Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #33 - Future Sight - Part 2
Episode Date: May 10, 2013Mark Rosewater continues his discussion about Future Sight with Part 2 of the series. ...
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Okay, I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work.
Okay, so last week I talked about Future Sight, and today was part two. It is part two.
But something interesting came up. Matt Cavada needs a ride to work.
And for those that remember my podcasting on Planeswalkers,
Matt lives right near me, and so occasionally he and I go to work together.
And I thought, Future Sight, the one team Matt was on, the fates were speaking.
So Matt's going to join us today for part two of Future Sight.
We'll get some insight into maybe his take.
Because like I said, I've done a lot of design teams.
I've done on 50 plus design teams.
Matt's been on one, this one.
So we're going to talk to him today about it.
And I'm going to try to hit some of the issues I didn't hit last time.
So we'll see if we can combine those together.
So a quick reminder before I'm driving to get Matt right now.
So Matt, at the time, Matt has a new job. But his original job was he was on the creative team, and he did names and flavor text.
And at the time, I was looking for a more offbeat design team to do Future Sight because I know we were doing a lot of crazy, you know, I really wanted a team that was outside the box thinking.
really wanted a team that was outside the box thinking. Plus, I really wanted a member of the creative team on my design team, because not only were we designing future mechanics,
but we also were hinting at future worlds. And I thought it'd be nice to have a person
to do that. So Matt was filling multiple roles. So we'll talk to him today, and we'll try
to figure out what his take on all of this was, because, like I said, I've done a lot
of design teams, so I think maybe in some ways I'm a little more jaded. I've been doing
this for a long, long time. But like I said, this was Matt's one team, so he'd probably
have a different perspective. So, I'm almost there to pick him up. There are things you need to know before I get Matt.
As I said last time, remember that Future Sight was set up, we knew the time spiral was the past,
we knew that planar chaos was the alternate present,
and we knew that Future Sight was going to be a glimpse of the possible futures of magic,
and all that entailed.
And last time I talked about the time shift to cheat,
and I talked about the mix and match cards,
and I talked about the packs, the packed cycle.
So today the goal was to talk about mechanics, but we'll see.
I'm going to pick Matt up and we'll figure out where we go.
If need be, we'll have a third part here.
I've learned that the podcast about the episodes,
people like them to run over
several episodes, so I'm willing to spend the time to talk about it. Aha, here is Matt.
Let's pick him up. Okay. Welcome. Good morning.
Okay, welcome to the show, Matt.
You're already in progress?
I'm in progress, yes.
I have to start when I leave my driveway because I have to begin every show by going,
I'm pulling out of my driveway.
So, yes, my rule is that my podcast is from the start of my drive to the end of my drive.
Have you had any flat tires or any such thing?
I got gas ones.
I don't know.
I've been in traffic a few times, so.
I always expect, like, more somehow my actually being in a car mattering,
but it only matters, like, 175 shows.
One of these days, someone's going to sideswipe you,
and this show's going to be awesome.
Yeah, it'll be the Roge Rage episode.
Okay, so here's what I was saying before you got in the car,
was I have been on 50
some design teams.
You've been on one.
So I said, what are the chances of the one
I'm talking about is the one that you
were on? So that felt like fate.
Fate. So let's
start with this, which is, what was
it like being on the only design team you've ever
been on? You know, I have no perspective because, like you said, I've only been on one. I imagine
that 99 out of 100 people who play Magic, who are really into it, think of how much
fun it would be to be charged with designing cards that will ultimately end up
actually getting put into a card set and i have to say that it was that it was very cool um
however i can say that i i didn't experience all that often what it feels like to design a card
and then actually see it printed.
I can only think of two.
Okay, what are the two cards that you're afraid to print?
The only two I can think of, they both kind of suck.
One is the Putrid Cyclops.
Okay.
Sky One Cyclops.
Just seemed funny to me.
And the Yixla Jailer.
Okay.
