Arc Planning

Arc Planning is the team within R&D that chooses upcoming Magic Sets, excluding Universes Beyond. It consists mostly of Designers and Creative team members. Arc Planning balances marketing, design, and storyline considerations to plan each Magic year. Their proposals are refined by market research and by feedback from other Wizards of the Coast stakeholders and team leads.

Considerations

Marketing

The Arc Planning team tries to give each new set a strong elevator pitch, a core concept that will excite players even before they see any cards or mechanics. They also try to provide a variety of different sets throughout the year; in contrast to the old block model, R&D is now less willing to stay on the same plane for consecutive sets.

Each set either features a new plane or returns to an existing plane. Returns are usually reserved for planes that performed well on their first outing, although exceptions such as Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty exist. One recent shift in Arc Planning is to wait a little longer before returning to a plane, to allow more excitement for the return to build up. Backdrop sets, such as The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, combine established planes with brand-new set concepts.

Arc Planning doesn't choose Universes Beyond sets, but UB sets do influence their decisions, and the two teams meet regularly. The Arc Planning team tries to provide a "soft landing" for players who enter the game through UB. For example, Wilds of Eldraine was intended as a soft landing for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, with a similar enough (although not identical) tone and genre to excite Lord of the Rings fans.

Mechanics

Designers are present on the Arc Planning team to make sure that each new idea can support a set's worth of mechanics. Some ideas are tested with a mini design team during Arc Planning, although true Exploratory Design doesn't begin until after Arc Planning has made a final decision.

A set's mechanical themes can influence its place in the schedule. Some themes work better closer to, or farther from, rotation. Arc Planning also tries to enable mechanical cohesion between consecutive sets—not necessarily repeating the same mechanics, but including mechanics that play well with each other.

Storyline

Each new set must fit into the existing Magic storyline. Typically, each set has its own story, a year's worth of sets form a storyline arc, and three or four years form a larger arc such as the Bolas Arc or the Phyrexian Arc.

Feedback and iteration

After the Arc Planning team has created a two-year proposal, they gather feedback both internally and from market research. Internal feedback at Wizards of the Coast comes from the stakeholders who will need to green-light the proposal, as well as from the team leads who will create the products. The proposal is then revised based on the feedback. Once a year's plan is finalized and green-lit, Arc Planning presents it to the company at large to keep other Wizards employees up to speed.

Team members

The Arc Planning team meets once a week. As of April 2025, it consisted of the following members:

• Aaron Forsythe, Vice President of Design
• Jackie Jones, Vice President of Creative
• Doug Beyer, Creative Director
• Freda Cutler, Director of Worldbuilding, manages Arc Planning's scheduling and logistics
• Roy Graham, Senior Story Lead
• Matt Danner, Senior Creative Lead, Franchise team lead
• Mark Rosewater, Head Designer
• Andrew Brown, Game Design Architect, Play Design team lead
• Mike Turian, Architect