Portal:Production

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 Production

An uncut print sheet from Visions.

Magic: The Gathering is published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a subsidiary of the American multinational toy and board game Hasbro. Depending on the product, it takes up to three years to go through the process from inception to a product on the shelves. Creating new Magic products is the primary responsibility of an ever-changing team called Research & Design.

Much of information about the production of Magic has been made public, especially the design of sets due to Head Designer and spokesman Mark Rosewater. Like any company, Wizards of the Coast must consider different international markets and target audiences. To provide for different players, a whole line of tools and techniques has been developed through the years.

 

 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