What does the Yixla Jailer do?
Cards in graveyards do nothing.
They have no abilities.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's a new card.
Yeah.
It's a hoser.
People sometimes actually play with it.
Whereas the Cyclops lurks in binders.
It was played in Limited.
Yeah, not every card, you know.
I mean, one of the things people don't realize is
we make tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of cards,
and so few of them actually make it to print.
The other thing that I wasn't aware would happen is that while you might not design,
start to finish a card that gets printed, you dabble on all kinds of cards as a team.
Yeah, well, people ask me all the time, like, why don't we credit the designers on the cards?
And I'm like, like, with the artists, we know who drew the card.
With the designer, like.
Four names attached to one card.
Yeah, and a lot of times someone has an idea and someone tweaks the idea.
Someone else says, what do you do this?
Right.
You know, and it's very, very hard at the end of the day to know some cards who even made the card.
Right.
You know, I mean, some cards, like I said, there's definitely cards where I made the card, no one touched it.
I know I made the card.
Yeah.
Last episode, I was talking about some of the cards I made in Future Sight.
I was talking about the time-shifted cards were extra hard because of the rule that said it had to be something Magic's never done before.
And that's...
I remember, so I said that when I put together the team, three of the six members on the team had never been on a Magic design team before,
which is very bizarre for a Magic design team. But I was trying to... Get out of the six members on the team had never been on an Imagine Design team before, which is very bizarre for an Imagine Design team.
Right.
But I was trying to...
Get out of the box.
Yes.
And wind it out of the box.
I thought you were an out-of-the-box guy, so...
Another thing that I talked about is we were trying to show off not just future mechanics,
but future creative elements.
You can talk about that a little bit.
Well, there were a small handful of ideas that we thought we would get to at some point.
And you and I talked yesterday about the Sarkamite mirror.
Yeah.
We had an inkling that Phyrexia would be back.
Well, I mean, Sarkamite, for those who don't realize,
we knew that the Phyrexians had invaded Mirrodin when we did Mirrodin.
Right.
Like, if you go read the novel, I mean,
the fact that the Phyrexians are invading was
worked into Mirrodin. So we
knew we were going to go back. Now, the big
change, I talked about this in my podcast on Scars of Mirrodin,
was we thought we were going to go back to
New Phyrexia, and then at the end
of it, oh my god, it's Mirrodin!
But we ended up going to Mirrodin and watching
them get taken over.
We also planted a
Lorwyn card directly in.
Yeah, I think we planted cards for the whole next
block. I think there was a Lorwyn
and Eventide, a Shadowmoor, and a
Morningtide card all put in.
There was,
and I can't say
that this is actually going to happen or not,
but we put some
dinosaur stuff in there.
Yeah,
is it Miraganda?
Yes, there's that.
And I think we did, wasn't there a dinosaur of some kind in there?
Yeah, there was, there was.
Was Imperiosaur in there?
Yeah, I think so, I think so.
There's some dinosaur stuff in FutureSight for sure.
I mean, one of the things I think we did was,
we knew some worlds we were going to go to,
and we knew some worlds that we thought one day we might go to.
Right.
And then you guys just screwed around a little bit.
Right.
And then there was, of course, Coward World that we plan on going to at some point.
Yes.
Oh, so let me ask you a question.
So the card that I get the most questions about, see if you can guess this,
of all the cards in Future Sight, the card that generates the most conversation that I get bugged the most about would be what card?
Tarmogoyf?
Tarmogoyf is the one that people talk about as far as being the most powerful.
But I get a lot more mail about another card from Future Sight.
See if you can name it.
Putrid Cyclops?
Yes, they go, where are you going to make more Putrid Cyclopses?
And Ix the Jailers, can you please make more of that?
No, I'll give you a clue.
It involves assembling contraptions.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Steam Flugger Bus.
Do you remember anything about the creative of Steam Flugger Bus?
I think that was one where our tongues were firmly planted in our cheeks.
