New MTG Design Team To Focus On Filthy Casuals, Scrubs
Sorry all you sweaty tryhards, there’s a new Magic team in town, and they’re all about modes of play for people who can’t topdeck epiphanies.
Magic: the Gathering announced a new Casual Play Design team yesterday, bringing a sigh of relief to the portion of the playerbase that doesn’t spend 8-10 hours per day netdecking combos that will effectively win on turn three, even if they don’t actually win until turn seven. According to the announcement, the new Casual Play Design team will be focusing on making Commander and other casual formats fun and balanced. Melissa DeTora, leader of the new team explained on Twitter:
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
Those words are music to many players’ ears. The only casual format that’s received much attention from WotC lately has been Commander. But with the new team taking aim at what makes Magic fun? Apparently it doesn’t involve taking five turns in a row before your opponent can do anything and making sure that they never actually get to play a card other than basic lands. Per the announcement:
Balance means something different for casual play than competitive play because of how much more diverse the experience is from player to player. So our team will not focus on balance in the same way that Competitive Design does. Our primary focus will be finding rates and play patterns that makes the format most fun for everyone.
You might be wondering what does make a game of magic fun? Here’s what the team will be considering:
- How likely is the card to show up? Is it fun if it does show 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?
No word on what some of the other focuses might be yet, but players are hopeful that supplemental products for more than just Commander are in the works. Perhaps we’ll see a return of Planechase or a renewed look at Conspiracy or the like.
What would you want to see in a Casual Play format?
