I didn't finish my essays for GDS 2.0 in time but I care a lot about Magic design so I'm going to touch on a lot of subjects in here.

To Whom It May Concern,

Magic is the greatest game on Earth. The level of depth and the ever-changing nature of the game make it the best game I have ever played; the only one I keep on coming back to. I have played since 4th Edition, and while many things have changed since then, Magic remains an excellent game, through all the changes it has undergone. For everyone involved in the design and development of the game, thank you for making Magic as wonderful as it is.

That said, I want to talk about the immediate future of the game and the direction that the design of the game is proceeding in. In particular, I want to talk about the design of sets for Constructed, especially Standard and now Extended. I think these are some areas where Magic design has lagged and stagnated, and I would be very happy to see some new life injected into these formats by way of design.

The first thing I want to talk about is the color pie. For the most part I am happy with it, but I would like to see a number of things happen:

1. I'd like to see card drawing bled from blue into green.
2. I'd like to see Threaten effects bled from red into blue.
3. I'd like to see more cantrips and other similar effects in green, especially on creatures.
4. I'd like to see a change in philosophy for black, at least for one block.

I'd like to see card drawing bled from blue into green because I think it is, as a mechanic, equally representative of both colors, or, at best, only slightly more flavorful in blue. In blue it is supposed to represent the gain of knowledge, which I understand, but that I don't think justifies a card like Jace's Ingenuity. I think Trigon of Thought is a very good way to do blue card drawing because blue card drawing should be card drawing over time. It retains a strong connection to blue through the representation of study. For example:

Wizard Scholar –

Creature – Human Wizard

Wizard Scholar comes into play with three study counters on it.

Remove a study counter from Wizard Scholar: Draw a card. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.

, : Put a study counter on Wizard Scholar.

1/1

This I think is far more flavorful than something like Concentrate. I think blue card draw should look like this and seek to gain advantage over time. That's not to say that cards like Concentrate and Jace's Ingenuity aren't excellent blue cards, but I think that blue card draw should move more towards the type represented by Wizard Scholar.

I also think that straight card draw like Harmonize should be bled into green more frequently. Green is the color of growth, and as R&D showed by printing Harmonize in Planar Chaos, card drawing is an excellent method of representing a type of growth. While I think green should get a bit less card draw overall than blue it should still get it. Right now, it gets none.

If there was an effect I'd move, I'd move the Threaten effect from red to blue. In red it's supposed to represent an act of rage or betrayal, which makes sense, but then why are there no repercussions? Betrayal almost never goes unpunished and acts of rage frequently engender retribution. The fact that the player gets the creature back with no strings attached never completely made sense to me.

Blue on the other hand is perfect for this effect. It falls into the "illusion and trickery" department. In order to get an opposing creature to work for you, as a blue mage you simply trick it. You make it think it is doing something productive for its master. Mechanistically this is best represented by a Threaten effect. The reason the opposing player gets the creature back is because at that point the creature has supposedly served its purpose, and therefore you don't care about it anymore.

As for #3, green is supposed to be the color of growth and of nature, and I think there are two mechanics that represent this very well – cantrips and the "Penumbra effect" (creatures making a token copy of themselves when they die). Both of these represent they cyclical nature of natural growth. Nature doesn't just immediately overrun you, but it encroaches slowly over time. It's not fast, but it is persistent, you know, like a weed. I think Magic should make use of this flavorful property more, on creatures both large and small.

The final color-pie related subject I'd like to touch on is a temporary redesign of black. I think most would agree that many black cards and the color itself have an "ends justify the means" feel. I'd like to see this aspect of black pushed as far as possible. I'd like to see a block where the black mage is capable of doing literally anything if they want to. This is not tenable as a long term change, but I think it would be interesting at least temporarily.

This principle was the basis for one of the two worlds I was building for GDS. The idea was to have a plane ruled by some evil black overlord who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. One of the major mechanics I used was theft. I had the idea that black would steal everything – spells and permanents both, to use to its own ends. Just as an example, here are some ideas I had:

Codex of the Damned –

Artifact

Imprint – Whenever an instant or sorcery card is put into a graveyard from anywhere, you may exile it.

, : You may copy a card exiled with Codex of the Damned with converted mana cost X. If you do, you may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. Spend only black mana on X.

Moving on to more specific designs, I would like to talk about planeswalkers. I think that there are too many of them being printed. Standard is and extended probably will be defined by them. I understand that planeswalkers are an important part of Magic's future and I like the card type, but it seems that there are four or so of them printed every block, which is too frequent in my opinion.

Flavorfully YOU are supposed to be a planeswalker. Thus any planeswalkers you summon are not creatures, but allies who come and fight for you. Unless you are some extremely charismatic individual why are you able to summon everyone ranging from Jace to Koth to the battlefield to fight for you?

Given this, I think that planeswalkers should be printed less frequently and made more powerful. I feel like with the mythic rarity this won't hurt limited that much and would be awesome for constructed. I also think that with this change, the rules baggage on planeswalkers should be updated.

I think one of two updates is reasonable:

1. Allow a player to have one planeswalker in his deck.
2. Allow a player to have only one planeswalker in play.

I think both of these rules changes move towards the more flavorful idea of a planeswalker being your ally and not just another minion you summon.

The reason I think planeswalkers should be, as a whole, more powerful is because they are effectively like second players. Once again, returning to the genesis of the card, they are supposed to be as powerful as you, the guy slinging the spells. I feel like the natural conclusion of this should be that whenever a planeswalker hits the table the game should immediately be about the planeswalker. It's like a military scenario where your opponent all of a sudden has a really powerful ally show up. Since you are now facing what amounts to double the power, your focus should be on eliminating the ally, because he is less inclined to stick around.