I don't think any of us dreamed that that would actually come true.
No, no, we didn't.
Yeah.
Aaron actually admitted, and like, right after it came out, he admitted that it was a joke and we never planned to do it.
And I'm like, Aaron, why did you tell them that?
Now we're like destined to somehow have to figure out how to do it.
So,
I was like, it's a joke.
The beauty of the joke was we didn't
tell them the joke. So,
it's kind of like, remember in Dr. Strangelove,
the Russians,
Dr. Strangelove, invented this machine
that's supposed to
scare everybody else.
It stops nuclear war by being this
like, if you bomb us, we'll bomb everybody.
It was a machine.
But they never told anybody about it.
We have to tell people about it,
or else it doesn't work.
Okay, so...
In front of you is a list of
all the mechanics in the set.
Well, all the non-Evergreen mechanics in the set.
You know what might happen on this podcast
that makes driving
matter
okay what
is when Matt
vomits
from reading
his card
I'm driving
so
well by the way
one of the days
someone keeps
you and I
have to do this
on a future podcast
they want to do a podcast
where I answer questions
but I can't do that
while I'm driving
so I need to have someone else in the car read me questions so maybe one day we'll do that we to do a podcast where I answer questions, but I can't do that while I'm driving. So I need to have someone else in the car read me questions.
So maybe one day we'll do that.
We'll do an Ask Mark and Matt day.
Okay.
Okay, so.
Wow, that's a lot.
I mentioned this in part one.
So before Future Sight came out, like Planar Chaos previously, there were 56 keywords in Magic.
How many keywords?
Well, they're not even all there
because the evergreen ones aren't there.
There were 48 keywords in Future Sight.
Those are just ones that were introduced in Future Sight.
These are all...
Well, I'm sorry.
These were new,
and these were expert ones brought back.
That doesn't include flying in First Strike and stuff like that.
What is typecasting?
Like wizard casting.
So like wizard cycling.
Wizard cycling, it's called.
Okay, I remember that.
Yeah, one of the things that was interesting about making mechanics was,
so a lot of what we were doing was what we call extrapolative design,
which was we were trying to surprise
the things you'd never seen before,
but a lot of what we were trying to do
is design obvious places we could go
from stuff we had done.
For example, we had like a morph cycle.
Remember the morph cycle?
Yeah.
And so...
Pre-evolving.
Right.
So the morph cycle was a vertical cycle
in which normal morph takes creatures and they morph.
So we took the other permanent types that existed at the time,
because planeswalkers didn't exist yet,
although they almost did,
and we took a land, an enchantment, and a artifact,
and then each one of them morphed into that.
Okay, so pick one of these and we'll talk about it.
Talk about Grandeur.
Oh, Grandeur. Okay, what do you remember of Grandeur? That was the
Legend ability. Yes, yes. That was the ability. That's actually pretty cool.
It was very cool. Do you know who designed the Grandeur ability? I'm sure you don't, but
a little trivia question. No sure you don't, but...
No.
A little trivia question.
No, I don't.
No one on the design team, so that's why it's a trick question.
It was designed by Bill Rose, who's the VP of R&D.
Bill had come up with the idea...
So one of the things that...
One of the ongoing problems...
Maybe I'll have a whole podcast on this,
because it's the legendary, the super-type legendary. The problem is, it's the legend, you know, legendary, the super type legendary.
The problem is
it's this awesome thing
that we want people
to be excited about,
right?
These are characters
that are unique
except the legendary ability
is just a downside.
It's like there's no,
I mean,
I guess you can play
commander with it
but other than that,
I mean,
it is,
there's no great advantage
to being a named character
other than now you can't have more than one in play.
Right.
So Bill said, is there anything we could do to make the legendary ability better?
Right.
And Bill came up with the grandeur ability.
So for those who don't remember, what the grandeur ability says is you can discard copies,
extra copies of it to have an effect.
