a theme.
And usually bonus sheets are dropped
in some number of slots,
one slot, two slots, three slots.
Some of the bonus sheets later in the
Timesboro block, for example, varied.
Like, in Future Sight,
you could get anywhere from
three to nine or ten
cards from the bonus sheet.
It varied how often the bonus sheet showed up.
Nowadays, most of the time,
it's a smaller portion
and shows up in one or two slots, but it can't be
used in different ways.
Booster fun.
So booster fun is the term that we use to talk about,
starting in Throne of Eldraine,
we started doing alternate frames and or art
that show up at higher rarities
that are existing cards in the set,
just done in another fun way.
And it's something for the collectors to collect
or people who want to spruce up their decks that they can use.
But we call that larger process booster fun.
Okay, next up, bottom up.
So bottom up, it talks about a design
that you start from a mechanical premise
and then flavors woven into it as you're building it.
Now, I will stress, nowadays,
creative and mechanics are sort of
talked about very, very early.
Really, all I'm talking about is what was the core concept that started it?
Was the core concept, you know, like, for example, Ravnica started from the concept of we wanted to do all 10 two-color pairs.
From that, we got the guilds, we got the city world.
Like, the flavor came from that.
And once we had the flavor, we then imbued it into the set.
So if we're doing our job, the audience might not always be aware whether something is bottom-up or top-down, but
from a design standpoint, it matters a lot from a design point because the way they're structured
in the beginning is a little bit different. Next, box topper. So, this is a card included inside a
booster box as a bonus card when you purchase the box. Sometimes box toppers are from the set.
Sometimes they're like a bonus card.
They usually have an alternate art or frame
or some premium treatment.
But anyway, it's kind of something that says
if you buy this whole box, you get this along with it.
We call those a box topper.
A break.
So I talked about bends before.
So a break is when you are doing
something not just out of color, but
that undermines the
weakness of the color. Meaning that color
is not supposed to be able to do that thing.
Red is not supposed to destroy enchantments.
And so
breaks are something we're not supposed to do.
Bends we can do. We have to be
careful with bends. We should do them.
We don't want to do too many bends and do them in the right place and make sure it's the right place for the bend. But bends we
do. Breaks we should not be doing, ever. I mean, I'm not saying we haven't done breaks. We do do
them from time to time, but not on purpose, and we shouldn't be doing them. And for example,
the Council of Colors, when we see a break, we will say, take that out. You are not supposed to
do that. One of the jobs of the Council of callers is catching breaks to make sure that breaks don't happen.
Next, bucket pointing.
So, play design, when they are doing...
It's a term they use to grade cards.
And basically, you take commons and uncommons
and you sort them into sort of different kind of buckets.
It's a way to really quickly analyze a format balance
in a way that...
There's something else they use called quick pointing,
which is a faster version of it.
I will get to quick pointing eventually,
probably in the next podcast.
But anyway, bucket pointing is just a way
that's a little more granular in understanding
where the power level is. The reason it's done is you want to understand
the weight of colors, you want to understand the weight of mechanics,
you want to understand... it just gives you a good sense
of where the power lies, because you want
to understand that when crafting and building things.
Okay, next, Build-A-Round. So Build-A-Round is a card that
encourages players
to build a deck around it.
It's most often used in R&D on drafting.
We try to make uncommons and some rares
that have a neat...
If you draft it first,
it encourages you to go down this path
of doing something unique
that you might draft differently.
And Build-A-Rounds are a lot of fun
for extending the life of draft, because
for experienced drafters that have done all the normal
things, they can pick up these cards early, and all
of a sudden, here's a draft strategy
you've never tried before, because it's all built on you
having this one card.
Builderons are also nice for casual
deck constructed, because they sort of send you down
the path of telling you to do something,
and a lot of casual deck builders like
having some impetus to tell them what to try
to do. So,
building on cards are a very important part
of both drafting and for casual play.
Next, card set
review. So, this is a meeting we
have, an ongoing meeting that
we have where we
want to get all the higher-ups in R&D
to get their eyeballs on a particular
set. So, we'll sit down,
and usually it's over a couple of meetings,
and look at all the cards from a set
where people can give notes.
So, for example,
I go to the card set review meetings,
and if it's a set that I set the vision for,
or, you know, if it's like a premiere set,
I might be making comments about, you know,
matching the vision and stuff.
If it's something that's supplemental that I didn't
work on at all, I just might be giving general notes,
general design notes about things.
But anyway, it's an opportunity for sort of the higher-ups
to just give regular
notes to make sure we're seeing every set and get
a sense of what's going on with them.
It's valuable both to keep us informed
and we give a lot of feedback to the set lead
that can be very helpful for them.
Casual. So this is a term that means a lot of things. I wrote lead that can be very helpful for them. Casual.
So this is a term that means a lot of things.