That's all I really have to say on planeswalkers so I would like to move on to specific cards. There are two that I want to talk about.

Counterspell

Many years ago WotC determined that Lightning Bolt was too powerful for T2. Despite this, Lightning Bolt remained an iconic red card and recently WotC brought it back for a trial run. In the interim Magic changed quite a bit, and Lightning Bolt has proven to be a great contributor in Standard. Perhaps it is time to give Counterspell a second chance.

I understand that you may be leery of players again sitting behind a wall of countermagic, headed by Counterspell. I don't think this will be a problem for a couple of reasons.

1. You can only sit behind a wall of countermagic if there is a dearth of good countermagic. R&D has control over the quantity of good countermagic it prints.
2. The increase in power level of cheap spells (particularly at 2, 3, and 4) makes Counterspell much less efficient than it used to be. It is now easier to resolve multiple spells per turn and each individual spell has a larger impact on the game, making it less necessary to resolve a large number of spells.

I think it's time to give good old Counterspell another shot at glory. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Stone Rain

Interactivity is one of the hallmarks of Magic, and while land destruction might be "un-fun" it is one of the very few ways to interact on that front. Magic today has come to be defined by four drops, and Stone Rain would be an excellent way to inject a little bit of design tension in that department. Historically R&D will note that 3 mana land destruction has been very important to the success of many strategies, whereas 4 mana land destruction has always sat on the sidelines. If you would like to see a diverse format evolve in T2 and Extended, I believe that Stone Rain (and other 3 mana land destruction) should be printed on a regular basis.

However, once again, concerns of "unfunness" will arise. Still, like counterspells, I return to the idea of quantity. Land destruction as a strategy is only effective in quantity, and you at Wizards have control over the quantity of spells that you print with this effect.

I want to move to ideas about format design now. I will talk mainly about constructed formats, in particular Standard and Extended, because I feel like recent limited formats have been fantastic and I have had very little to complain about. Zendikar + Worldwake was a mediocre format, but the occasional blip is fine. I thought Lorwyn, Rise, and so far Scars have all been very strong, so kudos for that.

Standard and now Extended have come to be defined by creatures. While this is not a bad thing (creatures are an integral part of Magic), there are other areas of interaction that have been neglected in order to get people to mash creatures together. Not everyone is happy with this.

More specifically, I would like to see combo and prison play a larger role in T2 and Extended as archetypes. I know Aaron Forsythe recently made his stance on combo clear, and I believe it is misguided. Josh Utter-Leyton talked about it in a Magic: TV episode and I agree with pretty much everything he said.

I'm not saying that a strong combo deck should be the feature of every T2 or Extended format, but that it should happen every once in a while. Just like every block pushes different aspects of Magic design, so combo should be pushed every once in a while.

The game has already naturally evolved in a direction where creatures are important. This is due to a conscious effort by developers and designers, but also due to the planeswalker card type. Because of planeswalkers the importance of creatures has increased even more. I think it's worth pushing back in a different direction. Combo would be an excellent way of doing this.

As far as prison is concerned, this is really more of a personal thing. I love prison decks and would like to see them show up from time to time. I was absolutely ecstatic to play Pickles during Time Spiral era T2. It was a lot of fun. I understand that a lot of people find such decks un-fun, but it can't hurt to throw players that do like these strategies a bone once in a while. I feel like playing prison is a completely different skill set from most of Magic and introducing new players to it would definitely be good. Of course, it is difficult to walk the line between a good prison deck and one that is too powerful, but I would rather attempt to solve that problem than avoid it.

I also think that recursion and engine cards should be pushed a bit more for similar reasons. Cards like Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare, Oversold Cemetery, and Enduring Renewal have been fan favorites over the years and I would like to see more cards like them printed.

The recent resurgence of Legacy as a format should showcase why I believe various aspects of Magic other than "creature combat" should be pushed on a regular basis. People love Legacy as a format because you can do so many different things. Every archetype is represented and people can interact on so many different fronts. I feel like interaction in T2 and Extended is becoming relegated to a few fronts, and I hope that R&D would follow the example shown to them by Legacy and push interaction on fronts other than mashing creatures together.

The last thing I would like to talk about is the red deck. I believe that consistently having a good aggressive deck viable in formats is great for formats. It keeps everyone honest, because if you try to do something too cute you will just lose to the red deck. Red decks live and die by their one drops, so to that end I propose that the following card be printed and left in the core set:

Mountain Lion –

Creature – Cat

2/1

Having one solid one drop for the red deck will leave it in an excellent place and I think be good for formats in general. The creature is not a goblin because I feel like having it be a goblin would be restrictive to design. It would force R&D to consider this card every time they wanted to do tribal things with goblins, and I think that would just be more trouble than it's worth. If goblins as a tribe wants this, the goblin version can simply be swapped for the non-goblin version temporarily.

As a whole, I am very happy with the way Magic has developed over the course of the year, but I think that the game can still get better, and the suggestions I have made are to this effect. I feel like R&D would do well to take advantage of the cyclical nature of the game and with that push mechanics and interactions in a cyclical manner, giving players an ever-changing set of interactions to become familiar with and keeping the game fresh.

I love this game and would like nothing more than to see Magic be played the world over by everyone everywhere. I commend everyone involved in the game for a job well done and hope that you will continue to make the game that we all love. I just feel like there is still room for improvement, and wanted to take this opportunity to voice my opinions.

From one Magic lover to another,

Chingsung Chang