And the idea was that
that way if you drew a second one,
it wasn't a dead card anymore.
And we did them in a cycle. I think it was a cycle?
I think so. Now, if I remember
correctly, all the
legends were ancestors
of famous people. Is that correct?
Oh, now I'm remembering.
Right? They were like
I think they were... Was Blackblade one of those? Yeah, Blackblade was one of remembering. Right? They were like... I think they were...
Was Black Blade one of those?
Yeah, Black Blade was one of those, right.
That was Dak and Black Blade's, I don't know,
grandsons or something.
There were some kids.
Yeah, I mean, it was us doing future generations
of known characters.
Right.
Like I said, that's more extrapolative design.
Like, instead of making brand new characters,
we riffed off characters you knew
and showed their offspring.
I think that that's a pretty cool ability.
It is.
I'm surprised we've never used it since.
We will.
In my mind,
if I take all the abilities
that we introduced in Future Sight,
they fall in three categories.
Category one is,
for sure, for sure,
we'll do them again.
Now, it takes us a while
to get to some of them.
We have to find the right place for them.
So just because we haven't done it doesn't mean I'm not interested in doing it.
There's a bunch on there that I've actively been looking for places to put it.
Do you imagine that Grander would apply only to your own self?
Or could I discard any legend with Grander to use that ability?
Oh, I think it's just your guys.
I don't think if your opponent has a guy in play,
you can discard yours.
If I have legend A with grandeur on the board,
but legend B with grandeur in my hand,
can I discard him for legend A's bonus?
No, that's not how grandeur works.
Grandeur says that you can...
All about me.
Yeah.
Legend A can discard other copies of Legend A.
Now, what I thought you were asking was,
what if Legend B is another version of Legend A?
You know what card I want to see?
What?
I want to see a legendary rat lord
who you can have any number of copies of that guy in your deck.
Okay.
What is that card? Relentless Rats?
Well, there's Relentless Rats.
Yeah, that's the one
which gives you as many
as you want.
It's based on Plague Rats,
which a lot of people
used to play with
lots of Plague Rats, although.
And he has Granger, of course.
Yes.
Rat Granger.
It's my all Rat Lord deck.
So we've made a few Rat Lords,
although nothing...
He doesn't actually have
to be a Rat Lord.
Yeah.
You know what I realized
I goofed up on in Gatecrash?
I didn't make an Ooze Lord.
I dropped the ball.
Nothing says the city
like an Ooze.
Well, the Simic
have lots of Ooze.
I mean, it would have fit.
A Simic Ooze Lord
would have fit.
Okay, pick another ability.
I pick...
Fate Seal.
Fate Seal!
Okay, so what is Fate Seal? What inspires... Fate Seal's extrapolated design. What is Fate Seal. Fate Seal. Okay, so what is Fate Seal?
Fate Seal is extrapolated design.
What is Fate Seal?
Is Fate Seal like Scry on your phone?
Yes, it's negative Scry.
So one of the things I did was, because we were doing past, present, future,
I wanted to make sure there was one unique mechanic for each set that played up that theme.
So the past was flashback, right?
Because that's remembering the past.
And the alternate present, I did vanishing,
which was a redone version of fading.
Because it's all about, you get it right now,
but it goes away.
And then for the future, I saved scry.
And then I said, well, you know,
scry you can only use on yourself.
What if you use scry against your opponent?
Have you used that since?
Well, okay, so I didn't finish this before.
So there's three categories. Category
number one is
definitely, I'm looking for
a place for it. I believe one day we'll do it.
Category number two is
I don't know.
I think assembling contraptions falls in this one.
Maybe
if we can find a way to do it.
The category two I'm willing to do it I mean I'm the category 2
I'm willing to do
but I'm
they're more challenging
they're not slam dunks
like category 1 is
look I know
we'll find a place
category 2 is
I don't know
maybe
category 3 is
I don't think
we will ever
do this mechanic again
I think basically
we'll follow the category 3
because it is
it is the most
unfun violating like doesn't that seem very dimm. Because it is the most unfun, violating...