I wrote a whole article about it called Casual Play.
Basically, we use casual to mean that either you are less experienced,
you are less enfranchised, or you're less competitive.
It is confusing that we have one term that means three different things. I keep trying to get other vocabulary,
and it's one of the things that people keep wanting to use casual.
Mostly casual means,
in contrast on some sort of sliding scale of,
there's something that one side really,
it matters a lot to them,
and the other side, it's less about that thing.
You know, whether it's competition or enfranchisement,
or, you know, just experience.
Like, one side is more of something, one side is less. It's not, there's nothing, whether it's competition or enfranchisement or just experience.
One side is more of something, one side is less.
It's not... Sometimes people feel like casual
there's some pejorative element to it.
There's not at all.
When we're talking about things, it's like
hey, people like to play our game.
How do they play our game?
We want to understand at every level
how people are doing it.
And the thing to be aware of
because casualty is different terms,
you could be less experienced
and more enfranchised, or you could be more competitive
and less experienced. You can mix and match that.
So it's a little weird that casual means
multiple things, since you can be casual in one
regard, but not casual in another.
And yes, that is confusing.
Casual constructed.
So one of the things I always try
to explain is, when people
are playing Magic,
the most common format, if you will,
is people just playing with what they own,
playing the cards they have,
not following any sort of deck construction guidelines
other than, hey, these are the cards I own.
Casual Constructed sort of covers that area.
And then there's also a bunch of people that are like,
well, I roughly follow the rules of a format.
It's a standard deck,
but it is not anywhere close to being a competitive deck.
It's not something you would take to a tournament.
It's just, hey, with my friends,
at the power level we play,
hey, this is great, this is fun.
It's kitchen table magic, as we call it.
So anyway, when we're designing for magic,
we want to think about casual constructed.
And one of the cool things is making sets work in limited tends to also make them work in casual
constructed. There's a lot of overlap in sort of drafting a deck and building a casual deck. So
a very casual deck. So anyway, we talk about casual constructed. Next is collation. So collation
is a term used to talk about where cards are on the printing sheet.
Like when we print cards, cards are not printed like one at a time.
There's a sheet that's usually 10 by 10 or 11 by 11.
And we print the cards and then we cut them up.
From an R&D standpoint, it matters knowing how you're printing it and how many cards there are.
It dictates things like how many cards are in the set.
It dictates as fan.
There's a lot of...
We have to understand collation
for purposes of making magic.
It's not that important for the audience,
unless you're getting super, super competitive.
Understanding collation doesn't matter,
but it's something we need
behind the scenes to care about.
Color pie.
I talk about this all the time,
so if you listen to this podcast and you don't know the term color pie,
it refers to the five colors and how they interact with each other,
their relationships, you know, the allies, the enemies,
and their general philosophy and what they can and can't do.
Concepting.
So concepting is this thing,
once we decide mechanically what a card's going to do,
it goes to the creative team and somebody has to figure out,
okay, given this is mechanics,
what does the card represent?
What is the arc going to look like? What's the general
flavor? What's the name going to look like?
You know, let's say, for example, we have a direct damage
spell. Is that fire?
Is that someone hurling earth at somebody?
Is it a sonic attack?
Like, you know, what exactly,
what is it? What is it represented from a flavor standpoint?
And concepting is the act of figuring out what that is.
We'll have concepting meetings.
But anyway, we refer to the act of figuring out what it is as concepting.
CQI stands for continual quality improvement.
In a file, we use CQI to mean this card is going to change.
Don't worry about it. Like, if you see CQI, don't even leave to mean this card is going to change, don't worry about it. Like, if you see
CQI, don't even leave notes that the card's going to change.
Interestingly, the term
comes from back in the 90s,
Peter Atkinson, who was the first president,
loved doing this, like, large managerial,
like, the whole, we'd take
the whole day off and, you know, we'd do a
large all-day managerial training thing
or just different kinds
of training.
And this was back when Wizards was a lot, lot smaller.
But anyway, we did one training
and they taught us this term
for continual quality improvement.
And R&D at the time didn't really like,
we didn't think the training was particularly good,
but I don't know, we were making fun of the term.
And anyway, we started using it
and it just became the term.
I think a lot of people in R&D right now use the term CQI and don't know, we were making fun of the term. And anyway, we started using it, and it just became the term. I think a lot of people in R&D right now use the term CQI
and don't know what it stands for.
Or even if they happen to know it's Continual Quality Improvement,
they don't know where it comes from.
So maybe if one of them is listening to this podcast,
they might learn that's where CQI came from.
Next, Curve Swap.
I talked about Art Swaps before.
Curve Swap happens when I have two cards,
I like what they're doing,
but I want to change where they are in their mana cost, and usually it means
changing their power toughness accordingly.
