Portal:Production

Products & Sets Magic Story Making Magic Organized Play Rules

 

 Production

An uncut print sheet from Visions.

It takes a lot of organization to produce a Magic: The Gathering set. A lot. The game is published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a subsidiary of the American multinational toy and board game Hasbro. Product releases can be followed via their website Magicthegathering.com and the social media of front man Mark Rosewater. Depending on the product, it takes up to two years to go through the process from inception to a product on the shelves. Like any company, WotC has to consider different (international) markets and different target audiences. To provide for beginning players and advanced, casual and professional, Timmy's, Johnny's and Spikes, male and female, a whole line of tools and techniques has been developed through the years.

The main group of people to churn out the many yearly products is an ever changing team called Magic R&D. These stewards of Magic believe in discovery, surprise, and strategy. They are not afraid to change aspects of the game on a regular base or to add new elements to keep the metagame lively. They have advanced the game from a niche product to main stream.

 

 Research & Design

• Hasbro
• Wizards of the Coast
• Richard Garfield — Creator
• Historical stages of design
• Studio X
  • Bill Rose — Sr. Vice President
  • Ken Troop — Global Play Lead, Magic Franchise
  • Bryan Hawley — Game Design Director
  • Kenny Fortson — Sr. Director Economics
  • Max McCall — Executive Producer
  • Mike Turian — Executive Producer
  • Aaron Forsythe — Vice President of Design
  • Mark Rosewater — Head Designer
  • Jess Dunks — Magic Rules Architect
  • Doug Beyer — Creative Director
  • Tom Jenkot — Creative Director
  • Other employees
• Creative
• Artists
• Product architecture
• Editing
• Digital

 

 Process

• Exploratory design
• Vision Design
• Set Design (Development)
• Play Design
  • Casual Play Design
• Bottom-up and top-down design
• Great Designer Search
• Grand Creature Type Update
• Codenames
• Future Future League
• Playtesting

 

 Tools and Concepts

• Golden Trifecta
  • The trading card game genre
  • The mana system
  • The color Pie
• Player types
  • Psychographic profiles
  • Aesthetic profiles
• Prototype creatures
• As-fan
• Reserved List
• Complexity creep
• New World Order
• F.I.R.E.
• Rosewater Scales
  • Beeble Scale (Creature types)
  • Rabiah Scale (Planes)
  • Storm Scale (Mechanics)
  • Venser Scale (Planeswalkers)

 

 Cardboard and Marketing

• Print sheet
• Cards
  • Foil
  • Serialized
• Parts of a card
• Rarity
• Grading
• Reprints
• Misprints
• Counterfeits
• Proxies
• Tokens
• Art cards
• Helper cards
• Marketing cards
• Promotional cards
• Artist proofs
• Magic merchandise

 

 Categories

Artists | Colors of Magic | Magic columnists | Magic theory | Magic slang | Parts of a card | Storyline authors | Wizards of the Coast employees