Doesn't it seem very Dimir, though?
It is very Dimir.
We talked about doing Fate Shield for Dimir.
Fate Shield, sorry, for Dimir.
But it is just the most unfun thing.
Like, we've been spending all this time and energy
trying to take things with things that just suck the fun out of the game.
And that mechanic is really like... I don't know, it is fun sucking.
It's fun sucking gets.
Are there any others in the we'll never do that section?
Well, if we get to one, I'll tell you.
How about Fortify?
Fortify!
I don't remember Fortify.
What do you think Fortify is?
I have no idea.
It gives you vitamins to make you stronger? No, Fortify is What do you think Fortify is? I have no idea. It gives you vitamins to make you stronger?
No, Fortify is equipment for land.
Oh, oh.
Yes, so that is in the category one.
I'm looking for a place to use it.
I need the right place.
I mean, the thing with...
I can think of a place.
Well, I mean...
And we can't talk about that here.
We can't talk about it here.
This is not the riff on the future stuff.
That's what they want, by the way.
They go, just do a podcast on Huey or something.
Okay, so Fortify was artifacts, equipment for land.
We actually talked about doing it in Zendikar,
because Zendikar was a land set.
But we had a lot of other stuff going on.
Anyway, it didn't seem like the right place.
But it's Category 1.
There will come a time and a place.
We will do it, I believe.
Yeah, that seems cool.
Okay, next.
What about AuraSwap?
What is that?
AuraSwap.
So AuraSwap was...
Is it just like I trade an aura in my hand for the one that's on a guy?
Yeah, I believe that's how it worked.
Basically the idea of Aura Swap is if a creature has Aura Swap,
then it has the ability it has, but it could change at any moment into another one.
So the creature has it, not the...
No, no, no, the aura has it.
But if aura has Aura Swap, that means it could transform into an aura that's in your hand.
So any creature that has aura swap, you have to be suspicious that it could change.
I guess that's category two.
I mean, it's not that I would...
It's a tricky one to use is the problem.
Like some of the other ones, like, no, no, I know where to go, I know how to use it.
This one, it's tricky.
I mean, it's not in category three, it's not like we'll never do it, but it's kind of like I have to find know how we can use it. This one, it's tricky. I mean, it's not a category three.
It's not like we'll never do it,
but it's kind of like I have to find the right way to do it.
It requires a lot of finesse, and it's tricky.
It also requires friends.
You know, if auras don't already kind of matter,
are they going to be enough of a thing
to even warrant shining another spotlight on it?
Yeah, no, no, no.
It definitely, it's a linear mechanic in that.
What that means is it requires other cards of its kind or a certain kind.
So, right, you have to have an aura deck to make aura swap really matter.
So, what about the lifelink, deathtouch, shroud, and reach?
Did we just rename those?
No, we introduced them.
Those didn't exist?
Yes, those did not.
I mean, they weren't keywords.
Got it.
So what happened during FutureSight was I had been meaning,
one of the problems I had run into was I felt we were too stingy with our keywords,
and I really wanted to spread them out.
Because what happened was, like, haste was a red thing.
Only red had haste.
And my feeling on keywords is it's this valuable commodity what
are we doing we have to spread them out a little bit because from a design standpoint we kept making
the same cards we needed a little more flexibility so my plan was and happened during future site
was to introduce them give them keywords and then um spread them out in colors so the ones that
introduced lifelink which at the time was mostly a white thing, we spread to black.
Deathtouch, which was mostly a black thing, we spread to green.
Shroud, which was a green thing, got spread to blue.
The blue and green had both done similar things.
And then Reach.
Reach only existed.
We didn't spread Reach anywhere.
In fact, there's a big question of who's supposed to get Reach other than green.
I think it's white is supposed to be secondary Reach, but we very rarely ever do reach it in any other color.
Because it has flyers.