But sometimes it's like, oh,
you know, I want this effect
to show up earlier, so I need it on
a lower drop creature, but I've already fixed my
curve. So in order to make the
4 drop a 2 drop, you've got to make the 2 drop
into a 4 drop, and then adjust accordingly.
Cycles.
So we have what we call
horizontal cycles and vertical cycles.
Horizontal cycles are
usually at the same rarity.
A traditional horizontal cycle is one
in each color, so most of them are five.
Sometimes there's six in the cycle because there's a
colorless artifact.
There are ways to do horizontal cycles with less than five.
There are ten card horizontal
cycles when you're talking about two-color or three-color cards.
Four-color is a five-card cycle. But anyway, horizontal cycle means
it's a vertical, usually in the same rarity, usually across colors.
Vertical cycle is usually in the same color in
one common, one uncommon, and one either rare or mythic rare. Usually
vertical cycles are three. Sometimes there's a rare or mythic rare. Usually vertical cycles are three.
Sometimes there's a rare and mythic rare, and they're four.
And vertical cycles usually are thematically connected,
but within the same color.
And usually it represents, like, as you go up in rarity,
the effect gets bigger, usually is how it works.
Okay, next, the danger room.
So the danger room, a reference to the X-Men,
for those who might not know,
when Richard Garfield first worked at Wizards, they gave the danger room. So the danger room, a reference to the X-Men, for those who might not know, when Richard Garfield first worked at Wizards,
they gave him an office.
But he didn't want an office.
He liked sitting in the pit.
So he turned his office into a playtest room where we'd have meetings and playtests.
And so we called it the danger room.
When we moved across the street,
we got a new room called the danger room.
That then turned into an office.
So the current danger room is this little, like, glass room
in the middle of the hall.
It's a weird little room.
But anyway, ever since I've worked at Wizards,
there's been a Danger Room.
It's been, I guess, three different rooms so far.
But it is just sort of tradition.
That's the Danger Room.
Decision Paralysis.
Okay, so this is...
Sometimes you make a design which...
It makes it so the player has either too many decisions
or there's too much tension in the decision
and it just becomes too hard to choose.
And so when we talk about decision paralysis,
we're like, oh, it's making you make a decision
that's not a fun decision to make
or it's too hard to make
or there's too many options to it.
So we talk about, like, oh, this makes decision paralysis. That means we need to
change it. Either have less options or do something to guide you a little more, but do something that
helps you make the decision. Okay, next up, dev comments. So dev is short for developer.
So in our database, we have a field where you can make comments about the card.
So in our database, we have a field where you can make comments about the card.
In the very first, the earliest incarnation of it, it was developer comments shortened to dev comments.
I think developer comments didn't fit.
It was too small at the time, so short to dev comments.
That has just become what we label our place to put comments. We don't even have development per se anymore.
We just have different kinds of design.
But anyway, we still use that field.
And so we've talked about, oh, hey, I put that in dev comments.
That's what dev comments means.
Finally today, our final vocabulary word of the day is digital review.
So we have a meeting regularly where we sit down with the designers from Magic Gathering Arena
and from Magic Online.
And usually the first one of the digital reviews
happens in Vision Design.
I do these.
And then later ones happen in Set Design
where we walk through what's going on to say,
hey, here's what we're doing.
And it's for twofold.
It's a two-way thing.
One is give them a heads up
of what's coming down the pike.
So they, you know,
sometimes there might be some work
they want to do ahead of time,
if they need to think about something,
or they need more time to understand
how they might do something.
The second thing that can happen from digital reviews
is if there's problems, they can communicate,
oh, like sometimes, not in vision design,
but like in set design, they might say,
hey, this one card is really, really hard to program.
If you can make these few tiny changes,
it'd be way, way easier to program. And so we sometimes get notes from digital review about
how we can slightly, you know, fix things that might cause them hours and hours and hours of
concern that we might be easily able to fix in a way that doesn't hurt the card, but saves them a
lot of time. And so the idea of digital review is just working with our digital partners to both
keep them informed and get feedback from them
if we're doing something that might cause them problems down the road.
Anyway, guys, that is all the vocabulary for now.
I will have another one of these podcasts.
I didn't finish the article that I'm referring to,
so I will have at least another one of these down the road.
I'm going to do my Champs and Kamigawa stuff first.
But anyway, if you enjoyed this,
there are three previous ones if you haven't listened to them.
There'll be more coming.
But I'm a big believer of words.
I'm a word guy.
So it's very fun to talk to you
and just explain lingo.
I really do enjoy the audience using my lingo.
That's why I write articles and podcasts about it.
So anyway, I hope this was enjoyable for you.
But I can see my desk.
As we all know,
that means at the end of my drive to work.
So I'm done talking magic.
It's time for me to be making magic.
See you guys next time.
Bye-bye.