Maybe red. I'm not sure who needs reach.
But the reason we did it was
I didn't care if we had it.
I didn't need to keyword it because it's not the kind of thing
we tend to use in keyword form a lot.
The reason we
need keywords is when you make a cycle
of things and you're doing some new thing and you need to give them variety, we tend to give them creature keywords, but we need keywords is when you make a cycle of things and you're doing some new thing
and you need to give them variety
we tend to give them creature keywords
but we need a single word
and so when they're spelled out
it's hard to fit on the card
that's why I needed to keyword them
and reach by the way
we made reach not because I needed it
from a design standpoint
the rules he needed it
because it made it easier to write the flying text.
Because if you just, if flying
is, I can only be blocked by creatures with flying and reach,
then it just defines it.
Although it's a circular logic where like
reach and flying define each other by the other.
Kind of like in the dictionary when, like what does
this mean? It gives a synonym. What does that mean? It gives the first word.
Okay. Okay, give me another
one. Absorb. Absorb.
Oh, absorb. Okay, so. Give me another, give me another one. Absorb. Absorb. Oh, Absorb. Okay.
So the idea of Absorb was we did a trading card game called Star Wars. Star Wars, the trading card game. And it was a Richard Garfield design. And then I was in charge, I worked
with Richard on the original design. And then I was in charge of doing the very first set,
like the core set. And one of the abilities, I'm not I was in charge of doing the very first set, like the core set.
And one of the abilities, I'm not sure whether this ended up in the first set or not,
but the idea of armor, the idea that when you shoot something, it takes less damage because it had armor.
And so Absorb was the idea of taking that mechanic that we had come up with for Star Wars and bringing it to Magic. So what ends up with Absorb? Is that a creature ability?
Yeah, it's a creature ability.
So what it means is absorb one means that
every point of damage the creature takes,
it takes one less.
Oh, so I got it. Right.
So what category,
where's absorb? One, two, or three?
Um,
I don't know.
So you would think one,
because it's a clean ability,
it's really flavorful,
but it's two.
It's kind of hard for a user to...
Why is it two?
Why is it two and a half?
No, I think we can...
I mean, the idea is...
I don't know.
I'm not sure absorb was the best word,
but the flavor of armor is pretty cool,
of like, I'm harder to hurt, you know?
I thought the flavor was cool.
Is that the reason?
Because it's not correctly flavored?
No, no, no, no.
It's the development reason, actually.
It's too good?
It's really, really, really freaking good.
Absorb One is really good.
Like, insanely.
Like, we didn't realize how good it was
until we made a couple,
and then we're like,
oh, this is insanely good.
And that's not even...
You can start comboing with things.
That's true.
You can't be...
Let's say if you have five toughness
and you have absorb one,
someone can't shoot two spells at you to kill you.
Right.
It has to be such overkill.
Correct.
I forget what size we have.
Imagine you have a 5'5".
It's like two lightning bolts is not enough to kill you.
Right.
That sucks.
You know?
I'm not saying we'll never do it.
That's why it's in category two.
But I do admit that
it's a developmental problem.
And whenever I bring it up,
like a couple times I said,
what do you guys,
maybe what do you think of Absorb?
Development always says this.
Okay, I'm making a face
that you can't see on audio.
But I'm a grimace.
Yes, a grimace.
Yes.
So, anyway,
I like the flavor Absorb.
I think Absorb is a very cool flavor.
And it works a little better than Star Wars where we didn't have...
Star Wars had a lot more damage happening.
So reducing one damage is a die-rolling game.
You get a lot of dice.
So reducing one damage wasn't this big deal when people were rolling, you know,
eight dice or 20 dice or whatever.
Okay, try that next one.
Gravestorm.
Gravestorm.
Okay, so Gravestorm is a variant of?
Storm.
Storm, very good!
I'd like to throw you some easy ones as well.
Gravestorm was, I came up with Gravestorm.
I was trying to come up with a tamer storm was the idea.
Because storm is this mechanic that I always joke
is kind of like
the relationship that went
bad that you keep thinking maybe next time
it'll go better and so every time you rekindle
it it goes horribly again and then you're like
okay you know
that's it I've learned my lesson
and then somehow you keep going back and going
this time it'll work
and Storm has burned us every
time we've ever used it.
Did Gravestorm burn us? Well,
Gravestorm problem is, it's too much
like Storm, I think. It's just,
I mean, we did it on one card
and I think it was okay, but
it's not the kind of card you can put in lots of
mechanics, because it's just,
I mean, it's not quite as broken as Storm,
but that's, you know, like...
I don't know, it's like comparing, you know,
it's not quite as much a dictator
as Mussolini, but...
Notice I went to Mussolini because
everybody does Hitler, so I'm trying to
go different...
How about
Frenzy?
Frenzy? I...
Okay. Frenzy is a mechanic that I like a lot. So Frenzy is Frenzy Frenzy I okay Frenzy is a mechanic
that I like a lot
so Frenzy is
Frenzy N
and when you
if you attack
and are not blocked
you get plus N plus O
and we've made a few cards
I mean not called Frenzy
but Magic has had a few cards
that have done this
I like Frenzy a lot
Development does not like Frenzy
and so we are
we have this constant fight
because I think Frenzy
is a real cool mechanic
and Development doesn't like it
so
so it only triggers when you're not blocked right when you're not blocked I don't even understand So we have this constant fight. Because I think frenzy is a real cool mechanic, and development doesn't like it.
So it only triggers when you're not blocked.
Right, when you're not blocked.
I don't even understand why they don't.
I mean, I kind of understand.
But I think it's this neat mechanic in that it says, hey, you better get in a fight with me or else I'm pretty dangerous.
And it kind of encourages combat.
But development does not like it.
So I've tried to get frenzy in multiple times.
And each time, development sort of said they didn't want to do it.
So I'll put this in camp two.
It would be camp one if development liked it at all.
So I'll put it in camp two in that I need to slowly warm them up to it.
Okay, we have one last one before we're going to get to work.
Transfigure.
Transfigure.
Okay, so Transfigure was a take on Transmute,
which was the
Dimir mechanic
from Ravnica.
And Transfigure,
I think,
Did you just do it
from in play
instead of in your hand?
Is that what it was?
Well, no, no, no.
I mean, Transmute
was from in your hand.
But Transmute was,
I turned any spell
into any other spell
that had the same
converted mana cost.
Right.
I think Transfigure
are creatures that turn into any other
creature with the same mana cost.
But aren't they in play? They're in play.
Yeah. So the idea
is I attack with this thing and I can,
if I have the mana, I can turn into any other creature with the
same mana cost as me.
The problem
with Transfigure is the same problem with
Transmute, which is
again a developmental issue, I mean, a with transmute, which is, uh, again, a developmental issue.
I mean,
a design issue too,
which is what we call,
um,
repetitive gameplay where part of the fun of magic is you want different
things to happen in different games.
And if the same thing keeps happening,
then it becomes kind of boring.
And so we're very dubious and mechanics that say,
Hey,
every time I play the same thing is going to happen.
And so tutors tend to lead to that.
Okay. Anyway. Um, so guys, to lead to that. Okay, anyway.
So guys, we've not gotten through all the keywords.
I want to talk about all the keywords,
so I will do a part three next week.
Matt probably won't be with me.
I'm out.
That's enough. Done.
So I want to thank Matt for joining us today,
and we will have him in the future.
He's my most...
Now you're the second show,
so now you're my most used guest,
I guess.
I'm honored.
So,
anyway,
thanks for joining us
and guys,
next week we'll do,
I'll talk about
the rest of the mechanics,
maybe my 30 minutes in.
We'll see,
there's a lot of mechanics.
So anyway,
thanks for joining us
and it's time
to go make the magic.